XXXV
Who Needs Enemies?
XXXV
Who Needs Enemies?
Tempest was the first to force real conversation, exhibiting his uncanny ability to speak around the handle of his sword. “What did you do to these ponies, Morty?”
“On behalf of Master Coil, I resent your accusations! Why—”
“Not helping, Angel.” I lifted a hoof across my chest as if preparing for a small bow. “Tempest, we just got here. We all volunteered to help Hare here look for her mother.”
“Really?” Silhouette took two slinking steps toward me, emphasizing the swaying of the void crystal she wore around her neck once again. “These ponies look an awful lot like what Wintershimmer used to do. You stealing the candlecorns would really fit the bill too…”
“Steal the…?” I shook my head. “Silhouette, if I could command the candlecorns, do you honestly think I wouldn’t have used that against you in Lübuck? I understand that it’s incredibly difficult for you, but can you at least try and think for two seconds before you speak, please.”
I turned to Tempest, who was glancing back and forth between Silhouette and I in either confusion, or some measure of shock at our open hostility toward one another. I briefly clapped my hooves to gather everypony’s attention. “Let’s see if I can spare everypony here a drawn-out summary of what’s going on, since I’m clearly the only pony who has put it all together yet. Blizzard is traveling with me, along with Graargh and Angel, whom you both already know, to Everfree. We heard that Hare’s mother—that mare over there—” I tipped my horn to indicate the pony in question, “—had gone missing in the swamp, so we came to look for her. In the mists out there, I felt a chill on the back of my neck like Wintershimmer’s spell—I know at least you know what I mean, Silhouette. For those who haven’t had that particular pleasure, the spell in question rips out the target’s soul.”
She nodded, but her lowered brow told me she wasn’t yet satisfied.
“You mentioned the candlecorns going rogue,” I continued. “My current suspicion is that what considered attacking us was one of the rogue candlecorns—and it either recognized me as a friend or just knew I could stop the spell and gave up.”
I actually had a much stronger suspicion on exactly what had happened, since unlike Angel, the candlecorns were not free-willed. However, my increasingly nervous gut instinct warned that present company wouldn’t believe my crackpot theory without more concrete proof.
Before anypony could question further, I continued my explanation. “Since I can’t very easily defend this many ponies at once, I had everypony run to try and lose line-of-sight, and we wound up here.”
“That’s the whole truth, Mister Legionary,” Hare confirmed, nodding her head. “Mister wizard isn’t bad.”
Blizzard stepped forward to give a very visible nod, a stark contrast to Graargh who elected to hide behind my legs and glare out silently in Silhouette’s direction
“Just ‘Tempest’ is fine,” the soldier grumbled at Hare, sheathing his sword. “Fair enough, Morty. I wish things were cleaner on our end. After I left River Rock—”
I held up a hoof. “Don’t waste your breath, Tempest. It’s easy enough to guess.” That earned me a glare, which I promptly ignored. “Archmage Travail from back in Lübuck actually was as incompetent as she seemed, and it wasn’t just me intimidating her that put her off her game. She let the candlecorns escape. They bolted from Lübuck and Equestria on whatever commands they last got from Wintershimmer, and somepony in charge decided that sending one frankly under-equipped scout to deal with three golems created by the then-reigning Pale Master was a great idea. You ran into Silhouette when she and the rest of Jade’s lackeys landed in Equestria on their way back to the Union, and you picked her up ostensibly because she knows how to deal with the candlecorns, but in practice because you’re a shameless stallion-whore, or possibly a masochist who doesn’t mind having his tender bits pressed between to sheets of sharp-edged gemstone.”
Silhouetted offered me a slow clap. “I can’t believe it, Coil. All this time away from the Union making new friends and gaining life experience, and you’re still a huge asshole. I guess it’s true what they say about non-crystals.”
“That we aren’t excruciatingly painful to sleep with?”
Tempest snorted in amusement—a truly horrifying noise, in retrospect—and Silhouette shook her head. “You can’t polish a turd.”
“Actually, if you use arcana to grip it, and apply an appropriate helping of quicksilver—”
“You’re going to shut up right now,” Tempest announced firmly. After a moment’s quiet, he rubbed a wing over his face, pinching his brow. “You’re right, though. We’re hunting the candlecorns. Nopony said anything about them ripping out our souls. I assumed it would just be the usual magical blasts and bright lights that I could dodge just fine like when we fought in Lübuck.”
“Yeah,” Silhouette added. “I thought only the old geezer could do that magic.”
“So did I.” I rather selectively forgot to admit my own proficiency with the spell in question. “Tempest, you might be a freakishly good soldier with wind magic that I don’t completely understand, but you’re not equipped to deal with a non-solid enemy like a candlecorn. Do you at least have Procellarum with you? Or is that sword you’re carrying magic?”
Tempest glanced down at the sheath under his wing. “No, it’s standard issue skysteel. Why?”
“Because that means that you literally can’t hurt any of the golems. The wax will just reform behind your blade as it cuts through. I’m going to have to deal with this.”
“Wait, what?” Tempest shook his head. “First off, Morty, you’re a civilian.” I gave him a flat look, to which he shrugged. “I mean, technically at least, that’s true. And as much as I’d love to let you deal with this whole mess, it’s an Equestrian matter.”
“Except when it comes to getting an excuse to go strip-mining?” Silhouette and Tempest both glared, but the best part was that after a few seconds, Hare’s brow rose and she let out a chuckle, staring at the crystal pony in our midst.
