Chapter 271 - Excursion

Mirian watched the auroras over Alkazaria. They’d intensified dramatically over the past four days, but they were still at lower levels than usual.

She stood atop one of the towers on the central hill wearing Equinox and summoned the leyline repulsors into place. A collective murmur went through the priests and arcanists watching her. She was used to the reaction. It was one thing to know, and another to see.

Mirian began to gather her auric mana, letting it gather. “Go ahead,” she told the arcanists.

The arcanists cast, using a directed magnetic spell on her armor. The energy went through the transmutation process, becoming arcane energy that she could tap into. Measuring mana was still difficult, but from what she could tell, with Equinox, she now could gain more arcane energy than she used in defending from spells. Magnetic spells were especially safe, so she was using those.

There were still limitations, of course. The system wasn’t perfectly efficient, and would bleed off other forces. It also took her own soul at work to stabilize that system. Much like her father’s mummy soldiers, the resilience could be overcome. However, with the armor rerouting different energies into the energy-absorbing Elder artifacts, it would take an extreme amount of energy to overwhelm the system.

A leyline would do the trick.

Mirian joined the arcane energy she was leeching from the other arcanists with her own mana, then tapped into the leyline repulsors. “Repulsor” had been a poor choice of description. She had seen the Akanan airships using them and initially thought they repelled each other like a magnet, but that wasn’t quite right. They connected with the leylines. She was quite sure Eyeball and Conductor were using a similar device when they activated a Gate, though like with most things, they refused to discuss it.

Spread out in Alkazaria were a dozen leyline detectors, a device she was thoroughly sick of making. However the readings on a dozen devices would be able to sense even small changes. Despite her power, compared to the leylines, she was a raindrop falling on the Ibaihan River.

She cast through the repulsors, willing the leyline beneath Alkazaria to move.

There was a collective gasp through the crowd of priests and arcanists as they felt the sheer power of the arcane energy at work brushing up against their auras. Mirian clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, feeling the rush of energy. Sweat beaded on her forehead from the effort of it. There was another gasp as light poured from the arcane vents on the back of her armor, spreading out like luminous wings for a dozen feet in both directions.

Then she stopped, breathing hard. With the extra energy trickling in from the repulsor and from the arcanists, she’d cast at power exceeding her personal maximum for an entire minute. It would take some time to recover from that.

A few hours later, the data from the leyline detectors came in. A high ranking wizard from one of the local academies, whose name she’d forgotten several times now, read out the results.

She’d moved the Alkazaria leyline a fraction of a degree. It had reverted back to its initial position almost instantly.

It was a start.

That she could do it at all was a triumph. Many of the leyines beneath Enteria were in flux. With correct timing, and positioning, she could potentially redirect the route one was taking. Done far enough upstream of the cascade, even a fraction of a percent change might be enough to move more leylines into the zones where the Gates could pick up and transmit the magical energy.

 ***

The loop ended on the 17th, significantly earlier than Mirian’s forecast. The destabilization of the antimagic and tertiary fields on Divir must be having a greater effect than I realized, she thought as she woke in her dorm room.

Then she manifested Equinox to herself, marveling at the beauty of the design.

The sound of armor clinking together and rush of wind as air was displaced woke Lily. Usually, she just gaped at her. This time, as soon as her glasses were on, she scrambled back, bumping into the far wall. “What in the five hells!” she screamed. “Who are you? What are you…?”

“This is the 253rd time we’ve had this conversation,” Mirian said, using a quick spell to patch the damage the temporal anchor had done on its way in. “I’m a new Prophet. I apologize I can’t explain more, but there’s work to be done.” And with that, she levitated out the door.

***

Over the next few months, Mirian did in fact work on figuring out how to make her divination devices more resilient to antimagic bombardment. The most effective materials were the soul-infused metals, but the entire reason she’d bothered to retrieve the mythril on Divir was because such metals were time consuming to make. Mundane materials like lead, usually so effective at stopping any sort of energy from passing, did nothing to stop what she was now calling “anti-arcane” energy. The only other thing that seemed to work were fragments of the Labyrinth itself, which she could harvest in tiny amounts by drilling into it—inevitably leading to the Labyrinth summoning things to attack her—or larger amounts, but only after leyline eruptions had pushed smoldering chunks of it to the surface. Presumably, it was because a four-dimensional material was better at blocking anything related to the arcane force.

The tests were successful, but were all done by finding antimagic areas of the Labyrinth and slamming arcane energy into them while the devices sat nearby. They didn’t at all test the tertiary field.

However, it did give her something that plausibly could have taken as much time as she claimed to develop. On the fifth month of the cycle, Nerevain, the Prophets all assembled by the Palendurio Gate. By then, Mirian had dug a proper stone shaft and passage so that they could all take an elevator down. She’d drilled through the solid stone, then used stone shaping to make sure nothing was porous. The resulting passage could take them under the river without dealing with the water or needing to reform the drilled stone.

