Chương 125: Chapter 201 - Research Interrupted

Selkus Viridian sat next to Mirian on the garden bench, looking out across the courtyard. An artificial waterfall from one of the stone aqueducts was complemented by bird song. The birds, unfortunately, were in little bronze cages, which glittered prettily but somewhat soured Mirian on the scene. Sentinel Eylua stood just behind them on the bench, looming. Her presence was starting to grate on Mirian.

"There's definitely novel research to be found in exploring the lotuses," Viridian said.

"Probably, new hybrids could be grown that produce more of the magichemicals Sefora is after. The problem is, that would take over a month, and I'm to understand that's a bit of a problem." Mirian had told the professors about the apocalypse like she always did, but hadn't told the prince. Given that Gabriel was trying to keep Prince Rehiz happy, it meant dancing around certain facts in her conversations.

"That would give us a very short time for the alchemistry side of the research. But if it works…" The jeweled lotuses could be used to make arcane catalysts with minimal alchemical processing, and the tests Seneca had done on the tiny crystals in their petals had shown that they might be useful in creating new kinds of conduit crystals. The problem was, they produced both the magichemicals and crystals in tiny amounts.

The other problem was both Prince Rehiz and Minister Zeysum had only allowed them to sample a few petals from a few plants. The lotuses, after all, were also sacred. Mirian was a bit sick of how many sacred things Mahatan seemed to have.

"Anything that has the potential to enhance the capacity or efficiency of a conduit crystal has to be a priority for our research." Glancing back, she said, "If there's an arcane eruption near the palace, the sacred gardens are vulnerable. The leyline disruptions are going to get worse the longer this takes us." Eylua didn't respond to the information, but Gabriel had assured Mirian that the woman had an excellent memory.

"I've asked permission to try growing my own, and I'm trying to get silt imported from the Setarab river. I'm afraid the royal gardeners don't trust me much. I suppose that's natural, but it has been a bit disappointing. The practices they're using have a strong traditional basis, and while traditions can be a great source of well-tested knowledge, they can also be an impediment to new methodologies. It would be easier if they shared my feeling of our impermanence in this world," Viridian said.

What he meant was, 'tell them about the time loop so no one cares if I turn the whole garden to mulch,' but he was being diplomatic about it.

"Maybe next time," she replied absent mindedly. That was vague enough Eylua couldn't infer too much. Next time would be better. She was filing away bits of knowledge that might be helpful in convincing them. She stood.

"I need to see how Torres is progressing with the spellrods." As soon as she started moving, Sentinel Eylua was behind her. She's taking the order 'shadow her' a bit too literally.

Professor Torres met her with a stack full of diagrams.

"These designs all have glyph organization methods that might improve the efficiency of your spellbook, depending on how you've optimized it," her old artificing professor said.

"This one is interesting because of the way it does conduit-linkage." Torres had another spellrod partially disassembled on a table. The head archivist was looking at the whole thing with a great deal of concern. Clearly, she didn't know how meticulous Torres was. Mirian ran her finger over the diagram, tracing glyph paths.

"This is interesting. The crystals are directly linked? It doesn't use silver or gold wire at all?"

"None. They used calcite crystals, so not the most efficient conduit, but they chose ones with faces that fit together like a puzzle." That would be a useful technique to copy. The ancient Persamans had needed to find crystals that could line up. With Zhighuan crystal magic, Mirian could just grow them. It would greatly reduce the inefficiency of the mana moving through the conduit and prevent the kind of heat and electric energy buildup that occurred when massive amounts of mana were moving through a conduit.

They began to discuss the other layouts that Torres had discovered. Midway through the conversation, the archivist interrupted them.

"You are going to put the spellrod back together, yes? It belonged to Triarch Masikatt, second of her name."

"Yes, I'll get to it," Torres said, annoyed.

"That one's more ornamental than functional. Too much gold bleeding off mana," she told Mirian.

Several days later, the eruptions had worsened. That had led to Viridian being able to convince the gardeners to give him a bit more free-reign. Viridian had also managed to steal several lotus seeds and was attempting to secretly introduce them to small amounts of fossilized myrvite under the suspicion that ebonbloom lotuses might be regular jeweled lotuses that grew differently because of environmental conditions. There were a few myrvite plants that did something like that, though it wasn't common.

The leyline readings that were coming in were promising. The intensity of the leylines running near Mahatan were lower than usual, though the eruptions near Torrviol had increased. One arcane geyser had erupted in Torrviol Lake itself, destroying two fishing boats and terrifying the rest. The spellward barrier around town had been breached too many times, and myrvites were starting to kill farm animals—and at least one student.

