Jenn gathered her wits together, soon it would be the talk of the school and she would have to able to describe it to others. She mustn’t let anyone else know of her fear. Sudden dread grabbed at her. What if Jehenna had seen her fear... if she knew of Jenn’s fear, she would exploit it. Use it to goad her, use it as a weapon to demand even more from her. She would use it until either Jenn broke or her fear did. At the moment, Jenn wasn’t at all sure which would go first.
The news of the demon spread rapidly throughout the school. Finally, everyone knew of Lenamare’s secret weapon. Most had realized that demons would be used, but few had ever actually seen one. None who had seen one previously had seen one this powerful. Excitement rang through those who hadn’t seen it, tinged with only a little anxiety in most. Here was hope, a chance against Exador, surely he could not summon anything so powerful in the middle of battle.
Those who had seen it felt slightly differently. Of course, they recognized the hope it represented; but they had seen it, seen it in full form, and seen how big it was. Everyone knew demons were dangerous, especially the powerful ones. Normally people only saw the little imps and sprites, the first order demons, if they ever saw one. These, although they made people nervous, did not cause the fear of the second and third order demons. Those demons looked like more normal sized, if hideous and grotesque, people. This one was much more than that.
Although none of the wizards who knew would say, including Jenn. Old men who had seen demons whispered that this was higher than a third order demon. Naturally not knowing the power of the demon only made things worse in the minds of the people. The people who saw this one feared it escaping. They had seen the grim frown of its hideous face as it left the keep, they were sure it was more than willing to destroy them all and take their souls.
Thus it was that the possible salvation of the school was also the greatest fear for several in the school. For truly, as the people near a wizard school knew, demonology was the two edged sword of magic. Therefore, everyone in the keep waited anxiously for Exador; they dreaded his arrival, yet feared their salvation almost as much. Except, of course, for Lenamare, and one other.
The other was a small boy, a new student at the school. He knew the real reason the demon was here, and after years of hoping, he rejoiced.
Chapter 17
Tom flew south. He was still in a bad mood over the reaction of the people in the keep; however, seeing green grass and living plants did a lot toward cheering him up. He supposed he really couldn’t blame the people in the keep for fearing him. He wasn’t the most handsome looking guy in the world. In fact, remembering his first visions of his current form, he really couldn’t fault anyone from being a bit nervous. Given the superstition that was bound to be running wild among peasant types in a medieval world, the only sane reaction would be fear.
Even so, it hurt to be the object of that fear, even if he could understand it. Now he knew why monsters in fantasy novels were always so surly and nasty. If everyone in the world feared and hated one, wouldn’t it be easy to hate everyone in the world? No real consolation there, thought Tom, it really didn’t help to know that historically, others have faced similar problems. The only problem that really mattered was his.
By now he was flying over deep prairie, as far as he could see in any direction, there was nothing but grass. Occasionally he would spot a meandering stream. He flew fairly high to avoid scaring any innocent people that might be wandering by. The grass and small occasional trees seemed to beckon to him. The warm sun beating down, grass blowing gently in the wind, all contributed to a relaxed feeling Tom had not encountered in a long time.
Not that Tom ever used to lay around in the middle of prairies to relax. He had grown up in cities, and only rarely got out to the countryside. Nevertheless, books he had read had set the picture, and the gentle breeze seemed to propel him onward. It was only the fact that he really didn’t know how far away this keep was that kept him stopping for a nap. For all he knew it could be so far away as to require continuous flying to reach it in the appointed time. The map had no distance markings and he had no idea how fast Lenamare expected him to travel. Thus he simply kept flying.
Eventually the sun began to set to his right, and heat of the day began to subside. Not, of course, that he even really noticed the heat; he could simply feel the sunlight warming his wings as he flew. Actually, this place was positively arctic compared to the Abyss, if what Boggy had said was true. The air though, thought Tom, really was not at all uncomfortably cool. Apparently, his body could adjust to a wide variety of climates.
As the sun went below the horizon and the stars began to shine in the sky, Tom once again noticed that now he saw everything in dark contrasts to one and other. All images were a lot sharper, but black and white. Actually that wasn’t quite correct, occasionally he spotted small colored lights, which seemed to move through the grass of the field. For the longest time, Tom could not figure out what those lights were, eventually he swooped down on one to get a closer look. As he got closer, the light all the sudden shot faster through the grass. Originally, the light had been a dim orange, but as it started to move faster, it became brighter. Eventually Tom overtook it, and recognized a small fox.
The fox was apparently normal color, as far as he could see in the dark, but it was outlined in an orange aura, which seemed to fluctuate as the fox ran. This was really quite puzzling, why hadn’t he noticed this in the day, surely there were small animals out in the day time. Besides why would animals glow in the dark? Certainly, there could be no evolutionary benefit that Tom could think of. He let the fox run off, and rose to a higher altitude.
He pondered for some time over the nature of glow in the dark animals, but came to no real conclusions. Occasionally he spotted other glowing lights, mostly orange, but once in a while, a few other colors showed up. Knowing what they were however, and not wanting to scare the poor animals any more than absolutely necessary, Tom didn’t swoop down for a closer look at any of the animals; he simply flew on.
The night wore on. Tom just kept flying leisurely along, his wings didn’t seem to tire a bit. Eventually the dawn came over the horizon bringing new life to the world. Tom had always enjoyed dawn, true, normally the only time he ever saw it was when he had to get up for school, and he hated it then, but on those rare occasions when he was somehow up and around at dawn and not tired, he really enjoyed it. There was a refreshing feeling to it, a sense of putting ones troubles behind, and forging on anew. This morning was no different; Tom put yesterday’s frustrations behind and vowed today would be different.
Tom focused his eyes on the ground below him to see if he could detect any animals, and if they glowed during the day as well. As his eyes adjusted, Tom was surprised to note that he could see the ground as easily as if he were standing on it, instead of flying hundreds of feet above. It didn’t take much looking until he found a ground squirrel. He slowed and circled, staring down at it, however he stayed well out of its sight range. Sure enough, if he concentrated on it, he could detect a dim orange light around the squirrel. Definitely puzzling, why didn’t the humans glow like the animals? Or did they; he’d never really looked, next time he saw one he would take a closer look. Tom shifted his sight a little as he circled and noticed the small tree near the squirrel. Only because he was concentrating on seeing glows, did he notice that the tree looked a little blurry. Tom focused his eyes and concentration on it. It seemed as if he could almost detect a slight greenish glow to the tree, and in fact to most of the plants around. If he stretched it he could say that all the plants glowed faintly.