You foal! the shadow-clad stallion thought. How could you be so foolish?!
As he stalked past a tree, he kicked it with his back leg hard enough to send its leaves falling around him. He closed his eyes and focused on wrangling his breathing under control. He laid down and rested on the dirt, focusing on the life pulsing from the soil. He attuned himself to it and drew power from it by corrupting it, because he would need a lot more power before his plans came to fruition.
The surge of tainted energy he'd received from the midnight worshippers had made him reckless.
He knew that now.
As he gritted his teeth, he thought, It's not enough! I need more power!
The forest provided the fuel for the stallion's magic, but it also did the same for Starswirl, and, the stallion was loathe to admit, both the wizard's focus and his reservoir of magic was greater by far. The stallion's magical ability was a sledgehammer, while Starswirl's was a pickaxe. And of those two, only a pickaxe could pierce a solid rock face, while a sledgehammer would just bounce off--
Grah, he thought, A mining metaphor? I've spent too much time with these ponies. Their thoughts are creeping into my mind.
If the stallion hoped to overcome Starswirl, he had to remove the wizard's ability to draw power from the forest, which was an especially arduous task, because the forest was already overflowing with Starswirl's kind of magic. The hoofful of townfolk performing their ceremonies were slowly tainting the forest with their fears, but it wasn't enough. He needed to speed up the process.
Or, failing that, he needed to shatter Starswirl's ability to channel the forest's magic.
Yes, he thought. This has potential....
As the beginnings of a plan formed in the stallion's mind, he chuckled softly into the night....
Starswirl emerged from the treeline onto what looked like a dirt trail cutting straight through the forest. He glanced to his right and saw the road led right to the rocky hill dotted with mines. Just a few hundred feet down, a large shed stood by the roadside.
"Yes, yes, this should do," he muttered.
Clover emerged from the trees next to him. "It'll do for what?"
"A place to think."
She glanced into the forest behind her. "Shouldn't we be getting home? What if that thing comes after us again?"
He gave her a scornful eye. "Oh, so now you want to return home, hmm?"
She scowled and moved off to kick a pebble laying in the dirt.
"Come on," he said. "We mustn't dawdle."
As he trotted towards the shed, he magically unlocked the door and pushed it open. Inside lay tools, a work-bench, crates, spare cart wheels and axles, and other assorted odds and ends.
"Shut the door behind you," he said.
Clover did as she was asked, then turned and stared at Starswirl. He, however, ignored her and started pacing from one end of the shed to the other, occasionally mumbling something to himself.
Eventually, she sat on the floor and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
After five minutes of silence, Clover shouted, "Will you please tell me what's going on?"
He stopped pacing and stared at her like he'd forgotten she existed.
"What was that thing that chased us?" she asked. "I ain't never seen anything like it before."
"I think it was a pony."
"That....thing was a pony?"
Starswirl nodded. "A pony whose body was concealed by the magic within him bursting out. That's why he appears shapeless and indistinct. At least, that's my guess."
"So is he a unicorn?"
"I don't know. I certainly haven't ever heard of an earth pony with that kind of power. In fact, I don't know if I've ever heard of a unicorn with that power, either. I didn't want it to come to this, but I'm afraid needs must. Clover?"
"Yes?"
"I left my saddlebag back at the mill. Find me some chalk."
As Starswirl drew on the stone floor with the chalk, Clover stared out the window at the full moon.
"Who discovered this Harmony thing, anyway?" she asked.
"It wasn't a discovery, per se," Starswirl said, finishing off a rune and moving on to the next one. "It was more akin to a series of good ideas dreamt up over the centuries that we in Varnice put together, like Sabiano alchemical theories and the works of the ancient philosopher Pi the Garrulous, who expounded at length about the mathematical perfection of nature. That was an enormous influence on the attributes."
She turned away from the window. "A-true-boats? What in the hay does that mean?"
"'Attribute' means a quality a thing possesses. That's an idea I, ah, 'borrowed' from the donkeys. In their old tongue, they are known as the sephirot, the ten enumerations. I took the concept and, ahem, spiced it up, you might say, before adding it into my own theory of the Harmony."
