The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

It took about five days for the boat to travel from Palendurio's port city down to Urubandar. Mirian had assumed a soul disguise and was going by the name Micael Sulalnahr. When they'd stopped in one of the smaller port towns on the coast, she'd bought clothing appropriate for the arid climate. The glow of her eyes, however, couldn't be disguised by soul bonds, so she had to maintain a low level illusion spell or wear a veil. Veils were only for men and women in mourning, so she went with the illusion.

In between reading about the Unification War and Atroxcidi, Rostal instructed her on Persaman culture. Her Adamic was already more than passable, but there were little things she didn't know.

"If you are a man, you must raise your left arm for greeting. If you raise your right arm, that used to mean you wanted to fight. Now it's just considered rude. If you are a woman being greeted by a man, it is expected you stand straight when they raise their arm, then use two fingers to touch your forehead followed by your heart. Two women greeting each other clasp right arms, unless they are very close, then they clasp left arms."

Rostal had also taught her how to wrap various headdresses, showing her casual and formal styles of wraps, as well as how to wrap her face if there was a sandstorm.

"Urubandar is too close to the coast to get many sandstorms, but Mahatan will certainly get one."

Then there was jewelry. The conflict in Persama had led to a great deal of movement, and the nature of fossilized myrvite mining meant laborers were often on the move to find work. The Baracueli banks weren't trusted by the poorer workers since it was rumored they often stole deposits through legal trickery, so most people kept a store of wealth on them in the form of jewelry. Men wore theirs openly, along with some sort of bladed dueling weapon, usually a falchion or a cutlass that could also be used as a tool. Women wore their jewelry and weapons beneath their cloaks, and it was considered rude to stare at their jewelry or compliment it.

Mirian's head spun from all the rules, but she appreciated that Rostal explained not just what the rule was, but why the rule was. One raised their right hand to draw a weapon, which was why it was rude to use in greeting. Staring at a woman's jewelry implied you were a thief.

And so on. Mirian forgot at least half the rules as he explained them.

When she wasn't learning about Persaman etiquette, she read about Atroxcidi.

The information on the arch-necromancer was, at best, simply vague. More often, it was completely contradictory. One text claimed he'd used necromancy to unnaturally prolong his life. That seemed a reasonable assertion, given how old he was. Another said he had become undead himself. That seemed less likely to Mirian, since the explanations of how 'undead' worked was that it involved partially binding a soul so that it retained instincts akin to sentience, but lost its sapience and memories. Of course, given the bans on necromancy, any technical details had long since been purged from the libraries. Even the bit about partially binding souls had probably just been missed by a lazy censor.

An author said he raided ancient tombs from the era of the Triarchy for the most powerful undead minions, while another proclaimed he merely scavenged corpses from the battlefield during the war. They could neither agree on the origin of his name, nor what he had done before the Unification War. Had he been a necromancer in the court of the Triarchy before its collapse, or was he raised in the ruins of Mayat Shadr by a heretical cult? Had he been a prince of Alatishad, or was he a peasant who found forbidden texts in a deep tomb in the desert? Most of the stories seemed fanciful tales. At least one of them was a retelling of an east Baracueli myth with all the names replaced.

As soon as Mirian found wild inaccuracies or unexamined contradictions, she set the tome aside in an ever growing pile. That left her with three books that had only minimal disagreement about the course of the Unification War. One of the books was adamant that Atroxcidi was Persaman. But, as one author pointed out, then why did he fight in the war? And more importantly, if he was simply motivated by evil and bloodlust, as so many books assumed, why did he stop fighting when there was peace?

Interestingly enough, this author claimed to have read a draft of the Great Unification Treaty that had Atroxcidi as a signatory to it, and had a specific section dedicated to terms concerning the necromancer, regulating how many undead he was allowed to raise. Two other authors writing afterward painted this as a form of political heresy, and accused that author of being a fool who paid coin for fabricated documents. Another scholar, writing a decade later, commented that the issue remained unresolved.

Mirian had known Alkazaria had been capital of its own country before Unification. She hadn't realized that its lands had extended down below the East Sound all the way to the wastes. It seemed clear enough to Mirian that Atroxcidi would have been part of the large group of people that lived near the East Sound that would have considered themselves neither Barcueli or Persaman, but that scholars had written next to nothing about.

One thing the texts did generally agree on was that Atroxcidi showed no mercy to his enemies, and his minions presence on the battlefield inspired great terror. Based on the clever construction of the minion she'd studied, she had no trouble believing the last part. By all accounts, he had been responsible for many thousands of deaths during the war. He had become such a terror by the end of it that he offered a common foe for many Baracueli leaders to unite against. But did he stop fighting because of the overwhelming power brought against him, or for some other reason? What had he been fighting for? Few scholars deigned to comment on that issue, and those that did still couldn't agree.

