The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Chapter 49 - Pursuit

That weekend, she worked on a spellrod. She'd still need to get wands ready for her combat class, but that could wait. She needed the flexibility and durability of a spellrod; it was far easier to incorporate spell enhancements into the glyph pathways. More, it would be necessary for some of the conversations she was planning on having if she succeeded.

Big if. So much could go wrong.

As she was using the lathe, Mirian caught a glimpse of Valen peering around a corner. That could be a spark in a grain silo, she thought. Or maybe a fireball. She wasn't sure what to do to get her to stop following her, though. Insults were about as good as invitations, and seemed to serve the same purpose. She adjusted the force shields around the lathe and got back to work.

By noon on Seventhday, Mirian had attracted attention of several of the workers who ran the crafting stations, most notably, Ingrid, who had an expertise with just about every machine and tool and a good eye for technique. "Who taught you your craft?" she asked.

Well, I had your help was the honest answer, since Ingrid had offered plenty of tips and sessions for her in several of the previous cycles. "My mom was a shop steward," she said, which was at least adjacent to the truth.

"It's fine work. I could show you some pointers," she said, which tended to be how the conversations with her always started.

There was no point making excuses. The professors had to register projects that might use the crafting center with Ingrid directly, so she knew about every assignment, and had a nose for any bullshit story Mirian might try to tell. She just said, "I'll definitely take you up on that later, thanks."

That wasn't how Ingrid, who had a reputation among the wizards for her incredible precision work, was usually talked to, and Mirian could sense her furrowed eyebrows even if she couldn't see them. "Very well," she said, but Mirian knew she would now be under Ingrid's scrutiny every time she came by. Which wasn't bad, it was just she was on a deadline. Professor Jei was scheduled to die tomorrow.

***

Firstday, Mirian ran into a tripwire she'd inadvertently set in front of herself. She was ready to pursue Jei as soon as the proctors took over. She had her spellrod sequestered in an inner pocket she'd sewn into her uniform coat and the wooden block she'd taken from the scrap pile all ready to go, and then Song Jei simply continued proctoring the exam.

Either the death of the first spy or the capture of the second spy had done it. She vaguely recalled one of the cycles, Jei had also stayed to watch over the whole exam, but she didn't know why at the time. She didn't know why now, either, but she had a hunch. When did Torres get me? Thirdday, right? Shit, that's too long a timeframe. Now wasn't the time, though. If Jei was going to live, she needed to prepare for it, and that meant performing well enough on the exam that her success was difficult to explain. On the second half of the exam, she wrote her professor a note, saying 'Exactly half the information is missing.' It was simple enough, but it showed she understood the problem in a way she doubted the other students did. Of course, they haven't had to suffer through the damned exam thirteen times.

She handed in her exam early, then went outside to think. She tried to replay the various cycles and timelines of events. The disappearance had to happen with enough time that the registrar's office found out about it. She usually disappeared during the exam, in Bainrose. The spies loved Bainrose Castle for some reason. Maybe the ambush she was hypothesizing just happened slightly later? It was worth a shot.

Or maybe there's more passages. Jei doesn't take the passage in Griffin Hall because the whole class is watching. But she would know about the ones going from Bainrose to the underground too. What if there's more than one passage down to those giant doors of stone?

Mirian stood. She couldn't track Jei down in the underground. She still didn't know all the passages down there, and she sure as hell wasn't going to move silently enough that her professor wouldn't realize someone was behind her. Maybe if she had five more years to practice illusion spells she could maintain a silence zone and light distortion barrier well enough, but she thought she'd probably go insane if she had to spend five more years taking classes in the Academy.

She dashed back inside Griffin Hall. The last students were just handing in their exams. "Professor," she said, smiling. She'd seen Jei actually eying the place where the secret door was. "I just wanted to thank you for teaching us. Your class has been my favorite."

"Thank you," said Jei in that thick accent of hers. "You are smart student. I can tell because you ask questions. You will take my class next quarter."

"Artifice Design," Mirian said. "Right? Of course I will. I can't wait!" She then stood there. Professor Jei clearly expected her to leave, but she needed to make sure she left out the front door. "Uh, I had a question about the exam."

Jei rolled her eyes. "Scale score. No crying," she said again.

