The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon

There was a long moment of silence.

Ariom was still staring down at his cup of juice expressionlessly. Even though he wasn't visibly upset, Iggy and Amisi had both stopped eating and were looking at him with concern. Iggy whimpered softly and went over to climb onto Ariom's lap, nudging at the hand holding the cup with his nose.

That seemed to pull Ariom out of his thoughts. He blinked and looked at Iggy, then set his cup down on the table and rubbed the little dragon's head. "It's all right. I was just remembering some unpleasant things."

"I'm sorry," Mideis said quietly. "I didn't realize this case was going to have a personal connection for you."

Ariom shook his head. "There's no reason why you should have realized it. And I decided to take on the job in spite of that. You don't need to worry about it."

"Well...if you say so," Mideis said, looking rather unconvinced. "But feel free to say something if it gets too uncomfortable for you, all right?" He held up the papers Ariom had given him. "Just getting your general analysis and these diagrams will be a huge help to our research team, even if you don't do anything else."

"I made my decision. I'm going to follow through with it," Ariom said firmly. Then he patted Iggy's back. "Go ahead and finish your snacks, little guy. We're going to go up to the workroom pretty soon. I need you to come with us to help test some things."

"Mmm. Okay." Iggy seemed a bit reluctant, but he obediently hopped off Ariom's lap and went back to his food tray.

Thenio was glancing uncertainly between Ariom and Mideis. He didn't really understand what this 'Amplification Project' was that they were talking about, and he didn't quite dare to ask about it. He knew Ariom was very sensitive about any mention of his parents, and if this military project had something to do with his mother's death....

Fortunately, Mideis was his usual perceptive self. "You're looking a little bit lost over there," he said with an understanding smile. "You're young enough that you've probably never heard of the Amplification Project before. It would have ended when you were just a baby. I obviously don't know as much about it as Ariom does, but I can give you a brief summary.

"It was basically a program run by the military to help combat wizards increase their magic power. A lot of the most famous combat wizards, like Ice Queen, are ones who started off with high power levels. But there are plenty of others who want to be in the Magic Corps but have a hard time meeting the requirements because their natural power levels are too low. Combat magic is almost exclusively a high-power field, after all. So the military uses a variety of training and enhancement programs to help talented magic users increase their power levels. Some of these programs are just based around normal magic exercises. But some are...a bit more extreme, let's say.

"The Amplification Project was one of these more extreme ones. It was also very controversial because it had a relatively high risk of negative side effects. Most of the wizards who participated in it were fine, and some actually benefited greatly. But there were also some cases where wizards who went through the program ended up destabilizing or even dying as a result. Ariom's mother was apparently one of those."

Thenio felt a bit stunned by this explanation. "Are you saying that the military has been experimenting on combat wizards?"

He wasn't naive enough to think that all government and military leaders were wonderful people. There were always plenty of dark rumors floating around about various nobles' behavior, after all.

But the high-ranking members of the Magic Corps, like General Obarin and the demon hunters, were treated like heroes in Kafron. Even non-magic people could appreciate the valiant effort and sacrifice that were required to keep civilians safe from demon attacks. And he'd heard people like Bero and Jasel talk about how close-knit the combat wizards in the Magic Corps were.

It was hard to believe that they would be allowing something like that to happen to their own colleagues....

Ariom shook his head. "Not experimenting, exactly...at least not the way you're thinking. They obviously kept records and tried to refine the process based on the results, but it was a well-established technique that was developed centuries before the Great War. They just rediscovered it. Only it didn't work quite as well as they expected it to, based on the old documents they found."

He picked his cup back up and took a long, slow drink. Then he held the cup in both hands and stared down at it for a moment, his brow furrowed.

"The controversy surrounding the program wasn't just because of the risk associated with it," he finally went on. "When it started, participation in the project was supposed to be strictly voluntary. If you wanted to increase your magic power badly enough that you were willing to accept the risk, then fair enough. It was better than people getting desperate and searching out even more dangerous methods.

"But after they had a few extraordinary successes with the program—people like Hydra and Jackal—some of the higher-ups in the Magic Corps...got a little greedy. They started pressuring more combat wizards to participate. And some of those who gave in to that pressure suffered as a result.

"My mother was a void mage, like me, and combat wizards who can use void magic are incredibly useful, since the more powerful demons can use magic armor that's very difficult to break through without it. But her magic power wasn't that high, so she was quite limited in how much she could do." Ariom's expression darkened. "And for her superiors at the time...it wasn't good enough...."

