The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

The second time Mirian went into Persama, she went alone. She ringed Mahatan with detectors. The problem became clear: while it was still clear significantly more leyline movement was passing under the city in the late cycle, the amount of energy passing through the system pushed the leylines into new configurations hourly. The lack of a stable configuration prevented energy from pooling. Leyline detectors would be insufficient for narrowing down the location of the gate. The area she'd need to search was eight times the size of the area she'd have to search in Alkazaria. Still, she considered it the better candidate because she'd actually have a full loop to search it and there was no indication Ibrahim had a presence there.

She continued to read more about Atroxicidi and the Unification War. What she found interesting as she read was that the older texts, written just after the war, seemed to have a more brutal honesty to them. They all spoke of terrible atrocities on all sides. When cities were captured, there were riots and crackdowns, assassinations and executions. Swathes of farmland were burned, and the executions were often brutal, done to make an example of captured partisans and spies. Each faction had clear motivations and objectives, such as preserving independence, conquering a rival, or securing a critical resource.

The newer history texts told nothing of the sort. The war was a clear battle between good and evil. Most texts at least acknowledged the complexity, though she found one that read more like a child's tale. The Unifiers were heroic, struggling against waves of vicious attacks, but succeeding despite the odds. The Separatists were brutal, as savage to their enemies as they were to their own soldiers. The entire tale was told like the Unifiers had intended to unite all of Baracuel from the beginning, even though that objective had only materialized near the end of the war after the Western Alliance had solidified its bonds and the factories they'd established had started to churn out spell engines and materiel in quantities that gave them an overwhelming advantage. Even then, the war had ended in negotiation, with Alkazaria being established as a second and equal Capital because the Unifiers hadn't been able to push out east without their logistical tail being eaten up by raids and myrvite incursions.

As Mirian sailed south, she tried to remember what she'd learned in preparatory school. It had been as much a fairy tale as what she'd just read. Of course Baracuel would be united, because they were living in that reality, and so anyone struggling against that was painted as a fool trying to resist the inexorable tide of history.

And yet, the contemporaries of the time had seen no such inevitability. Even during the negotiations, many people seemed to assume it was yet another temporary truce and the continent would be ripped apart again as soon as the armies had recovered enough to take the offense on the field again.

Her third trip ended the same as her second had: in failure to locate any sort of Elder artifact. She did learn Mahatan did not have the same underlying layer of volcanic rock, which was curious. Perhaps its Elder Gate was more like Torrviol's.

Mirian met with Liuan again to discuss her progress. She took a specially commissioned cutter ship from Cairnmouth across the Rift Sea, meeting the other Prophet at a small town at the mouth of the Ohyo River that flowed past Arborholm into the sea.

As she scouted the town, camouflaged and high in the sky, Mirian noted that Liuan Var had brought dozens of priests with her, though most were in disguise. The Church of the Ominian didn't seem to have very good capabilities for divining runes, so Mirian suspected Liuan didn't know how well she could detect unprotected rune sequences at a distance. Mostly, she was on the lookout for RID agents, since the Church didn't have curse wands. Liuan had one, but she'd had one that first meeting too. It didn't look like an ambush.

She flew back to her ship and pretended to disembark for the first time.

They met in the village's church.

"Prophet," she said in greeting, beneath a great statue of the Ominian.

"Prophet," Liuan said. Their words echoed in the cavernous building.

The church was empty except for the two of them, though Mirian knew that several guards and priests remained outside, the priests in contemplative prayer.

"Did you try the Elder Gate?" Mirian asked.

"No. I've been busy here."

She doesn't trust me enough to go to either Palendurio or Torrviol, Mirian thought. "You were right. I wish I'd focused on the Monuments sooner. As I sent to you, the Gates are what are extending the cycle. If we can find more, we might find a way to regulate the leylines that doesn't involve inventing two impossible technologies. How goes taking control of the Akanan military?"

Liuan sneered. "It would be much easier if I was already a part of the military, or connected with the RID. Still, it should be soon. Sylvester's little gala is a good fulcrum point."

Mirian got the sense that she'd already known about Sylvester Aurum's party in Vadriach before she'd mentioned it in a letter. Though maybe not; as soon as Troytin started influencing Tyrcast and Rosen early in the cycle, it might have disrupted that event. Prior to that, she may have had trouble attending it undetected. "Have you learned anything about the origin of the leyline repulsors?"

"No," the other Prophet said simply.

"And any other mysteries?"

