Kaon Rising

5: Breakthrough

Kaon had long dwelled on the encounter with Vessia. Knowing things the mentors didn’t (or didn’t reveal), hiding her third level status — and that baffling alloy of respect she regarded Kaon with, marred by the sudden betrayal.

For all his rumination, Kaon did not understand Vessia (and who did?), but Haore’s suggestion — that she would fight a thief (maybe), but then nobly sacrifice herself (really?) — all to save Nesle’s mirror? He’d stake a lot on his certainty that that was not what had happened. So the next step was to see what had. And so far, Kaon knew only one place to look.

Walking through this cavern hall, he could spread his wings and not touch both walls. Enough space for three dragons to walk side by side, but not enough space for Kaon to go forth without ears folded down, a knot of expectant tension. After all, he had company.

He neared the end of the tunnel, and listened to the footfalls of the dragon tailing him. The black drake turned around.

A moment’s glance up and down sized them up. Dark red scales with a hint of gray, a face with at least one scar; this dragon was older, larger than Kaon — one of the upper levels he couldn’t put a name to. With Kaon’s attention now clearly weighing upon them, they feigned no more stealth, and returned his gaze.

“To whom do I owe the honor?” Kaon asked in a low tone, quiet enough the other dragon was stepping closer to hear him. “Devain? Haore? Someone else?”

Kaon’s expected the silence. How else did these encounters go?

He dared one step forward, back the way he came. “I suppose I’ll report back to Haore now — let her know that someone’s interested in us. How do you suppose she’ll react?”

The red dragon shook their head. “I don’t have time for your tricks. I know you’re working with the thief, Malthec.” A smirk with both ends of the mouth. “Perhaps you don’t know better than to return to the scene of the crime.”

“Ah,” Kaon said. “Then this is rooted in a misunderstanding on your part.”

“The evidence points to your involvement.” Now, the dragon matched Kaon with a step towards him. Outsizing Kaon, they had more reach with those muscled forelegs.

So backing up from that was just good caution.

“Why follow me, then, rather than present your evidence to Haore, or Devain himself?”

“Devain is taking care of the thief — I just need to keep an eye on you, and stop you from sabotaging things,” they said. “See if you incriminate yourself.”

This conversation was a drain of time. If a dragon was so unamenable to reason, Kaon saw no point in wrestling them into sense.

A deft blow at a fight’s start could just as well be the end of it. Dragons had long necks, and short of reaching the true zeniths of magic, still had those biological liabilities of respiration and circulation.

Kaon fell back, bending slightly left as if to feign turning around. When he’d crouched deep enough, he launched himself at the larger dragon.

Wrap a limb around the neck, land on the back, seize one of their fragile wings — there were a few ways Kaon could win this in a single move.

Red saw it all. They dodged to the side, and a foreleg snapped out. It slammed into Kaon’s breast. Left him winded. He landed on his tail.

But that hit used the blunt backside of a paw — not the claws. (Wasn’t too informative; only fringe, unlikely scenarios entailed this dragon trying to kill him. But a relief to rule them out.)

A low grunt in the throat. “You’re a little young to think you can take me, Malthec.”

As if by lingering momentum, Kaon made to fall onto his back, then he rolled over. Facing away from his opponent, he pulled out his cast​-​off, momentarily. Black mist faded, and he rose to stand.

Red had their maw open, mana gathered, channeled. It bubbled and smoked, like water over a flame, and took on a red tone. As if passing a threshold, the Breath crackled to life, an orb of newborn flame.

The black dragon loosed their hold, audibly exhaling, and the bolt flew out.

Kaon hopped to the side, an easy dodge. What did they expect?

The bolt was flying into the air where Kaon had stood.

And then it turned mid​-​flight, sharp enough to be perpendicular. But Kaon had the cast​-​off out, already consciously moving it. After his performance fighting Welk, pushing the magic air in front of that incoming bolt was not just panicked instinct.

Kaon couldn’t put a name to this face — so chance said this dragon might be unfamiliar with him. So he opened his mouth, as if he were Breathing.

