Corpses were strewn everywhere as far as the eye could see. Men, women, and children alike lay still on what was once luscious fields of grass filled with tulips, lilacs, and orchids, now as withered and lifeless as the elves who had inhabited the land. Blood poured from their ears and bones cracked underneath their flesh. The former Ranger-General of Silvermoon, Sylvanas Windrunner, had been the last to fall, and her wail was the funeral bell that tolled the end of the high elves of Quel’Thalas.

 

In a sea of motionless bodies, one stirred. A child crawled out from underneath the limp arms of the woman who had been her mother and stared at her lifeless body in horror. The woman’s skin, once a warm reddish-pink, was now a pallid white, and her auburn hair had lost all of its color, leaving behind a pale grey. The girl had little time to grieve, however, as she turned at the sound of a man in heavy plate shuffling up to the warm pool that was the Sunwell. With a smirk on his pale face, the Intruder poured a viscous black substance into the treasure of the high elves and watched as its golden glow began to violently pulse. The child’s eyes widened as a strange figure emerged from the well, its arms outstretched in victory.

 

The young high elf stared with disbelief and curiosity at the entity that had come into being – a horned skeleton with eyes of blue fire. He spoke, and his deep, resonating voice was unlike any other she had heard. It compelled, no, commanded, her to listen to his words.

 

“I am reborn, as promised! The Lich King has granted me eternal life!”

 

She could not understand all the words, but she could feel their power. The child sat on the bloodied grass, mesmerized, and would have soon been trampled by a stray reanimated corpse had it not been for an intervention—

 

“Take my hand! Quickly!”

 

The girl turned her head in the direction of the voice and found herself looking into the vibrant red eyes of a…high elf? Could high elves have red eyes?

 

“Come with me! Now!” Her red eyes burned bright with fear and worry.

 

The woman who owned the voice held out her hand, pleading for the child to take it. The child placed her small hand in hers and she clasped it firmly, leading the little girl away from the pile of corpses lying before the Sunwell and behind a stone structure, out of sight of the Intruder and his army. The woman looked around one more time and knelt down in front of the child, holding her arms. She spoke gently but urgently.

 

“I’m going to take you somewhere safer. Just climb onto my back and hold on tightly, understood?” She took several steps back and turned to the side.

 

The young high elf took a better look at the mysterious woman who had come to her aid. Her midnight black hair flowed to her waist, and a pair of golden horns adorned with red and black jewels protruded from her head. She wore a robe of black lined with red and gold embellishments and matching gloves. The woman possessed about her person a glowing fiery aura, and the child, observing this, was now convinced that the woman who stood before her was not a mere elf. Her suspicions were confirmed as the woman waved her hand and transformed into a majestic dragon with patterns of red and black scales. The child stared silently at the new form her rescuer had taken; she had never met a dragon before and was intimidated.

 

“You can trust me, I promise.” The woman’s voice had gotten deeper. The dragon held out an arm for the young high elf to touch and smiled. The child took several steps forward and mounted herself onto the large wing, and the dragon lowered herself to the ground to facilitate the climb.

 

“Hold on tightly to my collar. I don’t want to risk you falling off.”

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“I am not sure; what matters is that I get you out of here safely.”

 

“What’s going on? Who was that man, and the big skeleton?”

 

“I will tell you when it is time, child.”

 

“What about my father? My mother?”

 

“It is too late for them, I’m afraid,” the dragon’s voice echoed deeply throughout the child’s mind, “We have no choice but to leave them here.”

 

“N-No, we can’t! There might be a way to bring them back! Please, don’t go!”

 

“I’m sorry, my child. There is nothing I can do.”

 

The dragon spread out her wings and took flight amidst the shrieks of the young high elf, her small clenched fists beating furiously on the dragon’s back. No matter what, the dragon had decided, she would carry this child to safety, and rose further above the carnage until she appeared as a black speck in the red autumn sky.

​

* * * * *

​

“MAMA!” The young high elf screamed and woke up from her nightmare with a jolt, sweat dripping from her forehead. More correctly, she was now called a blood elf. The prince of the Quel’dorei had returned, shocked and grieved to find his homeland in ruins, and had decreed that from that day forth, his people would be known as the Sin’dorei, or “children of the blood,” to honor their fallen brethren.

 

“There, there,” the horned woman tending to her spoke gently, rubbing the young elf’s back to calm her down. “It was just a dream this time.” She murmured some words, weaving a spell of soothing. They had an immediate effect on the child as her breathing calmed and her posture relaxed.

 

Morthana looked up, trying to blink away the tears in her blue eyes as she found comfort in the embrace of the woman she had come to call “Mother.” Kaelstrasza was the closest thing Mori had to a family since her parents had been slain two years earlier. She clutched her adoptive mother’s elegant robes tightly with her small pale hands and sobbed quietly.

 

“The dreams…they won’t stop,” pleaded the child. “Can you do something about them?”

 

Kaelstrasza’s long eyebrows furrowed in thought. Her glowing red eyes searched Mori’s imploring face as she combed through her mind, trying to find an answer that would satisfy the girl.

