Kaon Rising

10: Caught and Bound

“Ah, but who else could I be? It is I, Devain. I believe you walked past me by mistake? It is dark in here, you must have missed me. But you’re better at seeing in the dark than most, aren’t you?”

Kaon kept looking, then caught the glimmer in the shadows under one outjutting piece of rock. Devain was a dragon of gleaming silver scales and, despite his age, of slender build. Admittly something Kaon might miss in the dark, lost in his thoughts. It was hard to make out the elder derg’s expression, but he could make out the familiar pointed snout and horns that swept back to give his profile a diamond shape.

“I believe I heard Vessia, however briefly. Is that so?”

Kaon looked away, eyes gauging the distance to the exit. What would her wrath be, if he ratted her out?

“Do I sense you ill at ease? Please understand, I have no malintent – Vessia’s disappearance was a shock to me, and I only wish to understand. I suspect I’m as in the dark about it as you. She’s a very secretive dragoness, isn’t she?”

Despite himself, Kaon nodded once. “She… doesn’t like it here, sir.” Devain nodded without a frown, or any other hint displeasure or anger, so he continued. “She wants… well, I think you know she’s not here at the school. That’s on purpose.”

“She wants to escape.” Devain spoke the conclusion, seemingly unconcerned that Kaon told him nothing he didn’t know. “But she must know the Lesser Skylands of Red Radiance are too small to offer her a refuge wherein I cannot find her.”

“Of course.” Kaon thought this bland affirmation offered nothing — but told Devain exactly what he needed.

“So she isn’t going to stay in these skylands. She seeks another realm entirely, doesn’t she?”

Kaon flinched, still for an unblinking moment.

“Thank you. I feared what dark influence could have convinced her she has a way to bind the realm​-​gate.”

“If she could… wouldn’t that be a good thing? Even if we lose students, our realm would be reconnected with the worldskein.”

At this, Devain finally frowns. “No, no. Your history studies haven’t touched this subject, have they? I’ll be brief. The Worldskein was an absolute instrument of imperial control, a conduit for empire to project their tyranny across the myriad realms. The realms aren’t untethered by accident, little dragonet.” Devain moves closer, and Kaon senses a current of deliberation run through the odler dragon’s thoughts. “And there’s more you don’t know. Do you know the last dragon to wield the bindings as tools of oppression? It was one Malthec la Atrocia — your great​-​grandmother. City after city dissevered themselves to be free of her. And do you know dragon who plunged entire realms into darkness and desolation to restore that foul inheritance? Your father, Malthec la Haotik.” Devain says something that might be a sigh. “I know there are many here you treat you unfairly. I’ve tried to speak reason to them – but even when my Breath is truth, there’s little stopping the wheels of gossip and suspicion. I… understand there may, for that reason, be a temptation to follow after her, little Kaon. But if you try to restore the bindings… Well, there’s little I can say to the rumors if you go and prove them true with your actions.”

“I–never knew.”

“I had thought it best. But perhaps now you’re old enough to see it for what it is: a warning, and not some omen of doom. You aren’t you father. I believe in you.” The old dragon smiled.

It might’ve been the first kind word he had heard from an elder. He smiled back. “I — thanks?” He wasn’t exactly experienced in compliments, other than Imbry’s annoying remarks.

“Did Vessia mention anything else in your conversation — her full name, perhaps? I found it has been stricken from our official records.”

“She didn’t tell me anything like that.”

“Ah. By now, if this is the path she takes, then she surely knows. I had thought she might’ve told a friend — but she doesn’t have friends, does she? She’s always been remarkably… cool, toward you.”

“She’s…” Kaon trailed off, thinking of some defense, “understated. She could have just ignored me, like with everyone else. She didn’t have to tell me anything at all.”

