Chương 216: Chapter 289 - Trials of Time (Part 2)

Loop 340"What was it like, that second cycle?" Mirian asked Liuan. They were walking through Arborholm, as Mirian had asked to learn more about the city. Over the past few years, she'd felt Liuan's suspicion of her soften, and her own had been able to fade as well. Mirian had learned to bond with hundreds of community leaders and find her way into the good graces of lots of small organizations. She'd seen how the bonds of friendship and trust became powerful chains.

Over the years, she'd forged those chains into adamantium with several of the Prophets. Now, she wanted that same bond with Liuan.

"It was terrifying," Liuan admitted.

"But the Church of the Ominian was there to guide me. Though I must admit, it took me a long time to see the apocalypse as a technical crisis. Since it seemed impossible to stop, it seemed to me that the Ominian required… well, you know." Mirian nodded. Various churches in Akana had different interpretations of the historical Prophets.

As most of them only believed in the divine connection between two of those Prophets, they saw the Second Prophet, who helped unify civilized Enteria through conquest, as the model to follow. It was a false prophet who shattered the Triarchy, and so the Ominian's message seemed clear to them: purge the false prophets, spread Their true word. Only then would They intervene. An issue of assumptions that had taken many councils to resolve.

Liuan had thought the leyline regulator would be such a failure that Mirian could give up. But once Liuan had seen it actually slowing the descent of Divir and extending the cycle and Mirian had been able to mathematically model the Ominian's soul detonation, she had finally relented.

"There," Liuan said, pointing at a building.

"There's an old archive that was hidden behind a false wall. I think it was around loop 60 that I found it and learned about the Mask of the Fifth Prophet. Except, the idea that he was an actual Prophet was heretical, and by then, Troytin was running around trying to kill everyone, so I had to search while sticking to the shadows."

"Hmm," Mirian said. She remembered running around, finding new places to set down seeds of chaos and new ways to subtly change events. It also went to show just how difficult it was to track a single person who knew how to hide.

"I wonder why he was ejected from the time loop before he found a way to bind it. He got the relicarium, but I suppose he never found the ninth binding."

"So it seems. The Luminate Pontiff was killed, and the bishops went into hiding. And of course the Church of the Ominian never pried that knowledge from them. I remember still being worried by you once Troytin had been removed. Even after the meetings started, I made sure to visit the Grand Sanctum when you wouldn't notice. Pontiff Oculo was pretty mad that the relic in the vaults was a fake."

"That's when you saw the Fourth Prophet—and the missing sword, I imagine."

"Indeed," Liuan said.

"I've always wondered how it would have gone if Troytin hadn't planted so many seeds of distrust. Jherica and Celen had started working together so quickly, and when we found Zhuan, she didn't even consider that there could have been a fight." Liuan stopped to look at one of the church towers. Two old trees stood to either side of the church, and they'd braided some of the branches together across the roof in the Semnol style, creating an arch over it in tribute to Xylatarvia.

A Saint, according to most Akanans, but still worshiped.

"Death often teaches us a valuable lesson," Liuan said quietly.

"I suppose so."

"Here," she said, bringing them around to the back of the church.

"This is where I started learning celestial magic. A beautiful garden for meditating in." It was spring, and the sigil bees were out in force, pollinating the beautiful blooming flowers. A small marble fountain burbled, not quite drowning out the rumble of spellcart wheels crunching on the roads, but at least masking it.

"It is," Mirian said, smiling. She still didn't like the truths that Liuan had used for her ascension, but she could understand them. The hostility had melted like the winter snow, and now, Liuan was seeing new truths. Mirian let the birdsong wash over her, embracing her different focuses and feeling the movement of soul energy. There were several natural spirits that had formed, and she thought it might give an extra sense of peace. The two of them sat in silence in that garden for a time.

Loop 354 Gabriel thrust open the doors to the palace he'd chosen, then bowed to the assembled Prophets and their retinues just out front. Outside, the stone walls glistened with the setting sun; the sky was blue and pale. Inside, a grand hearth construct danced with beautiful lights as it warmed the room. Per Mirian's request, it wasn't a spell engine, but powered by a pair of mages who sat off to the side.

The room was decorated with banners from every corner of Enteria, from a Saising serpent to Tlaxhuaco's holy tree.

