The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Chapter 44 - Soul Searching

When it came time for the study session with Nicolus and Xipuatl, Mirian's first move was to get the two boys to argue about if Baracuel or Tlaxhuaco's magic was better. After their spat, she was ready with summaries of some of the books, critiques of some others, and a ready-made list of what they should study.

"Huh. You really know your stuff," Nicolus said. "When did you…?"

"Probably frittered away less time drinking," Sire Nurea muttered.

"Frittered my ti—hey, that's called building social capital. It's useful."

"Only if they become useful. And judging by your friends' grades…."

"Ouch," Nicolus said. "Anyways, that… huh, that cuts short our session."

Xipuatl shrugged. "Fine by me."

As they were leaving, though, Mirian said in a low voice to Xipuatl, "Hey, actually, can I talk to you about something?"

"This is one of those rhetorical questions where my response doesn't matter, yes?"

"Yeah," Mirian said. "You know soul magic, right?"

Xipuatl went still and looked at her. Nicolus and Nurea departed, and it was just the two of them in the study room.

Mirian continued. "That was also a rhetorical question. Listen—can you teach me?"

Xipuatl kept staring at her. Finally, he said, "Hypothetically, if you were right, what would I gain? Besides exposure to criminal heresy charges."

"A research partner. You think Baracuel's arcanists are a tier below your nagual. That our researches are missing key information. I can help you prove it, but only if you teach me the basics."

"Who's your source?"

"I overhear things," she said, because saying 'you are' would lead to too many questions.

The other student ground his jaw lightly, still considering Mirian. As before, she knew he wanted to work on his theory, but she'd also moved a lot faster than she normally did, and he was understandably cautious.

"I don't need a research partner," he finally said, and closed the buckle on his bag. He put on his cloak and headed for the door.

"Did you get into Arcane Mathematics with Professor Jei?" she asked.

Xipuatl paused at the door, then turned.

"I did. You need a mathematician. That's me. I just want the basics." It was her best in. Offering money to Xipuatl would be silly. Despite her credit from Tower Trust and the stolen coins from the spy, her finances still paled compared to someone in the nobility, even with a minor family like the Yanez. Xipuatl hadn't moved from the door, so Mirian opened up her notebook. "This is my cartography device design. Here's the four dimensional arrays we're using to calculate true mana paths. Here's my notes from calculus—that was my second year here."

Xipuatl closed the door and sat down. "You've certainly been hiding in the shadows. I'd never even heard your name before Nicolus told me about you. Said you were some sort of 'weird little genius in alchemistry.' Then it turns out you've already read half of the spell engine books we were planning on dividing up."

Mirian scoffed. "I'm no genius. But I work hard, and I don't give up."

"That's more valuable than intelligence. But better still if combined. What are you willing to commit to?"

"I can build or modify detectors, or any device you need. Unless they have something super expensive, I can finance them myself. And I'm… well, I'm skeptical. But I'm willing to listen. And I never stop learning."

He stood again, then paced around the room. He wanted to—Mirian could tell. "I need time to think," he said. "Talk to me tomorrow."

Well, it wasn't a 'no.' She could live with that.

***

The next day, Mirian snuck in a few questions about miniaturizing glyphs in Artifice Design. Torres briefly diagrammed the mechanical devices needed, which Mirian enthusiastically jotted down. One type was purely mechanical, and like a primitive printing press, only could draw one glyph at a time. The newer kinds mimicked the movement of a person's hand by reading their actions and then reducing the force-output applied to a small pen inside the device. Of course, an arcanist was still needed to operate the device to get good mana flow. The attempts to create automatic glyph scribing machines using spell engines failed because the engines were incredibly wasteful, and the entropic mana radiating off the device damaged the glyphs as they were being scribed. Mirian was pleased to note that the devices used similar principles to her cartography device that was currently languishing in the catacombs.

In Illusion Spells, Professor Marva was repeating the lessons from last loop. Mirian doodled conceptual designs in her notebook and thought about how she could move to the more advanced illusion classes. Mid-quarter transfer, maybe? But she'd have to prove she was good enough to skip a core prerequisite class. Given that the apocalypse always cut the quarter short, it was going to take more than a few more loops for her to get that good.

After Spell Engine Alchemistry, Mirian caught Xipuatl's eye from two rows over and raised her eyebrows questioningly. In turn he mouthed "more time." Dammit, don't back out, Mirian thought.

In Combat Magic, Mirian and Daith partnered up again.

They got right back to the practice grounds with the detectors. Midway through the session, Mirian felt particularly good about one of her minor lightning spells. But when she looked to Daith, he announced, "36 myr."

"Five hells, is that it?"

Daith was regularly getting in the 40s, and lightning wasn't even his specialty. They weren't supposed to be using magnetic spells, but he'd cast warp metal and gotten a high of 54 myr on the detector—at point of target, too, not even just at the spell origin.

"It feels like you're holding back," he said.

