//------------------------------// // Chapter 16 // Story: The Rise and Fall of the Dark Lord Sassaflash // by Dromicosuchus //------------------------------// Beneath a Dreaming moon stood the Dark Lord Sassaflash, gazing out over the lazy, low mounds of the grassy hills that huddled around the wandering river Skai. Behind her crouched the mass of dark trees from which she had emerged. A small pair of glowing amber eyes with wriggling pupils like a cuttlefish’s peered at her from out of the gloom, wide and unblinking. They had been following her since she had emerged from the Seven Hundred Steps in the middle of the wood, but as the little zoog was alone and hadn’t seemed particularly hungry, she had ignored it. It wouldn’t be likely to follow her beyond the borders of the trees, in any case. And that, reflected the mare, was essentially the extent of her canniness about this world. All she had as guides to this place were a few ancient texts, vague and often mutually contradictory, and all she knew of it from personal experience was the way through the hills that led to the little cabin where the Mule and his wife dwelt. Tall stalks parted around her as she trotted forward onto the grasslands. It was unacceptable, this ignorance, she thought, as she moved across the rounded hills. When all this was over, if the two of them were willing, she would need to have them show her more of this realm. She wondered idly if Leng was really as inaccessible, and Kadath as unknown, as they were made out to be… That was all in the future, though. Wending her way past the occasional tussock of grass, their thin stalks silvered and swaying in the moonlight, Sassaflash crested one last hilltop and was rewarded with the sight of the mules’ cabin, nestled snugly in its little hollow. With some trepidation, she trotted down into the dell; her last meeting with the Mule’s wife had been more than a little tense. The latter had had some very strong things to say about the Dark Lord’s schemes, and Sassaflash was not at all sure she would be welcomed inside. That, though, was immaterial. She needed to find out how the Mule was doing; how serious his injuries were, whether he was being cared for properly, and so on. She could, of course, have waited for the next day and normal visiting hours at the hospital, but she was anxious for news. Stepping up on to the crooked stoop of the little cabin, she raised her forehoof and knocked at the door. There was an answering beat of hoofsteps from within the house, and a moment later the Mule’s wife swung the door wide. Her smile swiftly faded into an angry scowl at the sight of Sassaflash. “You! What are you doing here?” The Dark Lord blinked. She had expected disapproval; anger came as a complete surprise. “I—My apologies. I wished to inquire after Mr. Mule. How is he?” “He’s got a broken leg,” came the curt reply. “And four broken ribs. And something wrong with one of his lungs, though the doctors don’t think it’s serious. All thanks to you and your magic.” Ah. “I wish it hadn’t happened, Mrs. Mule. It was the only way I could think of to get us back, and—” “Maybe that’s so, and maybe I’ll say differently later on,” responded the mare, her ears folded back and her tail switching from side to side, “but right now he’s hurting bad, and I’m not in the mood to make allowances. He’s not here now, anyhow; he needs rest--deep, real rest--and he can’t get that when he’s Dreaming. So you’d best be off, necromancer.” The Dark Lord hesitated, then stepped back off the stoop. “...Very well. My apologies for having disturbed you. I will take my leave.” A short nod was all the response she got. She turned, and made her way away from the little cabin under the spreading oak, walking the path back to the Gate of Deeper Slumber. Unfamiliar stars shone in the sky overhead, shaped into strange and alien constellations, and the grass around the teal pegasus swished and hissed in the cold night wind blowing past. A broken leg...she had been right, then. That meant weeks—no, months—of convalescence before the Mule would be able to make the journey to Canterlot. Something else would have to be arranged. She would need to speak with her minion, and discuss options. Waiting that long, with the whole matter suspended in uncertainty as it was, was utterly unacceptable. Somepony else might be sent, perhaps… ----- “Nay,” said Crowded Parchment, and slurped another strip of loose, rotting flesh from the decaying fish clutched in his claw. With a supreme effort of will, Sassaflash managed to keep herself from gagging at the odor of the ghoul’s profoundly overripe meal, and batted some kind of small, biting fly away from