"Ta-da!" Gabriel said.

"A perfectly dignified party. No one in a state of undress, even if that does make it a bit boring." In the past, Ibrahim might have snorted. Now, he just ignored Gabriel and walked in, his wife by his side. He was still Ibrahim, after all. If his love for his wife had faded, he would endure it like he might endure the hammer blows of an enemy. Through struggle, he would make his love bloom again. If the love of God was a choice, then so must all love, he rationalized.

Looking at the two smiling together, Mirian wouldn't have guessed at his earlier struggles, though she knew his trials were far from over. Jherica and Celen walked in next. Celen's eyes immediately settled on a cozy nook off to the side where there was a small balcony and a shelf full of books next to two plush chairs. Mirian had seen this palace before, so she knew Gabriel must have prepared that area specially just for Celen's taste. It was unnaturally thoughtful.

Mirian and Zhuan walked together towards the long table laid out with a variety of dishes. Small wards were carved into the bowls and plates that kept the dishes that needed it heated. She eyed the pile of garlic flatbreads and sniffed at one of the curries. She smelled a familiar spice medley—one that her parents had often made. She turned and raised an eyebrow at a smiling Gabriel.

"I do pay attention sometimes, you know," he said.

"You always got a different look in your eyes when the flavor profile is just right. I had to interrogate a whole battalion of chefs to get them to spill their secrets." Mirian smiled and took one of the bowls and a flatbread from the pile.

"Thank you," she said. Meanwhile, Zhuan was eying another set of dishes, one that involved a bit more raw fish than Mirian liked. The atmosphere was comfortable. Xecatl had brought several of her friends from Tlaxhuaco, two of whom were nagual. They too murmured appreciatively about the selection of dishes. It was easy to lose track of things with so many people and plans to remember, but Gabriel had taken the time to remember everyone's favorite dish.

Mirian wondered why he still insisted on wearing such an irreverent persona so much of the time. Mirian had brought a few of her professors and several students. Valen had found Gabriel and the two were getting along far too well. Lily and Nicolus were looking a bit lost, but they'd warm up eventually. The professors were chatting with Jherica and the academics they'd brought in several adjacent clumps.

Mirian also brought several of the priests she knew from Alkazaria, who had quickly found Liuan's group of priests and had immediately launched into an impassioned theological debate. Well, some people liked to argue, she supposed. The party was full of pleasant chatter, and then Gabriel revealed his next trick as they moved to a larger ballroom inside the palace: a group of musicians, one that incorporated traditional instruments from across Enteria.

Mirian could appreciate the effort that had gone into that; someone would have had to compose completely original music, since there was no music Mirian knew of that had both Akanan horns and Zhighuan zithers. Then the musicians would have had to rehearse the unfamiliar pieces. The song was pleasant, though, and added to the peaceful atmosphere. People continued to drift around, joining and leaving different conversations.

"How many cycles?" Mirian asked Gabriel when she made it into his orbit.

"Only four. You should have heard the first pieces that tried to use all these instruments. Absolutely atrocious!" As the sun finally set and the night continued, Mirian continued to circulate.

"You look better," she told Ibrahim.

"Torment is a lesson," he said.

"Well, you don't look tormented. At least, not right now." Ibrahim nodded.

"I suppose not. Some cycles are easier than others. I hate all this waiting."

"I understand," she said. And she did. Even now, she felt like there was more she should be doing. For decades, she had pushed herself to grow, pushed her research, and trained herself never to waste time. What breaks she had taken had been few and far between. It was hard, after training herself to always push forward, to relearn how to relax. Mirian still trained most days, but her last tripoint meter test had been the same as her last. She'd finally found a myr limit, it seemed. Or, at least, a plateau.

Some cycles, she wandered Enteria alone, looking for some new insight that might lead to another soul ascension. When she did, she could imagine the Ominian walking by her side. Ibrahim sipped one of the fruity, nonalcoholic drinks.

"Liuan thinks we have at least another few decades. My own close analysis of the Chosens' texts and the contemporary documents is in agreement." They talked aura theory next. Ibrahim had developed an idea on how he could combine his ability to run two parallel dervish forms into a singular more complex flow, leading to a stance that he thought might grant both more strength and even greater spell resistance. Mirian wondered at that.

