"I discourage a cult of personality."
- Inquisitor Equitatus, Ordo Malleus
“Where are you going?”
Clean Sweep turned to face his beautiful fiancé and forced a smile onto his weathered muzzle.
“Just down the road to Lunasong.” Clean Sweep ruffled her mane fondly, “There's no need to be so worried all the time.”
It wasn’t right, not with the foal on the way. He wiped one hoof across his face with a sigh, smearing sweat and dirt from the grounds of the mine across his forehead. Mint Julep trotted over immediately with a rag between her teeth to wipe his face with a worried expression on his face, and he couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous it all was. Here he was, about to go to Lunasong for the first time in weeks and beg for his job, and all that Mint was worried about was a little bit of dirt on his muzzle.
(Of course, had she known just how bad the argument with Hard Case had gone, she might have been more concerned. He'd been... less than clear when he'd told the story, and as far as she knew, it was simply a matter of his saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. He had said the wrong thing at the wrong time, but it really hadn't been for the first time.)
Clean Sweep stepped back and looked Mint over, from the tip of her nose – gaze settling for just a moment on her sparkling pink eyes – to her beautiful pale green pelt. She looked delicate, with her mane pinned up out of her eyes and her long tail, but inside she was strong, and intelligent, in ways that everypony else never got to see. He was blessed. The only reason she hadn't finished in the Stable Progenia was that she'd left school to look after her younger brothers who, even now, as stallions, were just as much a handful as a pair of newborn colts. Always getting into trouble and expecting her to get them out of it... As if she didn't have enough on her hooves keeping her job as the best barfilly that the Celestia's Hoof had!
But that was the problem – her bits alone weren't good enough to feed four (five, soon!), especially with Rotgut Runner in need of bail and Lho Light missing for over a week now. Clean Sweep stifled a sigh of shame. He really needed to learn to keep his mouth shut.
“But you hate prayers,” Mint Julep was sceptical, her nose crumpling into that little frown she reserved for the days she was truly unhappy with him, “and last time you went to Lunasong,” she dabbed at the dirt on his face with a little 'tsk', ignoring his attempts to shoo her away, “you got a concussion head-butting a choir colt.”
Clean Sweep grinned broadly despite himself. He'd forgotten that. “He hit a bad note.”
“And the Equestriarchy still aren’t happy about it.” She had a point... “We can’t pay for another concussion, not with…”
At that, Clean Sweep rushed to wrap his front legs around his fiancé’s neck, pulling her into a tight embrace. “Ssh, don’t be like that…” he rested his muzzle on her shoulder, hiding his increasingly anxious expression behind the gesture, “I’m just going to meet Hard Case.” He paused. The best place to hide a lie was between truths... “Patch things up. Make sure I still have a job come tomorrow. You worry too much.”
“Promise?”
Mint Julep’s voice was very quiet. Clean Sweep pressed a kiss to the tip of her ear and then withdrew to reach for his hat, where it hung in its usual place by the door. His words were muffled as he grasped it between his teeth, sweeping it onto his head.
“Would I lie to you?”
“Just be careful…” Mint chewed her lip.
“I always am.”
It was a nice hat, a warm hat, almost the same colour as his chocolate-brown hide, and as he ducked out the door into the bitter wind, Clean Sweep was glad of it. He tipped it over so that it sat between his ears, shielding his face from the sharp cold, and bent his neck down to force his way through the bitter storm outside. He heard Mint Julep locking the door behind him and smiled with relief. The weather wouldn’t be good for her or the foal, and with the Arbitrotters disappearing and all… He shook his muzzle. Lho Light was one thing – a twig of a colt with barely any sense to rub together – but the planetary defence?
He tried not to think too hard about it. Thinking too hard (and, well, sharing those thoughts) was exactly what had gotten him into trouble with his boss in the first place. Hard Case, his boss, had been ranting all month about some new church he was going to, swearing blind that they said there was nothing to worry about. It was a hard enough lie to swallow with all of the missing miners and cleaners, some of them his friends, but when it had become personal he had lost his temper. Of course there was something to worry about it. Harmony was a packed-enough planet, but eighteen ponies had gone missing this week alone.
The 'new church', whatever it was – and by Celestia's Light, he hoped he wasn't about to walk into a nest of cultists – was on the other side of town, and Clean Sweep only just made it in time. Even from the outside, he didn't like the look of the building. Something didn’t seem right. Hard Case was one of the proudest stallions he knew; why would he choose such a small, run-down church with no reputation over one of the great cathedrals in the centre of the city? But at least it had a roof, and for the time being, that was enough for Clean Sweep. It had been a rough walk in the wind and the sharp, biting rain.