"I'm not," she said, but after class, it got Mirian thinking. Was she holding back? She'd been taught to hold back a lot as a child. Her fierce temper as a kid had gotten her into trouble until she learned how to control it. There'd been the… that thing that had happened, and she'd been a barely contained tempest of emotions. She could still remember her fists flying at school, and then Dad taking her aside—only the memories were all jumbled. One of them was Dad, and one of them… she shook her head to try to clear it. She'd heard the same thing in dueling class, where if you were afraid of hurting your opponent, your attacks would never be fast enough. Was she afraid of losing control? When she'd first started at the Academy, she'd been afraid to unleash a spell she couldn't control, or break a capacitor by overwhelming it with mana. Unfounded fears, but did they still linger in her subconscious?

As a result, Mirian didn't take very many notes in Arcane Physics.

Xipuatl met her after class. First, he checked to make sure no one was listening in. Then he said, "I've made up my mind. I need a drop of your blood, though. That's the only way I'll agree to it."

"Why?" Mirian asked, suddenly suspicious.

"Insurance. To make sure you don't double-cross me."

"I haven't crossed you once, so it'd be single-crossing, actually. But how does blood help with that?" She'd heard tales of blood being used for sinister spells as a girl. As far as she knew, they were all just that: tall tales that were part of the 'necromancers are scary' genre. None of their studies had covered blood being used in any ritual or glyph. But then again, necromancy was banned in all forms, and that included discussion of it. Would any of her professors even know?

"Hopefully, by the time you find out, we'll have established enough trust that it won't be necessary."

Mirian bit her lip. She was pretty sure Xipuatl was trustworthy. After all, he'd been steadfast in helping organize the exodus of the town, and he'd fought hard to help them all escape. Or was that just an act and he really just cared about his own skin? Well, how much harm can he do in a few days? "I accept," she said.

"Good. Let's head back to my place. It'll be easier to teach there, and more secure. Did you know there's a girl that likes to follow you?"

Mirian looked around, but didn't spot the 'her' in question. "Oh Gods. Is it Valen? She is seriously obsessed. I don't know what's wrong with her." Also, it was a little creepy that Xipuatl had been watching her to see what she got up to. But then again, she knew things about Xipuatl that this version of him had never told her, which was weird in itself. It was hard to be a time traveler and not be creepy.

"Short sixth year, dirty blond hair, struts about like she owns the world and gives everyone she runs into attitude?"

Mirian sighed. "Yeah that's Valen. She's… probably harmless. Yeah, let's go."

Xipuatl's place was nested among several other apartments for the wealthy, between the old theater and Torrviol Lake. It wasn't inherited property, either; the Yanez family had simply bought the property when their son had been accepted into the Academy. Xipuatl offhandedly mentioned a servant had lived with him the first two years until he was deemed capable of living independently.

Mirian was envious of that. She'd been a nervous wreck her first two years, having to carefully manage her money and do a hundred things adults did that she'd never done back home. That, and Torrviol had seemed terrifyingly big compared to her village of Arriroba, and always full of strangers.

The apartment looked normal enough on the outside, but on the inside, it had few decorations that were normal to Baracuel. Xipuatl was clearly far more proud of his Tlaxhuacan heritage, even though he was also half Baracueli, and the art displays reflected that. The living room wall displayed a conspicuous banner containing the black and green of the Tlaxhuaco and the white and red world-tree symbol in the center of the design. The ornate pottery, carved jade, and wooden statues had none of the realism that Baracueli artists favored. Instead, they were heavy in symbolism, with leaves and sunbeams figuring prominently, even in the faces of figures.

"…and this is the meditation room," Xipuatl said. The meditation room was far more drab, with gray and brown tapestries covering the walls and ceiling. In the center was a carpet woven to resemble the night sky, and in the corners of the room, four stelae that were the only splash of bright color. The stelae were some kind of pale wood that was streaked with a dark gray irregular grain. Part of the natural wood remained, including the thin bark. Other parts had been painted with swirling vivid cyan and scarlet, then adorned with coiled golden wire. Though abstract, they gave the impression of coiled serpents, spread wings, and people in motion.

"Wow," Mirian said. "These are gorgeous." And ridiculously expensive, I'll bet. The gold wire alone probably costs as much as a smaller apartment. The totems had been rooted to the wooden floor so that they seemed to grow out of it. She wondered if it was a result of normal wood-fusing spells, or from some soul magic, like when Xipuatl had turned the banebriar vines on the scarabites.

Xipuatl didn't comment, he just shut the door.

There were no windows in the meditation room, and Mirian noted that the door leading to it was reinforced by glyphs. The room became dark, the faint glow of the stelae the only thing illuminating the room.

"Now we can talk openly," he said. "I know it's unlikely that the Luminate Order is listening, and technically, Tlaxhuacan traditional practices are protected by treaty, but several people in my family have died to overzealous priests. You understand my caution."

Died? She'd thought that necromancer-hunting was a thing of the past. Of course, the Luminate order did seem to have a different reputation out west. "I do," she said.

"So what do you already know?" he asked.

