The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Chapter 74 - Break

Three cycles later, Mirian woke to Lily shaking her. "Mirian. Mirian! Don't you have class or something?"

Groggily, Mirian opened her eyes.

"What is… what just hit me? Is that water? Wait, is that a hole in the ceiling?"

Mirian closed her eyes again. She could hear Jei scolding her about pushing herself too hard. Whether or not she wanted to overcome her exhaustion, it seemed her body had other ideas. If the water hadn't been splashing her on the face, she might have closed her eyes again. "Made to the 3rd of Duala," she muttered. "Just one more day…."

Lily made a face. "What are you talking about? Also, how late did you stay up studying last night? You look terrible."

By then, Mirian had already missed her window of opportunity to catch the first spy in her usual spot. No doubt, she could chase him down or storm the headquarters or do something to get the cycle on track, but the very idea of it just made her want to close her eyes again. "I'm skipping Alchemistry. Just gonna sleep for a bit longer. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll ace it."

Lily said, "Who are you and what have you done with Mirian? Last night you were convinced you were going to fail."

Last night. 'Last night' had been two years ago now. She'd been fighting the Battle of Torrviol for a year. It seemed like a lifetime ago. The magnitude of it all felt like it had its own gravity, like the shadow she was tethered to was made of iron and to even get up she'd have to drag that weight around. She closed her eyes and saw the statue of the Ominian looming over her.

You understand, she thought. She remembered the words of the Prophets she'd studied with Priest Krier. Your sacrifice was out of love.

Love. She thought of the word as she looked at the black ooze calcified around the statue's empty wounds. It had been nearly three years since she'd seen her family. Nearly three years since Zayd had run up to her and hug-tackled her legs and screamed "Mi-Ri!" By now, she should have started that cozy artifice shop in Madinahr like she'd planned, where she'd only be a two days walk from home.

Home, she thought. She hadn't seen her village either. Their apartment wasn't much, but she missed it.

Mirian drifted back to sleep, ignoring Lily as she puttered about and talked at her. When she woke up, Lily was gone, though she'd set an alarm candle to go off soon. Mirian took the nails out of it and blew it out. She knew what she was going to do. She could take a break for one cycle.

She was going to visit her family. She was going home to Arriroba.

Mirian changed into the single outfit she'd brought that wasn't an Academy uniform, though she only had the one cloak. Then she left a note for Lily telling her not to worry and that she'd worked everything out with the Academy, took out a loan at the bank so she'd be set for money, and then set off.

Some sort of issue with the primary spell engine delayed the train, so it was late in the evening when she arrived in Cairnmouth. She took lodging at one of the inns. The bed was clean and the shelves dusted, but the walls inside were thin. She could hear the people in the room next to her having a muffled argument, while the people above her were possibly preparing for a floor-stomping competition and had decided to get in some last-minute practice. Mirian slept poorly. The breakfast made up for some of it. Whatever butcher they'd gotten the sausages from knew a thing or two about flavors, and it complimented the sauteed apples and toast perfectly.

In the morning, Cairnmouth was claustrophobic as always, with too many people packed between the equally tight buildings. It was nice to see the colorful outfits people wore, rather than the elegant but ultimately drab colors that resulted from the Academy's dress code. It was not nice that they all seemed to be in a hurry and had no compunction simply bumping into her. This was not Mirian's first time in a city, so she kept her hand firmly on her bag so that pickpockets wouldn't try to get adventurous with it.

She coughed up the silver she needed for a room on one of the sleeper cars, and took the next train to Alkazaria.

The room was quite small, but it had a nice plush carpet, and it was nice to take her boots off and wiggle her toes in it. She stuffed her bag in the closet, then sat on the bed. The sheets smelled freshly laundered, and there was a little desk she could pull out so she could write while sitting on the mattress.

Mirian hadn't brought any of the books she'd been studying with her. Instead, she pulled out some drawing paper and her pen set and went about sketching pictures for Zayd. There was already a drawing and a letter in the mail, but Mirian would no doubt beat it to Arriroba. Zayd always loved the drawings she made for him. One time he'd gotten so excited he'd torn off a piece and eaten it—though to be fair, he had been three at the time. These days, he would turn the drawing over and use a charcoal stick to scribble spirals and lines all over the back of the drawing to add his own contribution. Mirian would always hold it up and praise his masterworks.

Gods I miss him, she thought. And her mom and dad, too. In the dry summers of southeast Baracuel, they'd bring a pack of ingredients and cookware to make spiced lamb tagine, hiking up to the overlook grove, where hardy trees and cliffs sheltered a view of the south. As the stew cooked, they'd read books together while a cool breeze passed by (or in Zayd's case, play with the children of the other families who joined them there). On clear days, they could see the ocean, and if it was really clear, they could just make out some of the mountains across the East Sound that separated Baracuel and Persama.

