Jericho

by Crushric

Chapter 36 — Rosenlied

Roses.

There was some just deliciously cliché about roses, methought. A symbol of love and blood. Nothing in this room, not the couches or the doorways or the various paintings of crystal mares on the walls, held my attention as much as the coat of arms above the bricks of the fireplace.

Here in the warmth of the house’s den, lit by the grand fireplace wherebefore I stood, there was a coat of arms hanging on the wall. Those roses were the symbol of House Erysa, whose current head was the mare I kennt as Sênatris, for whom I’d fought in that arena place and nearly gotten my nuts literally torn off. Now, we were waiting for her to show up. That is, I and stallion in the armor resting against the wall were waiting.

“Do you like roses?” the stallion asked. I’d learnt that his name was Ilitwvar, who liked to go just by Ylv. According to one of the other crystal bucks who’d saved me earlier, this had something to do with the fact that his full name meant ‘He who has a certain proclivity towards the consumption of sweets en masse’. Roughly translated. He continued, “You keep staring at my lady’s coat of arms.”

I glanced at the window. Outside was a part of Côrint wherewith I was unfamiliar, far more wooden and dirty than any other part of the city, but still covered in snow. “It reminds me of home. And before you ask, it’s because the coat of arms for Haus Pendergast has a pair of crossed, thorny roses thereupon, with drops of blood on the thorns in some depictions. Well, they’re the background for the main crest of the family, which is a large, two-headed black falcon.”

When I looked to the stallion, he was just staring at me as if I were just explaining to him that time his mother, father, and I had that fourway with a goat. “What?” I asked.

“Pendergast?” Ylv asked in a thicker Mijôra accent. “Gens Pendergast?” He shook his head. “Gens Pendergast Nwlcorim?”

“Stop saying things I don’t understand!” I replied.

He stood up, his light armor clanking slightly. “You speak of House Pendergast of the Nûlkor. We kenn the Gens Pendergast. But it’s no more than an ancient myth. It was such even before the Crystal Empire was locked away for a millenium.”

My eye fell once upon his sword. The cross-point of the hilt bore an insignia of a purple pentagon. Either he was a super angsty teen, or that meant something. With my luck, it was the latter.

“Is that sword new?” I asked.

“What, this thing?” he replied, and I nodded. “Aye, it is. Snechta’s been receiving a few odds and ends from somewhere, finely made weapons and armors and spell materials. Why do you look so concerned all of a sudden?”

My mind had gone somewhither in particular. Years ago, the city of Zentrum. As the sky fell down upon the last bastion of the Reich this side of the Rhein, and its fall would mean the death of the nation, the death of millions, the end of world, and probably bad bedhead for life affecting all the survivors.

And as the legions of Chaos and Hell fell upon the most heavily fortified and defended city in all of creation, a hellish voice rent across what felt the like the worlds, brimming with magic malevolence and psychic superiority. It had been Korweit, speaking into the very minds of everybody, mortal and demon alike, wicked and good.

“Faithful, enlightened, ambitious brethren,” the darkly seductive voice oozed into everypony’s head. “In but a few small months, less than even the tiniest measurable fraction of eternity, we have gathered up a blood-sacrifice to the Dark Lady that will be made myth before this day is even ended. In mere hours, millions will die, innocent and guilty, strong and weak, honest and deceitful, all of them! They will scream, they will burn, and we shall do in an orgiastic display of piety and respect for the one true divine being who loves us all equally. And it shall be for no purpose as the unbelievers may understand, but one that Her true followers would remember as the act… which saved the world.”

Father’s voice, calm and fatherly for once in his life: “To each of us falls a task. And all God asks of us soldiers is that we stand the line, and that we die fighting. It was what we do best: we die standing. But we are Männer of the Reich; we are superior in mind and body, in morality and philosophy. In a world of purity and hatred, we stand as a mongrel people of mixed blood and race, of tolerance and acceptance. We of the Reich are a bastard people charged to be the protectors of this world. But if the universe is out to kill us, then it is our sworn duty to kill the universe first and protect the Reich, the last light of civilization in a word shrouded in darkness.”

“Sedhoas? Sedhoas?”

I snapped back into reality. “Sorry, Ylv, just had a really dramatic flashback for reasons only I may know.” I rubbed my face and sighed.

So. The Crystalfolken working for Snechta had weapons bearing insignia of demons? It had to only be them, for I was sure I’d’ve noticed if Arnold Armor had been wielding such gear. Those with Snechta likely had hard-forged hellish armor, too, designed to look as over-the-top possible. Demons, a part of me was always sure, were perpetually stuck at the maturity level on tweens and early teens, hence their often hilarious armor and weapon designs, menacing with spikes of teenage angst. I had once remarked that the only think the armies of Chaos were lacking were flags and banners depicting Super Serious Frowny Faces, to demonstrate how super hardcore they were, as smiling was for pussies.

This had to have been the doing of Korweit, or Corvaet, or however the locals were spelling his name down here. Corvite? Still, it was a serious wonder how any such materials could end up here. The Warforges of Chaos lay in the Wasteland, das Ödland, and the Reich stood between those and the ocean whereacross was Equestria. It didn’t make much sense how Korweit himself could be here, let alone the supplies for an army.

But forgetting for a moment how any of this was possible, I had to consider his aims. Was Korweit, the Voice in the Dark, trying to do here what he failed to do during the Dark Crusade? Presuming he failed, since the world was still here, and the Reich did sort of exterminate the Legions of Chaos pretty hardcore, Pyrrhic victory or not.

What, did Korweit want to raise an army in this land? Turn the northern reaches of Equestria into the breeding grounds for a new generation devoted to the forces of Chaos, to the worship of the Queen of Graves? So many questions, so little—

“Uh, are you still alive?”

