Dragon Magus 1: A Progression Fantasy Saga Page 9

  “And this is his shop, by the way,” she went on, clumsily changing the subject. “It’s my turn to mind it tonight so he can take a break.”

  Raphael glanced at the wooden sign hanging over the counter—Cadogan’s Armaments: Mundane and Magical, all Masterworks.

  “Your father’s name is Cadogan, then?”

  “Connell Cadogan, arcane armsmith. And I’m Aoife Cadogan, a journeywoman in the same vocation,” she said, thumping her fist against her chest.

  “Hi, Aoife. Pleased to meet you. I’m Raphael. Uh…” Raphael sighed. Somehow, ‘delinquent schoolboy’ or ‘junkyard forager’ didn’t sound nearly as impressive as he would have liked them to be. He’d just resolved to leave his introduction at that when Aoife gasped and clutched her cheeks.

  “Is that a faerie dragon?” she asked.

  Raphael reached down to the pocket that held Rayne, but it flattened emptily beneath his fingers. The faerie dragon was hovering by his shoulder, its head cocked as it regarded Aoife. Before he could grab Rayne, it flew to Aoife and bumped its snout lightly against her nose.

  “Bad… uh… dragon!” Raphael scolded, reaching for Rayne, but Aoife didn’t seem to mind the faerie dragon’s touch. She reached out and stroked under its chin. Rayne purred contentedly.

  “I’ve read about them in books, but I never knew they actually existed!” Aoife said. “Is it yours? What is its name?”

  “Rayne.” Raphael smiled as the faerie dragon gave Aoife one more gentle snout-bump before flying back to Raphael and perching on his shoulder.

  “Apple? Magus?” it asked.

  “No, Rayne. You’ve eaten already, and perhaps a bit more than you should have, too,” he chided the dragon.

  “Oh, here!” Aoife ran to her counter, undid the wrapping of a bundle retrieved from one of its drawers, and produced a handful of raisins. “Here’s a snack for you, Rayne!”

  Rayne gave a gleeful squeal and swooped to her side. Soon, it was picking raisins out of her palm. Aoife was beaming, seemingly beside herself with delight.

  Raphael chuckled and turned his gaze back to the polearm he’d been reaching out to. It called to him, somehow. Not that he was drawn to that particular weapon on the rack. Rather, he felt that a blade atop a long shaft would suit him the way a bow suited Koshi. He didn’t know why he felt this way. After all, Koshi had never taught him how to fight with more than his fists and wits.

  “The glaive?” Aoife walked back to the rack, with Rayne perched on her wrist, and swept a critical gaze over him. “Yeah, you’re nearly the right height for such a weapon. Even better if you can stack on the inches over the next few years. This one bears one of my pa’s signature keenness enchantments.”

  “Well, it looks formidable. How much is it?”

  “We’re currently having a sale, so it’s going for fifty gold coins,” Aoife replied, pointing to a slip of paper pinned alongside the glaive’s place on the rack.

  Raphael coughed nervously and looked away. He’d figured something like this would be astronomically out of his reach. He just hadn’t realized it’d be to such an extent. Well, he didn’t know how to use weapons, anyway, and he’d done just fine with his fists and the Draconic Braziers so far.

  “Perhaps another day,” Raphael muttered, holding out his hand and whistling to Rayne. The faerie dragon nuzzled Aoife’s cheek before flying back to Raphael, shrinking down, and zipping into a pocket. “I’d better get going now, but it was nice talking to you, Aoife.”

  “Alright.” She smiled. “Have a good evening, Raphael and Rayne. Come talk to me sometimes. I’ll always have a snack ready for the little fellow.”

  Raphael waved farewell to the armsmith and left her shop. The moon was already well on its way to its zenith, and he hadn’t even made it that far past the archway dividing Lucario from the District. He really shouldn’t allow himself to be distracted any further. Gritting his teeth, he broke out into a jog, borrowing a small amount of strength from the First and Second Braziers to speed his steps.

  He sped by more taverns, a few dimly lit and quiet residences, and more shops hawking magical potions, armaments, and other sundry supplies. Raphael was very impressed. The city’s marketplace closed its stalls an hour after sundown. Here, in the Hell Drake District, it seemed business never slept.

