The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy-Chapter 189 - 188 - Digging A Hole

When Mirian at last left her meeting with Liuan Var, she went back to the hole she'd made to 'hide' her spellbook and rapier. She found someone had already dug up the hole, then had tried to make it look like they hadn't. As I thought. She had people looking to learn what kind of spells I know. She had a lie prepared for if Liuan asked, but if she didn't bring it up, Mirian wouldn't. Likely, the orders had been given when she still wasn't sure if she trusted Mirian.

And if she was hiding from Troytin, then such paranoia served her well. She was probably as nervous as I was. As far as she could tell, Liuan's story lined up. It explained the challenges Troytin had in mobilizing Akana Praediar. It meant that there would have been both Specter and a Prophet making sure to keep him away from soul magic.

It also meant Liuan was well-practiced in manipulating events from the shadows. From what Mirian could tell, she'd been incredibly cautious before emerging to obviously influence events. Hopefully, she could put that expertise to good use.

The emotions swirled in Mirian. An ally. After all this time. And better yet, one who already was starting to master Akana Praediar and could stop the war. It wasn't just a relief for when the final cycle came—however many decades away that was—but it would be immediately applicable. If Endresen was right about how the cycles worked, the energy used to reset the loop was essentially the same, no matter how long the loop had persisted, so two extra days per cycle would simply be more time to solve the apocalypse. The longer they had to propagate changes, the bigger an effect they could have.

One ally was worth far more than the three days removing Liuan's temporal anchor would give Mirian. She would still be careful. Troytin's lesson had burrowed far too deep into her mind for her to abandon caution. But she had an ally.

Now, she wanted another one.

The problem was that Ibrahim got to talk to Atroxcidi first. That meant he could tell the arch-necromancer anything he wanted. If he wanted to convince him Mirian needed to have her soul destroyed, he would find a way to do that. Despite her growth in power, Atroxici had surpassed 150 myr back during the Unification War. He'd had over a hundred years to become even more powerful. Now that she could see what 127 myr could do, she was even more afraid of that kind of power.

She needed to find a way to sever him from his ally. Also, because Atroxcidi might know how to break the curse on Jherica without destroying their mind. If not, Mirian could remove their temporal anchor as a last resort. Though if she did that, there would be a problem if Liuan demanded an explanation.

The problem was Atroxcidi was somewhere in Persama, close enough to Ibrahim that he was able to reach the necromancer in only a few days at most.

The trains couldn't get her there fast enough. Nor could her force-enhanced levitation spell. Liuan was being cagey about where she started the cycle, but no matter where she was on the continent, there was no way she could get there in time either.

It was yet another intractable problem. She needed to get to Persama to finish her study of the leylines, but if Ibrahim was sending agents south, they would beat her to the major cities every time. This made it easy for Mirian to accept Liuan's compromise. She'd agreed to help stop the invasion, and Mirian agreed to spend more time exploring the divine mysteries, starting with the Monument.

Liuan Var was convinced that something in the divine histories was key. The Divine Monument was the most obvious candidate. Her knowledge of magical theory seemed lacking, but she was right that Mirian's plan had technical difficulties that could not be easily overcome.

The appearance of a fifth time traveler in Akana bothered her. It felt like it should be more balanced, and yet, Mirian had yet to see any sign of another time traveler in Baracuel. With Ibrahim still single-mindedly focusing on his war, and Liuan quite sure there were no other time travelers in Akana, though, that did leave Baracuel open for her to exploit. Mirian was willing to risk emerging from the shadows there in a more bombastic manner. Ibrahim could take Madinahr by the end of the cycle, but Baracueli soldiers ripped up the tracks leading to the west, so no matter how much of the eastern continent he conquered, he would be stuck on that side of the continent.

Her discussions with Liuan complete, Mirian returned to Baracuel. She retrieved Jei and Viridian and headed for Palendurio. The rest, she assigned on various research projects. Likely, they wouldn't bear fruit, but there was always a chance. Selkus Viridian could continue his instruction on druid magic; Mirian still knew where to find all the Syndicate smugglers who had caged myrvites. Song Jei was the foremost expert in the Divine Monument. Her math had always implied the need for a second Monument to 'complete' the equations that governed energy flow through the Elder device, so if anyone would be able to help her with the secrets of the hypothesized second Monument, it would be her.

When they arrived in Palendurio, Mirian set up the professors in one of the inns near the Sanctum and went to Charlem Palace. She levitated to the upper chambers of the Luminate's section of the palace. She melted open the window with manipulate glass, then landed beneath the basilica dome.

Several extremely surprised Luminate guards, priests, and attendants, all looked at her in shock.

"I am Mirian, the next Prophet. I will await Pontiff Oculo's proclamation." With that, she summoned Eclipse and used a modified illusion spell she'd been developing: light of the Prophet. Six bright wings of light blossomed from her back, the eyes within those wings swirling with orange and violet. She had designed them to mimic the anatomy of the creatures in the Mausoleum of the Ominian. The spell intensified the glow of her eyes, and conjured a luminous mist to surround her. It also changed her voice to give her an echo.

