XII
For Whom the Bell Tolls
XII
For Whom the Bell Tolls
A cathedral sat on a hill overlooking Lübuck, its steeple dominating the deforested horizon like a solemn monument to the greed of the city’s lumber industry. Though it almost looked like it was made of clouds, the marble I rapped my hoof against was altogether solid. Rising up from where I’d struck the stone was a dome that would have only barely fit between the legs of the Crystal Spire. At its north and south ends, two tall circular belltowers rose up into the sky. Running from the east to the west where we were standing, the roof of the structure was divided by a stripe of stained glass depicting scenes from old unicorn myths that predated the physical arrival of Celestia and Luna to Equestria.
“This is the place.”
“Assuming Granny Sweets isn’t as senile as she’s blind.” Gale drew Procellarum and held it in front of her. “I don’t get why this ‘Silhouette’ asked us to come here, though; it’s a shitty spot for an ambush. The old cathedrals all have great lines of sight and tons of open space. Is Silhouette another wizard I need to be worried about?”
“I can report with confidence that Silhouette is not a mage,” Guardian Angel chimed in, to my irritation.
For my part, I shook my head. “She’s a crystal earth pony. But—”
“An earth pony?” Gale’s hoof moved to her muzzle, failing to control her laughter.
“Gale, that’s not…” I let my warning trail off; it was obvious she wasn’t hearing me.
Her eyes were watered to the verge of crying before she finally got herself under control. “Sorry, I probably sound really racist.”
Gale, if you’re reading this, I knew that isn’t how you meant it. And as if for the benefit of other readers, I indicated that knowledge by replying, “I understand. Magic and flight are big advantages in combat. But don’t underestimate Silhouette. She knows how to hide in plain sight, for lack of a better term. I have no idea how she does it. And she wears a void crystal, so we won’t be able to just blast her with magic.”
“A void crystal?” Gale cocked her head.
I nodded. “You know how lodestone works? How it ‘eats’ magic? Well, a void crystal about the size of a bit eats about the same amount of magic as a cottage made of lodestone.”
Gale’s eyes widened. “Alright… Well, I guess just stunning her is out of the question then. New plan: you blow a hole in the wall and we’ll catch her by surprise. I’ll get Procellarum up to her throat, you grab Graargh, and teleport out. Then we’ll all meet up by the docks.”
I shook my head. “Gale… how do I put this? I don’t have a lot of magic left over. See—”
As I write this, I scream in exceptionally articulate fury at my younger self. Understand this, hero of tomorrow: pride is never worth dying over. I can at least live with the fact that I gave Gale some manner of warning, but this story could have ended much worse because of my proud choice not to explain how my next spell would function for me similarly to a healthy cocktail of whisky and opium.
Gale lifted a hoof to the door, and then paused. “I don’t want some long-ass explanation like I seem to get every time I ask you a question. Scrap blowing in the wall. I’ll deal with Silhouette. You grab Graargh and teleport as far as you can. Is the rock any good in a fight?”
“I am not equipped to engage in violence, Lady Gale. I merely supplement Master Coil’s mana supply. Or, at least, I do so when not already emptied of my mana stores.”
“Not a big deal. Good to know. Follow me.” And with that, my traveling companion lowered her shoulder and ignited her horn. With the considerable combined effort of her body weight and telekinesis, we entered the cathedral of Lübuck.
The cathedral began with a small entry room filled with features far less extravagant than the structure itself: a few sturdy wooden benches, a musty tapestry, two candelabras, a pair of doors into the cathedral proper, and the unconscious body of some elderly priest. Gale gave the unfortunate stallion a glance with a raised brow, but otherwise just stepped over him.
I gave the stallion more attention. He looked a bit like a peach at a farmer’s market, if it were a balding gray-coated earth pony stallion of about a hundred years old. That is to say, he was unbruised and unblemished.
“Gale,” I called out. “Hold on. Something’s wrong here.”
Gale shrugged. “He was in the way, she knocked him out.”
“Without punching him? Where’s the bruise?”
“Well, I’m not going digging around through his cassock. Stay close.” Still holding Procellarum close, Gale flung open the cathedral’s main doors with her hooves.
