//------------------------------// // Leave None Behind // Story: Not a Word // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// The front doors of the house loomed before Lock like the gaping maw of some fanged beast, even though they weren’t even that large. She’d never imagined a simple, ordinary doorframe could look so… toothy. And she was plunging headlong into this monster. Lock swallowed and re-entered the house, ready to be chewed up and spat back out again. At least she had a plan. A risky plan. An outline of a risky plan. Part of an outline of a risky plan. Part of an outline of a risky plan that could easily — and probably would — get her killed. But it was a plan. That was better than nothing, right? Right? Lock immediately turned left and found the stairwell she was looking for, the one that she’d climbed to the servants’ floor what felt like ages ago. She should’ve known better. She’d barely set her hoof on the first step when she heard voices coming down. She shuffled back out, plastered herself against the wall, and listened. Time was of the essence, but Lock couldn’t help herself. “-eed more ponies looking. What if the thief comes back?” “Look, she’ll want to save her own skin. What kind of idiot would go back into a house where everyone’s looking for them?” Lock had long heard that the line between bravery and idiocy was a very, very thin one, but now she was beginning to suspect there was no such line and instead quite a bit of overlap. “I’m sorry, but did you see what she did to Diphylla?” “That was luck and desperation, not skill. She ran. She’s never coming back here.” “And what if-” Deciding not to push her luck any more, Lock stopped listening. How intently were the ponies in the house looking for her? It didn’t sound like they were spread out. They’d be surprised she was still in the house. (She was surprised she was still in the house.) But there were only so many ways to the upper floors and it was natural that ponies would congregate near them. She needed to get to the fourth floor, a way that nopony else would use, and even assuming the dumbwaiter didn’t make noise, she herself had disabled it by breaking that ge- The lightwell. Where was that in relation to this? In… the middle of the house. Keeping her ears up, Lock walked deeper into the house, barely even trying for stealth. She didn’t hear anypony, which was a blessing. A small one, but she’d take all the help she could get. Maybe they were all up on another floor. As that one pony had said, there was no way she was coming back, right? The layout of the house was confusing, but Lock managed to make it to the lightwell without running into anypony. She opened up a window, climbed in, and closed it behind her. She looked up; the shaft seemed narrower than it had been the first time around. Whatever. Lock crouched in a corner, got a grip, and leaped up to the second story. She kicked off the wall to give herself just enough extra lift to grab onto a third-floor windowsill on a perpendicular wall. Her bad hoof twinged, but she managed. Her hooves scrabbled on the wall for a moment before she pulled herself into the frame and jumped straight up enough to reach the fourth floor. Not bad. Wiggling the window open was a matter of seconds, and then she was inside. No servants about. They were probably running around on the lower floors, doing a lot of butt-covering. Still, Lock kept her ears roving, listening, hearing nothing. After a few minutes of orientation, Lock made her way back to the first stairwell and the storage room next to it. Specifically, the spare lamp oil inside said room. It was all bottled up in neat little easily-opened ceramic casks, complete with pairs tied together with ropes to be slung over the trunk. Lock took three such pairs; she had no idea of how much oil she’d need, but she couldn’t take too much without slowing herself down. She poked her head into the stairwell. Voices drifted up, but they were vague, distant. Taking yet another chance, Lock skipped down the stairs as best she could without letting the jars clink together. Third floor: nothing. Second floor: something, but not enough something to worry about. Lock scampered down the balcony in the entry hall and back into the house proper. The voices Lock had heard were a little bit louder, but still muffled. Not anywhere near her. Lock skittered to the library and quickly shut the door behind her. For the first time, she realized how much her heart was racing. She leaned against the door, slowly sliding down it, and laid a hoof on her chest. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out… Unfortunately, with calm came common sense: she was very, very, very, very, very lucky. What was she thinking? She was just walking through the place when everypony was on the alert. Regardless of what she told herself, the fact that she hadn’t run into anypony was pure chance. They were out and about and alert and she hadn’t even thought of what she’d done if she’d met one of them. You could always punch them. It’s seemed to work so far. Right. “Punch them.” Great plan. If it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid. Otherwise, breaking into houses during the middle of dinner would’ve been stupid. It kinda was… Still. She was here. Her plan had gone well so far. Now for the “fun” part. She went to the relevant bookcase and pulled it open as slowly and quietly as she could. The voices were louder, coming down the secret passage. They might’ve seemed louder because of the way they echoed, but Lock thought that making noise now and hoping to not get heard would be pushing what remained of her luck a bit too far. A hasty look around the room, and Lock quickly picked out several of the oldest, most menacing, evillest-looking books she could find. Evidence for the Royal Guard once she was out. Then she lifted one of the casks and slathered a shelf with oil. As she upended another jar, Lock cringed. She didn’t have any particular love for books, but burning them was one of those things done only by crazies and dystopia-supporters. Even though most of these books were on black magic, it just felt… wrong. Freedom of speech and the press and information and all that. But desperate times. She needed a distraction. A burning library was certainly distracting. Lock kept praying the family wouldn’t hear her. The passage to the storeroom was right there. All it would take was one pony, just one, to open the door and head inside… But Lock managed to stay quiet as she doused the place. Once everything except herself was decently wet, she listened at the door to the library. Silence. She looked outside. Nopony. Lock laid her last two jars just outside the door and trotted to the nearest lamp. Why was it, when she was being careful and sneaking around, she got found out, yet when she was nearly scrambling around with minimal caution, she didn’t run into anypony? Come to think of it, how many ponies were in this house? A lot of the bedrooms on the top floor had been empty. There might not be that many in the first place. And if they were all trying to get the ritual done on the off chance she hadn’t cut and run… Lock delicately lifted the still-burning lamp off its hanging. She turned it over and cringed. If this went wrong, she was pretty much screwed. But she didn’t have much of a choice. She tossed the lamp at the puddle of oil seeping out from the secret room. The lamp shattered and the oil went up immediately. It’d be nice to watch, but Lock turned and ran the second the fire caught. She took the long way around, galloping the perimeter of the house. Going straight to the ritual chamber was asking for even more trouble than she was already in. No ponies. Maybe they were all working on the ritual. After a solid thirty seconds of running, Lock skittered to a halt at a certain corner. Other voices were yelling frantically, cursing. She peeked around the corner; ponies were scrambling in and out of the ritual chamber, some of them screaming for water. Well, at least the distraction was working. Lock settled in, waiting for the traffic to stop. Or at least for the unicorn to be taken out. With a victim already chosen, Lock didn’t think even these ponies would risk throwing her away and having to kidnap somepony in Canterlot. Once ponies had stopped streaming out of the room, with no sign of the unicorn, Lock waited another thirty seconds, sidled around the corner, and nudged open the door to the chamber. Two big, stocky ponies were still standing guard, pressed against the wall opposite the secret door. A few wisps of barely-visible smoke were leaking from invisible cracks in the wall. And although it was hard to see from Lock’s angle, the unicorn was on the table, her chest shallowly moving in and out. The statuette Lock had seen earlier was sitting at the head of the table, its eyes glowing a writhing red. One shot. Lock twisted her hoof around her bag’s drawstrings, threw the door open, and charged. She swung the bag at the nearest