Love, Sugar, and Sails

by DSNesmith

25. The Source

Ahead of them, a circle of dim, warm light appeared in the blackness, signaling the end of the tunnel. Rye, his lungs ready to burst from their panicked sprint, could hear the wet squelching noises of the amphibious monstrosities closing on them from behind.

Tyria, with her longer legs, made it out first. She wheeled around to face the tunnel, the knife gleaming in her mouth. Rye slid past her, trying to break his momentum. He slipped on a puddle of water over slick marble floor, barely keeping his balance. Lifting his head, he began to turn around, but his gaze was arrested by the sight of the vast space before him.

They had entered an enormous room, a hollow cavity in the marble over fifty meters high. Four walls rose to a vaulted ceiling, so high above them that it was almost lost in the darkness. Red moss dotted every surface in sickly patches, covering enormous cracks that ran across the ancient stone, but the dim, wet marble glistened with golden light through the gaps.

At the center of the room was a tower, just like the painting back in the atrium. It was comprised of three massive cylindrical blocks of marble, their tops slightly canted. A thin, straight staircase shot up the tower, almost vertically. Golden helixes ran up the sides of the stone, entwining with each other again and again as they climbed toward the peak. Four mammoth arches made of bronze, aligned with the corners of the room, stretched up from the tower’s base toward the top, where they curved back to spread like flower petals. From the ceiling, a huge inverted tetrahedron, also bronze, pointed down to the peak of the tower. A quartet of cast-iron spheres attached to rods extended from the sides of the pyramid, crackling spasmodically with flashes of lightning that leaped down to the tower.

And there, between the pyramid and the tower, was a spray of golden, glowing liquid. It arced out in four directions in the darkness, glowing brightly. The glow went down, all along the tops of the three tower levels, and Rye realized that the inclined tops were all part of a massive water channel. It spiraled down to the floor, filling a circle of golden water that surrounded the tower out to the bases of the arches. From that reservoir, dozens of thin, concentric circular channels spread out to the edges of the room, connected by straight canals on opposite sides of the tower. A marble walkway crossed them all to the base of the stairs, the glow of the water playing off the stone.

“Rye,” hissed Tyria, drawing his attention back to the danger behind them. “We don’t have time for this! Do you see an exit?”

Rye tore his eyes away from the tower to sweep the room. There were three other hallways leading into the room, one on each wall, but they were all covered by the meaty moss in various abundance. “Nothing we can get through in time. We’ll have to stand our ground.” He turned back to the tunnel, hearing the rapidly approaching sound of the monsters. He swallowed. “Stab for the eyes. I doubt even that healing Keron mentioned can save them from a head wound.”

Tyria nodded, a bead of sweat dripping down her neck. “Try to hold on to one of them. Give me a clear shot.”

“Got it.” Rye spread his legs into a sturdier stance. The sounds from the tunnel were loud, now. He glanced over at Tyria, somehow still beautiful despite the tattered uniform and the scrapes and bruises they’d both picked up. He decided against any goodbyes. They both already knew what the other would say. Returning his eyes to the tunnel, he resolved to grab the octopus-thing first. They’d wounded it earlier, he might have a chance of holding it down for Tyria to stab. He inhaled deeply as the sounds reached the entrance.

Monsters burst out into the glow of the water, as varied as they were disgusting. They were hybrids, as Keron had said, but each of them was recognizably a pony at some level. There was one whose forelegs had been replaced by crablike claws, with his chest pierced by what Rye suspected were formerly ribs, stretching down to the floor as fully articulated insectoid legs. Another’s head was unrecognizable, a blob of semi-transparent jelly with uncountable tendrils draping down over his front and back. Little flaps of skin covered his body like fins. The others had the features of starfish, crustaceans, fish, mollusks, even an eel. The one thing they all had in common was a little nub of bone on their foreheads. Even the jellyfish creature’s was visible through the membrane over its otherwise-formless head.

There were twelve of them altogether. The last to emerge was familiar; a pony from the waist up, eight suckered tentacles from the waist down. A massive scar with telltale shark toothmarks stretched across his midsection, almost entirely healed over.

Tyria’s eyes narrowed as the creatures encircled them. “The Phoenixian mages. You were right.”

“Go for the octopus first,” whispered Rye. He braced himself to jump.

The chimera in question reared back. Its mouth was sealed shut, as if the skin of its lips had simply grown together, but it spread its tentacles apart to reveal a hard, black beak. The beak opened wide and a piercing shriek made Rye wince.

There was a moment of stillness, as both parties sized each other up. The crab chimera clacked its claw. Rye tensed his legs. Tyria gripped the knife tighter.

“Now!”

The room exploded into motion. Rye was charging toward the octopus-unicorn, ready to dodge the flailing tentacles that reached for his face, when suddenly a feminine voice rang throughout the chamber. “Halt.”

Rye skidded to a stop, as the tentacled creature froze mid-strike. With disquieting swiftness, the chimeras pulled back, opening their circle toward the tower. Rye and Tyria turned to face it, watching the edge of the nearest water channel as a figure emerged.

At first, Rye thought she was a zebra. Black and white strips covered her body, but on a closer look he realized that they were scales, not fur. Her torso tapered down into a long, snakelike tail, with a pale, plated underbelly running up under her chin. Her head was still vaguely equine, but she had no ears, and her eyes were narrow and reptilian. A series of spines rose from her forehead and traveled down her back, connected by thin membranes. Her forehooves were held up to her chest, dripping silently as she slithered out of the water.

“Greetings, surfacers,” she said in a low, almost sultry tone, drawing out each s with a sibilant hiss. She approached them, and the chimeras retreated further. “It has been a long time since we last entertained guests from above.” The creature’s lipless mouth pulled back into a macabre facsimile of a smile, revealing rows of pointed teeth.

“Who are you?” asked Rye, glancing around. “And what in the name of Celestia happened here?”

“We are the Phoenixians,” said the snake-thing. “And I am our Queen.” She lifted her forehooves, and Rye watched with fascinated horror as they split apart into five long, double-jointed fingers. The queen twisted her right one around, beckoning them to approach. Unwillingly, they did so, fully aware that they stood no chance against thirteen foes if they resisted.

The queen slithered around them, her long tail creating a scaly circle around their hooves. Tyria unconsciously drew closer to Rye, not letting the knife out of her mouth. The queen reached out and touched Rye’s side, making him shiver. She ran a finger down his back, inhaling with a hiss. “You ask what happened, as if all this were an accident. Pah! We happened. All you see before you is our doing.”

“Does that include becoming monsters?” Tyria made a noise of revulsion. “You abominations slaughtered thousands for this?”

“Yes,” said the queen, coiling her tail tighter around them as she circled. “Tens of thousands. And we would have killed more, if the spell required.” She paused in front of them, a forked tongue flicking out to catch their scent. “Any price would be worth the prize we have won. We have conquered death.”

Rye suppressed another shiver. “Why are you telling us this?”

“Because you asked,” she said, with a hissing laugh. “You mean, why have we not killed you?” She steepled her fingers, tapping them together. “Any surfacers who find their way here, either through the maelstrom, or through blind luck and the aid of the seaponies, are offered a choice.”

“Let me guess,” said Tyria, snarling, “join you or die?”

“No,” said the queen, her smile growing wider, stretching back all the way to where her ears should have been. “I would not dream of killing ones so valuable as yourselves. Every surfacer is a treasure. From your kind, I have learned so much over the centuries. New technologies, new magics, new languages—like this one. You will tell me everything about your world, every political and cultural achievement your species has made since my last visitor. In return, I offer you the chance to drink from the fountain, to live forever.

“And that is only the first part of your reward. Those seaponies you passed in the tunnel are the first seeds of my reborn military. It will take centuries to grow my forces, but they will become the greatest soldiers the world has ever seen. They, their children, their children’s children and on and on will be my new navy; one not reliant on ships or at the mercy of the winds, able to strike anywhere on land or sea, ready to conquer as we finally surface to reclaim our place as the greatest civilization in history. Phoenixia will rise again, someday, and the two of you will have a place in that new world.”

