Let Darkness Come

[Illidan Stormrage]

The next few hours, or at least what seemed like it, consisted of Illidan following the footsteps of the altruistic old hermit. Question after question left the geezer's pruned lips, undeterred despite Illidan's firm resolution to ignore them. Nonetheless, he would turn around, sometimes walking backwards, while he poked and prodded the night elf. Eyes wide, running up and down his length, they would sometimes halt at random points. Once, his eyes settled on his waist, another on his pointed ears.
 
The chattering continued on as the sun slipped almost unnoticed over the horizon, the clouds blocking most of the descent. Stars broke through odd pockets of cloudless sky but the wind marched on, eventually painting over them again in fluffy grey. Crickets chirped, the only sound other than the travellers' footfalls and one-sided conversation to impose on the silent twilight. No absent moaning or shuffling feet arose on their journey, but Illidan twitched his ears, straining his hearing beyond the geriatric's ramblings in case it did.
 
"Well you ain't human, are you?" the cloaked grandpa said, and chuckled. "Not with skin like that, or ears pointing out like a cat's!"
 
Illidan clenched his jaw. The irritation built in the back of his skull, swelling the space between bone and brain. Was this worth it? The old codger had dragged him far enough. Surely he could pick up the trail of the necromancer from here? A fleeting concern wondered what would become of his elderly guide if he abandoned him, but the next moment it was forgotten.
 
The night elf halted. A cool wind sauntered over his back and shoulders as a weak, silvery light climbed behind the ceiling of clouds. "Enough, you old fool. I will not tolerate any more of your questions! Either shut up for the rest of the trip, or be gone! I can find my way without you, I'm sure!"
 
"Oh, is that right?" the old man snapped back, his wrinkled smile dashed. "How are you gonna find a necromancer with that blindfold on?"
 
Illidan hadn't revealed the details of his spectral sight. It was one of the most intriguing mysteries in the universe, at least to this foolish codger. "How'd you kill a bunch of undead without looking at them?" "Why don't you take off that blindfold? I bet you could see a lot better without it!" "How haven't you tripped over your own feet yet?" The questions almost drove Illidan to thump that bald scalp.
 
"I'll manage." Illidan sieved the words through clenched teeth. "Besides, an old man like you should be wanting to run from here. It'll soon be dangerous."
 
The old man's scowl reversed. He slapped his hands and chuckled. "And miss the sweet, sweet moment of vengeance? Boy, I'd rather die on my feet right now than miss that!"
 
Illidan balled his fists. "That could be arranged."
 
"All right, all right." The elderly man faced forward and spoke over his shoulder. "Just answer me one question, just one, and I'll stop talking until we get to the necromancer."
 
"I'm not one to believe in miracles."
 
"Just one, all right?" The crickets blared into focus as the old man went quiet for a moment. "What are you? You aren't human."
 
Illidan groaned. The old bastard wouldn't cram his mouth shut until he got something. His race was innocuous enough.
 
As he went to answer, of all the times for it to strike, his thoughts turned philosophical. He was a night elf, but ... was he? Thousands of years ago he sided with his species' mortal enemy, accepting the brand of the Burning Legion in exchange for terrifying power. Did that break some sort of spiritual coven not to abandon your own kin? Yet after absorbing the Skull of Gul'dan and halting the parade of undead toward his home land, his twin brother, leader of the night elves, banished him. What did that make him? A night elf who had taken too many wrong turns, misunderstood by even the ties that bind family together? Or a nameless vagabond, twisted by his own failures and dark pacts, searching for redemption that couldn't exist? Maybe even now a demon, thirsting for conquest, the life of mortal simplicities drowned in the thick, unforgiving folds of time?
 
Illidan drew breath. He was reading way too much into the question. "I'm a night elf. Now no more."
 
 Yet as he finished his sentence, he didn't know if he was demanding the end to the inquisition, or making a declaration about himself.
 
A sharp intake of air announced an imminent objection, but the old man said nothing.
 
Illidan spent the welcome peace examining everything around him; the knotted bark of trees and their naked branches stiff in the breeze, the dusty and gravel strewn earth occasionally broken up by crops of brittle grass. Peering into the distance, he caught sight of the castle that shattered the uniformity of the horizon. Silver moonlight caressed its edges but gave no detail from such distance. He would have to find out who inhabited such a magnificent structure, especially in the middle of barren, cursed fields and forests.
 