People couldn't see her as human, because they couldn't comprehend the Prophets they had read about in their books were human—not really. They had to see her as something otherworldly. Beyond them.

"Ah, that's a nice illusion, but—" one of the guards started.

Mirian stood still, telekinetically turning the pages of her spellbook. She cast another spell she'd been working on: mass disarm. Every spear, sword, firearm, wand, and spellbook in the room was pulled toward her. Polite society was simply not ready for someone with the power of an archmage, especially with the Praetorians gone. There were gasps of fright. Mirian then gathered the objects in a force sphere and incinerated them.

"The Ominian has already made Their choice," she said, voice echoing in the chamber. "The Pontiff's declaration is for convenience."

***

With the Holy Pages and Sword of the Fourth Prophet in front of him, Pontiff Oculo had his hand forced, especially when runners brought word that the holy vaults were indeed missing the items.

Mirian visited Lord Governor Quintus Palamas next, using her light of the Prophet illusion as she addressed them, Pontiff Oculo by her side.

"Arrest Kallin Corrmier for high treason. Arrest his brother Decian Corrmier and the entirety of the Pure Blade. Return their stolen guard uniforms to their respective barracks. Arrest Arturus Castill for high treason and the murder of Praetorian Adria Gavell."

Gasps came from his advisers. Governor Quintus stared at her, uncomprehending.

"The three named conspirators all seek your death and the death of the Palamas family. They will move on you on the 20th of Solem."

"Holy Prophet," Quintus said. "I cannot simply—there are laws to be followed."

"Kallin Corrmier won't follow the law when he kills you. But I will tell you a secret: it doesn't actually matter if you live or die. I'm just trying to make sure my own research goes smoothly, because the longest any cycle has lasted is the 12th of Duala. What I actually need is for the best geomancers and hydromancers in the city to meet me in front of the Grand Sanctum tomorrow morning. Whether or not you heed my advice on the arrests will be up to you."

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Mirian turned and began to walk out. Quintus looked to Oculo. "I… I am Lord Governor of Palendurio! You will not turn your back—!"

She wasn't sure what Pontiff Oculo would say to the Governor. She wasn't sure if it would work. That was okay. She had plenty of attempts to try.

***

Five cycles later, Mirian had found a way to get the heads of the conspiracy arrested with minimal effort. Pontiff Oculo should have been one of them, but she needed his support to help sway the Governor, and keeping the former Allard noble alive and on her side helped sway that entire family from the conspiring side to hers. She also learned if she brought Adria Gavel's corpse and an alive Specter with her, it was easier to get Arturus Castill arrested.

When the Corrmiers had lost the Deeps and the Allards, Nicolus's father quickly pulled the Sacristars' support, leaving the brothers isolated.

Then, while all sorts of revelations and trials were going on, Mirian was left to do what she'd really come to the city to do:

Dig a hole.

Over the course of the past few cycles, Mirian had learned far more about digging holes than she'd ever wanted to know. By now, she was including Professor Holvatti when she brought down academics from Torrviol since his expertise in geomorphology was proving useful, even if he kept bickering with Viridian about old grudges. She'd also learned that just a whole bunch of geomancers wasn't enough, and now employed nearly a hundred skilled laborers who helped shore up the sides of the hole. Ten spell engines running at capacity were needed to pump groundwater from the site.

This was because, based on Jei's revisions to her calculations, if there was a Palendurio Monument, it was buried beneath the river in front of the Grand Sanctum.

"Yes, force the evacuation of those sections of the canals," Mirian snapped at one of the Luminate guards. "Tell them the river will be flooding those areas whether they've moved or not." She'd had to deal with that the last few cycles too, and she was sick of people being so intransigent. It seemed ridiculous to her that some people wouldn't move for a Prophet, wouldn't move for the Pontiff, wouldn't move for the Lord Governor, and resisted being moved by guards. There was a selfishness there that she found abhorrent. All they could think about was how this was affecting them personally, and how they didn't like it.

She looked over and saw Holvatti pondering a map.

He turned to her and asked, "How far down have you excavated before? It doesn't seem this map has anything about the kind of rock more than ten meters below the riverbed."

"We discussed this already. It's impermeable rock." Mirian closed her eyes. "Apologies, we didn't discuss this already. That was a different cycle. Regardless. The rock is impermeable. We can use it to build the dam that will channel the rest of the river around the dig site once we get to it. That's why the amount of stone the laborers are rafting down to us is so low," she said.

"Ah! Well, that solves it then. Or I guess, it was already solved."

Mirian moved on. She didn't like big projects like these. She didn't like supervising trench construction and barricades back when she was defending Torrviol, and she didn't like yelling at laborers when they inevitably misread the instructions she'd prepared for them. If she could have just done this all herself, she would have been much happier. However, even an archmage had limits, and digging a hole at the bottom of the Magrio River was one of them. That was especially true because she didn't know the exact location.

Everywhere, arcanists were casting spells, shaping rock or digging in thick steel pylons into the riverbed. It looked a bit like chaos, but there was an order to it. Or rather, it was chaos, but if she closed her eyes she could pretend it was orderly.

