Dragon Magus 1: A Progression Fantasy Saga Read online

  Koshi let go of the ball bearings he held. They fell back into the bag, tinkling all the way.

  “How many did I drop just now, little Raph?” he asked.

  “I couldn’t count them all. They fell too quickly.”

  Koshi picked up another handful of ball bearings and nodded. “Now turn the light back on.”

  Raphael did so. This time, he actually felt a dull ache in his head, and his right eye couldn’t stop twitching.

  Koshi did the same thing he did just now. The ball bearings in his hand fell back into the bag, but…

  “Thirty-seven!” Raphael shouted. “I saw them! I could count everything! I could think so quickly! I saw… I could… it hurts…”

  “Let the light go out, little Raph.” Koshi patted Raphael on the head gently. “That’s right. I dropped thirty-seven ball bearings back into the bag.”

  “Is that what the light does? Make me think quickly? See everything?” Raphael asked excitedly.

  “The light is called the Dragon Meridian, little Raph. Most other people can’t see it. Only you and I, and maybe some very, very special individuals can. So…”

  “I shouldn’t talk about it to other children,” Raphael finished Koshi’s sentence. “Just like I can’t talk about the shiny yellow pattern I have on my back.”

  “Yes, little Raph, that is correct.” Koshi’s smile became different, then, almost fierce and maybe even slightly angry. “But the time will come when all will know about you, for you are destined for great things.”

  “Great things?”

  “The call will come for you one day, and it is my duty to make sure you are ready when it does.” A faraway look came onto Koshi’s face, then, as if he were seeing something that wasn’t there.

  “I don’t understand, Koshi. What call? Who’s going to call?”

  Koshi laughed and patted Raphael’s head again. “Right, right. Sometimes, I forget how young you are. We’ll talk more about that when you’re a bit older. For now, I want you to work on keeping the Dragon Meridian open. It will focus your mind and make you do many things other people can’t.”

  “Like practicing my running, so I can be fast and tough?”

  “Something like that, little Raph, something like that. But maybe not right now.” Koshi clapped his hands together and picked Raphael up. “Let’s go see if we can find some apples! How does that sound?”

  “Apples! Hurray!”

  They were laughing as they walked out of their house, but it was clear to Raphael that Koshi’s legs hurt, and that his smile hid a lot of pain.

  Chapter 2

  And so, every day after school, Raphael ran around their house, skipped over piles of broken furniture, and did leap-frogs over heaps of old clothes, like he always did. But he also tried to keep the light above his head on while he played.

  It wasn’t easy starting out. The day after he first turned the light on, he tried counting while he held it, and he found that he could get to twenty before his head started to hurt and he had to let it go. He took a deep breath, walked around a bit as he waited for the pain in his head to fade, and tried again. Still twenty. He tried another ten more times before the sun went down.

  As darkness fell and that day turned to night, he managed to count to thirty.

  Within a week, he could keep the light on far longer than he could keep count without getting bored. Koshi was delighted at Raphael’s progress, and he suggested that Raphael try keeping his Dragon Meridian open while he ran and played.

  That was difficult, at first. Raphael couldn’t concentrate on his leap-frogs when he held the light on. He had trouble balancing on the narrow plank bridging two broken wagons. When he stumbled and cut his knee, he ran to Koshi and complained.

  “That’s because you’re trying to do two things at once, little Raph,” Koshi explained as he brought Raphael to the cistern where they kept their clean water. He washed Raphael’s knee and applied some of the stinging ointment he kept in his belt pouch.

  “But keeping the light on and running are two different things,” Raphael pointed out.

  “When you eat your breakfast, you’re chewing and moving your spoon at the same time, aren’t you? You also have your eyes open, and you even talk with your mouth full, even though I’ve told you time and again not to do that!” Koshi tweaked Raphael’s nose and made him giggle.

  “But if I don’t do all that, it doesn’t feel like breakfast!”

  “Exactly. It’s all one thing. Think of keeping the Dragon Meridian open and doing anything else as the same thing.” Koshi ruffled Raphael’s hair. “Now, go run around a bit more. I have a few more things to mend for Mrs. Bianchi before we go get some dinner.”

