The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Mirian met with the newly elected Mayor Ethwarn on Fourthday again. She had wondered if the election would turn out the same way. After all, the process was a messy thing involving most of the town, and she’d changed a lot of variables this cycle. She’d thought that with so many hundreds of people vying for the office and different interest groups making and breaking their hourly alliances that even small changes would lead to a different result. Instead, it seemed his prominence in town, the connections he had, and the money he’d thrown around to build support had outweighed all of that.

Their discussion was similar enough. She made her predictions, and he sent out his zephyr falcons. It would be a few days yet before her predictions were confirmed, and the militia started to organize and train. Her battlemaps were already ready, so she focused her efforts on magical research and practice. A few times, she stopped by the Luminate Temple to read the holy texts, where a friendly Priest Krier had already prepared several volumes for her to pour over. It all still seemed strange. Her best guess was that the death of the spy who was working as Mayor Wolden’s assistant had somehow influenced events. Perhaps if he was left alive, he falsely reported Mirian spouting blasphemies. Perhaps all she needed to do was check in before her reputation got out of hand. She came to his Seventhday sermon. This time, it had changed, from a lecture on Xylatarvia to more about the tribulations of the First Prophet.

Meanwhile, Jei had continued to harangue Archmage Luspire about a meeting, eventually roping in Professor Torres (who in turn talked to Cassius and Seneca) to help her. The Academy staff, annoyed that Luspire had done a terrible job handling the break-ins, mostly had no problem needling him to respond to some part of the developing situation, whether that was the fact that foreign spies had been running rampant in the Academy, or that time travel might be possible.

Finally, he agreed to meet on Secondday.

Respected Jei found her in the grove before the appointment, practicing. “Sloppy,” she said after observing Mirian go through the middle group of exercises.

“Sorry. I’ve been having these… dizzy spells lately. I keep losing focus.”

“Hmm. Rest, then.”

Mirian shook her head. “I still have a few elixirs left. I can keep going.”

Jei raised an eyebrow. “Spellcasting is more than simply using mana. If you use your mind, it is connected to your body, and bodies need rest.” She said a phrase in Gulwenen, then said, “It means, ‘only the fool breaks themselves into pieces to cover more of the ground.’ Do you have this expression?”

“Probably. I can’t think of it at the moment. The meeting is soon, right? I should probably get ready.”

“Yes. And I will tell you what I have discovered,” Jei said as they began to walk towards Torrian Tower.

“Oh?”

“I do not have many friends among the professors and researchers. Many people are like Roland. You understand. I have worked to ‘be friendly.’” Jei put on a fake smile. It was mildly disturbing, and looked unnatural on her face. “This is how Baracueli act. Many smiles, even when you are not happy and you are just doing simple things like talking about work. You must smile to reassure them all is well, or they get nervous. I have been smiling and talking. Also, if you bake people pear tarts, they like you a lot better, and they tell you things they did not before.”

“Pear tarts… should I be taking notes?” Mirian asked.

This time, Jei gave one of her genuine smiles, a subtle smirk that barely moved her face. Her laughter was in her eyes far more than her mouth. “This is all to say, I have been getting people to tell me what the Archmage is up to. He wants badly to leave this, what was the word? Backwater. Instead, he wants to go get an appointment at Vadriach University.”

Mirian snorted. “Well that isn’t going to happen.”

“Yes. Unfortunately, Medius Luspire is very smart, and smart people are the best at deceiving themselves.”

“Huh. I never thought of it like that. So… has he been working with the spies like the mayor was?”

“Maybe. If he did, he was more clever. He met with Captain Mandez regularly, but those were official meetings about the break-ins. No obvious bribes or any other connections anyone I talked to knows about. Maybe he was just thinking about his career. Ghellia—sorry, you do not know first names—Professor Marva, did you have them? The illusionist?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Smart. They know more than just illusions. Good to talk to about spell efficiency, and maintaining concurrent mana flows. Anyways, Marva heard that Luspire went on a trip to Vadriach two years back. They did not treat him well. He was quick to judge me for being from Zhighua, but he was baffled that the Akanans might do the same to him for being Baracueli. Probably the only time he encountered prejudice. Marva thought this was very funny.”

“Okay. It shouldn’t be that hard, then, right? He wants to be buddy-buddy with the Akanans, inviting their team to check out the Divine Monument should be exactly what he wants, right?”

“No,” Jei said.

Mirian made a face. “Really? I guess I should expect that by now. Why not?”