I blinked. “Bu-wah?”

Ylv scratched the back of his head. “You, uh, you just sort of froze and stared ahead for, like, five minutes straight. Are you okay? Do you need a lie down?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” I said. “I was merely stuck in deep internal monologue, and forgot there was a world outside of my mind there.”

He glanced around nervously. “Well, um, I guess that’s interesting.”

“Yes, most interesting,” said a female voice. Ylv immediately spun to the doorway and bowed down. There was the early-forties mare in the dark robes, hood pulled down so that I could see her cocking a brow at me. “Not going to bow to little old highborn me?”

As the fire crackled, I shook my head. “Nay, ma’am. I would not be so belligerent as you insult you thence.” When she turned her head and cocked at me her other brow, I said, “Whence I come, bowing to someone in considered an insult. To bow to a leader such as the King would be like to call him a vile tyrant and enslaver, for only tyrants and the wicked demand that folken bow unto them.” I shrugged. “I could no more bow to you than I could pull your hair and slap hard the underside of your head, even if you told me that was the polite greeting around these parts, do you kenn?”

She nodded. “Your ways are strange, Teutscher.” Sênatris repeated this last word several times with various changes in pitch and tone, molesting it with her tongue. “When first we met, you said you were this, a Teutscher, not an Equestrian, not a Sejfêon. Now I understand what this means. You are Nwlcor.” Her expression said ‘Huh’ with dull amazement.

“Wait, what? I’m sorry, you might be talking about something recent, but I am totally lost on account of my huge mental thingy-thing thoughts.”

“You two were just speaking of the Nûlkor, and you stated that the ruling dynasty of your nation seems to be the mythic Gens Pendergast of legend,” she said. Redundantly, I might add. Legend and mythic? Talk about being really unique, these Crystalfolken. “I was just connecting the dots.”

“Oh, I see. And you pegged me for a distant child of the Nûlkor?” I asked.

The mare nodded. “Snechta once told us that the salvation of the Crystal Empire lay not in the hooves of our own but in those of an outlander.”

I yawned. “Yes, yes, Snechta this, Snechta that. Look, lady, I couldn’t care less. I’m here because I accidentally stirred up the hornets’ net and now a nutthurt Prince is trying to castrate me with naught but a mildly sharpened spoon. But the fact of the matter remains that I have what Snechta needs, and I want to render it unto her in exchange for using its powers to heal my ruined body. Yet now I question Snechta’s true motives, because I just realized that… what are you doing?”

Sênatris walked forwards and past me, eying me like a piece of good meat. “Ruined body?” she flicked her tail, its tip hitting me on the nose. I sneezed. And she didn’t bless me, the hussy! “You look as fine as ever.”

I sighed. “Please don’t start with the sexual harassment again, Sênatris. I mean, it was bad enough having to strip down naked last time with you just looking at me like that.”

Her tail dragged around my hindhooves as she turned and brushed up against my side. Oh, look, Ylv appears to have vanished into another room. “Aw, need you be such a spoilsport? You know as well as I that this is fun—”

“No,” I said in a perfectly flat voice, looking her straight in the eyes. “It is sexual harassment and I don’t have to take it.” I pushed her back. “Can’t I go somewhere just once without getting molested by mares? It’s like, God in Heaven, it’s like I sweat catnip sometimes, except for mares.”

She blinked and gave me a look of dire confusion. “Uh, what just happened?” she said after a moment. “You’re the Champion of Côrint.”

“So?” I demanded, backing away from her and occasionally hissing at her like a kitty-cat.

“I—”

I hissed loudly. When she tried to speak again, I repeated the action.

“Would you stop hissing at me?”

“Maybe,” I said with hard suspicion.

She shook her head and sighed, leaning up against the wall. The orange light of the fire danced upon her dark cloak and her crystal-like teal body. “You elected to fight for me, to become the Champion. You chose to become the most vaunted stallion in the Empire as part of a great tradition we’ve had since long before the Sejfêonar came to these lands and claimed it as theirs. We highborn are only to know those stallions who have proven themselves during Mançthwl. Even though Princess Mi Amore Cadenza might have tried to utterly destroy the festival when she found out all of its details, it is a part of our culture which cannot be destroyed. You achieved the most vaunted position.” She gestured at me with enough force to actually cause her to lose her footing and tumbled forwards a few step. “To even sleep in the same bed as you would greatly improve the social standing of any filly in town. But to know you?”

“I’m starting to get the feeling that you’re using ‘know’ as a synonym of ‘to have oodles and noodles of sex with’,” I said.

“Why do you think we use the word ‘to kenn’ when it comes to ponies, not to know?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Because Equestria suffers from a vast multiplicity of whacky accents?” I walked over to the couch, which was a strange off-white thing that looked like no expense had been spared to make it look like every possible expense had been spared. It reminded me of the design philosophy of the shoddy benches at the Sleepy Oaks train station. There, I took a seat and wished for some iced tea.

Erysa—not her first name, but it was good enough—walked over in my direction. “Highborn mares are only allowed to know stallions such as yourself. Especially yourself, being that you’re both the Champion and a great hero in the struggle against the Equestrian tyranny. Tradition dictates that this is to ensure all highborn are bred mighty and fast, born only by the strongest and brightest, to ensure that tomorrow’s leaders are as perfect as blood can be.”

“Ah,” I said. “So it’s like a user-friendly and self-imposed program of Eugenik?”

“Oi-gen-ick?”

“Ja, Eugenik.” I gave her nervous countenance a sideways grin. “Basically, what I gather is, because I fought for you, I am now basically some sort of sex symbol to your entire ethnic group?”

