Daring Do and the Wailing Mountainby BlazzingInfernoChaptersOneTwoThreeOneJust keep flying. That’s all that mattered. Daring Do knew this. She’d known it from the moment her hooves left the ground, spears streaking past her and murderous cries echoing across the oasis. She’d known it as the hours ticked by, one increasingly pained wingbeat at a time. But now as she flew higher, leaving the desert’s low-lying thermals in search of a safe place to rest, the all-important notion was going the way of all other rational thought: leaking out of her like so much sweat and spent breath. She felt so tired. Why did the oasis ponies have to get so angry? All she’d done was ask if she could examine the stone idol they’d built their village around, just to see if it was indeed the map to the long-lost Pinkan diamond mines. She should’ve asked them at daybreak when it was cooler, or at least after she’d had a chance to rest after the long trek that brought her to their village in the first place. Desert sand shimmered beneath her: scalding, featureless, and, according to the oasis ponies, forbidden. She’d needed an escape route, and the barren wasteland that the villagers refused to set hoof in had seemed like a good bet. The boiling hot sand was just a desert after all, and the great stone spire reaching up to the heavens from its center was just a mountain. Giving landmarks scary names like Forbidden Desert and Wailing Mountain was the surest sign that the locals either had an ancient treasure to hide, an even more ancient tradition to uphold, or sometimes both. The desert was just a desert, a big boiling sand trap the locals called Forbidden to keep their kids in line. But was the mountain really just a mountain? Scary landmark names had a way of traveling, sometimes. No aged historian or dusty tome back in civilization had ever heard of the Forbidden Desert; they always skipped over that and pointed to the Wailing Mountain, the peak that supposedly rung with horrible screams that reached across the sands and oceans and found their way into the minds of ponies who should’ve known better. Daring couldn’t hear any screaming now, not as she worked her way up the near-vertical rockface in search of a place to land, a place that wouldn’t burn to touch. She’d seen little patches of green partway up the summit, but that had been from miles away. How many vertical miles did she have to climb? How many miles, or minutes, did she have left in her? A sudden rush of air answered her, a breeze that would’ve been refreshing if it didn't come with a sense of weightlessness that accompanies free-fall. Daring didn’t notice her wings hanging limp at her sides, nor the earth-shaking scream filling her ears, nor the foreleg reaching for her own. Waking up took a small eternity. Her first memories were nothing but sensations: a soft blanket beneath her, a damp rag on her forehead, bitter-tasting broth trickling down her parched throat, the smell of heavy rain, rhythmic drumming in the distance, and a countless other things that she couldn’t identify. In the midst of all these brief moments of semi-wakefulness were dark spots, bouts of dreamless sleep that set her more on edge than anything else. Where was she? How long had she been here? Her own senses wouldn’t tell her; which was worse than breaking a leg: wings and legs either worked or they didn’t, but senses were trickier things. Senses could lie. If she couldn’t trust them, if she couldn’t wring truth out of her eyes, ears, and nose, then she truly was doomed to whatever her captors had in store for her. Sight came more suddenly, when her brain finally deigned to let her eyes focus. Only a curtain closed the room’s single door, and flickering candlelight leaked through its loose weave. The room was as sparse as it was small, furnished only with her bed and a contingent of clay pots lined up against the wall by the door. Her eyes poured over every detail, drinking in the visuals that she’d been starved of for untold days. The walls were cobblestone and mortar, worn with age but not covered with dust and cobwebs. Whoever lived here took care of the place. The clay pots were as varied as the wall’s cobblestones, some of them shining in the candlelight and others riddled with deep cracks. Interesting. Purpose came back next. She flexed her left wing, then her right, and then each leg in turn. Everything moved like it should, albeit slowly and with the dull ache that accompanies disuse. She’d put a stop to that. No matter if she’d been laid up in bed for a day or a year, she was herself again, and the door before her beckoned. Daring wasn’t a pony to stay in one place for very long, not when the world was full of treasures to find and evil schemes to foil. Very slowly she pressed each hoof to the ground, testing its ability to bear weight while also keeping her movements silent. Maybe she’d find a pony in the other room to thank for saving her life. Maybe she’d find a pony she’d need to brain with a clay jug or two in order to leave. She didn’t care; she was on her hooves, and soon enough she’d be winging it out of this awful desert. She edged closer to the door, her ears straining against the silence. She could hear breathing in the room beyond and the rustling of tree leaves in a light breeze. That told her everything she needed to know: she wasn’t alone, and the door to the outside was close. Inside of a heartbeat she dropped into a crouch, instinctively ready to battle her way out should the need arise. “Would you like some soup?” The voice was male, deep, and not at all surprised. Daring’s breathing faltered. She burst through the curtained doorway all the same, wings flared and muscles tense. In an instant she took in the scene, noting the potter’s wheel in the corner, the black robes hung by the curtained front door, the moon shining through the window over the dirty washbasin, and the earth pony stallion seated at the table. He met her fierce gaze with a sort of sullen stoicism, the expression of a pony who didn’t care if she fled his home or shrugged and hopped back into bed. At a glance she could tell he wasn’t much older than she was; his black mane and grey coat still shone with some lingering youthfulness. Deep creases lined his face, as if he’d been born frowning and never found a reason to stop. He nodded to a steaming clay pot on the table and a pair of bowls. She could smell the soup in the pot now, more of the bitter stuff she remembered choking down before. “Who are you and why’d you bring me here?” “My name is Calcine. I was on the ledge when you fell.” His voice remained emotionless, and after a moment his attention returned to his bowl of soup. Daring’s battle stance slackened. So much for having to fight her way out. “Daring Do. And thanks.” Calcine dipped his snout into his bowl. She took a second glance around the room before approaching the table. The biggest danger here was to her tastebuds. “How long was I out?” He finished another mouthful before replying. “Two days. Two days of delirious muttering and heat fever. When you finally became silent I knew you had awoken… or would never wake again.” She sank into the chair opposite his, and repeated what she’d said before with all the conviction she could muster. “Thanks.” “There’s soup. You should eat.” Daring sniffed the clay pot again. “What’s in it?” “Mushroom and grass. We don’t have much to choose from.” She nodded and, with an air of resignation, scooped some soup into her bowl. “So you make pottery?” “Yes.” Daring watched him eat for a moment, more unnerved by his apparent lack of tastebuds than his inability to have a conversation. “I’m an adventurer. I hunt for treasure, fight bad guys, that sort of thing.” Calcine paused mid-swallow. A few stray drops of broth trickled down his chin and fell back into the bowl. He resumed eating a moment later, murmuring “We have no treasure here.