Chapter 209 – Mayat Shadr

Mirian’s search of the surrounding area that cycle turned up little. Occasionally, she would look out at something and feel the faintest hint of deja vu, but it was hard to say if she was even remembering something or just going insane from looking at too many rocks.

With a few days left in the cycle, she returned through the Mahatan Gate to see if any developments had been made during the research.

As she strode through the Elder Gate, she startled High Wizard Ferrandus and two of the wizards working for him. “Prophet!” he exclaimed.

“Any breakthroughs on Gate research?”

“Our notes are over there,” he said, gesturing to a haphazard pile.

Mirian swept them up with telekinesis, then levitated upward to the ceiling. She used blink to bring her to the strange shaft above the Gate. When she was at the top, she cast detect life to ensure she wouldn’t collide with someone, then blinked again, bringing her to the plaza in front of Bainrose. That was significantly faster than any other route, but as usual, it caused something of a shock to anyone in the plaza. Mirian ignored the yelps of surprise and made her way into Torrian Tower.

“Hey! Students aren’t—ah, apologies, Prophet,” one of the Academy guards told her.

“As you were,” she said, unconcerned. She levitated up the central room towards the advanced wizarding laboratories.

The notes Ferrandus had handed her turned out to be useless. It told her all sorts of things she’d seen before; only the arrangement of the sentences were different. She was still figuring out how to create initial conditions that would get him and his team to find new information about the Gates, one that didn’t involve her spending an inordinate amount of time tutoring him first. Unfortunately, Jei getting pulled off the Gate project to work on crystallography with Seneca caused their productivity to crater.

Mirian smiled as Jei emerged from the alchemistry room. “How went the research this cycle?” she asked. It was her habit to speak Adamic now any time she addressed her.

“That remains to be seen,” Jei said. “Have we integrated jeweled lotus extract into chrysoberyl crystals before?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You have not.”

That brought a smile to her old professor’s face. “Then it went well. Come and see.”

They had grown minuscule crystals, since the amount of magichemical they were extracting was equally small, but Mirian marveled at their beauty. The ones in front of her were translucent golden minerals, but as Jei quickly demonstrated, using a different kind of light spell caused them to look brilliant orange.

“The inclusions of lotus extract, when properly suspended in the growth medium, significantly alters the properties of the crystal. It specifically took extract from an amber-jeweled lotus, though. It may be that different extracts match different crystals. We believe—”

Seneca burst into the room. She was so excited she was nearly vibrating. “She’s back! Did you tell her!?”

Jei switched to Friian. “Sefora, I am being in the process of—”

“It’s amazing!” the alchemistry professor interrupted. “It displays higher mana resonance than corundum! There’s also the research implications—that there’s dozens of new formulas that might do even better! If we can just resolve the problem of the flaws developing in the crystal structure—”

“There’s a way to resolve that, it just involves going to the Labyrinth,” Mirian said. “Let’s go through the full report.” She smiled at them. “You’ve both done well.”

***

Between the cycles, she dreamed again. First, of the Mausoleum, gazing out at the endless stars in those towering windows she could never reach. She went again to the entrance where the colossal doors stood. Always, a faint glow lay beneath the stars in this direction, muting them. She pushed against the doors, but it was still like she was exerting no force on them.

The dream shifted, and there was the tree, but more than half of it was on fire this time. The branches didn’t splay out in the kind of fractal patterns common of trees, though, they wove together, merging and unmerging, impossible to untangle just by looking. She climbed, putting one hand in front of the other, seeing if she could trace a path—

She was in that place of darkness again, the wall of fire coming closer, blotting out all the stars with its terrifying light. The Ominian floated in a void, watching it approach. It was closer now, closer than she’d ever seen it in a dream. At first, it had seemed a line of fire, then a rectangle, but as it came closer, it seemed to grow vertically. An expanding sphere, she realized. Mirian could feel the anticipation radiating off the God. The dread. She turned to see what They were guarding—

—and the dream vanished, just as the first drop of water hit her on the head.

