Seraphim
Chapter 10
We travelled for several more days, walking the same old dirt road leading from Old Stable towards our destination, the Deepglimmer Mountains and the town of Cobalt Crag. The mountain chain itself was rather massive, clearly visible on the horizon even from several days’ journey away, the three largest mountain tops reaching all the way into the sky, past the clouds. Judging from our map and its approximate size, I guessed that it would take at least a day or two to actually cross the thing when we got there, and luckily there was supposed to be an old trade route leading straight through, meaning we wouldn’t need to do any actual climbing.
The entire trip was rather nice and relaxing, the early spring weather creating a comfortable atmosphere for travelling, keeping us somewhat warm at night and cool during the day, and also giving us the chance to gather various sorts of food on the road, mainly berries and wild vegetables or fruit, yet it was certainly a nice change from the bread and root vegetables we had gotten from Old Stable.
During the day we mainly spent our time talking or taking in the sights, both of us enjoying each other’s company by telling stories, talking about Equestria and its ponies, or, surprisingly often, discussing magical theory and application.
By the Seraphim, that filly was intelligent. I kept wondering why she hadn’t gotten her ‘cutie mark’ as some sort of scholar or magical prodigy; she was certainly knowledgeable and dedicated enough. I wasn’t sure if I should feel somewhat ashamed that my own level of magical knowledge wasn’t quite up to par with hers. It wouldn’t surprise me if her parents had hired private tutors for her, as she really was quite exceptional.
Our evenings were used for eating, reading and relaxing after a long day of walking. I made it a habit to conjure my lantern at our camp and use it for warmth and light, it was easier and safer than starting a campfire, and it had the added benefit of accelerating the mending of my broken arm as well, which was already getting better and better each day. Nothing exciting happened during our nights either, my powers hadn’t returned nearly enough for me to start putting up any wards against wild animals, so we chose to make camp in somewhat hidden places, and I had always personally been a rather light sleeper.
A handful of days after leaving Old Stable behind, we finally made it to the foot of the mountain range, the path visibly winding its way through the rocky area. From what I had been able to gather in Old Stable, the path was rarely used, only the occasional trade caravan or traveller even passed through the mountains anymore. Apparently airship travel was becoming something of a big thing, allowing ponies to entirely bypass most mountains such as the Deepglimmer range.
I noticed a number of things as we started our trek through the mountains, for one the road was surprisingly well maintained considering that nobody were supposed to be travelling on it often, the atmosphere was also surprisingly oppressive, the overhanging cliffs and mountainsides reaching eerily towards us, creating the illusion of them being just about to pounce us as wild predators would. Crystal also became more attentive of her surroundings, her searching gaze betraying her nervosity, despite the fact that she had been the one to tell me that the mountains were largely peaceful. Another thing was the effect that coming to the mountains had had on the pony spirits lounging by my essence, namely that they seemed to actually tug me further into the mountain range, most often urging me to go down. If it was just a reaction caused by their former lives as earth pony mine workers or not, I couldn’t be sure, but I was fairly certain that going down into the mountains wasn’t exactly on the top of our to do list.
After walking for a few hours we came to a bend around a cliff face, and as we came out the other side we got the most majestic view of a great green valley in an almost oval shape between the mountains, and despite the fact that we were already almost five hundred feet above the ground at that point, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed at the sheer size and beauty of the valley. It was almost as if a large forest had decided to just sprout up in the middle of the grey mountainous region, adding a splotch of colour which contrasted nicely to the monotone rocks and cliffs. It even surprised Crystal Heart if the small gasp that came from her was any indication, and when I looked at her I saw none of the uncertainty she had displayed earlier, only marvel at the great haven of nature far below us. Once again I felt a tang of annoyance that I wasn’t able to use my wings.
I looked down at Crystal with a grin. “It really is beautiful, almost makes you wish you were born a pegasus huh? Imagine the freedom one would feel soaring through this sky.”
The small filly looked thoughtful about something for a moment before simply looking up at me with a shrug. “Guess I don’t have the same need to fly that winged creatures do, I’d rather stick with my magic anyway.”
