The constant dripping of water was her only companion during the long hours in the dungeon. Aegwyn sat, huddled in the corner of a cold stone room. She shivered with chill and her teeth nearly chattered but she stayed there, trying to keep warm. Cold blasts of mountain air swept down from a vent far above her reach and spread the silent winter mists all about the floor. Drip, drip, drip, was all she heard.
Her eyes had eventually adjusted to the dim light of the goblin tunnels. She could see the black iron bars standing sentinel before the light of a small torch. The hallways continued endlessly to the left and right of her cell. The metal of the drain, bars, and ceiling vent were coated with rust so thick it was amazing that they stayed together at all. The room itself was hastily and carelessly made, as if the goblins had tunneled it out of the mountain heart itself, just for her.
She heard a faint boom in the distance, the fifth she had heard tonight. Each time it sent a chill down her spine. It sounded like thunder snapping and fires exploding all at the same time.
Aegwyn had no idea how long she had been down here. Time in the soul of the mountain seems to run twenty times slower than on the surface. It had been ages since she had seen the sun, and she wasn’t sure she could take it any longer.
Drip, drip, drip. The sound nearly drove her insane. Drip, drip, drip. But then, it was her only reminder that she was still alive, still on this world to carry out her mission. It was all she had left to her name.
Hiss...almost like a snake, it came. A darkness blacker than the midnight clouds of hellfire, she could feel it. It swept through the tunnels faster than a blast from the forge bellows, filling all the nicks and crannies of the caves with the foul scent of death and dying. She could almost hear the moans of souls in her ears, and see their faces in her eyes.
The feeling grew worse and more powerful as each moment passed. Aegwyn recoiled in horror as the minutes ticked by, as if she were struck. Soon, she could hear the faintest footsteps in the hallways outside of her cell. Aegwyn struggled to press herself against the corner of the room, trying to meld with the stone, to get away from the awful feeling. It left nothing untouched. She could feel the depths of hell itself press and brush her skin. Could feel the pain and torment strike out at her nerves and burn them raw.
Then she saw it. It emanated an aura of sickly green that held to it’s every rigid corner and ancient, decaying mass. A beaten and worn cloak hung from its skeletal shoulders and a pair of bright eyes glowed in the darkness from the empty sockets of its skull. One of it’s arms had fallen away at the elbow, leaving nothing but a rotting stump and the other arm held a scepter, the emerald at the end glowing eerily. Rusting plate and worn leather clung to its hobbling legs, but it emanated raw power all the same.
What horror is this!
The foul fiend looked at her with its empty gleaming eyes, staring at her. She sat there, her eyes wide in complete horror. Aegwyn had never seen anything like it! What force had caused these creatures to walk the earth? What force kept their souls trapped within their withering form?
What had happened while she was gone? Her mind kept flashing back to Medivh, and his long dark talks with the worlds beyond the rift. She groaned helplessly and flung her hands over her head, to protect against a blow that never seemed to come.
But even through her arms, through what little protection she could offer, she could see the skeletal face. Even though it had no lips, it seemed to smile.
“What isss thisss?” it hissed at her, its words seeming to come from a tongue that could never exist within that head. Its every letter seemed to be carried forth with the faintest echo.
The monster placed a hand on the lock to her cell door. The metal bars flung open and hit the stone wall with a deafening crash that echoed through the hallways. “What isss thisss?” it asked her again, its talk like a serpent.
“Who are you?” it asked. The footsteps echoing against the cavern walkways. “Who are you?” it asked her again.
Aegwyn was frozen to the spot. The foul reeking scent of the necromantic powers flooded her thought. She could only see the face of horror that stood before her. “I...I...am...Ae...Aegwyn...” she said, her voice stumbling with each word.
“Aegwyn?” it asked her, curiosity in its voice. “What is an Aegwyn?”
Aegwyn felt for what little magic she had left to her name. She attempted to use it against this beast, but it seemed to falter and die in the face of death. Aegwyn felt a mewl escape from her clenched throat, and she pressed herself harder against the stone wall.
“Ah...an Aegwyn isss a ssspellcaster!” it said, hissing once again.
“No! I...I...I’m not!”
“Do not lie!” it said to her, pointing a bony finger at her face. It talked like the dead itself. The dead brought back from the nether void.
“Isss the Aegwyn better than the Death Knight?” it asked her, tilting it’s skeletal head at an angle that no man could make. “Isss it?”
Death Knight. The very name sent cold shivers down her spine. Aegwyn frantically shook her head. Before she had given all her power to Medivh, she would have been more than a match for this... this...Death Knight. But not now, never again.
It paused as it looked at her, the skeletal face still smiling on its empty lips. “You lie,” it said, grinning.
“No! I...”
Aegwyn let out a cry as she felt her soul burn angrily. The flares of hellfire tore at her, burned and charred the edges of her life. She could feel it, an even deeper pain than any physical wound. She opened her misty eyes to see the bony hand glowing powerfully with an eerie green. The emerald at the end of its staff gleamed with the same intensity and the power behind its eyes seemed increased. “You lie, now, the truth!”
“I’m not!” she said, her voice escaping with a near pleading tone. “Not anymore! I gave it all away! I don’t have it anymore!” she said, her voice filled with desperation.
The Death Knight’s hand glowed powerfully. It looked at her with a deep frustration in its bony face. It leaned forward, its skeletal fingers reaching towards her. Aegwyn whimpered and struggled, trying to get away. It almost touched her, and then, pulled back its hand. The Death Knight looked at her, the power growing fainter until it was as before. “The truth, yesss, how sssad.”
It never occurred to her that this fiend could feel pity. But was it really pity that it was feeling? Or was it something darker?
“Great potential you once had. Yesss, great potential. But it isss gone.”
The Death Knight turned and walked out of the cell, its worn and decaying cloak swaying with its uneven step.
It turned and faced her again at the cell entrance. The Death Knight held out its bony hand and the cell door slowly came towards him. The bars closed with the softest click, and then it turned back down the tunnel. “It isss gone,” it muttered to itself, as it walked back from where it came from. The darkness started to bleed away from the tunnel walls as the coldness seeped back in.
Drip, drip, drip, was all she heard. Drip, drip, drip.
