Kaon Rising

4: Last Week’s Game

Vessia leaned against squat stones, and honed her black claws. Blue paint covered the tops of those rocks, and clutched in her hindpaws, a blue gem glimmered in the light. The light, reflected and filtered through this gem, fell upon her violet scales, and granted them new definition.

She leaned against the rocks, while so many of the other dragons flew about, or tactically darted across lower platforms. Every flier clutched similar gemstones, some red, some green.

Kaon flew among them, deft maneuvers bringing him behind a diving green dragon. Around Kaon’s neck a clear gemstone glowing with magic hung. He lifted it in front of his maw, aiming toward the green dragon. One flexure of his will brought forth raw mana, the gem swiftly siphoning it with energetic pull.

The spellgem activated, and from the other end an invisible impulse of raw force soared out and impacted the light green dragon with the force of a falling boulder.

They fell to a soft platform below, grounded. They’d held only a single green gem, so Kaon didn’t bother flying down to collect. He gripped his red gem tighter; someone else on this team would retrieve theirs, with any luck. He would pursue other tactical objectives.

Once released, the clear gem fell to bang against his breast. Force spellgems took the place of true Breath during these games in all but the most extreme rulesets — because for all its tactical variety, a dragon’s Breath was a weapon of hunting and combat, not sport. Kaon knew of Jin, a high ranking fifth level dragon, who brought withering and death to anything her Breath fell upon. Hardly fit for a game like this.

Sudden movement in the peripheral made Kaon flinch. He folded his wings and dropped rapidly, falling under a bolt of Force sent by an opponent, then lifted his spellgem to deliver return fire, and his aim was practiced and unerring.

All it took to activate a spellgem was expelling raw mana — something, to Kaon’s relief, he had little more trouble with than other dragons. Raw mana was not Breath, and it was useless in itself; a single ray of light falling upon it would catalyze the whole mass into an epheremal lightshow. The teachers repeated it ad nauseum: mana must be channeled, mana must be channeled. A dragon’s throat (Kaon’s difficulties excepted) could channel mana before release, and so could the spell that lived inside this gem.

Kaon had spread his wings, and now rose to intercept the green gem dropping from his bested opponent.

The name of the game was Three Hoards, and the equalizing nature of spellgems meant Kaon excelled — quite the contrast to any other kind of training. On another day, Kaon holding a red gem meant, with decent if not overwhelming odds, the red team would rise victorious.

But his eye kept getting drawn back to Vessia, who, to all appearances, did nothing to help blue team. Kaon could apply himself — but Vessia was alone, looking bored, and would she want to talk?

Of course, there was an obstacle to this: the red gem he held. Those blue​-​painted rocks meant the platform Vessia sat on was the blue hoard.

Kaon surveyed the arena. Three Hoards was played with a tiered, scattered collection of platforms which floated under the heave of the same domesticated spells as the foundations of this realm. All of the platforms were connected to at least one other by a flimsy rope bridge, so that grounded players could get around.

Kaon had two options — seek a flyer with a blue gem, or find and seize one of gems on the ground, placed there before the game began. Hunting another player raised the risk of their Force spellgem taking down Kaon, but any gem on the ground he could spot would doubtless be spotted by other fliers, and that competition posed the same sort of danger.

A blink of insight. He stopped and shook his head; he was still analyzing it as though he would advance red team’s tactical interest. He needn’t, which meant he could go about it differently.

He scanned the arena again, sizing up the fliers, this time looking at those he ignored on first pass: other fliers with a red gem. It took a moment to spot one en route to the red hoard, and Kaon twisted his wings and moved to intercept with rapid beats.

“Excuse me,” he called out. “Do you have a blue gem? I have a green one. We can trade. I want to try something.”

The flier looked over, and Kaon brandished his red gem, showing their aligned interests. He gestured as if to throw the green gem. A pause – but Kaon wasn’t asking for a red gem, so even with the risk of betrayal, this move wouldn’t put red in a worse position. So the other dragon nodded, and the two gems sailed through the air.

Trade complete. With the blue gem, Kaon could land on the blue hoard. Before, flying over to Vessia would have grounded him, forfeiting his red gem to their hoard. (He wasn’t completely apathetic about the fate of the game, though he cared more about her.) With the blue gem, Kaon could approach the hoard as though he were blue team. He was, now.

When Kaon alighted, the violet dragon was regarding her black claws.

“Vessia,” Kaon said as way of greeing.

“Malthec.” She always greeted him this way — if nothing else, it meant he could always get her to speak at least one word in his direction. A word so frequently on the lips of mentors (and those, like Geddion, who aped them) — and always said with grave distaste. But out of this dragoness, the tone was like a distant ancestor of equal regard.

