Chương 246: Chapter 319 - Connection

Gaius Nezzar watched Ibrahim's camp mobilize. He considered himself a patient man, but Ibrahim's indecision was testing his restraint. However, his daughter said to hold back, so he was holding back. He'd learned at least some wisdom in his long centuries. It would be another day of mixed operations. As ally of the Akanans, Ibrahim was circling north of Mahatan to try to draw Ominian's Army troops north, away from their primary defenses.

As semi-secret saboteur, Ibrahim was helping facilitate the northern guerrillas' attacks on the Akanan-held quarries and encouraging sabotage and resistance in Urubandar. Gaius was helping that effort by having a company of his undead soldiers bring "order" to Urubandar. He'd commanded them to occasionally brutalize a civilian or destroy property.

As they were wearing Akanan uniforms, that made Akana even more hated in the city, the hatred intensified by the fact that Akana Praediar was loudly proclaiming the other Prophets as "necromancers" while employing the most blatant form of necromancy possible. Not that the flame beneath the caldera that was Urubandar needed his help all that much. All two thousand of his soldiers were supposed to be there, but to quell unrest, the Akanans had confined most of them to a barracks.

That was fortunate, because Gaius had been planning on having most of his undead go missing anyways. A mummified zephyr falcon came flying into camp and landed on his other shoulder, the claws digging into his sensationless flesh. He closed his eyes, listening to the pulses of soul magic that were its report. Then he pushed soul magic into it that would give it new commands. A moment later, it flew off. Gaius glanced up again at Luamin. Stay safe, little Naluri, he thought, and out of habit, stroked Meu's back.

The undead cat meowed, not because it still had a functioning nervous system, but because the remnants of its soul that were anchored to it remembered that response. Hopefully, when this was all over, an academy of necromancy could be established to do some proper research on souls, memories, instinct, behavioral responses—there was always so much left to discover. The excitement of a new world on the horizon was darkened by his mind-numbing duty: watch the hostages and keep an eye out for any more assassins.

When Ibrahim had asked him to put a soul-disguises on them to help mislead any of Gabriel's infiltrators, Gaius had swapped them for a loyal family from Falijmali and sent the Castrellas north. One could tell if a soul disguise was on a person, but not what the person looked like beneath it. He had no love for Naluri's adoptive parents, but she did, and that was what mattered to him. This only added to his boredom, because he wasn't even guarding anyone—except Ibrahim from the other Prophets.

Scribing in a cave was far more engaging. Ibrahim was underutilizing him and they both knew it. At least he was allowed to send commands to his forces through his newly developed messenger-bird constructs. Gaius's gaze was lingering on the sunrise when he caught movement coming at his side. He turned his head, seeing Ibrahim Kalishah stalking toward him like a visage of death, his glowing eyes wreathed in fury. He had a hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Explain yourself, necromancer," he demanded, deep voice rumbling like the threat of thunder. Gaius took a step back readied himself to cast.

"You'll have to be more specific, I'm afraid," he said coldly. Ibrahim pointed back at one of the tents.

"I undid the soul disguises. Imagine my surprise when an entirely different family was there instead of the Castrellas. Where are they, Atrah?"

"Safe in Arriroba, along with your wife." Gaius could see the currents of Ibrahim's soul churning.

"Are you working for her? Are you the dagger in my back, or are you merely a traitor to the Persaman cause? I thought you believed in a new future."

"I do," Gaius said carefully.

"However—" Ibrahim took another step forward, and that was too far for Gaius. Any closer and the dervish could use his enhanced speed to kill him before he had a chance to establish a proper defense. Gaius levitated backward. Ibrahim took that as an admission of guilt and drew his sword. His soul blazed with light. If a normal soul looked like the waters of the Setarab on a cloudy day, Ibrahim's was like if the entire river was turned to liquid light.

It was moving in patterns that the necromancer had never seen before. Naluri had warned him; he just hoped that warning would be enough. Knowing the dervish could imbue his sword with soul energy and cleave through black shield like it was paper, Gaius instead drew on mundane barriers. He used manipulate stone to draw up a barrier of rock as he continued to fly backwards. Meu let out a harried "mrrew!" as he fell to the ground then sped off behind a tent. Ibrahim's blade cracked through the stone.

Gaius's eyes widened as the dervish took a mid-air step off the rubble and launched himself forward. He'd seen dervishes fight, both against myrvites and against men, but he'd never seen any of them approach this. Giaus levitated left, swooping through the air so that the dervish's sword came down on empty space. Wind buffeted him from where the blade cleft the air, not because it was a near miss, but because of the power behind the blow. Then Ibrahim kicked off the air, and Gaius knew he was in for a real fight.

