Silver Gaze: the Pony Who Would be King

by FireOfTheNorth

The Lure of Power

Chapter Two: The Lure of Power

Through the night, Silver Gaze traveled through the storm, seeking shelter, but finding none. He followed the westward road as best as he could, but the dirt path soon turned to mud in the falling rain. He was in the wilderness that separated the towns of the Crystal Empire, with only a few farmsteads in between, and he often heard the howls of wolves and the roars of manticores both close and in the distance. Unfortunately, in this brutal territory, nopony was willing to open their doors and let the bedraggled earth pony in.

Silver was soaked and thoroughly miserable by the time the downpour slowed to a drizzle, and the sun began to peek through the clouds. Shortly after the storm subsided, he reached the town of Beryl. Silver wandered through the maze of crystalline buildings, searching for an inn where he could get dry and hopefully get something to eat. He’d had the presence of mind to carry a coin purse filled with Crystal Empire Shards with him when he’d broken into the palace, but it was far less than his full wealth (which was meager to start with) and would only get him the necessities.

He eventually managed to find an inn and spent half his Shards on a meal to fill his stomach while he sat shivering in front of the fire. His cloak he removed and hung up to dry while he ate. The crystal ponies within the inn gave him strange looks, though it seemed that it was more due to the belt of potions strapped around his midsection than the fact that he was a non-crystal earth pony. After all, Beryl was the closest town to the Equestrian border, and there was a fair share of non-crystal ponies wandering the streets.

After his immediate concerns for his health were taken care of, Silver’s mind turned to other matters. His plan to get back at Emerald Wave had backfired spectacularly. Not only was he still not respected throughout the Crystal Empire, but now he was forbidden from returning to the Crystal City. He’d lost all the equipment and ingredients in his flat, things he’d spent years accumulating, and to top it all off he’d most likely never see Shimmer again. He had enough Shards to buy himself maybe one more meal before he had to begin scrounging for ingredients and brewing potions to sell again. Maybe he’d make enough money before dark to afford a room in an inn, or he might not. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to huddle in a doorway and wrap his cloak around him while he slept.

But this time was different. Instead of running, this time he’d tried to stand up to the Prince, and had in fact succeeded. He pulled the damp parchment containing the true recipe for the love potion from his cloak and threw it into the fire, watching as it crumpled and burned. He was sick of running, sick of letting other ponies push him around just because he was a feeble earth pony. He was Silver Gaze, after all, and nopony could brew potions like him, could feel out the strengths of each ingredient and weave them together in unimaginable ways. It was time for him to stop running and start standing up for himself.

But the problem still remained that he was banished from the Crystal City and separated from all his equipment and the notes he’d accumulated over the years. In that inn, waiting for the fire to bring warmth back into his limbs, he found the solution, or at least the beginning of one. In one move he would return to the Crystal City and reclaim his possessions, as well as enact his revenge on the Prince and ensure that nopony ever looked down on him again.

* * *

After finishing his meal, Silver headed off immediately to Beryl’s library. While not as expansive as the Crystal City’s, it was still one of the larger storehouses for books in the Crystal Empire. But it was sadly lacking in the one kind of book Silver was searching for: ancient tomes of power. As an earth pony, it seemed nopony would respect him, but perhaps if he had some magic of his own he would receive the respect he deserved. He’d heard rumors and legends about earth ponies using unicorn magic, but there seemed to be almost no mention of such things in the Beryl library.

A promising lead was found regarding the Crystal Empire’s founder, who had been an earth pony able to grow crystals from nothing. However, further reading revealed that his powers had come from being conceived during Discord’s defeat. Since nothing like that seemed likely to happen again any time in the near future, Silver moved on, looking for other legends. Here and there stories could be found regarding earth ponies that had managed to use unicorn magic, but there was never any indication of how they’d managed to obtain such powers. The more and more Silver read, the more and more it seemed like a lost cause.

“Ugh, how does an earth pony use magic?” Silver asked himself a bit louder than he should have as he slammed his head down on the book he had been looking through last.

“Are you talking about Frozen Heart?” a pony at the table next to his whispered.

“Frozen who?” Silver asked, removing his head from the dusty tome.

“Frozen Heart, the necromancer,” the shimmering yellow earth pony said, scooting his chair closer to Silver Gaze so he wouldn’t have to speak quite as loud, “He’s sort of a town fable, the pony that wouldn’t die.”

“What do you mean he wouldn’t die?” Silver asked, staring at the crystal pony with his silvery eyes.

“They say that a few decades ago, an earth pony calling himself Frozen Heart entered this town,” the crystal pony explained, “He acted very oddly and claimed to be an agent of a force more powerful than anypony could imagine. Then he started practicing necromancy, using spells to raise the dead. Well, the townsponies captured him and put an end to that, but when they tried to kill him for his crimes, they found him magically protected and unable to die, so they banished him instead.”