"Not that. I mean the second part. Was I… I mean, I know you haven't looked at the exams yet, but was I right about the second section? That there's not enough information to actually come up with a pathway solution? You would need another set of four dimensional coordinates, or the energy doesn't create a circuit. Right?"

That got Jei's attention. Her head snapped up and she looked at Mirian like she was trying to bore holes into her. "Interesting idea. Why do you think so?"

Mirian started to explain it, as best she could. She talked about the four dimensional paths she'd sketched to try and better visualize it, and the energy transformation equations needing to be balanced, though she was only able to muddle through it. She'd thought a lot about it, but she'd never tried to tell anyone else. One time, she'd tried to explain her second year of calculus to Lily, and Lily had looked at her like she'd turned into a chimera and grown a second head. Trying to explain this math to her friend might have caused an intracranial hemorrhage.

When Jei started walking out the front door, Mirian had to stop herself from shouting for joy. It had worked!

Midway across the plaza, Jei's impatience was starting to become apparent. Finally, she interrupted Mirian. "We will talk again soon. Now, I have appointment." Then she said what probably meant 'goodbye' in Gulwenen, but to Mirian it was just a blur of pitched syllables.

"Thanks, professor. Good luck!" she said, and headed off as if she was going to her dorm. As she neared the fountain in the plaza, she paused. This time, Bertrus was in his usual spot, not in front of Bainrose like he usually was at this hour. From the way he was watching Professor Jei, though, Mirian was pretty sure he knew something. Or maybe not. There weren't a lot of Zhighuans in Torrviol, so she did attract stares.

Mirian moved so that the plaza fountain was between her and the guard and felt for her spellrod beneath her jacket. Wrapping her hand around the handle, she felt for the arcane catalyst. She'd set it to minor disguise already, and cast it now. It wouldn't do to get Bertrus suspicious of her now; she still wasn't sure whose side he was on. A few people gave her odd glances as her hair changed to blond, but she'd gotten used to that sort of thing. She set off quickly toward the castle, trying to find a balance between 'quick enough to catch up to Jei' and 'not so quick it would be weird.'

As she entered Bainrose, she realized that Jei had already quickened her own pace. Probably late to the meeting that would end in her death. She hurried to catch up, accidentally knocking a book out of a first year student's hand as she sped by. "Sorry," she called, but didn't slow down—couldn't slow down now. When she got to the tower's spiral staircase, she rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, nearly colliding with another student.

Just before she got to the third third floor, she could see a dozen steps up where Professor Jei's red coattails were disappearing through the shutting door.

Mirian took out her spellrod like it was a rapier, spinning the lower dial clockwise. Then she gave the wooden block she'd been carrying an underhand toss toward the door and channeled.

The spike trap had gotten her thinking. Sometimes, one didn't need dozens of fancy divination spells to get a door open.

With precision born of practice, she used lift object to wedge the wooden block between the door and frame, right where the latch would click. There was a crunching noise as the heavy door bit into the wood. Heart beating, Mirian approached the door and grasped the handle. Had it worked?

She yanked on the door, and it opened. The little wood block clopped onto the floor. Relief flooded through her. She snatched it up and went through the door. Jei was nowhere to be seen. Here, the tall shelves lined the walls and were packed with books and scrolls, but unlike in the rest of the library, they were locked behind the glowing barriers of wards. The decorations were also resplendent; the ceiling was made of carved and painted wood in geometric patterns and bordered with gold leaf. The stone pedestals and tables were made of a beautiful black marble that was suffused with white swirls of crystal.

There was no time to gape at it, though. Mirian set off past the shelves, and came to a split in the hall. She hesitated, not sure which way to go, then she heard a door slam further along the hall in front of her. She dashed forward, where there was another split. There was a door to the left, and another to the right. She cast detect heat, and the air to her left shimmered with the lingering body heat of someone—it had to be Jei. Mirian went left. Near the door, she saw a sign that said 'danger' and a bunch of other stuff, which meant it had to be the right one. Fortunately, this door wasn't locked.

The room she found herself in was sparse compared to the lavish decorations she'd just passed. It appeared to be part of one of the keep's towers, and outside light and a cool breeze filtered in from the arrow slits that encircled the room. There appeared to be some sort of map on the wooden table, next to a pile of books, but her eyes were drawn to the central column of stone in the center of the room. There was an entrance with no door; it appeared to have been removed entirely, leaving the hinges and steel mechanism disconnected from what once had clearly been one of the secret doors. That's it, she knew, and rushed through. She found herself back on a spiral staircase, descending back down treacherously steep steps. No wonder Professor Jei took the Griffin Hall passage; if they both led to the same place, that route avoided going up and down several flights of stairs.

