The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

Chapter 81 - Fate of the Apocalypse

The plan was that they all surround the bridge together, but Archmage Luspire had other ideas. He rushed ahead of the group, hovering above the deck with the levitation wand. As soon as he encountered a group of Akanan crewmen, bumbling out of one of the cabins in the superstructure, he seemed to forget that they were all disguised. Immediately Luspire let loose with an incineration ray that he swung around the deck, setting at least one structure on fire.

So much for a stealthy approach, Mirian thought as she got a whiff of burnt flesh and wood smoke. For how smart the Archmage was, he could be surprisingly short-sighted. This was still an airship full of enemy soldiers, and it would only take one lucky pistol shot to kill any of them.

"Why is he going ahead?" Jei asked.

"Don't know. Change of plans, we follow him. We have to take the bridge, and fast. There are two elite infantry companies on this ship. Communications is down and it's dark, so it should take some time for them to organize and figure out what's happening, but if enough of them show up, there isn't a mage alive that could hold them all off."

Luspire was now some fifty meters ahead of them, his spellbook hovering over his hand as he sent out clusters of fireballs. Mirian clutched her own spellbook so it wouldn't bounce on its chain and sprinted forward. As she ran, she flipped to the page that had amplify sound and shouted, "Fire! Fire on the foredeck!" in Eskanar. Hopefully, that sent more Akanans running to the wrong end of the ship. She then closed the book and put on another burst of speed, jumping over a tangle of warped metal that had fallen over the path, just as Luspire reached the bridge.

She looked behind her. Her professors were arcanists, not athletes, and only Cassius regularly exercised by riding his eximontar. Some of the glyph lights on the deck were out, but she could just make them out, gaining, but slowly. The ship was now listing a few degrees to port, enough to make moving across the deck that much harder. She could also make out Akanan crew members emerging from below decks. She had to hope the chaos kept them from organizing a defense.

Luspire smashed down the door to the bridge with a force ram, then bellowed, "Emera Cearsia you traitorous wench! We had a deal."

Mirian approached the door, taking a position on one of the walkways so that a nest of pipes gave her cover. From inside, she heard Cearsia shout out, "One that you and your treacherous kind trampled on. Stand down, and I may show you mercy."

"We both know it's not in your vocabulary, my dear. However, I will let you surrender the ship. It's that or death. And when you arrive at the gates of hell, I dare say your soul will weigh you down to the fifth circle, kinslayer."

Cearsia responded with her burning chains spell, which the Archmage countered. The pages of his spellbook began to blur as he flipped them back and forth telekinetically, and his prismatic shield flared up around him, just as more spells erupted from the bridge. That Luspire retreated out of the door and behind a nearby cabin told Mirian he'd realized his mistake. Peeking out around the corner, Mirian could see that a unit of the elite arcanists were already on the bridge and had taken positions by the windows; likely, they'd rushed there as soon as things started exploding on the ship.

For all that Mirian had grown, she still wasn't a match for a trained arcanist. They had years more of training, and spellpower she was closing in on, but still couldn't match.

But she also hadn't lived through these years of the apocalypse without learning a thing or two.

Mirian let loose a barrage of arc lightning, aiming for the metal frame of the door. The electricity arced into the cabins, not powerful enough to kill, but certainly enough to cause muscle seizures. Any dropped wands or momentary paralysis would help give Luspire an edge. As far as she knew, no one else could cast a prismatic shield that warded against basically all types of energy, so they would always be vulnerable to something.

Next, she sent an arcing flame missile over the bridge so that it would land on the opposite side, which hopefully would draw their attention that way. When she heard gunfire echoing out, but no shots toward her, she thought she'd succeeded. She then ducked back behind the pipes, as Luspire sent a coruscating star spell into the bridge. Briefly, it was no longer night on the ship; the spell's brightness rivaled the sun. Then the spell went through the door to the bridge.

It had likely just blinded a bunch of Akanans, but it had also just sent a signal to anyone on the deck where the action was. She could see crew members scrambling into action even as she caught sight of the other Torrviol professors finally making their way to her.

