Difficulties of Travel

 The following day he wasn’t sure how much of what he had remembered from last night truly happened or if it was just a strange dream or a delusion from being partly asleep. Carys seemed the same as she always was and was organising for their upcoming travel. To his surprise a trio of horses were waiting for them in front of the building.

“Aren’t we going to continue flying?” Samuel asked. Despite his initial concerns, it was an amazing form of transport.

“No,” Carys said. “We are at the border of the Kingdom of Bryntir. We will cross the wild lands to the Kingdom of Gwairtir. While we could fly for that part of the way, it won’t give us much advantage. In Gwairtir magic is not so widely accepted and we will have to keep a lower profile. You can imagine the border patrol wouldn’t take kindly to us flying over their heads.” She smiled at the thought of that.

Despite the time he had spent in Tanwyth, where the wizards were an everyday sight, it wasn’t so hard for Samuel to consider how he would’ve reacted to a flying wooden plank in his own world. Horses were a much more mundane form of travel that he was obviously aware of from his old life, yet at the same time since the previous day he had even less experience with those than with the flying worktop. Just climbing into the saddle of the beast was an intense exercise exacerbated by the lack of the good hand. In the end one of the soldiers in the encampment helped him out. It was embarrassing and he began considering whether his control over magic was precise enough for it to help him climb the horse. Maybe a rock or a piece of wood serving as a step. While lifting himself by levitating an object was out of the question, holding something still in the air for a second was more manageable. Probably not. If he held the step for someone else, it would work but splitting his concentration between climbing the animal and also using magic at the same time was too much.

Samuel held on for dear life with his arm and legs when they departed. He managed to convince them to start slow so that he had the opportunity to get used to riding. He managed to get the hang of that but wasn’t ready for the pain. Everything hurt from the muscles to the spine. He suspected he was the sole reason they stopped as early as they did. He almost fell down from the horse. Not just from the pain and exhaustion but also from his own clumsiness.

“Go catch us something to eat,” Carys told them. She used her powers to set up their tents.

They began stalking through the ferns and found an animal that looked like a deer covered by spines like a porcupine. They impaled it from two sides with bolts of ice.

“Are you feeling any better?” Samuel asked as they were dragging the carcass back to their camp. Madoc still seemed a bit on edge but he had concentrated without too much difficulty.

“Sure,” Madoc answered in a non-committal way. “I’m still working on my research. No results yet. I told you, I’ll share when I have something.” The last part sounded a little bitter to Samuel. “There’s just nothing I can really do about it now, so I hope we can be back as soon as possible.”

“Right. It really seems like you’re on to something big the way you focus on it.”

“Maybe. It could also be a huge waste of time. Still, I want to work on it in peace.”

Samuel had to hold back a sigh. There was nothing he would drag from Madoc at this point. At that thought he felt a pang of guilt. Even now I’m hiding away a powerful artefact. I should have just told him from the start. He probably wouldn’t even do anything about it.

“On a different point,” Samuel said. Have you started having nightmares at any point since we started using magic at the Academy?” At that question Madoc dropped their dinner and looked at Samuel.

“How do you know about that?” There was a somewhat dangerous glint in his eyes.

“It seems to be a common ailment among the magic practitioners. I think so far it has mostly affected only those of us who have been using magic the most and at the highest level. Slowly, it’s expected that more if not all of us will get them.”

“So you have them too?”

“Yes, for quite a while already. I wanted to mention it to you before but there was never really a good chance.”

Madoc rubbed his chin as he thought about it. “What exactly are your nightmares about?”

Samuel gave some details that he remembered from his dreams and Madoc confirmed that his experience was similar, though the specific details were different. In a broad sense, there was a threat of danger looming above them and they were too weak to do anything about it.

“Not that we really need to worry about it,” Madoc said with a small grimacing smirk.

“What do you mean?”

Madoc shook his head before answering. “We’re getting stronger all the time and when we get our hands on some stronger artefacts we will already be able to control them to a much greater degree than ever before.” It didn’t feel like the entire answer.

By the time they came back to the camp, everything was set up and the fire was burning in a pit.

“Good, I was getting hungry,” Carys said.

Samuel wondered whether they even needed to hunt for food since they had also packed rations before leaving the outpost. Not that he was complaining as those didn’t taste particularly good. It’s a wonder how fast I get used to everything. It wasn’t all that long ago that he ate slop of suspicious origins and fought other wretches over it. Then he noticed there were several weapons strewn around the camp and even a helmet and some shields.

