//------------------------------// // On The Origin Of The Species // Story: The King Is Dead, Long Live The Emperor! // by Bucking Nonsense //------------------------------// "Where did you get all of this information?" While Pan was still wrestling with the ramifications of the latest revelation, Pen Stroke's mind was going into overdrive. While he certainly didn't doubt that Golden Tone believed every word of what she said, the chancellor could not possibly move against a popular figure like Malted Barley without proof. The royal tapmaster, having been born a commoner but having reached a level of prosperity equal of many of the great noble houses within his lifetime, was often pointed to as an example of how any pony, regardless of birth, could rise to greatness through their own efforts. Without concrete, irrefutable proof of his guilt, it would be nearly impossible to arrest him without causing riots throughout the city. Golden Tone, smiling, said, "I knew you'd ask that, which is why I brought my new friend over. Well, that, and the fact that he's the only reason I'm still alive right now." Looking a bit embarrassed, the bard admitted, "I underestimated the protection I was granted by the tradition of bardic immunity. On your request, I started by looking for servants of Lady Midnight Black's estate. Bizarrely, though, I couldn't find a single one. In fact, nopony I asked could remember seeming one within the last ten years. That immediately made me suspicious: Regardless of however strict their master may be, Midnight would have had to have sent at least one of her servants out for things like wine, medicine, or any of the other necessities that a noble's estate might need. However, there was nothing at all. After a couple of hours, though, a thought occurred to me: If I couldn't get any information about Lady Midnight Black directly, then perhaps I might be able to find a link to her if I followed the path of the poisoned wine itself." Falling into the rhythmic cadences of a bard as she continued the story, Golden Tone went on. "That was a dead end, at least at first: Not a single pony in the city, not one wine merchant nor brewer could say where that bottle might have come from. Even Malted Barley, when I asked him, pretended ignorance so perfectly I had no reason to suspect him. It seemed odd to me, upon reflection, that a bottle of tainted wine could have reached the king and queen without passing through Malted Barley's hooves at least briefly, but like just about anypony else, I didn't suspect him of any wrongdoing." With a shrug, she continued, saying, "But I thought about one other possibile lead: The poison itself. A fast-acting poison that can kill a pony within seconds of consuming it has to be rare, and exotic, especially if it lacks both a distinctive flavor or a scent. After speaking with an apothecary we both know to be trustworthy, I was able to confirm my suspicions: Equestria lacks any such toxin. While there are a few poisons available in Equestria that could be as fast acting, they have a powerfully foul taste or an incredibly rancid smell. I spoke with the old sawbones who had examined Rondelay's body after her death, and got an explanation of what the poison did to her. With the help of the doctor and the apothecary, we were able to narrow the poison down to one: Grimroot, a plant found only in the Griffin Kingdoms, and thought to be almost impossible to cultivate elsewhere." "So," the Celestia inserted, "you started asking around about where somepony might have gotten their hooves on some." With a nod, Golden Tone agreed, "Exactly. I also decided to see if anypony knew about any griffins who had entered the city recently. While I heard a few rumors about a griffin having been seen flying at night, nopony had ever gotten a good look at him. However, I also heard a rumor of a mercenary company having come into the city a few years ago, one comprised of ponies, griffins, and hippogriffs... and apparently never left. But why had they come here, and where would they have gone?" The hippogriff raised a taloned claw and said, "With your permission, might I take it from here?" The bard, with a small laugh, said, "Sure, Xenophon. You can take it from here." The hippogriff, stepped forward, and the chancellor got a better look at the individual in question. He looked to be in his thirties, meaning that he was born well before the Black Feather War, so he was not was some ponies might have referred to as a 'Black Feather Bastard' (Pen Stroke hated that term, and everything that it implied, but sadly, a number of hippogriff children had been born in the aftermath of the war, and not due to happily wedded matrimony), and his lean yet still well-muscled build, combined with the scars criss-crossing his body, proclaimed him to be somebirdy/somepony who was long used to the battlefield, although one who had fallen on