The Dusk Guard Saga: Beyond the Borderlands

by Viking ZX

Chapter 29 - Collision

Necropolis, Blade thought as she glided back across the city towards the safe house. What does that even mean? She gave her wings another slow flap, lifting her body higher into the air before settling into another long, low glide. Sheerwater at dusk, even in the early winter, let off more than enough heat at the end of the day for most griffons to glide as long as they were heading in a downhill direction. Her own course was mostly level with a little bit of climb, but there were still enough flat points to it that she could relax and let the warm air currents do most of the work.

Which gave her time to think, and at the moment she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Necropolis. The word kept rolling through her thoughts, echoing back and forth from the edges of her mind like a repeated shout.

She still didn’t know what it meant. At first she’d been tempted to turn back, to march back inside the music academy, back into the room where she’d met with Grey, and break open the false panel. To demand an explanation, an addendum.

It would have been completely pointless, though. If she’d followed through on it, all she would have achieved would be angering an information brokering collective, a group she now owed a favor to, and a group which she could need again in the future. Angering them wouldn’t help anything.

Besides, Grey had told her that the slip of paper was “information” on what Anubis had been after, and despite the small griffon’s lack of “all the” before that phrase, she didn’t get the feeling that there had been anything withheld. Especially where Anubis was concerned, and the reputation of The Violet Heart, what she’d been given was likely all the group had on the matter.

Which meant there was little she could do but puzzle out the meaning on her own, or with the help of the group. Was Necropolis a name? A person? A place?

She pushed her wings down once more, gaining a little altitude as she swept over the surface of the city. The setting sun was at her back now, its orangish glow casting long shadows across the face of Sheerwater and covering the city in intermittent bands of inky blackness. She could see street lights coming to life in some of those darker areas, the whitish magilights a sharp contrast to the soft orange glow covering the parts of the city still illuminated by the sun.

Necropolis. The word echoed again out of her mind. A griffon? A dead clan? A code word? A work of art? What? They were close, she knew that. The Violet Heart had confirmed that Anubis was definitely looking for whatever Necropolis was, and since the immortal was still in the city, either it was as well, or what he needed to find it was. All we need to do is figure out what it is or where it is before he does, she thought as she put herself into a long, banking turn that arced towards the safe house. And since Anubis is breaking into ancient tombs, our best bet is probably something really old. Maybe we should try a museum.

Then again, that was what Frost and Alchemy had been out doing. Or close enough, anyway. Maybe they’d have found something that could help.

She tucked her wings close as she came in to land, her talons scraping the warm street-stones as she bleed off excess speed. A few griffons further up the street threw lazy looks her way, but then went back to relaxing on their balcony, their chatter filling the air with an ordinary undertone.

That’s right, she thought as she walked up to the front door, pulling the house key from her bags. Don’t pay me any attention. Just an ordinary griffon coming back from a long day at work.

That last part certainly felt true. There was a faint almost buzzing sensation in the back of her mind, a slight lethargy that let her know her two naps hadn’t been quite what her body had wanted to put up with in return for going an entire night without sleep. She knew she could go a lot further before she needed to rest, or even before she started to feel any of the negative effects, but she could still feel the faint itch at the edge of her mind, a faint pressure that warned it would only grow if left unattended.

Still, she couldn’t afford to do that. Not at the moment. There were more important things to consider.

The door unlocked with a faint click and she pushed it open, stepping into the safe house and then letting the door swing shut behind her. Almost as she’d expected, Hain was sitting at the table, his eyes already switching away from her and back to the sheaf of papers he was holding in his claws. “Good to see you’re back,” he said. “Did you get what you were looking for?”

“Sort of,” she said, shrugging her bags off of her back and hanging them by the door before plucking the lone slip of paper out. She held it up into the air as Frost wandered out of the kitchen. “They didn’t have much.”

“What’d they have?” Frost asked. “And who’d you go see?”

“Information brokers,” Blade said, tucking the slip of paper under her wing and crossing over to the table, sitting herself down opposite Hain on one of the benches. “Made the day a bit more exciting for them.”

“Exciting enough to cause trouble?” Hain asked, looking up once more from whatever it was he was reading.

“No,” she said. “Just exciting enough that if I press for information without waiting again like I did today, I might find myself blacklisted from their service.”

“They’re a slow and steady group then.”

“We’d have been waiting another two days to get what today got me if I’d gone by their timetable,” she said, nodding. “Not that I’m a hundred percent certain what I got out of it is going to be worth it. In fact,” she said, turning her eyes to Frost. “I hope you two had better luck than I did, or we’re going to be spending more time hunting down information than we can probably spare.”

“Actually, we did. Have good luck, I mean,” Frost said, setting both forehooves on the table. “Alchemy and I spoke with Professor Stoneweather.”

“And?”

“We were correct,” she said. “According to the professor, there are scattered records and artifacts that show that Anubis did indeed have followers among the pre-Empire griffons.”

“So Anubis wasn’t lying about that vault being built by griffons,” Blade said, her shoulders sinking slightly.

“No,” Frost agreed. “Probably not. The professor did say that there was no proof that there were entire clans devoted to him, though.”