guard, smashing him on the head before he realized the door had been thrown open. He crumpled like a doll. The other guard actually managed to get a brief look at Lock before receiving a faceful of plundersack. She fell the same way. Lock didn’t spare them a glance before moving to the unicorn. She cringed. More runes, deeper and more angular and more numerous than before, had been carved into the unicorn’s body, making her look like an equine chalkboard. One of her front legs was twisted at a strange angle and she didn’t seem to be as aware as before. But she was still breathing regularly, if shallowly. Lock stuffed the focus statuette in her bag, for evidence; the moment she touched it, it felt like needles were crawling up her veins. She flinched, shook her hoof once she released the focus, and lightly slapped the unicorn in the face. “Hey. You awake?” The unicorn blinked blearily up at her. She tried to say something, but her mouth was sealed shut again. She nodded. “Right,” said Lock. “Now hold still.” She cut through the runes again, the unicorn moaning quietly with each slice. She jiggled the nullifier ring open again and hoisted the unicorn’s bad leg across her withers. Lock was uncomfortably aware of how warm and wet the unicorn’s coat was. “We’re going to need to move fast,” she said. “Sorry if I drop you.” She exited the room and began walking down the hallway away from the library, letting the unicorn lean heavily on her. Not a pony was in sight, although she could hear them well enough. “You… You came back?” the unicorn whispered. It sounded like that was all she could manage. “Right thing to do,” said Lock, pre-empting her conscience. The unicorn laughed weakly. “S-said the thief.” “Hey, I only steal from ponies who can afford it.” It’s still stealing. Lock brushed the thought away and listened. Yelling echoed through the hallway and she could hear the cracking of wood. The fire was growing. “What… did you… do?” “Set all their black magic books on fire. And, by now, a lot of their other books.” “Heh. Good r-riddance.” Lock pushed a door open. It was the two-level living room they’d run through… less than fifteen minutes ago. Wow. Thankfully, it was now completely empty. She plodded towards the staircase down. “H-hang on…” The unicorn lifted up her head enough to look around. “This…” “I know where to go from here,” Lock said, sounding more confident than she felt. “And my preferred path is about to go up in smoke.” “Heh. Boooo.” The two of them stumbled down the steps with some difficulty. Lock sniffed; the air was still clear. Did smoke get carried up by the rising air? Or did it sink to the floor? She remembered something from when she was young about staying down if you were caught in a burning building. How fast did fire spread, anyway? So, since this was a floor down, they were safe, for now. Still no ponies. “You feel fine? Mentally, I mean,” Lock said as they shuffled across the room to the door. “N-not really,” the unicorn mumbled. “I mean, I-” “Is it magically-induced not-fineness?” “No.” “Good.” Lock shoved the door open, looked left (nopony), looked right (nopony), and went left, praying she was getting the layout right. “I’m not fine, too.” “…You? Y-you’re saving my life! How-” Lock took the first right. The long, paneled hallway looked promising. “If I hadn’t decided to rescue you the first time-” You wouldn’t be able to sleep. “-I’d be home right now with over a million bits in loot.” “…A m-million.” The unicorn giggled. “I gotta become a burglar.” “And get lucky. And a fence. And some lockpicks.” They kept shuffling. Lock kept talking. It was a way to make the situation seem less dire to herself, and probably to the unicorn as well. And the unicorn really needed a psychological pick-me-up. “Speaking of getting lucky, why’d they take so long to get the ritual going? I’d’ve thought they’d have started it as soon as possible to prevent something like this from happening.” “They did. Y-you know the stuff we threw out? K-kinda important.” The unicorn giggled again. Lock suspected it was less humor and more schadenfreude. “They had to c-completely rework everything and, and, and even pick a l-less potent one. I think. F-from what I heard. They weren’t even c-close to starting.” Which meant Lock could’ve probably gone straight for the Royal Guard, but whatever. She didn’t dwell on the past. Now, she was getting the unicorn out. Now, she was limping through an unfamiliar mansion that was slowly catching fire. The past couldn’t