At this turning point of history, a new frontier is colonized from across the seas. One orange farmer's foal is stolen away, and a new tale arises when three unlikely creatures all meet at the Duende Inn.
It was the dawn of a new age in a new world, but old tales are just as willing as anyone to colonize a frontier. Legacies and innovations collide on the shores of the Amaponian continent. Yet the kidnapping of an orange farmer's foal leads three unlikely creatures to join hooves and paws at the forging of the next tale.
Surrounding the orange orchard’s hills were tree stumps, and beyond them were the unfamiliar sounds of the rainforest. Distant mountains shimmered beyond the permanent grey. It was nothing like the lovely sunshine, dog’s tooth grass, and corn oaks of home.
It was raining, but then it always seemed to rain here, the weather punching the foal’s skull until she was being stung by a swarm of drops. Orange trees bloomed into life around her. She shifted her jaws around the handle and dragged the rake over the fields, scraping up all the leaves and petals that had fallen. Next to the green chaos, it was a reassuring sight. No one ventured into the rainforest if they could take the cleared alleys through it.
They had not seen the “cat-monkeys” for a long time. Most said it was Rego who had kept them away, but most would say anything that made Rego sound like a hero.
Still, better her than those things. Naranja Pétalo shuddered at the mere thought. There were always stories of foals disappearing, snatched by purple hands. She listened to stories.
She watched the phoenix as it circled overhead. It had been doing so for a while, which meant warm weather was due. In this place, though, that was not so much news as the default, but it was nice to see even the wildlife keeping the old traditions alive.
She glanced back at the house. There wasn’t much to say about it. It was a hovel, but it was their hovel.
The phoenix soared over it. Faint flames and afterimages drifted like ghosts in its wake. It landed on the fence beside her, making the poles shudder where its weight hit, and slid its wings along its flaming feathers.
“Sincabeza!” Naranja Pétalo cried, spitting out the rake as she did so. She closed her eyes. The phoenix’s beak opened wide.
Around her, through her, and in her deepest heart, the music flowed. Notes soared high over the peaks and dived down to the dells, whooshing and slicing alongside the melody like mountains and rivers over a vast country. She thought of baking pies, of choirs piercing the ceiling, and of warm hooves cupping her to a chest with a beating heart.
“Your mother took your head away,” she chanted under her breath, “but your sister hid your bones. The Enchantress brought you back to life, to claim your stake some day.”
How many times she had heard the tale! It had involved callous stepmothers and bizarre requests and lots and lots of blood, which was why she treasured it so much. Some things stuck with you from childhood.
A screech marked the end of the song, and the phoenix preened its forewings. As if waiting for this moment, the beaming foal lifted a hoof dramatically.
“Wait, Sincabeza! Don’t go! Wait here! I get for you!”
She galloped back indoors, and, jumping over the steps to the veranda, almost hit her father in the chest.
“What the – querido, get back here! You’re not done raking those leaves!”
Nothing but an orange blur passed him, but as he stepped aside, he counted under his breath. At the “ten”, he stuck out a hoof and she bounced off and back into the doorway. The horseshoes dropped from her mouth.
“But papá, it’s Sincabeza! He needs the shoes, or he won’t sing!”
Papá rolled his eyes. “Those stories… I regret ever telling them to you! They are just foalish fairy tales. You can’t just call any old phoenix Sincabeza!”
“But I’m sure it’s him this time!”
“Dios mío! Don’t give that bird your shoes. The Enchantress is not real. That phoenix is certainly not going to pay tribute to her, you understand?”
Naranja Pétalo glared at him until his eyes watered and he tried staring at something less fierce, like the battery of raindrops.
“Well, not those horseshoes, at least,” he said. “Those ones are your best. Go give him your pink ones. They’re still good, and he’ll still sing beautifully.”
The timber creaked in protest at the flurry of hooves inside the house. Papá sauntered down the steps, and counted up to fifteen before stepping aside to let the blur shoot past. He shook his head at the earth.
Naranja Pétalo almost tripped on her way to the fence. To her alarm, the phoenix spread its wings and took off with a shriek.
“No, Sincabeza! These shoes are a gift. You need them. The Enchantress will love them!”
A shadow whooshed through the grey overhead.
“Sincabeza?”
Papá yelled in a voice much higher than normal, and was suddenly silenced beneath a storm of barking. She spun round in time to see him seized and dragged under the earth. Howls and sniggers were cut off by a silence. Naranja Pétalo bit the rake handle and charged, heart pounding furiously.
An orange struck her scalp, and she winced and flailed at a flurry of fallen leaves.
Two clawed feet smashed into the earth behind her. Something yanked the rake out of her mouth and almost threw her over the trees after it. When she turned around, she barely had time to scream before wings enveloped her. She was still screaming as her insides seem to drop suddenly, and she had a brief glimpse of the trees falling away beneath the flapping wings before strong hands forced a slimy gel over her face.
Her eyes began to lose focus. Her nose recognized the stench of the somnolencia juice before her mind carried her off into darkness.
Drum beats and laughter were muffled by the oak door. The Diamond Dog poked his head into the bar, creaking the hinges as he did so, and was greeted with a sudden hush.
His satchel banged against his ribcage while he slipped in. Eyes narrowed within shadowed corners and under cloaks, and he stood with one paw still gripping the frame. A fragment of copal fell off his collar and pinged on the floorboards.
The Diamond Dog coughed and sniffed.
“This is Duende Inn, yes?” he said.
Metal slid along sheaths as several shadows drew swords, daggers, and knives. Lights gleamed off steel. A few flashes and slashes met these words. Candles flickered where the blades arced by.
The Diamond Dog swallowed. Since several points were pressing against his throat, he did this with the air of one trying to tiptoe over sleeping jaguars.
With a flick of an arm, the bartender vaulted over the counter. Two fists banged against the hard nails of the floorboards, two catlike paws slinked and weaved between the cloaks and edges, and a whip of a tail scythed through the air, over his head, and ended with a meat slab of a hand gripped around a wooden hilt. One obsidian blade projected from the hilt and joined the prickle around his jugular vein.
“Earth mutts don’t come here,” said the bartender through fangs like ivory talons. The dots that were presumably his eyes narrowed at the end of his snout. “They go to the Pits. Further down the road.”
Blinking at the obsidian, the Diamond Dog lifted a claw and eased it towards the leading curve of the blade. For a moment, the claw seemed to go right through.
“We are not here for a drink, Mr Cat-Monkey, sir,” he said. “We are looking for someone.”
Nobody moved for a long while. Then, the bartender spat a puff of air at the still-lifted claw. It fell cleanly away and bounced off the satchel before tapping the wood.
“Listen, earth mutt,” said the bartender. “You can lord it however you pack of degenerates want in the dirt, but up here, we do not pretend to forget what you did. And still do. Do I make myself clear?”
The Diamond Dog’s eyes flicked from the stub of his claw and back to the blade. His eyes seemed strangely unfocused. He bared his teeth, which could have meant anything.
“No. No, you don’t make yourself clear. Quartzphere come in to find someone and go. Quartzphere never caused trouble, and yet Quartzphere get pointy sword treatment. You going to kill him for not causing trouble?”
A few swords fell back. They weren’t sheathed, but the arms, limbs, and other appendages bearing them hung limply from their masters’ sides. Out of the corner of his gaze, the bartender saw the same strangely unfocused look in their faces.
“You’re well-spoken,” he muttered, “for an illiterate dung ferret. Aping your betters, are you?”
More swords drew away from the gray fur, followed by the daggers and knives. Now the bartender, alone with the dog, could hear steps moving away and the scraping of chairs. He also noticed a slight wriggle of the satchel, and tapped it with the width of his own sword.
“Got a snack in there, I expect.”