  As the mustached mercenary had promised, huge, prominent signs unerringly marked out the route to the Guild House. It was a massive, multi-winged, many storied building of stone, sporting intricate minarets that reached into the night sky. Immense banners bearing the insignia of the Hell Drakes rolled from dozens of windows, draping golden columns of silk and velvet over the building’s grayish exterior. Raphael had seen pictures of the King’s palace before, but the Guild House far outclassed it in terms of size and splendor.

  The entrance was open, massive double doors of expensive oak swinging wide on their hinges. Warm torchlight spilled from its interior. Raphael stepped gingerly within, only to find himself in a massive stone chamber. A single wooden desk stood at its center, occupied by a slim, bespectacled man in his middle years. He wore a tidy black robe with a high collar, and he looked up from the ledger he’d been scribbling in as Raphael approached.

  “Your business?” he asked.

  “Hello, uh…” Raphael glanced at the small name-plaque on the desk. “Mr. Esposito. My name is Raphael. I’m here to see Sylvia. She’s…”

  “I know who she is,” Mr. Esposito interrupted. “She told me to let you in if you arrived, Raphael. Go on. Stand on dais number five.”

  Raphael looked to where Mr. Esposito was pointing. Several platforms of black stone jutted from the floor along the western wall of the chamber, each of them clearly numbered.

  “Go on. Are you slow in the head?” Mr. Esposito demanded. “Stand on dais number five. I’ve set it to warp you to Sylvia’s quarters via the Guild House’s spatial webway.”

  Raphael wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but he complied, making his way to the numbered dais. As he walked, he swept his gaze around, seeing only bare stone walls, with not a single hallway or door leading anywhere else.

  This room is a dead end? How do you get anywhere from here? Raphael thought as he clambered onto dais number five.

  His question was answered almost immediately. A sudden rush of air hit his face, causing him to blink. And then he was in front of a wooden door. Delicate, golden lettering scrolled across its top half. It didn’t look like any language Raphael had ever seen, but to his surprise, he could read it.

  “Elf’s tongue, Magus. Under the Meridian’s light, all tongues are yours,” Rayne told him. Raphael scratched the top of the faerie dragon’s head gently. So the Dragon Meridian allowed him to understand any language immediately? That would come in handy if he ever traveled to distant, foreign lands.

  Muted voices clamored on the other side. His senses heightened by the Dragon Meridian, Raphael was able to make out the speakers as Eliza, Fenix, and Sylvia. He cleared his throat nervously and knocked on the door.

  “I’ll get it,” Fenix said. The battlemage’s footsteps approached, and a moment later, the door swung open to reveal him.

  “Oh, hello,” Fenix said, stepping aside from the doorway. “Come on in.”

  “Hello, Fenix.” Raphael stepped past the battlemage and entered Sylvia’s room. The first thing that hit him was the smell of soap and fresh laundry.

  “Oh yes. Eliza has kicked up quite a storm since she got officially accepted as a Hell Drake a few hours ago.” Fenix chuckled, tapping the wooden floor with his feet. “I think it’s the first time in years since the floors in this have been mopped. And all the furniture dusted and wiped down, too.”

  “Eliza did all this?” Raphael asked, looking around.

  Sylvia’s room was a huge chamber with walls and a floor of wood. Shelves stacked with books and scrolls crawled up to the ceiling, which was at least thrice as high as Raphael was tall. There was a huge, round table in the middle of the room, its surface
covered by a map pinned at the corners. Several well-cushioned armchairs surrounded the table. There was another door at the far end of the chamber, which presumably led to the elf’s bedroom.

  “No, she made Sylvia do all this.” Fenix walked to the table holding the map and bent over it. Raphael saw that the battlemage had a small piece of paper on the table as well, covered in his handwriting. “And it’s about time, too. I have never seen any being live in such squalor as Sylvia once did.”

  “Oh right, she mentioned something about chamber pots,” Raphael began, only to let his words trail off as Fenix tried and failed to hide his gagging. It took several moments for the battlemage to recover. When he did, he was pale, and there was a haunted look in his eyes. He nodded to Sylvia’s bedroom.

  “She’s in there. We both suspected we’d see you sooner rather than later,” Fenix said.

  “Thanks.”

  Eliza’s and Sylvia’s voices grew louder as Raphael approached the bedroom. The door was ajar, so he knocked once on its frame, then stepped through. The elf’s bed was a huge one, with a veiled screen over its mattress and a headboard with elaborate floral carvings. A warm, red carpet covered the floor.

