//------------------------------//
// Hidden Agendas 
// Story: The Freeport Venture 
// by Chengar Qordath 
//------------------------------//

I heard voices out in the streets. It was hard to tell exactly who was talking while I was cooped up in one of the mausoleums, especially with the constant dull roar of the rain, but I was pretty sure one of the voices was Strumming’s. Being inside a crypt hid me from easy view, but it wouldn’t take them long to find me if they started searching the graveyard methodically. At least the rain would have washed away any blood trail I might have left behind. That would buy me a little time.

I quickly surveyed my surroundings. The mausoleum was relatively modest: bare stone walls and  only four caskets tucked into them, though three of them hadn’t been filled yet. Not exactly ideal for what I had in mind; more than one filled casket would’ve been nice, and older ones generally made for better subjects. Or at least, that was what I vaguely remembered from Celestia's lessons about how to counter necromancy.

In a lot of ways, necromancy wasn’t all that different from golemry. In the simplest of terms, they’re both about creating mindless minions who will do your bidding. In each case, you take a relative equinoid entity and infuse it with energy to allow it to move and act. Golems and basic undead also have a crude sort of intelligence managing their basic functions that enables them to comply with their controller’s demands.

The only difference was where the body and intelligence came from. With a golem, both mind and body were artificially created. With the undead, you used an existing corpse and the lingering essence of the original owner. Not their soul or anything, just a kind of let over spiritual residue. I guess the best way to explain it is that a dead body still has some sort of memory of how to be alive, how it’s supposed to move, and the other kind of things a golem needs to be taught just to have the most basic mobility.

Undead do have one other huge advantage over golems: the materials needed to create them are a lot easier to find, while it takes a lot of work to forge several tons of steel into a functioning vessel for a golem. Dead bodies by contrast are pretty easy to get your hooves on. That was probably why most of your evil warlocks picked zombies: spellcasters who have gone mad with a lust for power probably like easily-made and disposable minions more than ones that can take years of careful craftsmanship to create. Metal Mome had spent his whole life slowly refining his design.

Come to think of it, Metal Mome’s golem control spell had quite a few elements in common with how a necromancer controls their minions. That might be why his mother’s line of research had been shut down. As far as the Magi were concerned, golemry was enough of a grey art before you started mixing in new techniques inspired by necromantic practices.

Like most other forms of dark magic, I already knew a lot of the theory behind it from Celestia’s lessons. Between that and the fact that I had stolen everything Metal Mome knew about golemry, I was reasonably certain I could pull this off. I was just making golems out of dead bodies instead of some other material. No difference, really. It probably wasn’t that much worse than using a normal golem. Right?

I cracked open the sealed casket. I didn’t look at who it belonged to—knowing a name would just make the rest of the process harder. Thankfully the body—corpse—vessel was old enough to have withered and dried out. No recognizable features, just thin papery skin and a few brittle white remnants of a mane. I couldn’t even tell if it had been a pony or a zebra. I guess it really didn’t matter which it was, and honestly, it was probably better if I didn’t know. If I thought of it as an object instead of something that had once been a living, breathing, sentient being, then it was a lot easier to manage.

I closed my eyes and reached for my magic, then plunged into the darkness.

It’s hard to explain, but every type of magic has a kind of feel to it. A lot of them aren’t all that surprising: fire feels hot, ice feels cold, and so on. Light magic felt warm, kinda like the sun on your face. Some of the light spells I learned from Celestia herself felt ... different. I dunno, there was this feeling of ... connectedness, I guess. Maybe that was part of why I’d been having trouble with those spells lately; I didn’t exactly feel connected to Celestia anymore, and other than her I didn’t really have anypony else.

And then there was necromancy. It was cold, but not in the same way as ice magic. When I conjured ice, there was a feeling kind like when you first step outside on a cold winter day and a breeze hits you in the face. Yeah it’s cold, but it’s also bracing. It wakes you up, fills your body with energy. Necromancy on the other hoof was an empty, dark kind of cold, where it feels like you’re burning up from it. It reminded me of the old stories about Nightmare Moon and how she planned to plunge the world into eternal night.

The pain of all my injuries went numb. Not that they didn’t still hurt, but that fact just seemed to fade from relevance for a while. I could feel bits of that cold energy sliding into my body through all my open wounds. For a moment I worried about that, but then I realized it didn’t matter anyway. Death was all around me anyway. What did it matter if there was a little more inside me?

There was an undeniable sweetness to it. Like a compost heap, but with the coppery scent of blood with faint hints of bile and feces all mixed in. Something that almost made me want to vomit, yet at the same time a part of me wondered what it would be like to have more. The smell of rot, decay, and death. Fitting, I suppose.

It should’ve horrified me to throw around that kind of energy. Despite the talk with Celestia in my dreams, now that I was actually face-to-face with necromancy, a part of me couldn’t help feeling like this magic was just wrong. Even if I could come up with some argument about how it was justified under the right conditions, it still wouldn’t change the fundamental wrongness of how it all felt.

And yet I kept on casting the spell. No, it was more than that: the spell came to me without any real effort. Almost like second nature, as if I’d used it dozens of times in the past. The flow of energy returning the vessel to a semblance of life, binding the feeble spirit-memory of the old bones into servitude. It was all so simple. It shouldn’t be this easy.

My eyes flicked down and back, resting on my own cutie mark for a moment. I’d never really thought about it all that much, or about what it represented. It was a sun, so that meant I would be good with magic that tied into the sun. Fire, light, stuff like that. Simple. But now I noticed something else about it.

A curved line down the middle of it, splitting it in half. With only a bit of pale moonlight coming in through the open door, the colors looked different. The moonlight rendered it monochrome; one half white, the other black. What I’d always just seen as a bit of meaningless color variation now reminded me of a symbol I’d seen in one of Celestia’s books. It represented balance, duality, the idea that two seemingly conflicting forces were actually interdependent and in a constant cycle.

I’d always assumed that I’d developed my mastery of fire and ice because the two weren’t opposing forces at all: they were both just about manipulating heat. But maybe that wasn’t the case after all. Maybe I’d done so well with them because they were opposing forces. That was certainly how they always existed in the popular consciousness. And if that was the case, didn’t that mean that I might do well with other opposing forces as well? Celestia had already taught me about light magic, and I’d been talented at that. And the opposite of light is...

Or maybe, like fire and ice, they weren’t opposites at all; just two points on the same continuum. Everypony knows that the brightest light casts the darkest shadow.

I finished the spell, and the vessel rose from its resting place. Just like with Mome’s golems, I could feel a sort of connection to the zombie’s intelligence. But where the golems had a sterile, mechanical sort of intellect, the undead creature had a more ... animalistic spirit, I suppose. Sort of like the mind of a guard dog. That was what I’d wanted, after all. Something to keep me safe from all the ponies pursuing me.

“Watch the door, grab anypony who tries to come through.” I spoke the words, and at the same time tried to mentally project them at the zombie-spirit through our mental connection. It got up and started moving towards the door, so I must have handled it the right way. At least I had it under control so far: more than one aspiring necromancer had been killed by their own creations.

Now that I had someone watching my back, I could take a moment to worry about myself. Channeling that necromantic energy might have dulled my wounds for a while, but everything was starting to hurt again now that I was done with the spell. I might have avoided breaking any bones, but my entire body felt like a single massive bruise, and every time I moved, some cut or scrape screamed in protest. At the very least I needed to bandage myself up; hanging around rotting, undead things while I had a bunch of open wounds was a good way to pick up a nasty disease.

A wild, hysterical laugh bubbled up out of the pit of my stomach. I was a warlock on the run from the EIS, and I was worried about getting dirty. If I could keep myself free long enough to actually have to worry about any infections I might pick up here, I could count myself a very lucky mare. 

I took a couple deep breaths and tried to stop myself from laughing. Somepony might hear it. But for some reason I just couldn’t stop it. The whole situation was just so absurd. Maybe I should just roll around in all that corpse stuff for a while, just to make sure I got as dirty as possible. What did it matter anymore? Maybe if I picked up some horrible flesh-rotting disease everypony would feel so sorry for me that they’d forget about chasing me down. Or maybe Celestia would come here to cure me.

Somewhere along the way I started laughing so hard there were tears in my eyes. And then I wasn’t laughing at all, and there were a lot more tears. I could barely even breathe, choking on my own laughter as it slowly transformed into sobbing. How had everything gone so wrong?

I don’t know how long I was like that, but eventually I managed to hear something through all the noise that I was making. The sound of armored hooves on stone.

Damn. One of Strumming’s soldiers must’ve heard me. No surprise; if not for the rain muffling sound, everyone in the cemetery probably would’ve. I froze, trying to decide what I should do.

Before I could come up with anything, the guard stepped through the entrance. Naturally, he was focusing on the dangerous fugitive right in front of him. He had no idea that my zombie was hiding in the shadows in position to ambush whoever entered the mausoleum. Why would he? Who would expect a former student of Celestia’s to conjure up undead? 

Another ripple of laughter burst out of me. I don’t think there was anything I could’ve done to stop it.

The guardspony strode towards me, and my zombie slammed its shoulder into his side, knocking him off his hooves and sending him sprawling. The zombie followed him as she slid across the dusty stone floor, rearing up on its hind legs to drive its cadaverous forehooves down on him. The soldier quickly covered his head, but that just left his ribs and belly exposed.

“Stop!” Exerting my will over the zombie was harder than I had expected it to be. My only real experience at this kind of thing had been with Metal Mome’s golems, and while undead might be similar to golems in some ways, it was starting to look like those little differences were a lot more important than I’d initially realized. A golem doesn’t have any real will of its own, but the spirit bound to my zombie did. A very crude, primal sort of thing with only the most basic of drives: it wanted to protect me. It regarded the soldier as a threat, and wanted to end that threat the only way it could.

I wasn’t going to let that happen. “Don’t hurt him. Just ... just tie him up or something.” A quick scan of the mausoleum revealed absolutely nothing that could be used to bind the soldier in place—whoever owned the tomb obviously hadn’t anticipated that I might be using it for a last stand against the EIS. “Keep an eye on him. Don’t let him get away.” I frowned, and amended my instructions to the zombie. “Don’t hurt him or anything. Just ... I dunno ... hold him down without hurting him. Okay?” I glowered down at the guardpony. “And you, just stay right there and don’t do anything.”

The zombie fulfilled my instructions to the best of its abilities, planting itself on top of the soldier and pinning him to the floor. Of course, now that my creation was busy keeping a prisoner under control, it couldn’t watch my back the way I’d intended it to do. I was right back where I started, except now I had a hostage on top of that.

I could always go looking outside the mausoleum for more bodies to animate. I was in the middle of a graveyard, I wasn’t going to run out of raw materials any time soon. I could just keep making zombies until I was completely exhausted or I hit the practical limit of what I could control. Maybe even more; I would need spares, after all. I might have taken one of the guardponies by surprise, but if I animated more and sent them out after the EIS, they’d know what I was up to soon enough.

My eyes flicked down at the guard, and a particularly ugly thought sprang to mind. I could always turn one of my current problems into an asset. Instead of one zombie stuck guarding one prisoner, why not just have two zombies? And it would probably make the EIS back off too, once they realized I was serious about not letting them capture me again. So why not do it? It was smart, pragmatic, efficient...

And wrong.

Robbing graves was one thing, but killing somepony just so I could make another zombie was monstrous. There was no way I could justify that. I wasn’t some lunatic warlock, I was Princess Celestia’s former student. I could find a better way out of this whole mess; I just needed a little time to figure out what I was supposed to do.

Since I really needed some peace and quiet to think things through, that’s when the guardpony decided to start talking to me. “Sunset Shimmer?” He shuffled around on the stone floor, trying to get a bit more comfortable without doing anything to provoke my zombie. “I ... look, my name is Iron Hoof. I have a wife and—”

“Shut up!” I snarled at him. I knew what he was trying to do: he wanted to tell me all about his family so I wouldn’t hurt him. Guilt me with the fact that he had kids back home who would be turned into orphans if he forced me to kill him. It was a pretty standard trick.

Except in my case, going with the standard tricks was a stupid thing to do. First off, I didn’t want to kill him anyway. In fact, the implication that I might be some kind of crazed murderer just pissed me off. Second, he was trying to manipulate me. Worse, he was doing the obvious, clunky sort of manipulation. Not only do I hate it when ponies lie to me, I also hate the implied insult to my intelligence when they use blatantly obvious lies.

Regardless, I didn’t have time to worry about this stupid meathead soldier, I needed to focus on getting out of here. The obvious solution would be to teleport, but I was tired and still in a lot of pain. Theoretically, I shouldn’t be in too much danger of teleporting into the middle of a solid object or leaving half my body behind. Magical energy tends to flow to the point of least resistance, and solid objects are pretty resistant. As for leaving stuff behind, my body was a single relatively unified object that should be treated as such by the spell. Or at least, that’s what the prevailing magical theory said.

I wasn’t exactly eager to risk a horrible death on theory alone. Not to mention there were still plenty of bad things that could happen with a teleportation spell without sticking me halfway through a wall or leaving chunks of my body behind. I could reappear ten meters into the air, or out over the middle of the water, or...

Urgh, no point dwelling on that. So teleporting was out until I had a chance to rest and recover. I wasn’t exhausted the way I’d been after the fight with Mome. If I could get something to cut down on the pain and buy enough time to shake off the lingering effects of the sleep potion Strumming had slipped me, I should be in good enough condition to risk a teleportation. For that matter, if I bought enough time I might be able to get some outside help. A couple dozen Equestrian soldiers running around Freeport would get noticed sooner or later. Once the sun came up and the rain slacked off there would be plenty of creatures walking the streets, and it wouldn’t take long for someone to notice that something weird was going on in the graveyard.

Okay, I had a plan. I just needed to buy some time and I could still get out of this. Of course, Strumming and her crew probably knew that too. I might be able to stall them for a while, but I doubt they would let me keep delaying them until daylight, and that was still more than four hours away.

First things first, I iced over most of the entrance to the mausoleum. It wouldn’t take Strumming and her minions long to notice that one of their ponies was missing, if they hadn’t already. Securing the entrance now would, at worst, give away my location a few minutes early. I could live with that when the alternative was leaving myself wide open to a surprise attack. I didn’t seal it up all the way: I did need a supply of fresh air and a few peepholes so I could see what was going on outside, but I didn’t leave anything close to large enough for a pony to fit though.

After that, it was just a matter of waiting.

Ten minutes later, somepony started tapping on my ice barrier. I risked a quick look out one of my peepholes and saw Strumming Heartstrings standing in the doorway. Her mane was plastered flat against her skull from the rain, and there was a rather nice bruise developing on her jaw which looked suspiciously like my hoof. Despite that, she smiled when she saw me looking out at her. “Heya, bacon-head.”

“Strumming.” I struggled to think of what I should say to her. I knew I shouldn’t just stand there with a stupid look on my face, but my mind was just completely blank.

The pegasus sighed and took a seat right outside my barrier, resting her back against the ice. “Well, we’ve gotten ourselves into a right and proper mess now, haven’t we?”

“Looks like it.” I slumped down against the other side of the ice. “So what’s your next move? At best, you have until sunrise to get me out of here. Once someone sees what’s going on here and reports it to the condottieri, that’s it for you.”

“Depends on who the first responder is,” Strumming countered. “If we get lucky, we might be able to slow them down for a while with some well-placed bribes. Shouldn’t be too hard, as long as news doesn’t reach anyone on the Council or any of their flunkies who know about you.”

“I can’t help but notice there’s a lot of wishful thinking mixed up in that plan.” Judging by my own recent life experience, any plan where good luck was a required component was just about doomed to fail. “So I guess this is the part where you tell me to give up without a fight or else you’ll have your soldiers take me by force?”

“You don’t have to be so negative about it.” She sighed, tipping her head back against the wall between us. “I didn’t want it to go this way, you know. I wanted it all to turn out a lot more amicably, but I have my orders.” She ran a hoof through her soaked mane. “I was supposed to be your friend, help nudge you along the right path if you started straying. Instead I’m leading a team trying to arrest you. Pretty feathered up, isn’t it?” She shifted around, and I heard the all-too-familiar sound of her pulling some junk food out of her saddlebag. “Want a candy bar? I can probably slip it through one of those little holes you left in the door. I’d offer some crisps, but they won’t fit. Rain’d probably ruin them anyway.”

“No thanks.” I shot a poisonously sweet smile through the gap in the wall. “After what happened the last time I accepted food from you, I’m not gonna risk it. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...”

Strumming chuckled softly. “You know, there might be hope for you yet.” I heard a few brief snatches of conversation from outside, but none of the words were clear. I suppose she must have retrieved her unicorns and had one of them put up a privacy spell—pretty sensible, under the circumstances. I couldn’t tell where they were or what they were saying, and anypony outside the graveyard would probably not notice anything but vague blurs and muffled sounds all drowned out by the rain.

After a short consultation with her comrades, Strumming addressed me again. “You’ve got Iron Hoof in there with you, right?”

“Yeah.” No point in lying when they already knew the answer. Not to mention that his presence would probably do a lot to keep Strumming and her minions from launching an all-out attack on my little stronghold. “He’s alive and mostly intact. For now.” I tried to make that sound as threatening as I could, but it came out as just a bit too melodramatic. A hostage wasn’t going to do me any good unless Strumming believed I was capable of hurting him.

I quickly to salvage the situation. “If you try anything I don’t like, that might change. I don’t have anything against him, but if it comes down to him or me...”

“Kinda figured that’s how it was.” Strumming tapped on the ice in a few places; seemingly at random, but I would bet she was trying to get an idea of how hard and thick it was. She didn’t seem the least bit concerned by my threats, though I suppose that was to be expected. “So how are you holding up? It looked like you had a pretty rough landing. Nice job on those ice wings, by the way. Seriously, that was some awesome magic. Bet Celestia would’ve been proud of it.”

“I know what you’re doing,” I growled out at her. “Make small talk, offer a few compliments, get a conversation going, the whole routine. The next stage is where you start establishing common ground with me, right? And after that we get to the main event.” I shifted to a mockery of her High Canterlot accent. “Well, Sunset old chum, helping you out of this little jam would be absolutely capital, but I’m terribly afraid my wanker of a boss will bugger it all up unless you do a little something for me first. Work with me on this, and we’ll be sipping tea and having crumpets back the embassy in no time.”

“Starswirl’s beard, I don’t sound that Canterlot, do I?” She looked to her soldiers, but the privacy spell kept me from hearing any answers she might have gotten. I probably could’ve taken that privacy spell down if I really wanted to, but wasting energy on it seemed pointless. It’s not like they wouldn’t just re-cast the spell a couple seconds later.

After another round of muffled conversation the spell blocked off from me, Strumming addressed me once more. “Alright then, Sunset, you know how this is all going to work, so I’ll play it by the rulebook. How’s everypony doing in there? Do either of you need help? I’ve got a first aid kit out here, and I can send it through  if you open up a hole for a little bit.”

A first aid kit? Every single wound I’d picked up in my crash-landing twinged at once, reminding me that I could really use some medical supplies. However, that offer was just a bit too tempting to be true. I tossed one of the pieces of advice Strumming had given me a few weeks ago right back in her face. “What’s the catch?”

I could see her smug little grin through my peephole. “Smart. The catch, Sunset, is that you have to do something for me. You have to let me talk to Iron Hoof. You don’t have to send him out or anything, just let him come up to the door and talk to me for a little bit so I can make sure he’s doing alright. That sound fair to you?”

I scoffed and glared at her through the hole. “I wasn’t born yesterday, nag. There’s all kinds of tactical info you could get out of him.” I considered, then shook my head. “In fact, I don’t need your first aid kit anyway. Knowing you, all the ointment will be replaced with sleeping drugs anyway.”

Strumming groaned and smacked her head against the ice wall. “Yeah, I guess that figures. Kinda hard for us to negotiate when you don’t trust me any further than you could throw me.” She paused, then rubbed the budding bruise on her face. “Granted, if your punches are anything to judge by, maybe you could chuck me a bit further than I expected.” She sighed, then took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t figure there’s anything I can say that’ll make you like me. I think it’s hard to deny that a lot of mistakes were made. Most of that was me following stupid orders from my stupid bosses, but I can’t shove all the blame onto them. I...” Her shoulders slumped down, and she leaned a bit more heavily against the wall. “Hay, I don’t know how to help a scared, confused, troubled young mare. Princess feathering Celestia had trouble with that, so how was I supposed to figure it out? There are lot of things I’d do differently if I had a second chance. I could’ve gone with you on that bounty hunt, helped you get the job done without crossing any lines. Or fought harder to keep you from getting arrested. Or ... I don’t know, a lotta stuff.”

She turned back to face the wall properly. “Let’s try something else. I’ll ask you a question. You answer it, and medkit’s yours. You don’t wanna answer it, then don’t.” When I didn’t refuse her offer out of hoof, she continued. “Alright, so it’s hard not to notice that you’re holed up in the middle of graveyard right now. I need to know, did you use dark magic again?”

The smart thing to do would’ve been to deny everything. I doubt Strumming would’ve believed me, but confessing wouldn’t do me any good either. But when I looked over at my zombie, still keeping that guardpony pinned down in the corner, a twinge of something passed through my stomach. I had to wonder what Celestia would think if she saw me right now. She’d practically raised me, treated me as the daughter she’d never had, and now I was calling up zombies and taking one of her guards hostage. Not exactly the best way to make her proud of me.

So instead of doing the smart thing, I did the honest one. “Yeah, I did.”

I’d been expecting Strumming to have a lot to say about that. Probably a bunch of smartflanked remarks about how I’d used dark magic as part of my plan to fix all the trouble I’d gotten into for using dark magic. But instead she stuck with her quiet, serious mood. “I guess it figures, doesn’t it? Mome put you in a position where your only options were to use dark magic or see bad things happen to good ponies, and now we’re the ones backing you into a corner. No surprise you pick using dark magic over going back into prison.”

There was a brief pause while she spoke to somepony covered by the privacy spell, and when she came back I saw a standard Guard-issue medical kit in her hooves. She tapped it against the ice, and after a moment’s hesitation I opened up a hole just barely large enough to let her slide it through. Once I had the kit, Strumming spoke again. “I’m not gonna blame or judge you for what you did to escape us. That’s a big, complicated issue. But there is one thing I want you to think about: you’ve got a good pony in there who was just following orders trying to put you back in custody. And right now, his life is entirely in your hooves.” 

She deliberately met my eyes for several long seconds. “If he gets hurt or dies, it’s not gonna be because we forced you to do that—it’s gonna be because you chose to hurt him. And that’s gonna be something you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life. The things we do ... they define who and what we are for the rest of our lives. I suggest thinking real long and hard about whether you’re the kind of mare who would execute one of Celestia’s loyal guardponies just to make us stop chasing you for a bit.”

Having said her piece, Strumming rose to her hooves and began walking away. While I normally wouldn’t have minded seeing her go, I couldn’t help but be a little curious. “You’re leaving?”

Strumming paused and shook her head. “Not much point in me trying to talk you down. I don’t know a lot about negotiating, but I do know that you’ll never get anywhere with it if the ponies involved don’t trust each other. And I’m pretty sure you don’t trust me.” A hint of a smile flickered across her face. “Which, come to think of it, is probably one of the better decisions you’ve made since coming to Freeport. Sit tight, we’ll send in a new negotiator in a bit.”





I put my spare time to good use. Strumming had traded me a medical kit, after all. I didn’t think it was too likely that she’d tampered with any of the supplies, mainly because I rather doubted Strumming had been carrying a sabotaged medical kit on the off chance that I escaped, was injured, took one of her soldiers hostage, and then decided to trade information for medical supplies. I still checked everything for signs of tampering before I used it, though.

Once I was bandaged up, there wasn’t much to do but wait. I checked on my prisoner every once in a while, but he didn’t seem to be up to much. No surprise when my zombie was standing right over him and under orders to stop him if he tried anything. I tried the occasional peek out the ice wall, but the EIS were keeping their privacy screen up. I thought about trying to take it down again—I was feeling a bit stronger now that all my injuries were properly bandaged up and treated—but it still probably wasn’t worth the risk. I doubt they would react well to me slinging spells at them. Time was on my side, so there was no reason to do something that might make the standoff explode.

The privacy screen would also make teleporting out a lot harder. I was feeling strong enough to try the spell, but I didn’t know Freeport well enough to teleport around blindly. Still, it at least gave me an option for what to do if negotiation failed and they tried to storm in. Take down the privacy screen, then teleport out as fast and far as possible. Risky, but it was better than just meekly letting them chain me up again.

