On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Jose Marquez wrote: #It makes sense. Dragaerans appear to use cleaning spells to dispose of #trash and wastes (at least in Vlad's time, so insert margin of error #here); it had to go somewhere during the Interregnum, and it couldn't go #into the overcast... Wouldn't that be a recipe for plagues? Oh, bravo! An excellent idea!! When Brust said that the Overcast was the result of using magic to throw out the garbage for 200,000 years, I didn't take that to mean literally that the Overcast *was* what became of the garbage -- although that would be a neat explanation for Rocza's holding her breath as she flies through it. I took "throw out the garbage" there as shorthand to refer to using magic for every little thing in life: so much use of magic that whatever waste products resulted from the magical process *itself* accumulated faster than they could dissipate or degrade, becoming the Overcast. -- But that just was my interpretation. So I applaud you again, for another excellent idea. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website