Shattered Pentacle

by Starscribe

Chapter 4

“Not yet!” Lyra jerked into a sitting position, eyes wide and staring. Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging into her skin. Something clung to her fingers, so fine it might be threads of silk.

Her memory still shone, more real than anything before her eyes. There was a hole in her heart, a terrible wound she’d ripped with a sword of her own making. But for all the terror of that blow, the pain was a welcome thing.

A bone had to be broken again if it started to heal incorrectly. Even a masterful surgeon had to slice through living flesh with his scalpel before he reached the cancerous tumor beneath. There was no infestation there anymore—right? She cut it all out, every scrap!

Not quite.

“Deep breaths, Lyra. In and out, nice and slow.”

Reality settled heavily into place around her. She was on her back in a cot, surrounded by fine wooden walls and the even light of candles. The smells were strange too, but at least the voice wasn’t. She knew the speaker instantly.

“Reagan?” Her eyes strained, then focused. Her friend still wore her waitress uniform, still had a pair of chopsticks tucked in her hair. She must’ve run straight from work!

“Hey Harper. Guess we’re not gonna make Azucar tonight. Too bad. I’ve been working on my songs all week.”

Lyra smiled in spite of herself. She was hardly close with this particular girl—she’d moved in later than the others, instead of growing up with her. But she was friendly enough, despite never answering questions about her past.

“Where am I?”

Her friend shrugged one shoulder, releasing Lyra. “Good question. Maybe you can answer one of mine first?”

Other sounds rumbled through a nearby door, and more voices. One was Tabitha’s, though that wasn’t who she noticed first. Another girl rested in an identical cot against the far wall—Akiko. She’d been covered with a blanket, though thankfully not over her head. If that were true, Lyra might’ve thought...

“Is Akiko okay?” she demanded. “That lady hit her pretty hard. I know it sounds silly, but I think it was magic.”

“Breathe,” Reagan said, this time as a command. She sat on the empty cot opposite her, then offered her a little cup of steaming tea. “Drink first.”

From a stranger, she would’ve refused the glass. Somewhere like this—Lyra couldn’t be sure whether the one making the offer was friendly or monstrous. Even humans had reason to put something in a drink.

But not one of her friends. Lyra drank, and found the flavor—impossible.

She inhaled sharply, and her hands started to shake. “What is this?” She didn’t wait for an answer, swallowing the rest in a few gulps.

It was tea, but not any flavor she’d ever tasted in Akiko’s shop. A single flavor energized her, along an axis that she couldn’t name or identify. It was like drinking liquid possibility, tingling down her fingers and toes and into a place she hadn’t even known was there. “Can I have another?”

Reagan chuckled. “Maybe.” She took the glass from her fingers. “If you answer me first.” She didn’t wait for Lyra’s agreement. “You were dreaming just now, weren’t you? More real than anything you’ve ever seen.”

Lyra nodded. She glanced nervously to either side, searching for more tea. She saw none—nor her purse, or her discarded weapon. Just the three of them, and a few shelves of medical supplies. A secret clinic, with floors made from the same wood as the basement under Akiko’s tea shop.

There was lots of space down here. A dozen different doors I never opened.

“Yeah. I did.” Lyra glanced down at her fingers, and found the little wisps of fluff she’d been holding there were already gone.

“You dreamed of a place you’d never seen,” Reagan pressed. “You went somewhere. It wasn’t easy to get there. But eventually, you did.”

She nodded. “How do you know that? Reagan—what the hell is going on? Someone attacked Akiko with lightning. They just ripped it out of the walls, threw it around like it was something real. Why?”

Reagan gripped her shoulder with one hand, so hard it hurt. “How did it end?”

She hadn’t ever told anyone but Bonnie about her dreams before. Yet this time, she didn’t feel as though she would take no for an answer.

“If I tell you, can I have more of that drink? It isn’t really tea, I can tell. It isn’t even water.”

Reagan nodded in exasperation. Somehow, Lyra knew she was already expecting the answer.

“There was a place—filled with names. Millions and millions of them. I’m not sure... exactly why I did it. But I knew I had to. I signed it.”

Reagan swore under her breath. She rose, backing away from the bench. Another second later, she had a fresh glass in hand.

Lyra took it, wrapping her fingers around the fine porcelain. She held it to her lips, breathing deep—then lowered it again.

“I’ve been down this road before. What’s in here—is it Vitae? Purified maybe, centrifuged, or—”

“It’s Tass,” Reagan answered. “The hell is Vitae? Some drug?”

“Yes,” she answered, without hesitation. She inhaled again, searching for that familiar metallic tang of blood purified through the body of a beast.

If someone offered a glass of it to her now, Lyra could never have turned it down. Part of her craved its strength, the health and life that came for one who served the kindred.

Nothing forced her to drink this. She lowered the glass to her lap, nursing it with both hands. Just to see if she could.

She did.

“It’s a vampire thing,” said another voice, weak and struggling. Akiko rested up against the wall now, her expression unfocused. Whatever impossible things she’d suffered earlier in the day, her pain was no less human.

I can help her. She wasn’t sure where that thought came from, like so many others that tormented her. Maybe it rose from deep in her chest. She knew pain, and she knew how it could end.

To live is to grow. To grow is to mend, strengthen, and improve. To repair, replenish, and restore. Did all that knowledge come from a cup of tea?