Quartzphere stared at him. The unfocused look slid away, and a flicker of panic shot in as the pupils darted from face to face. The Diamond Dog placed a swollen paw over the strap.
“My friend says,” he said, and then paused, ear cocked as if listening to someone offstage, “that you are an Ahuitzotl priest… from the empire of… Tenochtitlan… run away from home… to defy all authority. But no worry. We keep your secret.”
Fingers seized the collar and thrust him right into the jaundiced eyes. This time, the blade was sideways, needing only one flick for instant beheading.
“What kind of trick are you playing?” hissed the bartender at his face. “What are these… lies you speak?”
“Not lies!” Quartzphere writhed and wormed his fingers around the hands on his neck. “Quartzphere sooner eat own head than lie! We run away too! We defy all authority too! Oh, and my friend says your name is Axolotl.”
With a howl, the bartender rolled backwards and threw him into the stools, scattering broken timber. Cracks fled away from Quartzphere’s back. A trickle of white juice stained the wood by his elbow.
Quartzphere barely had time to see the world swim back into focus before the shrieking indigo blur threw itself at him and the stabbing hand came down.
The two stared at each other, panting and wide-eyed, close enough to bite each other’s snouts. Quartzphere patted his stomach, and frowned. The bartender raised his hand. There was no sword in it. He spun round.
Hovering in the air, the black blade seemed fixed in an invisible vice, as if it had been seized and held in mid-arc. A few patrons laughed to try and break the silence. No one looked away even when it clattered on the ground and was still. Someone in a far corner coughed.
“We’re, um, looking for the Enchantress?” said Quartzphere.
Several talons, hooves, fingers, and wings pointed at a door beside the bar. Overhead, a plank hanging from two chains bore the etched words ‘Adjoining Room’. The Diamond Dog threw a hasty salute and scrambled across the wrecked stools towards it.
The bartender slunk over to the sword and lashed out with his tail. He sat back and rubbed both hands along the sides of the blade. He pointed it at the Adjoining Room sign.
“You may be in league with sorcery,” he said, trying to keep the shake out of his throat, “but mark my words; you shall not stay here. If I see so much as a dog hair in my inn ever again, I won’t bother with weapons. I’ll wring your neck and tie a knot in what’s left.”
Quartzphere tried a weak smile to the patrons around the room, but couldn’t ignore the sniggers and whisperings when he pushed his way through. He could smell fear, like a stinging pickle eating away at his nose.
“You can’t hide from your crimes forever, sacker of empires!”
The door slammed shut behind him.
It was supposed to be an extension of the bar, but the adjoining room may as well have been a tomb. There were no candles. Only a small flame crackled in the centre of the room, peeping over a ring of carefully placed bricks. Despite the flame, hairs stiffened along Quartzphere’s arms and back, and he shivered.
Benches had been shoved to the sides of the room, piled against the tables as though all the furniture had backed away from the fire and was clambering up the walls to get out. A few whispers and groans came from underneath.
Quartzphere jumped aside as a blur rushed past him screaming, and the door slammed shut again.
“Get down, mestizo!” hissed a voice beneath a bench. “If she comes back and sees you, that’s it! Callejón sin salida!”
“Who?” Quartzphere’s gaze spun around the room. “You mean Enchantress?”
The voice said nothing, unless an outbreak of whimpering counted.
Despite first glance, there was one piece of furniture in the centre of the room. A lone table, reduced to a wizened iron frame, stood over the flame. Chilli peppers – pulsing red and pale abominations that conjured hallucinations merely by being glanced at – lay along one thickened frame, half of them mashed and sliced and ground into bleeding dust. Some dark powder was heaped next to it, along with a ghostly flower. One wad of oily, oozing yellow melted on a plate, and a cup of white sparkles glinted in the reflection of Quartzphere’s eyes.
“Cerveza del diablo…” squealed a voice in the corner.
In the centre of plumes of bitter and sharp scents, wafting its heat through Quartzphere’s face and making him back off fast, was an iron cauldron wedged into the frame. He drooled and licked his lips, and then shook his head and wretched.
“Who are you?” said a feminine voice.
Gasps and whines mingled with shuffles as the patrons pretended not to exist. Despite himself, Quartzphere’s feet shifted him around, and his spine froze.
Every cell in his body gave a quiet sigh. The satchel began to slip from his shoulder, and only his paw seemed alert enough to grip it in mid-fall.
The door slammed shut, fluttering the cloak that concealed a squat, hunched form. One unicorn horn protruded from the hood, glowing crimson. It bore a silver jug in midair, also glowing like sunlit blood, and stepped over to him.
“Don’t touch that,” she said. “The peppers alone will give you nightmares.”
Quartzphere pointed a claw at her, or at least tried. It was pointing at everything else around her.
“Y-Y-You… M-Mother G-Gother… B-Bruja de la Sombra… B-Bab-ba Y-Yaga… C-Circa… The-The Enchantress! Magician of Thousand Tales, Spellcaster of Thousand Names…”
The figure glided over to the cauldron – the Diamond Dog bumped into a table jumping out of her way – and tipped the jug over it. Pale death poured out, splashing the gloop. Everything in the cauldron writhed and warped until a silken tan spread over the surface. The stench softened. It caressed noses, soothed tightened throats, and each breath felt clearer and sweeter. A few patrons leaned closer.
Quartzphere peered at the brew. It was liquid earth, molten tan, fluid auburn, rippling mahogany…
“I,” choked Quartzphere, bowing low, “have dreamed for years of m-meeting you, Enchantress… You are legend…”
The figure turned to face him. “Why thank you, Diamond Dog. Here. Would you like to try some of this?”
A ladle rose from the cauldron and poured the creeping mass into the cup of sparkles. All other ingredients glowed and arced in after it. From within the rags and cloaks, a small spoon slid out and rattled around inside the china before shooting back into the folds.
Cautiously, the Diamond Dog sniffed at the proffered cup.
“In the local language,” said the figure, “it is the xokolotl ahuitzotl, the sacred drink of the Ahuitzotl priests. They believe that at certain times in certain seasons, one drink sends their spirits to the holy realm beyond this world, and connects them to the Great God Quetzalcoatl. They say he’s in exile for bringing this divine food to the world as a gift. Trouble is… it’s like needles on the tongue. I merely had to modify it with some stuff brought over the seas by the pony tribes. Makes it sweet, not bitter.”
She filled a second cup that Quartzphere was sure hadn’t been there a moment ago. He trembled at the weight of the cup in his own hand.
The Enchantress lifted her glowing cup and chinked the two together. “I call it Hot Chocolate. Let me know if you want more milk and sugar.”
“You stay there and don’t make a peep. Master not finished with you yet.”
The lid slammed, and footsteps died away.
She opened her eyes and saw nothing. Mustering her energy, she pushed against the lid of the chest and didn’t wince when the harsh grey light stabbed at the dark. It was a testament to how poor they were that he hadn’t even bothered with chains and locks. Not that any of that would have stopped her, but she still ground her teeth – her new teeth – at the poorness of her prison.
Stupid beast. Make me do tricks, will you? Treat me like dirt, will you?
With a thump, the chest rolled over. Tiny legs scuttled out of it. After a few seconds, the chest righted itself and snapped its own lid shut.
A trail of grass rustled across the pampas, through the deserted village of shattered huts and vine-smothered shacks that were strewn around the clearing in a sea of green blades. Diamond Dogs patrolled the gaps between them, shaking their heads of the rain and the tedium. A few wandered close to the trail, but to their own surprise, suddenly felt the urge to turn around and trot back the way they’d come.