By then, Endresen and several other professors Mirian had brought through the Gate were teaching classes to some hundred Persaman students. Rehiz seemed pleased by this, especially since he was able to position the classes as a gift from the palace and promise it would help rid Mahatan of the much loathed bandits that plagued the trade routes. Mirian had just finished her debrief with Jei when Gabriel barged in.

"God, are you going to ever make a move on her?" he asked in Cuelsin. She clenched her jaw.

"Stick to the report."

"Seriously, it's obvious you like her. So seduce her! You must know something she likes by now."

"That's not why. She's not… it doesn't matter how I see her. She doesn't see me that way. And I respect her too much to do anything. You don't know what she's done for me, so shut the hells up." Gabriel rolled his eyes, then swapped to Eskinar.

"I kept the news out of the city as long as I could. Paid a lot of bandits, tipped off others, even killed some messenger birds. But now our wonderful prince has heard what's going on with Ibrahim."

"Hmph. And how'd he react?"

"A little too eagerly. You have to remember, Mahatan was straight-up fucking pillaged by Baracueli soldiers and their mercenaries. They fought here for a decade before the prince sucking on Baracuel's teat was assassinated and replaced. Yes, Dawn's Peace got chased out of here, yes, the northern corporations have their sticky little fingers snatching up all the foss dug up here—""Foss?"

"You should try talking to normal people sometime. Academics and corporations use 'fossilized myrvite.' Miners and traders just say 'foss.' You're all about efficiency, right? Seems like the sort of thing you'd love. Anyways, the point is, you need to talk to him. Convince him that Ibrahim is just faffing about and that he'd be a fool to join him. Or that you've foreseen some bullshit. He's already pissed at me that my agents somehow 'missed' this development that Alatishad has known about for a full week now.

Actually two, but I'm not about to let truth get in the way. You want more time to let your little team of ivory tower wizards play with flowers? Then you need to earn it." This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Mirian met Prince Rehiz in his hunting room three days later, which was decorated with the skulls of various myrvites. She wasn't sure how impressive it was to kill a two-headed vulture, but that seemed to be a favorite hunting target. Maybe it was some tradition. The greater dune drake skull, on the other hand, was impressive. It was about as wide as Mirian was tall.

"Ah, Mirian the Chosen," he said. He seemed in a good mood.

"Honored Prince," she replied.

"You wanted to see me about Ibrahim Kalishah?" Gabriel had arranged the meeting, though obviously the prince had felt no rush about the matter.

"I doubt that's his real last name. The tomes of families indicate that line died out."

"I wouldn't know. What did you want to know about him?"

"Surely you've heard by now."

"That he claims to be Chosen like me? Yes." Rehiz brought a hand up to one of the vulture skulls and gently ran a finger over it.

"And this doesn't concern you?" Mirian shrugged.

"He's invading Baracuel. Such a maneuver is part of the collapse of the myrvite industries, as I said. It strengthens your position, especially now that you've already begun your preparations. My concern is with the leylines."

"The rumors are he took Alkazaria in a matter of days. I dare say it's a bit more impressive than what you've done." She ignored the jab.

"Winning isn't particularly difficult if you know what your enemy will do ahead of time. Besides, the necromancer is doing most of the work. True teleportation would not be possible without my foreknowledge."

"We could move armies between the Gates. That seems more interesting than teachers."

"If you drained the oasis, yes. And whatever happened next, that would be the end of Mahatan's tale in history." Rehiz stopped examining the vulture skull and turned back to Mirian.

"I'm more concerned that you didn't tell me of this development." Mirian was already growing bored of the conversation. Shouldn't have gone with the lie about foresight. I should have just told him the truth about the apocalypse.

"I cannot possibly tell you of all the future's I've foreseen."

"This seems something of an oversight. What is Ibrahim's fate?"

"He fails. His armies are annihilated." That was the truth, but not one Rehiz could understand.

"Hmm." The prince began to pace, then stopped himself, correcting his posture.

"And how does he treat his allies?"

"As sacrifices. Men are tools to achieve an objective, nothing more." That seemed true enough too, though of course, Mirian had done the same often enough. It was hard not to see people as game pieces after a while, especially when they became easy to move. The prince sighed.

"Ah, well. Jibril has cautioned against an alliance with him. He needn't have bothered. North Baracuel is farther away than the flight of the zephyr falcon would imply. Crossing the desert is inadvisable, and we can't exactly route our armies from Alatishad to Urubandar. A shame he falls. I'm curious. What exactly is his undoing?"

"A leyline eruption," Mirian said, which was close enough to the truth.

"What a shame," the prince repeated, and went back to studying the skulls on the wall. Mirian took that as her cue to leave.