Inside, easily a hundred rows of wooden pews flanked a wide pathway between the entrance and an elaborate three-stage dais at the far side of the room. Overhead, through the ribbon of stained glass that divided the white marble dome, the setting sun painted a glimmering portrait on the far wall of Celestia and Luna vanquishing some serpentine horror I didn’t recognize. Somehow sleeping, or more likely unconscious, Graargh rested in the form of a rather large grizzly bear. His rough brown fur was cast in the flickering lights of easily a hundred dribbly wax candles in addition to the sunlight streaming through the stained glass.
Silhouette sat calmly over Graargh. She was just as deliberately beautiful as she’d been for the years I’d known her. Her carefully hoof-polished coat glittered in the immense light of the room, emphasizing the stark lines where her fitted leather armor clung to her form.
I followed Gale’s tentative stride with more hesitant steps, letting my eyes sweep the room for some sign of Silhouette’s subordinates or some kind of trap. All I saw were worn pews and half-spent candles dominating a chamber otherwise defined by its enormous open space.
“You’re the bitch who took Graargh?”
Silhouette gave a smooth gesture toward the grizzly bear at her hooves, like a maitre’d proffering an elaborate dish. “I thought Coil would choose to hang around smarter ponies.” Graceful slow steps on slender legs saw Silhouette prance down off the dais toward us, sparkling with every pace. “Oh, but that’s right. You call him… Morty, is it?” She shrugged. “Doesn’t seem to match up with such a handsome stallion.”
Yes, really.
“Hey!” Gale stomped a hoof. “Look, bitch—”
“Commander Silhouette,” my nemesis gently corrected.
Gale slashed Procellarum across the marble floor. Stone melted and cracked with a sound like an earthquake in a thunderstorm. I took a small moment of joy from Silhouette’s concerned expression. “Do I look like I give a fuck what your name is? Just get the hell away from Graargh, and I won’t have to kick your ass.”
Silhouette raised a brow. “Gale, has Coil told you why I went through all this trouble to bring you here?”
“He killed Wintershimmer. He told me.”
“Coil told you? He admitted it?”
“No, the geezer did.”
I held up a defensive hoof. “Hold on with those claims. I only ripped out his soul; I could have fixed that. Silhouette’s the one who stabbed him!”
“How, exactly, are you proposing I got past all the magic and golems he protected himself with?” Silhouette asked, sitting down just to free her forelegs for folding sternly across her chest.
“The same way you used to break into my room that’s locked with magic.”
Silhouette sighed. “Morty, you had a window.”
“Over a seventy foot sheer crystal wall!”
“Because of course you can raise the dead and make rocks come to life, but my being halfway good at climbing is somehow impossible.”
“Will you two just shut up and fuck?!” Gale rolled her eyes. “I honest-to-Celestia could not give less of a shit who killed that old asshole right now. If you’re not going to give up Graargh, we might as well stop wasting time and I’ll shove this sword up your ass.”
I watched Silhouette nod, and then calmly unfold her forehooves and clap once. Her confidence could have been intimidating to a pony of lesser will, but what most concerned me was the potential meaning of the motion. Immediately, I cast my eyes to looking for some Crystal ambush or some mercenary company leaping out from behind pews. Instead, I saw something infinitely more worrying.
Behind us, the candles began to melt. Pooling together, the dribbling wax gathered into four distinct puddles, separating us from the door.
“Uh… ahem. Gale?”
“What the fuck is it, Morty?”
“A problem.”
By the time I got Gale to turn around, the waxy puddles were visibly rising from the floor, well on their way to recognizable equine forms. Without real faces, they stared at us. As I watched, slender horns of wax emerged from their foreheads, and on the tip of each, a tiny wick appeared before sparking into a tiny flame.
Gale took two steps toward them, Procellarum raised, before Silhouette cleared her throat. “That’s far enough. I don't want anypony except Coil getting hurt." She tilted her head slightly and a little clue to a grin emerged at the corner of her cheek, reminding me just how uncomfortable it looks to observe a crystal pony with dimples. "And even in his case, I'd prefer we both had some fun with it."
"Silhouette, I'm still not interested in being your coltfriend."
