"Not bad, little princess," Green noted, as I dodged the snapping jaws and aimed my horn at the creature to return the favour. "Chin up, and keep your back straight. Eyes on the prize, not on the dirt."
I hated her sooo much. Even as I came up from my roll (chin up, back straight, eyes on the prize — I was learning), and the Scourge of Shahab finally wrapped around the ugly creature trying to swallow me whole, I could not help but feel annoyed at Green's backseat fighting.
The length of my whip interleaved with the coils of the vinaconda, keeping the creature’s giant maw at leg’s length from me. It writhed and slithered, trying to reach me with it’s crooked wooden fangs or long tail, even as the whip cut into its body, revealing the homogenous leafy core.
Before it had the chance, I pushed more magic into the whip, cutting the thing into half a dozen slices. Viscous tree sap, sweet and salty splashed in every direction, drenching my mane and coat, and stinging at my eyes.
I wiped the sticky viscera, gave Green, who somehow evaded every single drop of it, a glare.
“Don’t drink too much,” she advised, undaunted by my stare, before turning away, already having lost her interest in me.
"Wow! That was so cool!" Wild Stab greeted me at the campfire, passing me a towel. "Whoosh! Grr! Bam!" he swung his favourite spear in every direction in his excitement. I ducked under his wild stab and carefully turned him away from the other minions, before somebody lost an eye. The guy really had no clue how to wield this thing, no matter what he thought his cutie mark was telling him.
"I saved you some daisy fritters," Bear Claw offered shyly. A big and oafish pony, she was as shy as she was huge, her dough-like soft body betraying the physique of someone who has never fought anything more dangerous than a doughnut.
"Thanks." I grabbed the hot food, burning my hooves and tongue on the delicious sugary goodness, and shooed Piano String away from my spot. The quiet little colt slunk away wordlessly, as he always did, and finally, joining the circle of other minions I could relax, taking my place at the campfire.
"Oh, I wish I was could do that!" Lemon Slice chipped in, "To serve the Master the way you do!"
Somebody passed me a cup of hot cocoa, and let the chattering of the minions fade into the background, enjoying the warm evening and the warmer fire. I have gotten used to this routine for these past two weeks, journeying with Ahuizotl’s dozen-strong coterie through the Southern Jungle as one of his henchmares.
True, as the Elder said, the journey was arduous, though not overmuch so. The Elder was an excellent guide, leading us easily through the jungle. Attacks such as today’s one were pretty rare - the monsters that the Southern Jungle is rife with chose to avoid our small coterie, the nip-cats and the vinacondas giving us wide berth at the merest whiff of the Elder's presence. Even when a more foolhardy or hungry beast did try to cross our path, Green Glow would usually make a short work of them without even breaking a sweat. Unless, like this evening, she would make me handle one, deriving some sort of strange pleasure in watching me fend the creatures off and commenting on my many shortcomings in doing it.
I threw a look at her, as she lay in the shadow of Ahuitzotl’s tent. She was a breed apart, never mingling with us, mere minions, never joining us when we would gather around the campfire, and they’d tell me — almost insistently — their little life’s stories or when quiet little Piano String would start one of his songs.
When on the march, she’d be stuck right behind Ahuizotl and a step to the right, like a shadow, and when we’d set up camp she would always read one magazine or the other and almost obsessively file her hooves to perfection, seemingly disinterested in anything that was going on.
But I knew — I have witnessed — how beneath that indifferent veneer, a sorcerous green flame of purest battle-lust would ignite at a moment's notice, and I couldn't help but to watch that strange mare that vexed me so.
She raised her head and looked back at me, smirking. I blushed and quickly turned away.
She always did it — watched me. Studied me. Singled me out. She'd appear, silent and unexpected, always with a snide remark or biting mockery, but within it, practical advice betraying a wealth of experience. Whether it was about pitching a tent, telling the poisonous berries from edible ones or fighting monsters, she’d throw out a comment and then she'd turn back to her reading and hoof-polish, seemingly not caring whether I'd listen or not. I learned quickly to heed to her advice, even when it annoyed me to no end.
“Tlatoani!”
The talk around campfire stopped dead, as each of the henchponies looked at Ahuizotl, as he crawled out of his tent.
“Tlatoani!”
His title like water spilt on the flames, doused all conversation, all laughter, all motion, everypony watching him come closer, Green Glow at his side.
“He comes!”
“He’ll speak!”
“He’s here!”
They bowed, prostrating themselves on the ground, murmuring their droning supplications to their master. I shivered a little when I saw their eyes growing vacant - it got to me every time to see how the Elder's presence changed them.
Piano tugged at my mane, from his prostration, urging me to bow. He always did. I never followed - just nodding politely, barely a bow. Occasionally the Elder even nodded back, amused by my little insubordination.
He raised his forepaw, cutting the ponies off, and everything grew silent, little minions facing the ground, their muzzles touching the dust at Ahuizotl’s paws.
“Pay attention, little ponies mine!” he proclaimed. “The first destination is almost upon us. Tomorrow we come to the once place of my powers….
Tomorrow!
I’ve lost the count of days on our march, so the news took me by surprise. Tomorrow we’d already come to the first place, the first of the objects needed for Ahuizotl’s — and my — plan. Tomorrow the true adventure would start….
“...there will be traps. There will be sentries. But you, little ponies mine, shall clear them for me. You shall pave my path—”
“Me!”
“Choose me!”
“I will go!”
They stretched their hooves towards the Elder, begging, eager to be the fodder to the traps and sentries, happy to become the steps for the Elder’s return to power. Even Piano String raised his hoof in the air, like a teacher’s pet volunteering to answer the question, almost wrenching his leg from the shoulder joint in the effort.
