Chapter 258 - The Council of Dead Futures

Mirian established the Gates as she had the last cycle, then went through the Jiandzhi Gate and flew south to retrieve Zhuan. Their contact in the Ominian’s Dream was periodic, but enough for them to coordinate. Since her visit to Baracuel, Zhuan had begun to ask her endless questions about the political dynamics, official organizations, positions of factions, and class dynamics. More than anything, she seemed obsessed with economics and trade, things Mirian had mostly been ignoring since she could essentially conjure money out of thin air to get whatever she wanted. She told this to Zhuan as they flew back north.

“What is efficient and successful for a small group is often destructive at large scale. Poison is in the dose,” Zhuan explained to her.

That was true enough, but Mirian still found it hard to focus on Zhuan’s theories. Much of it involved modeling the flow of information among people, and Mirian was very tired of explaining things to people who would just forget. She tried to pay attention, but often found her mind drifting. It was the cosmic mysteries that held her attention. It was Enteria. It was the apocalypse.

When they arrived back in Palendurio, there was a letter for Mirian from Gabriel indicating he’d departed Urubandar and was making his way up north. The direct route to the archipelago was, on paper, faster, but only if one ignored the time they’d spend in a leviathan’s digestive tract if they made the attempt. Gabriel, still reluctant to be eaten by anything, was taking the safe route where he’d sail north until they reached the southern crossing of the Rift Sea. Mirian thought if he took the Mahatan Gate to Torrviol it would be quicker, but with a fast cutter, it wasn’t a meaningful difference. Likely, he’d show up last. Ibrahim hadn’t said anything, but she knew he wouldn’t. He’d just show up.

Jherica mentioned in a letter that arrived just before they set sail that Liuan was ‘annoyed,’ but had said she’d attend. Mirian already knew Xecatl would be attending. She’d coordinated with Jherica, and Xecatl had suggested the island in the first place.

Mirian spent most of the boat ride from Palendurio to Vadriach in contemplation. The waves moved across the sea in patterns that shifted and overlapped, but there were mathematical—and glyphic—ways to describe them perfectly. Those same patterns were in the clouds, sometimes flowing like a river across the sky, sometimes breaking into fractal drifts. The way heat rose from her breath could be replicated. The sound of her heartbeat could be written in glyphs. The way it pushed the currents of her soul, written in runes.

***

When Mirian’s ship reached the chosen island, she spotted an argument already in progress. Four Akanan skiffs had landed near a Tlaxhuacan honor guard and were bickering about—something. Whatever it was they were arguing about, they stopped when they noticed Mirian levitating over, wisps of silver light trailing, eyes glowing with subdued fire. She extended her aura subtly with the Hand of Shadow dervish stance so that her presence was felt and they knew they were annoying her.

“Is there a problem?” she asked.

The Akanans had mostly gone pale, while the Tlaxhuacans stepped back warily. Each group looked between Mirian and their commanding officer.

“Prophet Mirian,” the Tlaxhuacan leader said, making a gesture of respect. “There was a… disagreement about the territory allocated to each honor guard.”

She shook her head. It was such a petty thing to fight over. “I will simplify things.” She moved higher up, then manipulated the stone of the island to create jagged fence posts throughout the interior, dividing it into neat sevenths, minus a circular area in the center. There, she began to create a domed structure, with stone chairs arranged in a circle around a table. She made sure to have spacious gaps in the structure to let in Yiaverunan’s light. There were several trees in the way, so she used manipulate wood to wind them into spiraling columns that reinforced the stone. The design seemed bland, though, so she used beams of fire to melt parts of the stone into the fractal patterns she’d been thinking about, which then cooled into obsidian. After several hours of work, she examined the result and found it satisfactory. The meeting hall was badly in need of decorations and cushions, but it would serve. She could always make a cushion of air to sit on.

By then, the guards from the two nations had stopped arguing. In fact, they seemed quite content to leave each other alone.

That was also satisfactory. Mirian began modifying a spell engine she and Zhuan had bought in Palendurio that would copy documents. She wanted the other Prophets to be able to review her designs, but the machine was having trouble copying the subtler details of her schematics.

