Chapter 2 part 4

Morteous Blackheart sat up from his bedroll with a start. He scanned his immediate vicinity. The northern beach he had camped on was quiet and deserted. Around him, the northern boundaries of the Great Deep Forest was teaming with the normal insignificant life of the wild. Far off in the distant, an owl was announcing the beginning of its nightly hunt. But that was not what had disturbed his rest. As he had been dozing, a faint flux of healing magic, almost too slight to be felt, passed through the fabric of the prime material of the world as the ignorant referred to it. It had the same general feel as that of a clerical type of magic, except without the divine drive that powered the spells of the priests. It was more concentrated and contained—more compact.

Morteous stood. Had he imagined it? It was either his imagination or a very low-powered spell. It could also have been at a great distance, he hypothesized. He waited a few moments. Reaching out with his mind, he tried to get a sense on what he had just felt. Its sensation reminded him of a staggering surge he had felt a few weeks ago, before he had been informed of the newcomers' arrival. Then he had dismissed it as a clerical research project. Now, he suspected that it had been one of the newcomers trying to perform a major healing. That in itself was puzzling as the newcomers could not be followers of the existing gods. So how did they wield spells of that type?

After a few moments of the low-keyed buzz of countless spell casters performing minor incantations and the routine full moon enchantments of the countless druids in and around the world, Morteous Blackheart turned his attention to his mount. The beast had slept the day hours in the cool forest. A creature of the night, it refused to fly during the sunlight hours.

Morteous called for the beast. A rustling in the brush heralded the mount's approach. The creature, which immediately appeared from the trees, resembled a black horse. With the exception of cloven hooves, carnivorous teeth and a pair of bat-like wings, it looked in every other way like a common riding horse.

This creature, most commonly referred to by the scholars as a nightmare, was actually smaller than its distant four-legged cousins. It did not have the physical ability to speak the human or demi-human tongues, but it did have a limited empathic ability. And that emotion, the feeling it radiated towards it master, Morteous, could not be mistaken for anything short of pure hatred.

The only reason the beast served this demigod was its greater fear of him. Within the beast's mind, it had long ago reasoned that being the mount of one of the Godking's sons gave it a certain social clout among man and beast alike. So even though the nightmare hated its master, it enjoyed the benefits that came along with him.

The nightmare cantered over to its master. Morteous could see the fresh blood of some small animal smeared on the beast's mouth. "Are we ready to go?" he asked the creature.

There was of course no reply and none was really expected. Morteous quickly fastened the saddles' straps and broke his camp. The full moon was just coming into the sky, when some of the druidic magic that had been buzzing all evening in his mind changed in a subtle way. Like a key change just a little too early in a song or an instrument being played a little sharp, the flux stood out.

Morteous twisted his attention to exclude all other sensations except for the ones he perceived as being different. It was clearly druidic, he decided, and only a week's march to the west. The strength was too great for it to be the bungling of a beginner. There seemed to be a harmony in the sounds, but he wasn't sure. Morteous was tempted to go chase the druid in question and find out who or what it was for certain. But, he reasoned, by the time he could fly there, the druid would be long gone. Teleporting was also out of the question. He had never been to the target area before. The last thing he wanted was to teleport into a solid object. Besides, if the newcomers were sensitive to arcane fluxes, as were the warlocks, the use of a spell like that would give him away. Instead, he decided, he would send a message to Miguel and continue on his mission.

Mounting his nightmare, Morteous made himself comfortable, then closed his eyes. His brow furrowed in concentration. He reached out with his mind. His mind soared over vast distances with great speed and ease. Within seconds, Morteous' consciousness descended upon his nephew in a room hundreds of leagues away.

"Miguel."

"Yes Uncle," the youth's voice whispered in return. He betrayed no surprise in that type of communication. It was sometimes used for emergencies between heads of state, and often used between the heads of the Blackheart Clan.

"Tell your father that the newcomers are on the northern coast of the Great Deep near the town of Northreach in the Tycarian region."

"I will uncle. Are you going to attack them?"

"No, Miguel. I will let our followers do that. We do not want to alert our enemies as to what we have planned."

"I understand. Good-bye, uncle. I will pass the message to father."

Morteous opened his eyes. Damn that kid asking that kind of question in open telepathy. Their intentions had to be kept secret. Morteous was almost certain that no one was eavesdropping, but if someone had heard... He shivered at the thought.

"Okay, my winged friend," he said to the nightmare, "Northward." With a few quick strides and a great leap, the powerful beast took a running plunge into the night air where its huge bat-like wings caught the evening sea breeze and held it aloft. Higher and higher, Morteous and nightmare flew until the ground below was just a blurry shadow on the horizon.

As Morteous rode, he half-heatedly monitored the druidic magic he had felt earlier. It was getting late and both moons were up now. The major moon was rapidly approaching zenith. Soon there would be a powerful surge of druidic magic that would last all night and part of the next day as the moon passed over the many parts of the world. It was one of the few things he did not like about the druids. Every month at midnight they created such a disturbance that it was almost deafening.

Dreading the upcoming crescendo of noise, Morteous pulled his cloak around him even tighter and tried to keep out the numbing cold of the frigid night air as they flew over icebergs. Somewhere ahead of them was the southern edge of the large ice cap of Asille and even further north, the Ice Kingdom.