“Because if our research team makes a breakthrough, he gets to claim credit, and that guarantees he gets recruited to Vadriach University. If the Vadriach researchers come here, why do they now need him?”

“Oh. Ugh. So what do I do?”

Jei said, “If I knew, I would tell you. But inevitably, you will discover this.”

She sighed. “I suppose I will.”

Mirian had never actually been inside Torrian Tower before. At the gate entrance, an attendant and special Academy guard allowed them in. The short entry hall quickly spilled out into a cavernous central room. Tiered balconies of black and white stone from the higher levels overlooked the first floor. Dangling from those balconies were the ancient red and white banners of Torrviol, before it was incorporated into Baracuel during the Unification War. High above on the ceiling she saw beautifully gilded honeycomb vaulting in a style she’d previously only seen in Alkazaria. Along the balconies, she saw researchers wearing their formal robes striding about. Her arcane sense could feel how much magic was flowing through this place.

They crossed the room, which turned a corner and led to the stairs. As they did, Mirian observed several arcanists had disassembled part of the stone facade around the archway, and were taking readings on the glyphs. She recognized the sequences immediately; they detected both weapons and illusions. The Impostor must have found a way to bypass it, if she was disguised as Gavell, Mirian realized. And they don’t know how she did it.

The spiral staircase wrapped around the circumference of the tower, making for a long trek up to the upper floors. Along that staircase were portraits of the archmages of the Academy that had come before Luspire. Everything was made of the same white and black polished stone, and each tapestry or rug had a decidedly crimson theme to it. Archmage Luspire’s office was on the sixth floor. On one end of the room was the singular balcony of that floor, overlooking the interior room that dominated the lower levels. On the other, a vaulted window looked out at Torrviol, the overcast light from it mixing with the warm glyph lamps. Ornate bookcases lined the walls, interspersed with small red marble statues of the Gods atop pedestals. A second door led out of the room, presumably to his personal quarters.

As soon as Mirian saw Archmage Luspire, she could see what Jei had described. While he still wore the formal embroidered cape of his station, he wore a suit that looked more like what the Akanan arcanists preferred, and unlike most of his male colleagues at the Academy, he was clean shaven. The faintest hints of wrinkles had started to crease his face, and his dark brown eyes projected an easy confidence.

“Archmage,” Mirian said with a short bow.

Luspire said nothing, he merely waited for everyone to be seated. High Wizard Ferrandus had joined them, as had several Academy officials Mirian didn’t recognize. He frowned, then said, “So, do you already know what I’m going to say next?”

“No,” Mirian said. “Every cycle is different. Should I just…?”

Archmage Luspire made a ‘hmph,’ sound.

Mirian blundered forward with the conversation. “The, uh… well, I believe you’ve been informed why I’m here. The Akanans should be invited to help research the Divine Monument so they know it’s not a weapon.”

“Do you know it’s not a weapon?” Luspire asked.

“Well, I guess not. But we—that is Baracuel—are certainly not using it as one right now. That’s what the Akanans think.”

“Is it?”

Mirian bit her lip. She didn’t realize that would be a point of contention. In truth, she had little idea what regular people in Akana thought. Had Idras been lying to her? “Key people in the Republic Intelligence Division think it. Anyways, it could stop the war before it begins. Otherwise, Torrviol is turned into rubble and the leylines erupt.”

Luspire raised a finger. “That is the claim I find quite fascinating. Can you explain the mechanism by which the leylines erupt? My colleagues certainly cannot.”

“Well, the Divine Monument being blown up is the only direct cause I know about. I don’t think it’s the only cause, but you don’t have to understand a mechanism to understand the result.” Mirian had remembered Professor Endresen saying something like that in her physics class.

Respected Jei interjected. “You know she doesn’t have that data because she’s a student. You do have leyline monitoring data, and you know they’ve become dramatically more volatile in the past decade. Why ask questions when you already know the answer?”

Luspire smiled. “I’m attempting to establish what she does know. Not very much, I must say. Your argument on probabilities is completely bereft of hard numbers.”

Jei glared at him. “No social science can calculate the probabilities of knowledge and events, but one can use qualitative groupings of event rarity based on general expectations, as Talmi et al showed in their book on social prediction theory.”

“I don’t particularly want to rehash that argument,” Luspire said with a sigh. “The Divine Monument represents a potential revolution in magical thinking only comparable to spell engines. It is the Torrviol Academy’s great discovery, and it should be our names that go down in history.” He looked to Ferrandus, who nodded his assent.