Mirian frowned. "Not much," she admitted. Most of it was suspicions, and the rest of it things from past loops. "Celestial magic—ah, soul magic, that is—I know the priests use it. I've always been fascinated by it, but I've never used it."

"The first thing you need is a focus," Xipuatl said. "It's like an arcane catalyst." He went over to the far wall.

"Luminate priests don't use a focus," Mirian said.

"Yeah they do. Their holy symbol. The engraved amulets they all have that they wear beneath their shirts. They try to be subtle about it, but they need them just as surely as an arcanist needs their own tools."

That made sense to Mirian, but she was stuck on the why? Why hide it?

"Foci are harder to get than arcane catalysts. They don't just come from magical beasts. There's a reason the Order is protective of theirs. This one belongs to my family," he said, and drew a jade relic from the wall. He had reached through the stone, and Mirian realized there was a persistent illusion hiding a recessed shelf. Clever. The jade relic was carved to resemble some kind of bird, though one she'd never seen before. Its wings were splayed wide, but outlining it were flames, as if it had caught fire. Along the body, it looked like they were glyphs, though like none that Mirian had ever seen.

"Runes," he said.

"The holy language of the Luminate Order. Only—you have them too." So he hadn't been lying about that last cycle. Tlaxhuaco knows them. Does the Order know?

"Does that bother you?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's… curious. It seems like all I run into these days is more mysteries. As soon as one thing makes sense, two more don't."

"Oh?"

Mirian sighed. "It would take too long to explain. So… how do the foci work?"

"A focus needs to be made out of one of the Elder reliquaries, then carved with the right runes to function. The runes are different for each holy material."

"The Elder reliquaries?" She'd never heard that term before.

"It's... hmm. I don't think it translates right from Tlaxa—I think the Order calls it something else, but that's just another of the secrets they keep."

"So… that's not mundane jade, is it?"

"No. It's irreplaceable. Suffice to say, it will not be leaving this room, and you are sworn to secrecy. Please hold out your pinky finger."

"Why do I have—oh right." The drop of blood. Mirian winced at the slight prick of Xipuatl's thin knife. She watched him place the drop in a glass vial with a careful collect liquid spell, then place the vial in his jacket pocket.

"The meditation practices we used in our first year that allow us to sense and tap into our auric mana will work, but your mind's eye must be directed with more scrutiny. To see your soul, you must see yourself. Self-deception will hinder your sight. When first starting out, there is a dance I learned that helps you get in touch with your body, so we will start there."

"A dance?" Mirian said, skeptical.

"A dance," Xipuatl said. "It has been preserved from time immemorial. Pre-Cataclysm, according to the stories. Once we have done it, I will guide you through the breathing and self-reflection exercises that will start to bring your soul into focus. It will probably take several days before you can even begin to see the outlines of it."

Mirian nodded.

Xipuatl was a good teacher. There were seventeen forms in all, linked by sixteen movements. Several of the forms she'd actually used in the martial practices they used to warm up for dueling, and she found it was easy to subsume her conscious thoughts into growing silent as she delved into the rhythm and physicality of the exercise. Unlike the lessons Mirian was giving Selesia, there was no undercurrent flowing beneath the instruction. Xipuatl was serious, and his eyes stayed analytical as he watched her for mistakes.

By the end of it, Mirian could feel her pulse echoing within herself, reaching from her fingertips to her toes. Then Xipuatl handed her the jade focus to hold. The stone had a strange feel to it, like it was neither hot nor cold. Then, he guided her in reflection, his voice soothing and steady. She felt her heart calming, and she looked within. In the periphery of her mind's eye, she first saw the four distant beacons—the stelae in the room, she knew. Within that square, she could see the faint flow of her aura, moving like smoke on a windy day. Always before, there had been nothing within that. She tried, as Xipuatl directed, to look through the focus, and found that she slipped into it as easily as a warm bath. Xipuatl's voice faded in her ears, and it was like she was hearing another voice, older and deeper, with a faint echo—so familiar, but where she'd heard it slipped around the edges of her mind. Look deeper, Mirian, holding onto the focus… holding onto yourself….

Within her was a flow, but unlike the tempestuous sky of an aura, this was the tight swirls of magma. The currents swirled into themselves, and even as they radiated a dangerous heat, there was a viscosity to it that spoke of resilience—and yet, it was still liquid. I am not static, like a stone at rest. If I am to see myself, I must see that I am always changing, always moving. The soul is not water that can be locked in a jar, but the current of a river that is defined by its movement.

And there it was, she realized—her soul. She could not see the totality of it as an outsider, but here, within herself, she could feel it as it stirred within her. Only—there was something wrong. Or not wrong, but strange—there was a place where the currents never went, a place by her heart that thrummed along with her soul, but was empty. A void, she thought at first, but no, it wasn't empty. There was something there, within her.

She emerged from the trance with a start, heart racing.

"Good—" Xipuatl started to say, then he saw her expression. "What's wrong?"

"I… I don't know," she said. "There's something else in my soul."