There was a moment of worry as Sumac swallowed more of the zap apple tincture. He looked into Twilight’s eyes, and doing so, he saw pain, fear, and worry. This was taking a toll on her, no doubt. He felt his stomach gurgle a bit and he wished that he had something to eat. This was taking a toll on him too, all of this passive magic he was doing was draining him.
He didn’t dare complain though. This wasn’t the time for whining and complaining. Twilight had a broken leg and he had a few gurgles in his tummy. Nope, it wasn’t worth bringing it up. If Twilight could suffer, so could he. He did wonder what Big Mac might do in this situation and the thinking part of his brain was glad for a distraction.
“We’re close,” Twilight said, “it feels like we’re right on top of it. We’ve been close for a while… ever since we found the statue of Megan and Firefly. I think what we are looking for is just beyond that door.” As she spoke, she turned her head and looked at the rust free iron doors that barred their way. “Sumac, do you feel it?”
Sumac nodded. He felt it alright. Something terrible lurked behind the door. He wasn’t afraid, but all six of his own senses were reacting to whatever was beyond. Having been tethered to Twilight now for quite some time, his understanding of magic was growing beyond his level of comprehension. He had a better understanding of shield spells, of fear wards, his brain burned with new knowledge. But more than anything, his magic sense had grown. He had trouble dealing with his profound new strength. It was, like any other of his senses, easy to become overwhelmed, such as a strong, bitter taste or a wretched, eye watering stench.
“We would have never made it this far without that lantern,” Starlight said to the others. “I’m not sure that Twilight could dispel the fear that is being generated. Whatever lies beyond, it’s powerful.”
“Are we going to have to fight it?” Sumac asked.
“Probably,” Starlight replied in a voice that didn’t sound too worried or concerned.
If Starlight wasn’t concerned, then Sumac figured he shouldn’t be concerned either, but it was no simple matter to tell his brain to stop worrying. The mind tended to worry even when told not to. He glanced at the door, then at his lantern. The warm glow of the lantern made him feel better. It was like carrying sunlight around with him.
It would be okay.
Castle Midnight might be filled with darkness, but Sumac brought the day with him. Distracted, he began to study the lantern while the others prepared. There were some ornamental brass knobs on it, a switch, and a cover that slid in place. He wondered what the knobs did, he was overwhelmed with curiousity, but now was not the time to experiment. They all needed the lantern to shine, and he didn’t want to mess anything up or make it go dark.
“Think the door will open?” Trixie asked in a hushed whisper.
“Of course it will,” Twilight replied in a soft voice. “Whatever lies beyond wants us to come. I think by now, after all this time, we are expected.”
“That’s not creepy at all.” Trixie let out a little snort and then smoothed back her mane.
“Well, let’s go in there and give whatever is waiting on us the business.” Starlight gave herself a shake and then brushed off some cobwebs from her haunches. She flicked her tail, trying to be rid of the dust and filth of this place, and then looked at Sumac. “Don’t worry Sumac, we’re professionals.”
“Professional whats?” Sumac asked with wide-eyed innocence.
“Why, doing whatever it is that we do,” Starlight replied with a wink. “Let’s go.”
The doors opened without effort and the ancient hinges, which somehow hadn’t rusted, let out a moaning creak that made Sumac’s ears stand up in alarm. It was loud, too loud, and the door was announcing their presence. He found that he hated the door just a little bit. Was it too much to ask that the hench-whatevers of evil do a little basic maintenance on the place?
It smacked of laziness, which Sumac loathed. Something about it bothered him on some deep, fundamental level, and he supposed it was because he was an Apple. The right sort of Apple. He tried not to think about his father, but his brain was buzzy and his thoughts were racing.
This was the reason why good was always triumphant; they performed basic maintenance and kept things in good working order. He held his lantern aloft and tried to peer ahead into the darkness. The sphere of light offered by the lantern ended in a rather abrupt manner and there was only impenetrable darkness ahead.