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m just passing through anyway. Why do you live up here anyway, on top of a mountain in the middle of the desert?” “It is my village’s way. It has always been so.” Daring’s empty stomach won out. She took a mouthful of soup and suppressed a grimace, forcing a smile as she swallowed. “I don’t suppose you know how far it is to the coast? I really appreciate your help and everything, and if there’s anything I can do for you before I go—” He nodded with such swiftness and vigor that she couldn’t help pausing. “Yes. If you are truly a fighter, then yes.” She flexed her wings and cocked an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?” “My family was destroyed by a great evil that lives nearby. I fear I am unable to stop it myself.” Her smile couldn’t have been wider. Finally she was back in familiar adventuring territory. “Just point me at it and it’ll be buzzard food by sunup.” A laugh escaped Calcine’s mouth, a low laugh of near-hopeless incredulity that Daring knew well. “Let us hope. After you have eaten, we shall see. You will need your strength.” “Like I said, I’ve dealt with monsters before.” He stared at her, his smile gone. “For the hike, Daring Do. You will need your strength for the hike.” TwoStiff grass and loose pebbles crunched under their hooves. They’d been walking for barely an hour and already Daring was out of breath. She heaved and gasped while Calcine trotted up a steep trail that wended its way between sheer rock faces and groves of shrubbery. “We… almost there?” He paused, but only long enough to spare her a glance. “You are not used to the mountain air.” “No… no, I’m not. Then there’s the whole… being out for two days… after flying across the desert… plus—” The sound of beating drums stilled them both. Calcine stared up at the blanket of stars, muttering curses at the heavens. “We are late. This way!” He turned and pushed his way through the undergrowth, leaving her alone on the path. Daring did some cursing of her own as she followed him. Branches as sharp as griffon claws raked against her sides, and her open mouth inhaled more leaves than air. At least the leaves tasted better than Calcine’s soup. Still this was insane. Here she was, pushing through the undergrowth on a mountain in the dark. Her next step could send her plummeting down a cliff or into the hooves of another bunch of murder-happy villagers. The only hint that she wasn’t following a crazy-pony was the rhythmic thump of drums echoing through the air, the sign that there were indeed other ponies living on this rock and not just some Calcine-born delusion. That didn’t mean he and his fellow mountain dwellers weren’t all crazy, of course. In her experience, crazy topped the list of reasons why ponies chose to live in extreme isolation and secret, followed closely by hoarding priceless treasures. Assuming Calcine had told her the truth about there not being treasure here, bad food would be the least of her worries. Calcine’s voice hissed in her ear. “Stop here.” Her forehoof froze in midair and hovered over a sheer drop that she hadn’t spotted in her haste to keep up. The underbrush ended abruptly inches before the ground itself did. Daring crouched down and peered through the leaves with well-practiced stealth. Calcine stood nearby, as still as stone and nearly invisible, even to her. “Now we watch,” he whispered. “Do not interfere. Do not be seen. If you are discovered here, it will mean our doom.” Daring nodded. Now the adventuring started in earnest: see what the bad guys were up to, then foil their evil plan. Before her lay a crater, wide as a small village at its top edges and sloping down steeply to a flat rock base. A group of ponies garbed in black stood at its center, gathered around a vertical rock face jutting out into the crater’s interior. The mass of black cloaks obscured whatever was actually going on down there, all except for curious firelight glinting off the rock face. The only movement was that of the drummers, two sets of ponies on either end of the group pounding on large, painted drums that shone like marble in the meagre torchlight. At least now she knew what else Calcine made on that potter’s wheel of his besides urns, and what his black cloak was for. Why was Calcine standing up here with her instead of down there with others? If only she could see the scene up close. Maybe he’d been leading her to a better vantage point before the drumming started. Or maybe he’d been heading for the staircase carved into the crater wall, so she could be the ‘guest of honor’ for the night. “What happens next?” she asked. “Midnight. It always happens at midnight. There!” The drumming stopped as abruptly as it started. The huddled ponies spread out to the crater’s walls with the grace of dancers and the speed of shadows. An orange light glowed where they once stood, but it wasn’t firelight like she expected. A narrow chasm stretched across the ground at the base of the vertical rock face, its depths alight with magma. The Wailing Mountain was an active volcano. A single pony remained near the chasm, a bone-thin stallion tied to a stone altar at the edge of the precipice. The magma’s hellish light cast his emaciated body into sharp relief, from near-nonexistent stomach to visible ribcage to skull-like face. Daring gasped and stood. “Once they spot me, cause a distraction, something to draw their attention while I grab him.” Calcine’s hoof jammed into her back, forcing her back down with all his bodyweight. “No! Do not be seen!” Rage boiled inside her, along with a half-dozen ways to break free and throw him over the crater’s edge. “I’m not letting somepony get thrown in the lava!” He pressed down harder still. “That would be a mercy, if it was not too late for him already! If we are seen, others will suffer the same fate!” Daring’s muscles relaxed, if only to feign agreement. Her adrenaline was pumping hard enough to turn outrage into action in a heartbeat. If this was the evil Calcine was talking about, tipping starved ponies into a lava vent, then she’d gladly bring the practice to a violent end along with every pony involved. “He began the ritual months ago,” Calcine muttered, “there is nothing left in him to save. What is left belongs to the traveler.” Daring’s eyes bored into the stallion on the altar, searching for even the slightest signs of life, the call to break Calcine’s jaw and swoop in to save the day. “Who’s the trav—” A shadow fell across the altar despite nopony approaching it. At last Daring noticed the rock face beyond the altar, the smooth, vertical surface that had been polished to a mirror-like shine. And at last she noticed the blurry silhouette of a pony standing within it, like a reflection without a caster. The silhouette in the mirror leaned down towards the stallion’s reflection, and suddenly the awful silence hanging in the air vanished. The stallion’s eyes flew open and an ear-splitting scream escaped his lips, a shrill note too prolonged and deafening for a single pony to produce, a sound that fixed Daring to the spot in abject horror. The stallion convulsed and squirmed against his bonds for second after terrible second, his long cries shaking the heavens and then dying in gasps for air. Over and over again this cycle went, unending and unendurable to anypony within earshot. And then silence fell like a hammer blow. The altar lay empty aside from the now limp ropes, and the bright magma illuminating the scene dimmed from a furnace-like gleam to a dull glow that the stars outshone. Daring kept staring at the altar. She couldn't stop. “Is he… I mean… What just happened?” Calcine withdrew his hoof from her back. “Something that must never happen again.” Daring walked the length of the crater, from staircase to altar, for the fifth time, pausing only when her legs started to shake. It’d been less than an hour, she knew. Less than an hour ago this spot had been swarming with black-robed villagers and a pony had been dematerialized on that stone altar by some sort of pony-shaped shadow monster. She’d seen and heard it, and yet those horrors glimpsed from afar felt too alien to have taken place in this very real and relatively mundane spot. Even the lava vent felt unimpressive. Up close it was just a crack in the ground roughly a hoofspan wide radiating a little light and a lot of heat. She’d dealt with lava before, a few times nearly nose-diving into the stuff on her way to another thrilling escape. “How do they do it?” she asked. She had so many questions, many that deserved to be shouted. Calcine still hadn’t said a thing since the stallion vanished. After that moment the ponies from the ritual removed what looked like earplugs from their ears and vanished up the crater’s staircase. Daring had taken wing as soon as the coast was clear, gliding over the crater’s expanse and touching down at the base of the stairs. “How do they do it?” she said a bit louder. Calcine was seated on the steps, staring straight ahead at the mirror. What was it about the mirror? At a distance she’d assumed the vertical rock face had been polished. Cults loved lairs with spooky ambiance, after all. Up close she could see the gargantuan piece of glass properly, the perfectly smooth surface devoid of scratches, pockmarks, and smudges. Mirrors this big and perfect shouldn't have been able exist outside of ornate mansions and museums, protected from damaging elements and dirty hooves. “Is there a cave behind the mirror?” There had to be, she reasoned. How else did whoever was casting the shadow get close to the altar? Calcine said nothing. “Talk to me, already! If you want me to help you stop this, I need to know how—” Daring’s overarching pragmatism faltered in the face of a far more important question “Why? Why do they do this?” Calcine finally stirred, uttering a cough that echoed across the crater. “Payment. Payment for the lava not covering the mountain and destroying us all. A new sacrificial pony must be provided whenever the old one finally vanishes, and when we can’t abduct one from across the desert, the eldest member of the village is chosen.” She leaned over and spit in the lava vent. “Monsters. You're all monsters.” Calcine nodded, his face ashen. “We are. We don't deserve to draw breath.” “So what’s gotten you thinking different?” “Once