OK, I'm giving you a little bit of blog fodder, but it's also that I'm up WAAAAAYY too late. Early. Somewhere in there.
The windows of the grey bus rattled as Donovan drove along the bumpy road. The roads in this area were clear, as per the request of the King, but there were no road maintenance crews, no snow plows, no one to do anything more than make sure the brush was kept back and that the signs were reasonably accurate.
The rattling of the windows was met in a percussive chorus with the armour piled in the back. Rattle-rattle, clang-clang, crash, rattle, clang-clang, crash. Reece winced at each and every crash. He laid across one of the few seats remaining in the bus, trying to stop the infernal headache which had been plaguing him since their morning start.
"Twelve miles to some sort of civilization," Donovan called out from the driver's seat. He sounded cheerful, even optimistic.
He was, Reece decided, to blame for this whole situation. Reece held him responsible for last night's libations, the hangover, the morning sun, the rattle, clang, crash, and each and every bump in the road.
Reece met Donovan's proclamation with the kind of sound a dying thing might make, should it be resisting the urge to simply give in to its injuries. It started as a moan, worked its way into a groan, and was punctuated by another crash.
The wheels on the bus went round and round.
Donovan reflected aloud, "Maybe a little travelling music." He began whistling.
Reece moaned again and pulled the covers over his head.
The warm rays of the afternoon sun warmed Reece as the doors creaked open. New Sherwood was nearly identical to the last four places Donovan had visited on his circuit of the King's lands. Resting on the ruins of what might have been a medium-sized city, there was a conglomeration of old-built and new-built, many things rigged together from the scraps of the outlying suburbs, some built new.
It was hard to determine the boundaries of the reclaimed cities. They had passed through the remnants of streets, many blocked off except for the King's road. They had passed neighborhoods of ghostly shells of houses, the windows broken, the roofs collapsed. The corpses of rusted cars reflecting the nightmares of some mechanic's morgue.
Reece could never sleep though the trip into the inner city. Too many ghosts, he claimed. What the wizard saw as they passed was something Donovan knew he could never ask, or even understand should Reece deign to respond. Donovan had seen enough of the creatures that lived in the bones of the houses to keep silent through that part of their journey.
New Sherwood was, at least, inhabited, Donovan decided, watching the movement of people on the street. It was an old reclaimer's project, named for the forestry that bordered it. The mountain towns were where the reclaiming started, as they had been least affected by the cataclysms. They were also the most independent of the King's lands, although this one had never been outwardly disloyal.
The claiming of the King had not been entirely unanimous, of course. Many of the small groups of civilization had chosen their own leaders, their own warlords, gang bosses, their own power structures. The King had managed to gain power with less conquering and more coordination, more compromise, and invited representatives found faith in his vision. Still, the Knights were sent on circuit to make sure the Kingdom's borders had adequate communication with the capital, and that the King's law was applied.
"Looks clean," Reece muttered. It did at that, with the streets in better maintenance, and collection of trash in some sort of evidence. That reinforced their estimate of how long New Sherwood had been reclaimed, as many newer cities had been notable for miles simply by the smell.
"Of course, there are things that eat..." Donovan trailed off. Reece had met only one of the creatures that lived in the shadows, and indeed, the town was clean of nearly all organic matter. Reece shot Donovan a look. Horrors of that sort were their combined quest, but it was not an easy one to undertake.
They had begun to attract a bit of a crowd. Suspicion of strangers was a survival technique. Donovan wore the King's colours, but not the armour. He wore the sword that was his symbol on his back. Reece wore slightly outlandish robes, as most of his sect were fond of the distinctions in the patterns. Wizards were even rarer than Knights, but as Reece was prone to explain, all communities eventually shook out their heirarchy, and he was as loathe to relinquish his standing as any.
Reece was a Free Wizard. He had tried to explain to Donovan the differences, and why it meant so much, but Donovan suspected he only understood a small amount of it. Magic was the realm of too much skepticism even by many of its practitioners. That a school had been founded was the result of diligence by some best described as cultists. That magic had reproducible effects, they said, was the result of the cataclysms.
His Majesty, however, was not the type to overlook the potential of such a school. That the "magic" was effective against radiation proved to be significant enough that more such schools were planned. That was where the distinction of Free Wizard became notable.
The cost of training a magician of any nature was prohibitive, mostly in that control was one of the last lessons, and replacing furniture, buildings, and staff could prove fairly expensive. A wizard was indebted to the school, but often upon some level of graduation they were indentured to a buyer who bonded them for a purpose. There were huge groups of reclaimers who used them to cleanse potential new sites for cities or supplies.
It had a cost, Reece said. A terrible price, for the source of most magic was the wizard himself. Most bought by the reclaiming teams did not survive the experience. Reece had been lucky; his gifts were strong and well-prized, and he was vicious in his pricing. He opted to pay the school back himself, and rejected the offers of the reclaiming teams.
He was a Free Wizard. Paid in full, as he often muttered. It had taken more than his gifts, though, for Donovan had met him as he had collected a great deal in mutant bounty. The Reece he knew was not a killer, but times had been known to change a man.