Jackie didn’t need her old dagger to the Dreamlands. The object had no power to bridge worlds, not really. Thestral magic could do that, and she’d used the old knife for so long that she could use it like a seventh limb.
All she really had to do was to find herself something to focus on—a bit of memory of a dream, and she was through.
Misty waited on the other side, a full-sized seapony now with unblinking, knowing eyes. “What are we doing, Jackie? I heard you say my name.”
“Saving the world,” she said, reaching out and running a hoof through her headfins. “Unless you don’t want to. Want to turn and run, now’s your chance. We’re probably dead by the end of it.”
“Can’t you see them?” the seapony asked, eyes growing unfocused and distant. “They’re following you.”
Jackie glanced over her shoulder at the familiar trees of the Enchanted Wood. She had chosen a spot far enough from Meliora that she wouldn’t be seen and noticed by more of her ponies. She was done with goodbyes. But she couldn’t see anyone. “There’s nobody here.”
Misty put a hoof on her shoulder. The world fuzzed, and the space all around them filled. Every inch of ground, every perch on trees or hovering in the air. She couldn’t have numbered them—a thousand, a million, more? Ponies, griffons, and numberless other creatures. All watching. “They’re depending on you. They need a world safe to live in when they get back”
How can you do that? She knew what she was looking at now—these were the rest of humanity, the remaining billion refugees. They’d be pouring through time faster than at any other point in history, the least prepared for their new bodies of anyone.
Jackie shook herself free from the figment, and the spell ended. “That’s one of Archive’s powers. How did you do that?”
Misty shrugged. “I just thought you’d want to see.”
Too bad we can’t call on the ghosts like she could. Jackie could use the ghosts of about a thousand dead battlecruisers right about now.
Jackie closed her eyes, calling on all her power and mastery over the Dreamlands. She could still remember, long ago, a terrified girl running scared from a nightmare that wanted to drown her. All those years ago, Alex had saved her life from the ocean. We’ll be even soon. Paid back with interest.
The Dreamknife rose up on two legs one last time, armor solidifying around her. Tiny interlocking scales in blue and gold, the finest armor the champions of the Enduring Ones had worn in the final war. I wonder if you’re with her now, Isaac. Waiting for me.
Jackie summoned herself a short blade on her back, exactly as long as the dagger she’d left behind. A sword too, if only because it seemed a shame not to have one—not because she knew how to use it. She summoned a bow, with a draw so hard that only the greatest earth-pony champions would be able to fire it. And lastly she called herself a rounded metal buckler, strong enough that the darts of Charybdis himself would be turned again.
“How do I look?” she asked, tying back her hair with a bit of elastic, settling an ancient metal helmet on her head. “I’m going for Wonder Woman, but I haven’t really been cosplaying in… a few millennia.”
“Close,” Misty answered. “But what do you want from me? I can’t fight a deer.”
Jackie laughed. “Err… no, not that. I kinda-sorta need you to fight his god.”
“Oh.”
Jackie stretched out her hand, and the world tore open in front of her. Her wings spread behind her, flexing under the tight scales of the armor. She wouldn’t be able to fly—but Jackie couldn’t imagine dying without wings. “Still want to come?”
A tiny Misty landed on her shoulder. “Until the end.” They went through together.
The forest was fuzzy around them as Jackie emerged. The ground had been burned black, with many of the ancient jungle trees still lost to roaring flame. Smoke billowed around them, not getting closer than a tight bubble around Jackie’s body. The Enduring Ones might make armor that looked like it was metal. But it was something else.
“Why are you human?” asked the tiny voice on her shoulder, barely above a whisper. “Haven’t you fought less this way?”
“When the Event gave deer intelligence, they were created with the snapshot of their ancient memory,” she responded. There was no fear of being overheard, though she knew she was surrounded. Ankaa’s tribe wasn’t the kind to be multilingual. “When ponies are afraid, they imagine creatures lurking beneath the bed, ready to grab them. When deer are afraid, they see humans out of the corner of their eyes.”
The smoke condensed around them, making it even harder to see her way through the gloom. It wasn’t even sunset yet, but the sun turned brilliant orange, staining the soil in front of her. “Clear the air for me, Misty.”
“Can’t you just do magic for it? You’re one of the Enduring Ones.”
She shook her head, eyes scanning the treeline all around her. The longer she remained here, the more wrong everything felt. She had taken herself as close to Ankaa as she dared, since he wasn’t asleep. She should’ve been in the center of his camp. Yet there was nothing here but flames and burning trees.
Jackie drew her bow with armor-assisted strength, just as the cloud of smoke froze out of the air. Thick dust tumbled around her, burned away by the faint glow coming from Misty’s horn.
They were standing at the bottom of a depression, surrounded by hills thickly packed with deer. Now she could see why the bushes had been burned, and all but the largest trees had been felled—to get rid of the cover.
The ground was a deception, a spell she could feel up through her armored boots. She hadn’t traveled directly to Ankaa’s dreams, so she’d been tricked into following the single strongest deer aura.
It was a trap.
“Loose!” She heard the command, in cervine Arabic. Then the sun briefly seemed to dim, as thousands and thousands of arrows all converged on where she stood.
There was a time when Jackie would’ve been helpless in the face of such an attack—but that was a long time ago. She struck out with one hand, warping space back through the dream world and out again, then slammed the visor of her helmet down for good measure.
The arrows rained down on her—then flew back out in all directions. Hitting any of the enemy would’ve been a doomed prospect, except for how densely they packed the hills. Screams echoed from all around her, dozens of deer dropping from their own arrows.
“Coward!” Jackie yelled, her voice booming over the dead. “See the face of Sultan Ankaa! Too fearful to face a single doe in combat! What kind of hunter is he?”