Rye imagined a flood of ten thousand chimeras slithering onto the shores of Equestria and felt a cold bead of sweat on his neck. “And if we refuse?”

“You will tell me what I wish to know, one way or another.” The queen turned to the octopus chimera, pointing a finger toward the water. It nodded and slithered over to the channel. “Immortality is a blessing…” The octopus-unicorn raised the tentacle that Rye had severed, placing the stump into the golden water. The water glowed brightly, and the creature removed its tentacle, now completely healed. Only a thin circle of scar tissue under the tip showed where the knife had sliced it clean off. The queen murmured in delight. “But it can also be a curse. The fountain heals all wounds. This lets my interrogators be… inventive.”

She traced a circle over their backs with those long fingers. “But why choose eternal pain when you can have eternal life?” The queen snaked around them again, squeezing them together with her tail. “You two are bondmates, yes? Here, you can be together forever, without the fear and uncertainty of a life on the surface. You never have to grow old, never have to die, never have to live on without the other.”

Rye and Tyria shared uncertain looks. Rye knew they had no chance of fighting their way out of this place. If they accepted, the Phoenixians wouldn’t torture them—but he and Tyria could never get back to the surface on their own, and taking the queen’s offer would certainly mean the deaths or worse of Beriac and his companions. There was a whole host of other reasons to say no, including Zyre, somewhere up above, and still depending on him and Tyria to save it.

Yet… in a hundred years, all those people would be dead, anyway, regardless of his actions in the coming weeks. When one looked at things from the long view, a few thousand lives seemed awfully small.

But they’re still important. Rye swallowed and nodded to himself. Ignoring the little picture was what led these monsters around him to commit atrocities so great they were held up around the world as the model of evil vanity. He would never let himself become that self-absorbed and cruel. And neither would Tyria.

“We accept,” said Tyria, shoving the knife back into her foreleg sheath.

Rye blinked, doing a double take. “Tyria, wh—”

“Think about it, Rye!” She turned to him, her face etched with tension. “If we drink that water, think of how much time we’d have.”

She can’t be serious— Rye paused, and thought for a moment. Am I going to doubt her every time she does this? She must have a plan. I’ll play along, then. “I don’t… what about Zyre?”

“Please, love,” she said, embracing him and sliding a hoof up between them. “We could live here forever, free of all that political hustling and military protocol.” Rye felt her hoof working at her breast pocket. “No more dancing to Celestia’s tune, no more being paraded in front of diplomats.”

Rye nearly hissed as he felt her hoof slip into his robes, something icy cold balanced precariously on it. She dropped it into one of his inner pockets. “Stay with me, Rye.”

“I… I’m with you, Tyria.” Rye grabbed her shoulders and kissed her. It was an awfully quick apparent conversion, but he knew how peoples’ minds worked. Immortal or not, the queen would hear what she wanted to hear.

“Excellent,” said the queen, her oily voice dripping with anticipation. “Come with me. You must drink from the font at the top of the tower. That is where the power is strongest.” She hissed something to her servants, who stood back respectfully. With a sweeping gesture of her fingers, the queen bowed her head. “After you.”

Rye and Tyria followed the path across the canals toward the base of the tower, the queen close behind them. Rye racked his brain, trying to figure out what Tyria had slipped him. I didn’t think she even had anything on her when the Nightingale went down. Wait… the Nightingale. Didn’t she steal a vial of— His eyes went as wide as saucers. Oh, no, Tyria, this is a BAD idea. He swallowed, suddenly intensely aware of the tiny container of Elyrium in his interior breast pocket. Oh, gods, if this touches that water… He found himself sweating profusely.

They reached the base of the stairs, looking up at the enormous tower. Rye placed his hoof on the first stair, taking a deep breath. Behind them, the queen gave another hissing laugh. “Are you afraid of heights, winged one?”

Rye swallowed, fluffing his wings. He climbed. Tyria fell in beside and slightly behind him, subtly blocking the queen from reaching him directly, an ideal position for buying him time to reach the top and… do something crazy. Be careful, Tyria.

