The Flames of Dragons

by Josh VanBrakle

  But if he released the spell he was preparing, they would die instead.

  The light in Iren’s palm churned and swirled as it took shape. It grew larger and brighter.

  Then came the moment Hideki had dreaded. The light itself caught fire.

  A whoosh filled the arena as the spell ignited. White flames shot six feet in the air.

  Hideki gripped the rail of his box. Where was the attendant? Where was the proctor?

  It was too late now. Hideki leapt over the box wall and landed hard on the bleachers in front of him. He charged through the spectators, heedless of the stares they gave him. He had only one thought: to stop this match before anyone got killed.

  As Hideki neared the arena wall, Rondel charged across the sand toward Iren. She must have figured out the boy wasn’t going to surrender. When she came within fifty feet, she threw out her right hand and shot a lightning bolt at the emperor’s son.

  It never reached him. The flames curled around Iren and warded off the blow.

  Rondel closed to short range. She stabbed with her dagger, but again the flames acted as a shield.

  Hideki landed on the arena floor and rushed toward the far end. The proctor had appeared by now too, but he was too far away.

  It was for the best. Iren’s spell demanded release. The farther away people were from him when it went off, the better.

  Iren lunged at Rondel. She backed up, but Iren’s speed matched hers. She couldn’t get away from him. His palm reached out for her.

  Just before Iren’s spell brushed Rondel’s clothes, a magenta blur flashed into the stadium. Hideki recognized the color as Caly Thara’s formal clan kimono. The Storm Dragon Knight grabbed Rondel and fled backward, away from Iren’s spell.

  Unfortunately, that wouldn’t save them. The boy’s technique could be contained no longer. It erupted from his hand in a geyser of white flame.

  The spell struck Rondel and Caly when they were forty feet away. Both screamed as the attack burned away their clothes and seared their flesh.

  Hideki saw the panic on his son’s face. He was trying desperately to make the spell stop, but that was impossible. The energy all had to come out. Once cast, there was no reversing it.

  Finally Hideki was close enough. He drew the Muryozaki and poured magic into it. White light shot between Iren and Rondel. It formed a shield and deflected his son’s technique up.

  The two spells clashed for more than ten seconds, but at last Iren’s magic was spent. He collapsed, his breath heaving.

  Hideki ran to his son. He dropped to the sand alongside him. “Fool,” the emperor murmured. “You damn fool.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Muryoka

  Iren Saitosan snapped out of the memory. He was back on the beach inside his mind. He looked up at Divinion with wide eyes. “What . . .” he panted, “what the hell kind of an attack was that?”

  Divinion didn’t answer right away. He was looking across the ocean, his gaze fixed on something Iren couldn’t see.

  Suddenly the dragon reared back his head. He then thrust it forward, opened his mouth, and loosed a torrent of white flame. It shot across the imaginary ocean, boiling it in a second.

  When the spell ended, water rushed to fill the space the flames had evaporated. The level of the surf dropped half a foot.

  “Whoa,” Iren said. It was all he could manage.

  “You know the dragons once sank a continent,” Divinion said. “Didn’t you ever wonder how we did it? The dragons are gods, Iren. Together we contain enough magic to rip this world asunder.”

  Iren exhaled. “Then the spell my father used mimicked your breath.”

  “It’s called Muryoka: Holy Dragon Fire. The first Holy Dragon Knight declared it forbidden, though plenty since him have defied his order. As you saw, the results aren’t pleasant, and your father’s was one of the better attempts. Most who use it die; the flames can consume the caster before he ever releases the magic. Even after casting though, a backwash of energy kills the caster if he’s too close to the impact site. That nearly happened to your father. He would have died that day, but Hideki was smart enough to redirect Muryoka’s energy up and away from the arena. That’s the only reason your father, Rondel, and everyone else in that stadium survived. Even with Hideki’s intervention, both Rondel and Caly Thara almost perished from their burns. Hideki healed them after the fight.”

  Iren put his hand on his head. “This is the spell you want me to learn? If I use it against Rondel, I’ll wipe out whatever countryside we’re fighting in, not to mention myself.”