“Really, kid?” Silhouette asked.
Cutting into the rising tension with all the subtlety of a minotaur in a tiny porcelain figurine shop and all the elegance of the preceding metaphor, I returned my attention to Tempest. “I’m a wizard, which is absolutely not a category of ‘civilian’. I’m also an Equestrian citizen, courtesy of Celestia.”
“You talked to Lady Celestia, Mister Wizard?” Hare asked, in obvious shock.
Silhouette blinked in roughly equivalent surprise, as if unable to parse the statement. “Wait… the goddess? Coil, you got an audience with the goddess Celestia? Did you manage to piss her off?”
“No, mostly she hit on me.”
A dozen seconds later, somewhere outside the circle of swampy trees, a cricket chirped.
“You’re… you’re kidding me.” Silhouette shook her head. “This is one of your stupid ego-trips, right? You’ve got to be lying. She wouldn’t…”
“You’re not a pegasus,” Tempest muttered in addition.
I glanced at him with a raised brow. “Tempest, your racism is showing.”
“No, I mean… Like, think about the logistics. I guess you could try to use a stool or a stepladder, but that’s not exactly steady. And I don’t really have a great guess of how much she weighs, but if she were on top…”
I coughed heavily into my muddy hoof. “And you didn’t want to know how to polish a turd. Can we please go back to talking about evil golems and stolen souls?”
“For once, I agree,” Silhouette replied.
“Alright,” Tempest affirmed. “So, Morty, you really want to get involved in this? You’ve got a deal. I’ll go report in, and in three or four days, maybe I can have mom come back here with grandpa’s armor and her sword. That should work, right?”
“Just as well as her necklace.” I tilted my head toward Silhouette. “Well, a little better. But I don’t think we can afford to wait half a week. The rogue candlecorn is already making a mess here.” Again, I gestured to the victims around the grotto.
Silhouette sighed. “Okay… so what do you propose?”
“I need Blizzard, Graargh, and Hare out of the swamp. Blizzard, you’re in charge. When you get there find whatever soldiers you can, tell them what happened, fly them back out here, and pick up these ponies. They’ll still need food and water. Tempest, does Platinum’s Landing have a seated archmage?”
Tempest shook his head. “Not that I ever heard of.”
“Figures.” I turned back to Blizzard. “You’ll want to find a doctor, or at least an apothecary to take a look at them and make sure they haven’t picked up any leeches or parasites or whatever while they’ve been lying here in the mud. Whatever rogue candlecorn is out there should leave you alone walking out, since I’m going to paint a massive target on my back—” I caught her eyes widening. “—don’t ask—when you’re flying back in, make sure the soldiers stay above the clouds until they get close to this copse here. Once you’ve got everypony out, find somewhere to rest and wait for us. An inn or something. I’ll find you. If we aren’t back to the city by dawn tomorrow, find…” I glanced over to Tempest. “Your mom’s name is Typhoon?”
“Commander Typhoon to you.”
I shrugged, returning my attention to Blizzard. “Go find your aunt and have her bring Commander Hurricane’s black armor. The magic-proof set.”
Blizzard swallowed, more a show of nervousness than anything else. “You want me to go talk to Aunt Typhoon alone? Why not bring Tempest?”
“I need Silhouette and Tempest here to help me with some history, and a little bit of necromancy.”
“Hold on… You want me to help you?” Silhouette asked.
“You’re the one with a void crystal necklace,” I explained.
“Morty not with bad mare!” Graargh ‘helpfully’ announced. “Graargh stay!”
“Graargh, I need you to help me in a very important way.” I knelt down to look more closely into Graargh’s eyes. “The wax pony wizard isn’t the only scary thing you might find in the swamp. There might be other monsters ,or big snakes, or some other scary things. Blizzard and Hare aren’t any good at fighting. If something happens, I need you to be a big bear for them. Literally. Can you do that?”
“But…”
I placed a hoof on the shoulder of Graargh’s usual messy, muddy form. Then I looked even further down, at how much the swamp had ruined my usually impeccable grooming. Casting aside any remaining worry, I wrapped both my forelegs in a tight hug around the little bear. “Listen to me, Graargh. We’ve been through a whole lot, right? We fought the candlecorns before, in Lübuck. We dealt with the other bears. Plus Cyclone, and then Queen Jade and all her ponies. We’ve been okay through all of that, right?”
Graargh nodded in the form of curling into my neck. “Yes. But how I can know you are going to be okay this time?”
Lighting up my magic, I ruffled the hair atop Graargh’s head, where a mane would usually sit. “Because I’m the greatest necromancer alive, and if I died, this wouldn’t be a very good story, would it? Also, that was an exceptional… er, a very, very good sentence.”
I saw at least three sets of eyes roll in the clearing, but Graargh responded by embracing me tighter. My mind chose that particular moment to remind me how many famous stories of heroic ponies ended in noble self-sacrifice, but I decided that from a perspective of pure storytelling merit, Graargh wasn’t old enough to appreciate a theme like that.
It had nothing to do with growing concern for my own mortality, I swear.
Not a full minute later, I stood with Tempest and Silhouette in the clearing. A few dozen effectively dead ponies lay around us. A floating rock with two golden halos hovered nearby.
“So.” Silhouette began and also bluntly ended.
“Right… Silhouette, I’m sorry for accusing you of killing Wintershimmer. I was wrong.”
“You finally admit it?” she asked, cocking her head. “Did you find some kind of proof?”
