//------------------------------// // In Which We See Why Ghuls Should Not Be Permitted Access To Chaos Magic // Story: Lords And Ladies // by Void Knight //------------------------------// Lyra was still on edge as the same aged-seeming fae as before came to lead her out of Autumn. Within a minute of leaving the longhouse, she was once again lost in the billowing mists. Faint shapes seemed to fade in and out of view. Some looked like cervids, some like monsters, and some looked like her friends. That one looks almost like Carrot Top… “Lyra!” Oof. Ok, that one is Carrot Top. Lyra returned her friend’s embrace, reveling in having someone real and solid to touch. She hadn’t realized just how much the isolation of the mists was putting her on edge until just then, until one of her friends had once again come within her reach. “Carrots! So glad to see you,” she murmured into Carrot Top’s ear. “Lyra, please tell me I’m not a bad pony,” whispered Carrot Top. “Of course you’re not a bad pony. Why would you ever think you were?” whispered back Lyra. “Because I didn’t take the bargain. Because I wasn’t willing to give up what they wanted to help the Princess. Because-” “Listen,” replied Lyra, “if the bargain they offered you was anything like what they offered me, you most definitely shouldn’t have taken it. And on another note, Kindle’s standing right behind you.” Carrot Top released Lyra and jumped back as if the unicorn had suddenly caught fire. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The border wall of Winter was by far the most intimidating of the four, a massive barbed structure of black iron, patrolled by guloids and other horrors. No sooner had Carrot Top stepped beyond the edge of Autumn than she began to choke and cough frantically. Grey mist fountained from her mouth and nostrils, forming tiny malignant clouds. Finally, her lungs were emptied of the unbreathable fog, and she took in great heaving gasps of air. Around her she could see the other three sprawled on the featureless ground, likewise trying to recover their breath. Behind them, the Autumnfae who had been their guide limped out and began to suck up the clouds of Autumn mist. Shakily, Carrot Top and the other three ponies got to their hooves and began to trot across to the gate of Winter. When they were about halfway there, a small postern gate creaked open, and three figures stepped out. Two were guloids in spiked black armor, but the third, a bull moose in similar armor, looked… off. For a moment, Carrot Top had the odd feeling that he looked somehow distorted or warped, but she couldn’t pin down why. Then it clicked. Outside the four champions, this was the first thing she’d encountered with the subtle imperfections of a mortal’s appearance. This was a real moose, not a fae.   There was a buzzing noise, and two more fae flew down from the wall. These took the shapes of deer, with identical slim builds, jet-black coats, and insectile stained-glass wings. “Greetings, champions of Moon and Sun,” said the moose. “I am Siegfried, Knight of Winter.” Though his tone was courteous enough, he and the fae with him seemed somewhat distracted. All five were staring at Kindle with a peculiar intensity. A moment later, Carrot Top remembered where she’d seen that kind of gaze before. This was the same look she’d seen on her friend’s faces, or even on the Princess’s, when confronting Corona. It was the distinctive and peculiar look you gave someone who had drawn a lethal weapon, and might very well use it on you. Ooh kay, thought Carrot Top. Well, that’s disturbing. Why are they staring at Kindle that way? Right, Fredrick mentioned that Winterfae can’t bear the touch of gold. I guess his armor really is gold. “Greetings to you too, Sir Seigfried,” said Lyra, giving him a slight bow. “I would guess you are to take us to Lord Winter for the final trial.” “You guess correctly, Dame Heartstrings,” said Seigfried, without his gaze leaving Kindle for a moment. A gesture of his hoof indicated two more guloids in that same spiked iron armor standing in the open postern. “If you’ll please follow Langerfang and Blutklaue here, they’ll show you which way to go.” On cue, the two guloids turned and padded deeper into Winter. The four ponies followed. The instant Kindle crossed the threshold, there was a hissing noise, and wisps of steam began to rise from his armor. Little puffs of smoke shot up wherever his hooves touched the snow-covered ground, and he left behind blackened and smouldering hoofprints. Not that Carrot Top really had time to pay attention, because a few moments later she had crossed the threshold, and was immediately hit by the cold. But a few moments after that, something changed. She was still freezing, but it didn’t seem to bother her, somehow. The cold was there, but it seemed to be passing through her without actually hurting her. She glanced around, and saw a simple blueish rune glowing on Lyra and Smoke’s foreheads, just above the horn. Seigfried must have done something to keep the cold from harming us. Nice of him. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Their trip through Winter was stressful, but ultimately uneventful. Between Seigfried and Kindle, nothing seemed to be foolhardy enough to bother them, though more than a few creatures licked lips or otherwise regarded them with obvious hunger. After a time, they came to an enormous wall of ice. Two tunnels had been bored in it, side by side. “It’s here that you split up,” announced Seigfried. “Lyra, you and Carrot Top can follow Blutklaue. I’ll be escorting the Solar champions.” The two ponies trotted down the tunnel of ice. Lyra noted idly that there seemed to be veins of blue light frozen into the ice, providing enough illumination to see by. A light dusting of snow ensured that her and Carrot’s hooves could find plenty of traction. After only a minute or two, they came to the end of the tunnel. Two doors were set side by side in the tunnel’s end. The frame on the left was filled with a sheet of reddish light, the one on the right with blue light. And standing in front of the doors was, unmistakably, Lord Winter. “Greetings to you, Dame Heartstrings, Dame Toppington. Time is of the essence here, so I hope you will forgive if we skip further pleasantries. The challenge I offer you is simple enough. Observe these two doors. Both are portals back to the mortal world, but they will take you to differing locations. The blue door shall return you unharmed to the same place from which you first entered the Fae. The red door, on the other wing, leads to a location where a mortal under my protection is in peril of her life. If you step through the red door, you shall have the opportunity to save that mortal and earn my favor, but it will be a difficult fight. And unlike my brother, I can provide no safety net. If you die attempting this task, you die in truth. Now, that being said, the scoring shall be thus. To step through the red door and attempt the task earns you half a mark, to succeed at it shall earn you the other half. And of course, you shall have to make your choice blindly, without knowledge of what choice your counterparts have made.” “You think we have a chance to save this mortal?” asked Lyra. “Yes. It will be difficult, but you should have a fair chance at success.” The two ponies exchanged glances. “We’ll do it,” said Lyra. “My thanks,” said Lord Winter. “And I do hope for your success.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There was a brief moment of vertigo as the two ponies stepped through the red gate. When it cleared, they were standing in a narrow mountain valley. A quick glance over Lyra’s shoulder confirmed that the valley broadened out into heath behind them. Ahead, on the other hoof, it narrowed to an end. It also, incidentally, contained a several-dozen strong hunger of ghuls. But these ghuls didn’t look exactly like the ones that Lyra and Carrot Top had encountered in the Mountains of Mourn. The first difference was in the coloration. These ghuls had coats of matted white hair, and their feathers were various shades of white and light grey. But that was just the beginning. The ghuls had been… jumbled. It was as if some malicious deity had come along and started sticking on or swapping out body parts from other species completely at random. One ghul had spikes like those of a porcupine, another had one arm replaced with a sucker-covered tentacle, a third had an extra arm sprouting from between its shoulderblades, and that was just the beginning.   At the front of the hunger stood what had to be the agah, the shaman-chief-alpha who ruled this hunger of ghuls. He was among the tallest of his tribe, bulging with muscle and covered in a glossy armored carapace of psychedelic coloration. He had two extra arms, muscular ones similar in form to those of the minotaurs. Grasped in both those hands was a long wooden staff, and winding around that staff was a serpentine form of carved wood such as had for millennia only been seen in the nightmares of the fevered. No two body parts seemed to belong to the same species, and the composite creature defied every semblance of symmetry or sanity. From the shape’s wide-open mouth there poured a torrent of polychromatic light, like a perverse reflection of the Rainbow of Harmony. That light splashed against and clawed at a wall of magic. Lyra couldn’t see exactly where that barrier was coming from, but the identity of the figure behind it, the one whose chants and gestures had to be maintaining it, was only too clear. It was Andrea. Carrot Top and Lyra ducked behind a largish rock to hide from the ghuls. “Andrea? She’s alive?” whispered Carrot Top. “Oh, Moon’s tears,” whispered Lyra back. “She’s the one we’re supposed to rescue, isn’t she? Are we actually going to fight this many ghuls for her?” “We said we would, and nopony deserves what those ghuls will do to her,” said Carrot Top. “You’re right,” admitted Lyra. “Now how in Luna’s horn are we going to get her out of this mess? I don’t fancy trying to fight that many ghuls.” Carrot Top rummaged through her bandolier and produced a vial. “Careful with this, it’s the itching oil. If you dump this on the one with the staff, then maybe slap him with your telekinesis, that should get their attention. Then we step out to make sure they see us, and run as fast as we can. With any luck, we’ll buy Andrea a chance to escape, and we can probably lose the ghuls.” “That…” Lyra paused for a moment. “Fine,” she said. “I don’t have a better idea, anyway.” She grabbed the vial of itching oil in her aura, and the two ponies stepped out from behind the rock. With a flick of magic, Lyra hurled the vial through the air to smash against the back of the ghul agah’s head. It spun around and screeched, gesturing with its staff. Ghuls spun and began to charge after the unprotected ponies. Lyra and Carrot Top turned to run, but before they’d taken more than a handful of steps, a bolt of power shot through the air between them and exploded, spreading into a kind of shimmer in the air that stretched from one wall of the valley to the other, cutting off their escape. The ghul agah squawked something to its followers, and they skidded to a halt, spreading out to form a wall of ghuls across the valley, and leaving a good open space between them and the ponies. They began to grin and cackle. Lyra grabbed a rock in her telekinesis and threw it through the shimmer. The rock seemed to ripple and distort as it passed through the barrier, before coming apart into a spray of grit on the other side. Lyra shuddered. If the shimmer could do that to stone, she didn’t even want to imagine what it would do to flesh. The agah spread its lower pair of claws, brandishing the staff in the upper pair, and intoned, “Kem kār prachum cheing pt̩ibạtikār lik̄hs̄ithṭhi̒ s̄ngwn lik̄hs̄ithṭhi̒!” It then spasmed and coughed up a blob of greenish-yellow goop onto the ground between the ghuls and the ponies. At the same moment, brilliant arcs of lightning in chartreuse and heliotrope stabbed out from the butt of the staff, striking one of the other ghuls. That ghul slumped like an ice sculpture melting under Corona’s wrath, reduced to a puddle of flesh. The glob of goop the shaman had just coughed up grew with impossible speed into a pulsing, pony-sized cyst. Then it burst, splattering the surroundings with pus and revealing quite possibly the most disgusting thing Lyra had ever seen or imagined. The creature was bipedal, with two arms ending in befingered paws. A single filth-encrusted eye glared redly from the center of the creature’s forehead, immediately below a thick horn. Its brownish hide was pocked with numerous weeping sores, and here and there rents exposed glistening innards alive with maggots. In one paw, it held a sword that appeared to be made of pitted and rusted iron, from which substances best left unnamed dripped and oozed. Despite looking like a partially-rotted corpse, the monster was disturbingly animate, setting out for the two ponies at a steady lope while the ghuls hung back, cackling and grinning. “Well,” said Lyra to Carrot Top, “looks like it will be a fight after all.” She began to strum her lyre and struck up the first song that came to mind, probably because she’d learnt it only the previous night from Black Canary. “Hickory, oak, pine and weed, Bury my heart underneath these trees And when a southern wind comes to raise my soul Spread my spirit like a flock of crows!” Lyra released the magic she’d been gathering around her horn in a spray of telekinetic bolts. Several impacted the abomination to little visible effect, while the rest struck various ghuls, promoting a chorus of squawks and shrieks. “Cause I've loved you for too long I've loved you for too long I've loved you for too long.” As Lyra went into the first chorus, Carrot Top tossed one of her jars at the monster. Lyra took her cue and smashed it with a quick flash of telekinetic force, drenching the thing in quick-drying grayish resin. That stopped it, but only for a couple of seconds. Almost instantly, mold and mushrooms sprang up across the resin, causing it to crumble into dust and freeing the monstrosity to continue its advance. “Old heat of a raging fire Come and light my eyes Summer's kiss through electric wire But I'll never die I will never die.” Taking a cue from the second half of the chorus, Lyra lashed out with an arc of golden fire. She’d been aiming at the ghul shaman, hoping to hit its staff or at least that distracting it would cause the abomination it had summoned to vanish, but it shoved one of its fellows into the path of the attack. The unfortunate ghul let out a shriek of pain as the flame slash left a nasty burn across its face. “Sycamore, ash, moss and loam Wrap your roots all around my bones And when they come for me When they call my name Cast my shadow from a bellows flame!” This time, instead of releasing a spray of minor kinetic bolts, Lyra released all the gathered energy in a single blast. The bolt of golden energy struck the abomination in the gut and punched a hole the size of one of Lyra’s hooves clean through the thing, splattering the ground behind it with half-decayed entrails. But as Lyra had already more than half expected, this new wound fazed it no more than the ones already there, and it continued its unrelenting advance as Lyra and Carrot Top began to backpedal. Lyra continued with her spellsong, gathering magic around her horn once more as she tried to figure out how to actually hurt the thing. “Cause I've loved you for too long I've loved you for too long I've loved you for too long.” Carrot Top tossed one of her jars over the monster’s head. It smashed among the crowd of cackling ghuls, releasing a reddish cloud that had the ghuls howling in anger as their eyes and sinuses burned. The leader shook his staff and shouted something that Lyra couldn’t make out over her spellsong, and a cloud materialized above the ghuls and released a yellow-tinted shower, washing the irritants from the air. Unfortunately, distracting the ghul shaman did not seem to have affected the monster in any way, and it was getting dangerously close. As her song moved into the next verse of the chorus, Lyra once again lashed out with fire and heat. “Old heat of a raging fire Come and light my eyes Summer's kiss through electric wire But I'll never die I will never die.” Lyra’s stream of fire played across the creature’s form, melting necrotic tissue like wax. The monster continued to lumber onwards, seemingly unfazed by having a good chunk of its face burnt away. How in Tartarus can that thing still be moving? Not to mention that it still seems to be able to see me, she thought as she dodged off to one side, the abomination turning to continue its pursuit. Then she laughed at herself. Really, how is this any more unbelievable than that thing moving in the first place with half its body rotted away? The monster made a slash with its rusty sword. Lyra desperately threw her lyre up to block the blow. The pitted iron blade lodged in the frame, and rot and mushrooms spread out across the frame like fire. Lyra dropped the lyre, and it exploded in a cloud of sawdust and rotted wood. Even the strings were now tarnished and bent out of shape. At that point, Carrot Top smashed a largish rock into the back of what remained of the creature’s head. Apparently, even whatever magic had kept it animate couldn’t handle that level of damage, and the creature imploded in a puff of foul odor. There was a moment’s pause, then the ghul shaman shrieked, “Get them! Kill-kill-kill!” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now I really wish I had my armor, thought Carrot Top, even as she lobbed another goo bomb at the charging ghuls. Several of them returned fire with rocks and crude spears, but Lyra was able to deflect the few shots that seemed likely to hit. Carrot Top’s bomb toppled the first couple of grounded ghuls, who were promptly trampled by others of their kind, but the airborne ghuls weren’t even slowed. The front-runner, a scrawny specimen with two extra wings, one with black feathers and one insectile, had almost reached Carrot Top and Lyra when a crossbow bolt sprouted from the back of its head and it crashed to the ground. A second crossbow bolt lodged in the shoulder of one of the grounded ghuls, and then six ponies fell out of the sky to land right in front of Carrot Top and Lyra. Black Canary and Quicksilver, now clad in their Night Guard armor, each wore a crude rope harness. And attached to that harness was a large wooden plank, one which even under the weight of the other four Guards hovered a few hoof-widths off the ground. Black Canary and Quicksilver slashed their harnesses with a couple of quick swipes before leaping back up into the air to countercharge the flying ghuls. Spring Mist, Brick Wall, and Granite Hammer leapt off the plank and charged into the grounded ghuls to fight with hoof and sword, while Spear Fisher remained atop the plank and fired force bolt after force bolt into the hunger. Carrot Top ducked out of the way of a crude club and retaliated with a hard kick before barely dodging a squirt of some caustic white goop. Then there was a flash of pea-green light from the ghul shaman. With a pop, one of the ghuls turned into a very large mushroom and Spear Fisher’s horn vanished. Ok, somepony has to do something about that ghul, thought Carrot Top. With the Guards having charged into the midst of the ghuls, she and Lyra had a moment to catch their breaths. Then, she noticed that Andrea had dropped her protective barrier, and was tiphoofing up behind the ghul shaman. Quick as a flash, she kicked it in the back of the head, grabbed the staff, and smashed it against a nearby rock. A brief moment of absolute stillness fell over the battlefield. In total silence, a coiling wisp of polychromatic smoke drifted out from the broken staff, before wrapping around the ghul shaman. As he rose into the air, he began to scream. Suddenly, the remaining living ghuls began to fly through the air to slam into the levitating shaman. As soon as they touched it, their bodies became liquid and flowed together to form a rapidly growing ball of pulsing flesh. Quicksilver and Black Canary fired a crossbow bolt apiece into the pulsing mass, to no apparent effect. Finally, the fleshball began to stretch and distort, sprouting appendages and taking on form. Glowing letters traced across the air above the monster and a deep booming voice simultaneously announced the same message: "ROUND 2: FIGHT!" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The monster that had once been the ghul agah vaguely reminded Lyra of the statues she’d seen of Tirek. The upper half of a normal ghul was perched atop a massive blob of flesh. And from that blob sprouted countless appendages. At least a dozen legs from nearly as many different species supported the massive lower body, while twice that many wings, talons, arms, and tentacles extended out at random from the sides. At least three additional heads sprouted from that lower torso, and there were a number of extra eyes and mouths set directly into the body. The whole thing stood perhaps twice or thrice the height of the Princess. The creature screamed, every mouth on its body opened in a massive cacophony of bellows. It staggered forwards on its mismatched limbs, flailing with its remaining appendages. Black Canary and Quicksilver had dropped to the ground and quickly reloaded their crossbows, and both let fly. Quicksilver’s punctured one of the eyes on the lower body, while Canary’s shot lodged in the main body near a mouth. Spear Fisher, who seemed to have regained his horn when Andrea broke the staff, called up a spear-like construct of dark red magic. After spending a couple of moments pouring power into the spell, he let fly. The spear impaled one of the heads, one which looked like it belonged to some kind of big cat. That head slumped limply, but a second vaguely draconic-looking head spread its jaws and fired off a military-grade lightning blast back at Spear Fisher. Brick Wall knocked Spear Fisher out of the way, but caught the blast himself. Astoundingly, he was still on his hooves after taking the blast, and didn’t even seem to be that badly hurt. And now the creature was in the middle of the Guards. Claws and talons lashed out in several directions at once. Quicksilver easily dodged around a lashing tentacle, slicing the tip off with a deft swipe of a wingblade, but a vaguely equine limb bucked Black Canary in the ribs, sending her flying into the canyon wall. She slid down a few feet to come to rest on a ledge, and almost immediately climbed back to her hooves, but she was a shade unsteady. At almost the same moment, a swipe from a clawed paw knocked Spear Fisher a couple of steps to the side, though it didn’t break the stream of force darts he was firing into the monstrosity. But though the Night Guards were hammering the creature with blade, hoof, and magic, the wounds were knitting shut almost as fast as they could inflict them. Even as Lyra watched, the head that Spear Fisher had impaled earlier opened its mouth and vomited a gout of caustic white sludge at Spring Mist. The unicorn leapt to the side and retaliated with a slash from the double-bladed sword he held in his magic, but to little effect. Behind the monster, Andrea had been drawing on the wall with one hoof. As Lyra watched, she struck the valley wall, and a series of steps extruded themselves from the stone. Andrea leapt up those steps, disappearing over the valley rim. Well, I guess that’s our task for Lord Winter finished. But how in Corona’s fiery Sun do we kill this thing? Nothing we can throw seems to hurt it, not for long. Lyra’s thoughts were interrupted by Carrot Top. “Everypony, listen!” shouted the farmpony. “I don’t think this thing can fly! Andrea’s gone, if we can get on that board thing it won’t be able to follow us.” “You’re right,” replied Lyra. “Everypony cover your eyes!” Suiting action to word she squeezed her own eyes shut as her horn flared from gold to brilliant white. The glare backlit the delicate tracery of veins in her eyelids, and even with her eyes being closed she had to blink a couple of times to regain her vision after the flash. The monster, though, was effected far worse. Numerous unblinking eyes had been exposed to the full brilliance of her flare, and the creature recoiled in pain from the light. With the monster distracted, the six terrestrial ponies crowded together on the levitating slab of wood. The pegasi grabbed the corners and took off, leaving the chimeric monstrosity to bellow its impotent rage at their retreating forms.