Ace in the Hole

Chapter Fourteen – The Desert

“I watch your every move, Study the things you do, And the pattern of your ways…-Iron Maiden“

Coming out of the cave and back into the bright sun was a bit jolting.  The sun beat down on our backs and we were forced to use the coverings we had brought for our carts.  I mean, there was nothing really to see in a desert anyway besides a lot of sand.  Luckily, we had found an oasis near the mouth of the tunnel and had refilled our stores of water.   According to the rough map we had (the traders that had come from there obviously hadn’t been artistic) we were now supposed to continue heading west but start moving slightly North.  I’m not really sure how the ponies that lived here found anything out here. Were there even any landmarks that you could use to tell where you were going?  To me, it just looked like piles and piles of sand with no obvious end.  If you got lost out here, you were going to die.  There was just no way a pony could survive in these conditions without shade and water.  My guess was that you would probably just shrivel up from the water deficiency and then be covered over by the sand.  Nopony would ever know what happened to you.

The guards had to change shifts frequently and we had to stop much more often because the guards needed breaks because they were either very thirsty or their eyes and mouth had practically been filled with sand.  Needler went to work cutting up some rags that didn’t look half bad and would be useful for keeping the sand away.  After he had managed to make enough rags for the guards pulling the carts, he got back to work helping Pearl make my cloak.  I wish there was something I could do besides sit and watch, even though it did allow me to be with my friends.  Windstorm decided to take a leave and fly above the sands and our caravan.  With Pearl occupied by Needler, I had nothing to do but sit and think.  I wondered what the assassins Dead Eye would be taking me to would be like.  I wondered what type of assassins they would be.  Would they be that ones that were impartial and take any opportunity that would pay or did they have some kind of code that they followed?

The heat of the desert during the day was a shocking contrast to the temperature of the night.  Once the sun had set upon the desert, the heat that had plagued us during the day evaporated and was replaced by a stinging cold.  Luckily, we brought blankets with us so that we could keep ourselves warm.  Still after getting used to the scorching heat, nighttime still felt extremely cold.  Pearl, Windstorm, and I lay close together near the fire that we had made from some of the wood we had taken with us from the Haunted Hollows.  We managed to get a fire going by using the covered carts as a buffer against the wind and sand, which had stopped blowing as harshly during the nighttime.  It was also chilling to look outside of our tightly packed tents and see no signs of civilization anyplace close to hear.  The light that was burning from our fire was the only light visible besides the dim glow that the moon gave off.  Our water supplies were dwindling quickly and weren’t going to last to much longer if we continued the same grueling pace during the day.  Some of the guards that had been pulling the wagons had developed some pretty serious burns throughout the course of the day and Nurse Night was busy applying salves to them.

“I had a look at the map earlier today while you two were working on that cloak and it appears that we should make it to the Sunfire Kingdom by tomorrow if we go as far as we managed to go today,” said Windstorm.

“That’s great.  We’ll all have a chance to get to see something that we had never seen before.  Windstorm will be going to the castle, nurse Night it taking me to their hospital and Surefire is going to… where exactly is Dead Eye taking you tomorrow Surefire?” Pearl asked.

“I don’t know,” I lied.  “Apparently it’s some sort of surprise.”

“Maybe I could go with you then, after I’ve finished looking around the hospital,” said Pearl.

“Well, um… yeah I’ll ask Dead Eye tomorrow,” I said, hoping that it would appease her.

“Oh please Surefire, you are a terrible liar.  What are you trying to hide that?  Do you want to get away from us?  If so, then you can just tell us and we’ll leave you alone.”

“No. I would never want to leave you two.  You two are my only friends in this place.  How could I possibly want to leave you?” I asked.

“So you don’t deny lying?  What are you trying to hide Surefire?” Windstorm said prying.

‘Okay okay calm down,’ I thought, ‘they don’t actually know about the assassins or the Sharpshooters so at least that’s good.  I wonder what lie they will buy?’  I remembered an old adage that I had heard referred to sarcastically back in the guild, but it seemed to fit my situation well.  ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.’

“Are you going to tell us what you’ve been hiding for the past week or not Surefire?” asked Pearl gently.

“Yeah… you see… the truth is that I was going to practice with some of their weapon masters and I didn’t want you two knowing so that you wouldn’t come and watch.  I’m not that good with them and it makes me extremely nervous when I have people watching me.  I knew that you two would want to come if I told you about it so I’ve been trying to keep it a secret.  Obviously, I’m not a good of a liar as I thought I was,” I said, really hoping that they would buy this.

“It’s okay Surefire.  If you had just explained it like you did right now we would have respected your wishes and still will,” said Pearl. ‘All right! They bought it!' I thought.  Pearl continued.  “I hope you learn from this Surefire.  It’s never okay to lie to your friends.  It makes us feel like you don’t like us and want us around and makes us lose trust in you.  Hopefully you won’t lie to us like that again.”  I apologized for lying and we got into a group hug.  I kept a smile on my face for the rest of the night, but now I felt like a complete scumbag.  ‘She thinks you were being honest with that story.  I feel like I’m slipping away.  Is this cause worth the price I might have to pay in losing my friends?  If I go through with the assassination, then I lose Windstorm because it goes against everything he believes in and I’ll lose Pearl.  She loves life so much.  You can see it when she talks about medical stuff.  Everything she does is to preserve life and I now seem to be employed in the business of ending it.’