I nodded. “There’s only two, or maybe three ponies who have ever known the spell to do this.” I gestured around at the soulless ponies in the ring. “And since I didn’t do it, that only leaves two options.”
“Two?” Angel chimed in. “Master Coil, I gather Master Wintershimmer is one—”
“Don’t call him that anymore, Angel.”
The golem emulated a the sound of a corrective cough. “Just ‘Wintershimmer’ then? Regardless… who is the other?”
“Well, apparently Wintershimmer lied when he told me I was the first apprentice he ever trained. Celestia seemed to think he wasn’t a very nice pony either, but I know he and Wintershimmer didn’t get along. His name was Solemn Vow.”
Immediately, Tempest’s wings tensed and the soldier drew tighter on himself.
“Something wrong, Tempest?” Silhouette asked.
It took a moment for the pegasus to find the words to answer, but when he did he spoke to me. “Morty, you don’t want to talk to him.”
“Do you know Vow?” I asked. “I got the sense he was a lot older than any of us.”
The question got a slow nod. “I was there when he died…I was five. Morty, you seriously do not want to do this. He almost overthrow the Cirran Legion. He’s the worst criminal in Equestrian history.”
“All twenty-whatever years of it?” Silhouette noted quietly.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I see I come from a great pedigree, then. Both of my predecessors were corrupt and evil.” I rolled my neck, eliciting two small pops. “Whatever he may have been in life, Tempest, Vow is just a dead soul now. He can’t do any magic without my permission. And I need to talk to him if I’m going to get to the bottom of what’s going on with the rogue candlecorn that attacked in the swamp.”
“This is a mistake…” the pegasus insisted as I lit my horn.
Reaching into Tartarus was as disgusting and as draining as always, but I found myself hoping I would be lingering longer than a few moments. If I failed to pull out Vow’s soul, that would all but guarantee that whatever deal he had made as a warlock in life was behind the strange events of Wintershimmer’s death.
If the act of recording my own story has taught me anything, it is that I am not a lucky pony.
Solemn Vow was, of course, translucent and tinged in blue from my magic when he appeared in the swamp. Still, it was easy enough to tell what he must have looked like in life. His coat was a muted orange where it was visible, though his formal garb concealed most of it. He wore an almost perfect copy of my jacket, though the collar was folded down, and beneath it, a double-breasted gray vest which was separated from his neck by a scarlet cravat which matched both the trim of our jackets and the fiery red of his mane. His pronounced widow’s peak, just below the base of his horn, had a certain ‘evil’ connotation to it that I couldn’t quite place, but his expression was certainly sociable enough. He smiled genuinely for a moment, though that mirth certainly took on a grim note when he spoke.
“Will you be dispersing me, or binding me?”
I blinked in a bit of shock at the blunt question, and in my confusion, Silhouette spoke up. “What does he mean?”
Vow beat me to an explanation. “I’m assuming by the matching jacket that this young stallion standing in front of me is my successor as Wintershimmer’s apprentice. Wintershimmer and I did not get along well in the past, and he isn’t the kind of pony to leave loose ends lying around. To be honest, I’m surprised I haven’t been seanced sooner. But I can only imagine two uses for my soul. Either I’m a loose end to be cleaned up, or I’m to be reanimated as some sort of undead to serve my successor.”
“Neither,” I told him.
It was Solemn Vow’s turn to raise a brow in surprise, which he followed up by extending an ethereal hoof. “If that’s the truth, then it is absolutely my pleasure to meet you. I assume you already know this, but for the sake of good manners, I’m Solemn Vow.”
“Mortal Coil,” I replied. “My friends call me Morty. For obvious reasons, I can’t actually shake that hoof.”
“Ah. Apologies. When everypony around in Tartarus is a soul, it’s easy to forget things like corporeality.” He turned toward Silhouette and Tempest, offering each a bow. “A pleasure to meet you two as well.” Vow showed no reaction to Tempest’s open hostility.
“I’m Commander Silhouette,” came the first introduction. Silhouette seemed wary of the ghost, but she gave him a calm nod.
Vow nodded. “A military mare; I assume you work for Queen Jade then?”
“I am Angel,” a second voice chimed in, earning a quirk of confusion from the ghost.
“A golem?”
“Angel is a Ouijan learning golem,” I explained. “Wintershimmer and I dug up as much of the old texts as we could, but most of the pages were rotten. I used to think he wasn’t capable of learning very much, but if I’m not mistaken, he’s been getting a lot smarter recently.”
“Why thank you, Master Coil.”
“Don’t let it go to your rock.” I coughed into a hoof. “Since he doesn’t seem to be feeling very social, that’s Tempest.”
That name earned the most obvious reaction from the ghost, who actually winced. “Tempest Stormblade… Damnation. I was hoping the blue color was just a coincidence. Well… you’ve certainly grown up, Tempest.”
Tempest held his tongue, warily watching the spirit I held in my magic.
“You really do know each other?” Silhouette asked. “Tempest, you’re not that much older than Coil. And he never met this guy…”
“I was five,” Tempest explained. “His monsters foalnapped me to get at Mom…”
Vow calmly nodded, and let out a little sigh before speaking. “Since you two don’t know my story, I’ll be blunt. What Tempest said is true. That’s why you found me in Tartarus. I doubt there is anything I can say to repair the damage I did.”
Silhouette stepped forward. “You’re awful candid about being in Tartarus, aren’t you? I was sort of expecting somepony more… Wintershimmer-like.”