“Uh-huh,” she replied, nodding her head.

Groaning, I rubbed my forehead. “Allfather preserve me. It’s times like this I’m glad I murdered Cherry Berry,” I muttered under my breath. “God, now I’m the sex symbol for a bunch of weird folken who serve, one way or the other, Korweit.”

Quickly, I scanned Erysa’s face for any signs of recognition with the name Korweit. That perplexed look on her face seemed genuine enough, though. She didn’t know anything that would help me, even if she was accepting the wargear of the demonic lord. What was it that the Voice in the Dark styled himself? ‘The Prince of Whispers’? Again, the name followed that ludicrously angsty demonic philosophy.

Reclining back into the couch, I stared up at the relatively low ceiling and said to Erysa, “Ground rule number one: stay way from my genitals. Rule two: don’t think thereof. Rule three: avoid staring into that hoof-sized gem that shows you an image of your agéd self wistfully thinking back to the days when you were younger and looking into this very gem. And rule A—”

I grabbed my eyepatch and lifted it up. Erysa gazed into the unblinking hole where my left eye once existed, now just a gaping mass of infinite sorrow leading into a cavernous void in the hollow of my skull. She screamed.

I also screamed. “Do you still want to screw me?!”

“Probably, though maybe with a bag over your head!”

“Oh, for the love of God, Archangel Thor, and the Mare Laurentia!” I groaned, collapsing into an indescribable ball of pony misery on the couch. “When can I leave this place? I want to heal my eye real fast like.”

Still reeling from the horror of my left not-eye, Erysa steadied herself. “When the heat dies down, I’ll inform you, Champion.”

“But it’s really cold out there,” I replied with a puzzled look.

Erysa just gave me a look so blank that I felt the urge to give her an expression with a pencil. It was a moment before she responded. “That was so funny I forgot to laugh.”

“And nopony wants to squish their genitals up with somepony who’s unfunny,” I said with a knowing nod. Adjusting my black poncho alongside Black Jack’s hat, I sighed. “God, sometimes I hate my life. Mostly other people hate my life, but sometimes it’s me.”

The mare came over and sat beside me on the couch. I glared at her, trying to take up as much leg room as possible in order to mildly inconvenience her away. But she persisted on by sitting there, all cozy like in the heat of the fire.

“Also, could you stop calling me ‘Champion’?” I asked. “I have a name, you know. It’s stupid and would make more sense for a dog than a pony, but I have one!”

“Come now, cannot you see that the title suits you ever so well? You’re the eastern stranger and the terrifying Champion.”

“Eastern stranger?” I asked. “Please don’t tell em that means I’m going to get sacrificed to the God of STDs or something. Because I’m a smart pony; I advocate using condoms!”

She gave me a little smile. “That’s not what I mean at all, Champion. See, legends tell that in the days of eld, the south grew cold and icy, where once it had been hot and warm. Then a mighty host came north from those lands, led by a mighty king of the Gens Pendergast. They settled in the rich lands south of the Crystal Empire’s borders and came into contact with the old ponies of the forest, and the Coltic tribes, and the Underkingdom of Ûmodja, all old enemies of the empire.”

She looked at my sheathed sword and paused, as if something about it had just told her a joke so funny that it caused her a sudden brain aneurysm. “Dynh Faeonwr Pendergast offered to help us against our old foes. In exchange, we would engage in trade and diplomacy and forever be their friends and allies. When Dynh Faeonwr Pendergast destroyed the dogs’ underkingdom, obliterated the old ponies of the forest, and drove back the Coltics, we honored our word. Crystalfolk always honor their word. They would aid and protect us, as we would do for them. For this, we came to call these strangers from the south Nwlcor, which they came to call themselves. It means ‘trusted friend’, even ‘lover’ in certain dialects. ”

“I’m all for random history lessons—and for the record, I’m pretty sure it’s Nûlkor, not ‘nool-cohr’—though I find it odd that you even know anything at all regarding history and the like, even more so how you pronounce differently things which I kennt by certain other ways,” I said. “But why would I really care and how is this at all relevant?”

“Because it’s just like in the old treaty today,” Erysa replied, nodding her head. “In the Empire’s time of need, when we were all but destroyed and ruled by foreign powers, a trusted friend would come to our aid. And you look me in the eyes and tell me that when the champion who will save the Empire just so happens to be of the same ponies who saved us two thousand years ago, the very same ponies whose descendants disappeared into myth eastwards across the Sea of Lost Dreams, you tell me that this is anything other than fate and Chêngrêla Herself guiding us by divine providence.”

“If I’ve said it before I’ve said it thousand times to somepony else,” I replied, scooting away from her. This couch suddenly smelt of really old cigar smoke, I noticed. And not the good cigars, either, the ones that were made with slave labor and consist more of the shattered dreams of destitute children than tobacco. “Destiny is predestination is heresy. I refuse to believe any of this is due to the dark talons of fate. I just happen to all too often be the right stallion in the wrong place.” I shrugged. “When you’ve been accused of being the ‘prophesied stranger’ as many times as I have, you really begin to lose all faith in destiny and stuff. I must just happen to fit an incredibly vague set of criteria.”

She gave me a single dark chuckle. “Well, if you think it so, I won’t argue. I know what you are, and that’s good enough for me. I only hope that the Crystalfolk who aren’t yet with us will see the light as I have.”

“Okay, now you just took two steps towards creepy cult territory, ma’am,” I said with a warning tone.

