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Maiev Shadowsong, the Hand of Justice
Maiev Shadowsong was a senior Priestess of the Moon during the events of the War of the Ancients. She has a younger brother, Jarod Shadowsong. Both played key roles in the battle against the Burning Legion, and in the aftermath Maiev was appointed the jailer of Illidan Stormrage
The War of the Ancients
Illidan, having survived the Sundering, had reached Hyjal summit long before Malfurion and the night elves. In his mad bid to maintain the flows of magic in the world, Illidan had poured his vials, which contained the precious waters from the Well of Eternity, into the mountain lake. The Well's potent energies quickly ignited and coalesced into a new Well of Eternity. The exultant Illidan, believing that the new Well was a gift to future generations, was shocked when Malfurion hunted him down. Malfurion explained to his brother that magic was innately chaotic and that its use would inevitably lead to widespread corruption and strife. Still, Illidan refused to relinquish his magical powers.
Knowing full well where Illidan's ruthless schemes would eventually lead, Malfurion decided to deal with his power-crazed brother once and for all. With Cenarius' help, Malfurion sealed Illidan within a vast underground barrow prison, where he would remain chained and powerless until the end of time. To ensure his brother's containment, Malfurion empowered the young Warden, Maiev Shadowsong, to be Illidan's personal jailor.
So Maiev led the Watchers - night elves who were not Sentinels, and who dwelled beneath the mountains, in the Barrow Deeps, along with several woodland creatures led by Califax to help them.
The Third War
After 10 000 years of security, however, the Barrow Deeps were raided by Tyrande Whisperwind, who recklessly murdered the Watchers and Califax, and then released Illidan from his prison, hoping to use him to defeat the Legion. When he was corrupted by the Skull of Gul'dan, however, he was banished from Ashenvale. Despite Illidan's major contribution to the war effort by slaying the dreadlord Tichondrius, thus preventing Tichondrius from further corrupting Felwood or otherwise aiding the Legion, and the fact that Illidan had as yet given no indication that he would terrorize the Night Elves, Maiev was not pacified. She resolved to hunt him down and lock him away again.
With her lieutenant Naisha at her side, Maiev pursued Illidan throughout Kalimdor. With his impromptu force of satyrs and other corrupt creatures, he managed to keep her at bay, but to her credit, Maiev stayed close to him as he fled.
Finally, Maiev closed in on him in Azshara's former coastal holdings, where he had destroyed many fishing villages and left nothing but mutilated bodies and flaming footprints in his wake. But Maiev found some tracks which she could not identify . . .
Maiev soon found the creatures who had made the tracks. They identified themselves as the naga, and professed servitude to Illidan. Maiev defeated them, but was troubled that they were burning boats, and thought that perhaps Illidan meant to flee across the ocean. Maiev took to the port of Nendis, where she found Illidan stealing away in a transport. The naga began to destroy the ships, but Maiev killed them before they completed their task. Maiev quickly found some transport ships, and took the Watchers across the sea.
They stopped unexpectedly soon when they came across some islands which were not on their maps, but Maiev knew where they were. The Broken Isles were the remains of Suramar. As she established a base camp, Maiev found landmarks she recognized from the ancient, ruined city. The library of Izal-Shurah, the Boughs of Azshara, but the city, Naisha realized, must have been raised from the seafloor.
Maiev found the answer when she came across Drak'Thul, a former warlock of the Stormreaver Clan. Drak'Thul told her that he was hunted by ghosts, and that if Maiev rid the island of them he would tell her his tale. The warden later found the ghosts of which he spoke: animated orcish corpses fighting one another, as if reliving a battle fought in their former lives (in fact they were former members of the Blackrock Clan, the Twilight's Hammer Clan and the Stormreavers). Maiev destroyed the summoning pits that kept bringing the dead orcs back to repeat the cycle of battle and death and then returned to Drak'Thul to inform him that the dead would no longer trouble him. Drak'Thul then told her his tale as promised. He recounted how he had been a disciple of Gul'dan, the warlock who raised the islands twenty years before to search for Sargeras the Dark Titan. Gul'dan hoped to gain power, but instead he and the rest of his Stormreaver clan unleashed crazed demons who slaughtered them all — save Drak'Thul. He had lived on the island since, haunted by the ghosts of his dead comrades. Ever judgmental, Maiev told him that he deserved a far worse punishment than that for what he had unleashed (disregarding the facts that it had not been Drak'Thul's idea but Gul'dan's, and that unleashing the demons was accidental). Troubled by the news, Maiev suspected that the Tomb of Sargeras was Illidan's goal here, as well. After battling through his ample forces of naga, Maiev and Naisha chased Illidan into the Tomb itself.
