//------------------------------// // 11 - Truth be Told // Story: Hinterlands // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// “I’m going to scout the river,” Bitterroot said to Artemis. It was what she’d decided: simply tell Artemis what she was doing and refuse to accept any negative responses. “No, you ain’t,” Artemis said gruffly. Like that one. “Look,” said Bitterroot, “we don’t have a trail except the river. We have no idea where along the river she could be. But the river’s open to the sky. I can travel faster than any of you and Amanita won’t notice me. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go out flying.” She silently prayed the list of likely responses from Artemis she’d compiled and written answers to was going to be good. “Too dangerous,” said Artemis. “She can still sling spells at you.” “A foal could dodge spells from that high up.” “If’n she spots you an’ runs-” “We’ll know where to pick up her trail again. And I’m still faster.” “It’ll take too long.” Artemis was beginning to sound a bit nervous. “What, less than an hour? If you think I’m gone too long, you can start moving downriver and I’ll meet up with you on the way back.” “The- blizzard’s still-” Bitterroot unblocked the door and pulled it open. It was still cloudy and flakes of snow were still drifting down, but it was calm. For all its intensity, the blizzard had barely lasted an hour and a half. Northern weather was weird. Artemis laughed nervously. “Well, I- bet that-” “I’m going to scout the river. Goodbye, Artemis.” Without waiting for a response, Bitterroot walked out the door and took to the air. It was colder than it’d been before the storm, so the first thing Bitterroot did was climb above the cloud cover and bask in the sun for a moment. The clouds out here felt weird, like they hadn’t been stitched together properly, for lack of a better term. They were too loose; Bitterroot knew from experience that if she landed on one, a hoof in the wrong place could make the whole thing unravel. Rather than the light water of Equestrian clouds, Northern clouds felt like she was flying through a dew-encrusted spiderweb. When she broke through, Bitterroot took in a deep, sweet breath of medium-altitude air and surveyed the cloudscape, brilliantly white. Waves the size of mountains flew and twisted through the sky and shining rivers were pulled along invisible currents of wind. Unfortunately, for all its light, ethereal beauty, it was still too thick to see through from above. She’d need to skim the lower edge when heading downriver. At least she’d be hard to see from the ground. Bitterroot tumbled back down. Enough sunlight got through the cloud cover that the river still glinted. It carved a swath through the forest and the dark color of the water made it stand out against the snow. It wasn’t even a particularly twisty river. This would be easy. Bitterroot swerved and weaved as she followed the river. It started out moving quickly, but as it broadened, the current slowed. Good; it’d take more time to carry Amanita… wherever. But at first, Bitterroot had a hard time finding anywhere a pony could climb out; the river rushed through steep-sided gullys, carved switchbacks into the land, and was generally a pain to ford. Whoever had built that town in the valley, they’d been lucky the river was so easily traversable there. Bitterroot kept her eyes peeled, looking for the first place the river would have normal banks or an especially slow current. Whenever she spotted such an area, she’d touch down and survey the area for tracks. It was a fool’s errand after the blizzard, her mind said, but she did it anyway. She didn’t spot anything resembling pony tracks. She glanced downriver; the forest eventually gave way to scrubland. Well, if she couldn’t spot anything in the forest, it’d be easier to see tracks when there wasn’t any- There. Right there. The current slowed as the river swept out in a large, easy turn near a clearing on a slope. If Amanita went to ground anywhere, it’d be there. Blizzard detritus in the form of knocked-down branches was already collecting on one of the banks. Bitterroot swooped over to look for any tracks. Only for Amanita herself to stagger out of the forest. Bitterroot quietly yelped and backwinged to get some height, but Amanita didn’t notice her. She wasn’t wearing anything except for a small saddlebag, and her every step was slow and shaky. Bitterroot squinted and saw that Amanita was sopping wet. Blood trickled from a wound on her shoulder, maybe where she’d been shot. She began gathering sticks from the river and tossing them into the clearing. Lowering her altitude a little, Bitterroot hovered overhead, watching Amanita closely. As she loped up the slope, she was shivering, but Bitterroot was unsure if that was from the cold