Chương 124: Chapter 200 - Secret Gardens

It took Mirian three and a half hours, and half of that time was cajoling Viridian into abandoning an early dinner to come join her. The man had his habits. She informed Torres of when the Gate had switched over so the leyline detector data wouldn't be mixed up and had her team start working on new detectors to be placed on the other side. She also took Jei, Endresen and Seneca with her, cautioning the gathered professors about Gabriel.

"I don't trust him yet. That doesn't mean don't work with him, but don't reveal your darkest secrets or anything. Or talk too much about me." Then it was a matter of preparing for the actual travel.

"I need at least five minutes to get an air bubble large enough. You have to travel through the Gate at the same angle. Start the sand timer as soon as I walk through." She drank another mana elixir. She didn't know what the crushing depths would do to someone of Viridian's constitution, and she didn't want to find out. She could still feel the aches in her own joints, and the injury refused to heal no matter how much soul energy she pushed through the injuries.

By the time they emerged, it was evening, so the glow of the Mahatan Gate below the waters was especially beautiful. This time, she stayed dry—as did the professors. Mirian could see several Holy Sentinels had taken up position around the oasis, likely to nab her if she'd tried to escape without fulfilling her end of the bargain. One of them, waiting by the shore, approached.

"I am Eylua of the Sentinels. I've been sent to escort you to his Highness," she said. She wore a shining sword by her belt, two wands, and a spellbook on a chain. Her tabard was decorated with turquoise and gold beadwork that was more ornamental than functional, but it did give the Sentinels a certain presence. Mirian had been disappointed to see that, despite Persama's historical innovations with spellrods, they were rarely used.

"Let us proceed, then."

"God's blood," Professor Seneca said.

"We really are in Persama. There's believing something, and then there's seeing it." Swapping to Friian, Mirian said, "You'll just be presenting an effective alchemistry curriculum, which I assume you can do in your sleep. Jei, teaching crystal spells. Endresen, a basic curriculum on arcane physics. They have a University here, but it's tailored to the elite. This would be tailored to the highly motivated but uneducated." Endresen pondered that.

"Can I assume they're literate?" she asked.

"No you cannot," Mirian replied. Another thing occurred to her. She swapped to Adamic.

"Hmm. Sentinel Eylua. Does Prince Rehiz speak Friian or Cuelsin? Or does he have a translator?" Jei could speak Adamic, but the others couldn't.

"His Highness speaks Cuelsin," the Sentinel said in perfect Friian. Mirian winced. At least she hadn't revealed anything sensitive. She still berated herself for making assumptions. Jei said something in Gulwenen. Mirian only recognized the word for Gulwenen, but the Sentinel answered in kind and suddenly they were chattering rapid-fire back and forth. As they entered the palace, Gabriel greeted them with a delegation. Mirian raised an eyebrow at him. Gabriel raised an eyebrow back at Mirian.

Sentinel Eylua looked back and forth between them.

"Are you two done?"

"Do you speak Eskinar?" Mirian asked Eylua in Eskinar.

"She doesn't," Gabriel said.

"Did you tell them?"

"Not quite," Gabriel said grumpily.

"We need to talk."

"But not now," Mirian said.

"Eylua is who they assign to someone the prince doesn't trust. I'm sure you can shake off a shadow, but that'll shatter the trust completely. You should have let me take the lead."

"I was improvising."

"You were shaking apart the city. What the hells did you do down there? Never mind. Later." This time, Prince Rehiz was attended by two of the magisters. Koyar and Zeysum remained, but the other minister had departed. There was also a captain of the guard.

"Where did you go?" demanded the prince. He was clearly shaken.

"Torrviol," Mirian said. Eylua gave a slight bow then said, "Our divination could not detect her after only a short time in the water. There is indeed some sort of great device down there, though we did not enter the waters, and could not discern its nature."

"Elder devices are immune to divination," Mirian said. Gabriel kicked her in the shin. Why doesn't he want me to interject? she wondered.