Rye had some idea of what she wanted him to do, but he was terrified of what would happen if he did. Tyria didn’t really know what Elyrium was capable of, but he’d read accounts and seen illustrations. ‘Immolation’ would be putting it mildly; most unfortunate ponies who shorted themselves out with this devil’s brew were buried in matchboxes. And Tyria wanted him to use it on the magical nexus that had once made an island explode.

If I don’t, we’re dead anyway. Or worse. Rye looked over the edge of the stairs, down into the large channel that ran around the tower. The metallic water rushed down like a river, the sound of the steady stream broken intermittently by the crackling of electricity above.

The climb was long. Ascending the nearly vertical stairs was hard work, and his legs began to ache by the time they were halfway up. He pushed on, wanting to keep up the momentum before his nerve failed.

At last, they reached the lip of the tower’s peak. The tip of the pyramid hung over their heads, not far above. The top of the tower was a bowl filled with golden light and water. Steps led down into the pool of water toward the great golden spout at the center. On the far side of the cauldron, the lip of the tower opened to admit the water into the spiraling channel around the perimeter of the structure.

Rye and Tyria paused, wary of stepping into the pool. The water lapped against the steps, glimmering. I need to get some distance from the queen before I try anything. He slipped a hoof into the pool, feeling the warm touch of the water. Rye strode deeper in, until it reached up to his neck, covering his back. His yellow robes billowed around him. The water on his skin was warm, soothing. More than that, he could feel the magic floating around him, running across the surface like a current, tingling into the half-healed wounds on his back before running up his spine and filling his head with a lightly pleasurable feeling.

The queen whispered to them. “Go on, drink. Heal your wounds. Take the first step into an immortal life.”

Tyria glanced down at Rye, and gave him an imperceptible nod. He returned it. Tyria turned to the queen. She raised her head and said, “No.”

She lunged downward, grabbing for the knife on her foreleg. Rye dived forward, forcing his way further into the pool. He heard a loud smack, and Tyria yelled in pain. He waded in, trying to get to the other side of the tower. Turning his head over his shoulder, he saw the queen tangled around Tyria, her tail squeezing the pony with lethal intent. Tyria had the knife in her mouth, twisting her head desperately to get an angle on the queen, but the snake-zebra had her bound too tightly. The queen hissed furiously, bared a mouthful of dagger-sharp teeth, and sank them into Tyria’s shoulder. Tyria dropped the knife with a scream. “Do it, Rye!”

“I offered you pleasure, but you prefer pain.” The queen’s voice was filled with contempt. Her whole body twisted as she hurled Tyria over the side. Rye froze, stunned. Tyria yelled in panic, before she was cut off with a loud splash from below—she’d landed in the channel circling the fountain.

Rye pushed backward through the water, struggling to reach the opposite side. He dug into his robes, fishing out the vial. When he felt the touch of cool marble on his hind legs, he leaned back against the lip of the tower, placed the vial between his hooves, and yanked off the cork with his mouth.

The queen slithered down into the water, moving toward Rye with a predator’s grace. “You fools could have had happiness that lasted forever.”

Rye’s chest rose and fell with terrified anticipation. “Nothing lasts forever.”

He emptied the vial into the water.

The golden surface immediately began to bubble.

Rye had no intention of sticking around to see his handiwork. He grabbed the tower lip with both hooves and vaulted over it. Three meters below, he crashed into the water running down around the tower. It was deep enough to cushion his fall, but he immediately found himself at the mercy of the current. Like a giant slide, he went rushing downward, deafened by the roar of the water. Over the sound came the queen’s shriek, “What have you done?”

The bottom of the chute came swiftly and suddenly, spilling Rye out into the channel at the tower base. He floundered for a moment in the water, before remembering his swimming lessons and coming to a steady tread.

Above, the iron orbs on the sides of the pyramid were sparkling with ceaseless streams of lightning. The iron itself had begun to glow, first red, then white. The metal sagged, deforming under its own weight. Crackling bolts of lightning leaped up from the fountain itself, growing more and more frequent. The gentle golden glow of the water grew brighter.

