Chapter 186 – Those Lost to Time

As they disembarked at Vadriach City, Mirian reviewed the plan. “Alright. Jei, I’ll meet up with your team here on the 3rd of Duala. Nicolus, you have the address to send me zephyr falcons on your progress. Lecne, you’ll join Jei here on the 3rd as well. Everyone knows their role?”

There were murmurs of agreement. Jei, Torres, and Runer all waited with a spellcart for the leyline detection devices to be unloaded from the cargo of the ship they’d crossed in. Lecne and his cult, all dressed in Akanan clothes, would be attempting to keep an ear low to the ground about any Prophets. They would be moving up to Arborholm first, while Jei’s group deployed devices north of Arborholm and Ferrabridge where Aurum’s industrial arms hadn’t reached in previous cycles. Nicolus and Sire Nurea would be meeting a Syndicate smuggler in Mercanton who was willing to sell information.

“Excellent. Ominian watch over you.” Mirian turned to Professor Viridian and Selesia. “Alright. It’s a short walk to the train station for the coastal line.”

“This is so weird, watching you order professors about,” Selesia said.

“It’s quite the novel experience,” Viridian said cheerfully. “I think more people should see what it’s like to experience an inverted hierarchical social relation. You know, in pre-unification Baracuel, several kingdoms and one of the free cities had a holiday where they had all the nobility serve the servants and slaves for a day.”

“I think Sylvester Aurum would die if he had to do that,” Mirian said.

They continued chatting on their way to the train. Viridian began an impromptu lecture on the early political history of western Baracuel. Mirian only half-listened to it, but Selesia seemed to enjoy it. Mirian was still far more interested in practicing druid techniques, and had continued to work with Viridian as she prepared for their trip to Akana. She had attempted to apply her lessons to her dreams, though as usual, when she spoke to the Ominian, They were silent. Only rarely did They ever seem to respond.

Once on the train, the conversation died down. They set up in the private car Mirian had bought, then ordered dinner.

Once the waiter had gone, Viridian spoke. “Well. How much instruction on myrvite plants have I given you?”

“The outlines of basically everything in north Baracuel,” Mirian said. She thought of bloodleaf, and her mind went back to Westerun. She had to stop herself from clenching her teeth. But the memories are still there. I remembered the cat. I remembered the house. Not every path to the memory is blocked. There are ways around it. She blurted out, “What do you know about ebonblooms?”

Viridian tapped his chin. “Ebonblooms specifically? Not the jewel lotuses in general?”

“I suppose we could start with the more common varieties.”

“I can tell you I’ve been trying to get my hands on them for many, many years. There’s a garden in Mahatan that supposedly has a few, but I was told the garden was secret and by law, the prince who rules that city owns the flowers. It would be a death sentence if anyone were caught ‘stealing’ one, so I gave up. There isn’t a flower in the world that’s worth getting someone killed over.”

“Are they really that rare?” She had a flash of memory. There had been another garden in the courtyard, with a pool full of lotuses. Were they jeweled lotuses, or just mundane?

“Now? Yes. I don’t think they used to be. I found a historical text about how the citrine, sapphire, silk, ruby, and sunrise varieties all grew in the wetlands near Alatishad. Then, alchemists discovered just how many magical substances could be found in a single plant, and they were hunted nearly to extinction. I believe the law in Mahatan was an attempt to preserve the flowers, though I suspect the prince now leverages it to sell the flowers at an exorbitant price.”

Mirian sighed. “That does seem to be how people think. They couldn’t possibly repopulate the wetlands with it because then the price might go down.”

“And they would just be harvested again. So it goes,” Viridian said. “Unfortunately, it was the logic of economics that guided my work on the greenhouse, under Medius’s direction. Growing myrvite plants without knowledge of the soul is a difficult task. I strongly suspect the most successful herbalists kept focuses hidden away from the Luminates. Tlaxhuaco is apparently quite good at growing myrvite cultivars, but the trade restrictions means there’s little enough of their goods or ideas coming from the island. I have no idea if they grow any jeweled lotuses there.”