While there, Maiev read magical orcish runes Gul'dan had created to relate his tale. It continually referenced an "Eye," which seemed to be an artifact, and Maiev guessed that this was what Illidan sought.
Illidan and Maiev, forever adversaries
Maiev soon had a run-in with the leader of the naga, the Lady Vashj, who told her that the night elves' justice had no place in the Broken Isles. Maiev asked Vashj what she knew of their justice, and Vashj replied that she was once a night elf herself, and that the explosion of the Well of Eternity had transformed them into the naga.
Maiev, however, was unphased, and chased Illidan into the central chamber, where he had already found the Eye of Sargeras, and was using it to crumble the tomb around them. Since Illidan had been confined by Maiev for ten thousand years, he felt that trapping her in the tomb (alive or otherwise) was the least he could do to repay her. After a cave-in, Naisha and the Watchers were stranded, but Maiev, using her abilities, teleported through the temple, reluctantly leaving her forces to die in the dark tomb.
Maiev battled an army of naga as she sent a runner out to sea to get a message to Malfurion Stormrage to plea for assistance. After a desperate battle, the runner was away, and Maiev quickly returned to her base to defend her Watchers.
After taking heavy damage, Maiev was finally reinforced by Malfurion, but was displeased to find that Tyrande had come along as well. She hated Tyrande for not only releasing Illidan, but killing the Watchers standing guard over his prison to do so. She proclaimed that Tyrande deserved to be locked in a cage just as Illidan was. After this confrontation, Furion told them to let it be for now and focus on the matters at hand. After they defeated the naga, however, Illidan took to the sea and fled once again. The three heroes were quick to follow.
They arrived upon the shores of Silverpine Forest in Lordaeron, and after Malfurion left them to commune with the forests, Maiev and Tyrande met Kael'thas, the prince of the blood elves, who, then told of Illidan, thought that perhaps that was the reason that the undead were so agitated in Dalaran. Maiev wanted to get back on the hunt as soon as possible, but Tyrande wished to help Kael, despite Maiev's objections. The two warriors escorted Kael's caravan to Pyrewood Village, where they were suddenly ambushed. Kael and Maiev saw his caravan across the river while Tyrande held the line on the bridge. But when she called down the stars of Elune to destroy the undead, the bridge crumbled beneath her, and she was swept down the river.
Kael was about to attempt to save her when Maiev stopped him. She knew that time was growing short, and that Illidan had to be stopped. She was also in no hurry to waste time searching for the priestess she so despised, perhaps even hoping that if Tyrande wasn't already dead that she would meet her end if a rescue operation was delayed long enough. So she demanded that Kael help her find the demon in return for her assistance protecting his caravan. Kael helped her track Illidan to Dalaran's ruins, where they met up with Malfurion, who had felt the land being torn apart and seen a vision that it was Illidan's doing. He suspected the worst and feared for the fate of the world itself. Maiev told Malfurion that Tyrande had been torn apart, and that now he had his chance for revenge on Illidan. Maiev reminded Malfurion that Tyrande would never have come to Lordaeron and met her alleged death if not for Illidan's actions, and thus he was to blame. Malfurion's grief and anger made him completely focused on stopping and punishing his brother, just as Maiev had hoped.
