A Beginner's Guide to Heroism

by LoyalLiar

XXIII - Invitation to a Duel

XXIII
Invitation to a Duel

Crossing the mountains proved incredibly pleasant in spite of the stinking sulfurous air, the rain of char and ash from the sky, and even the harsh rocks beneath my hooves, all for one reason: it doesn’t snow amongst the dragons.

I knew from my studies with Wintershimmer that the dragons controlled miles upon miles of beautiful rocky coastline covered in lush vegetation, but we were bound for perhaps the most iconic of the draconic holdings: the black-sloped and flame-cracked slopes of the mountain called Krennotets. “The Crooked Peak”, as it translates, lived up to its name. The stone spire was remarkably narrow, leaning to the south as it rose toward its peak, culminating in a valley that leaked falls of lava down a mile of open mountainside. The vista was spectacular and terrifying, visible from miles away even with the ash and soot in the air.

In truth, Krennotets wasn’t far from the snowy base of the mountains; it was part of that mountain range after all. That pleasantly meant that our journey didn’t leave any of us dead from poisonous gasses or catching on fire, or even encounters with particularly hungry dragons before we reached the base of Krennotets itself and its signature rivers of lava.

All that changed alarmly rapidly. I first saw the shadow on the ground, and I had no more time than it took to look upward before it landed with a crunch in front of me. Glistening scales of blue guarded the crests of orange wings, and two curved ram-like horns flanked a gullet full of fangs. The dragon was maybe twice my size—formidable, but hardly worth comparing to a fully grown wyrm. In the space of overcoming my shock, three more apparently adolescent dragons swooped down to join the first.

“Ponies! What are you doing here?” To say the drake shouted at me would be an understatement; I had to dig my hooves into the rough volcanic soil just to avoid being swept away by the force of his voice. I’m certain a good half of my nose hairs curled away and died under a similar though far more brutal onslaught.

“We’re here to see Clover the Clever,” I explained, when the foul wind died down. “My companion Blizzard here says we’re looking for her on the summit of Krennotets.”

“You cannot go to the summit!” the dragon shouted back. I dug in my hooves again, and this time held my breath.

“Not need shout!” Graargh bellowed at the dragon, hypocritically adding a bellowing roar that belied his size.

Several of the dragons snorted back laughter, and one just to the left of the apparent leader knelt down (a strange sight indeed on reptilian legs). He spoke in a condescending tone. “Oh, a little bear thinks it can talk that way to dragons. Should we give him a bath?”

“Yeah,” a deep-voiced and full-bodied drake replied. “In some lava.” He laughed at his own joke, and apparently the other dragons were equally amused by the statement of the obvious.

I stepped in front of Graargh, cleared my throat, and spoke up again. “Why can’t we go up to the summit?”

The lead drake rolled his slitted eyes and maintained his deafening volume. “The summit is a protected place. Only the strong may go, if they can earn it.”

That was easy enough. I smiled, and popped my neck in a show of confidence. “My name is Mortal Coil, Court Mage of the Crystal Union. I’m most likely the single strongest mage in our entire species, save the divine sisters. So if you could get out of the way—”

The lead dragon snorted small flames as he and his companions laughed. “You claim strength with words? Hah. You shall not pass.”

I snorted back, albeit less pyrotechnically. “Alright, so you’ve got some sort of test then? Look, I’ll skip to the end of this and save us both some time. Why don’t you go get whatever dragon is actually in charge to come down here and talk to me?”

The dragon glared. “I am Torch. I am the Dragon Lord, as I have been for twelve years.”

Some days I wonder if offending heads of state is my real Cutie Mark talent, and the seven-pointed star is misleading somehow.

“Alright, Torch. You’re the ruler of the dragons. Wonderful. I’m going to assume then that older, smarter dragons don’t want the title.” I earned another glare. “Same question: what do I have to do to pass? Fight you? Do you only respect physical strength, or will hurling you off the mountain suffice?”

Torch laughed. “You? Throw me? You are tiny, pony.”

Behind me, Graargh tugged on my jacket. “Morty, I pretend to be big dragon?”

I glanced briefly back at Graargh and then sighed. “Kid, now is really not the time for us to play pretend. Where did that even come from?” I didn’t waste time waiting for a reply. “Torch, you let Clover up the mountain, right? Sort of a grassy green pony, a lot older than me?”

Torch snorted. “She is strong. Impressed Krenn.” He gestured toward the summit with a claw. “You are not.”

