Chapter 146 – Escape from Cairnmouth

Mirian was sure of one thing: she couldn’t outrun an airship. For one, she hadn’t modified the conduits on her wand this cycle, so she could only levitate so fast. And, from what she knew from her research, a skiff could stay in the air for around four or five hours, depending on what they’d loaded it with.

The other was that, even with her mythril amulet, she was outgunned. There’d be at least two combat mages, maybe four, someone with a rifle, and the spell engine that kept it aloft could also burn fuel to power a shield. Also, some skiffs were armed with cannons. Blocking a bullet was one thing; blocking an artillery shot was another. And if Troytin is behind this, he’s probably advised them to use spellbreaker ammunition, she thought.

I need to find a way to hide. But was that their only divination device?

She wasn’t sure if the airship had spotted them, but staying above the roofs would make them easy to spot, and there were watchtowers around the city that might see them and send out flares. Mirian dove down so she was level with the third floor of the buildings, though she had to slow down so she could dodge the various laundry lines strung between balconies. Shouts of surprise and dismay followed her as people gawked and pointed.

“Can you cast that camouflage spell again?” Lecne shouted.

“Won’t matter if they’re using divination. And I think I’ll need the mana.”

She’d been going south. She brought them just high enough she could peer over a nearby roof. Yup, that skiff is heading right for us. She dashed east towards the train station for a few blocks, then went up again. The skiff had changed route, and was still on an intercept course, and gaining fast.

“Yeah, they have something. The machine is probably on the skiff itself.” She headed south again. “But if they had something to track us with at the fort before… why would he deploy divination machines around town?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Lecne said over the wind. “The bank probably sprayed us with a special substance that the guard can track. The detector on the airship is probably a really simple one. And it didn’t need to have much range if it could start by following the flares.”

“Shit,” Mirian said, taking a left where the street turned. “How do we get it off?”

“Arenthia would probably know. My policy was always to never get it on in the first place.”

“We’re not going back there to risk them.” She zoomed down a different street, hoping the random turns might confuse her pursuers.

Lecne was silent for another block, then he said, “Good.” Then, “Starting to tire. Not quite as fit as I once was.”

Mirian dropped them down onto a second floor balcony, then used force push to shatter the glass. She looked back at the clothes line attached to the balcony. Several items were drying on it.

“The chemical’s on our clothes, right? I didn’t feel it go on, so it must be.” She telekinetically pulled the end of the clothesline, snapping it and bringing the whole lot of drying garments with it. “Change jackets and pants. Fast. Just pick something, we can adjust disguises later.”

Lecne hesitated, looked at Mirian, then blushed.

Really? Mirian thought. “Look, just face the other way. But we need to hurry.”

They scrambled to change, Mirian putting on a plain-looking gray jacket and brown dress, and Lecne some blue trousers. He couldn’t find a jacket, so he just said, “Good enough.” Then he swore as Mirian set their old clothes on fire.

“Down the stairs, this way,” she said, opening up her spellbook to major disguise. “I’m going to cast an illusion spell on you. It’s very mana intensive to hold something like that so close to your soul, so we need to find a place to hide immediately. The fire will give us a chance to act like part of the scared crowd, so I’m going to spread it. Alright?”

Lecne was clenching his jaw, but he nodded. She cast, giving Lecne a distinct scar and larger nose, and herself an older face and different looking hair. She cast a few more fire spells by the windows so the smoke would billow out.

“Fire! Fire!” she shouted, running down the stairs and out the door. The residents and shopkeepers of the building quickly joined. Sorry, Mirian thought. She kept her levitation wand up her sleeve but stashed her disguised spellbook. She and Lecne made their way to the back of the crowd that was forming. When no one was paying attention to them, they walked away.

By then, the airship was overhead.

“Where’s the nearest arcanist’s shop?” she whispered.

Lecne looked around. Some of the street names were missing, but he did know the city quite well. “Uh… three blocks that way. Why?”

