Tales from Everfree City

by LoyalLiar

14-7

XIV - VII

On the Nature of Chains and Bars

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

Some hours later—nevermind how many—I found myself back where it all began: in the very same prison cell where Silhouette and Jade had thrown me after Wintershimmer framed me for his passing.

The old wizard in my mind was utterly silent. I don't know if it was some limit on his ability to talk without tiring, a lack of thoughts he found useful, or out of worry that some idle comment might trigger the punishment of the cold iron vow. I was, however, chillingly aware that if Chrysoprase had learned anything about the nature of the curse she had inflicted on me, she knew a violation would eventually kill me. And I had not a single doubt in my mind that if I did something to trigger the curse in that cell, she would arrive just late enough not to be able to forgive me before my untimely passing.

It was a strange fall from grace, to be back where it all began. The cell had no window, no internal light at all save the little that leaked through the crystals over the structure itself, and not even a bed of straw to keep me off the cold, subterranean crystal. All I had was a bucket in the dim, and a stout wooden door with a few tiny bars.

Castigate hadn't bothered to put a void crystal on my horn when she 'arrested' me—and even taking me down to the dungeons was really only for the sake of political expediency. "We know these don't work on you," she had joked on our way down, casually flipping the accursed tool as if she hadn't used it to destroy dozens, if not hundreds of lives of better stallions than me. "I was damn surprised you walked away from that hanging, kid. Are you really that strong?"

I hadn't answered, and despite the mare having the social finesse of a kumquat, she at least mercifully didn't press the issue. Instead, she opened the door to the cell as if it were to welcome me into fine quarters, and very casually shut it behind me. Notably, she didn't bother to lock it. I think the understanding, at least amongst the crystals, was that if I didn't consent to being contained, there simply wasn't anypony among them who could force the issue.

If only they knew how stringently the bonds on my cell were kept.

Queen Jade and Prince-Consort (or, in keeping with crystal tradition, 'Concubine') Smart Cookie were the first to come to visit me, only perhaps a half an hour after I got to the cell (though it is hard to judge time in the cold dark of the Spire's dungeons beyond 'is it day'). The former spoke first.

"Morty… I know I owe you a lot, but that was extremely inconvenient for the Union." The broken-horned alicorn queen delivered that greeting even before she actually got to the cell door, and when she arrived, she strode in with no particular concern before sitting down in the middle of the floor in front of me. "I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I hope you've got some kind of an explanation for attacking an old stallion out of the blue."

From the glare I got off of Smart Cookie, it was obvious that despite saving his life, he was more sympathetic to Star Swirl.

I was silent for what I knew was an awkwardly long time. It wasn't out of a desire to be silent, but rather carefully weighing my options about how much I could say without the vow killing me. Finally, when the pause became too long, and I could tell Cookie was about to snap, I muttered a very half-hearted "I'm not at liberty to discuss that."

"I beg your pardon?" asked Smart Cookie. "I don't know who you think you are, but you crippled an innocent stallion. A pony, I might add, who has saved the world an awful lot more times than you have!"

"Cookie, he saved your life," Jade chided, trying to be gentle but with an audible edge to her voice.

"And then he maimed my friend!" Cookie answered, fully facing her and not to me. "Star Swirl is one of the nicest ponies I have ever met. Certainly, he respects us earth ponies more than anypony else in River Rock did all the years Puddinghead and I dragged ourselves up the hill. And now, if he survives, he'll probably never walk again."

Jade sighed, and then turned to me. "Alright. Morty, if this is some… wizard thing that I'm not going to understand, or it's about Wintershimmer, I'm sure it was just between you and the old stallion. But now it's a political problem. Now, believe me, you've done enough for the Union—and frankly for the two of us personally—that I'd like to help you. And the Artist knows Wintershimmer caused enough little political problems that I can handle having an archmage here that Equestria doesn't really approve of. But I need you to give me something. Anything."

"I…" I hesitated after that solitary letter. Silence hung in the room like choking smoke. Eventually, I decided on a verbal trick I had heard of from the stories of the elk: just as one can speak entirely true words and yet deceive someone, it is possible to speak entirely false words in a way that suggests the truth. And, I reasoned, if I did not say anything true about the contract, I could hardly be punished, so what could be truer than claiming the contract wasn't to blame for my silence? "Star Swirl and I—"

"Don't," Wintershimmer interrupted me in my mind, before pausing and then stating 'aloud' in a very awkward tone for the old stallion "Don't reply to me in your head here; don't even think 'yes'. But even without speaking about any particular example of oaths or contracts you may or may not have agreed to, I can say confidently as your teacher that you have completely failed to heed the number one lesson I taught you about fey magic. You might be clever relative to our mortal pony peers, but neither you nor I are more clever than a fey. Remember Ochre Mountain Valley."

Wintershimmer's words were not instant. I once more had left Jade and Cookie in awkward silence. So to at least cap off the thought, I repeated "I cannot say anything more on this subject."

Jade sighed. "Then you understand I'm going to have to send you back to Equestria? For whatever they want to do with you?"

I nodded firmly. "I understand."

"No… hard feelings?"

