Chapter 24
Lotus watched the flashing lights speed past outside. They came much more frequently now, at least a dozen she had counted so far. The police zipped down the highway from both directions, converged on the gas station—then split up again. Some shot down the farm road connecting the old asylum, others weaved their way down its other tributaries.
Gus snored away in the other room now, content that “someone has to be awake, but it doesn't have to be me.”
So, it fell to Lotus to pace back and forth next to cracked windows, waiting for the moment when a team of super soldiers would fly up the dirt road and shoot the asylum to pieces.
That didn't happen. Hours passed, the number of police faded back to the usual she expected for the area, with one or two cars passing every hour or so, and no longer blaring their sirens along the highway.
"You're still up?" someone muttered, his voice groggy. Iron appeared behind her, spear balanced on his back. He set it gently on the ground in the doorway before joining her by the window.
"Couldn't sleep," she said. She looked away from the dirty glass, stretching to her full length like a cat. At times like this—when she was too overwhelmed or distracted or in pain—her understanding of her transformed body seemed enhanced. Maybe being so weak kept her from filtering her actions through a human perspective.
When she looked up again, Iron was right beside her. He held something towards her—a steaming mug. The smell of coffee brought wakefulness in itself. She reached out with her magic, ready to take it—but stopped short. Despite the temptation, she was better off not drinking that.
She pushed it closer to him, then yawned again. "You have... no idea how badly I want to drink that. But probably I don't." She stumbled away from the window; towards the space she'd transformed into her bedroom. She used several stacked desks to wall off a small section of the room, then tented over it with a tarp to make a shelter. Inside, her inflatable mattress could have a cozier, more comfortable feel.
Because it was all she thought about, Lotus's room also had spell diagrams pinned up everywhere. Most were just stuck to the wall wherever there was empty space. It wasn't like she had to be careful about getting her deposit back in a condemned building.
She might not have made it there without Iron to guide her. She spent several seconds pushing up against an overturned desk, before the pegasus nudged her gently to one side. "I think you have the right idea about not drinking coffee, Lotus. If you try to practice a Worldgate spell like this, you might send us all to Tartarus."
She settled onto the edge of the mattress, removing the satchel with Searing's spellbook, and resting it on a waiting hook.
"Give me... three hours," she said. "Then get me up. I'm close—so close, I can almost taste it. A few more days."
He lingered beside her, close enough to reach out and touch. But whatever he was seeing—Lotus couldn't tell. He must see something she didn't, from the way he watched her. An overwhelmed, stressed animal-horse-dragon-thing, that somehow had to keep herself from exploding.
"You've done more than anypony thought possible, Lotus. When I think about how lucky I was—of all the creatures who found me, it was you. Somepony who could help me heal, and somehow find the time to learn magic, too."
He eyed the bandages on her side, and the aching, torn flesh underneath. She would need to wrap those again after their escape, but Lotus hadn't gotten around to it yet. Maybe he could tell something was wrong, because Iron pushed her gently down, touching one hoof firmly on her back. "Stay right there. The last thing we need is you getting infected."
She nodded groggily. An inflatable camp mattress and sleeping bag were hardly the most comfortable place she'd ever slept—but after staying up all through the night, she could start to drift.
They were still alive, somehow. They had supplies. They only really needed a few uninterrupted days, and she could get them into Equestria. After that—what? Return the evil spellbook to Equestria, help them trap Searing Gale, then find Princess Luna who had the magic to transform her back.
That way she could go back to the charred remnants of a house, no job, and a giant bird as her best friend. If they were lucky, the gas station wouldn't try to prosecute her for some kind of elaborate robbery.
She must have slept at some point, because when she woke up again, she was nestled securely in bed, surrounded by the warmth of her sleeping bag. She opened one eye, looked out at the brilliant white sunlight streaming in from outside, and closed it again.
When she woke again, she felt better. Her side throbbed with the steady ache of a healing wound—she hoped.
She rose, eyeing the window to the outside. Afternoon sun streamed in through the dirt and broken shades, revealing the obvious, underlying truth. Iron hadn't woken her. She yawned, clambering out of her makeshift bedroom, and stretching again. The bedroom door still had a mirror, albeit cracked and dirty.
Even so, Lotus approached it, smiling weakly back at her reflection. She recognized the face looking back at her—weary, overwhelmed, but also brave, determined, and clever.
She lit up her horn, holding the runes of a spell in mind. Heat filled her, rising from her horn in a few wisps of smoke. Finally, her bandages caught fire, charring to wisps of curled blackness in seconds. She waited, frozen in place until the flames finally eased.
