Deathless

by Gaudior

Chapter 9: The Pony and the Sorcerer

I wedge the silver basin roughly between a pair of rocks and rifle desperately through my canvas duffel bag. “Dammit,” I growl, giving up and up-ending the bag behind me. “Did we forget the frigging --”

“Got it!” Twilight says, jamming a wobbly, corroded brazier into the ground on the far side of the makeshift Circle. “You sure this is gonna work?”

“What could go wrong,” I snarl, grabbing a dented pewter mug from the junk I just dumped and grinding it into the rocky earth at the Circle’s edge. “Bobby! See anything?”

“Silver Beemer pulling up now,” he calls from his perch at the top of the ridge. “Two… no, three Order goons getting out. Pretty sure the driver’s a Magister; they don’t pay Adepti enough for a ride like that. They won’t see our tracks but they know where we are. You’ve got thirty minutes tops before I have to start shooting, man. Make ‘em count.”

“We’re ready, I… think?” Twilight says, her eyes wild and her mane lanky with sweat. Running from witch-hunting zealots into the Mexican desert will do that to you, I suppose.

“Then get started,” I say, nodding to her. “Get your chant on and get your ass home.”

“But it’s not midnight, how can we --”

“It’s now or never,” I say, staring at Twilight. “Let’s make it now.”

“It’s not much of a plan, Harken,” Twilight says, her voice rising in pitch and her words coming breathlessly fast. “Our timing is off, our preparations are rushed, the materials are sub-par -- if a single elemental construct is even slightly out of phase, if any of the symbols are damaged or missing, if --”

“It’s not a plan at all, Twilight,” I say grimly, interrupting her before she gains too much speed. “It’s a joke, and it’s a bad one, and if you don’t get this thing started I guarantee it’ll be the last one you ever get to tell. So you’d better make the punch line count.”

Twilight gulps, nods once, and takes her position without another word, dropping the parchment square at her feet and nudging it directly into the center of the Circle.

I glance up the ridge at Bobby; he’s lying prone, and the barrel of his 30.06 rifle sticks out beyond the small circle of stones he’s stacked as rough cover. He’s watching some of the Order’s best climb up a rocky summit to collect Twilight and remove me from play. He’s putting himself between the two of us and the devil, and I wonder idly, as I watch Twilight begin the ritual, how I could have ever doubted him.

“You gotta listen to me, man,” Bobby says, his hand rubbing the scruff at his chin. “I know the Order, I know how they work, and I know they’ve been watching you. They’re not gonna let either of you go.”

“Because you worked for them!” I say, throwing that little revelation back in his face. “I was your goddamned assignment, Bobby! Or should I just call you ‘Practicus’ and be done with it?”

Twilight leans back, pressing her stiff neck into the cheap headboard, and the ancient mattress creaks a mild protest. “Harken, please, keep it down a little,” she says, trying to calm me. “If the hotel’s walls are as thin as the sheets, everyone’s going to hear you.”

Absently, she dips a hoof into the bag of Cheez Doodles Bobby had brought with him, and the absurdity of the moment, complete with a cheesy orange rime coating the purple fur around her hooves as she extracts a Doodle, shifts my mood more than her words do. I snort despite myself, take a long breath, and then nod at her when I’m done. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” I peer at Bobby and shake my head. “Yelling gets us nowhere. I just can’t believe you were spying on me that whole time, Bobby. I thought we got along. I thought we were friends.”

Bobby shakes his head. “I am your friend, man.  Sure, I was spying on you at first. But then I got to know you, and I found out you were a decent dude. The kind of guy who makes the hard decisions for the right reasons -- my kind of guy, you know? So I started telling little white lies when I reported in. I thought maybe they’d lose interest.”

“Then why are they here, Bobby,” I say, keeping my anger in check. “How did they find us?”

“I don’t know, man,” he replies, shaking his head in what looks like shame. “I guess someone caught on. Like I said, I’m a Practicus, just a low-level frontliner. Maybe nobody bought my bullshit. Maybe someone else was watching you, too, and when our stories stopped matching they got interested. Whatever it was, you gotta believe I’m not with them now. I know what you two are up to, and I know what the Order will do to try to stop you. They think I’m still back in Pine Valley. Let me try to make this right.”

“For what it’s worth,” Twilight says, leaning forward to catch my glance, “I’m sort of an expert on friendship where I’m from. Sometimes, friends come from weird places. Sometimes, they do things that end up really, really badly. And sometimes, they start off as the exact opposite of a friend. But at some point, you discover that despite all that, they’re trying their best for you. When that happens, you have to think twice about who they really are. And it seems to me like Bobby’s been trying all day.”

