Chương 170: Chapter 245 - The Jiandzhi

Feng was at the head of the caravan, and called a halt as soon as they were out of the cavern. He looked around carefully, keen eyes surveying the endless green of the jungle. Mirian opened up her spellbook.

"No," one of the other merchants whispered, touching her arm.

"Arcane magic will attract beasts." Would it? If that was true, she wondered what they would be detecting. A buildup of arcane force, perhaps? But how would they sense it? Smell was possible because the nose detected small particles. Eyes worked by seeing beams of light. Did they have a sensory organ for the arcane force? How far could they possibly sense us? Are they that sensitive to perturbations in the ambient mana? Or can they detect the activity of a divination spell? Or is it just superstition?

Mirian shrugged, and let her fake spellbook casing drop to her side, dismissing her real spellbook that she'd manifested inside it. As soon it looked like there was going to be a fight, she'd be casting spells, no matter what the caravaneers thought. Until then, though, she might as well see how effective their strategy was. From what Gabriel had said, it would work well enough. At least, for a few days. She peered out, but all the jungle looked the same to her.

Through a rare gap in the trees, she could make out one of the huge stone pillars for which the land was named, the thousand-foot high rock absolutely dripping with foliage. Wisps of mist drifted around it, the jungle so humid and dense with plant life that it was generating its own clouds. Well, she hoped it was just the plants. If one of those clouds belonged to a floating mist jelly and was waiting to snatch them up with its tentacles, they were in trouble. Feng didn't seem to think so, though.

After a moment longer, he nodded, and the caravan proceeded, winding through what he'd called a road, but was more just a trail where the plant life was thin enough they could move without tripping over bushes. Mirian was surprised by how dark the lower part of the forest was. Suddenly, Feng put his hand up and they stopped again. She looked around, trying to see what had changed.

"Feng's listening to the birds right now," Gabriel whispered.

"One of them just gave a warning call that means 'petal demon,' and he's waiting to see if the next warning call will be closer or further away." Mirian nodded. She had no idea how Feng was distinguishing the specific call of a specific bird with the racket around them. The cicadas alone were enough to deafen her.

"Is he using some sort of enchantment to help pick up the calls?" Gabriel shook his head.

"Just knows his shit. That's why we're tagging along with him. Every year, there's some merchant who thinks he's got what it takes to go without a veteran guide so he can avoid the fees and make some quick gold. Never works."

"Shh!" one of the carvaneers told them. Gabriel rolled his eyes. He already knew the result, of course. Feng lowered his hand, and they moved on. Again, the marusaurs proved their worth. While the Prophets managed to step on every stick and crunchy leaf they could find, the marusaurs were silent as they padded through the jungle. An hour later, they stopped again.

"Mist Jelly," Gabriel whispered.

"Look." He pointed to a gap in the canopy. Mirian caught a glimpse of a cloud moving above them. When she squinted, she could just make out the transparent tendrils dangling from it, and only because the sun was in the right position to glint off the venomous needles that lined the tendrils. A moment later, it drifted past the gap. Feng waited for a few minutes, then lowered his hand.

They skipped lunch, much to Ibrahim's disappointment, but it was common practice when passing through the jungle so that the scent of food didn't attract myrvites. Four more times, they stopped and waited, either for a predator to pass, or to make sure that whatever the animals in the forest had heard was moving farther away. Finally, they made it to the first rest point.

It was a small cave entrance at the base of a smaller pillar, so shrouded in vegetation Mirian didn't know they were near it until Feng was parting a curtain of vines to let the marusaurs pass through. Without divination, Mirian would have walked right by and never suspected a thing, but Feng knew exactly where to look.

"Scut flowers," he said, gesturing at the broad, smelly flowers that grew near the entrance.

"They smell bad and taste worse, so it hides any smell of cooking that the enchantments miss. You will make sure the enchantments are working well, though, won't you Miss Mirian?"

