The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon

Ariom closed the book he was reading and tossed it aside with a sigh. It landed on top of several other books that were lying on the sofa next to him. There were papers scattered across the table in front of the sofa, along with another tall stack of books.

Ariom leaned back and looked over the mess.

There were books on rare alchemical materials...books on magic power enhancement...books on making magic inks...books on flesh enchantments...the books on demons that he'd purchased that morning...the information on the Order of the Ravener that he'd requested from the Wizard Association and had gone to the Enchanter's Guild to pick up....

He'd spent most of the afternoon and evening looking through them all.

He glanced up at the clock on the mantel. It was after midnight. He really should get some sleep. Thenio had gone to bed hours ago, and Iggy had snuck into his bedroom a little while later.

After the incident with the cat, Ariom had told Thenio to take it easy for the rest of the day, so he'd spent the afternoon playing around with Seyli and the dragons and drawing in his sketchbook. He seemed to be back to his usual self by dinnertime, but Iggy was still a bit worried about him and had wanted to sleep together.

Ariom's gaze moved to a framed picture on the mantel next to the clock. It was a recent addition—a watercolor painting of Iggy flying after a toy bird. Thenio had given it to him, along with the painting and letter that were supposed to be sent to General Obarin. He said he’d wanted to do something to thank Ariom for his help in getting the acrobatics equipment as well.

It was a nice painting. The boy seemed to have quite a talent for remembering things he'd seen and reproducing them on paper. Even Kymia had been impressed with the drawing he'd done for her. She'd been very casual when she suggested giving him some lessons on aesthetic enchanting, but Ariom knew that she wouldn't make that kind of offer to just anyone.

From his point of view, aesthetic enchanting was obviously a good fit for someone like Thenio. But the boy was oddly reluctant to learn more about it. Something about the subject seemed to bother him, but he didn't want to say what it was.

Ariom didn't push him. Thenio was studying enchanting theory, he was learning thaumaturgy, and he was practicing drawing and painting. It would be easy enough for him to put them all together whenever he was ready.

Ariom stood up and stretched. Then he walked over to the window. The two moons were partially visible through the branches of a tree, just starting to set below the mountains.

Though the moons had proper names, they were often called the 'father' and 'son' moons because when they were close to each other, like they were tonight, it looked like the larger moon was standing behind the smaller one, like a father protecting his child.

...or maybe a slightly foolish but kindhearted boy protecting a cat.

Ariom frowned a little as he stared at the night sky, thinking about the events of the day. Thenio's run-in with the other boys kept bothering him.

The incident itself wasn't really the problem. It had ended well enough, after all.

Thenio wasn't hurt and had learned some valuable lessons. And the dragons got to feel proud of themselves and receive some extra praise and treats for helping him.

Kymia had dealt with the three boys. She'd sent Ariom a message that afternoon that simply read: Found them. It's all taken care of.

He didn't know exactly what that meant...and didn't think he wanted to know.... But they probably wouldn't have to worry about Thenio's safety when they visited the guild district in the future.

Things had even worked out well for the cat. Seyli said that the veterinary clinic they'd taken it to had indeed identified it as one of their patients. The cat had apparently been reported missing a couple of days ago, so they'd been watching for it and said they would contact its owners right away.

No, the part that bothered Ariom was how Thenio had reacted to being attacked. He obviously needed to do his best to avoid too much exposure to magic power for the time being. But a few low-power fireballs shouldn't have been enough to send him into a panic like that.

He was learning to be afraid of magic....

There were plenty of people who didn't like magic, of course. Large numbers of magic users had died during the Great War and the Rift Crisis, and since magic users were the only ones who could fight against demons, they had continued dying ever since. So non-magic people were the majority now. And quite a few of them were either jealous of the wealth and power that wizards had or viewed them with suspicion. The fierce competition between different magic clans had led up to the Great War, after all. And though no one was sure exactly what had caused the demon rifts to start forming, one common theory was that the huge amounts of magic power being used during the fighting had somehow triggered it.

