The Crown of Night

by Daedalus Aegle

Chapter 10: Impossible Things, Act Three

Long ago, two different worlds met and made a compact.

The desert had been a cruel sanctuary, where outcasts and feared creatures had fled into one of the few places where they would not be followed, because the land was all but barren and lifeless. For ages they clawed a meager survival from the wastes, until one came, driven by ambition, to offer a bargain to the queen of that land: open the sanctuary, and permit the mundanes to live therein, and in return the outcasts would be left alone and given a chance to share in the wealth.

In the heart of the land they met. They made a bargain, and drew up boundaries that all respected. They swore friendship eternal and exchanged gifts dear to the hearts of each: gifts of wealth and life.

In this way peace was forged between the mundanes and the monsters.

Time passed. The true ruler of the land watched as the new settlers grew in power, and spread farther and farther, and pressed against the boundaries they had drawn up. She watched as the compact slipped into history, forgotten by all but a few. She watched as her sanctuary grew hard, and hollow, and bitter.

Then there was a crime committed by the cousins of the settlers, in a distant land. The Queen howled for vengeance, but the settlers heeded her not, and the days grew cruel and hateful.

The compact was forgotten. The boundaries were broken, and the peace became frail and tattered.

In the heart of the desert, the Queen longed for that which was most dear to her heart to be brought back to her.

– – –

Impossible Things, Act Three
The Heart of the Desert.

– – –

“I told you I have a mission from the Princess of the Night,” Star Swirl said, still thinking on what Luna had said to him during the night. “I've been keeping the details to myself, but I think it's time I shared them.”

It was the morning after they were shut out of the city. They had emerged from their tents outside the city walls in the early hours, and sat eating while the sun was still below the horizon.

“Perhaps you should,” Womeluki agreed. “If I am to help you, I must know what we are working for.”

Star Swirl nodded. “This is the crux of it: something threatens the magical web that protects the world. I am trying to find out where, and how. There is a powerful magical artifact inside the Khalif's palace called the Sun Stone. It is the source of Saddle Arabia's power, and it is one of the nodes that keeps the web whole and true. I need to get inside and study it.”

“I know of the Sun Stone,” Womeluki said. “It sits in the most secure chamber deep within the palace, the Khalif's vault of treasures. None but the Khalif and his most esteemed counselors are permitted there, and all walls and the guardians of the palace keep it safe. How do you propose to reach it?”

“Well... The Khalif said he would let me back in and show it to me if I defeat the Queen of Golden Sands.”

Womeluki hesitated. “You realize that's just a common saying, akin to 'when pigs fly' or 'when Tartarus freezes over'?”

Star Swirl nodded. “But if I did, would he let me in?”

“He would probably give you half the kingdom! But that is not a challenge, Star Swirl, that is a death sentence.”

Victory or death. Star Swirl nodded. “You don't have to go with me. It's my mission. Help me find her lair, and I'll go in alone.”

“...The worst part is that you honestly believe what you're saying.” She muttered. “Very well. I will help you, and I will not have you face this evil alone. For the sake of our new friendship, I will accompany you on this voyage, unicorn. May the Great Spinner preserve us if this does not work.”

“I'm not sure I like the idea of being preserved by a spider god,” Star Swirl admitted, which made Womeluki chuckle. “But let's leave that aside for the moment. You know the ways of the desert. Do you know where the Queen has her home?”

“Yes and no,” Womeluki said. “It is the heart of the desert, and it cannot be reached by mortals. Even if you knew where it should be, on a map, if you do not know the keys and the hidden pathway you would find nothing but empty desert dunes.” She brushed a hoof through the sand thoughtfully. “But there are those who do know.”

“The ghouls,” Star Swirl said, and Womeluki nodded. “You said before that you were tracking the ghoul that attacked the caravan. You know their ways. Can you find one now?”

Womeluki narrowed her eyes. “It almost killed you, Star Swirl.”

“I know. This time I'll be ready for it.”

“...You continue to make me question my judgment,” Womeluki said. She sighed. “Very well. I will set to scrying, and see if I can find a track for us to follow. You do likewise, if you can.”

“There are some stars out still. I'll see if I can learn anything from them.”

“You ask the heavens.” She began to walk, dragging one hoof behind her until she had drawn a great circle in the sand. “I will ask the earth.”

Womeluki began to sing a song in her own language, a low dirge that spoke of jungles full of life and color. From under her cloak came one, two, three, four, five spiders of different breed and clambered down her leg, out onto the sand inside the circle. As one they began to crawl across it, leaving minute tracks that formed elaborate sigils, and Star Swirl noticed that within the circle the wind was entirely still: not a grain shifted from where it fell, whereas outside the desert moved unceasing.

In a minute, as Womeluki sang, the circle was covered in markings.

“Let the veil be lifted from my eyes,” she now muttered. “Find me one of the lost children of the sands!”

With that, the wind struck her like a whip, and within the circle the sigils were shredded and torn.

Womeluki stamped her hoof angrily, and the spiders crawled back inside her cloak. “Curse her... The Queen has warded her servants from scrying eyes. I do fear she has taken notice of our actions and pits her will against mine. What of you, are you finding anything?”

Star Swirl had been scouring the brightening desert sky as it moved in its eternal, seductive dance, whispering for it to show him its secrets. “Nothing.” He kicked at the sand and sat down on his rump. “Perhaps if it were darker I would see more clearly.”

“Do not ask for darkness. You may well get it.”

The sun was just beginning to rise above the horizon. Star Swirl pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes. “I think this land could stand to have a bit more darkness, myself.”

He watched as the stars faded out of sight in the morning light, and scowled. “It is only noise and clutter.” He sighed and kicked at the sand in frustration. “I don't understand this. I don't know what to look for, and what I see I cannot read. It's all a riddle to me.”

“Perhaps we are going about this the wrong way. Scrying is a delicate art, akin to love. It demands a certain sensitivity.”

Star Swirl raised an eyebrow. “You are a very strange zebra.”

Womeluki chuckled and continued. “There is so much about this land you do not understand, young one, It has a history as long and as varied as your own land, or any other land in the world. You are a stranger here.”

They moved into the shadow of a dune as they spoke. Star Swirl sat down with a sigh. “Help me to understand, then. You know about the ghouls. Tell me more about them.”

“There are stories told of the ghûl from before the first horses came to Saddle Arabia,” Womeluki began. “Even when there were no settlements here, before there was a nation, there were those who wandered the desert sands, wielding dark and forbidden magics.

“Some stories say they could change shape as they pleased, to better prey on the few, foolish travelers who dared cross the land in search of opportunity far from their homes. Other stories say they do not change their shape, but that the ghûl moves from body to body, taking control of another's mind and driving them to madness.

“The stories are beyond counting. It is told that they haunt forgotten places and unguarded paths, waiting for travelers to ensnare with their magic. Some are brutal, some deceiving... All are treacherous, and willing to kill. Many stories say that they are servants of a dark and terrible power.”

“The Queen of Golden Sands,” Star Swirl said.

Womeluki nodded. “Sometimes, a horse, or a goat, or a camel, or any manner of thing is born... different. Deformed. Tell me, Star Swirl, what do they do in your homeland, with pony babies that are not whole and true in body?”

Star Swirl remembered stories he had been told by the older foals in Edinspur as a child, and things he had read in the great library of Cambridle, and grimaced. “There are legends about monstrous creatures that steal away newborn foals and replace them with their own offspring... Unfinished imitations of ponies. Changelings. The legends never end happily.”

“Here, those unfortunates are thought to be the children of ghûl, dark omens foretelling of great unhappiness to come. Cast out from their parents' tribe, they lead lives of sorrow and uncertainty, not knowing who or what they are... until the desert calls them.” Her voice was cold as ice and sent a shiver along Star Swirl's spine, no matter what the desert heat had to say. “The sarāb, the madness of the desert, falls upon the inhabitants of Saddle Arabia in their moments of weakness and exhaustion, and lures them away from safety... So many of the weakest succumb, those who have none to speak for them. Some are killed. Some are taken by the Queen. A few come back, but they are never the same.”

“Doesn't the Khalif try to bring them back?” Star Swirl asked.

“The Khalif cares little for his lowest subjects,” Womeluki said bitterly. “The poor, the lame, the blind beggars in his streets lead their lives in squalor beneath his notice. Cast out from the safety of the cities, they can choose between death, and sarāb. To the desperate and the lonely, the desert promises relief... But the Queen only takes, and takes, and takes. I would see them overthrow their masters, and be free, in a place free of pain... Pain is easy to create, and it grows and stretches farther and farther, until it poisons even distant lands... until it poisons my own land, or even yours. I would see the Saddle Arabians create joy instead.”

Star Swirl pondered this silently. In the western sky, above the capital city, the last stars were fading, hiding from the unrelenting glare of the day. “Some things are the same everywhere... You're wrong, weaver: I do understand some things you don't.” Star Swirl got up on his hooves and looked again. “I understand darkness.”

This time he did not look for a powerful sorcerer, or a burst of magic of hate and vengeance. This time he looked for a child, confused, lost and lonely, and seeking answers.

It did not take long for him to find it.

“There is a lonely figure... that way,” he said, pointing east.

“A ghûl?”

