Chương 135: Chapter 210 - Questions of the Soul

On the 211th loop, Mirian flew northeast from the Mahatan Gate again, this time skipping the retrieval of the lotuses in exchange for pure speed. She kept her use of using myrvite souls and mana drain to a pace she knew she could handle, allowing her to use bursts of accelerated levitation, but not so many that it threatened to destabilize her aura. Her map and the angles she'd measured implied one of the large plateaus should be close to the necromancer's hideout.

It was also the perfect place to watch anyone coming west from Rambalda. Mirian had flown around the area several times and detected nothing but drake dens and kite-wyvern nests. Both liked to burrow into the rock, making it seem like there were hundreds of caves. Deeper in the rock, though, her divination had returned no caves, so she was curious to see what she'd missed. She was also curious as to how Ibrahim had found the necromancer.

Mirian busied herself making a little cave the same approximate size and depth as a kite-wyvern nest. As she worked, kite-wyverns circled the area. The large, eagle-like creatures were a cross between a lizard and a bird, with both folds of skin and bright feathers. Their toothed beaks let out a wailing cry. Their scales and feathers were the colors of a brilliant dawn, and they keened and called throughout the day as they hunted.

Miran finished carving out her little nook and busied herself practicing forms, reviewing her extensive notes, and relaxing a bit by watching the kite-wyverns wheel about in the sky. It was the evening of the 4th when she saw the dust cloud a few miles off. At first, she dismissed it as desert drakes having another wrestle in the sand, but then she realized the cloud was being drawn across the desert in a line. She quickly cast three layers of lens spells. Ibrahim. He wasn't using an airship.

He wasn't using a spellcart. He wasn't even levitating. He was sprinting. Ibrahim was a tall, handsome man, and as he ran across the desert, she could see his dark skin glistening with sweat, his well-defined muscles pumping. Mirian knew a thing or two about running. Even with the dervish forms, she would have struggled to keep the pace he was maintaining for more than a mile or two. But here he was, maintaining a dead sprint for hours. She cast detect life to better see his soul-currents.

With the spell changing her sight, Ibrahim became a creature of light. His soul shone bright, and around the edges, it burned like a hungry bonfire. She recognized the soul-pattern. Rostal had warned her about the Last Breath Of The Phoenix form. Somehow, Ibrahim was using it constantly. How can he use it for so long and not turn his own soul to ash? she wondered. She squinted. Something about the currents was off. Is he using two dervish forms simultaneously? That shouldn't be possible.

Mirian dismissed detect life and looked again at the man, trying to understand his nature. She could see in his dark eyes the same sort of thing people sometimes told her she had—a determination. She could see it in his face, in his easy, powerful movements. There was a confidence he projected. She could see immediately that when he deigned to lead, people followed. She dismissed the lens spells, then summoned her compass spell, aligning it. Then she began to grow concerned.

It looked like Ibrahim was heading straight at the plateau. Not slightly north or south of her position. Right at it. She looked down the cliffside. Shit. Is the necromancer right below me? Mirian recast detect life, looking for abnormal souls. There was a prominent desert drake nest at the base of the plateau and a few other smaller animal burrows. Casting examine geology, a more complicated divination spell than the relatively primitive detect cave, she peered at the rock beneath her feet again.

Other than the superficial ones, there were no caves or passages at all. She was about to start using targeted divination of glyphs, when she stopped. Something felt off. No caves or passages at all. But the periodic monsoons do a great deal of erosion. This plateau has a granite cap, but the sandstone should still have fissures and caves throughout it like all the other ones. They would be tiny, but they would still be present—unless… She froze. Unless a ward-scheme interfered with the spell.

And a necromancer who's hidden from the Praetorians would not just have wards to hide, but wards to detect divination. Ibrahim was drawing closer. I'm not ready for a confrontation. I want to be able to make sure Atrah Xidi is fortified against any lies he's telling him. Mirian ducked back down in her carved hole. Her spell resistance should make her soul harder to see if the other Prophet was using rune-magic—though she saw no spellbook or even wands.