I knew a pony who thought just as you, who spoke in whispers about escape, about our all leaving the mountain before the traveler could return and demand a new sacrifice. She was no monster… She was my wife.” Daring held back an eye roll. “And then her time was up, right? And suddenly because it's somepony you cared about—” “It was not her time!” Calcine said with a snarl. He leaped to his feet and matched her irate glare. “She was young! Younger than I! Yet when a pony from our village was required as sacrifice…” Daring hated long pauses almost as much as pony-eating monsters. “What?” Calcine looked past her, glaring at the mirror. “The traveler knew, somehow. When the time of choosing came, he picked her out of all of us, out of hundreds of ponies young and old he picked the one who dared think of leaving his mountain. Our chieftess didn't even look surprised. Some ponies even looked… relieved.” A tinge of sympathy diluted her glare, but he bared his teeth. He crossed the crater, one thundering step at a time, until only the altar stood between the mirror and his ravenous, animal glare. “I am a monster, but I will do only one more terrible thing. I will shatter the mirror while the traveler stands within it. I will condemn the mountain, its monster, and its keepers. I will end the sacrifices and the village that provides them. I will end it all!” “No you won't,” she said with a sigh. “I get that you're angry—” He rounded on her. “You don’t understand!” “I don’t have to! Just because I haven't been in your horseshoes doesn't mean I haven't seen ponies in your place, so angry and hopeless they want the whole world to end… and a few that want to end it just to hurt everypony else. I don’t think you’re one of them.” “I was going to jump.” “Huh?” The sullen frown he'd worn when she first woke up was back. “When I saw you falling to your death. I was on that ledge because I was going to jump to my own.” Silence hung in the air for a moment. Daring folded her ears back; for her, silence still rung with screams. “So what stopped you?” “Hope. Hope and instinct. I couldn't stand there and watch you fall, and then I couldn't leave you on the ledge to die for want of water. Saving you reminded me of what my wife would have wanted me to do in her stead… and what I must do to avenge her.” His gaze returned to the mirror. She joined his vigil a second later, studying every inch of the mirror for weak spots or hidden levers. “However this trick works… I'm putting a stop to it. Whether you help or not, I'm ending this.” He nodded. “There will be a choosing ceremony tonight. When the traveler appears, we must break the mirror and him with it.” Daring crouched low and tensed her hind legs. “Why wait? How about I just shatter it right now?” Then she could go deal with the actual monster. Calcine snorted. “Try if you must.” One blow was all it should’ve taken. If that perfect wall of glass was half as old as Calcine claimed, breaking it would be foal’s play. Daring launched herself forward, spinning in midair and expertly planting her back hoof on the mirror with all of her bodyweight behind it. The mirror hit back. Pain shot up her leg, and a second later she shot across the crater and skidded to a stop by the stairs. She flopped onto her back, grunting and cursing. What did this mountain have against her and her dignity? “The hay was that?” Calcine trotted over and helped her up. “Only the traveler can open it. We must wait for him to appear.” Bushes rustled all around them. Daring rolled onto her back and spun around. It didn’t matter which way she turned; cloaked ponies lined the crater’s edge, aiming spears at them from all sides. “I guess we won’t have to wait very long.” ThreeDaring had had worse days, but not many. Few days involved laying bound in a hut, patiently waiting out the daylight and evening hours for midnight to come again. Of course these ponies wouldn’t do something as simple and obvious as throw her and Calcine off a cliff, not when they had a pony-eating deity on hoof. At last she found herself back in the crater as the dreaded hour approached, wings bound and sides flanked by two spear-wielding guards. Cloaked ponies milled around, some whispering softly while others inserted their earplugs. None of them spared her a glance. Maybe she was less than a pony to them, either because she was an outsider, or because they needed her to be something less to ease whatever shred of a conscience they collectively possessed. Calcine lay upon the altar, everything below his neck obscured by coil after coil of rope. Clearly they weren’t taking any chances with him. Maybe somepony heard them talking the night before, or maybe him not showing up to last night’s ritual had been enough to tip them off. Whatever the reason, there was exactly zero chance he’d get to follow through with his ‘break the mirror’ plan once the traveler showed up. Not unless she could get free, of course. A spear pressed against her side, right behind her wing. She cast the offending guard a hateful glare before turning back to Calcine. There were only two weapons in easy reach, and the business end of each one was trained on her. Somehow she needed to untie herself, disarm the two guards, and then do something about the traveler before the other ponies could stop her. Assuming Calcine was right about the traveler being the only thing that could ‘open’ the mirror, which sounded about as nuts as everything else on this rock, the time to act was during the ritual. That left barely any time to plan an escape, let alone an attack. A hooded pony stepped into her view, a strikingly tall mare with a shining blue coat and a red mane dressed in beads and flowers. She smiled down at Daring, not even bothering to bend her neck to meet her gaze. “Our village doesn’t get many visitors, my little pony.” “With this kind of hospitality, I’m not surprised.” The mare’s smile broadened. “Perhaps we should have started with you, outsider. If Calcine’s blasphemies were any less severe we would have. Let us hope the traveler drains him quickly, so that you can take his place before too many nights have passed.” Daring rolled her eyes. “Maybe he’ll choke on all Calcine’s big ideas—” she raised her voice to a shout “—like ponies should move off this stupid hunk of r—” A hoof crashed against Daring’s temple with the force of a wooden club, not from the guards like she’d expected, but from the mare standing before her; this pony was strong! The world spun for a moment, save for the spears still pressing against her skin. She shook her head a few times, wincing as her whole skull pulsed with pain. Still the mare smiled. “I see our former potter has told you much. Too much for anypony’s good, no doubt.” She glanced at the guards briefly before trotting away. “If she speaks again, make sure she regrets it.” “Yes, chieftess.” the guards replied. Ponies took to the drums a moment later, and the crater reverberated with the sound of oncoming doom, the ominous beat to which countless ponies had already fallen victim. Daring knew she had mere seconds to figure a way out of this; no matter if the traveler was magic, trickery, or worse, Calcine was about to follow in his wife’s hoofsteps. As if he’d heard her thoughts, Calcine tilted his head just enough to make eye contact. “Don’t save me! Save the world from the traveler!” Daring couldn’t hold back a smirk. Saving the world was her specialty. “Silence!” the chieftess bellowed from the crowd. “The traveler comes! All hail!” How had she heard him? Didn’t she wear earplugs like the others? How could she stand not to? The torchlight flickering in the mirror’s reflection suddenly grew brighter. Daring stared at the mirror, her desperation mounting. She saw her own reflection looking back at her, except this time with such vividness, such perfect luster, that it didn’t look like a reflection at all. No natural surface, not even under the influence of unicorn magic, could make an image so lifelike. She might as well have been staring at a replica of the crater, occupants and all. “Whoa.” She braced for pain, but none came. The spears pressed against her dug no deeper; the guards probably had their earplugs in place now. They won’t hear me if I’m quiet. Unless… unless… A grin spread across her face just as a shadow fell upon the perfect reflections in the mirror. Spots of phantom darkness flew in from its outer edges like gathering smoke until an indistinct yet unmistakable pony silhouette stood over Calcine’s terrified reflection. The traveler had arrived. “Hey!” Daring shouted, “Why don’t you pick on somepony your own size, you big pile of smoke! I’ve roasted marshmallows over scarier stuff than you!” Daring felt the guards shift next to her. She knew they wouldn’t hesitate or show mercy; if anything they’d put their backs into running her through from both sides at once. Her fate rested on the next two seconds, on her dropping to the ground just before the spear points lodged themselves in her flesh, when they were still slicing through rope fibers with all the strength the two guard ponies could muster. She