She arrived at the warehouse she’d bought to find Gabriel poking around at the steel cylinders. “What’re these for?” he asked.

“Air to bring through the Gate. If I don’t contain it in steel, when it releases during the teleportation transition, the violent expansion could hurt someone.”

“Interesting,” he said, and started messing with one of the screw-lids.

“Don’t,” Mirian warned. “I already filled them with compressed air.”

He stopped. “Oh.” After a bit of contemplation, he said, “You know, there’s probably a safer way to do it. A way to gradually release the air mechanically… hmm.”

“Yes, I’m sure there is.” The Viaterrians had clearly known how to manipulate air without magic. She wasn’t going to waste more time on mundane inventions, though.

Mirian then began redirecting the Gate to different destinations. First was Zhighua. As soon as the magic had settled, Zhuan stepped through with several scholars in tow.

“That’s going to make things crowded,” Gabriel noted.

“Yes, but I want to know if there’s variations in the subjective experience of viewing the Ominian,” Zhuan said.

“Why?” Gabriel asked.

Zhuan pointedly ignored him and continued the conversation she’d been having with her scholars. The scholars were doing their best not to look shaken, but they’d just teleported across the continent and were now in the presence of three Prophets. Gabriel couldn’t help but exude a casual confidence that he was looking through you. And Mirian—well. She’d stopped trying to not look intimidating. Even without Equinox on, the fact that she’d taken to casually levitating around unnerved most people, and her glowing eyes only added to that.

If they were already frightened, things were going to get worse for them.

Mirian redirected the Gate to Uxalak next. Xecatl, always reluctant to leave Tlaxhuaco, had agreed that witnessing the Ominian and the strange energies on Divir was worth risking. She had communed with Ceiba Yan a few days prior, so at least some of her progress and memories of this cycle would be maintained. Mirian had already noticed that Xecatl’s communion with the Sacred Tree sometimes left out little details when the next cycle started. They were a point of vulnerability for the Empress. She didn’t like it, but there was also little she could do about it; the temporal anchor was not actually hers.

She arrived with a retinue of four nagual.

It is going to be crowded up there.

It took another hour for Liuan to arrive. She had seven priests with her. “Yes, but do you need all of them?” she overheard Gabriel asking her. Then Jherica and Celen showed up with three wizards and an archmage in tow. Mirian recognized the archmage, though had forgotten his name. She’d killed him in the skies over Torrviol.

It was strange to see Celen walking around. The last time she’d seen him was when she was checking to see if anything had changed. She’d seen his head blown apart by a fireball more than she’d actually seen him living and breathing. In her mind, he was a tragedy, a corpse, a mistake—not a person. He had met Liuan and Xecatl already, and of course, Jherica had been mentoring him, so first he shook hands with Zhuan. Then he came over to Mirian.

“So you’re the Baracueli Prophet?” he asked, offering a hand.

“No. I am a Prophet of all of Enteria. We would all do better if we all thought of ourselves that way.”

Celen gave a nervous laugh. “Maybe. Still feels strange to be part of… this. So much time has gone by.”

Time you spent hiding in death and dreams, Mirian thought.

“Always been a swift hand at spells, but this…” He gave another nervous laugh.

Jherica had talked about Celen in the dream. He was, by Jherica and Liuan’s account, better at writing than talking. Mirian could certainly see that. He was working on developing articles and letters that could better convince either people in power or the general populace to do what the Prophets needed.

“Have you developed the effectiveness of your propaganda? I’m interested in updates on your techniques and arguments.” Zhuan said to Celen.

“It’s not propaganda. It’s persuasion.”

Zhuan gave him a blank stare, the kind she gave people when she thought they’d said something particularly stupid.

“It’s not the same thing at all!” he protested.

“Are you attempting to promote a particular cause, doctrine, and point of view using specially curated information and rhetorical strategies?”

“But it sounds so manipulative when you say it that way,” Celen muttered. Mirian decided the Mercanton Prophet reminded her of a mix of Gabriel and Jherica.

“When you open your mouth to deceive others, you do them a disservice. When you tell lies to yourself, you commit a far greater sin. If you are playing with the meaning of language to absolve yourself of a perceived transgression, then you should reevaluate the political project you serve and the ethical code that led you there. Are your thoughts your own, or are you simply being pushed into beliefs by the currents of social norms and flows of economic pressures?”

Whatever Celen said next, Mirian didn’t catch. It seemed to be some sort of excuse, though, because he returned to Jherica.

Of all the Prophets, Mirian understood why the Ominian chose Celen the least. Perhaps she hadn’t seen far enough. Perhaps his pen would still be valuable.

