Chapter 9
Nothing.
Empty.
Blank.
Thoughts drifted vaguely through a void, disjointed and incoherent: loose fragments of memory, of self, of pains and plans and fears.
Where was she? Who was she?
There had been ice.
Ice, and above it a mountain. Her thoughts spun about it, giddy and flittering, and every time she tried to grasp them they were carried just beyond her reach--but always the mountain was there, tall and terrible.
Her name was Sassaflash; she remembered, now, her mother calling her that, a long time ago. She wondered where her mother was.
She wondered where she was, and what had happened to her. Her name was Sassaflash, and she was nothing more than an untethered mind, adrift in a white, boundless void. “I can’t see,” she murmured, a little vaguely. “I want to see.”
And a voice replied, “There ain’t anything to see. Not yet, anyhow.”
Her thoughts fluttered nervously like bits of paper in a breeze as the words impinged on her awareness, but soon enough they settled again, falling with slow, aimless grace back into place. She tried to focus on the newcomer. It wasn’t easy. “What--where am I? Where--my name is Sassaflash.“ She was quite certain about that last point, and the certainty comforted her. She felt a need to affirm it.
“I know,” responded the voice. Its words tinged with a note of worry, it continued, “Can you recollect who I am?”
“No, I don’t...wait.” Memories began to reassemble themselves; a want ad, a train--a sunken town, buried deep in an overgrown canyon--ice. A mountain. There was a familiarity to the voice, now. It--he--was somepony she knew. She struggled with her thoughts, trying to force her mind to work. Why couldn’t she think? “You’re...I know you. I know I know you.” A long pause. At last, in a hesitant, wavering voice, she said, “...Mule?”
“That’s right.” And suddenly it was the Mule, standing there with a curious mixture of relief and guilt on his long, homely face, and she was Sassaflash, and they were no longer disembodied voices floating in nothingness, but real and corporeal. Their surroundings were vague and shifting, a sea of impressions and guesses at solidity. Something was around them--they were somewhere--but what and where, Sassaflash could not have said. Only one thing was definite: below them, as if at the bottom of some sort of basin or amphitheater, rose a tall pillar of milky white stone, and winding around and down it into a torchlit shaft beneath was a spiral staircase carved of the same strange, translucent mineral. A cold, odorless wind blew past, rustling against the mare’s mane and sending a faint chill running up her legs. Mist eddied around her fetlocks.
“I don’t understand.” Sassaflash turned, a bit unsteadily, to face the Mule. “What is this place?”
Looking around them at their shifting, misty surroundings, the Mule shrugged. “I don’t rightly know. It don’t signify none, though. It ain’t nothing but a dream, Miss Sassaflash.” He paused. “Leastwise, all but them stairs, there. They’s a mite different. Come on, miss, if’n you don’t care to. I don’t reckon we got much time.” With a quick gesture for her to follow, her minion began to descend towards the spiralling stairs, trotting down what might have been steps and what might have been a gentle slope--or might not have been there at all. After a moment’s hesitation, the Dark Lord followed him, moving in tentative, sideways steps as she edged down the incline. Despite her caution, she slid down the last yard or so, but managed to stay on her hooves. The Mule started forward. “Easy does it, now. Careful.”
“I was being careful. I shouldn’t have--why did I slip? Mr. Mule, I need to know why I slipped, I...I…” The Dark Lord trailed off, blinking as she stared at the ground. “I beg your pardon. I seem to be...confused.” With an effort, the pegasus raised her head and forced herself to focus on the twisting stairs corkscrewing their way underground. “Where do they go?”
“The cavern o’ flame,” said the Mule, with a reassuring smile.
Sassaflash did not appear to have been reassured. “And we need to go there, do we?”
“Oh, it ain’t bad! It’s just got a stick pole in the middle that’s all lit up with fire, is all. Only I reckoned you already knowed about it. It don’t sound like something you heard tell of?”
The Dark Lord blinked. “I am not--I don’t know. I can’t think now.”
The old creature gave an understanding nod. “That’s alright.” Turning, he began to make his way down the steps. As Sassaflash made to follow him, he looked back, and said, “Count ‘em as you go down, Miss Sassaflash. That’s real important. Count the steps, and don’t you lose track o’ how many they is.”
At another time, the mare would have bridled at this idea, queried, sneered. It would have seemed so pointless to her. It seemed pointless to her now, but nonetheless it was something definite. It was something she could do and be confident in her success, and for some reason that mattered. So she followed the Mule down the winding steps without objecting, and counted the steps as she went.
As they made their way deeper underground the light filtering down through the translucent stone dimmed and died, leaving their way lit only by occasional sconces flickering in small recessions in the curving walls.
Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four.
The sound of their hooves echoed hollowly through the winding stairwell, and Sassaflash trotted forward, cutting the distance between herself and the Mule. “This cavern of flame; why are we going there?”
The Mule glanced back. “Oh, it ain’t but a short break along the way; we’re a-going to stop there, say howdy-do to the priest-ponies, and then head on down the seven hunnert steps to the gate o’ deeper slumber, where--”
“Stop!” The Dark Lord held up a hoof. “Just--just stop. ‘The cavern of flame?’ ‘The gate of deeper slumber?’ I don’t--since when did you indulge in mysticism? You never talk this way.”