Eventually they dropped to the ground, leaving a residue of black ash. She stomped out the embers, dragging her hooves against the dirty linoleum until not even a faint orange glow remained.
"Lotus?" Someone banged loudly on the door in front of her, harsh and urgent. Iron's voice. "I smell..." He didn't wait for her permission, just shoved his shoulder up against the door. It swung open and would've smacked right into her if Lotus didn't retreat.
Instead of the door smacking her, Iron did, hard enough that they both tumbled to the dirty ground. She yowled in surprise, her tail whipping hard against the walls in a vain effort to stabilize herself.
"I smelled smoke!" he called, now perched atop her. Without a hint of self-consciousness or shame, somehow. How the pony could walk around naked all the time and never think about it... "What happened?"
She groaned, pulling back far enough to reach a sitting position. "I figured out a little healing spell. I guess it warms up when I cast it." She tried to twist and show him her now-unblemished side, but only managed to squirm under his weight. "If you'd let me up."
He retreated, at least far enough that he wasn't pinning her anymore. "Sorry! After the last time, I had to—"
She shoved suddenly free of him, rising abruptly to her hooves. Whatever desire she had to let him stay that close faded away like a puff of smoke. "Had to make sure I wasn't going to lose my mind? Wasn't going to burn the place down and kill everybody?"
He looked away, wings falling limp to his sides. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay, Lotus. I didn't..."
She levitated the cursed spellbook from the hook, then shoved past him through the open door. "Whatever. I'll get back to practicing. Tell Gus to bring me lunch. Or dinner, or whatever meal this is."
It was lunch, as it turned out. But she hadn't glanced at a clock, and she got the feeling the others had already eaten some time ago. Still, there was real chicken in it this time, and the smells of wholesome, familiar food. Now maybe if they could get people not to shoot them long enough to pick up a meal from the family diner...
The smell kept Iron away while she ate—but Gus stuck around, already restored to his usual excitement.
"One of the phones came with two hours of talk time and a few gigabytes on the trial sim. But I don't want to turn it on outside a tin-foil wrap, or else it might phone home. It says I disabled the GPS, but I don't trust that as far as I can throw it. Or maybe that's a good distance... I'm still kinda figuring out how to move things very far with bird arms."
He pantomimed the gesture once, watching her expectantly.
Lotus didn't laugh, just lifted the bowl to her mouth again, and took another long sip. "I'm confident I can copy the Worldgate spell exactly now. I'll copy the runes a dozen more times over the next few days... then I'll be as ready as I can be."
"Really?" He slapped her shoulder enthusiastically—with all the same energy she'd always known from Gus. "That's amazing! You think a few more days will be enough?"
Not even close, but I don't think we can keep hiding much longer. "I've done nothing but stare at books and memorize runes since I turned into a kirin, Gus. If I wasn't at least a little good at it by now, I'd be a failure."
He nodded solemnly. "Of course. For the sake of the scientific record, would you mind describing how much more intelligent you think you are?"
She nearly lost her magical grip on the bowl. Still, Lotus disciplined herself. She took one last sip, drained it completely. "Are you saying you think I was dumb before?"
"No!" He backed away, flaring both wings defensively. "But I wouldn't think you could master some crazy new ability in a few weeks. Portals aren't just magic, they're hard magic."
She stood up, kicking the empty bowl towards him, and turning her back on him. She spun so fast her tail smacked into him. But for once, she didn't care. "Don't get too excited, I haven’t actually done it yet. Plenty of time to screw it up between now and that portal."
Gus slipped the bowl under his foreleg, backing away from her study area. "Well... probably good that it's happening quick. I don't know how hard the police are looking for us, but that getaway wasn't exactly clean. There are clues pointing back here if they want to look."
She settled onto her haunches, levitating a fresh pad of paper in front of her, along with the pen. She floated them so effortlessly now, almost as easily as she would've used real hands. Technically they could do even more, since there was no strict limit of distance or strength. She could float things her real muscles had no hope of lifting.
"Let me know if there's any sign of trouble. If they do find us, I don't want to fight. I'm not getting into a shootout with the cops."
Gus laughed. "No problem there. Our guns were in the house. Not as iconic as losing them in a boating accident, but there you go. I'm honestly not sure why someone would bring guns onto a boat to begin with."
He retreated back the way he'd come, leaving Lotus alone with her studies.
She was still there by early evening, when Iron returned with dinner. She thanked him, sent him away, and went right back to practicing until she collapsed.
