Chapter 83 - Specter

The next morning, there was a stir across campus. Students huddling to talk in hushed voices, then disbanding. Paranoid glances cast out. A tension in the air. It was mostly sixth years gathering, but the talk was spreading to the lower classes.

“…heard they found him dead,” she heard one person say.

“In his home?”

“Yeah. And all the neighbors all heard the screaming. But by the time the guard got there, whoever did it was gone.”

It didn’t take a genius to start putting together who it was. Mirian was hiding in Valen’s room when she burst in and said, “They killed Nicolus!”

“Yeah,” Mirian said, and continued staring at the floor.

“This wasn’t an assassination. I mean, it was, but they’re not trying to be subtle. They could have disappeared him, that’s the usual thing to do if you just want someone out of the way. No, they were trying to send a message.”

“To me,” Mirian said.

With her aura nearly depleted purely from how much she was using her major illusion spell just to walk around Torrviol, Mirian knew she needed to change something. The problem was, the person hunting her knew her name, knew where to find her, and could easily leverage that to find out more. Likely, he knew her entire class schedule; the registrar’s office wouldn’t exactly be hard for the dozens of spies to infiltrate given they already had keys to the whole damn Academy. And clearly, he knew her friends as well.

Simply living under an illusion spell wouldn’t be enough. She thought she had an idea of how Professor Marva was doing it, and it wasn’t just ‘more practice.’ If she could obtain a more permanent disguise….

Mirian went to visit Xipuatl. She needed to get his help before it was too late.

When Xipuatl opened the door to his apartment, Mirian first felt relief.

Then, she saw the smirk on his face. “Just give up,” he said, in a voice that wasn’t at all Xipuatl’s.

Mirian raised her force shield as the pistol came out. It wasn’t strong enough to stop the bullet entirely, but it did absorb most of the first shot, and by now, she was used to that spike of pain—she could fight through it. She lashed out with a lift object that snatched away his pistol, and that’s when she felt the line of fire stab through her back.

She lay on the doorstep in agony. With tremendous effort, she turned her head to look back. There were two cloaked figures opposite the building, one wielding a wand, the other a rifle. The rifle cracked out—

***

Mirian woke, teeth grinding, and stared at the wall.

One thing was becoming clear: the cycles clearly didn’t end when she died, and this other time traveler was using the extra time to figure out more about her and plan out counter-moves while she was dead. It was also clear if he kept doing this, he’d end up with an advantage in information and power. The why didn’t make sense to her. She was trying to stop the apocalypse. What in the five hells was he trying to do?

The other question was: how many time travelers were involved? Most of the people involved were Akanan spies, the Torrviol Guard, or people on the Akanan blackmail list. None of them had done anything to indicate they had foreknowledge before. Right now, she only had firm evidence for at least two: This new intruder, and someone who was leading a revolt in Persama. However, there was no reason to assume that was it.

It meant she had to fundamentally change her strategy. Right now, she’d been outmaneuvered, and it was because she’d been burning through the cycles like a forest fire. Even if she’d learned about another time traveler, she would have assumed they’d be trying to stop the end of the world with her.

It was no longer safe to assume anything. First, she had to find a way to hide in the shadows.

Then, she had to find a way to fight off the man who was hunting her. That he had attacked her seemed utterly nonsensical to her. Why hadn’t he offered to help stop the world’s end? They could have worked together, and bolstered each other’s efforts. They could have exchanged knowledge and skills.

Instead, he’d chosen war. Her fury at him was compounded by what could have been. It was bad enough the moon was going to fall, and he was making it worse.

Mirian did her best to bury her anger so that it wouldn’t impede her thinking.

She had time to prepare. At least a day or two, because whoever this new traveler was, he didn’t awaken in Torrviol. Then, she could lay low and try to figure out more about her opponent. Mirian vowed not to make contact with Nicolus, Xipuatl, or even Lily. She reformulated her ‘Vera’ disguise, since she’d been assassinated while under that illusion spell on Xipuatl’s doorstep. But she hadn’t died in Valen’s room, so as far as she could tell, this new nemesis of hers hadn’t figured out that Valen was a contact, or that she was staying with her.

Mirian went to take out a loan, then spent the next two days in a flurry of scribing spells and working on artifice. She also bought a quilted silk undershirt that was supposedly bullet resistant. She’d overheard soldiers singing them praise, though many of them also wore steel breastplates, so how effective it actually was she didn’t know. Hopefully, if her force shield could slow the velocity of a bullet, the silk could do the rest.