Windstepper's technique. Only attested to in Triarchy fragments, he thought as he started using force magic to push himself in addition to his levitation. He brought up more chunks of rock to intercept the dervish, then felt a drain on his aura. He wove runic bindings to shield himself from the aura-draining technique, then felt the drain move to those bindings, all while Ibrahim continued to dash at him through the air.

"Ibrahim—!" Gaius dodged again.

"I'm not trying to fight you!" He did need the dervish to slow, though. However, Ibrahim's aura scoured any binding he put near it, dispersing the soul energy like rain on a raging bonfire, and the dervish-form he was using had enough spell resistance even he was going to have trouble maintaining a spell in direct proximity to the man.

"Traitor!" Ibrahim cursed. He smashed apart another boulder Gaius had hurled at him.

"We had a deal. For a new Persama—!"

"I heard about the other timelines," Gaius said. He began infusing the stones he was lifting with gathered soul energy.

"You seem to think that I was ever interested—" Ibrahim smashed apart another boulder, but Gaius brought it back together like claws of a hand. He grasped the warrior and hurled him to the ground, "—in building a nation. I was never interested in a nation. I am for a people. Their traditions, clung to throughout a thousand years of living under different empires. Preservation of forgotten memories. A way of life."

"Liar," Ibrahim growled, emerging from the crater of dust his body had made hitting the ground. He used his windstepper's technique to climb back up through the air. Gaius continued to rapidly ascend as Ibrahim started plucking daggers from his belt and hurling them skyward, somehow imbuing them with his soul energy. They would have been easy to block with chunks of earth, but somehow, Ibrahim was guiding them in wild curves. If he wasn't fighting for his life, Gaius would have loved to study the phenomenon.

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"In a hundred timelines, we talked. You heard the plight of Persama, and you joined me. What's changed? What lies were you fed?" Gaius swerved through the air, clamping down on one of the daggers with a veil of rock as he swatted away two others.

"Would be—easier—to talk—without—the knives," he said. It was also unfair of Ibrahim to hold what he'd said in other timelines against him. Whatever he'd said, Gaius knew he would have been careful. After meeting the Sixth Prophet briefly those centuries ago, he'd had a great deal of time to consider what he might say to another one. So while he didn't know what had actually convinced him to work with Ibrahim in the previous timelines, he had a inkling.

A dagger slammed into his arm, cutting through his enchanted robe. He could feel the assault on his soul as Ibrahim's energy blazed at his through the connected thread, but Ibrahim had made an error; Gaius's soul wasn't bound to his body by the usual inherent connection. It was bound to the chthonic needle and projected outward. He withdrew the projection from his arm, and the dagger became harmless.

"Tell me what you promised in the other timelines," he shouted down. Ibrahim swatted another boulder with his sword, then blasted away the veil of sand Gaius was using to try to strangle him with a burst of wind.

"A renewal of Persama, with Falijmali as an equal partner."

"That wasn't all," Gaius said.

"Who are you really fighting for? It wasn't a abstraction that set you on this path. There are those who need only a philosophy and a code, but that isn't you. Who do you fight for, Ibrahim Kalishah?"

"My family!" he snarled as he continued to fight his way towards the evasive necromancer.

"For the cousins the Baracueli left dismembered and burning. For my parents, whose corpses they left for the vultures. Sisters and brothers, both of blood and bond. Generations of relatives, all put to the sword. It cannot happen again. It will not!"

"I wouldn't have told you that I talked to the Sixth Prophet. I wouldn't have told you any of my deep secrets, because I know that a Prophet can manipulate others in ways that others can't." The soul energy was fading from the daggers Ibrahim had flung. Gaius ripped it out of his arm and let it drop, then let his soul return to the dessicated flesh.

"I wouldn't have told you that they killed my wife in front of me, too. It wasn't my people I pledged to fight for; they're all long dead and changed." Ibrahim stopped. He lowered his sword. Gaius ceased his attack, levitating closer. He let the barrier of boulders part, though he still kept them at the ready.

"I wouldn't have told you my true family name. I wouldn't have told you that the Baracueli bastards stole my daughter from me. I wouldn't have revealed my motivations to you—a century of paranoia cannot so easily be wiped away. But I would have seen your heart and my heart—what is left of it—align. And I would have seen the chance to get the last piece of my family back. Two armies would have done it better than one." Ibrahim's soul quieted.

No longer a blazing noon, it was now a sunrise; the contemplation of a new day. He grunted and sheathed his sword.