With a shrug, the Mule turned and clomped on down the stairs. “Maybe you don’t know all they is to know about me. You still counting?”
Seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one. “I...Yes, Mr. Mule, I am still counting. I have not lost count.”
“That’s good. You just keep on at it, Miss Sassaflash.”
The air in the stairwell grew drier, and a faint hint of resinous incense wafted up from somewhere below, rising in warm, smoky draughts. Soon a dim, flickering light could be seen shining up through the cloudy stone beneath their hooves, subtle hues of alizarin and cinnabar flickering on their coats and sliding fitfully across the tessellated walls.
One hundred and twenty-four. One hundred and twenty-five. Sassaflash caught the sound of a crackling flame, and after a few more turns of the twisting stairs she and the Mule stepped out into a rough-walled chamber, its unfinished milky walls glowing like burnished brass in the light of a great fire at its center, burning fiercely in a soot-blackened basin atop an alabaster pillar etched with flames. On either side of it stood two unearthly stallions, long-limbed and tall. They were clad in trailing robes of white and crimson, and each was crowned with a tall, shining sekhemti, like those worn by the god-kings of ancient Kesmet. In their regal dignity they would almost have looked like wingless, hornless alicorns, but there was an unpolished edge to the bulge of their jaws and the muscular arch of their thick necks, a subtle savagery in their sharp, unshod hooves, that gave them a primitive, almost feral look. A glimmer of ancient power still shone in their eyes that had long since died out of the waking world.
They bowed their crowned heads in greeting as the two travelers entered the chamber, and the Mule trotted forward and inclined his own scruffy head in acknowledgment. “Howdy, Nasht,” he said to one, and turning to the other, gave a little nod. “Kaman-Thah.”
The being he had named as Kaman-Thah raised an austere head and said, in peculiarly accented tones, “Well met, wanderer.” He directed a piercing gaze at Sassaflash, still hanging back at the entrance to the red-lit chamber. “You bring a stranger?”
A nod. “That I does. We’re in a mighty bad way waking-wards, and we got to talk over what we’re a-going to do someplace safe, where waking time don’t flow so quick. As a matter o’ fact, I’m real sorry, but we can’t stay to chat with your honors.” He bowed to the two robed stallions. “Begging your pardons, o’ course, but we just ain’t got the time.”
“Until a more auspicious hour, then,” said the second stallion, Nasht. “I wish you good fortune, wanderer, and to your companion as well.”
“Thankee kindly.” He gave another quick bow to the priests, and turned to his employer. “Come on, Miss Sassaflash. We best be off.”
The Dark Lord made no response. She had lowered herself to the tiled stone floor, evidently not feeling quite up to standing, and was staring in puzzlement at the priests. “Nasht,” she murmured. “Kaman-Thah. I know those names. I don’t remember their significance, but I do know them, I’m sure of it. But it was not--that was secret lore, I think. Nopony knows those names.” She looked over at the Mule. “How in Equestria are you, of all creatures, involved in this?”
A little shrug was all the answer she got. “We best be off, Miss Sassaflash,” he repeated.
“Yes, very well, I am coming, Mr. Mule.” The mare struggled to her hooves, surprised at her own docility, and stepped slowly after her minion, staring at Nasht and Kaman-Thah the while.
At the other end of the chamber stood an ornate arch of black, irregular blocks set into the white stone of the cavern, and beyond the arch was a long, straight flight of inky stairs, descending far off into shadow. At its entrance the Mule paused, waiting. “How many steps was they?”
“How many--one hundred and thirty-seven.”
“Good. That’s a good number.” The Mule nodded mild approval. “Don’t you go forgetting that, Miss Sassaflash. You ain’t a-going to be able to come here on your lonesome ‘less’n you know that. The stairs’d just go on and on, and you’d keep on a-going down and down and wouldn’t never reach the bottom. That ain’t so for the seven hunnert steps here, though. They’s regular.” His hooves echoing on the heavy basalt flagstones, he began to make his way down, Sassaflash following behind.
“Could you not have simply told me how many there were, then?”
“Oh, no, miss.” He shook his head. “They’s different for everypony. You counted one hunnert and thirty seven, but another pony might count, say, seventy, a-going down the very same steps--and neither o’ you’d be wrong.”
The Dark Lord digested this. “Supposing that I accept that this is so, how many steps were there for you?”
“Three. ‘Tweren’t more than a quick turn down for me. I reckoned you had a piece more, though; you was taking them three steps real slow. You say something, Miss Sassaflash?”
“Nothing, Mr. Mule, nothing at all.”
They proceeded in silence, and by degrees the light filtering down from Nasht and Kaman-Thah’s altar dwindled. There were no sconces or torches lining these black, polished walls, and it was not long before Sassaflash found herself sighting her way only with great difficulty--and, soon enough, not at all. Her minion’s pace never slackened, though, so she continued to plod ahead, guiding herself by the sound of his steps and putting her trust in the regularity of the stone flags beneath her own hooves. Looking back, Sassaflash could still just make out the fierce pinpoint of light of the cavern of flame, but ahead there was nothing--only darkness.