  Divinion’s penetrating stare locked eyes with him. “Muryoka is the only spell a Holy Dragon Knight has that can defeat Rondel. You said you wanted revenge. How far will you go to get it?”

  Iren opened his mouth to respond, then shut it. Chiyo’s words to him three weeks ago rang in his head. She believed he was gentle, that he didn’t truly want revenge. Minawë had once told him the same thing.

  But they were wrong, at least mostly. He would kill Rondel, but he wouldn’t do it with this technique. “There must be another way,” he said. “My father wasn’t able to restrain his Muryoka at all. It was just blind destruction, like the time I lost control in Ziorsecth. If mere power was all I needed, you wouldn’t have shown me that memory just now. There must be more to Muryoka than what my father cast.”

  Divinion smiled. “I was hoping you’d figure that out. Hold on a moment; there’s something I want to show you.”

  The beach scene disappeared into darkness. When the landscape refilled, Iren and Divinion were in a vast mountain range. The peaks stretched beyond the clouds and as far in every direction as Iren could see.

  The pair stood at the base of a cliff. Iren looked up, but he couldn’t see the top. “Are these the Eregos Mountains?” he asked. “Hana and I stopped in them on our way to Hiabi last year, but I don’t remember them being this tall.”

  “They aren’t,” Divinion replied. “These mountains no longer exist. Like the primeval forest I showed you, these mountains were part of Teneb. They formed the continent’s western edge: the Tacumsah Range.”

  “Tacumsah . . .” Iren’s mouth fell open. “You mean like the island chain?”

  “When we sank Teneb, these mountains were too much even for us. Their tops still poke above the waves.”

  They were impressive for sure, but Iren still furrowed his brow. “What do these mountains have to do with Muryoka?”

  Divinion pointed a claw at a mountain perhaps ten miles ahead of them. “Keep your eyes focused that way.”

  The dragon concentrated a moment. Then he reared his head back. The white flames shot out, crossing the space to the mountain in a flash.

  The explosion was blinding, but it made no sound. Then, two seconds later, a concussive force knocked Iren to the ground.

  He struggled to his feet. A crater at least the size of the one the Heart of Ziorsecth had made appeared at the impact site.

  “That’s the Muryoka I used on the ocean,” Divinion said. “It’s also what your father attempted. But this is the weaker of Muryoka’s two forms. As you said, it’s power without control. If we harness that energy, we get a different result.”

  The dragon held out a clawed hand, palm up. White flames appeared, just like they had for Iren Saito.

  Only this time, the flames shrank. They started out the length of the dragon’s immense claws, but they grew smaller with each second.

  “There,” the dragon said at last. “It’s done.”

  Iren frowned. “I don’t see it anymore.”

  “It’s there. It’s the size of a grain of sand.”

  “And that makes it more powerful?”

  “The energy is the same,” Divinion corrected. “Both forms use the same amount of magic. The difference is control. This Muryoka focuses all its magic into a single point. And when it’s released—”

  He reached out and grabbed the cliff next to them. Iren shouted, “No, don’t!” but it was
too late. White light filled the cliff face.

  Iren shielded himself behind Divinion, but he knew it was futile. The blast would ignite and slay them both.

  “Open your eyes,” Divinion said. “We’re both fine.”

  Iren unclenched himself. “Right,” he said, his voice and body shaking, “this place isn’t real.”

  “True, but that’s not the reason. Even in the real world, that blast wouldn’t have killed us. It transferred all its energy to its target, so there was no backwash. See for yourself.”

  Iren stepped around Divinion. He dropped to his knees in shock.

  The cliff was gone. The whole mountain was gone. Iren could see across miles and miles of empty space.

  “H. . .How?” he managed.

  “The imperfect Muryoka wastes its energy in a big explosion. The perfect one does not. The target receives it all, and that means complete annihilation. But when the target falls, the Muryoka’s energy is expended. Only light leaches out. It can blind, but it can’t kill. The perfect Muryoka will destroy anything you desire, and only what you desire.”