Mirian was thinking they're still disguised as Akanans, so we might be able to position them as reinforcements and still get off a surprise attack, and then the mass dispel spell hit. It had to be Cearsia's; it erupted outward from the bridge in an arcane pulse, silencing Luspire's spell, and she watched the illusion around her break apart into strands of light. When she looked back again, it had traveled far enough to hit the professors too. The only illusion that seemed to have held was Marva's, which didn't make sense because they'd maintained all the illusion spells. Did they know a spell that was resistant to being stripped, but it only worked on themself?

There wasn't exactly time to interrogate Marva. Mirian saw a crewman on the lower deck do a double take as he looked up and suddenly saw a bunch of Baracueli crossing the upper catwalk. He drew his pistol, but Mirian let out an incineration ray first, setting his shirt on fire, though he was likely dead before he hit the deck. The years of leading battle groups through the underground asserted themselves, and Mirian started issuing orders. "Jei and Torres, take up the rear, we need shields and suppression spells. Cassius, Luspire needs help on the assault. Marva, see if you can draw people away from the bridge!"

Mirian sensed another pulse of arcane energy as someone on the ship initiated the fire suppression spell engines. Immediately, the flames around them died, and the ship darkened. The deck flickered with the light of Luspire's spells as he continued to attack the bridge, but with spell engines now continually outputting a fire-suppression ward, he was forced to swap to a new style of attack. He set a blade wall spell by the port-side wall, which started sending out sparks as it shredded the wood and metal, then blasted the bridge with a continuous barrage of force missiles.

The problem was, the arcanists in the cabin were bunkering down, and Mirian could feel them layering up their defenses with wards and shields. They knew they didn't need to go on the offensive, and the critical steering controls they needed were on the bridge. Seizing the secondary controls on the forebridge wouldn't work, because the primary controls could override anything they did. Fire spells were also Luspire's most powerful, and the suppression ward had further disadvantaged him.

Professor Cassius joined Mirian behind the cluster of pipes. "You've done this before?"

"Not precisely. But I've—shit. A unit is coming up from the aft. We need to kill them before they get to the bridge." They had just come out from a rear hatch on the starboard side, some dozen meters past the bridge where Luspire couldn't see them, and were creeping forward.

Cassius didn't hesitate. Perhaps he'd been in similar situations when he'd fought in the Baracuel Military. He targeted the riflemen first, using a quickened mass force lift to snatch all five of their rifles up at once and flinging them away. The auramancer with them extended his spell resistance outward, so Cassius's follow-up bolt of lightning did little but spark about them.

Then he paused, not sure how to deal with the auramancer. Maybe whatever campaign he'd been on in Persama, he'd never had to deal with them. Mirian, on the other hand, had fought her fair share. She used force grasp to lift a spike of charred wood that Luspire's blade wall had produced, then used another to pick up a large chunk of warped metal from the deck. While she lifted the metal over the heads of the Akanan unit, she positioned the wooden missile between herself and the Akanans and sent it into a spin.

When she sent the wood spike forward, she already knew it would get blocked. But while the sorcerers were busy putting up force shields in front of the auramancer, they weren't looking up. Mirian dropped the heavy scrap onto his head and he crumpled to the deck like a bag of apples. "Auramancer down," she said, then rushed to put up a grounding force shield as the Akanan sorcerers retaliated with a barrage of lightning spells and force blades.

Now they had a problem. While the fire suppression wards were up, any fire spells were so greatly hampered that only someone like Luspire could cast through them, and even he was opting for a strategy focused on force and lightning attacks. But the sorcerers they were fighting had layered themselves with magnetic, grounding, and force wards so that even without the auramancer there was no chance of just the two of them getting through the defense by conventional means.

"Maintain our defense," Mirian said. "Get ready to hit them with lightning." Then she took advantage of the fire suppression ward. It worked by displacing heat. Heat displacement spells were rarely used on the offensive, but the ward gave her an opportunity. She targeted the sorcerer maintaining the grounding spell by rapidly moving heat from the air around him, and the outer layer of his skin—all she could manage given the natural spell resistance. Normally, this might have given him goosebumps and made him shiver a bit, but by funneling the heat in a pattern that matched the ward's conductive lines, her spell was magnified sixfold. It didn't kill him, but it did send him into cold shock. As the sorcerer started to hyperventilate and look around in panic, he dropped his wand, and his ward vanished.