Vow gave a small shrug. “I’ll gladly take that as a compliment. Wintershimmer goes out of his way to make the evil in his heart as visible as possible. In life, I thought I was good at hiding my own. Now, though, there’s little point. There are only really two ways to react to damnation. I could swear I was in the moral right and rage until my soul warped into some sort of evil spirit to seek revenge on Equestria, or I could take a step back and admit that wanting to instill unicorn rule for ‘the greater good’ was a lie to myself that I used to justify wanting power and fame.”
The words hit close to my chest, but I did my best to hold an even face.
Vow continued, “I doubt that’s what you summoned me for, though, Morty. I was already in Tartarus, so there isn’t much worse punishment you could give me for what I did.”
“No, you’re right.” I took a short breath. “There’s a long story, but I’ll try and give you a short summary. A short while ago, I killed Wintershimmer in an accident with an experiment.”
“What?” Vow frowned in disbelief. “You expect me to believe that Wintershimmer died because some practice spell went wrong?”
Silhouette nodded. “I saw the body. Stone cold dead. Stabbed in the neck.”
“I didn’t stab him, though. I just sent his soul to the Summer Lands.”
“He taught you his signature spell?” Vow’s eyes widened. “How did you manage to earn his trust?”
I shook my head. “The spell we were working on was a ritual to open up the Summer Lands, and map them onto physical space, so that a living pony could go inside. The spell collapsed while Wintershimmer was studying the effect. His body came out, but his soul didn’t.”
The news put a sour look on Vow’s face. “The Summer Lands is better than he deserves.”
“He saved Grandfather’s life,” Tempest cut in abruptly. As Silhouette and I both turned in confusion toward the angry soldier, Vow hung his head.
“This may be hard to believe, Tempest, but Wintershimmer is—was—a worse pony than I ever was in life.”
“It’s true,” I added.
“Really?” Tempest turned his glare on me. “How many members of your family has Wintershimmer murdered? I lost Aunt Twister to this bastard!”
“He tried to get me to assassinate Clover the Clever,” I answered.
Silence washed over the grove.
“I almost did it,” I continued. “Wintershimmer spun me this story that she was a warlock, and had summoned the windigoes that attacked River Rock. He taught me how to rip out souls specifically so that I could kill Clover. And I walked right up and dueled her… but I couldn’t do it.”
Vow shook his head. “Clover is a morally good mare, but she lacks even half the skill as a mage it would take to bind a windigo as a warlock. I should know.” In a rather unnecessary display, the former warlock coughed into a well trimmed fetlock as if clearing the throat he no longer possessed. “Before I settled for my nightmares, I gave the subject some research. But a windigo is simply too powerful.”
“Right…” I let that word hang in the air awkwardly. “That certainly explains a lot of what Clover told me. Let me get to my point.” I brushed a hoof on my jacket. “Somepony has been ripping souls out of innocent ponies. I didn’t do it. That means the possibilities were you and Wintershimmer. I was honestly hoping I wouldn’t be able to find your soul, because then I would know you had escaped Tartarus as some sort of spirit or undead, and this would be easy. But since you’re right here in front of me, I have a problem.”
“You’re the only pony anypony can point to having done this.” Vow glanced around the swampy circle, as if only just taking in his surroundings. “Was your purpose in seancing me just to verify that I was present in Tartarus?”
“I also told you the story to see if you knew anything. I’ve only known Wintershimmer was working against me for less than a month. You have more experience opposing him than anypony alive.”
Vow scoffed. “Morty… What do you want me to tell you? I tried to kill that wizard with a pair of nightmares and I couldn’t even wound him.”
I gasped slightly, leaving Silhouette obviously confused. Angel, however, spoke up first. “Sir, what is a nightmare?”
I let Vow, the eminent expert, explain. “They aren’t quite as powerful of spirits as Windigoes, but they’re much harder to detect. Shapeshifting shadow spirits that take the form of whatever most terrifies their victims. They have a poisonous bite that can’t be cured by most conventional alchemical antitoxins and actually gets more potent if confronted with magic.”
Silhouette quirked a brow. “And Wintershimmer fought off a bunch of these things?”
I nodded. “He, and Cookie and Jade. That’s why Cookie is still in a coma, and Jade’s wing and horn are so carved up.”
Vow responded with a raised brow. “I never ordered my Nightmares to attack Jade and Cookie. Their only target was Wintershimmer, and he wasn’t anywhere near them when I had him attacked. Wintershimmer had come to Everfree City on some sort of diplomatic visit, and he met with Typhoon—Tempest’s mother if you haven’t met her.” Vow’s eyes glanced aside, and sarcastically, he added “Delightful mare.”
“She’s a better pony than you,” Tempest snapped.
“Tempest, she killed me. I certainly admire her resolve as a single mother, but I can’t pretend there aren’t a few hard feelings.”
I had to wave my hoof between Vow’s ghost and Tempest to recover the attention of the former. “First thing I need to know, Vow. Did Wintershimmer seance you recently?”
Vow shook his head. “How could he? You said he was dead. If he's got no physical body, he's got no horn to cast with.”
“And yet we're surrounded by these ponies who are missing their souls…” I observed.
Vow shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. If you really know how to open the Summer Lands and rip out living souls, you're a better necromancer than I am. I never learned to steal souls from the living; I never had the delusion I was going to kill Wintershimmer in a straight duel. If you need answers about necromancy, I would ask Lady Luna. You and she are the only meaningful necromancers alive.”
