Chương 231: Chapter 304 - Grind of the Millstone

The archives were meticulously organized, and even more meticulously guarded. There was no protocol for maintaining an illusion while accessing them, and no way someone who was a mere "informant" would be allowed to see them. However, there was a flaw in the wards.

The Deeps were frankly amateurs when it came to runic architecture, and their sequences that tried to detect unauthorized souls were easily modified, allowing Mirian to find an unoccupied meeting room in the third basement level and simply blink below into the back shelves of the archives. She appeared next to Specter who swore quietly as she did. Mirian reshaped the stone ceiling to seal up the hole she'd made, then began looking around.

"I've been told Project Flayer's records were mostly destroyed, but if Westerun and the Akanans are still working on it, I'm sure there's fragments left over. Where would you put them?"

"Outside of my expertise. But I know how they would have hidden them. Misclassify the records. For example, if it's about an operation on smuggling chimeras, label it as routine surveillance of Parliament. Then, the records people don't even have to lie when they're ordered to check and say they can't find anything."

"There's routine spying on the members of Parliament?"

"Of course. On the surface, it's to protect them from the influence of foreign agents. But it also makes it a lot easier to keep blackmail material on them in case they start getting any wild ideas about cutting the budget here." Mirian had to remind herself exactly who she was talking to. Specter had a code of ethics more comparable to a bog lion than a normal person. She had no loyalty to Baracuel, but only to her allies within the Department.

That she was, essentially, an agent aligned with Akana did nothing to diminish her own view of herself as a patriot of Baracuel. There was a reason Mirian had been killing her at the start of most cycles.

"Then let's get started. Routine surveillance is going to hide the worst stuff?" They began to look through different reports and operations. It took a few hours before Mirian found the first misfiled case. It wasn't about Parliament or Project Flayer, though. It was about performing a hit on a broadsheet owner. They were reported to have "contacts with suspicious figures from Persama," but something about the operation tugged on a vague recollection. Agents had been dispatched to investigate.

However, when they entered his home, the man turned out to have died recently of an apparent heart attack. She had to pause and sort through old memories to try and dredge up what it reminded her of. Then she remembered the broadsheet owner who was contacted by one of the priests who'd stumbled on corruption in the Luminate Order. He was one of the priests she now appointed to the anti-corruption inquisition. Without intervention, both he and his contact would die of heart attacks.

By Corrmier's Pure Blade mercenaries, but using a Deeps curse wand.

"Do you contract out work to the Pure Blade?" Mirian asked. Specter hesitated. By now, Mirian had asked her quite a few questions she'd already known the answers to, so the agent was wondering if this was another test.

"Yes," she finally said.

They continued their investigation of the records over the next two days. Then, Nikoline got her meeting time with Director of Operations, Arturus Castill. Specter didn't have a good excuse for why Mirian could join in her meeting with Director Castill, so Mirian resorted to eavesdropping. The Deeps had a lot of layered wards and enchantments, but there were flaws in every structure, and Mirian could read glyphs like she could read Friian now.

A few hours of work identified the holes, and a few more hours of composing spells gave her ears in Castill's office. Nikoline remained obedient. That Mirian started telling her what she was hearing in the director's office probably helped keep her that way. Specter spun a hot load of eximontar dung. The director thought it was fine dining. Specter really was good at lying. That gave them more time to pick through the archives. For a week, they continued to pull reports.

Most of them were mind-numbing, as all spy work was, but it gave her new insight on just how much power the Deeps had, especially in western Baracuel. They were spying on Parliament. They were spying on priests. Spying on the noble families. Spying on rich merchants. One of their agents was a bloody bishop in the Luminate Order. They collected blackmail like Viridian collected plants. Sometimes, it didn't even seem there was a point to the information, they just collected it because they could.

And then, there were the operations. If she'd maintained any illusions in the primacy of the courts, the reports thoroughly dispelled them. She came across three different instances of Deeps agents extrajudicially murdering Baracueli citizens. Of course, those had been hidden. The operations in Persama were out in the open. Hundreds of reports detailed complex operations involving assassinations, bribery, and blackmail campaigns to bend the different cities to their will.