That was all they needed. "Now!" Mirian said, and both she and Cassius slammed the sorcerers with lighting spells. Mirian's arc lightning mostly kept them stunned, while Cassius's chain lightning left charred flesh.

With that squad taken care of, Mirian checked behind them. Jei and Torres were fighting someone, but given the sound of sporadic gunfire and haphazard spells being flung their way, it seemed they were fighting regular crew, not trained soldiers. Meanwhile, Luspire was keeping everyone in the bridge pinned down, but each time he tried to advance, he was forced back by a barrage of spells. There had to be at least eight casters in there, and one of them was Marshal Cearsia. They also seemed to have access to engine-generated wards. If an Archmage couldn't get through those defenses, the rest of them didn't stand a chance.

Unless…

"The port side guns should still be loaded. Cassius, can you lift one?"

He looked at her, face grim, then at the spellfire between the bridge and Luspire. "Maybe," he said. "It would take everything I have."

Mirian took a deep breath. "Then I'll levitate us both." She wasn't sure she would have enough mana. She'd used a lot to even make it to the ship, and had already used one mana elixir. But they had to try. "Get ready."

She wrapped Cassius in a force hold and pulled out her wand of levitation. Clenching her jaw, she channeled. It wasn't even just that she had to levitate both of them; she also had Cassius's spell resistance sapping energy from the force hold spell. Her aura began thinning at an alarming rate as she moved them over the side of the ship and in front of a port side artillery gun.

Cassius started getting a magnetic spell ready to rip off the armored panels securing the guns, but Mirian said, "Wait, there's a hidden release!" The schematic she'd seen had shown how to open up the side panels so the guns could be loaded or offloaded from their firing ports. She closed her eyes, then sent arcane energy pulses into where she knew the sequences were, using raw energy that mimicked the needed glyph output.

The steel armor panel cracked open, then the howling winds caught it and tore it off, the metal plate nearly hitting them as the wind whipped it past them. A shocked gunner stared at them, then dove for a safety handhold so she didn't follow it.

Cassius tensed as he grabbed the artillery piece. There was a groan, then the sound of metal screeching as he ripped the gun off its mount. "Go. Go!" he shouted.

Mirian's aura was nearly depleted. She moved them up as quickly as she could, eyes locked on the approaching deck rail. She strained to keep both the levitation spell and force spell going, now struggling to even find mana to channel into them. It was like grasping at the wind.

With one final mental heave, she got Cassius to the deck, but as she released the force hold spell, she lost hold of the levitation spell too. Desperately, she let her wand fall so she could reach out with both hands for the railing—and her fingers brushed it.

But it wasn't enough to hold on to.

She fell.

Cassius saw her and tried to reach down, but he missed. As Mirian fell, she saw him trying to cast a spell, but he'd used the last of his mana too.

Briefly, Mirian thought how ironic it would be if the events she'd set in motion stopped the apocalypse and therefore her time loop, only for her to die. The airship seemed to move away from her in slow motion. At least falling is a quick way to go, she consoled herself.

Then she was suddenly wrenched upward by an invisible force.

Jei! she realized. She was leaning over the railing, orb in hand, a determined look in her eyes. Her aura must have also been nearly stripped, because even as it lifted her up, she could feel the force hold spell failing. Just as she was in reach of the airship, the spell failed.

Mirian felt the sensation of plummeting again, but this time when she reached out for the railing, she grasped it. She felt a sharp pain in her shoulder as her weight yanked her down, and slammed into the side of the ship. The railing was so cold it burned her hands, but she grit her teeth and heaved herself up.

Jei said something in Gulwenen, then breathed a sigh of relief. "That was all I have," she said.

"I'm out too," Cassius said. He looked up at the bridge. Beyond, they could see the flashes of light from Luspire's battle. "Medius must be reaching his limit. But this gun's pointing the wrong way."

"And Torres?" Mirian asked.

"With Luspire now. We split up. There's another squad harassing him. We killed two, he killed three more, then they got into the bridge."

