A Beginner's Guide to Heroism

by LoyalLiar

II - Rogue's Gallery

Chapter II
Rogue's Gallery

“So, Wintershimmer,” I asked, striding through endless crystal hallways that sparkled like the innermost circle of Tartarus,“why do we want to open the Summer Lands? I understand the research potential, but… are you expecting to meet somepony famous?"

“Though I have no doubt speaking to my mentor will be just as amusing as it was when I taught you the art of seance, Coil, my interest is in something subtler."

The irony of what I said next isn’t lost on me now, but without the benefit of hindsight, I opened my mouth.“We’re a little short an audience for the heavy-hoofed foreshadowing. You can skip to the important bit."

He stopped, turned, and looked squarely at me. That might sound just a bit trite, but Wintershimmer wasn’t exactly good at making time for other ponies… or, for that matter, most of the other ways you’d usually express ‘common courtesy’.

"What is the natural lifespan of a unicorn?"

"Eighty years, usually."

"In three years, I will be one hundred,” he told me. “Draught of Phoenixblood and the Embryonic Fluid of Dragons can sustain a body only so long. Alchemy is a poor substitute for necromancy.” Then he smiled—which sent a shiver down my spine—turned back to his stride, and continued down the irritatingly shiny hallway. “Also, I have to imagine such a development will encourage the Queen that I am making progress on healing Smart Cookie."

Before you ask, yes, that Smart Cookie. But we’ll get to that at the proper time.

"If you’re going to become immortal, why do you even care about the Queen? Seems like you’d have a better time avoiding those stupid council meetings and working on research."

My mentor glanced back to me with sunken yellow eyes—did I mention his tight-skinned face bore more than a passing resemblance to a skull?—and frowned. “Stupid? You disappoint me. Three words, now."

It was almost an instinct. “Insignificant, petty, useless."

"Better words, but short-sighted.” Wintershimmer pivoted heavily, leaning into his dragon-spine staff to turn along the nearly indistinguishable hallways of the Crystal Spire. “You ought to be grateful that we have the opportunity to influence the Queen through her council. As I’m certain I’ve told you before, doing our work amongst the Crystals affords us a luxury we could never have under Hurricane or King Lapis."

"Who?"

Wintershimmer snorted. “That would be Queen Platinum’s late father, and I am certain the insufferable filly shares all her father’s shortcomings. You’ve learned the mage’s trade in luxury, Coil. In River Rock, the monarchy looked over my shoulder constantly. Leaving those fools behind was the best decision—” Mid-sentence, Wintershimmer found himself interrupted at an intersection of hallways when two of the Spire's maids pushed a trolley of small tarts and wine into his flank.

"Oh!” The one actually holding the cart’s handles first looked down at her little array of snacks.“I'm so sorry, I didn't—Archmage?!"

And there was the fear. She threw herself to the ground. “Please, forgive me, my lord. I'll be out of your way—"

Wintershimmer seemed inclined to forgive her without comment, judging by the fact that he moved his staff forward to support another step. However, in that moment, the other mare rushed up in front of him. “She's really sorry, Archmage. Please don't hurt her. She's got a little foal at home, and you'd crush her husband. She just wasn't looking. I know I was distracting her—"

Wintershimmer’s golden aura wrapped around that mare’s throat, picking her up off the ground even as he choked her. Her hooves grasped at the golden magic to no avail, and her hind legs fumbled for support, knocking over the trolley of snacks.

"I have already forgiven her,” Wintershimmer began, his even measured speech hiding a hint of rare anger that surpassed his usual irritation.“I don't expect perfection from a palace servant, and the cost of such a mistake is trivial. But you had the audacity to block my path and steal my attention with your hollow, useless words, when circumstances have already made me late. I would like to continue, but now I'm obligated to set an example, so that I can ensure this does not happen again. Pay attention, Coil.”

I swallowed hard; Wintershimmer hadn’t even turned as he spoke, and yet I sensed that his anger was directed just as much at me as it was this poor mare who wanted to protect her friend. "My time is more valuable than yours, maid. Infinitely so. In many mere minutes of my life, I've accomplished more than your entire existence is capable of amounting to. Do you understand that?"