“I’ll go first.” Green cut off any discussion. “And the little princess will come with me.” Her hoof poked in my direction.
“Uhm, me?” I did not expect getting singled out of the ranks of our little unit. “Why me?”
“Because I said so.”
… ask a stupid question... I threw a questioning glance at the Elder.
"You two shall go forth, ponies mine," Ahuizotl confirmed, all pomp and pathos, his short cape swishing dramatically when he pointed into the darkness, towards the goal of our march. "Tomorrow, in my name you shall clear the traps, take the knife, and from the heart of my pyramid I shall open us a path!"
The ponies stomped on the ground in excitement, applauding the speech and the coming inevitable success.
“Rest!” The Elder commanded benevolently. “Eat, drink and sleep. Tomorrow, the first day of a new era begins.” He waved his paw to release us and retreated to his tent, Green leaving with him, and we went back to the fire, ponies only fully rising when Ahuizotl was out of sight.
I watched them as their chatter started slowly anew, their boasting of serving their lord and of the rewards to come growing louder and ever more over the top.
They were a strange bunch, the ponies that came with Ahuizotl. The Elder's aura of power called to them with the same pull you feel when you look into the abyss, and something in you almost wants to let go and take that last, final step. Their silent, unquestioning devotion to him went far beyond rational and into honestly unnerving.
That I saw coming and prepared for. That was the hardship I expected of this journey, and that is why I was surprised at its levity — when I planned my little outing, I was sure I would have to fight my disgust at every step and to trample my pride, my loyalty, and my civilized sensibilities to pretend to be one of the bad guys. But the Elder’s coterie was something completely unexpected — They were, in many more ways that I was comfortable admitting, ponies that were almost like me.
Losers and outcasts, those who lost their way or had never found it to begin with — they all left their lives and took Ahuizotl's coin, drawn to him like moths to the flame. But they were also the searchers, the questers, touched by something outside the normal idyll of Equestria, that gave us a kind of connection that I've never had with anypony in Canterlot, a sense of quiet camaraderie.
That, I think, is what gave me contentment in my travels, what made me, against every expectation, truly feel good on this journey: The kinship around the campfires, that made a simple fire-cooked food and grazed grass taste better than lavish meals of the Castle, and my sleep on the hard earth more mirthful than on the silken sheets of my bedrooms. That, and the goal, which moved closer, with every step we took.
When the night came, and I lay among the heap of the bodies in our tent, I imagined the future for once, instead of thinking of the past.
Tomorrow...
Tomorrow I would go and get the knife from under the hill, tomorrow I would be one step closer to coming home. There’d be a celebration for me when I return, perhaps even a real, Old-style, pegasi triumph in Upper Baltimare, or maybe in Cloudsdale, a victor’s mantle of purple on my shoulders, ponies cheering and even maybe bowing, and most importantly, me giving the treasured prize, the gift beyond any gifts, to my teacher… and then I was asleep and when the nightmares came again, they almost didn’t bother me.
***
We reached our destination after the half day’s march, when the Sun, high in the sky, was beating mercilessly on our backs through the gaps in the jungle’s canopy. The trees and bush of the jungle turned sparse, and then apart entirely revealing a small clearing. A building within was a pyramid or a ziggurat, so ancient it looked more like a hill, taken over by vines and soil so much that you could barely see the original masonry. That would be our first destination. The old knife, the first of the objects needed for Ahuizotl's plan — and mine — was there.
.
I followed Green up the overgrown stairs, my hooves slipping on the wet grass and thick roots that had taken over the stairwell, and to the mouth of the cave. Intricate carvings and patterns of obsidian and lapis lazuli covered the granite blocks that used to be an archway of the pyramid's entrance, though there was no way to discern what they depicted all those centuries ago.
The sound of our hooves echoed along the dark, empty corridor, bouncing off the cracked walls and damp ceiling. The place seemed empty and abandoned and harmless, even if somewhat haunting. Nothing moved in the pyramid, save for the dust, and the bats and the spiders have long since made their home of its walls.
“So there are traps, right?” I stepped into the corridor, listening to the echo of my voice ring and bounce around the hall. The sound chased away, for an instant, the heavy silence of the stone halls, before it once again claimed back its reign.
Green did not try to stop me. Instead, she stomped her rear hoof on some invisible little knob in the floor, and before I could even blink, there was an arrow not an inch from my eye - grasped firmly in the crook of her front leg.
“First rule:” she broke the shaft of the arrow on the floor, “situational awareness at all times is your only defense. If you’re not aware - you are worse than useless.”
I shuddered. If she had not caught the arrow, the adventure would have ended for me way too early. Worse yet, I now looked like an incompetent foal, for the boasting I did in the city. I had to do better.
As usual, she did not wait for my reaction and trotted on. Together we walked along the narrow tunnel following the strange twists and turns of the single path through the ancient building. The holes in the crumbling walls provided us the light in long, narrow bands of sunshine, with the motes of ancient dust dancing in the air that followed darker shadows like black and white stripes on a zebra’s coat.
The traps were easy to avoid — if not to see — at first. I followed Green, trying to copy her path. She didn’t care to give me any hints or any warning, but I could see her exaggerate her movement a little - a hoof raised a few inches higher than she had to move over the tripwire, an intentionally wide step over the pressure plate I might have missed, a head bowed lower than it should beneath the hidden blade.
