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Within his mind, the spell began to form, a warm, hot ball of energy. He could
feel it congeal within him, as rainbow ripples moved across the surface. This
was the core of the spell, usually quickly dispatched to alter the real world
as its caster saw fit.
Khadgar fitted the sphere with the attributes he desired, to seek out the bits
of time that seemed to haunt the tower, sort through them, and bring together
a single vision, one that he could witness spread before him. The ideas seemed
to sink with the imaginary sphere in his mind, and in return the sphere seemed
to hum at a higher pitch, awaiting only release and direction.
 Bring me a vision, said the young mage.  Bring me a vision of the young
Medivh.
With the sound of an egg imploding the magic was gone from his mind, seeping
into the real world to carry out his bidding. There was a rush of air, and as
Khadgar looked around, the library began to transform, as it had before, the
vision moving slowly into his space and time.
Only when it suddenly got colder did Khadgar realize he had called up the
wrong vision.
It moved through the library suddenly, a cold draft as if someone had left a
window open. The breeze went from a draft to a chill to an arctic blast, and
despite his own knowledge that it was merely illusion, Khadgar shivered to his
core.
The walls of the library fell away as the vision took hold with an expanse of
white. The chill wind curled around the books and manuscripts and left a
blanket of snow as it passed, thick and hard. Tables, shelves, and chairs were
obscured and then eliminated with the swirls of thick heavy flakes.
And Khadgar was on a hillside, his feet disappearing at his knees into a bank
of snow, but leaving no mark. He was a ghost within this vision.
Still, his breath frosted and curled upward as he looked around him. To his
right was a copse of trees, dark evergreens loaded down by the passing
snowstorm. Far to his left was a great white cliff. Khadgar thought it some
chalky substance, and then realized that it was ice, as if someone had taken a
frozen river and uprooted it. The ice river was as tall as some of the
mountains on Dalaran, and small dark shapes moved above it. Hawks or eagles,
though they would have to be of immense size if they were truly near the icy
cliffs.
Ahead of him was a vale, and moving up the vale was an army.
The army melted the snow as it passed, leaving a smudged mark of black behind
it like a slug s trail. The members of the army were dressed in red, wearing
great horned helms and long, high-backed black cloaks. They were hunters, for
they wore all manner of weapons.
At the head of the army, its leader bore a standard, and atop the standard
rode a dripping, decapitated head. Khadgar thought it some great green-scaled
beast, but stopped himself when he realized it was a dragon s head.
He had seen a skull of such a creature in the Violet Citadel, but never
thought that he would see one that had recently been alive. How far back had
his vision truly thrown him?
The army of giant-things were bellowing what could have been a marching song,
though it could just as easily have been a string of curses or a challenging
cry. The voices were muddled, as if they were at the bottom of a great well,
but at least Khadgar could hear them.
As they grew closer, Khadgar realized what they were. Their ornate helmets
were not helms, but rather horns that jutted from their own flesh. Their
cloaks were not garments but great batlike wings that jutted from their backs.
Their red-tinged armor was their own thick flesh, glowing from within and
melting the snow.
They were demons, creatures from Guzbah s lectures and Korrigan s hidden
pamphlets. Monstrous beings that exceeded even the orcs in their blood-thirst
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
and sadism. The great, broad-bladed swords were clearly bathed in crimson, and
now Khadgar could see that their bodies were spattered with gore as well.
They were here, wherever and whenever here was, and they were hunting dragons.
There was a soft, distorted sound behind him, no more than a footfall on a
soft carpet. Khadgar turned, and he realized that he was not alone on the
hillock overlooking the demon hunting party. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]