“Are you saying you trust him?” I ask, glancing suspiciously at Bobby.

“He’s not my friend, Harken,” she says. “He’s yours. What do you think?”

“It’s not working!” Twilight calls out, her ragged voice teetering on the edge of madness.

The air is electric, and a pinprick of of ethereal light is shining at the center of the Circle, at a point very close to Twilight’s horn, but the alicorn is straining, and the connection between her and her scroll is throbbing with a dangerous, erratic intensity.

“It’s… so close… the ritual’s draining the scroll too fast… there’s something protecting the magic, some kind of… arcane fortification… I don’t know if I can…”

As I watch, I see her cutie mark begin to fade, and that’s when I know I have to stop her. I leap into the circle, pulling her out of the center and interrupting the ritual. In a heartbeat, everything dies down, the ritual fizzles, and Twilight all but collapses into my lap. I stroke her head between her ears, both affection and concern driving my actions, and her eyelids flutter open to let her eyes lock on to my own.

“It’s okay, Harken,” she whispers, reaching weakly for my hand with her hoof. “We did our best. You can’t stay here. You need to --”

I don’t hear what she says after that. Because no, it isn’t okay. Not even remotely is it okay.

“No,” I murmur out loud, and I gently extricate myself from her and head over to the pile of paraphernalia I dumped earlier. “No, we did not do our best. Not yet.”

“Harken?” I hear her murmur, but her voice is faint, and she’s too weak to get up. Too weak to stop me. Which is good, because she’d try.

I grab the Book and thumb quickly through its pages until I find what I’m looking for. I almost miss it in my haste, skipping ahead to chapter Twenty-Nine, and my eyes rest briefly on Operation Two: to cause Armed Men to Appear for one’s Defense.

I consider it for a moment before discarding the idea. I’m dealing with an angry and experienced sorcerer. If I oppose him directly, he’ll just launch into a dispelling operation, and that’ll nullify all the magic I have, including whatever I’ve summoned to fight him -- and maybe Twilight’s scroll in the process. I want her home, not dead. So the army’s out.

I thumb backwards and find what I’m looking for. Chapter Twenty-Three, Operation Three. To demolish Strongholds.

“You got fifteen minutes tops, man!” Bobby calls back to me. “If you’ve got something up your sleeve, now’s the time to whip it out!”

Twilight said there was some kind of arcane fortification holding back the magic. Maybe it’s more metaphoric than literal, but Twilight is right. Magic is nothing more than the art and science of forcing reality to conform to will. What’s protecting the ley lines is a stronghold. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to force this ley line confluence to conform to my will.

I’m going to tear the magic out of the goddamned earth whether it wants to come out or not.

“I’m on it,” I yell back to Bobby, and I set to work.

“Shit, Bobby, can’t this thing go any faster?!”

Underscoring my point, the truck’s rear window disintegrates in a shower of safety glass as a bullet punches through, opening a hole in the roof on its way out. From inside the wraps of her Budweiser towel, Twilight yelps in surprise, and I duck, partly to cover her and partly to get out of the line of fire.

“I’m doing my best, man!” Bobby shouts, turning the wheel recklessly and throwing us around the far side of a hill so fast it feels like we’re going to tip for a couple of seconds.

“I thought you said you could get past them,” I snarl, glaring at him from my awkward position on the passenger seat. “I thought you said they wouldn’t be watching the dirt roads.”

“They weren’t,” he says, grumbling. “It’s not my fault the rangers saw us. Once they got on the radio it gave everything away.”

“So what, now we have the park rangers, the border patrol and the Federales after us as well as the guy in the BMW?” I said, boggling at him. “This is better than just going through Lukeville how exactly?”

“Relax, man,” he says, glancing into his rearview. “We just left the U. S. of A behind us. Border Patrol doesn’t get real excited about people heading south of the border, and the Rangers don’t care once you’re out of the park, especially to the next country over. And the guy in the BMW? Check him out.”

I risk sitting upright to look behind us, and I can barely make out see the silver BMW, far behind us now in a plume of dust.

“He’s not set up for offroad,” Bobby says, patting his truck’s console proudly. “But this girl’s got her four-wheel on. He’ll have to switch back to the main road.”

“And what about the Federales?”

Bobby shrugs. “Even if the Order took precautions and bought some locals ahead of time, the Federales ain’t too keen to hit the open desert without a real good reason. It’ll take them some time to mobilize, and by then it’ll be evening. We should be at UVG-17 by then.”

“So we’re going to make it?” Twilight asks, peering out at him from under her beach towel.