"Sure," she said. The entrance was covered by a woven bamboo door and a simple mechanism that Feng opened. The cave was small and isolated, dead-ending after a few dozen meters. The flowstone had been carved up into smooth platforms for bedrolls. Most of the nearby enchantments were old, but functional. One of the smell-collecting enchantments had a cracked glyph, so Mirian reworked it. There were also flaws in the conduit crystals; she directed Jei to repair them to improve the efficiency of the enchantments.

Then, she assembled her leyline detector. Strange, she thought.

"Are these the same kind of readings you got?" she asked Gabriel when he wandered over.

"Yeah, nothing. Huh. So I did do it right?" Mirian looked at her detector.

"Apparently." The detector wasn't reading low leyline activity, like near Tlaxhuaco. It was reading no leyline activity. At all. Either leyline activity was so weak that her detector couldn't pick it up, or… Or what? Mirian wasn't sure what was going on. She focused on her aura, getting a sense of the ambient mana around them. It felt normal enough to her, but she didn't have a baseline. She went to talk to her father.

"Do you have any knowledge of the leyline activity or ambient mana levels in the Jiandzhi?" Gaius considered her question. He was silent, presumably as he checked his own aura and the mana pressure around it.

"Ambient mana seems lower than I remember. But that was a long time ago." Interesting.

"You said there was an area full of… strange ruins. Where was that?"

"Much farther east. There's no trade routes that pass anywhere near it. Myrvite activity is significantly higher there." Mirian retreated to a quiet corner of the cave to think, away from the soft chatter of the caravaneers. Her thoughts were interrupted by raised voices.

"—maturity of a child," Gabriel was saying to Ibrahim, who had a snarl on his face.

"You're so caught up in your own story that you have no fucking idea about anyone else. You think my life was snorting roses and frolicking in fields until I decided to do some casual murder? Fuck you!" Ibrahim's voice was lower, so Mirian only caught the phrase "child murderer" as she stood and began to move in their direction.

"Yeah, you think you know everything, you rat fucker. Well guess what? I was the one who killed Gerrad Aldworth." Ibrahim froze.

"That's right. Dawn's Peace didn't do it. Your agents all got caught, because they were fucking idiots. I killed him. That was my parting gift to the RID." Aldworth? Mirian stopped halfway across the cave. It took her a moment to recall the name. That's one of the RID agents working closely with Westerun on Project Flayer and the memory modification magic. Gwenna Aldworth. Is Gerrad related? Ibrahim said something else, too quiet for her to make out.

"That's because I'm not an idiot. When he died, everyone got the message. If I'd claimed credit for it, I'd be dead too. See, this is the problem with your whole damn philosophy! Conquering by the sword isn't just bloody, it's stupid. Even the fucking Senate realized a proxy ruler was better than an occupation, and all they needed to do was give up small cut of the profits. When you build your tower thinner to make it taller, all you're doing is making sure it falls down faster. You damn fool!"

Then Gabriel stormed off, though not far, because the cavern simply wasn't very large. The merchant-guides were all on edge. Feng was giving Gabriel a death-glare, probably because of how loud he'd been shouting. No one wanted to attract the wrath of the nearby myrvites. The bamboo door covering the cave was a deterrent, not an actual barrier. A petal demon or a light eater would be able to smash through it like it was paper. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Ibrahim had either veiled his anger, or it had actually lessened. He was silent as he sat down on the opposite side of the cave from Gabriel. Mirian looked at both of them, but it seemed the fight was over as quickly as it had begun. Gerrad Aldworth. Was he the one responsible for the massacres in Mahatan? At some point, she would need to find a way to get at the records and history of the Department of Public Security and the Republic Intelligence Division.

Both agencies seemed to have a dark history that was tangled up in the politics and crises of the present. She looked at Gabriel again. Usually, he was unflappable. He always projected a carefree sense of amusement at the world. But not with Ibrahim. Mirian wasn't sure how to proceed with the two. She would have liked to keep them separated, but they were all Prophets. They needed to work together. She looked at them both. Ibrahim met her eyes, then shrugged. He went over to the chef like nothing had happened.

