The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

“Mirian?” Professor Jei repeated. “You okay?”

She was staring at the ceiling. There were strange hourglass-shaped holes in it leading to more stone above. Near the glyph lamps, she could see the faint remnants of paint on the ceiling. Once, someone had taken care of this place. Now, it was stacked with Academy crates full of supplies, and the smell of cooked flesh wafted from the dead Akanan spy. “I should be asking you that.”

“What is going on?” Jei asked. “How did you get down here?”

“Followed you. Ugh, sorry, I ran to get here. Are there, uh, cloth wrappings in any of these crates? Gods this hurts.” She sat up so she could put her hand over the gash on her shin, which made her hiss in pain, but she knew she needed to put pressure on it. There was already a small puddle of blood on the stone. “He got my leg. I think… ah—think he hit the bone.” Her eyes were watering from the pain. Xipuatl had taught her several celestial runes used for healing; all of them involved healing plants. Once again, Mirian thought about joining the priesthood, purely for the practical knowledge. Of course, all that knowledge would be useless until she’d obtained an ‘elder reliquary focus,’ whatever the hell that was made out of.

Jei’s orb brightened and she let go of it so that it hovered in the air next to her. Okay, that’s a neat trick. Several crate lids opened, and she brought out what looked to be a cheap rug. With another spell, she sliced it into a neat strip. “Move your hands,” she commanded, and when Mirian did, she wrapped it like a bandage, telekinetically, with Mirian’s auric resistance seeming to give her no trouble at all with the delicate force spell. It still hurt like the hells, but at least the blood wasn’t running down her leg anymore. “Now explain,” her professor demanded. To someone who didn’t know her, Jei sounded angry, but Mirian could tell she was scared.

“That’s an Akanan spy,” she said, gesturing at the corpse. She limped over to start searching the body. Sure enough, he had a whole ring of glyph keys. “They’ve been breaking into the Academy, sabotaging things, and they wanted to kill you. Don’t know why, has something to do with the secret project under Bainrose. But neither you nor Professor Torres will tell me anything about it. I do know it’s all a prelude to an attack on the town in a few weeks.”

Professor Jei dimmed the light from her orb and watched Mirian as she continued searching the body. “That makes no sense,” she said. “Start making sense.”

“I’m a time traveler,” Mirian told her. Then she started to explain.

***

Professor Jei, it turned out, had received a message that there was an emergency meeting about the project. That note was obviously a forgery. Once she realized it, Jei refused to continue deeper into the underground and had them return to Bainrose.

Limping up what felt like a hundred flights of stairs was agony, and Mirian’s heavy satchel only added to it. The steps were all just a bit too tall, and each time she put weight on her leg, she felt sharp pain. Naturally, the designers of the secret spiral staircase leading to the secret underground passages had neglected to put a railing in their design. Not even a secret one. The narrow staircase meant that Jei couldn’t do much to help support her, so she just had to lean against the wall and suck in air through her teeth every time she took a step.

When they finally got to the top, Professor Jei locked the door behind them and led Mirian into a nice room where several plush chairs made a semicircle around a crescent table and a magical fireplace. The room oozed luxury, but by then Mirian would have given up her spellbook for the cushioned chair. She collapsed into it immediately, muttering, “Gods bless you.”

Jei replied, “Ah, not necessary. Stay here. I return soon.”

Mirian closed her eyes. “Get Professor Seneca,” she said as Jei started to leave. She heard the professor pause, then continue out. The door shut softly behind her.

The thought of going up or down any more flights of stairs filled her with apprehension. Then she wondered what Jei meant by ‘not necessary,’ and if she understood that ‘Gods bless you’ was more of an idiom than an actual blessing by priests, and then she realized she had no idea what Zhiguan worship practices were like. Probably her preparatory school history teacher had mentioned it, and she could imagine that Mr. Vasquez, wherever he was right now, had broken out in a cold sweat as the premonition that all his hard work had been wasted on students like Mirian settled on him.

She wondered who exactly Jei was getting. A priest, maybe? Were they allowed on the forbidden third floor? She considered pretending to be a Deeps agent like she had for Valen, but knowing her luck, one of them probably knew an actual agent.

It took about an hour for Jei to return—maybe more, Mirian wasn’t sure if she had nodded off. When she did arrive, she had Professor Torres and Professor Seneca in tow. Mirian could see the puzzlement in Seneca’s gaze as she peered at her over her glasses. Torres’s stony brown eyes, on the other hand, revealed nothing.

