Netherbane: Returns, Part VI

The two Lightforged Atonai stood in the open clearing nestled among the ruins of Forest Song. Malfias remembered the female, Jhaara. He had met her a few nights previously, when the worgen druid had introduced them. She had an interesting outlook on the world, having an obvious hole in her memories positioned squarely over the time prior to her lightforging. The lack of her own history meant that she acted far less experienced than she may have actually been. There was no way to know until she gained access to her old memories, of course, but Malfias had an inkling that Jhaara had once been one of the Burning Legion—perhaps even a servant at the Outer Gates. He had found her unease at his probing questions amusing. 

Her revelation that his only son, Arcadius, was one of these atonai, too, however, quelled any joy he may have gotten from Jhaara’s discomfort. She spoke of an obedience to Arcadius that had seeded the question of Jhaara’s origins in Malfias’s mind, and her references to him were made with an underlying layer of fear. That Arcadius still engendered this reaction gave Malfias hope that his son had not been entirely erased, but the very thought of any spawn of his flesh serving the Light was… concerning. The very existence of the atonai had been unknown to Malfias prior to that day, and it was on the same day he learned that his son held a position of leadership among them.

We are eredar who seek to atone for the sins of our past, Jhaara had said. Malfias had laughed at the very idea. The eredar, as a race, had sinned far more against the cosmos than any form of atonement could ever hope to mitigate. The very concept was foolish to him. Yet, of course, here stood two of these atonai, ready to escort him back to their temple of Atonar… where his son waited for his arrival.

The other, the male, Malfias had not met. He was, he could only assume, the pilot of the bronze-hued pyramid of a vessel that hovered over Tharion Greyseer’s camp. The pulsating thrum of its power core could be felt more than heard, vibrating the soft ground and stone ruins nearby. It created an unexpected resonance with the draenei crystals scattered around the small gathering of Outland refugees, singing a song of layered hums and chimes. In his younger days, Malfias would have found it maddening. Now, he simply found it irritating.

The kaldorei were nowhere to be seen. It was late afternoon, however, and the night elves were likely still hidden and resting. How they could rest with such a deeply resonant noise eluded the former demon lord, but he did not pretend to fully understand the ways of the nocturnal hunters.

The ship above them was tiered—made up of five levels stacked atop one another, with the ones on top smaller than the ones below. The uppermost tier was a crystalline cap that appeared to be a viewport for what Malfias assumed was the thing’s command bridge. The former demon lord noticed that the ship did not shine like other Lightforged vessels. It was not a beacon of shimmering holy Light, but neither was it a smear of fel-green against the twilight sky of Ashenvale forest, either. It was somewhere in between. Curious.

“You are Malfias, hmm?” The male Lightforged stepped forward and extended a burly hand. He was muscular, but smaller than the former demon lord. “I am Kalasar. I was the one assigned to find you.”

“Is that so?” Malfias raised an amused eyebrow. “I believe your partner found me before you did.”

Kalasar opened his mouth to retort, but thought better of it. His expression soured as he looked over his shoulder at Jhaara. He smoothed it over quickly before returning his attention to Malfias with a confident smile. “We were a team, lord. Her victory is my victory, yes?”

“Yes. Of course.” Chuckling, Malfias nodded. “This is your vessel, then?”

Kalasar’s empty smile was replaced with a genuine one. “Ah,yes! It is. The Far Horizon has been my ship since I left Argus. It is a source of pride. It is also my home.”

Malfias nodded his appreciation. “I remember the design. While ancient, it was still one of the more effective of our smaller conveyances. Though, it has been more than one lifetime since I have seen one in its original colors.”

“It has taken much work. When I took ownership, it was the fel-green with which you are likely familiar.” Kalasar frowned. “I have been replacing hull segments over time. It has only recently been restored this far.”

“I would say that I’m impressed,” Malfias glanced at the ship. “But, unless the previous hull was damaged, that statement would be a lie. Instead, I say that the effort has been a waste of your time. The Legion-made panels were far superior to the originals.”

Kalasar’s frown faded, and the sour expression returned. “I did not wish to be blasted out of the Great Dark, demon lord. And that is the fate of most things that look like they come from your fallen Legion.”

Malfias’s own smile faded, and he nodded in acquiescence to Kalasar. The lightforged atonai straightened his back in what Malfias could only assume was pride at his little victory. So be it. Let them have what little they can take.

“Yes, well…” Jhaara spoke up as she approached the two. “I prefer the ship in this color, anyway. It is closer to the Light.”

Kalasar did not reply, but simply turned around and stepped toward an inverted spire that extended from the center of the pyramid’s underside. He reached up and touched a few of the embedded crystals in a specific pattern, and the spire unraveled itself into a set of eight crystal finger-like protrusions. A bright orb of energy manifested between the tips of the fingers, and it quickly expanded to reveal what appeared to be the interior of the vessel.

