Morgan wiped away another bead of sweat as it ran down his forehead and over his right eye. He squinted as the salt stung and he managed a quiet curse as he rubbed it out. He pulled a crumpled cigarette from a pocket, dusting off the lint and detridis that happened to have fallen on it. He flicked his thumb and felt the familiar burning of a fire appear above his finger. He drew in. He sighed.
"Its hot." He said.
"So it is." Artessa agreed.
She sat with her back to Morgan, using the position on the horse, mixed with the leasurely speed at which they rode, to catch up on some long overdue reading. She fingered through the book with the occassional hm and ha of someone reading something very interesting to them, but likely very boring to the populace.
"We're near the coast now," Morgan said
"You can tell that from the heat?" She asked.
"Not just the heat," He said, "But the humidity too. Only on the coasts do you get something so muggy."
"I thought that was swamps," She offered. Artessa had begun to develop a skill of reading and talking, rather a strange combination when she often thought on it. The conversations with Morgan were just too bland for her to give full attention to. Perhaps that was too harsh, after all, the works she read were far different than the goings on of her natural life. She read stories of the elders and their attempts to learn the wild magics of the world. Of how people built pyramids and castles by hand using only their wits, strength, and engineering know-how. She loved those stories. But Morgan couldn't compare to that, so she learned to split her focus.
"Swamps sure," He said, frustration bubbling up like air in the water. "I give you that, but the coast too. Oh, it gets terrible. Nothing like a coastal town to make you wish for the mountains again."
"I grant you that the humidity is bad, its playing hell with my books."
"Always does." He sighed "Can't keep a tome dry around parts like these, must be why they use so much magic."
"What? You think that Dragons Roost uses magic to keep the temperature down?"
"Not in so many words," He said. "Just that they may have some magics that could cool us off, or keep your books from getting so damp."
"That would be nice," She admitted, "But I don't feel it's likely."
"Whys that? I thought wizards and sorcerers had all sorts of fancy magics."
"We do," She said defensively, "But it takes some work, and at the end of the day its almost worth just moving to someplace else."
"What, not worth sticking around? Doesn't sea water offer some sort of benefit to magic?"
"Not especially," She flipped a page "Not unless the weather is unique or the moons are in some strange alignment. Honeslty i've never been much for potion making, too much astrology and herbology. I've always been more in the field of just... well, casting."
"Biased then, got it."
"Not biased, just..." Artessa gave a grunt of frustration and closed the book. She spun around on the horse and lean over the side trying to see ahead. "Are we almost there?"
"Easy now," Morgan said "We'll get there soon enough."
By right of the passage of time, they had traveled for nearly a two weeks since their encounter with the assassins at Small-Fathers. He'd made note of the days as they'd passed and kept an extra eye out on the premise that perhaps, just perhaps, they hadn't given up and were insisten on their pursuit. He doubted it, but it didn't hurt to be procautious.
He directed them down a long path lined with trees that seemed like they'd never seen the edge of a good landscaping instrument, and over cobble that looked older than Morgan was by a factor of twelve. The horse was silent and said nothing, for it had nothing to say. Morgan was the horses first master that actually seemed to give more care for the adventure than for the burning of the road. He'd kept them at a brisk pace, but never faster than was nessecary. Atleast, not more than the horse thought was.
The roads curved and twisted, ran up rocks and over valleys that spanned wide with wild grains that seemed to go on forever. Morgan almost lost himself in the natural course of a night, when he'd gone to take a leak and ended up in a maze of his own accidental creation. He'd found his way back by morning, but could have sworn he'd heard something in the forest of grain with him. He hadn't checked.
Their final obstacle before arriving was the peak of Roost Mountain, a rather poorly named landmark that used to house a number of smaller, less intimidating dragons. They'd named the place themselves at a young age, but had made the mistake of creating a following for themselves in the process and thus the name had stuck. Much to their chagrin.
