(3) Refuge

Days went by, and still, she heard not a word from him. It seemed Bastion had slipped off the face of the world, and, for all her hard work, all her training, she was merely a child in the dark arts. The center of the town swirled with so many people, rushing about to do their own business. For as many people that were there, she was left alone, lost.

A giggle escaped just from behind the fountain, somewhat familiar. Looking up, she only saw a night elf sitting on the bank of the fountain, dark hair framing her face as she peered down at the daggers at her sides, testing their sharpness with long, slender fingers. Annaliese let out a sigh, then began to walk away from the Trade District of Stormwind, still a mere phantom in a world of flesh. Again, she heard the giggle, high, like a tingling bell. She knew the sound. It stung her heart. Whipping around toward the fountain again, her eyes locked on the same elf, but a child peered at Annaliese just behind her. The woman quaked, choking on her own saliva.

Her son stood there, so small behind the night elf. The child was dead, and yet here he stood, smiling with his hands clasped behind his back, wisps of dark hair in his eyes. A miniature of his father, as he always had been. He wore a white tunic, complete with trousers the color of the essence of a voidwalker. Before she could speak, her mouth frozen in shock as it was, the child ran around the fountain, and toward the Mage District.

“Catch me Mommy!” he exclaimed, and despite her best instincts, knowing her son was not alive, she obeyed his playful invitation, and gave chase. Annaliese wanted to yell out to stop him, but he turned the corner, and she could do nothing else but follow the boy. Across the bridge she ran after her son, his tiny legs pumping as fast as they could, a flash of blue and white. The frantic woman almost ran into a horse on the way to the tunnel, but it did not phase her, and she ran across the hill, the grass crunching under her feet, her little boy only feet away from her, but always just beyond her reach.

“Zane!” she gasped out, as he ran to the entrance of a tavern just beyond, corridors of buildings whipping past her vision in a blur. She stumbled up the incline into the darkened tavern as her son slipped in without hesitation. Somehow, she knew this was a trick, an illusion…but he seemed so real! He stopped in the middle of the room, eyeing the chairs. He shot her a smile, and spread his arms like a gryphon, taking off into the sunset. Zane had always imagined he could fly.

“Mommy…” he chided, then ran down the opposite end of the room, which lead further down into the depths of the tavern. Down, down she followed, the stone walls lit by fire torches, her chest heaving, heart pounding. She could smell fire…hear the sparks of flame…feel…power…and it brought a semblance of fear to the surface. The apprentice warlock pushed down her apprehension of this unfamiliar place. She did not care. Zane was here, and she had to find him, had to understand, even if he only was an illusion.
As she descended, she came to a room where darkened eyes lay upon her, a great bonfire burning within the center of the cold room. Zane stood, eyeing his mother innocently. With a gentle smile, he spread his arms wide like the majestic gryphon, and soared right into the bonfire, the flames roaring as they took him.

Annaliese let out a shriek, only to be muffled by her own hands. The muffled cry transferred to her body, which shuddered with each sob as she crumpled to the cold, stone floor, and the room became suddenly quiet. Whispered words of “lunatic” and “drunk” could be heard among the warlock trainers as the eyed the broken woman, trembling with tears upon their place of sanctuary, their refuge.

“Get her out of here,” Gakin the Darkbinder said coldly, but none would move to lift the woman from her place.

Catching her breath, her chest heaving, she looked around her wildly. There was no burned corpse of a child, no stink of burnt flesh. Only the dark eyes of a woman that stood before her, her skin pale as moon. She was beautiful. Terrible. And she reached a kind hand to the warlock on the floor as the other dark eyes stared at her in contempt, her weakness out on display for all to view.

“Dear woman, whatever is the matter?” she asked as she knelt down next to Annaliese. Her answer was a choke, only staring at the pale woman with liquid eyes. Sighing, the strange woman pulled her to her feet, holding on to her trembling hands, and a slanted smile appeared on her face as she patted the disturbed woman’s shoulder.

“I thought…” Anna began, staring in to the fire, its crimson flames ever strong, towering. “What is this place?” she asked softly instead.

“The Slaughtered Lamb. And I am Lilaeth,” the warlock said strongly, her voice echoing off the shadowy walls. There was power undeniably here. And the young warlock felt it tremble in her bones. Lilaeth eyed the distraught woman, and she felt as if she were embraced by shadow as she stared back into the woman‘s obsidian orbs.

“And perhaps you are here for a reason…”


As the two spoke, the man peeked from the inclined corridor, the torchlight making his face eerie. Grinning with satisfaction, he clasped the soulshard in his hands, the other hand crumpling up a parchment, words written in Demonic upon it. Pocketing the soulshard, he simply blew on the parchment, and it burnt to ash all to quickly before him. The curse had worked.

“That little gift should be with you for a few more days, my sweet Annaliese,” Bastion muttered beneath his breath, and he chuckled quietly as he left his puppet in the hands of the Scion.