hard times. "My name is Xenophon," he began, introducing himself with a bow, then continued. "I am... or perhaps I should say was, the leader of the Talon Company." The emperor made a sudden noise, startling everypony in the room, as he asked, "Wait... Xenophon? Of the Talon Company? As in THE Talon Company?" Surprised, the hippogriff asked, "You've heard of us, your highness?" With a chuckle, Pandinus Imperator admitted, "I should say so. I hope that you'll be pleased to hear that your band went down in history as one of the most effective and skillful mercenary companies the world has ever known. Even a thousand years from now, when mercenaries are much less common, your company is still regarded as amongst the greatest to have ever graced the planet... and the sudden disappearance of your company would be considered one of the greatest mysteries of the age." With a sad little laugh, Xenophon admitted, "You honor me, my lord, and were my company still here with me, I think that they would be flattered to hear you say that. Sadly, I suppose that as funerary offerings go, knowing that they shall go down in history will have to serve, as I have little else left." Shocked, the emperor asked, "They're dead?" Nodding sadly, the hippogriff admitted, "Yes, milord. Wiped out to the last pony, griffin, and hippogriff, save myself. My company came here in response to an invitation by the one you know as Malted Barley. He indicated an interest in our tactical and martial prowess, and had wanted to see if we might be willing to assist in the training of a new city militia. Lacking other work, we agreed: Things had been a bit lean after the Black Feather War, and the idea of maybe settling down and training others, using the expertise we'd gained in fighting on battlefields across the planet for something other than waging war ourselves, was beginning to appeal to us... especially after our last contract." "The Dunewall Campaign," Pan said, his expression neutral. However, his tone told the chancellor that the campaign in question was not the kind that ended well... "Yes," Xenophon said, seeming more than a little angry. "Dunewall. Dunewall was a colossal plucking clusterflock, if you'll pardon my Griffin. We were betrayed by our client when things went badly for them. The city-state surrendered to the raiders we'd been hired to purge from their lands, and agreed to declare our company outlaws, so long as the city was left standing, and the citizens left unharmed, after three days of plundering. As such, we ended up stranded, without supplies or support, in the heart of hostile territory, with gnolls, djinn, and worse snapping at our heels. It took us nearly a year, fighting every inch of the way, to reach the lands of the Zebras, where we could finally resupply and secure transport back to the Griffin Kingdoms. We lost a quarter of our numbers in the process, which was, given the circumstances, nothing short of miraculous. However, after that, a lot of us were more than a little eager for something a bit less harrowing. Malted Barley's offer seemed like a sign that our luck was finally turning around. Instead, it would be the final nail in our collective coffin." "Everything seemed fine, at first," he said, sadly. "We met with the client, met with the ponies we'd be training, and inspected the equipment that the trainees would be using. Everything seemed in order: Malt was a seemingly friendly pony with a firm hoofshake that you could tie a warship to, the recruits were all fit young stallions and mares who had already served with distinction in the city guard, and the gear was of such high quality that I'd have honestly been interested in acquiring some for my troops before we left the city. It was hoofshakes and smiles all around, and that evening, after the contract was signed, the client himself gave the company ten massive kegs of beer, as a sign of his everlasting gratitude. We celebrated, drinking deeply..." "And we woke up in chains, in a dungeon... at the 'tender mercies' of an individual who introduced himself as 'Lord Fly'," Xenophon finished, spitting after saying the name. ---------------------------------- Lord Fly fancied himself a doctor, and a scientist, interested in unlocking all of the secrets of the living body, and in preserving the life well beyond what would normally kill it. As such, he spent a lot of time working on living bodies... dissecting them while they were still alive and conscious. And screaming. He was also a cannibal, and would occasionally have what he called a 'working lunch'. He also liked to talk, and the unicorn had decided that Xenophon, being the most intelligent, educated, and experienced of the lot, should witness everything that was done, and be made to understand the reasons why his friends and comrades had to suffer for days on end. It all came back to Malted Barley. During the Black Feather