When the city finally spilled out before them like the working blocks of an unhappy builder, they could see the coastline stretching out on either side into infinity. Of course it wasn't really infinity, as the natural eye is locked to only so far, but the metaphor worked well enough in Morgans mind that he commited it to memory.
"Wow." Artessa breathed. "Its beautiful."
"It really is," He agreed, taking a deep breath of the distant sea air. Mixed with the clarity of the mountain it was almost potable. One could drink up the scent and get rather tipsy from it.
They descended the mountain and by nightfall they were at the gates of the city, being ushered inside just before the closing of the gates. Citizens lived outside the gates of course, in shanty towns or in districts that had developed long after the walls had been established, but these were seen as risky options, seeing as how the nightly guard never regularly patrolled there. Countless criminal organizations had used that fact to establish rather safe and stable training grounds for new recruits, with the general knowledge of all present being that: if you were here, you were family, and family gets robbed regularly.
The inner workings of the city themselves seemed to be a mixture of uncertain construction mixed with the delicate nature of a post-post-post-Modern derivation of something close to antique brutalism. It was pleasant enough to look at now but, with the shadows casting strange directional movements over the arches and pictures, Morgan felt his stomach crawl on more than one occasion.
They rode their way through the narrow streets and wide alleys until they came across a proper stable attached to an Inn, from there they set themselves up with a set of rooms for the next few days and prepared to sleep. It was restless slumber, the kind that came from travel without a clear idea of where you were going. Morgan was used to the feeling, his life had been little in the way of "in his control" for sometime now. He'd simply been willing to go along with the flow of things as it were.
Artessa on the other, she detested the lack of sound sleep. She needed every hour she could get simply to put up with the natural order of the day, and thinking poor thoughts about the future and ruin of her life didn't help accomplish that. Yet still the thougths invaded her brain and left her in a state of wild suspense over every moment. Each creak in the night, each squeek and groan, all set her nerves on end and she was left in a state of near paralysis.
She did eventually sleep, and dreamt strange dreams of sinking ships and Krakens.
Morgan dreamt of the past, of a sandwhich so good that even the memory alone was enough to satisfy him.
Morning came and went with its light striking out the dark of the night like a baseball bat against glass, shattering its illusion of control over the world and asserting that, yes indeed, it had also just needed to sleep. The three moons dipped back below the horizon as they always did, retreating from the suns fiery onslaught above them, leaving the people below in the tender and burning hands of daylight.
They awoke from their respective slumbers by noon, each in a differing state of wellness from the night before. Artessas back hurt and she felt very much like she'd hardly slept, she had. Morgan felt fine, and was currently in the need of a smoke and drink, in either order, he wasn't picky.
"I just don't see whats so magical about this city." Morgan said after eating breakfast some hour later. He'd been provided a pair of matches and been allowed to step outside to smoke, but when he'd inquired about the matches he'd been instructed to not use magic at all, lest he cause something terrible.
"Maybe they were just messing with you," She offered helpfully
"This is a city of magic after all, shouldn't you be allowed to light up inside a bar with a flame."
"Did the matches not work?"
"No," He said "They worked fine. Its not an issue with the idea, its-"
"The principle of the thing," She finished. "I get it. Perhaps theres a reason why you can't use magic."
"Why aren't you concerned?" He asked, eyes narrowing. She wasn't concerned, in fact she seemed almost relaxed, like she knew something he didn't. He didn't like that.
"Hm? Oh me? Nothing. I'm just not concerned about it, if it was something to be concerned about, then there wouldn't be so many wizards and sorcerers about."
"And are there?"
"Indeed, yes." She pointed to a table nearby and directed his attention to the occupants. Both were wearing robes in differing states of dress and each bore a hat. "Traditionalists too from the looks of things."
Magic, as time had progressed, had become split between two minds of thought. Those with the idea that magic had been performed very well for sometime without any new invention into it, and those with the idea that magic was still a developing art form, one with new tricks and techniques being developed every day.
