Tavern Tactics

by Impossible Numbers

Part Five

The others relaxed. Stygian still nursed his own ears; the echoes of the thunderclap rang over and over in his poor abused cranium.

“Really, Star Swirl,” said Mistmane, her voice boiling, “there was no call for that.”

Spluttering like a maniac with serious rabies, Star Swirl shook his head in disbelief. “No call for – No call for that!? Look at you all, shindigging the night away like a bunch of giggly schoolfillies. Do you realize how many ponies’ lives are on the line if we fail? A little song and dance will not be an adequate excuse come the end of the world!”

Ah… now Stygian knew why he hated Star Swirl so much. The air of quiet resentment among the other ponies, the way the sorcerer spoke as though he alone knew the answers to the questions, the silence he created around himself just so he could fill it: Star Swirl was from the same class of unicorn that Stygian’s tutors had graduated from. And of all the things that class had learned, what they’d failed to learn most of all was that a pony could not study for every waking hour.

He’d seen it in the group around him, after every town lost to the sirens. Meadowbrook, Mistmane, Somnambula, Flash Magnus, Rockhoof: they kept their spirits up, they joked around, they had drinks with each other and laughed over them, because of this stupid war. They unwound. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be ponies. They’d be just a bunch of killing machines, and it’d be worse because they would be killing machines that kept failing to kill the enemy.

But he said nothing. One thing Stygian had learned was that answering back made you a target. Unlike the others, he had no weapon to throw, not even strong words. So he said nothing.

Star Swirl adjusted his hat, jangling those stupid bells of his. Why did he even wear the things? So everyone knew when he was around?

“We ken well what we’re up against,” mumbled Rockhoof.

“You know me.” Meadowbrook shrugged. “I like to get to know a place before I settle in. And raisin’ spirits is all part of the healin’, Mister Swirl.”

“Songs and dances,” said Star Swirl, “are not going to save Equestria. Now, if we’ve gotten it out of our system, it’s time to discuss the matter of how we intend to dispatch the siren threat –”

Oh come on, thought Stygian in the safety of his own head. Songs and dances are powerful enough in the right hooves. The sirens themselves prove it! Listen to their siren songs, watch the way they move, feel their music creeping up on you, and tell me songs and dances are just… silly… little…

Wait…

That was it, wasn’t it? Songs and dances in Equestria were special. Hadn’t he learned that, years ago? Songs and dances weren’t just funny things ponies did for giggles. They were important. They were alive. They appeared like spirits at just the right time and place, they possessed hosts in the right frame of mind… That was how the siren song worked. The sirens exploited living songs and their power.

While the others talked – or Star Swirl talked and the others occasionally butted in – Stygian ferreted through the saddlebag beside him and pulled out quill and paper. After a distracted rush of writing, he sheepishly pulled out the inkwell too. It’d help.

Now… songs were living things. Sirens used them to manipulate ponies into getting angry… Sirens ate the anger, and other kinds of negative energy… so what did the songs get out of it? If they were living things, then what would they need?

Star Swirl droned on and on. Something about remaining outposts.

Meanwhile, Stygian’s thoughts rushed to him. Ponies like Meadowbrook presumably controlled songs too, calling them forth when needed. Yes, good, and how did they do that? Ponies… Ponies had to set the stage, and the songs would come and roost. But the sirens forced the songs, made them take over the stage, changed them… It was like a bird, then, taking over another bird’s nest by fighting for it?

Rockhoof rumbled a protest, only for Flash Magnus to throw his in too, punctuated by “sah” here and there.

Sirens force the songs to roost, songs create negative energy, energy eaten by sirens… What if they shared it? A kind of payment for the songs to cooperate? That was how many living things cooperated in nature, like the fungi and the little plants in lichens… Hadn’t he studied such habits as part of his Natural Philosophy scholarship…?

Where did the energy go?

Quill shaking, he jotted down one word: “Gemstone.”