“Unless you were merely useful, for today?” Devain’s gaze lowered, finding the necklace hanging off the black dragon. “You aren’t like her, and don’t need to be. I’ve heard Imbry’s quite fond of you. Please remember, if you do go chasing after my wayward pupil… you’ll be leaving behind more than she will be.” The dragon shifted. “I’ve taken up your time, haven’t I? I’m sure you have studies to attend to. Excuse me.”

The elder gestured, and Kaon seized the excuse to break off and scamper away. Away from the dragon who saw through Kaon’s every word, and hid so much in his own. But even as Kaon got away, the conversation sat in his mind. Just that brief exchange had reframed so much, and Devain spoke undeniable sense. Why was he spending so much time and trouble for Vessia? Did she value him at all? Even Imbry, in all her annoyance, hadn’t pushed him off a platform as part of a betrayal…

Would he deserve all the scorn he received if he went along with her plans?

Then he remembered the note he wrote. He planned to meet with Vessia. When writing that, his past self didn’t know what he knew now. But Vessia said to always trust what you wrote.

Perhaps he could explain Devain’s perspective to her, and get her to come back on her own. It’d be the best of both worlds, wouldn’t it?

But getting there meant getting there — and for now, he had another problem.

He’d glided down to the floor of the cavern and started towards the door, where a few third level dragons waited for him. One face was familiar.

“While I agree your punishment was insufficient,” Geddion started, “I think this was not the right way to increase it.”

Another dragon, green scales, was looking around as if expecting someone to have accompanied him. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“I was told to see Haore,” he says. “Devain’s orders. If you’ll kindly not hold me up?”

“What?”

He didn’t expect this confusion. He frowned, then blinked. What other angle could he take? “I spoke with the red dragon — forget his name. Something… came up in Vessia’s lair he had to attend to. Sent me on ahead.”

“Something came up, did it?” Geddion’s eyes narrowed. He expected skepticism, but the sheer suspicion was a surprise. Could he use this?

The black dragon smiled. “You don’t trust Devain’s orders?”

“What orders? Haven’t seen him all day.”

Kaon tilted his head. “Who just walked in here?”

“Last dragon to go in there was Kal. Before that, you.”

“Huh,” was all Kaon said. “Well, I’ve told you where I’m going. If you don’t believe me… it’s entirely within your power to catch me, right? But I think Kal needs your help. You should make sure he’s alright.”

“What did you do to him?”

Rather than answering, Kaon crouched and took off, letting their suspicions fill in the gaps.

Kaon knew where he would hide — of course he wouldn’t just walk into Haore’s wings after all of that. But he wasn’t worried about that, or about Geddion et al coming after him.

Who had he just been talking to?

The indecisive churning of his thoughts of this subject was subsumed under the sound of his beating wings as he strove to make quick work of the distance between him and his destination.

He went where it all began: atop his favorite pillar in the training yard.

He sat, and dismissed thoughts of Geddion and Haore, and instead mulled upon problems to be solved physically rather than socially. Easier to get a handle on, and involved less anxiety. Kaon could think of two ways out of the school grounds. Well, there were three, if digging through the soil and stone was on the table, but it was less a possibility than the option that demarcated the impossible.

Those two options were going through the gate, or getting past the net. The gate was kept by a golden brown dragon bigger than even Devain, whose breath was reminiscient of the Force spellgems. That massive force he could bring to bear lifted the great stone gate when dragons needed in or out. Kaon would not be let past without a good reason — which he didn’t have — and if the gatekeeper wasn’t there, the gate was more of a wall.

The net, then, was the only real option he had. But every dragon had tried flying at or climbing towards the net, to test the stories if nothing else. No one had ever gotten past it, so far as the dragonets knew. On the face of it, it seemed no more viable. Certainly, Kaon didn’t have a way out any time he had considered it.

Before today, that is. Now, though? He had one more tool to work with, and that had to be enough to bring it all together.

If Vessia had eluded Devain for this long, if she thought getting the realm​-​gate in the city was so foregone a conclusion as to plan around it, she had a way out of here — she was probably already not anywhere on school grounds.

