The hall of the Golden Emperor was a different place now. Joseph’s magic had consumed the fungal mat, consumed the rotting corpses left where they had died by those too sick to carry them away. Trade Wind no longer saw the faint shimmer of her shield as it cleaned each breath she took. They had defeated the plague.
“I want you to deal with this,” Joseph said, pointing towards the throne. Atop it, the pony was no longer covered with his own slimy wraps, and there was nothing in his eyes but interest. Gratitude too perhaps, though he was so far ahead she couldn’t tell for sure. He didn’t seem to mind that they’d just done terrible damage to his palace. “Talk to the natives. Explain what we did, how the cure works. Then we go.”
“I don’t understand their language,” she muttered, keeping her head down, avoiding the Emperor’s face. She didn’t know how the government here actually worked, but that felt like the right thing to do. Ruling ponies liked it when you showed them respect.
“Cloudy does,” he said, shrugging indifferently. “She’ll translate for you with your suit. Just talk to him so we can get the fuck out.” He levitated the closed container of vaccines over to her. “This is for him. You remember what we discussed?”
“Yeah.” She took it in her mouth, then turned away and made her way to the throne. On one side, one of the guards twitched a little, as if to try and stop her. But he was too weak to get up. When Joe cured me, I slept for weeks. But I was worse than some of them. None of these ponies were missing limbs. It seemed the fungus had killed any that got that far gone. Almost like it was part of the plague. Maybe it was supposed to come once the plague made us weak.
Trade Wind ascended the steps to the Emperor’s throne. Many eyes watched her, as much as they watched the Emperor himself. She stopped at the last flight, when she was only a few feet away from the Emperor. Up close, she could see the great weakness in his body. He’d been ravaged by the plague as much as his citizens. Yet he had the strength to sit up, to look her in the eye.
His mouth moved, and she heard words, but the two weren’t quite in sync. “Which gods are you?” he asked, his voice reedy and breathless. “Has my father above sent you to me?”
She hesitated, lowering the box of vaccines carefully to the ground. “I am no god,” Trade Wind answered, hoping whatever Joseph’s crystal was doing would work both ways. She would have a hard time communicating for him if it didn’t. “But maybe I serve one.” She lowered her head towards Joseph, who only watched with growing impatience. He didn’t seem to be listening. “The god I serve is an enemy of the sickness.”
The Emperor chuckled, and a few drops of blood emerged from his old lips. “Than your god is my friend. I never imagined… never imagined I would be free again. When the sea promised me, I could survive to rule, it did not tell me that I would live on as a slave. I do not relish the chance to watch the death of China. All of time should not come to an end because of my foolishness.”
“The gods did not think so either,” she said. “He has granted everypony in this room new magic. Every one of you can now cure the sick—you must go into the city, and touch the ponies there to give them this magic too. Command your ponies to spread their magic far and wide, until the plague is dead.”
The Emperor’s eyes widened. “Your god is a mighty one if he can do all that. We have many gods… but China will remember the one who freed us from bondage. What worship does he desire?”
Trade Wind shivered, avoiding his eyes. The longer this conversation continued, the more out-of-place she felt. It felt wrong to lie to this pony, but at the same time she didn’t know if it was a lie. Joseph acted exactly like a god so far as she knew. He was immortal, and he fought immortals on their stage. He had magic nopony else could imagine. What was a god if not that?
“To worship him, you must save as many of your ponies as possible.” She pushed the little box to the base of the throne. “This is a gift from him. Inject this into the veins of the sick, and they will be granted the same magic as you. If you have ways of sending things faster than sending ponies, you might be able to make the process go faster. If not… pack it in ice and save it in case the plague returns.”
“That’s all?” The Emperor’s eyebrows went up, and she could detect a hint of suspicion on his face. “Your nameless god offers us so much, and asks only that we use the magic he gives? I fear if he does not give us a way to serve him, that China would find itself so far indebted to him that we would be his slaves. This won’t do.”
Trade Wind shifted on her hooves, glancing back at Joseph. She opened her mouth to ask for help—but of course, he would just tell her to hurry up. God or not, he didn’t care what these ponies did. She looked back to the Emperor. “My… master is impressed with your insight,” she lied. “He has one further request to make of you—don’t let anyone else…” She pointed at the ocean. “No one else makes deals with the sea and its monsters. From today onward, if you ever find anypony who has, they must die. A-and…” Her voice shook as she spoke, growing more and more nervous with each word. But she kept going. “Not in the sea, or else their master could take them. Kill them on land, and burn them to be sure.”
Despite her words, the emperor relaxed. “I see. This will be a very hard request. It is hard to know which ponies have made promises and which are only fishers. This will be a hard thing.”
She resisted the urge to turn and run away. Trade Wind could almost see this same city, many years down the line. See this command used as a justification to kill political enemies without evidence. “Wait a moment,” she said, bowing briefly to the Emperor before leaping from the throne and gliding back to Joseph.