The body count was especially high in Rambalda. And these were the older reports. Nikoline was only slightly useful. She claimed to have little knowledge of the archives. Mirian suspected she was lying. It seemed the woman did so reflexively. The days dragged on, but still, there was no information on Project Flayer. They kept searching. Another misfiled report appeared. As Mirian read it, she felt her blood stirring.

"Tell me I'm reading this right," she said, shoving it in Nikoline's face. Specter skimmed the report, then looked at her impassively.

"Yes," she said. Gods' blood, Mirian thought. The Deeps had assassinated a sitting member of Parliament—and his family. She remembered there'd been talk of his death when she'd started her first year in Torrviol Academy. The report didn't say he was killed by the Deeps, of course. The report was about investigating the killers, who were then said to be one of the minor syndicates. Except, Mirian knew the syndicates in Palendurio. Had talked extensively with their members, and knew their routes and areas of control.

Knew where they could smuggle myrvites. Knew what they would and wouldn't do. They were stable here. They didn't assassinate government officials. And the syndicate listed as responsible wasn't one that existed. The area where it happened was under the Westfellow Syndicate, the one Mirian had the most contacts in. They wouldn't have let another organization slip in under their nose. In short, it was bullshit, and an intelligence agency like the Deeps damn well knew it.

So even if they hadn't killed the family, they'd covered it up. And killed his kids, too. It was as they were perusing a shelf of routine foreign intelligence reports that they were finally confronted.

"Nikoline, what are you doing back? And who's this?" a man asked.

"Trying to poach my subordinates again?" Nikoline said.

"I don't recall seeing her name on the sign-in sheet. You are…?" Mirian wasn't feeling particularly patient. There was a simmering anger in her that needed release. Every operation she read about was another layer of sinister shadows and criminal activity strangling Baracuel. And people like this man were part of it. There wasn't anyone nearby. Her spellbook was in her hand in an instant. She threw up a heat barrier and a silencing barrier, then used a non-illuminating heat spell to burn him into cinder.

She used a force sphere to crush the remains into a smaller and smaller orb, continuously applying heat, until the man was a few liters of carbonized ash. When that was done, she had the force sphere pulverize the remains, then took the ash and spread it across the stone floor. With meld stone, she cemented the fine powder to it. Very little had moved Specter since Mirian had shown her visions of the apocalypse. This did.

Nikoline backed into one of the shelves, face pale, her left hand shaking uncontrollably as she clenched a shelf. It took her a moment to even look at Mirian, and when she did, she swallowed hard. Mirian went back to pulling records.

"Continue," she said.

It took two days for the hornet's nest that was the Baracuel Intelligence Gallery to be stirred after that. By then, Mirian had most of what she wanted. She'd taken the documents about the assassination of the representative and a few other blatantly illegal operations. Nikoline lied through her teeth in the interview when investigators pulled her, and because of her connections to Director Castill, came out clean. Teams scoured the Gallery for the corpse. They found nothing.

"I got him labeled as a possible enemy agent," Nikoline told her.

"They've assumed he fled. That will keep the investigators busy." She still wasn't totally trustworthy, though. Mirian overheard a conversation in Castill's office about reaching out to their Akanan counterparts to see if he was one of theirs. Nikoline hadn't mentioned that. Maybe she hadn't known, but Mirian doubted it. The disappearance of a Deeps staff member had everyone on alert, though. Mirian had to start taking more precautions. It didn't stop her, though.

By now, her total camouflage spell was nearly undetectable. She could see souls through solid stone. She could blink past walls. Now she knew the procedures and wards. There were all sorts of skeletons hiding in the archives, but no sign of Project Flayer. They could have continued searching, but Mirian was pretty sure it was a dead end. This is where inactive projects go. Westerun is still working on mind control in Akana. So the project isn't inactive.

