I Cast a Deadly Shadow
They do not know where I am yet, or else I would now be in their hooves. Good. But I must not sleep.
My small natural gas burner makes a poor incinerator, but it is all I have to destroy my notes. As the flame consumes the last page, I turn to the array of beakers and flasks before me. Their contents must also be destroyed, or someone matching my intellect may reverse-engineer my creation. Seizing a large mixing bowl from the kitchen, I begin emptying everything into it, until all that remains is a foul-smelling ooze the color of bile.
I will be the only mortal to have ever possessed this power.
The only document I allow to exist is the letter I will leave behind. The press will publish it, for they can do no other thing. The world will know, and will understand.
But will they really? I begin scrutinizing it again, making sure every letter, comma, and page number is in its place. Yes—my story is told here. Despite the exhaustion and adrenaline, the words bring me back to the first night after I perfected the formula.
* * *
I faced the coming trial with deathly apprehension. Scientifically, there was nothing of a toxic quantity in its composition. But suppose the ensuing visions were too much for a mortal mind, and my sanity broke? I took the only possible precautions, laying upon a mattress spread on the floor, and removing anything I might strike against if I thrashed about. But it was still with shaking hooves that I measured out the fluid and quaffed it.
It was not long before my vision began to blur, and I felt myself being pulled from sense—not drifting off, but shutting down quite rapidly. With one final blink, I found myself in an inky void.
But not for long, as soon the dream-place assumed a violet hue, surrealy textured as by an abstract painter’s brush. From nowhere appeared points of pale blue light, which grew in number until they speckled the void as stars do the night sky. I realized I was drifting among these, in a direction my mind perceived as “upward,” though there was no such thing there. As I happened to draw nearer to one of these, I could make out details within them. Here, a grey earth pony was flung a tremendous distance like a catapult stone, only to land with just a slight bump. There, a red unicorn galloped toward a glittering city that never seemed to grow nearer.
The experiment was a success. These were the dreams of Equestria.
And then, fatefully, I saw somepony familiar: white coat, blue mane, sturdy build. My sometime friend, Shining Armor. Girded for battle, he stood in the middle of a broad cavern carved in green soapstone and lit by glowing emeralds that jutted from the high ceiling. With blasts of battle-magic, he fended off swarms of shadowy figures that menaced him from all directions. When he fended them off on one side, they would close in on another, and he would turn to face these as others approached from his now unprotected flanks.
But they retreated at my approach, and in a moment we were alone in the cavern. He turned to face me, bemused.
If my first encounter in a dream-state had been with a stranger, things might have ended differently. But the very image of this pony brought up strong emotions, which in retrospect may have been amplified by the formula. Chief among these was not anger, as I might have expected. Anger is an exhausting thing to hold for too long, and so it fades in the course of time. What I felt then was resentment, which does not fade, but may quietly fester for years, like the innards of a dead tooth.
Perhaps I should have turned and left. But something compelled me to approach him. I said nothing at first, and he stood in awkward silence, making no sign of greeting.
He did not recognize me.
I stopped a body-length away, and spoke with as even a tone as I could. “Hello, Shining. Old buddy. Old pal.”
At this, recognition dawned on his features. “Poindexter? Poindexter! Dude!” He smiled, as if actually glad to see me.
“Do not call me that,” I said.
“Oh, sorry.” He addressed the place where my chin should have been. “Uh… Gizmo. Gizmo, right?”
After everything, he barely remembered my real name. For a moment, I was too angry to even speak.
He cleared his throat rather loudly. “Haven’t seen you since, uh…”
“Since Cadenza got to you,” I said.
“I… well, more or less, I guess.” With a forehoof, he scratched an unarmored part of his head. “Too bad I ran out of time for Ogres & Oubliettes, but you know how it is.”
“Never mind,” I said. “Those were foalish games, in aid of nothing. You and the others all went away in the end.”
“I…” He found the nerve to look me in the eye again. “You’re right. I’m sorry I lost touch.”
This was too much. I leapt forward and stamped at the ground, teeth bared. “Oh, you’re sorry! You’re sorry! Of course you are, once I bring it up.”
He raised a forehoof, perhaps involuntarily. “Hey, chill…”
“Chill, you say! I let myself be humiliated in front of our entire school so you could get Cadenza’s attention. And I brazened it out, because that’s what friends do. You might have at least tried to return the favor.” This referred to an incident at the senior prom, which I preferred not to think about.
