• Published 2nd Jun 2015
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The Dusk Guard Saga: Beyond the Borderlands - Viking ZX



Blade Sunchaser is a griffon on the run. Six days ago she was in a jail cell. Now, she's out, and she’s got a job to do, a job with a payoff bigger than any she’s earned before. And she'll do whatever it takes to see her mission through.

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Chapter 22 - Patience and Ambition

Somewhere just past the borders of the Griffon Empire

Sagis watched as the bridge crew hurried about their tasks, each of them staring intently down at their controls with a single-minded determination. Gone were the proud backs, the squared shoulders, the raised horns all aligned in unison. In their places he saw hunched forms, fearful eyes, and quivering expressions.

What have we degraded ourselves to? the looks in their eyes asked. Have we been so completely broken beneath the heel of an inferior being? He still refused to think of the immortal currently occupying what had been his quarters as a superior creature.

We are unicorns! We are the strong! He felt a flame of determination welling inside him, and he lifted his head, letting his chest stick out as he held his horn high. A few of the bridge crew looked at him, their eyes drawn by the movement, and then they turned back to their instruments with nary a sign of bolstered fortitude. One of them even had the audacity to roll his eyes.

Impudent whelp, Sagis thought as the crew continued their operations around him. I should have him beaten. Punished for his audacity. Yes, a good punishment would be fine event. It would serve to remind the rest of the crew whose orders they truly followed, inspire them to ignore the ugly rumors that had begun to swirl in the wake of the awakening at the Vault. Rumors that he, Lord Sagis himself, was a traitor. That he cared for little more than power, and nothing for the superiority of the unicorn race. That he’d aspired to use King Sombra as little more than a pawn in his own plots.

He scoffed, the action once again drawing nearby looks. Couldn’t the fools see that he’d merely said what needed to be said, what he’d needed to say to placate an immortal being who—at the moment—had held the superior ground?

But no. They were weak. They didn’t believe in him. Didn’t believe in the cause. They believed in Anubis.

He sneered as he thought of the demigod, reclining in the splendor of the quarters he’d commandeered upon claiming the vessel. How dare his followers put their faith in that … jackal-thing. It was almost a mockery of the Order he’d forged.

It was the fear, he decided. The constant, needling fear. The immortal seemed to exude it, spreading it everywhere. Even now, he could feel the faint pressure of it pushing on his mind, like a slow, steady wind bracing itself against the entire airship. He’d resisted so far, working his magic from time to time to block the demigod’s own, but it seemed to adapt, to change. To morph its shape like water through a dam, pressing past whatever mental defenses he put up, to press on his soul like a dark tide. Not a tide high enough to drown, mind. But one that wet the hooves, hung inches away from the belly, lapping back and forth with almost taunting ease.

The fear was definitely getting to the crew. Many of them were quiet, some almost non-responsive. Sometimes he would hear distant screams echoing from the bunks.

Still, there was hope. Some of the mages were resisting, like he was. Some of them were holding back, proving themselves as true devotees of the Order. Anubis had promised that once they reached their destination, he would release the field, and Sagis had seen how the crew had responded to it. If he could claim responsibility—

“Sir?”

He turned. One of the few remaining chosen, a sniveling coward named Solar Spike, was standing next to him, his eyes wide and bloodshot. Anubis had been using the worm as a front since he’d come on board, dispatching him like his own personal vassal. Sagis wasn’t sure if it was because he valued the little wretch or if it was because the pony had lost his spine long ago.

“What?” he asked, taking a sense of satisfaction as the chosen flinched back. Coward, he thought. You’re everything that’s wrong with the situation we’re in. You cower and submit when you should be serving your own kind.

“It’s Lord Anubis,” Solar said, still cowering. His eyes were nervous, darting to corners of the room like he expected something to jump out and strike at him.

“What about him?” Sagis asked, refusing to call him lord. Outside of his presence, at least. Inside, he’d have to make exceptions.

“He’s requested your presence, sir.”

“Very well,” Sagis gave the sniveling Solar a quick nod, hiding his disgust at the way the chosen flinched back. This will not do, he thought.

“Chosen Solar,” he said, his voice calm. Solar’s eyes turned up towards him.

“Yes … sir?” The voice was mewling, almost silent.