A few days passed in a blur for Lotus, so focused on her task that at times she swore she could think in the otherworldly runes, instead of just study them. The shadows lengthened and vanished again, and more copies of the Worldgate spell crowded onto the walls. She burned through so much paper they had to dig up old notebooks and patient records from the abandoned building for her to scribble on.
Gus couldn't be right—could he? Had becoming a kirin somehow made her smarter? She didn't feel smarter, but would she have any way of knowing?
I just have something worth doing now, that's all. What goal did I have before? What was the point of going into that stupid factory day after day, and coming home to live in a dump?
She spent so long focused on her spelling that it didn't even feel strange when the spellbook started talking back to her.
'You've received a tremendous gift,' it said. 'You're so much more than you were before, Lotus. You're the perfect vessel, the perfect instrument. Such a transformation would have burned away most of your kind. But not you.'
Lotus squinted down at her diagram, levitating the pencil down. The voice didn't come from anywhere specifically—yet it felt surprisingly intimate. It could've been Iron, whispering into her ear.
She looked up from the scrawled marks of her spell, scanning the room for any sign of an intruder. Of course, there was none—the door hadn't opened, and no car pulled into the lot beneath them. Their privacy remained. "I'm not sure why you think I would listen to you," she whispered. "Whoever you are. I remember the last time."
For a long time, she heard no response. Long enough that she turned a fresh page and started recreating the Worldgate spell again. She didn't just copy runes, that wouldn't do for a spell like this.
Instead, the Worldgate demanded precise mathematics, a strange balance of energy, pressure, and motion. She would need to run those calculations afresh when she reached the real site of the Worldgate and work them into the diagram well enough that it didn't explode around her.
Given the energy involved, she would only get a single attempt. One failure, and they would be trapped at the bottom of a mine, waiting at least twenty-four hours for her strength to recover.
'Ponies have their uses,' the voice continued, so gently that she didn't even stop working. 'But you shouldn't ever take one as a lover. They bear no flame, yet they still wield a terrible power to harm. Spells may mend flesh together as though there was no wound, but they cannot mend your heart.'
Her pen snapped right in half. She glared around the darkened room again—but there was no one there, other than a few lengthening shadows. She levitated the lantern closer, then switched it on.
Or she tried, anyway. The knob wouldn't turn—it was already on. The battery had finally given out.
So, she lit up her horn instead, banishing any shadow that the speaker could hide in. There was still no one there. "What makes you think I would..."
Laughter answered. 'Please. You think because the ponies rail against me, that I am not a creature like you? I have known all these things—hatred, anger, fear, heartbreak... and love. Whatever you think you feel, you have only to wait. There are others of your kind beyond the portal you will create. Stallions there can share the flame with you in a way that your guard never could.'
Lotus stormed over to the desk. She lifted Searing's cursed tome up into her magic, slamming its pages closed. "That was your mistake, talking to me when I wasn't focused on the Worldgate. I feel where you're coming from."
She felt laughter again, without any sound. Somewhere distant, she heard hooves, pounding up the building with remarkable urgency.
Iron couldn't possibly hear her conversation, could he?
'I have no reason to hide from you, Lotus. You were created in my image—a perfect sister, cast before my apotheosis. Help me come into my kingdom, and I will place a crown on your forehead and gold on your hooves. For all your life was empty and meaningless before this moment, now you will find purpose and vitality.'
She slammed the book down into the desk in front of her, hard enough that the impact echoed through the building. "There's nothing you could offer me. Last time I heard your voice, you told me to burn my friends, my neighbors, everybody. You think I was just gonna forget about that?"
The voice didn't come from the book exactly. Yet she still felt the connection through it, what Luna’s lessons called “sympathy.” She could break it by getting rid of the book, silence the strange whispers. It wouldn't be hard, how much resistance could a book really make?
'I know you remember how you felt. The strength of our kind... ponies have no vision. They imagine the flame as a mindless, destructive thing. They fail to see the strength it gives. You saw it, Lotus. You felt what I once did, in the days of Equestria's ancient past. The flame liberates the latent energy of the soul. The hotter it burns, the more it liberates. The power waiting in that place would allow you to rip a Worldgate open without tracing ley lines like an apprentice. You supplicate yourself before the laws of this place, when you should be mastering them.'
She backed away from the desk, turning her back on the ancient book. It did nothing to silence the voice, or the memory. She did remember the power she felt, heat burning so vibrantly in her that it drew in other lights to it. Sure, that other strength would come from other living creatures, and they would die in agony to impart their power to her.
How much did she care? A brief moment of suffering, then that power would be hers. Their pain would burn away just like their bodies did, and all the magic trapped inside would be hers.