fell in slow motion, sensing every movement of the spears as they dragged against her coat but sliced through nothing but rope. Calcine’s screams tore apart the night air as her belly touched the crater’s stony ground and her wings flexed against their suddenly weakened bonds. She stuck out a hind leg and spun herself around, her adrenaline blocking out every care in the world aside from the monster in the mirror and the ponies standing in her way. In one deft motion she swept the guard’s hooves out from under them, her wings straining and then snapping the ropes keeping her earthbound. She couldn’t look back. She couldn’t take her eyes off the mirror for an instant. Somewhere behind her other guards would be rushing forward or even heaving their spears through the air, but that didn’t matter. The traveler stood in front of her, his attention focused on his latest meal rather than the pegasus sailing forward to make it his last. Fresh screams and shouts filled the air just before she hit the glass. Her foreleg pressed forward, inches away from its own reflection and the phantom shadow somehow standing between them on the mirror’s surface. “No, stop!” The chieftess bellowed, her deep voice rattling Daring’s teeth. Daring merely grinned. “Hope you’ve got fire insurance, you—” And then the traveler faced her, its looming form overtaking her own shadow. The sounds of the villagers and the chill of the night air vanished. She tumbled across bare ground, rolling over and over before smashing into something cold and hard. What happened? Did she break through the mirror? Was there a secret cave behind it like she’d assumed? Maybe it really was just a power-mad pony with a magic artifact pulling the strings. She opened her eyes, blinking repeatedly in hopes that the nonsensical scene before her would resolve back into reality. Instead she found herself flat on her back, her hind legs resting against a stone cylinder that looked roughly shoulder height. A crystal ceiling loomed far above, some of its polished facets shimmering in blue and red. And then a pair of invisible forelegs closed around her neck. Daring’s instincts took over. She pushed off against the stone cylinder, twisting, pulling, and striking with every drop of adrenaline she had left. In an instant she was on her hooves again, grasping and straining against the headlock while her eyes searched for her attacker. What she saw instead would’ve taken her breath away, if she’d had any left. She stood near the center of an expansive room walled with mirrors. Except they weren’t simply mirrors. Alongside her own impossibly vivid reflection she saw an arctic wasteland in one mirror, a jungle in another, a stone-walled dungeon, and countless other scenes even more diverse than her own adventures. The one commonality to all the mirror-bound worlds was a small pile of rock situated a few hoofsteps from the mirror’s surface. Each of those worlds had had a sacrificial altar once, now all but erased by the unrelenting passage of time. Her own world was easy to spot. Brilliant orange light glared through a mirror to her left, flickering sometimes as waves of lava lapped against the crater’s walls. The cloaked ponies were gone, either on hoof or into the molten depths. Only Calcine remained, standing on the altar with precious inches left between him and the rising tide. The ropes holding him had burned away, and his hind legs were drawn in and ready to strike. Do it, Calcine! Do it! A deep gong reverberated through the whole chamber, as if Calcine had driven a wrecking ball into the mirror instead of a pair of hooves. White cracks shot through the glass, and the vice-like forelegs gripping Daring’s neck shivered and slackened. Daring dipped forward until her nose touched the ground, shifting her attacker’s weight just enough to break the choke hold. She flipped around and did a two-leg buck of her own, slamming her back hooves against her unseen foe. Heavy hoofsteps echoed through the room as her assailant staggered backward, and as they did she saw the hint of a shadow darkening the nearest mirror. Whatever this creature was, it cast a shadow in the weird mirrors. That’s how it appeared to the villagers, and that’s how she’d stop it from ever devouring another pony. Calcine’s timing was perfect. His hooves struck one side of the mirror just as Daring smashed her opponent against the other. A deafening boom nearly knocked Daring off her hooves, the sound of Calcine coming one blow closer to breaking through the glass and avenging his wife. Other, quieter sounds interested her more. She could hear loosed beads clattering against the ground and leaves crinkling between mane and mirror. The invisible creature she’d just pinned against the glass wasn’t male after all. “Hi there, chieftess.” The chieftess uttered a low growl, more animal than pony, and flung Daring back with the same brute strength she’d shown before. “Spoiled everything! Took my last village, my last herd!” Daring braked in the air a moment later, seconds short of colliding with another mirror. “That’s all we are to you, isn’t it? We’re just food.” The chieftess’ shadow grew larger, it's neck lengthening and six more legs sprouting from its sides. Her shadow left the mirror as her many hooves stumbled across the floor. Daring could only guess where in the room she was now. “You are food… you are form… you are life. I will feast upon your flesh for a hundred moons!” Daring glanced at Calcine and cocked her eyebrow. “I taste better chilled than baked, sorry.” The mirror imploded, and Daring’s ears nearly did the same. The mixture of shattering glass, hissing lava, and otherworldly screams almost made her black out. Almost. She darted forward and then dove low, riding the thermals so close to the lava that her fur started to smoke. More implosions followed, each one playing out on the periphery of her senses as she streaked across the room, over spreading lava, under a shower of shattering glass, and through the remains of the portal between the traveler’s domain and the real world. “Calcine! Grab on!” Calcine, now balanced on two legs while the lava inched its away up the alter’s sides, grasped her foreleg but never took his eyes off the ruined mirror and the dark chamber beyond. “Is it done? If not then I go no further!” She sailed across the crater’s expanse, her wings flapping wildly to support the additional weight. “She’s finished, now let’s get out of here!” “She?” “Tell you later. Just hang on!” She banked to the left to avoid the crater’s steep walls. She needed to climb higher, somehow. Did Calcine eat rocks in his spare time, or something? She needed her rope and climbing gear, the supplies she’d been forced to abandon on the oasis. “I am too heavy for you!” Calcine shouted. “Let me to perish. It is what I deserve.” Daring shook her head, her breaths longer and more labored than she wanted to think about. “Yeah you are, and no I won’t! You saved me, I’m going to save—” A blast of hot air pushed them higher just before an explosion hammered their ears. Daring felt as if she’d been hit by a fiery hoof the size of a building. She rocketed through the air, half deaf, fully dazed, and conscious of nothing other than the foreleg she was still holding onto with all her might. The world spun around and around as they flew, and the explosion became a rumbling, jolting roar peppered with the near-constant whoosh of volcanic ejecta shooting by on every side. And then all at once the world righted itself. Daring suddenly found herself in the starry night sky, Calcine still dangling below her and the ash cloud of an erupting volcano spreading far beneath them. She cheered silently as she took a deep breath of cool, smoke-free air; that alone brought back a modicum of her strength, and freedom’s elation did the rest. “We did it… We made it!” When Calcine didn’t sound his approval, she glanced down and found him doing the same. His former home was slag, and if his former neighbors weren’t then they had a trek across the desert ahead of them, followed by some very unfriendly oasis ponies. “You okay, Calcine?” “I-I was merely thinking… is this what it is like to fly?” His barely-constrained terror made her laugh. “Oh, yeah. I take off via volcano all the time.” “I do not believe you.” “Good choice. See that thing over there, beyond the desert?” Daring angled them slightly west, forever thankful that she needed only to glide. Their altitude and her spread wings would keep them airborne well past the Forbidden Desert’s reaches. “That is the sea. I may have lived in a pony-sacrificing cult, but I am not stupid, Daring Do.” She laughed again. “Not that, the glowing thing next it. There’s a city on the coast, a big one. That’s where I’m dropping you off… and where I’m finding a hotel and a decent meal.” “I do not know if that is wise… The things I have done—” “The past isn’t going to change, but you did a lot of good today. Keep it up.” “I… will do my best. Perhaps I can fight for the good of others, as you do.” She grinned. “Perfect. You can keep the world safe for a week or two while I take a break.” I’ve got some writing to do.