I couldn’t help but let a brow climb my forehead. “She impressed… the mountain? Is that some sort of backwards cultural ritual, or is the mountain literally alive?”

The dragons scowled, some baring their maws of sharp teeth and glowing fiery throats at my blunt (though accurate) assault on their culture. Before Torch could dive onto me, Blizzard walked forward. “Drakes, is there any way we can go up the mountain without violence? That’s all we want.”

“No. We prove strength by size, or by fighting. You are tiny ponies. You can try to fight, but I will eat you. Or you can leave… but you will give us the gems you have when you go.”

I glanced down at the breast of my coat, where I’d stored the gemstone spells I had prepared for my confrontation with Clover, and then up at Torch. “You really don’t want to eat these.”

“No, pony. I want to eat you.” A distinct glow formed behind his teeth as he continued to shout. “They are a consolation. Please choose to fight us, so that I can have both.”

I cocked my head in Blizzard’s direction. “Do you want the big one or the other three?”

“Morty!” Blizzard took a nervous step away from my side. “First, are you seriously going to do this? You aren’t even going to try to find a peaceful solution?”

“Trying to find a peaceful solution was that entire conversation,” I countered, glancing briefly to Torch, who was watching me with unveiled amusement and unsubtle hunger. Licking his lips with a forked tongue made that unnecessarily apparent. “Are you going to help, or not?”

“I don’t know how to fight, Morty.”

“You don’t…” I honestly had to stop speaking to process the statement. “Your father of all ponies never taught you how?”

Blizzard’s wings grew tighter against her body at mention of her father. “Do we have to talk about this right now?”

“That pony is right,” Torch bellowed. “You only have a bear cub and a flying rock, ‘Mortal Coil’. Will you still fight?”

I nodded. “I’ve survived worse.”

“Obviously not true, because you won’t even survive me.”

All four dragons burst into laughter at Torch’s comment. I laughed with him, entirely sarcastically. Torch frowned, his eyes shifting across myself and his three companions. “If I had wanted you to laugh, I would have told you to. That was a fact.”

I replied by lighting my horn. I had no intention of casting a spell yet, but something magical promptly happened nonetheless. Beneath my hooves and the claws of the dragons, the earth began to shake and rumble. In the distance, small cracks in the mountains around us revealed new pools of molten stone and cut off old flows.

“Krenn!” One of the drakes behind Torch shouted.

Another began to quiver. “We should run!”

“You imbeciles! I am the Dragon Lord!” Torch shouted. “You will not fly!” The last sentence carried much less weight, delivered as it was to the tails of three dragons flying off toward the horizon.

I couldn’t help but scoff. “After all that, just lighting my horn was all it took to impress the mountain?”

Torch opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by the heavy thud of iron striking stone, not far behind me.

The voice that followed it could only be described as tectonic. It rumbled like stone scraping stone, and it flowed thick and heavy like magma. “It is only a mountain, unicorn. You cannot impress it.” Far more gently, the voice spoke past me. “Good evening, Lord Torch.”

“Lord Krenn,” Torch replied to what was increasingly obviously a dragon standing behind me. As I turned, Torch widened his stance, almost as if preparing for battle with the other dragon.

The dragon approaching us was in many ways Torch’s opposite: he was calm, he carried himself with considerable poise despite having such a young body, and most notably, he was missing something like a third of his original body mass. Dark purple scales tinged by char covered the lanky lizard from his furrowed brow all the way down to the stump where his right leg should have been. He leaned heavily on a smooth iron shaft that served as a sort of walking stick in place of the missing leg, and occasionally shifted his wings to assist his balance. It was that slight motion that showed me, if only for a moment, that his left wing was similarly crippled with its webbing torn and cut in enough places that the appendage could probably substitute for a doily in the event of a tea-related emergency.

“I have not been Dragon Lord since your grandmother was hatched, Torch. That title is yours now.”

I glanced in Blizzard’s direction in confusion; the dragon in front of us was obviously shorter than Torch, perhaps just a bit taller than me if I stood up on my hind legs. He would never have passed for the wyrms of legend who could easily crush a castle beneath their girth. My pegasus companion only shrugged, as confused as I was.

Torch answered Krenn harshly, shouting at the supposedly older creature. “Dragons should listen to me, not you!”

“I don’t give commands. I only give advice.” Krenn seemed to have forgotten me, limping forward on his iron pole toward the apparently far younger dragon. “For example, in this situation, I advise you to let Clover deal with this pony.”