She worked with Valen to plan out casual routes they could both take to look for suspicious movements. This opponent was obviously comfortable with illusions and intelligence operations, but Mirian had at least a pretty good sense of the normal movements she could expect around town. The man was coming from somewhere and making contact with the Akanan spies—she just had to figure out the when and where.

She told Valen to go wander the Academy grounds. She took her position outside the spy’s headquarters, and waited.

And waited.

By the 4th of Solem, she thought she was seeing a change in the pattern of spy movement. By the 5th of Solem, the spy network had clearly been redirected to a new purpose. Valen saw spies shadowing Nicolus and Xipuatl between classes, while Mirian watched as the Torrviol Guard’s patrol routes changed. Frustratingly, the spies seemed to know their headquarters was being watched, so her stakeout of the place had turned up nothing. After the first few days, they apparently abandoned the building, but where they had relocated, she had no clue. Based on where some of the spies suddenly appeared, they were using the Underground for movement. Likely, they’d used tunneling spells to remove anything they needed in the headquarters and left a bunch of traps.

Either Mirian’s routine trips to the southeast side of town hadn’t been as subtle as she’d hoped, or they’d found some other way of discovering her. On the 10th of Solem, Mirian was sitting on a bench pretending to read a book when she found herself getting hit by a sudden dispel and her illusion shattered into shards of light.

She immediately pulled a wand from her belt and raised an enhanced force shield, but when she looked around, it wasn’t Akanan spies approaching her, but four of the Torrviol Guard. She recognized Roland and, of course, the false captain.

“Mirian Castrella? You need to come with us,” Nathanial said.

She thought about asking ‘why?’ and getting them to name whatever crime she’d supposedly committed, but decided there wasn’t a point. If they wanted to charge her with something, they’d just make it up. There would be no justice in Torrviol, just theater.

Perhaps there was still a chance for her to learn more about what the other time traveler was doing. Perhaps in private, when they thought they had the advantage, one of them would reveal something. The guards searched her for any sort of magical items and weapons. They missed the arcane catalyst on the inside of her belt, but seized her spellbook and wands.

The interrogation room was familiar. The woman sitting in the chair was a stranger.

Mirian had expected Nathanial to interrogate her while he kept pretending to be a captain, but instead, the woman sitting in the chair said, “Thank you. Leave us.”

Her red hair was done up in a tight bun and had a single bronze hairpin that resembled a wand in it. She was wearing the uniform of an Arcane Praetorian, including the signature twisted bronze torque with dragon heads on each end.

Mirian immediately knew who she was pretending to be, and who she was, though she still didn’t know her name. This was Specter. The Impostor. The woman who’d been hiding in the shadows for years.

On the table, she saw a familiar looking chest, wrapped in silver bands. The one that didn’t quite reflect light the way it ought to.

The woman stared at her, eyes cold and face stone. “Shall I skip the pleasantries? I’m given to understand you already understand why you’re really here.”

“Sure,” said Mirian. “What else did he tell you?”

“A great many things, but I’d like to hear them from you, without leading you in any way.”

Was this an opportunity to get her to see reason? She had to try. “Both of us are in a time loop. So he’s no doubt presented you with a bunch of foreknowledge, or perhaps personal things. Maybe he knows a secret of yours. Maybe he has leverage.”

The Impostor kept her face blank. “I don’t tell people my secrets. Only a fool does.”

That paranoid attitude fit with what Mirian knew, given how hard she’d been to find. “I won’t bore you then. So what do you want to know from me?”

“What’s your angle?”

She saw no reason to lie. “Protecting the Divine Monument. Right now, something is going on with the leylines. Soon, there will be eruptions across the world, both in Akana Praediar and Baracuel. There’s already been several that I’m sure you know about. There was a factory in Ferrabridge that got hit by one. I don’t know what the Monument under the Academy does yet, but I do know blowing it up only makes things worse. The time loop was initiated to stop it, that much I’m sure. What I don’t understand is why the other time traveler opposes me. If we worked together….”

The Impostor cocked her head sideways. “Convenient.”

Mirian could tell she was referring to the geopolitical interests Nicolus and his uncle had gone on about. Control of key resources. Competition. The great game of nations. To the Impostor, Mirian’s story was a nice excuse. “I assure you, it isn’t. It’s been a pain in the ass to protect it. If there was another way, I’d be doing it. So if you’re concerned about Baracuel’s power, there’s a diplomatic angle. Get Luspire a premiere appointment at Vadriach University and he’ll allow an Akanan research team to monitor the Monument. I can secure the Baracuel side of that agreement. What I need is someone to secure the Akanan side. For obvious reasons, they’re not listening to me.”