And down and down and down, she thought. She let the minor disguise spell drop. If she got caught now, it wouldn't matter if she temporarily had blond hair and blue eyes or not. She was sure this led deep below Bainrose, maybe even to those doors of stone. With each step she took, she felt the urge to hurry building. As she moved, she adjusted her spellrod again so that it was on ground lightning.

She found herself at the base of the stairs, looking down a long passage. The stonework was all of the lowest level of the underground: dark granite covered in hieroglyphs, and the elegant thin arches and pillars that splayed out like ribs of stone. Along the spine-like ceiling were faint glyph lamps, painting the passage with a dusty orange glow.

A scream echoed down the tunnel.

Shit! Am I too late?

Mirian tightened her grip on her scepter, dropped her bag, and sprinted. The walls rushed by her in a blur, and her breath started coming fast and heavy. She saw the bright flash of electricity further forward and willed herself to go faster. The tunnel opened up into a strange room full of thin pillars, crates scattered about. The same dim glyph lamps lit the room, overshadowed by the bright arc of electricity between Professor Jei and the cloaked man. Mirian channeled, and a black line appeared in the air between Jei and the man, sucking in the electricity. She had no idea if she'd been in time. Jei wasn't moving.

The spy whirled and turned to Mirian. It was that third man, she could tell, the one that she'd followed deep under Bainrose so long ago. He fired off another burst of lightning, but Mirian's spell nullified that too. Idiot, Mirian thought. These guys are one-trick eximontar.

Then he drew a short sword from his belt and charged at her.

Mirian didn't have time to change around her spellrod, and besides, the Akanan spy still had his lightning wand in his off-hand, so she needed to keep it on ground lightning in case he used it again. Winded from her sprint, she didn't trust herself to outrun him. Instead, she settled into a dueling stance and used her spellrod to parry the first blow.

The scepter wasn't designed to be hacked at with a weapon, but it was mostly solid brass, and balanced enough. It was also a lot better than nothing, which was what her backup plan consisted of.

The bright ringing of metal filled the room. Mirian found herself hard pressed, retreating rapidly, trying to duck around the thin pillars to get breathing room. When he overextended, she was able to give him a painful thwack! on the hand, but the problem was the spellrod wasn't nearly sharp or heavy enough to be a threat. The spy raised his wand again, and Mirian began to channel, but it was a feint of a different kind. The man lunged and it was only her reflexes from a thousand dueling bouts that saved her from getting skewered.

Her breathing was ragged now; the chase, the sprint, and now the desperate defense was getting to her. The spy came at her again with two cuts to her side, sending her reeling backward. She landed another blow on his arm, but it barely slowed him down. This time, he did send a lightning bolt her way, and she only countered it with her own spell at the last second. He then followed up with an overhand blow that clanged off Mirian's scepter, sending her reeling backward, where she promptly tripped over one of the boxes lurking in the shadows. She went sprawling, sending up a cloud of dust as she hit the floor.

Panic swept through her as the spy raised his sword. She did not want to be dismembered. Mirian rolled to the side as the blade came smashing down where she'd been a moment before, ricocheting off the stone floor so hard it sparked.

"Behind you!" Mirian shouted in Eskanar, hoping that he might be startled into looking away for a moment while she recovered, but she had no such luck. His blade swung out, slicing her shin, and Mirian cried out.

The spy stepped forward and raised his sword, ready to bring it down on her chest—

—and then a beam of black and red fire went right through his torso. He toppled to the ground, the clang of the sword on stone echoing, then slowly fading.

Mirian lifted her head enough to see Professor Jei. She was holding not a magic tome, nor a wand or scepter, but a glowing white orb, spirals of glyphs marking its outside. In the light of that orb, Jei stood tall in her red coat, the embroidered serpent designs glimmering in the glow. Her gaze was full of fury, but it softened as she saw Mirian.

Jei stared at her as she rose. "Mirian?" Then she let out a string of words in Gulwenen that could only have been curses. She swapped back to Friian and said, "What in the five hells are you doing down here?"

Mirian just let her head fall back down to the stone floor as she caught her breath. At last, she thought.