Erysa flicked her tail, an annoyed look on her countenance. “I joined Snechta because I believe in the Empire, in the Crystal Heart, and in my fellow Crystalfolk. Cadence and her husband do not understand how we have operated for eons, and their ignorance will destroy all that made the Empire unique and beautiful. We need every sister and brother to help us overcome this last hurdle. But do we even know how we’re going to evict those two Equestrians from the Crystal Castle? That great and mighty fortress which has stood nigh invincible since before Chêngrêla even gave us the Crystal Heart? We don’t know, but we are resolute in our commitment that we can overcome.”

Yawning, I laid myself out across the back, arms behind my head. This sudden action prompted the mare to hop off the couch. “Well, Erysa, that’s all swell and all, but life’s a very confusing journey lacking answers to seemingly simply things,” I added, shaking my head. “Shame about the destination, though.”

She sighed and shook her head. “If that’s how you wish to act, fine. But don’t think I don’t know that you were chosen by the Goddess to be our champion.” The mare walked towards the door.“I’m going to make some hot tea, then,” she replied. “I’ll leave you to be insane on your own.”

“Hold up, wait, I wish to come with you. I love tea.” I lept up and off the couch. She gave me an expectant look. “What, you want me to say more? I just love tea. I really do. At this point, I woke up in a strange house, not to mention destroying Stronghold, messing with a demon thingy, sacrificing Cards, and then killing Blackout—so if I don’t acquire some soothing tea before resting for this night, I will set fire to everything in this house that is mildly uninteresting!”

“Alright, gosh! If you stop whining and make stupid threats, I’ll make you some tea, too. Deal?”

“Deal!” I said with a sudden grin.

I sat at the large dining room table across from Erysa, sipping my tea. A plant on the table slumped over away from us as I thought back to my first night in Equestria, to Lyra Heartstrings. Here, in the halls of Erysa’s large manor house, I suddenly found myself wanting to meet Lyra again, just to see how she was doing.

“More tea, monsieur?” a little voice asked. I turned my eyes to see a crystal mare in the getup of a French maid, carrying a tray with a teapot on her back.

“What’s with the fetish gear, Lady Erysa?” I asked.

The Sênatris shot me a puzzled look. “It is French, a people of great culture. What is wrong with it?”

“Well, nothing’s wrong therewith,” I said, poking the maid’s shoulder. She didn’t flinch back or make any adorable noises, so despite being tiny, she was inferior to Cards. “It’s just a sort of fetish fuel, nay?”

“I… beg your pardon?”

As the little mare poured me more tea, I replied, “You know, it was nothing. Just an observation about you and your people’s weird obsession with French.”

“Right, well. More tea, please,” she said. “And now, what were you saying about magic? You just sort of spaced out.”

“All I was saying is that you can’t trust it, no matter if Snechta says the magics of her book can help.” I didn’t mention how the book itself noted that much thereof only applied to the realms of the mirror. There stood a pair of crystal guards at each of this room’s four doorways, with the sygwl of Gens Erysa emblazoned upon their breastplates. While I was about to continue, the pair at the doorway to my far left suddenly stepped aside.

“You are misguided to lack faith in the spell,” came the voice of a new mare.

Great, I thought, another heathen to be burned.

She walked into the room, clad in a dusty-no-color dress with reds tips at the sleeves, along with red highlights around the collar and where the dress ended. A thin white belt of cloth with indiscernible red symbols emblazoned all across was tied tight around her waist, keeping the dress on firmly.

The strange white mare tossed back her well-braided copper mane, affixing her gray eyes upon me for a moment. She didn’t regard me for long or with much interest. Instantly, I knew that any mare who didn’t want to sleep with me was not to be trusted. More importantly, something about her eyes themselves made me uneasy.

She reached the edge of the table and smiled at Erysa, who returned the expression. “It was quite the bother getting here, Maẅtl. This whole district is just a maze of buildings and urban decay.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” I asked, raising a hoof for attention.

Her gray eyes again flicked over me. Suddenly, I thought I kennt what was wrong with them. It was as if she were making a calculated look to appear disinterested in me.

“I am Solnyshko,” she replied curtly, but not impolitely. The name had a certain ring thereto that didn’t sound like it could be readily transcribed with a normal alphabet. When I asked her to spell it, she merely rolled her eyes, grabbed a piece of paper out of a dress pocket, and wrote down Cолнышко.

I looked at the writing and then up to the mare. “Ah. I see you are illiterate.”

Her eye twitched and she grunted. “When Maẅtl told me she had acquired somepony most interesting, I had figured they’d be a bit more polite to a lady.”

Then I looked her over once more and blinked. “Wait. You’re not a crystal pony.” Suddenly, the last bits of the nagging feeling of off-ness surrounded the mare vanished. “Why are you not a crystal pony, yet are seemingly friends with Erysa?”

“Because I am,” Solnyshko replied with a huff. “I am friend to Mêlenatra Snechta, but if you’re her supposéd champion, then she is in dire straits to kenn you.”

“Yeah, she probably is,” I replied before drinking of my tea. “But I’ve got her book, so all’s well, no?”

Solnyshko cocked a brow. “I see.”

“Aye, and all she need me do is use the book’s powers to heal my crippled body.”

“Interesting. And didn’t you just mention but a moment ago that you were distrustful of magic and—”

“Enough, you two!” Erysa barked. “By the Goddess, what is wrong with you two? You don’t even kenn each other, yet already you are fighting?”

“Sorry,” Solnyshko and I said at once.

Erysa cleared her throat. “Solnyshko, I sent for you because I managed to acquire the Champion of Côrint, and I believed you could help me and him out, dear friend, what with your knack for coming through with seemingly difficult requests.” The way she glanced at her towards the end of her sentence suggested that the last part was explained for my benefit.

“Perhaps,” Solnyshko said, tossing her braided hair across her other shoulder, “but it is something of a mess out there. The only reason I got here was because I managed to slip past the two checkpoints in this district. They really want their Strider.”