That night, she went on a whirlwind search, rooting through secure documents while most of the Deeps slept. It ended up being in Director Castill's office, in a safe embedded in a wall behind a painting—it figured. When her divination spells picked up on mana flowing through an enchantment, she decided she'd triggered some sort of alarm and left, blinking up through the ceiling. Then she started going through the documents. That morning, just before sunrise, she killed Nikoline Brunn again.

She appeared in Pontiff Oculo's bedchambers shortly after he woke up.

"Arrange a meeting with the King, Governor, and head of the Parliamentary Intelligence Committee," she told him. When he started shouting for the guards, Mirian let out a sigh. She hadn't remembered to have their first conversation yet. She'd have to explain. Again.

While Lord Governor Quintus Palamas sat in his chair, a grumpy expression obscured by his graying beard, King Aurelius Palamas paced about the room. Mirian had lost track of exactly how the older governor was related to the king. Second cousin once removed? Third cousin? Either way, the King was there because, legally, he was the head of the Royal Guard which included the Arcane Praetorians, Crown Bureau, and the Department of Public Security.

His power had become largely ceremonial ever since Unification, but Mirian had already argued with a dozen representatives of Parliament and was hoping the weight of the King and Lord Governor might spur them to finally act. It wasn't going particularly well.

"I have no problem with removing Director Castill," Quintus said.

"It's just going to take time. He was a political appointee as part of the Tarien Compromise, and that legislation is key for the current government. Breaking that breaks the unification of the four parties that make up the current government."

"Need I remind you he was a political appointee of your enemies who seek to have you assassinated? This isn't a hypothetical. I've seen you die, Quintus." This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Around them were several secretaries and advisors, some of whom were taking notes. Mirian wanted to scatter them like insects crawling about a kitchen.

Between the marble pillars hung purple and orange tapestries showing various armored warriors, each one some famous Palamas fighter who had done some sort of heroic nonsense. The two men in front of her could never have been mistaken for such noble warriors. Quintus shook his head.

"We are not them. This is about the stability of Baracuel. Besides, we can't act purely on your visions. We need proof. I can't just simply have Corrmier arrested, it would be chaos in this—" Mirian levitated one of the files in front of him.

"I am giving you proof," she said, voice chilly.

"State secrets. State secrets that I am legally bound from releasing!" Quintus said, annoyed.

"They need to be released by the Parliamentary Intelligence Committee. And undermining trust in the Royal Guard undermines the stability of Baracuel, and our security from our enemies. Did you not say Akana seeks to invade?"

"The other Prophets are handling that. I promise you, whatever chaos you think these revelations will create, leaving the rot to fester in the walls is far worse." They had already discussed how the Deeps had blackmail material on at least two of the members of the Intelligence Committee. No point rehashing that.

"We are in agreement about that," Quintus said.

"I am just saying we need time. A proper plan. You have come to me for my expertise, and I shall provide it. But only a fool rushes into things." Mirian felt that anger bubbling up again. Time was exactly the thing they didn't have. Six months. Six months, you idiots. And I've told you, this is all a prelude to our true task.

"Then you have your time. Spend it wisely, for there is far less of it left than you think. Have your secretaries prepare briefs for me on what you do, explaining both the rationale and the results." It was blindingly obvious she would need to run through many versions of these scenarios. Best to learn from them.

"And see what you can do to facilitate the project in Mayat Shadr. I cannot emphasize enough how much damage is done to this city if we fail to stabilize the leylines." She left shortly after that, feeling like it was another wasted meeting. She made a notation in her spellbook that symbolized an intense intervention on the deconstruction of the conspiracy and a brief intervention on the logistics problem. Only, her experiments with artifice were far less frustrating than these damnable people.

"Stop! You can't go—" one guard shouted after her, while another was shouting threats as she pulled her revolver from her belt. Mirian ignored them both and burst apart the wooden doors of the meeting room..

"Who are—" one of the men inside said, but he was interrupted by the entire company board being lifted into the air.