“Because if it were me, I’d be using divination to target searches for glyphs that are common to spellbooks, but not common in household spell engines and the usual ward schemes. We need distance, and we need enough light they can’t find our candle. Metaphorically.”

“Right. Let’s walk a little faster then.”

The airship stayed stationary over the building Mirian had set on fire, though they lost sight of both the building and the airship as they moved through the narrow streets and tall buildings. If it was moving toward them, she no longer knew.

There, she thought, catching sight of the shop sign. She dismissed the illusion as they walked in since plenty of shops had wards that would alert the shopkeeper to someone using one.

The man running the shop gave them a raised eyebrow, clearly noticing Mirian’s ill-fitting jacket and Lecne’s lack of one. “What can I get you?”

“I need a wand of cleanse bronze,” she said, deliberately picking an obscure spell that wasn’t likely to be in stock.

“No one makes that into a wand,” he said.

“Ah. Do you have the spell pre-scribed on paper? Vellum is preferable, as I’d like it to match.”

“We have scrolls.”

“No, no, not a scroll, I’ll need to cast it several times. Well, then do you have cindergold or moonlily inks?”

The shopkeeper let out a sigh as he realized what kind of customer he was dealing with. “I’ll go check,” he said. As he turned his back, he added, “The stock is all warded.”

“I would never!” Mirian said, sounding as offended as she could manage.

As he headed into the back, Mirian brought out her spellbook and searched for the divination glyphs the skiff would be using. Naturally, there were several nearby in the shop itself. Channeling near her capacity, she could just make out what she thought were the signatures of the glyphs on the airship. She closed her book and started scribing a broad anti-divination ward.

For twenty minutes, Mirian bombarded the shopkeeper with requests for rare items. Each time he went into the back, she added a bit of progress to a ward. Then she finally paid him for a pile of the junk she’d requested. Mirian did one more check on the airship, which hadn’t moved. As they left the shop, she applied an illusion again, this time of a different couple, and dressed nice enough people would be less liable to question them.

Shortly after that, a pair of guards trotted by.

They had made it outside the initial net, so now the search was being improvised. “Fastest route to the train station?” she asked in a low voice.

Lecne led the way.

***

Once they were on the train in one of the private cars, Mirian finally relaxed. She dismissed the illusion over them, then started setting up a few of her usual wards around the room, careful not to activate any of the wards already present.

“What now?” Lecne asked.

“Now, I work on other things until the cycle ends,” she said, only half-focused on her scribing.

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Lecne frowned. “Why not just… I understand this sounds crass, but if you kill yourself, you would start over immediately, right? That is how you explained it.”

“Yes, but the current cycle would persist. I would experience almost no time passing, but the other time travelers would be doing things. I can’t afford to give them an advantage in time.” She thought of the Labyrinth. “There’s times it’s worth it to take risks that might kill me early, but no sense in wasting the time I’ve been given.”

“That’s wise of you,” Lecne said.

Mirian took them south of Palendurio, then out east to one of the smaller towns that she hadn’t visited yet. They found a nice apartment to rent. Mirian spent most of her time practicing dervish forms or spellcasting.

With Lecne’s help, she also worked on practicing refining her celestial spellwork. Though he couldn’t necessarily teach her anything, it was nice to have another set of eyes to assess her ability and give feedback.

One night he asked, “But why do you need bindings that are thin?”

Mirian raised an eyebrow at him.

“Right, yes, I can hear Arenthia scolding me.” He let out a deep sigh. “I hope she and the others are doing okay. I’m trying to think—none of the priestly classes cover what you’re talking about. It might be there’s old texts that describe modifying a binding like that, but they’re sure to be outlawed, and plenty of them were probably burned. I couldn’t begin to tell you where to look.”

“I’m sure they’re doing fine. The ongoing search will tell them we escaped, so they’ll know we’re alright. Arenthia will take care of the faithful.”

Lecne chuckled. “That’s what I’m most worried about,” he said, but she could see his shoulders relax.