'You wouldn't have to leave your world, Lotus. Yours is... raw, untamed. Its magic flows without a master, without rivers or eddies or streams. You could reshape it, just as you reshaped your friend. Make them something more suitable to serve you. Spend those who do not serve you and make the rest into your kingdom. I would gladly support this crusade, so long as you bowed to me. Would that price be so high?'
The door banged open. She spun, and found Iron in the doorway, spear resting on his shoulder. "Lotus! Lotus, you..." He hesitated, then rushed along anyway. "Someone's here. There's this big black... thing, coming up the hill towards us. Bigger than yours. Gus said to grab whatever you need for the spell and run."
She glanced around the room, at the sheltered corner she'd made almost comfortable, and her thousands of identical spell diagrams. She levitated her satchel off the hook, tucked the spellbook inside next to Luna's journal, then settled it on her shoulder. "Does Gus have a plan?"
"Knowing him?" Iron nudged her into motion, then galloped along behind her. "Absolutely! But it's probably terrible! Maybe you'll come up with something better?"
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Gus: I got a plan, it may not be a good one, but it's a plan.
If nothing else, this whole experience has been good for her self-image. Eric had never thought of himself as "clever."
Remember, when an enchanted object starts whispering to you, don't listen. It never ends well. And neither will the approaching SWAT team. I'd suggest trying to escape into Equestria, but casting that first Worldgate with the cops beating down the door seems... sub-optimal. We'll see how it develops from here.
I'm not surprised that Searing Gale is trying to manipulate Lotus. She tried that when Lotus lost control of her emotions as well. I did expect her to have a different attitude towards Iron though. But not one that is less speciest. The fact that Searing Gale thinks ponies are lesser than kirin was to be expected.
I thought that Searing Gales would suggest that Lotus would transform Iron Feather into a kirin and use magical brainwashing to make him agree.
I agree with the art it looks great and very spooky and ominous.
The seond part doesn't make any sense unless Lotus is so tired she can't make full sentences anymore.
Insert haunting music for added affect.
I am so looking forward to the next chapter! 😁
I'd enjoy seeing her use her understanding of physics to turn this tide. What happens when she discovers she can pick the frequency of her rage output? Sure, normally it's in the inferred but what happens when she starts shining in visual or ultraviolet or x-rays? What happens to the book if she bathes it in 200 Sv of hard gamma rays?
the book is talking to Louts and not in a good way.
Lotus should really take some time to talk to someone about the voice she keeps hearing. Listening to it can't lead anywhere good.
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Pretty sure that's not how any of that works. Absent evidence to the contrary, it's reasonable to assume that she emits as a blackbody, with a spectrum peaking in the visible or near-infrared. Even if she could arbitrarily tune the frequency of her rage output, energy would still be conserved: double the frequency, half the number of photons. And the only thing irradiating the book with gamma rays might do, given it can't exactly develop cancer (1 Sv = 5.5% chance of developing fatal cancer), is make the book radioactive, assuming the magical wards don't prevent that entirely.
What is it Eric? Clothes?
I doubt it. "Intelligence" as a general quality is a bit of a crock anyway.
Studying a spell for several weeks to get it down makes perfect sense to me.
See now that's really interesting.
Not the offer, but the implications of what she's saying. I'm very "whatever" about the physics - I always am when someone tries to bring "science" into magic like this - but that the human world has magic of its own is very interesting.
Oh, that's easy. Some of them fish are mighty big, ya know.
I've seen many villain speeches where they tri to entice the hero but this one? This one is good
Awesome art! And yikes, Searing continues to tempt.
Hmmm, rune diagrams available in the image, you say? Interesting! These are DEFINITELY Futhark runes...
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Exactly! Can an evil sorcerer die of book cancer? I have no idea! Let's find out!
The crown is nothing but a shackle for the slave Gale wants. It might be easy for Lotus to remember but between the stress and the strain and the humans, Lotus might confuse the desire to gain power for a necessity. There's also no doubt that any creature Gale sends are for the most part just kindling to stoke the flames. It's going to be a rough road ahead.
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I had wondered if the timberwolf attack was just meant to test Lotus. That it was meant to manipulate her wasn't something I considered.
11649214
Nop, I eat meat
I've only recently discoved Words of Power and I have to say that I am so hooked! The engaging writing combined with the stellar artwork in each chapter blows me away. I'm glad I've finally caught up and I'm so hyped to read what comes next!
Here's hoping Gus has a bad plan worth following!
Do you possibly mean rally against?