The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon

"I thought Relisa said that was a protection charm." Aunt Kat came over to look at the tree sprout more closely. "She didn't say anything about a function like this, did she?"

Ariom shook his head. "No. But she said it had Ket'shiu's magic in it, so who knows what kinds of crazy things it might be capable of?"

"Ket'shiu's?" Red had just finished treating Silverwater and walked over to take a look at the pendant. "Is that made from his wood?"

"That's what Relisa Sephior said when she gave it to me. And the magic in it does have a similar feel to that 'tree blood' stuff I drank earlier." Ariom frowned at the piece of wood in his hand for a moment. Then he looked back at Aunt Kat. "Should we follow it?"

"Well, getting directions from a tree branch is pretty strange," she said, eyeing the sprout uncertainly. "But I know Relisa is trustworthy. And if that's really a mythic beast's magic...."

Kino also came over to them, his nose twitching. Ariom pulled the pendant off his neck and held it down where the storm hound could sniff at it more easily. As he moved it, the branch twisted around to keep pointing in the same direction.

"What do you think, Kino?" Aunt Kat asked. "I know you and Garem have dealt with a lot of crazy things over the years. Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

"Not exactly." Kino finished sniffing along the length of the branch and then looked up at her. "But the Sephiors have helped us with some other cases. They trained in Ket'qe, and they have ties to the Shiu'tanas. So maybe Ket'shiu wants to help us find Focilo? Or maybe the pendants are connected somehow. Relisa said that Focilo has one too, right? Whichever it is, I think it's okay to follow it."

"I don't think it would hurt to at least see what it's pointing to." Ziryi was looking at the tree branch with interest. "Ironfish and I were just talking about the possibility of there being a hidden area on this floor that's not on the map. That kind of thing is pretty common in Order bases. And when we were searching the holding cells, I did notice a corridor that looked a little off. I checked it and didn't find anything, but the guy who did the enchantments on this place is really good, so it's possible that I just couldn't detect whatever it was. I'm really interested to see if this branch leads us to that same place."

"All right. If no one has any objections...." Aunt Kat looked around at the team members. No one said anything, and a few people shook their heads. "Then let's do what Darkbolt suggested and at least see where it's trying to lead us."

Ariom passed the pendant over to Rockbrawler, who led them into the holding area, following its direction.

It wasn't a comfortable trip. As they walked through the corridors, many of the cells' occupants watched them anxiously.

A few of them had gotten quite hysterical when they'd first seen the Magic Corps combat suits, banging their fists against the barriers on their cells and screaming to be let out. Most quieted down when Aunt Kat reassured them that they'd be let out as soon as the building was secured and a proper medical team arrived. But Red had to go in and sedate a couple of them.

Only about a third of the prisoners were human. The majority were actually magic beasts. Most of these had probably been acquired illegally, like the manticore. A ragged-looking gryphon whose wings were missing most of their feathers hissed and snapped its beak at them as they went by. A blue, short-haired storm hound barked at Kino, who stared back at it gloomily for a moment before turning away and continuing down the hall.

Ariom felt a bit sick when they passed several smaller pens that held dragons of various breeds. They were all curled up in miserable little balls, and many of them had large patches of scales or fur or feathers missing, just like the gryphon.

At least none of them seemed to be Iggy's cousins. And Ariom knew that all of them would soon be getting proper medical care and would then be sent to rehabilitation programs. The Ayerin Hatchery occasionally took in abused dragons like these to train and socialize before either finding them good homes or adopting them into their resident flock of retired breeding pairs. Many other high-quality breeders did the same. So these magic beasts should all have better futures ahead of them.

But it was still painful to just walk past without doing anything....

The tree sprout led them along a few more rows of cells until they turned a corner and found themselves in an empty hallway.

"Yes, this place!" Ziryi said excitedly. "This is the corridor I was talking about."

"There's nothing here?" Rockbrawler said questioningly, looking around.

"Exactly. This is the only corridor on this floor that doesn't have any rooms connected to it."

Ariom pulled out his copy of the building maps, found the floor they were on, and examined it carefully. She was right. This hallway was on the outer edge of the holding area, running between two rows of cells. There were a few similar connecting corridors in other places on the map, but they all had storage rooms along one side. Both sides of this particular corridor were just blank walls.

One wall had two holding cells on the other side of it, so it made sense that there were no doorways there. But there was no apparent reason why the other side didn't have any rooms leading off of it.

