He watched intently as Mannoroth held the disk high. The winged demon muttered words lost in the wind.

Green fire surrounded the golden piece. The Demon Soul — yes, that name was far more appropriate, Malfurion’s brother decided — rose above Mannoroth’s palm… and then, like the sphere containing the portal, flew out over the churning waters of the Well.

“Is that all?” Azshara asked somewhat petulantly.

Before the erstwhile Captain Varo’then could soothe her, the wind abruptly died. The storm, too, appeared to pause, although the dark, menacing clouds continued to twist and turn like a thousand serpents coiling around one another.

Illidan it was who sensed first what was coming. “I’d recommend that your highness have her bearers retreat up to the top of the ridge down which we earlier came.”

To prove that he meant what he said, the sorcerer turned and started back. The captain glared at him, as if suspecting some ruse, then ordered his own soldiers to do the same.

With a graceful wave of her hand, the queen had her Fel Guard follow suit.

A sound like the roar of a thousand night sabers issued forth from somewhere near the center of the Well. Illidan glanced over his shoulder at the black waters, his pace doubling.

The sorcerer and satyrs finally fled, their task no longer demanding that they stay so near the shoreline. Only Mannoroth remained, the demon again stretching forth his arms as if to embrace a lover.

“It begins!” he roared almost merrily. “It begins!”

And a wave as large as any dragon swept over the area where the demon stood.

The entire shoreline vanished under a relentless, ripping tide that did not flow inward, but rather sideways. Ruined structures were washed away as if they were nothing. The horrific waves washed over the land again and again, more and more stripping it bare. Stone obelisks were torn from their foundations and paved pathways scattered in chunks. The dead, who had remained unburied, were taken to a deeper, darker place beyond Zin-Azshari where Illidan knew that they would find no better rest than before.

As he finished climbing the ridge, the sorcerer saw at last what was truly happening to the Well and even he stood stunned at the magicks wielded so easily by the distant Sargeras.

A vast whirlpool now engulfed the entire body of water.

He could not, of course, view its full extent, but the very fact that it stretched from the shore of the capital for as far as he could see in any direction gave ample evidence of its mammoth proportions. Illidan saw that, for once, the frenzied energies of the Well now moved in uniform purpose… and all were drawn toward the center.

Below and awash in the forces at the edge of the Well, Mannoroth laughed. Fearsome waves that continued to rip away chunks of stone and earth larger than the demon did not even bother the winged being in the least. Mannoroth drank in the glory of his lord’s power, urging Sargeras on with shouts.

Secure on shore, Illidan dared probe deeper into the spell. His higher senses brought him seemingly bodily over the water, moving him along so swiftly that he soon left all land behind. At the same time, the sorcerer’s mind also soared higher, taking in a better overall picture of what Sargeras had wrought.

He had guessed right when he had believed that the whirlpool encompassed the whole of the Well of Eternity. Even yet only able to see a portion of the entire panorama, it was already obvious to the night elf that no part of the Well had been left untouched.

Then, a shimmering light ahead caught his attention. Stretching his senses to their limits, Illidan took in the Demon Soul itself floating high above the surface. The simple-looking disk radiated a golden light that focused most on the waters below. Illidan already knew enough about the Demon Soul to understand that Sargeras wielded it as no one other than the black dragon could have, possibly more so. Even from the distant realm where he waited, the lord of the Legion manipulated the incredible power of the disk perfectly in conjunction with the primal forces of the Well.

But where was the portal? Try as he might, Illidan could not sense it around the Demon Soul. Where, then had Sargeras —

Cursing his ignorance, the sorcerer looked down into the center of the maelstrom.

Looked down… and stared into a pathway beyond reality, a pathway to the realm of the Burning Legion.

Illidan had thought that most of the demons had passed through already, but he saw now that what had come had been but a fraction. Endless ranks awaited in the beyond, savage, tusked warriors hungry for destruction. They spread on forever, as far as he could tell, and among them were fiends such as he knew Kalimdor had yet to experience. Some were winged, others crawled, but all were filled with the same intense lust for blood as those he had faced.

Then… Illidan sensed the demon lord himself. He felt only the least bit of Sargeras’s presence, but it was more than enough to make the night elf flee from his glimpse of the nether realm. What Illidan had previously experienced of Sargeras’s will had been, he realized belatedly, the tiniest mote of what there truly was. Here, where the lord of the Legion physically existed, no shield could possibly keep the demon from knowing all that Malfurion’s brother thought.

And if Sargeras knew what Illidan planned, the sorcerer’s fate would make that which had befallen the citizens of Zin-Azshari a pleasant and peaceful way to die…

“What ails you, spellcaster?” grated Varo’then’s voice.

Illidan forced himself not to shake as his mind returned to his body. “It’s… overwhelming…” he said honestly. “Just overwhelming.”

Even the captain did not argue with him there.

Mannoroth plodded up the ridge, his four trunklike legs making craters in the already much-damaged ground. His monstrous orbs held a fanatical look such as Illidan had never seen in the demon prior. Although he had been drenched in the Well, the fearsome figure was completely dry. Such was the truth of the Well, for although it resembled liquid, it was far more.

“Soon…” Mannoroth nearly cooed. “Soon, our lord will pass through into Kalimdor! Soon he will come…”

“And then he will remake Kalimdor into paradise!” Azshara breathed from atop her litter. “Paradise!”

The demon commander’s eyes grew fiery with anticipation, anticipation… and something else that Illidan quickly focused upon. “Yes… Kalimdor will be remade.”

“How soon?” the queen pressed, her lips parted and her breath quickening. “Very soon?”

“Yes… very soon…” Mannoroth answered. He trudged past her, heading back to the palace. “Very soon…”

“How wonderful!” Azshara clapped her hands together. Lady Vashj and the other attendants mirrored her glee.

“We’re done here, then,” snarled Captain Varo’then, who seemed caught between his desire for Sargeras to arrive and his jealousy against any being who would steal the queen’s emotions from him. “Back to the palace!” the officer commanded the soldiers and demon warriors. “Back to the palace!”

The Highborne and the satyrs needed no such commands, most already following Mannoroth. Only Illidan lagged behind, his thoughts torn between what he thought he had read in the latter’s words and expression and the glimpse the sorcerer had managed of the demon lord’s realm.

Malfurion’s brother looked back at the roaring whirlpool that was now the Well of Eternity… looked back and, for the first time, felt his extreme confidence in himself slightly shaken.

Tyrande was aware that something was taking place, something of tremendous magnitude, but what it might be, she certainly could not tell from her cell. Elune still provided her with some defense against her captors, but little more. The priestess was blind to what happened in the outside world. For all she knew, her people had been crushed and the Burning Legion now marched unhindered across Kalimdor, razing to the ground what remained of the once-beautiful land.