Khadgar pulled himself to his feet, looking around. The demon had vanished, popped like a soap bubble at the first touch of steel. He was alone in the room with Medivh.
“What are you doing on the floor, lad?” said Medivh. “Moroes could have gotten you a cot.”
“Master, your wards!” said Khadgar. “They have failed. There was…” he stumbled for a moment, unsure that he should reveal he knew Sargeras by appearance. Medivh would catch something like that, and pester him until he revealed how he knew it.
“A demon,” he managed. “There was a demon here.”
Medivh smiled, looking well rested, the color returning to his face. “A demon? I think not. Hold.” The Magus closed his eyes and nodded. “No, the wards are still in place. It would take more than a catnap for them to run out of energy. What did you see?”
Quickly Khadgar recounted the appearance of the demon from the cloud of boiling red milk, of it standing there, of it raising its hand. The Magus shook his head.
“I think that was another one of your visions,” he said at last. “Some bit of time unstuck and displaced that fell into the tower, quickly banished.”
“But the demon…” started Khadgar.
“The demon you described is no more, at least no more in this life,” said Medivh. “He was slain before I was born, buried far beneath the sea. Your vision was of Sargeras, from ‘The Song of Aegwynn.’ You have the scrolls there. Deciphering messages? Yes. Perhaps that’s what called that timelost wraith into my quarters. You should not be doing work here while I slept.” He frowned slightly, as if he was thinking if he should be more upset or not.
“I’m sorry, I thought…I thought it would be best to not leave you alone?” Khadgar twisted it into a question, and it sounded a bit foolish.
Medivh chuckled and let a smile creep across his weathered features. “Well, I didn’t say you couldn’t, and I don’t suppose Moroes would have stopped you, since that would reduce his need to be here.” He rubbed a finger and thumb over his lips and through his beard. “I think I’ve had enough broth for one lifetime. And just to reassure you, I will check the tower’s mystic wards. And show you how to do it as well. Now, aside from demon visions, did anything happen while I was gone?”
Khadgar summarized the messages he had received. The rising tide of orc incidents. Lothar’s map. The mystery message about the Emissary. And the news of Guzbah’s death.
Medivh grunted at the description of Guzbah’s passing, and said, “So they’re going to blame Guzbah until the next poor sod gets sliced open.” He shook his head, then added, “Feast of the Scribes. That would be before Huglar and Hugarin died.”
“By about a week and a half,” said Khadgar. “Time enough for a demon to fly from Dalaran to Stormwind Keep.”
“Or a man on gryphon-back,” mused Medivh. “It’s not all demons and magic in this world. Sometimes a simpler answer suffices. Anything else?”
“It sounds like these orcs are becoming much more numerous and dangerous,” said Khadgar. “Lothar says they are moving from caravan raids to attacks on settlements. Small ones, but there are more people coming into Stormwind and the other cities all the time as a result.
“Lothar worries too much,” said Medivh with a grimace.
“He’s concerned,” said Khadgar flatly. “He doesn’t know what to expect next.”
“On the contrary,” said Medivh, letting out a long, mournful sigh. “If everything you tell me is true, then I’m afraid things are going just the way I expected!”
10
The Emissary
With Medivh’s recovery things returned to normal, or as normal as anything was in the presence of the Magus. When the Magus was absent, Khadgar was left with instructions as to honing his magical skill, and when Medivh was in residence in the tower, the younger mage was expected to demonstrate those skills at the drop of hat.
Khadgar adapted well, and felt as if his power was a set of clothes, two sizes too big, that only now was he growing into. He could control fire at will now, summon lightning without a cloud in the sky, and cause small items to dance upon the table at the will of his own mind. He learned other spells as well—those that allowed one to know when and how a man died from a single bone of his remains, how to cause a ground-fog to rise, and how to leave magical messages for others to find. He learned how to restore the age lost to an inanimate object, strengthening an old chair, and its reverse, to pull all the youth from a newly-crafted club, leaving it dusty and brittle. He learned the nature of the protective wards, and was entrusted with keeping them intact. He learned the library of demons, though Medivh would not permit any to be summoned in his tower. This last order Khadgar had no desire to break.
Medivh was gone for brief periods of a day here, a few days there. Always instructions were left behind, but never explanations. Upon his return the Guardian looked more haggard and worn, and would push Khadgar testily to determine the youth’s mastery over his craft, and to detail any news that had arrived in his absence. But there was no further repeat of his comatose rest, and Khadgar assumed that whatever the master was doing, it did not involve demons.
One evening in the library, Khadgar heard noises from the common area and stables below. Shouts, challenges, and responses, in low, illegible tones. By the time he reached a window overlooking that part of the castle, a group of riders were leaving the tower’s walls.
Khadgar frowned. Were these some supplicants turned away by Moroes, or messengers with some other dark tidings for his master? Khadgar descended the tower to find out.
He caught sight of the new arrival only briefly—a flash of a black cloak stepping into a guest room along the lower levels of the tower. Moroes was there, candle in hand, blinders in place, and as Khadgar slipped down the last few steps he could hear the castellan say “…Other visitors, they were less careful. They’re gone now.”
Whatever response the new arrival made was lost, and Moroes pulled the door shut as Khadgar came up.
“A guest?” asked the young man, trying to see if there was any clue of the new arrival behind him. Only a closed door greeted his view.
“Ayep,” replied the castellan.
“Mage or merchant?” asked the young mage.
“Couldn’t say,” said the castellan, already moving down the hall. “Didn’t ask, and the Emissary didn’t say.”
“The Emissary,” repeated Khadgar, thinking of one of the mystery letters from Medivh’s great sleep. “So it’s political, then. For the Magus.”
“Assume so,” said Moroes. “Didn’t ask. Not my place.”
“So it is for the Magus,” said Khadgar.
“Assume so,” said Moroes, with the same sleepy inflection. “We’ll be told when we need to know.” And with that he was gone, leaving Khadgar to stare at the shut door.
For the next day, there was the odd feeling of another presence in the tower, a new planetary body whose very gravity changed the orbits of all the others. This new planet caused Cook to shift to a larger set of pans, and Moroes to move through the halls at more random times than normal. And even Medivh himself would send Khadgar on some errand within the tower, and as the young mage left he would hear the whisper of a heavy cloak on the stonework behind him.
Medivh volunteered nothing, and Khadgar waited to be told. He dropped hints. He waited patiently. Instead he was sent to the library to continue his studies and practice his spells. Khadgar descended the curved stairs for half a rotation, stopped, then slowly climbed back up, only to see the back of a black cloak glide into the Guardian’s laboratory.
Khadgar stomped down the stairs, considering options of who the Emissary was. A spy for Lothar? Some secretive member of the Order? Perhaps one of the members from the Kirin Tor, the one with the spidery handwriting and the venomous theories? Or maybe some other matter entirely? Not knowing was frustrating, and not being trusted by the Magus seemed to make matters worse.