Of course, it could just be that there was a problem with the terrain right here. Or maybe one of the base's other underground facilities came too close, so there wasn't enough space to build any further out.

But it was also very possible that there was something hidden on the other side.

"Try walking down the hall," Ziryi suggested. "Let's see if that branch points to any particular spot."

Rockbrawler obligingly walked down the corridor, holding the pendant out in front of him. At first, the tree sprout was pointing ahead, but after he'd gone about a third of the way down the hall, it suddenly swiveled and pointed to the left, straight at the seemingly blank wall.

"Here?" Ziryi walked over and started examining that spot on the wall. A moment later, she frowned and looked over at Ariom. "I still can't see anything unusual. How about you?"

Ariom went over to where she was standing. He scanned the wall up and down, but apart from the same reinforcement enchantment that all the walls in this place had on them, he couldn't see anything, even with magesight.

He frowned and looked at the pendant in Rockbrawler's hand. The tree branch was still resolutely pointing at the wall.

"Should we try breaking through physically?" Ziryi asked. "If we disable the reinforcement, it shouldn't be hard to smash through a wall like this. But if there are some kind of hidden traps...."

Ariom shook his head. "Not yet. If there's really a hidden enchantment on this wall, then there will definitely be traps attached to the matrix. That's just how this guy operates. Let me work on it a little before we resort to brute force. Can I have that back for a minute?" He held out his hand toward the pendant, and Rockbrawler gave it to him.

He started walking slowly back and forth along the hallway, watching the tree sprout. In the middle of the hall, it stayed perpendicular to the wall, but at some point on either side, it started bending to one side, pointing back toward the center.

After a couple of passes, Ariom took a piece of chalk from his space pocket and marked the wall at both points where the branch started tilting. That should be the borders of whatever was there. In between the marks was a space about fifteen feet wide.

Ariom stood and scowled at it, thinking hard.

If he assumed that there was an enchantment there, that brought up two important questions. The first one, of course, was why couldn't he see it?

That actually wasn't too hard to explain. His magesight was very sensitive, but it was oriented toward elemental magic—the kind of magic that humans and magic beasts used. He could see other kinds, too, but not nearly as well. And it was entirely possible that there were kinds he couldn't see at all.

So the most obvious answer was that the enchantment used a type of magic that he couldn't see. Though another possibility was that it was done in an unusual enchanting style that didn't emit any detectable magic power unless it was activated by something.

How could he figure out which of those it was? He needed to be able to analyze the enchantment to figure out how it was constructed, but he wouldn't be able to analyze it unless he already knew how it was constructed so he could work out a method to see it properly. It was quite a conundrum....

That led him to the second important question. There was nothing on the map past this hallway. So whatever was there, Eteon hadn't been able to see it either, even using dream magic.

But the weird little tree sprout Ariom had in his hand could tell something was there. Meaning that Ket'shiu's power could detect it, but Ki'shiu's couldn't.

What was the difference between the Lord of Dreams and the Lord of the Forest?

Well, Relisa had told him that earlier: Only Ket'shiu and the phoenix have enough resistance to provide material for anti-demon medicine.

Ket'shiu was especially resistant to demon miasma. But Eteon—and Ki'shiu, by extension—seemed to be especially vulnerable to it.

And it was the same with Ariom and the Old One who had made this enchantment, wasn't it? The main goal of the Order of the Ravener was to harness the power of demons, so the Old One, as one of their top leaders, should be an expert on demon magic. Whereas Ariom knew very little about it. He knew he could detect miasma in larger amounts—his magesight had picked up the patches of magic spreading up Eteon's arms. But if it was woven into very thin strands, by an extremely skilled enchanter....

...there was a good chance he wouldn't be able to see it at all.

And if a section of this building was hidden inside a barrier made using demon magic, then Eteon probably wouldn't have been able to see it, either.

Demon magic was the most likely answer to both questions.

But that led to yet another question: Even if he knew what it was, how was Ariom supposed to see it?

"I really wish Iggy were here..." he muttered to himself. Then he sighed and turned to Ziryi. "You don't happen to know how to analyze an enchantment made with unpurified demon magic, do you?"

"Unpurified demon magic?" Ziryi blinked at him. "Is that even possible? I mean, I know this guy is incredibly skilled, and that would explain why neither of us can see whatever's on that wall. But isn't demon magic too volatile to use for something like that? I've only ever heard of it being used after it's purified."