her flank with a swish of her tail. She’d never liked coming to Froggy Bottom Bog, but it was out of the way, and made a good place to meet Crowded Parchment during daylight hours. “And why not? As a ghoul, you are the only other Dreamer I know, and if Celestia does choose to have my emissary followed, she would never think to look for a rendezvous in the Dreamlands. You are my only option.” The ghoul chewed thoughtfully, looking vaguely out over the stagnant bog. Off in the distance, a string of V-shaped ripples slid lazily across the water’s surface. “I travel not,” he said, at length, and took another bite of the fish, scattering scales among the sphagnum and bog-bean. “Thou knowest that.” “Yes, yes. But this is important.” A sharp-toothed smile. “Aye! But so was thy quest to entrap the Sleeper of N’kai, and I spake likewise then. I am not thy minion, necromancer, and not thy friend, though thou hast earned my aid, when I can give it. But I cannot give it here.” Sassaflash scowled. “Will not, you mean.” “If thou likest,” responded Crowded Parchment. With a snap of jagged molars and a gristly pop, he sheared the fish’s skull off its body and began to chew it, the bones crunching in his mouth. The Dark Lord brooded, occasionally flicking her tail forward to drive off the flies. At length, she murmured, “Of course, when I made that promise, neither of us imagined that the delay would be of any great duration…” Lifting a scabrous eyebrow, the ghoul said, “If thou followest my counsel, thou wilt be patient, and keep thy promise. Thy minion has the right of it, methinks.” “Hrmph. Perhaps so. And I did give my word. That should mean something. It does mean something, of course. Certainly.” She stared absently off across the bog. The distant ripples reappeared, this time gliding away from them, off into the early morning mists. Turning to the creature beside her, she asked, “What makes those ripples there, do you know? They seem too large to be a fish, but too small to be the hydra.” “Those?” Crowded Parchment’s gaze followed Sassaflash‘s outstretched hoof, and he gave a dismissive little snort. “Pay it no heed, ‘tis only the water pony.” He paused, eyeing the mare sitting beside him, and added—a bit too pointedly, in Sassaflash‘s opinion—“She is hasty, and a fool.” ----- The next few weeks were some of the longest in Sassaflash‘s life. One by one, she considered and rejected alternative means of prying into Celestia’s motives without giving herself away. Letters could be traced. Waking messengers could be shadowed. Pigeons could be followed. Bribed reporters could betray. Training mice to listen to the princess talk in her sleep was a stupid, stupid idea. Ditto rats. She had inquired into the possibility of the Mule hobbling around with the aid of some sort of wheeled device, and was told very emphatically that until the slender bones of his leg had at least partially knitted together, it was out of the question—unless, of course, she wished for the Mule to have to use such a device permanently. She left the hospital that day muttering curses against equine anatomy. “—Like a barrel on four toothpicks. Ridiculous.” Sassaflash slammed the door of her lair behind her. With an exasperated sigh she shrugged her saddlebag into a dusty corner, and edged around the books into her cramped little kitchen, the sink piled high with dirty dishes and a curious and not entirely appealing odor drifting in the air. Lifting some wheatgrass from an iron hook in her pantry, she hunched herself up on one of the crooked little benches in the room and began to flip idly through a book on thaumic siphons, her habitual scowl a little deeper than usual as she munched on a mouthful of grass.. One in Voormithadreth. That was the source. One in the Canterhorn basin. That was the sink. Between the two all the reality-warping energies of Tsathoggua would be channeled, draining away into the magic-less pit that was the swamp surrounding the Canterhorn. Only for a moment, of course. The Sleeper of N’kai was no petty demon, to be overthrown so readily. After the first shock its will would surge forward, grasping, hungry, and inexorable, and gather the churning waves of unreality back around it once more. Unless, of course… Blast it. It was so close. Curse that promise! All she had to do was reach out and take the chance, shatter Discord’s prison, unleash him on the royal sisters, and everything she’d ever hoped for would be within her grasp. Celestia’s tyranny would end. Death would die. She would see her mother again. The pegasus flipped the book shut, and rose to her hooves. Trotting out of the kitchen and back into the library, she made her way