Epilogue, Downwards Spiral

“Ah, Nebula.”

The crouching figure leaned on his walking staff, illuminated from behind by the gas burners below vials and bottles of bubbling liquid. In the background, machines continued to buzz. Chains continued to creak, weighed down with huge, decaying body parts for new abominations. Thin shadows slunk across the large room on their own businesses, and discussions were held in low voices.

“Master Faranell,” Sarah said, bowing her head in greeting.

He shifted slightly.

“The news reached us quickly,” he said, studying her face. “Your brother’s death must have been a heavy blow.”

“Yes.” Her hands curled into fists. Behind her, Jonathan stepped a little closer as if to offer silent support.

The master apothecary slowly nodded.

“It was a blow to the Society as well, of course,” he said. “We will recover, but both Patrick and Lloyd were deeply involved in our work.”

Around them, some of the conversations stilled when people caught the names and realized just what this was about.

“I know that,” Sarah said. “Both Jonathan-” the other mage grimly nodded, “- and I regret that we couldn’t stop Magus Rimtori.”

“I don’t suppose you could tell me what happened, even in private?” Faranell said, motioning at the open room and the apothecaries who didn’t even try to hide that they were listening.

Sarah pursed her mouth. Both she and Jonathan shook their heads.

“You must believe me, Master Faranell,” Sarah said, lowering her voice, “what happened was something so shocking, that Lady Sylvanas must decide whether it can be known to all.”

He gave her a long, hard look.

“This elf…” he finally said, “is it true that she found a way to imprison your soul and control your body like a puppet?”

“Yes.” Sarah placed a tone of finality, but also honest dread in that single word. Dor’ash had told her that the other Forsaken in Azshara had actually sounded frightened at the sight of her animated body, and Rimtori’s attempt to draw more souls. She knew from experience that they had ample reason to have been afraid.

Being undead had its uses – she would never sleep, and therefore never have nightmares about being trapped in that glass ball. Neither of the things that happened before that.

Some of the listeners nervously growled, and Faranell nodded. He, and they, would read into that answer and draw their own conclusions about what the elf had done, and why Patrick and Lloyd were dead.

“Master Faranell,” Jonathan said in a low voice, stepping closer, “I must confess my guilt to you and all the higher apothecaries. When I learned that Sarah had been taken captive, I sought Master Patrick out for help. I hoped only that he would gather soldiers to our aid, and I never dreamed that he would chose to take part in the fighting himself.” He bowed his head. “Not only did I fail to defend him against the elf’s trap, it was my fault that he was there in the first place.”

“Who could’ve known-”

Sarah stopped herself and touched his arm, shaking her head.

“No, that’s true,” Faranell agreed, grimly but not unkindly. “We all knew what he was capable of.” He turned to Sarah again. “My condolences, and those of the other higher apothecaries as well. I know how loyal you were to your brother.”

“Yes, Sarah, I know you don’t want to hear about our lives, but you’re going to hear me out about this one thing.” He smiles. Forsaken aren't known to do that often, but he seems to do it all the time.

“I owed him a great deal,” she said, bowing her head to hide her expression. “I could never repay my debt to him.”

“He forgave you, didn’t he?” Faranell said.

“He said so,” she replied, head still bowed, “but I always felt as if he never truly could, even after all he did for me after he found me awakened. I tried-” she paused and gnashed her teeth audibly, then snarled, bitterly, “and now this!”

“So that you know where you and I stand with each other.” She recalls seeing him smile like that when he watched the twitching rat in the cage. Only now, his lips stretch wider. She wants to tell him to shut up, but she knows that she would regret it. He is not in the mood to be told what to do, not this time.

“A loss for all of us, indeed,” Faranell agreed.

“How great is the damage of this loss, Sir?” Jonathan asked. “They did have assistants that can take over their work, I hope?”

“Yes, do not worry about that.” The master apothecary looked at Sarah, who had straightened up a little bit. “It would have been suitable to have you pick up Patrick’s legacy, but I’m afraid your skills simply don’t support such a promotion in the Society.”

Sarah shook her head.

“No, Master Faranell,” she said, “I full well know that I could never measure up to Patrick’s talent. I’ll continue to work in the field.”

“You were the smallest and the weakest of all of us. So when the plague came, you were the one who died first.”

“Is there any poison that needs immediate testing?” she added as an afterthought, jaw clenched.

Faranell snorted, but as he did so he nodded understanding.

“I do believe we may have something,” he said. “Come back here after you have spoken with Lady Sylvanas and I’ll have the vials prepared for transport.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“And because of that, you were the first one to rise up again. I was sick too, by then, but…”

Sarah took a step back and bowed her head.

“We must report to Lady Sylvanas, so we better go,” she said.

“Of course. I’ll be waiting.”