or from suppressed sobs of pain. She didn’t look like a feared necromancer. She looked pitiful; Bitterroot wanted to just land and hug her. Any other pony definitely would’ve needed it. But she was a necromancer. Catskill was undead. But Catskill hadn’t known she was undead. She acted like she was alive. She looked like she was alive, except for the hole in her side. Unlike the bear, if you hadn’t told Bitterroot that the earth pony was undead, she never would’ve guessed. And undead or not, it was hard to claim that emotional response had been anything but genuine. Apparently, Amanita was so cold, even her magic was shivering. The haze from her horn looked unstable, wiggling in ways Bitterroot had never seen hornlight do. After a few seconds, flame sprang up from the gathered sticks and branches. Amanita rubbed her shaking hooves together and held them out to the fire. Once her hooves were warm enough, she withdrew a knife from her bags. Still shaking, with a small scream, she jammed it into her wound and dug. Repeatedly. Every time Amanita pulled the knife back out, Bitterroot could barely make out her flicking a bloody… something… into the snow. The remains of the bullet Gale had shot her with? After a few digs, Amanita poked the knife into the wound, cringing. But whatever she felt, she was satisfied, because the laid the knife across the fire’s logs. Bitterroot squirmed; she knew what was coming next. She forced herself to keep watching. The knife was glowing red-hot. Amanita telekinetically plucked it from the fire. She looked at it. She turned it over. She pressed it to the wound on her shoulder. And the howl of agony she released sounded like it belonged to an animal, not a pony. After a few seconds, she tossed the knife aside. She collapsed to the ground, clutching at her wound, and Bitterroot could barely make out her whimpering in pain. Okay. She’d been watching long enough. Bitterroot looped around and landed some distance behind Amanita. Amanita didn’t even twitch. After several moments, she shakily got to her hooves and moved closer to the fire. She was trembling so badly it sounded like something was wrong with her breathing. Bitterroot cleared her throat. “Hello, Amanita,” she said. Amanita tensed, then went slack. “B-bounty hunter?” she mumbled. “Yeah.” Amanita laughed bitterly. “Absolutely s-super… L-l-listen,” she said halfheartedly. “Please, p-please don’t kill me. I, I can e-explain.” “I was hoping you would.” Amanita’s ears went straight up and she spun on the spot. Her eyes were wild, but not crazed. “Really?” she whispered. “W-why?” Perhaps because of adrenaline, her shaking had slowed. “We’ve found three bodies in the past few days,” said Bitterroot. “An earth pony in her shack, her throat slit. A bear, dead and enthralled, that only chased after a specific member of our party. Another earth pony, too wounded to be alive, yet not enthralled. You’re a necromancer. But what’s up with you?” “I r-really wish I w-wasn’t a necrom-mancer,” said Amanita quietly. “Not a-anymore.” Her ears twitched. “C-can I b-borrow your r-r-robe? I-I’m s-so cold…” Bitterroot almost refused to give her coat to the necromancer on reflex. But if she couldn’t do that, what was she doing out here, letting said necromancer explain herself? She couldn’t let preconceptions get the best of her. “One condition,” said Bitterroot. “You need to put on a suppressor ring.” “O-oh, oh yeah, s-sure.” Amanita’s head bobbed up and down. “H-here.” She stuck out her horn obediently. Suppressor rings weren’t just a traditional part of a bounty hunter’s gear, they were essential. In fact, Bitterroot had heard that they’d been invented by a bounty hunter centuries ago to replace the far more bulky suppressor yokes in use at the time. Whatever the case, Bitterroot carried around at least half a dozen of them at all times. She scooped one out of her bags and tossed it over to Amanita. She expected some wheedling, some hesitation, some resistance, but Amanita had the ring over her horn before Bitterroot could open her mouth. The base of her horn glowed as Amanita tried to use magic, but it was stopped dead by the ring. She grinned. “G-good model.” Bitterroot unhooked her cloak. “One of the best. Here.” She walked over and threw it over Amanita’s shoulders. Amanita immediately pulled it around herself and wiggled into a ball. “Th-thank you,” said Amanita. “D-do you think you could g-get my c-clothes? They’re u-up there.” She pointed a shaking hoof up the slope she’d come down. Amanita had left an easy trail to follow. It took Bitterroot to a tiny alcove, barely a few yards deep. Amanita’s clothes were folded there, not just wet, but frozen. Bitterroot absently noted that, against all appearances, Amanita had to be pretty hardy to survive in the open after getting