Tyrande met his horrific gaze. She smiled. Then, do it!
My love… He put both taloned hands upon her shoulders.
His eyes blazed. The fire shot forth. It enveloped Tyrande.
Malfurion cried out, but for naught. The high priestess was engulfed.
And then… Tyrande changed.
Horns thrust out of her forehead, horns that rose high, then curled. From her back issued forth two small nubs that quickly swelled, then expanded. Webbed wings stretched. The nails of the slim hands that held Illidan grew and blackened.
No! Malfurion tried again to shout. No!
Tyrande turned her eyes back to the archdruid… but now they were fiery green orbs. She frowned at the helpless Malfurion.
You did this to me… she said. You…
The archdruid let out a silent plea — and woke.
He was still in his dreamform; still trapped and painfully twisted.
But he discovered that the heart-wrenching pain he had just suffered was not real — at least, not yet.
But Malfurion took no relief from that. This was not the first time he had endured such a nightmare and it was becoming harder to tell when he slept and when he was awake. His tormentor played a wicked game with him, one that the archdruid knew he was slowly losing.
And even though it had only been a nightmare, it left him more exhausted, more susceptible.
Tyrande… Malfurion thought. I am so sorry…
Perhaps she no longer even thinks of you, came a new voice in his mind. After so long, after being abandoned so often, after leaving the fate of so many to her while you hid from the world and your responsibility…
Malfurion tried to shake his head, but he no longer had a head to shake.
The voice came again, seeming much like a poisonous adder slithering through Malfurion’s soul. Just as you abandoned the other so important to you, abandoned him to betrayal, to imprisonment, to damnation…
Illidan. Malfurion had tried to save his twin, but in the end, Illidan’s ambition had turned him into the very thing against which he had fought. A demon. Had Malfurion acted differently from the beginning, perhaps seeking to help his brother rather than imprison him… Illidan might have been saved. No! the captured archdruid managed to think. I did try to help him! I came to his prison time and time again in the hopes of turning him from his fatal path…
But you failed… you always fail… you failed yourself and because of that, you will fail your Azeroth…
In the Emerald Dream — the Nightmare — what had once been Malfurion Stormrage contorted yet more. He no longer glowed the bright green hue that dreamforms took on when they entered this magical realm. Instead, a darker, more sinister shade of green now swathed him.
An even greater darkness hovered around the imprisoned archdruid, the only visible evidence of the thing that called itself the Nightmare Lord. From that foul gloom, scores of tendrils fed into Malfurion, not only fueling the alteration of his form, but seeking to tear further into the night elf’s mind as he slowly transformed ever more into a tree.
A tree of inconceivable, agonizing pain…
Malfurion’s barrow den was as Tyrande Whisperwind had seen it in both her vision and previous excursions. Little there was that spoke of the person behind the legend. It consisted of a series of underground passages that never saw the light of the sun, but night elves were creatures of the darkness, and, in addition, had mystical powers at their command. Instead of oil lamps, the cool, soft illumination of the moon now kept the main chamber lit, compliments of the devoted prayers of the Sisterhood.
The archdruid lay as if sleeping, which, in a sense, he was. Only his open eyes gave any initial hint that there was more to the matter.
The priestesses on duty had moved aside. One by one, the party stepped before the unmoving body, the druids kneeling in homage to their founder while the newly arrived Sisters of Elune simply bowed. Broll thought the scene more one of a funeral or at least a family gathered around a loved one’s deathbed, but kept such thoughts to himself, especially with Malfurion’s beloved so near.
When it was the high priestess’s turn, she leaned so close that at first it appeared she was going to kiss Malfurion. To most, that would have not been surprising. However, at the last moment, Tyrande pulled back and instead briefly stroked his forehead.
“Cold …” she muttered. “Colder than he should be …”
“We have kept constant with the prayers,” Merende immediately responded, a hint of surprise in her tone. “Nothing should have changed …”
There was no anger in Tyrande’s voice as she replied, “I know… but he is colder… Elune’s vision is truth …” She stared. “And his eyes are losing their gold… as if he is losing his ties to Azeroth…”
She finally stepped back, making room for the lead archdruid.
Fandral spent even more time over Malfurion than the high priestess had. He muttered under his breath and passed both hands over the body. Broll saw him send a pinch of powder over the chest and wondered what Fandral intended. The priestesses and druids had performed scores of spells to aid Malfurion not only in the preservation of his body, but also his potential return.
Wiping away a single tear, the senior archdruid stepped back.
Broll prayed to the woodland spirits that whatever Fandral attempted would help. They needed Malfurion more than ever, especially if Teldrassil’s illness proved something beyond their powers to cure.
“My Sisters shall increase their efforts,” Tyrande said after a brief discussion with Merende and the other tending pair. “Elune will surely enable them to keep the body alive… at least for a while… but this must be solved soon.”
“There is nothing more that we can do here,” Fandral remarked with a respectful glance at Malfurion Stormrage’s body. “Let us return to the outside …”
As the druids and others obeyed, Broll noticed Tyrande return to touch Malfurion on the cheek. Then her expression hardened and she strode after Fandral as if about to rush off to war.
The somberness of Malfurion’s chamber gave way to the lush beauty of the land above — a hilly forest region dotted with countless mounds, beneath which lay the sanctums of other druids.
Between the barrow dens, stone and wooden arches draped with lush, living greenery gave the Moonglade an exotic look.
Yet it was more than just its physical appearance that made the Moonglade what it was. As a druid, Broll in particular could sense the inherent peace of this place. There was little wonder that it had been chosen as a sacred location by those of his calling.
“So tranquil a place,” the high priestess commented.
“The spirit of Cenarius is very much a part of it,” Fandral replied, looking pleased by Tyrande’s compliment, “and present also in its guardian, his son …”
“Would that I were my father,” came a voice that brought with it a sense of springtime. “Would that I were …”
The druids had not heard the figure approach, as his footsteps produced no hint of a sound. They immediately knelt in respect and even the priestesses acknowledged Remulos’s appearance with a formal bow. However, he looked not at all pleased with such a greeting.
“Rise up!” he demanded of the druids as the air around him filled with the scent of flowers and the grass grew more lush beneath his hooves. “I am in no need of honoring from any of you,” Remulos added dourly, his leafy mane shaking. “I am an abject failure!”
Fandral stretched a hand forward in protest. “You, great one?