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence.

"I'm sorry," Mideis said again. "Like I said, if this is too much for you...."

"I know," Ariom said irritably. "I'm fine. Enough about the Amplification Project. The point is that I'm familiar with it, and I think this case involves something similar. So let's get back to talking about the enchantment analysis."

"Right." Mideis gave a rather forced smile. "Well...you mentioned going to the workroom to do some tests just now, didn't you? That sounds like you already have some kind of plan."

"More or less. But I need your help with something. I've been experimenting with ways to deal with such a volatile enchantment, and I think I've worked out a method to temporarily isolate individual formations in the enchantment matrix in order to scan them without setting off the explosion triggers. Though it's still a bit of a gamble whether we can really avoid them all, like I said."

Mideis raised his eyebrows. "There's a method like that? Can you show me?"

Ariom shrugged. "I'll have to show you eventually, won't I? But you probably won't be able to replicate it. It would be very difficult to do without using void magic. And I can only do a partial version by myself. The ice mage and I are going to have to work in tandem to pull off the real thing. I think we're going to need to set up some practice sessions ahead of time."

"I see." Mideis looked slightly disappointed, but he nodded. "I'll arrange a meeting with Namyis as soon as possible. So what is it you need my help with?"

"Taking notes."

Mideis blinked. "What?"

"Isolating and scanning the magic formations is going to be a very tricky operation," Ariom explained. "Everything will need to be done manually, using magesight. A scanning device will set off the triggers too easily. Even magesight could set them off if it isn't done just right, so it's better if I'm the one doing it. But if I'm concentrating on all that, it's going to be difficult for me to copy down the formation diagrams at the same time. So I need someone to handle that part, and I think you're the best candidate for that role."

"Wait, do you mean...?" Mideis frowned. "You want me to use mental magic to get the information from you? And then record it?"

"Exactly. I think that will be the safest method."

"I thought you hated it when I used mental magic on you...."

"I do," Ariom said matter-of-factly. "But I'm willing to let you do it if it cuts down on the number of demon-obsessed lunatics I have to watch explode in my face. If it's you, I'm not too worried about you digging around in things you shouldn't."

Mideis widened his eyes a little in surprise. "What's this? You're actually capable of trusting people? How unexpected...."

Ariom glared at him. "What I trust is that you have enough sense to know I'll be able to tell if you use your magic on me in other ways. And that you know the consequences of doing so will be more trouble than they're worth."

"Ah...and here I thought we were having a touching moment...." Mideis let out an exaggerated sigh. Then his expression turned serious again. "All right. I've done some similar things during interrogations, so it should be possible." He gave a wry smile. "And I won't look at anything else. I promise."

"Good. Remember that," Ariom told him sternly. Then he looked over at Amisi, who was licking the juice out of the bottom of her fruit bowl, and Iggy, who was finishing off his last shrimp cake. "It looks like the familiars are just about done eating. Let's head up to my workroom, then. Thenio, I'll leave the cleaning up to you, all right? Come upstairs when you're done."

When Thenio arrived at the workroom a little while later, he found Ariom seated at the far end of the room, where a small table and a chair had been set up with a thick magic barrier surrounding them. Mideis was sitting at the desk, drawing on a piece of paper with a slight frown on his face. Iggy and Amisi were sitting together on the work table, watching the other two with interest, though they both turned their heads briefly in Thenio's direction when he entered the room.

He walked quietly over to the work table, pulled a chair close to where the familiars were, and sat down, trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to interrupt whatever was going on.

A couple of minutes later, Mideis put down his pencil and looked at a pocket watch that was resting on the desk next to him.

"Done," he called out, looking over at Ariom. "Just under six minutes that time."

Ariom frowned. "Let's do another formation. Try using shorthand for this one—we'll see how much time it saves."

"Got it." Mideis took a fresh sheet of paper from a stack on the corner of the desk and positioned it in front of him. Then he picked the pencil back up and glanced at Ariom. "Ready."

"All right. I'm starting now."

Ariom lowered his gaze, staring at a small glass cube in the middle of the table. Mideis looked briefly at the pocket watch and then stared at his paper. Both of them had similar expressions of concentration on their faces.

Nothing happened for a minute or two. Then Mideis started moving his pencil, drawing something on the paper. He kept it up for a few minutes, the soft sounds of pencil tip on paper filling the otherwise silent room.