"Stands out, doesn't it?" the old man said. Illidan looked at him, and he nodded his head in the direction of the castle.
 
"Indeed," Illidan said. It was his turn to learn something for a change. "Who owns it?"
 
The old man slowed down, frowning, crinkled lips ajar. He started walking again as soon as Illidan drew level with him, but that infuriating face remained. "You mean you don't -"
 
Illidan shoved the geezer in the back. Hard. He sprawled forward, taking several goofy strides in order to maintain his balance.
 
Standing straight, he pulled on the edges of his cloak. "Hey! Old people aren't as resilient as you young-"
 
"You are to walk ahead of me, not beside me!" Illidan snapped. The outrage in his chest spread through him like wildfire. How dare he presume to travel with him like an equal! Not to mention that the night elf had lived thousands of years, seeing the rise and fall of civilisations, including his own. Age mattered little in resiliency; if the human had bothered to learn an arcane art of some variety instead of pottering around fields with a hoe and shovel, he might not be so feeble.
 
The elderly man gazed at Illidan cautiously, as if noticing for the first time that the night elf could indeed fly off the handle, that his cranky protests weren't just hot air. His countenance fell a moment later as if nothing had happened.
 
"So, as I was saying ..." The geezer cleared his throat noisily and spat a white wad of phlegm out of their path. Disgusting. "That castle on the horizon? Belongs to a man named Count Dracula. Well, from what I hear, he stopped being a man a long time ago." He paused a moment and shot a cock eyed glance at Illidan over his shoulder. "I get the feeling you might not have heard of him?"
 
Count Dracula ... nothing came to mind. No one from Azeroth or the Burning Legion with such a name, in any case. "Enlighten me."
 
"You must be new here," the old man said. Illidan sensed a follow-up question, but it never came. "Count Dracula is the ... well, the de facto lord of the Pale Moors. If you didn't know, this ..." he said, spreading his stick arms, " ... is the Pale Moors."
 
The lord of a dead world filled with monsters. Illidan knew the feeling. He wondered if he used the term 'lord' in the same sense that the night elf had. "Does this Dracula actually do anything here, or does he hole himself away in his keep?"
 
"Oh, he's plenty active," the old codger said, voice low. "Who do you think's responsible for all these walking corpses? They didn't just get up by themselves now, did they?"
 
Illidan fixed on the castle again, its black stone outlined by the silvery moonlight. "So Dracula is a necromancer?"
 
The old man's head bobbed from side to side. "Yes, to an extent. But he's better known as a vampire. Plus he's one of the strongest, if not the strongest Prime in the Pale Moors. He'll shred you to pieces before you notice he's in the room."
 
"Prime?" Illidan said. "What do you mean?"
 
"You ignorant on Primes now?" A shrug. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised."
 
Illidan scowled. The arrogance of the bald human vexed him more by the minute. "Spit it out."
 
"All right," the old man said. "Primes are special. They're the chosen ones of Omni, the guy who brought us all here. On average, you're much stronger than the others, what's called Secondaries.  A Prime gathers something called omnilium, don't rightly know what it is myself, not being a Prime. But I'm lead to believe it's like some form of ultimate magic, that you can create anything you can imagine. Us Secondaries use it as currency in its purest form, but we can't make it ourselves. Primes are like walking banks to us."
 
Omni ... omnilium ... nonsense words, but with a curious edge to them. A foggy memory came unbidden, of Illidan in duress, listening to a small, featureless child in the middle of a monologue. It must have happened just after the night elf died, before he materialised near that fountain, in the realm as white and blinding as the child. The more he concentrated, the clearer the moment formed in his memory. Omnilium ... a ball of liquid rainbow ... a gateway to desires, a servant of the will.
 
"Not to mention the best part," he continued, breaking Illidan from his introspection. "You can't even kill a damn Prime! Omni just puts them back together at the fountain! Immortality and access to omnilium ... of all the luck ..."
 
Immortality? Illidan had thought, perhaps felt, that he already possessed that boon. Absorbing the Skull of Gul'dan's malevolent magic had partly transformed him into a demon, and joined him to their home, the Twisting Nether. The more powerful demons, at least, would retreat to that void after death, their souls lingering and waiting for a new opportunity. Now that the orc warlock's energies were locked away again in his dry skull, hanging by Illidan's belt, that connection may not have survived.
 