“Again!” called a voice. Another wave of arrows fell—though less than half as many as last time.
“Catch them.”
Misty didn’t object. A lesser figment couldn’t have obeyed her command—few were even the equals of simple unicorns, let alone the power of a master spellcaster. But Misty was meant to imitate a demigod, and she’d been created by one too.
The arrows froze all around her, a dense bubble of barbed wood all aimed in at their armor.
Jackie closed her eyes, felt for another moment for the greatest power of Voeskender, then started walking. She’d been baited once, but the dream-god couldn’t trick her again. He would have empowered his champion. Now Jackie would kill him.
“Bring it down!” someone yelled, and the first rank of deer began to charge.
“Use the arrows,” Jackie ordered. “Kill them when they get close.” She started walking, up a hill of ash and corpses. Misty might not be Alex, but she had all the precision Jackie had ever seen from the real thing. As deer charged, arrows found openings in their growing armor. Into eyes, or under the lip of their helmets, or under the breastplates. So many died around her that Jackie glided over their corpses, landing on the crest of the hill.
There was the missing army—a herd of deer so dense she couldn’t see the grass in places. Most were not warriors, but had been loaded up with thick packs of supplies. Tents spread out before her, the growing sum of their besieging army.
If things were different, there would probably be a better way to win this war. We could trick you, maybe. Get you to remember how much you loved your daughter. But there was no time for that. She had to keep Meliora standing a little longer.
There was another battle line waiting on the slopes, thousands more armored deer apparently waiting for her. And behind them all, the one she was looking for.
Sultan Ankaa towered over the others, nearly twelve feet tall. His antlers had grown as wide as his body, covered in living leaves and flowers that somehow didn’t hinder his movement. Oh shit.
Jackie recognized what she was seeing the instant she saw it. In a way, it was the opposite of what she’d done with Misty. Instead of a mortal mind giving birth to a spirit, this was what happened when a spirit and a mortal fused together.
Maybe some of the stories of Ankaa’s triumphs were truer than she’d thought. She’d been wrong to mock their religion—they really did have a champion of the gods leading them.
She was running out of arrows by then, and the deer hadn’t run out of bodies. They kept charging at her with little regard for their own lives, or the success of their fellows. Occasionally one out of a few got closer, and Jackie was forced to draw her own bow.
She wore no quiver—the arrows she fired settled into her fingers only when she needed them. And when they hit, they exploded.
Her old tongue might’ve enjoyed the smell of cooking venison. But Jackie had been an insectivore for so long it only made her sick. “Order them to stop, Sultan,” she yelled, and the army seemed to freeze around her, as though waiting for his reaction. “I don’t want their blood, I’ve come for yours.”
“Where is the great king you served?” Ankaa’s voice seemed to come from all around her—the trees, the grass, and from the mouth of every deer. “I expected a worthy trophy today. I don’t even know what you are.”
“I don’t like this,” said the little voice on her shoulder. “Why does Voeskender want you dead so badly? These deer are his. Is he on Athena’s side? Putting so much of himself in that deer—he’s taking such a huge risk. I don’t get it.”
Misty was right, obviously. It wasn’t just one of the old gods of Earth that apparently wanted Meliora dead. Now Voeskender had come to undo what he had started. “It doesn’t make sense,” Jackie agreed. “He helped us build the city in the first place. He brought us here, he taught us to work the trees. If anything, he should be helping me.”
Sultan Ankaa couldn’t have understood her. But Voeskender was an ancient spirit of the forest, older than every language. The spirit itself was too powerful to communicate in mere words—but pouring its essence into this single deer had apparently given it that ability too.
Though the words came from the same mouth, it was an entirely separate speaker this time. “I gave my power to you. You would have filled this land. Instead you make pacts with my enemies. It will all be undone. Never again will I trust the word of a mageblood.”
Jackie drew her bow, fingers tightening on the string. Good thing Liz can’t see this. She was right to worry.
Jackie pulled back on her bow, taking careful aim. She didn’t really expect it to work—but she wasn’t out anything by trying.
She loosed her arrow, and felt the world tumble out from under her. She stumbled onto four legs, shuddering and convulsing with the weight of magic all around her. She coughed and spluttered, trying to fight it off—but she couldn’t. The Dreamlands swallowed them both. Still magic roiled around her like a living thing, her fingers stiffening as pain burned at her wings, her eyes. Everything, really.
“I can’t stop it!” Misty’s voice echoed through the pain, obviously terrified. “I’m trying, Jackie! He’s just too strong!” Her fingers went numb, then her toes. Her wings crumbled to ash, armor useless around her. Voeskender hadn’t even had to strike her, and she was already dying.
Nonhuman user detected. Invalid configuration. The armor crumbled away from around her, its incredible spells undone in an instant. Her bow slipped from fingers fusing together, unable to hold it. Jackie screamed, but held to consciousness through naked will. She would not die like this.
Then the magic faded, and she struggled onto her hooves again. That would’ve been a familiar stance for her, except it was all wrong. Her legs were spindly and almost elastic, the ground too far below her. Fortunately she had her now-disabled armor to see what had happened.
In the bits of polished metal, Jackie saw the reflection of a doe, slightly bluish with pale spots on her back, and an expression of utter terror on her face.
“We’re in his domain,” said a voice from beside her. She turned, and there was another deer, with Misty’s greenish fur. She was smaller than Jackie, though not by much. “He’s a god, Jackie. My magic isn’t working. Can you change back?”
She tried.
Nothing happened.
Then Ankaa appeared on the ridge, his armor gleaming in the perpetual moonlight.