The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Chapter 110 - The Broken City

The leyline eruption began at the horizon, traveling along the distant Casnevar Mountains to the east, moving from north to south. At first, it was silent, because only the light had arrived. Mirian had to use a eyeshield spell just to watch it; it looked like a colossal lightning bolt leaping up from the world, but it was large enough to cut through pieces of the mountains as it burst forth. It danced through the air, violet and orange energy coruscating madly, sending up bright columns of aurora and leaving behind smoldering clouds.

She'd seen this leyline erupt before, back when she'd fled on the train with Nicolas. Now, she was closer, and had a better view.

The leyline smashed back into the ground, splitting an entire mountain down the center as it did, leaving a shattered fissure deep enough she could see a magmatic glow from it.

The earth had trembled lightly before; now it shook hard enough to feel like the world was coming apart. Mirian gripped the battlements of the tower, watching as all across Palendurio stone towers crumbled and buildings collapsed. Panicked shouting began immediately all across the city.

The shaking kept going and going. Suddenly, there was a thunderous sound of stone tearing and Mirian found the tower she was on crumbling beneath her feet. Quickly, she cast her levitation spell, then to her horror, saw that the leyline breach wasn't done.

Bright prismatic sprays came out of the ground, heading from the mountains towards Palendurio, bursting out like volcanoes unleashing a swarm of multicolored lightning. If it's anything like what happened in Torrviol, that could cause an antimagic pulse, she realized, and rapidly descended.

She was just in time. By now, the distant rumble of thunder had reached them, but it was drowned out by an overwhelming sound that made standing next to artillery feel like a whisper. Mirian covered her ears, and felt a trickle of blood coming down already.

All across the city, buildings cracked and fell. Wards burst. Pieces of the city cracked apart as sinkholes opened up everywhere. Palendurio began to fall into the very canals beneath it.

Mirian's levitation wand sparked as the glyphs in it burst apart, and she felt her arcane catalyst by her belt heat up. The earth kept shaking, and just when it seemed like it would never stop—

It stopped.

The silence nearly felt as loud as the thunder. Mirian calmed her breathing, then reached for the soul energy in her repository to heal her ears—but found it empty. The antimagic shockwave had burst apart at least half the glyphs in her spellbook and wands, but the arcane runes at least had remained intact. That meant her repositories still worked, but whatever arcane forces were at work had emptied them. Mirian siphoned a small part of her own soul to heal the damage to her ears. The regeneration didn't take long; after only a minute, she could hear again.

All across town, the fighting had stopped, at least. Several of the bridges across the river had collapsed. Half the city seemed to be rubble now, and some streets were completely impassable because the street had collapsed into the caves that were below them.

The devastation was breathtaking.

If she was right, the catastrophic eruption she had just witnessed was a direct result of the Divine Monument's destruction. Likely, it took some time for the arcane forces involved to propagate this far south. But when they do…

Mirian wandered through the city, taking it all in. At first, it seemed people were too stunned to do much. Then, the armed gangs broke apart as people began to mobilize into aid bands. It warmed her heart to see people digging through rubble to help those who were trapped or to start organizing ad hoc medical stations where the bandages were often strips of cloth ripped from their own shirts.

In the end, they understood. But only after it's too late, she thought sadly.

She retreated back to her room at the Bard and Lion.

Mirian reconstructed the useful parts of her spellbook, though the levitation wand was broken beyond repair, and the inks she would need for an antigravity glyph were unavailable.

Next, she headed to the myrvite smuggling operation. It was abandoned, and the walls that had once protected it, collapsed. Several myrvites lay dying in their cages when she found them. Sorry little guys, she thought.

She filled her soul repositories, then climbed back up where the street had only partially collapsed, forming a ramp of rubble.

Part of her knew what she was about to do was worthless. Another part of her didn't care. She ached for these people, feeling a sorrow somewhere deep in herself. She could excuse her exercise of magic as practice, but that wasn't why she was doing it.

She was doing it because they deserved some relief.

It would only be a few people, in one small section of the city, in one cycle, but it was all she could do. Just this once.

The area near the smuggling operation had at least twenty collapsed buildings. She used detect life to see where the survivors were.

The celestial magic easily saw through the thick stone. There were dozens of bodies trapped in the buildings, and even at a distance she could see the dark distortions in their souls that indicated injuries. Everyone had, after all, been hiding inside to avoid the street fighting when the earthquake had hit.

She approached an apartment building where the limestone beneath it had cracked apart, leading to the entire structure smashing into the ground, bricks strewn about like a toppled sandcastle. Mirian used lift object to quickly move chunks of rubble aside, then used lift person to gently bring the body of a woman, then her child, over.