She waited until he was close enough to the cliffs that he couldn't look up and see her. The drake cave is the entrance, she confirmed. I can figure the rest out later. She cast total camouflage, then levitated south.

As she passed back through the Mahatan Gate, most of the prince's lotuses crammed in a satchel, Mirian still felt unsure. Had her spells been detected by the necromancer? Would that alter what Ibrahim did? There was no way he didn't know about the other Prophets looping through the cycles with him. They'd changed too many things: the length of the cycles, the Akanan invasion—she'd also thwarted his attack on Alkazaria one cycle. It ate at her, but there was nothing to be done. Next cycle.

The anticipation had her both terrified and giddy. All sorts of doubts swarmed through her mind. But in the end, he does want to save Enteria. For himself, if no one else—but I can work with that. Ibrahim's proved he can be convinced. I can do it. She tried to put it out of her mind and work on her studies of magic. After several cycles, she needed to analyze the research going on in Torrviol and figure out what needed to be iterated on, and what initial conditions she could use to maximize new research.

It was certainly becoming a problem. Professor Holvatti, no matter what he was told, tended to do poorly constructed experiments that would disprove Professor Viridian's work. That his rival had been right seemed too much for him to handle, no matter what Mirian told him. Professor Runer was friends with Viridian, but ended up doing incredibly similar work each cycle. Variations in the directions he was given and who he was working with did little to move the man.

Clearly, there was an idea stuck in his head, and he wanted to work on it. It wasn't just a problem of inflexible minds or old grudges, either. Even the brilliant Professor Torres was having trouble making any progress on her designs. Mirian could provide her with more information, but the more information she gave her, the more the artificer had to study and learn just what it was Mirian was talking about.

Torres, for all her genius in artillery design, knew little about the leylines, so several weeks of each cycle was taken up by her reading the same reference books. Mirian could teach her directly, but that detracted from the time she had near the start of the cycle to do other things, and from her ability to spread out research efforts. Fundamentally, there would be only so much people without the ability to remember what they worked on could do.

She hadn't reached that limit yet, but eventually, she would have to change tactics. For this cycle, she first set up her own spy network to keep an eye on trains departing Cairnmouth and used Nurea to hire the Syndicate to watch smuggler routes. Ibrahim and Atrah Xidi would likely continue to do what they had done, but she couldn't shake the paranoia. It was a good thing she had located Atrah Xidi's hideout, though.

After conquering Alkazaria, Ibrahim had started sending the necromancer's forces west, using only a token force and some sort of infiltration tactic to take Madinahr. That freed up nearly his entire army to make that western move. He'd abandoned trying to push through the scrublands, and was simply sending his forces through the Casnevar Range, trying to push through the treacherous passes so that he could descend to the Magrio River and threaten Palendurio that way. This story originates from a different website.

Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. According to Liuan's latest message, he was still getting bogged down. The fall of Baracuel's second capital galvanized the rest of the country, and under intense pressure from his own allies, General Corrmier was now forced to abandon his plans of a coup and take the Palendurio Army and intercept Ibrahim's forces at those passes.

General Hanaran and Commander Hirte seemed to have their division deployed to rescue Alkazaria, with disastrous consequences, leaving Cairnmouth undefended. If Ibrahim did find a way to take Palendurio in a cycle, it would be the end of Baracuel. Only, it didn't matter at all. None of it would stop the apocalypse. Why? If he was a fool, he couldn't do what he's done. But to what point and purpose? she wondered. At least she'd find out soon. It wasn't a confrontation she was looking forward to.

In the meantime, she busied herself with practice. Given that she'd be staying in Torrviol, her new goal was to soul-commune with a bog lion. Viridian found the idea amusing.

"It's never been done before, usually because anyone trying was mauled to death and then subsequently eaten," he said.