Everything paled next to the stepped pyramid. It was worse than a mountain: mountains wound anywhere and everywhere like the remnants of a savaged chocolate cake, smothered in snow like icing and crumbling at the touch. This pyramid was a king. It cut the flow of the landscape. Squares and angles and edges wedged into the ivy and roots trying to clamber over them. Unlike the mountains, no cloud dared go near it. Even its cap was golden like the crown of a king, and it ignored its subjects, the homes collapsing all around it, while they fought bravely against the invading rainforest that it barely noticed.
Towards the stepped pyramid, she saw the steps were stained brown. Vague memories drifted to her about what the empires used to do, but she lost interest.
Tiny hooves scampered along the limestone wall and round a corner, keeping an eye on the forest for any straining green eyes. One captive had already been caught by those things; she knocked a chunk of bone aside as she passed. ‘Those things’ didn’t give second chances.
She crept along, taking cover behind splayed spider-like plants covered in fur, and seized and uprooted one. To any onlooker, it would look like a rather ill porcupine was creeping along the foot of the pyramid. She saw the crack and glided over to it, making sure not so much as a dot of non-green colour showed through the leaves, and peered inside.
Torches were lit along the walls. A huddle of ponies whimpered and shivered in a corner, surrounded by Diamond Dogs and what looked like some dark dogs with glowing green eyes. In the corner nearest her peephole was a pile of puppets, with one Diamond Dog standing guard over them. He and the others all had copal on their collars.
In the centre of the pyramid were two creatures. One creature was a hulking biped with huge wings: a gargoyle. The other was harder to place; some kind of centaur, but with the upper half of a beefed-up baboon and thick, cleft hooves at the bottom.
They stood side-by-side, facing a circular altar in the centre of the hall.
“And yet, she was still alive,” said the gargoyle. “Interesting. I wonder if her powers helped to keep her will intact.”
“Maybe.” The centaur shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter. You disposed of her, I take it?”
“Uh, of course, of course. But still, I can’t get my mind around it. Perhaps it’s not her powers that helped her. Maybe some minds are naturally robust, or maybe it’s a question of will. The possibilities are endless. If you’d just let me try out my ideas for once –”
“Stop going on about it. We found it and destroyed it. I fail to see the problem.”
“But don’t you see what this means?” The gargoyle flapped its wings agitatedly and took a step forwards. When the centaur glared down at the offending foot, he took a step back. “We can’t trust this magic anymore. We don’t know if it’s behaving as expected. And aren’t you the least bit curious about it?”
“We are not dropping this simply because you have cold feet! Have you forgotten already what these wretched beasts did to us? We were worshipped, Scorpan! Our wonderful subjects handed us sacrifices daily! We had a legacy! And then these usurpers, these ponies, these wretched thieves on their ‘ships’, came here as if they owned the place and took all that from us.”
Scorpan hit his own forehead and tried to wipe the condescension from his face. “You do remember how we acquired these empires, right?”
The Diamond Dog nearest her peephole rolled his canine eyes and threw a puppet over to the ring. Neither of the creatures seemed to notice it, even when it bounced off a cleft hoof.
Which stamped and cracked the stone slab.
“We earned our right! The Ahuitzotls practically bent themselves double to serve us. Those ponies stole theirs. Now they owe us.”
“I know, Tirek. And they will pay, blood for blood, blah blah blah. But if this means cursing our own horns, what good’s that going to do us?”
“Look, it’s perfectly simple.” Tirek kicked the puppet against the altar so it landed beside Scorpan’s talons. “What we’re doing is fine. We just keep doing it. So long as we don’t draw attention to ourselves, we can build up our power base before the ponies even know what’s been hitting them. You, Diamond Dog! Next one!”
A Diamond Dog seized a stallion and lifted it off the ground, trying to keep its thrashing limbs at arm’s length and not look at it. He stopped at the centre, holding the pony over the altar and up to the monster.
Behind her peephole, she tried to turn her head away, but sheer fascination pushed it back. After all, it was someone else this time.
Tirek’s horns glowed orange. He opened his mouth and sucked in all the air. The stallion in the centre writhed and screamed, kicking and bucking until the Diamond Dog almost let go. Orange glowed around the equine body and flew towards Tirek. Then, the victim groaned and went limp. The Diamond Dog dropped it and threw himself back, trying to wipe his paws furiously. The pony hit the round slab. It didn’t move.
A ball of orange swelled into existence between Tirek’s horns. Scorpan reached over and seized the ball, threw it into his mouth, and closed his eyes, chewing.
His wings glowed orange. He opened his mouth, roared, and a bolt of orange leaped from his throat and struck something on the ground nearby. It too glowed orange, and then dimmed.
The puppet began to shake. Then it shifted its legs into position and rose up on all fours. Its face was completely blank. It stood as if it were merely a diagram of what four-legged creatures looked like. There was no personality to the pose at all.
So that’s what usually happens, she thought. Well, I can certainly see why he’d find me more interesting.
“Sit!” shouted Scorpan, wings flaring.
The puppet sat.
She narrowed her eyes at the sight, and watched the one Diamond Dog leave, still rubbing his paws together. Interesting, that one. He seemed less convinced than the others…
Tirek rubbed his clawed hands together. “I love it when they do that. A few more tweaks, and just imagine what we could achieve with this. The chroniclers will be carving a mountain’s worth of tablets for centuries. Next!”
The Enchantress shut the door behind her. “OK, we’re alone, though goodness knows why. What did you want to tell me?”
It had clearly once been another shabby room. Each wall, floorboard, and beam had a sprawling map on it, made up of lichen and damp and any grime that refused a quick wipe with a dirty dishcloth. The rags on rails, however, had been replaced with thick velvet curtains like waterfalls of red wine. A burlap sack stuffed with straw was gone, and on the square of thick dust stood a duvet and pillow so thick and all-smothering that it gave the bed the appearance of a giant marshmallow.
The two of them were seated on a hastily strewn rug that they could have sworn had come from an ornate woolly mammoth. The candlelight flickered between them, making their shadows dance.
With shaking digits, Quartzphere laid the satchel down at her hooves, which poked out of the folds of cloak and rags as two splashes of aquamarine on an otherwise grey form. She pulled back her hood, and untamed locks like fluff-dried kelp poured down her left cheek and along her outstretched neck. He felt it was only right to assume she was pretty; he wasn’t much of a judge for pony standards.
He just wished she didn’t sip her drink so loudly.
“First, we want to show you something secret,” he said, reaching into the satchel.
The Enchantress lowered her levitating drink. “Um… ‘We’?”
Quartzphere pulled out a puppet. It was made of some iridescent crystal, possibly opal. The face was carved in, and the joints flapped without strings. He almost drew back as the Enchantress leaned closer to inspect it. While it was probably just an accident, the horn, he couldn’t help but notice, was pointing at him.
“Hmm.” She stroked an idle lock of her mane. “Crystalline marionette, common in unicorn country. It’s cute.”
“I have a tale to tell.”
Quartzphere coughed into his clenched fist, and warmth flowed through his veins. Despite the creak of the floorboards under his rump, he could close his eyes and see his pack gather around him, ears cocked and necks craning for his words.
“We fled from the Temple,” he said. “We took refuge in lots of cottages and in jungle. Then we heard you were here. We followed rumours, and then found you at Duende Inn. And here we are.”
He leaned against the wall and beamed at her.
“Uh… the Temple?” she said.
Quartzphere massaged his snout. “The Temple where they keep the ponies, of course!”
“What ponies?”
“What pon –” The Diamond Dog stopped and breathed in deeply. “Of course. Let us try again. We know why you are here, Enchantress. You seek missing pony, Naranja Pétalo. I know where Naranja Pétalo is. Crystal Puppet saw her too. She is with the ponies at the Temple.”
“Oh, good. That’s near the town, right? This ought to be quick.” The Enchantress sipped her hot chocolate. Quartzphere swallowed the drool that tingled in his mouth.
