“C’mon,” smirked Spinner. “Pay up.”
“No,” huffed Valor, giving the bard an irritated look. “That wasn’t fair and you know it!”
“Don’t be a sore loser,” chuckled the filidh, a smug expression on her face as she stretched out across her bedroll. “You had twenty guesses, just like we agreed on, and you couldn’t figure out what I was thinking of.”
“The point of the game is that you’re supposed to be thinking of an animal, a mineral, or a vegetable,” groused Valor, an indignant tone filling her voice. “Snow isn’t a mineral!”
“Oh Mys-ty!” called Spinner in a sing-song voice. “You’ve got some fine literature about the definition of minerals in your saddlebag, right? If you wouldn’t mind showing it to our dear Valor, I’d be much obliged.”
Giving the bard a dirty look in response to being dragged into the brewing argument, Mystaria rubbed her face with one hoof. “You know, when I agreed to conjure a light – despite it being an offense against the Night Mare, not to mention her faithful who reside here in the Shrine – I did so because you convinced me that being able to see our immediate surroundings for more than a couple of hours a day would make it easier to relax.”
Spinner shrugged good-naturedly. “What? I find winning my friends’ money to be very relaxing!”
Mystaria rolled her eyes, adjusting the folded cloak that was dampening the glow of the pebble she’d cast a light spell on. The heavy fabric blocked most of the illumination, leaving most of the room lit only dimly. A second such cloak – this one Shadow’s – hung over the entrance to the room they were camped out in, helping to make sure that none of the ambient illumination spilled out into the rest of the Shrine.
As uncomfortable as Mystaria had been at breaking one of the Night Mare’s tenets while taking refuge in her shrine, she knew that she’d made the right choice. Being stuck in the dark wasn’t just uncomfortable, it was dangerous; not only did it make it almost impossible to take care of Woodheart, but casting darkvision spells put an additional burden on Thermal Draft at a time when the pegasus needed to avoid straining herself. I just hope that the Night Mare doesn’t take too much offense at this, Mystaria prayed silently.
But she doubted that would be the case; while she’d only made a cursory study of the other gods in the pantheon, everyone knew that the Night Mare wasn’t the forgiving sort.
Mystaria wasn’t looking forward to the dreams she’d be having the next time she slept.
At least Akna’s not being punished for our transgressions, she consoled herself as she glanced at where the adlet – still in the form of a winter wolf – was dozing in the back corner of the room. She’d conjured up a light after she’d fallen asleep, the shaman assuring them that she was a heavy sleeper, and so far there was no indication that her goddess was holding her responsible for their act of minor blasphemy.
Sighing, Mystaria didn’t bother to pull any books from her saddlebag – despite what Spinner said, she didn’t have any tomes on minerology – as she turned her gaze toward Valor. “Technically, Spinner’s right. When water freezes, it meets the definition of a mineral, such as becoming solid-”
“Ice is solid,” retorted Valor. “Snow isn’t!”
Mystaria bit back a groan. “The individual flakes that make it up are solid, even if they don’t collectively bond to the same degree that ice does. It’s also the result of natural processes, is inorganic, has a homogeneous structure-”
“Valor, just pay Spinner already,” growled Shadow from where she was sharpening her dagger on the other side of the room, shooting the muscled mare an irritated look. “Two copper coins is barely enough to buy a toothpick, but if it saves us from a lecture on the nature of snow, it’s a steal.”
“I don’t want to hear about stealing from the pony who thought it would be a good idea to try prying some of those onyx stones off the wall of this place,” muttered Valor grumpily as she fished out the money and tossed it to Spinner.
“Can you blame her?” asked the bard. “I mean, that’s a queen’s ransom in gems, all being used to decorate a cave. Anyone would want to help themselves to a few of them.”
“Which would be blasphemy far worse than making light inside the Shrine,” noted Mystaria flatly. “Not to mention you wouldn’t even be able to cash them anyway; you know as well as I do that it’s illegal to own onyxes.”
“It is?” Looking up from where she’d been petting Littleknight – who meeped unhappily as the pegasus stopped tickling his belly with her feathers – as she watched over the comatose form of Woodheart, Thermal Draft cocked her head. “How come?”
“It’s, um...” Mystaria faltered, wondering if the answer was too morbid to talk about to a mare who was not only laboring under a death curse, but had an unborn child to worry about.