Bobby laughs and points ahead of us. “You see that mountain range out there?”

Twilight levers herself upright, shakes the glass out of her coat and peers into the distance. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. Call it three hours of hard driving, but that’s it.”

“We’re going to make it,” she repeats firmly, and this time it’s not a question.

“Harken, no!” Twilight calls out, but she’s still too weak to move, and anyway it’s already done. A bright light emanates from the middle of the Circle, and the college-ruled magic square I’d inked with a Bic pen flutters lightly but remains in place at the Circle’s center. The glyphs along the perimeter light up, winking into existence in rapid succession to illuminate an all too familiar face.

“Magoth, you are bound,” I say without hesitation. “I have sealed this place by the elements of my body, and you are bound to me. You will do as I tell you. There will be no bargain.”

It cackles at me as I finish. “What is it you humans like to use so much when you’re out of options? Duct tape and baling wire, yes? You might have made a better Circle with those, fool. Do you think you can hold me long here?”

“I don’t need to,” I tell Magoth. “You stole my soul back, remember? Purity really isn’t a concern of mine anymore. So I’m not asking. The Circle will hold you long enough to force your submission, and the Square at your feet is complete. All I have to do is get a single drop of my blood into that silver vessel, and it starts. You’re going to give me what I want, or I’m going to reach down your throat and rip it out myself. Either way, you’ve got three seconds. Decision time.”

“You do not have the strength, fleshling,” Magoth growls, her putrid, void-filled eyes narrowing into a glare. “You would not dare.”

“You’re cute when you’re scared,” I say, and I draw the ritual blade across my palm.

I gasp, but not from the pain – the blade’s bite is only a fraction of a pinprick, but everything else goes sideways. Backwards. Upside-down?  Some direction other than the ones I normally use. I think I stumble, but then the blood begins to flow, and nothing is uncertain anymore.

My blood is everything, and everything is in my blood. Through its coppery scent I can smell the demon’s sweet, overripe panic as I gleefully tear gobbets of infernal power from her shuddering body. I can taste her unmasked hatred -- it's like raw chocolate, bitter but strangely, compulsively delicious. My vision fades to a deep, throbbing red, and I hear the echoes of her screams as my heart pounds rhythmically in my ears.

I am pain and howling rage and unbridled power, and I revel in it all as my blood spatters on the muddy earth and into the silver basin. I stretch out my right arm, and I leech the demon’s magic from her as she moans in an unholy chorus of pain, lust and submission. I am infused by her darkness, and I suck greedily from the infernal conduit laid bare to me.

If this is what it is to be a demon, I’m not sure I want to be human again.

“...Harken?” I hear a voice say. I’m tempted to respond. I think that might have been my name, once. But the demon might is so thick and rich and terrible and overwhelming that I --

I grit my teeth and shake my head, and when I look to my side I see Twilight there, limping to my side and staring at me with an expression somewhere between awe and fear. Clenching my jaw, I force a smile and nod at her once before turning to the work at hand.

I can see it all clearly. The energy coruscating through me illuminates everything in every dimension -- the real ones, the imaginary ones, and even the ones that shouldn’t be imagined.

I see the things I desperately need to see, like the exact center of the ley line confluence. I know immediately how to focus my stolen energy there, precisely how to pinpoint the Earth’s hidden, essential magics and how to crack open my world to expose them. It should be awe-inspiring, but I know I can do so much more.

I see the things I merely want to see, like Twilight’s emotions, all laid bare like fish gasping for breath on a riverbank. I see her fear, her revulsion at what I’m doing, and her guilty hope that I succeed regardless. I can see the fading remnants of the spell that’s forcing her to care for me, and, despite that, I can see a secret seed of love, just for me, that she tends carefully even as she tries to deny its existence. She finds my struggle heartbreaking, and my plight unjust. She finds my humor charming, and my warmth endearing. She wonders what a kiss would taste like, and she would help me regain my soul if I would only ask -- and she desperately, desperately wants me to ask. She has such love, and the deepest, most terrifying desire to share it. She thinks this makes us alike. She may be right, but it’s not important right now.

I see the things I should never have seen, like the shapeless, eldritch beings from beyond the world’s veil who lurk in the uncanny corners and the blackest shadows, watching and waiting for some fell, alien purpose. I should be deathly afraid of them, but even they balk at the forces I wield in this moment. When I smile at them, they recall a distant but clear memory of what it is to be prey. Then they go, for now. To where, I dare not contemplate.

And I see something else entirely, something that shouldn’t be familiar but which is anyway: a pair of eyes, dark and hateful, surrounded by a face of scorched and matted fur, and accompanied by the stench of sulfur and the tang of copper.  I know those eyes, even though I’d swear I’ve never seen them before, and for a moment I nearly feel fear.