He went a little red at this, as well he should. “Okay, okay, look. Cadance is an expert on this stuff, so maybe…”
I dismissed this nonsense with a wave of a hoof. “Never mind. The pony who would be seen in public with someone as ugly as me has not been born.”
He began reciting the usual lies about inner beauty, self-improvement, and so on, which it is pointless to relate. It occurred to me to teach him a lesson. A good enough scare, and he would not forget me so easily.
Ignoring him, I concentrated on the illusory stone ceiling, for in a lucid dream, one with the right sort of mind can make anything happen. Shining’s blather stopped at the noise of a great rumbling and cracking from above. All at once, blocks of stone dislodged from the ceiling and fell, landing all about the cavern, except in the exact place where I stood. Shining’s horn flared, but too late: A stone struck him on the head, followed by several more, nearly as large as he was. When the ensuing dust settled, no more could be seen of Shining Armor.
For a long moment, I stared at the pile of rocks where he had been, expecting some noise or movement. But there was none. I supposed the shock had jolted him awake.
Something about it all struck me as humorous, and I found myself chuckling. “Bad luck, old friend. Lethal damage. Care to roll up another?”
* * *
I awoke to the thumping of bass notes—the work of the disk jockey next door. I had on several occasions explained to her that the noise bothered me, and each time the idea seemed to take at first. But it had always started again after a few weeks, or even days. She could give no explanation, being unable to speak, and I could not be bothered to learn sign language for the sake of one pony.
Having rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I resigned myself to the chore of complaining again. But as I emerged from the front door of my home, my hoof struck the early edition of the Daily, which had already been delivered. Looking down at it on reflex, I saw the headline.
“PRINCE SHINING ARMOR FOUND DEAD.”
I stopped, frozen, my mind blank for a moment. I wondered whether this were not also a dream, into which I had falsely awakened. But no—I, and the ground, and the paper, were as solid as any matter. My complaint forgotten, I picked up the paper.
“… Discovered in bed this morning… massive blunt trauma to the head and spine… murder weapon not yet discovered… he is survived by…”
I read it once, twice. My mind whirling, I lowered the paper and sat staring into space as my mind reached for some logical conclusion. At last, the facts could be distilled into only a single conclusion.
“I did that.”
At the sound of my own out-loud thinking, I glanced about for anyone who might have overheard. Finding no one, I bolted indoors and turned the key in the lock. I must have spent some thirty minutes pacing, running through the events and their ramifications. The formula was much more effective than I had imagined. How had they had such dramatic effects on the waking world? It was clearly dangerous, and for a moment I considered destroying my work.
Then again, modern science did not really understand electricity, which could also be dangerous. But science found more uses for it every year. No, I would wait and consider what might be done with this.
What about ethics? To my surprise, I felt little remorse for what I had done. I had not always been so cold-blooded, I was sure. But the pony is a social animal, and too many years without friendship lead to alienation from one’s fellow beings. It was of course a pity about his wife and foal, but Cadance would find a replacement. They usually did.
My eye caught the clock on the wall, and my pacing halted. Curse it all—I was late for market day.
Knowing I must not take the least chance of arousing suspicion, I gathered my wagon and its contents and set off for the high street, taking care not to hurry too much, so as not to risk damaging the glass medicine bottles I sold. Soon I had reached my place, and had set up just in time to catch the morning’s first wave of customers. For the next few hours, I was too preoccupied with filling prescriptions and dispensing common medicines to think about the night’s developments. But then, a few minutes before the midday break—
“Yoohoo! Hello, Mr. Small-and-Handsome.”
It was the last pony I wanted to see—spotless off-white coat, long eyelashes, immaculate purple mane, flirtatious expression. Just like the last time, and the time before.
“And how are you this lovely day?” Her pretense of caring was less convincing every time.
“Fine,” I said, “just fine.”
“Wonderful! And it’s always delightful to bump into fine ponies on a fine day, don’t you agree?”
“Yes.” I wished she would get it over with.
“Of course, a fine and generous stallion would not begrudge a lady a few little bits for a necessity.”
That meant she would buy her usual headache pills at cost. As always.
A moment later, as she walked off with my labor in her saddlebag, I considered the facts. I could have said no this time, but I had set a precedent before, and would no doubt have been asked to provide some explanation for changing my mind now. Besides, the rest of the town were taken in by her pretense, and in small towns it was unwise to be right when everyone else was wrong.
There is only so much insult or injury one person can take before he turns on the perpetrator. At this moment, I ceased to care about any consequences or remaining ethical qualms.