After a while I conjured up some more ice to give myself a resting place—though considering where I was maybe I should call it something else. The mausoleum might have been reasonably clean before, but blasting open one of the coffins and reanimating its occupant had probably ruined any work the caretaker had put into making it sanitary. Considering just how many open wounds I had, even if they were mostly bandaged up now, lying down on the floor didn’t seem like a good idea.

I had just finished getting comfortable when somepony tapped on the barrier covering the mausoleum’s entrance. A second later I heard one of the last voices I could’ve expected. “Shimmer-mare, are you in there?”

I jumped in surprise, and the despite the grim circumstances, I was smiling. “Puzzle? Is that really you?” I was relieved to know that he—it—buck it, he was okay. I didn’t think the EIS would really hurt him, but there was no substitute for visual confirmation. I shifted out of my resting place to get a look through the small opening in my wall.

Puzzle was right there in his preferred pegasus form, smiling at me. “It is this one, yes.” He confirmed his identity by shifting to his insectoid changeling form in a flash of green fire. “And this one has not come alone.”

My gaze shifted as low as I could get it through my limited vision slit, and I saw a second, smaller changeling. “Shimmer-mare!” I heard the relief in her voice, and she pressed up against the ice in a desperate effort to find some way through it.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Kukri! You okay?” I couldn’t risk opening up a hole big enough for the little changeling to climb in through, nor did I especially want to drag her into the middle of a tense standoff, but I did open up another hole a bit lower down so she could actually see me.

“The Equestrians did not hurt this one, though it was very worried for the Shimmer-mare. This one is most relieved to know that you are alright.” Kukri scrambled over to the hole, her eyes quickly seeking me out. Once she’d confirmed that I was okay, she pressed her hoof against the hole. Green fire flashed again, and her hoof slimmed down enough for her to start slowly wiggling it in through the peephole.

“The Equestrians were kind to us within the limitations of our circumstances.” Puzzle’s eyes flicked back to the privacy screen, where the EIS agents were waiting for us. “This one did not enjoy confinement, but compared to some of the dungeons this one has seen, Equestria’s treatment was more akin to house arrest. Though this one is somewhat curious about how the EIS obtained adequate supplies of thymoplasm to feed us.”

I took Kukri’s hoof and gently squeezed it. “Glad to hear you two are okay.” I tapped the ice wall separating myself from the little changeling. “I'd invite you in, but ... well, you know, tense hostage standoff thing.” My eyes flicked back to the privacy screen, searching for any sign of movement through the vague, shifting barrier. “I'm actually waiting for them to send in a new negotia...”

I trailed off as a couple things clicked into place. At first I’d been so relieved to see the two of them that I hadn’t really questioned their presence—I guess I’d just chalked it up to Strumming trying to win a little good will by letting me see them. Except that didn’t sound like Strumming at all. She would’ve squeezed some kind of concession out of me in exchange for letting me see the changelings again. Hay, she probably could’ve gotten something reasonably valuable from me in exchange for bringing the two of them here. It didn’t make sense...

And then I remembered that Strumming had mentioned getting a new negotiator. Someone I would trust a lot more than her. And Puzzle was a mercenary, after all.

The changeling grinned at me, showing his fangs. “Ah, the Shimmer-mare is starting to learn.”

Kukri stared up at him, her jaw dropping in shock. “The other is working for them?!” Her voice trembled with fury, and she probably would’ve shoved the older changeling if not for the fact that she was still hanging onto my hoof. “They imprisoned us! And the Shimmer-mare!”

“And they are offering this one its freedom if it resolves the situation without bloodshed,” Puzzle answered mildly. “This one has been honest with you both from the start. It is a problem solver for hire. The Equestrians have obtained this one’s services—at considerable expense, this one should add. It required some recompense for its false imprisonment.” He reached over and gave Kukri a calming pat on the back. “It also secured Kukri’s freedom as part of the arrangement.”

My first instinct was to be outraged by the fact that Puzzle was working with the EIS. However, given how much trouble I’d gotten into lately by following my instincts, I took a moment to think things through rationally instead. Puzzle had managed to get the EIS to release him and Kukri both by taking a deal with them, not to mention saving me from having to arrange a jailbreak for them. Plus, as far as potential negotiators went, Puzzle was a pretty good choice for me. I’m not sure if I trusted him after this and Strumming’s theory, but I was certainly more inclined to listen to him than I would be to hear any EIS agents out. The person I trusted the most was a potentially untrustworthy changeling mercenary whose gender I wasn’t even sure about. What went wrong with my life?

I gave him a chance. “It’s not just about you and Kukri, is it? I mean, a peaceful finish to this whole deal is what’s best for me too. Right?” 

“This one sincerely believes that to be the case,” Puzzle agreed. “It prefers compromises that leave everyone relatively happy, as those tend to create lasting agreements. If the EIS forces the Shimmer-mare back into custody, she will simply attempt escape again. By the same token, if the EIS is forced to agree to unacceptable terms, they would nullify the agreement and continue pursuing the Shimmer-mare the instant she releases her hostage.”

Kukri growled out several remarks about Strumming that made it very clear that she’d spent far too much time around sailors for a young filly her age. “Don't give in to the Heartstrings-mare, Shimmer-mare. She is an evil nag while you are in the right. All three of us know it, even if the other one is too blinded by self-interest and love of coins to see it. The Shimmer-mare must defeat her, just as she did with the pirates.”

Puzzle sighed patiently and put a restraining hoof on Kukri’s back “Careful about being stubborn, young one. That path leads to hard consequences.”

I frowned and slowly nodded. Punching Strumming might have been immensely satisfying, but it hadn’t really done much to advance my position. “I'm not exactly eager to go down in a blaze of glory fighting against the EIS. They have me outnumbered twenty to one, right?” I searched Puzzle’s face for any reaction to my estimate, but the changeling didn’t give anything away. “I know I can’t win a straight fight, but I'm not letting them lock me up again either.”

Kukri shrugged off Puzzle’s hoof, shooting an annoyed glare at her fellow changeling. “Nor should you. This one would rather go back to being an Equestrian prisoner than see the Shimmer-mare locked away again.”

Puzzle rolled his eyes, grumbling under his breath. “The little one is not helping this one’s efforts...” He cleared his throat, then turned back to me. “In any case, this one can understand the Shimmer-mare’s desire to keep her freedom. Let us work towards that goal. First, can this one confirm that Iron Hoof is still doing well?”

I spared a quick look for the captured soldier, still silently pinned in the corner. He glared back at me. I was pretty sure he was going to bear a grudge over this whole incident. “He's fine. Probably a little sore from being pinned in the corner for so long, and I don’t think he likes me very much, but he isn’t hurt.”

“Good.” Puzzle paused, then amended, “That he is unharmed, not that he is offended, though this one supposes that was inevitable. In any case, so long as he remains alive and unharmed, it will be much easier to negotiate.”

“This one is confident he will recover from his imprisonment.” Kukri groused, withdrawing her hoof so she could properly sit down instead of lying on her belly. Once she was comfortable, she crossed her forelegs over her chest, scowling back at the EIS forces behind the privacy spell. “This one confesses a certain enjoyment in confining one of them after our own captivity.”

Puzzle sighed and rubbed his temples, his patience with Kukri fraying. “Now is not the time to be bitter, little one. It will not help us resolve the current situation. The Equestrians were merely doing what they thought was right.”

Kukri snorted and spat out a couple more words she probably learned on the docks. To be honest, I couldn’t help but agree with the general sentiment. “Yeah, well Strumming and her friends still think it'd be right to lock me up, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't put too much stock in their ideas of right and wrong.” 

While it was a bit satisfying to vent about the EIS, it didn’t put me any closer to finding a solution. I took a couple deep breaths and tried to calm down. Anger wasn’t going to get me out of this, I had to be rational. “So ... what's the plan?”

“That depends on a number of things.” Puzzle pulled out a notepad, looking it over. “Iron Hoof is not harmed, which is good. Strumming mentioned that the Shimmer-mare was injured during her escape, but this one thinks it safe to assume the Shimmer-mare is not critically wounded and in need of immediate medical attention, correct?”

Kukri immediately started pressing against the ice wall again, her annoyance with Puzzle forgotten. “The Shimmer-mare is hurt? How badly is she injured? How can this one help?”

“I’m fine, Kukri. Relax.” I gave the young changeling a couple seconds to calm down, then gave a more detailed answer. “I just had a bit of a rough landing during my escape. Nothing serious, just skinned my knee a bit and needed to get a bandage from Strumming.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, but I didn’t want Kukri panicking. Besides, I’d patched myself up, and that was the important part. No need to tell Kukri all the ugly details.

The little changeling sighed in relief, while Puzzle responded with a reserved nod. “Good. So, if this one could ask some questions: this one understands that the Shimmer-mare does not wish to be imprisoned, correct? Is there anything else she would ask for?”

I thought it over for a minute. “I don't want the EIS or anypony else from Equestria coming after me again. No spies, no private citizens, nobody hired by my parents, nothing. There’s not much point in getting them to leave today if they’ll just be back again tomorrow.”

Puzzle slowly nodded. “This one sees. That will likely mean that you will not be able to return to Equestria or any of its protectorates.”

I flinched the instant I heard that. Sure, I might have been fighting to keep the EIS from dragging me back to Equestria in chains, but I’d always planned to go back to Equestria eventually. Just that it was supposed to be on my terms. The plan was for me to return in triumph after I’d Ascended, taking my rightful place on the throne at Celestia’s side. Instead I was looking at permanent exile. I might never see Celestia again...

Puzzle cleared his throat, making his tone as gentle as possible. “Freedom is a bit of an illusion. For every freedom we have, we put on another shackle, even if we do not always see it. Ponies often seek power in the belief that it will give them the freedom to do as they wish, but nothing could be further from the truth.” He shook his head. “Power is the greatest shackle of all. The more power you have, the less freedom you’re left with. You spend all your time working to hold onto the power you have or fulfilling the responsibilities that come with that power.”

I thought back to my time with Celestia and realized he might be right. She was supposed to be the most powerful mare in the world, but she couldn’t even stop me from leaving Canterlot. She couldn’t make me come home. What good was all that power if she couldn’t even make her daughter come home? But if freedom and power were nothing but illusions, then where did that leave me?

Puzzle must have figured out what was going through my head. No surprise, since he was the one who had thrown me for a loop to begin with. “The Shimmer-mare must decide which freedoms are important to her and which can be sacrificed. Does she wish to return to Equestria, or will she choose to seek her own path in Freeport forever?”

I scowled and shook my head. “No, I don’t buy that. There’s no way that the only two options on the table are that I go back to Equestria in chains or never go back at all.”

Puzzle conceded the matter with a nod. “This one will concede that it somewhat simplified the precise terms of the offer. Somewhat less simply put, the EIS can ignore your presence so long as you remain outside Equestria and do not commit vile and infamous crimes.” He coughed a few times, then cleared his throat. “One count of dark magic under ambiguous circumstances where the caster was working at the behest of a foreign government can be swept under the rug. It’s not worth all the diplomatic trouble it would cause. This one suspects the Equestrians would not have pursued the Shimmer-mare at all if not for the fact that she is the White Pony’s former student. You are held to a higher standard than the average rogue mage.”

“Well, aren’t I lucky?” I groaned and rubbed my face. “So the bottom line is that they’ll stop giving me special attention so long as I stay out of their way? I guess it’s a lot easier for Equestria to ignore me when I’m not sitting in their front lawn.”

“Precisely.” Puzzle smiled, quite pleased that I’d followed his logic. “Thus, you either remain free outside of Equestria, or become a prisoner within it. There are ways to change that, but it would require either an act so vile it could not be forgiven, or so righteous that it swept away your previous crimes.” Puzzle paused, and his smile shifted to more of a smirk. “Or returning to Equestria incognito, of course. Though that would be a difficult proposition in the long term. The Shimmer-mare’s spellcasting abilities would make her stand out no matter how well she disguised herself. She could simply not use those abilities, but this one does not believe the Shimmer-mare could go without her magic.”

He was right about that. My magic was a fundamental part of my identity. I was a magus. The idea of just not using my magic, or holding it back enough to blend in as an ordinary pony ... I couldn’t do it. It would be like asking a pegasus to give up flying, a changeling to stay in one form, or an earth pony to ... not do earth pony things.

Kukri sent her hoof through the hole again, doing her best to pull me into a one-legged hug despite the wall in between us. “If the Shimmer-mare misses certain ponies, this one believes she could write to them. They could even come to Freeport, possibly. If they truly care, they will make the journey to see you.”