Star Swirl nodded. “He wanders slowly in the desert, along a road that no-one else walks. I don't know how far from us he is.”

“The same sun is rising on us all,” Womeluki said. “We will find him.”

– – –

Before midday they crossed the ghoul's path, and where Star Swirl saw nothing Womeluki spotted the tracks and began to follow. In the end the tracks led them to the abandoned ruin of a village. “What is this place?” Star Swirl asked.

“Broken Blossom,” Womeluki replied. “This was once a large oasis, and lay on a rich trade route. Hundreds of Saddle Arabians lived here.” She spoke quietly as they walked. “But the winds changed, and the waters dried up, and the villagers fled. Now no-one comes here.”

“It is fitting then that we are searching for a no-one,” Star Swirl said.

They trotted silently through the ruins: walls slowly crumbling, the stone slowly being worn to nothing by the sandy wind. At the center of the ruins they looked over a wall to see a stallion. His face was haggard and worn. One of his hind legs was warped and misshapen, and dragged behind him. He limped slowly through the abandoned village, moving from broken stone wall to empty home as though searching for something.

His eyes were solid black, reflecting no light. He was alone, and all around him was silence.

“That must be him,” Star Swirl whispered.

“Yes,” Womeluki replied, pondering as she studied him. “This village must have been his home, before the Queen took him... How long ago was that, I wonder. How long in her service...?”

“It must have been very long,” Star Swirl said with a confident smile. “Compared to the prince, this one is old and frail. We can take him.”

“Patience and mercy, young one,” Womeluki chided.

“I know,” Star Swirl muttered. “We need him alive if we're going to get anything useful out of him.”

Womeluki sighed and shook her head. “Be swift, but restrain yourself. We will surprise and subdue him.”

Star Swirl nodded. “Ready when you are.”

Womeluki nodded back, and they leapt across the wall and charged.

The ghoul turned on them the moment Star Swirl's hoof struck the ground. Immediately Star Swirl felt the horse's magic building, heard the wind rising and saw the sands begin to rise.

The unicorn let out blast after blast of magic aimed at the creature as he ran, determined not to let the ghoul muster his power and pin them down. He saw his bursts hit their mark, skipped to the side, ran closer and continued firing.

A shield of sands surrounded the ghoul like a barrier of tiny whirling whips, and Star Swirl closed his eyes as he charged right into it. It bit and stung and stabbed at his face, and it took all his effort not to pull back and raise his own shield to defend himself. Instead, eyes closed, he both reached out with his magic, and leapt bodily upon the old horse – and then they were rolling in the sand, each struggling to pin the other down with both magic and hooves pounding against each other.

As when he met the prince, the moment their magic touched he was flooded with sensations of smoldering death. It filled his nose and his throat, and a sensation of burning nausea rose up in him, but he had felt it before and was determined not to let it break his focus.

Wherever any part of his body touched he felt it burn, and the burn reached inward as though sinking into his blood. But he did not let go. He clung to the creature with all his power and struggled to hold him down, both physically and magically, while the sands rose up in a whirl all around them. It lashed against his robes, and the bells rattled more than jingled as they filled with sand.

Calmly and silently, Womeluki came up beside the two stallions and held out her hoof. From it she set one of her friends leaping upon the old stallion's face with a web held ready in its legs, and he fell still in mind and body.

Star Swirl was only vaguely aware of Womeluki walking up beside him, seeming entirely calm, and holding out her hoof. Something leapt out from it, and immediately afterward Star Swirl felt the ghoul let him go and cease struggling, his magic silent.

Star Swirl clambered onto his hooves and saw a spider skitter back across the sand and inside Womeluki's robe. The ghoul stared up at nothing through a web that stretched across his face, his chest rising and falling, his mouth opening and closing. His tongue stuck out as though he was being choked, but he made no sound and Star Swirl could see no hint of expression in his black eyes.

He prodded the horse with a hoof. “Is he awake?”

“His mind is whole, but his body will not obey him,” Womeluki said. “The web will hold him for as long as we need. My friend's eyes are bigger than her stomach: she can paralyze far more than she can hope to eat.”

A long-legged spider crawled out onto Womeluki's raised hoof, and waved at Star Swirl. Her eight eyes were, in fact, larger than her abdomen.

The spider withdrew again. “So, now that we have him, what do you mean to do?”

“We need to interrogate him. He knows the way to the Queen's lair. You speak his language. Can you get him to talk?”

She nodded, and bent down over the fallen ghoul. She took hold of his head between her hooves and turned it so she could look into his eyes.

Like the flick of a lever releasing the waters of a dam, the creature went from lying still and silent to thrashing and gurgling as though caught in the throes of a fever dream. Star Swirl watched as Womeluki held him spellbound, unable to tear his gaze away from her eyes. He wondered what the ghoul saw in them.

Womeluki cursed through gritted teeth. “His tongue is bound with the Queen's magic. Her hold on him is very strong: he cannot speak to me even if he wants to. If I try to break through the bonds she has placed on him I might destroy his mind entirely.”

She released him, and he fell back to the ground, curling up as if in pain. “Given time and better circumstances I can try to untangle him... We should take him back to the capital city. Or if they will not let us back in, then to a nearby village. They can care for him there, and we can try again in a few days.”

Star Swirl winced at the thought of the delay. “Let me try something first.”

“Oh? What?”

Star Swirl thought back to the Kelpie, the memory of its voyage across the sea, fleeing from some unknown evil. “I can look inside his mind, to try to see where he came from.”

Womeluki narrowed her eyes. “Mind control? That is dark magic, Star Swirl, and best left alone.”

Star Swirl rolled his eyes. “Not mind control. Just... observation.”

She looked uncertain for a moment, seeming to debate herself, then stepped back from the horse and nodded. “Be careful. His mind is a tormented place.”

“Alright...” Star Swirl stepped up before the bound horse, who looked back at him with those solid black eyes that betrayed nothing of the mind they once held. The unicorn adjusted his hat, making sure it fit snugly on his head behind his horn, and willed his magic to envelop the ghoul. “Let me see what she did to you.”

Again the noxious, ashen taste assaulted him as their magic touched, and Star Swirl remembered again his encounter with the prince. He shuddered, but did not let go of his focus. He looked inside the ghoul, and saw the heart of the desert within.

The charred magic of the desert, what Star Swirl had begun to see as the mark of the Queen flowed through his veins and beat in his heart. It consumed every part of him, giving him strength beyond his mortal form, and placed the powers of the sands at his command... and gave her control over his mind.

“What do you find?” Womeluki asked.

“I am studying the Queen's magic, seeing how it works,” Star Swirl said.

“It is a dark and dangerous power, Star Swirl. Be wary, lest it cut you.”

“Magic is only evil if it used thus,” Star Swirl said. “If we know about it, we can protect ourselves from it. Show me, old horse... Let me see how she binds her slaves.”

Beginning in the heart, Star Swirl traced the path of the magic through his body to try to find where it entered. It was in the blood, present in every drop, and flowed through the poor stallion's entire body. It tasted like dry sand, and as he lay prone on the desert floor Star Swirl found it hard to see where one ended and the other began.

Star Swirl followed the winding pathway silently for what seemed to him like hours, Womeluki watching him intently all the while, before he found what he was looking for. A small aberration, too strange and specific to be accidental. Behind his forehead, inside his skull between the sockets of the eyes, Star Swirl found a little scar where something had pierced into his mind, and he knew he had found the place she gained entry into his spirit.

He smiled. “Got you. Now to see where you are hiding.” Star Swirl touched his horn to the ghoul's forehead, pressing against the hidden scar. “Show me your secrets.”

The image flowed into his mind: a vision of death by fire for the whole world, of molten rock shooting forth from the bedrock like a fountain.

He saw her home, a land of jagged obsidian rising from the blazing ground, the sky thick with volcanic ash.

He heard the call, stretching out across the three continents, for every monster, every skulking and hateful thing, every killer of ponies and horses and zebras, to come to her side and join her, to await the coming of the last, greatest, war.

There was a vision of Saddle Arabia, and he knew it was her sight he was seeing, her thoughts and feelings: hatred and anger overwhelming, as she fixed her eyes on the royal palace, hungry for a vengeance long overdue...

One child for another, Khalif. One son for another.

The connection broke and Star Swirl fell back to the ground with a cry, his every muscle sore and weary.

Womeluki rushed to his side and took hold of him. “What is it? What did you see?”

“I saw...” He gulped, trying to process the memory into words. “I saw a glimpse of the Queen's mind, her rage, her... She felt betrayed. Her fury is...” He shuddered. “I think I saw the Queen's plan. She is summoning an army of monsters to her side, preparing to be unleashed. Utter destruction would follow in their wake.”

She whispered a curse. “We must return to the royal city at once and warn them! Come, get this old horse on his legs and we will be there by sundown. I only hope the Queen will not intercept us on the way.”

That won't get me in to see the Sun Stone, Star Swirl thought. “Wait,” he said, rising to his hooves. “I have another idea.”

“Whatever it is, we can discuss it later! Come, lend me a hoof here.”