“No. It’s in the rainforest.”
An outbreak of coughing met these words. He opened his eyes and wiped the flecks of chocolate out of his fur.
“Oh,” she said, and flashed a smile at him. “Good.”
“You believe us, right?”
“Yes. I’ll set off in the morning. I just, uh… I need to get my rest now.”
She could hear his blinks. Diamond Dogs tended to be lax about hygiene and hadn’t yet figured out how conjunctivitis worked.
“Enchantress doesn’t need sleep. It said so in The Thousand Year Journey. When they say you wandered a thousand years, they mean you wandered a thousand years.”
The Enchantress waved a hoof airily. “Yes, but that’s just, you know, stories. Fairy tales. They go over the top about that sort of thing. I need to get my strength back. You have no idea how much hard work had to go into getting that milk.”
“But you can flatten whole village and city with just one word! I read your Tale of the Dread Witch Wizen! You were amazing in that!”
By the time Quartzphere realized he was on his feet, the spiel had already struck the air. They stared at each other. He quickly sat back down.
“Aw, you’re so sweet.” A red glow seized the furry cheek and shook it, and the Enchantress levitated her steaming mug to her lips. “Forget the sugar and milk; I should dunk you in this stuff.”
Quartzphere chuckled nervously. “Er, yes. Thank you. I think…”
“But even a world-renowned Enchantress has to have her beauty sleep, you know.” She threw back her mane and tossed the hot chocolate down her gullet. “Just give me until morning. Or until next Tuesday. It’s not much to ask for. Then, I’ll need to gather some food, maps, money… you know, provisions and stuff.”
“Provisions? Quartzphere is hearing you’ve been here a very long time.”
Before she could open her mouth, the Enchantress was besieged by scroll after scroll of spiky writing and inkblots. Claw marks punctured the tops of the scrolls, and sometimes the claws holding the parchment slotted into place.
“I don’t understand,” said Quartzphere’s voice from behind the papers. He stuffed them back into the satchel. “I read The Lady of the Foal, The Unicorn Prince, and The Enchantress and the Flea. You could easily find anyone you set your mind to, just like when you were always one step ahead of that Unicorn Prince, no matter where he went to hide and what form he took!”
“Mister Diamond Dog!”
The candlelight vanished. Two glowing red orbs and a crimson horn radiated before him, and he whimpered and ducked under the duvet. The satchel thumped onto the floor and knocked the jingling puppet.
“Am I an Enchantress, or am I an Enchantress? If I say I will take the time I need, then I shall –”
The Enchantress suddenly stiffened. A match struck against the door frame and drifted over to the candle. It had no aura around it.
“What? What did you do to me? I felt something… Ah!”
A part of the duvet rose up. Quartzphere’s gaze shot to the outline of the puppet. “Oh no.”
“You are not the Enchantress,” said a voice.
The candle was lit. The match shook itself out and bounced off the Enchantress’ hoof, which pointed at the puppet.
“Wh-What?” she managed to say. “Y-You…” She took a deep breath, but still her lips worked around words that didn’t want to come out. “Wh-What did you s-say?”
Carved features shouldn’t move, but the blank, vaguely happy face contorted into a scowl. “You weren’t even around when those tales were told. You have only been in the role for a few months.”
“But Enchantress well known!” Quartzphere hauled himself out from under the bed. “Enchantress appears in many stories, for hundreds and thousands of years.”
“Yes,” said the puppet. “No one – not even the great sorcerer Meadowbrook – has found a way to live an unnatural and long life. Certainly not young Selkie here.”
Silence reigned.
The Enchantress rammed her hooves together and spluttered a quiet oath. “Wh-What did you call me?”
“Your real name is Selkie. You were a secret apprentice to Augur, the previous Enchantress. The two of you made preparations in case of her untimely death. Wasn’t Augur caught out in a battle over here at some point last year?”
“Um…” Her chest swelled. “It-It is true I was wounded. The enemy had powers I hadn’t seen coming. But I received a call from an angel. He promised me that I would be reborn, strengthened and renewed. For days, I remained in a trance, meditating on my fate –”
The puppet grinned evilly. Its face said: I can see your stupid bluff. And I like it.
“Wounded,” said the puppet, “in a coma, and on her deathbed, all while never letting on that she – Augur – wasn’t the original Enchantress either. So, to keep the legend going, young Selkie sneaked in, inherited the title of Enchantress, and disposed of the body. I believe there’s a burial mound in the depths of the rainforest near a boulder. You carved words on that boulder: ‘A Great Hero, A Great Master, A Great Friend’.”
The Enchantress stared. Her aquamarine fur turned pale.
“Yes,” said the voice in a chuckle. “I know.”
“Who are you?”
“I am the one pulling the strings. The Crystal Puppet.”
Selkie tilted her head as though hearing something. Almost instantly, she was shaking her head and yelping.
“You… You can see my thoughts?” she said.
The Crystal Puppet closed its eyes. Four tiny hooves rose from the floorboards. “Once, I could dive into the depths of your soul. But now I merely glean from the surface. It takes all my effort just to keep this puppet and my mind in harmony. Minds and souls aren’t meant to be moved from their natural homes. That’s probably why I alone survived – OW!”
There was a clatter of crystal on wood. Selkie rubbed her hoof and bit her lip against the howl. The puppet was harder than she looked.
“Soothsayer! You think you can threaten the Enchantress – me – here and now, where no one will ever know you existed…”
Quartzphere gasped. The Enchantress stared at him, and then noticed the glow of her horn.
“I… I mean…” she said.
The Crystal Puppet sniggered. “I think I can threaten Selkie.”
Quartzphere shot to his feet. “Now, now! There’s no need for –”
“Diamond Dog, grow up! You still think this joker is the Enchantress? A thousand years of other mares’ work is all she’s got. Perhaps one or two of her predecessors had the stomach to turn a horn on us, but young Selkie here has a conscience. Now,” continued the Puppet, “I want my body back, and I’m not used to waiting. You want to find your missing foal. I don’t see why there has to be a song and dance about it.”
The Enchantress growled. “I am not your servant.”
“Knock knock. Who’s there. I. I who? I know your secret.”
“And who will you tell?” The horn glowed again.
The Crystal Puppet glared at her, and then hobbled over to the door. The glow outshone the candle.
“Stay there, puppet! I’m telling you to stay there!”
The Crystal Puppet stopped and turned its head. Slowly and deliberately, it raised a foreleg for the door. The glow intensified…
…and then fizzled out. A flare of panic went up in the Enchantress’ eyes.
“What did you do to my horn?” she said.
“No!” said Quartzphere, and then he covered his mouth as though he’d said a foul word.
“It’s another of my little tricks,” said the Puppet. “You’d be surprised how much magic relies on small things not being tweaked.”
She pushed the door open. The Enchantress surged forwards, and was face to face with Quartzphere.
“Don’t do anything to Puppet! She’s my friend.”
“I’m just going to restrain her. I won’t hurt anybody.”
“Just go help ponies. Please. Enchantress must help ponies in Temple! I have seen them too. They scream and cry, and I hear them in my dreams, and I know I carried them in the Temple, and then they stop screaming, but I still hear the screams. And tonight, there be more screams, and I am all the way over here in the Duende Inn, and I still hear them.”
The two stared at her. She glanced from one to the other.
Selkie sat down. “This is getting ridiculous. You! Come back in.”
The door shut. The Puppet placed itself opposite.
“If you’re that desperate, we’ll go tonight. But… But no more of that creepy mind stuff. It’s creepy.”
The Crystal Puppet grinned. “I’ll restrain the urge.”
It wandered out of the room. Quartzphere followed, with a glance back at Selkie. The door slammed.
Once the footsteps died away, she turned to the mirror. To her surprise, there were bags under the eyes that hadn’t been there before.
Her hoof went to her neck. She squeezed tight.
Quartzphere was barely through the arch before he took a desperate breath and clutched his chest. He rubbed his paws harder and harder, shaking his entire body to try and get rid of the smell.
“No gems are worth this,” he muttered. He snapped a diamond from his collar and threw it as hard as he could. “Blood diamond! Stupid diamond!”
“Psst.”
He spun around, ears stretched to the sky.
“Who… Who’s there?”
The Crystal Puppet peered through the furry leaves. “Not nice, is it?”
“You? But how did you escape chest?”
“I would have thought a smart canine like you would be able to figure that one out. Soothsayer? Special talents? Ring a bell?”
The Diamond Dog peered closer. “If you so smart, how come you still here? You struggle to escape from your chest?”
His jaws snapped shut. He struggled and tried to prise them free, but they stayed stuck in midair.
“I know you,” murmured the Crystal Puppet. “You want to run to the nearest town, cry out to every living thing, and point them to this temple. You think this is some kind of fantastic tale, and that however mucky your pack has become, you’ll triumph in the end. So you hold out here, working up the courage, not paying too much attention. Take it from me; you won’t get close. You’ll still remember the screams.”
The Dog swallowed. He fell back onto the pampas grass as the pressure was released from his jaws, and he massaged them. “You… know what I want?”
“Listen, earth mutt. To me, you might as well be an open book in a glass case. I can see your mind yanking on its own leash, begging to flee this temple. But you won’t do it. You see wings and hooves, and then darkness. And even if you could slip away from those two beasts and reach a village, you know what everyone thinks of earth mutts. They won’t hear a word you say. They’ll be too busy tying your noose to a sturdy-looking branch.”
Quartzphere clawed at his eyes, wiping the rain off his face. “And now I know why! Y-You say what is true. But why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need power. I have power. You need me to get out of here alive. You need me to keep your haunches safe at the other end. And I know something that’ll interest you.”
“What?”
“The whereabouts of the Enchantress.”
Quartzphere gasped. “The… The Enchantress?"
Overhead, a phoenix circled and shrieked at the grey sky. He glanced at the vegetation, and then back at the puppet. He knew where he could find his satchel. He knew, if he could unfurl the scrolls inside and see the Enchantress almost rise out of it… His heart thudded in his chest. He didn’t move.
The Crystal Puppet nodded. “It’s a good offer, but I’m in a hurry. Now, I suggest we make ourselves scarce.”
“What? Why?”
“Because a Timber Wolf is coming round the corner.”
Quartzphere spun round, almost hitting the pyramid stone as his claws stretched out.
Chipping fangs drooled sap. Leaves shivered in the wind. Branches creaked under the strides. Twig ears pricked and bark nostrils flared. The green eyes narrowed.
Both of them froze.
As the Timber Wolf threw back its head, Quartzphere seized its snout in one paw, muffling the howl. He lunged forwards. Bits of wood and green scraps flew. The Crystal Puppet winced at the crunches and finally looked away.
Quartzphere pushed the wiggling twig tail through his lips and swallowed. He shuddered, and turned around. Shavings and splinters dotted his mouth and arms, and bits of leg and teeth lay scattered around him.
“Go now?” he whispered.
The Crystal Puppet shook herself down and jumped onto his back. With a swift kick, she had him galloping over the pampas and vanishing into the forest. Vines snapped in his wake.
A few hours later, the howling began. Wooden paws thundered and teeth gnashed.
They marched through darkness, shoving aside nets of green and straining against the black surrounding them. Where the gaps of the ceiling of green were, tiny patches of grey could be seen. Everything pattered, and drops tapped their heads and backs. They may as well have been walking through water, so heavy and dank was the air.
While the red glow threw fronds and leaves aside, Quartzphere kept close to Selkie’s rear and his muzzle darted from branch to branch. It was all he could do not to whine.
“This is a bad place,” he muttered. “Wild place. So much green, I hold out my paw and think it’s emerald.”
“Just watch out for the spiders,” said Selkie, who threw her hood back. “One bite of an Amaponian Scythe Timer can kill you in seconds.”
Everything stank of damp. She glanced back and felt the weight of the dog almost crushing her, he was so close. She sighed.
“Sorry,” he said, and backed off.
“How did you end up in the Amaponian country?” she asked. “Northern Diamond Dogs prefer the old woods of home.”
“I end up here same as everyone else,” said Quartzphere. “New land, new life. My pack thrown out of old country by other packs. We came looking for gems to find and eat.” He spat. He took a quill and parchment from his satchel and began scribbling.
Selkie stopped to peer over her shoulder. Only when he nearly walked into her did she carry on magicking the tangles aside. “I’ve never seen a Diamond Dog writing before.”
“Yes, that is the old way of seeing us,” said Quartzphere without looking up. “Them Diamond Dogs, they cannot pick up paper without eating it. My pack, they like the old way, but they see the new way. They not like other packs. They say no alpha dog, no alpha pack, all packs bring their own cuts to the hoard. Old packs don’t like that. They say we thinking like ponies.”
“So why did you work for those… monsters?”
He rolled the scroll up and put it back in the satchel. “Old ways find you out in new world. Gems, fear, pushing nasty ponies around who hurt us? That reach in Diamond Dog soul, even if his mind thinks new thoughts.”
“You’ve gathered quite a few stories about me, haven’t you?” Her voice was carefully neutral.
“It’s my art. Back in old country, I get dogs from all under the ground to tell me stories. I dug all over, finding buried treasure, but in words, not gems. I met many ponies, too. Some tell me pony stories. When I can’t remember all the stories, some show me paper and quill, and so I use paper and quill. The rest just chase me with pike.”
He pulled out a scroll and offered it to her. “They how I learn of Enchantress!”
“You must have had quite a trip. You and the puppet, I mean.”
“We flee from temple and hide in many cottages. Then Crystal Puppet read minds, and she hear that the Enchantress looking for Naranja Pétalo, and at Duende Inn. So we find you and tell you, and here we are.” He sighed with a smile. “And here we are.”
She rubbed her forehead with her hoof, knocking against her horn. Despite all her work, cobwebs came away in veils.
“You fine?” Quartzphere stood on tiptoe to peer over her shoulder. “You stink really bad of sweat.”
“I’m just not used to the humidity.”
He smiled wanly. “I don’t care what Puppet say. You are Enchantress. That’s your legacy.”
“I never said it wasn’t.” Selkie flashed a grin and pushed through the undergrowth. “So, you’re not like the other Diamond Dogs. Like your pack, I mean. Do they bother you about it?”
He was silent. They continued further in silence.
“Sorry,” she said.
It may have just been the wind – though there wasn’t any – but she thought she heard a whisper say, “You don’t have to be sorry, Enchantress.”
She stepped on a log that cracked, and she froze.
The Timber Wolf threw itself away from her hooves and she screamed and reared back. Quartzphere snapped at the sight.
“No!” he shrieked, lunging forwards. The wolf swiped at him, shredding his left cheek and sending him flying. More howls echoed through the trees.
Selkie threw herself at the nearest trunk and was on a branch in seconds. The Crystal Puppet drifted up, hovering over a neighbouring branch.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Don’t you dare read my mind –”
Quartzphere clambered up after them, clutching his cheek as blood seeped between his paws. They stared down at the Timber Wolves, still clawing at the bark and snapping at them. Selkie embraced her branch until the splinters pricked.
“What are those things?” she shrieked.
“Tirek’s first sacrifices.” The Crystal Puppet looked down at them with a curl in her carved lip. “The animals were so good that he dragged them in by the cartload. They make for a very… resourceful army.”