“Additionally,” Alchemy said, his head darting around the edge of the doorway that led to the kitchen. “The way he phrased his response makes me think that many of them were in hiding even before the Empire arose, and that after the Founding, they probably died out.”

“That makes sense,” Blade said, nodding. “The Empire was big on unification. A couple of clans were wiped out over that.”

“Which, if there was an Anubite clan,” Frost said, “would have put an end to them fairly swiftly.”

“But he did have followers here,” Blade said. “And that could explain why he’s digging through the old crypts. Old followers, names he knows. Searching for—”

“There’s more though,” Frost said, cutting Blade off before she could mention what The Violet Heart had told her. “Though the professor didn’t want to talk about it.”

“What?” Blade frowned. “Why not?”

“He accused us of trying to steal his work,” Alchemy said, trotting out of the kitchen and sitting down on the bench next to Frost. There was a sheen of water on the side of his face, as if he’d been exercising and only part of his body had sweated. “Right around the time we started getting a little further into the details tying the Lost City of Turuncu with the cult.”

Right. That had been what had caught Frost’s attention in the first place. Wondering why the line about the lost city had been mentioned in Anubis’s history. “What’d you get? Or why did he get angry?”

“Like Alchemy said, he thought we were there to steal his work,” Frost said. “Accused us of working for the ‘Clouddiver Clan’ and told us we’d have to do our own research rather than trying to steal his. The discussion went downhill from there. But before he threw us out, he did explain the connection. It was something one of his students had been researching. The the lost city story was based on an older story that the Anubites used to share with one another.”

“It’s written right here,” Hain said, sliding the sheaf of papers he was looking at across the table. “They stole the paper.”

“It’s only a copy, translated into Equestrian,” Frost said. “They still have the original. In any case, this was all we could get out of him after he decided we were there to steal his work. The important bit is on page three,” she said as Blade opened the document. “It’s an old chant or saying or poem or something that his student found record of. The whole paper argues that the legend of the lost city grew out of the retelling of this poem that the Anubites used to tell one another.”

“Uh-huh,” Blade said, flipping to the second page and doing a quick skim of the text to see what it contained. It was mostly a repeat of what Frost was saying, though in more detail and about four times as many words. A discussion of the many ancient myths of the lost city, the approximate age of the story and the ties to the founding of the Empire. And then a postulation that the legend may have existed much earlier, which would explain the multitude of variations after said Founding. Mentions of adaptation, of overwriting an earlier lost city myth that was held by a small, secret group.

“Pretty interesting stuff,” Frost said as Blade flipped the page. “There’s some honorifics around it like ‘Throne of Bones’ that mean it could be connected. Or at least say to me that these guys followed Anubis. But it’s all about some ancient city they called Necropolis.”

Blade froze, her eyes open wide as every part of her body went absolutely still. The word had been pronounced slightly differently, annunciation on different sounds more in style with the Equestrian Frost was speaking, but it had been enough. Maybe. “What was that word?” she asked, looking up at the dark-blue mare.

“The name of the city?” Frost asked, her brow furrowing slightly as she saw Blade’s expression. “Necropolis. Why?”

“Blade,” Hain said, his gravelly voice filling the room. “You’ve heard that name before somewhere, haven’t you?” It was more of a statement than a question, but it hung in the room all the same, waiting for an answer.

She had one. “The Violet Heart,” she said, unfolding her wing and holding up the single slip of paper. She could feel her heart pounding as she set it on the tabletop, face up so all of them could read the single word written across it. “They gave me a choice between knowing where Anubis was and finding out what he was after. I told them I wanted to know what he was after. It was a chance to maybe set a trap, or figure out his motives. This is what I got in response.” She could feel the pieces falling into place now. “That’s what he’s after.”

“We can’t read it,” Alchemy said, his voice scattering her thoughts. “That’s in Griffon.”

“Right,” she said, shaking her head and then letting her eyes shift between the orange stallion and the attentive looking unicorn he was sitting next to. “It’s one word. Necropolis.”

Alchemy’s eyes widened, along with Frost’s, and Blade nodded. “That’s what he’s looking for,” she said. “You said the poem talks about the city?”

“Right there,” Hain said, pointing a single claw at the paper in front of her. She glanced down, reading through the text as quickly as she could.

Everything fell into place.

“This is it …” she said, tapping the paper with her talons. “‘The foundation of the entrusted goal. Built by blood. Swept beneath the sand!” She stood, her voice rising as everything she’d been wondering about for the last few weeks fell into place. “He was hiding!”

“What?” Alchemy asked. “How? Why?”

“To keep everyone from figuring out what he was up to!” Blade said. She could feel her tail whipping back and forth behind her in excitement. “Remember what he said in the vault after he was let out? That he sealed himself away? That he had a plan? Anubis knew Celestia and Luna were coming for him after the Jackal Kingdom fell apart. He had to have known what they’d done to some of the other immortals. But he was smart. Just like the history said, he always had a plan.”

“He sealed himself away or let himself get beaten,” Hain said, nodding. “Trapped.”

