Chapter 19
Mystic held perfectly still, staring down the barrel of the hoof-rainer. Not even her heart dared to make a move. At any instant, it could unleash a searing torrent of Ponythium, the spiciest substance known to Ponykind. In a matter of seconds afterward, she would be incinerated by the burning liquid rainbow.
A brown mass pushed Mystic back, shielding her. “Don’t point that at her,” Roughshod said, deadly serious.
“Step aside, Roughshod. This must be done.”
Hairtrigger also put himself between the Canoness and Mystic “Whoa whoa, hold on here! She hasn’t done nuthin’ wrong!”
“That she draws breath is crime enough,” said Sera. “She is a rogue unicorn, a witch. If she never received a brand, she was never soul-bound to the Princess. Without the Princess’s protection, she is vulnerable to the influence of the Tenebrae, and she will damn herself and everypony around her.” Sera was nearly shouting by the time she finished. “Now step aside!”
“Stand down, Sera,” Caballus said in a firm voice. “She’s not a rogue. Unicorns who are strong-willed and faithful can be trained to resist the Darkness without the soul-binding. Mystic has proven her loyalty a hundred times over.”
“But you can’t be sure, Caballus,” said Sera, glancing over him to her target. “You can never be sure. Magic is dangerous, and trusting it is folly. All it takes is one mistake, one lapse, and she will fall to The Darkness. Better that I end the threat here, before she has a chance to betray you.”
Caballus himself stepped in front of Sera, pressing his chest into the rainer. The two stared at one another for a long, agonizing moment.
“If-” he said, but paused, and repeated the word with emphasis. “If she ever falls from the light, I will deal with her as I would deal with anypony who does so. But that will be my judgment to make. She answers to me, and since I asked you here as the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticolt, so do you.”
Sera regarded Mystic with contempt for another moment, but she finally holstered her weapon. “Fine,” she said after a deep breath, “I will trust you Caballus, as I always have. I will trust you to do what is necessary, when it is necessary. Or I will.”
The Canoness turned abruptly, and walked back up the ramp in a huff. Caballus waited until she was all the way back into the transport before he let out his breath.
“Roughshod, take her back to the ship. We’ll come get you once we’ve arranged our accommodations in Pferdian.”
Roughshod nodded and ushered the shaken unicorn back across the aerodrome. She would be fine, Caballus was sure, but it would help if he could keep her out of sight until Sera cooled down.
“Your friend seems a mite… ornery,” Hairtrigger said once they were out of earshot.
“She always has been something of a hardliner,” Caballus replied. “Tolerance isn’t a trait the Heliarchy holds in high regard. But she’ll cool off. Besides, we’ll need her help to flush out the Children.”
They observed more Battle Fillies marching out of the transport ship. Sera had brought her full Commandry, two hundred strong. Caballus would not be caught outgunned by the heretics again.
“And what she said about Mystic?” Hairtrigger asked.
The Inquisipony shrugged. “What about it?”
“Is she right? Is Mystic the some kinda ticking time-bomb of evil?”
“Of course not,” said Caballus, leading the Arbitrotter and Meq-priest toward the exit terminal. “She’s been receiving the best training available since the day I took her in. She is in control.”
“Except when she’s not,” countered the Arbitrotter. By the surprise on the Hairtrigger’s own face, Caballus knew it had come out harsher than intended, but he quickly continued. “I’ve only known her a week and I’ve seen her fly off the handle twice.”
“Twice?” Fyzzix said, with evident concern. “In the two days you were gone? That’s… well… anomalous. The only pattern I’ve been able to discern in her episodes is their infrequency. Of course, they’ve always been triggered by high-stress situations, but which ones qualify seemed to be chosen at random. Which is part of the reason my deterministic models have thus far been inade-”
“Don’t get me wrong,” said Hairtrigger, interrupting the Meq-preist, “she’s a sweet filly and all. But some folk just ain’t made of leather like us. They can’t take the tough jobs, day in and day out. If you keep putting her in fixes where she has to let loose, well then… maybe one time she’ll stay loose, if you catch my drift.”
The Inquisipony did catch his drift. His entire profession revolved around ending such “loose” individuals, the weak souls that gave in to the influence of the Archenemy.
“She won’t,” Caballus said. He said it as confidently as he could, hoping to end this unsettling line of conversation, but Hairtrigger’s look of unease spurred him to elaborate. “Mystic may be… unpredictable at times, but she is as strong-willed and devout as anypony I’ve ever met.
To Caballus’s relief, Hairtrigger shrugged. “I s’pose I’ll have to trust you on that,” he said. “I’m just glad that if it comes to it, I ain’t likely to be the one to ‘deal with her,’ like you said.”
To which Caballus had no reply.
The pacing troubled Mystic. Usually when Roughshod was upset, he would find a firm bag of oats in their supplies and buck at it until he got tired. It was thankfully rare that he ever got so upset, as the bucking would keep her up well into the night. But she’d never seen him pace before. He’d been at it for hours.
“Shod?” she finally asked.
The stallion’s short tail swished. “Yeah, Sweet Pea?” he replied without stopping.
