From the shoulders down, the man was unrecognizable as having been human, yet his neck and head were untouched. His unmasked face conveyed all too well the horror of his last moments. Looking up to Morgynn's darkened window, Talmen wondered if she'd witnessed or enjoyed the spectacle. His scrying upon her had been unsuccessful of late, but this he attributed to the growing power of the storm that surrounded the tower. Part of the genius of Morgynn's ideas included an obscuring spell that foiled all attempts to scry upon Jhareat or even the surrounding forest. The dense magic around the tower was barely contained. He could sense the design of the Weave bending to accommodate the dense net of spells being laid to summon and control the tempest. The symbol Morgynn had burned into his arm still throbbed, in tune to the restless host in the forest, the bathor, the undead of Logfell. Morgynn doted on her creations, calling them her children. He shuddered and rubbed at the scar, returning to his tasks and muttering prayers to Gargauth for a swift victory and an end to the whole affair.
Time in the tower passed swiftly as Morgynn slumbered, tossing and turning in the throes of nightmares woven of old memory. Her skin was flushed by the swift current in her veins that had become agitated and heated as her dreams progressed, closer and closer, through battle and flame and darkness, to the chill of death. The dream, the memory, was relentless. Darkness had become a vast landscape of bewildered faces, all meandering slowly toward a glittering spire of rock in the far distance. Lightning hung in her mind; the spell, not yet fully formed, clung to her thoughts. Kaeless was gone. The Well of Goorgian, the Sedras, the battle-all gone. She had no time to contemplate what had happened before powerful clawed hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her back into a swirling pit of crimson tornadoes. As she fell, a second landscape came into view, another sky she was falling through.
Her back slammed into the surface, a ground that gave way like thick mud, knocking the breath from her lungs. A red sky filled her vision as she sank in a black bog. A foul wind carried the scents of burning flesh and rot. She struggled to keep her head above the slime that had her in its grasp. Her limbs felt weak and sluggish, unable to fully obey her commands, her desire to pull free. Dark shapes flitted overhead and cavorted in the tempestuous sky. The silhouettes of what appeared to be giant mountains loomed in the distance. Squirming in the strange bog were the wormlike forms of hideous creatures. Their pale skin was smooth and glistening as they flopped and splashed. Now and then, a head would emerge, bearing a humanoid face and smacking lips full of the dark ooze, gnashing toothless gums and wailing like a newborn infant. Morgynn tried to scream as well, but her throat felt raw and she could manage only a weak croak. She freed one arm and reached outward, seeking something to hold onto. The flesh of her arm was loose and torn in several places. Her blood streamed into the thick, tarlike fluid and seemed to excite the wailing worms. She could feel them sliding against her body, biting her flesh and tasting her skin with cold tongues. Frantically she waved her arm and thrashed against the gnawing beasts, flexing fingers that were almost skinless as she clawed at the air. The soft beds of her fingernails lay exposed and the winds lashed across them, sending lances of fresh pain down her arms. Loud voices roared and argued somewhere nearby. In the part of her mind that had not been lost to utter madness, she recognized their language with sickening horror. The unseen beasts argued in the language of demons, the tongue of the Abyss. They were fighting over the pleasure of owning her soul. Fresh pain washed over her head as the memory of her mother's last blow returned. The sensation played itself slowly, her skull fracturing, the mace exposing the fragile tissue beneath to the open air. Again and again she died, ignominiously, in the courtyard of Goorgian's Well. Moments stretched into years as, bit by bit, Morgynn lost hold of herself. Her flesh was dissolving in the muck, devoured by the maggoty things around her as it sloughed off. A fleeting realization that she was becoming one of them crossed her mind but was quickly forgotten as her eyelids drooped and a few teeth slipped away from her loosening gums. The argument over her soul ended, and a night-skinned hag stood grinning with lion's teeth nearby, heating a branding iron over a venting crack in the ground. Behind the hag stood a massive creature with red skin and burning eyes, enveloped in massive batlike wings like a deep red cloak. The fiend's horned head nodded in approval as the hag held up the white-hot brand for his inspection. Morgynn's eyes rolled back, barely seeing the blurred colors of the bruised sky above. Her body had begun to shrink. Her legs were numb and she wondered briefly if they were still there. Madness beckoned in her mind with the long trembling claws of a mania from which there could be no escape. Hope for death was lost to her now-that bridge had been crossed. Only oblivion awaited beyond this hellish afterlife. An airy giggle passed her lips as the spell she'd left unfinished still floated through her mind, teasing her with that feeling of the living, the warmth and ecstasy of magic. Desperately, she clung to those arcane phrases, nearly weeping as she spoke them uncontrollably, feeling the emptiness that lurked behind them grow as they were lost. The lightning faded from her thoughts, but, strangely, its heat remained as if mocking her death. The spell was gone. She knew she would never feel its power again. Never would she feel the Weave respond to her command and flow through her body, but despite her fears and lamentations, something strange happened. Her blood began to burn and a searing light assailed her eyes. The lightning returned. The magic tingled through her blood, summoning it back into a heart that beat more fiercely than she remembered. She could still see the hag and its reaching brand, the worming souls around her and the ever-changing colors of the sky, but she also saw her arms rising in the air unhindered by the foul ooze.