  Now wearing a stout dress of blue wool, Eliza stood beside the bed, her hands on her hips. Sylvia was holding an armful of laundry, her features slack with misery. They hadn’t noticed Raphael.

  “Put those away on the correct shelves now that you’ve sorted and folded them,” Eliza demanded.

  “But I like having my clothes in piles,” Sylvia whined.

  “Now!” Eliza snapped. The elf scurried into a walk-in closet to comply.

  “Er… hello?” Raphael ventured.

  Eliza turned at the sound of his voice. A smile lit up her face. “Raphael! Is Koshi feeling better?”

  “Yes, he is. The physician said some rest will do him good,” he told her.

  “Raphael!” Sylvia shrieked, rushing out from her closet and flinging herself onto him. “Save me! I hired this woman to help with my cleaning and other menial tasks, but I never expected her to have me do all this work! And the Guild Master isn’t letting me dismiss her either!”

  His face crushed between Sylvia’s arms and her chest, Raphael couldn’t quite draw breath, let alone respond. Not that the experience was entirely unpleasant—she was surprisingly soft in all the right places, but Draconic Braziers or not, he still needed to breathe. He tried to push the elf away, even as she began another string of complaints.

  “She made me sweep and mop! And scrub furniture! And return all my cutlery to the kitchen!” Sylvia went on, her voice filled with horror. “And worst of all, she—”

  Raphael found himself able to inhale once more as Eliza peeled Sylvia away, the elf’s ear caught between the younger woman’s thumb and forefinger. She threw him an apologetic smile. “We’ll be done here soon, Raphael, so why don’t you wait outside?”

  Gasping, he nodded and crawled out of Sylvia’s bedroom.

  Chapter 11

  Fenix waved Raphael to one of the chairs and poured him a cup of lavender-scented tea before returning to the map and his note-taking.

  Rayne popped out from Raphael’s pocket. The dragon swooped to the far side of the map table from Fenix and glowered at the battlemage, who tried awkwardly to avoid the faerie dragon’s gaze.

  He still ended up waiting quite a while for the ladies to emerge. When they finally did, Sylvia was sullen and grumpy, while Eliza wore a grim but satisfied look on her face.

  “Sylvia!” Raphael hopped out of his chair and set his cup aside on one of the many stand tables in the room. “I want to become a Hell Drake. As your apprentice, I guess. I need the money to take care of Koshi.”

  The elf’s face brightened, casting away all its earlier dourness. “That’s wonderful, kid! I knew you’d come to your senses! Greatness lies in your path as my apprentice. I just know it.”

  “I’m not using any Spell Dust or Spell Cores, though,” Raphael warned.

  The elf waved dismissively. “Eh, you don’t need any such things. You’re a Dragon Knight. You can breathe fire from your ass.”

  “If something comes out of your ass, that’s not breathing,” Fenix pointed out.

  “Shut up, Fenix,” Sylvia retorted. “Anyway, like I said, that’s great! We’ll pop over to the Guild Master’s right now, have him bypass all the paperwork, and then we can go punch people in the face together starting tomorrow!”

  “Uh… alright?” Raphael replied, dazzled at how quickly things were proceeding. “Wait. Tomorrow?”

  “We’re shipping out on an assignment tomorrow. The entirety of Sylvia’s war party is. The thing is, everyone in the war party is already in this room,” Fenix said, folding his arms and nodding at Raphael, “since you’re signing up as Sylvia’s apprentice.”

  “Damn right he is!” Sylvia threw an arm around Raphael’s neck and swept her other hand outward, as if reaching for somewhere far and unseen. “Picture it: endless fights, treasure, glory, and endless fights. That’s the life you have ahead of you as a Hell Drake! Nothing could be closer to perfection! Did I mention the endless fights?”

  “Also, laundry and personal hygiene,” Eliza chimed in. Rayne flew over to her, perched on her shoulder, and nuzzled her cheek.

  “Boring!” Sylvia pouted and turned to Raphael. “Can you believe she’s limited me to one chamber pot, and now I’ve got to clean it out daily?”

  Grimacing, Raphael tried to untangle himself from the elf’s embrace. “Aren’t there outhouses or latrines in this place?”