“Does anypony know where he went?” Silver asked.

“Not that I know of,” the crystal pony replied, shaking his head, “You’d have to check the official town records to know for sure. Why, are you a bounty hunter out to get him?”

“Not exactly,” Silver replied, already rising to search for Beryl’s town records, “I want that power he had.”

“Oh,” the crystal pony said, his face transitioning into a frown.

He scampered off through the library as Silver Gaze set out to look for the town records. With a bit of help from the librarian, he located the massive tomes and hauled the earlier ones over to the desk he’d been sitting at before. Flipping them open and sending dust scattering everywhere, he flipped through the accounts of everything that had happened in Beryl since its founding. At last he found what he was looking for, information on Frozen Heart’s trial and sentencing.

“Crime: necromancy. Punishment: execution by decapitation,” Silver read aloud as he ran his hoof under the print, “Punishment: execution by magical cremation. Punishment: eternal banishment.”

So it was true. It seemed that the citizens of Beryl had tried several different ways to kill Frozen Heart, and none of them had worked. So, instead, they’d let him go, but forbidden him from ever entering the town again. If they couldn’t harm him, there was a possibility that he was still alive, and if he was then he could share his secrets. All Silver needed now was his location.

“Last seen traveling down western road in direction of Chrysolite,” he read in the notes beneath Frozen Heart’s file, “I wonder if the ponies in Chrysolite know anything.”

“He’s right over here,” called the crystal pony who’d been talking to Silver earlier, causing his ears to prick up.

He turned to see the yellow pony leading a group of guards around the bookshelves to where he was sitting.

“Quartz Trust here says you’ve been looking into things you shouldn’t be,” the guard captain said to Silver before grabbing him in his magic, “We don’t want any necromancers in our town.”

Before Silver Gaze could protest, the guard lifted him in his magic and began to drag him out of the library. The other guards followed close behind, their spears at the ready in case the suspected necromancer tried to escape. Silver protested his innocence all the way to the outskirts of Beryl, but the guards ignored him and tossed him onto the still muddy path with a warning not to return. As he picked himself up out of the mud, he looked scornfully back at the town. Once he had his power, this place would pay for how it had treated him. He wiped the mud from his cloak and pulled it tighter around him before trudging through the drizzle toward Chrysolite.

* * *

A long and miserable trek later, Silver Gaze reached the gates to the dull green crystalline city of Chrysolite. Rain still dripped from the sky, and thunder sounded across the heavens as the earth pony traveled through the town. His first thought was to find the library and search the town records for any mention of Frozen Heart, but it turned out that Chrysolite didn’t have a library; the records instead were kept within the keep, and only select ponies were allowed to read them.

He wasn’t willing to give up his search so easily, and instead tried to ask the townsponies about the mysterious pony who wouldn’t die. Few seemed to want to speak to him, shunning him as an outsider. Among those who did talk to him, many had no idea who Frozen Heart was, and the rest refused to speak to him after he mentioned the necromancer’s name. It seemed likely that Frozen Heart had been here, but getting any information about him was proving to be nearly impossible.

Eventually, he found his way into the more impoverished part of the small town, drawn to a small alchemy shop tucked tightly between two other buildings. A small bell rang as he pushed the door open. Within the shop were shelves piled high with ingredients Silver recognized at a glance. A small stove in the center of the room glowed a dull red, projecting heat that soon dried the moisture that still clung to the earth pony. Behind a counter at the far end of the shop sat a wizened crystal pony with a dull sapphire coat.

“Greetings, traveler,” she called out to Silver, “What can I help you with today?”

“I’m just passing through,” he said as he examined the satchels and phials spilling off the shelves that lined the walls before picking up a mortar and pestle, “How much for these?”

He currently had only a limited amount of Shards, maybe enough for another meal, and he knew he shouldn’t waste them. Still, if he could get a bit of alchemy equipment for a good price now, that would mean he’d need to scrounge for less later, and the potions he made would be better, ensuring higher prices would be paid. It wouldn’t be long before he’d have to start mixing up and selling potions to survive.

“Let’s have a look,” the apothecary said, gesturing for Silver to bring his alchemy equipment over to her, “So, what brings you to Chrysolite?”

“I’m searching for a necromancer,” Silver Gaze replied without thinking while the elderly alchemist examined the mortar and pestle.

“You must mean Frozen Heart,” she said, surprising the earth pony, “I can sell that to you for twelve Shards, no less.”

“Wait, you know about Frozen Heart?” Silver asked, leaning over the counter.

“Yes, the undying one lived here for quite a while,” she replied, sliding the mortar and pestle back across the counter, “In fact-”

She was interrupted by the ringing of the bell inside her shop’s door. Silver looked over his shoulder to see two guards wearing the town’s armor and a diminutive crystal pony who he’d talked to earlier. He quickly turned back around, praying to every deity he could think of that the guards weren’t there for him.

