Jericho

by Crushric

Chapter 43 — Der Leiermann

Thud!

Nothing quite said “you need to lose weight, chubby thighs” like coming out of a drug-induced sleep because the chair you were tied to broke under your weight. My arms hurt with stiffness, as if they’d been in rigor mortis and only recently recalled I yet lived, then returned back to life kicking and screaming.

I blinked hard, a smell not unlike piss and ethanol singeing my nose. I found myself in a dark, claustrophobic room. Cleaning supplies, and a bucket with a weird face painted on via lipstick. I felt a sneaking suspicion I was in Ylv’s fantasy cave.

In any case, without the back of the chair, the ropes that bound me pretty much fell off. I rubbed my wrists and swore to the Allfather that I would personally put spiders on the endangered species list by the time I died.

If I listened closely, I could distantly hear loud, violent dance-type music. I had to still be in the Lady’s club. The only issue was one of time. But hey, look: there were my bags. That was good. My sheathed weapons lay there.

Spying a lantern on a shelf, I took my lighter to it and gave myself enough so I could see the room proper. As it happened, my initial assessment was not incorrect. It was a janitorial closet, if a rather large one. The only thing that struck me was the Voixson tucked in the corner, and the empty booze bottles surrounding it.

I checked my pocketwatch. Hell’s bells, it’d been nearly a whole day. Night had no doubt come. Sighing, I went over to the corner and picked up the Voixson. A luggage tag on the handle labeled it as “Solnichco”, which, after a moment’s thought, I concluded was Solnyshko’s name as written in Mijôran tradition.

Hitting play gave me a burst of static, then a low voice. I turned up the volume, quickly recognizing the Lady’s voice. She spoke in a slurred manner; no doubt alcohol had something to do with this.

“...asked me about grandda’s key. Bitch somehow knows about them. Told me she’d tell me where one of the three was. In the sky, she said. Ha! Sejfêonar has two of the three. No wonder the empire is screwed. So, she wanted to know where Grandda was. Me, the key. Bitch said she needed to know where the last was so she could…” I heard running water, a gargle, and a hard sigh.

“Brother, I suspect I will die soon. I know we haven’t even spoken since you picked up that job in Sombra’s army way back when. But I know what you’re up to. I had one of my girls keep an eye on you. Solnyshko spoke that soon a stallion would come to me, demanding to know of the keys. He is the Betrayer, the demon spawned by the dark mirror Calêrhos. She told me that if I didn’t tell her where the final key was, then the Betrayer would force it out of me. Solnyshko needs him to bring the keys together; his special mix of resourcefulness and expendability to do it makes him the only real candidate left for uniting the keys.

“If I die, I’ve asked little Missy to bring you this. You kenn him; perhaps even as a friend. When he brings the keys together, it will be up to you to undo him. Trick him, lie, whatever. Just make sure to use the united keys for good, not his dark ends. Solnyshko and her ilk won’t find the last key; I threw her out of my home. Big brother, I love you. And I… hope you never hear this.” The Lady broke down crying, and just as quickly the log ended.

Solnyshko remained alive, then. More to the point, I had a new title. “The Betrayer.” It had a ring to it. But what the hell was that part about me being expendable that made me the best candidate possible for uniting the keys?

I put the Voixson back and looked around the room. Was that turpentine and a number of dirty rags? It was, indeed! I grabbed them alongside the empty bottles plus a full bottle of Bucking Bronco (highly flammable) and stashed them in my bag for later.

Who was the Lady’s brother? He had to be a guy I knew. A crystal pony, too. The only crystal stallion I really knew was Ylv, and, well, the Lady and Ylv didn’t strike me as being related in any way, shape, or form. So, back to square zero with that line of thought.

Whatever. I tried the door out. Locked. Picking it seemed tedious, so I just bucked it open. Before me, to the left and right, stood a dim hallway. The music came from my right, so what remained to my left?