There wasn't much to do on the train, which had been her intent. She knew she needed to force herself to relax. She spent the hours reminiscing about home, drawing, and just getting lost gazing out the window. It was nice. Gradually, the landscape went from forests to fields to finally foothills as they passed north of the Casnevar Range. Once they crossed the Cairn River, the foothills faded into the scrublands, and it started to remind her again of home. She liked the vast stretches of shallow hills and the subtle mixes of oranges, browns, and yellows that were painted in the stones and shrubs. Something about the steady motion of the train and the low rumbling of the wheels lulled her to sleep easily.

The second day of traveling, her guilt kicked in and she felt she was wasting time. After wandering back and forth between the train cars and impulsively buying a full meal from the diner, Mirian went back to her unit and pulled out her spellbook. First, she kept it closed, going through Jei's forty exercises twice. Then she perused through her spellbook and remembered how useless the damn thing was before she started scribing useful spells in it.

Her mind wandered as she contemplated magic, and she found herself wondering if certain glyph combinations might lead to viable spells. Likely, someone had tried them, and maybe they'd failed, but she no longer had libraries or professors to check with. She'd spent a great deal of time scribing spells formulaically, and found the idea of scribing creatively a fun way to pass the time.

And if she accidentally incinerated her spellbook, so what? It would be good as new soon enough.

Sixthday, she arrived in Alkazaria as evening was approaching.

Alkazaria was a port on the East Sound, and also sat astride the mouth of the Ibaihan River. It was dominated by dozens of thin white spires that rose high above everything else. It was another of the ancient cities, so it was encircled by a massive sandstone wall that stretched for miles around the city. Once clustered only inside the great walls, the flat-roofed buildings common to the region now spread well outside the wall, dispersing into surrounding farms. Even from a distance, Mirian could see the city center, where great temples and the Alkazaria Citadel clustered across the central hill.

Alkazaria was also called the 'City of Temples,' and for good reason. Hundreds of temples dotted the city, and the people took great pride in them. Each of the white spires represented a destination for holy pilgrims, where they might visit sanctums dedicated to both the Gods and Prophets.

The train passed right by the First Spire. Below that thin marble tower was a shrine to Altrukyst, welcoming travelers into the city. Unlike western Baracuel, where the statues were drab, the statues of the Gods here were clothed in bright raiment, and equally colorful ceramic tiles decorated the walls by landmarks like the statue. Only the train station seemed out of place, the wrought iron columns and glass ceiling feeling far too modern to quite fit in a city brimming with more traditional forms of art and architecture.

The city was far more open than any of the west Baracuel cities, with broad avenues lined with strip-gardens of cacti and succulents that thrived in the arid environment. The shops along the roads had sliding screen walls on the front that opened up in the day, and they were all mixed together with the carts that unfolded into their own open-air shops. Crowds casually strolled throughout the city, and the relaxed atmosphere made the city far more welcoming than the packed streets, narrow doors, and iron-grated windows of Cairnmouth.

Mirian bought a cheese-and-lamb stuffed flatbread from a cart vendor, then a decorated cloth napkin from an amused vendor another two blocks down. The western train station and the eastern train station were about a mile apart from each other. The city had long talked about connecting the routes, but a great deal of large and wealthy households occupied the strip of city around the Ibaihan River, so it had stayed talk. People had to walk, and merchants dealt with the hassle by hiring spellcarts to move their goods.

As she watched a spellcart's front wheel get caught in a pothole in the street, Mirian thought about how gravity magic would make both trains and carts so much more efficient and easier to take care of, though she understood why the magic was widely banned. It was just as easy to use those glyphs to hover over guards and into buildings. Almost every window in Alkazaria was open as a way to keep the buildings cool. Anyone trying to protect anything would have the hassle of fortifying every entrance and window with wards.

When she arrived at the eastern station, her drifting thoughts were brought back down to earth by an angry crowd that was milling about the ticket booth.

"What's going on?" she asked a man.

"They're saying we can't go east anymore!"

"And they've taken down the schedule entirely," a nearby woman bemoaned. "Not even a guess as to when the train will be running again."

Mirian could see the beleaguered station attendants were explaining the situation to the crowd, and moved closer to hear the details.

"…and the locomotive wizards want to try to find the source of the issue," one of the attendants was saying, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. "Also, the engine is still on the track, so it needs to be cleared, and we need to get a replacement engine. All tickets can be refunded, but simply put, while we're working as fast as we can, it's going to take quite a bit of time."

It took Mirian a bit longer to gather the details, since the station attendants didn't want to send anyone into a panic by explaining the full situation. It seemed the spell engine of a train had somehow gone into catastrophic failure halfway through the route, causing two cars to derail. The subsequent spell engine fire had caused molten iron to crust over both tracks on the eastern route. The fixes would take at least a week, maybe longer.

"I could walk to Madinahr in a week!" Mirian complained to the little crowd that was discussing the rumors.

One of the women replied, "Seems you'll have to. The roads are still under the spellward, but they're too rough for the wagons, so feet and camels are all that's left. I've heard some merchants are working on organizing some caravans."