"As you've noticed, adult myrvites are also a bit more, hmm, hostile. The loss of childhood innocence and curiosity, perhaps. Have you ever seen a hatchling wyvern exploring its nest? Adorable. Quite the opposite of an adult bog lion devouring a carcass." Capturing the bog lion was the easy part, though. She knew where one would be, and she could overcome its spell resistance entirely, using lift person to carry the struggling creature to a specially prepared cage in Myrvite Studies.

Then, she could touch it through the bars on the flank. With Viridian's instruction, Mirian could sense the wants of plants well enough now. She could commune with the young wyverns and the drakes, and understand their emotions and instincts. From the bog lion though, there was a hostility. A resistance. She found its soul repelling hers, no matter what she tried to say. It seemed to her like there was something about soul communication she still didn't understand, and Viridian was at a loss as well.

Mirian found her way down to where one of the true masters of soul communication lurked—specifically, the one who might actually help her. She made her way down to the conduit room where Eyeball lurked. Hello, she told it. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO ASK, WE WONDER? WE ARE SO EXCITED TO 'FIND OUT.' Soul communication. You teach? HAHA! WHAT A WONDERFUL QUESTION. Eyeball's carapace pulsed with light. IT'S LIKE ASKING YOU TO TEACH ME TO HAVE A HEARTBEAT. CAN YOU STOP YOUR OWN HEART? CAN YOU MAKE ME ONE?

Eyeball continued to 'giggle'—that was, flash its carapace in what Mirian had learned meant it was highly amused. And Eyeball was always amused. Then it said, OKAY, ASK YOUR NEXT QUESTION. There was no use pretending. It was supposed to act like it didn't know, but it knew. You have heart? NO! HAHA. IMAGINE HAVING A SINGLE ORGAN THAT ACTED AS A POINT OF FAILURE. RIDICULOUS! That was interesting. Even myrvites had hearts. Leviathans had two hearts because of their size, of course, but they needed both of them.

Did Apophagorga have a heart? She wondered if the cataclysm beast was truly dead. But she couldn't get distracted. How communicate better with myrvites? Communicate better with soul? she sent. HUMANITY HAS TO LEARN ITS OWN STUFF. THAT'S ONE OF THE RULES. AND YOU HAVE TO LEARN IN SEQUENTIAL ORDER! THAT'S ANOTHER. HAHA, IT'S OUR FAVORITE RULE. SO FUNNY. BUT… WHAT IF YOU ALREADY KNEW? Another human teach? OH, NO. THAT'S NOT WHAT WE MEANT AT ALL. WHOOPS, GOTTA GO. YOU WANT ME TO OPEN THE GATE LAST WEEK!

Eyeball shimmered its scales, then vanished. For all intents and purposes, it was still around, but if she'd learned one thing about the Elder creatures, it was that they talked when they wanted to and not a moment longer. If Eyeball thought the conversation was over, it was over. Cryptic, as usual, she thought. But that was a constraint put on them by whatever the 'pact' was. Eyeball had been trying to tell her something though. She would mull over in her mind exactly what.

A week of practice and meditation later, she returned to the caged bog lion. She cast detect life and embraced the Dusk Waves form, but otherwise kept her defenses down. She unsummoned her spellbook.

"What are you doing?" asked one of the assistants.

"Opening the cage. Back off, if you want, but I have a hunch I want to test." The assistant ran for one of the doors and slammed it shut. Mirian heard "—crazy!" but ignored it. She telekinetically opened the lock with raw spellcasting. The bog lion wasted no time. It pounced at her immediately, but Mirian used another blast of raw force to deflect the claws, then a second attack. The fungal-maned myrvite let out a low growl as it retreated, then seemed to disappear.

Its own camouflage, Mirian had to admit, was even better than her own. And yet, with detect life, she could track it by its soul. It circled around her, then silently charged—only to smack into another raw force shield Mirian had summoned. It tried twice more, and then made a dash to escape. It tried to scramble up the wall, and its massive leap carried it quite high. Not high enough to get out, though. As its claws tore at the stone, Mirian came behind it and growled at it.