Quartzphere howled and smothered his face with his paws. His body twisted and shook, and the branch threatened to crack away under him.
“Quartzphere!”
“Interesting.” The Crystal Puppet rubbed her chin with a tiny hoof.
“What’s going on with him?”
“Hold on.” The Crystal Puppet closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them wide. “There are two minds in there.”
“What?”
“A second mind is in there. It’s more… animal… than his. It’s trying to take over. It’s doglike. Moreso than his. And it doesn’t like us.”
“He can’t be taken over!” Selkie pulled up as snapping jaws nearly snagged her cloak. “He’s up here with us!”
Quartzphere lowered his paws. His eyes glowed green.
“It’s just like me,” said the Crystal Puppet, shrugging over her head. “Weird things happen when a mind leaves its body. It must be that Timber Wolf he ate earlier. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Will you stop that and try and help him?”
One of the Timber Wolves leaped up and snapped at the underside of Selkie’s hooves. The Crystal Puppet glared, and the wolf's head rolled off, leaving its body to shatter on a pack member’s body below. More wolves rocketed out of nowhere and began clawing at the trunk, snapping in their fallen comrade’s place. The Crystal Puppet groaned and sagged in midair. She almost fell, only to be scooped up by Selkie’s fast hoof.
The Crystal Puppet’s head snapped round on its neck, almost poking her nose to nose. “You can chip in any time, you know.”
Both of them jumped back. Quartzphere’s paw slashed, catching the cloak and tearing the fabric.
Then he drew back along the branch, clutching his head and groaning, closing his eyes. When they opened again, the green glow was gone.
“The Timber Wolf is winning!” He groaned and seized his head, scrunching his face. “Use your magic! Why aren’t you using your magic?”
Blue blurs shot past, and Selkie saw the world shoot past for a horrible second. She seized the branch with one hoof as the blue streaks shot up into the grey sky. The Crystal Puppet grabbed her cloak and dangled below her.
“Drat,” she said, spinning her neck all the way round. “Cobalt Eagles!”
Branches shivered around them and shiny lines of dirty gold slithered along the forest’s contours. Nearer ones shined with blue dotted eyes at the tips.
“Oh darn,” she said. “Copper Anacondas!”
Trees crashed and tumbled nearby. Something like an ice boulder charged through the green, tearing it up as it went.
“Oh, heck no!” she said. “Gristle Bears!”
“Gristle Bears?”
“You don’t want to know how they’re made. What are you doing?”
Selkie closed her eyes and began to whimper. She clutched at something around her neck. “I can do this, I can do this…”
She glanced down. The Timber Wolves were snarling and snapping, but the Gristle Bear was pushing its way through. Angry pink eyes turned up to her. She glanced around. Gleaming snakes unfurled and sparks flashed from fang to fang. She glanced up. Streaks of blue arced and zoomed over the canopy.
She glanced at Quartzphere’s green eyes, which shifted to red pupils in two pools of yellow.
“Enchantress!” He reeled back, and lashed out with a claw.
It stopped in midair. Green eyes narrowed and he peered down.
Crimson light flared in his face. The Timber Wolves howled and whined. The Gristle Bear roared. Selkie floated above everything, mane flowing over scrunched eyes. Her hoof and neck were lost in a red star. The leaves began to rustle. High winds flowed from all corners.
Cobalt wings drew back and threw forwards their blue talons.
The Cobalt Eagles stopped in midair. Black talons had enveloped them.
Giant eagle-like bodies flapped and hovered around Selkie like ghosts. Their heads were those of ponies, but with stretched snouts ending in hooks, yellow eyes with pinprick irises, and peacock-like feathers shaking from their heads and necks. They shrieked at the creatures, and closed talons. There were several cracks. Fragments of blue rained on the Timber Wolves’ faces.
The harpies flexed their black talons and dived screaming into the pack. Wing beats struck at the canopy. Snakes fell from the branches into the flailing black. The bear reared up, shaggy white claws slashing, and vanished in a frenzy of feathers. Wood splintered. Howls were suddenly cut off. Yelps and pattering feet faded away. The bear roared, and then yapped. Something exploded, and for a brief moment it seemed to be snowing.
The harpies’ cries vanished. As the gale whipped through the trees, it died down. The light faded away, and the ruby swung on its chain around the aquamarine neck. Selkie’s face collapsed.
It was then that Quartzphere fell past and hit the ground. Selkie opened her eyes and dropped onto all fours.
“You don’t even have magic of your own, do you?” whispered the Crystal Puppet in her ear. Selkie jumped back.
“I – what? Ow!” She seized her quivering horn with a hoof. “Don’t do that!”
The ruby flared, and the horn faded.
“I thought so!” The Crystal Puppet lay slumped next to her hoof, its legs twisted around each other, but its eyes narrowed. “You were very convincing last night, but still, that red glow, those spirit forms… I should have seen right through you. I don’t understand why I didn’t before. You’re not even a real unicorn.”
Selkie lowered her head, and then her eyes widened. She waved her hoof over her forehead, and gasped. The Crystal Puppet snorted and untangled itself.
“Yes, I’m not a unicorn. But this ruby,” said Selkie in a trembling voice, “just saved you.”
“Yes, yes it did.”
“So show some respect!”
“I am. Oh, I am.”
Selkie followed her gaze. “Don’t look at it like that. I don’t like the way you’re looking at it.”
“Oh you don’t, do you?”
There was a pause.
The Crystal Puppet frowned, and shook her head. They stared at each other.
“Something wrong?” said Selkie.
“N-No. No. Nothing’s wrong.” The Crystal Puppet waved her on. “On to the temple, O Mighty Enchantress.”
Selkie hurried over to the groaning figure of Quartzphere, and didn’t notice the glare the puppet was giving her. The Crystal Puppet traced a ring around her own neck, and smirked.
The temple stood quietly under the downpour. Mist rolled in so that distant mountains seemed to fade into nothing. Palm-like leaves shook and dribbled.
A hoof shifted a leaf aside and Selkie peered out, both eyes glowing as red as the ruby on her chest. She sniffed, and then yelped as Quartzphere pushed his way forwards to see. The Crystal Puppet, slumped over his shoulders and held in place with one paw, peered out from between his ears.
“Hurry up,” hissed the puppet. “I’m getting weaker. I can feel it slipping away.”
“Should we sneak in?” said Quartzphere.
“I thought you said there’d be guards.” Selkie’s ruby glowed brighter. A harpy, ghostly and a blur, swept over the pampas and through the village to the temple, where it drifted through the walls without regard for solidity.
A second harpy faded into existence and flapped up to the apex of the pyramid. It hovered, beating its incorporeal wings, and turned from the north to the east, then to the south, and then to the west. It flipped over and dived back to the ruby, along with the first harpy that sped through the wall and glided back. The two vanished.
Selkie frowned. “Just a few souls in the temple, and another few in the village, near the edge. They’re all ponies, though.”
“No one else?” said the Crystal Puppet.
“No. No Tirek or Scorpan. No Diamond Dogs. Not even any of those strange beasts.”
“We help villagers.” Quartzphere threw himself into a three-legged run, holding the puppet in place as its legs threw themselves around. “You check the temple.”
She watched him disappear among the thatched and tinder ruins, and stared up at what seemed to her an impossible mountain. It was a while before she could take her first few steps, and the pyramid never got closer no matter how long she felt she’d walked.
The archway was right in front of her. She clutched her ruby in one curled hoof, ignored the way it rattled as she trembled, and hobbled in.
The entire space was black, except for a tombstone of light radiating from the arch. Everything stank of mould and decay, and it stung her nose until she let go of her ruby and covered her face. She could hear steady breathing.
Selkie closed her eyes. The darkness she saw behind her lids ignited to red.