There was an easy rhythm to it — a light stripe, a black stripe, step sideways around a spiked pit, duck under the trigger for a blade that would take your head off if you missed it, occasional twists and turn of the singular path through the pyramid, marking the traps for those who followed us. It was easy to get lulled by the false sense of security. Nothing would happen to me as long as I repeated Green’s movements, and kept my eyes peeled open. Situational awareness was the key.
Suddenly, Green stopped. Instead of the next stripe of trap-covered stone, there was a hole in the ground. Too neat to be a result of time or neglect — it was more like a wide pit, cutting straight across the corridor. She looked back as if to check that I was still in one piece. The fact that I was, apparently merited a snort of approval or perhaps satisfaction.
I puffed my chest a little, feeling somewhat redeemed for the earlier fiasco and eyed the pit carefully, measuring the distance. It was just a tiny bit wider than a comfortable jumping length for me. Well, maybe, quite a bit more than that.
It was not a pit — more like a moat. I could even see some water still inside far below complete with silvery scales and sharp teeth of the piranhas swimming far below, and I wondered briefly what have those fishes been eating these aeons.
“How are we—”
She jumped over it in a single stride, without a running start, her strength carrying her easily over the obstacle.
I wished desperately at that moment that I had earth pony magic. Or pegasus wings. Or at least didn't cut the gym class in school quite so much.
But then again, I didn't just spend the gym time frolicking about. I spent it mastering my magic (and swindling classmates for some bits, but that wasn’t quite as pertinent to the situation).
I stretched my legs, feeling silly and self-conscious dragging out the time under Green's sarcastic gaze. Finally with a marely scream of bravery that turned out way too high pitched, I broke into a gallop, gathering momentum, and at the last point, before the stone under my hooves would run out, I released in a single pulse, down my horn, along my bones and into a pulse off my hooves, almost like an earth pony would, launching me into the air.
"Boom!" I shouted, out, giddy with the rush of the jump, almost falling over on another side, my knees screaming furies at me for the rough landing.
That did not earn me another approving snort, however. She just looked at me with her favorite expression of lazy amusement and punched some nigh-invisible switch on the side of the wall. A hidden stone mechanisms groaned and cracked, and slowly, a bridge extended, crossing the moat with a wide, though not entirely OSHA-compliant stone bridge.
"Oh don't pout, little princess," she laughed at what must've been a hilarious expression on my muzzle. "If you couldn't make the jump, you were better off on the other side."
A heap of metallic junk, piled across the passageway behind her, glowed with azure light, pulling together and connecting. Metal joined to metal, joint connected to joint, until two full suits of ancient pegasus armour, complete with spears stood by each wall, facing Green with the empty visors of their helmets.
Before she could take another step, they moved, sharp and precise, shaking the cobwebs and the dust off their ancient black bronze. Their hooves straightened to their sides, crossing the spears to bar our way.
"We are the last of the Southern Guard." Their voices were like the call of the bugle, loud and resonant, befit the metallic constructs they were. "By the decree of the Night, the entry is forbidden."
“Cute.” Green turned to face them fully, unfazed by the sudden display of magic. Suddenly, she slipped underneath their spears with a single liquid motion, faster than the eye could track her, turning up between them. Her shoulder threw one suit of armor into the wall, her hind-hooves bucked the other one, crumpling the metal like rice paper, both constructs dispatched within the span of one breath.
The helmet of the destroyed suit rolled on the floor, metal rattling loudly against the stone, before she stomped on it, flattening it against the ground.
As if in response, the same metallic voices rose from every room and corridor ahead.
"We are the last of the Southern Guard." Metal clicks rolled down the hall, more and more suits of armour shining with the soft blue magics and coming to life, grabbing rusted swords in the visors of their plumeless helmets and spears in the crooks of their bronze leggings. "By the decree of the Night, entry is forbidden."
They marched at us along the hall, dozen-strong and their short spears took to the air, filling the corridor with sharp metal.
Green grinned, and howled a savage challenge, jumping forward in a low, сreeping jump under the pila and rammed into the nearest bunch of suits with a joyous crash that made my teeth rattle.
"Keep up, princess," she shouted, as she trampled one of the guardians down.
I grinned, and took my time, guiding my horn through the motions, leaving behind the thin green lines of calligraphy shimmering in the air, and whispered the secret name of the Southern Wind.
A wind blast, aided by the tiny measure of strength greater than my own rolled across the hall, throwing aside their projectiles. It bent round Green, almost ruffling her mane and grabbed the sentries on her sides in a whirlwind, slamming them against the back wall in a mess of twisted limbs and weapons. Their spellwork sparkled with the last burst of short-circuiting magic, and they fell apart.
"And the unicorn," I declared, "picks up the spare!"
Her last opponents dispatched, Green leapt forward. There, at the base of the tunnel, the shallow descent turned sharply into a narrow ladder.
She landed hard and heavy, immediately dislodging the first armored sentry. Her deft kick crumpled the armored collar of the second, and the flick of her tail tangled the legs of the third, dropping the armor down the stairs with clang and sparkles of magic. A moment's duel dispatched the fourth.
Magic at the ready, I watched and advanced behind her.
Every movement she made was quick and efficient, every limb and part of her body a lethal weapon. She trampled them with her front hooves, bashed them into walls with her lean shoulders, tripped them with her tail and blinded them with flicks of her mane she used as a fencer would use a cloak.
With a key-thought, I joined the fray, releasing a spell, short and sharp over her shoulder, zapping the next sentry, before his pilum would take into the air. It fell apart, and my spell punched a hole through the next one as well.
Together we ploughed through the opposition, sowing the ladder liberally with the metal scraps until we burst into the room above. Immediately I had to jump for cover before a flurry of darts would turn me into a close facsimile of a hedgehog.