“I am glad you decided to come with us, demon lord,” Jhaara said, stepping next to Malfias as they both watched Kalasar open the ship’s access portal. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t have my doubts about your sincerity.”

“Since the Legion’s fall, Jhaara,” Malfias kept his gaze on the vessel hovering over them both. “I frown upon the use of deception. Truth provides a stronger foundation upon which to build an effective defense.”

“Against the Outer Gates, you mean?”

The former demon lord turned to look at Jhaara. “Against any enemy.” 

“You believe that your son may be your enemy? Did he not serve at the Gates with you?”

“I am not yet certain that he is even still my son, atonai,” Malfias replied. “He guarded the Northern Gate under my command, yes. But with all four now open, I trust very little. So, yes, he could be an enemy. As could you.”

“...me? But have I not done well in my negotiations?” Jhaara’s expression was a mixture of disappointment and confusion.

“You have served the purpose you were meant to serve.” Malfias turned away from the female and resumed watching the other one finish opening the vessel’s portal. “I am sure your superiors will find you a useful tool because of it.”

* * *

Weeks aboard the Far Horizon had gone mostly without incident. Mostly. 

The lower, and largest, level of Kalasar’s vessel was reserved for his swarm of companion creatures. Apparently, the aqir-like beasts had been part of a hive found on the remnants of the shattered world of Atonar—the home of the atonai temple. As such, the lowest level of the ship was full of skittering, insectoid entities that saw anyone who was not Kalasar as a possible meal. Both Jhaara and Malfias had found themselves under threat from the largest of the things—a beast Kalasar had named Imperion.

“I did warn you about trespassing, did I not?” Kalasar had said in admonition. “Imperion is very protective of his hive. That… and his inability to find a new queen could be the reason for his recent over-aggression. Stay away this time if you value your insides, hmm?”

Malfias had heeded the warning for the rest of the voyage.

The former demon lord found himself in isolated meditation for the rest of the time. Jhaara, while cordial, made it a point to avoid Malfias whenever she could. She would take alternating hallways and avoid rooms that he occupied. The old eredar had found it amusing at first, but it quickly became irritating. She was not even trying to hide it.

Kalasar, on the other hand, seemed more than happy to ramble incessantly. He spoke most often about his ship: why he had chosen its name, how difficult it was to find the original hull plates, what Legion-specific modifications still remained beneath each of the control panels, battles that it had been in—and won—and any other piece of minutiae he could conjure up.  Malfias soon found it preferable when Kalasar became occupied with either control of the vessel or maintenance of Imperion’s tiny hive. It was blessedly quiet. 

Malfias thus spent most of the multi-week trip alone. He was rather surprised when Kalasar announced that they had finally arrived at Atonar. It was a much shorter voyage than he had anticipated.

The world was little more than a rock floating across the Great Dark Beyond. It had once been whole, or so it could only be assumed, but was now just a fragment of planetary mass. Devoid of any sort of atmosphere, the earth that made up Atonar was brown and appeared lifeless. Scattered remains of structures clung to the far corners of the island, but even these appeared to have been overrun by protruding stones. Upon closer inspection, however, Malfias saw that these stones were actually towers of some insectoid hive structure—likely the one from which Imperion and his swarm originated.

The faded lump of rock was given color by ribbons of undulating energy that wafted lazily across what served as a sky. These trails of power, shreds of the forces that made up the very fabric of existence, looped around would-be mountains and through basins that used to hold lakes. As broken as the place appeared, it still held an immense beauty. Even Malfias could appreciate the sense of holiness that it evoked.

To the north—if north even truly existed on this piece of stellar detritus—stood a tall and beautiful temple structure. Three spires reached up to the stars, towering above the floating rock and able to see far past the truncated horizon of the world’s remains. The central-most tower was the tallest, and the top of it shone with a golden light. The east and west towers radiated violet and emerald, respectively. There appeared to be the remains of a fourth, and possibly a fifth, tower behind the shorter two. However, they appeared to have been reduced to nothing more than rubble.

The structural design of the entire temple, as alien as it seemed at first, spoke of an origin that echoed influences found in old eredar and modern draenei architecture. Crystalline spire caps and hovering glyphs depicting both Light and Void entities could be picked out at a distance, and there were even things that felt more primordial nestled among the iconography of the ancient place. Just how long had the atonai existed? Malfias wondered.

Kalasar had parked his vessel in an open field just under the watchful shadow of the central tower. There were no other vessels here, and Malfias guessed that ships aside from the Far Horizon were rare. Atonar did not look like it received many visitors.

“You are the first man’ari eredar to come here willingly in many eons, demon lord,” Kalasar said as he stepped out of his ship’s access portal and onto Atonar’s dry ground. “At least, the first who harbored no intention of attacking.”