I leaned as far into the touch as I could. “That’s true.” I wondered if Celestia would really make the journey all the way to Freeport just to see me again. Kukri was right—if she really cared, she would. “Alright. Fine. Make the deal, Puzzle.”

Puzzle dipped his head. “This one will convey the Shimmer-mare’s wishes. The EIS and the Shimmer-mare both seem equally displeased by this outcome, so it thinks the proposal likely to be accepted.” He paused, and a faint frown flickered over his face. “This one cannot guarantee that the EIS will cease any involvement in the Shimmer-mare’s life. I doubt they will try anything so bold as seizing her and forcibly returning her to Equestria, but they will likely try subtler enticements once enough time passes and passions have cooled.” The changeling paused, shifting on its hooves. “This one has accepted contracts with the EIS before, and if the Shimmer-mare wishes to continue working with it...”

I waved his concerns down. “I can deal with them trying to convince me, as long as they stick to just talking instead of locking me or my friends up. Strumming was just mildly annoying until she tried to arrest me.”

Puzzle sighed a bit melodramatically. “We all have burdens to bear. This one will allow that she makes an intriguing opponent. This one still does not fully understand what is true with her and what is a lie. It enjoys a good mystery. It hopes she will not be transferred away before it unravels the truth.”

Something about Puzzle’s tone bugged me. It almost sounded like he admired Strumming. I decided to bring up a highly relevant fact. “Either of you notice that shiner Strumming has?”

“Yes.” Kukri grinned, showing off her fangs. “Nice hit.”

Puzzle’s smile was a bit more subdued, but he chuckled. “This one was able to guess that the Shimmer-mare was responsible for the injury. This one presumed that the Heartstrings-mare attempted to prevent her escape, and the Shimmer-mare objected.”

“Emphatically.” I grinned and gave Kukri’s hoof a quick pat. “I'll tell you all about how I escaped once we get out of this.”

“This one would love to hear it,” Kukri chimed in.

“This one will pay for breakfast once the hostage situation is finished, and the Shimmer-mare can tell it the whole story.” Puzzle shot me a quick grin. “Are there any other complications this one should know about before it speaks with the Heartstring-mare?”

“A couple things come to mind.” I glanced over at the corner of the room, where my zombie held down the guard. “I'll need to deal with the zombie. I shouldn't have any trouble handling it, I just don't want them panicking when I start using my magic.”

Puzzle thought it over for a moment, then nodded. “Warning them ahead of time seems prudent. Everyone is going to be very tense, and all it takes is one person overreacting to turn a peaceful surrender into a bloodbath. This one will warn the Equestrians. Was there anything else?”

“Yeah, actually.” I grinned at him. “Your pay from the EIS for resolving the hostage crisis. I want half of it.” One his eyebrows shot up, and I justified it. “You can't solve this situation peacefully without my help. Ergo, I deserve some of the rewards.”

Puzzle frowned at me, but I caught a hint of amusement flickering in his eyes. “The Shimmer-mare has grown greedy. This one should point out that if not for its role in things, the Shimmer-mare’s stronghold likely would have been stormed by the EIS.”

“Which is why you get to keep half of the pay.” I smirked at him. “Neither one of us could get this job done on our own, it took both of us to pull it off. That’s how partnerships work.” My smirk widened a bit, and I dropped my voice down. “Come on, with as good as your negotiating position was, you probably squeezed them pretty hard before you took the job. You can afford to split your pay.”

Puzzle sniffed, and a haughty note entered his voice. “This one does have its professional pride, you know.”

“Of course you do.” If not for the wall standing between us, I would’ve nudged him in the shoulder. I was pretty sure I had at least some idea of what made Puzzle tick, and it wasn’t love of money. “Come on, we both know you're gonna agree eventually. Why drag it out?”

Puzzles eyes briefly widened, then he gave me a barely perceptible nod. A second later he grinned, a teasing light in his eyes. The change came so fast I wasn’t even one hundred percent sure anything had actually happened. “Ah, now this one understands. The Shimmer-mare is worried that she won't be able to make rent if she doesn't extort some of this one’s hard-earned pay.”

I answered in the same tone. “Well, I am gonna need something a bit bigger than a two-room apartment now that I have Mome’s golems to take care of. Not to mention I’ll need to set up a proper workshop to take them apart, make sure I understand what makes them tick, and then put them back together.”

The changeling grinned. “This one is happy to say it knows several individuals who could help in that endeavour. For the right price, of course.” His smile slipped, turning into something more serious. “You're going to owe this one a favor for its part in this.”

Puzzle’s smile might have disappeared, but mine was still firmly in place. “I got you out of jail and got you a nice high-paying low-effort job. I'd say if anything, you owe me.”

“But it was the Shimmer-mare who got this one into jail to start with. And solitary is very boring, this one will let you know.”

“Sorry.” My ears drooped at the reminder that Puzzle and Kukri’s confinement had been entirely on my account. “Call it even on favors, then?”

Puzzle considered, then shrugged. “Fair enough. As long as you do not tell anyone about the pay arrangements.”

I grinned and winked. “It'll be our secret.”

Puzzle grinned and whispered conspiratorially. “Now the Shimmer-mare is learning. This one will see to it that she is properly compensated once the current matter is settled.” With that done, he cleared his throat and raised his voice. “If there is nothing else we need to discuss, do you mind if I go speak with the EIS for a couple of minutes to see what Strumming and her cohorts think of the matter?”

I waved towards the privacy screen. “Sure, go for it.”

“This one will stay here.” Kukri kept her hoof around mine, seeming quite determined to remain in place until it was all over.

Puzzle’s eyes flicked down to her. “The little one may stay here and talk. But only talk. No clever schemes or the like. This one does not need any more complications to its negotiations. Keep her company, but no foolishness. Is this one understood?”

One of Kukri’s ears flicked, but she reluctantly nodded. That satisfied the problem solver. “This one will return once it has finalized the arrangements with the Heartstrings-mare.” Puzzle turned about and walked off, crossing the privacy screen. I had no idea who was on the other side of it or what they might be saying, so I had no choice but to hope that Puzzle was playing it straight. I trusted him, but I still hadn’t completely shaken those doubts Strumming had planted. The whole reason betrayal hurts so much is that it can only come from someone you trust.