Jei visited next, and Mirian swapped to Adamic. "I don't see how it can be here," her mentor said.

"This is what you said was the likely spot last cycle. I don't remember why, I don't have the space to record things like that. Three cycles ago, I had the leyline pooling at a hundred meters downstream and partially in that district over there, while the leyline eruption path made it look like a potential Monument would be five hundred meters upstream and under that section of the canals. Naturally, Elder Monuments are completely invisible to divination spells, because of course they are, so we find it the hard way."

Jei stared at her calculations. "I'll look over them again," she said.

"No. Don't bother. It'll only matter if we don't find something here." Mirian grimaced as she watched a group of sorcerers levitate one of the support pylons directly over a group of laborers. Four cycles ago, that had led to three people getting killed. However, while these arcanists were fine building for a Prophet, 'being careful' for their Prophet was too much to ask.

Mirian's thoughts turned to the river and the canals. "It's still hard to imagine… the scale of the world. Five thousand years ago, this entire area was thirty meters lower. But before that, the limestone that the caves are a part of… was below the water. That still doesn't make any sense to me."

"Yes, well, Holvatti is an ass, but he does know how rocks work. Though his crystallography is sloppy. Don't let him in on the conduit projects."

Mirian had already found that out the hard way. "How are you doing, Jei?"

"You should call me Song. You outrank me, and you're no longer my student."

"Yeah, I know. But it feels wrong. It's been fourteen years." Mirian let out a heavy breath. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate you, Jei. You…" You'd do anything I ask without question. And it's such a relief, because there's so much to be done. "You've done so much to help this world," Mirian finished. And I wish… But she didn't even want to think it to herself.

Jei stood there, rigid. She didn't glance down at her page of equations.

Mirian could tell she wanted to. For other people it was easy to remember they didn't have any continuity, but it was harder for Jei. They'd been working together for so long. "Do whatever you think is best," she said. "We'll probably only have time to dig one more hole within the loop if this one fails to find something." Assuming the guild of geomancers doesn't rebel, she thought bitterly.

Song Jei nodded, and went back to a table. A moment later, Mirian could hear her abacus clicking. She turned her attention back to the digging effort. She would assist with it again in a few hours, once more of the river was being redirected through the canals. They'd first worked to deepen the channels there. Soon, they'd be ready to actually excavate the riverbed. Once they got through the silt, they'd hit solid stone, and then they'd see if Mirian was right about the location this time.

For two weeks, the work continued, until at last a circle of stone and steel had cordoned off a huge circle within the Magrio River. Naturally, this project had pissed off thousands of merchants as trade along the river was disrupted, but Mirian could be grateful that most goods were unloaded at the western docks, not this far east up the river. And they'd only screwed up some of the canals, not the whole network.

The work proceeded without any irregularities. Thirty meters down, there was just more bedrock. Mirian had ordered periodic boreholes be excavated to see if it was deeper than they'd thought, but she was beginning to think this loop would also be a dud.

She was just about to order they begin work for the next dig site when she spotted a commotion among the geomancers tasked with the eastern borehole, the one just below the bridge by the Grand Sanctum.

Mirian flew down. "What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing ma'am—er, I mean, your holiness," one of the men said.

One of the other geomancers kicked him in the shin.

"Ow! Why did you—?"

"Tell her," the woman said under her breath.

The man swallowed and wiped his brow. Mirian wasn't sure if people being intimidated by her was less or more annoying than being ignored. "Uh, well, we're, uh, having trouble with this borehole. It won't bore. Shape stone won't work on that stone down there," he said, pointing into the dark hole. "Force drill didn't do anything to it."

The woman geomancer blurted out, "There's an abrupt stratigraphic discontinuity. The stone's still dark, but it's not basalt. In my professional opinion. Your holiness." Obviously no one had told them the etiquette on dealing with a Prophet, because she then gave a curtsy.

"Okay, good. Please move out of the way."

There was a moment while they stared at her stupidly like she'd just started speaking to them in Adamic.

Mirian looked at them again. "Move," she said.

Then they moved, scrambling back a few feet.

"A lot farther," she said.

Finally, they seemed to get the idea and they went to go stand next to another geomancer team, who had stopped and watched as soon as Mirian had flown down.

Mirian flipped through her spellbook pages and began with shape rock. She began by undercutting large blocks of stone, then levitating those blocks away so she could get a better view of the spot. She then tried her own force drill. There was a loud grinding noise. Nothing happened. Sparks didn't even come off it. The rock seemed unharmed.

She tried a resistance-piercing drill. This time, the noise was far louder. The soul-coating around the spell seemed to shred, and she could see bright flashes of energy inside luminous smoke. She wasn't sure if anyone without a focus could see it, but she'd drawn the attention of the entire excavation crew.

Mirian cast amplify voice, only putting a fraction of her power into the spell. Still, her voice boomed across the dig site. "All arcanists and artisans are ordered to cease their work and begin excavating this area." She dismissed the spell.

We found it.

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