Chapter 3: Mercy
Tantalus opened his mouth and gasped for a breath. As the stale air of the subterranean chamber filled his lungs, he felt his legs began to twitch. They hurt, badly. Still in a haze, Tantalus opened his eyes. An enchanted torch cast a pale blue light that dimly illuminated the space. The stone floor, walls, and ceiling were crisscrossed with cracks. Large cobwebs connected the crumbling fissures to one another. Tantalus was shivering violently; it was very cold.
The stallion looked around. He was hanging vertically against a stone wall at the back of the room, opposite the tight hallway which contained the torch. His forelegs were bound in irons, his back hooves prevented from dangling by a short stone outcropping. Three warn straps of leather loosely held his torso to the wall.
Tantalus tried to summon some magic to undo the bonds. As the energy building in his horn reached a useful level, he took a deep breath and released the magic. The top of his head seared with an incredible pain that made him scream.
After a moment, he called out to the empty room, “Is there anypony here? Can you hear me? Where am I? What happened?” Straining against the bonds, he yelled, “Where is Nightmare Moon? What did you do to her?”
There was no response.
Tantalus sighed and glanced around the room again. The glint of metal caught his eye and he grinned. Beneath the torch a large metal key, pockmarked with bits of rust, had fallen on the ground. A cracked loop of blackened leather lay beside it.
The stallion shook his head from side to side. Straining his eyes upward, he was just barely able to see a patch of gold at the edge of his vision. Around his horn was a ring of nullification, a simple circlet of metal with a hollow core that trapped magical energy.
Gritting his teeth, Tantalus focused his thoughts on the band and let his magic flow. Despite intense pain, he smiled as several molten drops of gold ran down the side of his face. The magic was preventing the liquid metal from touching his body, but the heat was still nearly unbearable. Tantalus maintained the flow of energy, steadily melting a small hole in the ring. As soon as a small amount of magic was able to escape, he lifted the band from his horn and dropped it onto the floor.
Reaching out with his magic, he grabbed the key. He opened the locks around his forelegs and, after a few minutes of writhing, loosed the leather straps around his chest and dropped clumsily to the floor.
Levitating the nullification ring, Tantalus once again heated the metal, bending it into a thin circlet which he slipped around his upper left foreleg.
The stallion scanned the room one last time. Finding nothing, he continued in to the hallway beside the enchanted torch. Ascending a set of stairs, the stallion faced a closed iron portcullis. On the opposite side, he saw the ivy-covered ruins of a stone building. The mechanism governing the metal gateway was long rusted away. Tantalus lifted the door with his magic and stepped out of his prison. Beyond the ruins was a mature forest.
The stallion turned his head looked skywards. From the position of the moon, he gathered that it was several hours before midnight.
Magicing together a mesh of leaves and branches and laying the covering over a framework of thicker wooden limbs, Tantalus constructed a makeshift shelter. He collected some moss and twigs into a pile in front of the lean-to and set it on fire. Sighing, he settled down beside the small flame. His mind still trying to work out exactly what had happened before he had woken up, Tantalus drifted off to sleep.
Tantalus was galloping through the halls of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. He had to reach his queen, fast. He had to tell her that Celestia had marshaled the Elements of Harmony. He had to tell her to flee.
The unicorn stallion was far ahead of the cultists that had survived the initial clash with Celestia’s guards. Tantalus, however, did not look back for more than a moment; a unicorn guard was closing on his flank, horn charged with green energy.
The guard cast first. A thin rod of energy shot out like a lance from his horn, striking a counterspell from Tantalus just past the halfway point between them. The rod of energy, deforming into a fluid, began to mushroom out from the Tantalus’ ward, its energy dissipating into the air like so many droplets of water sprayed against a wall.
Tantalus attacked next. Calling forth a sphere of energy, he launched an orb at the guard. In flight the projectile flattened into a horizontal, rotating disk. The circle’s edges sliced through the magical energy left behind by his opponent’s rod, drawing it up and ringing the disk’s perimeter with a serrated edge. Tantalus’ spell slammed against the magical defenses of the guard, shaving through layers of protective energy as its surface melted away.
