Chương 128: Chapter 203 - Return

Mirian's journey back to Mahatan was significantly longer. By the time she arrived in the city, the worst of the soul disruptions were smoothed out, though she still sometimes felt her aura discharge mana as some tangle swirled about. She could still sense soul fragments, and still incorporate ambient mana, so the damage didn't seem to be permanent. The warning was clear, though. Necromancy was a path to power unlike any other. But it was equally dangerous. She needed to properly learn it.

Unfortunately, she knew of only one teacher. The sky above Mahatan was full of auroras. By now, any fool could see the apocalypse was well under way. Still, it was the 23rd of Duala, and the eruptions weren't as bad. Their initial data had predicted this, but it was nice to see it confirmed. A Gate connection between Mahatan and Torrviol was more effective at slowing the cascade that eventually led to the leyline collapse. Keep this up, and I might even see the month of Merisheth again.

Making it to Spring was still a distant dream. Smoke was rising from Mahatan, though mostly by the palace district. When a desert drake burst from its hiding place and tried to attack Mirian, she strongly considered letting it eat her just so she wouldn't have to deal with the inevitable mess awaiting her. She ended up killing it with a bolt of lightning though, then trudged onward. The eastern gate to the city was mostly deserted.

The routes going east were the most dangerous, and while the journey across the desert was shorter and avoided several port fees and border taxes, it also often ended in disaster. Few merchants and fewer mercenaries were willing to risk it. But that didn't mean no one. One caravan was parked outside the gate, waiting for someone to review its manifest. Mirian passed it by.

"Halt—oh fuck," one of the guards said, apparently recognizing Mirian.

"What do we do?" he asked the other guard.

"I heard she killed a dozen Holy Sentinels," the other guard said, perhaps not realizing how far his voice carried. They both stood aside, looking nervous as she passed by. After she was in the city, she heard him say, "She can fly anyways, wasn't really any point trying to stop her." Inside the city, she got the same fearful glances as she passed by whispering crowds. No one barred her way. As she approached the palace, she could see the damage. She braced herself for what was coming next.

If the professors were all dead, so be it. She'd seen them die too many times for it to do anything more than cause a distant ache in her heart. No, it was Gabriel she didn't want to talk to. And he'll likely tell Liuan Var, who will get even more paranoid about me… but putting it off will only make it worse. Four guards stood at the entrance of the palace. Their armor looked ill-fitting, and Mirian didn't recognize their faces. Probably new recruits. But who ended up in charge?

As soon as they saw her, they started gesturing and talking rapidly. As she summited the steps and approached the door, they all stood rigidly at attention.

"Uh, Chosen," one of them said. She recognized his Adamic accent as one held by the lower classes of the city, and was pleased with herself for recognizing the distinction.

"Who's in charge now?" she asked, wondering how ready she needed to be for a fight. The guards glanced at each other.

"Didn't you, uh, already… foresee it?" one of them asked.

"You can't just ask a Chosen if they've foreseen something!" another whispered.

"Foresight doesn't at all work like you think it does," Mirian said. The guard who'd just admonished the other one said, "Vaulted Chosen, Her Highness Prince Zeysum commands Mahatan with her, uh, wisely rule."

"I see," Mirian said. Then, because she couldn't help herself, "The word is 'vaunted.'" And it's not really a traditional honorific, she didn't add.

"And Jibril?"

"His in-generous Minister of Gates," the first one said. This time, Mirian didn't bother with the correction.

"Well. Good. Thank you." She proceeded inside. The signs of battle were everywhere. Wrecked artwork, burnt tapestries, scorch and slash marks over the walls and floors, shattered windows, and blood splatters that the servants were still scrubbing away. With detect life, she could tell the throne room itself was empty. It made sense. It wasn't like she'd given anyone time to prepare for an audience, and there was probably plenty to do.

"Where is the Prince and the Minister of Gates?" she asked the throne room guards. One of them had grown pale upon seeing her, and the other swallowed nervously.

"In the diviner's room, Blessed Chosen." Mirian headed that way, causing a commotion simply by passing through the halls. It annoyed her. By the time she made her way to the diviner's room, she was in a sour mood. She burst in on Gabriel and the newly crowned Prince Zeysum along with several guards and bureaucrats.

"Have you ever noticed that knowledge never gets the same respect as violence?" she said to Gabriel.