Silhouette cut in. “Hold on… Luna brings dead ponies back to life?”
I shook my head. “That's a common misconception. Talking to the dead like we are now, and even making golems like Angel or the Candlecorns are just as much necromancy as the stereotypical evil of raising ponies from the dead to do your bidding. In fact, the word ‘necromancy’ means talking to the dead, not raising them.”
“True,” Vow observed, “but in this case the stereotype has more basis in fact than you would probably believe. Speak to Luna, Morty, but don't trust her.”
Tempest growled. “Morty, he's trying to trick you. Lady Luna is a great mare.”
Vow snorted. “Now you are speaking out of turn, Tempest. For all the wrongs I may have committed in life, I know far more of necromancy than you ever will. Luna may hide behind the title of a goddess, but she is every bit the necromancer Wintershimmer or Morty here have ever been, and then some.” He quirked a brow. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
Tempest spread his wings. “At least she uses it for a good purpose!” Turning toward me, the scout gave a bitter glare. “I'm heading back into town, but you ought to just send him back to Tartarus where he belongs.”
A powerful burst of wind made my jacket flutter as Tempest shot up into the sky. All four of us remaining watched him go in silence.
“I hope he's okay,” Silhouette muttered as the last glimpse of the soldier was lost to the swamp’s thick treeline.
Vow shrugged. “If he's anything like his mother, he'll be fine. Was there anything else I could tell you?”
I nodded. “Vow, do you remember coming to River Rock as a foal? You and Wintershimmer went to speak to Star Swirl and Clover?”
Vow’s eyes widened, but he nodded. “How could you possibly know that? That would have been years before you were born.”
“I saw Clover’s memories,” I told him. “Star Swirl said something after that duel that I didn’t think much about until now… Was Wintershimmer actually with you in River Rock?”
Vow’s nodded, and then paused midway through lifting his head. “I see what you’re asking now. No; he was possessing a candlecorn.”
“What?” Silhouette snapped. “Timeout: Wintershimmer could take over the golems?”
“That’s how he survived my nightmares,” Vow told us. “He had guessed that I would be coming for him, so he put a candlecorn in his bed and waited in the shadows for the attack to come.”
“Are you saying Wintershimmer isn’t dead?” Silhouette turned to me. “Morty, was that dead body actually one of the golems?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. “But he is actually in the Summer Lands. If he weren’t, Queen Jade and I wouldn’t have been able to seance him. You’ve seen that; remember when I was first in the dungeons in Union City?”
Silhouette stomped a hoof. “I don’t follow any of this wizard nonsense, Morty. Can you just tell me what that means?”
“I honestly don’t know yet.” I took a deep breath. “You said the Candlecorns ran off recently. I’m guessing that corresponds roughly to Wintershimmer realizing I hadn’t killed Clover, and that I wasn’t doing his dirty work anymore. I don’t know what his end goal is, but stealing all these souls would be a way for him to build up his access to magic… Right now, we need to assume that any candlecorn we encounter is him, capable of ripping out souls and all his other magic.”
“You can’t mean to duel him,” Vow told me. “It would be wiser to go and get the goddesses or Hurricane than to try and fight Wintershimmer yourselves.”
“The candlecorns aren’t going to have nearly as strong of magic as his real body,” I answered. “Silhouette, we’re going to have to trust I can beat him by brute force.”
Silhouette swallowed. “You’re gonna have to forgive me if that doesn’t sound real reassuring.”
“You’ve got the void crystal amulet. If you shove it into the wax of a candlecorn, it should collapse into wax. But don’t take it off your neck until you’re absolutely ready to kill the thing.” I sighed, and felt a lurch in my balance as my ongoing seance drained more of my mana. “Alright, we can talk about this more in town. Vow, thank you very much for your assistance.”
“Can I make a request before you dismiss the spell?” my predecessor asked.
I replied with a shrug of my own. “Quickly, but go ahead.”
“I think this is obvious, but I would like not to be in Tartarus anymore. And you, Morty, are apparently in need of a new mentor.”
I blinked back shock. “You want me to raise you?”
“I don't think it's fair for me to ask you to trust me that much yet. Also, that would most likely end in Typhoon killing both of us. No, I am proposing that you bind my soul to a gem or something similar, and I can train you from there. Perhaps, in time, you could send my soul to the Summer Lands. I'm only begging that you don't send me back to the pit.”
I glanced toward Silhouette, who held up her hooves. “Uh uh. Don't look at me. I'm not going behind any gods’ backs; this is way above my pay grade. Keep your freaky magic to yourself.”
“If you don't mind a thought, Master Coil,” Angel piped up. “You did just go to some lengths to distance yourself from the evil of your previous mentor.”
Vow shot a brief glare toward Angel, but then held up a placating hoof. “I'm not going to encourage you to become a warlock, or anything like that. You can call the shots on what you want to do with your magic. I'm just trying to offer my education, because frankly that’s all I have to offer you. You aren't going to find another seven-school mentor in the world, Morty. It's either me, or abandon what you know and start over.”
I swallowed. Vow seemed to have a point, and the fact that I was beginning to trust him was itself a source of worry, given everything I knew of his life.
“I'll consider it, Vow,” I told him. “I can't do anything now anyway; I don't have any gems that are stable enough to hold a soul, and I can’t afford to spend the magic when I’m about to go out in a swamp where Wintershimmer might be waiting for us.”