“Listen, weaver!” he grabbed Womeluki by the shoulder and pulled her aside. “Look... It doesn't matter what the Khalif does. His forces can't beat the Queen no matter what. She can wait inside her lair and wither him like a raisin for as long as she pleases. The Khalif is in no mood to listen to either of us, and reinforcing his defenses won't help him. There is only one way to win. We take the battle to her. We defeat the Queen in her own lair, and finish the mission.”

Womeluki listened, but shook her head. “Even if such a thing were possible, we still can't get there. The way is sealed to us, and he cannot share the key.”

Star Swirl smiled confidently. “Leave it to me. We can still use this old horse. Even if he can't tell us the way, he can take us there himself.”

Womeluki only stared for a few seconds, then shook her head despondently. “He is old and frail and has suffered more than you can comprehend, unicorn. I should like to bring him back to the capital city, to search for his family. The priestesses of the temple could tend to his wounds and make him comfortable, if nothing else. If it were in my power, I would tear him from the Queen's bondage and set him free again. But you! You would use a beaten old slave for your own purposes?”

“I can defeat her,” Star Swirl said, “and then all her servants will be freed at once, and no creature will ever fall under her sway again. Is that not worth this one thing, Womeluki?”

Womeluki scowled at him. “We are here to save lives, Star Swirl. Not to gamble them against destruction.”

I am here for my mission. “I know I can win,” he said. “Are you with me?”

He could see her struggling with this decision, but in the end she nodded. “Very well, Star Swirl. I will trust in this path. I will trust you. I hope you do not make me regret it.”

“I won't.” Star Swirl turned to face the ghoul, still sitting on the sand, one hoof idly scratching at a stone. Steeling his nerve, he called up the burning magic that flowed through the ghoul's veins, and wrapped it around his own tongue. He looked the ghoul in the eyes, and said: “Take us to your lair.”

The ghoul nodded in mindless obedience.

He rose up on his hooves, turned three times around and stared towards the heart of the desert.

He spoke one word three times, in a language that was not Saddle Arabian.

And they were swept away on a road that only outcasts could tread.

– – –

When their journey ended – and Star Swirl did not know how long that journey had been, either in miles or in hours – they stood upon red stone, under a golden-reddened sky. Thunder and lightning crashed far in the distance from all directions, and they could not see past the swirling sands farther than they could throw a stone.

The ghoul walked resolutely forward, his lame leg dragging behind him, in a direction which seemed to them no different from any other. Nevertheless they followed, and before long the sands parted and showed them a great red mountain rising from the barren waste.

Womeluki poked Star Swirl and pointed to a nearby rock: they crouched behind the cover while they took in the sight before them.

“The heart of the desert,” Womeluki whispered. “Where dwells the Queen of Golden Sands. No mortal has seen this sight and lived to tell the tale.”

There was a huge cavern mouth at the foot of the mountain, a little distance up the rocks above them, taller than ten horses, and from where they stood they could not see a foot inside for the shadows. The rocky wall outside it was sheer and tall, and covered with jagged spikes of obsidian glass, pointing down or up as chance or nature commanded. Uneven rocks above formed ledges, and there looked like a multitude of open holes leading within rose up along the outer wall of the mountain, but no guards could be seen. No living thing stirred but the three of them.

Star Swirl felt a flush of victory flow through him at the sight. “This is good news! You see, weaver? The Queen never expected anypony to find her here, so there are no guards!” He grinned. “Now we just have to pick an out of the way entrance and we can slip inside undetected. We should probably avoid the front door though.”

“What do we do about him?” Womeluki asked, nodding at the mute ghoul. “I want to say say we should release him... but we'll need a way to get back when we are done.”

Star Swirl shook his head. “I won't be leaving the same way we came. Either the path will be open to me, unopposed by the Queen's magic, or I'll be defeated and killed.” He looked to his companion. “I won't ask you to go in with me. You could go with him, and take him to the royal city if you wish.”

Womeluki sighed, and shook her head. “I will follow you. We must do this together, Star Swirl. Send him away.”

Star Swirl nodded, and said with the Queen's magic: “Go back to your home. Look for what was lost to you.”

The ghoul stood aimless for a moment, and if his face showed any feeling it was a timeless sadness. Then, without a word, he turned away from the mountain and trotted out, limping, into the wilderness.

He left their sight soon after and Star Swirl never saw him again.

They crept out from their cover and moved silently forward, from rock to rock across the plain, trying to approach the mountain unseen.

They were within a stone's throw from it when the shadow passed them overhead.

Star Swirl looked up to see a great bird flying in a wide, slow circle, shrouded in the clouds. He stared at it for a moment, trying to identify it, and before long it looked down at him and turned around to prepare a dive.

Star Swirl realized how his eyes had deceived him as to exactly how great the bird was just as it let out an overpowering shriek that made the ground shiver and the pebbles dance at their hooves. The panic struck him as it dived, and grew, and grew, and grew in their sights until it covered the entire sky, and a black claw larger than Star Swirl snapped at him. It would have ripped right through him if Womeluki had not grabbed him and pulled him back into a crevice in the stone.

“Get down!” Womeluki cried, her voice hoarse.

“What is that?” Star Swirl asked, shouting to be heard over the crashing of the stone as the bird pounded on it.

“The Roc! The bird that carries grown elephants back to its nest to feed her young! Spinner preserve us, we should never have come here!”

The great raptor cried again, and with a single titanic blow the boulder above them exploded in all directions, sending jagged shards of stone cutting into the ground, leaving them exposed. The great black bird spread its wings and bent its neck to snatch one of them into its beak to sate its hunger.

There was a flash of lightning directly overhead, and the thunderclap caused the bird to freeze. It hesitated for a moment, then beat its great wings and rose. But before they could hope to run, Star Swirl and Womeluki were snatched up in huge talons, sharp points digging into their flesh. The ground fell away beneath them as they soared into the smoke-filled sky, and the air was pulled out of their lungs by the speed of their ascent.

It swiftly scaled the slope of the mountain soaring ever higher. The great bird finally perched by a hole in the rock that fell straight down. Here it let out another cry, and then dropped them down into darkness.

– – –

Shortly afterward, Star Swirl was deep inside the mountain.

They had been left in a dungeon in the dark, for a time he could not know: hours, perhaps a day. They had seen no other living thing, and there was no food or water.

It was beginning to get him down.

There was a creaking that made them stir.

“Something draws near,” Womeluki said. “Now we will learn what the Queen has in store for us. Banish fear and hold true to your purpose, Star Swirl.”

A stone door that blended seamlessly into the dungeon walls had slid open, and half a horse emerged from it.

It was the right half: one cloudy cataracted eye that was devoid of any semblance of will looked out at them beneath a ragged, stringy mane. It moved in little jumps on its two right legs, and when Star Swirl looked at it from its left side, he saw everything.

It was just as well that he had not eaten for a long time.

The half-horse ghoul led them slowly through the unlit, winding passages deep down into the mountain. Star Swirl remembered a diagram he had seen in a book of the inside of an anthill: the little mound of grains of sand and twig only the outermost sign of a structure that led deep into the earth.

“I shouldn't have brought you here,” Star Swirl whispered. “I should have done this alone.”

“We are in the place of greatest darkness,” Womeluki said. “All those who face true evil must pass this place. But we can make it through, and come out on the far side together, if we stay true to each other.”

Star Swirl made no response.

They felt it before they heard it: a strange humming that reverberated through the stone, and then a melody of pipes and strings, a haunting, mournful piece unlike any Star Swirl had heard played by ponies. It grew louder and clearer as they walked, until the cave opened into a great chamber and they saw the players.

The chamber was a great round cavern, lit red by torches and full of shadows. The cave emerged into it high above the floor, and they were led down a narrow catwalk along the outer wall, from where they could see a great assembly of monsters.

The musicians were a mismatched quartet of scales and fur and feathers who played upon a simple stage of stone at one end of the chamber, with an audience of wild things that had no home outside the shadows.

There were ghouls in large numbers. Some stood as guards along the walls while others moved among the assembly and served the others. There was a mother manticore, listening to the melody while her cubs feasted joyfully on the flesh of some poor creature, engirdled by her scorpion tail. There was a wizened centaur garbed in grey, cunning eyes peering out from thick bushy eyebrows over a long white beard, and beside him a beastly creature with bat-wings and black armor. There were jackals of shadows and withered leaves and creatures of colored smoke given form by tatters and trinkets.

There were gremlins and goblins skittering about ledges high up on the walls, and on ledges higher still nested harpies with wings of bronze and sharp teeth licking their lips for blood, and higher yet, at the very highest where none else dared to rise, the Roc watched hungrily from its perch upon an outcropping of stone, red eyes peering down from above a black beak.

All of them were united as one in listening, and their many voices formed a deep and powerful dirge that hummed along and made the rock shiver softly, as though the mountain as well were joining in.

The music reached its end, and the gathering turned its attention to the two intruders, led by the half-horse down towards the center of the hall.

There, in a ring of exquisitely detailed stone statues of frightened creatures, was the throne: a seat carved crudely out of black stone, at the top of a winding, uneven stair. In the dim fire-lit hall it was a tower of shadow, and if something sat upon it then Star Swirl could not see it clearly.