I finger the lock of Twilight’s mane still in my pocket, and it grounds me, reminding me why I’m here and what I’m supposed to do. I’m not entirely sure why it’s important anymore, but I know it was, once. Besides, I have nothing better to do, and I want to see it burn. I’m going to make it burn. I’m going to make it all burn.

“Shield your gaze,” I say aloud as I focus on the ley line confluence. I know what I’m about to do will be blinding, I’m just not sure in what sense, or in which reality.

Without further ado, I loose Magoth’s infernal energies at the ley line confluence. Reacting immediately, the confluence erupts, jetting forth a geyser of raw magical power in a display that I find impressive even in my current state.

I smile as I break my world. It seems somehow the appropriate thing to do.

I watch -- exult might possibly be a better term -- for a short while, but slowly I pull back from the torrent of raw power I’ve unleashed. The demonic energy I’m infused with can’t craft the portal for Twilight: the inferno destroys but cannot create. But my greedy, hateful world’s hidden reservoir of magic is perfect for the purpose, and the gaping wound at the confluence, spouting its geyser of untainted magic, is what we came for in the first place. Reluctantly, I mentally release the infernal conduit, discarding Magoth’s power so I can turn my attention to the magic at the ruptured ley line confluence. I’ll simply bring those energies to Twilight, and then her ritual can proceed.

I blink, frowning, and drop the infernal conduit, the way I’d meant to a second ago.

This is me, dropping the infernal conduit.

This is not good.

“Twilight,” I say, and the voice I hear isn’t really mine anymore: it’s deeper and harsher than I remember, and I recoil at the sound. “I can’t let go --”

“Told you… weakling…” screams Magoth between coarse, ragged breaths. Despite her pain, she’s smiling viciously at me, and I swear some of her breaths are more laughter than distress. “Addicted… you cannot control it... you’re ours, now....”

“Harken?” Twilight asks, watching me with growing panic in her eyes. “Harken, what is it?”

“Can’t stop… the conduit, it’s fused to me… I can’t let go.” The corruptive influence of Magoth’s magic is even greater than I’d imagined, and my flesh is simply too impure to contain it. Even if I had finished the rituals, even if I had regained my soul, I might not have been able to resist them. All my work would have been for nothing. after all.  How utterly appropriate.

Twilight’s eyes flash in anger, and her wings flare as she approaches me. “If she’s hurting you--”

“No time,” I say, my voice half between a pant and a demonic rasp as a dull pain begins to throb through my veins. “You -- you need to shape the portal. Go on, Purple. I’ll keep the confluence open.”

“No!” she says, her secret seed of love abruptly blossoming beyond her control. She has decided I am something to her now, something worth saving, something serious and exquisite and foolish, and her decision, laid bare to my enhanced senses, shakes me as I wonder at its implications. “She’s not going to kill you, and I will not let --”

“You will let her,” I say, interrupting her, my breaths growing harsh and rapid. “I did not… do this… to see you die. I did it to see you live. Or it was for nothing.”

I see Twilight waver, but I won’t let her. The demon sight has laid her soul bare to me, and the spell on her has made her susceptible. I know her weakness, her deepest desire and her most secret hope, and when I understand those things, I know what I have to say. Magoth’s corruption creeps inexorably towards my heart, but if my last few words can inspire her, if they can help get her home, if they can make the mistakes I made mean something in the end, then I’ll say whatever I have to, whether I mean it or not. Whether I even know if it’s the truth or not.

“Do it for me, Twilight. Do it because I love you.”

There is no transition; in one moment, she is a desperate, solitary soul, a displaced traveler on a deadly, barren planet, lost and adrift and far from home. In the next, her horn flares and a beautiful, blinding light shines through her eyes as the Earth’s ruptured ley lines imbue her with their reluctant blessings. As I watch, she becomes righteous fury incarnate, her love and need and passion fuelling her instant transformation. I see her with my fading sight across infinite worlds; in this reality she is merely angelic: beautiful and harrowing, hovering effortlessly in midair with her wings stretched overhead as she gathers my world’s lifeblood into her horn. In other realities, though, she reveals her true self: she is a goddess, her power limitless, her devotion boundless, and I avert my unworthy eyes from her magnificent, unfettered form.

“I will save you,” she whispers to me in each reality, and my heart soars, unexpectedly, even as my body begins to fail.