submerged in a river for that long. When Bitterroot returned, Amanita’s shaking had gone down significantly and she was breathing easily. It didn’t look like she’d made any attempt to run. Bitterroot dropped Amanita’s clothes next to the fire, letting them thaw. “Thanks,” Amanita said, not looking up. “So,” Bitterroot said, sitting on the opposite side of the fire. “Explain yourself.” Amanita took a deep breath. “I l-learned necromancy,” she said, staring at the fire. “I now know just h-how bad it is. I’m going to the Crystal Empire to turn myself in. A-and a lich might be chasing me, because I’ve got her phylactery.” Bitterroot blinked. That was… “I… I’m sorry, what?” “I m-made a mistake in learning necromancy,” Amanita said again. “I’m trying to turn myself in. And…” She began pawing through her saddlebag. “I’ve got the phylactery of a lich, so I’m t-taking that to civilization so it can be destroyed.” She pulled out a crystal, dangling on the end of a thin chain. It glowed with a soft, cold light, almost imperceptible. It didn’t look anything other than ordinary, but something about the way it felt gave Bitterroot goosebumps, as if it’d been pulled from a wound. There was somepony’s soul in there, completely separate from her body. That pony was now immortal, and it’d only required a ritualistic slaughter to make it. Bitterroot almost thought she could hear whispering coming from the crystal. “It was my m-master’s,” said Amanita, staring at it. “Circe’s. She was… completely unrepentant about what she was doing. Killed an entire village of ponies to make this. I’d d-destroy it myself, but she put the best strengthening spells she could muster on it.” A village. Artemis had said Amanita had killed a whole village. Grayvale, wasn’t it? And Amanita had mentioned it unprompted, so she was probably around when Grayvale had been destroyed. But if it was a phylactery, it definitely wasn’t Amanita’s. Liches didn’t care about the cold or bullet wounds. Bitterroot believed that this Circe, not Amanita, had been responsible and Amanita had just gotten caught up in the mess. Regarding the spells, though… “Have you tried unraveling them?” asked Bitterroot. She knew that any given unicorn didn’t know every spell, but sometimes it was ridiculous just how little they knew. Amanita shook her head. “Too complicated. It’d b-be like trying to draw calligraphy with your tail.” “Can I try?” “It won’t do any g-good.” “Still.” “Fine.” Amanita tossed the crystal on the ground between them. “Break it.” “Alright.” Bitterroot examined it for a moment, then retrieved two large rocks from the river. She put the crystal on one and smashed it with the other. The crystal didn’t look remotely harmed. Amanita raised an eyebrow. “See?” “Let’s try again,” Bitterroot muttered. She smashed the crystal with the rock, again and again and again. Nothing changed. She glanced at her rock. Bits of it were flaking off. She shrugged and tossed the rock away. “You win.” She hadn’t really expected anything to come of that, but it was always worth a shot. Amanita snatched up the crystal and returned it to her bag. “So everything I’ve done has been to put as much space between Circe and myself as possible. I tried collapsing a mine on top of her, but I’m not taking any chances. I can’t let her get her hooves on that again. I-” “Even murdering that old mare on the clifftop?” asked Bitterroot. “Even siccing that undead bear on us?” “Yes, and… Hang on.” Amanita looked up, frowning. “The bear went after you?” “Yeah.” “It… wasn’t supposed to… Gah, I am so sorry.” Amanita cringed and curled into a ball. “It wasn’t supposed to attack you, just… Sorry.” Bitterroot considered pushing the issue, but there was another thing. “And the mare?” “She was nice enough to give me dinner, but I needed to get down the cliff and she wouldn’t let me leave,” said Amanita defensively. “I had to do something.” “She wouldn’t let you leave, so you killed her?” Bitterroot was aghast beyond words. She’d never imagined something so petty. You’d never find anything like that in Equestria. Usually never. “I’m a necromancer,” Amanita snapped. “Murder is our default method of problem-solving and it’s easy to reverse. Besides, I had to keep Circe away from her phylactery. If she got her hooves on it again-” “Oh,” scoffed Bitterroot, “and I’m sure that’s a great comfort to the mare, lying cold and dead in her house.” Amanita flattened her ears and chuckled nervously. “Uh, yeah…” She twisted a lock of hair around a hoof. “Funny story about that…” To her very great surprise, Polar Sun woke up. Hadn’t her throat been slit? Yes, she’d live with those memories for as long as she lived. Maybe that was a bad comparison and she was dead. No, her neck ached and she was colder than usual. She didn’t think pain existed in the afterlife, although