Chapter 22: The Sorcerer’s Pledge

Even at such a great distance, Dee felt the ground shake, and he was nearly knocked off balance as he descended the stone steps to the darkness below. With his enhanced sight, he saw the horrors that befell Equestria. He saw the Citadel fall, and the City in flames. There was so much death, and so much pain, and he knew that it was his fault. It had been his sin that had allowed this to happen.

High above him, his house had been destroyed. Most of it had burned to ash, and what little remained had been soaked into ruin as the ice he cast had melted while he slept. Now, no doubt, those explosions had destroyed the rest, shaking the weakened timbers to the point of collapse with the distant artificial earthquakes.

There was nothing he could to do stop it now. Equestria was dying, and he did not have the power to save it. His magic had been taken from him, and his life was fading. Even descending the stone steps was agonizing and slow, but he forced himself to continue, to follow the voice from below.

It took all the effort he could muster, but eventually, he made it to that final room. On one end, he saw his Frozen Queen, dead but still dreaming, waiting for her return. He had hoped that he would be the one to usher in her return, but he now understood that he never could have. She simply would not have awoken for a pony as cruel and arrogant as him.

Before him, though, he saw the Elements of Harmony. Where before they had been stone, they now seemed to glow with energy, speaking with the voice of the Tree of Harmony. Dee looked upon them, and all at once he understood. Kindness, Generosity, Honesty, Laughter, Loyalty, bound together by a spark of Magic. They were not a tool, a device, or a weapon. They were a living thing all their own, a kind of magic so very different from anything that Dee had even conceived of. He had wasted his life trying to measure and count and decipher their meanings, when the truth was so much simpler, so much easier to find.

Dee smiled. If only he had learned of their true nature earlier, instead of in his last moments.

“The Elements of Harmony,” he mused, coughing suddenly through his smoke-burned lungs. “I know everything about you. Every mathematical feature, every secret…except the ones that were staring me in the face the whole time.”

The Elements were placed on small stone podiums, and Dee crawled his way to their center, finally collapsing in the center. Then he spoke to them. “Elements of Harmony…I cannot wield you. I never could. I see that now. If Doctor Dee…no, if Starswirl must die this day, so be it. I am old, and ready for that fate…but I weep for Equestria. Please, Elements: do not let my knowledge die here. Let it survive. Take some part of me forward, to the time when this war has ended, to when Equestria needs you the most. Let me find one who might understand the meaning of Harmony, and let me help that pony undo my failures.”

The Elements looked to him, and then responded. The podiums that they stood upon sank into the ground, and each Element hardened itself into a cocoon of stone a physical body to protect the spirit that they held within. They retreated into the ground, and then a ring of light surrounded Dee.

Harmony rushed into his body, and the pain of his burns began to fade. He felt the leakage of his life-force stop, and felt new energy flowing through him, making his strong.

Around him, the air swirled and shifted, and the view of the room in the dark and ancient castle was replaced by a vision of the past. There, around Dee, stood six ponies: three unicorns stood beside a tiny earth pony, an enormous cerorian mare, and a cyborg. Leading them was a tall mare. Everything about her was gray: her coat, her mane, even her eyes. She did not even bear a cutie mark. Though her body had aged long past her natural life, her powerful magic kept her standing, defending her kingdom and her friends against the oncoming enemy.

The image shifted again. Two creatures stepped forward. They were ponies, but they were unlike any that Dee had ever seen or known to exist. The pair of sisters each bore a pair of wings, and each one also possessed a horn. The elder of the two, a pure white mare with a mane of ephemeral magic, stared forward into the face of battle with the hardened eyes of a pony who had seen all too much death. The smaller, a dark blue mare, looked forward as well, masking her fear and pain with confidence in her sister, even as the black infection that surrounded her crescent moon cutie mark was eating into her soul itself.

Once again, the scene changed. Now, Dee was shown an image of six ponies, but a different set than before. Two were unicorns, two of earth heritage, and two bore wings. Dee gawked at one of them, a blue mare with rainbow mane and tail, an almost exact female replica of Pegasus himself.

Then, as he watched, one of them stepped away from the rest. She was a violet coated mare, and Dee could feel through the Elements that she was indeed a powerful sorcerer and a lover of knowledge, just as he had been. Before his eyes, her form shifted, and a pair of long violet wings sprouted from her back as her friends watched on, smiling.

Dee turned back to the mare Pegasus, but saw that she had changed. Where there had been a young pony, there now stood a mare with a broken body, two of her legs replaced by machine and her wings distorted by golden mutation. Dee looked around in a panic, and saw that the only other pony that remained in the vision was a thin yellow pony with gleaming red eyes that had neither pupil nor white. Both of them stood together, wielding the Elements through a power not their own, and for the first time Dee could feel the enemy that they were facing.

Suddenly, the room around him burst into scarlet fire. Dee looked up in terror at the creature that the vision projected to him. Floating above him was a tall, narrow pony, her body encased in metal and impermeable cloth, her legs dangling uselessly below her. Her face consisted of a steel mask carved in the shape of pony’s face, and from her forehead sprung three long horns.

For the first time, Dee felt as if one of the visions were looking at him, or looking into him. This horrible tall creature stood over him, watching, and Dee saw all of Equestria burning in her horrible red magic.

Then, as quickly as they had come, the visions were gone, replaced only with light. Dee looked down at his hoof, and saw that his body was disincorporation. The elements were funneling their power into him, pulling away the corruption of his body. His burns faded as they were pulled from his body as golden dust, and he watched as his cutie mark disconnected from his body, evaporating in the light as his destiny was reset.

“This is my promise,” he said as his body painlessly vanished. “For now, I shall sleep for one thousand years, but know this: I shall return to this land. I shall correct the mistakes that I have made, and undo the shadow I have cast. This I swear.”

Then, in one final stroke, his body was fully removed from existence, consumed by the fire of the Elements of Harmony. The room around him darkened, and went silent. No pony apart from Dee had known about that place, and about the location of the Elements. None would come seeking them, and none would find them. Not until they were needed, and the Tree of Harmony beckoned once again.

As Equestria burned overhead, the Elements- -and Dee with them- -slept, waiting for their time to rise once more, to return Harmony to the land.