And what did she have that no else did? Her Breath.

And what did Kaon now have? He floated his cast​-​off in front of his snout, a purplish mass that curled into a sphere. He’d been careful not to suck it back in since the meeting with Vessia. And now he needed to make that count.

Kaon closed his eyes, and remembered what it felt like when Vessia had used her Breath. It felt like being tied or affixed; it felt like opening up. Then came the hair​-​width of motion. And then that first sensation, reversed. Kaon had felt when the purple glow left the objects she’d swapped — if it had been tied before, then the rope tying them had been cut. And a cut rope frayed.

Kaon’s goal, then, was to un​-​fray the mana in his cast​-​off. He tried a few different things, reshaping the cast​-​off, kneading the mass, even rubbing it with a claw. It felt… somewhat more ordered? He took a stray pebble sitting atop his pillar and enveloped it in his cast​-​off. Then, he pulled off a bit of the cast​-​off, separating it into two masses. Then, like earlier, he squeezed.

In a sense, the pebble… did move.

But what appeared in the other mass was cracked, and disolved into a coarse sand as it fell. He definitely didn’t want to ‘flip’ anything he cared about, then.

As Kaon started kneading the cast​-​off in preparation for another attempt, he heard wing​-​beats. A glance to the source, and he saw Giddeon and the other dragon coming for him.

Glancing back at the school, he mapped out a route and made a plan. A moment later he was leaping off the pillar, directly opposite the fliers. This way, he’d be obscured by its mass for precious seconds. He built up momentum as he flew. Then he turned, and started gliding back towards the lairs.

His pursuers couldn’t cover ground as fast as him — he’d fallen from higher up, so even as they mirrored his dive, they’d gain less speed.

But wherever he went, they’d see, and they’d follow. So he had to lose them.

So, step two.

He flew into the collective lairs, barely arresting his momentum. Nothing awaited him inside; the dragons likely had the last classes of the day to attend. So no one saw Kaon flying up to the room he’d entered just earlier today.

He landed at a run, and only slowed to turn once inside the collective lair. He darted for cover beneath a bed, then waited.

He heard distance steps, then the voice. “Where did he go?”

“He should have crashed into a wall at that speed. No time for the eyes to adjust.”

“Don’t see a groaning draconet on the floor anywhere, so we can’t be so lucky. Did he go into one of the lairs?”

There was a few moments of a silence. Then, “Are we just going to check them all one by one?”

“The sooner we find him, the better. Let’s go.”

There’s more quiet. No footsteps come for him, so whichever lair they guessed was lucky for Kaon.

In fact, there were not footsteps at all.

“Okay, not that one. How about we split up? It’ll be faster if we all check a different room.”

“Is this some kind of joke? Telling us to look then staying here?”

“Be quiet.”

“How is this–”

“It’s not a joke, it was a trick. If he thinks we’re looking, then he could try to sneak out while we’re not looking — only to find us waiting as a trap. But you just ruined it.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s just go back and tell Haore we lost him and he outsmarted us. He’s certainly smarter than one of us.”

“Is this another trick, or…”

“He’s not going to fall for it now! Come on.”

Kaon might have given himself away right then by laughing. But it took enough focus just keeping his cast​-​off out of himself, holding on to Vessia’s mana.

He heard the sound of the dragonets taking off, but he waited there just in case. He had something to do, anyways: more experimenting. He stayed there for perhaps half an hour, “flipping” bits of paper lost under the bed, turning them into increasingly large shreds.

After a while, Kaon starts to feel a sensation unlike any he’d felt before, worsening by atoms each time he squeezes the cast​-​off.

Was this what being low on mana felt like?

That thought finally gets him out of the lair. If he was in danger of running low… he needed to work with what he’d could manage before he lost his sole advantage.

At the cavern mouth, he opted to walk, not fly. Being in the air would make him too visible from too far. He stuck to the shadows cast as the pseudosun set behind the great mass of the main skyland. Behind the school, he approached the net.