Alchemy’s mouth opened in a wide “O,” a look of stunned surprise moving across his face. “And while everyone assumes he’s gone, his followers went to work. Nobody would pay too much attention to a bunch of followers of someone who’d already been defeated, especially if they keep quiet.”

“Which they did,” Blade said. “And they built him a city. Necropolis. And almost two-thousand years later, when Anubis finally gets out, he’s already got everything in place. All he needs to do is find it. Which is why he was breaking into the tombs. And the genealogical society. He needed the names, needed to find out what had happened to his followers. And where they might be buried. And with that …”

“Where they might have hidden clues to the location of his city,” Hain said, nodding. “Plus the nice little bonus of finding some skeletons to animate if he feels like it.” The old griffon let out a long whistle. “Now that’s long-term planning.”

“He’s an immortal,” Blade said, her eyes drifting down to the single sheet of paper in the middle of the table. “He’s got all the time in the world to plan for long-term. He doesn’t have to beat you. Not when he can just wait for you to die of old age, for your children to grow old, and for the memory of who he was to fade into legend. And that’s exactly what he’s done.”

“But why a city?”

Alchemy’s question pulled her eyes away from the slip of paper, and she found him looking up at her. “What?”

“Why a city?” he repeated. “A city is a collection of sapients living together in a community, usually in an important or vital location. He’s looking for something that his followers—according to the poem—buried. What good is it going to do him?”

“That’s … actually a really good point,” Blade said, glancing back down at the paper. “A city without any population isn’t good for much is it?”

“What about the oasis?” Hain suggested. “Or the trade routes from the later legends?”

“No,” Blade said, shaking her head. “Those have already been debunked. And what good would they be? What’s the point of going through all this trouble to take a city out in the middle of nowhere?”

“Wait … Because he’d have an army,” Alchemy said, his voice quiet but grabbing both her and Hain’s attention like a tightly bound cord. “Look at the poem. ‘Born with bone.’ ‘Its walls a tomb.’ It’s not just a city, it’s a repository. How much would you care to bet that every single cultist who died building that place is still inside it, a pile of bones waiting for their long-lost leader to show up?”

“And raise an almost unstoppable army,” Blade said, thinking back on the skeletons they’d faced in the vault. “And he’d have a base of operations somewhere between both the Plainslands and the Empire. Even if he didn’t want to go to war, he could chop off every trade route and then just hide in the desert when patrols came looking for him. He could hamstring both empires.” She could feel a faint chill inside her chest, a cold feeling that mixed with a shiver running down her back. An army of skeletons, striking out from the desert. A bid to regain power more than fifteen-hundred years in the making.

“You said that Professor Stoneweather was researching this?” she said, looking back down at where Frost and Alchemy were sitting. Frost was still sitting, silent as she stared down at the slip of paper with a distant look in her eyes. Why hadn’t she said anything yet?

“Yeah,” Alchemy said, nodding. “Or something about it anyway.”

“Then we’ll need to talk to him first thing tomorrow morning,” Blade said, taking a step back from the table so that she could see the entire team. “We need to know what he knows and—”

“He knows where it is,” Frost said.

“He what?” Blade asked.

“He knows where it is,” Frost said, looking up at her. “The professor. He knows where Necropolis is. That’s why he started to get so nervous when Alchemy and I were asking him about the cults. He thought we were there to find out where it was.”

“How do you—”

“This says ‘Necropolis’ in Griffon, right?” Frost asked, tapping the slip of paper. “Just Necropolis?”

“Yeah.”

“What would it look like if you abbreviated it?” Frost asked. “Shortened it. Would the syntax stay the same?”

“The what?”

“The letters,” Frost said. “Would the majority of them stay the same, like with Equestrian?”

“Well, yeah.” Blade reached out with one set of talons and tore of the very end of the slip of paper before snapping that piece into three smaller bits. “It’d look like this,” she said, placing the three over a few of the letters. “Though you could—”

“Then Stoneweather knows where the city is,” Frost said, rising to her hooves. “He had a map in his office, a map of the southern half of the Empire and what I assume is the Turuncu Desert. And on that map he had a symbol, a marker, near the middle of that desert, with those characters written next to it.”

“You’re certain?” Blade asked.

“Positive,” Frost said. “There were lines leading to it and everything. That’s why he got so angry when we started asking along the same train of thought. Professors are always looking out for something that could get them attention, right? Papers? Research? He’s found the lost city of Turuncu somehow, and he knows it’s Necropolis.”

“Tartarus.” There wasn’t much more she could say. “Then we need to move now. All of you, get ready to move. We’re going to have a chat with Professor Stoneweather.”

“Now?” Alchemy asked in surprise.

“Now,” Blade said, nodding. “If we can connect the dots, so can Anubis, and I’d rather not give him the chance. All of us.”

“But I can’t leave,” Alchemy said, raising his front hooves. “I’m brewing potions in the kitchen. I can’t stop now.”

“What?” She pulled back in surprise. So that was what he’d been doing in the kitchen. “Why?”

“We needed a potion to counter Anubis’s fear effect,” he said with a quick shrug. “I found a mix that should work, so I started mixing it. I figured I wasn’t going to need to go anywhere for the next few hours, so—”

“How long do you need?”