“That revolution won’t happen,” Mirian said. “Akana Praediar attacks Baracuel in four days. You’ll be getting the first news of the embassy attack in Palendurio tomorrow. You need to send a zephyr falcon to Vadriach as soon as possible.”

“Yes, Mayor Ethwarn has been saying as much. This all seems quite implausible to me. I am in regular contact with Vadriach University, though, and the only thing that happened over in Akana that might be considered a magical eruption can easily be attributed to a faulty spell engine that ignited a store of fossilized myrvite.”

Then either Idras is lying, or being lied to, or the information is being suppressed, Mirian thought. Already, she could tell she wasn’t going to convince the Archmage this time. But it had revealed several critical things: that Torrviol Academy was already studying the leylines, and that there had indeed been a large magical explosion in Akana Praediar. It would also open up a new line of questioning with Idras.

With the Archmage making his position clear, the meeting went through a bit more back and forth between them. Luspire did his best to say as little as possible and be as dismissive as possible. It was clear he was having the conversation so that he could say he’d had it, rather than because he wanted any productive discussion. Just as Jei had said, he was smart enough to find an alternative explanation for anything Mirian brought up. Then, Luspire announced he had another meeting, and the conversation was over.

As they left, winding down the long staircase, Mirian told Jei, “I don’t know what I’d do with it, but I’d like to see that leyline data.”

“It’s an older project. Funding for it was cut off a few years back,” Jei said.

“Huh. Wait, they had evidence the leylines were destabilizing, but stopped studying it? How does that make sense?”

“A great many things in this country do not make sense to me. I can get you the reports, though. Now you know what Luspire will say, and can prepare for it.”

It was clear that Luspire hadn’t really intended to listen to what she had to say. He’d wanted to relieve some of the pressure he was feeling from the mayor and staff. At least next time, she could come to him with more information about Akana, and more information about the leylines. Bainrose Library could provide her an archive of newspapers from Akana to study, and Nicolus could probably help fill in the details.

***

In her practice session with Xipuatl later that day, Mirian started as she always did by examining her soul. She was disturbed to find streams of energy splaying, like someone had been picking at pieces of a spool of thread and left loops dangling out. Is that just something souls do? she wondered. She ignored it, and worked on the exercise Xipuatl had assigned, which involved trying to connect her soul with the soul of one of his myrvite plants he’d brought in. Mirian was surprised to find the exercise trivial.

Xipuatl was equally surprised. “That usually takes people a lot longer,” he said. “Huh. I guess we can move on to plant healing. I hear it’s a bit different than what the priests do in the hospital, but I have no idea what the priests actually do. Alright, I’m going to tear one of the leaves slightly. The soul reflects the body, and the body the soul, so you should see the energy of the plant disrupted. Like with arcane magic, each person sort of creates their own mental picture of what this looks like, so I can’t tell you exactly what it will look like, only that the place where the wound is will feel different.”

Mirian nodded, and then brought her focus back down to her soul. She was finding it easier and easier to move back and forth between her mental picture of the soul-world, as she thought of it, and the material world. As Xipuatl talked to her, she cast her spiritual gaze out again. Finding the wound took no time at all; as she examined the faint soul of the plant, she could easily see a place that she imagined as full of dark, sparking light that contrasted the smooth, silver lines that wrapped around the rest of it.

Healing it was considerably more difficult than finding it. It took her eight attempts, with Xipuatl coaching her through how the energy flow should feel. When she was done, she meditated again, and tried to soothe the wild places in her own soul, but to no avail. She left, still wondering what it indicated.

Jei was busy sorting through the research archive to find the papers on leylines, and Magistrate Ada was interrogating the false captain, Nathanial, again, so Mirian went again to the grove to practice, bringing the wand of levitation with her. She started as usual with her raw magic exercises, trying to suppress that woozy, tired feeling that kept creeping up on her.

Both the winter chill and the birdsong faded from her mind as she practiced, focusing everything on getting the exercises not just right, but perfect. But the threads of mana were coated in metaphorical grease. At exercise twenty, the frustration overtook her and she stopped. She switched to what she thought of as her arcane power exercise. She brought out the wand of levitation again and channeled, trying not to hold anything back.

Her aura flared as she rose, and then a wave of nausea hit her. The wand slipped from her fingers. She crashed to the ground in a pile and blacked out.