Gasping for air, the maid nodded.

"Good.” He dropped her, her shimmering coat clinking against the floor. She gasped for air as he finished his point. “I have no intention of killing you; your life still has some value. I only need ensure that everypony else on the castle staff learns that lesson as well. I'm certain you will make excellent evidence.” And with that, he turned and walked away.

I watched, for just a moment. She seemed grateful, but I knew Wintershimmer too well to imagine 'evidence' was just a poorly chosen word for testimony. She gasped on the floor a few moments more, and then when she'd recovered, turned to ask her friend for help standing.

Her mouth moved without noise.

Horror filled her eyes as she tried to scream, but nothing emerged. Silently, beginning to shed tears, she turned to me.

"Coil, don’t tarry.” Wintershimmer scolded, tapping his spinal staff twice on the floor to ensure my attention. “She’s no more worth your time than mine."

I stomped my hoof. “No! You can’t just do that to somepony over talking too much!"

Rather than reply, Wintershimmer grabbed me by the lapel of my beautiful silk jacket and pulled me down the hall with his magic, growling as he went. Only when we were well out of earshot of the maids did he finally release his thoughts.

"I tolerate your foalish dream of popularity, Coil, because to this point it has not inconvenienced me. Now, however, you’re pushing dangerously close to a boundary that you do not want to cross. My reputation hinges on not showing that mare mercy over the pleadings of a colt with delusions of grandeur. So if you had chosen to continue your line of objection, I would have had to choose between my reputation and my legacy."

"Your legacy…?"

Wintershimmer rolled his sunken eyes. “As it seems I must remind you, you are my only apprentice, Coil. Unlike Star Swirl, I believe in quality over quantity. That is the only reason I tolerate your moralizing. That does not, however, mean that I will allow it to trot over my work. So if you think that mare deserves mercy, rather than suffering the humiliation of trying to oppose me directly, I think it would serve your desired reputation better to restore her ‘behind my back’. In the meantime, she’ll serve my purposes; how long that lasts is entirely in your hooves."

I sighed. “So you’re playing it for both our benefits?"

"Typical, Coil.” Wintershimmer set about walking further toward our magical objective. “You fight the battles of discourse well, but you must learn to see the greater war."

I suppressed a yawn at the growing presence of politics in our discussion. “So how do I dispel what you did to her? Was that just a transmutation on the vocal chords, or—?"

"You think I’m just going to tell you?” Wintershimmer offered a wheezing chuckle to indicate his amusement. “No, Coil, if you really want to be a hero, you’ll have to earn it.”

Perhaps to your disappointment, and certainly to my own, I followed after him without pressing further. In some sense, it was the reasonable choice; I had no more chance of undoing Wintershimmer’s curse without time to gather tools and do research than a snowball would of making a cross-country journey in the height of summer.

In a volcano.

In Tartarus.

Despite that rather harsh reality, however, I have to imagine you see the hypocrisy of my borderline-vigilantism when I followed a pony like Wintershimmer the Complacent, the literal embodiment of the ‘evil wizard’ from your favorite foal’s story. I certainly do as well, in retrospect, writing this story for you. But at the time, I saw the world through a very different set of lenses.

As you’ve likely gathered, and as Wintershimmer certainly believed, my actions weren’t really motivated by a desire to help ponies. What I wanted out of being a ‘hero’ was the fame and glory that came from it; in short, I wanted ponies to tell stories about me to their foals. If that seems pathetic, in some sense, that’s because it is. It does provide us, however, with evidence toward one very important lesson: heroes are not born. They are made.

We walked forward in that hallway in complete silence, save the tapping of his grisly staff and the click of our hooves (shod in steel—a wizard must be ready for travel in any environment at a moment’s notice). There were leagues of corridors in the Crystal Spire, but our path was short. It ended where the crystal ended, and polished red wood began. I called it ‘Home’.

Wintershimmer was the closest thing I ever had to a real ‘family’. I’m not about to waste your time with some sob story about my past and how I was mistreated as a foal, because I’m not the kind of necromancer who dyes their mane tips black and writes poetry about the miasma in their soul. I had a mother and father out somewhere in Union City, and a half-sister, but since my family named me ‘Mortal Coil’, I think you can infer pretty clearly how they felt about me.

