Night of the Dragon

yourself comfortable. After all...I've only brought you home.'

Her words made no sense. Zzeraku strained at his bonds, seeking escape...escape from this tiny figure that somehow so frightened him.

She turned to face him directly, in doing so revealing that the left side of her visage was draped by a silken veil... a veil that fluttered aside just enough when she turned to let the nether dragon see the horrific, scorched flesh beneath and the gap where once an eye had been.

And although she was a mere speck in comparison to the girth of the nether dragon, the image of her ruined countenance still magnified Zzeraku's anxiety a thousandfold. He wanted to be away from it, wanted never to see it. Even when the veil settled over the marred area, the nether dragon could still sense the horrific evil beneath.

Evil that far outshone any that he had known in Outland. Her cold smile stretched farther yet. farther than her face should have allowed.

'You shall rest now,' she said in a tone that demanded he obey. As Zzeraku instantly began to lose consciousness, she added, 'Rest and have no fear... after all, you're among family here, my child...'

ONE

So quickly passes time when one manages to live to be so old, thought the robed figure as he sat in his mountain sanctum surveying the world through an endless series of glimmering globes hovering around him. At a gesture from their creator, they shifted about the gargantuan oval chamber. Those he most desired came to rest before him just above one of a series of pedestals forged by his magic from the stalagmites that had once filled this place. At the base, each pedestal appeared as if carved by an artisan, so perfect were the lines, the angles. However, as they rose, they transformed into what was more the dreams of the sleeping rather than the result of physical labor. In those dreams, there were hints of dragons, hints of spirits, In the shaping, and at the very top something resembling a petrified hand with long, sinewy fingers stretched up, almost but not quite grasping the sphere above.

And in each of the spheres appeared a scene of much relevance to the wizard, Krasus.

The faint rumble of thunder managing to reach his hidden sanctum gave great indication to the turbulent weather without. Shrouded this foul eve in violet robes that had once bespoken of the Kirin Tor, the lanky, pale spellcaster leaned close to better view the latest scene. The sphere's blue Illumination revealed In turn features akin to those of the high elves—a people now all but extinct— including the angular bone structure, the patrician nose, and the long head. Yet, despite also bearing the handsomeness of that fallen race, Krasus was clearly not of any true elven lineage. It was not merely that his hawklike face had lines and scars—most notably three long, jagged ones running down the right cheek—that no elf of any sort could gain unless he had lived well past a thousand years, nor the exotic black and crimson streaks In his silver hair. Rather, It was his glittering, black eyes—eyes like no elf nor even any human—that told of an age beyond any mortal creature.

An age possible only for one of the eldest of dragons.

Krasus was the name by which he went in this form, a name that many knew only as once a senior member of the Inner circle of Dalaran's ruling council of wizards. But Dalaran had failed to stem the growing tide of evil despite the best of efforts, as had failed so many other kingdoms during the wars against the orcs and the subsequent one against the demons of the Burning Legion and the undead Scourge. The world of Azeroth had been turned upside down with thousands of lives lost, and yet was still only barely in balance...a balance that looked more and more fragile with every passing day.

It is as if we are trapped in a never-ending game, our lives hinging on the roll of a dice or the turn of a card, he thought, recalling catastrophic events even further in the past. Krasus had witnessed the collapse of civilizations far older than any existing now, and although he had had a hand in helping salvage something from many, it never seemed enough. He was only one being, one dragon... even if he was. In truth, Korlalstrasz, consort to the great queen of the red flight, Alexstrasza.

But not even the great Aspect of Life herself, his beloved mistress, could have foreseen all that happened or been able to stop those events from taking place. Krasus knew that he placed a far greater burden upon himself than he should have, but the dragon mage could not relent in his efforts to help the peoples of Azeroth, even if some of those efforts were doomed to failure from the start.

Indeed, there were even now many situations that drew his attention, situations with the potential to wreak utter havoc upon his world... and at the core of those problems were his own kind, the dragons. There was the vast rift leading Into the astounding realm called Outland, a great portal that in particular both fascinated and disturbed the blue dragonfllght, keepers of magic itself. From it had already come a mysterious cure for the madness that had long engulfed the blue lord. Yet although the Aspect of Magic, Malygos, was now completely lucid, Krasus did not at all like the path the leviathan's mind had now chosen. Outraged at what he felt was the younger races' destructive misuse of magic, Malygos had begun to suggest to the other Aspects that a purge of all those wielding such power might prove necessary to preserve Azeroth. In fact, he had grown quite adamant about it the last time he, Alexstrasza, Nozdormu the Timeless One, and Ysera —She of the Dreaming— had gathered In the far-off Northeast for their convocation at the ancient, towering Wyrmrest temple in the ice-bound Dragonblight —a significant, annual ritual originally begun to mark their combined might managing to overcome the dread Deathwing more than a decade ago.

With mounting frustration, Krasus dismissed the Image that he had been viewing and summoned the next. His thoughts, however, were still focused inward, this time upon the last of the four great dragons, Ysera. There were rumors of nightmarish things happening in the ethereal realm of which she was mistress, the almost mythic Emerald Dream. Exactly what was a question no one could answer, but Krasus was beginning to fear that the Emerald Dream was a problem potentially more disastrous than any other.

He started to dismiss the next sphere without even really glancing at Its contents... then belatedly recognized the location revealed.

Grim Batol.

All thought of Malygos and the Emerald Dream vanished from his attention as Krasus surveyed the sinister mountain. He knew it too well, for he had been there in times past and had sent agents serving his purpose into the very heart of the accursed place. In Grim Batol, his beloved mistress had been enslaved by orcs—the same barbaric race, oddly enough, that would prove such beneficial allies thirteen years later when the demons of the Burning Legion returned—utilizing a sinister artifact called the Demon Soul. The Demon Soul, unfortunately, had been able to bend her will to the Horde because it had been forged by the Aspects themselves, only to be perverted by one of their own. Alexstrasza had produced young for the orcs for their war efforts, young who became the brutish warriors' mounts in battle. Young who had perished by the scores in combat against wizards and dragons of other flights.

Through his guidance of the impetuous wizard, Rhonln, the high elf warrior maiden, Vereesa, and others, Krasus had been instrumental in releasing his queen from captivity. Dwarven fighters had assisted in wiping out the remaining pockets of orc resistance. Grim Batol had been emptied out, its evil legacy forever eradicated.

Or so all had thought. The dwarves were the first to feel the darkness that permeated it, and so they left almost immediately following the orcs' defeat. Alexstrasza and he had decided then that it was the duty of the red flight to seal off Grim Batol again. This despite the irony of the fact that, having already guarded It since the ancient Battle of Mount Hyjal, the red dragons' presence had made It so simple for the orcs arriving there to enslave them with the Demon Soul.

And so, despite some misgivings on Krasus's part, crimson behemoths had once again stood sentry around the vicinity, making certain that no one wandered in, either by accident or thinking to make some use of that evil.

But then, only recently, the sentries had sickened for no reason at all, and some had even died. A few had gone so very mad that there had been no choice but to put them down for fear of the devastation they might cause. The red flight had finally done as all others had, abandoning Grim Batol to Itself.

And so, it had become nothing but an empty tomb marking the end of an old war and what had turned out