  When Raphael stood on one end of the plank bridge, which was two times higher than he was tall, he turned on the light in his head and took one step. Then another.

  And another.

  And then he was running, faster than he’d ever crossed the bridge before. He laughed, whooped, and jumped, the light of the setting sun in his eyes.

  * * *

  Raphael fell from the top of a gigantic garbage pile. Midair, he twirled, tucked his chin in, and rolled his shoulder across the ground as it came up to meet him. His vision spun, but his balance and timing were perfect, his momentum playing itself out in a deft tumble that brought him back to his feet right in front of Koshi.

  “Good morning!” Raphael chimed.

  Koshi blinked. His mouth worked futilely for a few moments before he managed to make it sputter what he wanted to say. “What were you thinking, jumping from so high up? You scared the shoes off my feet!”

  “You’ve still got them on.”

  “You little rascal.” Koshi chuckled, the deep lines on his face breaking apart and reforming into a mask of amusement. And it was a mask. Koshi tried to hide it, but Raphael knew that his legs were hurting him more and more every day.

  The only thing Raphael could do for him was to try and cheer him up and help out however he could. He took Koshi’s sling bag from his shoulder and slung it over his own.

  “Let me carry everything when we go foraging today,” he said. “I’m nine years old, and I’m big and strong now!”

  “Yes, you are. You’ve grown really tall, too. After another year or two, I’ll be looking up at your face.”

  “And then it’ll be my turn to look after you!” Raphael flexed his biceps, a gesture he’d learned at school.

  Koshi laughed. A thoughtful look came over his face, and then he nodded, as if he’d made up his mind about something.

  “Actually, let’s go foraging tomorrow. I want to talk to you about something today.”

  “Sure.” Raphael put down the sling bag and cocked his head curiously. “What is it?”

  Koshi took a long look at Raphael’s playground, ringed all around their house. Over the years, Raphael had stacked piles of garbage, all types of discarded furniture, and added another three to his collection of broken wagons and carts.

  “I’ve seen you run up and down all of this, tumbling everywhere but not getting hurt. The other day, some of your school friends came to visit, didn’t they? Did they try doing the same thing, too?” he asked.

  “No. They can’t run as quickly as I can. And if they climb too high, they start to get scared.” Raphael sighed. “Marco almost fell yesterday. Good thing I caught him, so he didn’t get hurt. His papa and mama would be so angry with me if he did.”

  “That’s because you can do things other children can’t do.” Koshi tapped the side of his head. “Do you know why?”

  “The Dragon Meridian!” Raphael replied. “I can keep it open all day, now!”

  “Exactly. The Dragon Meridian heightens your mind’s abilities, making your movements more precise and your thoughts flow far more smoothly.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s why school is getting so boring now. I can add and subtract things faster than Maestro Colombo. You should see his face when I shout the answers to his questions before h
e can read them off the board!”

  Koshi quirked an eyebrow at that comment, and Raphael gulped nervously. Koshi didn’t like it when Raphael made fun of Maestro Colombo. Something about respecting one’s elders, but the Maestro was so boring, and the way his face became red when he got angry was just too funny.

  “Anyway, you were saying something about the Dragon Meridian!” Raphael changed the subject.

  “Ah, yes. You’re now able to keep it open all the time. That means you have attained Perpetuation, the first stage of Dragon Cultivation.”

  “What’s cultivation?” Raphael joined Koshi as he walked to the entrance of their house and sat down at the doorstep. “I think you mentioned something like this before, but you didn’t really explain it.”

  “There is life-energy in every living thing, in you, in me, in your friends, and the crows that come keep us company sometimes,” Koshi said.

  “Even in apples?”

  “Yes, even in apples. And yes, we’ll go see if we can get some later, so stop fidgeting and listen carefully. We use this energy in everything we do – walking, eating, even sleeping, and how we use it changes our body in different ways.”