War, Malt had been but a humble soldier, drafted and pulled away from the wine cellars and brewing vats that were his passion and forced to fight against the vicious invaders who plagued Equestria. Given how spectacularly that the Equestrians outnumbered the Black Feathers, everypony had expected to be home by Hearth Fire's Eve. Half a year later, in the winter's snow of Hearth Fire, the battle was still ongoing, with no end in sight. It seemed impossible: Celestia and Luna themselves were on the battlefield, fighting just as fiercely and bravely as the soldiers themselves. With the sun and moon on their side, why weren't they winning? How could an army of but ten thousand, at least a third of which were camp followers like tailors, cooks, and blacksmiths, be a match for a country whose population numbered in the millions? Maybe it was because Equestria was weak. Well, maybe weak was not the right word, but the fact was that the Griffins, with their long history of violent warfare, were better soldiers and tacticians than the Equestrians, who had a much more peaceful culture. Perhaps more importantly, the Black Feathers were more than willing to use dark magic, which proved to be almost overwhelmingly powerful, even if it did prove to be costly to use. Either way, the fact of the matter was that Equestria was locked in a war of attrition against a much smaller army. It was while he was nursing these bitter thoughts that Malted Barley and his platoon were ambushed by the soldiers led by one Galaciella Blackfeather... the daughter of the dreaded leader of the Black Feather forces. Within the blink of an eye, more than half of his comrades were slain, and as he fought for survival, the remainder of his platoon fell, one by one. Finally, on his own, he fought desperately. He fought with hoof and with tooth against more than thirty griffins... and several minutes of vicious fighting later, he finally persevered, until it was just humself and Galaciella herself. The two quickly began fighting one another, claw against hoof, for what seemed like hours... and it was impossible to say when it changed from a violent battle to something more... passionate. In the aftermath, Malt and Galaciella lay together and talked. Galaciella spoke of the reasoning behind the war, at least from the Black Feather's side. Meanwhile, Malt spoke of his own concerns, regarding what the war might mean for his own kind, whether they succeeded or failed. Both sides had expected the war to end quickly, and in truth, all Equestria had to do now was hold the line until the invading forces' supplies ran out, and it would be a victory, of sorts... But what about next time? A force of ten thousand had fought Equestria to a standstill. What would happen if another, more violent nation with a larger army decided to invade? Equestria might have been weak, in that they did not have much military might in comparison to other countries, but now that they had been seen to be weak, it would, in Malted Barley's mind, just be a matter of time before Equestria would be attacked again... and again... and again. Galaciella was sympathetic: While she had, at first, bought into her father's rhetoric about the superiority of griffins over ponies, and really just everypony else in the world, half a year of warfare had proven that the so-called 'inherent superiority' of the griffins didn't count for much when outnumbered this heavily. More importantly, after fighting for so long, and with the ponies holding firm against the griffins, Galaciella was beginning to realize that all of her father's rhetoric really was just rhetoric: Sound and fury, signifying nothing. It sounded good to an audience which already believed in it, and it had managed to gather griffins under his banner for the invasion, but the reality was that, even by cheating through the use of under taloned tactices and dark magic, the Black Feathers were going to lose, and lose badly. The cracks were starting to show, and had the army of the Griffin Kingdom itself not shown up to deal the finishing blow, then infighting amongst their own forces would have no doubt been the undoing of the Black Feathers, when the food ran out and the soldiers began to starve. But what then? As Malt believed, there would doubtless be others, emboldened by the fact that an army just ten thousand strong had done such a masterful job of assaulting Equestria. An army twice or even thrice that size could prove Equestria's match, especially with Equestria already so thoroughly weakened by the current war. That was when Malted Barley and Galaciella Blackfeather began to form the basis of the Circle. It wasn't about power, or about wealth, at least not to them. It was about ensuring that when the next major invasion occurred, the invaders would be met with a force so powerful, so fierce, and so terrifying that they would flee in terror or be wiped off