With the help of Kael and a Paladin of the Silver Hand – Magroth the Defender – Maiev and Malfurion pushed back Illidan's naga and destroyed the snakewomen casting spells around the Eye. Cornering Illidan with the Night Elf and Alliance forces, Malfurion grimly told his brother that for what he had done this time confinement would not be sufficient and that he was to be put to death (ironically, it's likely that Illidan would have considered death more merciful than his millennia of confinement and isolation). Maiev enthusiastically volunteered to execute him personally then and there. Illidan explained that his spell had not been meant to harm anybody but the Lich King at Northrend and his undead servants, whom the Night Elves surely had no love for. His spell had been specifically targeting the area where the Frozen Throne was based. Not placated, Malfurion raged that Illidan had given no thought to the cost of his actions and that Tyrande had died because of him. Illidan was shaken by this statement, since he had never wanted anything to happen to the woman he loved and had even tried to dissuade her from following him to Lordaeron since he was concerned for her safety. Then Kael spoke up, much to Maiev's chagrin, saying it was premature to pronounce her dead. The elven prince told Malfurion the real story of what happened to Tyrande. Malfurion, furious with Maiev for her lies, entangled her. He asked her bitterly who the "betrayer" was now.
Now that there was hope, Illidan was quick to volunteer the services of his naga who could scour the river and locate Tyrande faster than the Night Elves. Malfurion accepted his offer, and when Maiev protested he simply said that he would deal with her later.
When Maiev finally did get free, she tracked down Malfurion, and found him allowing Illidan to go free. Furious at his apparent folly, she took what Watchers would follow her and pursued Illidan into the portal he had formed.
When she arrived on the other side, she found herself in the ruins of the orcish homeworld, Draenor. Now, though, without his servitors to protect him, Illidan was easy prey. Maiev and her followers pursued him long and hard in the desolate, broken wasteland, and eventually, she caught him and imprisoned him under a magical sedative.
As she was escorting him back to her base, however, Maiev was ambushed by Vashj's naga, and, to her shock, Kael's blood elves. The Watchers fought Illidan's forces back and forth for control of Illidan's prison wagon, but eventually, Kael and Vashj were victorious, and the wagon was secured at his base. (There have been rumors that an unidentified Pandaren assisted in the release of Illidan, but these have never been confirmed or disproven.)
Maiev, defeated, brooded in the broken wilderness and waited for her next chance to avenge her fallen comrades.
Personality and outlook
Maiev Shadowsong, the Hand of Justice
Maiev sees things very much in black and white, and has no belief in the concepts of rehabilitation or redemption. As far as she is concerned, "once a criminal, always a criminal." She is unwilling to forgive any transgression, whether a large one such as Illidan's ultimately siding with Azshara and causing the deaths of a great many Night Elves or a comparatively small one such as Drak'Thul's mere presence during the raising of the Tomb of Sargeras, and believes those who do wrong must be punished without mercy. Naturally in order to believe this she must also believe herself incapable of wrongdoing, thus she always rationalizes her actions to herself and to others when they may cross a line. It is unclear whether Maiev would ever consider any punishment sufficient for a bad deed; to the knowledge of this contributor, at least, there has never been any indication that Maiev is capable of believing that an offender has suffered enough.
Maiev is loyal to her comrades and determined to ensure they come to no harm. When she is unable to prevent this, it eats away at her and she becomes resolved to punish the party responsible no matter how long it takes her. Calling it obsession wouldn't be inaccurate. Since she can't keep everybody safe and cannot always punish those who caused harm to her loved ones or comrades as she would prefer (such as her being prevented from doing anything to Tyrande), she inevitably find herself unsatisfied and angry, with the level of these emotions not diminishing to any great degree with the passage of time. That would take a toll on anybody's sanity.
Her death
Sinking into vengeful madness, Maiev pursued Illidan all the way to Outland. Emotion clouded her vision, and Illidan slipped away from her several times. Finally, when Maiev was all but blinded by frustration and vengeance, the Betrayer got the better of her. Maiev died alone on the red sand, unmourned, unsung, with none to remember her fall, her soul empty of all but rage.
Memorable Quotes
"We must trust time to reveal all things."
-Maiev to Naisha on the Broken Isles
Sources
- The History of Azeroth, Chapter I: Mythos
- The History of Azeroth, Chapter V: Return of the Burning Legion
- www.lunarfalls.com
See also: