PREVIEW -- The Archmage's Last Bow, Chapter 9

I realize it has been a hella long time since I've posted a new chapter or anything, for both Apprentice and Last Bow. I figured I'd remedy that somewhat with a couple of previews, one for each fic.

I am still working on them, it's just slow-going with life stuff :(

Get a preview of The Archmage's Last Bow after the break.

“You know, I’ve never gotten a chance to see you work up close.”

Ars Arcanum grinned as he playfully shoved the Crown Prince of the Alicorn Empire back to keep him from blocking the light over his workstation.  He was in the middle of crafting a rather important piece of arcanery for an important client.  It was, after all, hard to get more important than an order from Aedile Praesul.  Although he wanted nothing more than to take a break for the day and bandy words with the philosophical alicorn prince trying to peer over his shoulder, he wanted to earn his keep, and his dreams of being the greatest arcanosmith in all of history wouldn’t pursue themselves.

“You know, I’ve never been able to do that work when you block the light source, Peri.”

“I thought you wanted to be the best, Ars!  Surely the best arcanosmith could work in a little bit of shadow?” Imperius chortled as he deliberately took a place blocking the light of the workshop now, casting an Imperius’-head-shaped shade over the magnacrystal containment band that he was crafting.  Ars rolled his eyes and simply conjured a werelight that hovered a short distance away, perfectly illuminating his cluttered workspace and revealing more of the surrounding workplace than the focused light source did.  All manner of tools hung from the walls, a collection of spellbooks and magical tomes were stored away in a large bookcase that stretched from floor to ceiling, boxes and bins full of materials lay neatly pushed against the walls between all of the space.  A box for orichalcum ingots, a box for arcanostone, boxes for different varieties of crystals…

“See, if you could do that this whole time, why did you get on to me about blocking your light?”

“I wanted an excuse to shove the soon-to-be King of the Alicorns before I legally wasn’t allowed to,” Ars replied with a straight face as he picked up a runecarving chisel and began to delicately work the necessary symbols around the band of orichalcum that lay before him.  The metal glimmered under his white light with a faint pale green tint and the faintest of glows, seeming to shimmer and wave as the manatic energy he had personally siphoned out of the Wellspring and woven into it undulated and moved within the simple band.

After a few short moments, during which Imperius patiently waited for him to finish his job, the runic carvings were complete.  There was still some work to be done and tests to be run to make sure it could properly contain and focus the energy it was meant to, but for now, his current project was finished.  No doubt Master Artifex would be pleased.  It was he, after all, who had seen the talent that lay deep within him at a young age, and it was he who pushed and challenged Ars to be better.  And how here Ars was, trying to surpass the stallion who had taught him everything.

“Beautiful,” Imperius whispered as Ars picked up the rather hefty band of metal, light as a feather despite being large enough around to that it could encircle him from head to tail, and turned it over to have a look around to make sure everything looked as it should.  “You’ve outdone yourself.”

“Eh, I make these all the time,” Ars Arcanum shrugged modestly.  “Old Praesul’s got me constantly replacing these things in the paling towers and the crystals that go with them.  First time making one this big though.  I’m guessing he wants me to repair one of the Convergence Towers.  Don’t understand why,” he added with a roll of his eyes.  “Harmonic Convergence isn’t for another few years.”

“I asked him to,” Imperius replied.

Ars blinked, then set the metal ring down on the table and gave his friend an odd look.  King Imperius looked every bit the princely young stallion one would expect.  A proud face, a pure white coat, bright blue hair in his mane and tail, brilliant blue eyes, sleek wings that belied strength, a horn that was more than capable of enforcing his will, and a silver circlet on his head that he wore gracefully.  Ars had always wondered how Imperius, with a mane as messy as that, could wear such a crown and look so regal despite it.  Perhaps it was the way he carried himself, proud, bordering on haughty, but not overbearingly so.

“Ars, before you say anything–” Imperius began, already launching into the defenses that Ars knew too well.

“You’ve been worrying about that damn prophecy again, haven’t you?” Ars stated, knowing the answer was yes.  When was Imperius ever not worrying about that stupid scroll?  The thing was so vague it could have referred to anyone, but for some Heraldforsaken reason, Imperius had never allowed himself to let it go and let things be.