“An hour, maybe?”

She shook her head. “Too long. We need to move now. You’ll stay here. Hain, Frost and I will handle this. Finish up the potion and wait for us. We might be bringing a body back with us.”

Alchemy blanched. “You mean—”

“We might need to hide him for a few days is what she means,” Hain said. “Depends on how many people know. If the net is big enough, the most we can do is try and get them to keep quiet.”

“Either way,” Blade said. “You need to finish those potions, since we’re going to need them. Frost and Hain, grab your things. We need to move. Now.”

Frost rushed past her, hooves ringing against the stone stairs as she made her way to the upper floor. Hain stepped up alongside Blade a moment later, his posture as formal as she could have imagined it being decades earlier. Frost returned a second later, her wrap already across her shoulders and Hain’s combat harness gripped in her magic.

“Good to go,” Hain said as he pulled the harness around his shoulders, giving Frost a nod of thanks. The knife settled in its usual place. “I doubt I’ll need it, but just in case …”

Blade nodded. Better to be prepared. “Alchemy,” she called. “We’ll be back as soon as we can. Hold down the fort until then.”

“Got it.”

“Both of you?” she said, glancing at Frost and Hain as she tugged the door open and stepped out onto the still warm street. “Let’s get to the university. We’ve got a professor to speak with.”

“What if he’s not here?” Frost asked as they neared the pillar that made up the Empire National Museum. The university was spread out around its base, dozens of structures surrounded by a high wall which was more to impress and mark the boundaries of the museum’s reach rather than keep anyone out.

“Then we find out where he lives and go there,” Blade said, her legs moving in a easy, loping gait that wasn’t quite an urgent run. The movement had been more than enough to shorten the trip across the city to a half-hour, though it had meant a few odd looks. At least, until the onlookers had seen the unicorn galloping along with her and Hain.

“I gotcha,” Frost said. “Plan B style?”

“Plan B style,” Blade said, smiling as they ran through the front gates. It was dark out, the horizon showing only a glimmer of fading orange light where the sun had once sat, while on the other side of the sky a faint, silver glow could be seen where the moon was rising. Around them the city nightlife was appearing—bright, white magilights bursting forth all across the cityscape as the city began to shift into the second half of its daily cycle.

“This way,” Frost said, taking the lead and guiding them along the outskirts of the campus, past stone building after stone building; some of them centuries old, reaching back almost a thousand years, others more modern, with sweeping, open faces and panel after panel of glass. “It’s not far.”

“Good,” Blade said as Frost turned and led them down a set of stairs. Blade spread her wings, gliding down the steps after the mare. They seemed to be heading for one of the more modern buildings, a large, rectangular structure that seemed to have been designed with fitting as many windows into its four faces as possible, though at the moment most of the windows were dark, light from outside reflecting off of the glass. Her feet touched warm stone as she reached the bottom of the stairs, and she kicked herself forward as Frost headed straight for the structure.

“This is it,” she said, slowing down to a quick walk as they neared the front doors. “Looks like the building is still open too.” She reached out and wrapped her wrist around the handle, tugging the door to one side.

“The sign says the building is locked after nine,” Hain commented, pointing with one claw towards the front desk. “But the secretary is gone after six.”

“That’s fine,” Blade said, looking at Frost. “Do you remember the way?”

“Of course,” the mare said, nodding at the nearest hallway. “This way.”

They moved down the hallway in broken silence, the only sound that of their muffled footsteps on the building’s thin carpet. Frost’s mouth was opening and closing silently as they passed by office after office, mouthing room numbers as they moved.

“Here,” she said, coming to a stop outside one of the doors. Stoneweather’s name was written on a plaque to one side, the small piece of metal doing its best to make the professor’s full title look dignified.

“Here,” Blade said, stepping up as Frost raised her hoof to knock. “Let me. He might remember your voice.”

She brought her knuckles down in a sedate, easygoing, pattern, a habit she’d picked up long ago. No matter how important the mission, if the target doesn’t know, you probably don’t need to give them any reason to be feeling out of the ordinary. She waited, counted to seven, and then knocked again.

“Profesör?” she called, switching to Griffon. “Sen misin?”

There was no answer. She knocked again, this time a little more loudly. “Profesör? Profesör?” She waited.

Nothing.

“Üçüncü kez şanslı,” she muttered, giving the door a short, quick rap, this time with enough force behind it that she could see the door shaking.

“Right … Guess the old, welcome approach isn’t working.” She reached down and jiggled the handle. It was unlocked.
“Profesör?” She pushed the door open. “Biz geliyoruz.”

She stepped into the room, her head twisting as she took a good look at everything. Shelves full of stuff, lots of wide open space around those tables … But the lights are on, she thought as Frost and Hain followed her in, the door shutting with a faint click behind them. He must be here. “Profesör?”

She took a step forward, still looking for any signs of activity. “Maybe he stepped out,” she said as she ran her eyes over the room once more. The professor’s chair was unoccupied, pushed slightly back from the large, wooden desk. She could see a spread of papers that looked like they were in the process of being graded.

“There’s the map,” Frost said, pointing towards what looked like a mobile chalkboard. One side was facing them, its surface a blank dark slate covered in wisps of white chalk dust. “Looks like he turned it around after he left.”

“Well,” Blade said, stepping forward and around the desk. “Since he doesn’t seem to be here, let’s—Tartarus!”

Behind the desk, lying on the ground with his head twisted back at an impossible angle, eyes open wide and his wings splayed beneath him, was what she assumed was Professor Stoneweather. Or at least, the body of Professor Stoneweather.

“No.” She took a long, quick step, reaching out and spinning the mobile chalkboard around. “No!”

The map was gone, a single, torn corner still pinned in the cork marking the place where it had once been attached. In its place, scrawled in large letters with what appeared to be permanent marker, was a message in Equestrian.

“Hey Featherbrains,” it read. “Thanks for digging up my city for me. See you again soon!”

For a moment all she could do was stare at the text, ice water flooding her veins, her heart racing. No! Then she shook her head.

“Frost? Hain?” she said, stepping back and glancing at both Frost and Hain. Her wings were spreading wide behind her as her body tensed. She could feel adrenaline flooding her system, bringing her senses to full alert. The body on the floor was dead, but not stiff. The killing had been recent. “Back to the safe house. Now.”

No one argued.

“Just a little more …” Alchemy said, his hoof easing the top of the open round bottle further to one side.  It was a delicate work, pouring out a complete or partially complete potion when using a swivel mount. You had to push the flask over further and further, but if you weren’t ready for it, the shifting of the precious liquid within—particularly if it was heavy—would tip the flask farther than it was meant to go. Which usually left its erstwhile alchemist with a mess, and lot of lost ingredients—in the best cases. In the worst cases, well … explosions were a fact of life for a clumsy alchemist.

Or a dye job, Alchemy thought as the thick, viscous, yellow fluid began to slide down the neck of the flask. That had been his master’s teaching method of choice. She’d turned them all loose with a recipe that would require mixing in several steps and loosened swivel clamp, and then checked back in an hour to see how many of them had erupted in bright polka dots.

You don’t forget a lesson like that, he thought as a single, thick stream of the newly completed potion began to form a small spiral on the bottom of the flask he was pouring it into. His elbow itched, and he had to hold back to the urge to reach out and scratch at it. It was psychosomatic; that polka dot had disappeared long ago.

But the lesson hadn’t. He eyed the fluid level in the slowly filling flask, comparing its gradual rise with the myriad of small, tiny marks along the exterior of the glass. And … there.

He tilted the round bottle back down, holding it still for a moment as the balance of the potion inside it shifted. Satisfied that the center of gravity was below the swivel clamp that held the bottle in place once more, he leaned his head over to a nearby open drawer and plucked up the proper cork for the filled flask with his teeth. There was a faint, rubber-on-glass squeak as the cork slid into place, followed by a click as the locking clamp was pressed into place, and … Bingo, he thought as he examined his hoofwork. Another potion done.

There was only enough left in the original bottle to fill one more flask, but that had been by design. And more than a little skill on my part, he thought, smiling in satisfaction as he slid the completed flask of potion over to sit with its two fellows. It takes some serious talent to be able to make potions with this amount of precision. A new flask, freshly cleaned and sterilized, slid into place next to the round, and now nearly empty, bottle in the holder. Especially when you’re working with an entirely new potion you’ve never made before.

Well, mostly, he had to admit as he tilted the round bottle once more. The potion he was making now wasn’t exactly new, more of a modification to an existing type, though admittedly he had been forced to modify it quite a bit.

I just hope it works, he thought as he watched the last bit of potion slide out of the neck of the round bottle and into the flask, leaving behind a faint oily slick on the surface of the glass. It should work. I hope. But if it doesn’t … Well, he’d have done his best. He’d only had so many ingredients to work with, and so much time …

Good thing I started today, he thought as he locked the clamp on the final flask, pushing it over to sit in a nice, neat row with the others. Otherwise with everything going on, I don’t know where I would have found the time to mix this. He disconnected the now empty round bottle from its holder and carried it over to the sink, where he could clean it later. All it would take was a little water and a neutralizing agent to make certain that no reactive materials were left on the glass. That had been another lesson his master had taught him.

Actually, had taught a few of his fellow students. Mom and Dad raised me to clean up after my disasters, he thought with a grin as he flipped the spigot to hot. Warm water began spilling out of the faucet, filling the round bottle in moments with swirling, steaming water. Good thing they did too. He’d seen the results of the students who hadn’t cleaned. Potions had … interesting effects. Sometimes bland. Sometimes dangerous.

Right, he thought, pulling his mind away from memories as he reached over and picked up a small, paper-wrapped packet of neutralizing agent. He twisted it between his hooves, the small mixture of powdered crystal and Gorofa Root spilling out and into the round bottle. The fluid inside took on a milky consistency, like he’d just added a bit of flour to the mixture, but then, all at once the color shifted to green. Not a very vivid green, but a green nonetheless.