“Report to Doctor Cell.” The reaction was almost immediate. The chosen’s eyes went wide, a look of sheer horror growing across his face. Sagis could have sighed, but he reminded himself that it was the fear that was driving the look, not the rational.

“Not for experimentation,” he said, trying not to let his feelings of disdain show. “Tell him that I sent you. You look tired, overworked. Ask him to sedate you so that you can sleep for a few hours.”

“I … Thank you, but—”

“And tell another chosen to attend to our guest for a while,” Sagis said. He began to reach out to rest his hoof on the colt’s shoulder, but the unicorn flinched back, so he stopped, instead leaving his hoof hanging in the air and then lowering it. “That’s an order, chosen.”

“I …” Solar nodded, swallowing. “Yes, Lord Sagis.”

That’s better, Sagis thought as the unicorn turned and wandered off, though the youth still kept his distance from the rest of the bridge crew. Not by much, but at least he remembered to pay me the respect my station was due. Which he couldn’t say for some of the unicorns currently in his command. At some point, those unicorns would need to be identified and … dealt with.

He left the bridge, his hoofsteps muffled by the luxurious carpet that patterned the hallways. It had cost quite a bit of money to afford the delicate patterns, and some would have—and had—considered it a waste of bits to pattern a simple airship hall with such extravagant designs.

But they were unicorns. The prime species. They deserved the ordinary to be extravagant, the simple to be luxurious. He smiled as the shuffling sound of his hooves filled the air around him. Yes, they did. It was their right to have the best, to mete out from what remained to those weaker beings who deserved it.

It’s our right to decide, he thought as he neared the stairway that led up to what had been—and would be once more—his quarters. We are the superior race. We are the powerful ones. It’s our right to decide for the other races what they deserve and where they stand beneath us. The statement was one of the old creeds, little changed since he’d come into power. Let the younger, more naive members of the cult believe that it was their place to shepherd the lesser races of this world. He knew what the real moral was.

Power.

He paused for a moment outside the door to his old quarters, staring at the door while trying to decide whether or not he should knock. After a moment he shook his head. The less weakness he showed, the better. He reached out with his magic and tugged the door open.

“Lord Anubis,” he said as he walked into his old chambers, his voice resonating with what he hoped was just enough deference to keep the immortal happy. “You requested my presence?”

His old quarters were well-lit, multiple, bright magilights positioned in optimum emplacements around the ceiling to bathe the entire room in a comforting glow. The rear wall was made entirely of sloped, thick, heavy panes of glass, a design that would have given the entire room a grand view of the surrounding air had not they been covered with shade material—likely to keep the room’s occupant hidden. The signs of luxury and taste were everywhere. Sculptures of famous unicorns. Ornate woodwork. Even the massive, heavy desk that filled the center of the room was made of a rare wood not found outside of one of the eastern deserts he could never remember the name of. There were even rare paintings on the walls, each picked by him personally as their creators had been members of the unicorn race.

Or at least, that had been what it had looked like the last time he had seen it. Now the paintings were gone, several of them hanging at odd angles and showing a number of holes, as if somepony—or someone—had been playing darts with them. The sculptures he’d patiently spent a decade collecting were sitting in a corner, forgotten. Even the doors to both his personal bedroom and personal bath were open, and he could see that neither of them had been left intact either.

And there, behind his desk, sat the individual responsible for all of it. He was relaxed, leaning back in his seat as he spun his long, metal staff in one hand, but even then the large desk still looked too low, his knees just barely level with the top edge. He was still wearing the golden armor on his shins, forearms, and hands, along with the strange, white-gold head covering that Sagis had privately taken to thinking of as a “metal mane.” The rest of the immortal’s body was bare save for the small cloth worn around the waist, a multilayered, carefully wrapped piece of whitish fabric that gave its wearer freedom to move while still providing a modest covering.

Black and grey fur. Tight, almost impossibly defined muscle structure. Long, thin ears that stood straight upwards. A mouth full of sharp, dangerous, canine teeth.

Anubis. The immortal.

And he was grinning.

“Sagis,” Anubis said, not even bothering to look at him as he walked up. The demigod’s eyes were fixed on his spinning staff, tracking it as his fingers brought it sweeping back and forth in quick, complex patterns. “I expect that we passed the border inspection well enough?”