As their ship continued down the coast, Mirian gazed out across the waves. Could someone like that ever be trusted? Who was to say it wasn't Ibrahim being manipulated by Atroxcidi, like Specter had tried to control Troytin? And yet, the time loop offered her an opportunity to learn powerful magic, with the consequences of such an alliance erased by the falling of the moon.

In the end, she committed to the course.

***

They arrived in Urubandar on the evening of the 5th. The Hightower Lighthouse's magical light shone bright as they approached. The port was full of Akanan and Baracueli trade ships. There was fossilized myrvite piled everywhere on the dockyards, sticking out of open-air warehouses, and being loaded on every other ship. Here, the wealth of Persama flowed out from the Setarab River and then northward.

Urubandar was another city with a long history. It had been one of the jewels of the Persaman Triarchy, and the hills along the river were still dotted with magnificent palaces. Some had fallen into disrepair, while others retained their splendor. At least one of them was now home of the Baracueli Embassy, and another, the Akanan Embassy. She was pretty sure Lord Saiyal, Mr. Aurum's guest warlord, also owned one of the palaces. Probably one of the ones with a gold-leaf dome.

The city was painted white, which apparently helped keep the city cooler. Interspersed with the painted mudbrick were cloths of every color, fluttering in the coastal winds. Some were clothes on drying lines, some family banners, some merchant's rugs hung up for display—but whatever the source, the end result was a city that resembled a flower garden. Up the Setarab River was a band of green on each bank. Beyond that, irrigated farms. And beyond that—desert. Not the scrublands of east Baracuel, but true desert.

The crowds of people teeming over the docks and through the streets tended towards more tattered clothing and simple sandals. Shirt, sandals and skin all showed the wear and tear of a life of hard labor. Interspersed among them were wealthy merchants, often in Baracueli or Akanan dress, often accompanied by a bodyguard. The city somehow managed to convey both an intense bustle and a lazy confidence.

"Are we flying?" Rostal asked.

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"No. I want to move slow and draw as little attention as possible. Also, keep an eye out for anomalies."

The old dervish frowned. "But this is your first time here, no?"

"Liuan Var didn't exactly keep her proclamations secret. Perhaps it'll be obvious."

Rostal looked at her. "If they know soul magic, they'll see you first. You should learn to hide that."

He meant the hole in her soul. "Is there a dervish stance that does that?"

"No."

"Hmm. Not a problem I can currently solve, then."

They walked along a road that paralleled the river. The Seterab River was broad and placid, though apparently when the occasional summer storm rolled through, it became wrathful and deadly. For now, it was covered in barges, most of which were shipping either quarry stone or fossilized myrvite, often from the same pit mine. Dust and fragments from the rock came off enough that the water had a murky quality to it. Mirian's aura had become sensitive enough that the feeling of so much of the noxious stuff set her teeth on edge.

"Is this how you remember it?" she asked.

"No," Rostal said. "But how we remember is never how it was."

The dervish pointed them towards one of the nicer districts. He prayed at an Isheer Sanctuary, and then they headed towards a reputable inn named The Cooling Hearth.

"It used to be, those that had seen distant lands were considered high status. Isheer faithful organized large trade expeditions, not because there was a great profit to be made, but because it gave them an excuse to travel far and wide. The Cooling Hearth hosted the great traveler Ibi who wrote extensively of the great wonders of Enteria. She wrote of a tree in Tlaxhuaco that touched the very sky. She wrote of the great ruins of Mayat Shadr and the expanses of the wastes. Of the great herds that moved across Akana, before it was called that. Of palaces of ice atop the frostland peaks. Of the Land of Spires and the strange beasts of the jungle. Of the great Zhighuan castles. Ibi insisted that she walk to each destination, so she is called the Woman of a Thousand Soles." When Mirian didn't laugh, he solemnly explained, "It is a pun. She wore out her shoes a lot."

"Yes, yes, I understood."

"I have told you that one before?"

"No. There's a lot on my mind."

Rostal shook his head sadly.

The lodgings were more than adequate. The inn contrasted its white walls with beautiful blue tilework, and the ceilings were made of ornate wood carved in geometric patterns. Mirian felt a little bad about desecrating her room with various wards.

As she worked, she could hear laughter and boisterous shouting through the open window. In one of the nearby palaces, someone was performing a show with magical lights, and she could see dancers moving past the windows.

That night she dreamed of the Mausoleum again. By now, the old halls of shifting dark stone were a comfort. The statues of eldritch creatures were too familiar to be frightening. The single needle still lingered in the Ominian's stone flesh.

One by one, I will gather the Prophets, she tried to tell Them. I wish I knew the locations of the other Elder Gates. Can you tell me?

The Ominian was silent.

Mirian wandered the halls, tracing her fingers over the statues and stonework. By now, she had covered these halls in memories. Here, she saw the glyph-controls for the Akanan airships. There, Nicolus's lectures on politics. Next to that, Arenthia's cackling laughter as she ribbed Lecne about some old history they'd shared. Always, the silence loomed in the Mausoleum. The dreams here were always silent.