"Jibril, what is your organization's assessment of the situation?" asked Prince Rehiz, clearly addressing Gabriel. That raised Mirian's hackles slightly. Whatever Gabriel had done, he'd done it quickly. Have I taken too much of a risk? she wondered. She had the advantage in raw power, but he had the advantage in information and connections. Likely, he'd had dozens of conversations with the prince. Gabriel gave a curt bow, mirroring Eylua's.

"Your Highness, we met as she passed through Alatishad. She showed the same contempt for the laws there, and asked a number of suspicious questions about Mahatan, which is why I joined her to monitor the situation. However, she's had no contact with any of the factions that might concern us." He was being vague, but Mirian recognized the pattern of speech. This was the way spies serving an intelligence agency spoke when they wanted to hide information in an open conversation.

Gabriel was pretending to be an agent of whatever network of spies Mahatan had. To the captains of the Mahatan guard, Rehiz asked, "Have there been any infiltrations of the walls?"

"None, your Highness," the captain said stiffly. The prince turned to Gabriel.

"Jibril?"

"Just the usual smugglers." When the captain gave him a withering glare, he said, "What?" Mirian found herself both bored and on edge. She just wanted to get this meeting over with and get to the part that mattered—investigating the rare plants and old magic of the palace. She was so tired of social rituals. Gabriel might be lying about what had happened in Alatishad, but he wasn't wrong about her contempt for rules. Prince Rehiz turned to the professors Mirian had brought along.

"Is it our turn to talk?" Viridian asked. Jei took a step forward.

"Honored Prince Rehiz of the Oasis, I humbly greet you," she said, taking a deep bow. Prince Rehiz smiled at that.

"Finally, someone who knows etiquette," he said.

"What brings you so far north?"

"Honored Prince, my studies brought me to Torrviol, and now to here. We have accepted Mirian as Chosen. Simply put, there was no denying her foresight." Mirian looked at Jei. Huh. Where did she learn that? The conversation proceeded decently enough from there. Mirian impatiently waited as each of the professors spoke about their expertise and what they could do for the prince.

She could see the greed shining in Prince Rehiz's eyes as Viridian explained how much money he was making Torrviol Academy—and that was with a relatively small operation confined to a single greenhouse. Then, at last, the moment Mirian had been waiting for. The prince was no longer as agitated as he had been, but he was still wary.

"They really are from the north," he said.

"That is your assessment too?"

"Yes, your highness," Gabriel said. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Very well. Mirian. You have fulfilled your promise, though it seems impossible. So there is… some sort of impossible Elder blessing at work." She nodded. No need for her to explain the Gates in any depth.

"And what you have foreseen will come to pass?"

"I have seen many possible futures. I believe we can achieve the one I have described," she lied.

"Very well. Then we shall broker a formal agreement. And at the end, I shall proclaim that my office recognizes you as… Chosen."

"Thank you, Honored Prince Rehiz," Mirian said.

When they at last got to see the hidden gardens, Viridian was beside himself.

"I haven't even heard of some of these varieties!" he said.

"They've been experimenting with jeweled lotus cultivars! Sefora has to know. We may be able to extract novel magichemicals! Oh, look at that one," he said, bending down to gently touch one of the lotuses. It had muted colors, but he seemed more interested in the lily.

"Look, variation in the leaf structure. Sire Gregoire was right, the magichemical structure must lead to changes in the growth of both the lilies and the petals. Hah! They'll have to publish a new edition of Reginald's Guide to Southern Flora and Discussions on Characteristics of Flowering Plants when I'm done here!" Mirian watched him with wry amusement.

"I can dedicate five pages of notes to your studies on a temporary basis," she said. Professor Viridian frowned.

"There's minor nutrient deficiencies at work here. I wonder what kind of silt they're using." He sighed.

"Only five pages?"

"The leylines have to come first, I'm afraid." By then, Mirian had brought through Torres and several artificers to help deploy leyline detectors around the city. Preliminary data was promising. At least some of the energy moving south was being moved back north through the Gate, slowing the rate of eruptions. Mirian had sent a zephyr falcon to Liuan to see if she could take some late-cycle data in Akana. While Viridian began gently examining the flora, Mirian wandered the gardens. There was a familiarity to them.

