Caladin’s Climb—Part 29 (Patreon)

This story was brought to you by the Tuan'diath Ushwin, who asked for so much Caladin's Climb I'm still working off my debt to him.

I'm counting this as the other half-chapter to match the previous one.

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          Time Loop. Caladin had read about it once in the book that was one of Brorn’s most prized possessions: Luvian Thraxil’s Compendios et Theoreticus Maxilia Harmonicus. It was a book Brorn claimed to have copied from memory after the Purge, which detailed the strongest theoretical spells in each harmonic. Part of why Brorn loved the book so much was because the author had mentioned him by name. The book detailed the strongest spells from each harmonic as well as some theoretical spells. Some of the spells on the list that were fulgramancy’s Levin Bolt, gravimancy’s Black Hole, umbramancy’s Shadow Form, necromancy’s Raise Dead, cerebromancy’s Mind Control, and chronomancy’s Time Travel.

          The section on Time Travel was where Caladin had learned about the limitations of the spell. Namely, that it transported the caster to an alternate timeline when used, making it essentially worthless when it came to combat. Finding a workaround to that limitation was where the theory came in. Thraxil claimed it should be possible to separate a zone of space from normal time and loop it endlessly. It was a way to reverse time that didn’t create alternate timelines. And by reversing time after each defeat, the cast could never lose. From the perspective of an outside observer, only the final timeline would actually happen, which would prevent a paradox from splitting the timeline.

          Between Hakan’s claims and Caladin’s observations, it seemed Hakan had figured it out. That had to mean Hakan was actually a master of chronomancy, which meant his inclusion of hand signs to stabilize the spell was just because the spell was so complicated he couldn’t otherwise hold the details in his mind. Caladin really wanted to parse through that to see if he could figure out how Hakan had done it, but he dismissed the thought. He could do that later. Right now, all that mattered was that it worked, not how it worked. Since Caladin had already let him activate the spell, that meant he was trapped in the bubble of the spell’s effect. It was too late to escape. Time would keep looping until Hakan won. Caladin had a powerful spell, and could kill Hakan hundreds of times, but none of that power mattered in a situation like this. That was the point.

          Hakan continued his slow walk forward towards Caladin, but this time when Caladin raised a hand to obliterate him, he dodged to the side and started sprinting across the intervening space. He moved fast enough to escape the blast radius of Caladin’s explosion. He was forced to fire another Pryoclastic Destruction. This time, he put more mana into the spell so the explosion would be too big to escape. It was a dangerous move, but it worked. Hakan was caught by the blast, but so was Caladin. He was thrown through the air for a brief moment, then golden fire washed over the arena again. Everything went back to the start, Caladin included.

          Hakan had moved fast that time. Too fast. Fast enough that only chronomancy could explain his speed.

          Caladin scowled in frustration. This wasn’t going to work. Every time he was defeated, time looped and everything reset so he could try again. Even Caladin’s mana was reset with each loop, so he would never run out of mana either. Normally, giving your opponent infinite mana would be any wizard’s downfall, but not in a Time Loop. It was a dastardly trap. Possibly even inescapable. He was stuck, and winning wouldn’t be enough. Caladin could win the match a thousand times. Hakan only had to win once.

          “One trick,” Hakan called across the battlefield. “Iss very good trick. But iss only one. Let me show better.” Hakan spread out. Rather than run in one direction or another, he went in every direction at the same time. A hundred Hakans exploded out of him. In seconds his end of the arena was filled with an army of red dragon-kin. Each with sword drawn. Each bent on Caladin’s death.

          Ka-boom!

          “I bet that normally works, doesn’t it?” Caladin called across the way to Hakan as the loop started again. “But when I can make explosions this large it doesn’t matter how many of you there are.”

          Champion Hakan hefted his sword up high. “Iss fun,” he said. “Iss long fight. Worth try.” He slowly pulled the blade from his sheath and threw it aside. Caladin let him, mostly out of curiosity. It seemed like maybe Hakan’s plan was to lull Caladin into a false sense of security, then strike like a viper when he got close enough. Holding his massive, single-edged sword in two clawed hands, Hakan continued his advance, this time he was in an athletic posture.