Every siren had one in its chest. Was that where the songs lived too, eating their share of energy and then readying themselves for the next victim? Gemstones traditionally held all sorts of magical things; some scholars believed gems, crystals, and so on were, in fact, the ultimate source of all magic, even quite small gemstones would provide it…

So that meant they were a weakness. Gemstones were targets.

He hesitated.

Supposing a song wasn’t powerful enough, though? Not on its own. Songs had been known to take over whole towns, but the effects wouldn’t last long. They couldn’t. Songs needed the right moment, the right emotion, and emotions changed on a dime. Certainly not long enough for even three sirens to control pony minds, much less control them with such perfection that they threatened Equestria.

Something else had to be involved. Something that brought ponies like him alive when he danced.

Opposite him, Flash Magnus stopped while Somnambula made an insistent speech.

They’d need help. Reinforcements, perhaps. He picked up the saddlebag again whilst Star Swirl launched into a lecture. After all, the songs and magic hid inside the gemstones, so what did you use to break them open, to let the songs and magic escape?

Music?

Hence broken pieces of instrument.

He looked inside the saddlebag once more.

In fairness, the sirens probably just didn’t want competition from powerful enough musicians. Musicians tamed songs and dances as well as music.

The Clarinet Cove stunt proved those sirens had some weakness to music, right up until they had become immune. Yet despite apparently being immune, they’d still gone after legendary instruments: the Harp of Crux Matterhorn, the Drum of Warmonger, the Bagpipes of Sleeping Hill the Giant. So they had progressed up the ladder? From weaker instruments to stronger ones?

If you played the bagpipes, a giant would be your friend. If you played anything the right way, a miracle would happen. It had happened in this bar with nothing but a bugle and a helmet! And a bad fiddler. Yet that had to be magic. Maybe not one he understood, but magic nonetheless. Meadowbrook made it feel like magic.

Magic based on music, music based on emotions. What power could be there? Could they use it?

Next to him, Mistmane sipped her firewater, easily heard even over Meadowbrook’s complaints and Star Swirl’s retorts.

Songs roosted in ponies because they were the ones who sang. Where did music live? In instruments?

Songs were spirits. Music could be, too. So, if sirens could force the spirits of songs to work for them…

“That’s where they’re getting their power from,” he muttered aloud.

“I’m sorry?” said Mistmane, lowering her drink.

Cursing himself, but unable to refuse, Stygian said, “The sirens, my lady. That’s why they attack musical instruments. They’re not just destroying our best weapons. They’re… They’re eating the music inside them.”

Well now, said out loud, that didn’t sound dumb at all. He groaned and hit himself.

“As a source of power?” said Mistmane.

Stygian gaped at her. Not a note of condescension or doubt in that voice.

“Yes!” he said, so loud with relief that the others stopped to look at him. “As a source of power! Exactly! The sirens can’t keep relying on the same songs over and over, not to control a town or even a city. They need… allies. Songs get stronger in the presence of music, and… and, um…”

The other stares wore him down to doubtfulness. He stopped talking.

Star Swirl raised an eyebrow at him. “Is there something the matter, Stygian?”

Stygian lowered his gaze to the map. Partly, this was because it was better than being the centre of attention, but partly it was because the spiral that Star Swirl had drawn also drew his eye to the two cities, right in the middle.

There would be a ton of musical instruments in Canterlot or Everfree, no doubt about it. They’d be heavily guarded, though. Spells stronger than any he’d encountered elsewhere. The sirens would have to be good to break through. Were they good enough yet?

But then why had they targeted this tiny village? It was a little way out of the centre. The army had yet to arrive in full numbers, so why not grab the cities now before the defence tightened? Star Swirl might have thought it was an anomaly, but what if it wasn’t? What if Somnambula was right? And she usually was when it came to trickery and cunning.

“Um,” he said, totally lost.

“If you break a musical instrument,” said Mistmane, and she levitated the broken reeds and the drum skin for all to see, “where does the music go?”