“Perfect,” he said to no one in particular as he reached out and shut off the water. The green fluid settled inside the bottle, almost pulsing as the neutralizing agent went to work. Once the color stabilized, he could pour the mixture down the drain. Green wasn’t dangerous, but giving the neutralizing agent time to work would reduce the chances of whatever was left of the potion reacting with anything else.

He turned back to the setup he’d put together and nodded in satisfaction. The round bottle had been the last thing to clean up, since the amount of time it had been cooking over a flame had been more than long enough for him to clean most of the rest of the mess he’d made putting the potion together. And on the side, he’d even made a few more weeks worth of his own potion, though he’d long since finished that project. The completed mixture was sitting in a larger flask than normal; he hadn’t wanted to take the time dividing it up into the more minute dosages he’d need.

He let out a faint sigh as he stared at the gently glowing blue mixture. Everything I do now relies on that mixture, he thought. Without it, I’d die. With it, I’ll die. Probably before half my life is over.

It didn’t truly bother him. He’d accepted it long ago, though he’d taken some time to come to that acceptance. Still it was a weight that he was going to carry, a debt for his own rash actions … even if they had saved the life of his master and fellow students. But he’d saved their lives, and that was what mattered. I’m a doctor. Sort of.

“On the other hoof,” he said aloud as he walked back over to his completed work, the row of identical flasks filled with faintly glowing yellow fluid all lined up neatly. “I’m blessed to have that half when I shouldn’t have any.” He sat down in front of the four potion flasks, each one filled with the exact same amount. Four flasks. Four team members.

“Sorry, Barnabas,” he said, a faint pang echoing inside his chest. “I wish I could have made a fifth.” The minotaur had been a pirate, but he’d also been a friend. A friend that he hadn’t been able to save.

Such is the price of being a doctor, he thought as he reached into his battered potion kit and extracted a large marker. He gripped it in his jaws, using his tongue and lips to make minute adjustments as he wrote across the front of each flask. You see patients live, and you see patients die. But you just keep going. Why? He leaned back, eyeing his writing on each of the four flasks. It was simple, straightforward. “Anti-fear.”

Faith and belief. Hopefully he’d gotten the mixture right. We keep going because we let our faith fight our fear that the next patient won’t make it. We can’t let fear paralyze us. We know we can do it. We might not save one, but we’ll save the next.

Faith and belief. The antithesis of fear. And if he’d gotten everything about the potion right … It’ll be what we need to beat Anubis’s little parlor trick.

It was the same thing that every alchemist, every doctor needed. A little bit of faith when things weren’t going right, when it seemed like the patient’s next breath would be their last. And sometimes, when it was, you had to learn to not let your faith be shaken. Sometimes, ponies died. Or minotaurs. And that’s the way it was.

But you couldn’t let one failing break everything about who you were. You had to be stronger than that. You had to have some faith, take the hits when they came, and then, as Master Eshe had said, ‘go back out into the heat and sweat again.’

You had to keep trying. A doctor who gave up wasn’t much of a doctor. Nor was an alchemist.

Well, he thought as he looked down at the four vials. I guess that about does it. He picked each of them up, carefully holding them in the nook of his right foreleg, and then walked through the front room and up the stairs. Time to add these to the potion stock.

He found the small pair of saddlebags he’d been putting together for the team right where he’d left it and added the four potions to the mix, smiling as the glass vials clinked against one another. He felt … relaxed. Calm, though he knew things were about to become busy. It was a prepared state of calm, almost like the feeling one had when watching a storm approach. The clouds were on the horizon, approaching, but the sky around him was still clear. Though it wouldn’t be that way for much longer.

No better time to make potions, he thought as he began making his way down the stairs. Making potions, even if it was an involved process, was relaxing in its own way. A bit like cooking.

Oh, hey, cooking. His mind seized on the new thought, his stomach letting out a growl. Maybe I should use the kitchen for something other than making potions. Like making a meal. Something quick. Portable, since the others could be back anytime now and we might need to move. Something that isn’t a potion and has some texture. Well, more than a liquid can give. Like a sandwich.

He was halfway across the front room when the front door exploded inward.

He twisted, his body moving out of the way even before the top half of the door, cracked and broken, shot by overhead, just barely missing the side of his head. He landed on three hooves, his right foreleg out in the air, its momentum pulling the rest of his body around as he flared what little power was in his chest.

He saw them coming in time to duck, a barrage of energy blasts that cut through the air around him and cracked against the stone with sharp, electric snaps. Some of them struck at low angles, bouncing off and into the air. He kept moving, conserving his momentum as he moved fast, far faster than he wanted to in order to avoid being hit.

A bolt cracked into his shoulder and he clenched his jaw as a stinging lack of sensation swept across his side, his leg going limp. The table! He gave his hind legs a final kick, throwing himself through the air in a desperate tumble, coming down hard on the other side of the stone, his unstunned shoulder slamming into the stone with enough force to fracture the bone.

It didn’t matter. He could deal with pain, both from the small break and the burning, raging heat it generated as it began to heal. He could also deal with a single stun spell, thanks to his condition. Pins and needles were already rushing along his side where the numbing magic had hit him, his potion-enhanced physique reawakening the discoordinated nerves.

Plus, he’d gotten a look at the now-open doorway as he’d rolled through the air. And he’d seen who’d blown it apart.