They passed several of the ghouls as they were led through the assembly, and Star Swirl saw them up close. Some were garbed and some were naked. Some of the garments were ancient, tattered and ragged from neglect, while others were still whole, though worn and dirty. But all of them – dozens of them, that Star Swirl saw, including some ponies among them – all of them had some deformity. Whether from birth or by the cruel tricks of the Queen, their bodies marked them as alien and monstrous.

All of them except one. Star Swirl raised an eyebrow. Ahead of them, looking exactly as Star Swirl had last seen him, was Mussadas ibn Hassan, the prince of Saddle Arabia. He sat at the foot of the winding stair, silent, unmoving, like a well-trained pet waiting upon his mistress's command.

The half-ghoul led them before the throne and spoke, and the sound was like a wet gurgling of lungs half-filled with insects: “Your eminence... We have captured these intruders.”

There was a movement upon the throne. It could have been another statue: so still and hard it seemed in the shadows that throne and occupant seemed carved from the same stone. But it shifted, opened its eyes – green, slitted pupils – and uncoiled, rose up to its full stature, and all about its head was snakes.

“What is this?” the Gorgon asked, the sibilants hanging in the air long after she finished speaking. “Outsiders have come to our palace. Who are they?”

“Spies from the Khalif,” said the centaur. “They have much meat on their bones. Let the manticore's cubs eat them.”

“Wanderers, lost in the desert,” said the jackal of leaves and shadows from the other side of the hall. “Let us tear them to shreds and make charms from their hides.”

“Saddle Arabians fallen to the whispers of the Queen,” said one head of a many-headed lizard. “Let us have them fight each other to the death, and if it pleases us the survivor may live.”

“We are emissaries from distant lands, come to make embassy,” Womeluki said loudly, calling out for all to hear. “Even among monsters, the rules of hospitality are respected, are they not?”

The Gorgon raised aloft a jagged scepter in one long, razor-clawed hand and the assembly fell silent. “Hospitality?” She frowned, baring her fangs. “You are paltry grazing mondani who have trespassed upon the domain of the immortals. The lion does not show hospitality to the gazelle. The punishment for your crime is death unending. But it begs the question... Just how did you find your way here?”

Womeluki was silent.

The Gorgon twisted in her seat, her body turning and turning and turning but her head not moving an inch. “No...? You will tell us before the end. You will beg us to listen. You will tell us all about who sent you, and who else is coming, and you will implore us to thrust your pain upon those you love most dear...”

Her voice was like a trickle of icy water on the back of Star Swirl's neck. He stepped forward. “We walked the Queen's pathways, aided by her own magic. We have come to speak to the ruler of this land, and you will find we are more interesting alive than dead.”

“The ruler of this land?” the Gorgon said. “That is well spoken. Welcome, dear guests, to the court of the true ruler of this land!”

Around them all the monsters roared, and hissed, and trilled, and played a strange and wistful music of shadows for this proclamation.

Hold true to your purpose. Star Swirl looked up at her as calmly as he could manage. “Are you the queen of this place?”

The snake-creature slithered down the steps from her seat, and her snake-hair hissed softly, like wind, as she moved. “You stand before Stheno, eldest of the Gorgons, and first among the Queen's followers. And you, little housebroken horse-spies, are her prisoners. So what are you...?”

She pointed her scepter at Womeluki. “Zebra... worshiper of the spider...” She smiled, her eyes glimmering with amusement. “She carries venom with her... but she has no power of her own.”

“Perhaps, if you test me, you will learn otherwise,” Womeluki said.

“In time, you will share everything with us. Our guests always do.” The Gorgon turned to Star Swirl and smiled. “A circus clown has come to us! Perhaps if he amuses us he will live, no? At least a little while.”

“I am not a clown,” Star Swirl replied. “And we are not spies from the Khalif. I am a unicorn wizard, and I hold the secrets of the arcane in my sway.”

The Gorgon sniffed. “Ponies... Full of parlor tricks for the amusement of cubs and hatchlings. You know nothing of true magic, unicorn.”

Star Swirl raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you do not know as much as you think about ponies.”

The Gorgon looked down at him dispassionately. “What is unicorn magic? A trickle of water that drips through cracks in a vast stone dam, and you think because you have tasted a drop of it that you are the ocean. We are the ocean, unicorn. We are the wanderers, the sailors, the witnesses, the ones who walk between the boundaries and see the world for what it is, and for this we are cursed.”

Her voice grew stronger as she spoke, and all the court rose up to listen. “Yes, we are cursed! All of us as one are punished, not for our crimes, but for our nature! Once we stood tall and proud, but now we must skulk and linger in the shadows, for there is not a one of us that the horses would not kill if they could. But here!” She spread her arms, taking in the full assembly around her. “This is a free place, a place of sanctuary. All creatures yearning to be free can come to us!”

All around them the monsters muttered their agreement, their encouragement. They listened reverently to her tale, and in their eyes Star Swirl could see them coming together as one.

“We are the rejected ones... Every exile from your precious civilization. Every outcast, every pariah, is welcome here. Those who are cursed by the powers of light and order, reduced to scavenge in the wilds. Those who are left to die.” The gallery erupted into calls of fury, of revenge, and pledges of fealty to the Queen. Stheno raised her arms, holding the scepter aloft to receive and mark their cries.

“The horses destroyed my bloodline. They destroyed my family. They killed my sister in cold blood. When I was lost and alone, the Queen sheltered me and cleaned my wounds. The Queen understands. The Queen of Golden Sands welcomes all into her service.”

“Monsters and destroyers,” Womeluki said. She raised a hoof and pointed to the half-horse. “Look there, Gorgon. Look there, all of you! Look upon the ghûl and see what welcome the Queen would give to those who come to her. That is your sanctuary and your freedom.”

“The zebra believes we should divide ourselves, and sue the grazers for peace,” the Gorgon said, and was met with bitter laughter from the court. “Your people have made war upon us since time beyond memory. You hunted us down and destroyed us one by one. But we are no longer divided. Now we join together under the Queen's banner, and when the time comes all your nations will crumble.”

Womeluki shook her head. “You care nothing for the powerless. Your queen is just another tyrant, holding those weaker than her in bondage, and you are a sword for her to wield as she chooses. Nothing more.”

Here Star Swirl interrupted the exchange. “You have raised an army of monsters, ready to march out to destroy the world,” he said. “The ghoul attacks in the desert, claiming the Khalif's son... You are testing Saddle Arabia's defenses. You are preparing to strike.”

The Gorgon smiled, and her smile was true and full of faith. “The Queen has shown me a vision,” she whispered in jubilant awe. “Your time is running out, little pony. You have no idea what is coming for you...”

“The day will someday come when all things fall,” Womeluki said. “I do not think it is coming anytime soon.”

“Not the day,” the Gorgon said, grinning. “The night. A night comes that has no ending, when the sun will hide in fear and we who stand in the dark will rule all.”

Star Swirl sighed, and shook his head. “This army is more powerful than anything the Khalif can command. He will not be able to stop you.”

“The unicorn understands,” the Gorgon said.

“Yes,” Star Swirl said, stepping forward. “I wish to speak to the Queen. I want to negotiate entering into her service.”

“What?” Womeluki blurted out.

“Negotiate...?” The Gorgon narrowed her eyes. “What do you think you can offer to the Queen, little pony?”

“Do not let your petty prejudice blind you, gorgon. My magic is powerful, and unlike any in Saddle Arabia.” Star Swirl continued moving forward. “I will lend it to her. I will give her the Khalif. I will help her destroy Saddle Arabia. But in return I want a boon.”

“A boon?” the Gorgon asked, grinning. “What is it that you want, little unicorn?”

“I've wasted enough time arguing with servants,” Star Swirl said firmly. “I will discuss the matter with your Queen. She will decide.”

“We said we would work together, Star Swirl!” Womeluki cried. “Don't do this! There will be no turning back!”

“I am no friend to the Khalif, zebra,” Star Swirl said quietly. “I warned you not to come with me here. I am going to complete my mission, no matter what it takes.”

Womeluki watched him silently, her mouth hanging open. She fell to her knees, defeated. “I cannot believe you, Star Swirl...”

Star Swirl sighed, turning away. “It was always going to end this way, Womeluki.”

All the court watched silently. The Gorgon looked mirthlessly down upon the broken zebra. “I know this suffering... This is how I felt when I saw my sister defiled in her home. To watch all that you hope for, all your dreams for the future, burn to the ground... We are not without mercy, zebra. Your pain will end quickly. Take her to the dungeons.”

She slithered back to the foot of the stair, where the prince still sat watching and unable to react, and turned to Star Swirl. Behind him the ghouls were leading Womeluki away.

“Come with me, unicorn.”

Behind the throne, at the very back of the hall, was a great door of stone. At the Gorgon's approach it opened, and she gestured for him to step inside.

Once he set his last hoof beyond the threshold the gate was closed and locked behind him, and he was left alone in the burning heart of the mountain.

– – –

The inner sanctum of the Queen of Golden Sands was a cave of riches and wonders that stunned the unicorn to silence. There were gold and jewels and trinkets, figurines and suits of armor, coins and nuggets and sigils.

It would make an elder dragon weep, yet it was all covered in the dust of aeons, seemingly forgotten where it had been left, in towering piles that were as unsteady as they were vast.

He stepped gingerly between the mountains of coin, and he heard her speaking in his head.