But Spinner took the matter out of her hooves a moment later, the bard answering the question with all the tact of a whale breaking the ocean’s surface. “Onyx gems are a necessary component in reanimating the dead. They’ve been illegal ever since the Empire was founded, since the last battle Queen Iliana fought in the Wars of Unification was against a cult of necromancers called the Tribe of Bones.”
Thermal Draft gulped, a shudder running down her spine. “So, the gems out there...?”
“Are more than enough to raise legions of zombies, wights, ghouls...” Trailing off as she remembered the story that Thermal Draft had told her several nights prior about what had happened to her hometown, Spinner gave an awkward cough. “But, um, it’s not like that’s going to happen here!” She gave a forced laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “I mean, everyone knows that the Night Mare isn’t a goddess of the undead. In fact, the pony pantheon doesn’t even have a goddess of the undead!”
Shadow Star snorted.
“Oh, here we go,” murmured Valor.
“Shadow, please, don’t start with that again,” begged Mystaria.
“If this is about that rumor, then that’s all it is,” added Spinner, “a rumor.”
Her eyebrows having gone up a little more with each comment, Thermal Draft couldn’t help but look somewhat nervous. “I didn’t mean to start a fight,” she offered, her voice cautious. “Maybe we could just forget I said anything?”
“Fine by me,” announced Shadow, though her voice contained a clear note of irritation. “It’s not like I’ve ever had any formal religious training. I’m only from Blevik, the heart of Kara’s faith, so what would I know about her religion?”
Valor licked her lips, taking a moment to gather her thoughts before speaking. “Shadow, I say this with all due respect, but in light of what you told us yesterday, I suspect that your feelings towards Kara’s faith are...complicated.”
“Along with your feelings toward your mother, Blevik’s law enforcement, and any stallion who reminds you of your stepdad,” added Spinner wryly.
Wincing at Spinner’s unnecessary comment, Mystaria gestured toward their pegasus companion. “Maybe Drafty’s right, and we should talk about-”
“Wait, Kara’s a goddess of the undead?” Sitting up, she turned all her attention toward the masked mare. “I thought she was the goddess of love?”
Despite the lower portion of her face being hidden from view, and the subdued lighting, the way Shadow’s eyes narrowed made it clear what she thought of that idea. “Oh, she is. Mostly the kind of love that you can rent from a streetwalker for a few coins. But some of her faithful, if they’re devout enough, ask Kara to bless them with a love that’s everlasting.”
Gulping, Thermal Draft shifted her weight uncomfortably. “Everlasting how? Because if you’re saying that she turns them into an undead creature, that doesn’t seem like something a love goddess would do. I mean, all I ghouls I ever saw were disgusting and evil!”
“Ah, but not all undead creatures are rotting corpses or unquiet spirits,” retorted Shadow, putting her dagger away as she turned toward Thermal Draft. “There’s one particular type that are widely considered to be beautiful, alluring, and seductive. Who can supposedly inflame the passions of their victims, even as they feed on them. In some cases, they’ve even sired children with mortal lovers.”
Gulping, Drafty clamped down on the urge to put a hoof to her lower belly. “What kind of undead can have children?”
“Only one kind,” answered Shadow gravely. “Vampires.”
Thermal Draft’s eyes widened at that, but didn’t have a chance to say anything as Mystaria spoke up. “I’d like to point out that none of this has ever been confirmed, and most reasonable ponies think that it’s another instance of prejudice against doppelgangers.”
“That’s what happens when dops and vamps both fit with the whole ‘my dead husband slipped into my bed one night and knocked me up, but was gone the next morning’ story,” quipped Spinner.
This time Valor was the one rolling her eyes. “Oh please. The sun cats have stories about phantom lovers – they call them ‘pards’ – who’ll sneak into someone’s tent at night too, and they don’t have doppelgangers or vampires. According to my aunt, those stories are almost always told by someone having an affair and trying to hide it.”
“‘Almost’ always?” echoed Spinner, raising one eyebrow suggestively.
Valor shrugged. “I don’t know. A magic-user taking liberties with someone they fancied, probably?”
“The point,” stressed Mystaria, “is that there’s no evidence that Kara has some sort of secret rite where she turns someone into a vampire. And honestly, that story doesn’t even make any sense; why would she consign the souls of some of her most faithful ponies to keep existing in the mortal world like that, instead of taking them to her realm in the Outer Planes?”