"That's normally how it would be, yes. But we're dealing with a very abnormal enchanter here. If it's him.... Well, let's just assume that I'm right, and there's an enchantment made from demon magic in front of us. Do you have any way to analyze it?"

"Uh...." Ziryi screwed up her face, apparently thinking. "The Demon Poison Center should have some scanning equipment that can detect things like that. And I know some of the doctors there use a demon-oriented magesight. They could probably do it. But as far as anything I have with me...." She paused for a moment and then shook her head with an apologetic expression. "I'm sorry. I don't think I have anything like that in my magic kit."

"Then what should we do?" Aunt Kat asked, looking between the two of them. "Do we need to wait for backup?"

"I'm not sure.... Let me think for a minute," Ariom said, scowling with concentration again.

It was true that calling in support from the Magic Corps' Poison Center or Demon Research Center would normally be the best option for something like this. But that would probably take hours, and even then it wasn't guaranteed that they could find someone who could both see this enchantment and was capable of disabling it.

But that might be their only choice.... Ariom was in the same position as Ziryi. Some of his scanning equipment at home could probably be adjusted to read demon magic, if he had enough time to work on it. But nothing he was carrying with him would be able to—

Wait. Maybe there was something.

Ariom stared down at the pendant he was still holding in his hand.

He didn't really know how it worked. He didn't know if someone was controlling it or if it was following some kind of pre-programmed behavior. And he wasn't actually sure whether it was detecting the demon magic or whether it was just leading them to wherever Focilo was.

But if it could detect demon magic, he ought to be able to make use of that. Manipulating other people's magic was what void mages were known for, after all.

Ariom pondered for a moment. He could probably pull some of the magic power out of the pendant to use, but there was a chance that would make it stop functioning as their compass. Before they found Thenio and Focilo, that wasn't a good idea.

Luckily, he already had another source of the same magic. Some of it was already inside his body, even.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to focus on the foreign magic still running through him. Neutralizing the demon poison had weakened it, but he was able to find and take control of a small amount.

It should be enough to test his idea, at least.

Ariom activated his magesight, channeling Ket'shiu's magic power into his eyes along with his own.

A second later, he was sure he'd made a mistake. There was a sharp pain in his eyes, and his vision distorted strangely.

Even in small amounts, a mythic beast's magic was no joke. Just moving it to his eyes hadn't been a problem, but the delicate control required for magesight was much more difficult. Ariom gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, which were beginning to water.

"Ariom, what are you doing?" he heard Red's voice say in a concerned tone. "Stop! You're going to hurt yourself!"

Ariom held up a hand in the direction of the voice. "No. I can do this. Just...give me a minute."

He steadied his breathing and concentrated, ignoring the pain. He could control it. He had to control it. He needed this magic to get to Thenio and Focilo.

Slowly, gradually, the magic settled down and came under his control. The discomfort in his eyes eased. There...it was almost—

Ariom suddenly let out a hiss of pain. Ket'shiu's magic had broken free, and his eyes felt like they were burning.

"Ariom!" He heard several voices call out his name in alarm. Aunt Kat. Red. And...was that Namyis?

"Ariom, stop!" Red was right in front of him now, his hands on Ariom's shoulders. "Whatever you're doing, stop!"

Somehow, over all the noise, Ariom could hear a soft rustling sound, like leaves blowing in the wind. Or maybe a large creature letting out a sigh.

There was a tickling sensation on his wrist. The feeling of something wrapping around it. Then a gentle warmth.

Ariom opened his eyes. The pain had vanished.

"I'm okay," he told Red, who was staring at him, looking both worried and bewildered. Ariom reached up and wiped the tears off his face. "Really. I'm okay. It doesn't hurt anymore."

"Your eyes...." Red was still staring at him. "They changed color. What did you do?"

"I just borrowed a little power to help get through this enchantment. It wasn't working very well at first, but...I guess he decided to cooperate with me."

Ariom looked down at his hand. The wooden pendant had grown a little more, becoming a long, thin vine that was wrapped snugly around his wrist.

He had no doubt about it now. Someone was definitely controlling that thing. And that person...that creature? Whatever it was, it had just helped him out. Ket'shiu's magic was quietly following his direction now.

It was a little embarrassing that he hadn't been able to do it by himself, but...well, it was the result that mattered, in the end.

Red was still looking at him doubtfully, but Ariom raised his head and looked past him, at the wall. "There it is. I can see it now."