"I should have known better than to underestimate the only creature older than a Prophet. You met the Sixth. What was he like?"

"Melancholy," Gaius said.

"Your daughter," Ibrahim said, the conduits lighting in his mind. Then he scoffed.

"What are the chances of that?"

"You're not so foolish to think it was random chance. The Ominian didn't choose Their Prophets randomly. But perhaps, the reason isn't what you initially thought."

"Mirian Nezzar," Ibrahim muttered.

"Common name in Alatishad. Not just a ploy to make herself more appealing to the region, then."

"She watched her mother, Leyun, die in front of her. You have always been closer to her than you realize." Gaius settled back down to the ground and Ibrahim with him.

"Leyun. Falijmali name. You fight for her memory?"

"I do." Ibrahim clenched his jaw.

"They I misjudged you." He took a knee and put his hand over his heart.

"My most humble apologies. We share a heart." He rose, eyes turning to the rising sun. The soldiers had gathered in a circle around the two of them. A harried Meu padded silently across the distance and hopped back up on Gaius's shoulder. At least he knows when he's wrong… eventually, Gaius thought. It was disconcerting to see the man who'd just been trying to kill him now acting like all was forgiven because he'd said 'sorry.' I wonder which of the two of us is farther removed from humanity.

The Prophet gave a rueful laugh.

"Even the centuries weren't enough to teach me wisdom. Very well, Atrah. Does she need my anchor?" Gaius shook his head.

"Not anymore. What she needs is time. The Akanan army must be halted." Ibrahim shrugged.

"She's done that well enough—" A general in the circle of men who had gathered cleared his throat.

"Prophet Kalishah, we just received word, a few minutes before your… friendly duel. The central Akanan army has broken through. A mechanized army group, complete with airships, is moving towards Mayat Shadr now. We thought to inform you as soon as possible." Ibrahim clenched his jaw.

"My army travels by foot. They can't make it in time." Gaius nodded.

"I anticipated as much. That's why I sent my army." There was muttering of alarm.

"But your, ah, soldiers—""Undead. Call them what they are," Gaius said.

"—undead are in Urubandar!" one of the captains exclaimed.

"A hundred of them are. The other two thousand started making their way up the Setarab River some time ago. They passed by Alatishad, went up the east fork, and even now have joined one of our unlikely allies in their march north. They will be at Mayat Shadr by noon today. I have already sent the zephyr falcon with their instructions for the defense." Ibrahim laughed.

"Of course! A construct doesn't need air, after all. And who would check the river bottom? Very well. Generals, you know my plan. Cease all pretenses of alliance. Cut all foss to the Akanans. From the Setarab River to the Obcassium Ocean, let Persama feel the taste of liberation!" The circle around them broke apart. Ibrahim's plans had been outlined in advance; his generals hardly needed his direction. The Prophet turned to Gaius.

"My army won't make it in time, but we will. Care for a race, necromancer?" With that, they departed across the northern desert. As he flew, Ibrahim keeping remarkable pace below him, he thought, I'm coming, Naluri. This time, I won't be late.

Of all the Prophets, Ibrahim was the only one who had led even more battles than Mirian. He had practiced leading them from every point, not just from the front, but from deep in the rear, often planning maneuvers that would occur hundreds of miles apart from each other. He had done this with little to no divination, with poorly trained irregulars using looted weapons. He had besieged Alkazaria with fewer pieces of artillery than the defenders had.

His motley forces had taken down superior armies simply through his iterations on doctrine. What Ibrahim had was the uncanny ability to identify and empower natural talents within his ranks. Ibrahim's commanders were cunning, inspiring, and true believers in his cause. Some held the natural charisma that ignited the fire in the hearts of their soldiers. Some had an instinct for quickly assessing and solving a tactical situation. Some were simply organized and meticulous.

To each of them, he assigned a place where their talents would be best expressed. Ibrahim's army was not just north of Mahatan, but he had already inserted officers among the guerrilla forces he had been "fighting." He had already quietly dispersed companies along the Setarab River, acting as civilians who were assisting the Akanans. He had already given orders on what to expect. As soon as Ibrahim's command went out, it began to spread.

All it took to make a signal mirror was a bit of silver or steel and an arcanist with shape metal. There had been no communication engines or zephyr falcons for the Akanans to detect; the primitive communication signals slipped through Akanan counter-intelligence unnoticed. Dawn's Peace watchers saw the glimmer of sunlight on these mirrors as orders went out. Their own mirrors were subsequently forged within minutes, then they passed the signaled on to the next group.

By noon, Dawn's Peace had begun its attack on the Akanan rear.