"So you came up with it, then?"
"In part, yes, but so did a lot of other ponies. We theorized it together, relying on each other to cover the gaps we could not ourselves fill. We worked in harmony, you might say, until we had a working theory of the universe."
"You say this Harmony is all around us, but when I was in bed, I tried seeing it for an hour straight, and I didn't feel anything at all. I didn't feel any connectedness with anypony. So how do I know you ain't just pulling my leg like you always do?"
"I told you, Clover, I value honesty a great deal. I may joke here and there--"
"Here and there?" she asked incredulously.
"--but I'm telling you the honest truth, believe me."
She grumbled, then asked, "But how can I believe in this thing when I can't even see it?"
"The path to reuniting with the Harmony is a journey as much as it is a destination. You cannot arrive there before you're made the trip, you can only start at the beginning."
"Where's the beginning, then? Where did you start?"
Keeping his eyes on the chalk drawing he was making on the floor, Starswirl began, "My journey started when I was a young pony in Varnice, walking home with a ladder for some reason that escapes me. I passed by a shopkeeper who asked to borrow it, but I was tired and wanted to go home. I refused by claiming I was in a hurry and left. I then put it out of my mind.
"Or so I thought.
"For the next seven days, it seemed like everypony at the Academy became very stingy with their equipment. They refused to share anything with me! As I look back, it's obvious they needed it for their own work, but at the time it incensed me so very powerfully. I couldn't understand why they were being so cruel.
"Until, that is, a mysterious mare visited me in a dream and spoke to me. The more her and I conversed, the more I realized I wasn't truly angry with my fellow academics. My refusal to lend the shopkeeper my ladder made me hate myself for being ungenerous. But since I didn't want to admit to myself that I was imperfect, I saw that flaw reflected in everypony else, to assuage my guilt by thinking they were just as ungenerous as I was.
"It was only through talking with this mare that I realized what I was doing, and could put a stop to it. The very next day, I returned to that shop and apologized. The shopkeeper must have thought I was not right in the head, and yet for the first time in a week my conscience was clear.
"That was when I discovered there are things in my mind that are not created by me. There is a great wellspring of knowledge already inside me, if only I dare to tap into it. Where does this wisdom come from? I wondered. That was my first step on the path to the Harmony, and it began when I created harmony within myself, first of all."
"Who was that mare in your dreams?"
"Well, it certainly wasn't the mare I usually dream of these days," he said. Then, he admitted with a shrug, "I couldn't tell you. There are still so many mysteries of the universe I have not yet deciphered."
"So she could appear in my dreams, just like that? What if I don't want her to?"
Starswirl chuckled. "That's the price we pay for being connected to each other, Clover. Go ahead and cut yourself off from the Harmony, but don't expect to lead a happy, fulfilling life."
He made one last chalk mark.
"There," he said. "Done."
Clover walked over, stood beside him, and stared at the drawing on the floor. Inside a large circle, Starswirl had drawn a five-pointed star with words scrawled along the lines. At the points where the star met the circle, he'd made smaller circles, each with a picture inside. In the center was another picture-circle, large enough to touch all five sides of the pentagram the star created.
"What do those mean?" she asked, pointing to the five circles with pictures.
"Those are the attributes of the Harmony I mentioned. Do you remember when I said it must manifest itself through layers to appear in our world?"
"I, uh, remember you saying that. That doesn't mean I understood a word of it."
"Give it time, maybe it will sink in. Anyway, the five traits represented here exist as pathways to return to the Harmony. If let the sparks of Harmony in us radiate them, we progress closer and closer to the Harmony itself until we finally reunite with it."
"How do we let these sparks 'radiate'? Sounds painful."
"Heh heh, it's not. You just have to embody the attributes." He pointed to each circle in turn. "Honesty. Fidelity. Generosity. Merriment. Loving-Kindness. Hold these virtues in your heart, and they will shine through you."
"Is that why you make all those jokes all the time?"
"Very astute, Clover. The Harmony does love a good joke. Perhaps that's why it allows so many dumb fools to flourish, as fodder for the wise fools."
"What's the difference between a dumb fool and a wise fool?"