Starlight led the way, her horn blazing, charged up and ready to go. Trixie followed along, carrying Twilight in her magic. Twilight, supercharged, kept a protective bubble around Sumac and carried him. The magical tether connecting them crackled.
A new understanding lept into Sumac’s mind, a profound new understanding about shield spells. Without knowing or understanding how he was doing it, he felt his magic surge and join with Twilight’s magic, a strange new symbiosis. Twilight’s magenta shield bubble changed, it fizzled and crackled with overcharged arcane energy, and became the shape of an apple. A zap apple. Rainbow light flickered through the shield and static crackled over its surface.
Somehow, Sumac knew he wasn’t capable of making a shield like this, it was just his magic interacting with Twilight’s. Already, his buzzy brain began to wonder what would happen if his magic joined with the magic of others and what new spell effects might come from it. That was his purpose, to enhance others, to amplify them and make them better. Twilight’s innate understanding of magic coursed through his brain as his bond with her grew stronger, their magic intermingling. That was also a part of his magic, a little give and take, by amplifying others, he gained some of their understanding of magic. His heightened intelligence began to think of the possibilities that could come from this.
And Twilight’s innate understanding of magic knew what this was, and its purpose.
Sorcery.
Not sorcery as it had come to be known, magic, or a practitioner of magic, but sorcery. One who did impressive, powerful magic and did so without learning, one who absorbed the knowledge of magic from those around them.
His thoughts were interrupted as the darkness all around them retreated, and sickly green light blazed from eldritch fire all around. Blinking, Sumac was not prepared for what he saw, not at all, and he let out a shrill cry that would be a source of cringeworthy embarrassment for weeks to come.
A terrifying skeletal dragon stood before them, its body burning with diseased looking green flames. Spectral shackles bound the dragon, securing all four legs to the ground. An uncountable number of bones lay all around it.
The dragon wasted no time, it opened up its mouth and breathed. Sumac was certain that he was about to discover what toast felt like. Much to his surprise, the air didn’t grow hot, but cold. Even with the lantern, it grew absolutely frigid. Sumac could see his breath as the freezing dragonbreath crackled against the shield around him.
The shield which was now around all of the others as well. The three mares stood huddled together as the freezing blue fire blazed all around them, sucking the heat from the air. The zap apple charged shield held—Sumac somehow knew it that it was doing more than blocking the hostile magic, it was absorbing it, but it would only last so long. He felt himself growing tired, this was draining him in a most terrible way.
When the flames died down, Starlight’s horn blazed with aetherial fire as she began weaving spells, powerful spells, Sumac could sense them, feel them, she was drawing from him as well and he found his mind tapping into her understanding. Where Twilight had finesse, her magic had poise, Starlight was all about brute force. Twilight was a nudge to make a pony stumble, while Starlight was a buck to the face.
She let rip and a fierce blast of silvery light impacted the skeletal dragon. Sumac understood the magic at work now, disruption magic, and he gained some insight into its very nature as it conflicted with necromantic energies. The two magics were the different sides of the same coin and Sumac had some vague new insight into their workings. When disruption magic encountered necromantic magic, it was like trying to drive two magnets together and encountering the invisible forces that pushed them apart.
How many drops had Twilight given him? He couldn’t recall.
Several wing bones were torn free from the dragon and it let out a roar. Starlight was already powering up another attack, and Trixie was weaving some complicated spell. Sumac tuned into it, Trixie was drawing from him, and his mind swam with difficult to understand concepts. Trixie was going to cast a spell that would lower the undead dragon’s magical resistance, making it vulnerable to Starlight’s attacks.
The entire cavern shook and the ground beneath them shuddered. That was when Sumac saw them; cadaverous undead. They were gooey, somewhat preserved, and they began to shamble right at him to defend their dragon master. Creatures of all types had fallen down into these bleak, black depths, had died, and were now minions of the terrible evil that was Castle Midnight.
Trixie, having cast her lower resistance spell, now let go with a few waves of flame, which ignited the gooey zombies and set them ablaze while pushing them back. Terrified, Sumac tried to close his eyes, but he couldn’t look away. He willed the lantern to glow brighter, to push back the undead, and much to his surprise, the lantern responded.