she admitted she could be wrong. Something was clinging to her coat, but she ignored it for the moment. She looked around. Wherever she was, it looked like her house. She rolled onto her hooves and stood up. Definitely her house, albeit messier than usual. She braced herself for something mind-shattering or alien and looked out the window. The Crystal Mountains, as plain and beautiful as ever. If this was the afterlife, it was awfully mundane. She would’ve expected at least some sort of psychopomp. “Something’s up,” she said, partly to test her voice. It sounded the same. Maybe a little raspier. She closed the shutters to keep out the wind and rubbed her neck, trying to- She felt it. A scar. A big, thick scar that curled around her neck from one side to the other. Polar ran to the mirror and cringed, even ignoring the dried blood matted to one side of her. Corded and almost half an inch wide, the scar curved neatly across her throat like a perverse necklace. She placed a hoof near one of its endpoints. “Heartbeat. Carotid.” The other. “Heartbeat. Other carotid.” Polar drummed her hoof on the ground as she looked at herself. “She cut you up real good, didn’t she, Sun?” she asked. “So, why oh why are you still alive?” She squinted at her bloodstained reflection. “You don’t know anything, do you? … I thought not.” She rolled her head this way and that. It was a bit harder to look up, as the scar had tightened the skin, but otherwise she had full mobility. She poked at the scar. It wasn’t overly sensitive. She poked a few more times. No bleeding. The scar felt like she’d had it for months. “Maybe I’ve been asleep or dead or whatever for months.” She looked out the window again and peered at the snowline of a distant mountain. Almost unchanged from the last time she’d seen it, so the Empire hadn’t even begun its seasonal avalanche blasting. “Still before the equinox,” she said. “No more than a week.” She closed her eyes, trying to remember what exactly had happened. Amanita had sliced her throat open, she’d seemingly died… But then came strange, distant memories, those of a half-remembered dream. The feelings were alien, something she’d never felt before and couldn’t properly describe. “River rapids? Like I was trying to swim downstream with them but couldn’t.” It was more a sensation than an actual experience. The boom of a distant firearm (a blunderbuss?) jolted her from her memories. Yes, that particular unicorn might have killed her. Yes, she might have spontaneously been resurrected. But now, she felt fine. She was alive. Might as well keep living. “First, gotta repair the shelves.” She walked over to one of the broken items, she focused on the feeling in her hooves, making sure it felt the same. One of them felt too tight. She looked at it. “Hellooooooo…” Bandages were wrapped around her lower leg. “I know I didn’t put those there.” She didn’t need them, at least not for climbing. She unwrapped them; they felt too constricting. But as she pulled away the last strips of bandage, a small piece of parchment fluttered away from her leg and to the floor. “Hello again.” Frowning, Polar peered at it, and immediately sucked in a breath. Scratched out in flaking ink was a bizarre… thing: “Not a rune,” she muttered. “Too intricate.” But there had to be some sort of magic to it, right? Why else would it be bound to her? Would it do something if she touched it? “Here goes nothing.” Polar prodded the parchment. Nothing happened. She laid a hoof on it and waited. Nothing, not even a funny feeling in her foot. She carefully worked a hoof under it and flipped it over. A message was written there: If AND ONLY IF your heart has started beating again, you can destroy this. Sorry. —Amanita She’d felt it barely a minute earlier, but Polar immediately put a hoof on her chest. Her heart was beating strongly. Staring at the parchment all the while, she took out flint and tinder and set it alight. The smoke from it looked strange, thick and oily, but that was it. Polar sniffed. No odd smells. She looked at the ashes left behind. Nothing strange there. She put a hoof on her chest again. Still a strong heartbeat. “Well,” muttered Polar, “guess you’re never gonna learn what that was all about.” She shrugged and began examining the remains of her shelves. No use dwelling on the past. Bitterroot stared at Amanita, who was attempting to smile and failing miserably. “So…” said Bitterroot incredulously, “you… killed somepony… then left a rune-based spell on her corpse to resurrect her… because all that was easier than pushing her away from a door.” “I-in my defense, she was strong for an earth pony and I’m weak for a unicorn. And it was a stavic spell, not a runic one.” “…Necromancers are weird.” So. Bitterroot turned the facts over in her head: the earth pony was