Her phrasing of ‘winged creatures’ instead of pegasus made me recall that I hardly knew anything about the other airborne sentient creatures of their world, supposedly there were both griffins and dragons too. I had read of both species before from books kept in the White City, but just like the unicorns and pegasi differed from what I had expected, I was sure that any other species I knew of from Ascended sources would most likely be very different too.
“What got you so nervous earlier anyway?” I said as we continued on our way. “I noticed that you were rather anxious after we came here.”
If I hadn’t been looking at her when I asked the question, I might have missed the quick look of uncertainty on her features, lasting only a second before it was gone again. Then she looked up at me with a somewhat forced smile.
“Sorry, I guess I just don’t like mountains much… mother says there’s dragons in them.” She visibly shivered at the thought, before continuing in a lower voice. “I hope we don’t run into any…”
I gave her my most reassuring smile, relieved that her fears had been rather physical at least; I wasn’t sure how I’d deal with her being afraid of something like heights, or any other such phobia. “I’m sure we’ll be fine, if they’re anything like other dragons I’m familiar with, they won’t bother us as long as we stay away from their hoards. Dragons here are like that, right?” She contemplated the question for a moment before giving me a simple nod. “And we’re not planning on stealing from a dragon, are we?” She responded with a shake of her head. “I guess we’ll have nothing to worry about then, as long as we don’t stray off the path we shouldn’t get anywhere near a cave, or a dragon lair for that matter.”
She gave me another nod, apparently satisfied with my reasoning; despite how unfounded in reality it really was. I personally doubted that we’d encounter any dragons during the couple of days it would take us to get to the other side of the mountains, and even if we did we’d be able to spot or hear it long before it could discover us, giving us the chance to hide from it.
We continued on our way, the valley on our left side the entire time as we walked the mountainside, both of us keeping lookout for anything that might be dangerous, and especially listening for the flapping of wings, as even if encountering a dragon was unlikely, anything predatory with wings would spell trouble for us, considering our grounded nature. Despite our almost constant vigilance it was a rather nice trip, the fresh mountain air and warm spring sun made the entire trek rather comfortable, easing our worried minds to some degree. Crystal was still somewhat on edge, but at least my reassurances seemed to have calmed her down enough for her to enjoy our surroundings.
Another hour went by in almost total silence; the only sounds were from our footsteps and hoofsteps respectively, as well as the minimal amount of wildlife at the altitude we were at, roughly six hundred feet at that point. The green valley was still down on our left side, allowing us something interesting to look at in the otherwise bland landscape.
Just as I was about to pick up on our discussion of dragons we had abandoned an hour earlier, my curiosity getting the better of me, I heard the slight shifting of stone and rock as I watched a few pebbles roll down the cliff side only ten feet on our right. Quickly whipping my head upwards I noticed that something was partly blocking out the sun, just barely managing to yell out a warning to Crystal before the first rocks of a small landslide came crashing down on us.
“Crystal!”
With a gasp I threw myself forward, just barely managing to dodge a large stone before it cracked the ground where I had just been standing. I heard Crystal yelp in surprise as the rocks came raining down upon us, and I knew that staying on the path would be paramount to suicide. With determination I leapt forward, scooping up the small unicorn just as she managed to move out of the way of another collection of rocks. I could feel her squirming in my grasp, clearly panicked by our situation, and I quickly evaded another larger boulder before I shifted a few feet closer to the edge of the cliff. Just as I was about to spin around and sprint back towards safety a stone the size of a small fist collided with my temple, sending me reeling and stumbling dangerously close to the edge with a yelp of pain, warm blood making its way past my ear and down to my throat. Another large boulder crashed down next to us, causing me to take a step backwards in surprise, failing to notice in my disorientation that I had just taken a step backwards off the edge of the cliff.