  “No,” Sylvia said.

  “Yes,” both Fenix and Eliza said, at the same time.

  I think I’m starting to understand why Sylvia doesn’t have anyone else in her war party. Raphael shuddered.

  “Anyway,” the elf went on, changing the subject, “let’s go to the Guild Master and get the ball rolling. With a battlemage, Dragon Knight, and laundry tyrant by my side, I can see nothing standing in our way!”

  “Leaving the ‘laundry tyrant’ thing aside,” Eliza said, her brow twitching visibly with annoyance, “I don’t think Raphael is a Dragon Knight.”

  “He’s Koshi’s son, and the two of them can do that armor thing without using any Spell Dust,” Sylvia protested. “If Koshi’s a Dragon Knight, then so is Raphael.”

  “A Dragon Knight’s strength comes from his bond with a dragon. You heard Koshi say this himself. Once that bond is broken, the Dragon Knight loses his powers over time. Again, we’ve all seen this with Koshi.” Eliza scratched under Rayne’s chin. It purred with pleasure. “Raphael didn’t have any bond with any dragon before Rayne, yet he was already able to do what he does. Therefore, his power doesn’t come from bonding with dragons, which means he isn’t a Dragon Knight.”

  “So what am I?” Raphael asked, his heart sinking. Rayne perked its head up at the question.

  “Magus. Raphael,” it thought, directly into his mind.

  “Doesn’t tell me anything, little fellow,” Raphael sent back to Rayne. The faerie dragon cocked its head and gave him a puzzled look.

  “Magus. Raphael,” it thought once more, before nuzzling Eliza’s cheek again, losing interest in the discussion.

  “I know what you’re not, Raphael,” Fenix said. “You’re not a mage, since your Spell Vectors have never been opened, and you’ll never be one, because you won’t ever use Spell Dust. So what kind of apprentice would you be to Sylvia, who’s one of the greatest mages alive?”

  “Aw, Fenix. That’s so sweet of you,” Sylvia reached over and pinched the battlemage’s cheek. “I’m flattered, I really am, but you should be going after girls your own age, instead.”

  He brushed her hand away irritably. “Don’t worry. I’m not interested in ancient hags.”

  “Hag?” Sylvia’s jaw fell slack. She shuffled away, toward the cold fireplace, and began poking at the unburned wood within, mumbling despondently to herself.

  “Uhm.” Raphael pointed at the dejected elf.
“Is she alright?”

  “Give her a few minutes.” Fenix rolled his eyes. “And she’ll be fine faster than you want her to be. Back to what I was saying. What do you hope to gain as an apprentice to Sylvia? She can’t teach you magic.”

  “I’ve actually given that some thought, actually. Sylvia is excellent at fighting with her bare hands. I can always use help with that, since Koshi won’t be well enough to train with me for a while.” Raphael cupped his chin with one hand. “I was also hoping I’d be able to learn how to use weapons from her.”

  “Yes! I have mastered every weapon!” Sylvia cried, suddenly looming over him out of nowhere. He flinched, taken aback. “I can teach them all to you, because I’m so talented and gifted! And not a worn-out, decrepit hag!”

  “Did she just use Shadow Magic to…” Eliza began.

  “Yes.” Fenix sighed. “Yes, she did. And for the record, I never said she was worn-out or decrepit.”

  “In fact, let’s go to the armory right now and get you a weapon!” Sylvia seized Raphael by the wrist and began pulling him along, toward the door leading from her room.

  “Weren’t you supposed to bring him to the Guild Master first?” Eliza called.

  “The old bag of bones can wait!” she replied, flinging open the door.

  A tall man clad in rich, purple robes stood there, hand lifted as if to knock.

  Raphael blinked.

  There was no flesh on the man’s raised limb. Neither was there any on his face. A skeletal visage grinned down at Raphael. Red, glowing orbs blazed in empty sockets where eyes were supposed to be.

  A monster? Some kind of demon? Whatever this thing was, it was far more formidable than anything Raphael had ever encountered in the junkyard.

  He backed away, calling on the full power of all three Draconic Braziers. Golden scales of light manifested across his limbs and torso. He could now move faster than the eye could see and hit hard enough to shatter stone with his bare hands. The Dragon Meridian’s light burned brightly, pushing back the waves of fear-inducing mental energy emanating from the skeletal creature.