As Sundance stood watching, stunned, with blood trickling down his sides and seeping into his wings, Sumac repaired the dining hall. The splintered, broken pieces of wood swirled in a vortex of magic and reassembled themselves, very much like a puzzle putting itself together. Even in his stupefied state of shock, it was wondrous to witness. When Sumac was done, the dining hall looked as though it had never been ripped apart by an angry, rampaging owlbear.
Standing near the doorway, Sumac said, “I do apologise, but I must ask you to leave.”
One by one, the peasants filed out of the dining hall, each of them with their heads held low. Not from fear, but from respect it looked like. They looked at Cucumber’s limp body as they went by, and some of them wept. Sundance felt woozy, his wounds both ached and burned, but something in the back of his mind told him that his own needs were of the least importance. A curious sense of resolve swept over him, a feeling of peace, and he found the wherewithal to go on.
What sustained him, he did not know, but he felt it like a fever in the blood.
“It’s happening,” said Sumac.
“What is?” asked Sundance.
“We shall see. Come. Follow me. What we do next determines your future, as well as Cucumber’s.”
“How?”
“As I said, follow me.”
Cucumber was laid down upon a blanket, near the fire, and Sumac knelt down beside him. The old retainer’s breathing was pained gasp after pained gasp, and Sundance could feel his heart in his throat. Cucumber’s left side was lifeless, limp, it sagged with no muscle movement and his left legs did not move, not even in the slightest.
“I hear crows…”
“Don’t be afraid, Cucumber. You hear ravens, actually. That’s Brave and Nibo. They are not patient, but they will wait until we finish. The Guédé will do as I bid them.” After settling in beside the dying unicorn, Sumac asked, “Do you know why I am here?”
At first, there was no response from Cucumber, and Sundance, uncertain of what was going on, crept closer. He eased himself down to the floor, and when he did so, he left a tremendous smear of blood on the wooden planks. Cucumber sniffled a bit, and then, without warning, began to weep. It was unbearable to witness, and Sundance, stricken by the sight and sound of it, turned away.
“If you confess, it will make your passing and what comes after easier. After your life of service, you deserve a rich, rewarding afterlife. My purpose is to wipe the slate clean. Oaths and vows are serious things, Cucumber—”
“You already know.” Cucumber breathed out the words and when he did so, blood-flecked spittle turned his lips crimson. “Why torment me? You already know.”
“Of course I know,” Sumac responded, his ears falling into a passive, almost sorrowful position. “It is my business to know. But I am not here to torment you. I want to save you.”
A pitiful wail came from Cucumber, a shuddering gasp, and then weak sobs. Sundance, unable to bear the moment, squeezed his eyes shut, and did so hard enough to make himself see stars on the inside of his eyelids. The pain of his torn flesh was nothing compared to the exquisite ache felt in his heart.
“I broke my vow. I broke… my oath.” Cucumber closed his right eye, but his left eyelid didn’t budge, and his bloodshot, bright red eye remained visible. “I killed the Milord.”
Sundance’s eyes flew open and he saw Sumac wincing with pain.
“Why, Cucumber? Can you tell us why? Can you tell us what happened?”
“He… he was… he was going to evict us… all of us. Cast us out. He told me… he told me”—Cucumber’s barrel was hitching so hard that the stricken unicorn could barely speak—“he told me that he was going to dissolve the barony’s trust and sell our land.”
Sundance almost choked on his own tongue.
“After he told me, I… I…”—here, his right eyelid fluttered open and a frightful, manic gleam could be seen in his rheumy eye—“I plotted his death. Later, that night in fact, when he came down the stairs to greet me, I made him slip.”
“And you caused his death with a fall?” Sumac asked, his voice low, kind, and without judgment.
“No… he lived. He tried to attack me. I flung him around the room—I wanted it to look like he’d fallen down the stairs, you see. But he just wouldn’t die. The old stubborn bastard just shrugged it off and he just wouldn’t die.” Cucumber’s right front leg made a feeble kick, and then he went still. “When he would not die, I broke his neck. I twisted it around three times, so I did.”
Sumac, thoughtful, pulled his head back, and Sundance, horrified, went blank with shock. It was too much; all of it was too much. The owlbear’s attack, Cucumber’s injury, and now, as the retainer lay dying, the worst, the most awful of confessions. When the pain grew overwhelming, tears streamed from the corners of Sundance’s eyes and his vision lost its sharpness, leaving everything he saw dull and indistinct.
“I am loyal to the land,” said Cucumber, muttering the words so slurred that they were difficult to comprehend. “My charges, I had to save them… I had to save them from the Baron. What else could I do? Can I be forgiven? I broke my oath… I don’t regret what I did to the Milord, but I do feel bad that I broke my word. It pains me… so it does.”
Sumac’s head turned and Sundance saw his own blurry reflection in the green glass of the alicorn’s round spectacles. “This one is on you, Sundance.”
“On me?” he asked, incredulous, uncertain, and fearful.
“You’re the Lord of this land. You alone have the power to forgive—”
“Me? I don’t know if I deserve that. I’m just a pegasus. You… you’re an alicorn.”