“What happened here?” Samuel asked.

“Just some bandits that needed to be taught some manners. Nothing to worry about,” Carys said. Samuel looked closer at the items and found that items weren’t just in poor condition from lack of maintenance but were also sporting brand new bends and cracks. One of the shields was in fact in several pieces. Carys didn’t look any different than she had when they left for the hunt. She looked at Samuel who was staring at her as if she was innocently unaware of why he would be doing so. You’re a scary woman. So much so that he dared not voice his thoughts. She smiled then looked back into the fire. It gave Samuel a shiver. Can she read minds as well?

“How come there aren’t any bodies?” Madoc asked.

“They ran away after taking a bit of a beating,” Carys said. “They’ll live.”

Madoc grumbled at that. “That’s not good. They could come back and slit our throats during the night.”

Carys raised an eyebrow at his tone. “I don’t think so. Even if they do I made sure to be prepared for it. You don’t have to worry about it. Now, let’s get cooking.”

The next day they reached the border of the Kingdom of Gwairtir. Just looking at the land itself, there wasn’t any real indication that they had entered a different kingdom. Only the guard post at the side of the road stood as an introduction to the new realm. Here we go again. The guards were prepared for action as they approached.

“Halt,” one of them spoke with a loud voice. “Who are you and what is the purpose of your travel?” He watched the trio with evident suspicion. Their robes gave them away as wizards, even if they were the travelling versions, which blended more easily with regular people and Samuel even began wearing the robes in a way that concealed his deformity. Still, both Samuel and Carys aroused the most suspicion while Madoc was treated more as an afterthought as he didn’t stand out. I wonder if I will still look out of place in this country. At first glance they seemed similar enough. Their hair was hidden by the helmets, though the eyes were brown and green. So some difference but not much.

Carys introduced them and handed a written missive marking the group as foreign diplomats. The guard scrutinised the papers and had one of his subordinates bring out his own seal to confirm the documents.

Two of the soldiers were sent as their escorts through the unfamiliar lands. Their company made them stand out even more as they moved through the villages of Gwairtir and many of the locals were quite open about their suspicion of the strangers but nobody dared to impede them. In the inns they always stuck to private rooms and didn’t interact with anyone. That didn’t really bother Samuel all that much, yet it did feel a little odd.

Despite being conspicuous the group was well armed and on the way, they were thus able to avoid any confrontations with local bandits. Other than people being even more distrustful towards him than even in Bryntir, Samuel saw very little difference in the two kingdoms. He did see that along with dark brown hair, the populace also had auburn hair. And that’s probably enough for the two kingdoms to argue. Then again perhaps the culture and not appearance is the thing that separates the different people of these lands. It was an amusing thought. Maybe I’ll find my own phenotype in some other kingdom in the future. What was more likely was that his facial features would be similar to one kingdom, eyes the common colour of another and hair that of a third. Don’t look at me, I’m a monster.

“Are you all right?” Carys asked.

“What?” Samuel shook his head and responded.

“You’ve been muttering to yourself and giggling,” she said.

“Oh, sorry. Just passing time and amusing myself. I’m not crazy I think.”

“I see. Please reign it in, I’d like at least one of you boys to look sane in front of our hosts,” Carys said and looked towards Madoc, who was also behaving in a somewhat eccentric manner. “I’m not sure I can do much for him.”

“I’m honestly not sure it’s such a good idea we’re coming along at all,” Samuel said. “Even after all the time we spent studying and preparing for it, there’s probably a lot that can go wrong.”

“This should be a fairly straightforward mission. As far as diplomacy goes, it doesn’t get any easier than this. And I have a feeling it will be increasingly more important for wizards. If negative sentiment against us starts spreading from kingdom to kingdom, it’s only a matter of time before we are persecuted and summarily executed.”

“But aren’t many people capable of becoming wizards, but just don’t because of their choices or circumstances?”

“Yes, why?”

“Would they also be in danger?”

Carys pondered over the question for a moment. “It’s hard to say. You’ve been through the test before you were admitted to the academy to determine your affinity towards magic. It would be easier to determine just whether a person has any potential ability or none. I wouldn’t underestimate the cruelty of people once they find an enemy that needs to be rooted out.” She sighed. “We need to keep up our work to make sure it doesn’t come to that.”