Years of tabletop RPGs couldn’t lead me wrong here. Whenever there stood an obvious route, never take it. Go the wrong way first. There was bound to be some cool loot that way. So I proceeded down the long hallway until the violent music got dull. There, at the end, was a cave-in. The tunnel from hereon become nothing but ruins.

Specks of snow lay on the ground. I looked up. Through cracks in the ceiling here, I could see rays of the galaxy. The milky way of stars high above. There was a door in the wall, and opening it revealed a stairwell. I ascended up, because why not?

It led to the surface. A courtyard stood here; the only way to enter this place seemed to be either from below or from various dark alleys. In the center was a large oak tree, and next to the bald tree blazed a little fire.

There, by the fire, somepony had erected a pathetic box-hut. Sitting there, staring into the blaze, was a little filly, all bundled up. Almost idly, she toyed with some sort of instrument in her hooves. Some sort of Drehleier, whatever that was in Equestrian. Hurdy-gurdy?

As the snow fell softly, I closed the door. The filly looked up, wide-eyed. She jumped up, forgetting her instrument as she charged off down an alley.

“Hey, wait! your forgot your Drehleier!” I called, but to no avail.

I walked over to the fire and looked down at the Drehleier. Against my better judgement, I sat down, settled myself in the box, and picked up the instrument. I looked at it for a moment before turning the crank with one hoof and playing the keys with the other. It accomplished nothing, but there was something pleasant about playing fireside in the ice cold night.

The melody of this particular device was haunting and scratchy. Like the distant wail of a tortured spirit, its cries fading upon a chilly midnight breeze. I toyed with the keys and the speed of the cranking until I was satisfied. It was far from professional, and not necessarily even in the same department as good. But there was something satisfying in the Drehleier’s call across the frigid dark of night, echoing through the alleyways and bouncing back to my ears.

As I fiddled with the instrument, I recalled a poem-come-song about a man who played a Drehleier. It was the last cycle of Winterreise, a gloomy series of poems that always struck a chord with me and the icy nature of the Reich. I took a breath, cleared my throat, and recited from what memory of it I had.

“Drüben hinterm Dorfe
Steht ein Leiermann,” I softly sang.
“Und mit starren Fingern
Dreht er, was er kann.”

From one of the boxes in the alley, I saw the filly poke up her head. I continued playing, and as I watched, she got out of the trash and slowly made her way back over to the fire. For her I moved out of the box, smiled, and allowed her to take back her spot.

“Barfuß auf dem Eise
Wankt er hin und her
Und sein kleiner Teller
Bleibt ihm immer leer,” I continued.

“You really suck at that,” the filly chimed in helpfully.

I ground to a halt. “And you live in a box. I think that makes us even, kleines Mädchen.”

“That’s not fair! I—” a little mew caught her attention. With a fearful expression, she reached into her box and grabbed a bundle of blanket. The girl held it close to her, pawing thereat. I nearly asked what was going on, before I saw the kitten hidden therein. She cuddled the kitten, keeping the little thing warm.

“I don’t think she’s going to make it,” she quietly admitted. Whether for my benefit or hers, I couldn’t say. Slowly, I held out for her the Drehleier. She shook her head. “No, it’s… I don’t know how to play it. I just found it in the trash. Thought it might be cool, y’know?”

“And yet you know I suck therewith?” I asked wryly, and she nodded.

“Yup.” She rubbed the kitten, keeping her warm. If I listened closely, I could hear a weak, dying purr. The little crystal girl looked up at me, then down to her companion. “Life isn’t fair, is it?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You look like one of those big, scary ponies who knows all sorts of things.”

I frowned, thinking of a way to divert the topic. “Why are you out here?”

“Where should I be? Papa’s gone, and I never knew mama.”

A thought crossed my mind. “An orphanage? I believe the Lady over yonder runs one.”

The look on her face reminded me of rusted, icy gears fighting to work. “She’s mean. I don’t like her. I don’t want to be a bad pony,” she said. And then, out of nowhere: “And Sombra’s aren’t open anymore.”

“I’m sorry?”