“You done?” he asked, annoyed. “I didn’t ask you to give him a speech. Let’s get out of here.”
“Not quite.” She rested one hoof on his shoulder. “How can we know if a pony is working for Charybdis? Is there… an easy way?”
He paused, distracted by her question. Apparently forgetting his impatience. “That depends. There is no way to know if an Outsider has spoken to someone. That’s like asking for a spell to know if I’ve ever talked to somebody named Steve. But some people swear deals with Outsiders… for power, usually. Spells they can do nobody else can. Spells that break the rules. People who do that stain their souls with the magic… there’s an easy spell for detecting it. But usually if you have them close you won’t need it.”
“Why not?”
“Well… they’re creepy as shit,” he said. “You’ll feel it. Anyone with an ordinary spirit will sense it. Animals too. Milk curdles, butter sours, babies get sick… that kind of thing.”
“I need the spell,” she said, speaking firmly enough that he didn’t argue. He opened his mouth to start, and she just talked over him. “The Emperor wants to serve you, Joseph. He says China will owe you for saving it… and I explained the way he could serve was by stopping Charybdis from making deals with anyone else who lives here.”
Joe grunted in annoyance, then yanked hard on a wall-tapestry. It was framed in bamboo, a scene of the night painted with exquisite detail on rice paper. His horn glowed, and patterns burned themselves into it, charring paint and ruining the masterpiece in seconds. “There,” he said, rolling it up at her hooves. “Let’s get this over with. Charybdis is going to be fucking pissed right now. I don’t want him to catch us out here. He has no reason to waste his strength coming back here unless he knows somebody who pissed him off is standing around like an idiot. Like what we’re doing.”
Trade Wind carried the scroll back to the Emperor and spread it out on the ground in front of him. “Here,” she said. “He gives you this spell. Cast it on ponies you suspect of evil, and kill only the ones it reveals. The others you must release—my god will be angry if he learns anyone else dies in his name.”
The emperor nodded. “This I will do.”
“Good.” She bowed to him again, though not very low. “The plague is spread far. Fight it as quickly as you can.” She flew back to Joseph, landing beside him and prancing nervously around for a few steps before she finally settled down. “I’m ready,” she said. “I explained everything. I think he understands.”
“Good.” The unicorn was more crystal than he’d been before. But if the light didn’t catch him just right, it was hard to tell he wasn’t just a pony. She could only hope her leg looked as convincing to anypony who saw it.
Will my whole body look like that one day? Did he change this same way?
“Cloudy, we’re done here. Let’s get back home and recharge.”
“Command accepted,” the crystal said. The air around them began to buzz. A light shone down on them from all around, as though the space itself was glowing. “Warp field stabilized.” There was a flash, along with a brief breeze that passed over Trade Wind’s body. Suddenly she was back in the dark, with a crystal ceiling above her. They were in the same room they’d left from.
Joseph slumped a little against the wall, sighing with relief. His body began to glow a little brighter. Strangely, Trade Wind could feel it too. It came from her leg—a sense of warmth when she hadn’t even noticed she was cool. Magic flowed through her freely again, when before she’d been muffled. Her replacement limb started to faintly glow, just like Joseph’s whole body.
“W-what… what is that?” she asked.
She didn’t give any more detail, but Joseph apparently didn’t need it. “What keeps us alive, Trade Wind. What keeps me alive, anyway. Magic travels down from the tower, concentrating into this point. Hundreds of times more magic than is normally gathered in one place. Enough magic to transform a living body with enough time. Enough magic to keep a pony alive indefinitely.” He straightened, collecting himself. Though the look of contentment never faded. “Live here long enough, and you will be dependent on it. A body made from Tass cannot survive in the outside world forever. We need more magic than they have. If you left and never came back, you would lose your leg. If I did… I would die. How long would it take, Cloudy?”
“Sixteen days,” she answered, without emotion. Whatever hint of life she’d shown during the battle was gone now, and she sounded the same as she had earlier. “Based on my projections. We have not conducted conclusive experiments.”
“And we won’t,” Joseph said, trotting out of the little teleportation room. Trade Wind and the crystal both followed him. “Because that would suck. Unless you want to see how long it takes to lose that leg, Trade Wind. For science.”
“No,” she barked. “Not unless you want to talk to ponies from now on instead of me.”
Joseph shivered. “You can keep the leg,” he said. “Get some rest. I have two more trips to make with you… before you start going without me. So, I hope you were paying attention.”
“Yeah.” She stopped walking in the hall, letting Joseph walk away. Little plastic drones zoomed over her head, going about whatever strange work Joseph had for them. Trade Wind didn’t really know what they were up to, and just now she didn’t care.
She watched Joseph walk away, trying to figure out if she was looking at a god. It was very hard to tell. Why couldn’t you just be an Alicorn. That would make all of this so much simpler.