She rolled her eyes. "Don't flatter yourself, Coil. Every time you start talking, I get sick. I only want you for your body, while it's still warm and in one piece. So let's lay this out simple; I know how much you love 'pure logic'. You've been running from Jade and I for long enough, and neither of us can really keep up with your teleportation. I can't really stop you, even now that I've got you exactly where I want you. However..." She took a moment to pause for effect.
"However, if I don't come quietly, you're going to murder an Equestrian?" I made a show of shaking my head. "A nine-ish-year-old colt?"
Gale coughed into her hoof. "Morty... she might not know that."
"Oh!" With grandiose showponyship, I sat down on my flank, picked up my forehooves, and clapped heavily for her. "Well, Silhouette, in that case, you had a great plan. Honestly, if he really were a grizzly bear, this would have worked perfectly. Wintershimmer might have even admired it." Silhouette spat on the ground in disgust, which gave me a little surge of joy that almost, almost pierced through my ever growing nervousness. "Unfortunately for you, the little guy you've got on the altar isn't some rampaging grizzly bear I recruited. He's actually a little colt. Nine years old, or so. If I was actually right that I saw you just before the brawl in the tavern yesterday, you'd have seen him with me. You see, Graargh's a werebear."
Silhouette blinked twice. Through both laborious motions, her mouth hung wide open. "A... werebear?"
I nodded. "Magical disease, runs in the blood."
"What matters," Gale picked up, "is that you're a soldier for the Crystal Union, and you're threatening an Equestrian civilian's life on Equestrian soil. So when Morty teleports out of here and runs down into the city, you and your stupid wax ponies are just gonna let me take Graargh and leave."
Gale turned to me. After a good few seconds of total silence, she nodded. "Well?"
"Well, Gale, that would be a bad idea. I’d pass out."
Silhouette chose that moment to break out into laughter. "Really, Coil? You came here without any spells left?"
I ground my teeth together at her mockery.
Gale sputtered. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? You're the one talking about how you're this super unicorn. Teleport!"
"He actually can't!" Silhouette managed to bark out. "Oh, this is fantastic. You came in here talking about how close my plan was, and..." Her words devolved into a rich, honestly somewhat pleasant laughter that echoed around the room.
"Gale, I can only cast three spells in a day. Well, more-or-less; picking up my silverware doesn't count. But today I already seanced Wintershimmer, and then I broke his spell when he was choking you."
"And you waited until now to tell me this?"
I snapped at Gale. "First off, I don't like to talk about it, okay? I don't spend my whole day asking you about your secret family issues!"
Everypony has memories they regret, or so I’m told. I imagine an entrepreneurial wizard could make quite a living getting rid of them. For my actions above, I’d certainly be a paying customer.
"My secret family issues aren't going to get us fucking killed!" Gale shouted back. "Fine! How do I kill the wax things?"
"...with my magic," I told her. "You can't stab them to death. They don't have a core like Angel. The magic is in the wax. Unless you can melt them all at once, you need necromancy. I'd need to rip out the artificial soul, or override it with something more powerful."
"Basically, you lose." Silhouette added. "Soldiers, move them to the wall. If the filly tries something, stun her. If Coil tries something, just kill him."
Gale and I paced backward toward a sheer wall, hedged in by the four Candlecorns. Gale insisted on a ponderous pace, and stored Procellarum in her mouth as she walked. At first, I thought she intended to fight that way. Then I heard her whisper around the sword.
"If your enemy isn't making mistakes, induce emotion..."
"Hmm?" I whispered back, keeping my lips sealed through the noise.
"What pisses her off?"
I let my closed lips slip just a bit to make my point in the harshest and most forceful whisper my throat could muster. "We're being held up by four golems made by the best necromancer who's lived for a thousand years. You want to piss off the pony controlling them on purpose?"
"If you've got a better plan, now's the fucking time."
I snorted my disapproval. "Compare her to Hurricane."
"Why?"
"She's never been in a war."
My flanks hit the cold marble. I felt a chill run up my back beneath my jacket.
Gale pulled Procellarum out from between her teeth and glared at Silhouette. "So that's it? Kidnap somepony's friend and hold them hostage?"
"Don't be a little filly, Equestrian. This way, nopony has to get hurt. Well, except Coil, but that's sort of the point."
My friend gave a little nod. "I guess I'm just surprised the 'Commander' of the Crystal Union can't fight one apprentice wizard face-to-face."