Jhaara stepped out of the portal then. She stepped over to stand on the other side of Kalasar, opposite Malfias. She said nothing as she kept her gaze locked upon the upper spire of the temple.

“How many times has this place been assaulted?” Malfias asked, his curiosity getting the best of him.

“The Legion tried to invade it a handful of times. We were able to repel them, but not without cost.” Kalasar pointed past the two side towers, to what Malfias could only assume were the shattered remnants hidden behind them. “The Army of the Light attacked us once, too. We negotiated a truce.” His finger shifted over to the top of the central tower, and the golden light almost seemed to brighten as he did so.

“You let them take over.” Malfias frowned.

“We did not, no. The temple, however, did.” Kalasar replied, lowering his arm. The Lightforged atonai began walking forward to a set of doors that appeared to be the main entrance. “Come. Let us meet your son.”

Malfias nodded and followed. Jhaara waited for a few seconds before taking up the rear.

* * *

“It is good to see you again, father,” Arcadius’s smile should have been filled with warmth, but it was not. Few man’ari eredar were capable of smiling with warmth any longer, but Arcadius was no more man’ari—corrupted—than Malfias was atonai. “I am glad to know my agents were able to find you so swiftly.”

“I cannot say the same, Arcadius,” Malfias frowned. “I thought you dead. Now I find that you’ve accepted a reforging into the Light. The former fate would have been preferable.”

Arcadius chuckled. It, too, lacked any sense of warmth. It was a laugh meant only to be a laugh—a fragment of verbal punctuation that existed only because it seemed like an appropriate response. “It is impossible for you to truly know which is preferable, especially in times such as these. You do not yet understand my motivations.”

Malfias furrowed his brow. “The female you sent after me, Jhaara. She said you desired to know the key to unlocking the Gatewatchers.”

“She was not wrong,” Arcadius turned away from his father and stepped over to a carved stone console inset into a thick pedestal lined with countless glowing crystals. The entire chamber in which they stood was bedecked with faceted gems of varying colors. It’s form mirrored the outside of the temple—shapes and patterns that suggested ancient eredar influence, but perhaps something far older than that, too. Pieces of broken stonework laid upon the floor in many of the five corners, evidence that it had suffered during at least one of the earlier attacks mentioned by Kalasar.

Arcadius, whose silvery robes shone with an ethereal blue light, worked the crystal controls upon the console, and a holographic image manifested around them.

“I suspected that you had found one of their vaults,” Malfias said, watching the image materialize. “The reforging process did not erase that much from you, at least.”

“My reforging erased nothing of me, father,” Arcadius replied without turning around. He continued working the controls. “I am now as I have been. The only change is the energy that binds my powers.”

Malfias walked around the image that hovered just in front of him. It revealed row upon row of metal-clad soldiers. Each had the compound legs and tails of the eredar. Some were bulky, like the males, while others were slender and lithe, like the females. None had visible faces, however. Those were all locked behind a metallic visor of some sort. All were unmoving.

The Gatewatchers were made up of eredar defiants. The Defiant Project had begun before Argus fell to Sargeras. Malfias had been a part of it, helping work through the enchantment threads necessary to craft their specialized armor. The defiants were made as an alternative to the vigilants. 

Eredar, and subsequently draenei, vigilants were artificial constructs built to harbor the souls of the dead. They powered and controlled the machines, giving the bound soul an ability to continue to serve in the mortal realms. The rituals used to bind them were complex and required a significant level of effort to perform. In addition, the passage of time was unkind to the vigilants, with many having their souls fade entirely. Still others fell to a sort of mechanical madness from which death was the only release.

The defiants were created as a less intense alternative. Mortally wounded eredar were bound into enchanted pieces of armor, and these pieces helped to maintain the slender thread of lifeforce still within the body. An eredar defiant was much easier to create, as the armor itself could be enchanted and then stored away before being placed upon a willing host body. One did not need the specialized skill set of a soulbinder to create a defiant. One just needed a wounded eredar on the verge of death.

However, when the eredar became a part of the Burning Legion, the defiants, as well as the vigilants, fell out of favor. What use was there in allowing a wounded being to persist in life when they could be reborn in the Twisting Nether instead? Those man’ari eredar who were mortally wounded in battle were often just killed by their peers outright. Their rebirth did not require the efforts of a soulbinder nor an armorer.

Malfias himself had led the effort to salvage the last remaining army of defiants and have them repurposed to protect the Outer Gates. The defiants he was able to claim were all reclassified as ‘Gatewatchers’, and they were stored away in stasis vaults for later deployment. However, internal power politics prevented that deployment, and the Gatewatcher army remained in stasis. Even to this day, apparently.

“How many of the vaults did you discover?” Malfias asked, his eyes locked on the image as he circled it.