still alive (supposedly), the bear was… a mistake, somehow (Bitterroot still wasn’t sure how), and the ranger… “What about the ranger? Catskill.” Amanita lowered her eyes and bit her lip. “Does she… Does she know she’s dead?” Amanita asked quietly. “Yes.” “Crap.” Amanita held her head in her hooves. “I almost told her. I was this close to… telling her everything. It’d ease her in, and-” “So what did you do to her?” “She died saving me from a bear,” said Amanita. “And I… I couldn’t just let her stay dead. I’m a necromancer; pulling ponies back from beyond the veil is kinda my thing. But her injuries were far too severe to just bring her back right then and there. I mean, she had a hole in her heart. So… I…” She sighed and ruffled her mane. Her voice dropped even more. “…kinda-sorta enthralled her and did some long-term healing magic on her. Healing’s my special talent, actually.” She pulled up the cloak and displayed her flank to Bitterroot: a red cross. “Ne-” Bitterroot couldn’t help herself. “But… your shoulder-” “I spent over an hour continually using magic to keep my body temperature above freezing,” snapped Amanita, “so forgive me if my magic isn’t quite up to snuff at the moment.” “Right, sorry,” said Bitterroot, putting up her hooves. “Forget I asked.” Amanita glared at Bitterroot, then cleared her throat. “So. Catskill. Necromancy keeps her in this world while her body gets knit back together. And in seven or eight hours, her wounds will be healed and her heart will start beating again and it’ll be like she never died.” She smiled half-heartedly and shrugged. Bitterroot blinked. Of all the things she’d expected to hear concerning a necromancer, this was not one of them. On the one hoof, the basic idea made an amazing amount of sense, but necromancers weren’t really known for protecting the sanctity of life like that. Yet it made also made sense within this context; a necromancer who didn’t want to be a necromancer using her powers to save lives rather than- Hold up. “Wait. Kinda-sorta enthralled her?” “It’s complicated,” Amanita said wearily, “but you’re supposed to bind thralls to your own will so you — and only you — can control them. I basically just bound her to her will instead, which is pretty much the same thing as living.” “I see,” lied Bitterroot. “I almost told her the truth,” Amanita muttered. “Just so she’d know. But what was I supposed to say? ‘Guess what. You died and I brought you back to life. Well, technically you’re undead right now. But you’ll be alive tomorrow! Oh, and I’m a necromancer.’ Right.” She snorted. “Yeah. Probably not the best way to talk to somepony.” Amanita sucked in a breath through her nose. “So, that… That’s it.” The fire crackled and popped. “Now what? Are… Are you going to kill me?” The fire snapped and fizzled. “To be honest, it’s what I deserve. Just make it quick and take the phylactery to the Crystal Empire.” Bitterroot stared into the fire. She wasn’t sure, to be honest. Amanita was a necromancer. Who’d surrendered and had her magic suppressed (voluntarily, even). Common sense said necromancers needed to die. Common sense would’ve killed a pony who went out of her way to save another’s life. Yes, Amanita could be lying. But thanks to Catskill and her continued free will, it would’ve required the stars to align in all the right ways. Killing Amanita would be easier. Keeping her alive would keep blood off Bitterroot’s hooves. Did having blood on your hooves really matter when it was the blood of a bad pony? But had Amanita turned a new leaf and become a good pony? “Is Catskill still with you?” asked Amanita. “If you’re going to haul me back with you, I’d like to apologize to her.” That settled things for Bitterroot. The truth about Catskill convinced her to give Amanita the benefit of the doubt. And if she wanted to see the pony she’d raised from the dead, she was willing to own up to her actions. (Also, it would prove Artemis wrong, which was a plus.) Bitterroot was even willing to bet Amanita was telling the truth about the other mare. She stood up. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going back to town. I don’t think you deserve to die. You can explain yourself and we’ll put it to a vote.” Conveniently, their bounty group plus Catskill made an odd number of ponies. Amanita smiled resignedly. “I don’t know whether to praise you or curse you.” She shrugged off Bitterroot’s cloak and pulled her own clothes on, by now warm and dry from the fire. “We’ll see, I guess.” “Can you walk?” “Well enough.” Amanita walked across the clearing a few times. “Yeah, I can walk.” She frowned at one of her rear legs and flexed it. “Good. It’ll probably be about an hour before we get to town.” “Hoo boy,” mumbled Amanita. She took a deep breath and hiked her saddlebags up. “Let’s get going, then.”