Or to put it another way, Wintershimmer was the reason I don’t have a terrible, tragic past to complain about. When I became his apprentice I got a room in the palace, complete with a heated bathtub, a postered bed, and more magical goodies than it would be useful or prudent to list here. I had great food, fulfilling work, and somepony who legitimately cared about me.

It is worth pointing out that I did not claim my mentor ‘loved’ me. He cared about me in the same detached way I had ‘cared’ about the filly in the street or the maid in the hall. Remember, I was to be his ‘legacy’.

The private quarters I just mentioned were located directly opposite the Archmage’s own, in a relatively quiet hallway of polished wood and carpet that stood out substantially from the omnipresent glimmer of gemstones everywhere else inside the Spire. Wintershimmer wasted no time giving me directions before he vanished into his private chambers, and with nothing better to do, I decided to take a moment and freshen my appearance for the hitherto unprecedented feat of magic we were about to accomplish.

My magic gripped lightly around the handle of my own personal door—as I mentioned, I’d figured out how to wield basic telekinesis without my horn flaring up—and a dozen charms I had worked weeks on silently scanned the unique hoofprint of my magic. Of course, I felt nothing—if I had, somepony trying to break in would have had the same advantage in figuring out how a door with no keyhole was locked. And I wasn’t that sloppy.

I mention all this so that you can imagine my surprise when, upon opening the door to my quarters, I found a mare lying in my bed.

Not that I was incapable of getting a mare into my bed; as I mentioned, I was an exceptionally handsome and well-groomed young stallion. However, I was also a normal unicorn stallion surrounded by mares literally made of crystal. And… suffice it to say here that certain parts of a stallion are sometimes called ‘tenders’ for a very legitimate reason.

"You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Mortal. Or am I just that stunning?” She even had the gall to wink at me.

"I…” I began, stuttering for just a moment not in nervousness at talking to an attractive mare, but legitimate surprise. “You…"

"Oh, come on. You may be a pain in my flank, but you’re suave enough not to stutter at me."

Yes, she really said that.

"What are you doing in my room?” I finally spat out. “Tartarus, Silhouette, how are you in my room?"

Properly, Commander Silhouette of the Crystal Union Army, the young mare and I had a longstanding relationship. Formerly my peer, she had been another apprentice to a member of the Crystal Union Council tasked with advising Queen Jade on the management of her considerable lands. When her predecessor went to his grave, his power went to her head. And, apparently, certain choice other parts of her as well. Generally slim and lithe, but curved in all the right places, she only helped her cause by being clad in a rather tightly fit uniform of boiled charcoal-gray leather. She was easily among the most attractive mares I’d ever met, and carried all of the confidence (pronounced ‘ego’) that it took to wear that beauty on her sleeves.

That physical beauty aside, I loathed her with a fire that was slowly melting the glaciers of nearby Yakyakistan. And despite what her flirtatious tone might seem to imply, the feeling was reciprocated. As you may have gathered, Silhouette’s position as the Union’s foremost military commander (behind Queen Jade herself) meant that she was responsible for the city’s guards. Guards whom you may recall from the previous chapter functioned as a state-sanctioned street gang literally stealing lollipops from foals on the street and getting away with it except when I personally found the time to step in and humiliate them.

"I heard you had a run in with some old friends,” Silhouette told me, smiling.

"I intervened in an extortion racket,” I snapped back. “Also, how could you possibly know that? That can’t have been twenty minutes ago; Wintershimmer and I walked straight here from there."

"Oh, a mare never tells.” She rolled over on my bed, rumpling my comforter, and landed deftly on her hooves. “The reports I heard didn’t say anything about an extortionist. They only mentioned a renegade apprentice wizard wantonly attacking guardsponies. Anything to say in your defense, Mortal?"