Duplicating the guard’s initial attack, Tantalus sent forth a thin rod of his azure energy to follow the path of the circular blade. Instead of remaining as a solid entity, the lance split along its central axis into six thinner rods. Two deflected upwards, coming down from above. Another two curved off to each side as the remainder continued directly onward, impacting at the spot which Tantalus’ disk had already weakened. The twin lances smashed their way through the ward, striking the defender squarely in the chest. The guard was knocked backwards a meter, the crushing impact of the bolt throwing him from his hooves.
Tantalus approached him. The guard was breathing raggedly; Tantalus was sure that the impact from the rods had shattered more than a few ribs. The grey-coated stallion looked up and spoke, drops of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.
“Please.”
Tantalus seized the horn of the defeated unicorn in his magic. With a burst of force, he twisted the horn. The bone snapped near its summit. Fresh blood welled up from the soft core, as the guard screamed in agony. As the yell tapered off, Tantalus cast the severed point to the floor. The stallion would survive, and after several months and some tender treatment, the missing piece would regrow. But for now, the guard would pose no further threat to Tantalus; that was sufficient.
The victor turned and once again accelerated to a gallop. His queen still needed to be warned; every second that he spent disabling guards was another second that Celestia could use to marshal the power of the Elements of Harmony.
Tantalus flung open the wide-set double doors into the great hall of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters and skidded to a halt. Celestia and Nightmare Moon stood opposite one another, the gap between them ablaze with liquid fire. He was too late.
Tantalus searched for a way to intervene, but a cocoon of raw energy surrounded the battling sisters. He was inaudible even to himself above the roar of magic. The voices of the two combatants, however, were easy to separate from the raging battle.
Celestia called out first. “Luna! Why are you doing this? Why are you attacking your sister?”
Nightmare Moon retorted, spitting her words with contempt, “I. Am. Not. Your. Little. Luna. Anymore.” Each word was accompanied with a blast of dark purple energy.
The elder sister shied back from the outbursts as they struck her protective wards, taking several unsteady steps backwards. But Tantalus was worried; Celestia was holding back.
“Why do you seek to choke this land in an eternal cloak of night? Do you not see that actions are only destructive? Without the light of day, the forests will wither, Equestria’s crops will perish, and our people will die. How can you not see this?”
“As if this were simply about the neglect of my night sky! What have you told your followers? Or, what have you not told them? This land, it needs a new beginning. It needs a cleansing in the cold of midnight, a cleansing beneath my stars. Do you not see the failure of your realm or are you simply too attached to the notions of a past age? You battle for a cause condemned by the flow of time.”
“I fight because Equestria can be saved. I know this realm is not perfect, but I also know that it can never be.”
It was Celestia’s turn to lash out with her magic. The yellow bolt of energy struck Nightmare Moon’s wards with force. The dark queen to shied backwards and pulled her head in towards her body. As she did so, her gaze momentarily found Tantalus. In the brief second that their eyes connected, Tantalus saw the alicorn’s dragon-like iris shoot wide.
Nightmare Moon blinked and refocused on Celestia.
The sun princess continued, “You always were a studious one, Luna – spending countless months consumed in books of all sorts. Tell me, what writing convinced you that the path of bloodshed would bear fruit? What work drove you to destroy your body in the pursuit of power?”
Nightmare Moon paused for a brief moment before she spoke, her eyes flitting in the direction of Tantalus. “Celestia, you foal. You confused foal. I have not a single pony to credit with my rebirth – except, perhaps, you.”
Tantalus blinked. Nightmare Moon had not mentioned him. Why? What reason could she possibly have to–? He stopped mid-thought. She’s protecting me.
Nightmare Moon stepped forwards slowly. “Was it not you, after all, who pushed me to become my own self? To escape from the shadows of your rule and my status as the second-born ruler of the night? Well, princess, here I am: a queen. It is my turn to direct this land. And when you see the new world that I shall forge for my ponies, you shall see Nightmare Moon as they do!”
