As Brox neared the portal, his perspective shifted. He saw movement within. Ranks and ranks of demons, all preparing to follow their lord into the mortal plane. Demons stretching into Forever. Of Sargeras himself, Brox saw no sign, but he knew that the demons’ fearsome master had to be very, very near.

And then… the orc passed through the gateway.

 Malfurion did not see Brox leap, the night elf already consumed by what lay before him. Now that he had the disk, it occurred to the druid just how daunting his task was. Malfurion had hoped one of the others, especially Krasus, would be the one to seize the Demon Soul, but their underestimation of the spell and the black dragon’s shocking intrusion into events had turned everything upside down. Now, it was all up to him and he had no idea exactly what to do.

At that moment, he sensed Tyrande in his thoughts again. Instinctively reaching out, Malfurion sensed with horror that she was in danger.

Tyrande! What — ?

Malfurion! There are demons everywhere! Illidan and I believe that Mannoroth is trying to get you through us!

He quickly sought the link that he still shared with his twin. His initial contact with Illidan shocked Malfurion, so full of bloodlust was it. Through his brother, the druid felt Illidan strike out at the Burning Legion, the bodies of fiery warriors piled high before the black-clad spellcaster.

Illidan suddenly became aware of his presence. Brother?

Illidan! Can you flee?

We are surrounded and Mannoroth no doubt eagerly awaits my use of a spell to spirit us to safety! He would quickly usurp it, bringing us to his loving arms…

Malfurion shuddered. I’m coming! I’ll help you!

But even as he said it, the druid knew that he could not leave the Well. The portal had to be destroyed, even if it meant sacrificing his twin and Tyrande.

How Malfurion prayed for a return to the old days, before the Legion. The days when he and his brother would have fought side by side. When they had been youths, he and Illidan had been able to overcome all obstacles because they had been as one.

Would that it could be so one more time, the druid desperately thought. Would that I could stand next to Illidan and he next to me and together we dealt with this evil…

Only too late, did Malfurion notice the Demon Soul flare.

A peculiar feeling of displacement hit him. His eyes momentarily lost focus. Groaning, Malfurion shook his head… and discovered that he now stood next to Illidan in the ruins of Zin-Azshari.

“Malfurion?” gasped Tyrande. She reached out to touch him, but her hand went through the druid.

Yet, when Malfurion put out a hand toward his twin, he felt solid flesh. Illidan flinched, startled.

Malfurion blinked… and once again he rode above the Well of Eternity.

Only, this time… Illidan sat beside him.

The sorcerer gazed at Malfurion from behind his scarf with both suspicion and barely-concealed awe. “What’ve you done, brother?”

The druid eyed the Demon Soul and recalled his desire. The foul disk had granted it.

He and Illidan were in both places simultaneously.

So be it. Whatever its evil, the Demon Soul had given him the chance he needed. “Stand with me, Illidan!” Malfurion challenged. “Stand with me here — ” The scene shifted back to Zin-Azshari. “ — and here!”

To his credit — and with an old, familiar grin — Malfurion’s twin immediately nodded.

In the mist-befouled city, the brothers stood shoulder-to-shoulder as the demons poured over the rubble trying to reach them. Scores perished as Illidan created yard-long swords from black energy and Malfurion channeled the forces of nature into a storm whose raindrops melted armor and demon flesh. Tyrande stood with them, the priestess of Elune calling upon the pure light of her mistress to blind, even burn, the approaching monsters.

And all while this happened, Malfurion and Illidan also sat astride Ysera, struggling with the spell holding the portal together. That Sargeras had not yet stepped forth puzzled both, but they did not question their momentary reprieve.

Yet, even with the Demon Soul, they accomplished nothing. Already the sky was filled with Doomguard, all seeking those who would keep their master from Kalimdor. Krasus, Rhonin, and the dragons destroyed them by the dozens, but still their numbers appeared undiminished. Of Brox, there was no sign, but the druid could not truly concern himself with the orc just now.

Ysera deflected attack after attack, but Malfurion understood that she could not defend them forever. Yet, despite both his and Illidan’s attempts to use the Demon Soul against the portal, they continued to fail.

Then, the answer came to him. Malfurion looked into his brother’s shrouded eye sockets. “We’re doing this all wrong! We’re using the disk to enhance our spells!”

“Of course!” snapped Illidan. The scene around them momentarily shifted back to Zin-Azshari, with the sorcerer gutting a Fel Guard. “How else to wield it?”

Their surroundings again became the Well and the demon-filled sky. The druid looked at Deathwing’s unholy creation. He loathed what he was about to suggest. “The Demon Soul is still part of the spellwork! Instead of drawing from disk, we should be giving to it! We should be working through the disk, not treating it like a sword or ax!”

Illidan opened his mouth to argue, then shut it immediately. He saw the sense in his twin’s words.

Again, Malfurion’s view became Zin-Azshari. He immediately sensed a new force among the demons in the city, one moving with dire purpose toward the ruins where the brothers and Tyrande sheltered. It had a familiar taint… and stench.

“Satyrs!”

The goat creatures bounded over the other demons, each of the former night elves already preparing spells. They laughed madly and some even bleated.

But as the abominations converged on the trio, Malfurion once more found himself astride Ysera. The constant shifting distracted him and he suspected that, one way or another, he and his brother’s ability to be in two places would soon cease.

“Join with me, Illidan! Do it!”

Despite their enmities, the sorcerer did not hesitate. Their minds linked, fusing almost completely. Malfurion sensed his twin’s ill-conceived plans to make himself the hero of Kalimdor and recognized immediately how the sinister forces that had almost seduced the druid into claiming the disk for his own had used Illidan’s arrogance to add their own spells into the mix.

He had forgotten the Old Gods, as Krasus called them. So, they had not abandoned their efforts; Sargeras’s portal still held the key to their freedom. More than ever, the druid understood that he had to use the Demon Soul if they were to destroy the gateway.

Be ready! he commanded Illidan.

Malfurion called upon the inherent energies of Kalimdor, the same forces that had helped him cast out the venomous Captain Varo’then. Now, he would have to demand of them a far greater sacrifice. This would take more than that he had used to save a dragon from death, as the druid had naively done for Krasus and Korialstrasz. In asking of his precious world such power, there was a chance that the druid might bring upon his home the very fate the Burning Legion had planned for it.

As he called upon Kalimdor and asked it to grant him its strength once more, he felt Illidan draw upon the energies of the Well itself. Once both had achieved their desire, the brothers bound the two forces together — making them one — and fed the results into the Demon Soul.

Both Malfurion and Illidan jerked as their magicks melded with that within the disk. The druid momentarily returned to Zin-Azshari… just as a satyr leapt upon Tyrande. Without regard for himself, the druid slashed at the horned creature with a sword created from a jagged leaf. The satyr’s head went rolling —