Silhouette shook her head. "You and I both know the adorable stallion to your left there isn't just 'some apprentice wizard'."
"No," Gale answered. "But I'm sure Typhoon could take him in a fight. Let alone fucking Hurricane."
I watched Silhouette's expression darken. "I prefer a little bit of subtlety to brute force."
"I guess that works for you too, sometimes. But Morty and I kicked another sneaky little shit's ass just yesterday. Tempest's only a scout, though. Not the Commander of an entire nation’s military."
Sihlouette rolled her eyes and let her ears fall back against her mane. "So Coil told you how to get on my nerves. Cute. What's your game? You want me to beat you down one-on-one? Do you think Coil will think it's romantic that you're fighting for his life?"
Gale's tail whipped back and forth, making it obvious that her plan was backfiring. "I'm here for the colt! I don't give a fuck how hot he is! I'm not doing this because I'm horny!"
"So you do admit I look good?"
Gale actually turned away from the impending battle for the sole purpose of looking me squarely in the eyes as she slapped me across the face.
"You're not so bad looking yourself," I grumbled sarcastically, rubbing my bruised cheek as I spoke.
Silhouette rolled her neck, producing the sound of stones grating together, and a series of earthquake-like pops that echoed around the room. "Alright, Gale. Let's play. Golems, if Coil's horn lights up, kill him. Leave the filly to me."
"Alright, bitch, let's dance." Without anything remotely resembling patience, Gale rushed forward.
At first, I was astounded that Gale's plan had somehow succeeded. That fact was especially surprising given that Silhouette had even called out the fact that she was being goaded.
When Silhouette reached out with her naked hoof and slapped aside a slash from Procellarum, I started to see where my logic had failed.
Standing a good two strides away from the actual action, Gale guided Hurricane's sword in three more rapid slashes. Silhouette jumped back from the first two, then slapped away the sword with the back of her hoof and rolled beneath the misaligned weapon.
In mere seconds, Gale was struggling to hold back Silhouette's onslaught of jabs and swipes. Their imbalance was immediately obvious. Silhouette was bigger, stronger, faster, and had the immense advantage of a gemstone coat that let her outright ignore the hardest of Gale's punches. As I watched, Silhouette's hooves met Gale's brow and put a bleeding cut on her shoulder in the time that it took the unicorn mare to even get a hoof up in her own defense.
Gale finally managed to dodge an incoming jab, and then swung around her left foreleg with a blow that would have knocked me out cold.
Silhouette didn't even bother blocking. Gale's hoof made a little 'click' and visibly bounced off of her opponent. In the opening the failed blow had left, Silhouette delivered an uppercut that picked Gale's forelegs up off of the floor.
When Gale landed, it was in a rolling, crumpled heap of limbs that only came to a stop when her back smacked into a wooden pew. To my surprise, and obviously to Silhouette's, through the whole vicious blow Gale had maintained her telekinetic grip on Procellarum.
The infamous sword dug into Silhouette's back. It wasn't a particularly deep wound, but the fact that the crystal mare gasped in pain at all was a surprise to me. I knew how hard it was to leave a meaningful scar on the young soldier. It took nothing less than Wintershimmer's magic to place the cracks that dominated her muzzle.
Despite the blow, though, Silhouette seemed unimpeded. With speed that made her look more like a post-impressionistic paint blur than a living rock, Silhouette rounded on the floating sword. As she began what I can only describe as boxing the weapon, I set my mind to work. I was used to working with limited magic, and defeating Silhouette and four immensely powerful golems that I had crafted alongside Wintershimmer didn't seem outside the realm of my considerable talents. Doing so with zero spells, however, presented a challenge. Though I had one spell left in me, I had no doubt the candlecorns would not hesitate to kill me the second I passed out, supposing I even got my spell off before their lethal magic hit me.
As I fought a battle of wits with four opponents that quite literally had none, Gale continued her battle of 'throwing random objects one finds in an elaborate but largely abandoned cathedral at the mare with the magic-eating necklace'. Silhouette's exposure of her back in the process of protecting herself from Procellarum left her quite open to Gale's assaults with whatever she could find in the immediate vicinity. As I watched, Silhouette was struck with a series of increasingly elaborate candelabras, a chandelier, and then finally an entire wooden pew. Only the last blow seemed to faze her, and even that was more of a physical shift to her posture than any sign of an actual wound.