She opened her eyes to a prism of grey and green where rock and vine stood in a painting, locked in a fight for space. Torches now flickered and crackled around her. Only the altar like a round table was pure grey. Cracks ran along the floor from a dent near her.
All the slabs around her seemed level, but something felt wrong. She heard a sniff and turned to face a corner near the arch.
Ponies piled up against the sloping wall. They were packed so tightly that the spaces between one pony’s parts turned out to hold another pony’s parts like a puzzle. Apart from rising and falling chests, they were stiff and still, shoved out of the way and forgotten about.
Selkie tried to breathe out, but even her diaphragm was quivering. She wiped what she hoped was slick rain from her forehead, and almost yelped when she felt no horn there. It was then that her gaze drifted over to the other corner. Crystal puppets were piled up there.
She stared at the altar. Hadn’t she heard of stories like this? The Ahuitzotls on the beaches had stopped and lit campfires, and as they gathered around to crunch and chew who knew what, they told stories of their gods. Creatures that did things to the mind, powers that went beyond mere magic, and forces shaped into beings.
She held the ruby to her nostrils and sniffed. Faint scents of vanilla soothed her nose, driving out the decay and the stings until she could almost taste sugar.
No one was here. No one was going to ask. And now she’d pulled at a thread, hoping for a simple search and rescue, and now she was in a wretched ‘adventure’ and her opponents could shift minds.
The altar was much bigger up close. She could have laid down on it and rolled over completely at least twice, and she’d still have room for a salmon.
Her ruby glowed.
One of the ponies drifted up from the pile, shifting legs and heads out of the way, and bobbed up and down as it came close to the altar. A puppet rolled out of the other pile and zoomed towards her head. They both stopped inches from each ear, which flicked.
To her surprise, she was shaking even harder.
“It could be for the best,” she whispered to the ruby. “If I can do it, then I’m equal to them. And that’s a good thing. You never know. It might even be enjoyable. You don’t know until you’ve tried it. Just one. One can’t hurt, right?”
A thin thread slid from pony to ruby, and from ruby to puppet.
“We found ponies!”
Quartzphere’s shout echoed from all sides, and she dropped both bodies and spun around. He loped through the arch just as the red light vanished.
“We found ponies, but they not waking up.” He slammed all four paws against the ground and sat down next to her.
She followed his gaze to the altar. Both bodies had hit the edges, and she pushed the pony’s head onto the slab.
“Oh.” Selkie shrugged. “Good. I-I was just testing them, and I think they’ve been cursed. Those two brutes sure left in a hurry, didn’t they?”
The Crystal Puppet, still splayed over the hairy back, strained against gravity to lift her neck. Carved eyes narrowed at Selkie, pupils darting from recumbent puppet to sleeping pony and back. Selkie turned away from them and focused.
A flash of red filled the temple and blinked out of existence. Groans and yawns filled their ears.
Selkie and Quartzphere cantered over to the pile and, with slow hooves and paws, shifted the fidgeting bodies to the wider floor. The clop of hooves pattered like rain on a glass window. Soon, many bodies were standing up.
“There’s a foal here,” said the Diamond Dog, holding it up to the light. Half an orange was on its flank. Selkie nodded and grinned.
The Crystal Puppet was on its knees and standing barely level with their ankles, but still the glare was on its face. Selkie almost backed away.
“Oh come on,” Selkie said. “I was asked to find Naranja Pétalo and take her back. We don’t know where those two beasts have gone, not in that sprawling green death trap. They could be at the coast by now, for all we know.”
“You were also asked to get my body back. I’m pretty sure my body isn’t made of crystal.”
Selkie gritted her teeth and covered her ears.
The Crystal Puppet bared its chipped teeth. “I don’t know what’s going on with my head – whether you’re doing something, or whether controlling this blasted body is sucking me dry – but I know what I saw you doing just now, and it wasn’t to test for sleeping spells.”
A bolt of red shot out and scorched the slab next to the crystal hoof. Selkie’s wide eyes and gaping mouth clammed up quickly before her gasp could escape, but she secretly knew; that moment when the Crystal Puppet actually jumped back a whole yard would be treasured forever on dark nights. She stomped forwards.
“N-No. No! I’m not putting up with any more of this… this mind trickery stuff! I said NO!” Selkie’s eyes flared red. The puppet fell back onto her haunches. “I don’t care if you spread the word from tundra to tropics. If I go looking for those two…” She glanced at Quartzphere. “When I go looking for those two, then I’ll do it on my own terms.”
“Please leave Enchantress alone. Please!” Quartzphere bent down so his nose was level with the puppet’s. “She’s not a bad pony. She’s helping us.”
“Do I have – ouch – to remind…” The Crystal Puppet slumped. “To remind you… of what I can do?”
All the ponies standing around, still rubbing their heads and yawning, suddenly went stiff. The Crystal Puppet grinned at the slabs beneath her. Several ponies gathered round.
The foal known as Naranja Pétalo snapped to attention. “Rego?” she asked. “Rego, is that you? Ow!”
She winced and tried to scrape her own ears off. Several ponies hit their skulls and groaned in an outbreak of silent pain.
“What are you doing?” said Quartzphere.
“No, Rego, stop it!” howled Naranja Pétalo. “I can’t take it anymore! Stop whispering in my ears!”
“– will take the ruby off her neck,” muttered the puppet, and then she put a hoof over her mouth. “Did I just say that out loud? Oh darn.”
Naranja Pétalo looked down at her for the first time. It took an eternity for the foal to figure out what she was seeing. Selkie and Quartzphere jumped when the little mare burst into laughter.
“Now I see everything!” she boomed. “Rego, once mighty bully, a puppet? Will wonders never cease? Did you do it, señora?”
“She’s rambling,” said Quartzphere.
“Shock,” said Selkie. “I think.”
“This ‘señora’,” hissed the Crystal Puppet, pointing at Selkie, “couldn’t conjure a bean without that stolen jewellery.”
“So what?” Naranja Pétalo nudged the puppet with a hoof. “I remember you, Rego. I remember your ‘natural’ powers. Getting into ponies’ minds, throwing things around without touching them – you could have been an Enchantress yourself, if you’d had the cojones to take on anyone like you.”
“Come on,” said Selkie gently, easing the foal’s foreleg over her cloaked shoulders. “Quartzphere, grab this other leg. Let’s go home, little mare. You’re delirious.”
“Far from it! I am as clear in my mind as I ever be. She only ever ruined our villages and towns, asking for anything and everything, and then if we didn’t… she thought she was the big boss in our world, she did. Even when we up and moved here on the ships, the crew were no better than slaves to her. Well, it didn’t help our villages, did it? Didn’t care enough to stop those monstruos del infierno until it was your neck on the line, did you? Look what all your power got you, little puppet!”
As they ambled away from the herd, they pretended she wasn’t talking to empty air with half-closed eyes. Selkie was looking anywhere other than at the mouth still flapping beside her face.
“So I don’t give un maldito if this Enchantress earth pony couldn’t light a fire without help. She saved us, not you, and that’s all I need to know.”
The ruby glowed, and Naranja Pétalo’s eyes closed. Her head bumped into Quartzphere’s.
“Ow!” He growled and then stopped himself when he remembered who he was growling at. “Enchantress! Why you put her to sleep?”
They walked in silence, finally entering the humid air outside. They stopped to rest, panting with the foal weighing down their backs.
“Do you think all that stuff is true?” said Selkie. “About the village, I mean?”
“I don’t know Crystal Puppet well enough, but I hope not.”
They listened to the distant chorus of birds. “Quartzphere, do you ever wonder if you might be wrong about people?”
The Diamond Dog blinked at her. “What kind of question is that?”