“Granted, but you’re good at this sort of thing, you’ve done not dissimilar before.”

Solnyshko sighed, leaning against the table and crossing her legs. “Yes, but that was before all of this police mess. That was when Snechta was just getting started, and I was helping her. Nopony was after her head then.”

“Please, Solnyshko? For me?”

The mare sighed. “Well… I might be able to conjure up some old ritual for help or something. I don’t know. Plus, the Strider is a jerk and I don’t like him.” She shook her head as she turned towards the door. “Give me some time. I left my bags out by the front door.”

We waited for her to leave, and then Erysa hissed at me. “Do not be rude to Solnyshko; she is a good friend of me and Snechta! She may not be a unicorn, but by the Goddess, she can still use ancient rituals to conjure up old magics.”

“In other words,” I said coolly, poking at the white tablecloth, “she is a witch.”

“A what?”

“To be unclean,” I replied in a stern voice, “that is the mark of the witch. To be impure, that is the mark of the witch. To be abhorred, that is the mark of the witch. To be reviled, that is the mark of the witch.”

She squinted. “I don’t, I don’t—what are you doing?”

In a stronger voice, I went on. “To be hunted, that is the mark of the witch. To be purged, that is the mark of the witch.” I gave her a smile, but then said through gritted teeth, “To be cleansed, that is the fate of all witches.” The creepy look went away as I drank some tea. “That was a training and mental-clearing chant, a translated excerpt from the field manual for all agents of the Reichskriminalamt.”

“That sounds… really brutal and terrible,” Erysa said with a shake of her head.

“Only because you lack the context wherefor it was meant.” I glanced at the doorway. “Um, would you happen to kenn where that Solnyshko mare is? I don’t want her to use some spell on me that will somehow magically help me out or something. I already feel unclean enough as is, ma’am.”

I stopped outside the door. According to Erysa—whose name I now knew to be “Mau-tl”, yet was spelt as if it had been conceived by a dyslexic lunatic, Maẅtl—this entire little room was some sort of worshiping place, like for small one-pony prayers in private. A bit like a one-body confessional, I had thought.

The only reason I didn’t enter was not because of the stallion standing in this part of the hall, for this little closet prayer-room was in a small side room unto itself. The stallion was, of course, Ylv. In fact, I had pushed Ylv out of the way and he had not stopped me, hence why he was standing now by the darkly curtained window with a frown on his face.

My problem lay with the sounds coming from within the room. It was like distant whispers, the kind that muddle about in your head and either insist that you kill your family or buy that cake just to choke to death thereupon. The voice in my head took offense to these lame, wimpy whisperings.

I glanced at Ylv, pausing as my eyes settled on his sword for a moment. Hellforged sword of +3 Angst were still swords capable of cleaving a body in half in the right hooves. I just had this irrational fear that he was going to take out his sword while I wasn’t looking and throw it at me hilt-first, because he had no idea how to carry a sword very well, judging by the haphazard ways the sheath had been strapped and saddled to his body. Bruises were mean.

Then, of course, what really held my attention was that dark, masculine voice just at the cusp of hearing from within the room. It was deep yet smooth; and though I didn’t kenn what he was saying, his tones were slow and eloquent, as if he were seducing the mare inside. The only issue was, despite its tones, I couldn’t understand what was being said whatsoever.

“Ne shuti s nim,” the dark voice said. “Etot djerebets vse eshe yavlyaetsya nashei samoi bolshoi problemoi, a Tyomnaya Ledi predpochitaet, chtoby on ostavalsya sredi djivih.”

The language sounded at once utterly foreign and yet, in some ways, vaguely familiar, as if I’d heard it gutterally growled at me before. When I tried to pin down the exact place in memory whence that language sounded familiar, all my mind would do was dwell on a dark, calm voice much like this one, but speaking Teutsch. I kennt not the tongue, but the voice was almost eerily familiar to me. It had been the voice of chaos itself rending its claws through Anderwelt and psychically reaching into the minds of ponies in the Reich’s capital of Zentrum during its darkest hour.

“It must be… magnificent,” the remembered voice had said to everyone in Zentrum, myself included, “to see a nation writhe and scream. To feel it convulse beneath your own feet. Witness it dying with living eyes. Such marvelous spectacle. Death—it is my gift to you. In time, perhaps I may share this gift with every last living soul in the galaxy. Until then…” That voice had uttered a self-amused chuckle of pure malice.

“On nye dolzhen znat’ o nashei operacii poka ona ne voidet v zacluchitel’nye fazi,” the unkennt stallion was saying, back in the real world, “odnako ya ne nastol’ko glup, chtoby ne predpologat’, cho on uzje nas podozrevaet, chto on uzje chuvstvuet priblizhenie svoego kontsa.”

My lungs gulped in a large breath of air of their own accord. Logically, that meant either it was time to find out what a heart attack felt like, or for me to knock on the door. I did the latter, and I could actually hear Solnyshko jump.

“Hey, hey!” I called out at the door. “Solnyshko, stop consorting with dark, scary voices in there that give me war flashbacks—it’s not nice!” I pounded on the door. “Seriously, no use hiding it. I heard it all, and so if you deny it, I’m going to be pretty sure you’re evil. If you make something up, I’ll not only presume you’re evil, but I’ll also know you’re stupid. Come on out and open the door. Or, actually do that the other way around, because, I don’t know, but it can’t be healthy to phase through solid—”

The door creaked open and the mare poked her head out. Beyond her was rather claustrophobic octagonal room with stone walls which found light only from the wax candles glowing at the points of the purple star shape drawn into the floor with purple something.

“Oh, Strider,” she said. “What’s wrong.”