I hid behind a giant statue of some beast or creature, catching my breath for a second, before I peeked out cautiously, ignoring the flying steel and scraps, and zinged the nearest armoured sentry with a basic magic blast, watching the backscatter of my magic off its azure aura.
The thing that animated it was old spellwork, ancient, barely coherent pre-structures, more grown like wild magic than constructed by a spellcaster. It was also more than that — the shambling, inefficient spells were held together by something even older and deeper than unicorn arts. Something reminiscent of the soldiers turned to puppets under the midsummer snow on the riverbank, where the air was so crisp with winter chill it burned my lungs...
"Through Blood and through Law all that beneath me shall serve..." I muttered, not entirely sure why.
Green threw me a strangest little look from across half the room.
“Focus, little princess!” she shouted, retreating finally under the coordinated attack of almost a dozen sentries. “You think too much. First rule is concentrate on what you’re doing right now. Sort out everything else later.”
Ugh. I hated when she was right. I got back into the swing of the battle, blasting the nearest suit into bits, but I still couldn’t help but ask. “I thought the first rule was awareness?”
“First rule:” she raised her voice over the crash of two suits of armour she bashed into each other, “The numbering of the rules depends on the context!” she dove off the pedestal into the closest armour suit elbow-first, scattering it into a fountain of scraps.
“That—” I melted another two with a spell, dodging the bolts with a roll across the floor, “seems horribly inconsistent!” I finished a roll between two giant statues, waiting out the next salvo.
“Life’s messy, princess!” she shouted, diving for her own cover. “Can’t fit it into a neat list.”
Her rear hooves pushed against the wall, as she set her shoulder into the giant statue that served as her cover. “Now push!”
I pushed my own statue with all the magic I had, and soon both giant stone sculptures fell with a thunderous rumble, squishing the remaining defenders of this hall.
“High-hooves!” I raised my own hoof towards Green Glow “Oh come on! Don’t leave me hanging!” I shouted towards her back, as she ignored me. “...I thought we really bonded there…” I muttered dejectedly, trotting after her.
"Yeah,” somepony said from behind, making me jump with surprise, “she doesn't do 'bonding.'”
It was a pegasus — a small, greyish-brown mare, who has somehow managed to sneak past Ahuizotl and his coterie and landed on the fallen statue behind me. She wore a many-pocketed shirt, an old, banged-up pith helmet, tilted to a side, on top of her unruly mop of salt-and-pepper mane, and a many-pouched utility belt. As I looked at her, magic at the ready, trying to decide whether she was a friend or a foe, she studied me in turn, turning her head to the side like a curious pigeon.
"You're new. Haven't seen you around before," she concluded. "Trust me, kid, get out while you can. Leave the ruin-delving to the professionals."
"She's with me," Green called out from the end of corridor calmly. “Everypony’s gotta start somewhere.”
She made a step back towards us, and the pegasus flared her wings in response, ready to take off. Corners of her lips inflected slightly with a shadow of a smug little grin, secure in her ability fly away at any second. Green stopped, acknowledging the fact.
A pas-de-deux of opponents way too familiar with each other; the necessary steps of a mutual greeting.
"Hey, Green. Fancy seeing you here. New job?"
"Hello." Green nodded politely and shifted forward slightly. A tiny little slide, as if she hadn't moved her hooves at all, just readjusted her weight for comfort. "Just a temp thing. You know how it is."
A dozen more such little slides, creeping to the pegasus just like a cat creeping up to a canary, and she'd be ready to pounce on the newcomer. I could see the pegasus' eyes flicker down to Green’s hooves, measuring the distance between the two of them. Whoever that little mare was, she was good.
"At least you're consistent. The blue boss and the redhead teen — robbing graves and cradles, eh?"
I could feel my ears tingle and my cheeks blush, and the magic I summoned turned into a spell. I had no need to creep up to the stupid featherhead with her stupid insinuations — I could blast her from where I was standing just fine.
The spell shot out from the tip of my horn, but she was already in the air, letting my flames lick uselessly at the rubble.
She pushed off my head, almost making me fall face-first on the ground, and with a single flap of her wings disappeared in the rafters above the hall.
"Too slow, kiddo. See ya at the finish line."
I rubbed my horn, sore from her push, and stared at the rafters where the pegasus had disappeared, trying to process what had just happened.
"Who was tha—"
"DARING DO!" Ahuizotl never let me finish my question when he burst through the door, his fangs bared and his minions brandishing their weapons in a brilliant display of perfect futility.
"A day late and two bits short, Zoti," Green snorted. "She's already gone. Nice entrance though."
“Wait.” It finally dawned on me who the strange little pegasus was. “That was Daring Do? The Daring Do? She’s real?!” I may have squealed a little in my excitement, trotting on the spot like a foal. Pegasi love the tales of Daring Do — the intrepid adventurer, treasure-hunter, and savior of colts in distress, each tale of her exploits more unlikely than the next. To see her not just in the flesh but in action - that was a fanfilly’s dream come true, and I was certainly a fan… once, at least.
“Of course she exists,” Ahuizotl scoffed, ignoring Green’s remark, while his minions put back their useless weapons. “There has always been one, for hundreds of years. A title passed from mother to daughter, mentor to student. ‘One chosen in every generation, to protect the buried treasures, to keep the sleeping monsters asleep, to fight against the rising dark,’” he quoted mockingly, his temper flaring with every word. “To be an incessant, annoying pest, a perpetual thorn in my side! Like a bad coin, no matter how many times you put her down, a new one will rise to foil me again and again. But not this time! You hear me? Not this time, Daring Do, I swear by the Deeps and the Blood, I will not be denied again!”
