//------------------------------// // Interlude - Questions and Answers // Story: Bad Mondays // by Handyman //------------------------------// The ash burst from the ground, it had lain there uncounted eons for all she knew, time didn’t matter in this place as much as it did back in Equestria. It wasn’t entirely mystical, or whatever the dreamscape Luna entered into was, even now she didn’t fully understand what Luna was trying to explain to her, but learned enough the hard way to heed her advice on such things. Neither was it truly a physical place. Time did not matter here, at least not at first, one never suffered for hunger or thirst, but experienced both. A mile could span continents and you could cross a mountain in minutes. There was no sun and no moon and no stars by which one could judge direction. It was at once a crossroads and a deadend from which you might not ever escape, depending upon the mood of the masters of this world. It was the perfect prison… Usually. Which was why Celestia was now making a personal visit to this realm of ash and dust. She took in a deep breath, the air dry, with the eerie, scratchy odorlessness of a world that was not dead since it had never truly lived. Tartarus was the name Equestrians called it, a term of which Celestia did not recall the origin. Not its true name, for that nopony knows, and none of the residents dare speak it. It was here, under ancient compact, that it was agreed that there be no permanent portal between Tartarus and the fragile world Equestria called home, except for the one gate and its one guardian of three. It was an agreement older than she was, and one she dared not trespass. But Tirek had escaped. He escaped here, the ultimate prison, which held those who could not be dealt with by normal means, and that which could not be destroyed but could not be allowed freedom in a living world. Before she had pegged it to the wizard exploiting some loophole, or finding one of the rare, but not unheard of temporary portals to Equestria. The odds were against it, but it was possible. Maybe she chose to believe that to avoid speaking to the lords of Tartarus. Yet here she was. She let out a breath and continued walking. The ash wastes beneath her barely passed by her hooves, her horn glowed to light her way and tie her to the anchor which would guide her back. If the lords of Tartarus wanted to speak with her, she would soon find out. Mountains of shale passed by in the distance in a blur, as the ash barely lifted with each hoofstep. The ‘clouds’ shifted in colour and hue, but to no shade she could identify, not reflecting light but hiding whatever baleful source of light kept everything in this land without shadow hideously visible. The Scenery shifted once, twice, thrice each time she blinked. Rolling hills, salted flatlands, craggy mountains till at last she came by the dead root. Once upon a time, such things may have connected and given life to some unfathomably large tree as its tendrils reached into the dead earth around her. But not here, not this root, for nothing living has ever called this world home except for those trapped here, and no life could this world ever give. Nothing save for the lords. There were three sets of three, all of them haunched figures, their cloth coverings seemingly made of rock, so still and solid they looked, shifting only when their unseen heads moved, blending in seamlessly with the rocks upon which they were perched. The tendrils of the dead root split into hundreds of thousands, creating a forest of dead wood, shielded from the heavens by the bulk of the root above them. The stillness of it all never failed to unnerve her. She did not speak, this was not her place, so she stood there waiting to be addressed. After what felt like an age, though through her connection to the anchor she knew only to be an hour, one of the haunched figures turned, the darkness within it spoke to her in a voice once young but nevermore. “What is it you seek, lone one?” it asked. Its forelegs outstretched, clutching the rock upon which it sat, its skin gnarled and stoney. “I seek wisdom.” Celestia answered. There was a sudden, shrill cough, one of them had laughed. “Wisdom!” said a voice once hoary and ancient, now only tired. “Do not we all!? There is no wisdom here, child, not anymore. You search in vain” “Please, I only wish to know of something which you may have seen in the past.” Celestia asked. “And about how one of my- your, prisoners, escaped.” “Let her ask,” said a third voice from the third set of three, a voice once beautiful but now only the barest rasp of dust and ash. “It is not our place to forbid the youth from their foolish quests. Were not we once all judges of many such a creature? Were we once not amused by their folly?” “Judges no more!” said another voice, mournful and distant, “The spindles are split, the