"I said I'd let you know if I discovered any."

Mirian stared at the other woman. "We should address the bog lion in the room. It's clear you don't trust me," she said. "I'll admit I have trouble trusting you too. I told you what Sulvorath did to me. The possibility that another Prophet will use their position selfishly is onerous."

Liuan Var was calm on the outside. Her hands were clasped behind her back, and her posture was regal. Yet with her detect life, she could see that the hands she had clasped behind her were fidgeting. "Do you really expect me to believe that the Ominian Themself removed Sulvorath from the loops?"

Damn, Mirian thought. That was a sticking point for her. She would not reveal the spell she'd created to remove Troytin. It was too big a risk. But as long as she kept that secret, that would keep the schism between them open. "What other explanation is there?" she asked.

"That's the question, isn't it?" Liuan was silent, then she said, "How much do you know about Atroxcidi?"

Does she think I used Atroxcidi to remove Troytin? Or does she think Ibrahim did? "Very little. That's why I'm so cautious. You?"

She made a 'hmph' sound. "I didn't realize he was more than a myth before this started. I discovered a reference to him concerning a stolen relic from the Church."

"One of the relics from the vaults of the Grand Sanctum?" Mirian asked. Is she trying to track those down?

"Relics that rightly belong to the true Church of the Ominian."

Mirian looked at her. "I'm not going to argue religious doctrine. We're beyond that. I don't care who the relics belong to. But they might be useful for us. For this crisis. The Prophets would have lived lives far longer than a normal person, and what they used or made may have a link to the divine." Relicarium was the other thing she was still reluctant to mention. But if Liuan had found another relic… As far as Mirian could tell, three of the relics in the vaults were forgeries: the Mask of the Fifth Prophet, the Staff of the Third, and the Ring of the First. If any of them were half as useful as the Holy Pages, they would be worth acquiring. "The relics also might help us understand what the divine purpose of the first loops were. We know what they did, but what were they trying to prevent? Something like this?"

"If I find any, I'll let you know. There's a secret society I'm trying to infiltrate. Though, the ones I've previously joined had forgeries. Poorly done ones, too." Liuan paused again, looking toward the statue of the Ominian behind the altar. "Do you know how long the Prophets lived?"

"No," Mirian said. "I did some estimations on how long each one of their loops would be, based on when they made their proclamations and how big a splash they were making in the history books. Of course, the First and Second lived so long ago, one can't even estimate. Most of them had loops that lasted several decades though. This loop seems anomalous."

"Indeed. I've researched the same. I found references to the Fifth Prophet. He must have been in the loops for at least a hundred years. And I think he spent far less time in the loops than the Fourth did."

Mirian clenched her jaw. They were nearing the two hundredth loop. It was only a fraction of the amount of time that had passed for the others. "There's a possibility that the five Prophets were not the only ones who experienced a time loop. Are you familiar with Sun Shuen, the sky-emperor?"

Liuan furrowed her brow. "I've heard that name before, but not for a very long time. My father must have told me about her. One of the old Zhighuan legends, yes?"

Thoughts that had been burning deep in Mirian's mind came tumbling out. "Yes. She was blessed with a world aura and used that to bless all of Zhighua, renewing the empire. It made me wonder. History is an imperfect record of the past. How many Prophets were there, really? Imagine a Prophet emerging in Tlaxhauco before contact was reestablished with them. How would Persaman historians have recorded them? And then, by the time the Luminate Order contacted the Tlaxhuaco, religious doctrine had been established for two thousand years. Wars had already been fought about the truth of the matter. What Luminate Pontiff could possibly incorporate a new Prophet into the canon? There's also the Cult of Zomalator that believes in a Sixth Prophet that the Luminates and Church never recognized. And the Isheer disagree with how many Chosen there were as well. But if we ignore that, we might be ignoring critical pieces of a grand puzzle."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Liuan was silent at that. "It has been bothering me. Why did the dream have so many of us before the Ominian in the Mausoleum? Why did that dream only occur once? Why did one of the Prophets stand when they should have continued to pray? I kick myself for not counting precisely. Four dozen at least, but how can there have been so many?"

Mirian's heart pounded. She'd been there, in that dream so long ago. Kneeling with the rest of us. Hooded. She saw me stand. It was real. It was real.

The other Prophet continued. "Was it all the Prophets assembled, or was it just the ones from this loop? I wonder… if Sulvorath…"

But she trailed off.

