XLVII
A Parlour Scene in a Prison Cell
or
'If I Didn't Do It: Confessions of an Innocent Necromancer'

The first thing I noticed was a warmth against my side. I take note of this, in retrospect, because when I had previously lost consciousness I no longer had that part of my side to feel warmth in.

“I’m curious, what made you think of using Philomena?” Celestia’s intense interest made me perk my ears.

“I know what a phoenix is. Your fire seemed to worry him, his body was literally a fucking candle, and I was desperate at that point. Sorry I couldn’t come up with something better.”

“I wasn’t doubting you, Gale. I was more curious if you had been sitting on the idea the entire time we were down in that room, or if it occurred to you when we discussed using fire, or perhaps if she just happened to be in your line of sight when Wintershimmer knocked you over.” Celestia chuckled. “But it seems your hero has finally recovered from his wounds.”

“What? No, he—” Gale let the words die when I started to lift my head. I promptly regretted the decision from a throbbing pain in my skull, and set my chin back down on my forehooves, where it had apparently been lying.

Gale—the source of the warmth against my side—slid a foreleg over my shoulders and squeezed gently. The embrace was just soft enough not to further exacerbate the dull throbbing that I slowly realized was in my entire body and not just my head. “You’re awake.” She smiled, though she controlled her tongue. “How are you doing?”

Celestia stepped forward into my vision, and what I saw utterly shocked me. In place of a flowing, ethereal mane of pure magic, the hair on her head was pink and hung down rather mundanely around her neck. I saw rings under her eyes, and there was a certain slowness to her motions—not arthritic, but certainly resembling the effects of age. Wintershimmer’s phoenix was perched on her shoulder, watching me with distrust.

“It’s to be expected; you had to regrow an awful lot of your organs. I’m glad you’re still with us, Morty.”

Celestia looked down at herself in momentary confusion, and then chuckled and smiled. “Oh, this? Well, as you probably already know, unicorn magic can’t heal wounds. You’d need earth pony magic for that. Normally, an earth pony can’t actually use their magic on other ponies the way a unicorn can. But as an alicorn, I can send my earth pony magic through my horn to heal others. But doing that is… well, it’s taxing. I just need a day or two to get my hooves under me and I’ll be back to windswept beauty and reminding everypony not to call me a goddess.”

I chuckled, and even managed not to regret it. “So what happened after I passed out? Where…” Finally finding the sense of awareness to glance around the room, I realized the question was useless. I recognized the chamber altogether well; I could even see the manacles that had held my forehooves as Silhouette bludgeoned me before my scheduled hanging.

“Jade found us,” Gale explained. “We’re pretty well fucked. There wasn’t exactly a lot of Wintershimmer left to prove what happened. A puddle of burnt wax is shitty evidence.”

Celestia sighed. “Gale, you’re free to be whatever kind of mare you want, but I don’t think you need to worry about Morty starting to act like your suitors back in Everfree City if you leave off just a little bit of the swearing.”

“What did Queen Jade say? Is she going to try and hang you two, or just me?”

“She’s summoned the Triumvirate here,” Celestia answered. “I think she intends to demand reparations for our actions under a threat of war.”

“Right. Politics.” I took a deep breath. “She didn’t put rings on our horns or anything. Interesting.”

“If we run, she declares war.” Gale rolled her eyes. “How about we don’t talk about politics. Wintershimmer’s still out there, right? Somewhere?”

“I’m afraid so, though I don’t know where. Morty’s guess is most likely better than mine.”

I shrugged, as much as one can while laying on their belly on the floor. “The room was literally magically sealed. So he can’t have even been controlling the candlecorn from outside that vault.”

I shook my head, and this time only marginally regretted it. “No. He’s not the kind to take a risk like that, and if he were, the fire from Celestia and the phoenix—”

The bird cooed, and nuzzled against Celestia’s neck. “It seems she likes me. I was planning on taking her back to Everfree City, at least until she’s had enough time to recover from being in that cage that she can return to the wilds.”

