The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy-Chapter 188 - 187 - Divine Mysteries

By the end of the cycle, Mirian's preliminary measurements on leyline activity in Akana Praediar were complete. Lecne and his faithful had also completed their reconnaissance.

"Prophet," Lecne said, kneeling. "There is someone spreading messages about a different Prophet in Arborholm. One group that was part of the Church of the Ominian attempted to force their way into the military base near the city. They failed, and provoked a mass arrest of heretics. However, three days later, artificers from the Rosen Corporation went into the secure hangers of those dreadnoughts. Based on our information provided by agents of the criminal underworld, we suspect they did something under the guise of repairing them, though it is unclear what. Maruce and Pelnu also think there were irregularities during the assassination attempt on the Prime Minister. We have prepared a more detailed report that includes the times and days of notable events."

Lecne's tone had become much more formal. It didn't feel like him at all. She didn't like it. She thought of Shiamagoth. The longer I stay in the time loop, the more I become something incomprehensible to a normal person.

"Very good," was what she said. It was good to have her suspicions confirmed.

She sat down with the report the Cult of Zomalator had prepared and began to study it. Lecne stood by and answered any questions she had about it.

On the 7th of Duala, a broadsheet from Vadriach discussed rumors that the army sent from Arborholm to attack Baracuel was supposed to have included two secret airships. Mirian looked at the paper, eyes widening. The airships didn't launch?

She could no longer delay. There was a twisted knot in her gut, but that anxiety that this other time traveler was her enemy—she couldn't listen to it. She had to know. She had to discard her fear. The truth is more important.

***

Arborholm had once had a great forest that surrounded it. Now, it was surrounded by pastures that contained a domesticated variety of the bison and sprawling farmland full of monoculture crops. It was nothing like the traditional farms up by Torrviol. It was strange to see no spellward barriers surrounding the city—but then again, what would they be protecting it from?

Arborholm itself wasn't older than Mercanton, but more of the old structures still stood so it looked like it. Many of the buildings were made out of the colossal trees that the city had been named after instead of the brick, plaster, or stone construction Mirian was used to seeing. There seemed to be a trend in the city where the walls of buildings were painted white and the roofs blue. At least, Mirian thought, this place is more subdued. She was tired of dodging spellcarts and huge crowds. Arborholm was more spread out, and there were nice parks around where spots of green broke up the neighborhoods.

Mirian had come alone this loop. If it came to a fight, she didn't want to have to worry about anyone else. She had bound her soulbound spellbook to an arcanist's chain so it hung by her belt and kept her mythril amulet around her neck. Eclipse was in a sheath on her hip. Regardless of the outcome, she didn't want to alert the other time traveler to soulbound objects.

It was the 4th of Solem already, so she was sure that if the other traveler was in Arborholm, she had already started her preparations. She went to one of the churches that Lecne's group had identified and knocked on the door. Detect life showed there was a man inside, but he wasn't making his way to the door. Mirian telekinetically opened the lock and walked inside.

A priest was sitting at a desk, likely scribing a sermon. He started as the door opened. "Who are you?" he demanded. "You're trespassing."

"A Prophet cannot trespass," she said simply.

"You aren't…" he started to say, then trailed off. Even before she'd drawn the Blade of the Fourth Prophet, he could see something in her.

"Embrace your celestial focus," she said.

He started trembling, and then he fell to his knees. "Prophet. I—I apologize. You have… but she… I don't understand."

"There's another Prophet." She, the priest had said. "I wish to meet her."

"But how can there be two?"

"Has the Ominian ever proclaimed such a thing was impossible?"

The priest started bobbing his head like a chicken. "Of course, of course you're right, holy one. Only… she didn't say where she was going."

She kept her tone formal. "I am Mirian. What is her name?"

"She is the holy Liuan Var," the priest said.

Hmm. That's a Zhighuan first name, but an Akanan last name. "Spread the word that another of the Ominian's chosen wishes to meet the holy Liuan Var. Whatever congregations and faithful know of her, they should know of me as well. Tell her I will meet her in Great Tree Park in the oak grove at noon tomorrow."

"Yes, holy one," the priest said.