So up a level and on the other side of a raging firefight. Not where she could help.

Mirian looked at the heavy artillery piece they'd brought up. It stood as tall as she was, and was made of steel. "It's on a swivel. Breaking it from the deck might have damaged it, but we still might be able to move it." She looked around. One of the nearby corpses was an engineer. Mirian rushed over and grabbed a bottle from his satchel. "Lubricant!" she said, then splashed it around the base of the gun. "Push with me," she said.

Cassius was in pretty good shape for his age. Jei wasn't. It was mostly Mirian, and she'd already injured her shoulder, but she pushed with everything she had. There was a groaning sound, then the gun moved, creaking as it did.

The explosions and gunfire echoed across the ship, and the freezing wind seemed to intensify. Then, when it was only a few degrees off, she heard gunfire close by, and sparks erupted in front of her as a bullet pinged! off the barrel. Shit, someone's shooting at us!

"Cover!" Mirian shouted, and dashed behind the artillery piece as several more shots rang out.

Cassius joined her, crouching down.

Jei didn't. Mirian's mouth grew dry. She looked back over to corpses where she'd just taken the lubricant off the engineer. There was a pistol lying by his side, but no cover between her and the corpse. She closed her eyes and visualized her aura. There was so little left, but there was something left. Not enough for any major spell, but the pistol wasn't heavy. She lifted up her spellbook from the chain it was on. Several of the pages were torn up, but lift object wasn't. Hand trembling, she ran her fingers across the glyphs.

Mirian had fired guns so rarely in her life, but she knew pistols were notoriously inaccurate at range, and there was no way she was going to hit someone in cover, in the dark, while freezing winds buffeted them. Instead, she peeked out from the gap between the barrel and the body. She could just make out their attacker, lying prone on the deck. She moved the pistol silently in the air until it was just above him, rotated it, then used the last of her mana to press the trigger.

The gunman jerked once, then was still.

Mirian rushed back around the gun. Jei was clutching her stomach, hand red. Blood was already pooling where she sat. "No," she said, when Mirian knelt by her side. "You need every second. Look."

Luspire had stopped casting offensive spells. He was being hit by a barrage, and it seemed to be taking everything he had just to keep his prismatic shield up.

Mirian swallowed a sob, then stood and heaved herself against the gun, every muscle in her body straining. She let out a primal roar as she pushed, not even meaning to. With another creak of steel, the barrel moved, until it was in-line with the bridge.

"Now it's just math," Jei said, voice hoarse. She smiled as if she'd just told a joke, then her face went slack, and she keeled over. Her orb rolled out of her hand and onto the deck.

Mirian swallowed again. Part of her wanted to stop fighting, right here and now. To fail, just so there'd for sure be another cycle.

But what if she never got a better chance? What if the time she'd been given ran out?

Mirian cranked the barrel up so it was level with the bridge. Then she depressed the firing glyph.

It was like thunder and lightning. Her ears rang and eyes were blinded, but when her vision cleared, she could see the smoldering ruin in the gun's path.

She rushed over and grabbed the rifle from the man she'd just killed, then walked towards the smoldering wreckage.

Archmage Luspire landed by her side as she entered, face grim.

There had been at least a dozen people inside the bridge. Most of them had been torn apart; that there was anything recognizable at all was only thanks to the layers of shields they'd had around it. The roof and most of the walls had been blown off entirely so that what was left was a warped titanium framework and jagged wood.

The elite arcanists were dead, as were the crew. Cearsia's first assistant was intact enough to be recognizable, though his legs were gone entirely. Her second assistant, the one who always acted unpredictably, was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he'd just been vaporized.

Cearsia herself lay by the wall, more pincushion than woman now with how much shrapnel was in her. Her breathing came in gasping gurgles as her lungs filled with blood.

Mirian stood before her, rifle in hand. "What would it take for this war to never happen?" she said.

Even at death's door, the rage in her burned. She looked up at Mirian, eyes having trouble focusing, then spat blood at her.

She said, "It could all be avoided. No one needs to die."

