Author's Note
This story takes place in the world of the Upheaval series. Obviously, if you are not familiar with the series' settings, you won't be able to make heads or tails of what's going on here. Chances are you might not even if you have read the series.
The Old Guard
The Old Guard
Among the many planes that comprised the Eternal Herd, the battle plane of Ida stood unique for different reasons. Here, visitors entered to the clangor of a thousand, thousand battles spontaneously erupting and ending all across the landscape only to inevitably leave through victory or death. In Ida, the alicorns of the Eternal Herd came only for battle. The very nature of Ida demanded it. Death by combat resulted only in a brief expulsion, after which an alicorn was free to rejoin the fray. The plane expelled anypony who stayed for too long without fighting, including those reduced to helplessness by petrification, stasis, or some other way.
There were no settlements here. A band of warriors may hold a section of land for a while, an army may form up camp or a fortress may even emerge, but all are eventually swept away by the constant tide of fighting. Even the landscape was a constant flux. As battles raged, alicorns hurled titanic elemental forces, reshaping the plane to their advantage.
In Ida, the alicorns eternally tested their mettle against each other. No grudges were held here. After a fight, winners and losers came together to offer congratulations, to exchange strategies, and to toast their fellowship. Indeed, Ida often served as the place to settle disputes brought in from other planes within the Herd. When tensions ran high among ponies, they looked for each other here.
Though he held no quarrel with anypony within the Eternal Herd, many alicorns sought Sanctus Dominus in Ida. They searched for the gleaming, gold-trimmed, white barding, the equally white coat, the twin silver swords, most of all, the brilliant mane and beard that streamed around him like liquid sun fire. Prowess earned respect in the Eternal Herd, but it also presented a challenge. When he remained undefeated after his first few visits, the individual challenges began. When he won each of the hundreds of duels he fought, alliances formed up to defeat him. Then, those alliances teamed up with more alliances. At this moment, a crowd of alicorns were already forming around him as soon as Sanctus Dominus entered the plane. The battles nearby stopped and the stiff breeze blowing across the open plain fell still. It was as if Ida itself waited with bated breath for that fateful moment when the Lord of Sunlight would suffer his first loss.
“Hail, Dominus!” Animus Arcem landed nearby, and then waved a wing. “Your friends grew in number again, I see.”
“They can be your friends too, Arcem,” Dominus replied. “I don’t mind sharing.”
Arcem laughed, but he kept his great blade in its scabbard. In their earlier exploits in Ida, Animus Arcem guarded Dominus’s back. As the victories followed, he was happy to stay back and watch. Dominus enjoyed the extra challenge and Arcem would always be there if he was truly needed. He flew back in time as Dominus’s “friends” finally settled on a formation and flew at him from all sides.
Dominus’s silver great blades floated by his sides and the power of sunlight coursed through them. The attack came to a halt halfway through, however. His challengers hovered briefly, and then parted, allowing a lone alicorn to land in front of him.
“Tenth’s chimes!” Arcem whispered harshly. “That’s Juste Canite!”
Dominus’s smile only grew wider. Former monarchs, still referred to as ascendants, seldom involved themselves in Ida’s battles, or even the other affairs within the Eternal Herd. The eldest among them: the First, the Second, and the Third, preferred the outermost reaches of the ever-expanding planes of the Herd, difficult to even find, let alone contact. Others like the Ninth, the Tenth, and the Twelfth, still moved among their fellow ponies, even if they refrained from interfering heavily. Then, there was the Sixth, who was simply missing, and the Fourth, who was standing in front of them this very moment.
Juste Canite was currently the only ascendant who wasn’t diminished, not counting the Sixth. That wasn't going to last long. He was restored during the eleventh cycle and they were at the closing times of the fifteenth. Everypony already understood that he wasn't going to be present when the Sixteenth Ascendant would take the Throne. Even though the very edges of his form were already translucent from diminishing, he still possessed the grand appearance and presence expected of a former monarch. Unarmored, he still held the record as the Herd’s largest pony. His thick, dark gray, full plate barding, a masterpiece of smooth surfaces, nearly doubled his size. His mane and beard were a swirling masses of very dark clouds, like great and powerful storms whirling around his neck and face. A hammer rested on his back, its head shaped like a featureless pony’s head. It would be as tall as he was if stood up.