"That's how she says, 'hello,'" said Gabriel to the Prince, sotto voce. He'd looked shocked to see her, but had quickly recovered.

"The riders are dead. I pray that was enough and Ibrahim will remain ignorant." To the room she said, "And you will all pray he remains so as well unless you'd like legions of undead ransacking Mahatan!" she snapped. The room had grown very quiet, and the occupants very still. Turning back to Gabriel, she said, "Did any of the leyline detectors survive? Any of the professors?" The other Prophet cleared his throat and said, "Your Highness—""Cut the charade, Gabriel. You've seen the aurora intensity.

We have a few more days at most before armageddon. Even a zephyr falcon couldn't get Ibrahim a message in time. What is the point!?" It was the 23rd, two full days after the longest cycle they'd had yet had ended. However useful it was for extending the cycles, it still wasn't a solution. Gabriel clutched his forehead. Normally, he would have swapped to Eskinar, but he kept speaking Adamic.

"The point is to make preparations for what comes after. Any illusion of foresight will vanish too quickly, especially for us, with only a month and a half. I already told you—you keep this 'Chosen' bullshit up and the inevitable result is a holy war. There's no point saving the world if it just gets torn apart by rampaging armies right afterward." If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"The historical analogy isn't at all comparable. None of the other timeloops had more than a single Prophet."

"That we know about," Gabriel said.

"But Sulvorath disappeared, didn't he? Who's to say more of us won't be pruned away like so many lotus petals." His gaze was now directly on Mirian. She could see the fear in his eyes, suppressed, but not gone. He knew what she was capable of now; there was no hiding it. For a moment, the room was gripped in silence. The new Prince Zeysum was looking at Gabriel with something between horror and hatred. Gabriel unclenched his jaw and started ticking off names on his fingers.

"Torres and Jei are dead. Seneca took a dive in the oasis, though I don't know if she actually managed to make it to the Gate. A bunch of commoners hid Endresen so she's fine. Viridian is alive, but not in good shape. I honestly don't remember the names of the others you brought through, but I'd say half of them are dead. One of the leyline detectors was destroyed, though no one was targeting them, it was just bad luck."

"You… you are also claiming to be a Chosen?" Zeysum said.

"You've been manipulating me?"

"Sorry little lion, that's how the dice landed."

"Then by my order, you are relieved of your titles and properties." Mirian shook her head.

"This is what I'm talking about. Any fool could estimate the kind of energy intensities needed to generate an atmospheric aurora at the brightness we're seeing and realize that they're dealing with arcane forces magnitudes above what even the entire country of Akana can put out in a month. They can hear me say the end is near, but some mental trick of the mind lets them just dismiss it for… what? A made up title?" Zeysum's face was now red.

"You dare—!"

"If you won't listen to reason, will you listen to violence?" Mirian asked. She used raw magic to conjure an orb of fire in her hand. Zeysum took a step back, eyes going wide. She looked to her guards, but they weren't moving. Mirian dismissed the orb.

"I need the jeweled lotuses harvested prepared for alchemical tests. I need Viridian and his notes. I need all leyline data that was collected, and I want the secret archives opened and scoured for any information on the Gates of Fire, the Prophets, the Chosen, and any secret Gods. I need—""Mirian, we just stopped a coup and then a rebellion. Start cutting up the sacred gardens and you'll piss off all the rectors, who will then stir up the city people again.

Open the secret archives and you'll piss off the bureaucrats—""Then let them rage. Two days at most, Gabriel. Can you not keep the information from spreading for that long?" The other Prophet clenched his jaw and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath.

"It would have been… easier… if you hadn't just announced all those things in front of these good people. A bit of patience goes a long way," he said. Then he gave a hand signal. Four of the guards drew their swords. Mirian was about to summon her spellbook, but then she realized the target wasn't her.

"What? I order y—!" Prince Zeysum cried out, just before her neck was cut open by a scimitar. One of the guards apparently not in on it and three of the bureaucrats were also killed on the spot. Gabriel stroked his chin.

"Go arrest the Minister of Streets. We'll pin the assassination on him, since those are his functionaries. Put daggers in the hands of those two. Guard the room, but it's fine if the servants see it. We'll say the council of Ministers will convene in four days' time. I'll get the rumor mill turning. We only have to delay for two days. Isn't that right, Chosen?"