Brilliant light flared from the three sides. A pegasus, an earth pony, and a unicorn shaped beam of light all blazed in three different directions, forming outlines on the nearby walls. These outlines sprang to life, beings of light and warmth. The unicorn began firing off lances of light from its horn, the earth pony went into the mob kicking, and the pegasus took to the air, and it shone like the sun. It flew circles around the dragon’s head, harassing the terrible undead beast.
The dragon, incensed, blasted out a gout of necromantic cold fire. It struck the flying pegasus made of light, who then exploded in a blaze of intense heat. The blast bowled several of the gooey undead from their feet (or hooves as the case may be) and the undead dragon took damage as well.
The pegasus was gone, but its companions battled on.
Starlight let fly another beam of disruption, this time striking the dragon in the ribcage. Bones flew away, crumbling into dust, and the dragon’s left foreleg was torn free by the blast. She focused on the dragon while Trixie worked to deal with the minions. Sumac was surprised by how well they worked together. There was skill here, and it was fascinating to watch as it happened.
The dragon breathed again, this time aiming for the earth pony made of light. The freezing flames hit the illuminated being and there was a massive explosion again as the two magical opposites cancelled each other out. The force of the blast was too much for Sumac’s enhanced shield and the brilliant rainbow bands that infused Twilight’s shield spell vanished.
Meanwhile, Twilight seemed even more supercharged by the magical absorption. While Sumac’s spell enhancement might be gone, her own shield seemed stronger than ever. Twilight glowed, infused with the massive influx of magic she had gained from the explosion. Her eyes burned with white brilliance and wisps of pure thaumaturgic energy arced along her feathers. Even her hooves radiated shimmering waves of magic that warped the air around them like heat rising from stone on a summer day.
Were Twilight not so focused on defense, there was no doubt that she could obliterate the skeletal dragon in a single blast. She was calm, focused, she kept her breathing regulated, never doubting, never wavering in her belief that she could keep others safe.
“At least it isn’t a dracolich,” Starlight said as she let go of another spell.
The undead dragon was in real trouble now. Big pieces of it fell away with each of Starlight’s shots. One of the spectral shackles had vanished when the leg had been torn free. Starlight, who had noticed this, focused on the legs. The unicorn made of light exploded, brought down by the horde of undead. The resulting explosion destroyed many of the zombies and Trixie rained fire down upon the survivors.
Sumac didn’t know what a dracolich was, and he didn’t want to find out.
One of Starlight’s blasts impacted with the undead dragon’s spine and there was an explosion of chaotic magical energy. Everything shook and the cadaverous undead exploded, spewing rot and filth everywhere. The dragon began to crumble and the last spectral shackle holding it in place faded away. Aetherfire crackled, fizzled, and popped. There was a blinding, bewildering display of light and then, Sumac went blind.
Blinking, Sumac tried to focus his vision. There was now too much light. He squinted and could see the cavern around him. There were no more zombies, no more dragon, but there was something. Standing on a raised stone platform, the place where the spectral shackles had been anchored, was a glowing spectral pony.
An earth pony, by the looks of it.
“Thank you,” the spectral form said in a soft voice. “You’ve freed me… I don’t know how you did it, but you did. I thought I would be that way forever.”
Sumac’s ears stood up. Something about that voice, it rang in his ears. It called to him like nothing else, and he didn’t know why. He kept blinking, trying to clear his vision, and he attempted to focus on the spectral pony. She was… orange and there was something about her that was familiar.
“You were the dragon?” Starlight asked in a bewildered voice.
“I see you have Megan’s lantern,” the spectral orange earth pony said. “She promised that she would save me when Hydia grabbed me. I kind of lost hope after the years rolled by.”
“What happened?” Starlight asked.
The earth pony ghost yawned. “I’m so sleepy… and I get silly when I’m sleepy. I’ve missed being a silly pony.” She yawned again, smacked her lips, and then added, “I knew Megan and Firefly would find a way to save me.”