OneJust keep flying. That’s all that mattered. Daring Do knew this. She’d known it from the moment her hooves left the ground, spears streaking past her and murderous cries echoing across the oasis. She’d known it as the hours ticked by, one increasingly pained wingbeat at a time. But now as she flew higher, leaving the desert’s low-lying thermals in search of a safe place to rest, the all-important notion was going the way of all other rational thought: leaking out of her like so much sweat and spent breath. She felt so tired. Why did the oasis ponies have to get so angry? All she’d done was ask if she could examine the stone idol they’d built their village around, just to see if it was indeed the map to the long-lost Pinkan diamond mines. She should’ve asked them at daybreak when it was cooler, or at least after she’d had a chance to rest after the long trek that brought her to their village in the first place. Desert sand shimmered beneath her: scalding, featureless, and, according to the oasis ponies, forbidden. She’d needed an escape route, and the barren wasteland that the villagers refused to set hoof in had seemed like a good bet. The boiling hot sand was just a desert after all, and the great stone spire reaching up to the heavens from its center was just a mountain. Giving landmarks scary names like Forbidden Desert and Wailing Mountain was the surest sign that the locals either had an ancient treasure to hide, an even more ancient tradition to uphold, or sometimes both. The desert was just a desert, a big boiling sand trap the locals called Forbidden to keep their kids in line. But was the mountain really just a mountain? Scary landmark names had a way of traveling, sometimes. No aged historian or dusty tome back in civilization had ever heard of the Forbidden Desert; they always skipped over that and pointed to the Wailing Mountain, the peak that supposedly rung with horrible screams that reached across the sands and oceans and found their way into the minds of ponies who should’ve known better. Daring couldn’t hear any screaming now, not as she worked her way up the near-vertical rockface in search of a place to land, a place that wouldn’t burn to touch. She’d seen little patches of green partway up the summit, but that had been from miles away. How many vertical miles did she have to climb? How many miles, or minutes, did she have left in her? A sudden rush of air answered her, a breeze that would’ve been refreshing if it didn't come with a sense of weightlessness that accompanies free-fall. Daring didn’t notice her wings hanging limp at her sides, nor the earth-shaking scream filling her ears, nor the foreleg reaching for her own. Waking up took a small eternity. Her first memories were nothing but sensations: a soft blanket beneath her, a damp rag on her forehead, bitter-tasting broth trickling down her parched throat, the smell of heavy rain, rhythmic drumming in the distance, and a countless other things that she couldn’t identify. In the midst of all these brief moments of semi-wakefulness were dark spots, bouts of dreamless sleep that set her more on edge than anything else. Where was she? How long had she been here? Her own senses wouldn’t tell her; which was worse than breaking a leg: wings and legs either worked or they didn’t, but senses were trickier things. Senses could lie. If she couldn’t trust them, if she couldn’t wring truth out of her eyes, ears, and nose, then she truly was doomed to whatever her captors had in store for her. Sight came more suddenly, when her brain finally deigned to let her eyes focus. Only a curtain closed the room’s single door, and flickering candlelight leaked through its loose weave. The room was as sparse as it was small, furnished only with her bed and a contingent of clay pots lined up against the wall by the door. Her eyes poured over every detail, drinking in the visuals that she’d been starved of for untold days. The walls were cobblestone and mortar, worn with age but not covered with dust and cobwebs. Whoever lived here took care of the place. The clay pots were as varied as the wall’s cobblestones, some of them shining in the candlelight and others riddled with deep cracks. Interesting. Purpose came back next. She flexed her left wing, then her right, and then each leg in turn. Everything moved like it should, albeit slowly and with the dull ache that accompanies disuse. She’d put a stop to that. No matter if she’d been laid up in bed for a day or a year, she was herself again, and the door before her beckoned. Daring wasn’t a pony to stay in one place for very long, not when the world was full of treasures to find and evil schemes to foil. Very slowly she pressed each hoof to the ground, testing its ability to bear weight while also keeping her movements silent. Maybe she’d find a pony in the other room to thank for saving her life. Maybe she’d find a pony she’d need to brain with a clay jug or two in order to leave. She didn’t care; she was on her hooves, and soon enough she’d be winging it out of this awful desert. She edged closer to the door, her ears straining against the silence. She could hear breathing in the room beyond and the rustling of tree leaves in a light breeze. That told her everything she needed to know: she wasn’t alone, and the door to the outside was close. Inside of a heartbeat she dropped into a crouch, instinctively ready to battle her way out should the need arise. “Would you like some soup?” The voice was male, deep, and not at all surprised. Daring’s breathing faltered. She burst through the curtained doorway all the same, wings flared and muscles tense. In an instant she took in the scene, noting the potter’s wheel in the corner, the black robes hung by the curtained front door, the moon shining through the window over the dirty washbasin, and the earth pony stallion seated at the table. He met her fierce gaze with a sort of sullen stoicism, the expression of a pony who didn’t care if she fled his home or shrugged and hopped back into bed. At a glance she could tell he wasn’t much older than she was; his black mane and grey coat still shone with some lingering youthfulness. Deep creases lined his face, as if he’d been born frowning and never found a reason to stop. He nodded to a steaming clay pot on the table and a pair of bowls. She could smell the soup in the pot now, more of the bitter stuff she remembered choking down before. “Who are you and why’d you bring me here?” “My name is Calcine. I was on the ledge when you fell.” His voice remained emotionless, and after a moment his attention returned to his bowl of soup. Daring’s battle stance slackened. So much for having to fight her way out. “Daring Do. And thanks.” Calcine dipped his snout into his bowl. She took a second glance around the room before approaching the table. The biggest danger here was to her tastebuds. “How long was I out?” He finished another mouthful before replying. “Two days. Two days of delirious muttering and heat fever. When you finally became silent I knew you had awoken… or would never wake again.” She sank into the chair opposite his, and repeated what she’d said before with all the conviction she could muster. “Thanks.” “There’s soup. You should eat.” Daring sniffed the clay pot again. “What’s in it?” “Mushroom and grass. We don’t have much to choose from.” She nodded and, with an air of resignation, scooped some soup into her bowl. “So you make pottery?” “Yes.” Daring watched him eat for a moment, more unnerved by his apparent lack of tastebuds than his inability to have a conversation. “I’m an adventurer. I hunt for treasure, fight bad guys, that sort of thing.” Calcine paused mid-swallow. A few stray drops of broth trickled down his chin and fell back into the bowl. He resumed eating a moment later, murmuring “We have no treasure here.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m just passing through anyway. Why do you live up here anyway, on top of a mountain in the middle of the desert?” “It is my village’s way. It has always been so.” Daring’s empty stomach won out. She took a mouthful of soup and suppressed a grimace, forcing a smile as she swallowed. “I don’t suppose you know how far it is to the coast? I really appreciate your help and everything, and if there’s anything I can do for you before I go—” He nodded with such swiftness and vigor that she couldn’t help pausing. “Yes. If you are truly a fighter, then yes.” She flexed her wings and cocked an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?” “My family was destroyed by a great evil that lives nearby. I fear I am unable to stop it myself.” Her smile couldn’t have been wider. Finally she was back in familiar adventuring territory. “Just point me at it and it’ll be buzzard food by sunup.” A laugh escaped Calcine’s mouth, a low laugh of near-hopeless incredulity that Daring knew well. “Let us hope. After you have eaten, we shall see. You will need your strength.” “Like I said, I’ve dealt with monsters before.” He stared at her, his smile gone. “For the hike, Daring Do. You will need your strength for the hike.”
