The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Mirian contemplated the letter she was holding. Then, wincing, she handed it off to the Royal Couriers to be delivered by zephyr falcon. There was no sense keeping the Elder Gates a secret from her first ally. She had already extended the cycle, which meant all of the time travelers knew something was going on. Liuan already knew she was investigating the Monument. Perhaps the other traveler could help locate one in Akana Praediar. And, Mirian needed to keep developing the bond of trust.

It's best you sent it, she reassured herself. She had also sent the glyphs required for the blink spell and instructions on how to soul-communicate. For that, she would need to find someone like Viridian—or just visit Viridian. She'd told Liuan Var she wouldn't be in Torrviol for most of the cycle, so she would be free to visit. Maybe the other woman would trust her. Maybe not.

Her next objective was to create a new spell. The Palendurio Gate offered quite a shortcut, but only if she could burrow through several dozen meters of rock. She revealed her status as Prophet to several professors, then went to Torrian Tower for the highest quality work tools and materials, then got to work. First, she scribed air bubble, then began designing and assembling the glyphs for a new spell.

After several tests, she ended up settling for a spell that combined manipulate glass, shape stone, force drill, and force push. The spell established a pushing force near the top. The manipulation spells pulled chunks of rock down so the force drill could more easily carve up those chunks. Once severed from the whole mass, four divots in the pushing force caused them to shunt to the side. The pushing force would also keep the Magrio River from collapsing into the hole immediately, which would give her time to reseal a portion to keep the river from drowning Torrviol—she wasn't at all sure how the physics of that worked—and give her time to establish the air bubble spell so she could breath as she ascended.

As she worked, she'd also have to levitate.

It would drain a colossal amount of mana, so Mirian stocked up on several elixirs before she left. She killed Specter, just because if Liuan Var was going to visit, she didn't want the other woman to have to deal with her. She'd already tried to manipulate one time traveler.

Then, Mirian headed down into the depths of the Underground and found Eyeball.

EEEEEEEEE! Eyeball screamed in her mind as soon as she entered.

Why surprised!? Mirian sent furiously. Just saw me!

But Eyeball was pulsing with vibrations and flashes of color again. HELLO. THIS IS THE 'SECOND' TIME WE HAVE MET. ISN'T THAT FUNNY?

You know sarcasm? she asked, though she wasn't sure if she'd sent the last word properly. Very funny.

Eyeball continued to pulse.

Open Palendurio Gate, please, she told it.

DONE.

And small doors.

The doors opened.

Thank you. Later.

LATER. HAHA! Eyeball pulsed with laughter again.

That's not going to get old, Mirian thought as she descended. When she reached the stone floor of the shaft, she cast blink again, which sent her plummeting right into the gate.

She landed on the other side in the depths of Palendurio. She had to take a moment to steady herself. Then, she started to levitate, and drilled upward. Stone cascaded down, falling into the Elder Gate below. Twice, she had to rest, not because she had drained all her mana, but the strain of maintaining so much power for so long. After nearly an hour of digging, she at last breached the riverbed. She resealed the rock below, then shot up through the river with her air bubble, breaching the surface next to a large raft with a very surprised crew.

Palendurio in a few hours, she marveled as she levitated over to the Lowfort District.

***

She met Rostal in the courtyard of his home.

Rostal, as per usual, pretended to be completely unbothered by the intrusion. "Who are you?" he asked.

"Mirian. I brought falafel and a plate of Mahian meatballs from Kaalim." That was one of his favorite street vendors. She gestured to a steaming plate on the courtyard table. "I'm going on a trip to Alkazaria, but I'd like to learn more about Persama. And Ibrahim Kalishah. Let me tell you a little about myself…"

***

Mirian had endlessly thought through the risk she was taking. Just a few weeks ago, she'd thought getting near Alkazaria could never be worth it. Now, with a possible gate beneath the city, she'd changed her mind. The Palendurio Gate was only getting her to Alkazaria a full day sooner. That was more time, but not so much it qualitatively changed the risk she was taking.

There were other advantages. She'd be able to observe Ibrahim's moves prior to the siege. She could better infer where Atroxcidi was sending his strike force from.