“Seneca, are you part of the secret project involving the giant doors beneath Bainrose?” Mirian asked.

“Did you kill that man on the roof?” she replied.

Mirian closed her eyes, trying to will the pain in her leg to go away. “Not on purpose. I knew he’d be there, though. I knew the second Akanan spy would be in the Myrvite Studies building. I knew the third one would kill Jei if I didn’t intervene. I know where their hideout is. I know about Torres’s 500 year-old Persaman spellrod, and I made one like it,” she said, waving her scepter about in their general direction. “I know that the guards were taking bribes from the spies. Captain Mandez especially, because he knows their plan. So reporting their activity to the guards without a public audience is useless. And I know the Akanan invasion attacks Torrviol on the 26th. What I don’t know, Seneca, is whose side you’re on. How do you know Bertrus?”

Seneca didn’t answer. All three of her professors just stood, looking at her. It was all very awkward and uncomfortable. Jei said something in Gulwenen to Torres, which she nodded at. Huh. Torres speaks Gulwenen?

“Did she tell you about the time travel? Look, is this how I acted a week ago? You’ve all taught me for, what, three years, off and on, in the various upper level classes? Torres, I know right now you’re searching for alternative hypotheses, and that you’re smart enough to come up with several, but I need you to entertain this one: what if I’m telling the truth?”

“The most likely hypothesis is you’re a plant by a third party interested in the research,” Torres said, voice flat.

Mirian let out a groan. “Gods above, I’m going to have to explain everything again, make a bunch of predictions, and then you’ll all still skeptically think something else is going on right up until the Akanan airships are on their way over. You’re all thinking ‘why didn’t she tell someone about all this,’ and the answer is I’ve tried it. No one ever believes me. I’ve had to do this all alone. No one wants to help, even though the world’s at stake. Gods, that sounds so melodramatic, doesn’t it? Of course it’s easier to dismiss me as a lunatic, I learned all about the mind preserving previous mental schema from Professor Viridian.”

Mirian started listing things she knew now. The passage under Griffin Hall. How to make a cartography device. Basic Eskanar. What the inside of the jail cells looked like. When she got to the chimera and the corpse under the Bainrose catacombs, Torres said, “Wait, what?”

“Nope, not explaining. Not until someone says something and you all stop looking at me like I grew a second head. Did I already use that line? Also, I’d really like to see a healer.” The pain had removed some of the mental filter Mirian usually had up. It was easy to just say whatever came to mind, even if it wasn’t a good idea.

“Bertrus and I dated briefly when we were students at the Academy,” Seneca finally said. “We’re still friends, just not close ones.”

Torres asked, “Why didn’t you go to the mayor’s office? Or the magistrate?”

Mirian actually had thought of that during the ninth loop, and made that one of her side projects. “The secretaries won’t give out appointments to students, no matter how important I insist it is. The letter I snuck into his office never got a reply. Is the mayor really unaware of all the break-ins in the Academy and the guard’s lack of interest in solving it? Is that the problem?”

All three professors were silent, which told Mirian the answer. If the mayor wasn’t outright taking bribes, something else had bought his silence. Mirian had looked for him during the evacuation of Torrviol that second cycle, and he’d either made himself scarce or left the same way Captain Mandez had.

“So do you see the problem? All the ways I’m supposed to be able to do things are denied to me. At first, I thought maybe by pure chance, I was the only one noticing these things. Now I know everyone knows about it, but no one says or does anything–until it’s too late. That has to change.”

“I would like to believe you,” said Torres, “but the problem is it’s not believable. How are you traveling through time? Either Song Jei omitted that part of the story or you did.”

“I did, because I don’t know. It’s connected to the…” Mirian hesitated. How would they react if she told them the invasion didn’t even matter, that even if they stopped it they would all die anyways? That nothing they did right now mattered unless it affected her? Probably not well. “...invasion. That’s all I know,” she finished. “Sorry, my leg really hurts. Have you ever been hit by a sword?”

“Twice,” Torres said. “So I can commiserate.”

“Oh,” Mirian said.

“You were saying something about a dead Arcane Praetorian.”

“Tell me why it’s important first.”

Torres looked at Jei, who looked back at Torres. If Mirian hadn’t known telepathy was impossible, she would have thought they were using it. It was Professor Jei who finally spoke. “We are working with one. She provides security for the project.”

“I used one of Professor Holvatti’s spells on the skeleton. It’s only a few years old.”