TwoStiff grass and loose pebbles crunched under their hooves. They’d been walking for barely an hour and already Daring was out of breath. She heaved and gasped while Calcine trotted up a steep trail that wended its way between sheer rock faces and groves of shrubbery. “We… almost there?” He paused, but only long enough to spare her a glance. “You are not used to the mountain air.” “No… no, I’m not. Then there’s the whole… being out for two days… after flying across the desert… plus—” The sound of beating drums stilled them both. Calcine stared up at the blanket of stars, muttering curses at the heavens. “We are late. This way!” He turned and pushed his way through the undergrowth, leaving her alone on the path. Daring did some cursing of her own as she followed him. Branches as sharp as griffon claws raked against her sides, and her open mouth inhaled more leaves than air. At least the leaves tasted better than Calcine’s soup. Still this was insane. Here she was, pushing through the undergrowth on a mountain in the dark. Her next step could send her plummeting down a cliff or into the hooves of another bunch of murder-happy villagers. The only hint that she wasn’t following a crazy-pony was the rhythmic thump of drums echoing through the air, the sign that there were indeed other ponies living on this rock and not just some Calcine-born delusion. That didn’t mean he and his fellow mountain dwellers weren’t all crazy, of course. In her experience, crazy topped the list of reasons why ponies chose to live in extreme isolation and secret, followed closely by hoarding priceless treasures. Assuming Calcine had told her the truth about there not being treasure here, bad food would be the least of her worries. Calcine’s voice hissed in her ear. “Stop here.” Her forehoof froze in midair and hovered over a sheer drop that she hadn’t spotted in her haste to keep up. The underbrush ended abruptly inches before the ground itself did. Daring crouched down and peered through the leaves with well-practiced stealth. Calcine stood nearby, as still as stone and nearly invisible, even to her. “Now we watch,” he whispered. “Do not interfere. Do not be seen. If you are discovered here, it will mean our doom.” Daring nodded. Now the adventuring started in earnest: see what the bad guys were up to, then foil their evil plan. Before her lay a crater, wide as a small village at its top edges and sloping down steeply to a flat rock base. A group of ponies garbed in black stood at its center, gathered around a vertical rock face jutting out into the crater’s interior. The mass of black cloaks obscured whatever was actually going on down there, all except for curious firelight glinting off the rock face. The only movement was that of the drummers, two sets of ponies on either end of the group pounding on large, painted drums that shone like marble in the meagre torchlight. At least now she knew what else Calcine made on that potter’s wheel of his besides urns, and what his black cloak was for. Why was Calcine standing up here with her instead of down there with others? If only she could see the scene up close. Maybe he’d been leading her to a better vantage point before the drumming started. Or maybe he’d been heading for the staircase carved into the crater wall, so she could be the ‘guest of honor’ for the night. “What happens next?” she asked. “Midnight. It always happens at midnight. There!” The drumming stopped as abruptly as it started. The huddled ponies spread out to the crater’s walls with the grace of dancers and the speed of shadows. An orange light glowed where they once stood, but it wasn’t firelight like she expected. A narrow chasm stretched across the ground at the base of the vertical rock face, its depths alight with magma. The Wailing Mountain was an active volcano. A single pony remained near the chasm, a bone-thin stallion tied to a stone altar at the edge of the precipice. The magma’s hellish light cast his emaciated body into sharp relief, from near-nonexistent stomach to visible ribcage to skull-like face. Daring gasped and stood. “Once they spot me, cause a distraction, something to draw their attention while I grab him.” Calcine’s hoof jammed into her back, forcing her back down with all his bodyweight. “No! Do not be seen!” Rage boiled inside her, along with a half-dozen ways to break free and throw him over the crater’s edge. “I’m not letting somepony get thrown in the lava!” He pressed down harder still. “That would be a mercy, if it was not too late for him already! If we are seen, others will suffer the same fate!” Daring’s muscles relaxed, if only to feign agreement. Her adrenaline was pumping hard enough to turn outrage into action in a heartbeat. If this was the evil Calcine was talking about, tipping starved ponies into a lava vent, then she’d gladly bring the practice to a violent end along with every pony involved. “He began the ritual months ago,” Calcine muttered, “there is nothing left in him to save. What is left belongs to the traveler.” Daring’s eyes bored into the stallion on the altar, searching for even the slightest signs of life, the call to break Calcine’s jaw and swoop in to save the day. “Who’s the trav—” A shadow fell across the altar despite nopony approaching it. At last Daring noticed the rock face beyond the altar, the smooth, vertical surface that had been polished to a mirror-like shine. And at last she noticed the blurry silhouette of a pony standing within it, like a reflection without a caster. The silhouette in the mirror leaned down towards the stallion’s reflection, and suddenly the awful silence hanging in the air vanished. The stallion’s eyes flew open and an ear-splitting scream escaped his lips, a shrill note too prolonged and deafening for a single pony to produce, a sound that fixed Daring to the spot in abject horror. The stallion convulsed and squirmed against his bonds for second after terrible second, his long cries shaking the heavens and then dying in gasps for air. Over and over again this cycle went, unending and unendurable to anypony within earshot. And then silence fell like a hammer blow. The altar lay empty aside from the now limp ropes, and the bright magma illuminating the scene dimmed from a furnace-like gleam to a dull glow that the stars outshone. Daring kept staring at the altar. She couldn't stop. “Is he… I mean… What just happened?” Calcine withdrew his hoof from her back. “Something that must never happen again.” Daring walked the length of the crater, from staircase to altar, for the fifth time, pausing only when her legs started to shake. It’d been less than an hour, she knew. Less than an hour ago this spot had been swarming with black-robed villagers and a pony had been dematerialized on that stone altar by some sort of pony-shaped shadow monster. She’d seen and heard it, and yet those horrors glimpsed from afar felt too alien to have taken place in this very real and relatively mundane spot. Even the lava vent felt unimpressive. Up close it was just a crack in the ground roughly a hoofspan wide radiating a little light and a lot of heat. She’d dealt with lava before, a few times nearly nose-diving into the stuff on her way to another thrilling escape. “How do they do it?” she asked. She had so many questions, many that deserved to be shouted. Calcine still hadn’t said a thing since the stallion vanished. After that moment the ponies from the ritual removed what looked like earplugs from their ears and vanished up the crater’s staircase. Daring had taken wing as soon as the coast was clear, gliding over the crater’s expanse and touching down at the base of the stairs. “How do they do it?” she said a bit louder. Calcine was seated on the steps, staring straight ahead at the mirror. What was it about the mirror? At a distance she’d assumed the vertical rock face had been polished. Cults loved lairs with spooky ambiance, after all. Up close she could see the gargantuan piece of glass properly, the perfectly smooth surface devoid of scratches, pockmarks, and smudges. Mirrors this big and perfect shouldn't have been able exist outside of ornate mansions and museums, protected from damaging elements and dirty hooves. “Is there a cave behind the mirror?” There had to be, she reasoned. How else did whoever was casting the shadow get close to the altar? Calcine said nothing. “Talk to me, already! If you want me to help you stop this, I need to know how—” Daring’s overarching pragmatism faltered in the face of a far more important question “Why? Why do they do this?” Calcine finally stirred, uttering a cough that echoed across the crater. “Payment. Payment for the lava not covering the mountain and destroying us all. A new sacrificial pony must be provided whenever the old one finally vanishes, and when we can’t abduct one from across the desert, the eldest member of the village is chosen.” She leaned over and spit in the lava vent. “Monsters. You're all monsters.” Calcine nodded, his face ashen. “We are. We don't deserve to draw breath.” “So what’s gotten you thinking different?” “Once I knew a pony who thought just