As they took the train to Alkazaria, she and Rostal talked.

"What have I already told you of Ibrahim?"

"That he associates most with the Last Breath of the Phoenix form. That he strongly believes in the God of the Isheer, and seeks to correct the injustices Baracuel perpetrated on Persama. That he's been betrayed before, and has trouble trusting. That he takes risks."

Rostal studied her, expression unreadable. "If I taught you the Last Fires of the Phoenix, that means something. I vowed not to teach it again, and I do not break a vow easily."

"I didn't know that."

"I rarely speak of my vows. You know of tachaborh?"

"I've heard the word before, but it's hard to define. Friian doesn't have an equivalent."

"It's when you boast about your piety in front of everyone. Talk to everyone about how well you keep your promises. Tell of every good you have done, so all may see you and know how good your heart is. A type of… arrogance. My vows are between me and God. If someone wants to tell you all about their vows, they didn't make the vows for themselves, they made them so that others might watch. Take care of those who have excess tachaborh."

Mirian nodded. That made sense. She'd had a friend in preparatory school who was very loud about how good a friend she was.

She hadn't been a very good friend.

"Ibrahim. What to say about him? He was a refugee from Mahatan. Came to me when fighting was still going on in the city. I instructed him, like I instructed many fools at the time. I thought it more important to preserve a dying martial art than to consider how that might change a soul. He was a good student, the kind teachers dream of. He listened astutely. He practiced hard. He was kind in his triumphs, and calm in his defeats. He helped teach the other students when they struggled, and his patience seemed infinite."

"Hmm. I'd pictured him as having a fiery temper." Like me.

"Oh, but he did have it. To have a soul of fire is not always to be ablaze. Most of the time, he was an ember, burning deep within the log. Only rarely did he burst apart. He grew up and went to the University of Urubandar. Studied archeology and history. He wrote to me often, and I thought, ah good, the embers are cooling. They will die, and he will live a good life. Full of peace."

Rostal said nothing for a time. He wasn't looking out the window at the countryside as it rushed by, but deep into some memory. "He went off to do archeology. Got a much coveted appointment studying the ruins of Mayat Shadr. I don't know what happened next. He stopped writing. Somehow, he found his way back to Mahatan. Only much later did I learn he had studied recent history, and had spent time in the library poring over newspapers and tracing business connections to find out just who killed his family."

Mirian searched her memory. "That's right… you said he found the militia that did the deed. But he wasn't satisfied. He found who hired them, and who funded the mining company."

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Rostal nodded. "Somehow, he got involved in Dawn's Peace. He tried to recruit me, but he didn't know the history I had with them. How many students I had who joined them and lost their lives. However, there was no hope of convincing him. If you speak to fire to calm it, your oxygen will only fan the flames."

"What is Dawn's Peace?" Mirian asked. "The name seems… absurd."

"They took the name when they were pacifists. However, Baracuel learned that if you massacre pacifists enough, the survivors eventually learn that the only path forward is to fight, and once they have learned that lesson, they are implacable foes."

"And now he seeks justice, no matter the cost."

"Indeed. There is an old Persaman philosophy, the Dawn Teachings, based on Isheer texts. Goes back to the collapse of the Triarchy. The idea is, without a foundation of justice, a society is doomed to fail."

Mirian thought about that. "You don't agree, though."

"It is the thought of fools. Can one only build when the world is ash? Of course not. The world is formed through the confluence of ten million actions. If you do not like the result, change the action you take. Society is not a building. It is a thing built each day. There are many reasons people do not change it, but there are no reasons they cannot."

Hmm, Mirian thought. What did she believe? Fourteen years ago, she believed in survival, that if she could just escape the war, she might have a quiet life as an artificer. Twelve years ago, she believed that if she could win a battle, somehow a good life would follow. Eight years ago, she thought if she could stop Troytin, Corrmier, and a few other key figures, she could stop the cascade of violence.