weave is unwoven, no one is bound to our chains of silk and cotton. Not anymore. Not since He split the wheel and conquered the hand of death.” Not for the first time did Celestia feel utterly lost from listening to the Lords of Tartarus bicker back and forth. Their voices grated, the oppressiveness of Tartarus was magnified in their presence, and the longer she lingered, the more the red river to the South drew her attention. Her eye flickered to it just once and she squeezed them shut. She had barely seen the red water flow, but the pain of it stung her to the core of her mind, a mocking laughter rang in echoes in the back of her consciousness and somewhere, subtly, she heard something forever lost call her name. “-Listening child!” Celestia blinked back to the scene before her, the lords addressed her directly. “If you seek wisdom, look away from the red river, your sins draw you to it like moth to a flame. Do not go there, for there our realm ends, and something else begins. You would pray for ash and the touch of the dead root should you cross it but never would you find even the stolid comfort even we must endure.” “M-My apologies,” She stuttered, raising a hoof to hide her gaze from even accidentally looking that way. Hurriedly ordering her thoughts to focus away from it and onto the reason why she braved the wastes. “To be clear, I wish to speak to you of a specific kind of magic that has been plaguing my world recently.” At this the lords fell quiet for some time, no wind blew and nothing moved bar her own hair. It really made her stick out and for once she hated her habit of casting that spell every morning. One turned to her, the elder of the second trio. “What magic do you speak of?” it asked. Celestia cleared her throat. “We know it only as, Old Magic. Its what its users call it.” she said. This elicited a chorus of hacks and dry coughs. They laughed at her. “Perhaps it would do you well to be more specific, child. Old is a relative term for us.” One explained. “What are its properties, how does it manifest?” Another spoke. “It’s strange to the magic we know.” Celestia began. “You would boggle at what would be strange to your kind, pony, magical or otherwise.” Celestia hid her distaste for their condescension, it would not do to lengthen this already unwelcome visitation anymore than strictly necessary. “The users of this magic need to speak it.” Celestia clarified. “From what I know, the speech is unnatural to the tongues that speak it. An unnerving feeling permeates the magic from those who have experienced it. Their mages do not need any magical training, and wield the magic regardless of race or aptitude by reading the spells from their pages.” “Does your realm not have such concoctions? Spells wielding by merely reading them?” one of the lords asked, from the third set to Celestia’s right. “I… Yes.” She admitted. “Then what is strange about their method?” Another asked. “That they can do so without any magical talent or training.” Celestia answered. “Ponies born without magical inclination or natural use can cast spells on par with archwizards. In general, without any natural affinity or inclination, no spell can really be cast without some instruction, the winds of magic are wild and without proper education, the crystalline way, dangerous.” “And yet these mages can wield without any fear of danger?” An ancient asked. “Yes.” “And it is unnerving, you suspect it is not of the winds of magic that blow through your world?” Another crone asked. “That is what I have come to, it seems similar to many kinds of magics, schools, philosophies, but further research always finds a break. It is as if it's not related to the magic of our world at all.” “And that is why you are here.” Said the first to speak, Celestia merely nodded. The lords of tartarus were silent for a time, a long time, Celestia had to focus on the spell cast by her horn to keep track of the time that passed in Equestria. Occasionally, one hooded shroud would turn to face another, in a silent conference to which she was not party. At last, they all, as one, turned to face her for the first time, Celestia reflexively shuffled her wings while under their gaze. “Can you describe the scripture which they read, child?” said one once young, her voice a tired friendliness. Celestia levitated the scroll which she held under her wing, she held it before her, unfolding it for the lords to see. “It's probably better to simply show you.” She said, allowing the lords to gaze upon the intricate, swirling calligraphy of the old magic script, and the internal, seemingly endless repeat of the designs within each brush stroke in differing ink. Another long silence, broken only by what she could only describe as the first gust of wind she had experienced while in this bleak realm. The lords, collectively let out a breath. “It is not magic of your world