Silhouette rounded on Gale. In two almost feline leaps she closed what should have been a dozen strides of distance. Gale hopped backward too late, and took another blow to the face. The jab left her wavering in place, and by the time she seemed to recover her balance, she'd taken another two blows to the chest.
This time, Gale had braced herself for the onslaught. Without hesitation, she brought Procellarum back into the fray. Silhouette knew the weapon was dangerous, and devoted the lion's share of her attention to it. Yet even as she focused on the sword and Gale struck at her exposed side, I knew where the fight was headed.
"Angel," I hissed.
My golem floated over to me. "Master Coil? It appears that I've been most unhelpful to you in leading--"
"Not the time!" I snapped in a hoarse whisper. "Listen very closely..."
As I issued my instructions, I watched Gale and Silhouette for the opportune moment. The tide of the battle, however, ensured that my moment never arrived. As Silhouette faced off against Procellarum, Gale delivered a fierce blow to the open wound the sword had left on the crystal mare's back.
With a howl of audible pain, Silhouette planted both her forelegs on the ground. Procellarum was swinging down for her brow, but she didn't seem to care. Both her hind legs rose up together, reared up and tensed. Even with her crystal coat, the power of the taut muscles beneath could not have been missed.
The two-hoofed buck straight to Gale's chin was more than enough to shatter her grip on her floating sword. For the moment, at least, I feared it was enough to shatter her entire jaw as well. Gale flipped backwards through the air, and the heavy thud of her body smacking against the marble floor held a fine contrast to the clattering of Procellarum's blade as it rattled to a stop.
Before Gale could stand, Silhouette reached up to her neck. A violent tug snapped the leather cord holding her void crystal amulet around her throat. With deft hooves, she wrapped the thin leather and the dark gemstone around the handle of Hurricane's sword. The result was obvious: Gale could no longer lift it. The fight was over.
"Now," I whispered to Angel, and with a steady hoof, I took hold of his halos. Rendered no more than a unusually smooth igneous stone, my hoof-crafted golem flew straight toward the closest candlecorn. With an audible 'plop', it sunk into the wet wax.
Silhouette turned her head from Gale's direction, and took immediate notice that I was holding the metal rings that formerly signified Angel's presence. "Soldiers! Kill him!"
I braced myself with a single breath and smirked as three vibrant bolts of magic flew my way. A little too close to my face, the fire-colored spells dissipated against a similarly fire-colored shield.
"Master Coil, this is fantastic! I had no idea having so much power could feel so... exhilarating!" Angel's voice emerged from within the fourth Candlecorn in a tone that was bubbly and swampy, a far cry from his usual tinny ring.
"Gale!" I shouted. "Angel! Both of you, get over here!"
Since my orders were hardly secret, it comes as no surprise that the Candlecorns turned their attention to my companions. Angel's wax body simply ignored the two magical blasts that tore through it, and at an almost leisurely pace, he stepped inside the shield his own horn-like candle was creating.
Gale faced a harder challenge. As yet another fiery spell soared across the cathedral, I was amazed to see Gale throw up a sturdy rose-colored shield of her own. For a mare who didn't know how to teleport, she had an excellent grasp of the fairly complex systems necessary to disperse the raw energy of the golem's magic. Still, she wasted no time getting inside our shield as well.
Outside, Silhouette paced like a cat. "Keep casting," she calmly ordered her three remaining golems. "Let Coil's pet keep its attention on its shield." After a few moments of watching us, she turned back to where Procellarum was resting.
"Gale, do you still have some telekinesis in you?" I asked hurriedly.
"Yeah, I'm..." For a moment, I saw her wince in some leftover pain. "It's just bruises," she explained before I could ask. "Why?"
"Pick up a pew with your magic. Use the other end to pick up your sword, like the pew is a giant spoon. That way, your magic should be far enough away that her void crystal can't eat it."
Silhouette must have heard me, as she broke into a run. However, even at a sprint, she couldn't outrun Gale's magic. A pew flew across the room, smacking Silhouette across the back of the head as it moved, before lowering down to Procellarum and lifting it high above Silhouette's reach.