I wandered over to my desk, making sure to keep the crystal earth pony in my peripheral vision—when she pounced, it tended not to be in the fun sort of way. “Well, to start with, it’s ‘Coil’. And in my defense, your guardsponies are paid out of the treasury, so any money you try to collect as taxes is extortion and—"

I would have stopped recording my somewhat long-winded dialogue in the interest of sparing you boring politics, but in this case, Silhouette beat me to the punch. Literally, with an even jab that left a little cut just under my right eye and toppled me to the floor. “Caught you monologuing."

"So you punched… mmmpfh!” That strange final word, which I’m not entirely confident I’ve recorded correctly, was the result of her kissing me squarely on the lips, pushing her tongue (thankfully not made of crystals) into my mouth, and then pulling away before I had even recovered my sense of balance from the punch.

"Ahhhh.” She made it sound like a refreshing drink from a mountain spring, which seems about right for my mouth. Hers, in contrast, reminded me of a kitten: hairy, intrinsically evil, and ambitious beyond its station. As she walked toward my door, she glanced back over her shoulder. “Right now, I’m not going to do anything about your little hero complex, Mortal. I just wanted to warn you. The Crystal Guard has a long memory. And Wintershimmer is getting pretty old. See you later."

"How…” My door slammed shut before I could even finish the thought. I uttered a few choice words, and pulled the door open with my own horn. Of course, Silhouette had vanished—a casual trick for a wizard like myself, but I never figured out how she managed it as a glittery earth pony. In her place, Wintershimmer was idly tapping his spinal staff on the ground, looking as impatient as ever.

In the short time since we parted ways, Wintershimmer had found four… well, things. Not ponies, though they were pony-shaped. The technical term is ‘golems’, but mages in the audience would probably visualize ponies made of stone or iron. These were wax—not molten, but not quite solid either, their only features consisting of two eye sockets filled with the glow of open flame, and a single candle sitting in the middle of their respective brows, casting tiny lights. Globs of their flesh, wet and dribbling, ran down their faces as they stood motionless, watching me.

"Do we really need the candlecorns?”

"One never knows when Star Swirl might be listening,” Wintershimmer answered with a completely straight face.

Despite what his words might have implied, Wintershimmer and I both knew that Star Swirl the Bearded and his apprentices were never going to spend their time staring into crystal balls as a way to spy on the Crystal Union’s archmage, nor its council meetings. That would be a spectacular waste of time, particularly for a pony already a few years older than Wintershimmer.

However, what we knew wasn’t terribly relevant. What mattered was what the Queen knew. And what she knew amounted to three things. Fact the first: Wintershimmer always brought the four waxy golems with him to the council. Fact the second: From time to time during council meetings, perhaps one in a month or two, a magical aura would build up around the ‘horns’ of the four candlecorns. When that happened, Wintershimmer made a point of grumbling under his breath, and made certain the words ‘Star Swirl’ were audible to her ears—a quiet whisper usually sufficed, as she sat immediately to his left. Finally, fact the third: matters sensitive to the running of the Crystal Union could only be spoken about freely if Wintershimmer were present.

If you’re able to see where this is going, then congratulations! You’ve got a bright future ahead of you in the soul-crushing Tartarean pit that some unnaturally optimistic ponies refer to as “politics". For those of you who have not yet abandoned all hope, the above fact meant that Wintershimmer knew everything that mattered in the Crystal Union. He was guaranteed to; other ponies would seek him out to tell him, of their own accord. And, as they say, knowing is half the battle.

As my narrative has already demonstrated, he was also quite proficient at the brutal, unrestricted violence that makes up the metaphorical other half.

Secure in a bluff that no other pony in the Crystal Union had the magical knowledge to call, Wintershimmer began the short walk to the third room in our decidedly less sparkly portion of the Crystal Spire: our arcane laboratory. Flanked by two of the wax ‘ponies’ capable of wielding a considerable amount of Wintershimmer’s terrible power, I followed, hiding nervousness that would shortly prove entirely justified.

Comments

[RexDraconum]

Embryonic Fluid of Dragons

WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!?!?

Wintershimmer is really twisted. Shit!

[RexDraconum]

And now I understand the 'sex' tag.

[Hipparcos]

7212799 Ya gotta do whatcha gotta do, yanno?