  Iren was still stunned, but he forced himself to say, “I’ve seen this before. Or at least, something similar. When I became the Dragoon, I used a spell like this to stop Feng.”

  Divinion tossed his head back and forth. It made his whiskers shake. “Same idea, but a different level of execution. What you used against Feng was simple compared to Muryoka. That time, you squeezed the Dragoon’s magic into a ball the size of a cherry. A perfect Muryoka can be no larger than a grain of sand. That’s a hundred thousand times smaller.”

  Iren couldn’t grasp the number Divinion described, but he understood the point. Even though he had used a similar technique in the past, a perfect Muryoka was far and away more challenging. It demanded at least as much magic as he had gathered as the Dragoon, and it required a level of control far exceeding what he had managed back then.

  “So that’s my next task,” he murmured. “I need to learn how to focus magic into smaller and smaller spaces.”

  Divinion nodded. “That’s the only way you’ll defeat Rondel without killing yourself or anyone else.”

  “How do I do it?” Iren asked. “Did my father ever figure it out?”

  “After that day in the arena, your father never attempted Muryoka again. He feared what might happen, especially after he became the Holy Dragon Knight and truly had my power at his fingertips.”

  Iren gulped. Even his father had failed to learn Muryoka. The Holy Dragon Knights before him had considered the spell so hazardous they’d declared it forbidden. To defeat Rondel, Iren would have to surpass them all, and the price of failure was death and mass destruction.

  He already missed running into trees.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Land and Sea

  As the sun set over Awakimundi’s teardrop castle, Hana returned to the shore alongside the island’s port. She removed her shoes and dug her toes into the dry sand. The soothing crunch distracted her from what she knew she had to do tonight.

  It wasn’t fair. Faro was so gentle. He had no idea about the wars of the past, or the revenge the Maantecs sought. He was fun and carefree. He didn’t deserve to die.

  Hana shook her head. Faro was nothing. She’d met him on the road just today. He was a nobody, a human unworthy of her time and attention. Once she killed him, she would return to Shogun Melwar in triumph.

  And what then? The shogun seemed content to let Iren, Rondel, and Forest Dragon Knight chase one another. That left only one Ryokaiten unclaimed: Balear’s Auryozaki. As soon as Hana returned and handed over Faro’s weapon, the shogun would send her to kill Balear.

  There was no avoiding it. The alternative was death.

  Besides, this was the only way to restore the Maantecs and let them assume their place as Raa’s rightful leaders. Once the Maantecs were in charge, Raa would have peace. Faro and Balear were sacrifices to that noble purpose.

  Cheering from the wooden huts pulled Hana from her thoughts. She faced the sound, and through the light of fifty torches she saw a crowd of Tacumsahens mobbing a central figure. Everyone was shouting “Faro de Magnificent!” over and over. He might be a heretic in Mizuchi’s temple, but out here he was a champion.

  The crowd washed over Hana like a wave. As Faro passed her, she forced herself to honor him with a subtle smile. He said nothing in response, but she could tell from his widened grin that he had noticed her.

  Hana had expected to be the only light-skinned person in the crowd, but more than a few of the Lodians who had ridden on the ship with her had come out as well. “Faro de Magnificent” must have a reputation among the sea-traders.

  The crowd’s presence wouldn’t make Hana’s job any easier. If Faro knew anything about the Water Dragon’s abilities, the battle between them would be messy. Anyone nearby was likely to die.

  It would be better to take Faro unawares during his show. Hana fingered the smooth pebble she’d picked up during her walk back from the castle. It was the perfect assassination tool. With it Hana could pierce Faro’s skull from a distance without anyone knowing she was involved.

  Taking the man’s Ryokaiten would be no issue either. Mizuchi would test anyone who touched his weapon after Faro died, and there was no way anyone in this crowd could pass. After the first few failed and died, the others would fear to touch the cursed object. Hana could sweep in, take the Ryokaiten, and promise to hurl it into the ocean far from land. She would be a hero.

  Having a plan made Hana feel better. She settled in to watch the show. She hoped Faro lived up to his reputation; tonight was going to be his last performance.