Would that be enough? If she could stop the conspirators in Akana and Baracuel, if she could convince Ibrahim that justice could be dealt out peacefully… if she and Liuan and Ibrahim formed a pact to stop the wars… would it be enough? The problem was, bringing peace to Enteria didn't solve the actual apocalypse. What will it take to uproot spell engines from the world? What will we replace them with? And they do need replacement. It's spell engines that plow the fields. Spell engines that prevent myrvites from eating all the crops. Spell engines that spin thread and spell engines that help build houses.

And another problem. Once the loop ended, Mirian and the others would lose a key advantage. People would break free of their influence, inevitably. And whoever gives up spell engines first gives up a powerful military advantage. What army would get rid of them? Artillery, shield engines—even rifles used a fossilized myrvite charge since it was far superior to explosive alchemist powders.

But it can't continue as it has, either. Things will get worse before they get better; it seems impossible for them not to get worse first. Is that why no one else has been able to change things?

She thought of Viridian and Tyrcast. Both had found truths. Viridian's truth was one that threatened all the noble families and the merchants. Tyrcast's truth merely promised a better engine. Both things they had discovered were true, but only one was allowed to flourish.

We were trapped, like water flowing downhill, she thought. But why didn't the Ominian intervene earlier?

Or perhaps They had. Perhaps They had seen the arc of history, like Eyeball had seen that they would meet Mirian again, and it had been the task of the other Prophets to steer them to a truer path.

Did they even know? Or did they simply fail?

She hoped that Ibrahim would talk with her when the time came. Her adoptive parents had said she was also a refugee from Mahatan. Ibrahim would have been older by a few years. And what different lives we've led now. I wonder… if I had stayed, what would have happened to me?

Either way, she wouldn't be attempting that conversation as long as the southern time traveler had Atroxcidi at his back. If she was wrong, the consequences would be too dire.

They would arrive at Alkazaria on the morning of the 3rd, which was as early as she could ever get there without finding a gate in the city itself. By then, Ibrahim's forces would be consolidating his position on Rambalda, and Ibrahim would presumably be starting to talk to the arch-necromancer.

On the 8th, Alkazaria would be simultaneously attacked by Atroxcidi's undead army and his forces from Rambalda. What Ibrahim was doing as the army began its siege was unclear, because she'd seen news that he was gaining influence in Urubandar even as the Battle for Alkazaria took place. The exact timeline on that was unclear to her, though, because news coming from that far south always took time to travel and the broadsheets often contradicted each other.

Either way, she was giving herself four days in Alkazaria to locate the gate. She'd brought with her an old map of Alkazaria from Bainrose, the oldest one she could find. Sadly, it didn't have any Elder Gates marked on it, but it at least would give her a starting reference.

She began to implement a soul-disguise. With her eyes, she'd become quite memorable, and needed to make sure Ibrahim neither detected her nor thought she was hostile to him.

***

As soon as they arrived, Mirian camouflaged herself and flew high, high above the city. She layered several lensing spells together and looked towards the Southern Range. The defenses are intact. The fort is open. She could see a caravan passing through the gates. No undead yet.

She returned to the Citadel.

"What exactly are you looking for?" Rostal asked.

"A large four-dimensional Elder construct. It's probably buried somewhere weird," Mirian said absentmindedly. "My leyline data isn't as good near Alkazaria because, well." She gestured south. "My best guess is it's beneath the Citadel."

"Ah. The most inconvenient place possible."

"That seems to be how things go. Will you talk to Ibrahim for me when he arrives?" She had told the old dervish about the alliance she had planned. If she could get a proxy to deliver her offer, perhaps he could be convinced to stop his conquest. However, she doubted he would listen to anyone from Baracuel or Akana, which left her few options.

Rostal was silent.

"Whatever your answer is, I'll respect it," she said.

"I suspected you would ask this of me. I will consider it," he said.

"The gardens by the Great Temples are the most beautiful to meditate in."

"Excellent. Then you will find me there."

Mirian left.

The security of Citadel was quite good, but at this point Mirian had infiltrated a military base, several banks, a secure manor, the RID headquarters, Aurum's gala, and just about every building in Torrviol. Better yet, she had blink now, and that meant she didn't even have to forge glyphkeys. Since total camouflage was her own innovation, common wards didn't detect it.