          Caladin tried to think. He couldn’t fight Hakan forever, he needed to break his spell. Lunamancy seemed like the best solution. It was a magic that could destroy other magic. But without Belorian’s Crown, Caladin had no idea how to cast even a simple cantrip in that harmonic. He’d never seen even a single rune form of lunamancy. His crown was way across the open field of desert, in the care of King Haedril. It might as well have been a world away. However… it was time for Caladin to start testing the boundaries of the Time Loop. He inscribed a vocomancy spell to teleport him right next to King Haedril.

          Pop.

          Caladin felt the displacement of air, but instead of arriving at his chosen destination, he returned to exactly where he started from. He hadn’t moved since stepping into the arena, so he took a few steps forward and tried teleporting again.

          Pop.

          This time he jerked back a few steps to his starting location.

          “Iss no esscape,” Hakan said.

          “Shut up, you,” Caladin told him. He inscribed a flight spell instead, aiming for what he thought would be the center of the invisible dome covering the arena. If there was any kind of weak spot in the spell, that would be where he’d find it. On his way through the sky he wrapped himself in as intense the strongest ward he could manage. It was so deeply purple he almost couldn’t see where he was—

          Caladin appeared back in his starting location.

          “Iss no escape,” Hakan said again.

          “No trap is perfect!” Caladin shouted back. It wasn’t like Hakan would be telling him what the weaknesses were. He’d have to find them himself. He tried firing off another Pyroclastic Destruction, this time at the side of the arena where it wouldn’t kill Hakan. It created a crater, which Caladin realized when seeing it from a side angle was perfectly cut off into a sphere at the boundaries of the Time Loop. He darted forward anyway with a burst of aeromancy, to see if he could press himself through the soil beneath what had been the ground level when the loop had been established. He didn’t even get to feel the soil in his hand before he was sent back to the reset point.

          “Iss ccircle,” Hakan said, looping one of his claws to demonstrate. “Many have tried. All have failed. You cannot esscape.”

          “You’ve never tried to trap an archmage!” Caladin shouted back.

          Hakan shrugged. “At Confluxx I trapped hundredss of wizardss. Iss ssame. They all try many thingss, with many magic. They all fail.”

          Caladin obliterated him with another explosion. That one was just for being cocky. “Don’t think I’m going to believe anything you tell me about your own spell,” Caladin told him as the loop started over. “I’ll learn how it works myself.”

          What he’d learned so far was that attempting to leave the sphere of the spell’s radius would just reset things as surely as when Hakan died. With supreme confidence, Hakan continued to walk across the arena, sword out. Caladin felt cheated that an enemy he so completely outclassed could just come up with a single trick to beat even him!

          Just when Hakan reached the point in his walk that Caladin had been destroying him, this time he split in two and started sprinting to either side of the arena. Caladin could see what he was doing. He wanted to spread out so at least one of his copies could avoid the explosions Caladin kept sending. It was a bold effort, but ultimately wasteful. There were many more spells Caladin had at his disposal. He inscribed two visceramancy spells for each copy and turned them to red paste. It was so easy. Hakan was never going to win unless he—

          “Hrck!”

          Caladin’s torso erupted in agony. He turned his head to see a third Hakan leaning into him with his sword cutting through his chest. He wasn’t wearing a robe and was covered in dirt. Where? When? How had he gotten so close without Caladin noticing? Had he been slithering up like a snake while his copies ran a distraction? Hakan twisted the blade. “Wass. Inevitable,” he hissed. “You were a good—”

          Caladin wasn’t going out like that. He threw up a hand and dumped all his remaining mana into the ultimate Pyroclastic Destruction. He felt a brief flash of heat, then darkness. A moment later, his vision erupted with golden fire. He was back in the arena, Hakan across from him.

          The dragon-kin champion bowed. “Very good,” he said. “Mosst impresssive.”

          Caladin patted his chest. Everything appeared to be as it was. “I thought—how did—why did it bring me back?”

          “You iss kill uss both,” Hakan said.

          “I… can die?” Caladin asked. “I thought the loop was supposed to end when I died.”

          Hakan shook his head. “No. One condition only iss ending loop.” He pointed to Caladin. “You die.” He pointed to himself. “I live.” He shrugged. “Anything elsse iss resset. No can end loop. Even I cannot end loop. You die, I live iss only end.”

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