H A Z E

by Bandy

Chapter 17

The air in Derecho wasn’t quite as thin as it was in the stonewood mountains, but it was noticeably better than the soupy sea-level air. Derechan air was good for flying.

Hypha took the first opportunity to slip away to the edge of the city. Outside of the main arterial roads with their hard-packed cloudstone foundations, what constituted solid ground became less clear. Even with the cloudwalking spell keeping him from falling through entirely, he found his hooves sinking into a few patches of porous clouds. Stepping in these sinkholes made his stomach lurch, but he reminded himself of the necessity of isolating himself out here. Wandering eyes were rare this far out. The mostly-pegasi population wouldn’t think twice about one pony practicing flying drills. If he was this far out, they wouldn’t even notice he had no wings.

His goal that day was twelve vertical ascents and twelve magic orbs. He wouldn’t do any runes yet. He wasn’t about to blow up his hooves again.

He managed eight vertical ascents this time, each nearly a full minute long, as well as seven solid orbs, before a splitting ache erupted from his temples and halted the session. He was drenched in sweat and panting like a dog. His back and core sang in agony. Lactic acid bathed his legs.

This would be easier with the mushrooms, he thought. He didn’t know where that thought came from. He threw himself into some cool-down stretches to get his mind off it, with little success.

The thought dogged him all the way back to the outskirts of the city. Near the spot where loose clouds gave way to hard-packed streets, Hypha paused to roll around on the ground. The moisture from the clouds washed away all the sweat and grime.

---

“If we’re gonna do this right, we gotta be armed, and we gotta be ready.” Red stuffed another hooffull of soggy hay into her mouth and chewed slowly. Hay in Derecho was disgusting and never fully dry like it was on the ground. But it was cheap, and their stolen cash was starting to run out. “We can enjoy ourselves a little. But we need to keep our eyes on the prize.”

Blue nodded. The remains of a bowl of mashed dragonfruit porridge clung to her muzzle. Her eyes radiated poise. She was ready.

Hypha took another tentative bite of soggy hay and surpassed a gag. “Blue’s good at pickpocketing. Why bother with jobs?”

“Blue is very good at pickpocketing” Blue beamed. “Even so, we can’t risk missing an opportunity to attack because we’re stuck in jail.”

“What if we just stole some swords, then?”

“Also too risky. If you try to steal a sword from somepony, you have to be aware that they’ve got at least one sword on them.” Red shook her head. “No stealing swords.” She pointed to Hypha’s hooves. “Think you can do some manual labor?”

He tapped the black mineral shell on the table. “Yes. At least for the next month or so.”

“Cool. You should check for work at the colosseum. There’s always stuff to do there.”

Hypha drew back. “The colosseum?”

“Yeah. The thing we’re all orbiting around. Can’t miss it.”

“I don’t know if I should go there.”

Red rolled her eyes. “You won’t be doing any deathmatches, if that’s what you’re concerned about. They need bodies to sweep seats and stuff.” She paused. “Ok, not bodies like that.”

Talk of bodies brought back the memory of Prairie Sky’s head bouncing off the floor of the Canary’s Cage temples. Hypha closed his eyes, and for a moment all he could see was the red flickering firelight of the temple walls.

That didn’t happen. He deserved it. The dissonance of his thoughts stole the words out of his mouth. He leaned down to take a bite of his lunch and found himself crushed between the weight of two impossible tasks: laboring to uphold a literal temple of violence and holding down his hay.

---

The next morning, before the sun touched the tops of Derecho’s metal spires, Hypha slipped away to the edge of town again.

He walked until he was alone, until the city had all but evaporated around him. He found a small but stable patch of clouds and wrestled them free from the main body of the city. Derecho kept on spinning behind him.

He took out a heaping hooffull of mother sky mushrooms from his saddlebag.

The first time he’d taken them, he wound up hundreds of miles away from home. The second time—he didn’t want to dwell on the second time. Maybe he really wasn’t worthy to partake.

Red’s words came back to him. You are the order.

In a way, she was right. With the monasteries destroyed, he’d never complete the trials. The dead could never bless him with their approval. That door was shut.

He could give up and burn the mushrooms. That would be the monkly thing to do. The order had never been overly zealous when it came to self-denial. But mother sky was so much more than just a conduit for pleasure. The very thought of deviating from the order’s path set off an avalanching cascade of guilt inside him.

There was another option, though. A much more dangerous one. He could partake again. See what lay beneath all this suffering. Maybe this was his trial, and his approval would come not from another monk but from mother sky herself—if he earned it. It was an idea as desperate as it was far-fetched. But wouldn’t it be nice if all this suffering had a purpose?

The simple truth was, he’d probably never know for certain. All he could do now was give up, or keep digging.

He popped the caps in his mouth, one after the other.

The next hour was a cascade of abstract sensations and visuals. He saw flickers of neon-bright light and heard ponies voices whispering from nowhere. The clouds shifted, though he didn’t fall through.