child.” One started. “It is a form of magic from a world very foreign, very lost.” “What do you mean?” Celestia asked, rolling up the scroll. “Some fields lie fallow, child.” one said, turning her head away towards the north, Celestia decided not to look towards the grey throne. “Some fields are ripe and lush, flowering with much fruit.” “Others are deserts, were life, hardy but good, dwells and thrives in spite of adversity.” Said one who had yet to speak, the voice like falling sand. “Some, are gardens, beautiful and serene. Others oceans, some, snowy thundra and endless light.” “... And the world where this magic comes from?” she asked. The nearest lord turned to look to the ground. “And some fields…” It began, “Some fields are burned.” “A trespasser brings this magic to your world,” The youngest of the middle threeo said. “Through guile, art, and much malice, it was stolen into your world, its power tied to its master. The users tied to the magic and as such enslaved. Doomed to feed his debt so that he may remain free.” “Who is this trespasser?” Celestia asked, feeling she was getting close to what she sought. “How do I defeat him?” “We do not know its name, only from whence it came.” One explained and then another, “And it is defeated when it can no longer pay its debts, and it has paid its gaolers handsomely for many a free year to come.” “Jailers? Debts? I don’t understand, how can I defeat him? What are its debt, who are its gaolers? Is it you? Did he escape Tartarus like Tirek did?” “That obstinate child escaped through his own guile. It is no fault of ours if one is too thin for the bars to hold them, we have since rectified that mistake.” They explained, “No prisoner of ours is the trespasser, a far more terrible doom is its, its choice from eternity.” “Where did it come from then? How is it using stolen magic from another world to terrorize my own!?” Celestia said, raising her voice, her patience wearing thin. She realised her mistake the second she spoke. The lords could dismiss her to be lost in the ash wastes with her only option to return home at any time, being curt with them was unwise to say the least. However, after a long, pregnant silence, one spoke. “Sometimes we are wrong.” It admitted. “Sometimes, something swims the red river and survives.” --=-- His breath frosted upon the air as he dug the trench deeper, his hooves numb to the cold, his fur grown thick in the wintry landscape, his cloak barely more than rags covering his body. He stopped in his efforts, breathing heavily, his blood flowing through him as he looked over the village below. It was safe, for now, the wraiths won’t come back for some time, but they’d need a more permanent solution. It was a mining village, sheltered from the worst of the north’s winds by some of the hardiest trees the north had to offer. A tough breed he did not know the name of, for he did not ask, which raged against the brutality of their environs, growing thick and squat, their leaves sheltering the earth beneath them from the all encompassing snow, allowing animals and fruit bearing plants to survive where they shouldn’t. But it was a long way from the nearest train station, and a longer way still from the nearest garrison. It was caught in the midst of regular raids by ice wraiths. Long, skeletal, two limbed creatures seemingly made from ice and who breathed hoarfrost. Local legend had it they were the ghosts of lost explorers desperately seeking out the long lost heat of life to warm them again. While he doubted that, he did not doubt they attacked ponies whenever they could. And he had arrived just in time to stop them. His breathed evened out, but then he felt the pain in his left foreleg. Grunting he lifted it, pulled away a cloth, the wound had healed as well as it could, but every now and again the pain flared up from where the bone had been split. It could fracture again at any time. He snorted, the wind blew his long, golden mane into his face and ruffled the steadily growing beard. It would be nightfall soon, it was best if he retired for now and continue his work in the morning. He turned away from the village and walked back into the cave he had turned into his new home, with a flick of his horn he cast a fire spell upon the frozen wood and closed over the entrance to the cave. It wouldn’t be as nice as staying within a house, but it would have to do for now. He slumped into the covers he had gathered for himself, a part of him still squirmed at the idea of hunting, but as the natives of this snow blighted land knew from long travails, and which he had to learn, sometimes survival has to overcome principles. The fur of the mats warmed him as he lay down to sleep, he watched the fire as it burned through its life as he wondered all his options. He was alone, he was without a goal and he was lost, but he put those worries aside. For