Even without mana-infused metal armor, Ibrahim's spell resistance could get to absurd levels. She couldn't help him test the ideas, but together they happily chatted about flow, and Mirian brought her knowledge of waveform math into the mix. It was often easiest to demonstrate a flow or mentally send each other a chain of runes rather than use words, so their conversation cut out. When Mirian turned, she saw one of the groups of priests was staring at them white-faced.

They hastily turned away when they realized Mirian had seen them gaping.

"Once I've tested a few of these, I'll let you know in the dream, and we can move from there," Ibrahim said.

"It would be my pleasure." Mirian found Jherica next. Celen was off in his nook, writing something as he listened to the music, while Jherica was happily telling Professor Endresen a joke that involved two bog lions in a bar. Poor Endresen was trying to shift the topic back to arcane physics, where she was hopelessly trying to catch up with several decades worth of advances in theory that Jherica and Mirian knew, but she didn't. Mirian joined in. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval.

Report any appearances on Amazon. Eventually, as the group grew small enough, Celen crumpled up his piece of paper and incinerated it.

"No good?" Jherica asked.

"It was a great poem, but I'll have to rewrite it anyways," Celen said grumpily.

"By the time I get to write all my poems and books and make them permanent, I'll have forgotten them all."

"If I find another set of Holy Pages in the Labyrinth Vaults…" Mirian said. Celen sighed.

"No, we'd want to use it for more important things. This song is much the same. Beautiful, but evanescent. I just wish that we could save a bit of the art we made. Or rather, that the price wasn't so high." It was late in the night by the time Mirian found Xecatl. She was sitting in a chair by the musicians, looking pale.

"What's wrong?" Mirian asked as she drew near. When she looked closely, she could see strange patterns deep in the flow of the Tlaxhuacan Emperor's soul. She noticed something like it a few cycles back, but Xecatl had said she was fine. Clearly, though, the chaotic flow had worsened.

"It's nothing," Xecatl said, though the breathlessness with which she said it undermined her words. Mirian gave her a skeptical look. Xecatl sighed.

"Ceiba Yan has already tried, but there's only so much he can do about deep soul turbulence. It's… the memory transfer. I first noticed it a few years back, but it was easily manageable. Now, it doesn't just happen at the start of the cycle, but lasts almost the whole time. There's… so much being pushed into my soul. It can't be a partial transfer, either. He tried one cycle, and I was comatose the whole time. The Sacred Tree isn't a temporal needle.

Whatever those things are doing to smooth the transfer process, we don't know. There's nothing to be done about it, so I haven't told anyone." Mirian stared ahead, thinking. The light in her silver eyes stirred as she contemplated how to deal with a deep-soul element. Perhaps her father might have some ideas, but Xecatl was right. Modifying that without grievously crippling or killing the person wasn't something they knew how to do.

The temporal anchor allowed for starting soul modification in the core of the soul, due to the way it burrowed in. But Xecatl had no such easy access to her inner soul since she was the one Prophet without an anchor.

"I'll can do some experimentation," Mirian said.

"I'd rather you didn't. The damage—""On myrvites. Fire drakes, because they're bastards anyways." Xecatl clamped her jaw shut.

"If it gets too bad…" Mirian whispered.

"I know." They both did. Mirian had their myrvite hybrid process and the complex web of spirit constructs recorded in her soulbound spellbook, but Xecatl was critical to actually being able to create that critical part of the leyline regulator. The gathering was winding down. Mirian didn't like it leaving on such a sour note. She wished Xecatl had told her sooner. But at least now she knew. That put a time limit on how long they could linger in the loops. She only hoped the Ominian had foreseen this.

Loop 382 The temporal anchors continued to trickle in, adorning the Ominian's dark wounds with golden light. As they did, the cycle gradually extended, reaching first seven months, then to nearly eight. The Prophets took more frequent breaks now. Generally, Mirian would set the Gates up, and then one or two of them would be assigned to make sure events didn't conspire to blow one of those Gates up. Mostly, this meant monitoring Torrviol.

