Free The Sundering by Richard A. Knaak Page A

on one matter at a time. While his heart yearned to rescue Tyrande, the fate of all his people—and the tauren, Earthen, and others—was of far more consequence. She would have been the first to tell him so.
    It did not make his feeling of guilt any less.
    Can I learn quickly how to do this? he asked of the demigod.
    You, yes. It is all only a matter of perspective … see …
    The image gestured … and around the pair an idyllic landscape appeared. It was without imperfection. Malfurion recognized hills and valleys that in the mortal plane had been ravaged beyond recognition by the Burning Legion. The Emerald Dream was as the world had been upon its creation.
    The druid looked, but saw nothing he had not already experienced previous.
    You note the culmination, but even perfection comes in stages. Behold …
    Cenarius reached down, his hand gigantic as it touched the pristine world. The forest lord seized a bit of field—and seemed to flip the entire landscape over.
    It vanished as he released his grip and in its place was again a primitive Kalimdor, but a Kalimdor in which some new, subtle differences from the previous landcape could be seen. Hills were not as large in some places and a river Malfurion knew did not flow into quite the same region as before. There was a small mountain chain where plains should have existed.
    Before the creation, there was the growth, the testing, the earlier stages. This is one.
    It was and was not the Emerald Dream. The druid recognized immediately that this was a place of limited scope—and, therefore, use—a Kalimdor that would not enable him to reach every location existing on the mortal plane.
    Yet … Cenarius believed it could help him with the black dragon.
    The looming figure of the woodland deity pointed off in the distance. Walk it as you would the other, Malfurion, but remain clear of its edges. It is an incomplete place and to wander off it could mean being lost in an endless limbo. I speak of this from dread experience.
    Cenarius said no more, but his meaning was clear. If Malfurion lost his way, there would be no rescue.
    Despite that dread knowledge, the night elf was determined to continue on. How do I return?
    As you always have. Seek to follow your way back to your physical self. The path will become known to you.
    All so simple … providing one had the training as he did.
    Cenarius’s image began to fade. Malfurion stopped him.
    The others, he said, referring to the forest lord’s fellow demigods. Have you been able to convince them?
    Aviana has spoken alongside me. The die is cast. We must now only decide how.
    Malfurion barely checked his disappointment. He had been pressing for the demigods to take a more active part in the host’s desperate efforts and, while Cenarius had just indicated that his fellows had agree to do so, now they would debate the manner. With such beings, that debate might last long past the struggle. Kalimdor could be an empty, dead shell before then.
    Fear not, Malfurion, the forest lord said, smiling knowingly. I shall endeavor to hasten their decision.
    The druid had left open his innermost thoughts, a beginner’s mistake. Forgive me! I meant no disrespect! I—
    Cenarius, already fading, shook his antlered head. He pointed a finger—a finger which ended in a gnarled talon of wood—and concluded, There is no disrespect in trying to urge those suffering from sloth to fulfill their duties …
    With that, the stag god vanished.
    The druid had expected to return to his body and inform the others of what he had learned, but the unfinished landscape Cenarius had revealed to him already lay open. Malfurion feared that if he took the time to first return to the mortal plane, it might prove more difficult than the demigod believed for him to find his way back to this version of early Kalimdor.
    Unwilling to check his impulse any longer, he leapt. As with the path Malfurion usually took, the hazy, emerald light still pervaded everything. In