Gathering my wits I managed to push off from the cliff with my other foot, sending us a safe distance away from the cliff side and its deadly jagged outcroppings. Air rushed past my head, blood was sent into the air in our wake, and Crystal tightened her grip around my shoulder and arm as she screamed in fear. Doing my best despite the possible concussion I spun around in the air, suddenly facing the hastily approaching ground beneath us. Clenching my teeth I gathered power to the seal on my wings, unleashing it just three hundred feet above the green canopy of the forest, and with a mighty surge of strength I managed to brace my wings against the onrushing wind, causing us to hit a wall of air which almost knocked me unconscious. Fighting back the darkness I shifted my wings, and instead of trying to halt our downward momentum I positioned myself to ride the current in a downward angle, doing my best to dampen our fall with my heavy wings. I was largely successful, but the trees and ground were fast approaching, and I knew that we would be in for a rough landing.
“Hang on! We’re going to crash!” I managed to yell over the roaring wind at the filly clutching my shoulder in fear. I prayed that she would be safe from the fall, doing my best to position myself to soften the impact on my passenger.
I felt our descend slow down slightly, but at that point it was already too late. There was just another hundred feet before our abrupt meeting with a canopy of branches, trees and finally the ground.
I tightened my grip on Crystal, bracing myself for impact and turning around with my back towards the ground. I could feel the throbbing pain in my head dulling my senses, but I fought back against inevitable unconsciousness, doing everything I could to prepare for impact. At fifty feet I closed my eyes and folded my wings to my sides, then I crashed hard through the crown of a tree, a branch whipping me across the face and another handful breaking as I impacted with them, sending splinters of wood flying in all directions.
*CRASH*
With a large thud I collided with the thankfully soft forest floor, pain shooting through my body as I landed on the upper part of my back first, then rolled away with the force, before finally coming to a stop a handful of feet away from my impact point. I gave a low groan in pain, agony running through all parts of my form, blood slowly dripping down on the ground below me from the wound on the side of my head. Taking haggard gasps of air, each breath resulting in more pain, I felt Crystal shuffle on my stomach, struggling in my grasp and sobbing silently into my chest.
Taking another deep breath of air and feeling the accompanying pain, I finally released the filly from my tight embrace, prompting her to sniff one more time before she managed to get shakily on her legs, still standing on top of my stomach and looking down at me with teary eyes. I could already feel myself slipping away as the adrenaline subsided.
“Lysander…?” Her voice was shaky, afraid and sounded very far away, I thought she said something more, but I didn’t manage to hear anything else before the world faded to black.
I awoke not so long after, if what little I could see of the sun through the thick forest foliage was any indication. My body was throbbing with pain and my limbs felt numb, I wasn’t aware of how long I had been out, but I could hear the gentle ebbing of a small creek on my right, and felt a piece of cold damp cloth on my forehead. It was almost idyllic, and the coldness brought much needed comfort to my aching head. I gave a small sigh of relief, glad that I had at least survived the crash without any permanent damage from what I could tell.
“Lysander!”
The worried voice of Crystal called out to me, and I shifted my head slightly in its direction. Not far on my left the white unicorn filly was in a quick trot towards me, obvious worry and fear plastered on her face, her eyes still red from crying. Before I could open my mouth to say anything she threw her hooves around my throat and head in a hug, nuzzling my cheek affectionately.
“I was so worried! You weren’t moving after hitting the ground and I wasn’t sure what to do, you were bleeding and didn’t wake up so I tried moving you but you kept sounding like you were in pain and I’m not very good with healing magic and I’m so sorr-..“ I stopped her rambling by placing my hand on her head and bringing her into a tighter embrace, petting her head caringly.
“Thank you, Crystal, looks like I’ve been in your care again.” I said in a thankful voice, an inkling of mirth evident. “I’m not sure what I’d do without you.”
She managed to loosen herself a bit from the hug, looking at me with guilt in her eyes, speaking in a low voice. “You’d probably get hurt a lot less…”
I gave her a stern look, seriousness in my voice. “Don’t say that, nothing bad that has happened to me is your fault.” I shifted my demeanour and gave her a smile. “You’ve been nothing but a blessing to me ever since I came to this world. I promised that I’d take you home and I’d gladly endure a bit of pain to make that happen.”
Her guilty look disappeared slightly, replaced by teary eyes as she planted her head below my chin, returning to the embrace while quietly sobbing. I hardly noticed the familiar chill when it returned, intent on comforting my friend in every way I could.