"And...done." He stopped and looked at his watch again. "A little over four minutes." He sighed and turned back to Ariom. "The shorthand helps, but the barrier is still slowing things down a lot. We can probably shave the time down a little with more practice, but I don't know if it will be enough...."

"Hmm...." Ariom tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the table in front of him. Then he looked over to where Thenio and the familiars were sitting. "Would it be any faster if Amisi acted as a relay? If she's just sitting here, we should be able to protect her well enough to make it reasonably safe. And you'll be able to communicate through the barrier more easily with her, right?"

"That's right, but...." Mideis looked uncertainly at his familiar. "Well, she's a taua. She's good with mental magic—better than I am, really—but she doesn't read things from a human mind exactly the same way another human would. And with something as detailed as a magic formation...well...some things might get lost in translation. It's worth a try, though. She has a pretty decent knowledge of enchanting theory, after all. It might be enough to get around the interspecies communication problem."

"Will you come help us try it out?" Ariom asked, looking at Amisi.

The taua nodded and stood up. She paused for a moment to arch her back in a stretch, then she jumped off the table and walked elegantly over to where Ariom was sitting.

"This is a practice setup for the enchantment analysis," Ariom explained to Thenio as he waited for Amisi to cross the room. He pointed at the barrier that was encircling him. "Our working area will need to be enclosed in a barrier like this in order to protect the surroundings from explosions. It's designed to allow mental magic to pass through, but it's somewhat limited. The fewer people we have to have inside the barrier, the better, so we're testing to see how feasible it is for Mideis to record the enchantment diagrams from outside it."

"And it's not going that well..." Mideis added with a sigh. "I can get the information from Ariom, but the barrier makes it much slower than usual. It's taking about five minutes per magic formation so far."

"Isn't that pretty fast, though?" Thenio asked, a little confused. "I mean, if you have to use telepathy to get the information from Ariom's mind and then draw the formation out on paper, I think doing it in only five minutes is pretty impressive."

Mideis smiled wryly. "Well, I appreciate you saying so.... But look at it this way: The enchantment matrix we need to analyze has several hundred formations in it. Let's say it's three hundred, as a conservative estimate. If it takes five minutes to record each one, how long will the entire matrix take?"

"Um...." Thenio screwed up his face, doing the calculations in his head. "...twenty-five hours?"

"Right." Mideis nodded. "Now, I'm a second rank sorcerer. Ariom is third rank. Do you think we're going to be able to keep this kind of thing up for twenty-five hours straight?"

"Uh...no...probably not."

"No. We'll have to stop and take breaks, which will push the total time even longer. But guess who won't get to take breaks because she has to keep the stasis magic going so that our subject doesn't 'turn into fireworks,' as Iggy likes to say?"

"Ice Queen?"

"Right. She's a sixth rank sorcerer and an experienced battlemage, but even she has limits on her stamina." Mideis sighed again. "Well, like Ariom said before, we probably won't be able to diagram this entire enchantment in one go anyway. But it's better to get as much done as we can. That's why we're trying to find a way to go faster."

Ariom nodded in agreement. "The more complicated the matrix, the simpler the individual magic formations tend to be. The ones we'll be dealing with are probably simple enough that an experienced enchanter like Mideis could normally draw a copy of one in just a minute or two. And he's a very skilled mental mage, so even using telepathy wouldn't usually increase the time all that much. It's the barrier that's the problem."

Thenio went over the numbers again as he watched Ariom pick Amisi up and set her on the table next to the glass cube that seemed to have the practice enchantment inscribed on it. Even at one minute per formation, manually scanning and recording a matrix with three hundred formations would still take five hours.

It was obvious why magic scanning tools had been invented....

"Are you two ready?" Ariom asked.

"Ready," Mideis said.

Amisi nodded.

"Then let's start."

The three of them all took on looks of concentration. After a moment of silence, Mideis' pencil began moving.

Thenio frowned a little. Mideis had started his drawing much faster this time, but he was going more slowly, and the sound of the pencil paused occasionally. He even stopped and erased a few times.

Even without looking at the clock, it was clearly taking much longer than the previous attempt.

"Done," he finally said, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. He looked at the pocket watch and shook his head. "Eight and a half minutes.... I don't think this method is going to work. The communication is a lot easier, but I have to interpret what Amisi is sending me in order to draw the formation. I can do it, but it takes a while."

Amisi's ears drooped a little. "I'm sorry. It's hard for me to understand everything I was reading from Ariom. And if I don't understand, it's hard to pass it on to Mideis."