Expect, not assume. There was a dangerous difference in those two words. “Of course,” he said, withholding a nod.

“Of course?” Anubis repeated, one eyebrow lifting as he glanced in his direction. “Of course what?

“Of course, Lord Anubis,” Sagis said, fighting to keep his face straight as he forced the words out. Anubis grinned, his staff coming to a sudden halt, cracking against his palm.

“Not bad, Sagis,” he said, pointing his staff at him. “You might be able to pull this off after all. Of course,” he said, his voice taking on a dangerous tone as he leaned forward, one corner of his mouth turning upwards in a smirk. “In order to do that, you’re going to have to learn a whole lot of patience.”

“I’m … what?” Sagis asked, pulling back slightly as the smirk became a smile. A dangerous, predatory smile. “I’m sorry?”

Anubis laughed. “Come on, Sagis. Don’t play games with me. I’ve had a lot of time to play games. I know games. You’re chafing under all of this, Sagis. You want power, after all, and right now you’re in a position without the power you crave.”

“I …” He backed up slightly, his mind racing. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

The smile dropped from Anubis’s face. “Don’t lie to me, Sagis. I don’t particularly have anything against the practice half the time, but when you lie to me, and it’s a very obvious lie, I start wondering if perhaps I might be wasting my time keeping you around. Don’t get me wrong, if someone’s going to lie to me and do it well, that’s different. But you?” He waved a hand. “I’m sorry, but you’re not really that good at it. Not to me, anyway.”

Sagis shook his head. Now he really was confused. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Figures,” Anubis said, leaning back into his seat and dropping a hand below the desk. “I’m talking about patience, Sagis. Patience. You and I? We’re playing a game right now. A game where I’m the one who’s in charge, and you’re the one who wants to be in charge. And like most who are untrained at the game, you don’t value patience. For example …” He brought his arm up from behind the desk, something clutched in his hand.

Sagis’s eyes widened. It was, or had been, one of the few remaining shadows left aboard after the debacle at the vault. Her body was limp, hanging by the neck from the immortal’s hand, her jaw slack with the tongue hanging out, and he could very clearly see her misted-over eyes. She was dead.

Anubis tossed the body forward, and it hit the edge of the desk with a thump before sliding off the end and landing on the carpet at Sagis’s hooves. “Really, Sagis?” he asked. “A single shadow? That’s it? I’m almost insulted.”

Sagis reached out and prodded the mare, watching as her head rolled back at an odd angle. Her neck had been broken.

He knew who she was. Dill, a shadow mare who’d continually insisted that everypony call her Dagger instead. She’d become a shadow partially to warn others to stop using her name. She’d been fiercely devoted to the cause of King Sombra, which was why he’d had her stationed at the vault.

She’d also been one of the cultists he’d spoken to about his plans to deal with Anubis. Plans which should not have been acted on so early. Then again, she always had been a bit reckless.

And now she was dead.

“So,” Anubis said. There was a smile on his face, but his eyes were cold and calculating. “Care to explain yourself?”

Sagis sat back, trying to look calm as his mind raced. “I can only offer apologies, my lord,” he said, shaking his head. “She must not have been as devoted a follower as I thought, to strike at you like that.” Especially when I told her to wait! If I could have found more who thought like her …

Anubis shook his head, still smiling. “Well, your answer wasn’t that off, so at least you’ve got skill there.”

“I’m sorry?” What are you playing at?

“Look, Sagis,” Anubis said, rising from his seat and looking down at him. “I know you knew about this. Even if you didn’t order her to try—and if you did, I’m almost insulted—I know that you’re looking for a way to take back over. You want power. You just need to learn patience. Real patience.” He turned and strode away from the desk, over to the curtained windows. “Being patient is an important part of any plan.”

The room went silent, and Anubis reached out, one hand idly pulling aside some of the cloth over the windows. Then he spoke.

“You see, Sagis, you’ve got talent,” he said, dropping the cloth and turning. “But you’re facing me. And that means you need to be a little more careful when setting up your plans. Otherwise …” His hand snapped out, the fingers pressed together and the palm extended. With a heavy snap, his staff leapt from the surface of the desk and into his outstretched hand, a curving, transparent-blue blade jumping out of both ends. “I might have to find a more capable servant.”