I waved my hoof before the bird in question could remember how often I’d stuck it with tiny needles. “In any case, the fire wasn’t controlled. It would have incinerated his physical body if it were in the room.”

“So it can’t be in the room, and it also can’t be out of the room?” Gale groaned. “This wizard shit… stuff is ridiculous.”

“I’m not sure I follow your logic, Morty, but Gale is right.” Celestia frowned. “You seem to have eliminated all possibilities.”

“I know. Which means I’m approaching the problem from the wrong direction. What other information did we get from the duel that we didn’t have before?”

Celestia briefly wrinkled her muzzle. “He could have at least told me I had a charming personality. And even then, I’m afraid he just isn’t my type.” It took me a disappointingly long time to recognize the alicorn had made a joke, and the laughter that followed died fairly quickly to the throbbing in my head. “I’m glad you appreciate my sense of humor, Morty. Most often, Luna just glares at me.”

“I much prefer your sense of humor. Then again, I’d also prefer having a rusty nail driven through the frog of my hoof to her sense of humor.”

Celestia chuckled with a sigh. “You might be surprised. She can be quite clever in dreams, especially with little foals. She loves to put on puppet shows for them.”

“I can see that.” Celestia quirked a brow. “She does seem like the kind of pony who’d enjoy having her hoof up somepony else’s ass.”

Unlike her ‘aunt’, Gale burst into laughter. I smiled back at Celestia’s stern frown as the joke slowly died away.

“No matter your disagreements with my sister, we should be focusing on how to prove your story to Jade.”

I nodded. “I already knew Wintershimmer wanted immortality. Or at least a new body. It makes sense that he would pursue an alicorn body if it were available, but for the moment he’s likely running out of time for a first choice. We’ve denied him a workshop to mount Vow’s horn on Silhouette’s body. It’s been a few months since I killed him, and…”

After a moment of silence, Gale tapped me on the shoulder. “Morty, it is annoying as fuck when you trail off mid-thought. You might think it makes you seem like a genius, but—”

“I’m still thinking,” I interrupted. “Sorry. I’ll try to explain. Please don’t interrupt. A few months…”

Celestia sat down and cocked her head. Gale continued to hold me by my shoulders, one eyebrow raised in interest and confusion.

“Celestia, you said your endura—your earth pony magic—would heal up to the point of regeneration? The alicorn magic was only necessary to apply that healing to somepony else instead of your own body. Is that absolutely accurate? You’re sure?”

“It took more mana than any natural born earth pony could produce in less than a few years, but that is an accurate summary.”

I sat upright and the world shifted around me, but I ignored the disorientation by steepling my hooves and closing my eyes. “Silhouette was never his intended body.”

I shook my head. “Still thinking. Sorry… well, not really. Shut up. Wintershimmer needed a new body before he died of old age. But normally, if he ripped out somepony’s soul and let it whisk off to the Summer Lands, Celestia, you or Luna would have judged that soul. That’s why you were so shocked when I told you he was dead, back in River Rock.”

“You’re thinking he used the Summer Lands ritual to change bodies?” Celestia asked.

“You’re both very bad at the ‘not interrupting’ part, you know that?” The rather bitter comment earned me a few moments of silence. “I think the real point of the Summer Lands ritual was to hide the bodies. Metaphorically. Hid the souls… The point was to hide that he’d murdered anypony. He could have...” I felt my eyes shoot open. “I can prove it now.”

I stood up, and Gale and Celestia both watched me in confusion as I walked over to the door of the cell. “Excuse me. Guard.”

“Side Effect.” I heard Gale scoff over my shoulder and glanced back. “Yes, really.”

“Screw you, Coil.” The fleshy unicorn mare on the other side of the tiny barred window turned back toward her post.

“She’ll be down to execute you after she talks to the Equestrians. Go back to talking to your goddess and your fillyfriend.”

