The air was frigid and thin, but agent Sweetie Drops did not stop. She gripped the jagged stone with her hooves, pulling herself upward. Around her was nothing but vast cliffs; the drop downward was at least five hundred meters.
She hauled herself upward to a thin ledge that spiraled upward across the edge of the cliff. Sweetie Drops stepped onto it, and balanced perfectly as she minced forward with precise dexterity. The sword on her back jingled against her gear. She had only taken her coat and sword; carrying anything else at this attitude would be impossible.
According to legend, Lyskymm was an unclimbable mountain. That was why the ancient Pegasi had chosen it; there was no way for the majority of their enemies to climb to the top. Only griffons and some types of eagle could reach the top, and the Pegasi were prepared to deal with either of those.
The legend was not entirely accurate. Seventy years prior, an earth-pony mountaineer had successfully scaled the mountain and had been the first non-Pegasus pony to witness the ancient citadel. He had found it entirely in ruin, with only a few small villages of backward, iodine-deficient ponies dwelling far below in inaccessible regions. Since then, there had been two other successful climbers. All of them had their cutie marks in mountain climbing, and all of them were assisted by small armies of native goats. Sweetie Drops’s cutie mark was in candy, and she was alone.
“Stupid mountain,” she muttered.
Several minutes later, she came to what amounted to a ledge. It extended from the cliff a good distance, and was overgrown with heavy vegetation in the form of gnarled cedars, strange yews, and mountain laurels. Sweetie Drops paused at the edge, opening a candy from her pocket and popping it into her mouth. As she sucked on it, she recalled the map she had memorized. She sighed. Daring Do had explained the location of the nearest village, and it was still a substantial climb.
Fortunately, almost three decades of training had left Sweetie Drops remarkably resistant to fatigue, cold, hunger and pain. She continued onward into the small copse of strange trees.
Her surroundings were remarkably quiet. There were no signs of animals of any sort, but that explanation was still incomplete. The trees themselves would normally have made low rustling just by the wind moving through their needles and leaves- -yet they were silent. It was unnerving, and Sweetie Drops recalled that she was in the native range of the smashing yew. Although her agency had worked long and hard to remove every last specimen from the environment, she was still careful to watch for the telltale branches of a murderous shrub.
There was no shrub. Instead, Sweetie Drops froze as a strange sound pierced though the silence. The caw of a crow.
She jumped back suddenly and stared up at the trees. They had been empty a moment before, but now were filled with hundreds upon hundreds of crows, all sitting in complete silence. Staring. Before Sweetie Drops could react, the crows rushed forward with hundreds of cries. Sweetie Drops shielded her eyes as they pecked at her thick coat and as their talons scratched at her, and the sky disappeared in a plume of black feathers.
The force of the flock knocked her backward, and for a moment she was lost in a tornado of black. Then she felt her hoof fall and fail to touch rock. Her breathing ceased suddenly as her whole body tingled with the heat of fear: they had forced her back over the edge of the cliff.
The birds fell away as she fell, all of them still watching her. Frigid air rushed by as Sweetie Drops tried to right herself, and she stared at the cliff pass by her. Although her speed was increasing, she could feel time slowing; she could see each and every hoofhold she had used to climb as she passed.
Time was of the essence, but Sweetie Drops still took a fraction of a second to make an incredibly rude gesture toward the crows. Then she drew a grappling gun from her coat and fired at an oblique angle. It stuck somewhere near the level of the small wood, and rather than snapping tight the angled line served as a swing. Sweetie Drops twisted her body, riding it upward, until she could once again see trees. Then she released the grappling hook and performed a graceful flip before landing on solid ground once more- -this time with her sword drawn.
The forest had once again gone silent, but this time it felt different. Sweetie Drops could taste it: the flavor of metal and rot. Magic was being used, and it was both powerful and dark.
“Show yourself!” she cried.
Something amongst the dark trunks moved. A large reflective eye became visible as a pony leaned forward. Differentiating him from the darkness of the nearly impenetrable mouontain wood was nearly impossible, and Sweetie Drops assumed that he was a dark color, perhaps black. Strangely, though, she found herself wondering where all the crows had gone.
“You,” she said, rotating her sword slightly on the axis of the blade’s ring-handle. The blade gleamed in the strange mountain light; it was made of a bright metal, and the sides of it were inscribed with strange runes and designs that seemed to glow from within. “Do you know what this is?”
“A vedmak sword,” said a voice from amongst the trees. It sounded deeply unpleasant, although not especially threatening. “I didn’t think there were any vedmaks left.”