"Where is my steel?" she asked the room. Behind her, the guards she'd walked by were attempting to get through the force barrier blocking the door. All around her, the ten men and women in formal suits looked at her in stunned horror. This was not how they had expected their company meeting to go.

"Th-there's b-been a d-delay!" one of the men stammered.

"Why?" Mirian snapped.

"I know your warehouses had them. I paid you for them. Now I'm being told the shipping company was turned away. Speak." She got three explanations, all talking over each other. Apparently, one of the Baradas companies had figured out how much steel Mirian had needed and was buying it all up, including buying up her contracts, despite the clause Mirian had inserted disallowing that.

"Get your bloody steel to the contracted destination in Alkazaria. I don't care how. The next time I come in here, I won't be so gentle," she said, and then stormed out of the room, disarming the two guards as she moved past them again. She found the nearest window, shattered the glass, and levitated away. Off to visit the Bardas estate just outside the city.

Then she'd need to settle down two of the banks who were worried about currency inflation at the same time Palendurio was dealing with a shock of silver and gold shortages. Then she'd learned the Department of the Arcane had issued decrees blocking arcanists from leaving Palendurio, citing old law about the security of the city. Meanwhile, Parliament was debating whether or not to proclaim a State of Prophecy, which was threatening to cause another schism in the Luminate Order. And after that…

She was so sick of it all.

"You're trying to fight them. But they have everything to lose," Gabriel told her. They sat in the Ominian's dreamscape, sitting on a cliff where Urubandar would one day be built.

"They'll lose everything if they don't help me," Mirian said. Gabriel was throwing rocks out into the ocean. They kept distorting and vanishing.

"You know by now that most people can't conceptualize the end of the world. You have to maneuver them onto your side. Make them think they're advancing their own agenda if they help you."

"It doesn't matter how much I pay them. As soon as they think they can make a single silver drachm more, they turn."

"That's why you have to set them on each other."

"I've bloody well tried. The Lord Governor refuses to move against General Corrmier. I should have just assassinated him. I can't even explain it. Everything's tied up in labyrinthine processes. Every councilor, every board member, every banker, every guild leader—they're all making a play." Gabriel stopped throwing rocks and leaned back on the grass." Baracuel's a bit different. Akana has mostly unified elites. It's also new enough the wheels of governance and industry are still greased.

Persama's a mess of distinct factions maneuvering, so you just need to understand who hates who on the region level, and who else hates who on the local level. But Baracuel's all about the balance of power. Ever since Unification. West balances east. The peripheral cities balance the capitals.

The Praetorians check the arcanist guilds, while the arcanist guilds check the merchants through control of trains and artifice. The merchants wield Parliament against the noble houses and Royal Guard, while the noble houses wield their money and power to check the new industries. Palamas wants to protect stability because it's the stability he's benefiting from, and he's already at the top. The people who want to gain power are looking for an opening, but they still fundamentally want that stability.

The whole system has too much inertia to be easily steered."

"It's a mess."

"It's a mess," he agreed.

"I still think you ally with Kallin Corrmier. A coup at the top spills the least amount of blood. Liuan would be happy to facilitate the Akanan end of things." Mirian made a face of disgust.

"I've read the files on the Deeps role in the Mahatan Operation. Did you know that Decian Corrmier's Pure Blade was involved in the massacres there?" She didn't mention what she'd read about Project Flayer. It was even worse. Gabriel was silent for a long time. Mirian saw the emotions playing out across his soul before he quieted them.

"Yes," he said. They listened to the waves washing up against the cliffside.

"Listen," Gabriel said.

"I don't like it either. I bloody hate the Corrmiers. But the problem with the Mahatan Revolution was that there was one. Toppling governments, destroying the foundation of society and trying to rebuild it—it's a bloody, bloody business. Neighbors turning on each other. Soldiers butchering people in the streets, and people mobbing and butchering the soldiers. The breakdown of trade, and the mass starvation—which then leads to more desperate violence. Me, I had front row seats.