“Rye!” yelled Tyria from further down the channel. “Look out!” Rye swiveled to find himself face-to-beak with the octopus creature. It erupted from the water, tentacles enwrapping him. They went under, struggling with each other, Rye wriggling in the thing’s grip. He managed to free a hoof, which he slammed into the chimera’s head. Stunned, it released him, and he swam for the surface.

Breaking the water, he gasped for air. With an ungainly doggy paddle, he managed to get to the edge and pull himself out of the water. Tyria was running to him, with the jellyfish and eel-headed chimeras in pursuit.

The water had grown blazingly bright. Up above, he could see the queen circling the top of the tower, frantically screaming down to her minions in a language he didn’t recognize. The iron spheres were now little more than shapeless masses of white-hot metal, dripping down into the water.

The canals suddenly burst into flames. Rye flinched at the heat, narrowing his eyes against the bright light. The octopus-chimera in the water screamed for an instant before the noise was lost in the roar of the flame.

A new star bloomed inside the fountain. There was a blinding flash, and suddenly the upper half of the tower exploded outward, riding an invisible sphere centered on the fountain’s source. The sound hit them an instant later, a blast so loud that Rye clapped his hooves to his ears and fell over, curling in pain.

Stones rained down, white-hot and steaming. Rye scrambled to his hooves, heading for Tyria. “Get down!” he screamed, diving into her. They hit the ground, sliding forward, barely dodging a flaming chunk of marble debris. The red moss covering the room went up like tinder, gouts of flame belching out of the thickest patches. It melted, turning waxlike and black before dissolving into oily puddles with an awful stench.

Masonry continued to shower around them. “We need to move!” shouted Tyria over the din. “Head for the tunnel!”

A loud, angry shriek alerted them to the chimeras’ recovery from the explosion. The ponies looked up to see the creatures approaching them, murder in their eyes.

“I hope you planned this far ahead,” said Rye, as the two stood shakily.

“I was sort of hoping they’d all turn to dust or something,” said Tyria faintly.

“Doesn’t look like it.” Rye tugged her leg. “Come on, run!”

They raced toward the exit, the chimeras hot on their tails. Just before they made it, a cloud of black smoke burst from the tunnel. It was thick and choking, with the overpowering smell of sulfur. Rye and Tyria screeched to a halt, covering their noses. “No choice,” shouted Tyria, “go!”

Together, they plunged into the darkness. Rye took three steps before he heard an anguished howl. He froze as he realized that the sound had come from inside the tunnel.

Unable to see, breathe, or think, he grabbed sideways for Tyria, hooking her uniform. He yanked her toward him, flattening them both against the right wall of the passage. The ground rumbled as over a dozen new creatures came flying past, all screaming in one unified roar.

They heard a clash toward the tunnel entrance, followed by more animalistic howling. Tyria pulled Rye down to the floor, where the smoke was thinnest, and the two gasped for air. “We can get away while they’re busy with those new things,” she said through a hacking cough.

“No,” said Rye, wheezing. “It’s the seaponies, it must be! We have to help them.”

“I lost the knife, Rye!”

He shook his head. “We’re not leaving them after all this.” He stood and ran back toward the tunnel exit. Tyria followed with an exasperated cough.

By the time they cleared the smoke, it was almost over. The seaponies, filled with the strength of fury at their long imprisonment, had swept into the shell-shocked chimeras and demolished them. Only the eel-headed creature was left, and as they watched it too fell to a seapony with a serpentine tail and knife-sized fangs. With no fight left to join, Rye and Tyria stood in the billowing edge of the smoke, getting their first extended look at what the old Phoenixians had done to Keron’s ponies.

Many had unnatural legs, be they equine or insectoid. Those without a form of movement over ground hung onto the backs of those who did. Some had claws, others talons, and many had razor-sharp teeth like sharks. It was a menagerie of grafted bodies, like a child’s drawing of mixed-species creatures made far too real.