Mirian left and went to the next church on her list.

***

Mirian sat by the tallest oak tree in the park and waited. Outwardly, she was calm, but her insides were twisting. She'd set up several wards around the park the night before, but she'd deliberately limited them to only a few specific functions so she didn't scare the other time traveler off.

She'd been in the form of the Dusk Waves for hours at this point, ready to jump into action at a moment's notice. Yes, she had an incredible amount of spell resistance coming from all three of her soulbound items, but she'd already thought of five different ways to kill someone in her own position without spells. Two of them involved artillery. But she doesn't know about your strengths and weaknesses. Probably, she thought.

Mirian was also using her focus in combination with a celestial spell to expand her soul sight. She needed to see the souls in detail. Plenty of people were looking at her as they passed by, but she was only looking for one thing: anyone with a void in their soul.

Another hour passed. At last, a priest walked up to her. He was sweating like he expected to explode at any moment. Mirian continued to lounge as he approached.

"Holy one, holy Liuan Var has agreed to meet with you, but you must leave your sword and spellbook by this tree."

Mirian looked around. There were other priests around the park watching her, but she couldn't see the other time traveler. The other time traveler was assuming she'd set up a trap of some sort, but the fact that shells weren't falling and she didn't see an Akanan military brigade was already a good sign. "Very well," she said, standing. What she didn't want was Liuan Var examining her spellbook. That wouldn't be easy to do with all her protections on the binding—it would burn another person's soul if they even tried to touch it, never mind the rest of the wards—but Mirian had the remove temporal anchor spell in there. But, if Liuan Var or her agents were watching, she also didn't want to just dismiss the spellbook.

She unclasped the chain from the book and cast force drill into the nearby ground, digging deeper with shape earth and then shape stone. She decreased the stability of the hole, then tossed the blade and the book inside the hole. As soon as they hit the bottom, she slammed the ground with a Phoenix form-enhanced stomp so that the items were buried.

Just to be careful, she de-manifested them so they rejoined her soul—but any observers wouldn't see that part.

"Take me to her," she said.

The priest bowed. He was still sweating despite the cool day.

Mirian kept her placid facade, but on the inside, she was still twisting. It's a trap, a voice told her. She'll be just like Troytin. She'll curse you and—

No. Stay calm. This is your chance. You need this. Enteria needs this.

The priest led her to a large stone building. It was a public hall of some sort. With her focus, she could see there were no runes. Without her spellbook, though, she couldn't see if there were glyphs present. Not knowing bothered her.

A thought struck her. Wait, I use the celestial focus to manifest itself. Is there any reason I can't use the catalyst when it's part of my soul? As she walked, she visualized it, the titan catalyst within its binding. Her control over her own soul was superb at this point. She embraced it—

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And could sense her mana.

It gave her comfort.

It also gave her another idea: was it possible to run mana through the glyphs of the spellbook even though it was in its soul-form? Now is not the time to test that, she chided herself.

She stopped by the threshold of the door. Her arcane sense was tingling, which meant there was casting, but she needed to at least try to trust this other. Probably divination spells looking for wands or weapons. It's what I would do in her situation.

Mirian took a breath to steady her nerves and walked in.

This was some sort of city government building. Past the entrance hall, there were several guards holding rifles and a large open room for meetings. The room held a dozen or so people. Two were priests and the rest an assortment of people Mirian didn't recognize. It seemed the other time traveler could quickly make allies of sorts.

A woman, half-Zhiguan and half-Akanan, sat behind an ornate desk. Mirian examined her as she approached and her soul came into focus. Not her. There was no void. She looked around.

An Aborholm guard stood by the door she'd just come through. He looked perfectly normal, which meant that Liuan Var was quite proficient at illusions. The hole in the soul just by the heart, however, was unmistakable. She turned to the guard. "Liuan Var, I presume," she said.

There was a collective gasp around the room.

She could see the other woman's jaw clench. "You have a focus then."

"I do," Mirian admitted.

Liuan Var dismissed the illusion around herself. She resembled the woman who'd sat behind the desk, only her eyes were darker, and her face a little rounder. She could see the tension in the other traveler's neck. She actually was wearing a guard's steel breastplate, and she had a pistol by her side.