With an astonishing, gentle, precise understanding, she reaches out to the torrent of my world’s power and shapes it slowly, lovingly, spinning it into a beautiful, placid disc hanging in midair. As the very incarnation of magic, she no longer needs a ritual: she is the ritual. She touches the disc with her horn, and a peal as clear and pure as a crystal bell sounds. The intense, blazing light goes out of her eyes, but her serene confidence remains.

Slowly, an image forms at the disc’s center. “Twi --” an indistinct white shape appears to say from the other side of the disc, the sounds muffled and indistinct. “Where have… are you…”

“I’m fine, Princess,” she replies in an assured, serene voice. “I’m coming through with a friend. Can you and Princess Luna sustain the portal?”

The shapes in the disc continue to resolve, looking more and more like another pair of alicorns, just like Twilight, only one a blinding white and the other a midnight blue. The sound clarifies as well, but more slowly. “...course we can, but what --”

I crumple to a knee, unable to stand any longer. I’m getting my earlier wish: I’m going to be able to watch everything burn, starting with myself from the inside out. It’s not impressive in this world yet, but in at least five other realities my blood is already boiling in my veins, black and thick as tar. Idly, I wonder how long I have until it starts here, too.

“No time,” Twilight says to the portal before turning to me, and with a negligent flick of her horn, the infernal magics surrounding me simply dissipate. “Harken, get up. We’re going.”

“Can’t…” I try to reply, but my mouth is dry and tastes like carrion, so all that comes out is a rasping hiss.

“Tainted,” I hear Magoth cackle gleefully as she watches me from within the Circle. “You’ll never take him from us now.”

“-- is that? Twilight, who’s with --”

“Magoth,” Twilight replies calmly, gazing at me as she siphons Gaia’s energies slowly away from the gaping wound in the earth and into her horn. “A demon named Magoth. And this is Harken, you’ll meet him soon enough.”

“Magoth? Twilight, did you -- Hurricane is there?! Twilight, answer me!” The voice from the portal suddenly seems intense, almost desperate. “Twilight! What do you --”

Three gunshots ring out in the forest, and I hear Bobby cry out. “Mother god-damned fucker! Harken, Twi, they found us!”

“No time,” Twilight repeats to the portal, bowing her head and levitating me off the ground. It feels like my skin is sloughing away from my bones. It probably is. Just as well I can’t scream out loud anymore, but I’m doing a good job of screaming on the inside to make up for it.

“Demons!” comes a voice I don’t recognize. “The enemy is here! Take them!”

“Twilight, what in Tartarus --?”

Another gunshot, and a grunt from above us. “Incoming!” comes Bobby’s voice again. “Three -- no, two, two incoming! Not sure where the third --”

“ENOUGH!” comes a different voice from the portal -- a voice so loud and commanding that if it had made a request I would have tried with my last breath to fulfill it. “THIS IS NO TIME FOR GAMES, SISTER. BRING THEM ALL.”

“Wait --” Twilight starts to say, but then there’s a flash and a bang, or maybe nothing at all, or something else entirely, and my consciousness begins to slip away. Everything is disjoint, a series of scenes without context, without meaning aside from the knowledge that one comes after the other.

Flash: Twilight is carrying me towards the portal, and a man wearing an expensive jacket and faded jeans points a gun at her. I try to tell her to be careful, but all I manage to do is spit blood.

Flash: a beam of blue-white light from the portal annihilates the gun and burns the gunman’s hand to a smoky black cinder. The stink of charred flesh assails me, strong in my nose despite my own putridity, and the man screams in agony as a golden light envelops us all.

Flash: I’m held suspended in midair by an unknown force, in a superb white palace with high, vaulted ceilings and ornate stained glass windows. Bobby, the gunman and the two Order thugs who tried to kidnap Twilight are there as well, floating side by side all in a row. Bobby’s bleeding from his shoulder. What’s left of the gunman’s right hand is black and smoking. Somebody’s yelling, but all I can do is smell is the overwhelming stench of my own rotting flesh.

Flash: I’m lying on my back, still in the castle, and the same pair of beautiful unicorns, one white, one deep midnight blue, are staring down at me. They remind me of older versions of Twilight, and I wonder why she's not there, too. The white one’s eyes are full of tears. Something cool and wet is on my cheek. The dark one says something in a soft voice: "Auras do not lie, sister."

Flash: a darkened room, its features indistinct, with the light smell of spring daisies in the air, a downy pillow under my head and a simple whispered confession in my ear: “I’ve missed you so,” says a soft, feminine voice, and my heart pounds when I hear it. I don’t know why.

Flash: the eyes, again: the terrible, emotionless dead eyes, surrounded by charred flesh and blackened fur.  They watch me, their hatred palpable, until I have to look away.

And then the flashes stop.