He stepped forward, raising his fist to threaten the long-gone pegasus, but as he did, a stone plate clicked, giving way underneath his paw, and the both of us could only watch with somewhat horrified fascination as a giant slab of stone swung like a pendulum, smashing into him with a dull, wet thud.
He flew off his paws, tumbling tail over teakettle — an expression oddly appropriate to the moment — all the way down the stairs, and into the moat we just crossed. A splash down below indicated that he fell into the water and several annoyed gurgling yips of pain — that the piranhas inside were pretty hungry.
Green poked me with her hoof “This is where you mock,” she said to me, grinning.
“Huh? Wouldn’t that be unprofessional?” I asked with the corner of my mouth, trying my hardest not to laugh at my employer, like a good little henchmare.
“No-no-no, this is totally professional. Good mockery is what separates professionals from groupies. Watch and learn.”
She trotted to the moat and leaned in, pulling up our boss, wet and miserable, piranhas still clamped onto his spiky fur.
“Good dive there, Wonderbolt,” she knocked the vicious fishies off him with her hooves. “Ten for effort, zero for style.”
I giggled, despite my best efforts. The sheer fuming misery of the wet dog-creature, while he stood there patiently waiting to get rid of the piranhas, was just too much.
He shook like a wet dog, splashing the both of us with the droplets of stale water, his bristling spikes becoming soft fur again. He glared at the both of us, almost causing the second burst of giggles out of me.
This one I chose to swallow, wiping the grin off my face.
"Go, ponies." He grumbled. "Daring Do must not take our prize."
Stifling last laughter of our shared joke, we got.
***
Three halls later huddled behind an upturned stone throne, I wasn't laughing anymore.
The pyramid seemed endless - deadly corridors interleaved with once opulent halls, all of them infected with the nigh-infinite numbers of identical bronze suits, incessantly repeating their mantra.
"We are the last of the Southern Guard..."
I peeked out of my cover, careful not to step on the spikes protruding from the floor and blasted it to bits.
"By decree of the Night, the entry is forbidden."
I leaned back and cozied closer to the statue of an onyx-black jackal statue with a flail in his mouth. I wasn't tired - not quite yet, but the prolonged fight was starting to get to me. Unlike Green, I had to pace myself. So while I readied another spell, I took a moment to restore my breath, listening to the clanging of armors that Green bashed apart further down the hall, and looked around the room.
It was a museum of sorts or a gallery: in alcoves and pedestals statues stood, dogs and wolves of every shape and size, some unrecognizable, others partly whole.
An onyx-black jackal statue, flail in his mouth watched us from underneath his upturned stone throne. A giant front-half-of-the wolf trampled the sun underneath its paws. Stony timberwolves, a pack of them, leashed to something long since lost to time, looked like a second's slack in their bronze collars would release them to rip the observer to shreds.
There were more guards here than any that we've seen so far, whole piles of bone-filled suits in heaps around the hall.
There was writing on the wall, too. I looked at the letters, half-erased by time, trying to decipher the writing
Thánatos oudèn diaphérei...
Letters of the old pegasi script resolved slowly into meaningful words.
"We are the last..."
"Duty beyond death"
"Nopony is coming."
"Release us!" An iron suit snuck up on me as I was too consumed by reading, reaching wildly towards my saddlebags. "Mark-bearer!"
I shrieked with surprise, rearing and battering at the armour with my hooves, before bashing it apart with a raw magic blast.
"Release us!" it repeated, as its azure aura faded. "We are the last..."
I didn't have time to listen, shutting out the strange words, as more suits were flowing out of yet another side door, raising their pila in the air. I weaved magic, faster than I ever managed to do in any classroom or test, and jumped out of cover and shot it at the furthest armour, and then I legged it across the hall, as my magic did its work.
The armour I hit shone with the green light of my magic. Its neighbour tried to throw a spear at me, but it veered off course, hitting the ensorceled armour instead. Then the armour itself slipped, and the whole group of them slid along the floor towards each other, as like called to like and metal pulled to metal.
Within an instant, loose weapons and metal debris lifted off the ground in a maelstrom centred at the target of my spell, and half-dozen armours stuck together in a giant ball of bent bronze and tangled limbs. Their magic sparked and shorted out.
I dodged under the statue of a she-wolf, grey with time and red with ochre and slid on the wet floor toward the cover of the broken fountain. A moment after I ducked, another pilum crashed into the stone, shattering one of the statue's eyes. Somehow, that felt appropriate
Ignoring the cold water, I pushed closer for the protection of the stone and looked at Ahuizotl.
Not the Elder himself - his statue, the biggest of all the statues in the room. It sat on his throne at the end of the room. It was mostly intact, though only half the statue was still covered with the lazuli that once made it blue, the other -- dirty-beige with time and dust. He looked down at me from good twenty steps above, the discoloration making him look grim and fierce-looking.
I choked, my jaw slackening with surprise and unfairness of the sight — Daring Do was sitting on Ahuizotl's shoulder, like on her favorite perch, without a care in the world. The featherbrain took the easy way out, simply flying over the battle just as we trudged through, risking our hides with every step. She didn't even so much as glance our way, working instead on opening some unseen latch or ventilation shaft behind the statue, just as Green was finishing up the last suits.
Well, there'd be no more shortcuts for her. I aimed my horn at the hero and put a spell together. Just a little something to ruffle that arrogant pegasus's feathers, and get her down and dirty with us, flightless equines.
"Robbing cradles! Hah!” I may have been only sixteen years old, but I was old enough to teach this old bird a lesson. I stepped forward to get the angle just right and…
Something clicked beneath my hooves.