  Faro separated from the mob and stepped into the surf. Rather, he stepped onto it. He walked across the shifting surface of the waves as easily as if he were still on the beach. The crowd cheered.

  The Dragon Knight next raised his arms, and with them two snakes of water rose from the sea. They curled around Faro, slowly at first but speeding up until the man was all but lost in the churning foam.

  Then Faro threw his arms out over the crowd. The water snakes shot out and dissipated over the beach. Salty mist rained on the audience.

  The dark-skinned Tacumsahen continued his act for another fifteen minutes, performing various tricks with the water. He created three fist-sized water balls and juggled them. He added two more, but these he bounced off his knees, elbows, and head while keeping the original three in the air. He kicked all five balls above the audiences’ heads so that they landed on the beach with a solid impact. With the group’s attention diverted, Faro created a wave and doused the front row from behind. He cackled his deep, rapid laugh at them.

  “And now for my encore!” he shouted at last. He dipped his hand into the sea, and Hana saw the tip of his Ryokaiten sticking out by his thumb. Faro swirled his hand in the ocean once, twice, three times. He spoke an incantation that sounded reverent but that Hana guessed was nonsensical stage acting. Faro then threw up his hand, and with it a cone of water launched into the air. It spiraled upward, forming a tight cylinder. In shape it mirrored Faro’s initial tendrils, but this one was as wide as Hana was tall and stood more than a hundred feet high. Whitecaps flecked its length to give it the look of a great sea serpent. Completing the appearance, the apex formed a toothy reptilian mouth.

  Hana’s eyes glittered. This was the moment she’d waited for. Everyone’s attention, Faro’s included, was on the huge water creature. Hana released her pebble, floated it above the crowd, and shot it faster than an arrow at Faro’s head.

  Just before the stone hit him, though, the sea serpent twisted subtly. Its undulating curves snagged the rock and held it fast. Hana struggled to free it, but the water had it. Defeated, she released the stone and let it sink into the ocean.

  Faro made no indication that he had noticed the rock. He kept right on with his act. “Behold our guardian, Mizuchi!” he cried as he gestured at the water serpent. “He keeps us safe, but if we’re evil, he will punish us
. Like dis!” He swung his arm in an arc above the crowd, and the Mizuchi look-alike descended. It crashed into the ocean, and a great wave rushed forward. Hana shielded her eyes just before it broke over the crowd, soaking everyone.

  Hana threw back her wet hair and looked around. She expected everyone to be as surprised—and upset—as she was. Instead, they were all laughing. Faro joined in and made an exaggerated shrug. “Well, maybe his punishment would be a little worse,” he said. “I am a simple conjurer after all.”

  Faro bowed and stepped back onto the beach. The wet audience mobbed him, all but one. Hana held back, fists clenched. Now she would have to do this the hard way.

  Still, she didn’t want the spectators involved if they didn’t have to be. She waited as they slapped Faro on the back and congratulated him for his show.

  At length the crowd thinned, more from Faro’s repeated claims that he must rest than from the audience’s tiring of his presence. Half an hour after the show, Hana and Faro were the only two standing on the beach.

  The Tacumsahen approached Hana. “You came,” he said. “Did you like my show, farm girl?”

  He said those last two words with such irony that Hana took a step back. “It was impressive,” she admitted.

  “Lodians don’t care about dragons, but people here remember Mizuchi. They know him. Even so, they don’t like Lefts.”

  Hana’s eyes widened in surprise. She’d thought Faro was a human, but he was a Maantec. Everything about him, even his islander accent, was an act. He’d spoken those last few sentences with a deep voice as clear as any noble Maantec in Hiabi.

  “Didn’t know there were dark-skinned Maantecs, did you?” he asked. “Your bigotry extends even to your own kind.”

  Hana blinked several times in rapid succession. “What are you talking about?”

  “I knew Melwar would send someone eventually. I didn’t expect a beautiful woman. It figures.”

  There was no point in denying it. “How did you know?” Hana asked. “I hide my Ryokaiten.”