Special Illumination

by ponichaeism

CHAPTER XXI: Those Halcyon Days

"They're gaining on us!" Starswirl shouted.

He fired an energy bolt from his horn to deflect a flung spear bearing down on him and Mareco Polo.

"I hear you, I hear you," she called over her shoulder. "Keep your hat on."

As Starswirl planted his free hoof on his pointed hat to keep it from being blown off by the stiff headwind, he snapped, "With how slow we're going, I don't think I need to worry about that!"

Mareco let loose a devilish chuckle, then jerked right and tilted her wingspan. With a frightful cry, Starswirl tightened his foreleg around her neck to stop himself from falling off her as she rolled, for it was a very, very long way down. As they arced through the dusky, arid skies, he followed her line of sight and spotted a curving portico extending from a palatial domed building dominating the quarter of the city below them. He could just imagine the look on Mareco's face as she folded her wings and dove towards the city square.

Looking back, Starswirl spotted the pegasi in formation wheeling through the skies above them. With a cry from their commander, they streamlined their bodies and dived after Mareco.

"Do some of that fancy spellwork, Swirl!" she cried.

"I can't! Have you any idea what a fall from this height would do to them?!"

"You don't have anything you can use?"

"Oh, well, I'm sorry if I find it a bit hard to think at the moment, Mareco!"

She groaned and said, "I can see I'm going to have to pull your weight, huh?"

"For your information, I eat no more than--!"

Mareco's wings whipped up on either side of Starswirl, caught the air currents, and strained to pull them out of the dive. Starswirl wailed and tightened his grip on both her and his hat as gravity tried to keep them plummeting into the sandstone flagstones of the square below. She strained herself to twist her wings enough to save them, while the wizard could only stare in cold, clinical horror at the dawning looks of apprehension on the ponies below; all of them were in that one tense moment of indecision after their brains told them they were in danger, but before their brains told them they should be running. Mareco's sweat streamed off her mane and splattered on Starswirl's face. With a final grunt of effort, she managed to break her wings free of the rushing air and lock them into a curving arc that sent the two of them just barely skimming over the heads of the locals. She angled them at the beginning of the portico, and they streaked towards the first column in that arched colonnade.

Directly towards the first column.

He shouted, "Ah, Mareco....?!"

"Relax," she called.

Starswirl ducked his head down and buried it in Mareco's mane. At the last second, she veered left and swung around the column, nearly skimming the smooth marble with her wingtip. Once past it, she made a sharp right through the narrow gap between the first column and the next, then twisted left again.

As they weaved through the colonnade, Starswirl shouted, "You're out of your mind!"

"Maybe that's why I've never been caught," she said, laughing. "Only a fool would follow me."

Starswirl mused about how true that was. Or, he mused as best as he could while slaloming through a portico colonnade with half the Coltantinople city guard on his tail. He swung his head around just in time to see one pegasus misjudge his angle and slam face-first into a column. A dazed grin full of broken teeth spread across his face as he slid down to the marble floor. Another guard grazed his wing on a column and spiraled out of control until he crashed into a merchant's cart filled with nut rolls.

Several of the guards, however, displayed some wit and instead flew through the square parallel to the line of columns, waiting for Mareco to make a mistake.

"Too smart for that, eh?" she asked.

She abruptly rolled away from the colonnade and arced through the air towards the pursuing pegasi. Starswirl gritted his teeth and blasted two of them with his stunning spell; one dropped to the flagstones, dazed, the other one fell into a fountain. But before he could stun the others, Mareco blazed straight through their ranks, then powered her wings faster to outpace them while they were scattered. As she circled the square's periphery, she made a tight left into a side street; they scraped against the walls of the houses on the far wall before she could roll away and level herself.

"There," he said, pointing over her shoulder to an approaching taverna. "We can take refuge in there!"

"I don't hide, Starswirl," she replied casually as she blasted through the laundry a mare was hanging on a clothesline. "I walk away casually while my pursuers are lying in a twisted heap."

"What do you....?"

And then Starswirl saw the wall looming over them ahead, and the darkened, pointed-arched maw of the hoof tunnel leading through it. The very small hoof tunnel.

"Mareco, we'll never make it!"

"Oh, yes, we will."

She streamlined her figure and flapped her wings harder. Behind them, the pegasus guards thundered down the cramped street, brandishing sharp spears and shouting for them to halt. Starswirl looked ahead again, where the very narrow tunnel entrance rapidly approached them.

"Mareco, it's not wide enough!"