“Go? Go? It doesn’t go anywhere,” said Flash Magnus, puzzled. “Music’s something you make. It’s not like it flaps through the air looking for –”

To Stygian’s amazement, Star Swirl held up a hoof at this. “Actually, there might be a point here, Captain Magnus.”

“Sah?”

“Songs, as you say, ‘flap through the air’. That’s a well-known theory in magical circles. Oh true, some ponies make better hosts than others, but the songs are their… well, you know your muses of old?”

Flash Magnus chuckled, but nervously, as no one else joined in. “Yes, sah, but those are old mare’s tales. No one really believes in muses.”

“I fail to see why that is a problem,” said Star Swirl with irritating reasonableness. “It’s plausible, I suppose, that music operates in the same way. It exists, as it were, in potentia.”

“Never heard o’ the place,” said Meadowbrook.

“He means,” said Flash Magnus, now resorting to a puzzled grin, “that it exists somewhere just because it can exist. It just doesn’t exist here yet.”

“Oh. This ain’t that ‘Other Worlds’ talk again, is it?” she said suspiciously.

Mistmane finally cut in with a determined glare. “The siren songs are getting stronger,” she said before Flash Magnus opened his mouth. “And they attacked legendary musical instruments, whilst at the same time becoming immune to musical attacks. Shouldn’t we at least take this seriously?”

“Take what seriously?” said Somnambula.

“That the sirens aren’t just controlling songs. They’re learning how to control music too. Powerful music.”

“How powerful?”

“Powerful as the Harp of Crux Matterhorn. Powerful as the Drum of Warmonger. Powerful as the Bagpipes of –”

“All right, all right,” muttered Rockhoof, “don’t remind me.”

“But so what?” said Flash Magnus. “Even if the sirens are… What? Eating the music out of Rockhoof’s Bagpipes, or something… What’s the point? They’re dining like kings on negative energy.”

“Power limits,” said Star Swirl at once. “Of course! One siren controlling a repertoire of songs can do some damage, but we’d have easily contained it by now. Three sirens, difficult but manageable. Now imagine hundreds of sirens.”

Flash Magnus rubbed his forehead under the sweaty stress of thinking. “But we’re not fighting –”

“Not literally! If what Mistmane says is true, and the music is joining the ranks too, then we might as well be. Each siren adds to her repertoire. That’s why they progress from villages to towns to cities. They progress from a few songs to hundreds of songs and grow stronger as they do so. And therefore three sirens can bring Equestria to its knees as easily as an army of hundreds.”

If what Mistmane says is true!? Stygian reeled from the words. But he had the notes right here! He raised a hoof to object.

“Um…” was as far as he got. “There is good news, sir…”

“Let’s pretend that’s true,” said Flash Magnus, giving Mistmane an apologetic look. “So what? It doesn’t help us predict where they’ll strike next. We’re right back at square one.”

“Not quite,” said Star Swirl. “Think, Captain Magnus. The sirens are progressing. What they’ll want next is the most magical musical instrument possible. Something that would give them the necessary boost to attack a city, what?”

“True, sir, only it isn’t going to be in any one city, in that case,” said Stygian, wishing like heck he could make up his mind whether to complain or go along with it. “The army will still be expecting them. And maybe it’s too much of a gamble for the sirens, picking fifty-fifty and then finding we’re waiting for them at the one they pick.”

“I still do not trust this map.” Somnambula pointed at the spiral. “This little town around us is outside the spiral. They must be heading for another destination.”

“Before attacking the capital cities?” said Flash Magnus, rubbing his chin. “Yes, I suppose if I was an army going to invade those, I’d want as many reinforcements as I could find. Only where would I go to find it?”

“Anywhere here?” Rockhoof ran a giant hoof over the middle of the map, sweeping a broad area surrounding the cities.

“Perhaps,” said Mistmane, nodding to Somnambula. “Perhaps it is a feint. Our current position is…” She levitated Stygian’s inkwell and placed it firmly on the spot. “…here.”