No one hates these princes and politicians more than I do, but how much blood is it worth to topple them?

"You like math. Use the time loop. Try each way out. Then count the bodies, and then compare the measurements." He stood and vanished. Mirian stayed on the cliffside for a time. The stones Gabriel had tossed were back where he had picked them up. That was a good metaphor for what they'd all been doing. Liuan had sent word that Jherica's most recent attempt to reach Luamin had failed. The force magic propulsion had been unbalanced and crushed part of the vessel, leading it to leak.

Then, there was insufficient mana to both reach Luamin and contain the air with spells. Meanwhile, Liuan had failed to stop Prime Minister Kinsman's eventual assassination. Akana Praediar was blaming the now constant arcane eruptions on Baracuel, reverting back to their original plan. There'd be war again within the month. Mirian stepped through the dream to a distant place where the sky was painted with swirling light and the ground was a churning sea of black soil. Roots swam about like worms through it.

Flowers bloomed and died so fast they were like the sparkle-spells used to entertain children. In the midst of it all stood the soul-form of Ceiba Yan. The tree towered over the area, even larger in the dream than in the real world. His branches swirling with ethereal light, and his canopy was like a second sky. Xecatl stood next to him, hand gently resting on his bark. The tree seemed insubstantial; pieces of it faded out of existence, then back in.

Mirian could only guess at what dreaming felt like for the great tree.

"You're still in turmoil. You're trying to hide it, but he can feel it." Xecatl said.

"Gabriel wants me to side with Corrmier and Castill. Capitulate to Akana. Less blood, he says."

"He may very well be right… in the short term. Before Tlaxhuaco's restoration, that was the choice put before my people. Yes, people died from the occupation from time to time, but fighting back would be bloodier. Little by little, we lost more and more of our culture and people, until it became clear the bleeding would never cease. We should have raised the banners far sooner." Mirian contemplated that.

"It's insidious, isn't it? The people most responsible for this crisis control armies. Threatening to tighten a chain already strangling the country. But we can't afford a war. We need our production to go to the regulator construction. How do I cut the chain?"

"I don't envy your position. We are making progress on the floral dispersion mechanism, however. That professor of yours—Viridian—has been most helpful."

"Good," Mirian said. They talked for a bit longer about Xecatl's research on spirits. That was nice. Comforting, even. It was almost time to wake up. Mirian dreaded returning to the horrible mess in Palendurio.

Mirian stood in Alkazaria, having arrived through the Gate a few minutes earlier. A nervous secretary tried not to fidget as she skimmed through the reports.

"Gods' blood. Only fifty percent of the material has arrived? You'd have a better attrition rate if you sent school children to fight bog lions."

"S-sacred O-one, I-I…" She sighed.

"I know it's not your fault." She handed the report back and levitated off, muttering to herself.

"I expected twenty-percent. Where's the other thirty going missing? Is it just a breakdown of the rail system, procedural bottlenecks, or something else?" Parliament had finally declared the State of Prophecy, which officially meant Mirian had formal powers of Prophet's Dictum. But there was a mess of people petitioning Luminate priests to contest her orders in the courts, and Pontiff Oculo could no longer control them. Beyond that, there were a thousand small rebellions of action.

Meanwhile there was an entire second mess in Alkazaria in trying to export the material to Falijmali. The idea of an entire city's worth of material leaving the country was anathema. Wealth and materials were supposed to flow into Baracuel, not out. She'd have to deal with that another cycle. But worst of all, both Parliament and the Lord Governor refused to act against the Department of Public Security. Quintus Palamas had asked for more time. For three months, he'd then squandered it. She'd given him enough time.

Mirian returned through the Gate to Palendurio, passing by dozens of spell wagons that had created a traffic jam by her warehouses. She moved to the Governor's Mansion. With detect life, she could tell Quintus was in a meeting with several members of his parliamentary faction. Good, she thought. That would simplify things. She blinked into one of the rooms adjacent to the meeting, causing chairs to screech and at least one person to let out a yelp. Mirian ignored the workers there and proceeded to the room.