“I don’t know. All this hatred, and fear, and… and all the other horrible stuff. I think of the harpy spirits, and I think: what if we didn’t have to second-guess all the time? What if we just made people like Rego good and happy? That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t know. Don’t think so, somehow.”
The phoenix’s song burst through their ears. It ripped at the sky, hacked and slashed at their ears, and seemed to throw their insides until they spread out their limbs to stop the earthquake.
“Well, the harpies are powerful,” shouted Selkie over the screeches. “They don’t have agendas of their own. They just help. But they can’t help the stuff hidden in pony minds. If I learned a bit more magic, I could create harpies that could hunt down the… the dark places inside. They could encourage harmony and cooperation, and they could do it by eating away all the hatred and fear. It wouldn’t be like that puppet!” Selkie withered under Quartzphere’s glare. “It’d be helping ponies, not using them like toys. The harpies don’t do anything they’re not told to do.” She stroked her chin. “Maybe I could make new kinds. Name them after myself. I could make my own legacy, you know?”
The phoenix stopped screeching and zoomed into the grey, fading from view.
Quartzphere shook his head sadly. “Enchantress, this is not good thinking. Tirek and Scorpan wanted to make new kinds. See what they did.”
Selkie glared at him, and then pretended to watch the shifting shadows of the mountains. Quartzphere laid the foal down and put his paw on her shoulder.
“It has been an honour to meet you, living legend,” he murmured. “You have a good legacy, and many tales. That’s more than I have. More than my whole kind have.”
“But none of those tales are mine,” she said to the mountains. “I have no legacy. I’m nobody. Yet.”
“But you are. You are Enchantress.”
“No, I’m not!” She thrashed her head from side to side and stared at the earth. “I mean… I’m not. I never was, and I never will be.”
They didn’t move for a while.
Quartzphere didn’t say anything, and he certainly didn’t sigh. Yet, Selkie sensed something die in him, and his paw barely felt like it was there anymore.
He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and shuffled back inside the temple, sniffing as he did so.
“You don’t understand,” she whispered when she was sure he was gone. “I’d be nothing like those monsters.”
The cloaked unicorn lay on the bed, breathing slowly and weakly. She was sprawled on her back.
There were other beds, but they remained empty mattresses on frames. Only one table had been left behind. Nothing moved; even the spiders avoided the stone here. The healers had slid the oak door shut on their way out, but the silky echo still haunted the room. Everything from the slopes of the roof to the bloodstained blocks of stone beneath the beds was either gray or brown. This was a room where colours went to die.
Sheets crumpled at the foot of the bed. Her horn flickered, but the silver light inside died. A corner merely wafted in some unseen breath of air.
A red glow spread the sheets over her. A second glow adjusted her head so that it was dead centre on the pillow.
“I can’t do this,” whispered Selkie, kneeling next to her.
If she strained her ears, she could just make out the whisper of the gust of a breath from those fair lips. She swallowed something trying to claw up her throat.
“Don’t die. Don’t die. Please, I can’t do this…”
The room was silent. There was only a travelling cloak laid down on the table next to the bed. It was all Augur had ever needed. Selkie was just an aquamarine mare standing over the bed.
“I’m not even a real pony, for goodness’ sakes. How can I be the Enchantress?”
The body said nothing.
“Look at what I did with this.” Selkie held up the chain. Beneath her hoof dangled the ruby. “So many screams and outcries – I still hear them when I sleep. I just wanted to help, and then I just wanted some time to myself, and then I… I don’t know what happened. They just made me so tired, so angry. And when they banished me… I nearly did worse.”
Her hoof glowed white as it clenched harder.
“I wanted to do worse! I wanted to take down that shield and let those wretched ships crush every last one of them! Augur, what if I had? How can I be an Enchantress? I’ve only been at this for a year. Why did you give me this? I can’t do anything you can.”
Still, the body said nothing. Selkie peered at the window, which showed nothing outside and just made the entering light as brown as the room. She turned back to the body.
“I know what you want me to do, and I’m here to tell you… to tell you…” She tried looking at the eyes, but they were closed. She wasn’t used to seeing those brilliant red eyes closed. “I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I can’t take your place. I’m not going to. You’re going to be fine. I promise. You’re going to be fine. Here.”
The ruby glowed, and a wave of red washed up and down the blanket and across Augur’s face. Selkie frowned. A second wave washed up, faster than the first. She nearly creased her brow into her nose. The third wave was a bar of blood bulldozing up the bed, compressing the blanket as it went and sinking the head slightly into the mattress.
The glow vanished. Selkie couldn’t stop staring at her.
“Why did you go up against those monsters?” she whispered. “Why? You knew they were gods, and you still did it. I could have done it.”
And when I failed, no one would have missed me.
Once more, the body said nothing. Selkie held back a grimace.
“At least let me be myself. Here and now. I owe you that.”
The red wave washed over her body. The forelegs shrunk, but as it washed over her back legs, they faded away. A spine-like tail curled and lowered towards the ground. She was a tripod on shaking limbs.
The sea pony stared at the bed.
“Just like when you found me, huh?” she murmured. “When I almost drowned on air, beaching myself to reach you. I never forget that day. You… You were so beautiful. Even with the scars, I couldn’t look away from your face. No wonder they still tell tales about you.”
She let one chuckle pass, and it died as it fell from of her lips.
“Thank you,” she whispered, touching the ruby. “Thank you for helping us when we asked. And thank you. For helping me… when I asked. You forgave me even when my tribe didn’t. Heaven knows why. But you did what you had to do. I guess.”
The tail faded away under the red glow, and four legs stood up again.
She paced the side of the bed, trying to control her breathing. She took a breath, and stared at the face, but something tugged inside her, and she paced again. Several minutes passed.
“I…” Selkie sniffed and wiped her face. She gulped, her heart pounding at her ribs. She tried to stand still, tried to stand authoritatively, like an enchantress. “I never… told you my real name, did I? Augur? Augur?”
She stopped and strained her ears. Augur’s chest was still. The breathing was gone.
“No… No, you can’t go. Wake up!”
A red light beamed from her horn and passed over the chest. She listened.
Selkie lunged at the shoulders and shook the body. “No! No, this isn’t happening! Wake up! WAKE UP! I need you! Don’t leave me here! PLEASE!”
Realization hit her, and it twisted her insides, letting Augur fall away and forcing Selkie to the cold stones below. She was howling, trying to force it out as hard as she could, trying to hold Augur together in her mind even as the thoughts and daydreams and words fell apart. This was worse than falling into fire.
She tried to rip herself out of her own heart, make it stop, make the world say it was just a dream. Everything crushed her face and burned her cheeks and eyes, and she gritted her teeth, trying to bite through her own skull. She smothered her nose and mouth with her hooves and tried not to breathe, because every time she did, her whole body quaked and it had to stop.
She lay there for a long time, still throbbing in every pore. She refused to get up and face the bed. She tried not to think of the bed.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” She thumped a slab. It stung, but at least it wasn’t this.
Hours must have passed. Vaguely, she was impressed no one had come in, for all the screaming. But then, they always did what the Enchantress said.
Enchantress…
She took several deep breaths, letting the sweet air wash in like it had the first time. She breathed out gently, enjoying the calm warmth over her tongue.
She wiped her eyes, letting a sob burst out. The ruby glinted, and the red glow washed over her. She forced herself onto all four hooves. Her shoulders wouldn’t stop shaking.
The bed glowed. She turned to the wall, tapping at a random stone. A slab rolled back into darkness. Augur had chosen this room specifically.
Selkie waited until the sob left her throat free.
“Siren,” she whispered to her hooves. “My real name is Siren.”
Selkie shuffled through the gap, ducking to avoid the ceiling, and lowering Augur so that she could glide through. She suppressed a sob. There was work to be done.