"It's not your fault," Ariom told her, stroking her back reassuringly. "It's just that humans and magic beasts see things differently. Iggy's the same way. Spectral beasts are even worse, if it makes you feel any better. I grew up with a revenant, so believe me, I know just how weird they can be...."

The room was silent for a few minutes. Mideis was scowling at the diagram he'd just drawn. Ariom was staring thoughtfully into space, still petting Amisi. That seemed to make Iggy feel a little neglected, because he got up and jumped off the table onto Thenio's lap. Thenio smiled wryly and started scratching the little dragon's ears.

"What if the two of you switched sides?" Ariom spoke up finally. "Amisi seems to be having a hard time understanding and transmitting the information she's getting from me. But what if you're on this side sending her the information, and then she passes it on to another enchanter? Wouldn't you be able to organize things in a way she could understand better?"

Mideis looked doubtful. "Probably? But I'm not sure if I can transmit things in a way that someone else can understand, either. It would work fine if we had another enchanter with a mental affinity, but there aren't exactly a lot of us around.... Well, we can still try it. Except that we don't have another enchanter with us right now." He glanced in Thenio's direction. "No offense, Thenio, but I don't think a sixteen-year-old magic assistant will be able to do something like this. We need someone who's familiar with this particular style of enchanting."

"We can still test it out well enough to know if it's worth pursuing." Ariom stood up and picked up Amisi. "You come over here. Let's see what happens if you're the one scanning a formation and sending the information over to me. It's skipping a step, but you pulling the information from me is the easiest part of the process, anyway, so it shouldn't change the overall time by that much."

"All right." Mideis pushed his chair back and stood up.

They swapped places, with Ariom and Amisi settling down at the desk while Mideis sat at the small table inside the barrier.

Ariom got a clean sheet of paper and picked up the pencil. "Ready whenever you are."

Mideis nodded. "Okay. I'll start, then." He focused his attention on the glass cube.

A moment later, there was a sharp intake of breath from Ariom, and he put the hand not holding the pencil up to his forehead.

Iggy's head and ears shot up in alarm, and he let out a soft growl.

"I'm okay," Ariom said, though his voice sounded a little shaky. He had closed his eyes and still had his hand pressed against his head. "It's just...a lot to take in all at once.... Give me a minute. I'm not that good with mental magic."

The little dragon quieted down, but he was still watching Ariom alertly. Thenio patted his back soothingly, although he was also concerned by Ariom's reaction.

It didn't look like this test was going to go that well either....

After a minute, Ariom lowered his hand, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes. "All right, I think I'm getting it. I understand what you were saying about having to interpret the information...but I think I can do it."

He started drawing. But it was slow and hesitant, like Mideis' last attempt had been, and by the time he finally finished and put the pencil down with a sigh, more than ten minutes had passed.

"I guess using Amisi really isn't the way to do it...not unless we can find someone who's a lot better at receiving telepathy than I am...." Ariom rubbed his temples as though he had a lingering headache. "Should we go back to the shorthand method? The time on that one wasn't too bad, and it should get faster with some practice. Using shorthand diagrams isn't ideal for this kind of thing, but...well, our first attempt is mostly about gathering more information to help plan out future attempts anyway."

"Maybe I should just do the recording while I'm inside the barrier? I won't be able to have any assistants helping me that way, but it should still be faster than doing it outside. And it won't be that dangerous if I have safety gear on."

"Not for you, maybe, but what about all the diagrams you'll be drawing? The last thing we need is to spend hours recording things and then have all our paperwork get destroyed in a magic explosion...."

"Take a short break every half an hour and hand off the finished diagrams to someone outside the barrier?"

"Hmm...I guess that's a possibility...."

They both lapsed into silence.

"You should let Thenio try!"

Everyone in the room turned to look at Iggy, who was standing on Thenio's knee and waving his tail around enthusiastically.

"You need help drawing pictures, right? Then you should ask Thenio to help! Thenio is really good at drawing magic pictures, you know?" The little dragon looked very pleased with himself for coming up with such a brilliant suggestion.

"Didn't I already say that wouldn't work? He might be good at drawing, but he just doesn't have enough experience with enchanting yet." Mideis looked at Ariom. "Would it even be safe for him to do it?"

Ariom was looking at Thenio thoughtfully, his brow slightly furrowed. "It might be all right, since he seems to tolerate mental magic quite well. As for whether he'll be able to draw the formations correctly or not...."