I haven’t actually,” Imperius snarled. raising his voice just enough to make Ars back down.  Imperius never brought out his King Voice around him unless it was important.  “I… thought it would make a good segue into my own personal request for you.”

Ars stared at him in disbelief and amusement.  “You… you asked Aedile Praesul to order a large-sized containment ring so you could have a segue in a conversation?”

“We are gonna need the ring,” Imperius gestured vaguely out at the city outside of this sparse workshop, “but… well…” he grew sheepish.  “...yeah.  I did.”

Ars stared at him for a few long seconds before suddenly bursting out in a fit of laughter, slapping Imperius’ back warmly.

“Peri, my friend, you know all you need to do is come talk to me, right?  No segues, nothing like that?  You know I’ll listen to anything you’d say!”

“Well,” Imperius tilted his head back and forth as he considered his words, “I also wanted a visual aid, you see.”

He picked up the ring that Ars had placed on the workbench and looked it over with his own eyes.

“What do you know of the three Gems of Being, Ars?”

“Same as everyone else, I’d wager,” Ars shrugged.  “Magic gems, extremely powerful, extremely dangerous…”

“Extremely dangerous if the pony attempting to use them doesn’t know what they’re doing,” Imperius corrected, examining a bit of script along the inside of the ring.  “They’ve been found to be perfectly safe and stable, and even manipulable under the right circumstances by our foremost arcanologists.  It’s difficult to change their nature, but it’s possible.”

“What do you mean, change their nature?” Ars asked, frowning.  something about this conversation seemed to shift as he asked this.

“Right now, they’re just raw and extremely concentrated ingots of energy.  What if they could be harnessed?”

“Imperius…” Ars suddenly seemed to have an idea of what his prince was asking.  “You said you weren’t worrying about the prophecy.”

“And I’m not,” replied Imperius evenly, putting the ring back on the workbench.  “This is for the Empire, Ars.  And this is for me and whoever comes after me as the King of the Alicorns.”

He stepped toward the exit of the shop, before turning and gesturing for Ars to follow him.

“I have something to show you.”

Ars followed him uneasily.  Imperius led him out into Elysium, seeming to ignore all of the ponies who turned and gave him a polite bow.  Ars always felt it entirely strange how these ponies, or rather, how their entire culture seemed to be centered around a never-ending quest for the pursuit of power, yet they would so quickly turn and defer to a pony far younger than they.

Their civilization’s eternal advancement had its quirks, that was certain.  

Ars never tired of looking upon the streets of Elysium, so full of life and always with fellow alicorns doing interesting things.  His favorite bakery wasn’t too far from here, and no doubt they’d be putting that special heat moderation crystal he’d crafted for them to good use.  The 

However, if Harmonia were with them, no doubt she would be talking about the lack of Subservients in this city.  Ars and Imperius both loved her to death, but her constant lectures about them could grow extremely tiresome.  Ars didn’t know what had come over her, but she’d suddenly become very outspoken against the status of the Subservients lately.  It was bad enough that King Dominus was letting them waltz off to form their own country, now Harmonia would have them profane this city with their unworthy hooves!  No, worse than that, call this city their home!

Ars was trying, he really was, to persuade Harmonia to tone it down.  Speaking heresy such as this would only turn her into a pariah.  It was the alicorns who ventured north of the Maw.  It was the alicorns who mastered this place.  It was they, and they alone, who built Elysium here, at the very edge of the Wellspring itself.  This was a city for alicorns, and for them alone. It wasn’t that the Subservients weren’t able to stand in the shadows of their majesty– there was quite literally a city surrounding the city where the Subservients lived–, but rather, this was the way of things.

The Alicorns were those who had risen above all others.  It was they who had ascended.  It was they who had seized immortality.  It was they who had forged the very Gems of Being Imperius was referring to.  They were the masters of the world.  There existed places that only they could tread, and this city was built to be one such place.

Imperius led him to the Great Spire, past two magnificent statues of King Magnus and his mother Queen Verita flanking the entry, through the passages and corridors of his home.  But as he led Ars through the familiar halls, he was being led to an unfamiliar destination.  Rather than lead Ars up into the Royal Quarters, or to any of their familiar haunts from the days of their youth, Imperius began to lead Ars down, down below the surface of the earth.