Once again I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that, not that I cared either way, every one of my thoughts having been focused on calming down my upset companion. It was a warm and comfortable time for me, as she was alleviating the pain in my body simply by being close to me. When she had finally gathered herself again she detached herself from our embrace with a last sniffle, running a hoof across her eyes to remove the remaining tears. When she looked back at me her sadness had been replaced with determination and happiness, finally giving me the smile I had been waiting for.
“I’m the one who should be grateful you know, I probably wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you…” She left the meaning of her words hang in silence, before returning to a much more cheerful disposition, pinning me with a serious gaze. “Now you stay put, I’m going to get you some water and change the cloth on your head.”
I responded with a mock salute and a chuckle, which prompted her to nod her head sharply as I had obviously gotten the message. As she left to fetch water from the small creek I took the time to bring out my lantern, placing it next to me and focusing the majority of its power into healing. It wouldn’t do for us to spend too much time in such unknown surroundings, the faster we got back on track the better. That did bring another question to my mind however, the path we had fallen from was more than five hundred feet above on a steep mountainside, and while we had been on it we had found no indication that there were any easy paths leading from the valley onto the mountain. Chances were that we’d need to search the border of the forest in order to find a path back to where we started, as trying to climb the cliffs would be almost impossible with my broken arm, despite how much better it had gotten over the last week.
The next half an hour or so I spent recovering and contemplating the dilemma, all the while Crystal made sure to nurse me to the best of her ability, which was really quite endearing. She also didn’t have any ideas on how to return to the mountain path, aside a miraculous recovery of the use of my wings, which was entirely unlikely.
When I asked her about the accidental landslide however, she did say something which was quite troubling, especially considering that I hadn’t had the slightest idea.
“Wait, what did you just say?” I looked at her in surprise, slightly unnerved at the implications.
She pawed at the ground for a moment, possibly uncertain about repeating herself again after it prompted such a reaction from me.
“I just said that I don’t think it was an accident,” her gaze drifted back and forth between me and the ground. “when I looked up the first time I saw somepony up there, I couldn’t really make them out all that well but I’m sure of it.”
I placed my hand on my forehead and gave a sigh. “That’s trouble then, do you know who it could have been?”
Crystal looked thoughtful for a moment before responding uncertainly. “I don’t know, nopony was supposed to live in these mountains, and we’re still nowhere close to Cobalt Crag.”
With another sigh of resignation, annoyed that enemies were cropping up everywhere I went, I managed to get back on my feet, despite Crystal’s protests that I should stay put. My entire body was sore, and it felt extremely good to finally be able to stretch out, my bones almost creaking.
“More the reason to get a move on then, it would be bad if we were found by something hostile while recovering.” I looked down at Crystal, who was still obviously worried about my condition; I simply chuckled before bending down to pat her on the head. “I’ll be just fine; I had a great nurse after all.”
She giggled at my joking compliment before nodding, trotting over to get her saddlebags on. A minute or two later we both had our bags ready, setting off to find our way out of the forest and back on the road to Cobalt Crag.
Another few hours later, the sun slowly getting ready to set on the sky, we still hadn’t found any way to leave the enclosed valley. There were no paths into the mountains, no small cliff face we could scale, not even a way leading out on ground level. We were almost completely trapped by mountains on all sides, the only other course of action being a large cave entrance which led into the mountain from which we had fallen, strange twin pillars of worked stone standing vigil on both sides of it, and heading into it was starting to become the only choice left to us.
My alabaster companion looked up at me with fear in her eyes as we once again had made our way back towards the cave, it was clear to both of us that we’d need to take our chances inside the mountain, but neither of us felt very good about it. Strangely enough, the pony souls I carried were almost ecstatic about heading into the mountain, as if they were being drawn towards something. I couldn’t be sure what it was, but it wasn’t exactly something I wanted to brave more caves to find out.
With a last reassuring smile towards Crystal I summoned my lantern, its gentle glow illuminating our way as we headed through the entrance, making our way into the mountain and whatever dangers its dark depths held in store for us.