  “If we use it to run a lot, our legs become stronger and we can run faster. Maestro says it’s because our leg muscles become bigger. And if we carry heavy things all the time, the same thing happens to our arm muscles,” Raphael said, trying to guess where Koshi was trying to lead his thoughts.

  “Exactly! But you and I, little Raph, we have a different kind of energy inside us. It comes from dragons, and it allows us to do many fantastic things.”

  “What are dragons? Gianna tried to ask about them during class, but Maestro hushed her and refused to say any more.”

  Koshi’s smile fell away. All of a sudden, he seemed very tired and very old. After a few moments of silence, he sighed and patted Raphael on the shoulder. “I’ll tell you more about them when you’re a bit older, little Raph.”

  Raphael bit back an annoyed protest. He hated it when Koshi made such promises, but the strange, sad look on his face meant that there wouldn’t be any answers about dragons, at least not today.

  “This energy, we call it Ryu-To-Ki, or Draconic War Aura. When we use it properly, we are, first of all, able to open the Dragon Meridian.”

  “First of all…” Raphael’s eyes widened. “You mean there are other things we can do with it?”

  “Yes, if we build it like others would build their leg or arm muscles, and we do it through cultivation.” Koshi tapped the top of Raphael’s head lightly with his index finger. “In fact, you’ve already started to cultivate your Ryu-To-Ki. How do you think you’ve managed to keep your Dragon Meridian open all this time?”

  “So I’m done cultivating, then?”

  “Far from it!” Koshi crossed his legs, so that he was now sitting in a strange position, with each ankle resting on the inside of the knee on the opposite leg. He placed his palms just beneath his belly button. “Come, sit like this.”

  Raphael shrugged and copied Koshi. It wasn’t entirely an uncomfortable way to sit, but it did feel rather strange.

  “Now, I want you to let go of the Dragon Meridian, but still keep it open,” Koshi said.

  “Wouldn’t it close if I let it go?”

  “Not when you’ve attained Perpetuation. Close your eyes, and try it.”

  Taking a deep breath, Raphael prepared to do as Koshi instructed. He hadn’t let his Dragon Meridian close for a long time, not even in his sleep. When it was open, everything seemed brighter, sharper, and more colorful. He could think so much more clearly and quickly than everyone in school. The idea of letting all that go and going back to where things were dull and dark made him uncomfortable.

  But he did it, anyway. He loosened his mind and let go.

  But the Dragon Meridian didn’t close. Its radiance remained, strong and sure. Raphael released the breath he’d been holding all this time.

  “It’s still open!” he cried.

  “As I thought. Perpetuation. And at your age, too. Truly, the Dragon Magus…” Koshi muttered, his voice trembling.

  “Dragon Magus?”

  Koshi shook his head sharply, as if he’d been woken from a daydream. “Never mind. Focus on the Dragon Meridian’s light. Sense where it reaches toward.”

  And it was reaching. A slender beam of its radiance ventured out, seeking somewhere inside Raphael. It pulsed when it found one of the places it was looking for, and then it continued on its way.

  “It’s finding places in me, but not in my body,” he said. “What’s going on, Koshi?”

  “The Dragon Meridian is priming each of your Draconic Braziers, the reservoirs of your Ryu-To-Ki, for ignition. These don’t exist in your flesh, but in your soul.”

  “Eighteen…” Raphael gasped. “The light touched eighteen places, and it’s now returned to where it started.”

  “Those are the eighteen Draconic Braziers, little Raph, and from this day forward, we will work on lighting them, one by one.”

  Chapter 3

  Raphael: 18 years of age

  Shrieking, the scrounge-worm burst from the dirt. Its maw was a ring of fangs dripping with corrosive venom, and its body, a grayish convulsing tube of rubbery flesh and muscle, stretched longer than Raphael was tall. And he’d grown quite tall indeed. Koshi had to look up to meet his eyes now, and everyone in the marketplace commented on how big and strong he was.

  He ducked beneath the scrounge-worm’s arc through the air, letting it pass over his head. The creature crashed noisily into a pile of scrap metal and rotting wood. Its screams rose.

