World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm Page 0,59
to stagger backward, but his feet were held as if rooted in place. No, not rooted … Anduin realized his black boots were turning almost translucent, as if they were suddenly made of glass—as if his feet themselves were suddenly made of glass—
—or crystal … or diamond …
One with the mountain …
No, oh, no, it couldn’t be—
Suddenly Magni’s foot quivered and a bulge of clear stone formed atop it. Like a living ooze of rock, it began moving upward, along his legs, his torso. It spiked here and there with a sudden groaning sound, forming long crystal spears, as if Magni Bronzebeard was a crystal forming crystals of his own. Magni opened his mouth in a long, wordless cry and lifted his arms high over his head. Diamond ooze scurried to wrap around his hands, shooting out to encircle his body. Magni screamed, a gut-wrenching cry of pure horror. But the merciless clear liquid stone poured into his mouth, silencing him in midscream, hardening so quickly he didn’t even have time to close his eyes.
Everyone had been staring, open-mouthed, but now was galvanized into action by the sound, echoing in the diamond cavern, bone-chilling, like no cry of pain or horror they had ever heard.
Rohan began to cast healing spells. Magellas and Belgrum moved forward, seizing Magni’s arms, trying foolishly to somehow pull him away from where he stood. But it had all happened too fast, and now it was too late. The echoes of his single shout died away. Magni looked like he had been both turned to stone and encased in it, his head thrown back, his arms spread, the tendons in his neck standing out in pain. And over him, like some bizarre costume, were ragged, gleaming chunks of jagged crystal.
Anduin broke the shocked silence. “Is he … can you …”
Rohan stepped close to Magni, placing a hand on his king’s arm and closing his eyes. A single tear leaked beneath the closed lids as he stepped away, shaking his head.
Anduin stared. Disbelief rushed through him, the same disbelief he had experienced after the land trembled and buried Aerin beneath the crushing weight of tons of rock. But … this wasn’t possible!
He dragged his gaze to Magellas, who stared as aghast as he.
“I was certain,” he murmured, “that it was not literal … we checked every source. …”
“You mean—it worked? This is what the ritual was supposed to do?” Anduin cried, his voice treble with his shock and horror.
“Not literally,” Magellas said, looking like a panicked hare. “But we—we d-did perform it precisely correctly. …”
Unable to help himself, Anduin sprang forward. With a cry, he took the hilt of his ceremonial dagger, and before anyone could stop him, had struck the figure on the shoulder. The hilt shattered beneath the impact, part of it whirling erratically away. The impact jarred his hand, and he dropped the part of the hilt he still held. Clutching his stinging hand, he stared.
There was not a single mark on the image. Magni had been turned into one of the hardest known materials in the world.
As Anduin stared at the diamond lump that had once been a vibrant, hale dwarf, some of the words of the ritual floated back to him. For behold, we are earthen, of the land … For who would not wish to return home? … And so it shall be that you shall become as you once were. You shall return home, and you shall become one with the mountain.
The dwarves were descendents of the titans. Magni had become what he had once been—and paid for it with his life. “He’s gone home,” Anduin whispered past a throat tight with grief. Tears welled in his eyes and blurred the image of Magni Bronzebeard. As the torchlight glinted off the statue, Anduin saw only beautiful, fractured lights dancing before his gaze.
He blinked hard, gulping, tears trickling down his face for the kindly dwarf who had only wanted to do what was best for his people, who had wanted to talk to a wounded world in order to help it heal. And for that goal, he had been lost to them.
What were the dwarves going to do now?
SIXTEEN
Anduin didn’t realize how much comfort the constant ringing of the forge had provided until it was silenced.
He hadn’t thought of Ironforge as a lively, bustling city, not the way Stormwind was. And yet when the sound of the forge ceased, and the halls no longer echoed with the distinctive sound of dwarven