They trotted down into these twisting passages for moments that stretched on and on, speaking not a word to each other or to any that passed.  Ars watched Imperius uneasily as they went.  Peri was normally a rather lax stallion, even when he was on official duty.  Never afraid to joke, never afraid to treat his friends as his friends.  This Imperius however…  Shoulders tight, steps tense, eyes fixed firmly forward.

Eventually, they stopped halfway down a hall deep below the surface of the city.  Ars blinked dumbly as they came to a halt in this otherwise-nondescript place.

“Why did we stop?”

Imperius, however, paid him no mind.  He surveyed the perfectly smooth deep green stone wall, searching for something best known to him, before finally reaching up with a hoof, pushing against the wall, and casting some kind of spell, his horn glowing blue.  Two sparks of magic erupted from his hoof and seemed to trace the outline of a doorway on the wall before meeting the ground and vanishing.  The moment the sparks disappeared, so too did the shape they outlined, revealing a doorway hidden in the wall.

“Lovely, a hidden chamber in the bowels of the tunnels beneath your grand old spire,” Ars observed, with a wry smile.  “How ominous.”

Imperius didn’t respond.  Ars was starting to grow unnerved by this.  Where was the friend he had laughed and joked with only a few moments earlier?

Imperius led him into this doorway, and as Ars stepped around the corner, he gasped.

A great crystal shining with white light occupied the room, It hovered only just above the ground, reaching up high above the both of them to nearly scrape the ceiling, which was so high that this room alone could contain the statues of Magnus and Verita flanking the spire’s entryway, and those were at least five times his height!  Little sparks of light danced within the crystal, creating a strange effect on the walls as though individual sparkles of light were moving about, causing small shadows to change shape on the floor.

Ars had seen it so many times, but he had no idea this was where it was kept when it wasn’t Crystalling Day.

“So this is where you keep the Crystal of Eternity,” he grinned, simply basking in the crystal’s magnificence. He had always wondered where this artifact was kept.

Imperius didn’t respond yet again.  Instead, he approached the base of the crystal, placed his hoof on a specific spot on the floor, and once again caused two blue sparks to trace a shape on the ground.  Where those sparks traced, the ground disappeared, and up from below the floor rose three small pedestals, and on each one sat a glowing star.

Ars’ mouth fell open as he approached each one.  Each gem glowed brighter than the Crystal of Eternity on its own, and each one radiated such power that he was awed just to be in the same room as them!  The holy glow of red, blue, and green washed over him, and he could feel his legs grow weak at the sight of them.

“The Gems of Being…” he whispered.  He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.  What did Imperius want him to do?  He had been granted the sight of two of their most sacred artifacts!  Well, one collection of them.  But still!

Imperius didn’t seem to want him to do anything, however.  He simply stood there, staring at the gems before them both, an unreadable expression on his face.

“My father is planning on retiring soon,” Imperius finally said.

Ars blinked.  What?  King Dominus, retiring?

“Not for a few years, but it will be soon,” Imperius continued.  He was staring at the gems, their three lights shining in his eyes as he stared directly at the center gem, the blue one.  “He believes that with Harmonic Convergence approaching, he wants to mark the occasion with a new king to lead alicornkind forward into a brave new epoch.”

“You… you don’t sound happy about it,” he noticed.  Imperius was speaking slowly, deliberately.  A far cry from how he had sounded back at the workshop.

“The moment I take power, there will be challengers to my rule,” Imperius clenched his teeth together.  “Do you know how many times I walk the streets and hear the whispers behind my back about my father’s doings?  How he allowed so many Subservients to just leave? How he lately has seemed to be asking our historians to completely rethink the way we look at the Herald and the Great Lady?  Our subjects aren’t happy, Ars.”

Ars had been wondering that himself.  Why had King Dominus allowed the Subservients to just go?  Were they not the masters of this world?  Was it not right for they who had not both wings and horn to serve they that did?  It was, after all, better to serve in Heaven than to reign in Hell was it not?  Why should the Subservients look to leave when they were clearly ill-equipped?

“The moment my father crowns me king, the Empire will be thrown into turmoil.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Peri.  You’ve been groomed for this for years!  Surely you don’t think you aren’t capable!”

“I am more than capable,” Imperius replied, giving him a look that did not inspire much confidence in Ars that he believed it.  “But I do not wish to be forced to reunite us all through bloodshed.  I wish to have the wisdom needed to rule, I wish to be able to inspire the others to follow me without challenge.  I desire the strength to defend the Empire and the will to make the necessary difficult decisions.”