Waving them off, though politely, Faranell turned back to his experiments. Sarah and Jonathan turned too, walking towards the stairs and up the steps leading out of the research lab. Some glowing, yellow gazes followed them for a little while, but then the apothecaries all returned to their duties.

When they were out, and walking along the bubbling green slime filling the canals of the Undercity, Jonathan touched Sarah’s shoulder. They exchanged glances, didn’t dare to snicker or smile in relief in case somebody watched, but the understanding was there.

Phew.

They walked for a few more steps, and Jonathan’s hand slipped away, before he spoke.

“Does your orc even know that you’re in the Society?”

“No.” She shook her head, pursing her mouth. “There are many things it’s best he doesn’t know about.”

“You killed me, Sarah.”

Jonathan nodded slowly. A lumbering abomination passed them, each step underlined with the splat and slurp of moving, exposed intestines. It matched the lazy bubbling of the slime.

“You’re coddling him,” Jonathan commented.

“What he doesn’t know won’t make him think unpleasant things about me,” Sarah said, daring a disdainful sneer.

“You owe me. Don’t you agree, little sister?”

The other mage snorted, half smirking too. Sarah might or might not believe that he was actually fooled by her talking like that about Dor’ash.

He never was.

And Patrick falls silent, and he smiles still.

A steady stream of messengers always waited for audience outside of the Royal Quarters. There were people of all the Horde’s races, though, of course, mostly Forsaken. Blood elves came second in numbers. It made Sarah’s fingers twitch.

The small, Forsaken cleric Jonathan and Sarah spoke with did not move a muscle when they explained that they needed to speak with Lady Sylvanas alone. At their insistence, he finally conceded to pass this wish on to the Banshee Queen, and she would decide whether or not it would be granted.

They could only hope.

After they returned from the Apothecarium, the mages waited for nearly two hours before they were admitted to see Lady Sylvanas. A small group of guards silently brought the couple through the large, circular room where the queen and Varimathras usually resided, and through a small door hidden behind one of the dark curtains on the wall.

The fact that Varimathras wasn’t in the audience hall either did not feel very reassuring, as the question then was where exactly he had gone.

A short corridor on the other side of the door led to another, smaller room. In a way, it was not much different from the audience hall save the size – circular and similarly designed. Lady Sylvanas stood in the center of it, on a round stone podium. Her bow and quiver of arrows hung over her back, always ready for a battle.

Cruel, red eyes gazed down from below her hood, as Jonathan and Sarah kneeled down at the edge of the podium, bowing their heads towards the floor.

“For your sake, this better be important,” the Dark Lady said. “I do not usually meet with just anybody in here.”

“I swear, my Queen,” Jonathan said, and Sarah murmured agreement. “We would never make such an audacious request unless it was important.”

“Hmm.”

The sound of feet clacking against the floor, leaving, and then the door closing announced that the guards left.

“Now,” Sylvanas said, as cold as before, “what is this crucial report you have to give me in private?”

Sarah began the story, as she had been involved from the very beginning. Only as they reached the gathering of troops and battle in Azshara did Jonathan take over, then the two of them interchanged as suited the report.

They twisted the truth as they had planned together – in this version, Patrick’s doomguard also attacked Jonathan, as he was not of the Society and when Sarah questioned this, she was branded a traitor of Varimathras’ cause. From there they only defended themselves.

Sylvanas said nothing, and for a moment after Sarah finally ended the story there was silence. The two mages still had not looked up. They could not gauge any reaction from the look on the Lady’s face.

Finally she spoke, voice expressionless.

“And this orc, who is he?”

“Dor’ash Coldbane is a shaman of the Frostwolf clan, my Queen,” Sarah said. “He is in Orgrimmar now, reporting this to the Warchief. Forgive us, there was no way to stop him from going there, not without notice.”

Jonathan nodded, silent.

“That,” Sylvanas said, voice low and dangerous, “will put a strain on our alliance with the orcs.”

“Forgive us, Dark Lady,” Jonathan echoed Sarah. “For what it is worth, Coldbane seemed to accept the truth that those warlocks were only interested in Varimathras’ favor.”

“Even so, it will give the Warchief reason to doubt our loyalty to the Horde,” Sylvanas said. “Thrall can be reasoned with. However, if this Coldbane spreads this story amongst our allies, it will become a problem.”

It was useless to claim that Dor’ash wasn’t one to gossip.

Sarah’s blackened tongue wet her cold lips. Technically needless, a nervous habit she couldn’t remember from life. As she spoke again, she bowed her head even lower.

“My Queen, if I may be so bold… if you wish for Coldbane to be silenced, please allow me to handle it.”

Silence.

None of them needed to breathe, and nobody moved.

“Why should I grant this request?” Sylvanas finally asked. There were no feelings to be read in her voice, not even curiosity.