The other woman tapped her finger on the table a few times. “What makes you think I can secure the ‘Akanan’ side of things? Who exactly do you think I am?”

Mirian rolled her eyes. “Sorry, I thought we were past that. I didn’t realize you were still pretending to be Adria Gavell.” She leaned forward. “You shot Adria Gavell in the back of the head in the catacombs three years ago. You’re the Deeps turncoat, and I know you’re working for the Akanans, along with Nathanial, the cell leader. Call off the assassination of the Akanan Prime Minister. Call off the invasion. Put an end to this madness. It only ends in annihilation.”

Nothing she’d said so far had shaken the Impostor, but this did. She saw the flash of fear in her eyes and the brief recoil, though she recovered quickly.

“Interesting,” the Impostor said, voice controlled. “Your counterpart has a different explanation. God has deigned there to be a grand competition. Life is about clawing your way to the top. If you don’t bury your enemies, or worse, you think you can live in peace with them, they will bury you. There’s not an alternative, there’s only the fight for power.” She paused, then said, “I’m inclined to think he understands the human condition better than you.”

Mirian made a face. “That’s what he thinks? That this is some sort of elaborate—has he been paying attention to the dreams? You know he’s just trying to manipulate you into doing what he wants, right?”

“In this, he is honest. What are you doing, if not trying to manipulate me?”

“Is it manipulation if it’s the truth? I’m trying to save as many lives as I can here.”

The Impostor sighed. “Another common manipulation tactic. You should’ve gone into politics, I think you could convince a lot of ignorant plebs. You have that righteous outrage. They love that.” She stood up and knocked on the door twice.

At first, Mirian thought she was done. Weird interrogation, she thought. Then she saw the false captain walk through the door with two cages, one holding a moon flicker and the other holding a stonemole. Several glyphs helped reinforce the cage, and neither of the trapped myrvites were happy about their predicament. The stonemole kept trying to gnaw out of its cage, though the lightning ward on the bars shocked it back, while the moon flicker was attempting some sort of natural spell that the cage was suppressing, causing it to blur. It flapped its wings in frustration.

Mirian didn’t like the sight of the panicked animals. For a moment, she was confused. Then she remembered the box, and realized what they were for. Necromancy. She needs them for a necromantic spell.

She felt a strange mix of fear and curiosity, and she hesitated. She had her arcane catalyst hidden, but did she even want to use it? If she waited, she could get a first-hand demonstration of a new type of magic.

The problem was, she was clearly the target. She thought of the soul-marks the spies had. If the Impostor was going to mess with her soul….

Mirian watched as the other woman opened the box. The Impostor closed her eyes briefly, channeling, but without a divination device, she wouldn’t know the combination of arcane energy she was using. Mirian struck—using raw magic to create a force blade, she aimed it at the Impostor’s throat.

The force blade dissipated, hitting spell resistance more typical of a bog lion than a person. She saw the bronze torque she was wearing glow with ethereal light.

Shit, she thought, as the Impostor’s eyes went wide and she pulled out a wand. She hit Mirian with a wave of force, slamming her out of the chair and back into the wall. Her head hit the stone, and for a few seconds, she blacked out. When she came to, blinking away stars, she was on the floor. She felt blood dribbling down the back of her neck, and the Impostor had already found the arcane catalyst and was removing it. She muttered, “God, I ask for basic competence, and it is too much.” To Mirian she said, “Try that again and I’ll make your world pain. Hold still and this won’t hurt a bit.”

Mirian groaned, and the Impostor slammed her to the ground as she tried to rise. Then she felt force shackles wrap around her. Her head was still in agony, and the world wouldn’t stop spinning. Mirian fought back nausea and tried to focus on what the Impostor was doing. She struggled so that she was sitting up against the wall.

The Impostor had taken the wand and first skull out of the chest. Then, while the skull sat on the table, she closed her eyes. There was a horrid scream from the stonemole, and in that distant place where Mirian could feel her soul, she felt something intruding into it. It was unpleasant; like icy worms were moving beneath her skin. The stonemole began to wither in front of her eyes, its flesh rapidly blackening and desiccating.

Mirian closed her eyes. The light was too bright in the room. She tried to focus, but the pain and nausea were too much. Whatever the Impostor had just done, at least it hadn’t made her any worse. She opened them again and saw the other woman had her hand on the second cage, and had changed out the skulls. 

The moon flicker let out a blood-curdling screech that was somehow worse than the stonemole’s. This time, as the bird withered, it felt like claws were tearing at her soul.

She screamed.