This, I decided, would not stand.
* * *
“Oh, heavens! Get it away!” She recoiled, horrified, from the mirror I had placed before her.
“Don’t you like it?” I could not keep a mean little smile from creeping onto my muzzle.
She half-turned away and waved a hoof at the mirror. “Dreadful! It’s…”
“It’s you, if you had been born as ugly as me.”
She looked sidelong at the mirror and began hurriedly thinking out loud—lying to herself. “All right, all right, I can still work with this. I can… I can…”
“It’s not so bad.” Latent anger began to creep into my voice. “Of course, you wouldn’t be able to manipulate others. In fact, they would ignore you unless you were useful to them. And ignore you again when you weren’t.”
She did not seem to be listening, as something drew her attention to her hooves. “Oh dear—mud.”
“Quicksand, actually.”
In the time it took to say this, she was knee-deep. She tried to raise one forehoof, but the slightest movement pulled her farther down.
She looked to me, eyes wide, trying in vain to maintain composure. “Um, do you suppose you might…”
I turned to the side so she could not meet my gaze. In the corner of my eye, I saw the sand had reached her barrel. “Even so, I think I would rather be me than you.”
Now struggling in panic, she screamed aloud, “Whatever I did, I didn’t mean any harm!”
“Eventually,” I said, “there are always consequences for manipulating others. Besides, you’re bad for business.”
Only the head was now visible above the sand. “I’m sorry! Let me make amends! I can…” Her next lies were blocked by a mouthful of sand. There was only a repulsive gagging noise.
“Sure, I could ban you from my shop, or insist you pay full price. But you’re popular and I’m not. It is a small town, after all.”
To this, the only answer was the spastic shaking of a raised hoof as it vanished beneath the surface.
“Goodbye, Rarity. You’ll be missed, but not by me.”
* * *
“RARITY DEAD AT 29.”
The press, I noted, were fast in the modern age. But they were also more sensationalized, judging by the summary below the headline.
“Well-known fashion designer found suffocated. Foul play suspected.”
The article made clear that the authorities had no idea how the deed was done, or so it seemed. Over morning coffee, I considered the facts again.
I had never before harmed another pony, but now had committed two killings in two nights. It was easier the second time. I found myself surprised at how little the thought bothered me.
Well, why not? They went in their sleep, and were not in pain for long. I had quietly suffered their abuses for years, and their troubles were now over. It was I who was merciful.
But what now? I could certainly not patent my formula. I supposed I could hide or destroy my work, and carry on as if nothing had happened.
Then again, why? There was no evidence for the authorities to trace, and I could strike anywhere in Equestria; perhaps even beyond it. And should I go on living alongside so many parasites, constantly tormented by the thought of them?
It was all too much to think on in one place, and so I decided to take the morning off and jaunt about the outskirts of town to clear my head. The morning was just cool enough to be pleasant, and the dew still glistened on the grass on either side of the back roads. I saw no one else until the postmare, bubbly as ever, crossed my path and stood aside as I passed. Though neither of us had ever caught the other’s name, she smiled and waved.
To my surprise, I found myself deciding that, as she was so agreeable, I would let her live. As I met more ponies on the way, the thought went through my mind again and again: I will allow you to live… and you… and you…
And by the time I reached home, I had decided who would be the next exception.
* * *
—“Hello, Fleur.”
—“Oh, um, hello.”
—“Don’t you know me?”
—“I… don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure…”
—“Oh, come now—even you couldn’t forget a face as ugly as mine.”
—“I’m sorry, I…”
—“So they always say.”
—“Look, why are you here?”
—“I’m here because I hate you.”
—“Why?”
—“Because you were born rich and beautiful. It was all given to you. I hear you became a model for a while, then married young and retired. Meanwhile, I worked myself to the bone for years just to become a chemist in a small town.”
—“I… well, would you not do the same?”
—“Fate gives, Fleur de Lis, and Fate takes away.”
—“What exactly… do you mean?”
—“Back then, there were rumors you ended up in a lot of different beds.”
—“How dare you!”
—“Well, now you’re going to sleep with something else.”
—“What… No! No, stop! Help!”
—“The fishes.”
* * *
“SANDPONY STRIKES AGAIN.”
“Equestria’s first serial killer in over a century targeting well-known white unicorns.”