it was, he thought, the only way he could find himself. --=-- “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN’T GET HIM!?” Chrysalis all but bellowed into the glass globe in her room she used to communicate with agents bearing the amulets. “I mean he’s not here!” Thorax hissed, ears clasped against her skull looking around. Chrysalis just had to start shouting at her in the middle of the marketplace, didn’t she? She took care to up the scarf on her face, Winter may have been over but there was still a bite in the air, and the last thing she needed was to draw more griffons’ attention from talking to herself. “THEN WHERE IS HE!?” Chrysalis willed into the orb with all of her might. Outside, something exploded, but Thorax wouldn’t be able to hear external sounds beyond the voice of the one using the orb. “I have no idea. He left not long after I had arrived, I didn’t have time to secure connection to him.” Thorax answered. “He’s been gone for over two weeks now.” “Then find him!” Chrysalis demanded. Outside in the hallway changeling were running around screaming. “Why!? What's happening?” Thorax asked as she turned a corner, sensing the urgency of the situation. “Some idiots dug too deep and we woke something up and it's scaring the tartarus out of every changeling under the Earth!” Chrysalis explained. “It sees emotions, we need something here it can’t read!” “What!? What is it!?” Thorax, now worried was stepping in place in her agitation. “A Therenor!” Chrysalis answered. Thorax was silent for a moment. “A Therenor?” She asked flatly, her panic subsiding almost immediately. “Yes!” “You do know those things are harmless, right?” Thorax asked. “You do not speak to your queen like that.” Chrysalis said coolly, Thorax rubbed the bridge of her muzzle between her eyes. “Sorry, your majesty. But you do know that they can’t harm you, right? They’re gaseous, more or less immaterial. They only thing they do is cause hallucinations” she pointed out. “That doesn’t change the effect they have and you know it!” Chrysalis snapped. “We need something capable of scaring it off!” Thorax resisted the urge to sigh. “I’ll see to it, your highness.” Thorax said. “Well do it quick!” Chrysalis said, slapping the globe with a boof more or less ending the connection. She turned, two guards barged into her apartments. “My queen! We must leave before it-!” The windows burst open, sending glass shards all over the room, a terrible miasma of iridescent colour emerged into the room, a terrible visage of disconnected bones floated in place before forming into a monstrous expression. The Therenor monstrous cry shook the ziggurat to its core. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” “So whats up?” Jacques asked, strolling over to Thorax from the fountain. Thorax deftly hid the amulet under the false ruffage of her griffon guise’s chest feathers. “Oh? Nothing much, just thought I had to attend to something urgent, but turns out it was a false alarm.” She answered, Jacques eyed her for a moment before smiling. “Well alright then, coming along? We’re going to be late.” she nodded, but grimaced. “I don’t understand what Crimson needs us for if its a simple gathering expedition for the alchemists.” she asked, Jacques shrugged with one shoulder. “No idea, but I couldn’t turn down such a pretty face.” Thorax shot him a look and he laughed. “Got you.” Thorax blinked in surprise and just turned to face ahead and hurried her pace. Jacques simply laughed harder. --=-- “It's so wonderful being the Imperial Wizard!” Sunburst beamed, the sun splitting through the trees of the courtyard, the arches of the walkway just low enough to ensure those walking down its centre wouldn’t be blinded as they went on their various ways. “Hm.” The liaison grunted as the ground shook, a muffled crump telling the tale of another explosion. Neither he nor the court wizard missed a step as courtiers hurriedly made their way to and fro the courtyard. Eager to cross it and get to their destinations and not linger any more than they had to. “I get to teach the next generation of royalty the wonders of magic!” “Yup.” A beleaguered gardener galloped screaming at the far end of the courtyard, his man afire. “It is a heavy responsibility.” Sunburst said stoically, taking a moment to run a hoof through his growing beard. He had been going for a Starswirl look lately, he thought it made him look wise. Given the fashion with most wizards these days is clean shavenness, he only ended up looking even more unkempt and untidy then usual. “It certainly is.” his companion said as he escorted the Imperial Wizard and his magically levitated bag of teaching equipment. There was the clink of metal on metal and the liaison spied some rather expensive pieces of plate armour poking from the bag. He let a wry smile cross his lips, it must be a practical exam today. “Its