I gave her a skeptical look. “By logic of deduction, I’m going to go ahead and say that you were using magic to talk with Korweit, right? That kind of scary-sexy smooth voice sounds rather like his.”

“Uh,” she droned, a blank look of horror on her face.

I rubbed my chin. “So, logically, that means you are an agent of Chaos, probably a demon worshiper thus, and ergo are working to benefit this little resistance here in Korweit’s favor, so I probably can’t trust you worth a dime and by all reasons should execute you here and now for the crime of heresy. And also, ‘ergo’ is Latein for ‘I’m right’.”

“What are you, an expert in the occult?” she asked, stepping backwards into her little worshiping room. I pressed onwards, stepping into the room with her and closing the door behind me.

“Hey, look how much this little room was made for dark sorcery and mustache-twirling villainy. Got any ropes wherefor to use? I feel the urge to tie up dames to railroads tracks.” I poked at one of her wax candles. It fell over and rolled around aimlessly. “Oh,” I muttered. “I somehow expected that to end in a catastrophic reaction of badness.”

“If you thought that, why did you do it?” the mare asked.

“I have a fundamental inability not to screw around with shiny, glowing, sharp, tasty, or dangerous things,” I replied in the tone of a child sent to bed without its supper. But the supper was fish heads anyways, so it was only a ruse. Another night of anorexia, hot damn! “In any case, you’re clearly evil.”

“I’m evil?” she scoffed.

“Exactly, see, you just admitted it.”

“I did not!”

“No, I’m pretty sure you just did,” I replied, gesturing at her.

“Were I evil, would not I be trying to kill you right now?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m standing on your magical something or other, so you can’t use your evil attack magics. Oh, and that’s another thing: magic, you kenn it, which means you’re probably evil. Ignoring the fact that I’m going to use dark magics to heal my grievous wounds and make me a whole pony again. Yes, I know it’s hypocritical of me, so shut up. I’ve given this whole ‘magic is literally evil’ spiel so many times to so many damn ponies that I’m just going to leave it thereat and not explain it any further, okay? Okay.” I sighed.

“Hit me,” she demanded.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said, hit me. Cause me pain and ill feelings. Strike me well.” She cocked a brow. “Were I evil, I’d fight back.”

“Yeah, that actually doesn’t make much sense, your argument there. And now that you’ve brought the topic up, you won’t fight back in order to prove your already-invalidated point.”

“Oh, what’s wrong?” she inquired. “Can’t hit me? Oh, I’m sorry, does your vagina hurt?”

“The doctor said nopony would notice that!”

Solnyshko just stared at me. “Oh, screw you.”

“Oh, and that’s another point!” I accused. “You don’t want to sleep with me. Clearly, you have some dark, murderous plan in store for me.”

“I… what?” She blinked and shook her head. “What does that even mean?”

“Ah, so, I take it you’re just not into guys? That’s cool, that’s cool. I won’t judge you for the way you were born.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying that either I’m a good girl and want to sleep with you, or I’m evil?”

“Or a lesbian.”

“I’m an evil lesbian?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve met such a creature,” I stated with a nod.

Solnyshko gave me the death glare to end all death glares.

“Okay, I’m no psychic or anything,” I said, “but that look in your eyes says ‘Yes, I do in fact love penis’, and ergo proves you are evil.” I blinked. “Or maybe you’re bisexual. That too is a distinct possibility. I mean, not that I’m going to judge you for how you conduct your life or anything. My motto is ‘safe, sane, consensual’—so long as it’s all three, I shouldn’t judge. Of course, magic is neither sane nor safe, and sometimes not even consensual, so it basically violates everything I stand for. Or stand against. I’m not sure which of those phrasings is the correct one.”

“Oh, and you are an expert on magic, too,” she asked in a voice that I was pretty sure was meant to be insulting, but just gave the impression she had caught Sudden Onset Downs Syndrome.

“Um, yes!” I spat. “I served in the Neuorléans 1st regiment Infantry Division under General Streng against the Chaosgeneral, Lord Tjarkhal, at the siege of Weißpunkt. The amount of magical devices we had to destroy, and the number of sorcerers we had to kill and execute was unreal there. Not to mention how I’m an expert on all things magic due to my training and experience as an agent of the Reichskriminalamt—which is to say, that I know what magic is and how to arrest or kill its users and supporters, thank you very much!”

I stepped up further, and Solnyshko backed up and pressed herself against the wall. It was about then that I noticed that her dress was actually off to the side, neatly folded. Equestria must have really been screwing with me if I’d taken me this bloody long to notice that a girl was naked.

“You listen here and you listen good, Solnyshko,” I said in a warning tone. “I have seen the black corruption of magic upon a land. I have seen cities and ponies gutted and flayed alive to serve the magical ends of the ruinous powers endemic to the spell. I may not care for Equestria nor its denizens, including those of the Crystal Empire, but as a Teutscher, it is my divine-appointed duty to oppose the servants of Chaos, those who would give their lives to the spell.”

“You fancy yourselves heroes, then?” she asked me. Her tone seemed oddly innocent.

“If by ‘heroes’, you mean folken who dedicate their lives selflessly to combating forces wicked, powers ruinous, and servants chaotic, then aye, that we are.”

“Evil is relative,” she said in a tone so flat you could put an oil-lathered ball thereatop and it’d remain perfectly still. “The ponies of the distant sea trade speak in whispers of the ideology you’re speaking about. To most, they’re simply the fables and legends of sailors, or scary stories the Neighponease of Songnam use to make their foals go to sleep.”