Once Puzzle was safely out of sight, Kukri gave my hoof another squeeze. “The Equestrians have pulled Puzzle's leash, Shimmer-mare. That one is difficult to predict.” She frowned, then shook her head, dismissing the matter for the moment. “The Shimmer-mare is certain that she is as well as she could possibly be? That there is nothing this one can do to help her?”

“Just being here for me helps.” I gave her hoof a quick pat. “Besides, I really don't think we need to worry too much.”

Kukri scowled. “The Heartstrings-mare is alive. Of course the Shimmer-mare should worry. She will never be safe so long as that one dogs her steps.”

I was starting to see why Puzzle was a tad annoyed with her. Kukri was very devoted, but her protective instincts were going a bit too far. I was an adult, and more than capable of taking care of myself without having a cabin filly hovering over me. “Puzzle wouldn't cut a bad deal like that. He has a reputation.”

The young changeling scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Of course Puzzle wouldn't cut a bad deal, it is only a professional assassin. It has standards. The Heartstrings-mare has already shown she cares less about laws or reputations than her own goals.”

I couldn’t blame her for still being angry about Strumming arresting all of us, but she was wrong on that count. “I don't even know what Strumming’s deal is anymore, but it’s not that simple.” I sighed and ran a hoof over my face. “We don’t have to scare her off forever. Once we get to the Council and clear things up, I should be under their protection. That'd make it a lot harder for Strumming to do anything to me.”

Kukri grunted and scowled. “Harder. Not impossible. This one does not want to see anything happen to the Shimmer-mare. The Heartstrings-mare is evil and treacherous, and will violate any pact as soon as she can get away with it.”

I wasn’t in any mood to argue that spy’s merits and flaws. Instead I cut straight to the heart of the matter. “Do you have a better idea?”

After a long silence, she reluctantly admitted, “No.”

“Then we'll just have to go with this one for now. At least it'll get the EIS off our backs for a while.”

Kukri remained discontentedly silent until Puzzle came back. The older changeling was smiling, which was probably a good sign. “This one sees that all is as it left it, so it assumes that the Shimmer-mare and the little one are well.”

“As good as ever.” I glanced over at the privacy screen even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to see anything. They could still see me, after all. “How'd it go?”

“It went as well as could be expected. The Heartstrings-mare has agreed to the Shimmer-mare's terms, as long as Iron Hoof is not harmed.” Puzzle grinned, showing his fangs. “She also agreed to pay this one a bonus for its exemplary service.”

“Great.” I took a deep breath and steeled myself. “So is there a procedure for this or something? I've never done a hostage exchange before.”

“Bringing down your barrier would be a good first step,” Puzzle advised. “After that, the Shimmer-mare should disable her zombie and release the hostage. Once the EIS has confirmed that Iron Hoof is unharmed, they will withdraw back to their embassy. They ask that the Shimmer-mare remain in position until the privacy screen is removed and their departure is complete. Is that procedure acceptable?”

Kukri’s frown made it clear what she thought of that arrangement, and a part of me couldn’t help but agree with her. I would be wide open to attack once I dropped the barrier and disabled my zombie, especially with that privacy screen up. In hindsight, I should’ve insisted on having it taken down as part of the terms. It was probably too late to make any last-minute changes to the procedure, though. Not to mention insisting on that change might come across as insulting.

Instead, I decided to trust one of the closest things I had to a friend in Freeport. “Do you think she's dealing straight with us, Puzzle?”

Puzzle considered the matter, then let out a frustrated sigh. “She is in a difficult situation, perhaps even moreso than you realize. If she storms this place, then she risks forcing you to kill Iron Hoof. Likely the Shimmer-mare will die too, and likely there will be other casualties. Needless to say, that is an unacceptable outcome to her superiors.” There was a weird chitinous sound as Puzzle scratched its chin. “Either that, or you will manage to escape. Strumming is unlikely to win everything if she escalates this conflict any further, and she knows that. Better to negotiate an end to this that will allow everyone to live, and leaves her in a position to continue her efforts in the future.” 

He paused, and a smile crossed his lips. “This one is reasonably certain she was telling the truth regarding her orders and her personal disapproval of them. It enjoys facing one who might actually be able to lie to it successfully.” He blinked, then a bit hastily amended. “It is certain she intends no treachery, though. That would require preparations this one could not miss, and regardless of her skill at lying, there would be no logic to it.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “It sounds like most of this mess is gonna get blamed on her boss anyway.” Well, assuming she actually had one, instead of just blaming any decision I wouldn’t like on some vague authority figure I would never encounter so she could keep claiming she was on my side and trying to help. “Hay, if she recommended against his plans as often as she claims she did, this could all really work out for her.”

“If Strumming followed his plan and it did not work for as long as she followed his instructions, then the blame will fall on him.” Puzzle’s eyes flicked out to the privacy screen. “But if she pushes and acts aggressively in this matter and ponies die, then it is her failure.”

I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. It wasn’t exactly the ironclad guarantee I was hoping for, but the only way Strumming would betray me would be if she had some sort of insane, irrational grudge that drove her to ruin her own career just to kill me for no damned reason. That would have to be enough.

I gave Kukri a second to remove her hoof from the wall, then lowered the ice barrier and cut the flow of power to my zombie. The corpse fell over—dead, for lack of a better word. Nopony attacked me the instant my defenses dropped, so that was a good sign.

Puzzle stepped into the mausoleum, then gave me a quick pat on the shoulder. “Thank you, Sunset.” His gaze shifted to the soldier Iron Hoof, who was still lying on the floor in his corner. “Do you require assistance returning to your compatriots?”

After a couple more seconds, presumably to make sure we weren’t setting him up for some kind of trick, the soldier rose to his hooves, groaning and stretching. He shot a nervous look my way, but when I didn’t attack him and Puzzle interposed himself between us, a tiny bit of tension left Iron Hoof’s shoulders. “I've got a nasty cramp and I’m sore all over, but I'll damn well walk out of here.” He wasted no time following through on that.

Once the soldier was clear Kukri rushed to my side, hugging me fiercely enough to make my collection of injuries from my crash-landing scream in protest. I didn’t mind the pain too much, though. I needed that hug. I stroked the little changeling’s head. “It’s okay, Kukri. It’s all over now.”