Oh Ice and Night—-
A hidden spring under the floor shot out, propelling me into the air. The world tumbled and turned, my stomach tried to escape through my mouth, and I barely had the time to curl into a ball when the maw of Ahuizotl's statue swallowed me whole.
I smacked against the roof of its mouth, the crash beating the breath out of me, making me choke and cough, and then I fell and rolled down, bumping against every uneven stone and twist and turn of the statue's hollow interior, until there was no more "down" to fall.
It was dark and cold and smelled faintly of wet stone and mildew. I summoned light at the tip of my horn and looked around the tiny room, while I stretched my bruised limbs and cleaned off the spider webs clinging to my coat.
The tunnel through which I came — or rather, fell — was closed. Even if I could’ve reached the trapdoor from Ahuizotl statue’s throat and make the climb up, the passage shut behind me, capped by a lid that refused to budge when I prodded it with magic.
What would Daring Do do, when stuck in a trap like this?
Daring Do would not be working for the bad guys, a traitorous voice whispered in the back of my head. Trying to get at Daring Do is why you're in this mess in the first place.
I growled at myself and tried to concentrate. Every trap, unless immediately lethal, must have an exit - no point of making it so, unless there was a way out.
There was a soft slithering, and something tickled my hoof. I jerked it away reflexively and looked down. Soft, smooth sand was pouring from the hole that opened in the wall. Instinctively, I plugged it with my magic. More holes opened, above and to the sides, more than I could close at the same time. Soon the whole room would drown in it, suffocating me. I retreated my magic and tried to think faster, ignoring the new problem.
Encroaching doom was just a deadline. I could do deadlines. Never mind the horrible suffocating death, disappointing Celestia with missed coursework was a way stronger motivator.
I concentrated on looking for the exit, pouring more power into the light-spell, and with a bit of luck, and a lot of grasping around, I found it - a tiny slit in the masonry, too narrow to even stick a blade through, but still outlining unmistakably a door. And for a locked door, there must be a key.
Knowing that it was easy to find the little knobs with Coltec pictograms at even intervals around the top of the room, the paint on them bleached with age but still unmistakable. It was a combination lock, and the writings were a hint. That made it easy — Daring Do would be out of a trap like this in ten seconds flat.
Tentatively, I pushed one, then another. Something clicked deep in the wall and both of them pushed back, returning to their original position.
You're no Daring Do.
I shook my head and pressed my ear against the wall, listening to the soft clicks of the mechanism as I pushed the tumblers slowly, one by one, wishing that I had spent less time on History of Moral Philosophy and more sneaking out and learning cool escapology tricks from the older Lulamoon.
You're no hero.
I missed a trigger, and the half-assembled combination fell apart, all the pushed knobs returning to their positions. I gritted my teeth and stretched my magic — pushing the sand away and trying to operate the stubborn triggers, rusty with age, while combating my own unwarranted panic and doubts.
You will die here!
I tried again, quicker now, as the sand crept up to my cutie mark and my horn scraped against the ceiling of the trap. Panic and haste were poor help for a task that required patience, and with the hated click, the lock reset again. I bit my lip and started again.
You're the bad guy's henchpony, and that's what always happens to bad guy’s minions in the stories.
The lock reset again, and the sand was now almost to my chest and I screamed, drowning out the stupid voice in my head. My magic lashed out, completely out of control, bashing against the wall like a trapped bird. I crashed around the statue blindly, my half-formed spells fueled by fear and fury melting stone and crushing bricks, once, and twice, and the third time, ignoring the scraps and scattering stone that hit my body and my face. Something in the ancient masonry finally gave and I nearly fell out of the trap, right in front of Green, but it was too late; the fear was already rising like a black wave, drowning out sense and reason, making my muscles tense and cramp.
No. No, no, no, not now, please! I fought against the nascent shake and begged every fate and power that it wouldn’t be now, not in front of Green. What would she think about me? She’d think me weak, worthless. I couldn’t—
I turned away, hoping that water in the pool would help me keep ahold of myself. That was a mistake — blood and the water, the merest thought of it and the flashback hit me like a brick to the head. I reeled, dropping to my haunches, drowning in the sudden wave of the stark, raving fear that seized my heart in a vice-like cold grip.
Red and white circling each other, never mixing, on a ground that was so overflowing with slaughter, it would not drink any more.
I felt a hoof on my barrel, a tiny feeling of warmth and steadiness radiating from it.
It was Green Glow, by my side, looking at me with a concerned look, almost as if she actually cared. I gritted my teeth and strained trying to get my shaking under control.
I strained, trying to keep the overcharged spell under control, but the ice was already creeping up on it, making the chains of my magic brittle and frail. Freed, he descended on us like lightning, like madness with steel and with magic.
"Breathe, little princess." Her hoof found my chest, guiding my breathing with light pushes. "Slow, deep breaths. In and out.”
His emerald eyes pierced me even from across the battlefield with their sheer intensity, His frame full of heavy, world-rending power. Reality rippled...
Coarse and sharp, her voice helped, guiding me out of the shake. Hyperventilation turned into normal breathing, as I now returned to the present, and the ringing terror retreated back to the recesses of my mind.
I took a deep breath, letting the taste of stale air and dust take me away from the memory of the crisp winter chill on the riverbank.
In and out.
Green was already leaving when I finally stood up.
“Breath is the least appreciated of all the things in the world. None sing hymns to it, praising the good air, breathed by Princess and beggar, master and dog alike, but none can do without it. Learn to breathe, pumpkin.”