"A dumb fool gets angry when you laugh at him. A wise fool, on the other hoof, laughs with you, for he knows that the only truly foolish pony is the one who claims not to be a fool. Until you are ready to laugh, Clover, you are not ready to learn."
"But it's so frustrating when I want to know something, and you just tell a dumb joke!"
"Moderation, my little filly. Just as to have too little thirst for knowledge is dangerous, so too is having too great a thirst. When learning becomes an obsession, it throws your Harmony out of balance. Perhaps that's a lesson I've learned the hard way." He pointed to the star's center. "Do you see where the five attributes are balanced? When you allow all five to shine through you, the sixth attribute will appear to you. It is always there, but only when we embody the five others and unite with the Harmony can we see it shining."
"What's the sixth stand for?"
"The infinite light of the Harmony itself. The natural order of the universe, and the magic that binds us all together. That light allows the Harmony to spread, and even to reverse disharmony. The five by themselves are powerful, but when all of them are harmonized, they have the power to repair the world itself."
"So if we follow these five things, then we get to become part of the Harmony?"
"You're already part of the Harmony. This merely allows you to embrace that connection, and act in full and knowing accord with it."
"Alright. So why did you draw it on the floor?"
"Ah, yes. That." With a distinct hint of nervousness, Starswirl explained, "We discovered what the five attributes are by studying societies and determining the ratio of emotions and traits necessary for perfect harmony between ponies. And since the entire cosmos is built on mathematics, we can translate that mathematical harmony into other forms, like this binding circle, which gives it the Harmony's power over that which is....let us say, susceptible to its influence. Trust me, we're going to need it."
She looked up at him, fear in her eyes. "Why is that?"
His voice became suddenly, exceedingly collected. "Clover, it's very important that you take heed of what I'm about to tell you. Do you understand?"
Shaking, she nodded.
"No matter what you see, no matter what you hear, no matter what happens....do not cross the circle. Under any circumstances."
"Why?"
"Because we can't let it get loose."
"Wh--what 'it'? What do you mean 'it'?"
"The monstrous creature of infinite cruelty I'm going to summon."
"Why, exactly?"
"Because I need to have a conversation with it. You said you wanted proof of the Harmony's existence, and this may offer you some."
"Buh--huh--you don't need to do that for me, really, I'm alright--"
"I'm not doing this for your benefit. This is the only way to be sure about what I need to know."
Starswirl strode forward, ignoring Clover's sputtered protests, and stepped up to the edge of the circle. He took a deep breath as he sent magic from the spark of Harmony within him surging up into his horn. He bellowed into the empty air:
By the eye of Yaldagoath, I would see thy form.
By the ear of Yaldagoath, I would hear thy tongue.
By the mind of Yaldagoath, I would take thy ken.
By the hoof of Yaldagoath, I would bind thee firm.
The lines of the magic circle started to glow with light. A wind rose from nowhere, sending pieces of parchment scattering.
Clover backed away from the unnatural sight until her haunches hit the wall.
Starswirl repeated his mantra, each time making his voice more commanding and more forceful. The light from the circle and the wind from nowhere intensified in sympathy. A low thrum rattled the timbers of the shed, which seemed about to go to pieces.
As was Clover.
Starswirl reared back and threw his hooves to the roof. "By the unholy name of Yaldagoath....I. BID. THEE. COME."
The circle exploded with a pillar of light so bright it made Starswirl shut his eyes; however, the light seared straight through his eyelids, too. Smoke smelling like sulfur poured forth from nowhere. He waved his forelegs to disperse it while blinking the stinging smoke out of his eyes. Behind him, Clover coughed so forcefully he half-expected to see a lung fly into his field of vision.
"....so then I said, 'My dear, that isn't a wig on your bald pate, that's your scalp and a wombat making--' Huh? Oh me, oh my, what do we have here?"
Slowly, the smoke dissipated, to reveal....
"Wh--what is it?!" Clover gasped.
The floating draconequis said, "It....is eager to go back to a most deee-lightful costume ball it was so rudely torn away from."
"We meet again," said Starswirl, lowering his brow, "creature of infinite chaos...."