Or perhaps not quite nothing. At odd moments the Dark Lord would catch little almost-glimpses of a faint shape far below: an arched door or gateway, limned in light. As time passed and they progressed ever deeper, the shining outline grew more definite, glowing in the darkness. “The gate of deeper slumber?” hazarded Sassaflash, and the Mule made a rustic noise of assent.
Sooner than Sassaflash would have thought possible, the stairs came to an end, and she found herself standing on level ground, while before her rose the tall, glimmering outline of the gate, peaked and gothic. Her guide--her minion; strange that she should think of him as a guide--began to amble towards the door.
“Wait--Mr. Mule. Wait.” The sound of his hoofsteps ceased. Sassaflash stepped forward. “I don’t--this is familiar to me. All of it. The cavern of flame, the two priests, the gate of deeper slumber and the seven hundred stairs--I’ve read about them before, I know it. I just can’t remember where, or what they mean. Facts are vague, and the connections between them vaguer still. I don’t know what’s happened to my mind…” A thin, brittle thread of fear rose in her voice, but after a moment she muscled it down, and she was herself again. “I have been trying to work this out for myself, but for whatever reason I cannot. So I must ask. Mr. Mule...what is this place? Where are we?”
A moment of silence. “Miss Sassaflash, I ain’t sure if’n you recollect this or no, but a while ago you tole me about a whole world made of dreams, that some ponies who knows the ways is able to visit in their sleep--and that some of them was able to live in, even after they died in the waking world. You was trying to get there your own self, but you wasn’t having much luck. Well, I didn’t say nothing at the time, but I--that is, they’s secrets about the world that most ponies doesn’t know, but that…” He hesitated, and then gave a strange chuckle. “Actually, never you mind all that; I ain’t good at explaining things anyhow. I reckon it’d be best if I just showed you.” The Mule raised his hoof and laid it against the heavy double gate, pushing the thick bronze panels wide. The thin shining sliver marking the crack between the gate’s twin doors widened abruptly. As the Dark Lord raised her hoof to her face, shielding her eyes from the light, she heard the Mule say, “Miss Sassaflash...welcome to the Dreamlands.”
-----
Wind-whipped waves slid lazily over grassy slopes beneath forested hills, sweeping in grand, slow arcs past the occasional cottage and vanishing along the banks of a winding river. Thick cloud banks swirled in the overcast sky while vivid birds darted through the air, warbling and hooting to one another as they sought shelter from the drizzle pattering out of the sky, and a herd of grazing apes, long-limbed and gracile, bounded away over the grass like startled deer. Behind it all, far in the distance, rose masses of rock of unusual steepness and strangely small size, like mountains as imagined by creatures who had only ever seen hills, and overhead the heavy clouds twisted and braided themselves in bizarre, shifting patterns, moving in ways that clouds did not normally move.
Under the sky, over the fields, and through the rain stumped the Mule, damp grass parting around him like water around a ship’s prow, and the Dark Lord Sassaflash followed in his wake. The pace set by the old creature was his customary slow amble. At one point Sassaflash asked whether they ought not to be moving a little faster, but the Mule simply smiled and shook his head. “We got all the time we needs here, Miss Sassaflash. Dreamtime don’t flow the same way that waking time does.”
They had not been walking long before, cresting a high, rounded hill dotted with tall tussocks of waving stalks, they came in view of a little log cabin nestled in the grand shadow of an ancient, gnarled oak. The Mule started forward, almost trotting as he made his way down the gentle slope to the cabin’s front door, while the pegasus mare followed at a slower pace. She was halfway down the hill when Sassaflash caught a glimpse of a figure peering out of the cabin’s raindrop-spattered window, only for it to vanish a moment later. Then the front door swung wide and a mule mare emerged, standing on the stoop with her mane bunched up atop her head in a sensible little bun and her brownish coat softened by scattered gray hairs. Sassaflash stopped, but the Mule hurried onwards, making his awkward way up to the strange mule. She gestured him up on to the stoop out of the rain, nuzzling him affectionately and saying something that Sassaflash, standing stupefied back on the path to the little cabin, didn’t quite catch. The Mule responded, then chuckled; the mare gestured at the Dark Lord; the Mule answered.
Sassaflash watched, many yards away up the path, as the two mules talked and laughed and nuzzled. His wife. She was alive. He was a Dreamer. It was all impossible. The Mule was her minion! Minions didn’t have families or pasts or hidden depths; that was the purview of their masters.
But then, the Mule had always been a very peculiar, complicated minion, and the longer she knew him the more peculiar and complicated he seemed to become.
In a slow, jerking motion, the pegasus mare lowered herself to the wet grass, folding her limbs cat-like beneath her. Rainwater dripped from her mane, sinking into her fur and chilling her skin. In another time and another place she might have strutted boldly down that slope, demanding that the Mule cease his childish displays of affection and devote himself to some more productive occupation, but now...no. She couldn’t walk down among them. This was his moment, his family, his love, and she had no place in it. Her path was austere and remote, threading its narrow way among the stars, far above such earthy, parochial things as families or friendships.