"I will not attack first," Mirian said, holding up her hands to show they were empty. "If you don't plan on attacking me, you have nothing to fear."

But there was fear in the other woman's eyes. If she's in Akana, she must have dealt with Troytin. She must also know that Troytin has been removed from the loop. And she likely knows I'm responsible. And she can see my soul.

Mirian turned and sat down at the table. "I want to talk to you about saving Enteria. None of us can do it alone."

Liuan looked around the room. "Disciples, leave," she commanded. There was a moment of hesitation, and then the room began to clear. When it was empty, she stood by the head of the table across from Mirian. "You've talked to the others, then?"

"No," Mirian said. "I've seen Jherica and Celen, but it's beyond my power to talk to either." She was revealing critical information—that she couldn't break a mind curse—but to build trust, she would need to take risks. "I'm not risking talking to Ibrahim yet. I'm talking to you because you took action to stop the Akanan airships from reaching Torrviol and destroying the Divine Monument. I'm hoping you don't believe this time loop is a contest. I'm hoping you understand this apocalypse is something we need to stop together. Together, we are stronger than we are alone."

She could see Liuan relaxing slightly. "How exactly do you propose we do that?" she asked.

"We need to keep the leylines under Persama stable to keep the Divir moon suspended. Through a network of conduits, its theoretically possible to stabilize the leylines. Then, I've recently discovered we need to cut spell engine usage drastically to prevent the buildup of more volatile arcane energy. Obviously, the hard part is actually manufacturing and deploying passive-siphon conduits to the depths where the leylines run."

Liuan looked at her, face impossible to read. "You actually believe that?"

Mirian's jaw clenched. "Do you disagree with my assessment?"

"It's not that. It's that nothing you just said is possible in thirty days."

"If you can unite Akana Praediar, and I can unify Baracuel, and Ibrahim can unify Persama—perhaps we can. Each of us is positioned to start a cascade of changes in key locations."

Liuan continued to stand.

"Unless you have a better plan?"

"Not really. I've thought the Divine Weapons beneath Baracuel—"

"Divine Monuments. There's no reason to believe they're weapons," Mirian interrupted. But she already knows about them, like Troytin did. Troytin hadn't known about any Monuments in Akana, so that meant Liuan had some inroads to either military intelligence or the RID.

"Sure," Liuan said, sounding mildly annoyed. "The point is, the divine mysteries must be the key. That's what I've been investigating. Jherica had a theory. Before he was… incapacitated."

"I can tell you that if the divine mysteries are the key, the Luminate Order doesn't have any locks." Mirian made a face. "That metaphor sounded better in my head. But what have you found?"

"Not much yet. You don't seem to be… afraid of Sulvorath anymore," Liuan said. "Do you know what happened?"

She's fishing for information. Mirian was willing to share some information, but not that. "I checked up on him when he stopped attacking me. Somehow, he seems to have been removed from the loop." The lie came easily. She'd prepared it in advance.

"I spent a lot of time avoiding him. He'd mobilized the RID here. When we first met together, Jherica told Sulvorath where they started each loop. I lied, and that was all that kept me from getting ambushed too. I didn't find out what he'd done to Celen until later." She looked at Mirian. There was a confidence behind her eyes that Mirian recognized. And a cunning. "I'm not sorry to have him gone, but I am troubled by it. It was the Ominian's divine grace that put us here. What happened shouldn't have been possible."

"Perhaps that divine grace was revoked," Mirian said.

"Perhaps," Liuan said. Mirian could guess her thinking, though. If she'd had the same dreams as her, then she knew the Ominian wasn't exactly active. "Why didn't you go to Ibrahim before coming to me?"

"When Sulvorath was active? Because if I'd gone to him and he marked me as an enemy, then I'd be fleeing from two Prophets. Now? Because he's recruited the arch-necromancer Atroxcidi, and we should both fear what kind of damage to the soul that man can do." That wasn't the whole story. The problem with telling Liuan the whole story is that the vast majority of Mirian's time had been spent investigating the Labyrinth, acquiring relicarium, and then applying it to a holy relic. It had been researching a way to remove Troytin. None of that was information she wanted Liuan to have, because then she could attempt to use that to gain an advantage over Mirian. And I don't want that. I don't want anyone to have power over me ever again.