It took Mystic a moment to gather the question together. “Who was that?”
Finally Roughshod came to a stop, and he sighed. “Her name’s Sera Phim. She and Caballus go way back, back even further than he and I do.”
Something about the idea was foreign to Mystic. Caballus and Roughshod had been together—inseparable, actually—since the day she met them. They had been that way for most of her life, and the unicorn had sort of assumed it had always been like that, since the beginning of time as far as she was concerned.
“It seemed like she knew you,” she said. “How come I’ve never heard of her before?”
“She was on Caballus’s crew when I first met him,” said the stallion, looking at the floor. “We… uh… we didn’t exactly get along. Don’t think we ever will.”
Mystic snorted. “I can’t imagine why,” she said sourly.
For a while, the two had a silent moment of shared antipathy toward the Canoness. When it passed, Roughshod went over to his cot and laid down, his back to Mystic. Another few minutes passed before Mystic spoke again.
“Shod?”
A second passed before he stirred. “Yeah?”
“Did… did Caballus mean what he said?”
Roughshod tensed.
“About… about ‘dealing with me?’ Would he really do that?”
The stallion took a deep breath and rolled over to face her. “Listen, Sweet Pea-”
The Majesty’s hatch flew open, startling the ponies. “We’re moving out,” called Caballus as he stepped inside.
Roughshod sat up and Mystic rose to her hooves. “Where we going, boss,” asked the former as he stretched.
“Boy howdy, are you gonna like it,” said Hairtrigger coming in behind the Inquisipony. He held a document under his wing, offering it to the two with an excited grin.
Mystic levitated the paper and read it. “A reservation for three luxury suites at the Grand Pferdian Hotel?” she said, growing more excited herself with every word. “That does sound pretty nice.”
“I thought it would come in handy in case I needed to impersonate someone rich and powerful,” said Caballus smoothly. “No expense is too great in the pursuit of the Princess’s enemies, after all.”
“Heh, so what should I pack?” asked Roughshod. “You know, we don’t exactly fit in with the swanky crowd.”
“We can worry about that later,” the Inquisipony replied, turning around. “There’s something else we have to do before we can check in. Take what you need and we’ll send for the rest.”
Mystic raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”
“After we made our reservations, I had Hairtrigger check in at the local Arboates Courthouse,” said Caballus.
“It ain’t my Precinct, per se,” the pegasus said, “but I still got into their files. Being a Marshal means I have a bit of heft when it comes to a badge-flashing contest.”
Roughshod looked up from the personal effects he was packing. “Why didn’t you just flash your rosette?” he asked Caballus.
“It’s safest to assume that the Children know we’re here,” Caballus said, “but that doesn’t mean I want anypony else to know it. Officially, Sera and her Fillies are here on a pilgrimage to the Pferdian Basilica, Hairtrigger is on a classified investigation for the Arboates, and the rest of us aren’t here at all. I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible.”
The Inquisipony opened a crate of his own equipment. “Anyway,” he said, rummaging through it, “there’s been some interesting criminal activity recently, and we’re going to check it out.”
“Interesting how?” Roughshod asked.
Caballus slung his saddlebags over his back. “You’ll see,” he said nonchalantly, and walked out of the ship.
Mystic looked at the other two ponies. “I don’t think I like it when he says that,” she said.
The crowd around the guildhouse was large, but no larger than Caballus expected. Some of them were ponies who had missed the announcement to take the day off, on account of their workplace becoming a crime scene. Others had gotten it but came anyway, having nothing better to do than gawk. Many were reporters covering the event, clamoring for details from beyond the cordon, and there was a small circle of mourners holding vigil with a priest from the Heliarchy.
“Cut it out,” Caballus said, admonishing Roughshod for fiddling with his disguise. Hairtrigger had lent everypony but Fyzzix his spare Arboates uniforms.
“I can’t help it,” his friend replied, “it’s too tight.”
Caballus rolled his eyes. “So is everything else you try to wear. Just pretend like you belong in it.”
Hairtrigger led the rest of the team and their equipment through the crowd to the cordon. At first, two officers in royal blue tried to stop him. But after he showed them his Marshal Star, they begrudgingly let him through.
They ducked under the tape and entered the guildhouse’s huge doors. In contrast to the noise and bustle they had left behind, the interior felt like a tomb. The desks in the main hall, where all the activity would normally be, were all eerily empty. Beside the din of the circus outside, the only noise was the angry hoofsteps of the stallion walking out to meet them.
“And who do you think you are?” he said, on the verge of yelling. The earth pony was middle aged, thickly built and the same blue color as his uniform.
“Arboates,” said Hairtrigger, doing his best to sound unflappably authoritative. Even though he outranked any local authority, the pegasus was still somewhat new to throwing that weight around. “I’ll be taking over this here crime scene temporarily. Would your officers kindly assist my Berrispex Adepts, officer…?”
“Corpus, Chief Constable Habeas Corpus,” the stallion said, “and no, I won’t be assisting you until you give me some answers! The Precinct Judge assured me that this would be left to the Constabulary to sort out! We don’t need the Arboates’ help!”