the face of the planet in an eyeblink. To those ends, 'Lord and Lady Scorpion' began working together to ensure that when this war ended, they would have both the allies and resources available to make that dream a reality. Two of the members of the Inner Circle (The leaders of this new alliance), Lady Spider and Lord Fly, were found during the war. Lady Spider, a young sorceress who grew disillusioned with the 'powers of love and friendship' that so many other ponies believed in, began studying necromancy in order to supply Equestria with an army of undying soldiers comprised of anyone foolish enough to try and invade Equestria. Lord Fly, on the other hoof, was tasked with finding ways to preserve life. How much better would it be, after all, if ponies did not die, not in sickness, nor from violence, nor even from old age? Dark magic, they were all certain, held the keys to immortality: Many powerful wizards and warriors had been found to be nearly unkillable when empowered by the dark arts, and seemed to be utterly ageless. With the right combination of spells, that 'nearly' could be removed, they believed. The final member of the Inner Circle, Lady Wasp, came years later, after the Circle had been in place for several years. A member of the royal family who was removed from the line of succession due to birth defects, she was the final piece that the Circle needed to be able to take control: When the next invasion came, and Equestria fell, the Circle and its forces would come riding to the rescue of their brother and sister ponies. With a new Queen, a member of the royal family who was disavowed due to a tradition centuries old, came and saved the ponies of Equestria, she would grant the Circle the legitimacy it would need to cement their new position as the rulers of the realm. Ironic, then, that it was the work of a powerful sorcerer, King Sombra, who halted the Circle's plans, at least temporarily. A pony who seemed to already embody their most fundamental beliefs... --------------------------------------- "More ironic," Xenophon concluded, "is the fact that Sombra's invasion allowed me the opportunity to escape from Lord Fly's secret laboratory. While he'd killed the last member of Talon Company a couple of years ago, he'd found having a captive audience to be so enjoyable that he'd kept me alive and caged, so that the two of us could talk whenever he had the time to spare. When he'd not returned to check on me for a week, I'd taken the opportunity to pick the lock to my cage and escape. I remained in hiding while Sombra was still around, not wanting to risk his wrath, and despaired of ever escaping... until you came, your highness." With a sad smile, he admitted, "I'd have left the city before now, save for the fact that with the passes not yet clear of snow, and with my body still somewhat weakened by several years in a dank prison cell, I've no doubt that I'd die before I reached Equestria proper. Besides, when Sombra was slain, I thought it might be best to stay until I had an opportunity to warn your majesties of the Circle's existence. Regrettably, I'd not been able to work out a means of contacting anypony in the palace without risking being caught by the Circle... until I encountered Miss Golden Tone, being attacked by a group of thugs." With a smile, the mare said, "I was holding my own pretty well, given that I was outnumbered three to one, and the fact that a career spent in rowdy taverns has given me an uppercut that most pugilists would envy. Still, it might have gone badly if Xenophon had not shown up when he did. After the thugs were down, and we had a chance to compare notes, we'd discovered that we were the answer to each other's prayers. By then, though, the sun had started to set, and things got a lot more difficult." "Well thankfully," Pen Stroke said, chuckling, "you've made it here safely. And thanks to Ironwood here, one member of the Inner Circle is dead. Lady Wasp was dehorned and her neck broken just a short time ago." His expression gravely concerned, Xenophon asked, "Did he break her phylactery?" Pandinus Imperator, clearly confused, asked, "Her what?" Celestia and Luna, however, wore matching expressions of absolute horror. "You can't possibly mean...?" Shaking his head sadly, the hippogriff said, "I fear so. While the royal family had discussed it with nopony else, not even the chancellor, from what Lord Fly let slip, the bad leg was not the only reason for Dream Charmer's disqualification: The mare was also born with a defect in her heart, one that could cause it to stop at any time. She was expected to expire before her seventeenth birthday. When the Circle approached her, they offered her not only a means of attaining the crown that her birth defects had prevented her from attaining, but they also offered her immortality and a tremendous increase in her own already impressive magical