He finally turned to face Ars, a look of resolve on his face, but it seemed to be at war with the nervousness in his eyes.

“Ars, we have been able to harness the three Gems of Being.  Their power is overwhelming, but we have found ways of containing and focusing their power when needed.  However, never have we been able to harness more than one at a time.”

Ars began to connect the dots.

Imperius turned to stare at the gems once more.

“My grandfather had the gems created.  My father had the gems hidden away.  I seek to use them the way they were always intended.  I want to use them as king.  As tools for defense, as a way to guide us forward into the eternal golden age Father wishes me to.  But I know so very few who I can trust with what I am asking…”

“You can always trust me!” Ars protested, stepping forward to lay a hoof on Peri’s shoulder.

“I know,” Imperius nodded.  “And that’s why I’ve brought you down here, Ars.  I’m not asking this as Prince Imperius.  I’m not asking this as your client.  I am asking you as a friend if you could do me a favor.”

“Anything,” Ars responded immediately.  “But you know that if I have misgivings, I will inform you.”

“I wouldn’t ask you if you wouldn’t be honest,” Imperius smiled.  “I need someone I can trust, not someone who always agrees with me.”

“What are you asking for?”

“Ars, I have seen something in you that I hope your master Artifex has seen in you as well,” Peri turned to give him a glowing look.  “Your efforts earlier on that containment ring was nothing short of artful, Ars!  The delicate script that you etched, the passion you showed, everything.  I have seen so few arcanosmiths with a spark of brilliance in you like that.”

“I’m… well-practiced,” Ars replied, feeling a little overwhelmed at the praise.

“Yes, but you are also gifted with arcanosmithing,” Imperius tapped him firmly on the shoulder, drilling it into his head.  “I’m not saying this to flatter you, Ars.  I’m saying this to show you that I have every confidence in you.”

“For what, exactly?” Ars eyed him warily.  He was acting so unlike himself today.

Imperius took a deep breath.

“I am asking you to see if it is possible to craft an object that can wield all three Gems of Being at once.”

Ars’ mouth fell open.

“A-all three at once!?  Peri, not even your grandfather’s arcanosmiths were capable of harnessing more than one!  And what do you even need them for?”

“If I wield the Gems together, then no one would be able to stand against me, Ars,” Imperius replied.  “None of my challengers would dare stand against me knowing I could use these gems.  They are exactly what could be key in holding the Empire together when Father abdicates.”

“Peri, you don’t even know if anyone will challenge you!”

“I know,” Imperius admitted with a bow of his head, “but I want to be prepared, just in case.”

Ars could see what Imperius wanted.  He trusted his friend to do the right thing with this kind of power, but he was asking for so much!  He was asking for Ars to advance the science of arcanosmithing forward by… by centuries, at least, just to craft one thing!

Another thought occurred to Ars as well.  Imperius denied it, but he knew his friend better than anyone.  Imperius had been consumed by Verita’s final prophecy not long after he’d first read it.  Now he seemed to have grown past it, but there were always moments where he couldn’t be sure…

“I’m not forcing you to, Ars,” Imperius said, snapping Ars out of his thoughts, and Ars realized he was now staring at the gems himself.  “If you wish to say no, then by all means, refuse me.  If you can’t make any progress, then so be it.  All I am asking is that you try.  The Empire itself may very well depend on it.”

Ars clenched his eyes shut, feeling a strange prickle of dread well up in him.  Why did this simple conversation feel like it meant so much more?  Harmonia always asked him to trust what his heart was telling him, and his heart was telling him that this was an idea that could go oh so very wrong oh so quickly.  But Master Artifex always tried to drill into his head that trusting one’s head was more important.  Was the Herald trying to tell him something?

What did he do?

Nevertheless, Ars wasn’t so religious that he put the Herald’s words before his friends.  It seemed so very counter to the Herald’s own wisdom about being there for your companions.  He took a deep breath.

“I… I will do what I can,” Ars promised, despite his misgivings.

Imperius nodded gratefully, giving him a warm smile and firmly clapped him on the shoulder, as they had done to each other a thousand times before.  “That’s all I can ask for.”

Ten thousand years later, Ars Arcanum would look back on this moment with both nostalgia and shame.  This moment, a simple favor for a friend, would be the moment that began a sequence of events that would doom them all.