There was no point in hiding it. Apparently, the immortal already knew. And he didn’t seem to care. Which meant … what?

“I’m afraid I am unsure of what you’re getting at,” Sagis said, choosing his words carefully. “What do you mean?”

Anubis smiled. “Then why don’t I tell you a little story? Do you know how I ended up locked in that vault all the way at the top of the world? Why I was there? Or what I’m doing now?”

“No, Lord Anubis.”

“Please,” the immortal said, waving a hand. “Just Anubis when we’re in private like this. Ordinarily when I’m dealing with fawning admiration I’m okay with it, but since we both know where we stand, why don’t you drop the pretense while we’re in here, okay?”

“Then no, Anubis.” The immortal’s dialogue had changed since he’d been released. He seemed to be getting more and more relaxed, more casual with each encounter. Was he just slipping back towards the way he’d always sounded? Or had he picked up the words from his scans?

Anubis chuckled. “See, wasn’t that easier? And you’re admitting something there. First, that you’re not enjoying this arrangement that we’ve entered into, and second, that you’re trying to do something about that without even knowing what I’m up to.” He shook his head, twirling his staff in the air. “See? Patience. What if that minion of yours had actually succeeded? You’d have no idea what my plans were, what riches laid at the end. So why don’t I give you a little educational explanation? Why was I locked away in that vault, Sagis?”

“I do not know,” Sagis admitted. “I would assume that you were there because someone sealed you—”

“Wrong!” Sagis jerked back as Anubis’s voice echoed through the room. “And therein lies the message. I wasn’t there because someone sealed me there. I was there because someone thought they sealed me away.”

“I …” Sagis tried to make sense of what the jackal was saying. “I don’t understand.”

“Then I’ll explain it,” Anubis said, walking back across the room and dropping into his seat. “You see, I’ve been around a long time. Around thirty-five hundred years, give or take a few decades. And one of the most important things I’ve learned in that time is patience. Are you familiar with the history of the immortals?”

“Not really,” Sagis admitted. “A little, but no more.”

“I didn’t think so,” Anubis said. “Well, let me put it this way: Back in the day, we were all going our own way and doing our own thing. Reus was the first of us to realize that the Creator was never coming back, that all of us were just wasting our time waiting and doing what we were ‘supposed’ to do, and that we’d be better off serving our own interests. There was no point in serving a Creator’s wishes if they weren’t ever coming back, right? After all, it’s not like they were ever as perfect as they claimed. Discord happened, didn’t he?”

“Anyway, so we were doing our own things with you mortals, because really, what else is there to do when surrounded by a bunch of short lived inferiors like you happen to be?” he asked, pointing his staff at Sagis. “So while the world moved on, we did what we wanted. Some of us became rulers, as was our place as the truly superior being—a logic you seem to understand in a way.”

“But there were some who disagreed. Some who clung to their loyalty to the creator. Like those pathetic, self-righteous pony sisters. We underestimated them at first; all of us did. We were busy. We had nations to command. Mortals to conquer. None of us thought they’d get in our way.”

He slammed the butt end of his staff against the floor. “But no, they had to mess with our fun, our right.” There wasn’t any venom to the words, but it was clear he was displeased. ‘We’d barely gotten started when they started coming for us, one by one.” He looked up at Sagis. “You with me so far?”

Sagis nodded. So far it sounded familiar enough with what he’d read of the old texts. The revolt of the immortals, the chaos that followed as each of them either vanished or set out to make themselves rulers.

“Good,” Anubis said. “I hate to tell the same story twice. It gets boring.” He shook his head. “Anyway, things happened. I was laying low, working on a project—a big one—after the Plainslands had wiped out the last of my jackals. And I’d finished it, or the most important parts. You see, I was playing it smart, keeping my head down while Sun-butt and Moon-butt went after my more impatient brothers and sisters. Except ...” His eyes widened slightly in ancient surprise. “They were a little faster at it than I expected. When Itzpapalotl went down, I knew I’d be next.”

“And that’s how you ended up in that vault?” Sagis asked, his mind dancing with visions of similar vaults all over the world, each with an ancient immortal sealed inside it by the pony sisters. “Is that what those two did to every one of their foes?”