“You come to me at last,” she said, the voice hard and sharp and weathered. “I knew you would. No creature can resist the call of the desert.”

Star Swirl froze, looked around him to try to see her, but saw nothing but the cave and all its treasures. I have to see this through. For the Princess. “O great Queen... We must speak together.”

“I heard your words to Stheno,” her voice replied. “You wish to negotiate? Do you think me some little merchant, to bargain and haggle with me?”

“It could be? Your... collection is most impressive.” Star Swirl moved slowly across the stone floor, gingerly moving from one clear spot to another, as if touching anything would call a curse down upon him.

“Treasure,” the voice whispered from behind him, though when he turned there was nothing there but a green gemstone that reflected his own face, warped and distorted. “Offerings, sacrifices, bribes... all of it is worthless.”

There were magical items there too: a carpet, kept rolled together with leather string, waited for an owner to command it. A solid gold urn taller than the unicorn stood in a corner. An oil lamp promised everything you could wish for, and everything you did not, to anypony willing to pick it up and restore its long-gone luster.

“Worthless?” Star Swirl asked. “Surely with such great wealth you could get anything you desire. Everything is for sale in Saddle Arabia.”

“There is nothing the horses of Saddle Arabia possess that holds any value. Their lives are worthless and meaningless.”

A gold locket with a silver chain lay on the floor, opened to show the dusty remains of what had once been the picture of a loved one.

“They build their little houses in the sand... they squabble over petty nothings... they drive out everything they do not understand, and they hate and fear everything different than themselves.”

The voice hissed in the sound of a shower of coins falling like sands as a buildup of gold fell beside him. “They thought they could bribe me, as though I were some dragon. As though I were some petty creature born of greed... as if I were one of them, those wretched little horses who spill their blood in the sands for coin.”

Silently he stepped between and around the piles, straining his ears to find the source of the voice. “They will burn. They will all burn.”

He froze when he saw it. Ahead of him there was one treasure that was not neglected, alone in all the vault, but which had clearly received much careful and deliberate attention. “But you, little darkling...”

Set aside from all the other treasures there was a little metal cage with many bars, and the cage was held in place by many chains.

“You are not like them. I saw you as you crossed my land. I looked into your heart, and I saw the darkness waiting there, and I knew.”

The chains were engraved with runes of binding in malice, and enchanted with burden and sorrow. They were anchored in hooks that ran deep into the rock beneath, so that they would never come free until the whole mountain crumbled.

“I knew you would find your way to me, because you know. You know that there will come a time when the sun sets, and never rises.”

Star Swirl leaned close to peer through the bars, and saw a shard of shell, burning and glimmering in many colors. A ghost of a cry echoed in his ear, ancient and heavy with grief.

“You would like that, wouldn't you, little darkling unicorn...?” She chuckled. “Such a ghûl you will make.”

He pulled back from the cage, her voice sending shivers down his spine that shook him to his core. “You are not only a voice,” Star Swirl said. “What creature are you really? Show yourself!”

The voice laughed, and the piles of treasure shook, spilling coins and gemstones onto the stone floor. “You wish to know what I am, little pony? You wish to see your Queen?”

The ground shook, and quaked, and bursts of fire rose from the cracks. The stones began to fall away beneath Star Swirl, and he stumbled backwards: a great pit was forming in the center of the treasure hall, and the treasures fell haphazardly into it. It expanded until it formed a great, deep circle, too dark to see the bottom.

“I am the Mared,” her voice said, cutting through the rumbling of crashing stone. “Older and greater than the Djinn and the Efreet, the wisest and most powerful of the true daughters of the flame. I am the Queen of the Golden Sands. Look upon your mistress, little pony, and rejoice.”

And Star Swirl saw her at last.

The creature that rose up before him was vast and chaotic, a mismatched creature of countless forms, bound together in a primordial forge, and the veins beneath her skin glowed with molten gold. Her face was as a scaly ewe, and her horns were feathered and uneven. Her left arm was a dragon's claw and her right a minotaur's hand. Her body was scaly, feathered, and furred all in patches of different colors, and it snaked down out of sight into the pit from which she had emerged. She was vast, and Star Swirl was barely as big as her muzzle.

“You're a Draconequus,” Star Swirl said breathlessly. “Like Discord.”

The Queen narrowed her glare, and Star Swirl felt the hairs on his muzzle char and sear. “Do not presume to think you can know us, little grazer.”

But he was already deep in thought.

“You took the Khalif's son,” Star Swirl said. “The vision I saw it in the ghoul's mind – one child for another.” He gasped as he understood it at last. “This is all for him, isn't it? All your anger, all your hate, all of it is because of your lost son?”

Her claws scraped through the stone with a sound of wrenching metal, and Star Swirl could feel the burning heat shifting under her skin. “You dare think you understand your betters? You are bold, little pony, to speak to your queen thus…!” She growled, and the sound was like great trees being ripped and torn by some giant. “Perhaps I will just eat you right now...”

Star Swirl gulped. “I want to understand,” he said, his mind racing. “I saw your followers in the court. The Saddle Arabians think you are nothing but forces of mindless destruction. But their blindness will be their downfall... You have built a nation, great queen. I want to understand what drives you.”

Her eyes burned into him. Moments passed by in silence, except for the pulsing of his heart, and the soft rumble of distant churning magma far beneath the earth.

“We had a treaty, once,” the Queen said. “The leader of the horses dared come into my home, and asked me for peace between the eternals and the grazers. His courage impressed me. I humored him, and let him live. I gave him his deal, and let him build his kingdom in the sand. I cared nothing for his gold, but to have grazers living beside me, who were bound by treaty not to make war upon us... that was a valuable thing. But they cannot keep to their word. In their greed they seized more than they had bargained for. And my son...” The fury in her voice as she spoke the words could turn the stones to dust. “My mad, foolish, beautiful son, who left me and was imprisoned in stone in a far-away land. When I demanded he be returned to me... they did not listen.”

Her claw and her talon sank into the rock, gripping so hard they changed color. Her voice too was cracked with passions. “That was the tipping point. For too long have I waited. Too long have I watched the grazers defy my will. The Khalif will feel my pain. They will all feel it to their deaths.”

“But why now?” Star Swirl asked. “I do not doubt your fury. I saw the Khalif's despair at losing his son. It threatened to destroy him. But your son was defeated a long time ago. Why are you mustering your army now? What is happening?”

The Mared smirked, her eyes full of secrets. “A new age is coming, little pony. I have seen the signs as much as you. Your world will soon come crashing down, and when it does I will claim my own in the new order. No longer will you filthy, greedy, shallow, cowardly little equines pollute my lands! All will be glorious and pure in flame.”

Star Swirl felt a shudder run through him, and bit down on the inside of his cheek to focus himself. This is my mission. I must see it through. “Well then, your highness... I think we can help each other. I want to make a deal with you.”

She looked down at him dispassionately. “What do you think you can offer me that I cannot take for myself, should I wish it?”

“I saw your ghouls out there, in your assembly,” Star Swirl said. “You have many different kinds of servants, but I saw no unicorns among them. There are few unicorns in this land, fewer still that are learned and trained in magic. Unicorn wizards are strong-minded by nature, and you, o Queen, draw the weak-minded to you... Your magic is powerful, but there is much that a strong unicorn sorcerer could do for you. And besides...” He smiled knowingly. “You want me. Admit it. You've been hoping to snare me since I set out with the caravan, haven't you? Well.” He raised a hoof to her. “This is your chance. I want to trade, interest for interest, knowledge for knowledge, power for power. I will give you unicorn magic, if you will teach me the ways of your ghouls.”

For a moment she was still, deep in thought. When she spoke her words were quick and blunt. “I want my son returned to me. He is trapped in the lands of ponies. You will go there and you will set him free. I want him back. I will have him back.”

The mountain shook beneath his hooves in answer to her voice. Star Swirl nodded. “Very well. I am welcome in Everhold, and can go straight to your son. If that is what you want from the lands of ponies, then so be it. But those lands are not your realm, and I do not think you care about them one way or the other. If I bring back your son, I want safety for my homeland, and for the zebra's homeland.”

The Queen's eyes narrowed. “Why do you care for her? She has cursed your friendship and your name.”

“I know. But she helped me in good faith. She came here seeking to save her homeland from a vision of the future. She helped me so that I could help her. I would like to keep my promise. The far reaches of Zebrica are a long way from Saddle Arabia.”

“There will be no safe places when the world is torn asunder,” the Queen said. “Whether I will it or no, your lands will fall... But I can leave your home, and hers, to meet their doom at other hands. But there is something burning in your mind, little pony. I can see it: something you desire with a great and terrible urge, and you are bending all your wits to put me in mind to say 'I care not'. What is it that you want so much that you are trying to hide it, little darkling?”

Star Swirl froze, and drew a deep breath. He raised his head and looked her dead in the eyes. “I want this: that when the Khalif falls, and his palace is torn open, I will have the first pick of the treasure.”

Her eyes narrowed, frowning. “So there is some artifact of great power within, and you, little traitor, wish me to give it to you. Why should I not take this artifact for myself when I rule over the Khalif's palace and have all his treasures in my reach?”

“You have all the treasures anyone could hope for already, and they do not make you happy,” he said, glancing around him. “This is important to me, and I am willing to pay the price. As you say... I desire this greatly. I think you understand.”