The bog lion whirled, growling back at her. It was no longer trying to hide, and its greenish scales glinted in the overcast light of the day. It conjured an illusion of itself to her side, but Mirian kept her eyes locked on it. Then she lay spread eagle on the ground. The myrvite's eyes narrowed as it approached her, a snake-like tongue lashing out from its mouth to taste the air. Mirian let it sniff her, but when it went to swipe her again, she blocked the claw with another blast of raw force. She growled at it.

It retreated, pacing back and forth while Mirian lay back down. It took nearly a half-hour of this. At last, the bog lion laid down next to her. Mirian waited for it to get comfortable, then finally crawled over to it and gently placed her hand on one of its legs. It was both slick and warm. This time, its soul didn't immediately repel her. Food? she sent to it. She could feel a mix of hunger, frustration, and confusion roiling through it. She signaled for food to be brought in.

One of the assistants cautiously opened one of the windows overlooking the courtyard and threw in a haunch of baduka boar. The bog lion rose immediately to devour it. Mirian waited. Bog lions didn't like to share food, and it would feel threatened if she approached now. Only when it was done, serpent-like tongue licking at the leftover bones, did she finally get near, walking carelessly. If she moved cautiously, it would think she was stalking. Gently, she touched its back.

The bog lion growled, but it didn't attack. There was still resistance, still wariness, but she could feel it was reduced. Progress, she thought. She left through the door where Viridian was waiting.

"Now that was fascinating," he beamed.

"What in the world made you think that was a good idea?" Eyeball, she thought, but didn't say that out loud. Eyeball was comprehendible by her because it acted human enough that she could understand it, even though the daily life of Elder creatures was completely incomprehensible to a person. They didn't even experience time linearly. But if she were to talk to an ant, she would use pheromones. To talk to a bog lion, she had to think like it.

"Communication is more than just words. I had to show the bog lion I was like it enough to get it to lower its defenses. In the cage, it was too ready to fight." She couldn't rely purely on magic. Najwa's smuggling spots had reminded her of that. Magic did not exist in isolation. It was integrated into every part of the world. She needed to understand both, not just one.

The rest of the cycle, Mirian continued to oversee the crystallography research and large conduit device, while still practicing her soul communication. By the end of the cycle, she could say a few words to the bog lion, and it no longer attacked her on sight. It was a pity the bog lion would forget her, and how long the process took to subdue it.

Liuan reported success at getting some Vadriach University professors to study one of the leyline repulsors up in the military base, and was exploring the first floor of the Labyrinth in Vadriach City. It was slow going, but at least it was forward progress. Gabriel was still scouring Alatishad for a Gate—to no avail, it seemed. What he had noticed was that the steady stream of refugees who risked crossing the Jiandzhi to escape Zhighua slowed to a trickle as the cycle progressed, then vanished altogether.

He hypothesized three possibilities: a change in government, an increase in myrvite predation along the route, or magical eruptions closing. Naturally, the refugees only knew about what had been going on in the weeks before they set out, and were no more informative than the papers they already had. Zhighua had been undergoing crisis much like Persama. Unfortunately, they couldn't interrogate the non-existent refugees who had stopped coming for their reasons why.

Gabriel still refused to go through the Land of Spires, citing how he didn't like the idea of being eaten. That Mirian had told him "you get used to it" didn't do anything to change his mind. But at least one of them was doing something useful. Well, that wasn't entirely fair. Gabriel was still learning Gulwenen, and how to make a leyline detector. That he continued to complain about both just meant he was actually doing them.

Meanwhile, the news from Palendurio was that Ibrahim had successfully fought through the passes and seized the upper river. As she feared, there were reports of Persamans in the city being run out—or mobs that did far worse. She thought of Rostal, and the children who ran around after the lector was done with his service at the Sanctuary. None of the Persamans in that city deserved a fate like that. Soon.

As the loop came to a close and the apocalypse neared again, she found herself unable to sleep, the anticipation overwhelming. The next cycle, she would actually talk to the legendary necromancer.