“Southwest,” muttered Star Swirl. “That’s towards Ghastly Caverns. Nothing there but empty wilderness. Then desert beyond that. Not a major settlement in sight.”

Rockhoof leaned over the map, accidentally squeezing Somnambula against the table until she thumped him and he backed off sheepishly. “Sorry. Hm, it looks bad for the magic music theory, Beardy.”

But Stygian glared at the map. Perhaps it was a feint indeed. Just not the one they were thinking of…

He hurried over to the bar-stallion. “Excuse me, sir, but could you tell me which way the sirens were last seen?”

The bar-stallion gave him an odd look. “Sirens?”

“Sort of flying fish ponies. Three of them. They sing beautifully.”

“Them three you got already ain’t good enough?” said Ironsmith nearby. This was greeted with mild chuckles from the other patrons, but then this did pass for traditional tavern humour.

Patiently, Stygian waited until one of them gave him a straight answer. Then he heard hoofsteps come up behind him, and saw the other stallions straighten up. He didn’t even need to turn to see the sweeping skirt and know it was Meadowbrook.

“I don’t suppose y’all recollect whether you did cast your eye on any critters of that neck of the woods?” she said.

Further along the bar, one stallion raised a hoof sheepishly. “I recollect something of that ilk, ma’am. Heading northwest, ma’am.”

Stygian seethed where he stood. Why did Meadowbrook act like he needed a minder? If these fools had just answered him instead of making stupid jokes…

Over his head, Meadowbrook said, “You got any more of that there brandy, sugarcube?”

They both sat back down without a word, Meadowbrook’s brandy sloshing in her tankard. An argument broke out. Unusually, Star Swirl wasn’t involved.

“I told you, there’s nothing there!” insisted Flash Magnus, almost standing up he was so upright with indignation. “Look, the sirens are strong, I will accept that, upon my honour as a warrior. But they are not tactical geniuses.”

“And Somnambula just told you, young stallion,” said Mistmane coolly, “that we’ve underestimated them before and suffered for it. I believe she is right to be suspicious. This time, we need to think before we charge into battle.”

“Are you suggesting this ‘young stallion’ can’t think?”

“I’m suggesting you don’t think enough! We’re not after settlements. We’re after famous, legendary, or powerful musical instruments. We’ve swept that territory already. If there were anything of note in the southwest of Equestria, then we’ve already passed it.”

“And there isn’t,” chipped in Star Swirl before Flash Magnus had drawn breath. “Which means the sirens want to confuse us.”

“Huh,” muttered Flash Magnus. “They’re doing a bang-up job then, sah.”

Stygian glared at the map. He had to admit Star Swirl had a point. If veering off their spiral course was meant to be a feint, it was a pathetically obvious one. Anyone could see that. The sirens had been thorough down there. The southwest certainly had no musical marvels.

So the feint was itself a feint? And if you needed to keep your enemies away, then you drew them as far away from your real target as possible.

Meadowbrook stopped gulping her drink. “One o’ the nice gentlecolts said those sirens were headed northwest.”

Yes, thought Stygian, and that didn’t make sense either. The only major settlements up there were the ones in the Smokey Mountains, and the ponies there sure weren’t musical marvels.

A feint of a feint of a feint, then?

His gaze fell over the map. If the sirens headed south, and then turned and went north, that was only to get halfway to their real target, but they wouldn’t go straight to said real target. Not if they knew they were being followed. And they were on a time limit. Stygian and his… friends, he supposed… were getting closer every time.

So… the sirens went south… tried to fool us into thinking they went north… so either east or west? But there was nothing to the west. As he checked the east side of the map, his eye spotted a gap.

Yes, the spiral wasn’t perfect. Mountains, lakes, inconvenient garrisons: the sirens sometimes had to work round them all. Stygian knew his maps, though. He checked multiple gaps, just to make sure. Now that one was a mountain… that one was where the Frozen North forced the sirens back… and that one was empty desert…

Inevitably, his eyes fell upon the gap he’d known and dreaded would be there.

“Hollow Shades,” he murmured.