Chapter 134 – Hammering Iron

Her sabotage efforts had kept Troytin busy, and from Lecne’s reports, the Deeps were busy too. Troytin’s loss of influence was only compounded by Ibrahim’s war in the south. While they played at petty tyrant of their domains, she was preparing for the future.

She returned to Palendurio and found Rostal. He was meditating in his courtyard when she entered. As he opened his eyes to question her intrusion into his home, she spoke. “For the Luminates, the time of Prophets has come again. For the Isheer, the Saints. Their visions of the future were lived, not mere dreams. In exchange for your aid, you’ve requested I help mend Persama. Since you’re still training me, I’ve made no progress on that yet, except for a brief conversation on Ibrahim’s nature. But the other you I talked to requested I tell you that.”

Rostal stood, giving Mirian a puzzled look.

“We were working on my mastery of The Blooming Red Iron so I can improve my physical form and soul potential,” she added. “The last version of you I met suggested you’d want to examine my soul. So you may,” she said, holding out a bare arm.

He had a lot of questions after that, but it basically did the trick. Within the day, they’d resumed her training. By the end of the cycle, she could create a short whole-soul ripple that seemed to have the correct form.

Rostal spent his last night on the roof, praying.

***

Mirian idly wondered if Granpa Irabi had ever known a dervish. As she learned the basics of the other forms, she thought his meditation techniques had similarities to The Spear That Cuts Water, though his was more about using the physical body to calm the soul, rather than stirring the soul to change the physical body. Though the Persaman dervishes had their six forms, Mirian was sure there were more techniques, only they’d been lost. Rostal was sure of it as well, but for all his travels, he’d never discovered them.

“It was after your Unification War,” he said. “Well, no, that’s not quite right. It began during the colonization of what would become Akana Praediar. During the Hundred Wars. The Baracueli sought to stomp out the casters that were opposing them, so they branded the Semnol, Takoa, and Mianol versions of magic as necromancy. Only, ideas are not stones. They blew back to Baracuel on the wind, and the Luminates found their reason to start wiping out the Druidic Orders. And, seeing how useful this tool was for conquest, newly formed Akana Praediar and Baracuel worked to ban and destroy the hierophants and dervishes of Persama. Only arcanists certified in their own academies could be allowed to practice. I am sure something similar happened in Zhighua. But after the Unification War, it went from being a useful tool of colonial governors and ambitious priests to a foundational law of the land. They are necromancers. We are holy.”

This was a history Mirian knew little about. Her history classes had mentioned the Druidic Orders fading away, but it had sounded like a natural thing; old, primitive magic fading away naturally as people saw the inherent superiority of new arcane discoveries. It was the result of the inevitable march of progress and human triumph.

Her history books had talked about the Baracueli conquest of the new continent the same way. Her conversations with Selesia so long ago had changed her perspective on that, but she hadn’t thought much about what that implied about other stories she learned in history class.

Rostal shook his head sadly. “Opposing necromancy became easy to rally people against after the Unification War. After Atroxcidi, who could defend it? Everyone was terrified of him. Of course, all actions are reflected. Soon enough, Baracuel was culling itself. The combined loss of our knowledge is incalculable. Wars kill more than people.”

There’s that name again, Mirian thought. “What do you know of Atroxcidi?”

“Hmm. As little as anyone. The Arcane Praetorians and Luminates began to consider even knowing about the man dangerous. The idea that learning anything more than his sins might inspire young fools to emulate him. It is said he could regather the dispersing souls of the dead. But the druids and the hierophants were said to be able to do that too, so they could talk to a recently departed spirit. The rumor is that he could go beyond that. He could set that soul back in its body and have that soul serve him. In the end, the Isheer and the Luminates both could agree that he needed to be eliminated.”

“But they didn’t kill him, did they?”

“Maybe not. Anyone who knows doesn’t much like talking about it. So at the very least, he stalks about nightmares, and people dread the day he might return to the slaughter.”

Something there didn’t make sense to Mirian. “Someone told me he was more powerful than Archmage Solvir. Casting at powers above even 150 myr. That’s… it’s hard to even put into words what kind of spells he could cast. And if he knew necromancy—those clever tricks the Praetorians use to hunt down rogue casters, I know they wouldn’t work. If he wanted to be out there killing people, he would be. What could stop him?”

Then she blinked. “Oh shit. I just realized—the Arcane Praetorians all leave Palendurio at the start of the cycle. Like, almost all of them.”

Rostal raised an eyebrow.

“And they wouldn’t say who they were hunting. But I wonder….”

“Perhaps. But who can say how a man like that—if he is still a man—might think. And perhaps the Praetorians have some tricks you don’t know about.”

That was true. Mirian hadn’t actually had to fight them yet. They almost all evacuated from Palendurio, and the Pontiff’s word had gotten the one’s who had confronted her to stand down.

“But enough talk!” Rostal said, standing, and drew his rapier.

Mirian drew hers and they fought again.

By the end of the cycle, she could maintain the Blooming Red Iron form for several minutes.

***

When Mirian woke in the next cycle, she was hungrier than normal. That was a good sign, she thought. If the Blooming Iron form was working, she and Rostal had theorized that the soul would only be able to reconstitute any gains she’d made in physicality with matter. And that meant food.

She rushed through her first few errands, then got the largest chicken stew she could. It couldn’t compare to the Persaman cooking she was now used to, but it certainly filled her up.

She made her usual preparations, then headed down to Palendurio.

By the 20th, she could maintain the Blooming Iron form for a full hour. Now, after another round of practicing dueling forms with Rostal or running through the park, she could feel the difference.

She was also ravenous. Fortunately, cashing in the fake Florinian ingot as she stopped by Cairnmouth gave her enough gold to buy whatever food she wanted, not that many of Rostal’s friends would let her pay them.

“Sand’s already at the bottom,” they would say, which was a phrase meaning ‘the debt’s already settled.’

Mirian reveled in the training. Each time she was done, there was a euphoria that outweighed the exhaustion and soreness.

Near the end of the cycle, Lecne reported an increase in Deeps activity, but it seemed to be in reaction to events down south. The messages from Torrviol were different than the last cycle. It seemed Troytin was learning to convince the Akanan team to join his sabotage efforts, including assassination. One of the Akanans, deeply disturbed by the request, had gone to the Torrviol professors. Mirian thought Troytin seemed to be confused; when people said “Akanan scholarship is cutthroat,” that wasn’t quite what they meant.

Troytin had escaped to somewhere before he could be arrested. Mirian was unconcerned. If he was hiding, he wasn’t doing damage.

Readings from the leyline detectors seemed remarkably similar, except for the anomaly north of Alkazaria. It moved around, very slowly, but in a different pattern than last time. Is that Ibrahim’s work? But he’s still sieging the city.

There were no answers there. Mirian stood with Rostal again as he met God.

***

This time, Mirian started bothering Rostal about contacts.

“If Ibrahim does start to turn hostile towards me, I want an early warning,” she explained, midway through the cycle.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“I abhor subterfuge,” Rostal grumbled. Mirian had to ask what the two words meant since she was still working on her Adamic.