“He is a puny horse! I do not need some tiny horse’s help—”

“You have forgotten the strength of ponies, haven’t you, Torch?” Krenn stepped well inside Torch’s personal space, and leaned forward. Looking up to meet Torch’s gaze seemed to lose some of the potency of the action, but Krenn spoke firmly nevertheless. “Do you remember what happened to your predecessor?”

Torch turned to me and snorted derisively. A burst of flame escaped his nostrils. “I remember,” he grudgingly admitted. “But the Dragon Lord does not run from a threat. If anything, now I must destroy him.”

“Consider leaving here an act of generosity. To me, if not to Clover. Like leaving meager prey to a younger drake when it is beneath your attention.” Krenn tapped his staff on the ground. “She will kill most likely kill him for you, if that is enough to please you.”

Torch huffed again, and turned directly toward me. “I can take you to the summit, then. But only you.”

“And Angel,” I replied, gesturing to my rock.

Torch cocked his head, and then nodded as he revealed his toothy maw. “Your ‘Angel’ looks delicious.”

“Master Coil, I am suddenly feeling much less comfortable…”

As Angel spoke, the dragon ‘Krenn’ began to walk away from us. After two strides, his long neck turned to glance back at me over his shoulder. “One warning, student of Wintershimmer: if Torch dies because of you, I will lead the dragons against Equestria.”

I swallowed heavily. “I wasn’t planning on hurting him. I’m not the one who wanted a fight at all in the first place.”

Krenn nodded and continued his slow, limping departure. That left Torch standing beside us, idly tapping one of his hind claws on the volcanic stone. The young dragon crossed his forelimbs across his chest. “Right. You and your rock can come. The rest stay.”

“Stay here?” Graargh frowned. “But I want see top of mountain.”

“I’ll come down and get you once it’s safe. But my business with Clover might involve dangerous magic. I really, really don’t want you or Blizzard getting hurt.”

Graargh slapped his own chest. “Am strong! Not hurt!”

“Graargh, the last time I did a dangerous magical experiment, the strongest wizard in the world died. I know you’re strong, but this isn’t about brute strength. Angel and I need to go alone. I promise I’ll come back soon.”

I turned to leave, and found myself pinned under a heavy furry weight. It took me a few moments to work out that my impending death by strangulation was actually Graargh’s way of showing his affection.

“Safe, Morty. Come back.”

“Yes,” Blizzard added somberly. “Please.”

I took little solace knowing that if I turned out to have lied to my friends, at least it would be because I was dead.

---

The path up the side of the mountain was surprisingly obvious. The whole way, I felt eyes on the back of my neck, but I never saw another dragon. Only Torch led the way, fuming like a petulant teenager with every stride.

What I guessed was most of the way up the side of the volcano, I spoke up. “Torch?”

“Lord Torch,” he corrected with a throaty growl.

I dipped my head. “Apologies. Lord Torch, can you tell me about that other dragon, Krenn? Is he named after this mountain?”

Slitted eyes rolled in their sockets. “No. The mountain is his. It is his name, not the stone’s.”

“His mountain? Like it’s named after him? Or he owns it?”

“Both,” Torch answered. “He made it.” The dragon punctuated the blunt announcement by leaping over a small river of lava trickling across the path. “I see you are surprised. Did you think your sun-horse and moon-horse were the only ones?”

“I… Wait, Krenn is a god?”

Torch shrugged. “I do not know that pony word, ‘god’. Krenn is Krenn. ‘Crooked’, because of his leg and his wing. He is the oldest dragon. At least, the oldest one alive. He is small, but his magic is strong. He tears down mountains and brings fire up from the earth.” Torch gestured up to the summit, which I realized was surprisingly close by. “That is what the other pony wants. Earth-fire, to melt ice and grow plants.”

“Melt ice? Grow plants?”

“In snow on the other side of the mountains.”

I quirked a brow. “The Compact Lands?”

“I do not know that pony name either,” Torch replied.

Angel, helpfully, floated down toward me. “I suspect that is what he is implying, Master Coil.”

I nodded, leaping across the little stream of lava myself and continuing after Torch. “If the ground were heated in the Compact Lands, that might make it possible to grow some crops even despite the windigo and the blizzard. But why Clover? Why not Cyclone?”

Tilting his rings, Angel emulated a shrug. “Perhaps she wants to atone for her mistake?”