“Getting famous isn’t worth a war,” I lied. Well, perhaps ‘lied’ is misleading too. I absolutely believe those words. The implication that I was behind Wintershimmer’s actions with the motive of fame was the implicit lie. Hopefully, you’re following along with that. If not, I am very sorry for the confusion you are about to endure as I explain Wintershimmer’s plan without a surplus of ellipses, em-dashes, and incessant interruptions. Continuing with Side Effect, I leaned my head as close to the door as I could get it with a horn in the way. “Jade doesn’t need to get the Equestrians involved. I’ll tell her everything.”

“Stopping a war,” I yelled back before returning to the window. “Can you take me to her? You can put a ring on my horn if you want.”

Side Effect chuckled. “We already know that doesn’t work on you, Coil. But Queen Jade did have a better idea while we were chasing after you.”

Jade’s ‘better idea’ was essentially a full bridle made of iron bands and decorated with void crystals. In some sense it was genius. I certainly couldn’t escape it by looping a noose around my horn and letting the weight free my horn. On the other hoof, it was a violent and brutal assault on everything good and aesthetically pleasing in the world.

In addition to the throbbing in my whole body from the healing Celestia had given me, and the stinging of the void crystals voraciously eating my magic, I was somewhat liberally bludgeoned by Side Effect and Iconoclast as they marched me up to see Jade. The latter had actually abandoned his post for the chance to help the ‘urgent’ duty of escorting me, though I doubted the front doors of the palace were in any kind of risk of a sudden attack regardless.

“You killed Commander Silhouette,” Iconocolast announced before landing a blow on the right side of my brow. “I’m gonna ask Jade if I can kill you myself.” The crystalline hoof of the bulky soldier actually cut my flesh, if the wet feeling on my cheek was anything to go by.

I tried my best to hold my head high and walk toward Jade’s doors as the landed a few final blows. “I didn’t kill her.”

“Liar!” Iconoclast slammed me, horn first, against the door. It proved surprisingly wall-like, and I felt the enamel on the tip of my horn crack. “Admit it! You killed her!”

“It is my fault,” I muttered through the pain. I got another blow to the cheek, which I didn’t see coming in the pain of the previous hit. “I didn’t… do it myself. But she saved me.”

Iconoclast spit on the floor. “Yeah, and I’m the King of Equestria.” He landed an uppercut on my chin just as Jade’s door opened.

“Who taught you to knock? There’s no call for that force, and—” Queen Jade’s tirade stopped abruptly when she saw me lying on the floor. “Why is that traitor here?”

“He killed Commander Silhouette!” Iconoclast shouted, hoping his pride in the crystal army would earn some praise from the Queen.

Her glare severely disappointed him. “Treasonous roach or not, the Equestrians will not be happy to see him in this state when I deal with them. Both of you, get back to your stations now.” As Side Effect and Iconoclast limped away, Jade held the door for me.

Jade’s private quarters were relatively Nimban—a lost pegasus city state that I only know of by virtue of its use as an adjective for sparseness of comfort. She had a sizeable bed befitting her alicorn stature, a single desk, a shelf, and two seating cushions. I took the closer more by virtue of the need to collapse than any particular preference of their locations or colors.

Smart Cookie lay on her bed. Judging by the mass of blankets beside it, she’d been sleeping on the floor beside her comatose husband.

I opened my mouth to reply and let out a harsh cough of pain instead. She slowly closed the door, and then walked to the other cushion, all without removing her gaze from my face. Only when she sat did I finally find words.

“Morty, please.” I coughed again and pushed myself upright, or some loose approximation of the term. “I told Side Effect that because I needed to talk to you, but I didn’t do it.”

“And I can prove it,” I interrupted. Jade froze. “This time, honestly, I can. Because I understand why.”

“Why should I listen to a word you have to say? My every interaction with you has ended in some… arcane trick.”

“I can’t take this thing off,” I answered, gesturing to the bridle actively eating my mana. “But if you want the better answer, it’s because I can heal Smart Cookie.”

Jade’s wing flared. Literally, with tongues of green fire. “You think you can tempt me? Appealing to him won’t save you!”