By now, she had strong opinions on what made a good meeting room. The one in Charlem Palace was too large and chilly. This one was too cramped and there were far too many decorations; it made the room cluttered. One of the guards by the door said, pleadingly, "Ah, Sacred One, the Lord Governor has requested…" He trailed off as Mirian didn't break her stride. He gave up and hung his head. Quintus couldn't hide his sour look as Mirian entered the room.

"Sacred One, this is—we're having a discussion—""You've had plenty of time. You've seen the files I uncovered. The Mahatan Operation, which led to the worst of the massacres. I got you notes on Operation Zenith. And you saw the reports on Project Flayer. The ongoing project, in violation of the Parliamentary decree," she said, looking around at the members of parliament seated around the table.

Three of them shrank from her intense gaze, while the others maintained their composure even though she could see the emotions in their souls roiling about. An uncomfortable silence descended on the room.

"Why haven't you acted against the Department of Public Security?" The silence continued. Finally, the Lord Governor spoke.

"Our faction doesn't have the numbers to appoint new directors. We're working with the Director of Intelligence to oust—""Make it public. You've read the files on Project Flayer. Publish them. Use that outrage. Call for a snap election." One of the representatives blurted out, "We'd undermine trust in the entire Royal Guard! King Palamas is official head. He would be blamed! The Allards are already tossing money around the presses. We can't—sorry, Lord Governor," he said, seeing the look Quintus had just given him.

"I've told you, the situation is complicated," Quintus said calmly.

"We have made progress. We're in quiet talks with several members of the judiciary, and we've gotten the Silvers faction to agree to support reform legislation." Mirian's voice grew cold.

"You told me that last time. If there was a child-murderer in the street, would you want them arrested?"

"Of course!" one of the representatives said.

"There's an entire department in the Deeps that was killing children. And not just killing them. Torturing them with necromancy. Warping their brains, taking away memories of their very parents. Not one. Not dozens. Hundreds of them. Stolen from orphanages. Stolen from Falijmali, in violation of our treaty with them. Stolen from loving parents who mourn still. Their intellect and personality were ripped away until they were husks of their former selves, then these people culled them as 'failed experiments.'"

All so that when they applied those techniques to me, they'd have a live hostage, she didn't say.

"Sacred One," Quintus said diplomatically, "Things aren't quite so simple—"" The project is still ongoing!" she shouted. Then she took a deep breath. Embers in her stomach flared up again. It was impossible to cool their burning.

"Director Castill was protecting Nikoline, who murdered one of your Praetorians. They're still attempting to expand the project. Develop mind control, which they'll happily use on you. Westerun is hiding in Akana—" Lord Quintus's eyes flashed with his own fury.

"Which is exactly part of the problem! We are not starting a diplomatic incident with Akana Praediar, our ally. Part of governance is trade-offs. We must consider the big picture—""You are ignoring the big picture! The big picture is that all life on Enteria is wiped out! Or did I not make that clear enough?" Silence gripped the room again.

"It is a bit hard to believe," one of the representatives said. Mirian ignored him.

"What words will move you to arrest Director Castill?" Another silence. Through the window, Mirian heard the muted cry of a zephyr falcon. Heard the muffled clatter of cart wheels on cobblestone. Finally, Quintus said, "Sacred One, be reasonable. Those children are already dead. The spell technology is too valuable to be ignored. The research will inevitably be done by someone, and any state that ignores it is ignoring a weapon more powerful than any airship or artillery group.

Let their sacrifice serve a greater good. We need to…" He trailed off, seeing Mirian's expression. She had been angry before. Now, the emotion gripping her had swelled into something past that. A fury beyond the eastern hurricanes. A rage like a leyline breach.

"One of those children stands before you now," she said, voice barely above a whisper.

"Oh," Quintus said dumbly. Then the room exploded.