“Maybe,” I answered. “Or maybe this is some step to getting control of River Rock back from Cyclone.”

“You are being quite pessimistic, Master. Were you not concerned with giving Clover some sort of a chance? That is what we discussed on the way here.”

“I know… It’s just one more thing that needs an explanation. And I don’t know if I can trust any answer Clover gives me.”

“Then shut up,” Torch interrupted. “You ponies talk too much. You even talk to a rock. Ponies are insane.”

I was left to silently contemplate what to do about Clover, and to doubt my own intuition as I weighed Wintershimmer’s word against a mare I had never met. Mercifully, at least, the road the rest of the way up to the summit was short.

As I described earlier, the side of the mountain curved inward near the peak, meaning that the volcanic glass and stone offered a leaning overhang that the lava of the ever-active volcano could pour down from. To my surprise, the path up to the peak wound its way behind this curtain of molten stone, revealing a substantial cavern of black rock and white ash, worked into an unnatural set of right angles by draconic claws. There was a clear floor to the amphitheater of stone, and a clear ceiling as well. Between them, the rounded wall was covered in arcane writings consisting of blue chalk, ash, powdered gemstones, and a thousand other rare reagents.

Sitting before this wall of scratchings, my eyes settled on a pony.

I recognized Clover in an instant from my glimpse into Smart Cookie’s memories, but the years hadn’t been kind to the ‘Clever’ archmage. Her olive green coat was patchy and thin, and the shadows from her darker green mane only emphasized the creases on her muzzle and the bags under her eyes. For those of you familiar with the Hearth’s Warming Pageant that she wrote, I’ll note that Clover didn’t dress nearly as humbly as the stage notes suggest—which is a shame, since at least a tattered brown cloak would have some measure of narrative potential.

Instead, Clover dressed herself like an uptight librarian, with a pair of gold-rimmed pence-nez and a formal blue robe that dragged on the ground behind her hooves, as evidenced by the thin rim of gray grime that had built up on its hem.

“Lord Torch!” Clover called. “These strata in the mountain are fascinating and—” Clover’s voice fell away as her eyes swept past my escort and onto my delightful visage.

“Hello, Archmage.”

She paused for a moment, unsure of how to address me. Finally, she settled on perhaps the most realistic greeting I’d found in my journey. “Necromancer.”

“So you recognize the coat? Fantastic. That will save time. My name is Mortal Coil, Archmage. And at least for the moment, it remains a pleasure to meet you.”

“Krenn sent this pony to you,” Torch explained. “He said you would want to kill him. I will let you.”

“I think Krenn is assuming a certain amount of hostility that isn’t actually…” Clover’s words trailed away as Torch, apparently apathetic to the correction, turned his back and left us alone. After a moment of awkward silence, Clover took a few steps forward. “Alright, Mortal—”

“Coil, please.”

Clover’s brow fell at the interruption. “I suppose I can see why you might prefer that. Alright, Coil, what brings you so far from the Crystal Union? Did your master send you?”

There was a surprising amount of venom in the way she pronounced the word ‘master’, especially for a mare of her age.

“Wintershimmer encouraged me to come find you, but that isn’t why I left the Union in the first place. Let me summarize a very long story, Clover. Wintershimmer the Complacent is dead, which somewhat ironically makes me the Court Mage-regent to Queen Jade. Unfortunately, the circumstances of Wintershimmer’s death led me to be falsely accused—and let me emphasize falsely—of his murder. Which makes me…” I took a large breath for dramatic effect. “Court-mage-regent-in-exile Mortal Coil. Pale Master, et cetera.”

“I see.” Clover adjusted her glasses yet again. “So what exactly does Wintershimmer want you to do now that you’ve found me? Should I be worried?”

“That depends entirely on your morality.”

Clover frowned. “Congratulations. I’m worried.” The mare’s horn lit, not actively casting a spell but merely readying her mana. “Are you going to dance around your intentions any more?”

“Alright. Archmage Clover the Cruel, according to the Edicts of Pride laid out by King Malachite the Titan, I accuse you of willfully neglecting your post as archmage, of sparing a malicious spirit despite knowledge of the damage it would do, and of conspiring with said spirit for power according to the Forbidden Rites of the Warlock… Well, I could keep going, but I assume you get my point.”

“You think I’m a warlock?” Clover placed a hoof against her chest. “This coming from a student of Wintershimmer the Complacent?”

I cocked my head. “Wintershimmer wasn’t a warlock.”

