The Silent Pass (Vale)

A note on the following text:

As I wrote this with the Shattering approaching and the mood over the past few weeks one of fright, war, and the end of the world, I thought to delve into some apocalyptic texts - and what one better than the book of Revelation (or Apocalypse) from the Bible, from whence we have so much brilliant imagery of the end of the world (the four horsemen, the Whore of Babylon, the great beast)?

With the Book of Revelation in mind, I happen to have a character who's nearly full term in her pregnancy and attempting to flee Azeroth on foot through a wasteland. The imagery and the parallels were too much for me not to want to write about them. So, no, I didn't sit down to write a 'my character dreamed about Deathwing before it all happened!' story - but in the end, I suppose it has become that. I apologise to anyone who may roll their eyes, which I probably would do myself - but in this one case, ohwell. For Vale, it's simply another nightmare - and for me, apocalyptic literature is too awesome to resist.

==

The twenty-second of November. A camp in Deadwind Pass.

'And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another sign appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God.'

Revelation 12: 1-6



A woman walked through a vale, and all around her was the silence of death.

She lifted her hand like a lamp, and the weak violet flame that flickered in her palm cast long shadows on the sloping canyon walls on either side of the path. The chasm behind her, through which she had come, yawned like the maw of some primordial beast, its darkness so complete as to be impenetrable - before her lay a twisting, serpentine track that led upward, further into the stone and the silence, but there was no other way.

The path was labourious, even more because she was so far gone with child; the rocks were as jagged as thorns, and even when she trod as carefully as possible, they seemed to rise from the path itself to turn her ankle or to cut into her shoes. Yet it was the absolute absence of sound that clawed at her senses moreso than any other thing: it was a silence unlike any on earth. No footfall of hers produced any noise; there were no gusts of wind, no dislodged stones tumbling down the mountainside. The rhythm of her own heart - the only sound - was growing to a vast roaring in her ears, like a great wave rising in the distance.

She was beyond the reach of mortal man in this silent, ageless place, yet still she had no choice but to climb; the shadow of death still loomed behind her, slithering out from the valley through which she had passed, and by some instinct she knew that no flame that she could conjure would drive it back. She had to cross the pass before the darkness impenetrable caught up, before it wrapped itself around her heel and dragged her backward into its depths.

With her heart full of these things, she raised her hand a little higher and made her way through the wasteland of stone, her only company the weird shadows that her faltering flames cast against the cliff-face, and the stirring child in her belly.

In the fullness of time, she reached the summit of the pass. Jagged peaks rose on either side of the place, their broken pinnacles etched from the same grey stone that formed the rest of the land. The path turned downward before her feet, slanting away in a maze among the rock; and her heart should have leapt with the knowledge that she had come so far. Yet, as she paused a moment to catch her breath, she was unable to keep from glancing over her shoulder: she was pursued, still, by the inscrutable darkness. There was no safety here.

She stepped forward again to set her foot to the broken path - and then the flame in her hand flickered and went out, and in the silence of the vast and ancient wasteland, a sound stirred. It was the sound of wings. Wings, and a great wind bearing them forth.

As the woman straightened to meet the sound, she knew that it was her doom that she was facing: that entity which had hidden in the darkness impenetrable, that which had lurked behind the whispers in the shadowed valley below. She looked up to the sky and to the cold, distant stars, and she saw the dragon. In colour it was the deep red of a dying fire, and as she watched, it landed on one of the twin spires that flanked the pass. Its wings stretched outward to cover half the sky, and as black claws clutched the stone, sending shards splintering from the rock-face, its tail lashed across the heavens with the violence of death itself.

The woman drew in her breath and raised her head and hands to meet the beast of blood and fire, but as she did so, she fell to her knees against the cliff - not in fright, but in pain. Her hour to give birth had come, and she wanted to laugh, but she could not laugh any more than she could weep or stand or fight. As the dragon fixed its eyes on her, it threw back its jaws and roared, and the sound echoed from the heights and pinnacles and the cliffs that since time immemorial had known no sound, and the silence was broken.

The dragon landed on the path before her, and, facing her, it blocked all else from her sight - the cold light of the stars and even the grey and hostile cliffs - and all that was before her eyes as she cried out in labour were the blood-red scales, some of which had begun to slough off from the beast's skin. It stank of decay and desperation, yet it came no closer; it waited as time passed, and its broken roars mingled with the woman's screams until it seemed that the mountain itself would shake apart.

And then her time came. As she bore the child at last, the beast beat its wings against the sky, tearing at the earth with its claws. The flames that came from its maw were as black as obsidian and as devoid of light; they held only the reflection of light, as does glass caught by fire. And to the woman, although she clutched for her child, the cold from the dragonfire was so great that she was close to unconsciousness. The beast lunged forward with its jaws, its breath formed of ice and fire.

And then, there was shouting, and a chorus of voices rose from the path below. The sound was distant at first, but it rose and swelled until it was like the beat of drums marching to war against the beast, and a golden spark of hope leapt in her chest even as she felt the dragon's teeth rake her skin. For she knew, even though she could see nothing beyond the foul scales and jaws and wings, though she could scarcely form a thought, she knew that the great dragon was roaring now in the same agony that she had known, and that it was staring into the face of the doom that it had intended for her and for her child and for the whole of the earth.

The sounds of battle and the wailing of the child in her arms as it discovered life pounded in her ears, and she struggled to her feet and ran forward into the shadows of the twisting downward path, knowing that there was war and death at her heels and that she needed even now to escape. She stumbled, for the last threads of her strength were gone, but arms caught her and held her up, and she heard a familiar voice speaking strong words beside her ear.

As she fell into unconsciousness, her last thought - away from the valley of shadows, the eternal silent pass, and the winged beast whose very breath was impenetrable darkness - was that she was safe.

I have no idea why you are apologizing about this maybe being too cheesy or whatever ... You should be apologizing for not having shared this samazing story with us sooner!!!!

I am too exhausted to truly express how much I enjoyed this piece and how amazing of an artist you are with language, so I will just leave a big fat <333333 here and go to bed (and hope I dont see deathwing tonight :[).

thank you for sharing this!!!

Ach, you're entirely too kind, Shaelyssa, truly - but I'm so happy that you enjoyed the story!

The apology part was because... I would be skeptical usually if I saw someone writing about prophecies of cataclysm before it happened, y'know? So I wanted to say that it wasn't my intent to be all 'WHOO MY CHARACTER DREAMED ABOUT DEATHWING, SHE IS SPECIAL.' Even though she did, um, dream about Deathwing, I had the idea before I made the connection to cataclysm and I don't intend to go shouting about it IC.

So yeah, that's that. You're very sweet, and again, thank you so much for reading and for the encouragement!

The best stories one can write, are the ones you do when you're thoroughly inspired. I think it's obvious that you were inspired when you write this, because it's simply that good. I doubt anyone would think less of you or this story with its prophetical content. A lot of people strive hard to keep their characters very mundane and un-special, I think it's a bit refreshing to read something this daring. A very, very good read!

Thank you for that, Morgeth. Could be I worried overmuch; I suppose that topics like prophecy are one of those that depend how they're treated rather than whether or not they should be touched at all.

And as someone whose writing I admire, your kind words on the story itself are very heartwarming. I'm glad you liked reading it.