"He can do it!" Iggy insisted. "Thenio draws good pictures!"

Ariom shrugged. "It probably won't hurt to let him try if he wants to. I'll stay over here to watch his magic power and make sure nothing happens."

"Well, if you think it's all right...." Mideis turned to Thenio. "Do you want to give it a try?"

"Um...." Thenio really hadn't been expecting this. "I guess...?"

He wasn't that thrilled about the prospect, to be honest. But it was hard to refuse an adorable little dragon who was looking up at you with such an expectant look on his face....

"All right. Come over here, then." Ariom stood up and gestured at the chair he'd been sitting in.

Thenio picked up Iggy and carried him over to the desk, where he passed the dragon over to Ariom. Then he sat down and looked apprehensively at the diagram that Ariom had just drawn. It was true that it wasn't that complicated, but it wasn't in a style he was familiar with. He recognized some of the runes as ones used during the Pre-War Era, but there were others he had never seen before.

Mideis was right. How was he supposed to draw something like this...?

He gave a small sigh. Then he pulled a fresh sheet of paper off the pile and picked up the pencil.

"Go slowly this time," Ariom told Amisi. "We're just checking to see whether Thenio can copy the formation accurately or not. There's no need to rush him on his first try." He looked down at the excited little dragon in his arms and then gave Thenio an understanding smile. "Just do what you can, all right? Think of this as a lesson on mental magic. It should be an interesting experience for you, whether it works or not. So try to relax and learn from it."

Thenio nodded and took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm ready to start."

He looked down at the piece of paper in front of him and waited for something to happen. After a short moment, he felt a sort of movement, like a feather brushing against his thoughts.

Then a sudden rush of information poured into his head. Thenio winced. He understood now why Ariom had reacted the way he had. It didn't hurt, but it was very disorienting.

He closed his eyes and steadied his breathing, trying to calm down and sort through the swirl of thoughts and images.

It was hard. He could pick out a few pieces—some runes here, part of a shape there. But he didn't understand how they were supposed to fit together. It was like looking at a tangled mess of string and not being able to find an end to start unraveling it with.

He put a hand on his head. The whirling ideas were making him feel dizzy and slightly sick. It was too much. It was moving too fast. If he could just get them all to slow down so he could look at them one at a time....

Turn it into an image.

Thenio suddenly opened his eyes.

A memory had just come back to him. A memory from his childhood, when Eteon had been teaching him how to draw.

It's because I've spent so many years studying these animals. I take all the things I know about them, and I turn that knowledge into an image made of wood.

Thenio had been frustrated with those early drawing attempts. None of his pictures seemed to turn out how he wanted them to. The animals he was trying to draw were awkward and misshapen, not at all like the beautiful, lifelike creatures that Eteon could carve out of wood.

He'd gone to see Eteon one afternoon and asked him how he could make such wonderful carvings.

If you learn enough about something, you'll be able to see an image in your mind of the thing you want. Then you copy that image onto the paper. It's simple once you get the hang of it, but it takes a lot of study and practice to get there.

That conversation was what made him start reading books about animals and magic beasts. And it really did make his drawings better. Even books without any pictures in them seemed to help. He didn't quite understand how that worked, but somehow it did.

That's right. It didn't matter if he didn't understand. All the information he needed was right there. He just had to turn that knowledge into an image and use his pencil to catch the image and put it on the page. Just like he did when he drew things from his memory.

It was easy, really. Like catching a beetle in a jar.

Thenio looked at the blank paper and willed the knowledge streaming into his head to take form on it. It took some concentration, but his swirling thoughts eventually slowed and started to take on the shape of a magic formation.

There. He could see it now.

He moved the pencil rapidly, copying the lines down onto the paper. His years of drawing practice made his strokes smooth and confident. When he was finished, he briefly checked over the drawing to make sure he hadn't missed anything and then gave a satisfied nod.

"Okay. I'm done."

The stream of information running into his mind stopped.

Thenio picked up the paper and handed it to Ariom, who was watching him with a rather perplexed expression.

"Here. I'm not sure if it's right, but I did the best I could."

Ariom took the paper and stared at it silently. Then he stared at Thenio, still wearing the same, slightly bewildered-looking expression.

Iggy, who was now perched on Ariom's shoulder, looked down at the paper and then puffed out his chest.

"See?" he said proudly, swishing his tail. "I told you Thenio draws really good pictures!"