Vessia lifted her gaze from her claws to meet his. Her eyes were bright, enough he wondered if they’d glow in a dark room. “I’m not idling,” she said. “I’m simply biding my time for a strategic opportunity, got it? If the mentors ask, I’m not idling.” Vessia put down her paw, digits flexing, her black claws scratching deep into the gravel.

“Makes sense,” Kaon said, and then added, “Don’t worry.” But the violet dragon still regarded him without a smile, her lips parting just enough to reveal her sharp teeth. “You look like you want to kill someone.”

“I do.”

“Ah,” Kaon says. Conversationally, “Who?”

Vessia glanced away. At first, Kaon thought it embarrassment, but no: her eyes tracked a dragon flying lower down in the arena. “My idiot of a lairmate.”

Kaon found she tended to silence more easily than speech, so he said, “There’s a story there,” to indicate he’s listening.

“No story. She’s the lord’s daughter, and the fatass sent her this excessively large mirror. It’s big enough they couldn’t be bothered to move it much farther than the entrance — and that princess loves to stare into it for hours painting her scales, blocking the exit.” She lifted a paw, and curled her claws inward as if squeezing. “She’s the lord’s daughter, so the mentors would side for her if I made her get out of my way.” Vessia does not have a gentle voice, thought it wouldn’t be correct to call it a growl.

Kaon noded. “My lairmate's fallen asleep in the middle of the floor more than once.”

Vessia nodded, and returned her gaze to tracking the flier she had watched before. “I’ve seen your aim with the spellgems. Think you can hit her?” Vessia doesn’t point, but Kaon can follow her gaze.

“She’s fairly far away,” he said. “My fingers jitter, so breathing raw mana is a bit — imprecise, at this distance.”

Vessia looked back at Kaon, and frowned. He worried it was a look of disappointment, but she narrowed her eyes. “Your cast​-​off would make aiming easier.”

“My what?”

Instead of responding, the violet dragon leaned toward him, quickly thrusting her left paw in his face — right at his eye. Was she trying to gouge his eyes out?

But no, her — bright violet? — claws touched the magic air he placed before his eyes to enhance his vision. Though his Breath was normally under his control, she pulled the lens away without resistance.

“Your cast​-​off,” she repeated. “You'd know it contains mana even after you evert it.” He didn’t, but he nodded. Vessia squeezed the stolen magical mass between two digits. It compressed, and a faint glow arose around — the glow of raw mana. Vessia carelessly flicked it back toward Kaon, and returned her left paw to the ground. Her other forepaw, he noticed, curled around the dull brown of a rock. Black cloth looped around each of her ankles save her right foreleg, wrapped in a dark bandage.

The demonstration was enough. So Kaon Breathed, feeling that familiar of ripping out his throat, bringing out the full six cubic inches.

What did she want him to do? If his Breath contained raw mana even now, could he hold the gem without setting it off? He could ask, but he wouldn’t look even more ignorant. Vessia, somehow, understood his Breath – one offhand comment revealed something even the mentors hadn’t deign to tell him. He’d trust that this would work.

He brought the air underneath the gem, shaping it as if to cradle the mass, without yet touching it. He did this slowly, to see if Vessia would object, and with that lack response, cupped the spellgem and lifted it with his Breath.

“Your cast​-​off is much more reliable than your material body,” she said, her gaze returning to track Nesle. “Now wait… wait… now. Do it.”

Normally, when raw mana was exhaled near the Force spellgem, it drew in, and from the area opposite, emitted a ray of force. Kaon wasn’t sure how this would work with his Breath, with his ‘cast​-​off’.

Still intuition guided his will. He bunched up the magical mass towards one end, opposite where the gem points towards the flier Vessia indicated. And then he pressed.

It was like the air leaving a dead puffslug — energy he was hardly aware of draining into the gem, and concentrated force flew out.

And landed, right on target. Nesle fell from the air. Kaon watched her fall, and saw that Vessia had timed it so that she was right above the green hoard.

“She deserved that.” Turning back to Kaon: “I appreciate it.”

“Of course,” Kaon said.

Then he noticed Vessia’s eyes now almost seemed… brighter.

Then his attention was drawn to the dragoness’s right paw, which hadn't moved, and she lifted it to reveal a clear spellgem clutched within it.

“But as I said,” Vessia started, “if the mentors ask, I’m biding my time for a strategic opportunity.”

Vessia’s paw glowed (how? that would mean she was–), and Kaon saw a glimpse of a feral smile, and two things happened near simultaneously.

Raw magical force impacted against Kaon; and he dropped the red gem and the blue gem he held while he was thrown back.

Vessia sauntered to the edge of the blue hoard, and collected Kaon’s gem, and watched him fall.