And then, she was gone. As she vanished, Sumac noticed her cutie mark. Five apples. He felt a crushing weight in his barrel and at that moment, more than anything, he wanted to start bawling. That pony, whomever she was, was an Apple. A distant cousin of his. And she had endured a terrible fate.
“She was the dragon? How? I don’t understand.” Starlight, confused, stood there shaking her head as she stared at the ash pile that had been an undead dragon and an army of zombies just a few moments ago.
“We have company.”
As Twilight spoke, a new figure appeared in the cavernous crypt. Turning, Sumac saw it. Some kind of bipedal cat creature. She didn’t appear to be alive. She was hideous, rotting, bones were visible and patches of her fur had fallen away. She wasn’t gooey though, no, she was dried out like a dehydrated apricot.
“I feel I must thank you for destroying the null golem,” the creature said as she stood with her skeletal claws held out before her. “And for getting rid of the guardian. It will make my task so much easier.”
“Catrina,” Twilight said in a voice filled with contempt. “I’m surprised to see you. I heard that Tarnish, Maud, Daring Do, and Cranberry dusted you.”
The undead cat creature hissed and spat. “They destroyed but one phylactery. I have others.”
“I see,” Twilight replied, “well then, we’ll have to fix that. I’ll be sure to let them know.”
“When I claim the Rainbow of Darkness for my master, they will learn the error of their ways.” Catrina’s claws began to glow and her rotten tail swished from side to side. Some of the tattered rags around her body fell away, revealing more diseased, dessicated flesh.
“Why are you helping him?” Trixie asked. “What do you hope to gain?”
“He had promised to make me beautiful once more… he is far more powerful than I. And when he is resurrected, I shall once again be the most beautiful creature in all the land.”
“Lady,” Sumac said in a flat deadpan, “there is no known force of magic that could make you beautiful again. It’s a lost cause.”
For a moment, it was possible to have heard a pin drop in the room. The very worst sort of silence manifested, murderous silence. Catrina’s rotten eyes narrowed and focused on Sumac, and her claws flexed. Then, she let out a wordless yowl and attacked.
Powerful magic ripped into Twilight’s shields and Sumac feared that they would not hold. Black lightning bolts flew from Catrina’s claws and a dreadful aura of purple light blazed around her. Starlight fired off a bolt of disruption, but it did nothing.
“YOU WILL DIE!” Catrina shrieked, her voice cracking from pain and fury.
The black lightning was doing something to Twilight’s shields, Sumac could feel them weakening. Twilight was straining to keep them up. Trixie brought up a shield as well, and then began to work on another spell. Starlight kept firing off beams of silver light, but her attacks did nothing.
“We have to go,” Twilight said in a strained voice.
“NO!” Starlight snapped. “We’re so close! If we leave now, she’ll get the artifact!”
“I promised to keep Sumac safe.” Twilight’s voice was one of utter calm. “If we stay, he will be in danger—”
“But we can take her if you use your magic to fight!” Starlight shouted.
“If I use my magic to fight, I can’t keep Sumac safe.” Twilight took a deep breath and a pained expression crossed her face as more black lightning surged through her shields. “Starlight, your friend is in very real danger.”
“You’re right.” Starlight blinked a few times and her eyes glimmered with tears. She ceased her own attacks and raised a glowing barrier to help hold off Catrina’s black lightning.
With Starlight and Trixie both contributing to the shield, Twilight pulled out the portal gem from her saddlebags so that she could activate it. Catrina yowled with rage and frustration, she spat and she cursed. Black lightning streamed from one hand and now, a blue flame crackled from her other, and it made the shield spell spit and sizzle.
Sumac hoped that the shields would hold. He could feel them growing weaker. Try as he might, he couldn’t get the zap apple shield to manifest again. He squeezed his eyes shut, not knowing what might happen next. Once again, his mouth had gotten him into trouble, and his friends too.
“I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE WHELP!”
As Catrina spoke, Sumac felt reality warping all around him as the portal gem activated…