Chương 176: Chapter 251 - Muddling Through the Tangle

The next morning, Gabriel had already found a bottle of rice wine by the time Mirian stumbled on him in the archives. He was lounging in a large chair behind a counter that was supposed to have a worker behind it.

"What are you doing?" Mirian asked.

"Searching the archives," Gabriel said, kicking his feet up onto the desk and taking a swig. Mirian looked at him skeptically.

"This is your problem; you want to do everything yourself. Sure, you could spend a few dozen cycles mastering reading Gulwenen, then move on to specializing in Old Gulwenen hand-writing and calligraphy—another dozen cycles, let's say—then learn the systemic way these archives are ordered. Or, you could let the experts who already know all that do the work for you, as I've done." Begrudgingly, Mirian acknowledged he had a point.

Her plan had been to leverage Jei and her father—she wasn't doing everything alone—but that was still two people, and the Wongzho archives had a reputation for being especially massive. Hundreds of trained scholars would undoubtedly do a better job.

"And what do you have them searching for?" Gabriel pulled out a piece of paper.

"Uh, let's see… rare poisons, some texts on historical relations with the Triarchy, research on focuses, journals of advisors to historical Emperors, and comprehensive information on myths and legends, focusing on the oldest versions of a given legend they can find."

"What?" He shrugged, and took another sip of the rice wine straight from the bottle. Mirian took a look around the archive. Dozens of people were bustling around searching shelves.

"Did you leave any left for me to use?" A wicked grin spread across Gabriel's face. Mirian looked down to see that Gabriel had left her a small stool to sit on. She raised an eyebrow, then sat cross-legged on a conjured platform of air, which made him roll his eyes. She told him, "You're trying to teach me several lessons, I see. You might as well just say it."

"It's only fair. You taught me lessons in magic, but I need to explain some things about power. Especially before Zhuan digs her very convincing claws into you. Not that she's wrong, but she's also not right."

"You're trying to teach me that labor power is finite, and social power for one person comes at a cost for other people," Mirian said.

"Yes, because all resources are finite. Note what she said: that the Akanan elite's philosophy was a philosophy of fools. And yet…"

"…And yet, it worked. They have the most powerful military, the most factories, and without the time loop, they would have gotten the war of conquest they wanted, toppling the only power that had a chance at competing. Westerun's mind control magic was never going to work, so they went assassination and replacement. It serves the same function."

"Precisely. Zhuan is about to tell you a whole lot of reasons it doesn't work, and I'm sure she ran a bunch of very convincing 'tests' in the loop, but her argument has two flaws: one, Akana Praediar is still a supreme power, and two, the only reason anything has happened here is because of the emergence of an elite figure. A person who—whether fate or circumstance—gained a disproportionate amount of power."

"Zhuan Li." Gabriel nodded, then took another swig of rice wine, then shook his head.

"Maybe it's an acquired taste. I'll take mashed grapes over rice any time, though." He looked at the bottle thoughtfully.

"Or maybe I just need to try more kinds and the subtle notes will emerge."

"I never needed her to tell me the Akanan philosophy didn't work," Mirian said.

"A system that is extremely successful in the short term isn't always useful in the long term. The chimera that culls all the nearby prey animals looks to be the supreme hunter, right up until they starve to death." Professor Viridian had taught her that.

"Akana Praediar's methods are the reason we're in this crisis. The question isn't if they've failed—they have. The question is if they can be manipulated to help get us out of it."

"Yes, yes, you told us about how you got Aurum infatuated with you and he directed some of his people to do a nice little project for you. What were the rest of his factories doing while he did that, by the way?" Mirian didn't bother answering. They both knew. Sylvester Aurum understood where his money came from.

"So. Might need to work on that one a bit." She raised an eyebrow.

"But wouldn't you say that's the best place to leverage change? If Aurum can be convinced of the apocalypse, then changing the mind of one person can change a massive chunk of Akanan industry. How many people will we need to convince? Five? Twenty? Surely, a handful of Prophets can manage that." An archivist brought over a scroll to Gabriel, gave a polite bow, then handed it to him.

"Nice and old. Can't read a word of it." He tossed it in a basket of equally ancient scrolls.