Cearsia didn't say anything to that. It seemed to be taking all her strength just to keep breathing. Soon enough, that would stop.

Luspire looked at Mirian, then looked back down at the Marshal. He had never talked to her about Cearsia. Not how he knew her, and certainly not how he felt about her. But in his eyes, she could see the faintest hint of sorrow. "Let's go," is all he said.

"Torres?"

"Dead," he said grimly.

Mirian's gut wrenched again. "Marva?"

"Don't know."

"Jei died. Cassius is—there he is."

Cassius made his entrance limping. Mirian wasn't sure when he'd been hit in the leg or what had hit him in the leg, but she could see a fresh piece of cloth tied around his thigh, stained with blood.

Mirian went to the primary steering control panel. By some miracle, it had survived the blast. She hit the glyph for 'descent,' then increased speed to full. The ship shuddered, then listed farther to the side. "It's done," she said. "Let's get off this ship. Master Luspire, can you levitate all of us?"

He looked back at Cearsia one last time, then they left.

There was a loud cracking sound, then an explosion on the port side and the ship tilted even further. Mirian looked around for Marva, but they were nowhere to be seen. She grabbed onto a nearby rail so she wouldn't slide off. She heard screaming as several Akanans did tumble overboard. The tilt continued to increase.

"We have to go," Luspire said. Then quietly, "Sorry Ghellia. You deserve better." He lifted them off the deck, and just in time. The Might of Liberty's list to port was now over twenty degrees, and as piles of debris slid that way, they only weighed the ship on that side further. It was a race now to see if Mirian's command to descend would crash the ship into the ground before it crashed itself.

Archmage Luspire took them back east, the ship having gone way off course when their sabotage had taken out the steering. In the distance, they could see the burning wreck of the Republic's Justice, and beyond it, Torrian Tower, still standing tall.

Mirian watched as the Might of Liberty finally hit the ground, the impact powerful enough to shake the trees beneath them even from a mile away. The ship erupted with brilliant rays and glyphfires so that the bellies of the clouds above them flickered with prismatic light. For a moment, the airship burned like a second sunset, and then the sky settled into night again.

When they landed in the plaza, a cheer went up. Some people started singing Baracuel's national anthem.

Luspire brightened a bit at their reception, though Mirian thought the joy was a mask. She couldn't bring herself to put on a smile herself, she was just too exhausted to pretend.

General Hanaran burst from the entrance of Bainrose, her assistants hustling to keep up. "By the Gods, you did it! With the airships out of the equation, we turned the flank of the surface army's thrust and trapped the rest of the Akanans in the Underground! They've been surrendering en masse. I… I don't believe it. No one's won a battle where they were this outnumbered since the Unification War!"

"The lieutenant I appointed?"

Hanaran put a hand on Mirian's shoulder. "Died bravely. Her defense of the catacombs helped us hold the center."

Poor Valen, she thought. Now, she really didn't know. Would she see her again in another cycle? Or would she never see that infuriating smirk again, never feel the heat of her touch? At least her family would be safe, wherever they were. She so badly wanted to see Zayd again.

"You… it came to pass as you said. What happens next?"

Mirian looked upward. There was a gap in the clouds, and the Divir moon hung in that spot like an omen. "This was as far as I saw," she said. "Now I… I don't know. Strange. After all these years."

***

The celebrations the next day were bittersweet. Despite the ban on alcohol in Torrviol, the stuff was everywhere. Across town, people consoled each other over lost friends and family, and celebrated in joy, as people praised the great victory. She found herself acknowledging so many thanks and salutations she lost track. After years of having to fight to first be heard, then believed, it all felt surreal.

The Myrvite Studies building, though full of holes from artillery shells, had to be repurposed as a prison so that they had somewhere to put all the surrendering Akanans. Mirian's plan had worked, and they'd encircled almost the entire army.

That evening, Mayor Ethwarn and General Hanaran held a grand ceremony in the forum, stretching all the way to the theater. Logistics still hadn't caught up to the army, so most officers were missing their dress uniform, but the general and a few of her close staff had theirs. Many buildings were partially collapsed, but for all that it had been battered, Torrviol stood.