She'd seen jeweled lotuses before, she was sure, though the garden itself felt wrong. The stonework was too ornate, the paintings too colorful. Had she wandered these grounds as a child? Was I really born in Mahatan? The city seemed so unfamiliar. Perhaps she'd wandered through another courtyard. But the view of the desert is wrong. The dunes don't look right, nor does the horizon. Holy Sentinel Eylua was, as Gabriel promised, shadowing her every move.

Prince Rehiz had also invited her—politely—to stay in the palace. Naturally, the rooms had wards that would detect if she left. Meanwhile, Minister Koyar seemed as pleased as a pickle while Minister Zeysum was stalking about with a snarl when she thought no one important was watching. Mirian didn't quite understand what had happened between them, and was having a hard time caring. Hopefully, they could both scheme in private without bothering her. She bent down to study one of the lotuses.

The petals sparkled like they were covered in drops of dew. An ethereal mist wafted from them, which enhanced the already gorgeous gradient of color. She liked the amethyst ones best. They had a color much like the auroras did prior to the end of the world. This place, she thought. The Ominian would love this little garden. Only, They wouldn't want it tucked away by walls of stone, but open, for all to see.

Gabriel found her studying a citrine lotus, trying to feel the soul of it with as much nuance as Viridian did. The petals seemed almost faceted.

"We need to talk," he said in Eskinar.

"We do," Mirian said.

"I wish you'd told me you knew so much about the palace and prince."

"I did tell you, you didn't listen."

"You said you'd been inside. You certainly didn't say or even imply how."

"And yet, since you've been assessing my magical capabilities from the start, you should know by now the way I get into places is through manipulating people, not—whatever the hells it is you did. And I'm certainly not going to do a bunch of rooftop acrobatics to sneak in, either. What's your real endgame?"

"Save Enteria," she said.

"No, not that. I mean, what does the world look like when it's all over?" Mirian ran her finger down the petal. The flowers looked delicate, but they had an almost rough edge to them. Jei had said there were tiny crystal structures inside them.

"No more eruptions, no more wars, and, unfortunately, no more spell engines. A good life for those I care about." Gabriel sighed.

"Everyone wants a good life for those they care about. Almost everyone wants peace and prosperity—hells, even the marshals will tell you they're instruments of peace even as they pick up a sword in their God damned teeth because their hands are full of pistols. How do you intend to achieve that?" When Mirian didn't have an immediate response, he continued.

"I intend to retire to a palace full of whores, but in order to do that, I need to find or build a palace and recruit the women. In order to pay them, I'll need a steady income stream, and to make sure a half-crazed lunatic arcanist doesn't burst in on me, I'll need a secure perimeter with guards, which means I need to hire artificers to enchant and maintain the walls—and so on and so forth. You get the idea."

"Liuan Var stops the Akanan invasion from ever happening. I stop the Baracuel coup, and if Ibrahim is still on his bloody-minded campaign, I'll stop him too. You secure southern Persama. No war. Easy."

"Absolutely wrong," Gabriel said.

"You can't wrap gauze around a cut that's so deep. You have to heal the artery that's bleeding out. The war will happen because of deep-seated flaws in the political economy. There's… how do I put this? Structural problems. You can't build a tower if the foundation is cracked. Akana needs to expand, but Baracuel is in the way—not just across the Rift Sea, but it has its fingers in Persama and Zhighua. If you stop the first invasion, you're only delaying the war. Persama isn't going to be healed without a fight.

You think you can get these damn warlords to just lay down their arms? The problem is, too many people want palaces, and there's not enough palaces to go around. Someone's going to win. Someone's going to lose. Who?"

"What's your solution, then?"

"For one, don't run around telling everyone you're a Chosen. Did you ever read about the Fifth or Sixth Prophets? All you're going to do is start a damn holy war. The last holy war we had, the krakens and leviathans in the Rift Sea got to gorge themselves on sailors. That's what I learned about the Prophets—they didn't mean to, but they acted like the bellows in a forge."

"You're mixing a lot of metaphors," Mirian said wryly.

"God damn right I am. But the point is—well, I don't have a perfect solution yet. That's one of the things I was thinking about. How do you create a stable system from something as inherently volatile as people? The easiest way is Akana Praediar wins." Mirian clenched her teeth. A rage flashed through her, but she suppressed it.