prowess. They made good on that promise, since they could not risk her dying before their plans came to fruition. To that end, they created a forbidden relic, a magical item called a phylactery, that would hold her life force, her essence, her very soul, so that even if her heart stopped beating, and her body mortally wounded, she would never, ever die, so long as her phylactery remained intact." "They turned her into a lich." ---------------------------------- Fifteen minutes ago... Pretty Penny looked at the burning mansion of Scarlet Wake with undisguised longing, still hiding behind some bushes a fair distance from the flames. While the deaths of the ponies within was certainly a tragedy, this would be a prime opportunity to score some real wealth, maybe enough to set her and her daughter up with something better than the broken-down shack that they currently occupied. After all, there were so many things that could be 'rescued' from the ashes, and Penny knew more than a few ponies willing to buy merchandise that was slightly scorched, or even just a tiny bit bloody, with no questions asked... "The flames are starting to die down, mom," her daughter whispered. Rosy Hue was more than a match for her mother's former beauty, but if there was one thing that Pretty Penny wanted, it was to make certain that her daughter did not end up following in her hoofsteps. Rosy deserved better than to be a mare of the evening like her mother... Still, that flying, flaming pony that had flown out of the wreckage had been worrying. Enough so that Penny had seriously considered calling the whole thing off, or at least sending her daughter home. Still, it was too good an opportunity to pass up, and two ponies, especially one with a young back that didn't threaten to give out from time to time, could carry far more than just one. What emerged from the burning wreckage next made Penny seriously reconsider her plans again. It looked like a pony, and walked like a pony, but if it was a pony, it was one straight out of a nightmare: For one thing, its body was blazing with flames as tall as it was, even if the pony seemed to be paying the flames no mind. For another, its head hung at an odd angle, as if its neck had been broken. Yet if that was so, how was it still moving? And how could it be looking at the world around it with a look of such undisguised hatred that the world around it should, by all rights, be burning as well? Penny pulled Rosy down, still hiding behind the bushes, hoping against hope that the... thing that she'd just seen would not notice them... After several minutes, she risked peaking again, and saw that... whatever that thing was, it was now gone. Better yet, the flames had finally gone out. Now was their chance. So long as nothing else was in there, then the two of them would have a few minutes to grab some prime loot and be on their way. A few minutes later, Pretty Penny was pleased to say that she and her daughter would not be starving any time soon. The sack she carried held enough gold and silver to keep them well fed and happy for a good long time. Even enough, perhaps, to get them a far nicer house in a far better part of town. If Rosy's haul was anything like her mother's... "Mom, there's a pony still alive here!" Nearly dropping her sack, Penny rushed over to her daughter. Money was money, but she wasn't so heartless that she'd turn her back on a pony in need. But when she saw the pony in question, the only help he ought to have needed was that of a mortician: His body was horribly burned, especially his face. In fact, it was nearly impossible to tell what color his coat might once have been, given how charred his body was. Had she not known better, the older mare would have thought that he'd been tortured... Were it not for the fact that he was still breathing, Pretty Penny would have thought him dead. While the reaper might come to claim him soon enough, for now, he was still alive. Clutching her sack of loot in her teeth, she began aiding her daughter in pulling him out of the wreckage. Once she and her daughter had succeeded in pulling him clear of the mansion, Penny held up her sack and said, "I've got this much. How much did you find?" Holding up an equally fully sack, Rosy said, "About the same, mom." Nodding sagely, Pretty Penny said, "Good. That's more than enough. Let's head over to the house: We don't want any guards to catch us here." Last thing they needed was a group of guards coming in and asking questions. Looting a house that was on fire wasn't exactly legal, even if you were poor as dirt and the person you were kinda stealing from made more money in a day than you'd see in ten lifetimes. Looking at the horrifically burned pony, she added, "We'll take him with us. I don't know how much we can do for him, but I know an old sawbones who might be able to help him... provided he doesn't die before we get him there."