When nothing concrete coalesced, he started to grow impatient. Why me? he thought. He wasn’t only asking himself. Somehow, he knew he wasn’t alone out here. Maybe it was other monks. Maybe it was something else entirely. How am I supposed to start the order from scratch?

Words came to him from the void, spoken in his own voice. It’s never too late to...

To what? Anger rose from within him. He just wanted to hurt them. It wasn’t wise. It wasn’t monkly. But that drive was real. If they didn’t give him room to live, then he had to make room. Simple as that. The Derechans had killed so many already. If he failed in his mission, this whole deadly cycle would just keep on repeating, until the whole world was Derecho, or there was nothing left. The wheel of death was already turning. He hadn’t started turning it. He couldn’t hope to arrest. But as long as he was alive, there was a chance he could change its path.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the clouds before him coalesced into the shape of a snow leopard.

A bolt of icy fear shot down his spine. The snow leopard lunged. He didn’t even have time to scream. He closed his eyes, and it was all over.

When he opened his eyes again, he looked down and found that he was in the snow leopard’s body, looking at himself through its cloudy blue eyes. His dead pony body hung limply from the snow leopard’s mouth. As it chewed, Hypha tasted sweat and iron and ozone.

Then a knee-buckling, ravenous hunger overcame him, and he devoured himself.

---

Dawn broke.

Hypha opened his eyes. He took a breath in. He took a breath out. “Good morning, Red.”

Red let out a yelp of alarm. She’d been gauging the jump from the edge of Derecho to Hypha’s cloud. Hypha’s voice nearly sent her tumbling off the edge.

“Uh.” She collected herself, looking a little more pale than before. “Good morning.”

“You’re up early.”

“Blue was worried you’d wandered off and got lost.”

“That was thoughtful of her.”

She pointed to his cloud. “Is that a one-pony cloud, or a two-pony cloud?”

He patted the space beside him. Red got a running start and leapt across the chasm, kicking up tufts of white as she landed. She shook the moisture off before settling down next to Hypha.

“I wanna apologize for yelling at you,” she said. “I don’t think you’re stupid. You’re just scared. I’m scared, too. So is Blue. We’re all just trying to get through this in one piece.”

The genuine softness in her voice surprised Hypha. “I’m sorry too. For everything.”

“Can I be honest with you? This whole thing to get Blue’s dad—it’s a bad idea.”

“You really think that?”

“It’s as bad as your idea to go after Romulus. Blue knows it too.”

“But she won’t stop.”

Red shook her head. “I don’t think she could if she wanted to.”

Hypha knew the feeling, or at least some fraction of it. He tried to imagine what it must be like to stew in the violent haze for years on end. The thought made his heart ache. He’d already shed so much of who he thought he was, traveled so far from home and exercised so much heartless violence, and he hadn’t even been out here for a whole month. Blue was eight when she set out on this road. He barely recognized himself. Could she?

“I’m sorry.”

Red’s look hardened. “Whatever. Look, she’s not gonna stop, and that means I’m not gonna stop either, but killing her dad’s not gonna be worth it if one of us gets killed in the process. It wouldn’t be good for you, either. We can’t help you get Romulus if we’re dead.”

“Right. So what is it you want?”

“I know what it looks like on the outside. But you have to believe me when I say I don’t just want to use you or your mushrooms. I’m going to take this seriously. And in return, you have to be a serious teacher.”

“First of all, you don’t use mother sky.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” he said, trying to diffuse the tension. No sense rehashing old arguments. “But how much of this can I really trust you with? You want to use it as a weapon.”

“Well, it kinda is.”

“It’s not.”

“Look, maybe the first pony who ever forged metal took it out of the fire and thought, ‘Wow, this would make a really great plow’. But then somepony else noticed the sharp end and cut someone with it, and now here we are.”

“It’s not a weapon.”

“Fine. It’s not. Promise me you won’t hold anything back.”

“I can only give you what I know.”

“You know enough. You’re the monk.”

“I’m an acolyte.”

“Seriously? At this point, what’s the difference?”

Bitter memories flashed through Hypha’s mind. He was in Roseroot. Then he was flying away. Then he was being eaten alive by a snow leopard. He was afraid. Lost. Blinded.

“I’m a bad teacher,” he said.

“I’ll make up for that. I’m a great pupil. I want to learn.”

“Do you?” Hypha regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth. Why was he so quick to antagonize?

Red’s forehead creased in frustration. “What if I am? You didn’t see what I saw. You have no idea what I want.” She prodded him in the ribs. “No idea.”

Hypha let out a slow sigh. Patience. What would Cumulus do if he were here? He’d be able to see through Red’s mask. He’d know if she was telling the truth. He’d faced off against those Derechan legionaries with the same placid, beguiling smile. But that too had been a mask, as all faces were. What thoughts had he harbored behind it?

It’s never too late to... to join the order.

He leapt to his hooves, causing the whole cloud to tip from side to side. Red splayed out her hooves to keep from falling overboard. “Watch it,” she hissed.

“Become a monk.”

“What?”

