Chapter 251 – Muddling Through the Tangle

The next morning, Gabriel had already found a bottle of rice wine by the time Mirian stumbled on him in the archives. He was lounging in a large chair behind a counter that was supposed to have a worker behind it.

“What are you doing?” Mirian asked.

“Searching the archives,” Gabriel said, kicking his feet up onto the desk and taking a swig.

Mirian looked at him skeptically.

“This is your problem; you want to do everything yourself. Sure, you could spend a few dozen cycles mastering reading Gulwenen, then move on to specializing in Old Gulwenen hand-writing and calligraphy—another dozen cycles, let’s say—then learn the systemic way these archives are ordered. Or, you could let the experts who already know all that do the work for you, as I’ve done.”

Begrudgingly, Mirian acknowledged he had a point. Her plan had been to leverage Jei and her father—she wasn’t doing everything alone—but that was still two people, and the Wongzho archives had a reputation for being especially massive. Hundreds of trained scholars would undoubtedly do a better job.

“And what do you have them searching for?”

Gabriel pulled out a piece of paper. “Uh, let’s see… rare poisons, some texts on historical relations with the Triarchy, research on focuses, journals of advisors to historical Emperors, and comprehensive information on myths and legends, focusing on the oldest versions of a given legend they can find.”

“What?”

He shrugged, and took another sip of the rice wine straight from the bottle.

Mirian took a look around the archive. Dozens of people were bustling around searching shelves. “Did you leave any left for me to use?”

A wicked grin spread across Gabriel’s face.

Mirian looked down to see that Gabriel had left her a small stool to sit on. She raised an eyebrow, then sat cross-legged on a conjured platform of air, which made him roll his eyes. She told him, “You’re trying to teach me several lessons, I see. You might as well just say it.”

“It’s only fair. You taught me lessons in magic, but I need to explain some things about power. Especially before Zhuan digs her very convincing claws into you. Not that she’s wrong, but she’s also not right.”

“You’re trying to teach me that labor power is finite, and social power for one person comes at a cost for other people,” Mirian said.

“Yes, because all resources are finite. Note what she said: that the Akanan elite’s philosophy was a philosophy of fools. And yet…”

“…And yet, it worked. They have the most powerful military, the most factories, and without the time loop, they would have gotten the war of conquest they wanted, toppling the only power that had a chance at competing. Westerun’s mind control magic was never going to work, so they went assassination and replacement. It serves the same function.”

“Precisely. Zhuan is about to tell you a whole lot of reasons it doesn’t work, and I’m sure she ran a bunch of very convincing ‘tests’ in the loop, but her argument has two flaws: one, Akana Praediar is still a supreme power, and two, the only reason anything has happened here is because of the emergence of an elite figure. A person who—whether fate or circumstance—gained a disproportionate amount of power.”

“Zhuan Li.”

Gabriel nodded, then took another swig of rice wine, then shook his head. “Maybe it’s an acquired taste. I’ll take mashed grapes over rice any time, though.” He looked at the bottle thoughtfully. “Or maybe I just need to try more kinds and the subtle notes will emerge.”

“I never needed her to tell me the Akanan philosophy didn’t work,” Mirian said. “A system that is extremely successful in the short term isn’t always useful in the long term. The chimera that culls all the nearby prey animals looks to be the supreme hunter, right up until they starve to death.” Professor Viridian had taught her that. “Akana Praediar’s methods are the reason we’re in this crisis. The question isn’t if they’ve failed—they have. The question is if they can be manipulated to help get us out of it.”

“Yes, yes, you told us about how you got Aurum infatuated with you and he directed some of his people to do a nice little project for you. What were the rest of his factories doing while he did that, by the way?”

Mirian didn’t bother answering. They both knew. Sylvester Aurum understood where his money came from.

“So. Might need to work on that one a bit.”

She raised an eyebrow. “But wouldn’t you say that’s the best place to leverage change? If Aurum can be convinced of the apocalypse, then changing the mind of one person can change a massive chunk of Akanan industry. How many people will we need to convince? Five? Twenty? Surely, a handful of Prophets can manage that.”

An archivist brought over a scroll to Gabriel, gave a polite bow, then handed it to him. “Nice and old. Can’t read a word of it.” He tossed it in a basket of equally ancient scrolls. “Those translators will have a blast, though. What were we saying? Oh yes. Sure. Try it. Liuan Var will probably go along with it and give you some tips. It all might even work. And how do you think Xecatl will take it? How about Ibrahim? How would you feel if, after the factories are done making your regulator device, the invasion goes ahead anyways?”

“You’re still thinking of the world after. But there won’t be a world after. Not yet.” She shook her head. “You’re still explaining to me the intractability of this problem, as if I don’t already know.”

Gabriel swished some more rice wine around in his mouth. “You still think people are rational. You still think that if you present enough evidence, change enough minds, you can get the industrialists of Akana to see the error of their ways and fix things. Still think you can convince the Baracueli generals not to do anything stupid. So let me be direct: it won’t work. It took centuries to build this machine, and you can’t replace the gears while it’s in operation. You have to pull on the levers of power that are already here. So yes, that means manipulating Aurum is a start, but you can’t fundamentally move him away from the metaphorical train track he’s on. Humans aren’t rational, they’re emotional, which is exactly why Westerun’s philosophy works. The man’s a monster, but he did it. An idiot, because he didn’t make nearly enough money off his psychotic cruelty, but he gave the Deeps and the RID the toolkit they needed. Once the dam’s broken, you can’t put the river back.”

“Sylvester Aurum is smart. Misguided, nasty, but smart, or he wouldn’t have his industrial empire. He’s rational enough.”

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The other Prophet snorted. “He’s the worst of the bunch. As emotional as a child—all you have to do is snatch away his toys.” He sighed. “I’ve done a poor job explaining it. But the summary is, if you want the labor, resources, and power to build that regulator of yours, you need the elite. The Akanan industrialists. The nasty Persaman princes. The Baracueli nobles who everyone likes to pretend don’t still rule. You have to keep those levers of power operational. And that means places and people will get ground up in the machinery.”

Mirian felt a surge of anger move through her. She pushed it down, keeping her features serene. “So what exactly is the point of all those scrolls you want? Rare poisons?”

“Gotta play the hand you’re dealt. Sharpen the tools you have. Get a bunch of people sick at the right moment, and they can’t vote on a critical issue. Suddenly, a minority is a majority. Make an old aristocrat pass away in the night peacefully, and suddenly there’s an inheritance crisis to stir in a bit of chaos. And there’s always room to study what worked in the past and see if you can’t get it to work for you too. As for the rest—well, maybe there’s something we’ve been missing. Some more cards to rig the deck with, so to speak.” Gabriel stood and grabbed the basket. “Off to go get these translated. Hopefully you remember something I’ve said once Zhuan talks your ears right off.”

She ended her force chair spell and watched him go. So am I a lever of power you’re trying to pull? she wondered.

She set off to submit her own requests to the archivists.