Sarah still did not move.

“Coldbane has been of great use to me in my travels,” she said. “For that, should you desire his passing, I wish to grant him the mercy of a quick death.”

“If he is a shaman, do you honestly believe that you could deal with him alone?”

“He is fool enough to sleep in my presence.” Sarah’s hard fingertips scratched softly against the cold stone floor, only the whisper of a sound. “The spirits may warn him, but if in enemy territory I should have no problem poisoning him.”

“But he must have many friends in the Horde who knows that he travels with a Forsaken,” Sylvanas said. “You may come under suspicion if he disappears, and thus, since he has already shared the tale of what happened in Azshara, so would we all. It would only make the situation worse.”

Hesitance? Not in her voice. No. Planning for silence. How to go about it.

“I have travelled into dangerous territory with him before, my Queen,” Sarah said. She had not rehearsed saying any of this, but she had always known what to say when the need came. “If we went into the Plaguelands, or Tanaris, or even Outland or any such region, nobody would think twice if neither of us were ever seen again by any orc, troll or tauren.”

“Not the Plaguelands,” Sylvanas said. “That is too close to our territory, it would seem suspicious.”

“Yes, my Queen,” Sarah said, still as a statue.

Silence settled over the dark room once again. The two kneeling figures waited for their undead elf queen to make her decision, and they could have waited for days if need be.

Finally, Sylvanas spoke again.

“You have done well to report this possible betrayal to me. Varimathras shall not know of it.”

“Thank you, my Queen.”

Jonathan and Sarah spoke in near union.

“As for the orc, the damage is already done with his report to the Warchief,” Sylvanas said. “If he died now, even under likely circumstances, it would be a cause of distrust we cannot afford for the time being.”

Bony fingertips stroke the floor. Twitchy, tiny motions. Despite the distance, the Banshee Queen might still have seen it.

“Rather than silencing him right away, it would be wise to keep him alive for a while,” Sylvanas continued. “But you will deal with him the moment I say so.”

“On your word, my Queen,” Sarah said, voice as steady as ever. “I will not fail you.”

“Very well. You may both go.”

“Thank you, Dark Lady.”

Though neither one of them would admit it, leaving the Royal Quarter felt like walking out of a prison. Still no sight of Varimathras either – later they would learn that he had been out, spying and stretching his wings. At least, that was his usual excuse. No one could say if it was true or if he had other plans.

With much lighter steps than when they had walked towards the audience chambers, Sarah and Jonathan headed away, and onwards to the Trading Quarter and a tavern. Alcohol might not do much for them, but some things simply demand a drink.

The relief lasted, but as they sat down and drank in silence, it began to stretch and thin.

Sarah didn’t see how Jonathan watched her over the brim of his mug.

“Copper for your thoughts,” he said after a moment. When she glanced up, he had organized his face to look perfectly calm.

Shrugging, Sarah held out her hand to demand payment. He reached into a pocket and then dropped a small, brown coin in her palm, smirk on the remains of his lips.

“Just trying not to lay up a strategy,” Sarah said once she had added the copper to her bag of money. “I don’t understand exactly how the spirits work, but I better not give them a chance to read my mind.”

“They would be wise to stay far away from that, methinks,” Jonathan said.

“Heh!”

Their mugs clashed, and they drank to Jonathan’s wisdom. It was the last time they ever spoke of that business. Sarah never did realize – perhaps due to wishful thinking, or awareness of how all her fellow Forsaken normally viewed life – that Jonathan knew. Always knew. Yet he remained silent about it, never commented, never tried to talk “sense” with her.

There are simply things which a man has to realize he has no business meddling with.

Sarah relaxed after the toast, and soon they were trading nasty jokes.

Her mind, however, burned with the exact knowledge of the tactic she would use to deal with Dor’ash, the day her queen ordered her to.

Knowing that oaf, she may very well have to fight him while telling him what he needed to know. Otherwise, he might not get anything done like he should. But it should not be too much of a problem to give him space enough to smash her to bits after learning that he had to go into hiding from the Forsaken. The most important thing would be to make sure no spying extra assassin trailed them when the time came.

You can’t do that. He’ll never slink away and be safe, he’ll make it to Orgrimmar and you will have betrayed your people.

I will tell him to burn my remains. I will be gone forever. It won’t matter then.

And I really don’t like any elves.

Sarah laughed at one of Jonathan’s jokes, one dipping dangerously into the not work safe territory, and shoved him off his chair when he started to dig the story even deeper. Cackling, he climbed back up and waved at the ghastly bartender for another drink.

Watching his back, Sarah let her smirk drop for a moment.

She had already decided, long ago, that she wanted Dor’ash to save her from the Lich King the day she began to fade out of her own control again. The final result was the same.

I won’t die forsaken.

The End.