“You already gave time to the order by helping me. You helped harvest mother sky, sorta. You partook in a mushroom ritual and interpreted its meaning. All that’s left is to swear an oath.”

“Oaths are stupid.” She tried to take a step back, except the cloud was too small. “That’s a stupid idea.”

“No, it makes perfect sense. You want to trust me. I want to trust you. What better way to solidify that trust?”

“I’m sure we can find something less blood ritual-y.”

“There’s no blood. It’s all ritual.”

“Hypha, no offense, but I don’t wanna wind up like Prairie Sky.”

Patience. Hypha heard the word as clearly as if he’d said it aloud. “You and him are nothing alike. Respecting mother sky and following the rituals is the only way to realize your potential. Even if you beat me up and stole the mushrooms again—” He let that word fly with a little more emphasis than was necessary. “She’d never give you what you wanted. If you really want to learn, then this is the only way.”

Hypha could see the gears in Red’s head whirring. She sat in silence for several minutes contemplating Hypha’s words before asking, “What’s the oath?”

“Defend the order. Practice patience. Harvest mushrooms. We’ll need to find a workaround for the harvesting bit, but all the others are doable. We might not have a monk to witness us, but if we do it in the presence of mother sky, then she could count as our witness.”

A hint of nervousness crept into Red’s voice. So much hung in the balance. ”You really want me in your order?”

He thought about Cumulus. If he could only put his own thoughts to the side and speak through the elder’s voice... “I think you need to be in the order.”

Red looked away, her brow furrowed. She opened her mouth to speak, but for a long time no words came out. Hypha was starting to believe she’d turn him down when she looked up and asked, “Can Blue be a monk too?”

---

That evening, as the sun set, Hypha floated them out to the very edge of Derecho’s orbit, so far out they could see the tails of moisture falling from the city and meeting the dry dust of the caravan below. The city turned weightlessly behind them, unaware.

“I wanna go over some stuff before we do this,” Hypha said. “In the mountains, we’d collect mushrooms every morning. Seeing as that’s not really possible anymore, we should spend mornings in meditation instead. Every other day, you’ll come out here with me. We’ll talk, we’ll work on monk stuff, but mostly we’ll meditate. Red, you can take odd days. Blue, you can take even days. Does that sound good?”

Red and Blue looked at each other, then nodded.

“Next thing. Giesu and Romulus are not the end goal.” Red and Blue’s faces turned flighty. “Hang on. I promised I’d help you kill Giesu, and you promised you’d help me kill Romulus. That’s still on. But when we’re done, we can’t go our separate ways. If you take this oath, we’re bonded for life. The order is everything. Killing Giesu and Romulus will make it safe to restart the order, but their deaths won’t restart the order for us. We have to do that ourselves.”

“That’s a lot to ask out of the blue,” Red said.

“It’s the only way mother sky will give you her blessings. If you don’t treat her like she’s a goddess, then she’s not. You’re in, or you’re out.”

Red mulled over Hypha’s words for some time. “If we even make it that far, how are we supposed to restart a whole order?”

“I don’t know. But we’re gonna find a way. Right now I just need to know you’re in it for the long haul.”

“Fine. We’re in. All the way.” Blue nodded alongside her.

“Okay. Last rule. Protect yourselves and each other over everything else. As far as I know, we’re the last of the order. We can’t afford to lose anyone else.”

“So we’re not allowed to die?”

“Yes.”

She chuckled. “You got it.”

In a slow, solemn voice, Hypha said, “Now repeat after me. I, state your name, intend to pursue the path of a monk in the order of Heavenly Peace. I will seek to deepen my connection to mother sky, to consume and to be consumed. I will never betray any of my fellow monks or acolytes. I will strive for peace, but will preserve the order by any means necessary. I will surrender to mother sky. I am the face in the stone and the voice in the wind.”

Red parroted the oath perfectly. When it was Blue’s turn, she nodded along to Hypha as he spoke. As the ranking member of the order of Heavenly Peace, Hypha decided that nodding was fine, too.

Comments

[hehelover]

Interesting decision by our protagonists, I wonder when Hypha would fully realize that he’d also deviated greatly from the ancient path of his order. Also, why were the previous two chapters reposted?

[Bandy]

11433859 Yeah I meant to reach out! I made some minor edits to chapters 15 and 16, and I didn't realize that by deleting old chapters, the comments associated with those chapters are also deleted. I'm very sorry about that. It was an honest accident. I really enjoy reading your comments

[mm3100]

11434492
On that note, I am not sure now, but Blue was also eating hay in latests chapter. I am not sure if that is possible without teeth. Perhaps grounded hay or blended? I was wondering how was she eating since her mouth unfortunate event revelation.

[Bandy]

11434502 Yeah that makes sense, I can't imagine hay would be edible without teeth to chew it up, lol

[Jarvy Jared]

Finally managed to set up some time to catch up on this story. What I'm enjoying the most is the ambiguity of whether we can trust Hypha as our protagonist. He's already done some pretty questionable stuff.

[Lexiebommel10]

Bandit vigilante monks