In any case, Illidan would investigate it later. There were more pressing articles of information he thirsted for. "Is that why Dracula rules this realm? His immortality?"
 
The old man snorted. "He isn't the only Prime. If he was, then maybe. But there isn't anyone strong enough to take him on."
 
I must meet this Dracula. "Does he accept house calls?"
 
A loud chortle this time. "If you want his servants to eat you, sure! I appreciate your desire to kill some necromancer scum, but damn!" The old man went silent and peered over his shoulder, a slight smile in his dull eyes. "But ..."
 
"But what?"
 
"Well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't altogether useless on the subject."
 
Illidan bared his teeth. "Talk plainly or you will find yourself altogether useless."
 
The old man raised his hands in surrender. "I'm not what you'd call a necromancer, but I haven't survived out in this wilds by luck. I learned enough magic from the ... practitioners in Darkshire to sense the taint that dark magic leaves on a man's soul. When you know what to look for, it's pretty damn easy to see it. Ugly thing, like a disease feasting." When he looked at Illidan's latest expression, he sped up his waffle. "Anyway, point is, I can see it on you."
 
Perceptive. "What are you implying, old man?"
 
"Nothing," he said defensively. "Just ... not a lot of necromancers out to kill other necromancers, that's all."
 
Illidan clenched his jaw and spoke through bared teeth. "I am not a necromancer."
 
"But you aren't a damn priest either, are you? So maybe you don't want to kill the strongest Prime that ever walked the Pale Moors. Maybe you want to join him."
 
"Quite the stretch," Illidan responded. "I'm following you to kill one of the bastards, not sign a treaty."
 
"Of course," the old man assuaged in an agreeable tone, like handling a child in the throes of a tantrum. The lack of respect from him was growing wearisome. "But if you ever did want to join him, or even infiltrate his castle, there are easy ways, and there are hard ways." He cleared his throat and lobbed another loogie from his lips. "Easy way? Take an innocent person and a dead soldier to his gates. Women and children are preferred for the innocent, but you can just take the soldier's head instead of the whole body. A sign of fealty, or so I hear. It should get you into the castle, maybe even get to rest those blind eyes on the Count."
 
Interesting, if true. "And what's the hard way?"
 
"Try to kill everyone outside the castle. Those are about the only two ways you'll get an audience with him."
 
Illidan gazed at the castle one last time. All the evil in this land spread like a virus from that old fort. Once this necromancer was slain, perhaps it would be wise to start sniffing about this Dracula's home.
 
"You seem to know a lot about Dracula," Illidan said.
 
The old man's bony shoulders bobbed. "You hear things. I've run from more than one necromancer in my day, and a lot of the time they speak pretty freely. Not much chance in a corpse spilling your secret now, is there?" He laughed, a horrible, high-pitched cackle.
 
Illidan pressed the geezer no more. He had enough to chew on, and after a few more graphic threats, his travelling companion left him to mull them over in the silence that covered the Pale Moors like a creepy blanket.
 
"We are almost there," the old man said, sniffing. Time had passed, but how much of it Illidan could only surmise. "Our long journey is almost done."
 
The night elf stared ahead. He expected to see a house, maybe a dilapidated shack, but more arid ground greeted him. A short way ahead, the earth rose in a small hill, a large stone at its base. Absolutely nothing.
 
"Where? There's nothing here!" Illidan said. His pride wouldn't handle a wild goose chase well. Already his purple knuckles turned white.
 
"Over that hill. You better be ready for what's waiting us on the other -"
 
"Help!"
 
Illidan pricked his ears. The frantic plea came from nearby but no one save himself and the prying old man were around.
 
"Gods, save me! I don't want to be eaten alive!"
 
The night elf used his spectral sight to probe further than the immediate area, sending out a pulse in all directions. Movement behind the rock! Illidan focused there and saw a soldier with his back to the boulder and two rasping ghouls pinning his arms in place, the sickly yellow energy swirling about them. A sword sharp enough to cut through the zombies' gossamer sinew lay on the ground and out of reach.
 
Balling his fists, two spheres of black smoke formed around Illidan's hands and jutted outwards in both directions. As the wind absconded with the haze, Illidan's warglaives shimmered in the weak moonlight. He rushed towards the rock, seeing the bony side of one of the undead. Most of its skin had been torn from its body, and where it still stuck it hung limply like dried pasta. Thin, papery muscles and ligaments stretched and contracted around yellowing bones, reaching such slender states that Illidan expected them to snap under the pressure.
 