***

Xecatl arrived two days later, and Mirian updated her on the details of what had happened in Zhighua. Then, Zhuan stepped in and began subjecting the Tlaxhuacan emperor to such an overwhelming bombardment of questions that a crack Akanan artillery division would have been green with envy. Ibrahim arrived that evening, piloting his own small sailboat, alone. He talked with Xecatl briefly, then found a tall rock to meditate on.

Jherica and Liuan arrived the next morning with another group of Akanans. There was another round of introductions. What Mirian didn’t expect was that Liuan’s handshake with Zhuan was just as cold as her handshake with Xecatl. Jherica had mustered their own delegation of scholars, and Mirian was pleased to see they were mingling equally with Akanans and Tlaxhuacans.

Finally, Gabriel arrived on a luxurious yacht, which he parked in the bay, rather than having it drop off supplies like the other boats had done. It was too shallow for leviathans to swim, at least. If the apocalypse could have been solved by silk cushions, rare wine vintages, and the best of Persaman cooking, they’d have it solved by the end of the day. Gabriel had made sure his transportation was absolutely loaded with supplies, and when he saw Mirian’s council chamber, he laughed and ordered pillows and carpets delivered to it. However, he outright rejected the idea he would be staying in the area Mirian had mapped out. While Liuan and Jherica were both staying in Akanan commander field tents, Xecatl’s nagual had half-built and half-grown a cottage for her. Gabriel, though, was content with his luxury cabin aboard his ship.

Mirian made herself a little stone tower and fortified it with wards out of habit.

That evening, the Prophets ate and mingled, along with any of the retinues they’d brought.

If anyone had noticed that Xecatl didn’t have a temporal anchor, they hadn’t mentioned it. Perhaps they weren’t, like Mirian, constantly checking other people’s souls. Or perhaps they were saving the knowledge as ammunition to be deployed later.

***

The next morning, the Third Council of Prophets immediately started with a conflict.

“We should be able to bring members of our retinue to listen to the discussion,” Liuan insisted after Mirian told her to leave the group outside.

“Agreed,” Xecatl said, to Mirian’s surprise.

“Why?” Mirian asked. She could guess the answer for Xecatl—if she were assassinated, the nagual with her could still communicate some memories to the Sacred Tree. None of the others had a similar vulnerability.

Liuan spoke again. “Because the decisions we make affect our nations. Like it or not, we will need heads of government to back what we do, so we need to come to agreements that are amenable to them.”

Mirian looked to Zhuan, and saw in her expression the loudest silence she’d ever heard.

“Seems fair,” Gabriel said, already reclining. He’d done a bit of work on his stone chair so he could lean back in it. Notably, neither he nor Ibrahim had actually brought anyone to consult, though.

Ibrahim said, “I don’t care.”

“This is a request that could have easily been communicated in the planning stage. It’s a little late to fetch my advisors,” Zhuan said. “Your tacit assumptions about who is required to enact policy is also biased. You—” she said, pointing at one of the Akanans dressed in finery behind Liuan. “How many gold florins is your estate worth?”

Liuan raised an eyebrow. “He doesn’t speak Friian.”

“Then he was a foolish person to bring to this meeting that we are conducting in Friian.”

Meanwhile, an interpreter was at work whispering in the man’s ear.

“What are the rules of this summit? Am I required to answer questions of representatives?” Mirian heard the man quietly say in Eskinar.

Liuan, hearing that, said to the Council, “I move that our retinue cannot be interrogated.”

“We haven’t even established you’re allowed to have a retinue,” Zhuan snapped.

“If a majority of the Council isn’t enough to establish rules not related to parliamentary personal privilege, then how exactly are we going to decide things that aren’t consensus?” Gabriel turned to look at Mirian with a raised eyebrow.

Mirian was silent.

“Is the Council going to bicker like children again?” Ibrahim asked. “Have them here. Don’t have them here. Get advice. Leave it. You might as well give names to falling drops of rain.”