over to the iron-barred cabinet in which her most dangerous books were kept, bolted away so that their malign influence might be at least somewhat restrained. Standing before it, she stretched her left wing wide and ruffled her feathers, shaking them apart so that a cloth sack, hidden beneath her coverts and held by a thin cord near the skin beneath her feathers, dangled free. From this she withdrew a heavy key, wrought of some metal darker than iron, and grasping it in her mouth fitted it into the keyhole of a small drawer beneath the main bookshelves of the cabinet. It was at this point that, showing her usual excellent timing, Sweetie Belle chose to knock on the front door and squeak, “Miss Sassaflash! I got the poison joke you wanted! I got a little on me, though, so, um…” Her voice trailed off. Sassaflash gave an idle flick of her wingtip and muttered something under her breath, and the locks on the door snapped open, one after another. “The door is open, Sweetie Belle. The poison joke goes in its usual place, and the antidote should also be in its usual place. Try to be economical in your use of it; next month’s shipment won’t arrive for several weeks, and you’ve already gone through three packets.” She swiped her hoof down, turning the key and locking the drawer again. No sense in risking something happening to the conduit before its debut in Canterlot. After a few muffled thuds and high-pitched exclamations, there was a click, and the front door swung wide. Sweetie Belle slid inside, propelling herself on her belly across the floor with her hind legs, her forelegs dangling limp and boneless at her side and the strap of a bag filled with vivid blue leaves trailing from her mouth. “I wish it didn’t always do this. Scootaloo’s lucky, poison joke just gives her a beak and makes her cluck a lot.” Sassaflash turned, and started. “Oh, for...You didn’t tell me it had already taken effect! Let me take that.” “Really, I can do it, it’s just--” “Don’t be absurd. Your efforts to be self-reliant are commendable, but they can be carried to excess. I’ll start the water boiling.” The Dark Lord turned and, careful not to let any of the blue leaves touch her body, trotted into the kitchen followed by Sweetie Belle, scooting with surprising facility across the worn floor. After a few false starts and upsets, Sweetie Belle managed to worm her way up on to a chair, knocking a few papers off the top as she squirmed into a comfortable position and propped herself upright. Looking over at her mentor, who was currently rummaging for another pot after discovering that the bottom of the first one she had grabbed had rusted through, the little unicorn asked, “So...is it ready? You said your plan would be ready when you came back, and you’d fix everything, and everypony would live forever. And, um, you’re back now. So…?” “No, Sweetie Belle, it’s not ready yet. Or it is, but—Oh, never mind. My hooves are tied.” She shot a ferocious glare at the pot of water she’d set on the stove, as if she hoped to intimidate it into a boil. Sassaflash‘s acolyte tilted her head in puzzlement. “I don’t think I understand.” “Never mind, I said. It’s not important.” “Oh.” She was pretty sure that whatever it was was important, but the unicorn filly wisely elected not to pursue the subject. She didn’t particularly fancy just sitting there while Sassaflash glowered evilly at the simmering water, though, so after an uncomfortable minute or two of silence she spoke up again, bringing up a subject that had been very much on her mind for most of the past week or so. It would do Miss Sassaflash good, she thought, to hear about something unrelated to her work. “Miss Cheerilee is taking our whole class on a field trip to Canterlot!” The Dark Lord observed that that sounded lovely. The water, evidently knowing what was good for it, immediately erupted into a lively boil. Sweetie Belle, somewhat disappointed by her mentor’s unenthusiastic response but determined to make a game try of it, prattled on. “Yeah! We’re taking the evening train out today, and then tomorrow we’re going to visit the Wonderbolts stadium, and the castle library, and the sculpture garden, and even the throne room! Then Miss Cheerilee said we’d go out for donuts if we were good, and—” Sweetie Belle’s words finally sank into Sassaflash‘s brain, and she started upright, nearly spilling the bowl of broth she had poured out for the poison joke-afflicted foal. “Wait, what was that? Before the throne room. Where did you say you were going?” “The library? Yeah, Twist is really excited, she heard that there’s an original edition of all the Sherclop Holmes books there, and Scootaloo wants to—” “Not