Over his footfalls he could hear the gurgled moaning of the unholy corpses. The soldier's cries for help had descended into blubbering sobs, so pathetic that it almost made Illidan want to stop and leave the undead to their macabre work. Still, not everyone was as brave and powerful as he was.
 
One of the reanimated cadavers must have pushed too hard or lost its grip, but the soldier squirmed free from the rock and ran towards Illidan. "Please! You gotta -" His voice stopped when he laid eyes on the night elf and his geriatric companion. "Oh gods ... those knives ... you're not going to kill me, are you?"
 
"Show some blasted backbone, human!" Illidan shouted, adrenaline screaming through his blood. "Are all your species such spineless cowards?"
 
"What he means to say is no, we're not killing you," the old man said. "We're here to help."
 
The soldier turned his head over his shoulder so fast the night elf thought he might have broken it. It snapped back just as quickly. "Then do something about them! Fast!" He sprinted past Illidan but slowed a short distance away, spinning to watch the events from a safe vantage point, legs bent in case he needed to sprint in a hurry.
 
Illidan squared up to the lumbering undead. These specimens were not nearly as fresh as the three he slaughtered earlier. Flesh was absent in the majority, with only tattered remnants clinging to aging bone, fluttering madly in the frail breeze generated by the zombies' steps. One still wore an eyeball, though it swung like a pendulum on a grey stalk towards the ground; the other stumbled on with two black sockets. As they rose outstretched arms at Illidan, he saw the pointed, almost claw-like endings of the finger bones. Had someone sharpened them?
 
A few moments more and Illidan would strike. With the paltry, atrophied muscles they possessed, their reactions wouldn't be anything to be worried about. Some necromancers could raise a century-old skeleton and imbue it with the strength and speed of ten men, but these gruesome spectres were little more than wind-up toys. Even now Illidan watched the shadow magic play over and through their bones, thin and lacking substance. It was enough to raise them and bind them to their hungry patrols, but against a skilled warrior like Illidan, they would fall like saplings to his blades.
 
"Wait," the old man said. He took a step forward and unsheathed his pale arms from the cloak. "Let me handle these ones."
 
"You?" Illidan said.
 
"You?" the scared soldier shouted.
 
"Yes, me!" the geezer said, frowning. "I've learned a few tricks to deal with exactly this sort of situation."
 
Illidan watched, but didn't lower his warglaives, nor remove focus from the advancing skeletons. The old man swung his arms about in big circles around him, squatting at the lowest point and stretching himself at the highest. The exaggerated motions drew the ire of the skeletons. Gnashing their jaws, they dragged themselves towards the old man, scratching at the air in front of them with dagger fingers.
 
Sweat built on the bald man's brow as he sped up. Yellow glimmers of light dropped from his fingertips that vanished as soon as they touched the dry earth. More and more fell, and Illidan felt an unseen force swell about him, pressure climbing in the very air. His spectral sight let him see the weak, though unmistakable hints of chaotic magic glistening in those sparks.
 
The old man touched fingertips and slapped palms together. A sulphuric light flashed for a moment from the impact. The skeletons froze, bones jerking and clacking, and abruptly crumbled into white dust.
 
Illidan stared at the chalky piles. "You did that. How?"
 
The old man grinned. "I told you. I haven't eked out a living in a zombie filled marsh without knowing how to protect myself."
 
Illidan growled. "Necromancy ..." He turned his wickedly sharp blades at the old man.
 
"No!" he protested. "I don't know anything more than that, I swear! I learned how to sense them, how to unbind the spells that raise them, but that's it! Didn't you see how amateurish the result was? My way completely breaks down their bodies! And it doesn't always work, let me tell you, just on the basic ones!"
 
Green fire-eyes scanned the old codger. Even around his hands, no yellow smoke existed. If the unbinding spell was as rudimentary as he suggested, this is what Illidan would've expected to see. True necromancers couldn't wash the stink of the fetid curse from his magic sight. Still, it unsettled him to know that trick was up those baggy sleeves the whole time.
 
"That was incredible!" the soldier shouted right behind Illidan.
 
The night elf spun on his heel and roared back, senses heightened and edgy from the lack of combat they were promised. "Silence!"
 
The soldier cowed. "Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to yell right in your ear."
 