If only, she thought, it wasn’t so cold…
Muted hoofsteps sounded on the grass nearby. “Miss Sassaflash?”
The Dark Lord looked up, blinking away the curious burning sensation that had sprung up in her eyes. Standing in front of her, a lopsided but gentle smile on her long, wrinkled face, was the Mule’s wife, while the Mule himself stood a few steps behind her. The mare held out a knobbly hoof and, crooking her pastern around Sassaflash's foreleg, guided her up on to her hooves. “I’m the Dodge Junction Mule. I’m glad to finally get to meet you; I’ve been told heaps about you by Ponyville here,” she indicated the Mule, “and I’ve been really curious to see you for myself. Come on inside, if you don’t care to, and get yourself dried off. The rain’s picking up, and you’re going to get soaked sitting out here.”
“Ye...Yes. It’s raining,” observed the Dark Lord, as though the fact had only just occurred to her. “I will go inside. We had better go inside. Thank you, Mrs. Dodge Junct--Mrs. Mule--Mrs.--”
“Mrs. Mule’ll do just fine,” said the old mare, her brown eyes twinkling with mild amusement. “Ponyville said you call him Mr. Mule, and I reckon the two of us might as well be a pair. Come on, then.”
With hesitant hoofsteps, the pegasus followed the two mules down the hill to their cabin as the coiling clouds wrung themselves out in the overcast sky overhead. “Watch yourself, the door’s a mite low,” warned Mrs. Mule. Sassaflash nodded, and managed to smack her forehead on the lintel anyway. Clutching her head, the Dark Lord stepped into a solid little room, its walls built of thick logs and its floor made of rough wooden slats softened by a bright braided rug. Patchwork hangings graced the cabin walls, stitched together from bits and pieces of loose fabric, while a crudely-hewn table draped with a sky-blue patterned cloth sat off to one side, chairs clustered around it.
The bemused pegasus stumbled forward, staring around with wide eyes, and then turned to her hostess. “Aren’t you dead? I was told you were dead.” It seemed like an important point to thresh out.
“Yup,” nodded the Mule’s wife. “You weren’t told wrong, but that isn’t the whole story. I’m dead but dreaming, as you might say. Gracious, you look peaked. Why don’t you sit yourself down and get some rest?”
Sassaflash slumped on to one of the chairs with murmured thanks. Mrs. Mule nodded approval. “That’s right. You just take it easy, now.” She turned to her husband, who had just come in out of the rain and was drying his mane on a scarf hanging by the door. “Now you put that down and go get a towel. Land sakes, you’d think you were raised in a barn or something.”
“I was raised in a barn,” came the equable reply.
“That doesn’t mean you have to act like it. Go on, now. Get one for Miss Sassaflash, too.”
With an obedient nod, the Mule ambled off. Mrs. Mule watched him go with a small smile on her awkward face, and then turned to Sassaflash, who seemed to have gotten some sort of formula stuck in her head and was murmuring “Dead but dreaming. Dead but dreaming” over and over to herself.
Tilting her head, the Mule’s wife inquired, “You alright, miss?”
“Dead but--what? Oh. Yes. I am well, thank you.” She paused. “When you said you were ‘dead but dreaming,’ what, exactly…?”
“Well, a year or two back I was dying,” answered the Dodge Junction Mule, in an even, matter-of-fact tone. “Only I didn’t want to. Now, I’ve been Dreaming a long time, and over all those years I got very good at choosing when to wake and when to dream, when to let go and when to hold on--Better than most other mules, I reckon. So I brought myself here to the Dreamlands, I held on as hard as I could, and when I died in the waking world I stayed on here--and I’ve been here ever since. You don’t look right at all, Miss Sassaflash. Can I get you something to eat?”
In a vague way, Sassaflash felt almost offended. As a necromancer, she felt that the story of one’s triumph over mortality should be related with at least some sense of the dramatic. To have the Mule’s wife describe her victory against Ponykind’s oldest foe--or Mulekind’s oldest foe, for that matter--in such a cavalier manner struck her as being in very poor taste.
Oh well. “I--yes, thank you. That would be acceptable.” She wasn’t sure why she had even bothered saying it; her hostess was already halfway to the door that presumably led to the kitchen before she had spoken a word. This death-defying mare clearly planned to see Sassaflash fed and looked after regardless of her own views on the matter. “Dead but dreaming,” she repeated to herself, one last time. Then, in a pensive voice, she intoned, "Ph’nglui mglw’nafh.”
“What was that, Miss Sassaflash?” Hooves clomped on the floor’s wooden planks, and the Mule reentered the room, somewhat drier and carting a worn, folded towel on his back. Shrugging it off on to an upraised hoof, he tossed it over to the Dark Lord, who managed to catch it after flailing around with her hooves for a moment. She raised it to her head and began massaging her mane.