"It's been over five thousand years since the Cataclysm. Since the God's War," Mirian said. "You've seen the wall of fire in the stars. I think the Gates of Fire were real. Enteria burned, and only the Ominian's grace protected it from annihilation. How many are here, at the precipice of annihilation, and how many were spread across time? Five thousand years. I've been trying to wrap my head around that number. It's a long time. A lot of people have lived and died. If fifty people were placed across five thousand years… and yet, there's still so much we don't know."

Liuan nodded carefully. "Why does half of the great tree burn?"

"Why did the sky rain anchors?"

"Why does the Ominian wander?"

"What happened to the Mausoleum, and why is it silent there?"

"What do the needles in Their flesh mean?"

The tears came to Mirian suddenly. She closed her eyes, and there they were. "You understand," she said. "It's been so long… the loneliness… the disconnection. People weren't made to have no one to relate to. To have no one to talk to, to not be understood."

Liuan's face had changed. Softened.

"May I hug you?" Mirian asked.

The other Prophet hesitated. A hundred emotions played across her face in a few short seconds. Then she said, "Yes."

They embraced, and Mirian was surprised to feel that Liuan had grasped her and as tightly as she had. Each of them had put up a veneer, but each of them had that hollow space inside, the one that had been. For a moment, they stood like that, beneath the watchful gaze of the Ominian. Then, almost reluctantly, Mirian let go.

"Thank you," she said. "We have to find ways to trust each other," though she wasn't sure if she was speaking to herself or the other Prophet. A hundred years. Maybe more, she was thinking. "We have a long ways to go."

"Yes," Liuan said. She was shaking slightly. "We'll continue our communication routine of zephyr falcons at the beginning of each cycle. You'll be heading down to Persama again?"

Mirian nodded. "Next cycle. Until I can solve the Ibrahim situation and ensure the necromancer isn't a threat. Then, hopefully, I can bring him into our concord."

Liuan nodded. Her posture was still stiff. That distrust was still there. Nothing so deep could be undone by a single conversation or a single embrace.

Mirian stepped back to give her space. "If you can find an Elder Gate beneath Akana, that could be critical. However, I have no indications there is one. But it seems like there should be. So far they've been spread across all the ancient cities."

"Perhaps I'll discover one in my research. It seems the tomes of history still drip with secrets."

They discussed zephyr falcon reception points and days, then both departed.

***

Their conversation had been brief, but it had given Mirian a lot to think about. She turned her efforts to Torrviol while she thought, organizing the professors into new research teams and continuing to study the effects the active Elder Gates had on the leylines.

Then, she descended to the depths of Torrviol. The revelation that a door she had found near the start of the loops had been a key breakthrough made her realize something. Troytin had started in Arborholm, next to the leyline-affecting airships. Liuan Var likely started in Ferrabridge, right next to the first documented leyline eruption. Celen and Sio were in Vadriach and Mercanton, where they could have the largest effect on politics and spell engines. Ibrahim commanded the north of Persama, though that made her wonder; Persama was the location of moonfall. Were there others there? Or was Ibrahim's position like hers, in a place critical to the leylines? What secrets did the city of Rambalda hold?

The Prophets had all been distributed to key points. The exception seemed to be Baracuel, which had just her. Unless—had Troytin cursed some other time traveler there? But he hadn't mentioned it in any of his interrogations. She wondered if there were Prophets in Tlaxhauco and Zhighua too.

In any case, it was clear there were patterns. If the Elder creatures that worked the Gates could travel across the fields of time, the Ominian must have wandered them too. Their choice couldn't have been random. Perhaps, if she could understand Their mind better, she could find any other Prophets, whether they hid in the shadows or not. Perhaps, she could understand Their intentions and how to save them from this terrible fate.

These were the thoughts that tumbled through her mind as she continued into the Torrviol Underground. The key to the Gate had been right next to her all along. She had realized that, though she had explored all over, there were still secrets yet in Torrviol she hadn't unearthed.

One of the lost passages in the Underground had the statue with her first celestial focus and the orichalcum disks. She had never actually continued to explore that direction. Now, she did. She had spent most of the cycle in Torrian Tower reformulating her spellbook, dividing the spell portion of the grimoire into two sections: combat and utility. The combat spell sequences were all complete sequences, allowing her to quickly and easily cast spells in battle. The utility section organized the glyphs and runes she used into categories, and she could then mix and match them. When she wasn't using the precision-scribing equipment in the tower, she practiced with the new formulations. The revisions of the book had given her a full dozen more pages to work with.