There were good reasons to be afraid of magic.

But still.... Despite all the challenges he'd faced so far, Thenio clearly enjoyed studying magic. It would be a terrible shame if such an intelligent and hard-working young magic user turned his back on the profession out of fear....

The moons had sunk out of sight now. Ariom sighed and turned back toward his mess of books and papers.

They were a distraction—he knew that. All this research he was doing was really just a way to put off having to make a decision about the job for the Royal Guard.

He didn't want to take it. The subject was both unpleasant and dangerous to deal with. The military was involved. And if his theory about the enchantments he'd been studying for the past week and a half was correct, he was going to have to delve far too deeply into a part of his past that he'd prefer to forget in order to get the job done.

But....

He looked at the painting on the mantel again. Thenio really had done a remarkable job of capturing the little dragon's emotions—the joy of flying and the excitement of the hunt.

If there was a chance it would help save a boy who could paint pictures like that...who treated Iggy like his little brother—reading and playing with him and letting him sleep in his room whenever he wanted to...a boy who was willing to put himself in danger just to protect a lost cat....

...maybe that was worth taking on an unpleasant job or two.

Ariom sighed again. Then, before he could change his mind, he pulled his message book and a pen out of his space pocket.

Like most of the windows in the house, the ones in this room had sills wide enough for a dragon to sit on. He set the book down on the windowsill in front of him, using it as a temporary desk.

He opened to the tab labeled Mideis Jidarin and wrote a short message:

I decided to take the job. Let me know when you can meet to discuss the details.

Ariom closed the book with a snap and made a face at it before putting it away and heading to bed.

"I have to admit that I expected you to turn us down," Mideis said, accepting the cup of juice that Thenio handed him. "I'd already requested a list of other wizards with similar skill sets from the Enchanter's and Necromancer's Guilds and had started going through them. You're not that easy to find a substitute for, though. I was afraid we might have to start looking outside the country...."

"I'm flattered," Ariom said with an annoyed expression.

He didn't seem to be very happy about having this meeting. He'd been in a bad mood all morning.

Thenio filled another cup with juice and cautiously handed it to his grouchy employer. Then, with some relief, he moved over to start serving Amisi and Iggy.

He'd looked up tauas in one of Iggy's new magic beast encyclopedias and discovered that their natural diet consisted mainly of fruit and seafood, since they were native to tropical islands. So today's familiar snacks were small shrimp cakes and a tropical fruit salad.

Iggy had happily helped him cook the shrimp cakes that morning. And had even more happily sampled a few in advance...just to make sure they tasted right....

"Well, in any case, I'm glad you decided to do it," Mideis said with a wry smile. "Today's meeting is mostly to go over what kind of plan you have for the analysis. Then I'll coordinate with our research team to make sure we have all the equipment and supplies we need. And once we have the basic plan figured out, I’ll also arrange for you to meet with the ice mage who will be helping us. Her name is Namyis Ivoren, though most people know her by her call name: Ice Queen."

Thenio was scooping some fruit salad into a bowl for Iggy, but he paused and looked up when he heard the name. "We're going to be working with Ice Queen? Really?"

"What? You know about her?" Ariom asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Of course! You mean you don't— Oh.... Right." Thenio suddenly remembered who he was talking to. "Um...I guess you probably aren't that interested in combat wizards...?"

"No," Ariom said flatly.

"Oh." Thenio wasn't sure what else to say. Feeling awkward, he finished filling the fruit bowl and set it down in front of Iggy.

Mideis gave him an understanding smile. "I take it that you are interested in combat wizards? Well, that's normal for boys your age. I was the same way. Still am, to some extent. Some of those high rankers are pretty amazing." He looked at Ariom. "Come on...were you really not into that kind of thing when you were younger? Didn't you ever get together with other boys and pretend to fight demons together?"

Ariom answered the question with a dark glare. "Can we please stick to the topic at hand...?"