“Nothing, Mr. Mule. Your wife merely recalled something to my memory, that is all.” She paused. “Which is reassuring, I suppose. I can--I think I can--recall the past up to a point; we were traveling, I remember, across the ice of Hippoboroea. But beyond that, there is simply nothing; nothingness and confusion, and a sense of things lost. Mr. Mule, I cannot remember. Something has happened to me. What happened? Why am I like this? How did I come to be here? Why can’t I think?”
The Mule bit his lip. “Well, you come to be here ‘cause I brung you here, first of all. You was lying there in a dead faint, and I went into the dreaming places and found you, or what was left of you--and then led you here. As for what happened to you...You went crazy, you had a fainting spell, you took a tumble down a rock slide, and might could be you hit your head when you falled--only I don’t reckon that was what got rid o’ your memories.” There was a pause while he gathered his thoughts, guilt clouding his homely face. Eventually he looked up and said, “Miss Sassaflash, I done wrong by you. If it weren’t for the shogguses I wouldn’t ha’ done it, but I was right skeert and they was all--”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Sassaflash silenced him with a wave of her hoof. “Shoggoths?”
“That’s it!” The old creature beamed. “I knowed I got that wrong somehow. Shoggoths. If it weren’t for the shoggoths--”
A stern look settled on the Dark Lord’s face, the effect only slightly diminished by the fluffy, faded towel wrapped around her head like a babushka. “Mr. Mule, there is no such thing as a shoggoth.”
With a shrug, the Mule responded, “Right, you said that at the time.” He paused. “Well, screamed, more like. You was pretty far gone by then. But they was something a-slithering and a-splashing around in the dark, something big. I’m only calling them what you called them.”
“I seem to have had a very eventful day.” The Dark Lord digested this for a moment, and then looked up. “But this is beating around the matter at hoof. You said you had done wrong by me, and evidently you wish to dwell on this point--but unless this wrong you did is the entirety of what happened to me between our journey across the ice sheet and the present, I do not wish for it to be the sole burden of your song. It is a figure of speech,” she added, as the Mule started to object that he hadn’t been singing. “I would like for you to simply tell me, without editorializing, what happened between then and now. Can you do this?”
A shrug. “I reckon.”
“Then do so. Please.”
The Mule did so. He told of ice, and snow, and a mountain in the distance, steadily nearing both in space and in mind. He told of a glacier’s end, of bare stone under the Hippoborean sun, of a cave and a farewell and of hesitation. He described how he had defied Sassaflash's order and descended underground after her, and the Dark Lord raised an eyebrow but said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
She had to wait a bit longer than she had expected, for at this juncture the Mule’s wife entered with a tray holding a big bowl of warm hominy grits, buttermilk biscuits, and several bound sheaves of fresh mixed grasses. Sassaflash found that she was far hungrier than she had thought. After the first few minutes, when they had all taken the edge off of their appetites and had settled back to a more leisurely munching, the Mule continued his story, describing hallucinations in the dark, distant screams, and finally his encounter with the terror-maddened Dark Lord herself, fleeing from unknown hunters. “And you was a sight, Miss Sassaflash,” declared the Mule. “All tore up and bruised everywhere. You didn’t have no lamp, and you was missing all them things you brung down with you--every last one.”
“Aw’ o’ the’--eshcoose me.” Sassaflash swallowed. “All of them? I would have been wearing a necklace of clay beads; was that…?”
“Gone.”
“You said I had had a bundle of some sort bound to my back when I entered the mountain. That was gone too?”
“That and everything else,” nodded the Mule.
For a fraction of a second, something that almost looked like a triumphant smile flickered across Sassaflash's face. Then it was gone, replaced by somber attentiveness. “I see. Continue, Mr. Mule, if you please.”
The Mule raised his eyebrows, but made no comment. “There ain’t much more to say, really. You lit out past me a-hollering and a-carrying on, and clumb halfway up a rock slope, trying to get to a higher part o’ the cave. Then you came over all faint--I reckon you was just too skeert and tired and het up to carry on--and fell back down again, all limp like you was dead. Only you wasn’t,” he added.
“Thank you for the reassurance. I had gathered that much.”
“Right. Anyhow, arter that, I…” He hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. “Earlier, when you was screaming all them things, Miss Sassaflash, you said something that got me real worrited: ‘I didn’t mean to see it,’ you said. ‘I’m too small; don’t you look at me. Why does the Elder Sign have to exist? I didn’t mean to see it!”
Sassaflash drew a sharp, hissing breath. “Are you saying I saw the Elder Sign?”
“You was saying it, or at least that’s what I figured. Might could be I was wrong. The Elder Sign,” he said, in an aside to his wife, who had been listening with great interest, “is a sort o’ drawing that lets Sassaflashian things sees you. It ain’t healthy to a body to have it stuck in your mind.”
The Dodge Junction Mule nodded comprehension, while Sassaflash made indignant noises about the Mule’s choice of “Sassaflashian” as a descriptor for the thralls of the Great Old Ones. After she had settled down, the Mule continued, “Anyhow, as near as I could tell, you had the Elder Sign in your head--and I also noticed them shoggoths--”
“Hunting beasts of some sort.”