“An honor to meet you, Fourth,” Dominus said. Behind him, Arcem gazed downwards and remained silent. The alicorns around them had a similar reaction.
“A while ago, I listened to Silva Inber, while he recited the exploits of the Lord of Sunlight,” Canite said. “Before I take my rest, I wanted to see it for myself. It’s been a long time since I set hoof on Ida. Thank you, Sanctus Dominus, for giving me a tempting enough reason to do so.” He raised his hammer with his magic and let it float in front of him. “You may choose the rules of this duel.”
Dominus, still smiling despite having just confirmed that the Fourth Ascendant to the Throne had proposed a duel, was quick to reply. “Strength and the force of weapons only.”
Canite tilted his head slightly. “Those are rules I favor,” he said. “You’re not giving me a reprieve because I’m on the verge of diminishing, are you?”
“Reprieve? I play to my strengths, Juste Canite. I expect those rules to favor me.”
Canite’s wide grin matched Dominus’s. “Smite!” he roared.
In an instant, a mighty shockwave flung every watching alicorn across the plain. A thunderous boom followed and the plain disappeared under the flying dust.
The dust scattered as the alicorns blessed with the power of wind worked their magic. This was a fight of a cycle. Of many cycles. Every second had to be witnessed. Those with a penchant for story-telling already imagined the words they would use to recite this to the rest of the Herd.
With the dust cleared, the spectators gaped at the battlefield. Where there was once a vast plain that stretched out to the horizon now lay a gigantic fault. The two combatants were nowhere in sight.
Animus Arcem closed in first. It wasn’t concern for his friend’s life that drove him. He simply had to see. How did Dominus match against Canite? The Fourth was the greatest fighter of his cycle, even before his ascension. In an instant, this was not just a whimsical duel between two ponies anymore. For his trouble, a slicing arc of golden light flew from the fault, nearly shearing his wing off. No fear clutched his heart, though. The arc was a familiar sight in all of Dominus’s battles: the exhalation of the power of sunlight through his twin blades.
A dozen more followed and it was Canite who was the first to fly out of the fault he made. Crescent-shaped waves of sunlight blasted off the edges of the fault, homing in on Canite. Arcem had seen this quick firing retaliation before. Time and again, it sliced apart alicorns who thought they had hurt Dominus with a large attack.
“Smite!”
The waves of sunlight scattered like leaves, blown back by the shockwave from Canite’s massive swing. They struck the surrounding ground, sending more dust flying and charring where they hit. He dove into the fault and struck again.
Arcem found himself flung high above the clouds of Ida. He flapped his wings to right himself. A great, mushroom-shaped cloud and debris had risen at a distance. The force of the blast from that second strike was still flying past him. Nearby, other alicorns had the same thing happen to them. They could hear the loud ringing from beneath the clouds. The fight was in earnest now. They all dove back down to see.
The fault was gone now. The landscape had turned into a great, barren bowl, the walls high enough to be cliffs. Canite’s blows were imitating feats that only alicorns blessed with the power of earth could accomplish. Above the crater’s center, Dominus and Canite clashed violently. At such close range, Dominus contended more with the haft of Canite’s hammer, negating a great deal of its devastating power. His twin blades, their points still glowing with the power of sunlight, moved with arcing grace, cutting through the air in a gold-streaked, silver whirlwind.
The loud ringing did not come from Dominus’s blades striking Canite’s hammer. It came from the blades glancing off Canite’s full plate over and over. Canite weathered the storm of blades with a smile and short adjustments of his position. He didn’t even bother blocking with his hammer. There were stories of him walking through swarms of arrow-fire without either flinching or taking a direct hit. With a backwards flap of his wings, he put just enough distance between him and Dominus to make one swing.
“Smite!”
The clouds at a distance behind Dominus were swept to the side and dissipated, as if struck by a monstrous gust of wind. A dozen spectators hovering in that direction flew in the same direction and slammed into the ground. Only a few white feathers floating forlornly to the ground marked that Dominus was flying there. A flurry of blades came at Canite from above, then behind.
Gray feathers joined the white ones as Canite flew back. A trickle of blood dripped from his right wing. Dominus himself had not escaped the last smite unscathed. The upper right portion of his breast plate had been shorn off. For a while, the two of them hovered in that spot. Arcem could only marvel at the sight. Dominus was actually breathing hard.