"Those translators will have a blast, though. What were we saying? Oh yes. Sure. Try it. Liuan Var will probably go along with it and give you some tips. It all might even work. And how do you think Xecatl will take it? How about Ibrahim? How would you feel if, after the factories are done making your regulator device, the invasion goes ahead anyways?"

"You're still thinking of the world after. But there won't be a world after. Not yet." She shook her head.

"You're still explaining to me the intractability of this problem, as if I don't already know." Gabriel swished some more rice wine around in his mouth.

"You still think people are rational. You still think that if you present enough evidence, change enough minds, you can get the industrialists of Akana to see the error of their ways and fix things. Still think you can convince the Baracueli generals not to do anything stupid. So let me be direct: it won't work. It took centuries to build this machine, and you can't replace the gears while it's in operation. You have to pull on the levers of power that are already here.

So yes, that means manipulating Aurum is a start, but you can't fundamentally move him away from the metaphorical train track he's on. Humans aren't rational, they're emotional, which is exactly why Westerun's philosophy works. The man's a monster, but he did it. An idiot, because he didn't make nearly enough money off his psychotic cruelty, but he gave the Deeps and the RID the toolkit they needed. Once the dam's broken, you can't put the river back."

"Sylvester Aurum is smart. Misguided, nasty, but smart, or he wouldn't have his industrial empire. He's rational enough." Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The other Prophet snorted.

"He's the worst of the bunch. As emotional as a child—all you have to do is snatch away his toys." He sighed.

"I've done a poor job explaining it. But the summary is, if you want the labor, resources, and power to build that regulator of yours, you need the elite. The Akanan industrialists. The nasty Persaman princes. The Baracueli nobles who everyone likes to pretend don't still rule. You have to keep those levers of power operational. And that means places and people will get ground up in the machinery." Mirian felt a surge of anger move through her. She pushed it down, keeping her features serene.

"So what exactly is the point of all those scrolls you want? Rare poisons?"

"Gotta play the hand you're dealt. Sharpen the tools you have. Get a bunch of people sick at the right moment, and they can't vote on a critical issue. Suddenly, a minority is a majority. Make an old aristocrat pass away in the night peacefully, and suddenly there's an inheritance crisis to stir in a bit of chaos. And there's always room to study what worked in the past and see if you can't get it to work for you too. As for the rest—well, maybe there's something we've been missing.

Some more cards to rig the deck with, so to speak." Gabriel stood and grabbed the basket.

"Off to go get these translated. Hopefully you remember something I've said once Zhuan talks your ears right off." She ended her force chair spell and watched him go. So am I a lever of power you're trying to pull? she wondered. She set off to submit her own requests to the archivists.

As Mirian returned to the upper palace, she tried a new trick she'd been working on ever since she'd opened those doors to the Mausoleum in the dream. Her spellbook was bound to her soul, and she could already access the catalyst, but accessing the glyphs and runes was much more challenging. When she'd tired of practicing spell intensity exercises, rapid spell casting, and necromantic bindings, she'd worked on trying to find where and how the items bound to her soul were integrated into her soul.

She'd manifested and de-manifested her spellbook thousands of times, watching the transformation. At last, she'd finally scribed the glyph needed for a light spell as a huge, thick glyph that took an entire page. Finally, she thought she could locate it without summoning the grimoire. The problem was, the glyphs were embedded in the outer layer of her soul. Her auric mana wasn't going out, but needed to come in first. Mirian wasn't sure it was even possible to force auric mana into the soul.

She tried yet another flow pattern on the outer edge of her soul, trying to thread mana through it—to no avail. Then, she felt a presence behind her. Mirian whirled, just in time to see a dark figure vanish. They'd been wearing dark robes, their face mostly concealed, but she'd seen enough. There had been glints of metal embedded in the face, and tubes running from where the jaw should have been. The same figure she'd seen in the Labyrinth. Quickly, Mirian cast a series of divination spells, searching for them.

Nothing. Just like before. Why then? Why now? What do they want? She looked around. No one else had seen them. Have they appeared in front of the other Prophets? She would check with Xecatl first. Jherica might not remember, and she still didn't trust the others. Mirian's own requests for the archivists had focused on looking for information on the Sky-Emperors, like Sun Shuen. She'd also tried to look into the celestial focuses and where they came from.