I chuckled quite bitterly. "Believe me, Jade, you are so far down my list right now. Don't worry about it." Then, with slightly better mirth (albeit gallows humor), I added "You have to appreciate the irony, though." When the crystal queen beckoned the rest of my thought with a raised brow, I finished "You tried killing me here, you tried getting Cyclone to kill me in River Rock. But now that you don't want it—"

"No," Jade interrupted. "No! They won't kill you, right?"

I shrugged. "If Star Swirl dies, I objectively killed him."

"Celestia would never let them," Jade interrupted. "Gale—that is, Queen Platinum—wouldn't allow it? Right?"

Again, I could only shrug. "Gale's hooves might be tied as much as yours. And Star Swirl was Celestia's friend too."

Jade stared at my apparent disregard for my own life, then nodded. "Alright. I'm… I'm sure it'll work out somehow."

"Maybe the old saying's wrong, and the third time isn't the charm."

"Is this just the third time? What about when you came back with the Celestia and Queen Platinum?"

"Oh, you're right! Well, that just goes to show I'll be fine." I told her (an abject lie, at least as far as I was concerned). Troublingly, my faux bravado worked wonders in lifting her concern for me. "Go run your kingdom, Your Majesty."

"Is there… anything you need?" she asked after a moment.

I couldn't help but chuckle at the question, given my resting place at the moment. "The floor's cold for a softcoat like me; I wouldn't mind some hay. And when I brought Cookie back to life, you remember I asked you for a cake? That was delectable; if the kitchens aren't too busy, I'd love another one of those."

"Don't push your luck," Smart Cookie jabbed, before turning toward the door. "I'll arrange the hay."

Jade slipped out after him, but leaned back through the doorframe to wink at me.

I had been utterly faking both the gallows humor and the dry jokes. In part, it was because being my usual self seemed like a sense of normalcy in a moment when the world felt like it had fully ended. Moreso, I had lied out of fear that any display of my real emotions would lead to her trying to get closer and offer me some kind of sympathy. Thus, my stomach churned at the offered wink, despite knowing Jade meant well.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

It was a lot later that my next visitor came. I knew immediately who it was even from the moment she entered the hall of cells, because her voice rang off the stones. "What in the actual fuck, Morty?"

When Gale slammed open the cell door (and was, briefly, surprised that it opened instead of resisting her hoof), I found Queen Platinum III glaring at me. The extent of her finery (and the fact that the outfit was largely black, ominously suggesting a state of mourning) made that clear.

"Is Star Swirl dead?" I asked in reference to the outfit.

Gale fumed. "So help me, Morty, the next words out of your fucking mouth had better be 'I hope not', or I'll kill you right myself."

"I hope not," I obliged her, but I couldn't help but add "I made it too fast."

Gale didn't bother to shout at me after that, and by that point I knew what was coming. Didn't make the blow hurt less, though.

"What is your fucking problem?" she demanded, shortly after my face hit the stone floor. When I didn't answer, she pressed "Sorry, was I not clear? Why did you try to murder Star Swirl?!"

"I…" I sighed. "I can't tell you."

"You're serious?" Gale demanded. "Morty, we tell each other everything!"

"I can't tell you," I repeated. "I'm sorry, Gale."

"And what the shit am I supposed to say to that? This isn't some argument about a birthday present. You tried to kill an innocent pony. You obviously still want to. Are you seriously not going to say anything?"

My hung head didn't seem to get the point across. And then I felt a slight pang in the back of my mind—an itch, like the subtlest showing of the vow's magic—and when I realized what it meant, I felt my eyes get just the slightest touch wet.

"I can't be a suitor anymore," I told her. "I'm… I'm out. I'm sorry."

Gale walked out without another word. The door slammed behind her.

Sometimes there is sorrow, and sometimes there is rage, but still others there is a third thing; a perfidious admixture of the two which cannot be trusted. I knew I wouldn't survive if I kept that feeling inside me. So I wept until only rage was left.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

They dragged me back to Everfree in the morning. I did not know at the time the fate of the candlecorn I had brought with me, nor my belongings inherited from Wintershimmer. They were hardly on my mind, except in idle consideration of how any might get me out of a cold iron vow. No idea came to mind.

Typhoon and Chrysoprase rode with me in a carriage separate from the rest of the Equestrian delegation. The former tried to get my 'sponsor' to give us our distance (going so far as to warn that she couldn't protect the Grand Duchess from me), but Chrysoprase insisted on her own presence as my noble sponsor. I don't know if it was her side of the vow forcing that position, or an excuse to keep an eye on me. It hardly mattered; we said almost nothing in the flying carriage; only a single exchange persists in my memory.

"Is Star Swirl still alive?" I asked.

Typhoon responded with a shrug. "He was still alive when he left the Union."

"Duke Zodiac," Chrysoprase corrected. "Especially now, you ought to show him respect, Earl Dust."

"Earl Dust?" Typhoon looked between the two of us with mild confusion, came to the obvious conclusion, and ended the thought with a scoff of disgust.

Chrysoprase arched a brow. "You disapprove, Commander?"