“A good exchange, Lord of Sunlight,” Canite said. He stretched his neck and flexed his shoulders. “I shall diminish with ease knowing that the Throne is in capable hooves.”
Dominus sheathed his blades and tilted his head. “It was an honor, Fourth, but I am not the future Sixteenth Ascendant. Turbo Pinnae is.”
“I’ve met Pinnae, and he possesses his own excellence,” Canite said. His voice dropped ominously. “I know that you are Pinnae’s close friend. Advise him to leave the Agamanthion alone. The Sixth’s abandoned devices are not for the whimsically curious. He has heard me, but I know he does not listen.” He smiled again. “Regardless of Pinnae’s destiny, I feel the Throne’s work around you, Sanctus Dominus. My daughter was right. Now, I have seen it for myself.”
“Your daughter?”
“Yes. The next cycle will be Gratia's second. May she serve the next monarch well while I rest. Farewell for now, Dominus. When I am restored, I will look for you again.”
Both Canite and Dominus bowed slightly towards each other. The Fourth Ascendant departed from Ida. For a moment, Dominus looked to the alicorns and expected a follow-up attack. None came, the spectators still alive were too awestruck of the sight, or perhaps too reverent of the Fourth to follow through with the brief spectacle. He looked to Arcem and grinned. “I think I’ve had my fill of Ida for a while, Arcem. How about a little feast in Elys?”
Animus Arcem shook himself free of the dust from the explosions. “As you say, Dominus.”
The dark blue filly put the book down and set it on the growing pile next to her. The stack of thick books was now taller than her and more than heavy enough to pin her to the floor if it toppled over.
Magnus Chartophylax had tended to the records ever since they were created during the first cycle, relinquishing his role as keeper only during the two diminishings he had undergone. Despite sixteen cycles, it still brought a smile to his lips to find one so young so engrossed in reading; a smile which he was always careful to hide beneath his beard.
Magnus had only a mild concern for the fact that her enormous reading selection so far shared a common subject. She had just put down “The Sixteenth in Ida”, a chronicle of her father’s notable fights in the Herd’s battle plane. Under that book were volumes twenty to twenty-five of “Sanctus Dominus: Path of the Sixteenth”, an extensive biographical series with commentary by the famed Silva Inber. Later and earlier volumes still lined the shelves around her. Princess Luna had, oddly enough, decided to read through the series backwards, starting from Dominus’s kingship and working her way down his earlier exploits.
“Your Highness,” Magnus said. “As much as I would love to let you keep reading, I must call you away for now. Animus Arcem is looking for you. I believe it’s the appointed time for your lessons.”
Princess Luna set the book down, her lower lip protruding slightly. “I’ll go, but may I ask you some things first, Magnus?”
“I am at your service, Your Highness.”
“His Majesty is known as ‘Lord of Sunlight’. Big sister is ‘Princess of Sunlight’. So…”
Magnus shook his head. “You ask if your sister’s ascension is guaranteed. Ascension is never guaranteed until the new monarch is attuned to the Throne. You may recall reading that Dominus himself was sure that Turbo Pinnae would be the Sixteenth.”
“But Pinnae was untimely diminished when the Agamanthion malfunctioned,” Princess Luna said. “It’s not like big sister is in danger of anything like that.”
“I see that you’ve picked a side in the debate as to whether the Agamanthion simply activated or malfunctioned. Regardless, a great many things can and have happened in the Herd, Your Highness. Also recall that your father has made no decree about that issue. Now, may I ask a question?”
“Of course!”
“Why the sudden interest in the next ascension? Do you plan on becoming the Seventeenth?”
Princess Luna’s eyes widened. “What? No!” She settled down after a while. “I was…I was just worried for big sister.”
“Worried?”
Princess Luna looked back to the stacked books. “It just seems to me that His Majesty was happier before his kingship,” she said softly. “Before the Throne...before his children…”
Magnus ran a hoof down the princess’s mane. “Dominus makes his own happiness wherever he may find himself, whatever he finds before him. I will put these back. Now, run along, Your Highness, Arcem promised His Majesty he would care for you and your siblings. Don’t make things too difficult for him.”
The melancholy around Luna lessened with a faint smile from her. She nodded and trotted off.