She slide past me and moved for her dress. I could see little white scars on her back as she hurriedly put on her attire. “They speak of a dark inquisition from the northern lands of ice and sorrow,” Solnyshko said, her words venomous, accusatory. “Bogeyponies in black with a hatred of magic, purging heretics of their faith by fire and sword, answering only to a black lord in hallowed halls of ghastly horror. The Neighponease call this land Hisan, they call it Misery.”

“Wow,” I replied blankly. “That was ludicrously melodramatic. Ever consider taking acting lessons? I think you’d make a great leading lady in a play or something.” I pointed a hoof at her. “Also, you’re off by quite a while with your time, with the Holy Inquisition. Der Heilige Orden der Inquisition des Reiches ended when King Viktor reformed it into the modern Reichskriminalamt. Everypony with a severe nerd problem knows that, knows it very well.”

“Les Misérables,” she said.

“Hey! No French here; this is a family environment, filled with wholesome family values, such as those explosives I still have in my bags.”

She shook her head, eying me steadily. “No, you and your ilk. Of Hisan, the Land of Misery. You say magic is evil, yet Equestria has so much magic and is perhaps the happiest land there is, sickeningly so. So I would have you wonder, what do you truly know?”

“Hey, that rhymed,” I pointed out. “Was that intentional? Because a part of me gets really annoyed when people rhyme on accident.”

“Question your beliefs, Misérable.”

“Nah, I’m good,” I replied with a smile. “In fact, you’re changing the subject. By my reckoning, your long line of transgressions—consorting with demons and generally being an evil lesbian—warrant your death, do you kenn?”

Solnyshka took a hard step towards me. I came this close to punching her really hard in the throat, but all she did was touch her forehead to mine. For a split second, her expression faded into curious concern as her eyes fell upon where my horn should have been, but that died when she took upon an almost dark look of mischief.

“So, Strider,” she said slowly, “are you trying to say that I must sleep with you to prove I’m not evil? That that is the only way to vindicate me of my dastardly evil lesbian ways?”

“I know most other stallions at this point would probably stumble verbally around in shock or something as they tried to explain this apparent misunderstanding,” I replied, “but I know you’re just screwing with me, so I’m going to say ‘yeah, sure, why not’ as my answer—just keep in mind that I’ll only sleep with you if you go out and slay a dragon in my name.”

Her hard glare fumbled. “I… huh?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I said with a shrug, moving my head away from hers. “People I don’t know often ask me to do really weird and often murderous things for them, quests and the like, such as having to slay a dragon for them before they’ll be my friend. Mostly in my role-playing games, but also a disturbingly frequent amount of times in real life, too.”

Solnyshko blinked hard. “That… that’s stupid… You’re stupid!”

“Were I so daft, would I be so deft, so not deaf?”

“What?”

“Uh-nuh,” I grunted, universal cavepony speak for ‘I do not know’. “Those words just also confused me when I was younger, you know, since they sound so similar.”

“I…”

“You’re right,” I chirped. “While the smart thing to do would be to summarily execute you here for crimes against life—i.e., magic for a clearly nefarious purpose—a part of me just keeps saying that if I want to get to the bottom of this mystery, figure out what Korweit’s doing, and stop him, I’m going to need you alive.”

“Torture?”

“While I appreciate the offer, I’d rather not. As kinky as it is, I’m missing a nipple as of a few days ago or so. Still a bit drafty down there, do you kenn?” I shook my head. “Point is, I’m going to take a chance and presume you’re not nearly ready enough to act and finish your dark plans, and I’m not nearly smart enough to just kill you now and be done with the problem before I even know what exactly you’re up to and want, so be on your way. Go go, get!” I made a shooing gesture towards the door.

“I’m a dog now?”

“Yes. Bark like a tree, bitch.”

“What?”

“Boom! Dog jokes, girl!” I smiled. “I want no spells to aid me, especially not from a follower of Korweit, one of my many mortal enemies—not counting mares, both specific ones and in general. So, in laypony’s terms, I want you to leave. Now. Before I kill you anyways. In fact, I might just bite you so that you get an infection and have to deal with the local hospital, purely out of spite. And then I’ll get on my elbows and knees and pray to the Machine Spirit that it make all of the hospital equipment malfunction, because using magic instead of industry offends and dishonors it.”

The mare backed towards the wall. “You are insane!” she shouted, quickly grabbing up a pair of saddlebags of the ground and hitching them onto her.

“It’s a possibility I haven’t yet ruled out, but my the rapist hung himself after his first meeting with me, so…”

Solnyshko grunted and glared at me. “And the Father states you are some great threat? Hah!”

I gave her a dry look. “The Father of All Lies, Voice in the Dark guy?”

She blinked.

“Yeah, you just let slip you’re working for and speaking with Korweit.” I yawned. “I’ll ask Snechta what she knows, and you’ll say nothing to her of my intentions.”

“Why not?”

“Because of the fact that you’ve not yet tried to kill me, I must logically assume that the Voice in the Dark has made me a large part of his plans, no? I shall play his game as planned until I’ve gone far enough through the trees that I can form a mental picture of the metaphorical forest, aye? You should hope that takes me long, but it probably won’t.”

The mare stormed out of room, or at least she tried. When she attempted to move past me, I shoved her away from myself and the closed door. When she protested, I merely gave her a blank look. “Actually, I have an idea to test everything out,” I said. “Forgot most everything I said earlier.”

“Let me pass, you creep!”

Pahss, with the long A. Exactly why I paused to contemplate that eluded me. It was just a weird little thing.

“I’d like you to meet my friend, Mister Stabby,” I told her as she tried to press past me. “Hold still, please,” I commanded, tackling her to the ground and pulling out my knife. Then I stabbed her a lot in the chest, stomach, and probably the womb, because screw wombs. As she gurgled and muttered in pain, her throat cut so that she couldn’t speak but her arteries and veins intact, I used her blood to ruin her magical circle.