Mirian had ridden camels a few times as a girl, and had discovered they both had a mutual distaste for each other. Instead, she opted to buy an eximontar. Down here, there was a hardy breed that was better adapted to the dry conditions, and they moved quite a bit faster than camels. She'd taken the mandatory eximontar riding classes at the Academy a few years back, so she at least knew the basics of riding and caring for the beasts.

"And you know you have to be an arcanist to ride one, right?" the merchant she was buying from said. "Are you an arcanist?"

Mirian put her hand on the spine of her spellbook and let the coins she was paying with spin about in a spiral, then added a few different colors of lights to the mix, before letting it drop to her hand.

"Right, sorry, you just looked a bit young. Also arcanists are usually wearing those fancy hats."

"Never much cared for the hats," Mirian told him.

She named her horse Desert Rose, since the patterns and color on the eximontar's soft carapace reminded her of gypsum roses, and the animal's eyes reminded her of the flower with the same name. As she gently stroked the head of the beast and fed it a trickle of mana, she could see the intelligence shining in her vivid pink eyes.

Next, she sold her satchel and a few bottles of scribing ink so she could get a proper traveling pack and food for the road. Despite the road being broken up and washed out in several places along the route, there were plenty of villages between Alkazaria and Madinahr, along with rest stops where caravans used to stop each night where there was plentiful fresh water. Just in case, Mirian cut the binding on her spellbook and extracted the arcane catalyst and wove it into the lining of her waistband so that no matter what happened, she'd be able to use magic. That would also make feeding mana to the eximontar easier. The pages with spells, she bundled together with twine, and the rest she discarded. The lighter she traveled, the faster she'd get this annoying trip over with.

Her eagerness to see her family and village again kept her focused on speed as she traveled. Mirian trotted past other groups on the road, often going around the trail onto the beaches that paralleled the coastal route to avoid some caravan or cart that had gotten stuck on the road.

Some of them gave her glares as she passed by without even asking if they needed assistance, as was the expected thing to do when traveling. Wouldn't matter if I helped them, she told herself. They're all doomed anyways.

She rode, dismounted so Desert Rose could rest as they walked, then mounted again. The hard pace let her make it to the second rest station on the route. The rest stations weren't anything fancy; large standing stones had been erected around a central obelisk, with hardy yucca trees and colorful succulents wrapping around the stones. Before the spellwards, the standing stones had been enchanted with more traditional wards to keep away myrvites and other beasts, while the cindergold blooms repelled most vermin and insects from the campsite.

To her dismay, Mirian found that the travel-obelisks at the rest stations had been allowed to deteriorate as the road was neglected in favor of the railway. The old stone needles carved with glyphs had also been in use before there were spellwards protecting the road, and just needed mana infusions to provide a nice, comfortable bubble of warmth for sleeping in. It was necessary. Here, the days were warm even in the winter, but the nights brought a horrid chill. Mirian had planned on being able to use the obelisks, so she hadn't bought any heavy blankets or a tent, just the bedroll.

Several other travelers who had arrived were arguing about if they should start trying to uproot nearby shrubs to build a fire. With a sigh, Mirian pulled out her ink set and got to work on the damaged glyphs. What they really needed for the repair was the crystal-myrvite organ powder mix that could then be turned into a cement that would last in the stone, but Mirian knew she could heat-treat her inks once applied to at least get the glyphs working again. The other travelers grew silent, especially when they noticed she was working without a spellbook. Though her arcane catalyst was at her belt, to them it must have looked like she was casting without any aid.

When the last glyph was in place, she charged the obelisk with mana, and felt the pleasant warmth emanating from it. It was far beyond what she had been able to do even a year ago. Once, she might have run out of mana just fixing it. Now, she had plenty left over.

She ignored the stares of the other travelers, got out her bedroll, curled up, and closed her eyes. It had been a long day. The eximontar clacked around a bit on its six hooves, trying to strip leaves from one of the hardier shrubs before it gave up and settled down. With the mana-bond in place, she knew it wouldn't stray. Mirian quickly went to sleep.

She dreamed of tunnels where the walls moved like flesh, eyes in the walls opening up and watching her, where she wandered for hours. Unintelligible whispers surrounded her like a haze as she moved.

When she emerged from the tunnels, she found herself looking out across the familiar arid landscape. In the distance, she saw the colossal statue of the Ominian from the mausoleum she dreamed so frequently of. She could instantly tell that's what it was; it had the same swirling colors, the same whorls of eyes and wings carved into it—but it was different, too. Here, it was standing, and unwounded. It looked out across the landscape in silence, so she looked with it. Together, they gazed across the gently drifting hills and watched the cool ocean breeze race across the fields of golden grass, watched the multicolored leaves of shrubs dance and sway in that wind. High above, distant cirrus clouds stretched across the top of the sky, while vultures circled and birds flitted about through the fields.

She awoke to a feeling that was difficult to describe. This place, she thought. This land. The words and images lingered, even as her morning grogginess and the exact events of the dream wore off.

It was early dawn when she set out again. The other travelers were still sleeping. As she left the warded area behind, the bitter chill of night washed over her. She ignored it, and pressed on. Her destination called to her.

Home called to her.