kill her. Now could. When they reached the end of the hallway, Lock was granted the greatest sight since she’d first seen her cutie mark: the entrance hall, completely empty. The fire was really diverting. She sniffed. The air was still clear. “Almost there,” she said. “Can you pick up the pace a little?” “I c-can try.” And whether it was the suggestion or the sight of the hall itself that acted as a kick in the rear, the unicorn’s pace did speed up a little. They crossed the hall. Lock shoved open the door. A cobblestoned path stretched before them, pointing straight to the exit. Almost there. Lock lifted herself up. The unicorn, however, nearly collapsed. “Th-the gate-” “Is unlocked. Already covered it. Move.” A pause. The unicorn didn’t say anything, but chuckled a little and stood a touch higher again. They made it halfway down the path without incident. Lock glanced over her shoulder. Flames were leaping high from the house, curling up into the night, and a crowd was already forming outside the fence. Even as she watched, a pony pulled a sirens-blaring fire engine up. Good. She dug her hooves in a little bit more. “You still doing alright?” she asked the unicorn. “Enough,” the unicorn gasped. “Oh, Celestia, th-thank you! I-I don’t-” “I just got the snot beaten out of me by a batpony,” said Lock. “Like that was gonna slow me down.” She grinned crookedly at the unicorn. The unicorn coughed and flinched. “W-well, I-” “YOU!” They both turned to the unearthly bellow. An earth pony had burst from the house, blown straight past the other ponies, and was charging them, murder in her eyes and spittle flying from her mouth. “I’ll rip your spine out through your sunblasted throat and skewer you on it like a kebab!” she screamed. Clods of dirt flew as her hooves dug into the earth. The unicorn did her best to speed her pace up, but the earth pony was still outrunning them by a long shot. “You… or m-me?” she gasped as the earth pony screamed further invective. “Me,” grunted Lock. She walked faster, slowly turning from supporting the unicorn to sort of dragging her. “Definitely me.” The gate was getting closer… closer… clos- She was hit from behind by what felt like a freight train and torn from the unicorn. She rolled across the lawn, alternately pinned beneath the earth pony’s bulk and awkwardly falling on top of it. When she came to a halt, she was on her back. She looked up and, through the swimming mass that was her vision, managed to make out the earth pony’s crazed face, her bloodthirsty eyes. The earth pony raised a hoof- A bolt of magic zipped through the fence and hit the earth pony in the chest. She flew over ten feet across the lawn and plowed a furrow through the grass where she landed. Lock looked up; a unicorn in Royal Guard armor was outside the fence and running towards the gate. “Gate’s unlocked!” Lock screamed at her. “Got it!” the guard screamed back. A haze of magic, and the gates flew open. Lock glanced around. The earth pony was staggering to her feet but still dazed. The unicorn was crawling to the gate. Other ponies were fleeing the house, but none of them were coming for her. Lock dragged herself over the unicorn, pulled her up, and started limping towards the gate. The guard ran through the gate and brushed past them. Lock wanted to look, but not until they were outside the gate. After all she’d been through tonight and with her luck, the second she looked back, some security spell would slam the gate shut and weld the lock. She swivelled her ears back, but couldn’t hear anything except the dull thuds of irregular hoof-on-grass impacts. No hoof-on-face impacts at least. By the time the two of them crossed the gate threshold, Lock felt ready to collapse. Earth pony endurance or not, it’d been a long night. She lowered the unicorn to the ground and cringed; blood from the cut runes was smeared all over the unicorn’s coat, glistening wetly. At least no more seemed to be dripping out and the cuts, thin as they were, looked like they were scabbing over already. “Do you feel okay?” Lock asked. The unicorn coughed. “T-tired. Sore. Cold. W-wet. Pins and needles everywhere. Like I’ve b-been stabbed a few dozen times. But I’m alive.” She smiled weakly. “Thanks.” “Sure.” Lock looked up, just to be sure the earth pony hadn’t ripped the guard in half and was now coming for them. What she saw was the guard pinning the earth pony down easily. A unicorn pinning an earth pony. The guard batted aside the earth pony’s wildly flailing hooves, shoved