Unicorns. Unicorns with red bands around their horns, top and bottom. Somehow they’d found out about the team and where the safe house was.

A myriad of thoughts ran through his mind in a moment, comparing his position behind the heavy stone table relative to the rest of the room and the door through which more magical firepower was pouring through. He’d seen at least six cult mages providing the curtain of fire that had him pinned, and if the Order had any sense there would be a bunch more outside waiting to move in or start firing supportive spells.

Or, he thought as a whitish-purple glow wrapped itself around the table. Maybe they’re looking to remove my cover.

He lashed out with one hoof, punching the side of the table and ignoring the lance of pain that flowed up his foreleg as the heavy table swung to one side. The white glow winked out as the unicorn on the other end, distracted by the sudden movement, lost control of his spell, and in that brief moment Alchemy kicked the bench he was behind up into the air.

He jumped, his body spinning as he brought his hind hoof around, striking the middle of the bench just as it cleared the table. It flew through the air, tumbling and turning as it soaked up multiple stun blasts before crashing into the doorway with a loud bang. He was already moving when it hit—not for the door, he was far too low on potion to take on a dozen or more unicorns at once, especially ones that had come hunting for him, but for the kitchen where his recently completed potion batch was sitting on the counter. He slid through the entryway, his hooves skidding across the smooth stone and—

Up! his mind screamed. He kicked out with all four limbs, launching himself upward as a beam of bright, purple magic screamed through the space where he’d just been. Literally screamed; there was a ripping, tearing sound that came with it, as if metal were being sheared apart. He twisted in mid air, his hooves slamming into the ceiling, absorbing the impact of his rushed leap and redirecting his momentum forward and down. The beam was gone, the air now full of the snap-hiss of the stun bolts and his own labored breathing as he came down atop the unicorn that had fired at him. He drove the unicorn’s jaw into the stone ground, breaking it as well as knocking the pony out.

They’re inside! How did they get inside! He jerked again, skipping out of the way as another unicorn appeared from within the depths of the house, her horn already lit with orange fire. The fire beam ripped past him, so close he could feel the hair on his legs shriveling as the intense heat blasted by. It hit the far wall, the flames licking out across the stone and greedily taking root on the supportive wood bracing.

A flash of dark, purple not-light erupted in the corner of his eyes, and he ducked, throwing out a hoof as he did so and catching the newly arrived shadow in the center of the chest. The stallion let out a cry of pain, flying back under the force of the blow and hitting the wall like a damp rag.

“Go!” somepony was shouting. “Inside! Get him!” A second bolt of flame snapped towards him and he ducked as pain erupted along the left side of his head, a searing, burning pain that tugged the breath from him in a ragged yell. He rushed forward, sliding on his stomach and catching the offending mage in the front legs with his hooves. The mage, surprise, dropped to the stone, and a single hoof across his jaw, perhaps one a little more energetic than it needed to be, knocked the attacker out cold.

Potion! He could feel his supply dwindling under the added weight of his new injury, his flesh burning and warping as it undid the light surface damage the blast had left. Burns of this level were new, and he wasn’t sure how quickly his body would adapt—or how much the healing was going to take out of him.

I can’t keep this up forever, he thought, rolling out of the way as a series of stun bolts ricocheted off the stone where he’d been lying. He was already dangerously low. Any longer and he’d go from being capable of stepping around incoming bolts to eating them with his face while slowly dying inside. The potion he needed was close though; he was just below the counter where his kit had been set up.

Move! Another stun bolt burst against the cabinets, bits of stray magic energy arcing out into the air, filling his nose with the scent of electrical discharge and smoke. The discharge was from the bolts. The smoke was from the burning supports.

He pushed himself up, feeling the last bits of power in his chest dwindle as he shoved his body up and over the counter, his hoof reaching for the potion bottle he’d set there earlier. All he needed was one slightly larger than normal dose and—

It was gone. His hoof swung through empty air, his eyes widening in shock as he twisted his head, looking for the bottle. It was gone. Along with his entire potion kit.

“Gotcha!” A brightly colored magic field snapped into place around his body, freezing his momentum and holding him in the air. He kicked out, hoping to break the concentration of whoever was holding him, but they were smart. The field was keeping him in place and slowing him, but it wasn’t preventing him from moving, and it was holding him just out of reach of anything in the kitchen. As long as he couldn’t push off of anything and the field kept a good grip, he was helpless.

Worse, he could feel the power in his chest starting to give out.

“Looking for this?” an unfamiliar voice asked. He twisted in the air, rotating his body until he could see a grey-coated, older-looking unicorn stallion with three ascending red bands on his horn standing at the entrance to the kitchen. Both Alchemy’s kit and the bottle with the potion he needed were floating in the air next to the stallion, wrapped in a vivid, green glow.

“I’d heard rumors of an alchemist who wasn’t quite what he’d seemed back in Ruffian’s Wharf,” the unicorn said, his eyes going wild as he smiled. “I never would have believed a member of a lesser race such as yourself would have been capable of creating something like this. I assume this potion you were trying to reach is the source of your unique capabilities?”