Zhuan, meanwhile, had opened up a copy of her book and turned to the back pages that were full of charts and equations. “One hundred and fifteen thousand florins, though the valuation is several years out of date,” she said. “Will your commoners be allowed equal influence in these discussions, Exalted Liuan?”

“Are you spying on me and my advisors?” Liuan demanded. “We agreed there would be no—”

Gabriel burst out laughing. “You already know who Zhuan Li is. She’s referencing her book that was published several years ago. A book you’ve clearly read, by the way, or your eyes wouldn’t turn into knives when you look at her. Did you seriously expect the woman who used Akana Praediar’s industrialists as a case study to not recognize the acting head of Akana’s Senate and tenth wealthiest family in the country? There’s an entire chapter on how corruption can be completely legal and he’s the case study. Stow the mock outrage. It won’t fool any of the people here who matter.”

Liuan’s eyes narrowed, but she sat back.

“I must object to the characterization that—” the man started.

“Silence,” Mirian said to him, fixing him with a glare. “I find myself agreeing with Ibrahim. It matters not who is here to listen as long as we Prophets are here. But the retinues have no standing, no rights, and no capability to remember anything that happens here. They are not representatives. Nor are we representatives of nations, either. We are here for Enteria. ”

“We sort of are representatives of nations,” Gabriel said.

“Let us begin with the actual problem. Through manipulation of the Gates, I have been able to delay moonfall to Plenith the 12th, giving us five months and twelve days to work with. With further refinements, we may be able to extend this, especially if the Tlaxhuacan Gate is found. Emperor Xecatl?”

“Most of our historical archives were burned during the Akanan occupation, so we’ve had to rely on archaeological and geological surveys. We’ve eliminated several areas, but there’s still—”

“Akana did not occupy Talxhuaco—” Liuan’s rich advisor interjected as a translator continued to whisper in his ear.

This time, Mirian picked him up with lift person and removed him from the room, the spell rocketing him to the far corner of the island. Liuan’s group of Akanans went wide-eyed, but they had the sense to stay quiet.

Liuan's face went red. “I would have said his point if he hadn’t. This isn’t the time to discuss historical grievances—”

“Oh?” Ibrahim said, raising an eyebrow. “Because the occupation of Persama and Zhighua is ongoing. My wife’s blood is still wet on the stones of Rambalda. My family’s bones have still not been picked clean. Akana still receives shipments of fossilized myrvite from my country. Right now, I have good friends whose hands are blistering from swinging a pickaxe. What will happen to Akana Praediar if they stop? I hear there is no fossilized myrvite at all in your country. How strange.”

“We will need spell engines to stop this, so with respect to your—”

“Will we?” Mirian asked. “Liuan, I haven’t seen your designs for a leyline regulator. May I?”

Liuan grit her teeth and sat back in her chair.

Mirian rose from her seat and stood before the Council. “As I have proposed before, I have planned a device that will be able to calm the leylines around Mayat Shadr, keeping Divir from falling. Such a device will need to be paired with a rapid phase-out of spell engine technology. Before we continue, does anyone have any counter-proposals?”

The room was silent. Mirian knew Ibrahim still was unsure if the loop would end at God’s command once certain criteria had been met. She suspected Liuan held a similar view. Ceiba Yan, the great tree south of them, felt a sickness in the soil and thought to heal it, which was close enough to Mirian’s view that she considered them aligned. Jherica and Zhuan were both fine with Mirian’s scientific approach to the crisis, though Zhuan would want social reforms that Jherica didn’t care about. Gabriel, she still wasn’t sure. Sometimes, he seemed to not care, and other days, he seemed to care too much. Celen was still seemingly mired in despair, unreachable by all of them.

Liuan’s advisors had shifted uncomfortably at the mention of spell engines being phased out, then glanced at Xecatl’s people, who looked quite pleased.

“Very well,” she said, and levitated copies of her leyline regulator design towards them.

“Gods above, we’re being attacked by curtains!” Gabriel said as his paper unfurled in front of him. Then, as he glanced over the designs, he said, “I don’t suppose you have an executive summary? Or a reference guide? I’ll admit, never been much one for memorizing glyph sequences.”