They stood in a circle around the bodies, breathing heavily. Rye nervously hoofed the clasp of his robe, wary of startling them. “Hello,” he said, coughing out the last of the smoke. The seaponies looked up from the bodies of the old Phoenixians, snarling.

Clinging to the back of a huge lobster-mutated stallion was another seapony, whom Rye recognized as the first one they had seen in the tunnel. He lifted his hoof and pointed to them. “Come. Heere.” His words were hard to understand through the mandible jutting from his mouth, but Rye and Tyria guardedly made their way toward him.

Another seapony, a big-looking stallion with fangs too big for his mouth, snarled at them, but the first seapony shook his head. “Friendsh. Here. To help ush.”

“We came from New Phoenixia,” said Tyria, her voice cracking. Rye felt her pain. The ponies before him had surely been maimed beyond healing. “Keron sent us to find you, and bring you back home.”

“My brootherr,” husked the seapony. His eyes brimmed with tears.

Rye felt a lump in his throat. “Then you must be Berin.”

The seapony nodded. “Pleash, do you… know. If my. Daw… dawt…”

“Meri’s safe,” said Tyria quietly. “She’s still back in the city, with the rest of your people.”

Berin bowed his head, shoulders shaking. “Goo. Good. Th-thank youuu.” He wiped a strand of drool from his lip.

“What now?” asked Tyria, turning to Rye, an apprehensive look in her eye.

“Now, we take them back,” said Rye, his jaw set. “Come on, Berin; we’ll lead you all to the exit. If Beriac’s still there, he can lead us back. If not, well, we’ll figure something out.”

“No,” said Berin, shaking his head somberly. “Can’t. Go back. We arrre monshtersh.”

Rye’s eyes narrowed. “The queen and her minions were the monsters. What they did to you is unforgivable. But they can’t hurt you anymore; you’re free.”

“H-how,” said Berin, slurring his words, “can we be. Frrree frrom thish?”

Rye looked around at the seaponies, seeing despair in their eyes. Rye flared his wings and lit his horn. “Look at me!”

The ponies recoiled from the sudden burst of light. They shielded their eyes from the first illumination they might have seen in months. Rye jabbed a hoof into his chest. “I’m a pegacorn. A mutant. Just like you. None of us asked for this, but there’s no changing it now.”

Tyria murmured. “I don’t think you’re a mutant.”

Rye gave her a small smile of gratitude before turning back to the seaponies. “I know how it feels to be a freak. I have to live with the stares and the jeers every day of my life.” He stamped a hoof. “But I live with it. Because if I run away to hide in a cave, or throw myself off of a cliff, or whatever it is you plan on doing next, then the monsters win.” He pointed at the corpses of the chimeras. “Do not let them break you. You were strong enough to fight them; be strong enough not to give up.”

He extended a hoof to Berin. “Come with me. I can’t promise you it will be easy. But I can promise you it will be worth it.”

The seapony looked at him for a long, quiet moment. Slowly, he extended his remaining normal hoof and shook Rye’s. “Ash… you wish, surfasher.”

Rye smiled. “Then let’s get you home.”

Comments

[Brony Tom]

5675419
No, no, you should read it now. Really, it's a good one.

---

As for the story itself, amazing to see the Chekhov's Elyrium finally come into play! And the delivery was just perfect. Great update for a great story.

[DSNesmith]

And that's what happens when you divide a voltage by 0 resistance. In the words of an old circuits professor, "poof".

[Hooked on Sliding]

I unfaved after a long time between updates.
Guess i have to fix that.

[Lasairfion]

5676515 Use the new tracking option instead. I tend not to favourite many unfinished stories until they're done.

5675759 I did wonder why the Elyrium hadn't been used yet.

[Cerulean Voice]

Awesome! Thrusting the Elyrium into the heart of the source was a genius idea.
This continues to be one of my top faves.

That Queen was quite the image. Something like this popped into my head:

static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Lamias_3c6717_5435310.png

But with stripes, of course.
Ah, it seems like everyone might yet get out... though I feel the battle has just begun, and we definitely haven't seen the last of the Queen...