Hesitating to follow her just yet, I thought back to one of the first shakes I got. Not a flashback — just a memory of when I just came back to Canterlot:
It happened at the Wonderbolts performance. I got to sit with Celestia, in her little private booth — one of the little gifts she tried to distract me from my past adventure with, before... before she didn't.
Something in the crowd has caught my eye, and suddenly the blue sky and the snow became huge and menacing, panic rose like a wave, and I was shaking and screaming. Celestia held me... but not quite like this. I remembered it as clear as day — her wing covering me like a huge down blanket, to hold me against her side... but not quite touching my skin, a barest hair's breath between her and me, as if I would stain that immaculate whiteness of her wings.
As if I was something dirty.Something disgusting.
She never understood what was going on with me, she never said anything but empty words to me when I thought my sanity was slipping and nightmares clawed my mind, ripping it apart. She could never fix me and make it like it was before.
This was different. Green didn't see me as sick or broken. Somehow the indifferent, dismissive advice made me feel better than anything Celestia tried to tell me.
When I caught up with her, she gave me one last once-over and smacked me lightly on the back. "Come on. Plenty of target practice in the next hall."
So there were — another bunch of metal armors trying to bar our way. Traps too — cleverer ones, better concealed and more deadly. But with Daring Do out of sight, I could finally concentrate on the task at hoof, finding my rhythm and my place along Green Glow's side.
With every magical blast and every tripwire severed and trigger mechanism broken, I felt my confidence returning, until finally there were none. No more traps and moats and guards to bar our way, no more twisting corridors and statues. only the one last archway with a broken door, and behind it a hall, dead centre of the pyramid.
This was it — the final chamber, the sanctum sanctorum of the complex. It was wide and high, dozens of pillars stretching towards the ceiling and the golden light of the roughly punctured roof made their shadows deep and stark. The walls once adorned with patterns and frescoes, now bore nothing more than the signs of a titanic struggle, scorch marks and craters, scrapes, and scratches, and stains of blood long since turned to dust.
A battle had been fought here, a long, long time ago. A desperate last stand of defenders fighting with the frenzy of cornered rats.
The centre of the chamber was occupied by a shallow pool of water, unnaturally still and dark. Nothing grew in it; nothing moved its waters, not even the tiniest of shimmers arose from the draft when we opened the crumbling stone doors of the hall.
From the middle of the pool, rising seamlessly from the water, there was a small altar of caesious steel. I could feel that once it was the heart of the whole pyramid, the keystone, and nexus of the power that it contained. Now it was dead, its magic extinguished by the knife stabbed straight into its centre, piercing deep into the steel.
Ahuizotl appeared behind us, finally catching up. Soon as his gaze touched the altar and the knife, his whole body swayed forward, Elder drew to the altar almost against his will. Blind to anything but his prize, he pushed the minions aside without any care, almost stepping on anypony not quick enough to get from underneath him in time. His paws reached for the knife, getting cut by the blade. Finally, with a grunt of effort turning to a cry of pain, he pried the knife from the steel, holding it stubbornly in his forepaw, despite the pain and the blood dripping bright and red against the obsidian-black metal of the Nightblade.
"The knife that stabbed my heart will now be the instrument to restore it!" he declared, a smug self-aggrandizement addressed to no one in particular. "You're too late, Daring Do!"
He threw the knife to Green, dropping back to all fours.
"Fashionably late!" Daring Do announced, appearing out of nowhere above our little crowd and snatching the knife out of the air before any one of us had a chance to move. She landed with a perfect roll, and flicked her head, stashing the knife in her harness "Why? Did you miss me?"
The henchmares, myself included, froze while Ahuizotl growled at the hero appearing at the exact wrong moment and literally snatching the victory from us. They stared at each other, for a single tense instant.
Ahuizotl barked some command or the other, and just like that the spell of Daring Do’s sudden appearance was broken, and everything exploded into the chaos of combat.
***
In my mind, I have before compared Green Glow to a leopard, to a cobra, to a pale-green thunderbolt. Yet, still she was just an earth pony, and when they brag amongst themselves, the cats and the snakes and the sheets of lightning use one ultimate comparison, albeit sparingly: “Fast as a pegasus.”
And even for a pegasus, Daring Do was fast.
With a jump and a flap of her wings, she landed in the middle of our formation, and her quick kicks threw minions aside with ease, Ahuizotl’s cats yowling with pain and fear as she easily dodged and overpowered them. Her form was excellent: calm, precise and efficient, always keeping just a fraction of an inch outside the reach of her opponents, never moving more than she had to. Compared to her, everypony else might as well have been standing still.
Still, in retrospect, I should have recognized the signs, the little tells of something being wrong: The way she favored her right wing over the left one. The light wheeze when she spat out another jaunty mockery or joke. The way she clenched her teeth when her hind-hooves connected, as if in pain. But I was young, and inexperienced, despite all that I thought at the time; and the only thing I noticed was her back unattended turned right to me. Just right for a spell that was almost ready to escape my horn. I moved, and my magic surged with a raw battle instinct…
A spell crashed into him like a battering ram, and an arrow found his neck. Red and white mixed as he fell in the snow…
A flashback split my head apart with the throbbing pain and my heart skipped a beat, ripping me out of the adrenaline rush of the combat and stopping me in my tracks, as my mind raced, realizing what I had almost done.
I couldn’t just attack her. She was the Daring Do, she was one of the good guys, like me. I turned just a fraction of an inch to the left, fire missing the pegasus by no more than a feather’s length.