the library!” Sassaflash waved an exasperated hoof. “Why in Equestria would I be interested in the library?” Sweetie Belle glanced around the kitchen. Half of the shelves had been given over to books that had overflowed from the next room, and dusty stacks of stained tomes rose up here and there in odd clusters on the floor. Sassaflash herself was sitting on a tattered copy of Leafy Liches: Necromancy in the Vegetable Kingdom. “I, um, don’t know. Um. So you meant...the sculpture garden?” To her relief, she appeared to have hit on the right answer. Sassaflash‘s earlier irritation had evaporated, replaced by an almost fervid interest. “Yes, yes. The sculpture garden. You’ll be visiting there? This is ideal, you can take the conduit there and trigger—” She stopped herself, a look of powerless fury on her face. “No. No, never mind, never mind, of course you can’t. Curse him!” One ear cocked in bemusement, the filly hazarded, “So, you want me to bring something to Canterlot, except...you don’t? Or something?” “Drink your broth, Sweetie Belle. Just...drink your broth.” She wasn’t being fair to the filly, she knew. Sweetie Belle deserved more than curt words and unexplained anger. As she helped her acolyte off the chair, though, and watched her struggle to her once-more-functional hooves, she couldn’t help but rage at the unfairness of it all. By this time tomorrow, she could have had all the actors in play, and the grand performance rolling towards its inevitable conclusion. Instead, thanks to her minion’s ridiculously charitable interpretation of Celestia’s motives and her own foolish weak-mindedness, she could do nothing but wait, wait, wait—while, perhaps, Tsathoggua discovered and destroyed the thaumic siphon she had left beneath Voormithadreth, or the spell on the outlet she had tossed from the train into the Canterhorn basin deteriorated. Sweetie Belle, satisfied that the poison joke’s effects were completely gone, managed an awkward smile and said, “I kinda need to finish my packing for the trip, so if it’s okay I’m gonna go now.” If it weren’t for her promise, things would be so easy. All this uncertainty and doubt and risk would just vanish. Celestia would fall. Time would be at her command. Her mother would live. “Yes, yes. See you tomorrow. Or rather not, of course. Enjoy Canterlot.” “Right.” The filly hesitated at the door. “You’re sure you don’t want me to take...whatever it was with me? I don’t mind.” If it weren’t for her promise. “I’m sure, Sweetie Belle. Goodbye.” Her acolyte half-smiled, and then closed the door. The locks began to fall into place, clicking shut automatically as Sassaflash had designed them to do. One after another, metal bars slid into metal slots, locking, barring, closing, shutting out the future with every turn of the catches… And then suddenly Sassaflash was at the door, frantically scrabbling to undo the locks, drag them open. She had to get out. She had to get to Sweetie Belle before it was too late. The last catch dangled free, and the pegasus careened out, her hooves skidding on the cobbles. Her acolyte, only a little ways up the street, turned at the sound of the Dark Lord’s arrival. “Sweetie Belle, wait! Wait. There is something. I need you to carry something with you to Canterlot. To the sculpture garden. To a very particular sculpture within that garden…” ----- The Dark Lord slept well that night. Which was not, of course, surprising to her. Certainly not. She had done the right and sensible thing. Her promise really couldn’t even have been considered binding at that point, considering how conditions had changed, and no doubt the Mule would understand that she really hadn’t had a choice. He was reasonable. He wouldn’t hold a grudge. Not that he would have had a reason to. She’d done nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing. So, Sassaflash told herself, lying awake on her bedroll at 3:30 AM and staring vacantly at the ceiling, it wasn’t at all surprising that she was sleeping so remarkably well. She happened to be awake now, yes, but one often woke up in the middle of the night for brief periods of time. It didn’t mean anything. She’d only been awake for a few minutes. Or, she corrected herself, propping herself up on one foreleg and peering at the antique clock lying face-up on the stone floor of her chamber, two hours. Close enough. She rolled over on to her side, willing her mind to drift along the channels that would lead to the Dreamlands. She had been meaning to see more of the place, somewhere other than the cottage of the two mules. Now was as good a time as any. Her eyes closed… The passage of thirty minutes found the pegasus mare wandering