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.
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?
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.