“I’m serious.” I pointed a shaky hoof, bruised at the shoulder, in her direction. “You can even do the magic. Nothing from me. Nothing at all. And if I’m wrong, you can kill me.”

“I mean, I would prefer if you didn’t. But at this point, I physically can’t stop you. If I’m wrong here, Wintershimmer beat me, and that’s it.”

Jade’s eyes narrowed. “How do I know you can’t cast magic through that? You’ve teleported away from a ring before.”

I sighed, smiled, and proceeded to violate the one rule that defines the practice of magic.

“When I was standing on the platform, Jade, I wound the noose around the ring on my horn. When my horn started sparking, I was casting a teleportation spell that the ring was eating. I was hoping you’d pull the lever before I ran out of magic, and you did. The noose yanked off the ring before it pulled tight around my neck, and with the ring off, the spell I had been actively casting the whole time finally went off.” I sighed again. “I can’t cast through a void ring. I just weigh enough to rip one off.”

“Legerdemain,” I answered. “Prestidigitation. Street magic. Nopony, except maybe Celstia and Luna, can overpower a void crystal ring. So whatever this… hideous bridle thing is supposed to be, I literally cannot escape it.”

She regarded me with confusion. “You truly believe you can heal Smart Cookie?”

I tried to smile, though with the developing bruise on my cheek, it ended as a sort of lopsided grimace. “I’m not a healer, Jade. I’m a necromancer. But in this case I can help. And I can prove my innocence in the same spell.”

She was quiet for a long moment, and I finally felt the need to speak up. “It’s the kind of dead I can fix. Seance him.”

Jade blinked only once before her mind caught up to her ears. Her horn flared to life, and brilliant green flame spun a circle on the floor of her chamber. The process was slow, and frankly unrefined, but what bothered me was the niggling doubt that I’d overlooked something, and that somehow, I was about to die. I calmly closed my eyes and took a single deep breath.

“Cookie…” When I opened my eyes, Jade was crying. “Cookie, what happened to you?”

“I don’t know.” The soul in the middle of Jade’s fire was in almost every way the exact body I’d seen for years laying in Wintershimmer’s laboratory. In fact, the only difference of note was that the earth pony diplomat pictured himself wearing a sort of conical hat and a vest. “Jade… why am I here? Why call me back?”

“Perhaps I can shed some light on that,” I offered, as chipper as I could for having been beaten to a pulp by the Union’s finest.

“No. You died during the incident with Solemn Vow in Equestria, and I was the ripe old age of negative one. However, I’ve watched over your arguably dead body for the last twenty years.”

“Twenty years? No, that can’t be right. I only died just a few months ago, right?”

I grinned. “Excellent.” At Jade’s glare, I shook my head. “It’s excellent that my theory was correct, I mean. Before I explain, Your Majesty, can you get this thing off my face? The void crystal is starting to sting, and I will need all my magic to revive him.”

Jade’s glittering face tensed for a moment, but she gave me a curt nod and approached. A moment later, one of the innumerable sources of pain wracking my body finally departed. Jade set the hideous bridle aside and returned to Smart Cookie’s side.

That is, the ‘up and about’ ghost of Smart Cookie’s side. His body, or perhaps his corpse, still lay on her bed. He hadn’t seemed to notice it.

Now at least remotely capable of a presentable appearance, I adjusted the cuffs of the shirt I was wearing under my somewhat damaged and severely singed blue vest. “First, I should introduce myself. Mortal Coil—yes, really—though you can call me ‘Morty’. I was formerly Wintershimmer’s apprentice, though you can thank me for killing him.”

“He killed you,” I told Cookie. That got a bit of silence out of him, and Jade’s eyes widened. “You could always trust Wintershimmer to kill two birds with one stone. Or in this case, two ponies. Namely, yourself and Solemn Vow, my predecessor. I’ll let Queen Jade answer all your questions about the twenty years you’ve missed and the fallout of the attack which supposedly killed you, but first I have to fully explain what happened between Wintershimmer and I, so she understands that I didn’t have any willing part in this whole business. And then I’ll get you back in your body.”