Gabriel was sitting in the corner with his head in his hands, absolutely still. They weren't reconciled. But something had shifted. She hoped it wasn't for the worse. That night, she dreamed of the Mausoleum again. Once again, she found herself moving through its familiar halls. This time, though, she was thinking of Xylatarvia. The Elder God had been spread out across an entire valley, Her flesh mined away for centuries, and yet still massive. The Ominian sat on Their throne, colossal, and yet, not the same size.

Two temporal anchors still lay buried in Their stone flesh, Troytin's, and the mystery anchor. Mirian wanted to return to the area outside the Mausoleum and study what she could about the relics and runes leftover from the Triarchy's terrible ritual, but she couldn't stop thinking about Xylatarvia's corpse. The size of it. The fact that it had fallen intact. Something was different here. As her eyes roamed about the halls, she looked up at the carvings of Elder creatures and the abominations.

She now recognized the carapace-crusher in one of the far halls, and had found a small representation she thought might be what an intact voidling looked like. Each hall was so familiar, and she had associated different features and places with memories as best she could. As her eyes cast about the corridors or up at the high vaulted ceiling, she couldn't help but remember; there were so many names, so many places, so many things that only she would recall. Some beautiful. Some painful. Her first kiss with Nicolus.

The feeling of remorse as she realized her feelings for him had faded. Her first reunion with her father. Her second reunion, and the look in his eyes when he realized this had happened before. The terror of running from Akanan soldiers. The strange detachment of watching their airships burn. It was all jumbled together. For a long time, she'd seen the memories, and stopped seeing the place. Now, she looked closer at the seamless stone. She moved back to the great hall with the throne. The Ominian sat, motionless.

Dead? Dying? Do They die in one path of time, then another, or is it something that happens all at once? Do I see all of Them? How much is hidden in the arcane dimension? How much of them is spread out across the paths of time? She'd spent so much time wandering Enteria, both alone, and in her dreams, together with Them. A thought occurred to her. There were no seams in the stone. It seemed unlikely such a colossal structure was carved out of a single piece of rock. The work was too perfect to be human.

Masons—both mundane and magical—still made mistakes. And the work was four-dimensional, so clearly, people hadn't made this. In this structure were tens of thousands of different beasts. Things that resembled the leviathans. Things that even resembled Apophagorga. Creatures of the world the Ominian cares about. What if…? She approached the throne, looking for the seams between the Ominian and the Mausoleum. Some indication that the body in the throne and the throne itself were separate. There were none.

A chill ran through her, even though she had no body in this dream. I've been thinking of the Ominian like a person. But the Elder Gods are beyond that. Body and shape mean nothing to Them. They're conveniences for us. Is the Mausoleum a part of the Ominian? That would explain the discrepancy in size between Them and Xylatarvia. And how does that relate to the explosion as the moon falls? As thoughts spun around in her mind, she wandered down the main hall, towards the outside. Then, movement caught her eye.

A humanoid figure, wearing a robe with a deep cowl. She stopped, staring. Not a robe, she knew now. Shadows that wreathed a bare soul. She'd only seen figures twice in this place. The first time had been so long ago; she'd seen the other Prophets kneeling together with her. Liuan had confirmed that she had also been in that dream. The second time, it had been when she'd finally opened the door to the outside. That presence had felt different than this one, though. Who are you? she tried to ask the other shade.

The shade turned to look at her, then dissolved. Strange, she thought. Maybe one of the other Prophets saw me.

When she woke, she talked with Gabriel and Ibrahim separately. Neither had dreamed of the Mausoleum.

"Dunno. They're weird dreams. I try not to think too much about them," Gabriel said, which struck her as overly incurious.

"I spend my time in front of God's Prophet in contemplation," Ibrahim said, referring to the Isheer belief that the Ominian was the Prophet of an unknowable God that was beyond even the Elders. Both of them had little enough to say, so Mirian talked about the dream with Jei as the caravan of marusaurs and merchants made its way through the jungle.

"Does time flow linearly there?" her old professor asked.

"In the Mausoleum? Yes," she said, thinking of the signs of age on the corpses she'd seen.

"Well, maybe not," she said, this time thinking of the time she'd seen dozens of others there with her.