Jherica cleared their throat and finally spoke. “Uh, I believe you’ve made an error on the scale. This, uh…” They squinted at the paper.

“There’s no error,” Mirian said. “The regulator’s circumference will need to be roughly ten kilometers. It will need six major conduit points, each capable of modulating 1000 myr. Growing those crystals will require trained crystal mages with a minimum of 50 myr alternating using six Elder relics from the Labyrinth to grow the conduits around the clock for six months. Given typical mana depletion rates, we will need some 300 arcanists working on that section. Elder devices can also assist with the rest of the fabrication, but the rest will have to be built by artisans and laborers, with much of the material imported because the ruins of Mayat Shadr do not have the requisite materials present.”

The Council was silent for a few moments. Even Liuan didn’t seem to have anything to share.

Jherica blanched. “That’s the size of a city. Your initial designs—”

“Didn’t account for the extra weight of the Mausoleum of the Ominian, which I have now measured.”

“You measured… how…?”

Mirian nodded at Zhuan, who brought out the five extra violet focuses and levitated them to the other Prophets. She and Zhuan already were wearing theirs as amulets.

“Got one already,” Gabriel said with a smirk, holding up his own purple amulet, but he pocketed the second one.

“What are—no, never mind. We can discuss these later. Ten kilometers? And this isn’t a thin wall, either. There’s more conduits, complex artifice, and is that a ton of orichalcum wire? This can’t be built in a year, never mind six months,” Liuan said. “See, this is why it’s clear the Omnian doesn’t intend for us to stop the crisis. They must want something else.” She pushed the schematic away and glanced back at one of her advisors. They shook her head at her. “Agreed. This is impossible. Impossible. Cannot be done.”

Zhuan gave the other woman a soft smile. “Only if your mind is trapped in the prison of the current paradigms. What can be is so much greater than what is.” She looked at the diagrams. “I can’t speak to the technical feasibility of the arcane or runic sequences, but the material can be moved and constructed. I am sure of it. But only if the old order is overturned.”

Gabriel sighed. “No, I’m pretty sure it can only be done if the old order is preserved. We need trade routes uncut, and laborers not being pulled off to go march as soldiers. If there’s a bloody revolution, people will be too busy fighting that to build the world’s largest jewelry project.”

Xecatl was busy discussing the spirit portions with her nagual. After hurried discussion, she turned to the group. “My nagual will begin research and prototyping immediately to assess the feasibility of the design. There is the issue of growing these spirit constructs in the Persaman desert specifically… but we will look into it.”

Jherica scratched their head. “Well… we might as well try, right? I mean, it’ll probably fail, but does anyone else have any better ideas? Certainly better than chasing ghosts,” they said, and glanced over at Liuan.

Mirian surveyed the room.

“I will discuss this in-depth with my delegation,” Liuan said. “This is more complicated than the most advanced Tyrcast engines. Which does not bode well for its feasibility, by the way, it took decades to build up the factories that helped build the factories that helped build this current generation of spell engines. But first, we should understand the designs before we comment further. I move to adjourn the Council until we have adequately studied the proposal.”

Everyone murmured agreement—except Ibrahim. He had remained silent. For a moment, even the wind stilled and the distant waves crashing on the shore quieted as he thought. Finally, he stood. “We stand in a forest, and every path through the shadows leads to a dead future. Every tree weeps as its leaves are shed and turn to ash. Perhaps our time would better be spent reading beautiful poetry, and composing sweet dirges to those loved ones fated to die. Or perhaps we can build this monument and properly show our respect to God’s Prophet. Or perhaps, we will sharpen our blades and have one last war to shed our blood before the weight of our sins crushes us.”

He took his violet focus and left, leaving the schematics on the table.

One by one, the others left the room too, though they took their copies.

Mirian sat back down, looking at the central table. She was tired—so damn tired. Already, she could see there was some game being played among the other Prophets, but she wanted no part in any of it. She wanted to fly far away from this all.

Instead, she sat and waited for their response.