She sighed.

***

For all the rapid progress she’d made in the search for Atrah Xidi in the 208th loop, the next two loops were incredibly frustrating. She scoured the area near the smuggler’s drop the next loop, then roamed farther out the loop after. When increasing her search radius turned up nothing, she tried exploring what she could of the cave system.

That also proved to be a dead end. Even if the necromancer was using a blink spell, the tunnels were too narrow and twisting to be much use. She began to only explore tunnels large enough to easily fit a person, but after weeks of exploration, it seemed there was nothing near the place Thaseem had shown her.

She returned to Falijmali again to replenish her supplies and get clean of the sand that found ways to get into everything. On a whim, Mirian took a different route on her return, flying eastward first before swinging around in an arc south.

That was when she saw it.

A streak moving through the air. It was moving faster than a two-headed vulture, and was too large to be a sand-kite. Mirian snapped off two lens spells, layered on top of each other. Sure enough, it was a dark-robed figure, flying against the wind. He was flying southeast, his back to her. He apparently hadn’t seen her. There was only one person it could be.

Atroxcidi. Or rather, Atrah Xidi. But where is he going? Ibrahim’s armies are marching in the opposite direction.

She cast total camouflage, thinking, Gods’ blood, I almost ran into him. All this searching, sure that he would be somewhere north near Rambalda, and it was coincidence that they nearly crossed paths while levitating. Why didn’t I anticipate that?

Then, you can’t anticipate everything. She didn’t like that.

Her camouflage spell didn’t seem to be necessary. The necromancer’s back stayed to her, and he was flying farther away with every passing moment. But that did mean she had an opportunity, however dangerous. Quickly, she considered her options. There were only a few days left in the cycle. He was flying southeast and appeared to be traveling in a straight line, which meant he had come from the northwest. Rambalda was in that direction, but she wasn’t sure that was where he’d come from. Did he come from his hideout? Has he actually just been there the whole time?

Mirian looked down, mentally marking the place where his shadow passed over a rock formation. When he passed over another distinct formation, she noted that too. She moved the lens spells back up. The necromancer was nearly out of sight. She flew towards the first rock formation she’d noted, then used a compass spell to align herself. In the Holy Pages, she’d copied a scale map of Enteria. She glanced back. The necromancer’s speed and angle hadn’t changed.

She flew up several thousand feet where the air had a chill to it, layering more lens spells. In the distance, she could just make out Rambalda. Wrong angle. Then he came from closer by.

Mirian used a special ink she’d developed to mark a red line across her map. Later, a remove ink spell, enhanced to target the specific type, could clear the notes. If Atrah Xidi had come directly from the same place he’d started the loop in, this little encounter had just drastically reduced the area Mirian needed to search. In fact, it should only take a single cycle more to find it. Ibrahim is coming from Rambalda, and based on his army movements, I can guess when he leaves to find the necromancer. I don’t know how he’s managed to move as fast as he does, but I can find a location to watch from, and it’s as simple as posting up where the two lines intersect.

That had, essentially, just solved the problem of finding the necromancer. There was no need to continue the search this cycle. Now it was just a matter of time.

She glanced back at the direction he’d gone.

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What is he doing? The curiosity was burning her.

The smart thing to do would be to be grateful about the narrow miss. But this doesn’t seem like something Ibrahim would have told him to do. He would want him attacking Baracuel, right? Understanding this might untangle the motivations of the man, which would help her in negotiations. If she went after him, she’d likely not have time to return to Torrviol. She’d lose the research progress the Academy had made this cycle.

Mirian hesitated only a moment more, then flew after him.

***

The necromancer turned out to be easy to follow. She couldn’t maintain his speed without using accelerated levitation, and she couldn’t use the mana-hungry spell for long because the necromancer wasn’t leaving her much fuel.