Teeth chattering, he pushed open the door with one hoof. The sound of the organ playing was enough to tell him that he was already late for prayers and Clean Sweep bit down a curse. Glancing around himself he opened his mouth, ready to hiss an apology to whoever was sitting nearest the door. “Sorry I'm late,” he tried to duck inconspicuously into a pew at the very back, hoping that the more pious amongst the concentration would be too distracted to notice his arrival, “I've come from the other-”
His words died in his throat.
The unicorn he had nearly sat on looked at him disdainfully and turned up the collar of his threadbare coat against the wind. Clean Sweep barely noticed him, completely enraptured by the scene around him. He looked across the room in mixed horror and incredulity; he’d never seen a building so full of ponies in his life, and he'd certainly never seen a group of ponies concentrating as hard as the ones in this room were. He waved his hoof in front of the unicorn at his side but he didn’t even blink, captured once more by the music that had been so briefly interrupted. Clean Sweep was stood precariously, in the only empty space in the whole church and he suddenly, desperately, wanted to run. He didn’t even have space to turn, and he wanted to turn so badly as the volume of the music grew louder and louder, and the tune grew so terrible and – and painful? He looked up, trying to spot the offending organist, wondering how nobody else seemed to mind the noise -
And then he saw it.
The door was suddenly impossibly heavy, and when Clean Sweep finally managed to wrench it open, he slammed it behind him and didn’t even look back. Hard Case could keep his job. There was no way in Tartarus Clean Sweep was working for him if the stallion went to churches like that. This was – this was heresy. He didn’t know why, but there was something maddeningly wrong with the place, and nobody seemed to care. If the Equestriarchy knew what was going on there – if the Inquisition knew...! Clean Sweep rubbed his eyes as he ran, his hat billowing off his head and disappearing into the night as the falling rain stuck his mane to his face.
He tried to fight down panic. Surely it had been a trick of the light. Surely he'd imagined the horror inside. But the more he thought about it, the more he was certain he'd seen Lho Light in the crowd, nuzzled into the wings of the one of statues at the pulpit as though it was his dead mother, and Perfect Pitch, from Mint's choir, too, and Hard Case had been there, right at the front, his front legs and his eyes wide open in prayer to -
He wasn't looking where he was going any more. He was barely even thinking. He just had to get back to Mint. They would find some money somewhere, get the boys, and they would get off planet. Yes, that was it. They would lock – no, bar! the door, and make plans in the morning. This was too wrong.
Turning a corner, Clean Sweep ran right into someone – or something – running the other way. He couldn’t help but shout out in fear, covering his face with his hooves as he lost his footing. He fell in a tangle of limbs and fabric – the pair of ponies he’d collided into both garbed in cloaks that covered them all when they fell – and tried to scramble to his feet only to realise with a start that he had run right into the legs of his saviours. The stallion sobbed with relief.
“Arbitrotters! Oh, thank Celestia!”
He panted, not even getting up from the cold, hard ground on which he was splayed. Everything was going to be alright! He could tell the Arbitrotters what was going on, and then they could fix it, if there was a problem, and take him home if there wasn’t. He had over-reacted, that was all. The planet wasn't doomed, and all wasn't lost. He lay there, his eyes oddly stinging and dry, his ears conversely wet and sticky to the touch. The stress was making him ill. He reached out with one hoof, silently begging for their help. One of the Arbitrotters spoke, but her words seemed garbled. The wind, too, seemed strangely pitched and distant. A gauntled hoof shook him roughly, and he shook his head, frowning once again.
“You have to help me, Ma’am! The church. Something – something wrong with the church.”
The two hooded mares stretched rigidly to their hooves, looking down at Clean Sweep. They didn’t say a word. And just as Clean Sweep opened his mouth to explain, the light illuminated their faces and his words turned into screams.
Author's Note
I hope you enjoy this first installment of Lapidem Equitum! I first wrote this story a couple of years ago and both a) never managed to finish it and b) had a terrible habit of overusing... elipsises... and runaway sentences. After a little bit of editing (and some name changes, since the original draft (after this chapter) involved mine and my friends' Dark Heresy characters ponified) I think the prologue is ready to be shared!
Glossary of Terms:
Equestriarchy - Ecclesiarchy
Arbitrotters - Arbitrators
Stable Progenia - Schola Progenia
Equitus Astartes - Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines)
Mares of Battle - Sisters of Battle
Imperium of Ponykind - Imperium of Man
Celestia's Most Holy Inquisition - The Inquisition