Her lips slowly curled into a wry smile. “So like the rest of them. All along, you were driven by greed. So easily bought.”

Star Swirl shrugged, but the motion came hard, tense as he was before the creature. “I have a mission to complete. Listen, o Queen, I don't care about Saddle Arabia. Together we can crush the Khalif, and you will rule this land unchallenged... and you will have your son returned to you. Do we have an agreement?”

She licked her lips with her snake-like tongue. “Agreed.”

The Queen spoke a syllable that pony language cannot adequately transcribe, and Star Swirl became aware of a red glow beneath him. He looked down to see a writhing eldritch sigil upon the rock, and beside it a knife of jagged black stone. “Is that...?”

“Cut your hoof and press it against the sigil,” the Queen commanded, “and our deal is done.”

Star Swirl frowned. “What does it say?”

“Only what we have discussed,” the Queen replied lazily. “Your magic will belong to me. In return, you will receive your due.”

Star Swirl hesitated, then nodded.

He raised the knife in his grip, looked it over once with nervous eyes, and brought it to the frog of his hoof.

He closed his eyes and hissed as it cut into his flesh and the blood began to flow, dripping on the stone.

The Queen watched him hungrily, her eyes burning and focused, as he pressed his bloody hoof against the sigil. It crackled and burned for a moment, and then was gone.

His hoof stung, but after seconds the pain faded. When he looked under it again it was whole and unscarred, and he knew the magic of the ghûl was inside him.

He nodded his head. “It's done.”

“Excellent. Now away with these.” The Queen slashed at him with a claw that moved faster than his eyes could see – a spurt of blood flew from his throat and when he looked down he was naked, stripped of his protections, and he gasped as the full heat of the desert struck him once again.

His hat and robe hung on the Queen's claws, held up for her study. “You are a clever little colt... In some ways. This enchantment is elegant and skillful. But you were foolish to try to deceive me with this.” She glared down at him with cruel triumph in her eyes. “Did you think you could hide your treachery from me? Or that you could protect yourself from my will with this?”

Star Swirl gasped, struggled to speak but his throat burned.

“Silence!” the Queen roared. “Foolish colt. I saw you skulking in the desert, attempting to hide your mind from my sight. But nothing is permitted to hide from me in my realm.”

Star Swirl clenched his teeth. “We made a deal, Queen. This was not part of—”

“I have seen what comes from bargaining with your kind,” the Queen spat. “For centuries I obeyed the terms of the compact, until my son left me. Your Princesses took him from me, and when I invoked the compact to see him returned to me – Nothing. I saw what your bonds of friendship meant to you then. It was foolish of you to think you could trick me. In another land, far from my home, as they tricked my son... but not here. This land belongs to me, and obeys my will, and...” She threw the garments away and bent down to look into the unicorn's eyes. “Now that you have surrendered yourself to me, and I have seen through your ruse and taken away your little protections, so do you.”

Their eyes met and Star Swirl felt her will forcing its way into his mind.

It felt entirely unlike the unicorn magic he knew so well. It latched onto his forehead, just under his horn, and burrowed into him like some monstrous magical tick. He was linked to her, and felt her commands flowing into him, telling him to forget all the terms he had bargained, to surrender unconditionally to his rightful mistress.

“You are a cunning little devil,” she chuckled. “Your power will serve me well in my arsenal. As a ghûl you will be unstoppable. Cities will fall before you. Nations will tremble at your approach. You will be a killer of horses...”

She froze.

Slowly, Star Swirl smiled.

“The Mared are the oldest and most powerful of the spirits of this land... and also the most arrogant,” he said, and when their eyes met he was smiling triumphantly, his horn glowing bright with focus, dappled black and white. “When I was only ten, I let an alicorn princess step into my mind. I could see the path of the magic clearly, glowing before my eyes, linking her mind to mine. By accident, as a willful foal, I peered inside her mind and held her magics as my own, and she could not hold me out... And she is far more powerful than you.”

In his mouth there glimmered a warding sigil, and his voice was clear and strong.

The Queen tried to seize him in her claw and crush him to death, but her limbs would not obey her. They were locked in place more firmly than any chains or rope had ever done. Her eyes widened in panic as she felt Star Swirl push his way into her thoughts. She could not scream as he began to pull her secrets from her mind.

“I saw the roots you left in the desert skies. I heard your voice on the wind, and saw what you did to the minds of your slaves. I saw how you did it, and erected a shield in my mind to stop you. I came here well-prepared, o Queen, and you never stood a chance.” With a jingle, his robe swept over his back and clasped itself around his neck and his hat took its place on his head. He smiled. “There. Now, tell me what you know.”

In her mind he saw every secret path she had carved across the sands, the hidden channels where her magic flowed. He saw every trap to destroy unwary travelers, and every hidden hole where bandits waited and violence could thrive. He saw the intricate magical machinery of her mountain fortress, rising from deep beneath the earth. He saw how she controlled it all, and how he could shut it all down.

He saw the veins of magic reaching across the miles into the minds of all her blood magi slaves. He saw the deep pool of magic that predated the first horse to enter Saddle Arabia: raw and untamed mastery of life itself, the power to command the flesh and the blood in his veins, to spawn monsters to corrupt and command mortals.

He saw the full count of her slaves scattered across the land, waiting for her command. From each of them ran a cord that stretched all the way back to her. He saw how she used it to carry her commands, to keep their wills bound, how she slowly drained them of mortal life to sustain herself, keep herself rich and strong.

He saw how he could sever them all with a thought.

“Now I will take all your knowledge, all your secrets, and I will cry them out on the winds and the waves for everyone to see,” Star Swirl told her, “and then you can never use them to gain power over any creature ever again.”

He reached deep and began to draw that power into himself. He felt himself grow stronger as it surged through his veins. Black lightning crackled around his horn. His vision deepened and reddened. With this power he felt he could sink the desert under the ocean...

“This is not possible,” the Mared whispered. “This is not the magic of ponies. What are you, little monster?”

“I'm Star Swirl,” the unicorn said, “and there is nothing else like me.”

With that, he cut off the flow of magic and threw her back into the pit as she screamed. Already her flesh was shriveling up and cracking, the flow of nurturing magic from her slaves cut off.

Star Swirl watched her disappear from his sight down into the black hole, and she was gone.

– – –

There was silence.

Star Swirl felt the power flow through him as he looked down into the pit. It churned and seethed and felt like a swarm of insects crawling inside of him, but already he could feel it settling into place. It would come to accept him as its new master soon enough.

It was a power unlike anything he had known, greater than any ever wielded by a unicorn. All his.

He was a hero.

He was a savior.

He was like a god, and deserved a god's tribute.

He looked around the great cavern where the Queen had lingered, where she had thrown the great treasures of the earth helter-skelter and let them lie, all ignored and all forgotten.

All but one.

There was the cage, the one thing the Queen had not let lie, the one thing she had wanted to keep locked away forever, never again to see the light of day.

He trotted up to it and studied it once again. He could not see what was inside, but he could feel it waiting for him.

Slowly, meticulously, Star Swirl set about tearing the cage open. He ungraved the runes one by one, unwove the enchantments, and set about ripping the metal open one deep bar at a time.

The chains would not budge. Deep within the earth they were anchored, and even his power seemed hesitant to loosen them.

The sound of someone calling his name pulled him out of his reverie and made him leave the cage behind. He followed the sound back towards the entrance of the cave, where the stone gate still stood barred and unmoving. Through it he heard a muffled voice shouting his name, and a hoof pounding on the stone.

“Womeluki?” he called out in answer. “Is that you?”

The gate was massive, and thick with magic. The mountain, Star Swirl knew now, was held together more by magic than by stone, and the innermost sanctum of the Queen was warded against intrusion by any she did not want there. “Open!” he yelled at the door, and it jolted like a guard woken from sleeping on his watch, but did not budge. “I said open!”

The power burned inside him, and he channeled all of it he could command to rip the gate from its post and throw it aside.

It tilted ever so slightly in its fittings and jammed, accompanied by the sound of screaming metal, never to move again. “Star Swirl?” Womeluki's voice said more clearly. “Are you alive?”

A sliver of a gap had opened by one side of the gate, through which he heard her voice, and the sound of distant battle, but he could see nothing. “Womeluki, I'm here! Everything is fine! Everything is wonderful!” He giggled involuntarily at a high pitch before remembering himself. “Are you alright?”

“I am very far from all right, Star Swirl,” she yelled. Her voice was ragged and mad. “You traitor... I trusted you, Star Swirl! I trusted you, I helped you, and you lied to me and you used me and you left me to die!”

“It had to be convincing,” Star Swirl said. “I had every confidence in your ability to handle yourself.”

“You have no idea what it was like,” Womeluki said. “The ghûl... they broke free from their bindings. They went mad, Star Swirl, all of them as one, they screamed in agony and fear and hate! Then the fighting began... The monsters... half of everyone is dead, Star Swirl! It's a bloodbath out here!” There was a thump as Womeluki thrust herself against the doorway. He heard her panting, panicked breath rushing in and out, her voice cracked. “I tried to face the Gorgon... She has killed so many, and I would gladly die if it would stop her... but she vanished. The Roc swept down upon us and – she's gone. She is gone, and her court has broken and all the monsters have fled into the darkness, to find some new lair.”