“I understand.” Vow nodded. “I'm grateful to have your consideration. Most Equestrians wouldn't have even heard me out. Now, is there anything else I can answer for you?”
“I don't know what questions to ask, Vow. My gut tells me Wintershimmer is behind this, but I have no idea how he's doing it. None of what I’ve found explains how this helps his ‘legacy’.”
Vow chuckled. “Here’s a lesson Wintershimmer could never teach you, Morty. I learned it playing Equestrian politics. Never assume somepony’s motivations, especially if they’ve told you what they want. Words are cheap, actions are everything. What goal have his actions actually led toward? Why would he actually want Clover dead? What does he gain?”
I sat back on the driest piece of grass I could find in the muddy grotto. “Legacy really is the only thing I can think of. He wanted Clover dead since you were a foal; he even told you that when you both went to River Rock.”
“Yes, it's true Wintershimmer wanted me to kill Clover. But what difference does that make to him as now that he's dead?”
“Taking a stab at Star Swirl?” I asked.
Silhouette nodded. “Even I know he was always going on about which one of them was going to be remembered.”
Vow shook his head firmly. “How does your killing Clover enhance his legacy? If you had killed her, Star Swirl or Typhoon would have come after you, and his legacy would have ended completely. He wanted something else. Is Clover an obstacle to some specific goal? I suspect it—What is that?”
Vow’s eyes had locked on something over my shoulder, and both Silhouette and I turned to see what he had feared. My vision, however, gave way to a surge of pain and fatigue that swept down from my horn, and I collapsed onto my side in the mud.
I don’t know how long I lay there, but from what followed I can assume it was only a few seconds. In that time, mud splashed my face as Silhouette’s hooves moved past me. My nostrils were filled with the stench of peat, wet weeds, and stale water.
When my vision cleared a moment later, along with the subsiding of my pain, Silhouette stood over me protectively facing a candlecorn that had emerged from the edge of the clearing. Vow was gone; the glow at the tip of the golem’s wax horn had ended my seance. That much, at least, explained the pain.
Silhouette was unimpressed with its magic. “Wintershimmer… we know you’re in there. Cough it up, or I’ll ram this void crystal down your throat.”
“Very little remains in this world that is dangerous to me, Silhouette, and your trinket is not counted in that exclusive set.” That voice was unmistakable, despite the slight warping in its pitch that gave the impression of bubbling wax. The blank face of the golem shifted before us, swirling until it took on a more familiar appearance. Wintershimmer scowled. “What is your objective in seancing Vow, Coil?”
“No bitter greeting, Wintershimmer? No comment about the degrading quality of the company I keep?” I slowly pushed myself up to my hooves.
“I save pleasantries for ponies I find pleasant.” Wintershimmer was tight with his dribbling tongue, his thoughts curt and pointed. “You no longer consider me a mentor, and I no longer wish to call you my student, so skip your shallow excuse for deception and get to the point. What are you doing here?”
“I came looking for the ponies who went missing in Platinum’s Landing. The ponies whose souls you stole.”
“Hmm… Silhouette, is that why you’re here too? Caught up in Coil’s ongoing delusion?”
“If you really are behind what happened to those ponies, Wintershimmer, then it’s not a delusion.” Silhouette stepped up beside me. “We should have given Coil a medal for killing you.”
“Is there really any doubt? Yes, I eliminated some superstitious peasants. I don’t take any particular joy in it, but my hoof was forced.”
“Forced?” Silhouette’s disbelieving voice replied, curious.
I put a hoof forward not for the sake of a step, but to emphasize that my scorn for my former mentor matched what he wore on his molten visage. “Lie to me again, Wintershimmer. Go on. Was it Clover’s warlock magic that compelled your hoof? Or maybe you’d like to blame Celestia this time.”
Wintershimmer actually growled; deep in his throat, the noise was incendiary and crackling. I didn’t flinch back. “Look in a mirror, Coil. If you had remained my faithful student, those ponies behind you would have been able to continue their little lives uninterrupted.”
“At the price of Clover’s life!”
“Or yours.” The flame on the tip of Wintershimmer’s ‘horn’ danced in the swampy air. “I hope you have no illusions, Coil. You mean nothing to me.”
“I certainly don’t plan wasting spells trying to trick you with an illusion. I was planning to skip ahead to Measure’s Implosion. Or just ripping your head off by brute force telekinesis.”
“Amusing,” Wintershimmer lied, flatly. “Very well. At this point, the choice lies in your hooves, Coil. Even in this makeshift body, I have more than the magic and skill necessary to kill you. However, if you are willing to stay out of my way, I see no need to expend the effort. You have yet to actively cross me; you’ve only failed me thus far. That’s why I offer you this now: I’m willing to let you walk away and live out the life you’ve chosen. Go to Everfree, fight your petty spirits, win the worship of the princess if that’s what you want.”
“While you murder innocent ponies like Clover for the sake of your own legacy? Forgive me if I’m not that heartless.”
“You bought into your own lie? You’re still aiming to be a hero?”
“I’m not…” The rest of my protest died as my mind caught up to my tongue.
The candlecorn chuckled. “Enlightenment so often comes too late. Coil, you will never be the hero you imagine. You’re incapable of it.”
“Because you’re such an authority on the subject?” Silhouette replied. “Coil, I’ve been wanting to punch the old stallion since the day I met him. Can we get on with… Coil?”