"Ah. Right." Mideis cleared his throat, looking a little uncomfortable. Then he turned back to Thenio. "Since you seem to know who Ice Queen is, why don't you explain?"

"Huh? Oh...well...." Thenio glanced uneasily at the obviously irritated Ariom. "Um...you at least know who Sword Queen is, right?"

"Yes." Ariom was now staring fixedly at his cup of juice.

Sword Queen was a demon hunter, which was enough to make her famous by itself. But due to her good looks and flamboyant style, she was also one of the most popular combat wizards in Kafron. It would be strange if Ariom hadn't heard of her, no matter how much he avoided anything to do with the military.

"Ice Queen is one of her trainees. She was a child sorcerer, and now she's the top ice mage in the country, power-wise. I think she's in the top twenty for all affinities, including the demon hunters. And...." Thenio paused, feeling a little awkward. "Well...not that it matters for the job, I guess...but everyone says she's really pretty...."

"It doesn't matter," Ariom said coldly as Mideis chuckled a little. "It just matters if her skills are up to the task." Then his expression softened a little. "A child sorcerer, huh? Poor kid...."

"I'm not sure she'd appreciate you calling her a 'kid.' I think she's only a couple of years younger than you are," Mideis commented. Then he took a sip of his juice, probably as a way to avoid the annoyed look Ariom gave him. "But I get what you mean. If I remember right, she was only five or six years old when she went into military custody. So when she was an actual kid...you're right, she probably had a rough time...."

Ariom glanced at Thenio. "Well, maybe you and she can commiserate together about magic burns. From the sound of it, she might be one of the few people in Kafron who've gotten burned more times than you have."

Thenio bit his lip and didn't say anything. Poor kid indeed....

A child sorcerer was just what it sounded like—someone who reached sorcerer level while they were still a child. It sounded like a good thing. But it was actually the opposite.

It was difficult for a child's body to handle that much magic power, so they were at a high risk of destabilizing if they didn't go through a rigorous training program. They basically had to be forced into the same kind of training that adult combat wizards did, just to keep them alive.

Not many parents were prepared to handle something like that, so most child sorcerers in Kafron were taken in by the military, both for their own safety and the safety of their families.

Well. As Ariom had pointed out, Thenio himself was in a similar situation. Just that his chances of someday becoming a high-ranking battlemage as a result were awfully slim....

"Namyis was transferred from the Northeast Division to the Central one a few months ago," Mideis said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "One of the reasons for that is that she works with the Royal Guard on a regular basis. As a battlemage, she's an all-rounder type. Her attack power is no joke, of course, but she usually acts as support. And she has really excellent control in spite of her high power level. That flexibility makes her especially useful in a law enforcement setting. This is my first time working with her directly, but I've met her a few times before." He winked in Thenio's direction. "And you're right—she is pretty nice-looking. As long as you’re not opposed to women who look like walking snow sculptures, that is. As you might expect from one of the top sorcerers in Kafron, she's got quite a prominent stigma."

Thenio gave a small, awkward laugh in response to that. Ariom rolled his eyes but didn't comment.

"Well, in any case, I can assure you that her skills are top-notch," Mideis went on, his expression becoming more serious again. "I don't think you'll need to worry about the stasis magic. So, how do you want to approach this? We're willing to follow your lead as long as you don't ask for anything too unreasonable."

Ariom looked over at Thenio, who had just gotten himself a cup of fruit juice and sat down on the sofa next to Iggy.

"Thenio, you're welcome to stay for this if you want to, but we are going to be discussing some things that might be upsetting for you. You don't need to force yourself, all right? It's fine to leave if you feel uncomfortable. You can take Iggy and Amisi out to the atrium."

That probably meant they were going to be talking about people dying in magic explosions again....

"I...think I'm okay." Thenio looked down and fidgeted a little with his cup. "I'll leave if it gets to be too much, but...I'd like to stay for now."