"It's plenty wide," she said. "Just you watch."

Starswirl felt something brush against his tail and twisted around to spot a city guard trying to hook his tail with the point of a spear. All the guards were all flying as fast as Mareco, oblivious to the tunnel ahead. Terrified though he was, he spun forward and watched in horror as the mare he rode on dashed towards the narrow tunnel, which was barely wide enough for a pony to walk in. It would surely shatter every bone in her outstretched wings as they slammed into the sides full-on.

"Starswirl," she said over the wind, suddenly sounding very doubtful and unsure, "you always told me that one of these days, I'd crash so badly I wouldn't be able to walk away from it...."

The wizard tightened his foreleg around her neck and ducked his head.

Then, quick as lightning, she rolled sideways, almost sending Starswirl toppling off her. As she blazed into the tunnel at full speed, her wingtips just barely fit into the space between the ground and the pointed roof.

Behind him, he heard the shouts and groans of the pursuing pegasi as they smashed into the entrance and collapsed into a heap.

Ahead of him, locals dived out of the way and cowered as Mareco's wingspan temporarily bisected the tunnel.

The wizard was positive some slight tremor or tremble in her body would send them off course and, at their current speed, reduce them to a smear on the wall. But her form was absolutely perfect, all the way from the tunnel's entrance to the exit. As she shot out into the sunlight again, she righted herself with almost casual aplomb and flapped her wings to lift them above a crowded market stuffed into the narrow street.

"....but that day is not today," she finished.

She swiveled her wings forward to catch the headwind and increase her drag, until she was flying slow enough to land lightly among the merchants hawking their wares. Starswirl stumbled off her, staggered around on his woozy legs, then promptly collapsed onto his haunches.

"Did you still want food?" she asked, nodding at a taverna on the corner. She patted her saddlebag and joked, "Heck, with this, we could probably just buy the place."

He looked up at her, but his hat fell forward and blocked his vision. As he pushed it back, he said, "For the oddest reason, I can scarcely fathom you settling down in any one place for long."

"Ha, you know me too well."

"On the other hoof," he said, climbing to his unsteady hooves, "after how much trouble we've gone through to get our hooves on that bothersome little thing, I'm almost tempted to get rid of it now and spare myself from any more misfortune its presence would bring upon us."

"I see you've found your 'philosopher' tongue once again."

As they walked down the marketplace, Starswirl took his hat off and brushed it clean. "I like to keep a proper sense of decorum, Mareco. Unfortunately, that requires composure, which I have yet to experience for any length of time on this trip."

"Well, if it hadn't been for you and your composure, that little ruse we pulled at the palace would never have worked. Ha! We're just lucky they were gullible enough to think you would be a dignitary."

"Hey," he said. "I'm very knowledgeable about such matters, for your information. I'm much more comfortable in such situations then I am being pursued by a horde of angry pegasi."

"You're enjoying the thrill of the adventure just as much as I am, Starswirl."

He dropped his hat back on his head and grinned. "Perhaps I am a little."

They turned onto an empty side street, where Mareco pulled the golden statue they'd risked their lives for out of her saddlebag. She gazed at its jeweled eyes.

"So much agitation for such a little fellow," he mused.

"The pegasi brought it on themselves," she replied, "seeing how they stole it in the first place. When the shah lays eyes on this, there'll be a statue of us in the Karkehrani city center by the next morning."

"I just hope it will suffice to secure us passage to Cath-Hay."

"Even if it's not," she said, "the road will provide, Starswirl...."

....it always does.

Starswirl's eyes snapped open. He lifted his chin off the pillow and put a hoof to his aching head. As he pulled the blanket off himself, he shivered, for the air felt at least ten degrees colder than it had yesterday. Everything about him felt worn-out and used up. He could barely even stand, his head swam so heavily, and the pale, defused pre-sun light pouring through the window didn't help matters any.

More and more, I find her creeping into my thoughts. Why? he thought, worried. Am I not strong enough to repel her from my mind? But why, though? Why had she been haunting his thoughts as of late?

He closed his eyes.

What was it about her impulsive and, dare he say it, flighty personality that was cutting straight through his mental defenses now? Why was he clinging to her so fiercely, after all these years? Why was she in his head, and why was it so hard for him to get her out?

He reached out with the Harmony, feeling through the ceiling for the presence of Clover and Carmine. He felt them, but it was as if he were holding them at arm's length. As he had thought, the worry and pained longing in his heart were tainting his connection, and it was getting weaker and weaker with each day that passed by.