Patience,” Anubis growled. “I’m telling a story here. And no, they didn’t seal Itzpapalotl anywhere. They killed her, though they claimed they were loath to do it.”

Sagis pulled back in surprise. He knew the two rulers of Equestria were betrayers to the race they’d been assigned to protect, with their refusal to admit that the unicorns were the superior species, but to kill to defeat a foe? It sounded so unlike them.

Then again, he reminded himself. Didn’t they attempt to kill King Sombra? Perhaps there were limits to their generosity.

“Thing is, I knew I couldn’t beat the two head to head,” Anubis said. “My skill—despite my physical prowess—is in my mind. I had to outthink them. And my plan, what I was working on after my jackals proved to be less than useful, needed time. Time to come together, and time I didn’t have. Unless I really thought ahead.” He leaned forward. “Unless I was patient,” he said, his voice low and slow.

“So I took the followers I had left and split them up,” he said. “Some came with me, off into the distant north, to the wasteland you call the Ocean, while the rest left with my instructions. And I built the Vault myself, letting word slip that it was intended to be a prison for the two pony sisters, a subspace trap from which they’d never get out. Then …” He paused and grinned. “Then, when they came to defeat me, I allowed myself to be ‘tricked’ into being sealed inside it instead.”

Sagis felt his eyes open wide. “You what?” he asked, disbelieving.

“I let them seal me inside,” Anubis said, his smile cold. “They believed that the Vault was supposed to be a prison for them, when in fact, it was nothing more than my own personal hiding spot. What better way to hide and convince others I was no longer a threat than to convince those who would have destroyed me that I was such?”

“But …” Sagis shook his head. “The key! Someone would have needed the key to let you out?”

“And they took it,” Anubis said, nodding. “The illusion of security. I knew that eventually, be it in a thousand years or ten thousand, someone would find the key and curiosity would win out. I was content to wait, to let the world think I was gone while simply biding my time.”

“But …”

“That, Sagis, is patience,” Anubis said, rising and leaning across the desk. “The shrewdness to wait until the right moment. And while Celestia and Luna turned their attention elsewhere, my followers completed their own task, fulfilling the last parts of my plan elsewhere.”

“Where?” Sagis asked. Anubis smiled.

“You’re learning,” he said. “But to be honest, I don’t actually know. That was part of the plan, you see? I couldn’t know where it was, or there was a chance those two sisters would have learned of it. We split ways long before I even built the Vault.”

“The other key,”Sagis said, the connection forming in his mind. “They had the third piece.”

“No,” Anubis said. “But it doesn’t matter. The keys are mine, and they will come when I want them too. But, now do you see?” he asked as he rose. “Patience, Sagis. Patience to suffer defeat, to spend almost two-thousand years patiently waiting inside a dimensional pocket with the world believing me gone—save my followers, who would finish laying the foundation of my ultimate plan in secret, so that all would be ready when I returned.”

Sagis could feel a tendril of fear snaking through him now as the immortal looked down at him. It wasn’t unnatural fear either, something from the demigod’s staff. This was real fear, fear at the audacity of a being who would willingly wait a thousand years to enact his master plan.

“So,” Anubis continued, his voice growing hard as his eyes narrowed. “When I see pathetic attempts like this—” He waved his hand at Dill’s body, “—I get displeased. Almost insulted. I don’t care if you’re going behind my back, Sagis. In fact,” he said, leaning in close, his sharp teeth inches away from Sagis’s muzzle as he hissed through them. “I expect it. But if I find that you continue to waste my time with pathetic attempts such as this, well …”

He rapped his staff against the deck once more, a grey mist seeping its way free of the base and crawling up Sagis’s legs. Sagis tried not to shake as the immortal’s dark eyes burned into his own, the purple irises colder than anything he’d ever seen on the Ocean.

“I’ll break you,” Anubis said. Then he pulled away, a smile once again on his face. “Am I clear?”

“I … yes, Anubis,” he said, nodding. The message had been clear. Rise to the occasion … or fall. Hard. Even in betrayal.

“Good,” Anubis said, sitting once more. “Now that we’re on the same page, as the saying goes, let’s talk of other things. For instance, how we’re going to find my master plan.” He smiled. “It’s out there somewhere, waiting for me. My grand plan.” A chill ran down Sagis’s spine.

“My city of the dead.”

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