“There aren’t. But I’m as close as you’ll ever get to see.”
The eye stared at the sword, and then the head it was attached to turned suddenly to reveal another eye. They were on the sides of his head. Then, after a moment, both rendered on the front. They were large and jaundiced. “So. You think you can fight us?”
“Us?”
Suddenly, at least thirty ponies stepped out from behind various trees. All of them were silent, and all of them were black. Each stared unblinkingly with diseased eyes.
“I’ve fought more.” Sweetie Drops raised the sword. “I like my chances.”
“It is my understanding that your organization specializes in monster abatement.” The black pony spoke with only one voice, confirming what Sweetie Drops already knew. “We are not monsters.”
“No. Monsters don’t generally talk. Or use magic. You’re a mage. A weak one.”
“Really.”
“Really. I’m not really in the mood for fighting, but I will if I have to. You clearly don’t like me, and guess what? I don’t like you. Darn unicorns.”
The expression of the eye did not change. “We would overwhelm you.”
“Stop saying ‘we’. You and I both know that there’s only one of you.”
“You have no idea what it means to define the ‘self’, and how complicated identity can truly become. Or how maddening it is.”
“Nor do I care. I know that this sword is made of hypercrystaline silver. And I know what the runes on it say.”
“‘Confuse the horsesons’, perhaps?”
“Now you’re just mocking me. Guess what? There really are going to be two of you in about half a second.”
“You’re a liar.”
Sweetie Drops was taken aback. “No,” she said. “I really am going to fight you.”
“I don’t care. It’s an excellent sword, but you dirt-horses are all the same. ‘Hit it with a sharp stick, that’ll work’. You’re basically walking meat. Delicious meat…”
“And that makes me a liar how?”
“More of lying by omission I suppose. The elderly sky-Pegasus Daring Do. I believe you told here that your only interest her is in Caballeron. That the Hand of Doom does not concern you. You lied to her.”
“So we have a spy.”
“You have an employer. And I’ll take your evasiveness as a ‘yes’. Because your agency does not only deal with monsters. You’ve sworn an oath to your false god to protect Equestria from any aberrant incidents.”
“If you mean I serve Celestia, then yes. And if you want me to be fully honest, too, I might as well be. Yes. Caballeron can’t be allowed to get his dirty hooves on it. But neither can Daring Do. To what? Give it to a museum? To researchers?” She shook her head. “If she’s right, it has the power to change fate itself. No pony in Equestria should have that power.”
“Except the false-god, perhaps? Nevermind. So what. Do you intend to destroy it?”
“If I can.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then the agency will contain it.”
“That is a deadly oversight,” hissed the mage. “You do not have the level of sophistication to contain it. Your tiny brains evolved enough to let you farm, but never got much farther. If the Hand of Doom remains in Equestria, all pony life will be at risk.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?”
“I was just making sure. You are a dirt-horse after all. And for the sake of clarity, it doesn’t ‘change fate’. But I suppose I can’t blame the elderly one for a poor translation. The ponies of Exmoor made the same mistake. Or nearly did.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the Exmoori had two words for death. One translates to ‘Forever-Sleep’. The other does not translate completely into your ridiculously overwrought, spastic language. But it has much more horrific connotations. One translation is ‘doom.’ As in the Hand of Doom.”
“Yeah, I know. I got that.”
“I have an alternative.”
“No. I don’t make deals with mages.”
The black stallion shrugged. “Fine.”
Sweetie Drops raised an eyebrow. She was actually somewhat confused; she had expected him to try harder.
“Fine?”
“The deal would have been a formality. But I already know your motives. They don’t align with mine. But they’re close enough that there’s common ground.” The black pony stepped forward. He was, in fact, a unicorn. “Do not let Daring Do take the Hand. But, likewise- -and more importantly- -do not allow the Questlords of Inverness to acquire it either.”
“Don’t give me orders.”
“Why? You are genetically inferior. It’s your job to serve me. You do not have the mental capacity to do anything else.” A toothless smile crossed his face. “Even if you can’t comprehend that fact.”
His body suddenly burst, hemorrhaging crows from every direction. They rose in a great plume, cawing and screaming as they poured from the forest into the frigid air, circling and twisting as they ascended the mountain unhindered.
Sweetie Drops watched them go, and waited a long time before she sheathed her blade. Then she continued on her climb. “Stupid mountain,” she grumbled. “Stupid, stupid, moronic mountain.”