Mirian had little experience healing, but Lecne and Arenthia had taught her the basics, and she'd practiced on minor wounds. She closed her eyes, drawing from the now charged repositories. The woman's spine was in terrible shape, and she had a concussion. Mirian sent soothing waves of soul energy into her. As her body began to heal, the crack in her skull knitting itself together, Mirian worked on healing her son next. Based on how she'd found them, the boy had been shielded by his mother as the building collapsed, but she could see damage in his neck and arm. She eased away the roiling dark patches, picking apart the yarn-like dark tangles until his soul flowed again.

She moved from building to building, easily able to find the survivors, though her soul repositories quickly began to deplete themselves. As she worked, people began to stare.

"Who are you?" a man said in amazement as she deconstructed yet another pile of heavy stone and lifted the survivors to safety.

"I thought only priests could do that," another whispered when she saw Mirian healing lacerations and broken bones.

The priests were nowhere to be found. Charitably, she guessed parts of the Grand Sanctum had collapsed and they were trapped. Or perhaps they were overworked. Or perhaps they have been hollowed out, and have lost their path, she thought bitterly.

As the injured began to stir, Mirian turned to the crowd that had gathered. "There is little time left," she said. "You must fill it with the satisfaction of what good deeds you can do. Set up aid stations, and cots for those who will need a place to sleep. Share food with each other. Spend time with those you love, and celebrate them. That is all you have time for."

It will happen again and again and again and again, she knew. But just this once…

"Who are you?" one of the men asked again.

"It doesn't matter. Anyone should do what I've done." She looked around at the damage. There were still so many people trapped, and so many more who might not last another night. "I will finish doing what I can, then rest."

***

For another day, she helped who she could and ate food and listened as people talked, and laughed, and cried, and prayed. More rumblings passed through Palendurio, and more buildings, already destabilized, finished collapsing. Word came around noon that the Akanans had landed at the mouth of the river and were marching toward Palendurio. General Corrmier's soldiers were still busy seizing strategic points around the city. He's still marshaling his forces as if he's an occupying army, straight out of one of the strategy manuals. So he's in league with the Akanans, she realized.

What a fool. Even at the end of the world, all he can think about is grasping power.

By then, the priests had finally moved out from the Grand Sanctum, but they were overwhelmed by the casualties. Logistics throughout the city had broken down, and with grain shipments disrupted and the water purifying artifice demolished, hunger and thirst started to descend upon the Palendurio. Desperate people were drinking straight from the river, which was full of sewage and not fit to drink.

Mirian spent an hour before dinner simply purifying barrels of water with her spellwork so that her little gathering could drink. She demanded the people who now gathered around her have a feast celebrating those they loved.

To her surprise, they listened. The evening air was full of laughter, mixed with tears and heartfelt speeches. They toasted to each other with cups of water.

When a priest of the sanctum came by and asked what she was doing, and that he'd heard rumors she could heal, Mirian snapped, "Go back to hiding in your caverns."

The crowd had said nothing, but they had all looked at the priest as one. Cowed by their collective stare, he retreated.

That night, she made her final preparations of the cycle.

She had one last thing she wanted to attempt before moonfall.

***

Mirian said her goodbyes to her little flock of followers the morning of the 4th, then made her way through the rubble to the central bridge that crossed to the Grand Sanctum. It was one of the few left standing.

One of General Corrmier's units blocked her access. There were ten soldiers in all.

"Sorry," one of them said, "Our orders are that no one crosses the bridge. There are… it's to control the chaos in the city. Prevent looting. Maintain order."

She could hear the doubt in his own words. "And you believe that?" Mirian asked loudly.

The man didn't answer, nor did his companions.

"The Akanan army is marching toward Palendurio. People are fleeing the city. The very sky is burning," she said, and pointed up. Above them, auroras of red and violet moved slowly about, like the churning brushstrokes of a careless god.

The soldiers shuffled their feet.

"What happened to General Hanaran's army when Corrmier sent her north?"

Again, no reply, but she could see from their reactions that they knew the answer to her question.

"I'm crossing the bridge," she said. When one of the soldiers raised his rifle, she met his eyes. "And I don't fear death anymore."

As she began to walk, he lowered his rifle. The soldiers began talking among themselves in low voices. There was no need for her to spell it out. They may have been Corrmier's troops, but the infantry wouldn't be part of whatever deal he'd made with the Akanans. Whatever loyalty they felt to him was competing for the loyalty they felt to Baracuel, and the fear that came from the terrible events around them.

The Grand Sanctum's entrance was unguarded, and as soon as she walked in she saw why. The room was full of corpses, laid out in rows across the ground and benches, some shrouded, some not. Most of the bodies were plastered in dust. So there were cave-ins.

The survivors were a disorganized mess. Some wept in the corner, some prayed, some did what they could to help. Mirian walked down the center aisle. No one stopped her.

Despite the sheer number of priests trained in healing, it seemed the number of injuries had overwhelmed their capacity. But she had already indulged in enough healing. Now, she had to lay aside sentiment.

