Dawn of the Aspects: Part IV by Richard A. Knaak

Author:Richard A. Knaak [Knaak, Richard A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Warcraft, Video & Electronic, General, Science Fiction, Games, Fiction, Media Tie-In, War of the Ancients
Publisher: Pocket Star
Published: 2013-05-20T03:00:00+00:00

FOUR

WITHIN THE NEXUS

Jaina glared at the offending books. She had exhausted a repertoire of spells designed for such delicate searches, to no avail. Now the archmage considered stronger measures, her only hesitation being that Modera or someone else would certainly notice her presence then. Still, every second lost might also mean further danger to Kalec.

She had to take the risk of discovery. Her mind made up, Jaina began casting—and then halted. Atop one bookcase sat the skull of an ancient, savage reptile that she had inherited with a number of unusual and arcane objects from her predecessor, Rhonin. While in itself it meant nothing to Jaina, it caused her mind to shift back abruptly to the huge skeleton and her encounter with Buniq. She saw again how the taunka drew the pattern. Only at this moment did Jaina ponder the fact that the taunka had had a very precise memory for a symbol like nothing she would have seen before. At the time, the archmage had chalked it up to the focused nature of Buniq’s kind, but now she wondered if it had been something more.

Were you really a taunka? Jaina asked the distant Buniq. I shouldn’t have believed in coincidence.

Jaina drew the symbol in the air. She then turned it about so that she looked at it as it had been drawn by the hunter.

“What a fool I’ve been!” the archmage blurted. She bit her lip, then simply prayed that no one had heard her. She eyed the reversed symbol, seeing it anew.

Had she paid more attention when first seeing it by the skeleton, Jaina would have noticed that turning it revealed a different and obvious meaning. Turned this way, the symbol was also a key.

Or, rather, the key. Jaina cast the reversed symbol over the original tome. The archmage watched as it sank into the book.

The lavender glow faded not only from the book in question but also from the entire collection.

Jaina seized the thick tome and began flipping through the pages. There, where she had expected to find the information she needed, she finally found it. The archmage carefully read over the passage.

When together, the two parts were more than the sum of their individual measure. Their power magnified. Archmage Wendol suggested that there were also other combinations that the pair could make but that the immense time since their creation had caused some of those combinations to function in error—

Jaina shut the book. “Yes . . . that must be it.”

Voices arose outside her chambers. Jaina quietly swore at her outbursts. She should have known that Modera would have someone listening for any sign of her return.

But discovery mattered no longer. Jaina believed that she had what she needed. The archmage set down the book . . . and vanished.

She materialized a few seconds later just beyond the magical boundaries of the Nexus, the humming accompanying her teleportation spell fading away even as she registered her location. Jaina frowned upon seeing where she had appeared; the archmage was far from her intended goal.

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