Warcraft: Official Movie Novelization

They stood high above him on a ringed platform, clad in violet robes embroidered with the same Eye that gazed up from the floor. They and the Eyes they wore stared down at the boy as he himself might have peered at an insect. He was unconcerned about their regard, more curious than anything, and peered at them boldly, arching a brow.

One of the figures, a tall, thin man with a beard as white as the magic that flowed along the tower’s walls, met the boy’s gaze and nodded almost imperceptibly. He began to speak, and his sonorous voice echoed impressively in the vast chamber.

“There is a theory that every star in the sky is a world,” Archmage Antonidas said. “And that each of these worlds is alive with beings of its own. What says our Novice to this concept?”

The Novice answered promptly. “No world can equal Azeroth,” he replied. “The beauty of Azeroth, its vitality and abundance, are unique.”

“Who can be trusted to care for such a treasure?”

“One who can marshal the forces of magic to keep our world safe. The Guardian.”

“I see.” There was the barest hint of a smile on Antonidas’s thin lips. The Novice wondered if he should modulate his voice. Sound a bit more humble. But honestly, he’d memorized all this ages ago.

“All the forces?” Antonidas continued.

“No,” the Novice replied promptly. “The dark forces are forbidden. The dark forces are the mirror of corruption.” He realized he was starting to sound sing-songy and bit his lip hard. It wouldn’t do for them to think he didn’t take this seriously.

“The dark forces,” he said, solemnly this time, “turn the user back against his own intentions.”

“And what do we learn from this?”

“That magic is dangerous and must be kept from those without instruction. No race of men, no dwarf, gnome, or elf—none but the Kirin Tor must use magic.”

This is all just for us, the Novice thought, watching the flow of the silvery-white liquid chase itself around the walls and ceiling of the Chamber of Air. Not because we’re greedy, but because we know how to handle it.

He watched Antonidas carefully and saw the archmage’s shoulders relax. They were done with the first part, and he hadn’t messed up. Good.

The elderly mage smiled a little, his eyes kind. “We sense your power, Medivh,” he told the Novice. “We admire your focus, your appetite for knowledge. We probe and test it as best we can, but sadly, the most important question is one that cannot be answered until it is too late.”

Medivh stiffened. Too late? What did Antonidas mean?

“The life of a Guardian demands sacrifice that you cannot begin to understand. Yet we ask you now, as a boy, to bind yourself forever to the wheel of this vocation.”

Antonidas’s eyes narrowed and his voice grew harder. Here we go, Medivh thought. “Are you willing to prepare yourself, in all ways, for the day you will become the master of the Tower of Karazhan?”

Medivh didn’t hesitate. “I am.”

“Then prove yourself!”

The creature was born of the shadows the light-magic could not reach. It went from a sliver of darkness into a fully formed, ink-black, distorted thing that towered over the boy. Medivh instinctively dropped into combat stance, the response drilled into him so rigorously he reacted even though he was taken utterly by surprise. It opened a mouth crowded with teeth as long as his arm and emitted a series of sounds that made Medivh’s gut clench. As it towered over him, he saw that it had no natural depth or contours, which only made it more terrifying. It was a thing of nightmares, its shadow-hands ending in claws that looked razor sharp—

No natural depth or contours.

It wasn’t real. Of course it wasn’t real! Medivh spared a quick glance around the room and—there, the mage Finden mumbling into his thick, bushy white beard. The boy struggled to suppress a grin.

He lifted his hand. A small orb of glowing white energy formed in his palm and Medivh hurled it—directly at Finden. The white ball flattened into a small rectangle that wrapped itself around Finden’s jaw with so much force that the elder sorceror stumbled. His fellows caught him; the only injury was to the mage’s perhaps overly inflated ego.

The shadow-thing disappeared. Medivh looked up at Antonidas, allowing the smallest of smiles to quirk his mouth. Antonidas’s eyes danced as their gazes met.

“Not what I had expected,” the archmage allowed, “but… effective.”

The surface beneath Medivh’s feet began to move. Startled, he hopped backward, watching as the inlaid pupil of the Eye of the Kirin Tor started to open like an iris. Medivh stood, mesmerized, as a pool of bubbling water began to rise up from the opening, and gasped sharply when he realized what he had taken to be churning water was in fact a white flame, burning, impossibly, in the watery depths.