Nightmare Moon poured all her remaining energy into one final assault. Her horn aglow with the despair of countless centuries overshadowed and forgotten, she attacked.
Tantalus’ vision blurred. A blast of bright light forced him to shield his eyes. His body tingled from the release of energy as the ancient stained glass windows of the great hall blew outward, showering the combatants which still battled below with a mist of colored glass shards.
Tantalus felt the tingling cease. A triumphant laugh echoed throughout the room, the laugh of Nightmare Moon.
The unicorn slowly lowered the foreleg that had been covering his eyes. His queen towered above Celestia; the sun princess had sunk to the ground.
Nightmare Moon smiled. “Your restraint is commendable, sister. If it is out of fear of harming me, however, you need not continue. If it comes instead from a failing of faith in your cause, then by all means, submit. Submit and I shall permit you to continue living.”
The elder alicorn looked up at her younger sister and spoke with desperation. “I will not submit. If you kill me, there is no turning back. Equestria will waste away under your reign. This land needs both of its rulers upon its thrones. Luna, I need you to rule with me.”
“That is something that shall never come to pass again.”
The younger sister let her magic loose. As the fluid bolt impacted Celestia, the room filled with yet another bright light.
Tantalus lowered his foreleg for a second time. Celestia was on her hooves, horn blazing and eyes filled with a solid white light. The six Elements of Harmony floated above the alicorn’s outstretched wings, orbiting slowly around a point in their center.
Celestia spoke in a voice nearly unrecognizable. “Nightmare Moon, you leave me no choice. Your intent has been made clear. I am sorry that I could not redeem you.”
With those words, the elder alicorn raised her head and flared her wings. A fluid arc lanced out from each of the six jewels above her and combined into a bolt that appeared as a rainbow. The energy crossed the short distance between the two sisters in an instant, striking Nightmare Moon and releasing a prismatic burst of force.
Tantalus was thrown against the castle wall, only by chance avoiding being cast out one of the shattered windows behind him. As he regained his senses, Celestia was standing over him, tears dripping from her magenta eyes.
When the alicorn spoke, however, her voice was steady with resolve. “Tantalus Starshade. It has been so long.”
Tantalus responded, his mind still in a haze. “Wh– what have you done? Where is Nightmare Moon?”
“I banished her. She is imprisoned within the moon.”
“Luna is not dead, then?”
“I do not know. Only time will tell.” The sun princess advanced even closer to Tantalus, her horn now nearly touching the stallion’s head. “Now, tell me, and speak honestly, what role did you play in the corruption of her?”
Tantalus hesitated for a moment. The dark queen had lied to protect him, a lie that Tantalus could not let rest in vain. He drew a breath and began his story. Celestia listened quietly as Tantalus recited the fabricated tale, which, while admitting his clear involvement in the cult’s leadership, detailed nothing of his relationship with Luna or the role he played in her transformation.
As the stallion finished, the alicorn released a sigh. “So it really was me that drove Luna to become Nightmare Moon.”
Celestia’s horn was precariously close to the ground, her eyelids drooping slightly.
Tantalus smiled. “Princess, I believe you and I both had a part to play. While my actions do not exonerate you, realize that Luna acted of her own accord. I fear there is little you might have done to prevent her uprising.”
“You were always as good with words as you were at chess,” admitted Celestia. Drawing herself upright, the alicorn continued as magic began to fill her horn, “Still. You shall pay for your crimes. Perhaps I may find it in my heart one day to show you even more mercy than I will show you now. Tantalus Starshade, when you next awake, the world you shall find will not be the same as the one you now leave.”
Before Tantalus could respond, Celestia had cast the spell.
Tantalus awoke to the warming light of dawn. He was shaking and there were fresh tears in his eyes. Still shocked by the vividness of the memory, he rose unsteadily to his hooves and examined the ruins around him, the words of the sun princess still echoing in his mind.
The world you shall find will not be the same as the one you now leave.