The next four days, Rehiz had lightened the restrictions on Viridian further, and Mirian was allowed to buy an entire pond's worth of lotuses. That gave Seneca and Jei much more material to work with for their tests, and it kept Mirian busy with her own investigations. With Eylua continuing to shadow her and wards all over her quarters, it was impossible to practice her spells like she normally did.

Her auric mana was full enough that in one instance, it caused one of Eylua's spells to fail when she was standing too close to Mirian. That was more because the other woman hadn't anticipated the extra spell resistance, but Mirian wasn't sure how much mana her aura could accumulate. No doubt, Eylua was beginning to suspect Mirian had capacities she still hadn't revealed and would inform the prince—and possibly Gabriel.

Mirian was deep in her studies with Torres, a disassembled spellrod before them, when she felt the buildup of arcane energy in the adjacent room. She manifested her spellbook directly to the page of battle spells she needed, casting prismatic shield around herself and the artificer a heartbeat before two beams of fire smashed through the door and into her barrier. Eylua's eyes went wide, and even the unshakable Torres let out a yelp. Mirian's 'spellbook'—the empty case she carried—was on a table across from her.

It was clear within moments the Holy Sentinels were part of the attack, because Eylua drew her pistol and a wand and pointed them not at the attackers, but at Mirian. She was already in the Dusk Waves stance. She started with a magnetic detonation targeting Eylua's armor, then followed it up with an enhanced disintegration beam. The spells did damage, but were mitigated by strong spell resistance.

Mirian knew Eylua didn't have any orichalcum, but it made sense that she might know a dervish stance—likely The Sinister Hand of Shadow. In fact, this close, she could feel the other woman's aura brushing up against hers. Eylua fired a pistol shot point blank into Mirian's prismatic shield. Torres was still flipping through her own spell book, looking for her combat spells, face pale. Mirian conjured Eclipse and ran it through Eylua's neck. The woman gave out that sickening gurgle Mirian hated.

Another volley of attacks came at Mirian, this time various force and lightning spells. The spellrod on the table shattered and some of the glyphs detonated.

"Stay behind me. For better or worse, you're in my shield now," Mirian said to her old professor, and advanced towards the door. There were three attackers, each Holy Sentinels. That meant Prince Rehiz had commanded the attack. Apparently, Mirian's conversation about Ibrahim hadn't gone as well as she'd thought. The Holy Sentinels had layered shields around each other. Mirian could have overpowered the defenses with piercing spells, but there was an easier way. She thrust Eclipse into the center of their shields.

She felt a searing sensation as her soul was singed—the blade was an extension of her own soul resistance, after all—and their shields glowed, cracked, then shattered. Desperately, they bombarded her with spells. One of them screamed something—maybe for mercy, but Mirian cut their throats, one by one. Another guard, this one just a regular palace guard, ran for the door, but Mirian telekinetically slammed it shut and then butchered him too. She looked around with detect life.

There were more guards, but not near her. She released her prismatic shield, and Torres backed up, panting.

"Tell the other professors we're no longer welcome here. I need to find Gabriel and figure out our next move. I'll clear a path." They were in the third basement level. Mirian could see the souls of the guards who were gathered by the stairwells to ambush her. The ten guards and remaining Sentinel didn't stand a chance. She cut through them like a steel blade through paper. She found Gabriel lounging in his room, looking dejected.

"He sent them north," he said.

"Prince Rehiz just tried to assassinate me. What are you talking about?" Gabriel gave a loud sigh. It reminded of how the students in her preparatory school had reacted to being assigned homework.

"Yes, he tried to poison me. And it was lamb stew, one of my favorites. It doesn't matter. We can kill the prince, but it still won't stop his force."

"What the fuck are you talking about? What force?"

"Prince Rehiz sent his elite eximontar riders north. About two hundred of them. He acted like it was a bandit-slaying expedition, and I only got suspicious when they didn't return yesterday. Now I know their true objective: to offer Ibrahim an alliance, and to give him information on us. And the Gate. He's going to know about the Gate. And me. God's blood. What a mess." I told him Ibrahim died by leyline explosion. Prince Rehiz must have thought he could easily change that.

"Have you been drinking?" Mirian said, her nose wrinkling. Now, she could see Gabriel had an empty bottle of wine. There was a desert rat in a cage in the corner of his room, dead. He hadn't used a detect poison spell; he'd just checked the old fashioned way.

"How long ago did the expedition leave?"

"Four days ago," the other Prophet said sourly.

"By now, they're probably halfway to Rambalda. No chance of catching—where are you going?"

"Keep my professors safe," Mirian said as she left.

"I'm going to go stop that expedition."