“Right, Miss Sassaflash. Beg pardon. I also noticed them hunting beasts o’ some sort weren’t able to follow us no more, when they hadn’t had no trouble tracking you afore. I reckoned that they’d been following you through the Elder Sign, and when you done fainted, they didn’t have nothing to track.” He paused. “And that’s where I done wrong by you. I reckoned that when you woke up, we’d be et for sure, so I...well, I had a sheaf o’ worrywort with me, and I remembered what you done to your sister back in the Hollow Shades when she saw the Elder Sign, and…”
Sassaflash's head snapped upright, eyes aflame. “Do you mean to say that you force-fed me worrywort? You erased my memories!?”
Quailing before her anger, the Mule stammered, “I’m awful sorry, really, I am--only I didn’t know what else to do. I know ‘tweren’t right, but I just--I couldn’t see my way clear to escaping any other way.”
“So naturally, in your uncertainty and hesitation, you mindwiped me. A sensible and restrained response, indeed! That was completely--an utterly foalish thing to--that--that...” The Dark Lord trailed off, and by degrees the fire flaming in her eyes dwindled. At length, in quite a different voice, she continued, “...That was actually...well done of you, Mr. Mule.” She considered for a moment longer. “Very well done. I don’t pretend that I am comfortable with it, but you are right. I cannot see another course you could have taken. But I do not understand; I was unconscious at this point, correct? And I understand that I am still unconscious, out in the waking world. How did we escape?”
“Well, y’see, funny thing about that,” said the Mule, eyes darting away evasively. “We didn’t exactly escape. We’uns is still down there.”
“What!?” The Mule’s wife, sitting beside Sassaflash, slammed her hooves down on the tabletop and raised herself up, staring across at her husband. “You mean you’re still trapped down there, with shoggoths hunting for you and all, and you just sitting here and eating biscuits and talking as cool as you please? And you ain’t said nothing about it until now?”
“They, um, ain’t no such thing as a shoggoth,” murmured the Mule, meekly.
“‘Ain’t no such thing as a shoggoth!’ They ain’t going to be no such thing as the Ponyville Mule, soon enough! What were you thinking? I don’t want to be a widow mare, Ponyville! Give me them biscuits.”
The Mule held up his hoof. “Now, Dodgy, it ain’t that bad. Or it is that bad, but it won’t be, if’n you follow me.”
“Don’t you ‘Dodgy’ me,” snapped the mare, swiping his hoof away. “And how ain’t it that bad? You know you’ve never been as good at Dreaming as I am; it’s a simple fact. You get et out there, you’re gone down here.”
“I know, I know, but I ain’t a-going to get et. Afore I came down here, I didn’t have no idea what to do, ‘cause...well, I don’t know much about them Sassaflashian critters. I don’t know how to stop ‘em, how to steer clear of ‘em, what they’s skeert of and what they ain’t. But Miss Sassaflash here, she do.”
The Dark Lord, who had been about to object to the repeated use of the term “Sassaflashian,” stopped dead with her mouth hanging half open. “What.”
“You knows all about them critters,” repeated the Mule. “You can figure out a way to get us out o’ them caves. That’s why I brung you here; so I could tell you how we was situated, and so you could have all the time you needed to come up with some plan to get us out safe. You can do that, right?”
The Mule and his wife both turned to look expectantly at Sassaflash, and the Dark Lord shrank back in her chair, suddenly keenly aware that “No” was not an acceptable answer. Speaking with some hesitation, she answered, “Without the charms I used back in the Hollow Shades, our options are somewhat limited, but there are...possibilities.” She had no idea what those possibilities might be, but the two mules didn’t need to know that. “I will need you to tell me a little bit more about our situation, first. What else did I scream during my episode? How far is it to the surface, and what is the terrain like? Were any of my wounds such that I would have difficulty traveling? And so on.”
So what had been a quiet breakfast turned into a planning session, with the Mule providing as many details as he could remember and the Dark Lord trying her level best to look like a wise strategist, and feeling like an imposter. It was a grim situation, and in the end, there was no overarching scheme that presented itself to her; just pieces and suggestions of ideas, unformed and hopeful wisps set against a solid, fearful reality.
But she couldn’t let them know that. She was assured, she was confident, she dropped subtle hints and muttered references to forbidden knowledge. Somewhat to her surprise, it seemed to work. Gradually the care and fear left the face of the Mule’s wife, replaced by a sort of quiet, inscrutable calm, and the Mule himself...well. She never knew what he was thinking, but he seemed comfortable enough.
It was only when they had finished their meal and were preparing for the return to the waking world that Sassaflash learned that her act had not gone over quite as well as she had supposed. The plates had been carted off to the kitchen and washed, the last goodbyes had been said, and Sassaflash was just preparing to follow her minion out the door when his wife pulled her aside, a somber expression on her ungainly face. In a quiet, even undertone, she said, “You bring him back, you hear?”