And therein lay a problem with power. Once you had it, it was hard to let go. That was part of the problem they were facing with all the leaders of the world. General Corrmier wouldn't want to lay down his arms. Pontif Oculo didn't want to admit his plans would come to ash, and he needed to bow before another. Sylvester Aurum wanted to stay atop his golden tower.

"Let's start at the beginning. I spent two years fighting the Akanan military invasion to stop them from destroying the Divine Monument. You're right—they're critical—but I don't know how yet. All I know is that saving the Monument gives us two extra days in the cycle, and blowing it up causes the leylines to destabilize that much faster."

"That explains a lot," Liuan muttered.

Mirian then spun a much-summarized tale next. She told Liuan of 'Sulvorath' cursing her, then evading him and finding heretics like Lecne to help her learn soul magic. She talked about all the efforts she spent disrupting events so that the initial conditions cascaded into unpredictable timelines. She didn't mention Frostland's Gate or the Labyrinth. "Once I started my research on the leylines, I worked to do it in secret. I found a myrvite titan resting on one of the leylines, and thought perhaps it was destabilizing them. It took quite some time to gather a large enough army to kill the thing, and then it turned out not to be the problem anyways. Shortly thereafter, Sulvorath disappeared. Once I realized he was actually gone, I continued my research and started looking for other Prophets. Except for Ibrahim. I don't know what in the five hells he's doing, but I don't get the sense he's trying to save Enteria. What about you?"

Liuan had relaxed somewhat, now that Mirian was being open with her, but she could still see a tension in the other Prophet. "I spent the first year bumbling around ineffectively. Sulvorath invited me and Jherica to confer with him, but it was a trap to learn our initial starting locations and then curse us. I was cursed too, but he didn't know where I actually started, so I was able to find priests who would break the curse. Like you, I learned soul magic shortly thereafter, then worked to make sure he wouldn't. Jherica had an idea about the origin of moonfall, but Sulvorath incapacitated him before I could learn anything more. You talked of seizing the levers of power in Torrviol? I seized the levers of power in the churches here. That gave me an organization that could resist the RID and keep me hidden. The RID has the secret telegraph network and seems a lot more competent than the Department of Public Security in your country, so it took most of my effort just to stay hidden. I also had to learn arcanism from scratch. I didn't know magic at all before this loop started."

Mirian was reading between the lines there. You know I left things out of my story, so you're leaving things out too, she realized. Trust isn't built in a day, I suppose.

Liuan continued. "There was knowledge about the Prophets and the divine mysteries. The problem is, when the Luminate Order split with the Church of the Ominian, secretive sects took that knowledge and went into hiding. Tracking it down has been a pain."

She nodded. "And what have you found?" She expected perhaps she'd found one of the holy relics. After all three of the relics in the holy vaults of the Grand Sanctum had been forgeries. Presumably, the Church were the ones who had taken them during the split. That was what Oculo had thought.

She didn't expect what Liuan said.

"That the Ominian is dead," she said.

The words echoed in the large chamber, emphasizing the silence that followed.

Mirian looked at her. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Nevertheless, it is one of the deepest mysteries of the Church. And it's not just one secret society or one church. Dig deep enough in the old orders, and they all will tell it to you."

"Why even entertain the notion?" Mirian asked. "You've seen Them. Sitting upon the throne. Unwell, perhaps, but not dead."

"Hence why I'm looking to understand the divine mysteries better. Jherica seemed to have figured out something about it early on. I just wish they had told us. I didn't think it was important at the time."

Mirian thought. "Then you should continue to pursue that. But I would ask that you also set yourself to another task. We have an opportunity not just to save Enteria, but to stop a bloody war. Can you figure out how to stop the assassination of Kinsman and prevent the invasion?"

Liuan smiled. "Of course. I was already working on it."

There was still a knot of nerves inside Mirian, a bunch of what ifs twirling in her head, but there was a new feeling now: relief.

She'd found an ally.