“No, but your predecessor was.” Clover seemed to catch the slight rise in my brow. “Did Wintershimmer not tell you about Solemn Vow? I would say that was odd, but I’m beginning to see more and more of Wintershimmer’s hoof in this already.”

Of course, knowing Wintershimmer, that wasn’t really a massive surprise. Moreso, I was intrigued because I’d never heard of this other pony, and I wanted to know why Wintershimmer had denied him. But that was another question that I needed to trust Clover before I had an answer to. “I don’t know if I ever had a predecessor, but that’s beside the point for the moment. How do you answer your charges.”

Clover sighed to herself. “I’m not a warlock.”

“You understand I can’t just take your word for it.”

“I know. But I don’t have any reasonable way to disprove your accusations. I can’t prove what my motives were, and honestly, I doubt you would believe me if I explained myself. Wintershimmer didn’t.”

“Try me.”

“Your understanding of spirits is wrong. Spirits do have free will, and they can change. I’ve seen it.”

I chuckled to myself. “Well, you were right. I don’t believe you. You’ll have to forgive me, Archmage, but I tend to hold the writings of Electrum the Omniscient above a pony who thinks there are only six schools of magic. A spirit can no more change its behavior than a pony can change their cutie mark. ”

Something about that comment got under Clover’s skin, if the slight bulge of a vein on her temple was anything to judge by. “If you aren’t willing to take my word for it, I have to accept your challenge, as disappointing as that is. I knew Wintershimmer was a despicable pony for taunting me about my mistake, but I must have overestimated him. I never thought he would try to use his claims as an excuse to have me assassinated.”

Clover adjusted her robes, tightening the brooch that held them closed across her chest. With a slight burst of telekinesis, she affixed a small golden chain to her glasses, wrapping it around her neck to keep them from getting lost. Only when her preparations were ready did she look up, staring me directly in the eye. “I’m not going to kill you, Coil, but I can’t promise that this will be completely painless. Are you certain you want to duel me? If so, I’d like you to promise that you will yield when I render you unconscious.”

“You’re welcome to try,” I told the archmage. “I’ll give you my word, if you somehow manage to beat me. For the sake of fairness, will you yield if I render you dead?”

Clover rolled her eyes behind her elaborate glasses. “Very well, Coil. Can I assume your mentor taught you the traditions of a wizard’s duel? Or is your training limited to obscure magical history and unicorn law?”

I replied by extending my right forehoof directly ahead of me, then sweeping it down so scuffed lightly against the volcanic rock, before folding it slowly against my chest. “My name is Mortal Coil, called the Undying, Court Mage-in-Exile of the Crystal Union, Pale Master, the As-Yet-Unkindling, Guardian of the Amethyst Sea, Grandmaster of the Order of Unhesitating Force—”

Clover held up her own hoof. “Who calls you ‘the Undying’?”

“...well, I do.”

“You’re not an archmage yet.”

“No, but I am the Court Mage of the Crystal Union.”

Clover cocked a brow. “Coil, while it may be technically true that you inherit those titles with Wintershimmer’s death, you probably shouldn’t be wearing them all so brazenly. You haven’t actually earned any of them, have you?”

“In a few minutes, I’ll have beaten a seated archmage in a duel.”

That taunt earned a tired sigh from the archmage. “I doubt that, but let’s presume you somehow do. You’re seventeen. What are you hoping to prove here?”

“It’s not so much that I want to prove anything, Clover. I’m here to save the world. Do you have any more philosophical questions, or are you ready to do this?”

Clover’s left hooves slid out to her side, lowering her stance. “Killing me isn’t going to make you a hero, Coil.”

“Of course not. I already am a hero.” I shifted my stance and nodded. “Shall we?”

Comments

[RoboRed]

Hope everyone learns something by the end of this.

[RexDraconum]

This is getting good. But there are still some questions to be answered about Clover the Cruel. Did she spare the windigo, letting many die, hoping to become a warlock? Or did she genuinely believe it could change? How can we know?

[djthomp]

Since I am apparently an unreliable pre-reader, I guess I'll post-read.

The lead dragon snorted small flames as he and his companions laughed. “You claim strength with words? Hah. You shall not pass.”

The old' wizard and Balrog switcheroo.

One day you'll be properly big and scary, Torch, one day.

“Then shut up,” Torch interrupted. “You ponies talk too much. You even talk to a rock. Ponies are insane.”

He's not wrong.

Morty certainly never lacks for ego.