Perhaps there was a secretive religious sect that might be hiding a God-corpse like Xylatarvia. Song Jei had mentioned a kind of focus stone she hadn't seen, and she'd put out a request to obtain some. The archivists would deliver the documents they found straight to the translators, and the documents would be dropped off in her room. Ibrahim had gone to wander about the city.

Zhuan was busy, and Gaius was doing his own rooting around in the archives, looking for Viaterrian primary source material that Zhuan had missed. Feng was apparently being interviewed by functionaries that Zhuan had tasked with tracing and understanding the changes their group had made to the timeline, which would then be used to study the causal changes. A more rigorous version of what Mirian had done in Torrviol.

It was also a strategy vulnerable to a single Prophet deciding to create chaos by introducing disruptive random events across the countryside, so it also didn't seem like a particularly good plan unless they could guarantee that all the Prophets were united in task and purpose. Given what Gabriel had just said to her, they were still farther off than she would have liked. So Mirian found Song Jei, who was taking a break from the statistical modeling Zhuan had requested.

She had a small tea cup and a platter with small steamed buns on them. She shook her head as Mirian entered.

"I told her time and time again—if you want good statistics, you have to give me good numbers. Not vague estimations. Not speculation. She spends too much time visiting the sun, though."

"Even the smartest person can be stupid about certain things," Mirian said, sitting down.

"So you know her?" Jei nodded.

"We were colleagues. Friends. Good friends."

"You told her about me?"

"Yes. She asked questions about you for several hours last night."

"Good. You trust her?" Song Jei sighed.

"I can only speak to the person I knew. Just like you. I knew you. Now I don't. I knew her. Now I don't. How long did you say it's been, in the loop?"

"Over twenty-one years." Jei nodded.

"People don't change. Yet, people change. She's always been blind to a great many things. She has always tried to do right, not out of a deep empathy, but because she deduced a logical ethical framework from first principles and has stuck with it. Zhuan Li is ruthless in pursuit of the truth. If you told her the truth was at the bottom of the world, she'd find a way to give all of Zhighua a pickaxe and be the first one to start digging. Yet even the most logical person is blinded.

Often by pride, assumptions, or fear. Still, I have resolved to trust her as I have resolved to trust you." Mirian nodded. Wordlessly, she picked up an abacus and sat down next to Jei. The reports, of course, were all in Gulwenen. Even the numerals. She could barely read a word of them. She laughed.

"I don't know what I expected." Jei shook her head.

"You have other things to do."

"I do, but… I wanted to know. Did you want to see them? Just this one cycle?" Her old math professor froze.

"I've been working on healing magic with Atrah." Jei hesitated, then shook her head.

"Wouldn't matter. This isn't the branch of the timeline that matters. Not for me."

"I'd remember for you," she promised.

"And then… one day… one far away day…" Jei looked at her and gave her a soft, sad smile.

"You're still her. That's good." She set her food down, neatly wiped her hands on a cloth napkin, and went back to clacking her abacus. Then she paused.

"On that day, that far away day, I will say yes. Make sure we live to see it. And I will tell Zhuan to make sure Bao lives to see it." Mirian stood and bowed.

"As you command," she said. Then, more seriously, "There's still a great deal of research and iteration to be done on the leyline regulator prototype. And, there's still several projects I need to finish. But if Zhighua can contribute researchers, artificers, and artisans to the project… well. Whatever Viaterrian artifacts we find, I still think it's the only hope. There's no running from this. No hiding." She thought of Gabriel.

"Everything changes. And every one will be changed by it. They'll have to be." Jei shook her head.

"I can't explain to you what it is like. Just the other day, you were worriedly asking questions about arcane mathematics and still had trouble casting basic spells efficiently. Now…" She cleared her throat.

"Remember the purpose. Remember the people who it is all for. But enough of my sentimentality. We have work to do." Mirian put her hand on Jei's shoulder.

"I will," she promised. When she returned to her quarters, she saw several documents ready for her to peruse. It was what was next to them, though, that caught her eye: a thin stone disk of violet crystal speckled with a deep gold. The way the light hit the crystal felt off. An oneiromancy focus, she thought. And one of the scrolls was a primer on how to use it. It was time to do some experimentation.