am-books Chapter 155 - The Siege of Alkazaria
Chapter 155 - The Siege of Alkazaria
Professor Endresen had taught Mirian all matter of lensing spells, mostly to look at the intricacies of glyph formation. However, the same principles worked to bend light to view distant objects.
From the newspapers she'd seen, she knew Ibrahim usually started the siege with an attack early on the morning of the 8th, so she layered a lens spell with a night-vision spell, and was surprised to find it actually worked. She just had to make sure she avoided looking at the nearby glyphlamps so she didn't blind herself.
There were two train lines that moved west out of the city, one that hugged the Ibaihan River, and another that eventually split off north towards west Baracuel. A few hours before dawn, she finally caught the distinct infrared radiating off an unscheduled train heading toward the city.
With the war in Persama so close to the city, Alkazaria had never quite given up its security protocols. There were still manned gatehouses along the wall where roads and train tracks entered the city. The western gates closest to the more southern track were, unexpectedly, silent, but the gatehouse north of them wasn't. It sent up a red flare, which meant 'stop.'
The train slowed, but it didn't stop.
Mirian could just make out the faint light of warm bodies pouring out of the cars as soon as the train came through the western gate.
That gate should have been closed, or should have gotten an alarm off. So he does have an advanced force, or is able to intimidate key people through advanced messages.
They quickly organized into columns of about a hundred, each of which split off.
He has companies heading to key objectives. Each one must have detailed orders, which means he had to craft them himself.
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She directed the lens spell to watch one group. That all came from a single train car!? Ibrahim was cramming at least a hundred people, all loaded with equipment, into each car. However, there were only 20 cars, including freight cars, which was actually above what the spell engine was rated for. At most, he has 2000 troops. The rest of the army must still be marching, but if he wants a surprise attack this early, he has to give up numbers for speed.
Mirian squinted, watching as the companies fanned out. He was trying to take a capital city with a single brigade. Absolute madness. There's at least twice as many guards as he has troops right now, and that doesn't take into account the Arcane Praetorians.
It was an impressive logistical feat. More, because the majority of his army could only have been established and organized several days ago at most.@@@@
The man is relentless, she thought. If anything, Rostal had understated it. I've at least taken breaks. I wonder if he has. Though come to think of it, neither has Troytin.
The minutes ticked by. Then, at last, the distant crack of gunfire echoed from the northwest gate, and two more flares went up. Alkazaria was big enough it never quite went to sleep, so as Ibrahim's companies ran into night laborers and drunks, shouting rose up as panicked people fled from the sudden incursion of troops. Mirian stopped channeling her night-vision spell so she could better pick out the flashes.
More flashes of light erupted from the northwest gate. Someone there was giving the Persamans trouble. Then there was an explosion, and dozens of flares went up all at once; the whole area looked like a miniature lightning storm frolicking with a rainbow.
By then, scattered firefights had erupted all over the western part of the city. From what she could tell, they were targeting key crossroads and guard stations, while another group seized gatehouses along the wall. The minutes ticked by. The city guards usually dealt with criminals, not organized military units, so were getting pushed back rapidly across the city. However, a company of a hundred was ill suited to both push and hold anything. Their rapid advance had more holes in it than an unwarded telegraph cable. She could make out city guards the Persamans had accidentally bypassed behind their lines running from street to street.
Alarm bells began to ring throughout the city, the loud gongs desperately clanging.
Finally, there was a reaction from the Citadel. Mirian moved over to one of the apartment's windows where she had a better view. Lights had come on everywhere, and, she suspected, divination machines. She could just make out commotion in one of the courtyards. Then, heart pounding, she watched as two dozen Arcane Praetorians levitated up from the citadel at once, traveling in four formations. Mirian rushed back over to the balcony, fingers gripping the railing tight as she leaned forward to watch.
As the 6th of Duala approached, the battle continued on, even as the leylines began to burst apart, even as the sky danced with the surreal flames of the arcane auroras. Ibrahim made no appearance, and Troytin's minions stayed far to the west.
Mirian continued mapping out her plans, crumpling up her stupider ideas and burning them with raw fire. Too much to do. I need to be efficient. She worked backwards from what she needed, trying to map out the minimum number of days she'd need in Frostland's Gate and Palendurio. Too long. Plus, I'll need to visit a workshop somewhere to finish the final spellbook.
I need to find a way to start gathering people before I head off to Frostland's Gate. Or, I need to drastically decrease the time it takes to get in and out of the Vault.
It seemed intractable, but then again, so had the Battle of Torrviol at first. She had to believe she'd find a way.
Her next experiment was one she'd been saving until near the end of the cycle. It was a test she was reluctant to do, but was necessary.
There was a long-standing question as to how the things burrowed into the souls of the Prophets—whatever they were—worked. They transmitted all developments in the soul, including memories, mana capacity, bound objects, and curses. They also were connected to the Ominian through dreams, and to some place that seemed removed from the usual flow of time—or was just simply something she didn't understand. Finally, through both Specter and Apophagorga, she knew that severe damage to the soul, not just death, triggered an early transfer of the soul back in time.
However, she was convinced that the void must also be possible to remove.
But what was the nature of such a void?
Her revelation about multiple myrvites being able to move through four-dimensional space was just the most recent line of evidence. She'd held objects in the Labyrinth that could only have a fourth-dimensional component. It wasn't just the Divine Monument and the Ominian's Mausoleum—all of Enteria held things that regularly interacted with it.
So what if the void isn't just a void, but a hidden object within that fourth dimension, affecting the other three?
The ability to remove a hostile time traveler seemed critically necessary. And if it was possible, she needed to discover it first. The only viable test subject to explore what triggered an early reset, though, was herself.
Her work with the stone moles had been a critical first step, even if she hadn't quite realized it. With them, she had continued Jei's work of mapping out the fourth-dimensional space, and figuring out which arcane glyphs represented what positions, movements, or modifications of position. Her discoveries in the Labyrinth had led her to discover how to link arcane glyphs to celestial runes, which she had used so far mostly to show off to Calisto.
Now, she could combine those two discoveries, and map out the boundaries of the soul. The celestial runes could delve into it, and the glyphs could add a precision that the rune magic she'd seen otherwise didn't have. Likely, that was partially because she simply didn't know hundreds or perhaps thousands of runes, but she had to work with what she had.
As she had waited and watched in her tower apartment, she had scribed spell that made extensive use of tri-bonds. The result was a rune-glyph hybrid spell that could both move through the soul and produce divination results. On the last day of the cycle, Mirian finally deployed it, sending the needle-like blade of soul energy towards the boundary of the void. Carefully, she drove it in like a doctor's scalpel, trying to keep both a focused state of meditation and concentration on the complex spell.
She lost focus, and the spell sputtered out.
She tried again, then again, taking time to calm her breathing and steady her mind each time.
At last, she was getting the feel of the new spell. She brought the scalpel of soul energy to the edge of the void, and gently touched the inside boundary of it—
***
And woke in her bed, water dripping. It hadn't been painful. It had simply been over.
First boundary discovered, she thought.