“Listen, Womeluki,” Star Swirl shouted into the crack. “We're done here, we can go back now. I just need you to help me open this door!”

He squealed and jumped back as a spider skittered out from the crack not an inch away from his snout, followed by another, and soon a steady stream of them. Dozens, they spread out and began to spin a web together in all haste. Star Swirl stepped back, and before his eyes a web the size of a pony took form, wet silk shimmering in strange colors in the dim light of volcanic fire.

Womeluki looked at him through the web, and he took a step back. Her hood was torn from her head, her robes ripped long open, and he saw her clearly for the first time.

She was stained and bloody. Her ear was torn, as though an earring had been ripped out. She wore gold rings around her neck and her ankles, and they were splattered red and dusty. Her eyes were tired and uncertain.

“Womeluki! It worked!” Star Swirl cried and grinned at the image in the web. “It's over! The Queen is dead!”

Womeluki did not look pleased at this news. Her frown turned to a deep sadness, her head shaking, as she looked on the unicorn. “Oh no... Oh Star Swirl, what have you done?”

“What did I do? I won!” Star Swirl boasted. “I destroyed her and took her power for my own, and once I get out of here I'm going to use it to make everything better. Stars above, Womeluki, you have no idea what this feels like. I can remake everything. I can shape this land as I please! I can control minds and bodies! I can—”

“Be a king?” Womeluki asked sharply. “Crush those who displease you beneath your hoof? Rip ponies and horses in twain to please you, so you can study their insides more closely? Oh Great Spinner, I see it now...” her voice was low, her head shaking. “At long last I see what the darkness in your heart holds... It was you, Star Swirl. All along, it was you. I was so wrong. This is what the Great Spinner wanted me to see. This is the great upheaval that comes to usher chaos into our lands. It was never her, Star Swirl. It was you.”

Red fire billowed up behind his eyes. He clenched his teeth together in anger. “You foolish – you stand in the middle of the desert and curse the darkness! This is why you lost, witch! So caught up in your tribal dogma you can't see that dark magic can be used for good or evil, just like anything else! Darkness is no more evil than light! There is no difference!”

“That is exactly where the evil lies,” Womeluki said. “The ghûl... the ones that survived are coming to their senses. The prince is unharmed, and I will try to lead them to safety. You have begun an age of war this day, wizard... It will consume Saddle Arabia and Zebrica alike, and I will fight it for the rest of my life.”

She stepped back and turned away, her head hung low. “Fare well, Star Swirl. May your spirit find peace among your ancestors.”

“Hey!” Star Swirl cried. “I'm not dead, you know!”

“Yes you are. You just haven't noticed yet.”

The image disappeared, and the web turned dry as dust and shriveled into nothing.

On the other side of the wall Womeluki turned and walked away, leaving the sealed door behind her.

Star Swirl pushed and kicked at it. “Come on, you damned thing, open!”

That is when he heard the guttural laughing growl coming up from the pit behind him. “Oh no...”

“You cannot kill me,” the ghostly voice of the Queen whispered to him. “You belong to me still, wizard. I will kill you now, and feast upon your magic, even if I have to tear down my palace on your head. You will never leave this place.”

The ground shook harder and harder. He looked down. He could feel it: below the surface, the rock beneath his feet was crumbling, liquefying. Pustules of stone formed on the walls and burst in flows of lava, burning every treasure that would not melt. Noxious fumes burst forth from cracks, black smoke rising from the molten core beneath...

As the rock melted, the chains around the cage finally came loose.

The volcano erupted, and the rock tore open beneath him, and the cage burst open in a blinding flash of light.

There was a cry of freedom that deafened him, and red wings stretching from horizon to horizon, and sunlight shone down from above as the world exploded underneath him.

And all else was silence as the firebird returned to the world, and turned to light and ashes.

– – –

When he returned to his senses, Star Swirl was flying.

His mind was dull and his ears rang from the colossal blast of the eruption. His eyes stung from the whipping wind and his hooves were burning.

Almost by instinct he raised a shield spell in a tight bubble around himself, and his eyes were able to focus. His mouth fell open at what he saw.

He was in the sky. He could see where the blue of the heavens ended, replaced with the black of the outside, and the planets and the comets and the stars. He was among them.

Beneath him, or behind him, was a hunk of volcanic rock hurtling through the air faster than any bird or pegasus or griffon could fly, and he flew with it, held upon it not by gravity but by the force of its motion, and only his shield kept him from being crushed to death. But those were only body things and did not matter, because he was as high above the earth as any unicorn had ever been and he could see the desert as no mortal had ever done, stretched out beneath him like a map and he was flying. He was flying and he was triumphant and he was the sky and he saw...

Saddle Arabia and its desert lay naked before him. He saw it as the Queen had seen it, a vast land full of powers and secrets laid bare and ready to hear his command. Magic ran like blood through a vast branching network of channels, invisible to most and impossible to read from the ground, but from up there he could see its every intricate detail, every route and pathway a line of light for him to trace.

Beneath him, from all the cities and the oases of Saddle Arabia, all things with eyes to see looked up and saw a blazing rocket move across the heavens.

There were two kinds of magic, two webs laid on top of one another. There was the burning magic of the Queen – his, now, obedient to him and awaiting his command, reaching out from the volcano behind him that was even then fading from existence, melting away into the aether, and that magic traced the hidden paths of the ghûl, enforcing death and ruin along its course.

Then there was the other magic, the magic of water and life, the gentle breeze and safety of the oasis, along which Rehalet Tawyla and Rehalet Amina led their caravans. Those roads led along every living town and village, and all of them traced back, growing stronger as they went, to Fuors Al-Thahabi, the capital city.

There was a fountain of light arcing outwards from the center of the palace, rising up into the heavens, and Star Swirl knew his goal was finally within his grasp.

Nearby, one of the Khalif's beams of light flowed across the land like a river in the heavens. With a thought Star Swirl tugged on it, bringing his own trajectory parallel to it.

Satisfied, he let the rock carry him back to its source.

His satisfaction lasted until he reached the top of the arc, and began to float, and fall, whereupon he returned to mortal thoughts once more.

Think, Star Swirl. You're falling to your death, and you haven't fulfilled your mission yet.

What about the shield spell? No. It won't protect me from the fall, it will just direct the force of the impact to my horn and crush my head.

Think back to Magical Physics at Cambridle. Can I redirect the force of the impact somewhere else? Can I fling myself off the rock without preserving my momentum just before impact? Can I learn to fly under my own power within the next few seconds?

Well, babies can do it so why not me?

Come on, Star Swirl, think. You're standing on a boulder of volcanic rock. You can grab it and levitate it, but you can only move it in relation to your own anchored point.

I'm not really anchored. I'm moving through the air at the same velocity as the rock.

If we are standing still relative to each other... or almost still... it's like moving something that's just lying there. But that doesn't help me. I need to actually stand still, preferably without crushing deceleration first.

Is being still in moving space the same as moving through still space? My shield is standing still relative to the anchor point, myself, and to the nearest massive body, the rock.

...Could I move the anchored point itself? Why am I my anchored point in the first place?

If I can move my anchored point to the rock... then I can levitate myself around it. If I can self-levitate, then I can let the rock absorb the impact while I just hover.

If I can make a construct in the Weave along my trajectory, I can curve the space of force and move in a straight line through it. I will still be moving at terminal velocity. But if I can move in any direction... I can shift my momentum upward, and let gravity slow me down?

Experiments have shown that if the anchored point is altered, the levitated object remains the same. If I am the levitated object, rather than the anchored point...

The dome of the royal palace rushed up to meet him. Well, time to try out the theory.

– – –

When Star Swirl came to he was lying upside-down in a corner, and every inch of his body was screaming at him.

He was alive.

“The theory needs work,” he muttered to himself, and fell over sideways.

He opened his eyes and saw golden treasures everywhere, in a chamber of green jade stone. For a moment he thought he was back in the Mared's lair, but a quick glance around showed otherwise.

He took in his surroundings. The hunk of volcanic rock which had carried him across the sky lay shattered and scattered all over the floor, surrounded by shards of white marble and green jade and woodwork from the hole in the ceiling where he had made impact. Then there were the treasures.

The thought took a moment to fully penetrate his consciousness.

He had crashed through the roof and landed inside the Khalif's vault of riches.

After seeing the Mared's treasure store he did not think anything could surpass it, but he had to admit the Khalif came close. Unlike the Queen's mounds of gold and jewels the treasures here were meticulously ordered, polished to a blinding gleam and glitter, carefully counted out in stacks. There were coins of a dozen different currencies carefully arranged and numbered. There were scrupulous silver scales, fine-haired brushes and a dizzying array of arcane tools set in boxes lined with black velvet. There were finely sculpted works of art on pedestals and in glass boxes labeled with plaques like in a museum.

But beyond all of that was the one thing that mattered.

In front of him, in the center of the room, was a great square plateau hung round with black drapes, hung from a golden frame. It practically hummed, so strong was the magical power emanating from it.

This is it.