Mirian only knew a bit about the isolationist policies of the island nation. Some sort of conflict between Tlaxhuaco and Akana Praediar had happened about two generations ago, and now, Uxalax was the only port opened to foreign trade, but that trade was heavily taxed and regulated. There was a book full of goods banned from entering or leaving the island, and most merchants didn’t bother since making a profit was too much of a hassle.

Apparently, Xipuatl’s family had some sort of special exemption from several taxes, so they were able to use that to their advantage. That will be useful if I ever need to go there, but it might not be necessary. The leyline breakdown is far to the north of them, and they don’t use many spell engines.

“So what about the ebonblooms?”

“An absolutely strange plant. They grow in conditions most lotuses couldn’t survive in. In fact, one text thought they could only grow in conditions most plants would find toxic. It’s unclear whether or not it’s a variety of jeweled lotus, or a different species altogether. One particularly pious Luminate bishop wrote that it should be renamed ‘necrobloom’ and the flowers burned on sight. He was writing some three hundred years ago when there were still more necromancers around, and his writings may have contributed to the rarity. Another scholar compiled all the legends about the flower and tried to map them to locations in Persama. They concluded it only grows in places where the groundwater leeches through fossilized myrvite first. I don’t know that the scholar understood that mana is not a soluble substance like salt, but that would explain why no one can find them anymore. The environments that allowed them to grow have been taken over by mining. If it is true, that would also make it a fascinating organism. It may be one of the few organisms that can grow using D-class mana. Only a few fungi we know of can do that, and they tend to live in alkaline caves.”

Potentially useful, Mirian noted. “Nightmare Leaf produces toxic mana as a defense, doesn’t it?”

“That it does, and I’ve seen it classified as D mana, but I don’t think it is. I think the entire classification system is oversimplified and we should be using Rodrick’s Taxonomy of Mana.” Viridian cleared his throat. “That probably isn’t a high priority for a Prophet.”

Mirian chuckled. “No, probably not. Still, it will be important to know the precise nature of the mana we need to deal with.” She grew thoughtful as the countryside continued to pass by. “In fact, are the leylines composed of the mana they absorb, or do they change the composition somehow? Either way, that might inform how we design and use the mana regulators. If that ends up being what we do.” She looked at Selesia. “Sorry, this is probably a bit much,” she told her.

“Oh, it’s fine. I think I understood half of that.”

Mirian started looking out the window again, thinking. How long is all this research going to take? And how much time do we have? She was still avoiding Ibrahim. How much longer could she justify doing that?

“Oh, Viridian, there is this other spell I’ve been working on. So it turns out stone moles can ‘leap’ through the fourth dimension…”

***

They made their way to the original First City again. This time, Mirian flew them in bursts so that they could better understand the region.

“These plants are all so content compared to the ones in the greenhouse,” she said after soul-bonding with another cypress. “Well, this one is annoyed by something trying to grow into its bark. But you know what I mean.”

“When you plant something in a greenhouse, you have to attend to its every need,” Viridian said. “Out here in the wild, things grow where they are best suited. The cypress trees are going to be happy, because all the seeds that landed in terrible places never grew.” Viridian looked around the swamp while Mirian used a very tiny chain lightning on some of the mosquitoes flying about. “You know, I’m sure a good poet could use that as a metaphor about the human condition,” he said cheerfully. Maybe old age had made his skin too wrinkly for the insects, but he didn’t seem bothered by the biting bugs at all. Whatever it was, it wasn’t fair. Mirian was strongly considering just erecting a force shield to repel the bugs. Cycling soul energy through the bites did nothing to alleviate the itching.

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Viridian put his hand on the trunk of the cypress. Briefly, he closed his eyes, then nodded. “Let’s keep moving,” he said. “Unless… I don’t think I’ve seen a mushroom like that before…”

“Some other time,” Mirian said, but she couldn’t help but smile.

After four more stops, they finally made their way to the overgrown ruins and the great mound that had once been a pyramid.

As they approached the slab of quartzite, Viridian stopped. He closed his eyes and was silent. After a moment, Mirian saw he was trembling. A tear streaked down his cheek. When he opened his eyes, he looked shaken. “There is… such a history here.” He turned to Selesia. “You said Shiamagoth touched the world here?”