The bolt collided with his cast​-​off. But it burned with powerful magic; Kaon could not absorb it as simply as Welk’s lightning. The ball of flame blazed and pushed against the impetus — Kaon felt it as if his throat were being singed by hot acidic soup.

Was his cast​-​off shrinking?

With determination and not a small amount of fear, he pressed back, engulfing the projectile in his magic air.

He smothered the ball of fire.

“Breath negation?” the red dragon said, flicking his forked tongue. But eyes narrowed and looked closer, seeing the magic air still there, wavy as if heat lingered, dusted with impotent glowing sparks suspended. “No, would that be… breath absorption? How unusual. Maybe you’ll do impressive things.” Their gaze jerked back up to Kaon, and their mouth opened. “One day, maybe. But not today.”

Kaon started stepping back. His cast​-​off still wavered where it floated, and with a tug, he joined it back into himself. He flinched, like from the pain of too bright a light shining suddenly. He felt warm and dizzy.

A glance backward. Would it be better to retreat now that he had no longer any advantage of surprise?

Another step backward. The red dragon charged up another ball of flame, and Kaon dove toward the wall as a last ditch to gain some more distance — but they’d bluffed, and the ball of flame shrunk and slid back into their closing mouth. Defusing channeled mana? Most dragons Kaon’d seen couldn’t manage that.

“Ready to give up?”

Not words Kaon would utter. He ripped out his cast​-​off again. He watched the black mist fade, and a long​-​unanswered question emerges from his memories. Why did his cast​-​off start off black, then fade transparent? Something clicked with what the red dragon had just said — but the middle of a stand​-​off isn’t the time to be pursuing these theories.

“Ah, so you want more.”

Kaon readied his cast​-​off; he could feel it, but the other dragon couldn’t see it. Still, no path forward led him to winning. (Unless… but no, that couldn’t work.)

Their mouth never opened. They stalked forward faster than Kaon’s cautious backsteps, and, fearing a melee, Kaon turned fully and ran to the bright end of the tunnel. It widened at the mouth. Kaon had more room to dodge. Kaon had room to fly. He crouched and rose into the air. He looked back.

The other dragon had spread their wings, but didn’t crouch. The glow of magic coursed along the phalanges of their wings. At the end of each wing’s five fingers, a small orb of flame was birthed.

The dark red dragon flapped their wings forward, and with a great clap, ten fireballs flew in unison at Kaon.

They arranged in a perfect circle (or decagon) as they approached — a shape no dragon’s wing​-​fingers could form. Kaon’s mind pulled the conclusion; these bolts would be capable of the same cheating mid​-​flight turns. And he faced ten of them.

No way to dodge, no way to outfly them, no way catch all of them with his cast​-​off.

Unless… Kaon’s brow furrowed, and his thoughts whirled through the details of a plan.

First, he dropped out of the air. Sudden impulses would be easier with his hindlegs than his wings, and he would need that.

Second, he began to expand his cast​-​off. Its thickness limited the amount of force he could impart. Earlier, it had naturally formed into a sort of lumpy sphere, and he knew a sphere of six cubic inches had a radius of about 1.13 inches. That had been enough to stop one firebolt. This many wing​-​launched bolts looked about half the size, meaning half the mass. Half an inch should be enough to impede them, then.

Kaon shaped his cast​-​off into a rectangular prism, an inch wide, a foot long, and half an inch deep, and exhaled.

The burst of bolts zipped closer. Kaon was cutting it close. But he had to cut it close for his plan.

After the last moment, Kaon dodged to the left, putting up his cast​-​off to his right. Maneuvering this way, he narrowed the incident profile of the volley of bolts. Even if the bolts turned towards him, some would be behind others — they formed a narrower shape, a smaller area to block.

A foot high was the tallest he could manage while keeping it thick and wide enough to block. How fortunate.

The bolts turned. One at first, and then two by two they hit. The six closest impact the invisible cast​-​off and the combined force pushed the cast​-​off toward him. Between the deformation caused by the force imparted, and the odd trajectories of the curving projectiles, the four farthest swerved around the cast​-​off now folding inward.

Each one felt like being slapped with a club that was on fire. Kaon got hit in the head, neck, and twice in the shoulder, enough to knock him off balance.