  “Phew, good afternoon to you too, Wormy.” Raphael scratched the inside of his ear with his pinky finger. He carried a huge canvas sack on his back. It was his turn to go foraging in the outer reaches of the junkyard, and if he had his way, it would always be his turn from now on, so Koshi could rest at home.

  The scrounge-worm thrashed itself free, scattering debris all over. It lined itself up for another pounce. Raphael sighed.

  “Are we really going to do this now? Again? Come on, you know I can’t work properly if you’re jumping around, smashing things up like this, and distracting me.”

  The creature shrieked in response and hurled itself forward, its body uncoiling like a gigantic spring. Raphael leaned out of the way again, and once more it slammed heavily into another pile of garbage—this time containing glass.

  He winced at the tinkling of shattering glass and the scrounge-worm’s cries of pain. The creature pulled itself out of the wreckage its pounce had created and shuddered. Cuts ran down the length of its body, and it bled a grayish-green ichor from dozens of places.

  “See? You’ve hurt yourself, silly Wormy!” Raphael chided, walking over and wagging his finger.

  The scrounge-worm wept, making a strangely human noise. It tried to coil in on itself but couldn’t, the pain of its wounds sending it into convulsions.

  Raphael sighed. He crouched down over the creature. “Don’t be a big baby. You know these cuts will go away in a few hours, so I don’t want to hear any more crying from you.”

  The scrounge-worm made another sound, something not unlike a grumpy groan. Raphael reached for a shard of glass embedded in its side. “We’ve got to get these out first, though.”

  It hissed, but Raphael wagged a finger in front of its maw and hissed back. “None of that. Now, be quiet and let me work.”

  He focused the light of the Dragon Meridian on the scrounge-worm’s body, a trick that he’d picked up from Koshi a few months ago. The glass shards stood out in his vision. They’d torn several nasty holes in the creature’s flesh, but Raphael had seen it recover from much worse before. He cracked his knuckles and got to work, ignoring the scrounge-worm’s whimpering complaints.

  By the time he was done, Raphael had a small collection of broken glass shards at his feet. He unstoppered his waterskin and rinsed out the rest of the creature’s smaller cuts. It groaned.

&n
bsp; “No, I don’t care if you think this smells bad. The water will get rid of the smaller pieces of glass I couldn’t get to with my fingers,” he scolded. “And no, I don’t smell funny. You smell funny.”

  The scrounge-worm turned its back on Raphael and oozed away. Somehow, it managed to infuse its retreat with disgruntlement.

  “You’re welcome!” he called after it.

  Predictably, it didn’t reply, except to break wind into the passing breeze.

  “Ugh. Gross,” Raphael huffed. He clipped his waterskin back to his belt and looked up at the sky. There were another three or so hours of sunlight left, enough for him to reach an unexplored area of the junkyard and do some foraging.

  Then he would be off to the marketplace, hopefully having found something valuable enough to trade for some medicine. Koshi had been coughing all night, and in the morning, during breakfast, he’d actually coughed blood, though he’d tried to hide it.

  Raphael had insisted on skipping school that day to take care of the day’s chores, so that Koshi could sit down and focus on repairing a puzzle-box that Mr. Manzo wanted to sell in his emporium.

  Little did Koshi know, Raphael hadn’t been going to school for several months already. Instead, he’d been finding work in the city and telling Koshi that the money he’d earned came from scholarships. It wasn’t entirely unbelievable. After all, Raphael had attained full marks for every subject during the civil exams that every eighteen-year-old in the Kingdom of Lucario had to take.

  But his earnings had been sparse, little more than scraps on the hour for tedious errands, since most of the peddlers in the marketplace were reluctant to hire a child. Raphael gritted his teeth as he broke into a run. The only way he’d be able to buy some medicine for Koshi was to find something in the junkyard, something precious.

  * * *

  The junkyard stretched out for miles and miles behind Lucia City, the Kingdom’s capital. People threw away their garbage there, but they never ventured further from the city gates than where Raphael and Koshi’s house was. Past that, according to talk in the marketplace and lessons from school, was where an ancient people had left the ruins of their civilization.