What does it mean that you died? Mirian wondered. The Luminates had talked of the Ominian's sacrifice, but had treated Them as a still-living Elder God. Is that why you're silent? What does it mean when you speak, then?

As usual, she received no answers.

Then, movement startled her. For a moment—the briefest moment—she thought she'd seen a hooded figure standing in the corner of the room. They were gone as soon as she looked.

She repeated her steps, thinking she'd misinterpreted the usual movement of the statues as something else, but it didn't look the same. Maybe I was remembering that early vision, the one where I saw the other travelers. We were all hooded. I wonder—when I stood before them, did they see me?

Mirian woke just as dawn broke. Rostal was still passed out, snoring loudly, so she let him sleep and went wandering through the streets. She bought Urui pastries from a vendor and picked up one of each broadsheet. The papers were written in all four languages she knew, which would give her good practice. Her ability to read Adamic was still poor, and her Eskanar needed work. She munched on the savory pastries, reading the papers as she waited for Rostal to wake.

It was the 6th of Solem, and Urubandar didn't seem to have learned of Ibrahim's rebellion in the north of the country yet. Mirian took note of various events. Several bandit raids had taken place along the Seterab River. A raft had collided with another in the river two nights ago due to a navigation error, spilling over a hundred gold worth of material. Already, the magistrates were getting involved. A party in the Dusk Palace had grown rowdy enough that the city guard was summoned and the new owner of the estate received a hefty fine. Fighting continued north of Alatishad. Zhighuan refugees continued to arrive in Alatishad, all in terrible shape given the dangers of the passage through the Jiandzhi. The western coast continued to be in turmoil as several warlords fought, though these were skirmishes among relatively minor players. One paper noted Lord Saiyal's trip to Vadriach City and hoped the trip resulted in more Akanan peacekeeping forces stationed in Urubandar, while another broadsheet ridiculed the lord and called for the expulsion of all foreign armies.

Rostal joined her for a late breakfast; Mirian didn't mention that this was her second breakfast, and Rostal didn't comment when she ate again just before noon as she deployed her second leyline detector. Once she'd hidden the third detector in the basement of an Isheer Sanctuary (Rostal had talked to the rector, who had agreed to allow it), they boarded a passenger boat heading upriver toward Alatishad.

Mirian still kept to a schedule of physical exercises, though now that she wasn't planning to find greater labyrinthine horrors, she'd eased off the intensity of the routines. Her magical practice sessions involved a variety of exercises, mostly working on simultaneous casting and extending how many spells she could maintain at once. She also went through the various dervish forms. Rostal had little to say in what could be improved.

"Your teacher must have been quite good," he rumbled. "And probably very handsome."

Mirian faked a chuckle at that, even though she'd heard that joke several times now. Rostal got grumpy if she didn't laugh at any of his jokes.

The cabin she'd rented on the passenger boat was small, but the boat was slow and stable as it moved eastward. When she wasn't working on leyline detector parts, she sat on one of the ship benches and observed the countryside. The days of Persama were hot, and no clouds offered respite from the sun. Mirian could have easily used heat displacement spells to cool herself, but she wanted to feel the relentless sun on her skin and wanted to feel the faint desert breeze on her sweat. If Persama had once been her home, perhaps the feeling would resurrect some long lost memory.

***

As the cycle came to a close, Mirian considered the risk had been well worth it. Her initial reluctance to even set foot in Persama because of Ibrahim had, perhaps, been overly cautious. Ibrahim didn't seem to be touching central Persama, and likely hadn't touched the eastern part of the country at all. She could now see why, too. The areas around Mahatan and Alatishad were full of warring bandit lords, mercenaries, and Akanan forces. While Baracuel had more soldiers garrisoned in Urubandar, Akana Praediar had the largest force in Alatishad, but had pissed off several different warlords in the area.

She had only begun to get a sense of the various rivalries. More importantly, though, she had finally gotten direct measurements of the southern leyline activity.

The leylines in Persama were a mess. They criss-crossed the country like the cracks in fractured glass. There were huge energy fluxes here, too, mostly swarming from the south. She couldn't actually see the mass reconfiguration in any detail, but she could infer it. There seemed to be leyline breaches all across the center of the continent. On the 17th, she and Rostal watched as a massive breach like the one up in the Endelice sent an endless stream of arcane energy into the sky. The auroras here were so beautiful; the devastation was breathtaking.

Early in the cycle, the leyline energy pooled out east. If Mirian's calculations were correct, the leylines had a very specific configuration that was just underneath the geostationary orbit of the Divir moon.

As the disruptions propagated, though, she found more of the energy criss-crossing underneath Mahatan. There was too much chaos and movement in the leylines to pinpoint the location like she had with Palendurio. It was her best lead, though, and so far every Elder Gate had been buried beneath a city, so it seemed the best location. With more data, she could narrow down the location.

A destination for her next loop.