"You elevated… what did you call him? 'Baron Card'." (Like so many of my usages of quotes with pegasi, Typhoon delivered air quotes with her leading feathers to convey her distrust). "And now here we are again."

"I trust you'll be letting an appointed judge try his case, instead of presiding yourself, then? Given that opinion?"

Typhoon offered the slightest of nods. "He'll get a fair trial. Neither me, nor the Queen."

"So Puddinghead?" I asked flatly. "Should I hire a clown to represent me?"

Chrysoprase shook her head. "Either it's all three thrones, or none. It will be an appointed judge. A unicorn, almost certainly, since you and Duke Zodiac are both members of the Stable… however shortly."

"Winnowing Spade," Typhoon replied. "He'll face trial this afternoon."

"That quickly?" Chrysoprase asked, apparently genuinely surprised since I cannot imagine a reason to play the emotion for politics.

The question earned a disinterested shrug, and that was the last we spoke.

At least, aloud.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

A horde was waiting for us outside the courthouse in the brisk autumn air. They wore heavy coats and equally heavy scowls, and it was only out of fearful respect for the guardsponies pulling the carriage that they did not rush its doors. Instead, they lurked amongst the pillars of the courthouse and on its polished white steps, and took shelter in clusters alongside the hedges that separated the prominent marbled cloudstone building from the public street.

Typhoon stepped out first to the apparent approval of the crowd. Then Chrysoprase. I was the last to leave.

I wasn't even all the way out when the first tomato flew. I caught it in my magic, and then locked eyes with the pony who had thrown first (or at least somepony in that direction), and glared as I focused on a spell. To the crowd, the tomato began to glow, and burst into blue flames. Its boiling juices leaked out from beneath its skin, dripping onto the gravel on the road, and that gravel too lit up like magma for a moment before cooling back into burnt black rock. What was left behind was a blackened husk, which I crushed into a powder and consigned to the chilly breeze—all without looking away from the pony in question. In meeting my gaze, he only had a moment to realize that before the charred dust blew away, it briefly formed the shape of an eerily anatomical equine skull.

Wintershimmer told me he approved, and I was furious enough not to feel ashamed at the praise. Of course, it had been an illusion. The juice of a tomato is mostly water; it boils away to steam long before it's hot enough to melt any rock, gravel on the street. But it was enough for the crowd; nopony else dared to hurl their rotten produce at me. Nevertheless, their glares were quite palpable.

It wasn't until I was very nearly through the doors of the courthouse that I finally found a friendly face… or rather, I found a sign of friendship in the complete lack of a face.

"Master Coil," said Solemn Vow, stepping out from behind one of the courthouses pillars—only to be very quickly cut off by an extended bladed wing from Typhoon. He hadn't used his 'real' voice, certainly, and she had no reason to suspect our secret, and yet for a very horrible moment, I wondered if I had somehow made yet another fatal mistake.

"It's my butler, Typhoon," I noted. "Professor, what are you doing here?"

Vow's wooden face formed a mouth to smile. "Attending to you, I should think. But more specifically, you didn't bring enough spare clothes to see you wearing something clean for a trial, so I saw fit…" As he continued to speak, holding out that syllable a moment, Vow turned back to saddlebags tied around the plain black coat he wore as a sort of butler-ly uniform, and began fishing for something inside. "...to bring you a change of clothes. A meal as well, should you like one."

"We don't have time for this," noted Typhoon.

Grand Duchess Chrysoprase shook her head. "I have to object, Commander. Appearances are everything. Especially given the history that Earl Dust's jacket has with Equestria." Then, as if she weren't my mortal foe, the old green nag nodded. "Earl, I need to speak to Judge Spade before we begin. I imagine you have an hour or so to make yourself presentable. To be completely clear, you will not run. Are we understood?"

"Of course," I agreed.

"Then let's be out of this… foul air," Chrysoprase concluded, and led our little party into the courthouse proper.

Unfortunately, while the air outside was foul with hate, inside the gilt iron doors, we found it fouled by a more sinister evil: journalism.

"Archmage Coil!"

"Is it true you tried to murder Archmage Star Swirl?"

"What—"

Vow stood up on his hind legs and brought his wooden forehooves together with all the percussive power of the most notable sound effect in a performance of the ever popular Hearth's Warming Carol, Sleigh Ride. When he had the group's attention, he nodded in deference to Chrysoprase.

"Master Coil has no comment at this time. I have to ask you all to step out of the way and let us pass. You will be the first to know when a decision has been made, but you're impeding the business of the state." Back then, at least, the press at least understood the implicit threat in such a statement enough to take 'shut up for now' for an answer. As they parted before us, Chrysoprase had the audacity to pat me on the shoulder, even as she nodded with her head to a door set off-center in the wall on the far side of the room. "You'll be expected to wait there. I will come to fetch you when it is time. Have your butler wash your muzzle; you've got some kind of slime in your coat behind your ears."

It was an awkward way to learn I had missed a spot cleaning myself of basilisk saliva and esophageal mucus without the use of my horn, but then if a long 'life' and a lot of deaths have taught me anything, it is that reminders of mortality are almost always accompanied by the mundane and the awkward.