"Yes," she said coldly. She didn't bother to wipe the blood off her face. So he's as ruthless as I am, she thought.

"We'll need to have a talk, you and I," Gabriel said.

"You've been holding too much back. But not now. I suppose we better wrap this cycle up."

The next two days passed in a blur. Sefora Seneca had indeed made it back to Torrviol alive. They ended up bringing the lotuses to her, where the Torrviol facilities were better set up to examine the magichemicals. Mirian dutifully scribed the results in her spellbound book. That Torrviol wasn't being besieged also told her Liuan could now stop—or at least delay further—the Akanan invasion. Despite Gabriel's hands on the levers of power in the palace, there was another riot in the city.

Just after noon of Duala the 25th, Mirian received a report that the leyline detector had gotten a reading of one of the precursor events; the end would come in a matter of hours. Gabriel met her at the pinnacle garden, at last alone.

"We need to meet with Liuan Var," he said.

"Start properly communicating. Our lack of coordination is, frankly, embarrassing." A flash of annoyance passed over Mirian. She'd found the Mahatan Gate. She could finally start her search for Atroxcidi. But you need allies more. Don't be so short sighted like these insolent princes and fool ministers, she chided herself.

"Fine. I have a protocol to contact Liuan early in the cycle. We should meet on neutral ground."

"There's no such thing as neutral ground, my dear, but there is geographic convenience. The logical place to meet is Florin City." Mirian didn't like that, but she couldn't think of any reason to argue against going there, either. It was neutral ground, which she had just proposed, and it would take all of them about the same amount of time to get there.

"Agreed," she said.

The dreams came again, and Mirian wandered the Mausoleum of the Ominian. Behind the Ominian were still those great arched windows full of stars. In the vestibule at the head of the great hall, the two colossal doors. Mirian stood at the doors, trying to exert some sort of force on them. She was still intently curious as to what was behind them. They remained closed. She returned to the Ominian, who sat on Their throne, the single temporal anchor still dug into Their shoulder. Their eyes were closed. Perhaps asleep.

Perhaps dead. Perhaps something in between those two states that she couldn't quite comprehend. Her encounters with the Elder creatures Conductor and Eyeball had begun to shift her perspective. It was one thing to know, intellectually, that the Elder Gods existed across a broad swath of time, and controlled it with powerful magic. It was another to think through the implications. Fields of time, Conductor had said. What would it be like? She rested a hand on the feet of the Ominian. You have seen different futures.

Ones that don't come to pass. What's it like? She didn't expect an answer, of course. But she thought about it. I suppose, what we Prophets are experiencing is as close as someone can get to understanding. We gain the memories of dead futures. In a sense, they never came to pass. And yet, in another sense, they're all real. Conscious, sapient beings live them, die in them. A thousand tragedies, all in service to a single path on the fields of time that leads to a place of hope.

The stone beneath her fingers felt like nothing; her fingers didn't feel real either. She perceived herself as having a body in this dream, but what was it, really? As always, there was a pervasive silence. Some days, it felt peaceful. Today, it felt heavy with pain. Mine or yours, she wondered. Then, Do I trust them? Are we to work together, or will there only be one, in the end? Why did you make Troytin a Prophet? Silence. It was always silence here.

She thought of how she communicated with myrvites, of how Conductor and Eyeball talked to her, and tried to emulate it. What was communicated was less words and more feelings, more states of mind. Undulations of the soul. She thought of the dead, scattered across the dry-packed earth of the northern desert. She thought of the blood splattered across the palace, of the bodies that had been left out in the streets of Mahatan when the riots had finally subsided. Will all the death be worth it? she asked.

Long ago, Mirian had been cut apart by an Akanan soldier. She'd never learned her name. The memory was still there. The visceral feeling of the force blades tearing her apart, the terror of watching her own lifeblood seep out of her. The knowledge that she was going to die. The horror that a stranger could kill her with no remorse. She had been fighting it all this time, but each cycle, she felt herself being dragged closer and closer to inhumanity. There was no movement. She looked up.

The stars behind the Ominian still glittered. I'll keep holding on, she promised. She felt an anticipatory dread. She wanted to meet together with both Gabriel and Liuan. But she also didn't. Gabriel had gotten a taste of the power she was capable of. She knew he feared it. Did he also envy it? Did Liuan resent her power too? Whatever she did, there was no turning back the clock. One way or another, the consequences would follow her across the fields of time.