"Good." Ariom gave him an approving nod. Then he turned back to Mideis. "Well, first of all, how many...uh...'research subjects' do we have available to us?"

"At least two. Maybe as many as five. There are a few people we suspect have one of these enchantments on them, based on their patterns of behavior, but we haven't confirmed it yet." Mideis frowned a little. "You think you'll need more than one?"

"Very likely. From the bits and pieces of other enchantment matrices that you've shown me, it looks like there are multiple explosion formations, and there are triggers for them hidden all throughout the rest of the matrix. I can predict where some of them will be, and we can keep some of them from going off with a combination of stasis and void magic. But analyzing the entire matrix on the first try without triggering an explosion...probably isn't going to happen. I think we'll have to get as far as we can on one subject and then use what we learn to get a little farther on the next one. I expect it will take two or three tries to get the entire matrix mapped out."

Mideis nodded slowly. "I see. Well, that's within our expectations. And it's probably a lot better than we'd be able to do without your help. Like you say, it's almost impossible to predict exactly where the triggers will be hidden. Especially since we still haven't even figured out what the main function of the enchantment is supposed to be."

"It's a magic circuit enhancement technique. I'm still not sure about all the details, but the main function should be converting external magic power into a type that matches the person's magic signature, then channeling it into their magic circuit to artificially expand it and increase its power capacity. It's a process that's been tried before, of course, with varying degrees of success. But the magic formations are a bit different than the ones I've seen used in other attempts. Plus, based on the autopsy reports you gave me, they seem to be using purified demon crystals to help facilitate the conversion process and stabilize the magic circuit. I haven't seen anyone try that before, either."

Mideis looked surprised. "What? Are you sure?"

"Fairly sure, yes." Ariom pulled a sheaf of papers out of his space pocket and handed them across the table to Mideis. "Here, take a look yourself. Those are the diagrams of what I've been able to reconstruct so far. There are still some parts missing, and the actual formations are probably a little different than the ones I came up with. But those designs are mostly functional, and they match up with the partial diagrams you gave me."

Mideis flipped through the papers, looking more amazed by their contents the more he saw. "Just how did you come up with all this...?"

Ariom shrugged. "By analyzing the information you gave me? You told me yourself that you thought it had something to do with mimicking a demon's ability to consume magic power."

"Well, yes...but I couldn't figure out the exact mechanism they were using. No one on the research team has been able to figure it out for sure, and we've been studying this for months. We even consulted with the military research department, and the best they could do was narrow it down to a few possibilities. You were working by yourself, and you've only had the information for a couple of weeks. How could you have found the right answer this quickly?"

"Hmm...." Ariom tapped his finger against the side of his cup, apparently considering the question. "Now that I think about it, I guess I have an unfair advantage. There can't be very many enchanters in the world who have experience reconstructing Pre-War enchantments and are also familiar with the Magic Corps' Amplification Project."

"The Amplification Project?" Mideis blinked. "I've heard of it, but I don't know the details of the process they were using. How did it work, exactly?"

Ariom pointed at the papers that Mideis was holding. "You're looking at it, essentially. It's done in a different enchanting style, and there's the additional stabilization, but those diagrams are more or less the same system they were using back then. I assume one of the possibilities the military researchers suggested was something like that?"

Mideis frowned a little. "Yes, there was one that was very similar. They didn't say it had come from that project, though. Well...I can see why they wouldn't want to mention it. It's not exactly a bright spot in the Magic Corps' history.... How do you know about it, though? Shouldn't the details be classified?"

Ariom lowered his gaze, staring at his cup again. "I haven't seen any actual documentation. But my uncle told me about it. He worked at the Stability Center while the program was still going on. So he had to deal with some of the...aftereffects."

"It ended when General Obarin took over as the head of the Magic Corps, didn't it? So...about fifteen years ago now? I've heard that he really hated the Amplification Project because one of his trainees died after getting involved with it."

"That's right." Ariom's face and voice had suddenly become emotionless. "That was my mother."