Silhouette’s curiosity came as she turned to see my usually firm and noble gaze having slipped to the puddled ground at Wintershimmer’s hooves.
“What are you doing, Coil?”
“Thinking…” I answered. Then I pulled in a breath of stinking swampy air and looked up at Wintershimmer. “You’re right. I’m not that hero.”
“Of course I’m right. I raised you myself.”
“Then you know your point is irrelevant.” I cracked my neck. “Because right now, even without accolades or titles or even pay, I’m going to stop whatever you’re planning just for my own satisfaction.”
Candlecorn eyes glared. “So be it.”
The candle at the tip of Wintershimmer’s horn flared, as did mine. I spared any pretense of subtlety, instead ripping a nearby cypress and turning it on the golem like an enormous club. Ten pony lengths of heavy wood hissed in the air.
Wintershimmer’s fire burst into the light of a heavy torch, and a bolt of golden mana flew for my face. Silhouette tackled me from the side, hurling a few dozen tiny gemstones in Wintershimmer’s direction even as she knocked me into the mud. Her void crystal amulet consumed my former mentor’s attack, bringing the deadly magic uncomfortably close to her glistening coat.
A solid ton of cypress struck the muddy ground like lightning, but the makeshift weapon never met wax or flesh. Wintershimmer had disappeared.
“Where is he?” Silhouette asked, laying atop me as her head swiveled. “What’s the plan, Coil?”
“He’s gone, Silhouette.”
“What? He just ran away? Isn’t he supposed to be some sort of perfect unicorn… murder god?”
“Eloquent as ever.” I brushed a hoof to wipe the mud off the left half of my face, and mostly succeeded in smearing the grime around. “Would you mind getting off me? You’re a bit…”
“If you say heavy, I will break your jaw.”
“Sharp,” I hissed out. “Though if we’re being honest, you’re mostly a rock, so being heavy says nothing bad about your figure.” When Silhouette pushed herself to her hooves I was finally able to catch a real breath, though I noted that she refrained from stepping off of looming over top of me. “Wintershimmer was, and remains, an incredibly dangerous archmage. But in that body, his magic is probably as limited as mine is. Maybe even more so.”
“What, like your three spells a day? I thought that was because of the grooves in your horn—”
“The wax body doesn’t hold magic well. Look, I’m sure you’re planning some sort of fun double entendre and that’s why you’re still standing over me, but can we please start walking back to the city?”
Silhouette sighed, and then stepped aside. “The best I could come up with was ‘how’s the view down there?’”
I chuckled as I stood up. “If our roles were reversed, this would be the time for ‘diamond in the rough’, but I didn’t give it much thought. Regarding Wintershimmer, the trick is that producing mana—magical energy—requires both a soul and a living body.”
“Then how does he have any of this mana stuff at all, if he’s stuck in the candlecorn?”
“That’s what he needed the peasants for. Even though their souls aren’t directly connected to their bodies at the moment, because the bodies are still alive, the souls are still able to produce mana. Unfortunately for him, what he’s got are a bunch of ponies who aren’t mages, or Cirran legionaries with weather magic, or whatever. He’s barely getting a trickle of the kind of mana he had in life. That also explains why he really wanted me to use his spell to sever Clover’s soul, instead of trying to duel her in a fair fight.”
“If we kill the Candlecorn body, will that finish him?”
“It depends on how he put his soul into the golem. I doubt he was stupid enough to risk his own existence just to stop my spell. The reason for that is complicated necromancy; I’ll explain it back in town when everypony is together. For now, let me ask you something: you risked your life for me back there. Why?”
“What do you mean? I have the void crystal—”
“That isn’t nearly as strong a protection as you think it is. If Wintershimmer had been in his original body, the spell he hurled would have been strong enough to fly right past your necklace and hit you square in the chest.”
“Well, I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time… ah, screw it. I’m not some doey-eyed innocent filly who’s in love with your perfect flanks, Coil. I felt like I owed you.”
“Owed me?” I blinked twice in confusion before the thought hit me. “You mean when I stood up for you against Jade? In River Rock?”
“Yeah…”
“Apart from the fact that I went out of my way to get you into that situation in the first place? Telling Jade about Gale and… all of that political garbage we got ourselves into.”
“Yeah, you’re really the best pony who ever walked the earth, huh?” Silhouette rolled her eyes. “I’ll be completely honest, Coil. Your personality is a huge turn off. I think you’re an insufferable pain in my flank, and so do probably three quarters of the other ponies who’ve ever met you. But when somepony feels like their life is on the line, like staring down an angry alicorn queen who isn’t known for her sanity… Turns out, being the kind of pony who stands up to that can make up for a whole lot of being a massive prick.”
“Easy there, or you’ll wind up sounding like Gale,” I snapped, almost on instinct. Then I stopped—not just speaking, but even my hooves froze mid-stride. “Thanks, Silhouette.”
“You know how to say ‘thank you’ sincerely?” Silhouette’s feigned astonishment was accompanied by a ‘friendly’ punch to the shoulder which would later leave a sizeable bruise. “The world must be ending.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, if we’ve only got a few hours left to live, you wanna climb up in that tree over there, and—”
“Silhouette, I will throw you through that tree if you finish that thought.”
We stood there silently for a few moments, eyes watching the numerous trees around the copse both for sign of Wintershimmer and to reorient toward Platinum’s Landing. After a few moments of thought, my focus was broken by the sound of crystal scraping against crystal as Silhouette rubbed a hoof against her temple. “You’re the wizard, Coil. Which direction do we go?”