her horn into the latter’s face, and shot off a spell. The earth pony stiffened for half a moment, then went limp. The guard pulled a set of hobbles from her saddlebags, fettered the earth pony, and dragged her back to the gate. When the guard arrived, Lock peered at the earth pony. She was still breathing regularly. “What did you do to her?” “Stunning spell,” said the guard. “She’ll be- fine… in the…” She stared at the unicorn, noticing the remains of the runes on her body for the first time. Her jaw dropped. “What in Celestia’s name-” “I think she was due to be a sacrifice for a ritual or- something,” said Lock, conveniently leaving out what she was doing in the house in the first place. They could cover that later. “I don’t know what for, and I don’t know if the ponies killing her were part of a cult or whatever, but she was on a table, bound with runes, and this was nearby.” She pulled the statuette from her bag, flinching at the feeling of pins in her bloodstream, and laid it on the grass in front of the guard. The eyes were back to glowing green, she noticed. The second Lock put it down, the guard gasped and threw a shield up around it. She squinted at it. “Yep,” the guard muttered. “Grade-A focus item right there. Vitality container, I think. Do you feel numb anywhere?” Lock ached so much numbness would’ve been a blessing. “No.” “Good.” To the unicorn, the guard said, “And you?” The unicorn shook her head. “N-not really, no. Cold and l-like all my legs have g-gone to sleep, b-but in that pins-and-needles w-way, not numb.” “Oh, thank heavens.” The guard wiped her forehead. “I’m pretty sure you’ll be alright, metaphysically speaking.” She looked over the unicorn and folded her ears back. “Physically… well, you’ll live, but you’ll have a lot of scars.” The unicorn’s laughter sounded like a cough from a laryngitic minotaur. “Scars are fine.” Lock was only half-listening to them. She sat and watched as the fireponies sprayed the first jets of water onto the blaze. This was going to be a mess, she knew. One of Equestria’s oldest families (she couldn’t even remember which family, but one with that much money had to be old, right? Maybe) caught up in black magic and equine sacrifice, arson at a mansion, the main witness and the one who’d rescued the sacrifice was only in there to rob the place… It’d take weeks, probably moons, for this to get sorted out. It’d probably go down in history as one of those weird cases law enthusiasts and trivia buffs liked to talk about. Whatever. At least it wasn’t her business anymore, except in a secondary fashion. Fine by her. She didn’t get along well with law enforcement. The guard walked up next to Lock. For a second, silence. Then she asked, “So what happened in there? That’s a pretty big fire. The ritual didn’t go wrong, because she’s still alright.” She nodded at the unicorn. “I mean, that looks like arson to me.” “My fault,” admitted Lock. “It was supposed to be a distraction.” A plume of flame exploded from a third-story window. Sparks flew into the air as part of the outside wall collapsed. “Some distraction,” said the guard. “But, hey. Good on you for getting her out.” She clapped Lock lightly on the back. “Not many ponies would’ve done that.” And you kept wanting to turn back. “Um. Thanks.” The guard briefly examined the focus item again, then stuffed it into a saddlebag, still with the shield up. “Could you come with me, please? We’ll want to talk to you about…” She glanced at the burning house again and chuckled weakly. She turned her attention to the unicorn. “Come on. Let’s get you some first aid.” She delicately hoisted the unicorn over her back. Lock stiffened. If she was questioned, they’d want to look through her bag. The haul in there was the whole reason she’d gotten into this mess in the first place, not to mention it held her best and most varied set of tools. It was worth several million bits, at least. And she was supposed to just drop it? For a moment, she considered simply bolting. They had the witness and the focus item and she could leave behind the books she’d taken. She was not going to have this whole night be all for nothing. It won’t be for nothing. You saved a life. Unsure whether she was doing it because it was the right thing to do or just to shut her conscience up, Lock took a deep breath, adjusted her saddlebags with all the loot she wouldn’t be able to sell, and followed the guard back to the rest of her squad as the conflagration of the mansion licked the night away.