She shook her head, holding her kitten close to her breast. “The pink princess came here, and the spiky dragon defeated Sombra. He had all sorts of places to take care of lost children. Warm homes. Taught us stuff. When the spiky dragon defeated him, there was nopony left to keep the places warm.  Nowhere to go.”

“Didn’t the princess just… hire new people?” I asked, furrowing my brow.

“No, no, that’s… no. Pink princess sucks,” she replied.

I said nothing, just let everything sink in. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine the only orphanages set up since then had either some connection to Snechta or other unscrupulous ponies, like the Lady. Finally, I asked, “What is your name?”

“Twltcha has no name.”

Puzzled, I said, “Then, what about Twltcha?”

She looked at me with eyes that said she had explained this a thousand times, and each time it ate a little more of her soul. “It means ‘worthless’.”

I had nothing to say after that. We just sat there in silence, warmed by the fire. The slowly shrinking blaze bathed us in a dancing orange light. I got up, gathered fallen sticks and twigs from the oak tree, and put them on the fire. Then I went into the alleys and found combustible junk, and set that into the blaze too.

Then I went into my bags and pulled out the cleaning supplies and the Bucking Bronco. These would have made a perfect Molotowbombe, just what I’d need to set fire to the Lady and to that infernal spider. But…

I sighed, and doused what I could into the fire. The blaze gained a great fury; the junk that hadn’t burned suddenly erupted into a conflagration—its heat bathed us well. I sat back, content that the fire would likely last well into the night.

“That song,” the filly said. “What does it mean?”

I reached over and patted her on the head. She recoiled from the touch, as though afraid I was going to hurt her. How many ponies had? I wondered.

“It is called ‘Der Leiermann’, kleines Mädchen. It is a poem, a song, and these are its ending verses. It’s about a poet wandering the cold Teutonic wasteland after his love betrays his heart for another.

“In the end, he comes across a village. And behind the village, alone and near frozen, plays ein Leiermann. He is old and wretched, barefooted, and all hate him. He begs, but no one offers him so much as a penny, nor do they even listen, and even the dogs growl at him. He is totally alone. But yet he keeps playing, forlorn and haunting. So the poet figures he will stand by the old pony, cast his lot in with him, so that at the very least, the two can die in friendship together.”

“That’s… sad.”

I smirked. “Aye, the poetry from the Fatherland is often like that. I cannot say for certain why we’re such downers. Mayhap it is how we make it our sworn duty to shoulder the weight of the world, a task no one asked us to do. And how, in some ways,” I said, looking down at myself, “it is a quest as pointless as it is unending, and every day just grinds us all down further. It will destroy us; this we all know, even if we refuse to admit it. But… what can we do but continue?”

All but the fire remained quiet for a pregnant moment. Then: “Can you… can you keep playing it for me?” she asked slowly, inching towards me. “I liked hearing it, even if it’s all sad and stuff.”

I grabbed the Drehleier. “For you? I think I could do that, even if I am not so good.” I found where I was, and set about finishing the poem.

“Keiner mag ihn hören,
Keiner sieht ihn an,
Und die Hunde knurren
Um den alten Mann.”

The nameless filly hummed along with me, catching onto my simple melody. In a way that I couldn’t help but smile at, she even tried to copy along my words, slurring the Teutonic into garbles. Even the tiny kitten purred louder.

“Und er läßt es gehen,
Alles wie es will,
Dreht, und seiner Leier
Steht ihm immer still.”

At the back of my mind, I wondered back to how I got into this situation. A quest to stop a Korweit, the end of the goal to heal my flesh after the slaying of Elkington’s personal demon. From Songnam to Sleepy Oaks, and back to Lyra’s house.

Lyra. Mint green mare with a thing for foreigners. There was something amusing in that. Eine Leier, in some contexts, could refer to a lyre, which must have been that mare’s namesake. So, Lyra, the strangely hospitable mare who took me in out from the cold, here’s to you. Here’s to Cards. Here’s to Lightning Dust. To everypony else who’s shown me so much kind heartédness or offered me some form of help. And… to all the innocents I hurt.