She did not hesitate like I did, especially since she did not know that I was secretly on the same side as her. She slid underneath my spell an instant after it had already whizzed by, and then she was under me, shooting up like a spring, and throwing me into the wall with her back and all four of her legs. Pain burst from the back of my skull where it connected to the stone wall, setting sparkling fireworks in front of my eyes. Before I could get back, she flicked her wing and a projectile she threw exploded, sticking me to the wall with disgusting bluish goo that covered me from my hooves to the tip of my horn.
Instinctively, I pushed against the sticky goop, adding magic to my efforts, and a sharp, burning pain pierced my horn, stripping away the energy and concentration. Keratin flecks in the thaumaconductive gel shorting up the magical currents, like iron filings on a naked wire, burning me whenever I tried to cast a spell. Smart. And annoying. Still, it would not hold me long.
No more minions or cats remained standing, all of them dispatched by the hero in a span of seconds. Ahuizotl made no motion to try to catch her — she was too fast for him by far, so all that remained for him was to try to bore a hole in her skull with his gaze. He was not very successful, though not for lack of effort.
And then there was Green Glow.
She waited until the minions and the cats were dispatched, watching the combat with an indifferent expression, studying how the hero moved. Only when the last of the minions hit the dust did she engage Daring Do.
I called upon my magic again — a gentle trickle now, separating the goo from my horn, one piece of keratin after another, watching the mercenary take her stab at the hero while I worked.
They circled around each other in a half crouch, making tentative passes with their hooves and wings — feints and blocks, meant to test, not hurt.
Suddenly they touched — and the grey mare was down on the ground and Glow was flying through the air over her head, but she didn’t land with the same dull, breath-paralyzing thud that I had; she landed rolling and was back on her hooves as fast as Do was and facing her.
“You’re getting old. That almost didn’t hurt,” she jeered. They engaged again, and I thought that she was going to get thrown again. She didn’t — instead, she twisted straight in, there was a chaos of wings and hooves, and when the motion slowed down, and they separated again it was Daring Do who was keeping her wing tight to her body, covering several gashes and an ugly burn.
“You are getting old!” There was no mock this time, just genuine surprise. “Old — and weak.”
The mare growled, “Not all of us enjoy earth pony years. But I’m plenty young to kick your flank!”
Despite her words, she was not in a hurry to re-engage, choosing once again to circle her opponent and look for a weakness or an angle.
Ripping off the last of the goo, I leapt off the wall, readying my spells. My horn still burned where the energy I was channelling touched the gel, but it no longer screwed up my magic, and I was now ready to join the fray... if only I could decide on which side.
Daring Do was unaware of my doubts. For her it was now two against one — more if you count Ahuizotl’s kitties rising from the floor with pained meowing — and she could barely handle Green Glow by herself. She retreated, trying to keep us both in her sight, not letting us surround her.
"I’ve got you now, Daring Do!" Ahuizotl was more than ready to start gloating. “Give me the knife, and I may yet let you leave.”
"Not quite yet, Ahuizotl."
Suddenly the pegasus stopped her retreat and flipped her head, catching her weird helmet-hat in her teeth, before throwing it at Green like a discus. The pith helmet with sharpened edges zipped past the dodging mercenary, bounced off my hastily raised shield and, snipping the tuft off Ahuizotl’s ear, struck a lever on the wall.
The temple rumbled and shook. And when an old temple rumbles and shakes, you just know it cannot be anything good. Cracks spread from the lever, and the stone began to crumble, raining dust on our heads.
“Sorry, ladies,” Daring Do jumped between the both of us, dodging Green’s lunge, and pushed herself off a wall, grabbing her hat in the process, and hovered in the air, ”but I gotta fly. Oh, and since that was the self-destruct lever, I do suggest you do the same.”
“DARING DO!” Ahuizotl bellowed, ripping out the altar from the pool — a solid chunk of steel the size of an adult — and chucking it towards his enemy. He hit nothing but her contrail—the pegasus evaded it with an effortless barrel roll. Instead, the spinning chunk of steel plowed clean through several columns, leaving a fountain of dust and crumbling stone zipping through the hall.
That did not help. At all. Now the temple was not just shaking — it was falling apart.
Cats and ponies ran towards the exits, a stampede of animal instincts, fear and cowardice spurring them into frenzied feats of speed that would be the envy of any Wonderbolt.
I did not move. For me everything froze for an instant, my perception hastened a hundredfold by the surge of adrenaline. I could see everything crystal-sharp, transfixed by the spreading pattern of the cracks in the ancient masonry, the first rocks falling from the roof as slow as glaciers. Weaving between them was Daring Do’s grey contrail as she escaped the destruction she had wrought, and the black glint of the Nightblade on her harness.
As if in a dream, my magic stretched towards her, and almost without my conscious decision I gripped and pulled on the knife, snatching it off not a second before the pegasus disappeared through the skylight. A pale green body crashed into me like a comet, throwing me aside. I could only stare dumbly at a giant rock that fell onto the floor where I stood barely an instant ago, shattering with a thunderous boom.
I blinked, and focused my eyes back on the green mercenary, showing her the black-bladed knife still gripped tightly in my magic.
She grinned back, “Nice work, princess!“ Even the fake title did not cover the genuine delight in her voice. “BUT WE GOTTA GO, NOW!” she shouted over the crash of another boulder, nearly throwing me towards the entrance to the hall.
We ran, the temple disintegrating around us, but before we could reach the salvation of the exit, it was already too late — one of the broken pillars fell across the door, blocking the exit.
I stared at it blankly. It was too big, and though perhaps I could break it apart or roll it away, even as I reached for my magic, another slab of the roof fell across the door, sealing our only way out with finality of a gravestone. There was no way to dismantle it before the hall would collapse.
We were as good as dead now, and the pyramid would be our tomb.