As expected, the space in between his chalk marks was covered in an intricate enchantment matrix, the delicate lines glowing a sinister purplish-green. They were faint, but he could see them.

"You can? Really?" Ziryi's eyes widened. "What did you do?"

"I'll explain later. This won't last for very long." Ariom looked back at Red. "I'm sorry for worrying you. And for not listening to the team medic. But I'm okay now. I need to disable this enchantment while I still can."

Red hesitated briefly and then sighed and moved away. "Fine. But make sure you have a doctor look at your eyes later, all right?"

Ariom nodded agreeably. "I will. I promise."

He might as well agree. Uncle Bero was definitely going to force him to get a thorough medical examination after everything that happened today, anyway....

He turned his attention to the enchantment. Once he could actually see it, it turned out to not be too different from the ones that they'd had to deal with when they entered the building. Two explosive traps. An alarm. A formation that looked like an opening mechanism but was actually a paralysis trap. Ariom recognized the disguise technique from the trap he'd accidentally set off on the golem.

He wouldn't fall for that again.

He pulled out his knife and got to work, disarming the alarm trap first. By the time he'd finished with it, the faint lines of the enchantment were already starting to grow fainter. The small amount of magic he'd had left from his first dose of tree blood was running out.

Ariom hesitated for a moment, frowning and considering his options. Finally, he took out the bottle of tree blood he'd gotten from Relisa and opened the lid.

"You're sure you need that so soon?" Red apparently wasn't quite done worrying about Ariom's wellbeing. "You already had a bottle of moondust, so if you drink that, you probably won't be able to take any more medicine without side effects."

"I know. But yes, I need it."

Red sighed but didn't argue.

Ariom drank the potion and almost immediately felt Ket'shiu's magic flooding through him. He began directing it to his eyes, and the lines of the inscription on the wall grew bright enough to see clearly.

Much better. It was worth putting up with a little recovery sickness later.

He went to work on the paralysis trap, cautiously slicing it apart with his magic-coated knife and leaving several small gashes in the wall in the process. But that didn't matter. This part of the wall was actually just a magic construct, anyway. It would disappear after he finished deactivating the enchantment, along with whatever damage he did to it.

"I'm about to disarm a couple of explosive traps," he warned the others after he finished with the paralysis one.

They moved a little further away, and Silverwater put up one of his liquid shields. With his magesight enhanced by a mythic beast's magic, Ariom could see the flow of power in the magically-created metal much more clearly than usual. It allowed him to recognize patterns and spot weaknesses that he hadn't seen before.

Was this how mythic beasts saw the world? It was a bit enviable....

He shook his head, pushing the distracting thoughts aside. Then he took a few deep breaths to steady himself before focusing on the first explosive trap.

He'd disarmed quite a few of these by now, but it was still hard to feel completely confident dealing with something that could easily blow his limbs off if he made a wrong move....

Fortunately, the disarming went smoothly, and Ariom could finally focus his attention on the main enchantment. He wasn't nearly as skilled at picking locks as Ziryi was, and this was a little different from all the door enchantments he'd watched her disarm. But there were still enough similarities that he managed to puzzle it out after ten or fifteen minutes.

"I've just about got it open," he said, pausing and turning to look at Aunt Kat.

"Well done," she said with an approving nod. "Defensive positions, everyone! We have no idea what might be lurking on the other side of that wall. Ariom, as soon as you trigger the opening mechanism, get back as quickly as you can, just in case."

"Understood."

Ariom waited while the others moved into a semi-circle around where he was standing, putting up their various shields.

Aunt Kat looked around to make sure everyone was in place and then turned back to him. "We're ready. Go ahead."

He nodded and sent out a thin strand of his magic to trigger the last enchantment formation. Then he hurried over to the protection of Red's mist cloud as the wall began to open up. With a soft shimmer of magic particles, the stone wall faded away from the center out until it revealed a wide corridor leading to another section of the building.

They'd finally found the way forward. But none of the team members moved yet.

They were all staring intently at a single person who was standing at the other end of the hallway—a middle-aged man with greying blonde hair and green eyes. He was dressed in a medical uniform, like many of the other Order members they'd encountered on this floor.

But unlike the others, he didn't immediately attack or run away. He simply stood there and looked at them with a despondent expression.

"Ah...I told him that abducting Focilo Sephior was dangerous," he said with a sigh. "But he never listens...."