The result of this split was both visual and mental, and had divided the community between three groups. Those that wanted it to stay very much the same, those that wanted it very much to change, and those that wanted the other two to bugger off and stop bothering them. It wasn't very productive.
Artessa was a new age sorcerer, with ideas about how best to advance the artform and increase the general output of most casters similar to herself. She'd been practicing and peitioning for some time, but her letters were rarely answered.
"Perhaps we should ask them then." Morgan said.
"Ask them what?"
"Whats going on with the magic in this town." He said. "Haven't you been listening?"
"I was," She lied, she'd spaced out for the latter half of the conversation, but was remarkable at keeping it going regardless. "What about the magic?"
"Why I wasn't allowed to use it. Thats it, you know what." He stood and gave her a glare. "I'm going over to ask them myself."
"Sure, fine." she waved a dissmissive hand and allowed him to depart. He returned a minute later red in the face and fuming. "What?"
"They said," He sat back in the chair and pulled the drink closer "That magic here is too thick."
"Too thick?" She pursed her lips "Ah, too thick."
"That means nothing to me," He said.
"I'd imagine as rightly it shouldn't," she waved a hand and was about to cast a spell, when she remembered the conversation they were having. Its better to say that she didn't remember, so much as the conversation planted itself into her brain finally and she registered that one was presently playing out with her participation. "What were we talking about."
"Thick magic." He said, "I don't understand."
"Its quite simple, really. You see, magic has a sort of residue that gets left in the world from its use. Depending on the magic, it could be one that absords the energy, or one that adds more. Like a having a fire that eats smoke and one that produces smoke. They're the same, just different."
"I don't think I follow. Why would some magic take energy out of the area."
"Healing magic mostly," She offered "If we're to talk about it, we might as well talk with some knowledge. Healing magic pulls energy from both the user and the surrounding area."
She paused, a thought coming to her mind "Why aren't they doing that now, I wonder."
Morgan took a swig from his mug and shrugged
"Beats me. So what can happen if magic builds up too much? Strange mutations? Portal to another realm?"
"Usually just a big explosion of Ethereal energy and a lot of property damage. Why? Thinking of lighting up?"
"No, no, just wondering is all. You say things like 'thick magic' and expect me to understand. All I needed to know was that it could blow us up, thats it."
"Well then you're now very well informed i'd imagine."
"So what was it that you were pondering? Why not healing something?"
"To pull the energy out of the area, yes. Why not just bring the local sick to the area and heal them, you could use the energy buildup as a resource."
"Perhaps they hadn't thought of that."
Artessa stood and scooted the chair away from the table, it squeked against the wood as it went. She turned and, with great effort, pointed to the pair of wizards.
"You two," She gave her most commanding voice possible "Tell me why there hasn't been an effort to fix this 'thick magic' issue."
"We don' know," Said one, missing some teeth
"Who are you, anyway?" The other asked, voice a bit more like a proper wizard.
"I'm Artessa, I'm a sorcerer."
"A shorcerer are you?" Said the one missing teeth. "Well, you shuld hab no trouble with theshe ishsuesh then, sheeing ash how shorcery ishn' real magic."
"Isn't real magic!" She stamped her foot "Isn't real magic!? Who are you to say what is real and isn't."
"A wizard," Said the second. "Two wizards of the Academy in Bartulfoot, teachers of the subject. We'd come to see the sights and inspect the magical wares. Only..."
"Only the magics gone thick," Morgan offered, joining the conversation now after hearing the woman scream
"Ash it ish theresh nothing to be done about it." It was strange the way that his voice shifted between being difficult to understand and crystal clear. A very strange filtering that unsettled Artessa.
"Well, whos in charge, do you know?"
"I'd say the head council of wizards here would handle most of the issues." The Second wizard offered.
"A council of wizards and they can't manage to keep a cities magic from going thick? What is this, the dark ages?"
"Beetsh me."
"Maybe we could talk to them?" Morgan said.
"No, I don't care enough rather. No we should just focus on our task at hand, no need to get even more distracted than already neccessary."
That had been a lie
