Chapter 5 - Muffled

As I followed the stranger down the hillside I couldn't help but be awed by the scale of the ruins below. The wall around the city was taller than any building I had ever seen before and appeared to be made of seamless rippling black stone rather than familiar brick or cobble. As we approached one of several gashes that pierced it through I saw that the structure had crumbled rather than collapsed and wondered at the force that could have rendered such an attack. Or so nearly resisted it. The more I looked at the holes in the wall the more they reminded me uncomfortably of the holes that pierced Vair.

"In you go pony, we are followed."

Not needing much encouragement I carefully picked my way through the rubble and into the gap, keeping Vair aloft with me. On the other side the ruins spread out across the valley floor, overgrown and in shambles but magnificent in the fading light. The destruction had seemed to be nearly complete from the ridge, but down on the ground I saw that among the stone skeletons there were a few buildings in the shadows of the wall that had survived.

The builders of the city seemed to have favored strength rather than form; like the walls around them and the towers above the remaining structures were dark, disdainful, and imposing. Here and there I spotted a little flourish though, little hints of elegance etched in the weathered stone as if the skill of the builders was a wild thing, difficult to suppress or fully erase.

Somewhat to my surprise our guide didn't lead us to one of the intact buildings but rather to a crumbling pile of stone and wood that might once have been a guard house near the base of a crooked tower. As I watched he waded into the ruin and bodily pushed a stone slab aside, revealing a wooden hatch that at one time might have led to a cellar. Impressed by the camouflage in spite of its simplicity, I carefully lifted Vair through the doorway and entered at the strangers silent direction. It was pitch black inside and as the door shut behind us I felt the dull pangs of fear returning yet again.

"Quiet now, hidden in this place we are but there is much yet to fear."

Standing in the dark listening to the scuttle of the stranger moving around and muttering occasionally, it wasn't hard to imagine myself to be in a den of wolves rather than anywhere safe. After a maddening interval in which I was unable to move for fear of bumping into something and very much wishing I could see what was going on around me, I started to cast a light spell only to give a muffled yelp as I felt something wrap around my horn and smother the spell.

"No magic, pony."

Partially stunned by the feeling of something suppressing my magic I had no choice but to stand at the mercy of the stranger in the dark and hope Vair hadn't fallen on anything hard when the spell holding him had been cut off.

After an eternity there came a sharp sound and I saw a flicker of light ahead of me. Another strike and a small flame burst to life, filling the room with glorious orange light. Ahead of me was a large open room seemingly carved out of living rock, the walls rounded and hidden behind shelves of dried plants and jars and books and bones. The center of the room was dominated by a open fireplace with several small cauldrons around the edges, and all about lay bits and pieces of woodsy trash as if some storm had blown half the forest through the room recently.

As soon as my sight was restored I tried to inspect whatever it was that was smothering my magic but after several minutes of intense experimentation had to accept that looking at one's own horn is a dizzying impossibility. Mindful of the warning against using magic and finding myself suddenly unable to perform any anyway, I did my best to ignore the strange feeling and resist the urge to shake like a mad foal.

Vair lay on the floor before me and inspecting his wounds offered a much needed distraction. The gashes in his side seemed to be nearly healed over already and somehow he had landed on a thick mat rather than the hard floor, but he was still unconscious from the blast of magic I had unleashed. Thinking back on it made me feel slightly ill; I had read about how powerful destructive magic was while studying with my master but nothing could have prepared me for experiencing it.

Dark magic, the master had once explained, does not exist in any spell itself but rather in the act of using it to cause harm, of using it destructively. Magic can be used to create and to destroy, and while creating takes time, practice, and skill, destruction is easy and instantaneous. Any pony who uses magic to destructive ends will always be tempted to use it again to hasten events in their lives...  In other words, performing dark magic was like cheating; you may have solved the immediate problem, but because you didn't take the time to understand it you are oblivious to the consequences of your actions and you have to cheat again and again to hide that fact. It's a slippery slope, one that many unicorns have fallen down to their doom.

Doubts and fears ran through my mind as I tried to convince myself I was still me, that I wasn't somehow tainted and destined to become Sombra's second coming. I certainly wasn't the first unicorn to end a Timberwolf, but I had actually felt it's body being crushed and being torn apart through my own horn... At that moment I wanted nothing more in the world than to talk to my master, to seek his wisdom and advice. And to lay down and sleep until I was back home where I belonged.

The stranger had apparently finished whatever he was doing by the fire and came over. "That one will be awake in the morning" he said, gesturing at Vair on the ground between us. "I see to our defense. Keep the fire burning, and..." he reached up and tapped my horn, "...no magic."

And with that he gathered up several sticks and what might have been a scroll or a roll of rags, and left the grotto occupied only by the fearsome unconscious creature I had come to think of as a friend and the fearsome conscious creature that had enough questions to fill a library.