hard, neigh! Impossible sometimes! But it must be done! For the good of the world!” “A noble calling indeed.” The liaison said with a sigh, flicking his ear in the direction of a new source of noise. Somepony, somewhere, was screaming about their eyes after a particularly glaring explosion of light erupted from the windows of the study tower they approached. Fortunately for them, the doors ahead had no windows on them. The last ones did, but he had left a little word and some little coins to ensure the new ones had no windows, for exactly this reason. He still had afterimages from the first time he was blinded. “Sometimes though, sometimes, I wonder if I can do it some days, you know?” Sunburst said as they neared the door. “I can imagine.” Flash said as he levitated the keyring in front of him, going through the keys one at a time. The entire world became purple for a few seconds, Sunburst let a contented smile cross his face. One of the new crystal masons working on the south wing of the palace screamed about why everything down was now up. “So, you still want me to make it look like an accident or…?” “Will you!? I’ll pay!” Sunburst said suddenly, face filling with hope. Flash Sentry tapped a hoof on his chin for a moment, then the key clicked and the door opened. “Nope.” “SUNNY!” An enthusiastic pink blur tackled Sunburst to the ground in an explosion of speed. The wind, rattle his armour and blew through the crest of his helmet as Sunburst exploded into a cloud of books, incredibly durable vials of volatile potions, reagents and metal plates. Sunburst had prepared himself for the alicorn cannonball, but being prepared to prevent broken bones meant nothing about cancelling momentum. Flurry Heart hopped in circles around him, as he lay there waiting for the world to stop spinning. “Sunny! Sunny! Sunny! Sunny!” A frazzled looking made stumbled from the tower door, Flash gently held out a hoof to hold her swaying body steady and point her in the direction of the palace in a wordless, practiced motion. Another maid would come to tend to the Princess in due course once her lessons had finished for the day, they locked the door as much to ensure there was somepony watching the princess as much as it was a means of letting the princess know she wasn’t allowed out or into somewhere. Not that it could really stop her, but it's the thought that counts. “Happy to be back?” Flash asked, looking off into space in the practiced manner of every guardspony before him. He let himself smile. Sunburst just stared at the canopy. “Why did I come back early again?” he asked nopony in particular, Flash answered him anyway. “Because Celestia had already sent more than enough wizards and mages with the envoys to Griffonia that you were superfluous and Flurry refuses to be taught lessons by anypony else. “Oh. Goody.” He looked to his friend, pleading for mercy with his eyes. “Are you sure I can’t pay you to make it look like an accident?” “Pretty sure.” Flash said as Sunburst got up sighing from the ground, brushing his robe down and picking up his dropped belongings. “Oh, oh, Sunny! Sunny!” Flurry Heart said jumping and letting her wings slow her descent repeatedly. “Can we do the big spells? I wanna do the big spells! Just one, pllleeeaaassee!? “Now Flurry, you know your mother wouldn’t want you to learn those just yet.” “Oh come oooooonnnn!” She pouted, Sunburst sighed. “Ok, but only the telekinetic kick.” he relented, Flurry Heart shot her hooves in the air in victory. “Yyyyesssss!” she said, excitedly running back into the ruined battlefield that was her study tower. Sunburst hesitated before following her. “So, good luck.” Flash said, Sunburst didn’t even give him the dignity of looking at him as he walked through the door “You’re an ass, Flash.” “I am actually. Twice removed, four generations back, on my mother’s side.” He said, the answer kept changing every time he gave that response. “No I mean- ugh, whatever.” “Oh I forgot to mention,” Flash began, Sunburst turned and raised an eyebrow. “You still owe me forty from that bet five months ago, so I can’t bury you in the outfields until you either pay up front, or at least buy the shovel for me.” “Flash you son of a donk-” The door closed, the lock clicked, and Flash Sentry shuffled his spear from the crook of his foreleg to his side brace, turned around, and walked back to the palace, whistling all the way. When he got there the night watch was changing, as the day guard took up their positions. “Morning Flash,” one of the morning Guards said as he drew near. “Having a good one?” “Oh you know,” he said, waving a hoof in a circle. A number of increasingly loud No’s reached his ears before a large crash could be heard, the tower shaking with seismic activity and something launched from a side window at ridiculous speeds in an explosion of glass and wood shards. “It’s a Monday.”