“Wunderlicher Alter,
Soll ich mit dir geh’n?
Willst zu meinen Liedern
Deine Leier dreh’n?”

I finished the last lines of the poem, then reiterated it in Equestrian for the nameless filly’s benefit. This time, she was more capable of singing along with me, even if she was just a second slower than off, and a fair bit off-tune.

“Strange old buck
Shall I go with you?
Will you play your organ
to my songs?”

There, it was done. I looked down at myself and felt a sudden, dire feeling of despair. What was the point of all this? Why did I care about the Crystal Empire? Why did I have to be its savior? Why was I the lynchpin?

“You know, if you hate it so much, why don’t you just… stop?” she asked, and I paused.

“Excuse me?”

“Your people, I mean,” the filly explained, cradling the bundled kitten in her arms. “If it’s so hard, why do you have to do it? If you just stopped, wouldn’t everything just be better?”

My mouth felt dry. Something felt wrong in the pit of my gut, something I couldn’t name nor even place. Just a general feeling. How long had that feeling been there? Yet, trying to pinpoint its moment of origin was like trying to identify the exact moment you started to feel ill from a cold.

“Were that it so simple for the Reich,” I replied in a slow, solemn tone. “But I am not the Reich. I am Jericho, my own stallion.” I stood up abruptly. A layer of snow that had built up on my duster slid off. “And why in the Allfather’s name do I have to continue on this mad, endless quest?! Who cares about Snechta, the Crystal Empire, Korweit, the Lady—any of it! If I am the only one capable of uniting the keys and moving the dark little plot along, then what else need I do to put a stop to it all than nothing!?”

“Mister?” the little filly said, slowly shrinking back from me.

Instantly, I cooled off and smiled at her. “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you, It’s just that there’s been a lot of my mind lately, and what you said just now, it made me realize something. Something big, earth shattering even.”

“You’re, uh, welcome?”

“Look, I need to go, I suspect. But thank you, thankee big-big, nameless one!” I set down the Drehleier by her side and turned to go.

“Wait!”

“Aye?”

“Before you go, can I have one thing?”

I hesitated. Then admonished myself for doing so. “Anything.”

“Can I get a hug?”

A chill ran up my spine. Even in this weather, the cold had yet to bother me. And then this. I… well, I sighed, and looked her up and down. I grit my teeth and let out a breath. “I don’t suppose I couldn’t.”

I knelt down, squeezing myself up against her box home, and hugged her. She grabbed the folds of my duster and wrapped herself up in it, the little kitten resting between us.

A long time passed like that. Her just grabbing onto me and my duster.

“Um, you know, I should really get going. This is starting to get really awkward and, uh…” I poked her. “Are you asleep? Because, I, um… Well, this is, um… Unique.”

I let out something that was half a groan, half a sigh, looking around to make sure nobody was witnessing this. “You see, Jericho? This is what having a heart gets you: with tiny orphans clinging to your waist.”

At some point, I managed to wrestle her off me, but not without her taking my duster with her. I laid her and the kitten down under my coat and what blankets she had over in her little box. The air felt chilly, but it was nothing compared to the Teutonic winters my body had been genetically conditioned for going on thousand years now. I compensated by taking out my black wool poncho from my bag and putting that on.

Now the problem became, I couldn’t just leave her here to steal my duster, and I couldn’t just beat her up and take it back. Plus, this part of Côrint seemed really sketchy. I was pretty sure I saw a wild dog on my way to the Lady’s club, too, if I left the nameless filly all alone, they might eat her and the kitten.

So I just sat there, at the edge of her box, staring into the fire as the galaxy rotated lethargically above my head. My mind spun with thoughts of Lightning Dust, Cards, Lyra, Selena, Maiya, and the Reich. It seemed to go on for hours, just a mental white nose, a reflection of memories.

And it went on.

And on.

On.

…