Illidan sighed. How he longed for the empty and quiet halls of the Black Temple, where slaves and servants knew their place. "What were you doing out here, you fool? A few minutes more and you would've been stripped off all your flesh and blood!"
 
The soldier shrunk past the night elf and picked up his sword. He poked the apex of the blade into the white soot. "My wife ... the other guys didn't want to help me. They said ... they said it was too dangerous. They said I should just give up on her, she's gone ..." He looked up from the disintegrated corpses with a furrowed brow and blazing stare. "But I told them. I didn't care if I had to go out here all by myself. I was going to find her, and bring her home."
 
The power of love. Illidan felt a tinge of a connection with the human, but his higher breeding and pomposity quickly smothered it. "And where did you think you were going to find her?"
 
"Over there," the soldier said, pointing his sword at the hill. "On the other side. The necromancer's hut is there. Everyone says it, anyway."
 
"So you don't even know if you're heading in the right direction?" Illidan asked with far less disrespect than before. It might have been stupid and probably fatal, but bullheadedness in the face of adversity was a trait to be admired no matter where it originated.
 
The man sniffed and rubbed his nose. "I know enough people who said it's the right way. Beside, even if it's not, I'd just start the search again. I'll find Marie as long as there's breath in my body."
 
"Admirable, but you were almost relieved of breath mere moments ago," Illidan said. He strolled over to the rock and leaned against it, leading his eyes up the hill's contour. "It's fortunate for you that I'm here to slit this necromancer's throat. If your woman is here, you're free to take her."
 
The man gazed at the old geezer who had remained uncharacteristically quiet, then to Illidan. His eyes widened with the promise of an ally. "Really? You'll help rescue my Marie?"
 
"On the condition that you don't get in the way," Illidan shot back over his shoulder. "I won't be saving you from the undead again if I'm busy clashing with a necromancer. I won't have distractions."
 
The soldier nodded shallowly and rapidly. "Whatever you say. You fight the necromancer, I'll save my wife. I won't get in your way."
 
"Good."
 
Silence, then the old man finally spoke up. "What's your name, son?"
 
"Gerald, sir. And yours?"
 
"Milton."
 
Gerald's dry lips split, the skin stuck and peeling apart from one another. "Milton? The old hermit?"
 
Milton grinned, his mini-teeth putting Illidan in mind of a shark's smile. "I see my reputation has preceded me."
 
"You used to live in Darkshire, didn't you?" Gerald said, sheathing his weapon in a faded blue scabbard swinging from his hip. "But you hated what the mayor was doing. You left in a huff. Some people said you were dead."
 
Milton nodded, a dire countenance etched into his rubbery skin. "I don't much like being away from people, but at least my destiny's in my own hands."
 
Illidan didn't turn around, still facing the hill, but his spectral sight let him watch, and his long ears hear, the conversation as clear as if he stood directly before them. Gerald began what would surely amount to a hopeless attempt at convincing the old geezer to return to Darkshire. Sure enough, Milton refused, though he spoke with greater lucidity than he had with the night elf when they first met. Maybe encountering a pair of slobbering corpses robbed him of his farcical joviality. Of course, talking to another of his species might have had an effect on the elderly man.
 
"Enough," Illidan said sternly, cutting Gerald's next protest short. "If the necromancer is as close as you intimate, let's visit him. I'd rather the element of surprise be on our side than his."
 
Gerald hurried over to Illidan. Lips pursed, gaze steely, hand on heart, he looked at Illidan with fierce veneration. His enthusiasm was commendable, but his greenness in combat, especially against the undead, was going to work against him. The night elf hoped against hope that Gerald would follow his plan; stay out of the fight and search for his beloved.
 
Illidan pushed himself upright, warglaives gripped in cold fingers. "Coming, old man?"
 
Milton waddled to the base of the hill with the others. He displayed his gaunt fingers and wiggled them, smirking. "Do you still want me to sit out the fight after you've seen what these babies can do?"
 
The night elf cleared his throat. His unbinding spell could prove useful as long as he didn't overextend himself. "You will keep the pawns off me, if any rise, while I strike at the king."
 
The old man seemed happy with that, shrugging and withdrawing his wizened limbs into the cloak.
 
A well intentioned but inexperienced soldier and a crackpot grandpa who may or may not be a liability ... what fantastic allies. At least the Burning Legion was competent.