“Of course,” said Sassaflash and made to leave, but the Dodge Junction Mule shook her head and held up a hoof, blocking the door.
“No, I’m serious. I know you were bluffing, back there when we were talking, and maybe you thought that might work on us--we’re just simple mules, after all.” There was the slightest hint of bitterness in her voice. “But these beasts that are after you, you better have something ready when you meet them, because they sure aren’t going to be impressed by a bluff, and they aren’t going to be polite enough to pretend to be. So you bring him back, Miss Sassaflash. You think of something that brings him back safe. You understand? Because I don’t aim to be a widow.”
The Dark Lord swallowed, and gave a nod. “I promise, Mrs. Mule.”
Stepping back, the Mule’s wife said, “Alrighty, then. Just so we’re clear. Goodbye, Miss Sassaflash, and good luck.”
With another nod, Sassaflash turned and stepped down off the cabin’s stoop, hurrying along to catch up with the Mule. As they reached the spot halfway up the hill where she had stood earlier that morning, watching the Mule and his wife greet each other, she turned and looked back at the little cabin, dappled with yellow-green light shining through the leaves of the overshadowing oak tree, its boughs still moist from the drizzle earlier in the day. She remembered seeing their happiness, and knowing that her place was outside, in cold, desolate austerity. She remembered being invited down, given comfort, given food. She remembered, for a moment, not being alone.
The Mule halted some yards ahead and looked back at her. “You coming, Miss Sassaflash?“
“Yes, I just...that is, yes. I am coming.” A pause. “Thank you, Mr. Mule.”
“What for?”
The Dark Lord looked back at the comfortable cabin, nestled there in the glen, and then gave her head a little shake. “For...your presence of mind in using worrywort, of course. Saving my life. What else would I be thanking you for?” She raised a hoof, shading her eyes as she peered off at the distant sloping line of green forest that concealed, somewhere within it, the gate of deeper slumber. “Come, Mr. Mule. We are not safe yet. We have much to do, and far to go. Let us return to the waking world, and whatever perils may await us there.”
“Yes, Miss Sassaflash.”
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Mules are the fixed chaos points spread accross Equestria in order to keep the rest of the thaumalogical field stable?
I wonder how much confusion it'd cause if I use "Sassaflashian" as my go-to adjective for such entities.
I admit, toward the beginning when the Mule was naming places and people and Sash didn't recognize them, I was hoping he'd turn out to be a servant of a different cosmology.
each chapter, builds seamlessly on the last. This is a true skill.
4757135
Well, there's earth pony magic, and pegasus magic, and unicorn magic and all that.
Mules? They're from two worlds. Some of them just happen to be better at walking between them than others.
The story was very enjoyable, as ever. And the characters!
You write so well, and generally so impeccably, that it is with unusual hesitation that I propose the following possible nitpicks. Nevertheless, either you erred and may correct yourself by what I say, or I am wrong and can learn that fact by your reply. So: nitpicks!
I can't help but wonder if this is really what you intended the Mule to say. I found this turn of phrase odd in a way that was not true of anything else the Mule has said that I can recall, because his words mean the literal opposite of "if'n you don't mind", which is more in line with what I would expect a
personponybody to say in that situation. If what you wrote is indeed what you meant to write, I would like to know more about what precisely Mule's turn of phrase meant to communicate, if you don't mind indulging me.Should "a while" be "a while ago" or "a while back" or something to that effect? Or does the Mule's form of speech simply leave that implied?
Here, at least, I feel confident in saying you are missing a quotation mark.
Perhaps I am being overly pedantic, but this apostrophe is backwards.
This proposed nitpick is most tentative of all, but I have always defined a semicolon as being more or less interchangeable with a period, except for that the author wishes to bind the two parts more closely for the reader.* I will believe you unhesitatingly if you tell me that Mr. Mule considers the first part a potentially complete sentence—or, for that matter, it's not impossible that my definition of a semicolon is oversimplified. In the meantime, I submit the nitpick that this would better be a comma. [edit: Or, on reflection, a dash or colon, if you desire to show that Mr. Mule is introducing the second part with the first part more emphatically than a comma would illustrate. But, hell, now that I'm throwing in colons as acceptable, who am I to naysay semicolons, except out of sheer personal preference?
]
End nitpicks.
“They, um, ain’t no such thing as a shoggoth,” murmured the Mule, meekly.
Oh my goodness. To see this turned around into an excuse gave me giggles. Very well done.
*[edit: Aside, of course, from its use in complicated lists.]
4758943
No worries! All but one of those nitpicks are fine, good, morally commendable nitpicks, and I've made the suggested changes. The only exception is the use of the phrase "If you don't care to," which odd as it sounds actually is grammatically acceptable in the Appalachian dialect (which is what I've based the mulish dialect on, with the Mule's wife normally speaking a far more subdued version of the dialect--except, of course, when she's particularly upset). It's basically the equivalent of "if you don't mind." Anyway, errors notwithstanding, I'm glad you were able to enjoy the story regardless!