So, the authorities had begun to examine my wake in earnest. Strangely, it had not occurred to me that my victims were all white unicorns, famous in one way or another. I laughed aloud at how easily the papers were misled by the coincidence. But if I broke this pattern, it might have put them closer to my real trail. For a moment I considered knocking off Fleur’s husband as well, to keep my pursuers on the false trail.
But no, I decided, it was best not to grow too self-assured. I would go to ground, staying quiet, living a normal life. The killings would end as mysteriously as they had begun. I would get away with everything.
At this moment my thoughts were interrupted by an annoying and familiar sound: synthetic bass notes, thumping over from next door. That tartarian disk jockey was at it again. I found myself growing more convinced she was purposely annoying me.
I decided there would be time for one more after all.
* * *
I met her in the ruins of an ancient outdoor amphitheater, carved into the earth. Her only instrument here was a bass drum, which she slowly drummed upon with her hooves. She stared into space as she did this, as though lost in thought. I drew near, in no particular hurry.
“Vinyl Scratch?”
She ceased drumming, turned to me, and nodded.
“I’m going to kill you.”
Her expression showed no fear, and her hooves did not so much as shift. She looked at me a moment, and then shook her head.
“What?” I said.
With a forehoof, she pointed upward at an angle, toward something behind me. I turned to look, and beheld a figure standing upon a tower of dark cloud: horn, wings, blue coat, glittering mane, judging eyes.
She had heard me declare my intent.
In an instant, terror nearly overwhelmed me. I shut my eyes tight and ordered my own mind, Wake up wake up wake up wake…
I awoke—gasping, bleary. She had seen me! I cursed my idiocy at not having changed my appearance in the dreamscape. I leapt to my hooves and began pacing, trying to calm myself with the thought that she had seen me from a distance, and only for a moment. But even so, if I fell back asleep she would surely pick up my trail again. And if she had seen me clearly, she would describe me to the authorities, who would now be scouring every city in the nation for the Sandpony. My face, so singularly ugly, would be easy to spot.
I soon formed a plan. By the time I fell asleep again, I must be outside the Equestrian border. I would destroy my work, and leave behind a letter explaining my motives. I set about mixing the most powerful caffeine drink I could, and steeled myself for the task ahead.
* * *
The last of the compounds drains from the flask and into the mixing bowl. The deed is done. I use the flask as a paperweight for the letter, put on my saddlebags, and turn to leave my home for the last time.
And there in the doorway, bearing an expression of iron, Princess Luna stands.
Who can tell how long we stand in utter silence? Why does she wait in these bitter seconds? Let her destroy me, if only to let them end. At last she speaks a single word.
“Surrender.”
Despite everything, I begin to regain my speech. “But how?”
“Your awakening was false. You are still asleep.”
There it is. In the waking world, my letter is not written and my work is not destroyed. No doubt they are closing in on my physical body. But someone must be told, before the inevitable comes.
“Do you want to know why this happened, Highness?” I say.
“You have the right to speak in your defense.”
“It happened because no one listened.” I look her in the eyes as I speak, so she knows I am not lying.
One of her brows rises ever so slightly.
“Yes, no one listened… no one cared about little Gizmo. Not unless they found me useful. And once I was of no more use, I was discarded like trash.” Though I try to maintain composure, a surge of bitterness manifests in a hoof-stomp. “I was not born a killer, Highness.”
“So it may be,” she says evenly. “Even still, you know the meaning of the law.”
“The law!” I give a single bark of sardonic laughter. “I’ve read about you, Highness. You know what it’s like, and you lashed out against a world that mistreated you.” As I speak, an idea comes to mind. She wishes to apprehend me, for the court and the dungeon. I will not allow her the chance. My next words are emphasized. “But now you’re here to punish me for the same thing. You’re nothing but a hypocrite!”
“It is true that the guilt was mine,” she says, “but I paid for it, and have never ceased making amends. Trust well, it is better if you surrender peacefully.”
An immortal would know better. She is lying, like the rest of them. I know what must be done.
In a sudden burst of movement, I dodge toward the table upon which the mixing bowl sits. She leaps toward me, wings spread and horn glowing, but too late. I seize the bowl, and in an instant swallow several disgusting mouthfuls. For while the formula’s compounds were safely measured for the purpose, they are toxic in large amounts.
A burst of white magic uselessly rips the bowl from my hooves. I crumple to the floor to await the inevitable, which comes with merciful swiftness. As the formula stole consciousness, so the poison steals the spirit. I can’t move and Luna’s voice is distant and my vision blurs oh no let me take it back I don’t want to die help me oh please help me I can’t breathe I can’t