Chapter 210 – Questions of the Soul

On the 211th loop, Mirian flew northeast from the Mahatan Gate again, this time skipping the retrieval of the lotuses in exchange for pure speed. She kept her use of using myrvite souls and mana drain to a pace she knew she could handle, allowing her to use bursts of accelerated levitation, but not so many that it threatened to destabilize her aura.

Her map and the angles she’d measured implied one of the large plateaus should be close to the necromancer’s hideout. It was also the perfect place to watch anyone coming west from Rambalda. Mirian had flown around the area several times and detected nothing but drake dens and kite-wyvern nests. Both liked to burrow into the rock, making it seem like there were hundreds of caves. Deeper in the rock, though, her divination had returned no caves, so she was curious to see what she’d missed. She was also curious as to how Ibrahim had found the necromancer.

Mirian busied herself making a little cave the same approximate size and depth as a kite-wyvern nest. As she worked, kite-wyverns circled the area. The large, eagle-like creatures were a cross between a lizard and a bird, with both folds of skin and bright feathers. Their toothed beaks let out a wailing cry. Their scales and feathers were the colors of a brilliant dawn, and they keened and called throughout the day as they hunted. Miran finished carving out her little nook and busied herself practicing forms, reviewing her extensive notes, and relaxing a bit by watching the kite-wyverns wheel about in the sky.

It was the evening of the 4th when she saw the dust cloud a few miles off. At first, she dismissed it as desert drakes having another wrestle in the sand, but then she realized the cloud was being drawn across the desert in a line. She quickly cast three layers of lens spells.

Ibrahim.

He wasn’t using an airship. He wasn’t using a spellcart. He wasn’t even levitating.

He was sprinting.

Ibrahim was a tall, handsome man, and as he ran across the desert, she could see his dark skin glistening with sweat, his well-defined muscles pumping. Mirian knew a thing or two about running. Even with the dervish forms, she would have struggled to keep the pace he was maintaining for more than a mile or two. But here he was, maintaining a dead sprint for hours.

She cast detect life to better see his soul-currents.

With the spell changing her sight, Ibrahim became a creature of light. His soul shone bright, and around the edges, it burned like a hungry bonfire. She recognized the soul-pattern. Rostal had warned her about the Last Breath Of The Phoenix form. Somehow, Ibrahim was using it constantly. How can he use it for so long and not turn his own soul to ash? she wondered. She squinted. Something about the currents was off. Is he using two dervish forms simultaneously? That shouldn’t be possible.

Mirian dismissed detect life and looked again at the man, trying to understand his nature. She could see in his dark eyes the same sort of thing people sometimes told her she had—a determination. She could see it in his face, in his easy, powerful movements. There was a confidence he projected. She could see immediately that when he deigned to lead, people followed.

She dismissed the lens spells, then summoned her compass spell, aligning it. Then she began to grow concerned. It looked like Ibrahim was heading straight at the plateau. Not slightly north or south of her position. Right at it.

She looked down the cliffside. Shit. Is the necromancer right below me? Mirian recast detect life, looking for abnormal souls. There was a prominent desert drake nest at the base of the plateau and a few other smaller animal burrows. Casting examine geology, a more complicated divination spell than the relatively primitive detect cave, she peered at the rock beneath her feet again.

Other than the superficial ones, there were no caves or passages at all.

She was about to start using targeted divination of glyphs, when she stopped. Something felt off. No caves or passages at all. But the periodic monsoons do a great deal of erosion. This plateau has a granite cap, but the sandstone should still have fissures and caves throughout it like all the other ones. They would be tiny, but they would still be present—unless…

She froze. Unless a ward-scheme interfered with the spell. And a necromancer who’s hidden from the Praetorians would not just have wards to hide, but wards to detect divination.

Ibrahim was drawing closer. I’m not ready for a confrontation. I want to be able to make sure Atrah Xidi is fortified against any lies he’s telling him.

Mirian ducked back down in her carved hole. Her spell resistance should make her soul harder to see if the other Prophet was using rune-magic—though she saw no spellbook or even wands. She waited until he was close enough to the cliffs that he couldn’t look up and see her. The drake cave is the entrance, she confirmed. I can figure the rest out later. She cast total camouflage, then levitated south.