 

“There might be a way to bring them back! Please, don’t go!”

 

Mori’s desperate plea had haunted the woman over the years since then. Kael frowned and stood up to her full height. She muttered, deep in thought, as she paced across the living room. Mori is yet only six years of age, it may not be wise, she told herself, but she needs to know the truth. Kael had put off holding this conversation for two years, and she felt she could not delay for much longer.

 

“My child,” the woman began, “it is time that I told you about the true nature of life and death in this world.”

 

Mori looked quizzically at her mother. Kael chuckled, and stooped down to pick the young elf up. She gracefully seated herself on the ornate couch and placed Mori upon her lap. The woman pointed at the fireplace, and a neat flame sprung up from the wood.

 

Kaelstrasza then snapped her fingers and produced an image of a tulip in bloom.

 

“You see this flower,” she spoke, “it lives. It was once a seedling but blossomed into something more beautiful and elegant. It will not last forever, though. Once the winter strikes and removes the flower’s sun and food, it will die.” The petals fell off the image of the flower one by one and disappeared. Mori saddened at the thought.

 

“A flower blooms and wilts. Humans, elves, orcs, and other creatures with souls are not so simple. For them, life and death have many different forms.”

 

Mori’s eyes widened. She had never heard about different forms of life…or death, for that matter, back in Quel’Thalas.

 

Kael waved her hand and produced an image of a human man. “This man lives,” she explained, “but he is mortal.” She closed her fist, and the human fell to the ground. “One day, from either natural or unnatural causes, he will die.”

 

Mori shuddered, remembering the loss of life she had witnessed two years ago.

 

“This man may very well stay dead for the rest of eternity,” the woman began, “or he might not.”

 

Mori was stunned. “So, you can bring people back to life?”

 

“Not quite life,” Kael replied, “Resurrection and reanimation are not the same thing. True resurrection, where you return to the flesh as you were while alive, is a miracle and impossible without aid from the divine. Reanimation, on the other hand, is a cruder form of life and much more accessible, but it alters your appearance.” The man in her illusion slowly stood back up, his back hunched and his skin falling off his body. “This man is called ‘undead’, for he has been reanimated from death.” His eyes had an eerie golden glow to them, and Mori couldn’t help but stare at them.

 

The young elf fell silent in thought. 

 

“My parents,” she spoke a few moments later, “what happened to them? Are they undead?”

 

“I don’t know,” the woman answered. “Arthas raised some of the high elves that were slain that day to join the ranks of his army. I cannot say whether your parents were among those who were brought back under his servitude.”

 

Mori remembered watching the Intruder, or Arthas, as he was called, pouring the strange black liquid into the Sunwell and seeing the skeletal figure emerge from it.

 

“And that big skeleton,” Mori asked, “was he undead, too?”

 

“Yes,” Kael replied, “but a special kind of undead called a lich.”

 

“Are all liches made with the Sunwell?” Mori had never seen one before the strange skeleton.

 

“No, my child,” Kaelstrasza had to resist letting out a laugh, “liches require that the person binds their soul to a container known as their phylactery. I don’t actually know how the process works beyond that, but there have been many created without the Sunwell’s energy.”

 

Mori’s ears perked up at the strange new words. Undead. Lich. Phylactery. She wanted to know more. She needed the answers to many questions.

 

“Then why did Arthas use the Sunwell? And why was that skeleton so special?”

 

Kael thought to herself for a moment, then stood up from her seat as she picked Mori up and placed her directly onto the couch.

 

“Let me tell you the story of the famous mage and necromancer Kel’Thuzad.”

The woman clasped her hands together then slowly spread them apart as an illusion formed in front of Mori like a stage at the outdoor theatre. In the image, several men and women (humans and elves alike) were seated around a large table. A middle-aged man in purple robes stood away from the table.

 

“That man is Kel’Thuzad,” Kaelstrasza explained. “He was once a great scholar and Archmage of the Kirin Tor, the most powerful body of wizards on Azeroth.”

 

Mori watched as an elderly mage bearing a long beard walked up to Kel’Thuzad.

 

“That is Antonidas, the leader of the Kirin Tor.”

 

“Kel’Thuzad, you are a disgrace to your kind. A heretic, hiding among those who choose to live according to the laws of the land."

 

“Antonidas, you must listen to me!” pleaded Kel’Thuzad, “I am merely trying to understand the powers that destroyed us in the Second War. We must learn to wield and counter these warlocks’ magics ourselves if we are to have any hope of survival!”

 

A murmur of agreement spread across the observers seated at the table.

 

“Then what,” demanded Antonidas as he opened a box containing two undead rats scurrying around, “do you call this?”

 

“Hey!” The archmage exclaimed in protest, “those are my private experiments! The rats are standard experimental procedure! You had no right to go through my belongings!”

 

Antonidas closed the box and handed it to his assistant. “Take it away and destroy it.” He turned back to the archmage and spoke.