“And I’m a necromancer. I should mention, though, that your body isn’t actually dead. And that is where my explanation for Jade comes along.”

“Queen Jade,” Smart Cookie corrected. “She’s still your sovreign, Morty, no matter how helpful you might be.”

I rolled my eyes at the ghost. “Look… Advisor or whatever your title is. I’m not a Union Citizen anymore. I was convicted of treason, and Jade hung me.”

“And now Equestria’s political delegation is on their way here, right now, to negotiate my execution in exchange for avoiding a war. So there’s an upside, Cookie: you’ll get to see all your old friends. Now, since I’ve outlined all the times you’ve tried to have me killed, Jade, let me be very clear about why you should stop.” I braced myself and nodded to Cookie’s body. “I could not have had anything to do with his death because Wintershimmer killed him before I was even born.”

“Wintershimmer?” Cookie asked. “The last thing I remember was the door creaking open. I thought it was one of those monsters plaguing Everfree City.”

“That was what Wintershimmer wanted everypony to think,” I explained. “Let me start at the beginning and this should hopefully all make sense. Twenty years ago, Solemn Vow was a warlock, which means he took control of evil spirits and used them for his own magic.”

I nodded. “Excellent information retention there. Yes, that’s what I just said. Now, Wintershimmer concluded Vow was responsible, and he saw an opening. Whatever happened in Everfree City would be blamed on Vow. To ensure there was an attack, Wintershimmer told Commander Typhoon what he knew about Vow. He also made sure that Vow knew that he had that meeting.”

I backpedaled slightly. “I needed answers. I’ve been trying to prove my innocence against this entire scheme Wintershimmer’s been running since the day you tried to hang me, and nopony else seemed inclined to be honest with me. Besides, it was just a seance. Words only.”

Cookie tried to pat his wife on the back. His ethereal hoof went straight through her, but as I understand, it’s the thought that counts. “Alright… Jade, dear, let’s at least hear him out.”

“Thank you.” I gave the dead stallion a slight nod. “Vow did the only thing he could think of. He attacked Wintershimmer. What he did not do was attack either of you.”

“What?” Jade asked, glancing back at the jagged scar where most of one of her wings should have been. “You mean Wintershimmer is responsible for what happened to us?”

“Almost certainly,” I answered. “Wintershimmer left a candlecorn behind to be apparently killed by Vow’s spirits, ripped out Smart Cookie’s soul, and then… what, blew up your bedroom or something? Whatever happened that night.”

“The ceiling collapsed,” Jade acknowledged. “So you’re saying all of that was Wintershimmer’s doing? To gain influence over me, like you said in River Rock? With his claims that Star Swirl was spying on us, and Hurricane was planning some final war to wipe us out?”

Again, I gave a brief nod. “That’s true, yes. But there’s another reason. You see, Wintershimmer was desperately searching for a way to live forever. While not immortal, an earth pony’s body lives a great deal longer than a unicorn. And as you likely know, the original evil spell he devised to get kicked out of River Rock by Star Swirl and King Lapis was a method for attaching a horn to an earth pony’s body.”

“My body?” Cookie asked, on the verge of shouting. When I nodded, he fell backwards onto his tail in shock. “Wintershimmer wanted…”

“That’s why he maintained the illusion that Cookie was in a coma all these years, instead of killing him outright in Everfree. Wintershimmer needed time to train up a new apprentice to help in his ritual, and he needed a new horn. And there was one last thing he needed.”

“A way to get a dead soul into the Summer Lands without it being judged by Celestia and Luna. That was the crucial factor in his ritual. If you had tried to seance Cookie a few months ago, you would have failed. Wintershimmer had his soul stored somewhere, probably in a gem or an enchanted container. He only released Cookie into the Summer Lands once he knew that doing so would not give away his plot.”