Dragons resisted magic — but as the fires sizzled away into nothing but terrible pain on his scales, Kaon had expected them to do more damage to him.

Then his attention was snapped back to his buckling cast​-​off. The Flame mana that had to compose these firebolts must be getting drawn into his magical mass.

Absorption. That’s what the dragon said. Kaon’s cast​-​off had easily absorbed one firebolt. But six of them? Even keeping them merely enveloped in the mass felt like stuffing a litter of excited kittens in a sack and keeping them from clawing out.

The red dragon is opening their mouth again. Numiel’s fault! How many charges did they have?

Some of that exasperation must have shown. They said, “You’re facing down a fourth level dragon, little hatchling. The gulf in power between us can’t be crossed with clever tricks. You’re outmatched.”

Kaon thought of another trick.

Absorption. That’s what they said. And last week’s game — how had Kaon triggered a spellgem with his cast​-​off?

Time to wrangle some cats.

Recovering from the force of the four firebolts, he launched himself at the red dragon, swinging a foreleg wildly for their head. Red fluidly snaked their head out of the way. Kaon spread his wings, and swept one toward his opponent, as if to rake him with the claws lining the edge. Again, dodged.

But, for this one moment, their vision was occluded.

Behind him, Kaon dragged the agonizing cast​-​off still burning with six fading balls of flame.

He started to pull away — but the red dragon was grabbing hold of the foreleg he swung out. Still, he sent the cast​-​off at his foe. Worried eyes flicked to the magical mass.

And then Kaon began to compress.

When he did this with the force spellgem, he was able to activate it. What might he manage with the already​-​channeled Flame mana?

Absorption. Everything seemed to have clicked. Finally — to know his Breath, to have all those hours of hard work pay off.

Kaon grinned at the fourth level dragon he’d tricked, and compressed harder.

The world exploded into heat and light.

The black dragon was blown backwards, the magical heat flooding over his body like a caustic flow. He hit the ground hard. The thrill of combat still filled him, and the impulse to act fought the pain engulfing his senses.

Not just his singed scales, not just his bruised underside.

His cast​-​off was drenched in pain.

There were days, long ago, when he’d spent hours practicing channeling the way the mentors instructed, only to have his throat nexus beneath the iron neck​-​band ache like it was being shredded. There was a time he’d swallowed live prey, and had it attack his esophagus. He’d once awoken to someone strangling him.

But he still didn’t have a reference that quite captured the pain — the burn of raw, alien magic pouring into his being? The mentors forbade it, but some dragons had experimented.

Kaon was shaking violently, struggling to stand under all of this.

(“You should see the other guy,” a distant, humorous part of his brain supplied.)

But he heard the footsteps of the other dragon. His head slowly swiveled to look.

If one could smirk and frown at once, with eye ridges raised — if one could look smug, disappointed, and perplexed at once, that was how Kaon would describe the red dragon’s expression.

“I’d think the mentors would have taught you better than to try uncontrolled manipulation of decaying mana. In live combat, no less. What could you have accomplished?” They reached into their bag. “And I would think common sense would have taught you better than to think I would be vulnerable to my own breath used against me.” Kaon knew when a dragon was talking down to him. He didn’t need the follow​-​up laugh to confirm.

If they had attacked right now, Kaon didn’t know if he’d have the will to dodge.

It didn’t work, he thought.

He growled. What was it all for? Just when he thought he might have figured out a real use — it literally blew up in his face. What in the ten thousand realms was his Breath useful for!? He could have gotten fire, or frost — even Oap’s gentle breeze of a Breath would have been preferable to six cubic inches short of nothing.

Kaon saw the ornate amber crystal the red dragon produced. Felt them drawing out raw manage to activate what must be a spellgem.

He didn’t dodge, protest, or resist. What was the point?

“Have a nice nap, Kaon. It’ll give you time to calm down, and think better. Just remember. Do not go to Vessia’s lair. Keep away, and you’ll have no problems.”

The fuzzy, thought​-​truncating grip of cognitive mana crept over Kaon. His eyes dropped, and then he saw nothing. His mind… slowed, and then—

Kaon held on to one thought, or a lack of thought, for a long moment.

And then he awoke with a headache.