“Don’t ask how Lyra knows. She doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Lyra lifted the glass, then took a sip. Possibility flooded her. Not pleasure, not the familiar aching she satisfied whenever she took another sip of stolen blood. No guilt filled her when she drank. Instead, there was only comfort. She ought to have this, far more than this if the world was fair. Maybe everyone should.

“You’re still hurt,” Lyra said. She stood up, passing Reagan back her empty glass. “Your leg is broken.”

Her old friend nodded weakly. “Reagan already set it for me. But the best we can do is speed things up. I’ll be... wearing a cast for another week at least.”

“Two,” Reagan corrected, without a second’s hesitation. “And that’s only if we top you up every morning. Four weeks if we don’t.”

Lyra sat down on the empty cot across from her friend, just like Reagan had done for her. “Who was that?”

“Tempest Shadow,” Akiko answered. “Pretty sure. Matches everything we thought about her. Obrimos—throwing lightning around like she’s never heard of paradox.” She leaned back against the wall, groaning with the pain of supreme exhaustion.

Not that it mattered—Lyra didn’t understand most of what was going on in front of her. But if there was something she could do to help...

Possibility twisted and spun through her now, concentrated opportunity. With it came another voice, somehow without and within her in the same moment. She wasn’t sure which, and maybe it didn’t matter.

This is how it always ought to be. Life flowing through the Phenomenal. You do not change, you return.

She touched Akiko’s shoulder. Her friend looked up, confused and nervous. But much too weak to resist when Lyra acted.

There were no words exactly, just concepts—the same ones she’d seen in that strange jungle. Regrowth, when her own body tore open and healed again. She could command the same of her friend.

Akiko twitched, recoiling from her. She squealed, cowering up into a corner. She touched her back to the wall, pulling both legs up to her chest.

Little wisps of light emerged from Lyra’s fingers—curling vines that wrapped around her wrist, reaching all the way back to her heart. They traced along her veins in an organic, sprawling pattern of light. For that instant, Lyra could almost feel that pure living place beneath her feet. Longing ached in her, desperate need to find a way back.

Then she was back in the fancy wooden basement.

Both of Akiko’s legs were whole. No wound remained, just pale skin emerging from the edges of a fresh bandage. “That was magic!

“Yep.” Reagan folded both arms, leaning up against the wall. “Guess I should’ve waited until she got up. Kinda... wasted my time with first aid.”

Lyra mouthed the word “impossible,” but this time it didn’t leave her lips. What was that thing Akiko had said about lies? It wasn’t just possible, it was natural!

Her friend didn’t stare down in shock for too long. After a few seconds she peeled away at the bandages, poking at her leg with one hand. She tensed, but didn’t react to the touch. “She wasn’t a mage this morning, Reagan. Sleepwalker, but that was recent.”

The tension faded, gone as quickly as it had come. There was so much more Lyra could do—but only that one flash of power demanded itself of her. The rest could wait until the world made more sense.

Besides, something else had changed. That swirling possibility inside her had already diminished. What once had been a storm was now only a drizzle. There was power in the tea, power I had to use to heal her.

None of this made sense—but reality did not seem to care about what once made sense to her.

Abandon the illusions of the Quintessence. The Phenomenal is so much more than a lie.

Lyra stood up, handing Reagan the other empty cup. Who are you?

If there was anyone in her mind, they didn’t reply.

“That thing you signed—it’s called a Watchtower. The Nimbus I just saw tells me Thyrsus. And the... healing five seconds after your Mystery Play thing. This one’s packing heat, Twi. Literally too—hell of a gun you had.”

That brought her back to reality, and a bevy of far more familiar fears. Her gun—Bonnie’s gun, borrowed to keep her safe. In a way, she supposed it had done its job. “I need that back. It’s not mine.”

Akiko stood up too. She held to the wall a few seconds, eyeing her formerly-broken leg with anxiety. Then she set her weight on it, and exhaled. “In a bit. Rar—Tabby’s patching things up out there. She wanted to poke at it before we gave it back.”

Never show it to anyone. Lyra clenched one hand to a fist, then sighed. “Tabitha is... out there?” She tapped the door with two fingers. “She’s part of this... thing... too?”

Reagan patted her shoulder with one hand. “Longer than any of us. Atlantean bloodline stuck up and perfect...”

“Flattered you think so, darling. But I’m afraid you’re mistaken—Akiko here was still a tweenager when she first saw the Watchtower. I walked that path a little while later.”

Reagan spun, and Lyra followed her. There was another door against the far wall, almost hidden by a shelf. That door was open now, and her friend stood there.

Closer than Reagan, anyway—Tabitha had lived in Ponyville as long as she could remember.

Of all the ways Lyra imagined the burgeoning fashion designer, it wasn’t wearing plain overalls, heavy gloves, and boots. It wasn’t with a hardhat glowing with pale blue light either. “Lyra. I heard you came to Akiko’s rescue. We’re all lucky you were here—she least of all.”

Lyra nodded weakly. She wobbled, barely keeping her feet. Life itself sustained her, replenished her, overflowing into her muscles and joints. She stopped swaying.

“Happy to help. Would do it again in a heartbeat. But do you think maybe someone could tell me what actually happened? Maybe at Azucar? I could really use a drink.”

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Of course there’s a Tabitha, alias Rarity. Though I’m not sure who Reagan corresponds to. Still, welcome to the world beneath the surface, Lyra. No, not that one, the other one.