Jade sighed, running a crystalline wing along her jagged stone brow. It took some time of sitting there before, she finally looked straight into my eyes. “I believe that you could not have killed Cookie, Coil.”

“Yes. You have convinced me of that. But if all this is true, why was Wintershimmer so resolute that I blame you for his death? Was his plan for me to kill you?”

“Personally, I’m betting that he didn’t care. If I survived and escaped, he could try and use me to kill Clover the Clever. That would give him a horn worth of a mage to use, and I would be the one accused of her murder when Star Swirl came calling. But regardless, the most important part of his plan was eliminating me.”

Jade frowned. “In River Rock, you claimed that he wanted you to die for revenge.”

“At the time, I thought so too,” I agreed. “But Wintershimmer was never that petty or emotional. Revenge was a convenient excuse for a motivation so nopony would question his real reasoning.”

“I am the only other pony in the entire world, alive or dead, who knows how to open the Summer Lands.”

“He was afraid you would use that knowledge to reveal his plan?” Cookie pressed. “That you were the missing link in proving his role in this whole plot?”

I frowned, glancing over my shoulder at the doors of the room. “I need you both to promise not to tell Celestia. Or Gale.”

Cookie choked. “Wait… Celestia? You mean the goddess? When you said he was worried about my soul being judged, I thought you were being religious, not… serious.”

I nodded. “I don’t know if she is a goddess in the literal sense, but the immortal alicorn who raises the sun is currently in your dungeons.”

“I’ll let her go,” Jade answered sternly. “It was a misunderstanding.”

Cookie slowly raised his ethereal hooves tapped them together twice, and promptly slammed both into his face. “But he… and she… and the whining… How?”

“Regarding your request, Co— Morty, yes, I give you my word. You’ve earned that much.” Jade gave me a nod of deference. Why else did he need to ensure I exiled or killed you?”

“A very specific nowhere,” I replied. “But that’s my problem to deal with now. Jade, are you satisfied enough to pardon me? If so, you can let go of Smart Cookie’s soul, and we’ll head downstairs and fit him into something more… tangible.”

Jade frowned for a moment, not in displeasure but instead in quiet thought. At last, she lifted her head. “You’ve just proven you didn’t do anything I accused you of. What do you need a pardon for?”

“You know, that’s a good point. Alright. Cookie, we’ll see you in a moment. Jade, let go of the spell. He’ll go back to the Summer Lands for a moment, and restoring him will be a lot safer for his soul if I’m the one holding the seance.” After Jade released the magic from her horn, I stood up. “Binding a soul back into a body in a way that’s meant to be permanent is a time-consuming process. I’m going to need a few things.”

I nodded. “Good. Somewhere in the palace, there’s a maid that Wintershimmer rendered completely mute. I’ll need you to find her. Have somepony let Celestia and Gale out of the cell. My room and Wintershimmer’s should be fine, like you originally planned. Make sure to tell Gale about the trick lock.”

“Nevermind. I’ll explain it myself.” I stepped out the door of Jade’s bedchamber and braced myself against the doorframe as my bruised legs threatened to give way. “Have the palace chefs prepare a platter of whatever fruit is fresh and a buttercream cake and send it down to Wintershimmer’s… well, I guess to my lab.”

Jade frowned. “I understand I offered you anything, but I wasn’t volunteering to be your personal hoofmaiden. I meant more in the vein of magical supplies, not some feast for your friends.”

“The cake’s just for me,” I replied. “I recently regrew most of my waistline, and my new stomach is telling me that took a lot of energy. I will be needing magical supplies, Your Majesty, but I don’t trust you to pick them out.”

Jade glared, and I found I had grown rather callous to the once-formidable expression.

“Once you’ve let the staff know what I need, you can join me. But bring a book. This kind of magic isn’t as interesting as you’d think.” With that parting comment, I limped my way down the halls of the crystal spire and back to my old, familiar stomping grounds.

A Beginner's Guide to Heroism

by LoyalLiar

XLVII - A Parlour Scene in a Prison Cell