Chapter 183 – The Desolation

Selesia led the way, with Mirian levitating the leyline detector behind them. “Over there was the forum,” the younger woman said, pointing to a grove of trees. “This was the temple, which was the seat of government too. Down that way were docks. Takoa and Tlaxhuaco would trade quite a bit, though I guess they would stick to the coast, then quickly island-hop to avoid sea serpents. We would trade for a bunch of things, but it was Saint Xylatarvia’s gift that we valued the most. Priests would go on holy journeys to get a small piece.”

I wonder how Xylatarvia went from goddess to saint in their eyes, Mirian wondered. “Xylatarvia’s gift?”

“Some sort of sacred jade,” Selesia said, waving her hand dismissively. “I don’t know if I really believe all the old tales. Like, there’s no such thing as a talking tree. I doubt they had court birds who advised the king. Maybe some of it was true, or based on something true. Like the king had pet birds he really liked.”

Mirian’s brow furrowed. Xipuatl’s soul focus looked a lot like jade. Elder reliquaries, he called them. I still don’t know why. A reliquary is a container for a holy relic, but he was insistent on the translation from Tlaxa. Why would Tlaxhuaco have more of them than Takoa? No one seems to know how to make a focus anymore. The Luminate order said it was a lost art. So where does the material come from? There’s no way everyone killed enough elder titans; titan catalysts have different properties. But how would such a critical technology be lost?

Her thoughts cast back to the shrine at the end of the Frostland’s Gate Vault. There had been eight statues of the Elder Gods. The Ominian had been absent, and the eighth god had been one she’d never heard of.

What does it all mean?

“…and this is where Saint Shiamagoth touched the world.”

There were a variety of flowers Mirian had never seen planted around a thick slab of quartzite. The stone swirled with blue and white minerals—a rare variety, she knew.

“It used to be at the top of the pyramid, and a lot bigger. When I was taking my pilgrimage here, I had to help clean it. That was when I first sensed this place was different.” Selesia looked out from the top of the mound and smiled. “It was the strangest feeling, the first time I felt it. The arcane sense, though I didn’t know it at the time. I thought it was the saint’s touch. In that moment, I knew I was special.” She chuckled. “Took a few years at the academy to disabuse me of that notion.”

“You are special. There’s memories I have of you that I know you’ll never have… but I treasure them,” Mirian said gently. “I just wish you could have shared them.”

Selesia swallowed hard. She didn’t seem to know how to respond to that.

Mirian closed her eyes. “You had a lot of innate talent if you sensed the ambient mana difference back then. It’s a subtle thing.” She had been right. It was there. It was like seeing little sparks dancing through a dark room. They flitted around, small and faint. When she tried to focus on them, it was like they faded from her gaze. In the Endelice, she had seen a clear pattern. She had felt the lesson the Ominian had sought to teach her. It had come to her naturally.

For three days, they stayed in the ruins of the First City while Mirian took readings and attempted to see the pattern. Then, with food dwindling, Mirian decided they should head back. She left the leyline detector to take further readings. They journeyed back towards civilization. There was still plenty of time in the cycle to make and deploy several other detectors and finish up the late-cycle readings she needed on Akana Praediar.

***

They headed back southeast to reach the train line, then back to Takoa. Selesia was feeling melancholy and wanted to stay with her family. She offered to collect the readings of the four detectors nearby. Mirian thanked her, and headed back along the north line to Vadriach alone. Out of habit, she grabbed several broadsheets as she was gathering new detector supplies. A few ‘wanted’ posters described her, though they hadn’t gotten a good look at her face. She had no problems buying tickets for a private car, then heading west.

The Vadriach Line trains had clever glyph sequences that targeted certain stenches for removal. Even with them, she still could smell the freight trains when they passed by. And the freight trains were constant. The only place that would have more cargo coming in was Mercanton.

Over the next few days, Mirian rode the trains up through the Western Plains. As she traveled, she kept one leyline detector active, just so she could get a solid reading on ambient mana. The readings leveled out at a fairly normal range, but she felt something wrong.

It took her some time to figure out what it was. She paused her work to meditate as they traveled. There was something in the air. It wasn’t like the flickering sparks she’d felt in the ruins of the First City. Instead, it was like an absence, like something was being sucked away.

As they passed the headwaters of the Hikstoluck River, Mirian began to understand.

There were fields covered, not by fallen trees, but fallen myrvites. She watched as they passed a train unloading piles of myrvite bodies. There were open-air warehouses where workers butchered them. Rows of chimeras, stacked in piles, stood next to rows of plains drakes, which stood next to piles of cockatrice—and it didn’t end. Spellcarts moved about the area, moving bodies around, which were cut apart and stacked in new piles of meat, spell organs, and detritus. The stench was unbearable.

Here, she could feel it. There was some energy level between arcane and celestial that her titan catalyst helped her pick up on, and it was there that her senses could feel a sensation that she could only describe as unnerving. There was a wrongness to it. Mirian had no love of myrvites, but she could hear the Ominian’s voice.

THIS PLACE, They had told her.

With a shock, she suddenly recognized the area. The twisting rivers had changed it, but the nearby hills still followed a pattern she’d seen in her dreams. Instead of birds and storm raptors circling in the skies, there were clouds of insects that even the wards couldn’t fully repel. Instead of herds of plains drakes and ebonfire bison, there was this desolation.

She felt sick, and it had nothing to do with the smell.

The Ominian didn’t save Enteria only for us, she thought.

***

It took several more trains, each more rickety than the last, but Mirian finally made it to the far Akanan city of Frontier. It was aptly named. At least out west, the world still felt intact; there were spellwards around the cities and towns, but that meant there was still wilderness that existed to repel. She took her measurements, then began the long journey back.

As she made her way back, an article from a paper she’d picked up in Vadriach caught her eye. Infiltration of the Arborholm military base? Her heart began to pound. She was quite sure that was a new event. Someone’s up there, then. After the airships, for sure. But to do what with?

She studied the papers again, this time paying close attention to the details. The articles could vary quite a bit depending on how much of a stir Mirian had made, but she tried to think back to her first scouting expeditions, before she’d had an impact. Several of these have changed, and I doubt a bit of arson and the RID hunting for a fugitive would have changed this much in broadsheets coming out of Arborholm and Ferrabridge.

That led her to another question: why were there so many time travelers based in Akana Praediar? That made Troytin, Jherica, Celen, and now a mysterious fourth.

It does explain why Troytin established himself in Torrviol. Perhaps it wasn’t just an effort to displace me, but also to prevent rivals in Akana from being able to reach him. Except, wouldn’t that leave his operations there vulnerable to anyone remaining? How fast did he remove Jherica and Celen? And was the fourth traveler his rival, or ally?

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

She needed more information.

The rest of the cycle, as she went to check her leyline detectors, she paid close attention to the papers, and a close eye on the people around her. There appeared to be some anomalies around the assassination of Prime Minister Kinsman, but it was hard to say for sure. There were still stories running about a mysterious culprit who’d assassinated a ‘paragon of the community.’ Mirian couldn’t help but sneer as she read the bloviating, chummy pieces about Westerun. If she hadn’t known any better, she’d have thought he needed a shrine next to Shiamagoth. It was clear that the RID was eager to hunt her down, which may have influenced who they had deployed at the assassination.

Still, the other Prophet could be at work here. That played with her nerves. The rest of the world had become this harmless thing she didn’t have to worry about—but other Prophets were different. They could actually hurt her.

And help, she reminded herself, but the blow that Troytin had struck against her so many years ago still lingered. He had left a scar on her ability to trust. Worse, Mirian wasn’t sure if that was a boon or a curse.