Vow and I stepped into what would, in more modern legal parlance, be known as the 'defendant's lounge'. I want to emphasize that Equestrian jurisprudence in the year twenty-four (or whatever it was) had not reached the heights of modern fairness or what I will frankly call 'dramatic form' that you would recognize if you read the summary of a trial in my time, to say nothing of what surely lies ahead with the advent of Celestia's rule. At the time, I was 'the accused', and the room was less a lounge and more a prettied-up cell. At least it had that era's ideal gold standard of what we would now call plumbing, being a cloudstone building (Stars bless the pegasi).

"I'm going to refrain from telling you what I think of your decision making right now, sir," said Vow the moment the door was closed. "Let me start with the most obvious question: what possessed you to attack Star Swirl?"

I let out a heavy sigh. "I hope you understand that I trust you completely. But no comment."

"I…" Wood wrinkled like flesh on Vow's muzzle. "Morty, as angry as I am with you being in this situation, I'm on your side."

I replied first with a nod. "This is going to be very strange for all of us, but bear with me."

"All of us?"

I lit my horn for a second spell of the day, cringed at the throbbing of my horn, and felt it not only crack, but release a drop of something rather black and tainted to be called just blood onto my muzzle. Nevertheless, the razor reached out and grabbed hold of Vow's soul.

"Morty, what are you—?!"

"He isn't going to hurt you, Vow."

Solemn Vow's mannequin body formed a brow just to accommodate creasing it. I will, to my final death (if there even ever is such a thing) swear this occurred without his conscious thought. "Wintershimmer. What is this? Did you win the duel with Coil? Has it been you this whole time?"

"Firstly: whispers. I have no doubt the walls have ears, even if they cannot hear me. Secondly: do you honestly think I would be foolish enough to find myself in this situation if I were the one making choices in Coil's body?"

"Then what?"

"We don't know. I found myself a passenger alongside his soul after he dispersed me. To my knowledge, this has never happened in the history of necromancy. It will make a suitable topic for his Archmage's thesis, if he so desires, once we extract him from this self-made disaster. But for now, let me explain the situation we find ourselves in. You are well aware of his juvenile bet with Chrysoprase's grandson?"

Vow nodded. "I was there."

"Chrysoprase somehow convinced Star Swirl to provide her with a scroll marked with a ritual calligraph, for a cold-iron vow. She then convinced Coil to take his noble's oath as her banner upon that parchment, so instead of a vapid waste of words, it is enforced by fey enchantment."

After a very long pause, Vow noted "I see I failed to warn you about the dangers of the Grand Duchess. I'm surprised she knew enough about fey magic to even make that kind of request of Star Swirl, though."

"And it is uncharacteristic of him to have granted it," Wintershimmer agreed. "But those are both useless questions if Coil is put to death today."

"So… Morty, you decided to take out your frustrations on Star Swirl in broad daylight? At least that gives you something resembling a defense in the trial."

"Chrysoprase commanded him not to discuss the vow with anyone save her. He can reveal my existence to you here to bypass that restriction, but the same can hardly be said in court."

Vow let out the sound of a deep breath, despite the lack of lungs. "And even if word does get out, a bad contract isn't a strong defense for such an assault, if you don't have a wizard's perspective on free will. Star Swirl being a doddering old stallion in the public eye is terrible optics for that too. Alright. So… Morty, do you have a plan?"

"I have two. Before you get your hopes up, though, they're both desperate. Even by my standards."

"Oh," said Wintershimmer, with uncharacteristic nervousness in his tone.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

The courtroom proper had fewer ponies present than I had expected. The first I saw was the judge, who was to me a familiar face, even if this is the first time I have mentioned him in this story. Astute readers will recall I mentioned to Gale that I had previously facilitated the victim's testimony in a murder trial; Winnowing Spade had been the stallion in question to oversee that particular trial. He was a deeply gray earth pony, clad in five o'clock shadow that seemed perpetually trapped on the verge of turning into a beard, and he was never seen without a cigar—even in court. It produced an interesting conflict to the white powdered wig he wore atop his naturally black mane.

Tragically, it seemed, my familiarity with the stallion made me less of an amicus curiae, and more of a familiaris curiae, as he fixed me with a stern look (though not fully a glare) on my approach to the speaking podium before his much higher raised booth.

At the side of Spade's booth was a lower booth with a writer's lectern, and behind it a young clerk stallion of little historical note. Below that, standing on the judge's side of the room but actually on the marble floor, was Commander Typhoon. The mare was clad in her father's black void crystal armor, and carrying her enchanted sword in a scabbard at her side. While having the head of Equestria's overall military be reduced to a bailiff would seem extreme in most cases, I was patently aware that by my mere existence, I was a special case.

The only two other ponies in the room were Chrysoprase at my side, as my ostensible 'ally' and representative, and the state's prosecutor. Judge Spade addressed the unicorn mare first, barely moments after I reached my podium.

"Are you ready to start, Miss She?"

The prosecutorial mare had a pale blue-gray mane, a bit like my own, tied in a tight bun to keep the hair out of the way of dagger-like eyes. Her coat was teal, and a bit of an eyesore, but it certainly made her stand out.