beneath the eaves of the dreamwood, the dank, leathery leaves of the canopy overhead blotting out the stars. She winced as another long, wiry loop of thorns scraped against her side, and edged a little further away from the tangled depths of the wood--but not so far as to expose herself to the night sky. The stars burned with a peculiarly piercing light, unblinking and remorseless—quite unlike the gentle spangling of light with which Luna usually decorated the heavens. The darkness between them was too deep, and their light too unforgiving. She didn’t want them to see her. She turned, suddenly sick of these claustrophobic woods and the bare, wide expanse beyond them. She wanted to go home. She wanted to sleep, with no dreams and no Dreams, just good, deep sleep. Bracken and dead leaves crunching underhoof, she hurried back the way she had come, towards the little winding path that lead through the trees to the Gate of Deeper Slumber, and the way back to wakefulness—or to a more restful sleep. It took her little time to find her way back, and trot into the forest along the shadowed trail, and she had almost reached the Gate when she heard, through the gloom ahead of her, the sound of approaching hoofsteps. She stopped, waiting, and before long a figure became visible in the darkness, familiar, knob-kneed, and long-eared. It was the Mule. “Miss Sassaflash!” The Mule halted, surprised. “I didn’t know you was here. You been visiting Missus Mule?” She had done nothing wrong. “Mr. Mule. No, I wasn’t—I was merely exploring the area. I thought it prudent to learn more of this place than the way to and from your cabin. But the walk proved less pleasant than I expected, so I’m going back to sleep—normal sleep, that is. A good night to you.” She waited for him to move out of her way, but the Mule apparently didn’t pick up on the hint. Instead, he gave concerned whistle, and said, “All on your lonesome, in the Dreamlands? Miss Sassaflash, that ain’t safe! They’s zoogs, and vooniths in the river, and all manner o’ beastes. Even when everthing’s right, you shouldn’t ought to be wandering alone, but when you’s in a stew over something, it can get right dangerous.” With an irritated swish of her tail, Sassaflash said, “A stew? I’m not in a stew. I am perfectly calm. Regardless, as I said, I wish to go back to sleep, so if you could step out of the way…” “Well, alright.” The Mule edged to one side. “But you ain’t calm. They’s brambles and stickerbushes all over the place. The Dreamlands reflects what’s inside, as you might say.” He hesitated a moment, and then continued, in a quieter voice, “I knows it ain’t easy for you, Miss Sassaflash, a-waitin’ like this, and I’m real grateful you been so patient. I been getting better fast, though. As a matter o’ fact, I come down here tonight to tell Missus Mule that I been practicing on crutches, and the doctor reckons I should be able to move around purty well in a few days or so! I reckon I could do it now, but he wants to be careful.” So it hadn’t even been necessary! Well, it had seemed so at the time, at least. She’d done nothing wrong. “That’s—that’s wonderful news! Excellent. Very good. I am delighted to hear it.” Tilting his head in puzzlement, one long ear flopping over to one side, the Mule said, “You don’t sound delighted.” “My apologies, Mr. Mule, if my vocal productions fail to meet with your exacting standards! Naturally I am delighted. It will be, I imagine, a great relief for you to be up and about again.” “And I can go to Canterlot and talk to Princess Celestia,” prompted the Mule. “Yes,” said Sassaflash. “You can.” There was a long pause. Something twittered in the shadows of a particularly hefty tree, and orange, molluscan eyes blinked in the darkness to one side of the trail. Sassaflash turned to leave. “Well! Excellent news. You will, of course, want to convey it to your wife, and far be it from me to delay you. A good night to you, Mr. Mule. Don’t feel you have to rush your recovery on my account, don’t push yourself, your health is of paramount importance, I hope that—” “Miss Sassaflash,” asked the Mule, “what’s wrong?” “Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. All is well.” “But it ain’t, though!” Not for the first time, Sassaflash quietly cursed the Mule’s stubborn perspicacity. The old creature shuffled forward, trying to catch a glimpse of her eyes in the shadows. “Something bad happened. Miss Sweetie Belle’s alright, ain’t she? They ain’t nothing that’s happened to her?” “My acolyte is in perfect health; in fact, she visited me just this afternoon, and will be taking a trip to Canterlot tomorrow.” She hesitated. “On that subject, actually, there is something that I suppose—not that it matters very much, you understand, it’s only a trivial change in plans. Purely a formality, as it were.” Slowly, as if he were rolling the words back and forth in his mind to examine them from all sides, the Mule said, “A change in plans?” Sassaflash nodded. “Quite. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Mule—well. You are reasonable. Surely you can see that the odds of Celestia’s motives being pure are slim. She would have made herself clearer before now. Asking her directly would only have roused her suspicion, and with every day of further delay the odds of something going wrong with the already-placed conduits was increasing. You agree?” At first the Mule remained silent. After some time, he murmured, a slow, incredulous fear dawning in his voice, “‘Would have.’ ‘Was.’ Miss Sassaflash...What’ve you done?” “Nothing you would not have done, in my place! I was perfectly within my rights. The conditions of our agreement were very different from what eventuated.” “You gave something to Miss Sweetie Belle to take to Canterlot,” declared the Mule, his tail curled back against his legs and his ears flattened in horror. His voice rose. “You’re fixing to free Discord! You’re fixing to free Discord, and then it’s a-going to wreck half o’ Equestria afore it’s done!” “Not a bit of it. The Princesses will stop it—and it will stop them.” She raised her head, proud and defiant. “Then I will save Equestria from death.” “I can’t believe it.” The Mule stepped forward. “You said you’d wait! You promised you’d wait! I trusted you!” “That promise was made in fear and uncertainty, and you know it! Why should it be binding? Why should any promise bind me?” Twigs cracked under the Mule’s hoof as he slammed it against the forest floor, sending startled zoogs scurrying away through the branches. Something took flight, a black shadow that swung overhead and blackened the blazing stars. “Because you’re a good pony, that’s why! Or I thought you was, leastwise! I thought I could trust you! I thought you was my friend!” A long pause, then, his voice cracking at the edges, “Was I wrong?” For a moment, Sassaflash hesitated. She could just make out his silhouette, his chest heaving in pain and anger, and she remembered how, for once in her life, she had had someone who liked her. Who would help her because he cared for her, not because he was in awe of her, or indebted to her, or because it was convenient. Someone who would have—and had—risked his life for her, and for whom she would have done the same. For once in her life. No, not just once. Her mother had been her friend, too—her first friend. Her truest. She had to do this. Her face hardened, and in a voice cold as steel, she said, “I will save my mother, and nothing is going to stop me! Not friendship, not promises, not princesses, not Gods, not death itself! You are my minion—and I am the Dark Lord Sassaflash!” She whipped around, leaves whirling at her sides, and was about to stalk away into the darkness when she heard, faint and distinct, the words, “I ain’t.” Sassaflash looked over her shoulder. The shadows were too deep, and the stars were invisible. She could see nothing. “What?” “I ain’t,” repeated the Mule, his voice hard. “I ain’t your minion. I quit.” “What?” repeated Sassaflash. She understood the words, but somehow she couldn’t seem to fit a meaning to them. “What I said,” said the voice from the darkness. “I ain’t a-going to work for you no more. I thought they was something in you that was worthwhile. I was wrong. I quit.” “What do you mean, ‘you quit?’ You can’t quit! Minions don’t quit, they’re dismissed!” “Goodbye, Miss Sassaflash.” There was a sound of twigs snapping underhoof as the Mule turned and walked off under the shadows of the overhanging trees. Sassaflash‘s wings slipped to her sides, hanging slack. She swallowed. “You—I refuse to accept your resignation! You are my minion, and I am the Dark Lord Sassaflash! Get—get back here!” The hoofsteps never slackened, never faltered, slowly fading away into the distance. The mare trotted forward several steps, a strange chill crawling along her skin, and cried out, “Come back! I command it! Come back!” No reply. “Mule!” She stood there, panting, her eyes wide and her legs shaking, and then screeched, “Fine. Fine! I am the Dark Lord Sass—I don’t need you! I never needed you! I can do this on my own! Go ahead, leave, and see how much I care, you stubborn—knock-kneed— stupid—mule! I don’t need you!” But there was no response from out of the woods, no sound of hoofsteps, no angry shouts or denials or words at all. Her eyes burning, Sassaflash howled, “Mule!” Silence.