Killing Marshal Cearsia and replacing her with a more pliable commander of the Akanan invasion also did the trick, though it always annoyed Mirian when the Prophet on cycle duty let the town be slaughtered. It wasn't that hard to get the place to evacuate. She and Zhuan both shared a fanaticism about research, even if the subjects were different. One of the reasons Mirian thought they got along so well was they understood each other's passions.

Mirian could no more stop wondering about her arcane research than she could stop breathing, and Zhuan was the same in analyzing social systems and testing out her theories of history. Mirian was now fluent in Gulwenen, including the dialect they spoke in Saising. She often helped Zhuan monitor some change she wanted to make, using divination to watch the movement of people and overhear conversations so they could better model not just the event, but why it had developed in such a way.

Zhuan's methods weren't just to enact a change and observe, either. She often interrupted a chain of events by rounding up hundreds of people for interviews, trying to better understand their thought processes and emotions, and how that had fed into what had taken place. Often, Mirian had to act as a counterbalance to her. She'd get so wrapped up in work and theory that she would speak absolute nonsense, using academic terms that no one had heard of because she'd invented them herself a half-century ago.

It was like when she'd first met her, but turned to an even more extreme degree. It was something all the Prophets struggled with now; there were so many experiences there, so much knowledge assumed, it often became hard to even remember what it was like to not know all the things they knew. While she, Zhuan, Ibrahim, and Gabriel focused on Baracuel, Persama, and Zhighua, Celen, Jherica, and Liuan had continued to iterate on Akana, collaborating on their own projects.

They all continued to meet with each other from time to time—except Gabriel and Ibrahim. The two of them would join in if another Prophet was there, but they avoided each other if there wasn't. Some wounds couldn't heal, she supposed. Mirian still pushed herself, trying to break through the plateau of arcane power she'd hit. She'd gained an entire two points in myr now, and only after strenuous effort. Other days, she delved even farther into the Labyrinth, still seeking out new materials.

The Holy Pages were an Elder artifact, and she still hoped to find a second one. In the same way that she helped Zhuan stay grounded, Zhuan did the same for her, drawing her back to reality whenever she drifted too far into the arcane. Still, the touch of inhumanity was always there. At the end of the 382nd loop, Mirian returned to Luamin, just to see if she still could. As before, the door opened for her. She could feel a piece of the Ominian by her side, watching. No human words could express Their presence.

No words could express how she felt, gazing into that infinite void and full of glimmering stars. She wondered if, when this was all over, humanity might return to them. Perhaps she might see them one day if she took her father's path. Or the Unmoored's path. Or forged a new one of her own.

Loop 395 Xecatl lay in the rich soil by Ceiba Yan's roots, gasping for breath, body trembling. Mirian had dissected the souls of countless fire drakes by now. They'd come up with a balm for Xecatl's deteriorating condition, but not a cure. As much as Mirian knew, she was hitting the limits of what arcane and celestial technology could do. Technology was usually progressed by societies, not individuals.

Perhaps with years to teach groups of new students and develop new industries that merged the arcane and celestial, they could have progressed, but the loop wasn't even a full year. Match me, Mirian told the Sacred Tree. Ceiba Yan's aura swirled about with the serenity and weight of an ocean at calm. Mirian's aura swirled with his, a tornado within a tempest. Necessity had involved pushing the boundaries of magic yet again.

Together, Mirian and Ceiba Yan's auras mingled together, forming not just a spirit construct, but something more. They had found a way to let their soul currents flow together so that, as one, they could direct their auras into a spell. Mirian needed Ceiba Yan's instinctual understanding of Xecatl's soul, and Ceiba Yan needed Mirian's fine control and mastery of runes. Together, they cast, soothing Xecatl's soul as best they could. An hour later, Xecatl sat up, groaning.

She closed her eyes and leaned back on Ceiba Yan, gently stroking his bark.

"Thank you. I'll… manage from here."

"We're still working on it," Mirian told her.

"I think I've found a new trick, using the topology of the upper soul currents to influence the lower streams. Only a few anchors left. We're almost there."

"Almost there," the Tlaxhuacan Emperor said, not looking at all like her usual, regal self.

"You will make it," Mirian said. Xecatl only grunted. Then, a beam of sunlight pierced the great tree's canopy. Mirian looked up to see that the Sacred Tree had shifted its branches. Xecatl smiled, letting out a painful laugh.