"I am."

"She?" I whispered to Chrysoprase.

'Miss She' apparently had ears as sharp as her eyes. "I am She-Dog, of the House of Karma," said the mare with an openly spiteful glare in my direction. "Banner of the House of Three." After a pause, she gave a short nod to Chrysoprase, who stood more-or-less beside me. "Grand Duchess. I trust you will forgive me for having to obliterate your arguments today."

Chrysoprase answered with a small smile. "I was present when this system was built, Lady Karma. I would never begrudge you doing your best work."

"Are you ready, Archmage?"

When Chrysoprase let out a cough, Spade had the audacity to glare at her. "What?"

"Lord Coil is not a recognized archmage. Further, as we know for the alleged victim of this trial, a noble title takes precedence. Should it please the court, please refer to the accused as Earl Dust."

"He's a noble?" Spade moved his cigar to the other side of his mouth with just his lips and tongue. "I thought the kid was half-barbarian."

"The state intends to show that is the dominant half of his ancestry," Karma chimed in.

"Yes, yes," Spade muttered, dismissively waving a hoof. "I did read the report. Before we get started, Chrys… sorry, Lady Gullion; you had a request, in your capacity as the colt's defense?"

"You are welcome to use my given name, Your Honor," Chrysoprase answered. "I only insist Earl Dust be given his rightful title to assure he is viewed fairly by the court." Then she placed one hoof on the podium before me and leaned forward. "As advocate for Earl Dust, I request for a Trial of Sealed Lips."

I raised my brow. "Is that supposed to be some kind of trial by combat? Or some weird ordeal?"

Spade massaged his brow with a hoof. "You do understand what you're on trial for? No, Sealed Lips is why the room is almost empty. Normally, we let the press in. In old earth pony tradition, especially out of the Horseatic League, it was common for trials to come about that touched on contracts between parties other than the plaintiff and the defendant; and those contracts were often secret—deals about who was doing business with who, amounts of salt or timber or whatever that different parties had agreed to move. So if such a third party was in good standing with the court, what the pegasi call an amicus curare."

"Curiae," Typhoon corrected gently.

I nodded. "Curare is a powerful paralytic poison."

"As your advocate, I would like to encourage you to hold your tongue," said Chrysoprase.

Spade chuckled at the exchange for a moment before adjusting his cigar again and continuing. "I don't think there's precedent for Sealed Lips in a criminal trial, but given how vital your work is to the apparatus of the state, I'm prepared to allow it."

"Haven't you already allowed it?" I asked with more biting sarcasm than usually belongs on the tongue of an accused stallion, glancing around the empty room.

"We have to say it for the record," Chrysoprase explained, before projecting her voice just to say "Thank you, Your Honor."

He nodded. "Well, no point in a delay. Miss She, start us off?"

Prosecutor Karma was, true to her given name, not the most friendly mare. "Coil—Earl Dust, if we must pretend—attacked Duke Zodiac, or as he is better known Archmage Star Swirl the Bearded, in broad daylight in the Crystal Union yesterday morning."

"Allegedly," Chrysoprase interrupted.

Karma shot her a glare. "Reports from the scene are that no less than eighty ponies witnessed at least part of the attack." When the unicorn prosecutor nodded, Typhoon produced a scroll from some small bag beneath a wing. "If the accused is sincerely going to challenge the record of events, I'd like to submit our gathered testimonies as evidence."

Spade held up a hoof when the scroll was offered up for inspection. "Before we waste the court's time arguing over the facts of this event, I want to ask: Coil, do you deny this?"

After a very long pause, I shook my head. "No."

Nodding down to his clerk, Spade muttered "The evidence is accepted, but I don't think it's going to matter much." Then he lifted his eyes to me and to Chrysoprase. "It seems like the attack is not in question. Would you like to offer some kind of defense about why you did it?"

Here, I looked up to Chrysoprase. She looked down at me.

I contemplated, seriously contemplated, just having a conversation with her directly about the contract, and hoping that I could convince myself talking to her about the contract loudly enough to guarantee I was overheard would be within the letter of the contract. And while I could probably get away with it, it was a risk that I wasn't yet desperate enough to take. So, instead, I settled on seeing how far her side of the agreement would take her, and told the court "No comment."

"No comment?" the judge asked. "I… Chrysoprase, would you like to help your client come to us with a different answer? I'm not a Sisters-damn newsfilly, Coil. If you don't have any kind of defense, this is going to be a very short trial. And since I haven't announced it outright, the charge against you is attempted murder. Which, if what I've heard is true, might turn into outright murder by the end of the day."

My immediate answer was, in retrospect, very stupid. "Please don't patronize me. Even without a motive, it's assault. If I wanted Star Swirl dead, he'd be dead."

Spade stared at me for a very heavy moment, and then let out a small, quite arid huff of amusement. It took one of his hooves rising up to pull out his cigar for him to build to anything more by way of words. "Right. Grand Duchess, anything you'd like to say to try and ease that one, then?"