Before Star Swirl knew his own thoughts he was trotting towards it, each hoof-fall gentle and silent. He was holding his breath. Sewn into the black covers were words in many different languages, but he found that their meaning was clear, and spoke to him without the need for conscious thought.

“Such that everything it touches shall be as gold,” he recited to himself. “And it shall be the foundation of your realm, and the keystone of your power. And its name is...”

And next there was a character that could be translated in many different ways: Crossroads, or Commerce, or Trade. Wealth, or Prosperity, or Gain. Contract, or Stock, or Bond.

Bond. That was a good one.

I did it. I reached the Sun Stone.

I completed the mission.

Star Swirl forced himself to be patient for a while as he studied the engravings on the frame and the rich embroidery on the thick black cloth that concealed it, as if to give due reverence to the moment. Then he pulled them aside and saw the pedestal upon which rested the Sun Stone.

He silently walked around it, observing it from all sides. It was an orb of solid gold, lying on a white velvet pillow with gold thread embroidered all around. Ripples of soft magic light shimmered across its surface, pearlescent, like waves of water pushing up on a sandy beach before withdrawing.

The ripples billowed as he stepped up to look at it, and Star Swirl suddenly felt that it was alive, and that he was intruding.

“Hello,” Star Swirl said to the artifact, and the ripples shifted as he spoke, as if to acknowledge his presence. “We meet at last... I had quite a bit of trouble getting in to see you.”

The Sun Stone shone, and perhaps the shine was its version of a yes, or a no, or perhaps it was nothing at all. Star Swirl felt certain that if it wanted to, it could tell him its opinion perfectly clearly, and the uncertainty irked him.

“Well, we're here now,” he muttered. “You're safe. Whatever the Queen was doing to you is finished. If she hurt you, time should heal your wounds. But still... having come all this way... Allow me to examine you.”

It did not respond. He quietly drew a breath, and called his magic forth to envelop it.

Though it could not move, it seemed to recoil at the sensation, the magic pulling inward to defend itself.

Star Swirl frowned. “Very sensitive to outside corruption. As I expected. But you are surrounded by protections... What happened to you? Show me.”

The shimmering light warped and curled where he touched it. It was held as sacred, Star Swirl knew, and presumed it unaccustomed to being so handled, gentle though he was. But he could see no sign of injury. It was pristine and pure all the way across, with no taint or impediment anywhere in its core. Only along the surface was there a slight pressure of something different. Something dark, and charred, and ashen.

He grinned grimly, his teeth clenched together. “Found you,” he muttered, and studied the impression. Where it pressed against the orb, the light withered and tarnished.

He saw it clearly, and having identified it, he began to pinpoint its flow, to follow it back to its source...

He traced the magic until he saw that it was rooted in his own horn.

“Ah... horseapples.”

The sound of a lock clicking and the swish of bars quickly being pulled aside were the only warning before the doors to the chamber slammed open, and a host of soldiers stormed in, weapons held ready, making the stone floor rumble beneath them.

The Sphinx flew in the high door, flapping her huge wings and scowling in warlike anger. “Who dares invade the palace of the Khalif?!” she roared. “Who dares intrude upon the holy of holies?”

Though she spoke Saddle Arabian, Star Swirl was intrigued to find that he could understand her.

The Khalif stood in the doorway beneath her, flanked by his guards, and marveled at the sight before him. His eyes met Star Swirl's, and he gasped. “By all the life-giving waters, what have you done, unicorn?”

“Only what you asked, your highness,” Star Swirl replied. “The Queen of the Golden Sands is dead. The whispers on the wind are silent. All her power, all her knowledge, belong to me now. She will never trouble you again. I've already claimed my promised reward.”

This did not have the effect Star Swirl expected, of making them raise their voices in celebration. The soldiers stood in formation, tense and sweating. The Sphinx hovered above the doorway with slow beats of her mighty wings, her claws sharp and ready to strike. And the Khalif... he shivered, his face pale, his eyes wary, watching Star Swirl as though staring into the face of unhappy fate.

“Well, don't all congratulate me at once,” Star Swirl said.

“Have you seen yourself, ambassador?” The Khalif asked. “There is a mirror to your side. Look in it.”

“What?” Star Swirl turned his head and indeed saw a great mirror not far away. He looked, and saw himself.

His eyes were solid red, orbs of blood. His coat was ragged and dry, as if caught in some wasting disease, and a trickle of blood dripped from his mouth. Black smoke clung to his horn, and when he shook his head it only rose faster.

In addition his clothes were ragged and scorched, and half his bells had been torn off. That annoyed him.

“...This is no problem,” Star Swirl said. “Only superficial side-effects. I'll take care of it later.”

“Soldiers! Attack!” the Sphinx ordered. “Destroy the ghûl!”

Star Swirl raised his shield just as the first spear loosed against him. The edge of the barrier cut clear through the spearhead: its tip moved on and struck his muzzle, cutting him, while the rest of the spear deflected, along with the next five. Then they charged.

They moved against him like a rushing river around a rock, a torrent of strikes by horses moving swiftly and effortlessly in the cramped space to give room for others to approach. In a second he was under attack from every angle, and his magic shield, already pushed to its limit, was beginning to falter.

“No! Do not kill him!” the Khalif commanded. “If he dies, he will bring about the collapse of our kingdom!”

The Sphinx growled. “If he lives, he will bring about the collapse of everything.”

“I said, do not kill him,” the Khalif replied, and his manner was hard as steel in that moment. The Sphinx turned her eyes on him, but found no purchase.

She relented. “Guards...! Subdue him!”

In the back of Star Swirl's head a voice was telling him to show them all his power: to pay back every insult the Sphinx had dealt him, to tear her into the separate creatures from which she was made and set them running, each apart, into the sands. To lay low the army with a thought, to make their blood boil within their veins and their muscles to go numb and soft as mud.

In the mirror he saw himself looking like a walking corpse.

He closed his eyes and let his shield fall, and something struck his head, and he knew nothing.

Author's Note:

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: The Queen of the Golden Sands.
The Mared has been added to the procession of fallen shadows in The Education of Clover the Clever chapter 7: Crisis of Infinite Star Swirls.

Next time: the epilogue.

Comments

[SIGAWESOME]

I do understand some things you don't.”
<...>
“I understand darkness.”

Queue Banesque monologue:
"Oh, you think you understand darkness and the signs and portents of the night sky. But you merely studied the night; I grew up with it as a foal, dreamed of it in my sleep. I am the personal confidante and friend of the Night Mare herself."

and you never stood a chance

Bad-ass Starswirl is bad-ass.

He should ask the Queen how she feels about pigeons...

Poor Starswirl at the end though... Committed deicide, destroyed one (admittedly evil) kingdom, threw another into war, in the process of destabilising a third, damaged and corrupted one of the world's foundational magical artefacts, got transformed into a ghoul Sombra-style, and ruined his nice commissioned robe...

Not bad for the first assignment of Equestria's newest junior ambassador, eh?

[Erico]

damn....what a life this guy led...

[Halfpaw]

... well Star Swirl been getting into some obvious gray areas of mortality...

[FanOfMostEverything]

MISSION COMPLETE

... Now what? That's the problem with these hyperfocused types. They never consider what happens after their cunning stratagems come to full fruition, nor the collateral damage that will be staring them in the face when that time comes.

Mind you, it was a very cunning stratagem. It makes me wonder if the Prince of Golden Sands—not that he's ever claimed that title—could be slain in a similar manner. Or as close to slain as their kind ever can be. And as an added bonus, countless threats to equinity were slain in the aftermath, and a great force of good was released. All in all, this was a net positive. Too bad it's done nothing to waylay the upcoming apocalypse.

And, again, there's the not-inconsiderable matter of Star Swirl dealing with the fallout of his actions. Awkward...

[Daedalus Aegle]

I kept meaning to reply to these comments, but the past week has been whacking me in the teeth with a club, so... better late than never.

6324359
Glad you liked the story! Check out the sequel for even more Star Swirly goodness

6322728 6324726 6337086
It's a victory in Star Swirl's own unique fashion: the kind that makes everyone wonder if failure would really be all that bad, or at least ask themselves urgently if there wasn't some other way they could have handled things. Maybe if he had been more willing to listen to Womeluki.

We will explore the aftermath and how they try to deal with it in the epilogue, which should be up sometime soon. It's been almost ready all week, but again, teeth, club

[FancyFan]

Awesome mythology lesson!

There was a wizened centaur garbed in grey, cunning eyes peering out from thick bushy eyebrows over a long white beard, and beside him a beastly creature with bat-wings and black armor.

Huh.

The carpet and the lamp I got, but whats the urn?

“You're a Draconequus,” Star Swirl said breathlessly. “Like Discord.”

Really? Well that's fascinating. And now her being anything else just seems kind of... sub-par.
Oh. And she's apparently not just ANY Draconequus.

“This is not possible,” the Mared whispered. “This is not the magic of ponies. What are you, little monster?”
“I'm Star Swirl,” the unicorn said, “and there is nothing else like me.”

Holy wow. That is one of the single most badass lines I have EVER read.

That ending. Wow.
Starswirl you done turned yourself into a zomibe. Ok not really but close-ish

[nemryn]

“I'm Star Swirl, ” the unicorn said, “and there is nothing else like me.”

Ooh. Such a great line.