Torres and Jei exchanged another look, this one of definite alarm.

“Are either of you going to share with the class?” Seneca asked them.

“Sorry,” Torres said. “Not until we’re… sure.”

So Seneca isn’t part of the secret project, Mirian thought.

“Then why am I part of this? You were both very insistent I should come.”

“Without your intervention, I’d be in jail, and Jei would be dead,” Mirian said. “I need you to make sure that the guards come down on the side of the Academy and the people of Torrviol.”

“I know alchemistry, not politics,” Seneca said, then sighed. “This is all crazy,” she said. “Twenty minutes ago, I was grading exams. Good job, by the way,” she said to Mirian.

“Thanks. I’ve taken that test thirteen times. I’m so sick of it,” Mirian said.

“Right,” Seneca said hesitantly. One thing Mirian was finding is that people could acknowledge her claim of time travel, but they sure as hell wouldn’t act like they believed it. To Torres and Jei, Seneca said, “I want an explanation. Or at least something.”

“You’ll get one, as much as I can tell you,” Torres said. “But I did swear an oath of secrecy. And I always honor my oaths. Always. Mirian, can you show us where this body is?”

“Not until a priest takes care of my leg,” she said. “Also, there’s myrvites down there. A chimera and a bog lion at least.”

Seneca started. “There’s no bog lions in the underground! How would it get past the spellwards? What would it eat?”

“Haven’t figured that one out myself,” Mirian said.

“I’ll get a priest. And Eskier,” Torres said.

“Who?”

“Eskier Cassius. The man who makes up for in wands what he lacks in humor. Jei, watch over Mirian. Seneca–you don’t have to stick around for this.”

“I’m not going anywhere. This is way more interesting than grading.”

Torres left in a hurry, while Seneca and Jei took seats in the other chairs around the fireplace. Mirian was glad they were done looming over her. The heat from the magical fire washing over her felt good, and the warm colors of the tapestries and rugs gave the room a particularly cozy feel. She realized one of the end-tables was carved of chimera bone, probably the big lumpy shell of something like what she’d encountered down in the underground. Her mind wandered back to the encounter in the basement.

“That orb of yours is cool,” she told Jei. “How does it work? I didn’t even see the glyphs on it, only the–it looked like there were glyphs made of light orbiting it when you were using it. Like echoes of actual glyphs.”

“Very complicated,” Jei said. “I need to learn more words in Friian to explain. How do you say very small rock pieces?”

“Microcrystals?” Seneca asked.

“Maybe. All incorporated in tiny rock matrix.”

Mirian laughed. “You know ‘matrix’ but not ‘crystal’? I shouldn’t make fun, I know, you should hear me speak Eskanar. I keep messing up verb conjugations. So where are the conduits?”

“All crystals,” Jei said, trying out the new word.

“Did you make it?”

“Family heirloom.” She sighed. “Zhigua used to have the greatest arcanists in the world. Then the fifth dynasty collapsed. Very sad. No one makes the magic spheres anymore. Lost art. Torrian Tower uses the same technique too, though. Tiny glyph crystals in the structure to give it strength. But no other building uses it. Why not? How did the art get to Baracuel? Why was the art lost here too, and around the same time? Many historical riddles to unravel.”

Once again, Mirian found herself being shamed for not paying attention in history class. She hadn’t the slightest idea when the fifth dynasty was, or why it had fallen, or even that Zhigua had once been the center of magical advancement.

“May I see it?”

Professor Jei took the orb out of her satchel. Mirian ran her fingers over the smooth surface, pondering the miniscule lines of crystal inclusions that spiraled within its translucent form. It seemed like it would be impossible to reverse-engineer. “How did you learn all the spells in it?”

“My father taught me. And grandmother before him. Very dangerous to use without instruction. I will explain when you take my class. Math is a better language to talk in.”

Mirian smiled at that. She turned the orb over in her hands again. “There’s no arcane catalyst?”

Jei reached into her collar and pulled out a beautiful amulet. It appeared to be a piece of amber encasing a dark looking crustacean that was utterly black, until it glimmered like abalone when it caught the light at the right angle.

“Wow, that’s beautiful,” she said. “Why keep the catalyst separate?”

“Why ever be out of contact with magic?” she asked.

Mirian had to admit there was sense to that. She was about to ask what kind of creature was in the amber amulet, but right then, Professor Cassius opened the door, flanked by his three apprentices.