New life flooded through her in waves of unspeakable heat and wild, pulsing magic such as she'd never felt before. A droning chant surrounded her, drowning out all other sounds as she rose, weightless, into the air. The night hag's fanged mouth opened in a stifled roar as she stabbed at Morgynn's rising form with the heated brand to no effect. Morgynn ignored her, fixated on the warmth of life and magic that mingled in her body, growing stronger as the chant grew louder.
Her heartbeat joined the relentless voices in her mind, and she flew upward into the tumultuous sky. Tiny bat-winged creatures swarmed toward her, and she screamed in horror as their claws lodged in her retreating heels. Looking back, she kicked at the little green-skinned demons. Her sanity swooned as she felt them pulling her down, into the pit, to the worms and the hag with her cruel brand. Her screams continued for a long time, even as the walls of Goorgian's Well coalesced around her. Gargauthan priests in fearful masks stood gathered, ghostlike and somber, as her eyes fluttered open. Her flesh transformed and trails of blood receded into closing wounds. The bones of her misshapen face, disfigured by her mother's killing blow, cracked and popped, knitting together. Talmen held his ears as her ungodly wails echoed throughout the ruined halls of the Well. As Morgynn opened eyes that streamed crimson tears, her laughter became maniacal. Somehow, she had evaded death. Goorgian's dark, battle- scarred well looked like a paradise. Kaeless had lost but still had much more to lose.
On the first day of autumn, the horses had grown sick, becoming weak then dying within days. The nomadic Sedras were at a loss to treat such a virulent disease. Magic and healing had availed them nothing. Rumors of a horse plague would make them outcasts among the scattered tribes of the Nar. Fear of a harsh winter, though, settled more deeply into the bones. An autumn without productive hunting would make the colder months all the more difficult. They moved more and more slowly, until finally they stopped to construct a more permanent settlement for the safety of the tribe. Light gray skies blanketed the snow-covered permafrost when Morgynn and the Order of Twilight finally beheld their wandering foes. The smell of smoke from the campfires drifted on the late afternoon air. The temperature had dropped considerably in the last few days, a constant reminder of colder days to come. The Gargauthans wore heavy cloaks and furs, while Morgynn had shed many of the usual trappings of the Nar plains, filled as she was with a feverish heat that coursed through her body. She was barefoot in the snow, wearing little more than a crimson robe and small pieces of found armor for modesty's sake against the bitter northern winds.
The day was drawing to a close, bringing thoughts of supper and sleep under the darkening gray of the clouded sky. The season's silence carried a young girl's voice across the plain, clear as the calling horns traditional among the Nar tribes. Pieces of an old Lathanderian chant sought their ears, ghostlike across the white fields, eerie as it twisted in the wind.
In the flames of his crown, We give praise to the dawn. In the fields where we hunt, We give praise to the light.
Morgynn remembered the tune only vaguely, having heard it as a child, before she was taken away by the Creel. It was a song of ending, a light-hearted dirge for the setting sun. Its haunting melody had no meaning for her anymore, though her head ached to remember such things from before her untimely death. Masked from sight by illusions, the newly formed Order awaited Morgynn's command, already viewing her as a sign of their god's favor. Morgynn surveyed the peaceful camp, settling in for the evening with only unmounted scouts on foot to watch for signs of danger. The smell of cooking horseflesh signaled the beginning of a mournful supper. They had slain one of