Chrysoprase nodded. "Coil, I'm not ordering you to be quiet. But if you want to see tomorrow morning, that's my advice," she whispered to me, before raising her voice. "The reason I asked for Sealed Lips today is that, before the incident yesterday, Earl Dust and I entered into a contract. It concerned matters of state at the highest level of the Stable, so I am bound by my own position as the head of the Stable of Nobles, and as the current heir to the unicorn throne, not to explain the terms of that contract. Suffice it to say that, for the same reasons I can't provide the contract, I decided it would be appropriate to enforce the contract with magic—which has been a more than common practice throughout unicorn history. I admit, I did not convey that enforcement mechanism in advance; for that, I could perhaps understand some frustration, and for that I will have to shoulder some blame for the day's events. Regardless, the contract was willingly entered into; I did not coerce Earl Dust, I provided him the full text with ample time to read and consider it before he agreed and signed. But it seems the issue of magical enforcement caused a greater issue than I had expected. Duke Zodiac—in his capacity as an Archmage—was the one who provided the magic for the contract to me, so I infer Earl Dust somehow learned of his involvement, and perhaps blamed him for what he perceived as an undue deception."

"That's a lot of flowery unicorn language," muttered Spade. "Let me make sure I'm understanding. You made a magic deal with Coil but he didn't know it was magic. He thought it was just some kinda big deal about… what, unicorn business?"

Chrysoprase nodded. "His elevation as a recognized noble of the Stable."

"So what happens if he breaks it?"

The Grand Duchess shrugged. "As far as I am aware, it is simply impossible for either of us to break the contract."

The judge raised a brow. "It forces you to follow the rules even if you want to break it, or something?"

Karma at this point stepped forward. "Your Honor, with respect, what difference does it make? The accused willingly agreed to a contract, and when he discovered he had misunderstood the terms, he maimed a pony who was tangentially involved in setting up a small part of it? Would you accept that as a defense if he had instead attacked the pony who sold her the parchment on which the contract was written? Or the quill? Or the ink?"

Spade frowned. "No. I wouldn't. Deceiving the colt with the contract is slimy, Chrysoprase, and I'd be inclined to rule the contract isn't legally enforceable, since you omitted details about the penalty for breach in the contract itself. But Miss She is right. All that has nothing to do with Archmage Star Swirl. So I'm going to ask again: do you have anything else to add?"

I looked up to Chrysoprase (with her hoof still braced on the podium, she was a bit higher than me, even if on level ground I was well taller than her). The old green nag did not move the slightest muscle in her face.

"No comment," I muttered.

"So be it," said Judge Spade. "For the crime of attempted murder, you are found guilty. I hereby sentence you to execution, in a manner to be decided by the Legion."

It was there that Typhoon winced. "Your Honor, perhaps a gentler—"

"You recused yourself for a reason, Commander," the grizzled earth pony interrupted. "Set aside your sister liking him and look at the facts. He came up to a hundred year old stallion minding his own business, and not just attacked him, but beat him to the very verge of death. Even if he lives, Celestia knows he'll never walk again. And the colt shows no sign of remorse. If there's more to this, I can't see it. Let Celestia sort him out."

At that, I scoffed. And when most of the court looked at me, I couldn't help but shrug. "What, did Jade not tell you what happened when she tried to hang me?"

Typhoon frowned. "So you're intending to escape? After all this trouble?"

"Oh, nothing of the sort. I'll tie the knot or lift the axe myself if it satisfies. In fact…" With that lingering comment, I reached into my provided, notably not 'evil cult robes' blue vest, and telekinetically produced a long slender glass vial filled with bubbling green liquid. Typhoon moved to draw her sword in concern of what kind of stunt I was pulling, but stopped when, after uncorking it, I held it still very near my own lips. "If you all really want to go through with this, I'll drink this right now. I just want to make sure everypony understands what happens if I do."

"You brought your own poison?" asked Typhoon.

I nodded. "It… matters to me a lot that if I'm going to die, I go before sundown. And as you and Jade have taught me, if you want an execution done right, you really have to do it yourself. This is… well, I don't know that you all really want to hear the details beyond poison. The point is, it'll take about ninety minutes to kill me, and it won't impede my ability to speak or walk until pretty close to the very end—some vomiting and an awfully bad headache notwithstanding."

"Alright," said Typhoon. "So what is, this some kind of attempt to hold yourself hostage?"

"Well, the way I see it, there's just a couple possible outcomes here. First, I can waste all our time letting you hang me or behad me, just to find out what I already know—that it won't take—and then you keep trying and just generally waste my time. Two, you, Typhoon, can use magic to kill me, which might actually work, but I suspect you'd like to talk to Gale ever again. Or Celestia. Also, I suspect my benevolent sponsor would have objections of her own to an outcome that would actually have a chance of killing me. Three, you settle for something like banishing me instead of making a big fuss about this. Or four, I drink this, which I'm sure is objectionable."

Before anypony else could speak up, Chrysoprase offered me a withering glare despite one raised brow and asked "What are you implying, Coil?"

"Do you want me to answer you here, in the open?"

Slowly, the Grand Duchess nodded. "Choose your words carefully."