“What can I help you with today?” the elderly mare behind the counter asked, looking around Silver at the guards.

“This fellow been asking you questions about Frozen Heart too?” one of the guards asked abruptly.

“Yes, what’s the harm in that?” the mare asked, though the guard stopped paying attention to her after she’d confirmed that Silver had indeed been asking questions.

“You’re awful curious, aren’t you?” the guard asked, grabbing Silver and spinning him around, “You’ve been asking an awful lot of ponies questions about that necromancer. Why?”

“Well,” Silver said, swallowing forcefully and trying to come up with an excuse but finding none, “I want to meet him.”

“Wrong answer,” the guard said, “The last thing we need in this town is another necromancer. You’re coming with us.”

“Where are we going?” Silver asked as the guard roughly bound his hooves.

“The dungeons,” the guard replied, marching him out of the shop, “Then the count will decide what to do with you.”

* * *

The cell Silver was thrown in was small, damp, and dark, the walls made of roughly cut stone instead of the crystal the castle above was constructed from. After marching him through Chrysolite, the guards had removed all his possessions, including the last of his potions, his remaining Shards, and even his cloak. Now he was naked and alone in a small cell.

“Hello?” a weak voice spoke from the darkness, causing Silver to jump involuntarily.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t alone after all. Slowly his eyes adjusted to the darkness until he could make out the form of a silvery gray crystal mare cowering in the corner of the cell. She looked like she’d been here awhile, the color drained from her coat due to her lack of sunlight or fresh air. In fact, she didn’t seem to shimmer like other crystal ponies, proving that she had been broken emotionally by either this place or the jailers.

“Hi,” Silver responded, not sure how to proceed, but not wanting to be rude to his cellmate.

“I’m . . . Resplendent Glory,” she introduced herself, scooting out of the corner a bit.

“Silver Gaze,” Silver responded, introducing himself as well.

“I haven’t seen anypony thrown into this cell in a long time,” Glory said, uncurling a bit more, “What did you do to get sent down here?”

“I asked too many questions,” Silver said, sitting down on the cold stone, “The guards didn’t like me poking around and asking about Frozen Heart.”

“That’s why?” the mare said, her ears pricking up at the mention of the necromancer, “How long did they say you’d be here?”

“Until the count decides what to do with me.”

“That’s what they told me a year ago,” Glory said, her eyes falling to stare at the floor.

“Oh,” Silver said, his hopes that he’d be out soon dashed, “So, why are you here?”

“It started generations ago,” Glory began to explain, sharing her story, “My great-great grandmother took in a weary traveler who’d been injured badly. She allowed him to stay in one of the rooms in her inn while he recovered. She didn’t know that he was Frozen Heart, fleeing from Beryl. He never made any trouble, so he was allowed to stay for years, all the way up to the time I took over the inn from my mother. Then somepony figured out who the mysterious stranger upstairs truly was, and the town tried to capture him. When they couldn’t kill him, they banished him from the town and locked me up here for sheltering him.”

“Do you know where he went?” Silver asked desperately.

“Oh yes, we were very close,” Glory said, nodding her head, “He said that if he ever had to leave town he’d be heading to Embershard. He has a friend there named . . . Pleasant Meadows, I think, who would take him in.”

Silver sat back and exhaled deeply as he processed the information. He now knew where Frozen Heart was, or at least where he had gone a year ago. With luck, he’d still be in Embershard. But as helpful as this information was, Silver was unable to use it locked up in prison. Judging by the mare sitting across from him, his condition wasn’t likely to change any time soon.

“Why are you looking for Frozen Heart anyway?” Glory asked.

“That power he has,” Silver said, his attention returning to the present, “I want it.”

“Oh,” Glory said, frowning, “I don’t think-”

She stopped talking as the lock on the door clicked, and scurried back into the corner as the door opened, allowing light to spill into the room, blinding Silver. As his vision adjusted, he could make out the silhouettes of a few of Chrysolite’s guards.

“Get up,” one of them ordered, roughly dragging Silver to his hooves, “Looks like you get out early after all.”

“Wh-why?” Silver asked as the guards marched him through the dungeons.

“This is why,” one of them said, shoving a poster with Silver’s likeness sketched on it in his face, “Prince Emerald Wave’s banished you from the Empire, so we can’t keep you here.”

The sun had already sunk below the horizon, and rain was beginning to pour from the clouds overhead as the guards led him out of Chrysolite’s castle. A few of the town’s residents looked up in alarm as they saw the guards forcing the earth pony to march through the streets, but they were wise enough to return to their business and not get involved. Eventually, they reached the city gates, which were closed for the night. After a brief and unpleasant exchange between the guards and the gatekeeper, they were allowed to pass. As soon as the guards threw Silver out of the town, the gates were shut behind him, locking him out in the rain, alone with not even a cloak to protect him from the elements. Glaring back at the town, Silver trudged his away from Chrysolite, heading northwest toward Embershard.