"The other dreams… they're more memories that the Ominian has. Or attempts at communication, I think, like the dream with the raining anchors or the burning tree." Jei was silent for a moment, looking thoughtful.

"If they are linear, then that would imply the other person you saw was asleep at the same time, and also projected themself there. Given those two factors needing to line up, that would help explain why this is a relatively rare occurrence. That is perhaps compounded by the fact that several Prophets might have a different sleep schedule, due to the time differences of being spread out across the continents. If time isn't flowing linearly there, there's little hope of seeing more but coincidences."

Mirian nodded along as they continued to walk through the jungle.

"The first occurrence was anomalous. And, unlikely. Fifty Prophets, all asleep and dreaming of the same thing at the same time? But what if… hmm. Does the Ominian control our dreams all the time, or just some of the time?" Jei frowned.

"This is what I don't understand. Why do the Luminates assign different domains to the Elder… deities? Are they not fundamentally the same kind of being? Should they not be able to perform the same tasks once learned?" Mirian opened her mouth to start explaining, then closed it. There were holy texts that detailed what the Elder Gods had done for Enteria and humanity; Xylatarvia's ship of vines. Altrukyst's great door. The focuses, she thought. Each is aligned with a certain type of soul magic.

Her thoughts went in another direction.

"I don't think we can explain the why of it. It would mean understanding the Elder Gods in ways I don't know are possible. But we can explain the effect, even if we can't explain the cause. Perhaps though… it's Yiaverunan who has the domain of dreams, light, and time." Mirian thought of the statue in the Kiroscent Dome, the place where she'd first died. The star, the hammer, the wheel, the hourglass.

"Not a satisfying answer," Jei said.

"No. But… hmmm. What are the focuses in Zhighua like?" she asked.

"Which ones? The ones for healing that dedicated use? Gray, just like the ones in Baracuel."

"What about the others? Any of the jade-colored ones?"

"No." That made sense. Zhighua didn't trade much with Tlaxhuaco.

"Black?"

"If someone has a black focus, they're a necromancer. Both are destroyed." Interesting. The taboo on necromancy is just as strong there, she thought. She thought of Lecne's focus, the one she now thought must have been taken from Zomalator's body.

"White and red?"

"Never heard of those. If they exist, they're rare."

"Is that all?" Jei shook her head.

"My grandmother was an oneiromancer." Seeing that Mirian was unfamiliar with the Adamic word, she clarified, "dream priest."

"Torrviol Academy teaches that's just, ah, superstition."

"Yes, I know. I got into many arguments with the wizards there. I strongly dislike how they dismiss phenomena without having collected evidence."

"What color are those focuses?"

"Purple, speckled with gold. They're quite valuable."

"Hmm," Mirian said, thinking of what she'd learned of the Elder Gods. Yiaverunan was said to be half-dead. Perhaps only a piece of Her fell. Then again, she'd never heard of Xylatarvia dying in the God's War, so whatever the truth really was, she was sure no one had the complete picture. The caravan stopped, and the marusaurs crouched down. Mirian saw Feng's hand up. She'd grown better at identifying the different threats in the jungle. Whatever the veteran caravaneer was seeing, though, she didn't know.

It looked like the jungle opened up into a clearing, with welcome sunlight streaming down to illuminate a thick bed of moss. There was even a keyu stag standing in the middle of it, munching on some of that moss. Was Feng just making sure they didn't startle it? Keyu meat was valuable, and would also be a welcome addition to their meals. Then she realized what was wrong. The moss was too perfect. It should be all churned up by marusaur feet. Gabriel sidled up to her.

"It's a green mirage. You know, the myrvite fungus that makes illusions to lure prey in and then eats them?" Oh, that's not good, she thought. So the stag is just a part of the illusion? The green mirage in front of them was large, and it had not just covered the whole trail, but a large area around it. And that was just the part that was obvious—since it could create such vivid illusions, there was no telling if it actually ended where the clearing did.

"Yeah," Gabriel said, seeing her expression.

"So, this is where things start to go wrong."