 

“Kel’Thuzad, I hereby relieve you of your title as Archmage of the Kirin Tor and expel you from both Dalaran and Lordaeron. All items formerly in your possession tainted by dark magic will be confiscated and destroyed.”

 

The former archmage was furious. He had tried to explain his motivations many times to his colleagues, but they refused to accept him. He bowed and left the hall, enraged.

 

“But he didn’t do anything wrong!” Mori exclaimed, “He was just doing experiments! Those magics hurt his people and he wanted to help protect them.”

 

Kaelstrasza nodded. “Other mages of the Kirin Tor were afraid that his studies would develop into something more dangerous, that he would cause corruption and catastrophe. They called it forbidden magic, and after his expulsion, banned the study of the dead, necromancy.”

 

The woman snapped her fingers and the image changed from the meeting hall of the Kirin Tor to the base of a mountain covered with ice and snow, the winds howling fiercely.

 

“It must be here somewhere. The Master told me to come to Northrend, and here I am.” Kel’Thuzad frantically searched for a door, an entrance, any opening to a shelter from the icy winds.

 

A giant beetle appeared next to the former archmage, and Mori watched the two travel through crypts full of laboratory equipment.

 

“All these resources, beautiful!” Kel’Thuzad was fascinated, “I can perform my experiments here as I please!”

 

Mori jumped as she heard the screams of a man in torment and the growls of a woman. Was it really a woman? She couldn’t tell.

 

Kel’Thuzad’s face was now twisted in horror.

 

“No! I cannot stay here! I must leave! This is not what I intended to do!”

 

The former archmage teleported out of the crypts and ran as quickly as his feeble legs could carry him. His efforts were futile, however, as the Master’s wraiths found him and dragged him to the one they served.

 

“I’ll give you a choice, mage,” a set of armor encased in a massive block of ice spoke through Kel’Thuzad’s mind, “serve the Lich King willingly, or I shall raise you, and you will serve me in undeath.”

 

Kel’Thuzad clenched his fists as he realized he truly had no choice in the matter. He lay, beaten, on the icy ground and croaked, “I will serve, Master.”

 

The image faded away, leaving behind a very stunned Mori. She looked up at her mother in thought.

 

“Shall I continue?”

 

The young elf nodded in response.

 

“Very well,” Kaelstrasza began, “Some years later, Kel’Thuzad was discovered and killed by Arthas while investigating a series of incidents involving the plague ravaging his homeland. The next we saw of him was as a lich exiting the Sunwell.”

 

The image of the Sunwell disappeared.

 

“Is that why Arthas invaded Quel’Thalas? To raise him?”

 

Kaelstrasza sat back down on the couch next to her daughter, gently crossing one leg over the other. “I can only assume so. We still don’t really know what happened in between,” she replied, “but that is the story, to the best of my knowledge.” Kael stroked Mori’s silver hair and held her with the other arm. “I do hope that helped.”

 

“I want to know more,” the young blood elf replied absent-mindedly, her blue eyes sparkling with newfound curiosity as she stared at the fireplace, “I want to know why he came back and why he needed the Sunwell. And I want to know how he did it!”

 

Mori blinked twice and looked up at her mother. “Can you teach me how to bring people back?” To the child’s dismay, she sighed and shook her head.

 

“It is true that I study life and death as part of my duty to the Red and Black Dragonflights,” Kael replied, “and have learned much about the magics that encompass both the living and the dead, but I do not have the skills that a necromancer or death knight would possess.”

 

“A death knight? What’s that?”

 

“Death knights were powerful soldiers raised into undeath by the Lich King. They are strong fighters and have mastery over raising the dead as well. You can usually tell one apart from the living by their glowing blue eyes. They don’t speak much, however; the few I’ve seen prefer to keep to themselves as much as possible.”

 

The young blood elf pouted. “Then who am I supposed to learn necromancy from?”

 

Kaelstrasza stood up and paced around the room, her elegant robe reflecting the light from the fireplace. “As you know, Mori, the Kirin Tor do not take kindly to necromancers, though their facilities for training in magic are among the finest on the planet. However,” she paused and stood still, “I can make arrangements with the warlock trainers in Silvermoon City to take you under their wing.”

 

“Warlock,” Mori repeated the word slowly as if savoring its name, “like the magic Kel’Thuzad was studying?”

 

Kael nodded. “Over the course of your training you will develop a basic understanding of how warlocks use fel magic and some minor elements of necromancy, and with practice you can become very powerful. Should your studies go well, I will help you find a group of adventurers with whom you can explore the world and test your skills. How does that sound?”

 

The young elf nodded eagerly as a wide grin broke out across her face. I’m going to become the greatest necromancer on Azeroth! Mori thought to herself. Then, I will find out how to become a lich! She clenched her fists in excitement.

 

“It is decided, then,” Kaelstrasza spoke as she walked to the door, “I’m off to Silvermoon City. I shall return, my child!” With a roar, she morphed into her dragon form and turned her head to the sky. After several flaps of her great wings, she was gone.