In this moment, though, she despised him.

Ibrahim signaled his arrival when there was a loud crack! from the elevator shaft. When Mirian cast detect life, she noted Ibrahim hadn’t bothered to use the moving platform. Instead, he’d jumped down the shaft, cracking some of the stone as he landed.

“Ah, we’re all here,” he said as he entered, dusting off his hands.

“Is everyone ready?” Mirian asked the room. She heard murmurs of assent. “I will be controlling the air bubble around the group. Don’t stray too far. The Gate is atop the Mausoleum, and there are no stairs down. Who needs assistance levitating?”

“Sacred One, it would be improper of us to ask that you carry us,” one of the priests blurted out, kneeling on the ground as he spoke.

“It would be less proper if you fell and made a mess. The gravity is weaker up there, but not to the extent you are likely to survive the jump. Unless you are a trained dervish?”

The priest backed away, bowing and muttering apologies. Liuan wasn’t giving him a death glare, but Mirian could tell she wanted to.

After they had taken care of that matter, Mirian briefly discussed the protections she would be putting in place to shield them from the Ominian’s visage. “I will maintain the air from the entrance gate to as far forward as I can. Should the entropic field or tertiary field disrupt my spells—which is likely, I might add—I would suggest all other mages be prepared to cast gather air spells. Though—remember not to fear death. This is not the final cycle.”

Probably, that last line had induced a crisis of faith in several of the non-Prophets present. Mirian blinked up to the conduit room and redirected the Gate.

Mirian took several trips through the Gate first, moving her divination machines through and out of the way, then putting the steel cylinders full of air into position. “Now follow,” she said.

They made their way through.

Mirian burst open two of the steel cylinders as the group arrived. There were gasps of awe, kneeling, praying, and shaking from the non-Prophets, but she paid little enough attention to them. As she levitated her divination devices to different spots around Divir, she watched the other Prophets.

Xecatl stopped and stood, gazing out at Enteria. Her breathing slowed.

Jherica was talking excitedly, mostly to Celen, pointing out the continents beyond the known world. Celen was staring out dumbfounded. Unlike the other Prophets, he clearly wasn’t used to the impossible yet.

Ibrahim stood next to Xecatl, first looking out. Then he knelt, touched his forehead to the ground in prayer, then stood.

Liuan looked out at Enteria, gaze inscrutable, then began looking at the other Prophets. Zhuan did the same. Cut from the same cloth, but a very different pattern, Mirian thought.

Gabriel smiled and shook his head. “You think we might be able to set up a restaurant here?” But even Gabriel didn’t seem to think his joke was funny. He was putting on that facade again. A mask of amusement to hide his true feelings.

They descended down. Mirian used mass hold person as she levitated them to the ground, moving the steel cylinders with them. Then she waited a moment as the Prophets and their retinues examined the sight. The remnants of the ritual circle had lost all magic, but the engravings, lined with bone, were still visible. The piles and piles of dessicated corpses chilled even the most stoic members of the group. Mirian glanced towards the dais. No mythril armor. Bits of the scepter had survived, but the soul-infused metals and titan catalyst were gone. Mirian burst open another steel cylinder of air to accommodate the way people were spreading out.

“So you analyzed these already?” Gabriel asked, running a finger along the edge of where a rune had once been.

She and Zhuan both had done so in the dreamscape first, but there was no need to tell him that. “Yes. Hence my belief they were attempting to heal the Ominian.”

“Or create an undead God,” Liuan said. At Mirian’s skeptical eyebrow, she said, “Some sects of the Church have maintained an oral history of the mistakes of the Triarchs. The Luminates wanted the records destroyed, but others had more wisdom. Humanity’s greatest mistakes should be remembered. Any magic that has been forgotten can be rediscovered. It is only history that must be preserved intentionally.”

Interesting. It wasn’t the perspective she expected from the Akanan.

“The great mistake wasn’t attempting to cast an abominable spell,” Zhuan said from a few steps back. “The great mistake was allowing conditions to form where a few fools could dictate all in the first place. The more power that accumulates at the top of a pyramid, the more likely the whole edifice collapses catastrophically. Hmm… perhaps such a catastrophe is already developing?”

Liuan looked like she was about to respond, but Gabriel interrupted her, giving a big yawn for effect. “Are we going to have a debate again? If so, I can take a nap.”

“We are here for one purpose,” Ibrahim said. He looked away from the piled up dead and towards the great doors of the Mausoleum. The dark stone-like material reflected the sun in strange ways. Even outside, the stone seemed to shift as one moved. There was an unnerving feeling that reality was on a shaky foundation here. Already, Mirian could see the group tensing up as they approached.

“We are,” Mirian agreed, and raised her hand to cast. With a simple force spell, the doors to the Mausoleum of the Ominian swung open.