as you, who spoke in whispers about escape, about our all leaving the mountain before the traveler could return and demand a new sacrifice. She was no monster… She was my wife.” Daring held back an eye roll. “And then her time was up, right? And suddenly because it's somepony you cared about—” “It was not her time!” Calcine said with a snarl. He leaped to his feet and matched her irate glare. “She was young! Younger than I! Yet when a pony from our village was required as sacrifice…” Daring hated long pauses almost as much as pony-eating monsters. “What?” Calcine looked past her, glaring at the mirror. “The traveler knew, somehow. When the time of choosing came, he picked her out of all of us, out of hundreds of ponies young and old he picked the one who dared think of leaving his mountain. Our chieftess didn't even look surprised. Some ponies even looked… relieved.” A tinge of sympathy diluted her glare, but he bared his teeth. He crossed the crater, one thundering step at a time, until only the altar stood between the mirror and his ravenous, animal glare. “I am a monster, but I will do only one more terrible thing. I will shatter the mirror while the traveler stands within it. I will condemn the mountain, its monster, and its keepers. I will end the sacrifices and the village that provides them. I will end it all!” “No you won't,” she said with a sigh. “I get that you're angry—” He rounded on her. “You don’t understand!” “I don’t have to! Just because I haven't been in your horseshoes doesn't mean I haven't seen ponies in your place, so angry and hopeless they want the whole world to end… and a few that want to end it just to hurt everypony else. I don’t think you’re one of them.” “I was going to jump.” “Huh?” The sullen frown he'd worn when she first woke up was back. “When I saw you falling to your death. I was on that ledge because I was going to jump to my own.” Silence hung in the air for a moment. Daring folded her ears back; for her, silence still rung with screams. “So what stopped you?” “Hope. Hope and instinct. I couldn't stand there and watch you fall, and then I couldn't leave you on the ledge to die for want of water. Saving you reminded me of what my wife would have wanted me to do in her stead… and what I must do to avenge her.” His gaze returned to the mirror. She joined his vigil a second later, studying every inch of the mirror for weak spots or hidden levers. “However this trick works… I'm putting a stop to it. Whether you help or not, I'm ending this.” He nodded. “There will be a choosing ceremony tonight. When the traveler appears, we must break the mirror and him with it.” Daring crouched low and tensed her hind legs. “Why wait? How about I just shatter it right now?” Then she could go deal with the actual monster. Calcine snorted. “Try if you must.” One blow was all it should’ve taken. If that perfect wall of glass was half as old as Calcine claimed, breaking it would be foal’s play. Daring launched herself forward, spinning in midair and expertly planting her back hoof on the mirror with all of her bodyweight behind it. The mirror hit back. Pain shot up her leg, and a second later she shot across the crater and skidded to a stop by the stairs. She flopped onto her back, grunting and cursing. What did this mountain have against her and her dignity? “The hay was that?” Calcine trotted over and helped her up. “Only the traveler can open it. We must wait for him to appear.” Bushes rustled all around them. Daring rolled onto her back and spun around. It didn’t matter which way she turned; cloaked ponies lined the crater’s edge, aiming spears at them from all sides. “I guess we won’t have to wait very long.”
ThreeDaring had had worse days, but not many. Few days involved laying bound in a hut, patiently waiting out the daylight and evening hours for midnight to come again. Of course these ponies wouldn’t do something as simple and obvious as throw her and Calcine off a cliff, not when they had a pony-eating deity on hoof. At last she found herself back in the crater as the dreaded hour approached, wings bound and sides flanked by two spear-wielding guards. Cloaked ponies milled around, some whispering softly while others inserted their earplugs. None of them spared her a glance. Maybe she was less than a pony to them, either because she was an outsider, or because they needed her to be something less to ease whatever shred of a conscience they collectively possessed. Calcine lay upon the altar, everything below his neck obscured by coil after coil of rope. Clearly they weren’t taking any chances with him. Maybe somepony heard them talking the night before, or maybe him not showing up to last night’s ritual had been enough to tip them off. Whatever the reason, there was exactly zero chance he’d get to follow through with his ‘break the mirror’ plan once the traveler showed up. Not unless she could get free, of course. A spear pressed against her side, right behind her wing. She cast the offending guard a hateful glare before turning back to Calcine. There were only two weapons in easy reach, and the business end of each one was trained on her. Somehow she needed to untie herself, disarm the two guards, and then do something about the traveler before the other ponies could stop her. Assuming Calcine was right about the traveler being the only thing that could ‘open’ the mirror, which sounded about as nuts as everything else on this rock, the time to act was during the ritual. That left barely any time to plan an escape, let alone an attack. A hooded pony stepped into her view, a strikingly tall mare with a shining blue coat and a red mane dressed in beads and flowers. She smiled down at Daring, not even bothering to bend her neck to meet her gaze. “Our village doesn’t get many visitors, my little pony.” “With this kind of hospitality, I’m not surprised.” The mare’s smile broadened. “Perhaps we should have started with you, outsider. If Calcine’s blasphemies were any less severe we would have. Let us hope the traveler drains him quickly, so that you can take his place before too many nights have passed.” Daring rolled her eyes. “Maybe he’ll choke on all Calcine’s big ideas—” she raised her voice to a shout “—like ponies should move off this stupid hunk of r—” A hoof crashed against Daring’s temple with the force of a wooden club, not from the guards like she’d expected, but from the mare standing before her; this pony was strong! The world spun for a moment, save for the spears still pressing against her skin. She shook her head a few times, wincing as her whole skull pulsed with pain. Still the mare smiled. “I see our former potter has told you much. Too much for anypony’s good, no doubt.” She glanced at the guards briefly before trotting away. “If she speaks again, make sure she regrets it.” “Yes, chieftess.” the guards replied. Ponies took to the drums a moment later, and the crater reverberated with the sound of oncoming doom, the ominous beat to which countless ponies had already fallen victim. Daring knew she had mere seconds to figure a way out of this; no matter if the traveler was magic, trickery, or worse, Calcine was about to follow in his wife’s hoofsteps. As if he’d heard her thoughts, Calcine tilted his head just enough to make eye contact. “Don’t save me! Save the world from the traveler!” Daring couldn’t hold back a smirk. Saving the world was her specialty. “Silence!” the chieftess bellowed from the crowd. “The traveler comes! All hail!” How had she heard him? Didn’t she wear earplugs like the others? How could she stand not to? The torchlight flickering in the mirror’s reflection suddenly grew brighter. Daring stared at the mirror, her desperation mounting. She saw her own reflection looking back at her, except this time with such vividness, such perfect luster, that it didn’t look like a reflection at all. No natural surface, not even under the influence of unicorn magic, could make an image so lifelike. She might as well have been staring at a replica of the crater, occupants and all. “Whoa.” She braced for pain, but none came. The spears pressed against her dug no deeper; the guards probably had their earplugs in place now. They won’t hear me if I’m quiet. Unless… unless… A grin spread across her face just as a shadow fell upon the perfect reflections in the mirror. Spots of phantom darkness flew in from its outer edges like gathering smoke until an indistinct yet unmistakable pony silhouette stood over Calcine’s terrified reflection. The traveler had arrived. “Hey!” Daring shouted, “Why don’t you pick on somepony your own size, you big pile of smoke! I’ve roasted marshmallows over scarier stuff than you!” Daring felt the guards shift next to her. She knew they wouldn’t hesitate or show mercy; if anything they’d put their backs into running her through from both sides at once. Her fate rested on the next two seconds, on her dropping to the ground just before the spear points lodged themselves in her flesh, when they were still slicing through rope fibers with all the strength the two guard ponies could muster. She fell in slow motion, sensing every