Hairtrigger weathered the verbal assault before holding up a wing. “Certain details of this crime appear to be related to an ongoin’ investigation in the Palomyna Precinct. My team and I are here to see if that’s true.”
“Fine,” said the Chief, turning around, “but I can assure you, Arbitrotter, that this is an entirely Pferdian matter. You’ve been sent on an inter-sector goose-chase.”
Hairtrigger caught up to Chief Corpus. “And how’re you so sure of that?”
“Follow me,” the blue pony replied, “and I’ll show you. Then you can leave and we can both get on with our jobs.”
Caballus picked up his gear and motioned to the others to follow Hairtrigger to the far end of the guildhouse. The Chief led them down a short corridor, to an office. Two blue-clad officers stood watch outside the door, which appeared to have been broken open.
“Forced entry?” Hairtrigger asked. Now that he was at the crime scene proper, his whole demeanor had become uncharacteristically clinical.
“No,” said Chief Corpus, sounding calmer and more professional himself, “that was the secretary. She was outside the room, heard an altercation, and busted in. By the time she did, the perp had fled.”
Hairtrigger nudged the door open. Entering the room, the first thing they all noticed was the sheet-covered lump on the ground, peeking out from behind the desk. The team gathered around it.
Caballus put a hoof on the sheet, and looked up at Hairtrigger. The Arbitrotter nodded, and Caballus drew it back.
“The victim is a statue?” Mystic said quizzically. Now exposed on the floor was the stone likeness of an old stallion, one whose face was frozen in an expression of alarm, and whose hooves were up in a defensive stance. Its head had also been broken off, lying beside the rest.
“He didn’t used to be,” the Chief said.
Roughshod leaned over to Caballus. “I can see what you meant by interesting.”
Fyzzix set down the large metal container he carried beside the stone pony. At the press of a button, the spacious office filled with the clanks and whirs of the box unpacking itself, deploying a number of instruments that began their automated analysis.
The Meq-priest plugged his mechadendrite into the device’s interface port. “Brown marble, with a seven percent quartzite impurity. The fracture would have required a force of approximately-”
“We get it,” said Hairtrigger, failing to reign in his unease. “How in the good Princess’s name did this happen? What was the murder weapon?”
“Magic,” Chief Corpus said matter-of-factly, “Cockatrice magic, specifically.”
Roughshod and Mystic looked at one another, then at the Chief. “A cocka-what-now?” they said in unison.
He rolled his eyes. “The cockatrice. It’s a mutant species from the Everfree. Head of a chicken, body of a snake, beady red eyes that can petrify whoever looks into them.”
“It sounds like you know a bit about these cockatrices,” Caballus said.
“Yeah?” said the Chief, with a glare. “What’s it to you, Adept?”
The Inquisipony-in-disguise shrugged. “The Everfree is pretty far from here. I don’t know why you’d need to know about a dangerous creature like that, unless you were an Inquisipony of the Ordo Zoonos or something.”
Chief Corpus snorted. “I wish I didn’t. Unfortunately, it’s not the first time I’ve had to deal with assassination by cockatrice. I’ll forgive you out-of-towners for having never heard of the ‘Stone-Cold Killer.’”
“And what might an out-of-towner need to know?” Hairtirgger asked warily.
“He’s the deadliest assassin in the history of Pferdian’s criminal underworld,” said Corpus. “Has been for the past six years or so. Nopony’s ever seen him, and the only evidence he leaves behind are the statues.”
Hairtrigger glanced down at the petrified body. His biotic eye scanned it up and down. “So who’s he workin’ for?”
“Don’t know,” the Chief shrugged. “We’ve never caught anypony who’s ever hired him. There’s no pattern to his targets either, other than that they’re usually higher-ups in the trade houses. Never a Seneschal before, though…”
Corpus cast a somewhat anxious glance at the statue. “Every major guild has been targeted, so we assume he’s freelance. What I can tell you for sure is that all his hits have been here in Pferdian, so if your case started elsewhere, it wasn’t him. ”
“Look, I have to go handle the press,” he said, headed toward the door, “I think you can handle a crime scene without me, right?”
Caballus gave Hairtrigger a discrete nudge. “Oh, uh… thank you kindly Chief Constable Corpus,” the pegasus said, “but I reckon you’re right. I can see this ain’t got nothing to do with our investigation after all. We’ll see ourselves out.”
The Chief gave a brusque nod, and left them to pack up what little gear they had actually used.
“So boss,” said Roughshod, as they walked back through the empty guildhall, “what’s this got to do with the Children?”
Caballus frowned. “I’m not sure. Though a cockatrice is exactly the sort of dangerous Everfree creature that I would have expected Tier to be supplying the cult. Also, the most recent target was a senior member of the Ver Kaufer Trade House. I’m guessing that if we can find this ‘Stone-Cold Killer,’ he’ll lead us to the Children.”
“But how will we find him?” Mystic asked.
“First,” the Inquisipony replied, “I think we need to find out more about Teir’s family business. It’s time we met the real Rogue Trader: Meister Ver Kaufer.”