“See,” I said, wiping the knife of blood, “when I used to play tabletop RPGs, sometime my SM—Spielmeister—would have certain plot-essential characters.” She gurgled, trying to grab at her throat. “And so whenever I tried to kill these ponies or elves or trolls or orks or whatever, the SM would basically not let them die, no matter what. These characters were really rare and only with certain SMs, since without them, the story would end, even if they were bad guys I wasn’t yet supposed to kill. So, my theory is, if you somehow survive this, especially since I ruined your magic circle, then clearly you’re a plot-essential pony or something. If you die, then I’ve killed a magician, which earns me brownie points in heaven—all whereof I will turn into actual brownies and give to Cards, because she’s earned at least some sugary treats. But she had better brush her teeth thereafter!”

The blood bloomed from her many wounds, like the petals of roses. And as I stood there, I figured that look of horror in her eyes as the blood poured out of her body like it was going out of style was, in its own way, completely worth any trouble this would cause. One less mage, and also a really awesome postcard moment. I cursed the fact that nopony had one of those big, sort of portable cameras. I’d’ve loved to have taken one with the dying Solnyshko. Her blood reminded me somehow of the rosen sygwl of Gens Erysa, like really lame and pretentious versions of the Reich’s roses.

“And should you survive, a logical pony would take retribution out against me. Should you live and fail to do so, it would validate my theory that Korweit knows I’m here and wants me alive for the time being. Aye, make sense? Good.”

I stood up, yawned, and sighed. “Well, that was fun. Same time next week, if it turns out that powerful demons want to keep you alive, that is?”

She jerked about.

“Cool, bro,” I replied, and walked out the door.

Ylv seemed out of countenance as I shut the door behind me. “What just happened in there, sedhoas?”

“Oh, nothing much. But she’s dead now.”

“Wait, what?!”

“Yeah,” I said in a completely serious monotone. “Multiple stab wounds. Don’t know how that happened. Well, no, I do.”

“How?” he demanded.

“Well, see…” I fished around in my bag for a pencil or a stick of chalk or something, but instead only found a shit-ton of ketchup packets that I’d stolen from those cultists in that school cafeteria back in Calêrhos. They would have to do. I drew pictures for my narration.

“So, this is me, Jericho, voted ‘Most-Rapeable’ by Mare’s Magazine two years running now.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And this is her, Solnyshko.”

“Right.”

“And now this is Solnyshko tripping.”

“Why is she naked? She was wearing that odd dress of hers earlier, and I’ve never seen her without it.”

“Bitch was touching herself to pictures of goats,” I snapped. My response only seemed to make him more concerned. “Now back to the story!”

“Aye, sedhoas.”

“Now, this is Solynshko falling down exactly thirty-seven times onto my knife.” Then I screamed and yelled a lot as I kept throwing ketchup packets at the wall, exploding tomato gore all over the place. There were a lot of packets. “Any questions?”

He rose his roof into the air.

“That was a trick question, Ylv, and you failed. See me after class in detention!” I glared at him. “And this time, I promise not to seduce your father when he comes to pick you up.”

“What.”

“Scout’s honor, mate.”

“Wait, wait, just… does she need help?”

“I wouldn’t do that, were I thou,” I said, drawing up close to him. I whispered huskily into his ear. “She was in there. Vigorously masturbating. To goats. Vigorously.” I pulled back. “What do you think she slipped on?”

“So she needs help?” There was panic in his voice.

“No.”

“But there’s blood on your cheek!”

“There is?” I wiped my cheek. Certainly, there was a splotch of blood. “Huh. Imagine that.”

“She needs help!”

“No, she was just on her period. Vigorously.”

“But, then, why’s the blood on your face?”

I blinked. “Vigorously. It’s on the walls, the ceilings, the floors, the windows.”

“There’s only one floor, one ceiling, and no windows in there!”

“Well, I couldn’t tell, there was so much sex lube and vagina blood!” I stamped a hoof. “Now, do you want to go in there and clean up that mess with your tongue, under the supervision of an angry, menstruating mare!? I didn’t think so.”

His eyes narrowed. “Wait, are you just screwing with me?”

“If I tell you the truth and say that I am, will you leave Solnyshko alone? Because she’s not in any mood to be bothered.”

“That is how it would be, sedhoas.”

“Then aye, aye, that is literally what is going on, I am messing with you out of boredom and because of anger that Solnyshko threw me out of her little hidey room thing so quickly.”

“Weren’t you in there for a short whi—”

“Moving on!” I jabbered.

“Still, you’re one helluva liar. I was convinced something was really bad or… I’m sorry, my Equestrian just failed me right now. Not sure how to word what I wish to word.”

“To me happens it the time of all,” I replied matter of factly.

“It has something to do with the way some sort of spell forcibly taught us all Equestria, but not exactly the knowledge of how to use its particularities, understand?”

“Yes, I kenn it well,” I said. And then: “Good. I’m glad we had this chat.”

I sighed, pushing past the guard. With my task here done, or so I figured, I had to prepare to wander through the city till I got to Snechta up her in her mountain temple. I could carry out my investigation there, mayhap after I became a whole stallion once more.

While trying to plan out what to do next in my plan to restore my eye and other parts of my broken body, I went to go see if Erysa had any fishtanks filled with exotic fish. I wanted to regale them with the story of the time I killed all of Social Grace’s fish with a crowbar, purely out of spite. Plus, it was getting night, and I needed a place to crash the night.

Also, I tilted every single painting and picture in Erysa’ house I came across slightly off center, laughing maniacally with each new victim.

I needed a hobby.