“I am not the Lord of this land,” said Sumac in response. “Whatever great power I have, it means nothing here.” Reaching out, Sumac stroked Cucumber’s side, a gentle action to comfort the dying unicorn. “Don’t take long, Sundance. I can slow death, but I can’t cheat Lima Bean of what is rightfully hers. She and her servants will only wait for so long.”
“What do I do?” Sundance began to feel a frantic sense of worry gnawing at him.
“You forgive… or you don’t.” Sumac turned away, lowered his head, and turned it at an angle so that he might look into Cucumber’s frantic right eye.
“Why is this so important?” Fearing his lack of time, Sundance still wanted to understand what was going on, so that he could make sense of it.
“Oaths and vows carry with them a special magic all their own. Cucumber is an Oathbreaker, a deed far worse than murder. Though, that’s pretty bad, too.”
“I’m scared.” Cucumber’s whimpered words cut through Sundance’s fog of panic.
“I forgive you,” Sundance blurted out. “All is forgiven. You… you didn’t… you did no wrong, Cucumber. You saved the land and the peasants, and that’s important. You… you… you saved”—he struggled to find meaningful words to say, so that his trusted retainer would be reassured in his final moments—“without you I wouldn’t have a barony to save. You saved the land so I could claim it. You didn’t kill the previous Milord, he gave up his claim to the title the moment he betrayed the land.”
There was no response from Cucumber, who had gone still.
“Cucumber?” Sundance crawled forward on his belly, leaving a vivid smear of scarlet behind him. “Cucumber?”
A pocket watch blinked into existence near Sumac’s head. He opened it, looked inside, muttered something to himself, and then, as if weary, he sighed. Sundance, almost frantic, reached out to touch Cucumber, but at the last moment, hesitated. Death was something new to him, something unknown—something terrible that he discovered that he could not bear.
When the agony reached a point he thought might break him, something happened. Warmth overtook him, his pain eased just a bit, and the floodgates opened. Sundance bawled like a foal, even as the curious sensation continued to overtake him. Outside, he heard shouts, and drifting in a state of near euphoria, he wondered what was going on.
“It’s happening,” Sumac said in a voice of fantastic calm as the pocket watch vanished.
Sundance wanted to know what, but found that he could not speak.
“Princess Celestia will surely be sensing this,” Sumac continued as he rose into a standing position. “I’d expect a visitor soon. She’ll be sad to discover Cucumber’s passing. Come. I have something to show you. I can sense it as it grows. I think… I think seeing it will make you feel better. Twilight’s magic is at work.”
Sundance felt himself pulled up into a standing position, which pained him. He wanted to stay near Cucumber, his retainer, his friend. He gave Sumac a blank stare as his emotions swirled into a dangerous, tempestuous force within him. There was pain, to be sure, but it was dulled, and the feeling of euphoria was peaking. It was almost like the time he had gone to the dentist and they had given him a little too much laughing gas.
“Come, Sundance. I want to show you something.” With a sad smile, Sumac covered Cucumber with a blanket. “We’ll bury him, together. But we have to wait. I’m confident that we’ll have guests. For now, follow me.”
Blubbering, his heart broken, Sundance allowed himself to be led along by Sumac. His wounds still oozed blood, it dribbled down his sides and bright red droplets soaked into the soil that he tread upon. His peasants had gathered into a circle, but Sundance was not sure why. He felt the soft touch of feathers beneath his chin, his head was lifted, Sundance blinked, not sure what he was seeing.
A small crystal tree.
At least, it looked like a small crystal tree. It was a tiny thing, as if it had just sprouted. When he looked at it, he felt tingles all over, in his hooves, his feathers, in his bones. It was beautiful like nothing else, delicate, and at the moment, it was the only thing that he could see with any clarity. There it stood, right in the middle of everything, between the barn and the dining hall.
Perhaps more miraculous was the fact that it was growing.
“The land has accepted you,” Sumac whispered into Sundance’s ear. “This is Twilight’s most wondrous magic. She’s enchanted all of the Clock Face Fiefdoms. Twilight’s not one to leave things to chance. I don’t understand the magic at work, but I have my own little crystal tree at home. When I do good things, it grows. When I make poor decisions, it shrinks.”
Agape, Sundance stared at the tiny crystal tree.
“You forgave Cucumber and showed mercy. In his final moments, you brought him comfort so he could pass in peace. Right now, even as I speak, your blood flows into the soil. You have bled for this land, suffered for your claim, and the land has found you worthy. Look, Sundance. Look at what your actions have caused, and know that you are worthy. May you always prove worthy.”
“Cucumber is gone?” somepony asked.
“He is,” Sumac replied.
A pall settled over the crowd, a serene, but sorrowful quiet. Staring at the tiny crystal sapling, Sundance felt something creeping up from the ground, into his hooves, through his bones, something that almost felt like motes of sunshine flowing through his blood. Cucumber, Sundance felt, would be happy to know that his death had served a purpose, that with his passing this miracle had come about.
Still at a loss for words, Sundance blubbered, and was not ashamed to let the others bear witness.