“All of them,” Arcadius replied as he turned himself back around. “Because of the Legion’s fall, I now have access to all five vaults. All one-hundred thousand Gatewatchers are mine.”

Malfias’s frown deepened as he turned to look over his shoulder. “You say that nothing of you was erased, but my son knew the key to command the Gatewatchers.” The former demon lord turned to face his child. “How is it that you need me to give it to you now?”

“To be clear, father.” Arcadius raised a finger as a gesture of clarity. “I said that my reforging erased nothing of me. The Mother of Worms took much more after that.” The atonai pulled back the sleeve of his raised arm and yanked his glove off. Instead of flesh and blood, Arcadius’s hand was formed out of the same ethereal blue glow that surrounded him. A scarred mass of flesh formed the base of the wrist, pockmarked with holes and half-healed skin and bone.

“She took your flesh. What of your soul?”

“Still my own,” Arcadius answered, pulling his glove back over the missing hand and letting his sleeve fall back into place. “But my resistance caused her to take pieces of my mind instead: my memories. Flesh can be reshaped. Memories cannot while remaining true. That is why I needed you.”

Malfias nodded. “She took pieces of my soul and pieces of my power. She left my flesh, yet I am still marked.” Turning the rest of the way around, the former demon lord mirrored Arcadius’s previous gesture. He raised his hand, pulled down his sleeve, and removed his glove. While he still retained his physical hand, there was a clear symbol burned into the skin upon the back of the palm: a pair of purple worms intertwined in a figure-eight, each one eating the other’s tail.

Arcadius nodded as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “We have both been touched by the Silence, then.”

“We have, yes.” Malfias confirmed. “But your scars do not make me trust your motivations any more now than I did when I first arrived. Why do you desire to control an army of a hundred-thousand defiants, Arcadius?”

“My reforging was done by my own choice, father. I was not swayed to their cause by some rousing speech, nor was I forced into the Forge of Atonement against my will. It was a choice I made with utmost clarity and purpose. You can be certain of that.”

“The Forge of Atonement?”

Arcadius nodded. “It is the artifact that gives this temple—this entire world—its name. It was found buried in the caverns of stone that still remain below.”

“And it is what… ‘reforged’... you?”

“It is.” Arcadius replied. “And it is what galvanizes me into pursuing my purpose.”

“Your purpose? You mean as an atonai. ‘To try and atone for what we have done’?”

Arcadius smiled his hollow smile. “Some could call it that, yes. You, however, would know it better as ‘our duty’. Oftentimes two paths lead to the same destination, despite traveling through different terrain.”

Malfias raised an eyebrow and then looked again at the holographic image of the Gatewatcher army. “You believe that this state will allow you to fight against the Gates on better terms?”

“It will allow me to fight against the Gates using different terms.” Arcadius’s smile widened. “There are risks to this state that I did not have in my previous one—the Mother’s Whispers seem to have a taste for light-infused flesh, for example—but there are advantages, too.”

“Such as?”

“The Legion is no more. Our infinite pool of resources was taken from us. In this state, I am far more capable of recruiting soldiers for the new battles to come.”

Malfias grunted. His son was right. With the fall of Kil’jaeden and Sargeras, any member of the Burning Legion was being hunted. Shattered fragments of the once infinite army still lurked out in the Twisting Nether, each rallying under its own would-be demon lord. Where the power struggles were not causing the demon remnants to kill each other, the Legion survivors were being eradicated by those who once existed under their boot. These atonai seemed to have created a refuge for themselves under the banner of atonement. It was, as far as he could see, working.

“You know as well as I, father, that we cannot stand against the Gates alone. We need others.” Arcadius gestured to the hovering image. “And this is why I need the Gatewatchers. Four gates. Twenty-thousand to each, and the last twenty-thousand stationed here, on Atonar.”

Malfias stared at his son for a few long moments, considering his next choice.

Arcadius smiled again. Still no warmth. “Come now. What is there left to lose? Your precious Legion is gone. The threat of me using this army to attack them is an empty worry. Even the demon lords who still vie for power are too embroiled in their own conflict to realize what’s happening. By the time they pull their attention away from their own selfish agendas, the Things Beyond the Gates will have consumed them all. You know this as well as I, father. What remains of them… is not worth your concern.”

“But your atonai are?”

“They are not my atonai.” Arcadius frowned this time. There appeared to be genuine disappointment in that expression. “But no. They are not worth your concern, either. The cosmos, however, is.”

“Our duty.”

“Our duty, yes.” The atonai waved one of his gloved hands and the holographic image of the Gatewatcher defiants vanished upon strands of wispy light. “That is all that should remain important to us, should it not? To all who bear the title, ‘Sovereign of the Outer Gates’?”

Malfias nodded. “Very well. Let us return the Gatewatchers to consciousness. Let them step into the roles for which they were meant.”

Arcadius nodded and smiled. It was filled with a frightening satisfaction.