She began with the basement levels. They were full of food stores, ammunition dumps, and outdated war materiel. She already knew from Bishop Saban's spying operation that the Deeps were using secret passages, so it was easy enough to detect the ones she didn't already know about. The rune defenses were easily located and stripped, and her divination was good enough to quickly locate anything unwarded by glyphs.

Sadly, the passages seemed to be linked together in a network intended to allow the defenders to move unimpeded during a siege; if there were deeper levels, there was no route to them. The Citadel had been remodeled several times, and her outdated map was useless for finding any ancient, abandoned architecture. Unlike Torrviol, Alkazaria was too big a city to have its ancient ruins left unused. Date rock indicated much of the old stone had been used in the newer construction.

Next, she met with Bishop Saban, who was easy enough to convince that she was simply another Deeps spy. None of the operatives knew about a hidden Monument. That made sense; if they had, it would have become a focus of study just like the one in Torrviol. When it was clear that was a dead end, she moved to the archives.

Each morning, Mirian flew high in the sky and cast her lensing spells. On the 7th, she noted the fortress on the pass was covered by an unnatural fog. No alarm had been raised, but she was sure the undead or rebel Persamans had captured the fort. Was that Ibrahim's work, or were the necromancer's minions that good? There was no sign of the arch-necromancer himself, but she doubted he would simply come into a nest of Praetorians alone. She was safe for one more day.

On that last day, she continued her work of analyzing the archives. At last, she located what she was looking for: a complete geological survey of the stone beneath the city.

There was a layer of volcanic rock, including obsidian. The surveys indicated it was quite thick, and it covered a large portion of the old city, including Central Hill. The archaeologists who took part in the survey noted that fragments of old buildings and hunks of melted metal were found in the rock. They imagined that an ancient city had been lost to a volcanic rift, burying the city, and then Alkazaria had been built on top of the ruins.

The geologists responding to that report very politely called the archaeologists all blithering idiots. There was no volcanism near Alkazaria, and no historical attestations of anything like that happening anywhere nearby. One proposed that, while the discontinuity couldn't be explained, it wasn't unique. There was an anomaly like it in Zhighua.

It wasn't a volcano, though. This must have been the Gates of Fire during the Cataclysm. An event faded into legend for so long it didn't even occur to them.

That was going to be a problem. It was the late-cycle leyline energy confluences that helped narrow down where a gate was, and for obvious reasons, she couldn't deploy her leyline detectors close to Alkazaria anymore. Four days to dig wasn't nearly enough, and Ibrahim would no-doubt become alert to a bunch of strange holes in the city. And if Ibrahim finds the gate, he could start striking Torrviol and Palendurio just after Alkazaria.

General Hanaran's advice popped into her head. If you can't meet an enemy head on, outflank them. Not that the advice had worked during the Battle of Torrviol, but here it seemed sound.

She met Rostal in the garden.

"Have you made your decision?"

"I have. I will not talk to him," he said.

That surprised Mirian. "Out of curiosity, why?"

"I said you cannot speak to fire to calm it. Neither of us will move, and I fear I would simply make things worse. I am not a peace offering, but an old wound being reopened. If the time loops had changed him from what he was, he would not still be fighting this war."

Hmm, Mirian thought. She didn't know the history between the two well enough to protest. "Very well," she said. "I'll purchase a train ticket to Cairnmouth for you and get you some gold for your troubles."

Rostal nodded. "One last thing. When you are ready to meet him—remember that once bright flame of justice catches, the spark that started the conflagration is not the fuel, and the burning city cares not what lit it. All the intent for justice in the world is meaningless if the end result is atrocity."

Mirian nodded. "I will remember your wisdom," she said.

"It is all this old man can wish for," he said.

***

Mirian hadn't intended to take a break, but now that she was near Arriroba, she found the prospect irresistible.

Of course, she talked to Granpda Irabi, and they sat on the cliff overlooking the village.

They talked, Irabi of old stories, and Mirian of new adventures. After the Endelice and the First City, a question had been burning in her mind. One sunset, she asked him, "Did you know your meditation techniques were a path to power?"

"No," Irabi said. "I only know for me they were a path to happiness, which is far better."

Mirian smiled at that.

For the next twenty-eight days she did nothing much at all.