"Oh, believe me; I spent all night on them." I grinned. "Whoever told you how a cold iron vow works didn't do a very good job. I can break the vow anytime I want. Doing so would kill me, but it isn't exactly instantaneous; not unlike the poison, in fact. Right now, the only thing keeping me from breaking our agreement is that I expect to keep on living. If that sincerely changes, I don't have much motivation to keep up my end of the crooked bargain."

"You think I'm afraid of word getting out?" Chrysoprase shook her head as if disappointed. "No, Earl Dust, you misunderstand: if I was sincerely afraid of explaining this situation getting out to the public, I would never have made our deal in the first place. It's more convenient for me that it stay quiet, but it's only a convenience, not a real obstacle. I don't mind being the villain in the press. I've played that role many times before for the sake of the Stable. The ponies on the street have hated me far more, and at times with better reason."

"And you misunderstand what I'm threatening, Grand Duchess. So let me be clear." I downed the vial, and then took a deep breath for show around the utter lack of burning in my (wax) throat… but the words I had planned to follow with were cut off by the courtroom doors flying open.

"Stop!" demanded Gale of the factually already quite quiet courtroom. In the painful silence that ensued, everypony looked between me, the now empty glass of poison at my lips, and my best friend in the entire world.

Judge Spade took a long puff of his cigar and then muttered "My apologies, Your Majesty, but the trial's already over. It appears the sentence is too."

"What?" As Gale uttered the word, she glanced back over her shoulder, and I saw that following behind her in far less of a hurry was Celestia, whose most notable quality in that moment was that her horn was wrapped in golden magic even as she walked with utmost grace and dignity. It was a rare appearance for the alicorn, though; her ethereal mane had been reduced to a still and mundane pink, and bags were present beneath her eyes. She did not look particularly happy when she looked at me. Even by Celestia's standards (always walking slowly to tolerate inferior mortal legs), her pace was plodding, and as I watched, Gale's hoof began to tap in impatience at the alicorn's pace. "Well… restart it," she muttered at last. "Or just call the whole damn thing off, I don't care."

"Gale," said Typhoon from her place on the floor near the judge. "We… Morty just…"

Chrysoprase took hold of the vial from my grip and held it up. "Earl Dust took matters into his own hooves."

"Morty?" asked Celestia with a raised brow.

I shrugged, and let myself take a deep breath as I composed a suitable lie, thinking back to what few lessons I had yet received from Solemn Vow. Most of what came to mind was gratitude that he had smuggled the other of my two remaining candlecorns to me in the time I was ostensibly taking to change my jacket and compose my appearance in the defendant's lobby. "Well… this is a bit embarrassing to admit after all the buildup, but it does have an antidote. Just say what you want to say, and I'll stop you if I start running short on time. Can I ask, though: what are you doing here? Not that you aren't welcome, but I didn't exactly want to get you involved…"

A third figure came slowly into view, and the entire atmosphere of the courtroom changed.

Star Swirl the Bearded was wrapped in two magical auras: his own gray and Celestia's gold. He limped, badly, wearing a brace (very much like the one Hurricane favored) on one hindleg and leaning on a wooden cane with his right forelimb. The right hindleg, unbraced, did not touch the ground at all, instead being held aloft. He wore no robe at all, a choice virtually unheard of for the venerable Court Mage of the unicorns, and no hat or even cap graced his silver mane. His beard had been tied with a bit of string, perhaps just to keep it up from near his shaky hooves.

It was the first, and perhaps only time, that I ever saw Star Swirl the Bearded look his literal age.

"Duke Zodiac!" said Chrysoprase, the first to surmount the shock of the old wizard's appearance. "I… forgive me, but is it wise for you to be here? If we had known you were even conscious, we could have come to you—"

"Chrysoprase, shut up," grumbled the old wizard. "I didn't want to be out of bed, but Her Majesty was kind enough to let me know if I didn't, you damn children would do something I couldn't fix. At least the suffering was worth it, since you haven't killed Morty yet."

Judge Spade idly noted "Ostensibly."

Flatly glancing my way, Star Swirl told me "I hate you."

"Likewise," I answered, bringing my hoof to my brow in a mockery of a salute.

Gale grumbled "Shut the fuck up, Morty. He's here to help you."

Turning toward the Judge and Typhoon, Star Swirl took Gale's lead and announced "I don't wish to press charges."

Judge Spade raised a brow.

"I made a mistake," Star Swirl explained. "A frankly stupid mistake. I gave magic that I knew to be powerful—and dangerous—to somepony I thought was trustworthy." Turning to me, he explained "I was told it was intended to make an addendum to… your prior agreement."

Gale turned in confusion my way at that explanation. "You already had a deal with Aunt Chrys?"

I shook my head, and Star Swirl even opened his mouth to answer, but Chrysoprase spoke up most quickly of us all. "Duke Zodiac, do not make a second mistake." Then, after a moment's thought, she quickly added "Coil, you will not speak of it either."

