Daughter of Azeroth

79 | SECOND CHANCES

'No,' Idira said, letting go of his hand. 'I won't go back to that thing. There has to be another way.'

The echo turned. 'You made this mess,' he said, cold. 'You need to clean it up. It's not always about you, you know.'

Idira backed away from him, stung. Though his words cut deep, he was right. It wasn't all about her. But still. The font? That thing was dangerous. It had almost killed her. 'What about my Light,' she offered, 'couldn't we use that instead of the font?'

'No.'

'Why not?' Idira persisted, annoyed by his terse reply.

'Because, there are other potentialities at play,' the echo snapped, fractious. 'Things the Light would prevent that the font won't. I like to keep your options open.'

'Options?' she repeated, confused. 'What sort of options?'

'Second chances,' the echo said, vague. 'There are other variables that would have to come into play, but this way, they are at least possible. It would be up to Khadgar to decide if he wishes to avail himself of them or not.'

The echo wasn't looking her in the eye. He knew something and wasn't telling, and from the look on his face, he wasn't going to tell, either.

'Couldn't we just destroy the font,' she broached, 'so Khadgar can't use it?'

The echo laughed, abrupt. 'Have you not yet realised Khadgar is a man of secrets?' He waved his hand, encompassing the length of the corridor. 'Just what do you think is holding this fortress intact outside of space and time, hmm?'

She licked her lips, nervous, and glanced at the forbidden door, warded, sealed, locked.

The echo followed her gaze. 'That's right. Destroy it, and—' he waved his hand again, '—all of this ceases to exist, the library, the books, Medivh's office, you, even me, obliterated by the impossibility of our material presence in a place immaterial.'

He waited for her to digest his words, looking exactly like Khadgar, his hands on his hips, frowning down at her, severe. She nodded, resigned, and moved to the door.

'Before we go in there,' she said as he joined her, placing his hands against the door, working to remove the wards. 'Tell me what you plan to do. This time I want to be prepared.'

He cut a look at her. 'I am going to make your echo, and imbed her into the fortress. She won't materialise until after you have gone to the Light, hopefully sooner rather than later.'

'Oh,' Idira breathed, both impressed and disturbed by the thought. 'Wait,' she said, as a troubling new thought rose up, 'I made you out of Khadgar's raven with my Light. What will we make my echo from?'

The echo paused in his work. 'What will be my purpose once tomorrow's events have passed?' he asked, his voice softening. 'The font can create an echo for the price of a soul. I can think of no better use for my existence than to do this. Anyway, I rather like the idea of not having to go back to the Nether, waiting to be remade for evil.'

'But you said you were made out of the stuff of the Nether,' Idira said, perplexed by his logic. 'You don't have a soul.'

The echo looked at the door. He clenched his jaw. 'When I told you I was made of the stuff of the Nether, I wasn't being entirely honest,' he paused to look at her, guilt cutting a path through his eyes.

'Go on,' Idira said, tentative, her skin prickling.

'Aeons ago, in another universe,' he began, low, his voice hard with shame, 'I was a god. Soulless.' He leaned against the door frame and looked down the corridor, his arms crossed over his chest, avoiding her eyes. 'My power was absolute. At first I sought to do good, but after thousands of years I became tired of mortals and their unending greed, pettiness and wanton destruction. I turned against them, growing depraved as my hatred deepened, hungering only for blood, ruin, suffering, and death. The crimes I committed were so heinous that the Creator of all life destroyed my corrupt world, and turned my immortal body into a soul, sending it to the Nether, fully conscious, never to be broken down and reborn.' He glanced at her, uneasy. 'The Nether is terrible place to be conscious. While other souls exist in full awareness for a just a brief flicker of time before the Nether's relentless pressure breaks them apart, granting them the oblivion of the great dark until it is their time to be reborn, I drifted, alone and outcast, crushed by the timeless, epochal silence. Every now and again, I was able to escape by joining with those who have the power to call recently passed spirits from the Nether, but those who do such things are usually practitioners of the darkest arts.' He paused, a spasm of deep anguish passing behind his eyes. 'The things I have been forced to do, things so abominable,' he said, shuddering, 'even thinking of them makes me long for the release of eternal death. No. I will not let you believe me a hero. By manifesting me here in this place, you have granted me a way out of the endless cycle of my suffering. To create your echo, the font will need to extinguish a soul, but I welcome it. I have suffered enough for what I have done. I long for annihilation.'