Now, in the Underground, she was armed with every divination spell she knew.

The passage beyond the statue with the orichalcum continued for some time before ending in a partially collapsed passage. However, divination indicated the tunnel kept going on beyond that. She cleared the debris enough to squeeze through and continued on.

The first layer of the Underground was Old Torrviol. Beneath it was the second layer, the brick tunnels that had probably linked buildings together for sieges of protection from myrvites, and beneath that, sewer tunnels. Beneath Old Torrviol was the ancient city. It was in this layer she traveled. The old buildings had fallen apart, but there had been streets down there. Though sediment and debris had filled them, once she saw the pattern, she could cut through places that had collapsed and find more intact passages. Her divination indicated there were extensive passages beneath. Mirian was reluctant to drill. Breaking apart the earth here could cause a collapse. Instead, she searched, light spell illuminating corners and buried ruins that had not seen illumination for Gods knew how long.

At last, her exploration brought her to the remnants of an old staircase.

It became immediately clear to Mirian that this was an ancient sewer system. Somehow, it had remained intact and unblocked after all these years. A thin layer of sediment and debris was left in the middle of the tunnels. Small bones stuck out of it in places. One of the old skeletons appeared to be human. On their arm was an old orichalcum band. Mirian held it to her light. Symbols had been scratched onto it, but not in any language she recognized. She pocketed it. Perhaps one of the history professors would know.

Mirian continued until her water ran out, then returned to the surface.

The next day, she resumed her exploration. Ancient Torrviol had been large, spreading far to the north past the spellward. She encountered a burrowing myrvite with no eyes and pale skin that she'd never seen before. When she brought it to Viridian, he'd never seen one before either. While Viridian dissected it, Mirian returned to the depths.

She began to encounter more strange creatures crawling in the depths. One was like the bog lions in that it had a natural camouflage spell. Another seemed to be like a fungus, only it would slowly crawl about before burrowing into the ashy ground. The eyeless crawlers seemed to eat the fungal skulkers, while the invisible hunters ate the eyeless crawlers. There were other fungal forms growing, though fortunately they didn't move.

There was a problem though: where was the energy for this ecosystem originating? There were no plants growing so far from the sun.

Mirian paused her explorations to deal with the Akanan forces. This time, there were no airships to deal with, so instead, Mirian, Cassius and Luspire flew over the army and surprised them with a catastrophic attack on the logistics. There were brief skirmishes as the army tested the militia's defenses, but Mirian burned any storehouse of food they tried to capture, and the Akanans were forced to retreat.

She returned to her exploration as soon as she could.

After that, she encountered something deep in the ancient sewers she did recognize: a labyrinthine horror. Mirian stared at it, shocked. When it charged her, it took her a moment to remember she needed to kill it, which she did in short order.

Only one explanation was possible: there was an entrance to the Labyrinth here. Beneath Torrviol. She'd heard rumors of that as a student, but she'd never believed them. Now, it was undeniable.

As she watched, one of the fungal skulkers crept over to the dead horror and covered it like a slimy blanket.

It took Mirian three more days to find it, but at last she located it, deep beneath the northern part of the ancient city: a partially collapsed cavern spiraled down, and there, the familiar Elder architecture began. The Labyrinth.

Mirian stood by the entrance, overwhelmingly curious. How many entrances are there, and how many lead to Vaults? How much relicarium could I access? And what other strange Elder devices lay in wait?

And yet, it would have to wait. Ibrahim seemed to push a little farther each cycle, and now that she'd extended the cycles, he might finally make it to western Baracuel. If he discovered the Elder Gates, that would be a problem. He might excavate the one in Alkazaria. No, she needed to return to Persama. The secrets of the Labyrinth would have to wait. The cycle was almost at an end. But she would remember this.

With the Elder Gate open for the entire cycle and the Akanan army repulsed before it could detonate the Gate, the loop could now be extended a full nine days to the 21st of Duala. It felt strange—the idea that she might actually see a month that wasn't Solem or Duala. She was so sick of fall and winter. She so badly wanted to see spring in Torrviol again.

But perhaps one day she would, before the cycles ended. She just needed to find more Gates.

***

On the 199th loop, Mirian sent an update to Liuan, then took the Elder Gate to Palendurio and headed south along the coastal route to Urubandar again, mind still turning over all the secrets of the world that she had yet to uncover. Perhaps she would need a hundred years. First, though, she needed to find the Mahatan Gate.