Celestia slowly stepped forward (not for drama, but out of a visible fatigue). "I am tired of these little games and secrets getting ponies hurt. Gale, some time ago your mother employed Morty for some magical services; Luna wrote the spell for them. I don't know what their agreement was, I doubt Morty can actually say, and I don't think it matters. What matters is that Morty is half-crystal, and you're half-pegasus, and that's too much of a risk for the royal line. So when Morty made his foolish bet about being noble, your mother and Chrysoprase—and I suspect my sister, though I can't confirm—cooked up this plan, to use magic to enforce Morty's noble vows. Star Swirl trusted Platinum when she lied and said the spell was for the previous agreement. Instead, Morty faced total obedience, to any command, forever, on penalty of a very painful death."

Slowly, every head turned to Chrysoprase. For her part, the old mare started with a simple nod and a complete lack of remorse. "I had no intention of ever giving him any orders beyond abandoning his pursuit of the throne."

"You magically enslaved him! Did you sincerely expect him to sit down to tea and talk about it?" Celestia replied, with surprising anger in her voice. "If Gale hadn't had the—"

"Her Majesty," Chrysoprase had the audacity to correct the alicorn.

Celestia did not stop her words. "—foresight to realize Morty was under some kind of magic, and to get me involved, Star Swirl and Morty would both be dead. You're going to release Morty from his oath, I'm going to heal Star Swirl as much as I can with my magic, and everypony is going to forget this entire incident."

"No," said Chrysoprase, stepping past me to walk up to Celestia.

The reduced goddess' nostrils flared. "I beg your pardon?"

"You brought this renegade wizard into Equestria," said Chrysoprase. "The three crowns saw the danger he represented and tried to have him put under Archmage Diadem's close oversight, but you insisted you would take responsibility for him. What have we seen since? Overwhelming violence. Murdering an esteemed member of the court in the middle of the palace floor. Near constant intimidation. Feuding with your sister in the middle of the street. Scandal on a level practically unheard of in the recorded history of the Diamond Kingdoms, with no less than the Queen herself. Feeding stray cats to children! And you, Celestia, seem to only be encouraging this rampant chaos. Bloodletting yourself to fuel his rituals? Interfering on his behalf at every turn. Excuse after excuse, forgiveness after forgiveness. But I don't have any responsibility to him, or frankly, to you. My oaths are to the unicorns and the Stable and the Equestrian nation—and all three demand stability and equity, and above all else peace. I, and the Queen-Mother, and I have no doubt Commander Typhoon as well, have all tried our very best to solve this problem with less drastic means, but your interventions have left no other choice. It is my responsibility as the leader of the Stable of Nobles, and a unicorn of standing in this nation, to give the people stability—" there she glanced to Gale, before continuing "—and if it costs High Castle any chance at becoming Crown Prince, then so be it. I would rather be hated, and use trickery, and lie when it has to be done, then see him run amok freely."

Chrysoprase had already walked quite close to Celestia by the time she finished her speech, so when Celestia took an additional step forward, it was quite obvious the purpose of the motion was to highlight their difference in size. "I've been where you stand, Grand Duchess," said Celestia. "I thought lying to maintain my loyalties was the right thing to do. I was just as sure of my choices as you are now. You cannot imagine the damage I caused."

Chrysoprase answered with an utter lack of fear for the fact she was facing down the mare who would one day judge the moral character of her soul. "Show me that you intend to keep a tight grip on his leash, and I will loosen my hold."

Celestia looked at me—far less sympathetically than I would have liked, given the dog metaphor—and said "Go home, Morty. I need to tend to Star Swirl. I'll speak to you later."

"Remain there until I send for you," Chrysoprase added in parting.

And so, unguarded and unshackled, I fetched my real body from the waiting room where I had hidden it and walked back through the unfittingly sunny streets of Everfree City until I reached a prison cell that was more comfortable and more spacious, but every bit as secure and constraining as the one I had left behind that morning.

Comments

[RoboRed]

Wow.
Wow, goddamn, and well-played. That was one hell of a gambit Morty played and although he's definitely not out of the woods yet, he fooled Chryso to spill on what's going on regarding her motives and got the major characters turned against her and/or at least moved enough to stop playing stupid games. Noice.
...Bitch still deserves the guillotine, though.

Also, it never occurred to me that Wintershimmer's soul would provide an out to allow Morty to bypass the vow to explain his predicament. That's an extremely fortuitous circumstance.

[CopperTop]

Morty gets a lot of mileage out of those candlecorns, doesn't he?

And Chrysoprase is actually pretty brave to antagonize the pony that decides whether she spends the rest of eternity rotting in Tartarus...

[Raugos]

Well, it's a relief to see that Star Swirl was tricked, too. It would be heck of a lot more complicated if he had intentionally aided Chrysoprase in binding Morty.

Speaking of Morty, ouch. Even if he isn't getting executed or killed by the vow, that spell has massively accelerated the onset of his horn disease.

11749311
She likely believes that Celestia isn't petty enough to send her to hell just for disrespecting her.

[DoctorWhoooves]

Damn

[Zwei]

All I want to do is read more!

[Sweetblue]

Damn, Starswirl is a real trooper. He knows what is going to happen, so he just swallows his pride and rallies himself up there to resolve the latest explosive situation since he is one of the few people in the kingdom to actually understand and care about the long game.

[Star_Shade]

Does this mean that Morty no longer have that Geas with Luna after this encounter?