Alchemy clenched his jaw, kicking as four more mages walked around the corner, their horns aglow with a bright white glow—the source of the field holding him in place. One of the horns flashed a little brighter, a shield forming over the burning boards and starving oxygen from the spreading flames. More shouts were coming from the other rooms, calls that the rest of the house was empty.

“How disappointing,” the ringleader replied with a droll roll of his voice. “I had hoped to find all of you here. Lord Sagis was kind enough to secure us this little discretion before we left the city. I must admit I’d hoped to capture your griffon friend, the one who seems to be able to resist magic … but no matter.” He shook his head. “I’ll settle for this. I’ve never studied alchemy—it is, after all, a by-product of weaker, less pure minds hoping to acquire that which is out of their grasp. But you, my curious friend, may have stumbled across something that could be of great help to my research.”

The power was almost gone now. He kicked, trying to free himself from the telekinetic field, but it was pressing down on him now, reinforcing itself with each movement. More unicorns were entering the room, adding their own magic the force already holding him, tightening its grip across his body. And the unicorn who was holding his potion was giving him a clinical look, like he was a specimen of some kind.

“You won’t learn anything from that potion,” he said, forcing his words out. “It’s attuned to only me. It’s what’s keeping me alive. It won’t work on anypony else. I’m an alchemist. A doctor. I know what I’m—”

“Really?” the unicorn said, letting out a laugh. “I’m a doctor as well. However, unlike you, I don’t concern myself with lesser races. Well, unless you count improving them, helping them achieve their natural station in life. Like the behemoth you faced in the vault. And killed.” His voice took on a dark overtone. “That was my work.”

“That?” Alchemy said, shoving the words out as he struggled against the field, a nasueated feeling spilling through his gut. Not all of it was as result of his being low on potion. “You sick freak! That was a perversion—!”

“It was a freedom!” the unicorn said, flashing him a tooth-filled, unsettling smile. “I gave that weak earth pony a purpose! I gave him more than he could ever be without a unicorn.”

“You made him a monster,” Alchemy said, spitting the word out. “You’re sick.”

“I disagree,” the unicorn said, still smiling. “But I wouldn’t expect you to understand the value of my research. You are, after all, nothing but a weak-minded, magicless earth pony, riding currents far too deep for you to comprehend, even if you have stumbled across something …” His eyes drifting to the bottle of potion. “Interesting.”

“You’re sick,” Alchemy said, shaking his head. “Sick and twisted.”

“No,” the unicorn said. “You merely think that because you’re a lesser race. You need to be shown how to think, and how to act. You need to know what your place is, where your words are. But you won’t see it. So we have to do it for you.” He let out a slight giggle, and Alchemy pulled back in surprise.

He’s nuts, he realized as the stallion laughed. Crazy.

“But anyway, I doubt a close-minded fool such as yourself would never understand willingly,” the unicorn said, his laughter stopping as he looked back up at Alchemy. “Which is why I’m not even going to try.”

“Oh, so you’re going to let me go then.”

“Hardly.” The unicorn’s eyes narrowed. “I am Cell, and you, my fine friend, are going to be my newest research subject.” Alchemy’s jaw almost dropped in horror, a mounting sense of panic filling him as he realized what the unicorn was suggesting.

“It’ll be wonderful,” Cell continued. “I’ll open you up. See how this potion works. And when I’ve learned everything I can from it … the Order needs a new behemoth. The procedure might not work on you, but … well, you’re replaceable after that point.”

No! No! Alchemy began kicking in all directions, lashing out and sending his body into a spin.

“Poor, deluded, unenlightened little mud-grubber,” he heard Cell say. “Stun him.”

“No!” The first bolt cracked against his back, his shoulders and neck going numb. What was left of his potion went to work immediately, and he felt the last of its power flicker away as the nerves began to tingle. “Potion!” he yelled as another bolt slapped into his legs. “Without it I die!”

“We’ll see,” Cell said as another bolt caught Alchemy in the head, his world exploding into a blur of sound and noise. “I think …” Cell said, his voice distorted and muffled, as if something was covering his ears. “I’ll want to study this. More than once.”

“You can’t …” No. He didn’t want—

Another bolt caught him in the chest. The impacts were staying numb now, his body too spent to recover quickly.

I won’t be one of those things.

Another bolt hit him in the shoulder. Back. Flank. Sides. Face.

No.

More bolts, coming in from all sides. The world was blurring together now, colors flowing into one another as his eyes began to roll back in his head.

I won’t.

Someone was talking, speaking, but he couldn’t make out the words. He could barely feel the bolts crashing into his body.

Not …

More bolts.

One of those …

The world began to fade away, colors melting into grey and then sliding towards black. Reality was fading away under the constant, grinding fire of the order.

I’m … an alchemist. I make the world … better.

Around him the world was gone, replaced by faint buzzing sounds filling his skull as his body began to shut down.

At least … the rest of … the team … is safe … They’ll come for me …

The buzzing faded, the last of his energy vanishing with it, his thoughts crumbling into a disjointed mess as consciousness began to fade.

At least they weren’t here, he thought. They’re safe.

Consciousness gone, he knew no more.