"I didn't say it was right or just, but they have a plan already in motion and the biggest army. It would be bloody, but quick. Maybe that's the greatest mercy we can provide."

"None of this matters until we have a viable solution to save Enteria. Right now, it looks like Akana has to lose because spell engines have to be phased out as rapidly as possible once the crisis has abated. But the solution to the leyline crisis will have to inform our solution to the political crisis. Does that satisfy you?"

"What satisfies me is that palace you found me in. But fine. Then if we need to solve the magic part, you need to open up about the magic you know. You're clearly holding back not just power, but secrets. And you're obviously not another Sulvorath because I think if you'd wanted to learn the RID's curse and turn us all into Sio Jhericas, you'd have done that. What should be obvious is that I'm also not another Sulvorath.

It should be obvious that I can go figure out Westerun's curse any time I want, but I don't give a shit." Mirian was silent, thinking of what to say next. How strange. A conversation with lasting consequences, she found herself thinking. At last she said, "And what if I became the only thing standing between you and that palace of your dreams?" Gabriel snorted.

"I think if we save the world, we can each get a palace. As a treat."

"And yet, if it's all done through manipulations in the shadows, how will people know?"

"Then we can seize it ourselves. Accumulating wealth is trivial for us." Mirian stood.

"I've told you the important parts. There's tools in the Labyrinth I think will be useful. There's the Gates, and how to operate them. There's the spell engine crisis and the possibility we'll have to manually stabilize the leylines. Everything else is practice. While you were studying the blade," Mirian said, gesturing at Gabriel's crotch, "I was studying magic." The other Prophet snorted.

"Sorry, what were you saying? I was distracted by your eyes glowing."

"If I could explain how I did that, I would. I don't fully understand it myself. Try meditating in odd spots, it does wonders for your auric mana. What is this really about? I thought you didn't care."

"I didn't, but that was when I thought it was hopeless and all the other loopers were insane. Now I still know they're insane, but at least one of them might be able to do… something. What's your myr rating?" Mirian hesitated. Was that really knowledge she needed to keep secret?

"High. Archmage level. I haven't tested it in a while."

"Hmph," Gabriel said.

"Fine. Just know that if you get to keep secrets, so do I. I'm a man of fair exchange. Please take note that I don't want my status as "Prophet" or "Chosen" or any of those asinine titles spread around. I'm an information broker. As far as our fine prince is concerned, I serve as part of his network."

"And what about the Holy Sentinel who's been listening to this conversation the whole time, knowing it's being deliberately spoken in a language she doesn't know?" Mirian gestured behind her.

"I know how to deal with her. She'll believe it's an interrogation maneuver. Please try not to piss off the prince any worse. Royalty don't like being snubbed or talked down to."

"Or talked to as equals."

"Yes, exactly," he said, and walked away. As he passed Sentinel Eylua, he muttered something Mirian couldn't make out. Mirian went back to the lotuses. When she and Viridian shared a glance, he raised an eyebrow. He may not have understood the conversation, but from the tone he could probably deduce something. I haven't seen him riled up like this. This is more than that he doesn't like dying. Perhaps getting on the wrong side of Prince Rehiz led to something more traumatic.

She still remembered being trapped in Specter's little prison room. Or falling onto the spike trap in the spy headquarters. Or being cut apart by an Akanan soldier's force blades—her very first death. By the time the greater horrors had started butchering her in the Labyrinth, she'd grown more numb to it all. But maybe he hadn't. Or maybe it's something else. She was having trouble communing with the lotus she was touching. Her mind kept wandering. Maybe it has to do with Ibrahim. He doesn't want him down here.

Neither do I, though. She went through different possibilities in her mind. Ibrahim's relentless. And Gabriel was part of the RID as they were suppressing Dawn's Peace. Was it personal? She went back to studying. In the evening, she and Viridian would debrief, discussing technique. Professor Seneca would have some of her alchemistry results soon. And she'd see Professor Jei again. Maybe she could make her laugh with a good joke. All she had to do was not piss off Prince Rehiz. That shouldn't be too hard.