I turned back toward the direction where I had first burst through the trees. “We ran in from there, so I assume that’s where we should start.”
“Is that really all you’ve got? ‘Here’s a direction?’ I was expecting a spell or something.”
“I seanced Vow and used that tree as a club; I have one more, and it will make me pass out.”
“We’ve fought enough times, Coil. I know how to count.”
“Please call me Morty.”
Silhouette cocked her head for a moment, and then shrugged. “Okay, sure. Whatever.”
“Master Coil… would you like the same from me?”
I started to climb my way through the wall of the trees. “Angel, you can use ‘Master Coil’, or ‘Morty’, but don’t ever combine them. ‘Master Morty’ just sounds…”
“I believe I understand. I shall remain with ‘Master Coil’, then.”
Outside, in the swamp, it was still raining. I had spent just enough time in the weird circle of perpetual sunlight within the copse that the chill of the water had become surprisingly unpleasant again. I walked back into the mud and the muck and the mist with clearly visible hesitation. Silhouette said nothing, but she watched me with a hint of schadenfreude as the rain and mud alike washed smoothly off her crystalline coat.
Meandering back through the swamp at a less rapid pace left a great deal of room for paranoia. I watched left and right, keeping my head on a swivel, and occasionally glancing back at Silhouette. We made our way through knee-deep muck and more than a few scratches from twigs that only seemed to affect my fleshy body before she suddenly began to walk closer to me.
“I’m not going to stab you in the back,” she announced.
“What?” I shook my head in a hint of surprise, more that she had spoken than about what she said.
“Don’t act surprised; I know that’s why you keep looking back here. You’re worried I’m gonna try and knock you out or something and take you back to Jade.”
“Well, glad to hear it.” I nodded. “Just gonna shake me down for money?”
“Oh, for… are we honestly going to do this now?”
I wrinkled my nose as the swamp assaulted me with a new and terrible stench. “Well, now I’m honestly curious. Back in Union City, it was easy enough to just write you off as a terrible selfish pony. But you did stand up for me to Wintershimmer, and you aren’t trying to kill me right now.”
Silhouette rolled her eyes. “Maybe you didn’t notice up in Wintershimmer’s private dining room, but there isn’t exactly a lot of money to go around in Union City.”
The claim hit me like one of her gemstone hooves. “Wait… like a famine?”
“No, you idiot, just…” That earned a snort as words failed Silhouette. “You’re a barbarian bastard, right?”
I nodded. “My mother was crystal.”
“Right… well, Jade can pass all the laws she wants, but you can’t take the old ways out of old ponies. More than half the city are ponies who grew up thinking that if you could beat somepony down and take something, that was their right. So I’ve gotta make a better offer if I want the biggest, baddest ponies I can to serve our guard, instead of against it.”
“You’re honestly standing there telling me shaking down everypony in the market was for the greater good?”
“You asked, Coil. Morty. Whatever.” Silhouette hung her head. “I don’t run around pretending to be a hero. I always knew Wintershimmer was trouble, but he was above my pay grade. I like my soul where it is.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m not going to rip out your soul.”
“I know.” Silhouette glanced away, and the mild hesitance in the normally forceful mare got me to stop and turn around. “You might be a total asshole, Morty, but I’m actually not worried you’re gonna turn around and be another Wintershimmer.” Silhouette walked past me, focusing once more on the swamp and our ongoing search for the candlecorns. “Even if it was a stupid accident, I’m glad he’s dead.”
“Me too.”
That answer got Silhouette to turn, eyes slightly widened. “I get that you’re pissed, but wasn’t he basically your family?”
“He’d have to be a pony for that, instead of a monster.” I pulled a hoof up out of the swamp, feeling the strange vacuum of the mud trying to pull it back down, and grimaced as I pushed forward. “For the most part, he let me play hero… probably because he knew he could use it to manipulate me. He usually kept the blatant evil to himself. I think the worst he ever really asked me for was help with research. Remember that poor phoenix?”
“The one that melted a hole through the ceiling and set the bottom of Jade’s wardrobe on fire?” A slight chuckle slipped past Silhouette’s teeth. “What even happened to it?”
“Probably still in a cage in Wintershimmer’s vault. Phoenixes are basically immortal. If I ever get permission to go back, I’ll have to let it out.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Silhouette volunteered. “When I get back to Union City.”
“I wouldn’t try it. The vault isn’t suddenly unlocked and untrapped just because Wintershimmer’s dead. At least, unless you can do your freaky tricks and get in there like you did with my bedroom.”
“A mare doesn’t talk about those sorts of things,” Silhouette answered, batting her eyelids. “Although if you wanted to know a few of my ‘freaky tricks’, you and I and Tempest could—”
“Not in a million years, Silhouette.”
“You sure? He might even be willing to let you be in the middle, and I know how much you love being the center of attention.”
“Silhouette, we can agree that I’m the paragon of the equine form, but I’m afraid you’re just not up to my standards, skintight leather armor or no.”
“Ah yes.” Silhouette held a hoof to her temple. “I forgot. You’d rather slum it with the bandit.”
“You mean the crown princess?”
“I know you’re big on your fairy tales, Morty, so let me remind you that it’s what in the inside that counts.”
“Hmm… You’ve got a point. What counts about you is ‘a collection of assorted cocks’.”
“You used to at least be decent when you insulted me. I see she rubbed off on you.”
“Consider your phrasing. At least I’m deliberate.”