movement of the spears as they dragged against her coat but sliced through nothing but rope. Calcine’s screams tore apart the night air as her belly touched the crater’s stony ground and her wings flexed against their suddenly weakened bonds. She stuck out a hind leg and spun herself around, her adrenaline blocking out every care in the world aside from the monster in the mirror and the ponies standing in her way. In one deft motion she swept the guard’s hooves out from under them, her wings straining and then snapping the ropes keeping her earthbound. She couldn’t look back. She couldn’t take her eyes off the mirror for an instant. Somewhere behind her other guards would be rushing forward or even heaving their spears through the air, but that didn’t matter. The traveler stood in front of her, his attention focused on his latest meal rather than the pegasus sailing forward to make it his last. Fresh screams and shouts filled the air just before she hit the glass. Her foreleg pressed forward, inches away from its own reflection and the phantom shadow somehow standing between them on the mirror’s surface. “No, stop!” The chieftess bellowed, her deep voice rattling Daring’s teeth. Daring merely grinned. “Hope you’ve got fire insurance, you—” And then the traveler faced her, its looming form overtaking her own shadow. The sounds of the villagers and the chill of the night air vanished. She tumbled across bare ground, rolling over and over before smashing into something cold and hard. What happened? Did she break through the mirror? Was there a secret cave behind it like she’d assumed? Maybe it really was just a power-mad pony with a magic artifact pulling the strings. She opened her eyes, blinking repeatedly in hopes that the nonsensical scene before her would resolve back into reality. Instead she found herself flat on her back, her hind legs resting against a stone cylinder that looked roughly shoulder height. A crystal ceiling loomed far above, some of its polished facets shimmering in blue and red. And then a pair of invisible forelegs closed around her neck. Daring’s instincts took over. She pushed off against the stone cylinder, twisting, pulling, and striking with every drop of adrenaline she had left. In an instant she was on her hooves again, grasping and straining against the headlock while her eyes searched for her attacker. What she saw instead would’ve taken her breath away, if she’d had any left. She stood near the center of an expansive room walled with mirrors. Except they weren’t simply mirrors. Alongside her own impossibly vivid reflection she saw an arctic wasteland in one mirror, a jungle in another, a stone-walled dungeon, and countless other scenes even more diverse than her own adventures. The one commonality to all the mirror-bound worlds was a small pile of rock situated a few hoofsteps from the mirror’s surface. Each of those worlds had had a sacrificial altar once, now all but erased by the unrelenting passage of time. Her own world was easy to spot. Brilliant orange light glared through a mirror to her left, flickering sometimes as waves of lava lapped against the crater’s walls. The cloaked ponies were gone, either on hoof or into the molten depths. Only Calcine remained, standing on the altar with precious inches left between him and the rising tide. The ropes holding him had burned away, and his hind legs were drawn in and ready to strike. Do it, Calcine! Do it! A deep gong reverberated through the whole chamber, as if Calcine had driven a wrecking ball into the mirror instead of a pair of hooves. White cracks shot through the glass, and the vice-like forelegs gripping Daring’s neck shivered and slackened. Daring dipped forward until her nose touched the ground, shifting her attacker’s weight just enough to break the choke hold. She flipped around and did a two-leg buck of her own, slamming her back hooves against her unseen foe. Heavy hoofsteps echoed through the room as her assailant staggered backward, and as they did she saw the hint of a shadow darkening the nearest mirror. Whatever this creature was, it cast a shadow in the weird mirrors. That’s how it appeared to the villagers, and that’s how she’d stop it from ever devouring another pony. Calcine’s timing was perfect. His hooves struck one side of the mirror just as Daring smashed her opponent against the other. A deafening boom nearly knocked Daring off her hooves, the sound of Calcine coming one blow closer to breaking through the glass and avenging his wife. Other, quieter sounds interested her more. She could hear loosed beads clattering against the ground and leaves crinkling between mane and mirror. The invisible creature she’d just pinned against the glass wasn’t male after all. “Hi there, chieftess.” The chieftess uttered a low growl, more animal than pony, and flung Daring back with the same brute strength she’d shown before. “Spoiled everything! Took my last village, my last herd!” Daring braked in the air a moment later, seconds short of colliding with another mirror. “That’s all we are to you, isn’t it? We’re just food.” The chieftess’ shadow grew larger, it's neck lengthening and six more legs sprouting from its sides. Her shadow left the mirror as her many hooves stumbled across the floor. Daring could only guess where in the room she was now. “You are food… you are form… you are life. I will feast upon your flesh for a hundred moons!” Daring glanced at Calcine and cocked her eyebrow. “I taste better chilled than baked, sorry.” The mirror imploded, and Daring’s ears nearly did the same. The mixture of shattering glass, hissing lava, and otherworldly screams almost made her black out. Almost. She darted forward and then dove low, riding the thermals so close to the lava that her fur started to smoke. More implosions followed, each one playing out on the periphery of her senses as she streaked across the room, over spreading lava, under a shower of shattering glass, and through the remains of the portal between the traveler’s domain and the real world. “Calcine! Grab on!” Calcine, now balanced on two legs while the lava inched its away up the alter’s sides, grasped her foreleg but never took his eyes off the ruined mirror and the dark chamber beyond. “Is it done? If not then I go no further!” She sailed across the crater’s expanse, her wings flapping wildly to support the additional weight. “She’s finished, now let’s get out of here!” “She?” “Tell you later. Just hang on!” She banked to the left to avoid the crater’s steep walls. She needed to climb higher, somehow. Did Calcine eat rocks in his spare time, or something? She needed her rope and climbing gear, the supplies she’d been forced to abandon on the oasis. “I am too heavy for you!” Calcine shouted. “Let me to perish. It is what I deserve.” Daring shook her head, her breaths longer and more labored than she wanted to think about. “Yeah you are, and no I won’t! You saved me, I’m going to save—” A blast of hot air pushed them higher just before an explosion hammered their ears. Daring felt as if she’d been hit by a fiery hoof the size of a building. She rocketed through the air, half deaf, fully dazed, and conscious of nothing other than the foreleg she was still holding onto with all her might. The world spun around and around as they flew, and the explosion became a rumbling, jolting roar peppered with the near-constant whoosh of volcanic ejecta shooting by on every side. And then all at once the world righted itself. Daring suddenly found herself in the starry night sky, Calcine still dangling below her and the ash cloud of an erupting volcano spreading far beneath them. She cheered silently as she took a deep breath of cool, smoke-free air; that alone brought back a modicum of her strength, and freedom’s elation did the rest. “We did it… We made it!” When Calcine didn’t sound his approval, she glanced down and found him doing the same. His former home was slag, and if his former neighbors weren’t then they had a trek across the desert ahead of them, followed by some very unfriendly oasis ponies. “You okay, Calcine?” “I-I was merely thinking… is this what it is like to fly?” His barely-constrained terror made her laugh. “Oh, yeah. I take off via volcano all the time.” “I do not believe you.” “Good choice. See that thing over there, beyond the desert?” Daring angled them slightly west, forever thankful that she needed only to glide. Their altitude and her spread wings would keep them airborne well past the Forbidden Desert’s reaches. “That is the sea. I may have lived in a pony-sacrificing cult, but I am not stupid, Daring Do.” She laughed again. “Not that, the glowing thing next it. There’s a city on the coast, a big one. That’s where I’m dropping you off… and where I’m finding a hotel and a decent meal.” “I do not know if that is wise… The things I have done—” “The past isn’t going to change, but you did a lot of good today. Keep it up.” “I… will do my best. Perhaps I can fight for the good of others, as you do.” She grinned. “Perfect. You can keep the world safe for a week or two while I take a break.” I’ve got some writing to do.