“Wait, hang on.” Drafty shook her head for a moment. “Vampires have souls? How? I thought that when you die, all the positive energy in your body is lost, and without that your soul departs for the afterlife.”
The pointed rebuttal earned a low whistle from Spinner. “Wow, and here I thought Mysty was our only theologian.”
Ignoring the bard, Shadow shook her head. “Ghosts and wraiths and specters are undead, and they’re nothing but souls that have refused to move on.”
“I...guess that makes sense,” conceded Drafty. “But I still don’t understand how? If positive energy is what keeps the souls of living creatures in their bodies, then-”
“Negative energy, the opposite of positive energy, is what keeps them in their bodies after death,” cut in Mystaria. “Necromancy might have a bad reputation, and not all of it’s undeserved, but it’s still one of the recognized disciplines of magic, so we were taught some of the basics in Luminace’s temple.”
When Drafty nodded at her to go on, she continued. “Positive energy, often called our ‘life force,’ is what our bodies are built to contain. That’s because it acts like an adhesive, binding our souls to our physical forms. But for every positive there’s a negative, and so there’s negative energy as well. While it’s not usually referred to as an ‘anti-life force,’ that’s essentially what it is.”
“But wouldn’t that mean it repels souls instead of, um, gluing them to our bodies?”
Thermal Draft’s question made Mystaria shake her head. “No. The oppositional properties of negative energy function in relation to positive energy; the two negate each other, but they both bind souls. It’s just that...negative energy does it differently.”
“Differently how?”
This time Mystaria bit her lip before answering the pegasus’ question. “I don’t really know the details,” she admitted. “Which shouldn't be a surprise, since the priests at Luminace’s temple weren’t exactly keen on teaching us how to create the undead, but my understanding is it’s not a coincidence that creatures that rely on negative energy to keep their souls on this plane of existence are all uniformly evil. Something about how that stuff works...twists souls, for lack of a better term. I think it has something to do with why biology isn’t necessary for keeping it contained; a lot of undead can actually spread negative energy by touch, turning the living into the undead, but living creatures can’t do that in reverse.”
“Resurrection magic notwithstanding,” interjected Spinner. “Besides, aren’t vampires supposed to be different from other undead? I mean, I’m no expert either, but the stories I’ve always heard made it sound like vampires got a bunch of extra perks – like not being all rotten and gross, and not going all ‘Spread fear! Eat brains! Kill everyone!’ the way most undead are – in exchange for having all sorts of weaknesses, like sunlight and needing to be invited into homes and stuff.”
“Which is why Kara makes her most faithful into them,” cut in Shadow. “Besides, it’s not like she never gets their souls. They still worship her, so if someone drives a stake through their heart or pushes them outside during the day or whatever, they still go to her realm after they die for real.”
“Shadow, there’s a reason that undeath is classically seen as a punishment from the gods, rather than a reward,” sighed Mystaria. “For one thing-”
But she didn’t have a chance to finish as a commotion suddenly erupted from outside, causing everyone to freeze. It wasn’t the unexpected noise that made the ponies stop what they were doing, however. Rather, it was because the nature of the din was so unexpected that they all needed a moment to recover.
“Is that...dogs barking?”
No one had a chance to answer Spinner’s question before Akna began to stir, causing Mystaria to yelp as she flung herself down on the robe covering the pebble she’d enchanted, smothering the light.
“What’s going on?” muttered the adlet sleepily, her words slurred by a yawn. “Is Lex back?”
“That’s what we were wondering,” replied Valor, slightly staggered by the sudden return to total darkness. “But our darkvision has worn off, so-”
“I think I’ve got one casting left in me,” offered Thermal Draft. “I’ll go see what’s going on.”
“Drafty-”
But Mystaria didn’t have a chance to express her worries before Akna spoke up again. “I’ll go with you...is that barking?”
Thermal Draft didn’t answer, concentrating on building the proper sequence in order to let her see in the dark. Silently thankful that the lack of light kept everyone – except Akna, who didn’t say anything – from seeing how the effort made her sway in place, sweat starting to form on her forehead, she only barely managed to complete the casting. “I’ll be right back.”
Akna at her side, she strode out from the room they’d been assigned to, moving out toward the Shrine’s central area-
And stopped dead.
“What is that?!”
Drafty had no words to answer Akna, staring at the gigantic seven-headed flame-eyed wolf-crocodile.
Then her gaze shifted slightly, and caught sight of Lex riding triumphantly on the thing’s back.