"Clever," Silhouette deadpanned. "Alright, Coil, now I have to wait slightly longer to grab you. I imagine you'll teleport away at the last second too?"
"No point," I told her. "I taught the Candlecorns how to track teleportation."
She smiled. "That must really feel awful. Putting so much work into a project and having it turn against you. You know, I wonder if that was how Wintershimmer felt."
"He didn't kill Wintershimmer on purpose, you stupid bitch!" Gale shouted.
Silhouette shrugged. "Wintershimmer's ghost said he did to my face. But honestly, I don't really care either way. See, with Wintershimmer out of the way, bringing you in is going to make me look great in front of Queen Jade."
"Of course it's about fucking politics." Gale made an elaborate show of groaning and rolling her eyes.
I felt an uncomfortably hot and decidedly wet hoof touch my shoulder, and turned to see the blank face of Angel's new body staring back at me with a complete lack of facial features. "Er... Master Coil. I'm afraid I'm beginning to feel something of a drain..."
"I know. I'm still thinking. Sorry, Angel. Um..." I coughed into my hoof.
"It's hopeless." Silhouette taunted. "But by all means, take your time. I've got nowhere better to be."
"Start walking toward Graargh, maybe?" Gale asked.
I nodded, and the three of us made our slow progression toward the unconscious grizzly bear. To my surprise, Silhouette didn't even bother trying to stop us. She merely watched, enjoying my growing desperation and the continued rhythm of powerful magic flashing against the outside of the shield.
Not moments after we took hold of Graargh and pulled him through the dancing orange magic of the shield, one of the other candlecorns' spells sent a jittering crack through the magic of the shield. Then a second blast spread it.
"Gale, put a shield up!"
Only three seconds before the orange shield shattered, a smaller dome of Gale's rose magic surrounded us. Immediately, I saw the strain that the magic was putting on her. Gale's eyes lost focus, her shoulders sagged, and her ears drooped. "I don't know how long..."
Nearby, a floating pew smacked against the ground. Silhouette smiled, walking over to where Procellarum was now finally in her reach. "Looks like that's the game, Coil. I'll admit you and your friends worked well."
Silhouette was standing between us and the doors, brandishing her void crystal. With a simple touch, Gale's shield would shatter, and that would be the end of us. I glanced around the room, but I saw no sign of other exits. The stained glass windows were too high off the ground to jump through, and the only other features in the walls were the two insets that sat beneath the cathedral's bell towers.
One of the candlecorns was standing near the nearer of the two bell-tower slots in the wall. Its hollow burning eyes watched me as it cast an unrelenting barrage of spells against Gale’s shield, but I noticed something entirely subtle. To my eye, it seemed like the golem winked at me. A moment later, it nodded its head toward the space beneath the belltower. The motion was so subtle that, at the time, I thought nothing of it. It was only later I would remember the subtle cue.
"Angel, help me with Graargh. Gale, walk that way." I pointed toward the nearer of the two bell towers, and together we started a slow limp. "I don't want you out in the open when I finish this."
"Oh, so you are actually going to try and go out in a blaze of glory. For a moment, I was worried you'd forgotten about being a storybook 'good guy'. You do know you aren't sacrificing yourself for anything, right? I'm not gonna kill your friends either way."
"I know..." I grunted under Graargh's unconscious weight. As Gale's now lightly cracking magic settled into the space beneath the belltower, I lowered Graargh to the floor and turned to look Silhouette square in the eyes. "I was just worried that if you thought I had a plan that involved standing in this exact spot, you'd have rushed forward with the void crystal and broken our shield."
"What--?"
"Angel, Gale, catch this as low to the floor as you can. And please try not to get us crushed."
Tilting my head so that my horn was aligned straight upward, I let my magic surge. As darkness swam into my vision at the use of my third and final spell for that day--and perhaps forever, if my plan went horribly wrong--I grabbed onto the largest bell I could see far overhead. In a surge of brute telekinesis, I ripped the titanic dome of metal off of its beam. As the last of my consciousness faded, I guided it toward us, keeping its open end facing straight downward and hoping desperately that its walls wouldn't land on top of Gale, Graargh, or myself.
The darkness of unconsciousness left me with a sickening cliffhanger.