4758356 Interesting thing, actually. It didn't really occur to me until you mentioned it, but I notice that I seem to have a fondness for writing about characters or situations that involve straddling two different worlds at once. There's Bon Bon in Mendacity, the Mule in this story, and...well, to avoid spoilers, I'll just say that the basic idea of translating between two worlds or realms of experience will play a very important role in The First Law, the piece of original fiction I'm working on that I mentioned on my blog a while back (which is still alive, by the way, and an update should be forthcoming "shortly").
...I don't really know WHY that should be, mind. I've no deep insights here. Just thought it was interesting.
Mules: the most benevolent dead dreamers that you ever might be fortunate to encounter.
Hmn. I was wondering last chapter what Sassaflash's plan could possibly have been considering how quickly her spelunking turned into panicked fleeing, but now it's sounding like whatever she was up to might still be in the works.
I really like how Mule's wife was all: "Ya, I'm dead. Want tea?"
This chapter was beautiful. Seeing how the Ponyville Mule keeps in touch with his wife was great. Ties in with his previous comment about why he never remarried. And then there's the whole sequence of the dreamlands...
Thanks for the new chapter!
Another amazing chapter. I love your depiction of the Dreamlands, though I'd like to see more exploration of it and its nature. Mr. Mule keeps being full of surprises.
Reading this, I realized something: Discord is a Lovecraftian Eldrich Abomination heavily edited to fit a children's cartoon. It really makes you appreciate the scope of reforming him. How brave/suicidal would someone have to be to release C'thulhu to teach him the magic of friendship, and how amazing is it that they succeeded?
Ah, the payoff of that hint of something more from so early in the story. Mules are curious creatures. As has been noted, they don't quite fit in Equestria. Is it any wonder they find it so easy to leave?
Loved the contrast of the Mule's easy-going attitude with the almost Sassaflashian surroundings. (Also, that is a fantastic adjective.) And the Dreamlands luncheon was just fantastic. Eagerly looking forward to more.
4759296
Those who walk the borders are fascinating creatures, fantastic yet relatable. We care more about them because they blur the lines, because we can understand them far better than most supernatural entities yet find them more interesting than most mundane beings. Discworld witches, the Whateley brothers, Pinkie Pie, they all offer windows into strange worlds that are still attached to conceivable houses.
I think the metaphor broke down near the end there, but you get the idea.
4757226 Probably as much as if you said "Lovecraftian" in front of Lovecraft.
4759611 She was actually counting on losing her mind and running like hell. To get out of the blast radius.
This. More of this. Please.
4767052 Actually, I mostly meant using it generally, among people who are statistically very unlikely to have read this story.
4769191 Ah. Well. I dunno, because I would know exactly what you mean.
4765200
I admit, the possibility did cross my mind of including Discord in the story as an avatar of Nyarlathotep, but ultimately I decided against it; he WAS ultimately reformed, after all (even if it took a good season and a half before it stuck), and I can't really see that ever happening with the Crawling Chaos/Bloody Tongue/Three-Lobed Burning Eye/Thousand Masked One/Black Pharaoh.
...Which doesn't mean that Discord won't be appearing in this story in some capacity, mind. Doesn't mean that he WILL either, of course, but if he does, it won't be as an avatar of the Crawling Chaos.
4788958 Fair enough. You already laid some background down for Discord, since you said this world is the same as Mendacity. I don't think Discord would be anyone's avatar either, since you've established alicorns as gods, and he's more powerful than any of them. Discord also has a tendency to take over other character's stories when he's added. Mostly I just want to hear Sassaflash's opinion of him.
Bravo! There's never enough Dreamlands references in Lovecraftian fiction in my opinion, and I'm glad to see it showing up here.
Needs more mooncats, tho.
Damn kids! Git off ma' lawn!
4788958
Of course not! He would obviously be one of Azathoth's mad pipers!
I have been off Fimfiction for the better part of an entire year and the first thing I do is check out The Rise and Fall of the Dark Lord Sassaflash. This story is just too important to miss!
5230095
...I'm almost afraid to ask, but does that introduction come off as horribly racist? Like I said in the notes for the first chapter (I think), I'm well aware that I'm walking on eggshells here, but I didn't realize that I might have cracked 'em all with the first step I took. I intended to show the Mule as not quite fitting into Ponyville society (or not quite being allowed to fit in), but that wasn't meant to introduce any bias against him; he's an outsider, but a sympathetic one. I guess what I was aiming for was superficially the same scene as the one where you describe, but one in which the audience's sympathies are with the interruptor, not with the throng.
5231708
It didn't to me, no. At least, not horribly so. My impression was that it was some regrettable happenstance of pony society, not downright racism. And my sympathies were definitely with Mr. Mule.
4759296
Every writer has a particular character archetype they write best and gravitate towards. David Weber writes excellent 'on in a million' protagonists who are still relatable, I write Conflicted Mind characters best, and Terry Pratchett was a master of writing 'real' people so well you wouldn't thing twice about seeing them in the real world if they weren't from fantasy settings so often. And those are just a few writers, Jim Butcher writes a great 'Knight in Tarnished Armor' archetype, for example, and has a bunch of characters in his books that fit the bill.