If the net was just a net, it would be effortless for even a first level dragon to slash and claw a way out. Even if they wove it of a tough material, it’d be no deterent to determination.

The skyland that hosted the school ended well before the net starts. Past the underground brick wall that kept the skyland from eroding into nothing, there was about a meter of yawning empty space. Rods stuck out from the side like a vertical fence. The net anchored to that.

Kaon walked to the brick edge. He tried to take another step.

He could not.

In distant realms, there are worlds of endless jungle where even dragons could be eaten like prey. The land is instead ruled by crafty spider people, who wove cities out of their collective webs. They could challenge even elder dragons with vast magical arrays. Instead of Breath, the spiders channel their magic through silk.

In realms where dragons found peace with the spiders, they made trade. Even low grade manasilk costs a petty lord’s ransom.

Thus, it was impossble to weave an entire net out of the stuff, not with the wealth afforded to an elder dragon of a tiny realm like the Lesser Skylands of Red Radiance.

So instead, the school is surrounded by a mundane net. But a single thread of manasilk runs along the ropes. It connects to a resevoir and conduit maintained by the gatekeeper. The purpose?

When a dragon gets close to the net, they are pushed back.

The mana you can safely put through a little bit of thread is not much, and ditto for the force it could generate. But if that little bit of force is exerted in unison across a whole area?

It was enough Kaon felt as if he’d walked into a wall.

But he had a plan. It was founded on an old observation. Dragonets occasionally bothered the gatekeeper, either while he was keeping the gate, or when enforcing some rule about who was allowed where on school grounds.

The observation was backed up, if more tenuously, by the Three Hoards games. He’d seen Force push dragons, push balls and push away any kind of tool he might want to use to cut the net. But there was something he’d never seen either of them push.

When dragonets threw things at the gatekeeper, he Forced them back. When dragonets Breathed at the gatekeeper, he dodged.

It wasn’t a breath, but it wasn’t solid matter. Kaon pushed his cast​-​off to the invisible wall around the school. And tried to push it pass.

No resistance came.

Next step. The cast​-​off split, with one half on the other side of the net. Kaon breathed in and out for a moment, trembling a little bit. This was another place his plan could unceremoniously fall apart. But he had to try. It was the only tool he had.

He took a hard, flat pebble, and suspended it in one half of his cast​-​off. It was a tiny thing: he was, after all, not even working with the full six cubic inches right now due to an earlier stunt.

Finally, Kaon took his cast​-​off and… it still didn’t feel like ‘flipping’, to him. He squeezed, and like a slippery thing forced through a gap, the pebble appeared on the other side of the net.

It hung there for a moment, and Kaon watched breathlessly.

Nothing happened. The net’s Force was only one way.

He lifted it higher. There was nothing in the way of his next step, then. He would cut the net. With a tool this small and dull, it’d be slow going. He would start far above his height; this way, the breach in security should remain undetected under tonight.

After so much obscure fiddling with his cast​-​off, there was something relievingly simple about the motion of sawing back and forth — he had been doing manipulations like this for months.

Then he hit a snag — an almost literal snag. Manasilk, he learned, does not cut nearly as easily as cotton fibers. He craned his neck and tips his toes, but couldn’t see the bit of rope he’s cutting. So he kept at it, chosing to believe he’s wearing it down, however slowly.

He flared his ears, hoping to hear some twang of stupidly tough silk tapping.

Before any sound of success came, he felt a dreadful chill. A dreadful and familiar chill.

The sound he’s awarded was instead several solid impacts of feet hitting the ground hard and fast. Kaon was struck by the feeling of being exposed — how absurd did he look, standing at the edge of the school grounds, seemingly doing nothing.

He wanted to turn and look, but could not. Of course. Just like the last time he’d felt this chill.

He was frozen, and Haore says, “Enough, Kaon.”