Past the shrines she'd visited as a pilgrim, she finally encountered a priest who said something. "What are you doing in here?"

"Helping," Mirian said, which was true.

"I…" He stopped, and noticed her spellbook dangling from its chain. "We can't get to them all. Can you…?"

"I'll do what I can," she said. And that was also true. Just not in the way he thought.

Two of the passages she attempted to go through were blocked by rubble, but the main hall had remained intact enough to travel through. She moved aside a boulder that was blocking one of the halls, then continued on. Further in, she had to use a gather smoke spell to strip dust from the air so she could breathe. Plenty of bodies lay pinned under stone. Perhaps some of them had survived the initial quake, but by now, there were no survivors.

Light trembles ran through the earth again, and Mirian found her spellbook sparking again as some sort of massive wave of arcane energy moved past them, like a wind that moved through stone. She heard distant raised voices as survivors wondered if they were about to be crushed again.

Mirian picked her way through more rubble, squeezing through a partially collapsed tunnel. At last, she stood in front of the holy vaults.

One Luminate Guard stood before them. The cave-ins had collapsed an entire half of the circular room, blocking off five of the doors and crushing two of the guards. Their corpses were still trapped under the rubble, and their dried blood was still pooled on the ground.

She recognized the guard as the one who'd spoken to her when she prayed there. Everad.

He'd been crying, she could see; gray dust from the rubble had coated his face, and then his tears had streaked it. Has he really stood fast, all this time, not even letting himself wipe away his tears? His eyes looked sunken, his face gaunt. His pants were stained; he'd pissed himself rather than abandon his post. Mirian felt a surge of sympathy for him. Steadfast, she thought.

The guard stepped forward, voice cracking as he spoke. "I—I am Everad, and I stand…" He swallowed hard, neck tilting so he didn't have to look to the side where his companions lay buried. "And I stand guard. State your purpose."

She nodded. "I am Mirian Castrella, Servant of the Ominian, and the Seventh Prophet. I seek to know the holy vaults."

Whatever answer he'd expected, that hadn't been it. He started, then looked at Mirian. "I… I can't. Only His Holiness…" Then he stopped. "But the Prophets… but you haven't been declared."

Mirian had thought about this. She'd wondered: what crisis had the other Prophets been chosen to solve? How long had they had? Their journeys across the lands had taken years, if not decades. Had the time loop functioned the same way? Had their loops been those of years, rather than a month? If so, they'd had so much more time to establish themselves.

They also hadn't had other Prophets to contend with. Or had they? There was still so much she didn't know. Perhaps the answers were waiting for her behind the doors.

"It's complicated," she said. "The world ends in an hour. I'll be sent back to try again. I've tried going through the official routes. Neither the pontiff nor the council of archbishops return a verdict in time."

Everad's face grew even more pale. "An hour? What do you mean… ends?"

"The Divir moon comes crashing down. Nothing survives."

Silence gripped the chamber.

"I see Them in my dreams," Mirian said, closing her eyes. "The Ominian sits upon a colossal throne, inside Their great mausoleum. Everywhere, the creatures of the Elder Gods are carved in relief. The walls and works shift and turn; space there goes beyond the dimensions we experience. Other times, we walk together across lands I have never seen. I have seen the azure glaciers that lie in the Endelice Mountains. I've seen the endless deserts of Persama. I've walked across Baracuel as it was before us. I saw the Labyrinth before I ever walked there."

"The Mausoleum was destroyed. The Persamian Triarchy destroyed it, utterly."

"And yet, I've seen it," she said.

"There was no Sixth Prophet," he said next.

"There was. The Luminate Order simply didn't recognize them. You've no doubt heard of the Heretics of Zomalator."

Silence descended again, except for distant echoes in the passages. Everad blinked back tears again, then said, "Tell me what has happened to my beautiful Baracuel."

Mirian did. She told him of the conspiracy, of the Akanan treachery, of the Divine Monument, of the eruptions that spread from the frostlands to the Southern Range and beyond.

When she was finished, Everad collapsed to his knees and wept. "I have believed… I have believed in this greater thing. Of the Gods, of my country. How…?"

Mirian put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I will remember your strength, Everad. And your steadfastness, in the face of the impossible. When I am done, this will not be your end, nor will it be the end of Baracuel."

The guard continued to cry, heavy sobs echoing. Finally, he said, "I will not bar your way, Prophet. Only… I can't… I don't have the means…."

Mirian nodded. "That's okay. I do."

There were two doors not blocked by rubble. Most of the runes on them were flickering or dead. She chose a door at random, and opened her spellbook. Several spells had been rendered unusable by the arcane wind that had blown through, but she could improvise. She found two different spells, force blast and disintegration beam and quickly calculated which glyphs she could use of each to make something that could drill through stone.

The holy vaults of the prophets stood before her.

She began to channel.