"Ceiba Yan says I just need better soil and more sunlight."

Mirian and Zhuan watched their private sunset, leaning into each other as they did.

"It needs to end soon," she told Zhuan.

"We'll manage. There's always more to do. More to learn. More to try."

"The others don't see it that way. Jherica doesn't want to do research with me anymore. They're… growing distant. It can only be a bad sign. Ibrahim has his moods. So does Celen. Some days they're fine. Some days. Gabriel keeps doing his hedonistic parties. I fear he's finding it easier and easier to kill for convenience. And Xecatl…" Zhuan sighed.

"Hmm. You're right, of course." Mirian smiled.

"I know." They were silent until long after the sun had vanished below the horizon and the stars had come out.

"What a strange life we've led," Zhuan said.

Loop 401 Mirian continued to track each cycle. She'd long ago lost count of the exact days she'd spent in it, but she calculated she'd been in the loop roughly one hundred years. That was a strange feeling. She was older now than almost everyone in Enteria, but her body was as fit as ever. It was yet another thing that set her and the other Prophets apart; they had all the experience of age, but had gone through none of the aches and pains that came with it.

Well, Zhuan and Ibrahim had, to some degree, but nothing like the hunched over grandmas and grandpas who groaned just standing up. She'd tried to see if there were bindings that might allow her to experience wrinkles or aches and pains. There weren't; she had to make do with actual curses, and those only brought the pain, not the full experience of being aged. It was yet another thing she could conceptually understand, but not feel.

When she wasn't giving rehearsed speeches or following a well-trod path through a timeline, she always took her time to respond. Her mind was still sharp, but her thoughts had slowed; there was just so much to think about and remember. That, and other times she had to remember which time loop she was in. She found herself forgetting if she'd already done something in a loop. Some days, she found herself staring at a group of people in awe of her, and then asking, "Did I assign you your tasks this time?

Were you the group joining the construction teams, or providing food logistics?" It somewhat undermined her mystique. The cycles had ceased lengthening, and her leyline regulator had hit a hard limit on what it could do. There were just those few last temporal anchors they were waiting for. Some days, it was easier to accept their circumstances than others. One day she was walking together with Zhuan through Madinahr.

She'd disguised herself as an older woman so that her preparatory school classmates—who she saw from time to time, still in their early twenties—didn't recognize her. Nothing had changed in the city, so it was easy to show Zhuan around. Then she saw a group of young mothers walking and chatting in one of the parks by the river. The tears came so suddenly it shocked her. In the first decades of the loop, there was always so much going on, she'd never taken the time to consider whether or not she wanted children.

Even now, she wasn't sure if she wanted them, just, that it was a choice she'd been denied. Parenthood was such a common human experience, and yet, an impossibility for her. A few people stared as Zhuan held her, and then the moment was over. She wiped her eyes, and a glimmer of light escaped the illusion she had over them. She would bring no new life into this doomed world. She had to hold onto the blessings. Grandpa Irabi was still around. She'd been able to share in his wisdom for a full century.

Her parents would have died long ago without a loop. She and Rostal could still have their long walks through the Lowfort District and talk celestial philosophy. She could still dine and tell absurd stories together with Lecne, Arenthia, and the rest of the cult. And yet, that blessing was another unnatural thing. She experienced not the loss of their companionship, but the loss of their memories. At least she had Zhuan and the others.

In another year, Gabriel would host one of those silly parties of his, and both she and Liuan would roll their eyes and yet enjoy themselves. Jherica and Celen would find a quiet balcony off whatever palace Gabriel had chosen and hold hands as they talked the night away. Ibrahim would bring his wife, would be confused but polite. She was a wonderful woman, and Mirian unwillingly learned a bit more about Persaman traditional poetry each time they talked.

She would have liked to introduce her father to the woman, but another part of her didn't want to. For all that she shared with the others, it still felt like too personal of a thing. Gaius Nezzar was hers; her secret, her touchstone into a forgotten life. She still worried about how things might fall apart, and exposing the true nature of their connection exposed a fragile piece of her heart. She still planned for what if it all goes wrong? Just in case.

Mirian could do no less, and when she walked beside the Ominian in the dream, she knew They understood. What would either of them not do for Enteria?