The lion banner of Baracuel whipped in the wind. Some townsfolk wore the patriotic colors of orange and white, while others wore the mourning of black. Plenty were still across the lake, waiting for the boats to finish returning everyone to the city.

First, an aide coached Mirian on where to go, how to stand, and what her signal would be. Mayor Ethwarn gave a long speech to the heroes of Torrviol, praising the militia, then praising the army. When it was done, General Hanaran spoke. She first recognized Luspire, Cassius, and two of her captains that had led key pushes that allowed the encirclement. One by one, they were called up and awarded medals.

Then General Hanaran said, "But without the visions of this citizen, the battle simply would have been impossible. She has left no doubt in my mind that the age of Prophets has come again. What death Torrviol has faced is far too great, and yet, it was her advice that led to this victory. Without her, there would be no Torrviol left. She led the assault on the two airships, and it is her battle plan that I followed. I recognize Mirian Castrella as Hero of Baracuel, the highest honor any citizen can have bestowed."

The crowd erupted in a rancorous cheer, and Mirian found herself blinking back tears as she summited the steps to face the crowd. The applause washed over her like the tide, and she found herself thinking, It's worth it. In the end, it's worth it.

Again, she found herself turning to face the Divir moon, and her heart swelled. It was the evening of the 4th of Duala, and it wasn't falling.

It's not falling.

She wasn't naive enough to think it was all over yet. And a part of her hoped it wasn't, because she still needed to do it right. Save Jei. Save Marva. Save so many others who had fallen needlessly. Bring the Impostor to justice.

But she'd saved her friends, and knew she could save them again. And more, she'd discovered a crucial connection. What she did down here mattered.

*****

Book 1 Epilogue

That night, after a town-wide feast, Mirian found herself back in her dorm room.

"I'm so glad it's over," Lily said. "I still can't believe… like, you're a Prophet. That's a thing from the history books. You. And you led a battle and everything. It still doesn't seem real."

"I know the feeling," Mirian said. She looked at Lily, and felt a sense of sorrow. How did she tell her what really happened next? It seemed unbearable, after all the celebrations. "I have to… go see something. I have to know if… I'll be back, okay? Don't worry."

Lily must have seen the facial expression she'd made. "What is it?" she said.

"Don't worry," Mirian repeated.

She went to the top of Torrian Tower and looked up. The strange auroras dancing across the sky. People had noticed, of course, but they didn't know what it signaled. They were stronger tonight, and the last train that had come up had mentioned eruptions near Cairnmouth. How long had she delayed the end? Days? Weeks? She didn't know.

But as she watched the sky and waited, hope swelled in her again. "It's not falling," she whispered to the wind, as the stars twinkled. She closed her eyes and let the winter wind brush aside her tears. At the very least, for one more day, the world would keep turning.

She descended from the tower, the mix of emotions overwhelming her, and as soon as she got back she gave Lily a hug.

Lily hugged her back. After a while, she asked, "You okay?"

"Not yet," Mirian said. She wondered how long it would take to come to terms with it all. "I'm… gonna go see Nicolus," she said. She wasn't sure what to tell him. They'd both been assuming everything they were doing was temporary. For the first time, she could conceive of a future where it wasn't, or at the very least, where they might have more than just a single month of shared memories. With Valen dead, though, and Selesia a stranger, she needed someone who could hold her. Lily was her best friend, but she needed more than that right now.

She made her way across town, smiling and acknowledging the people that greeted her, then up to Nicolus's apartment. Strangely, the door was already open.

"Hello?" she called.

Nicolus came through the door smiling, but the smile looked wrong. Then Mirian saw the pair of feet sticking out from the living room door. Sire Nurea's boots.

"What's going on?" she said. Was Nurea dead?

When Nicolus spoke, it was with a voice that wasn't his. For one, the Friian was horribly accented, and his voice was pitched too high. "Ah, you've spoiled the surprise. Still, I have absolutely had enough of your meddling," he said, and drew a pistol.

Mirian's eyes went wide, then her ears were ringing again as she stumbled back, clutching her belly. The second shot went into her head.

She woke up in her bed, the ceiling dripping again, and all she could think was: what in the five hells was that?