***

As she passed back through the Mahatan Gate, most of the prince’s lotuses crammed in a satchel, Mirian still felt unsure. Had her spells been detected by the necromancer? Would that alter what Ibrahim did? There was no way he didn’t know about the other Prophets looping through the cycles with him. They’d changed too many things: the length of the cycles, the Akanan invasion—she’d also thwarted his attack on Alkazaria one cycle.

It ate at her, but there was nothing to be done. Next cycle. The anticipation had her both terrified and giddy. All sorts of doubts swarmed through her mind. But in the end, he does want to save Enteria. For himself, if no one else—but I can work with that. Ibrahim’s proved he can be convinced. I can do it.

She tried to put it out of her mind and work on her studies of magic. After several cycles, she needed to analyze the research going on in Torrviol and figure out what needed to be iterated on, and what initial conditions she could use to maximize new research.

It was certainly becoming a problem. Professor Holvatti, no matter what he was told, tended to do poorly constructed experiments that would disprove Professor Viridian’s work. That his rival had been right seemed too much for him to handle, no matter what Mirian told him. Professor Runer was friends with Viridian, but ended up doing incredibly similar work each cycle. Variations in the directions he was given and who he was working with did little to move the man. Clearly, there was an idea stuck in his head, and he wanted to work on it.

It wasn’t just a problem of inflexible minds or old grudges, either. Even the brilliant Professor Torres was having trouble making any progress on her designs. Mirian could provide her with more information, but the more information she gave her, the more the artificer had to study and learn just what it was Mirian was talking about. Torres, for all her genius in artillery design, knew little about the leylines, so several weeks of each cycle was taken up by her reading the same reference books. Mirian could teach her directly, but that detracted from the time she had near the start of the cycle to do other things, and from her ability to spread out research efforts.

Fundamentally, there would be only so much people without the ability to remember what they worked on could do. She hadn’t reached that limit yet, but eventually, she would have to change tactics.

For this cycle, she first set up her own spy network to keep an eye on trains departing Cairnmouth and used Nurea to hire the Syndicate to watch smuggler routes. Ibrahim and Atrah Xidi would likely continue to do what they had done, but she couldn’t shake the paranoia.

It was a good thing she had located Atrah Xidi’s hideout, though. After conquering Alkazaria, Ibrahim had started sending the necromancer’s forces west, using only a token force and some sort of infiltration tactic to take Madinahr. That freed up nearly his entire army to make that western move. He’d abandoned trying to push through the scrublands, and was simply sending his forces through the Casnevar Range, trying to push through the treacherous passes so that he could descend to the Magrio River and threaten Palendurio that way.

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According to Liuan’s latest message, he was still getting bogged down. The fall of Baracuel’s second capital galvanized the rest of the country, and under intense pressure from his own allies, General Corrmier was now forced to abandon his plans of a coup and take the Palendurio Army and intercept Ibrahim’s forces at those passes.

General Hanaran and Commander Hirte seemed to have their division deployed to rescue Alkazaria, with disastrous consequences, leaving Cairnmouth undefended. If Ibrahim did find a way to take Palendurio in a cycle, it would be the end of Baracuel.

Only, it didn’t matter at all. None of it would stop the apocalypse. Why? If he was a fool, he couldn’t do what he’s done. But to what point and purpose? she wondered.

At least she’d find out soon. It wasn’t a confrontation she was looking forward to.

In the meantime, she busied herself with practice. Given that she’d be staying in Torrviol, her new goal was to soul-commune with a bog lion. Viridian found the idea amusing.

“It’s never been done before, usually because anyone trying was mauled to death and then subsequently eaten,” he said. “As you’ve noticed, adult myrvites are also a bit more, hmm, hostile. The loss of childhood innocence and curiosity, perhaps. Have you ever seen a hatchling wyvern exploring its nest? Adorable. Quite the opposite of an adult bog lion devouring a carcass.”

Capturing the bog lion was the easy part, though. She knew where one would be, and she could overcome its spell resistance entirely, using lift person to carry the struggling creature to a specially prepared cage in Myrvite Studies. Then, she could touch it through the bars on the flank. With Viridian’s instruction, Mirian could sense the wants of plants well enough now. She could commune with the young wyverns and the drakes, and understand their emotions and instincts.