The rest of the night passed quickly and we set off a bit early so that we could move a bit faster while it still wasn’t hot.  Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure why we were travelling during the hottest part of the day and resting during the coolest.  I’m sure if we had gone as the sun was setting and as the sun was rising we would have gone the same distance.  I told Windstorm and Pearl of my idea and they felt stupid for not thinking of it earlier.  I was going to hop out of the cart and tell the guards.  When I poked my head out of the cart, I realized that it was too late to change our traveling method because in the distance I could see a gigantic building that I assumed to be the palace.  I tapped the shoulders of the guard that was tugging our cart and pointed at the city.  The guards kept their heads down when they were walking so that the sound wouldn’t blow in their eyes and it was hard work pulling carts through sand.  The guard gave an exclamatory shout and everypony was looking for what had caused his shout and saw the city.  Everypony began letting out excited cheers and we spent the next few hours watching the kingdom steadily grow larger as we approached.  The city seemed to have a high wall built around it made of some type of stone.  I assumed that the wall was to keep the sand out from the surrounding desert. Still it seemed that one side of the wall was a lot shorter because the sand had piled up over time on that side.

As we drew closer to the massive city, a group of guards came out a ways to escort us to the building where we would be staying.  They sent a messenger back to the king to tell them that we had arrived.  We reached the gates of the city and I had trouble comprehending just how massive they were.  The portcullis worked the same way it did in Bastion, but it was about three times taller and about two times wider.  ‘I’m so glad I don’t have to escape form this place,’ I thought. ‘I never would have made the jump off of this wall.’ The guards from the Sunfire kingdom continued escorting us through town.  I was impressed with the buildings and I decided to also go and talk to Dead Eye.  I hopped into his weapons cart and watched him as he gazed about the city.

“Is this everything you thought it would be?” I asked him.

“It’s amazing,” he said.  “I have an idea of where we can go to find our associates.  I’ll talk to you about it later though.  For now just look at the buildings around here and remember what I told you to work on.”  So obviously Dead Eye had a suspicion we were being overheard and was trying to be vague while telling me to be vigilant.  I looked around at the city like Dead Eye told me to and I found that instead of noticing the well-built structures, I was noticing some of the more shady ponies that seemed to be watching our cart while trying not to be noticed.  I wondered if they had guilds here too because those ponies looked like they would love to relieve us of anything we owned.  It appeared that the guards were leading us through the wealthier part of town which was to be expected if you are escorting somepony of royal blood through your kingdom for the first time.  I’m sure Smoothtounge would never show any ambassadors the Drudge while trying to enlist their help.

We arrived at a very tall building that was decorated on the outside with jewels of all varieties.  Above the entrance was an extravagant scene of an oasis in a desert.  The sand dunes were made of amber and the water in the center of the piece was made of sapphire.  The sun appeared to be setting and was portrayed by a large red ruby.  According to the guards, this building was called Oasis, a name that fit the art on the building.  They told us that this is where the wealthiest and most powerful ponies, besides the kind of course, stayed.  They had set aside the entire top floor for our own personal use while we stayed here in the Sunfire Kingdom.  Windstorm told them to send the king our thanks and a few of the ponies that ran the Oasis came and helped us take everything we needed to the top floor.  There was an opening in one of the walls that lead out onto a deck from where you could look over the grand market that the city had.  The deck appeared to be supported by some type of wood that was apparently much stronger than it looked.  Most of us earth ponies avoided the deck like the plague, but most of the pegasi were eager to venture out onto it and take a look over this foreign city.  Windstorm took a quick lap above the city and seemed to approve of what he saw.

“What a life,” he said.  “This place is so different from Bastion.  It’s strange but it’s beautiful in its own way.  I wouldn’t mind living here if it wasn’t for these extreme temperatures.”

“Good then get the king to send some troops with us and we can get out of here.  These buildings are freaking me out,” I said.  “How can anypony stand living in something like this?  Most of the buildings look like they would fall down if I kicked them.”

“I’m sure you’ll get used to it while we are staying here,” said Windstorm.  “Let’s go explore the city a bit today.  We don’t have appointments to keep until tomorrow.  This will be an opportunity for all of us to see what it’s like to actually go to a market and buy things.  I’m sure we’ll find something that will interest us.”

“That’s a great idea Windstorm!” said Pearl.  “It will be like a day off before we all get back to work.”  I just nodded.  I was kind of excited to finally see what the city looked like from the perspective of a privileged pony that had no worries about starvation or stealing.

Dead Eye walked over to me and pulled me aside.  “Don’t stay out there to long kid.  Have fun and look around but don’t stay out there too long.  We are going to do some practicing tonight while everypony else is asleep.  Also, while you’re out there, make sure to keep a lookout for the assassins.  They are out there and it would be better if we could find them before they found us.  Understand?”

I vigorously nodded my head and said yes.  With that said and done, he let me go back over with my friends and our journey was ready to begin.

“Would you look at how adorable this is,” exclaimed Pearl.  She showed us a blanket with a bunch of younger ponies playing beside an oasis.  “Can we get it guys?  Pretty please?”

“All right Pearl,” said Windstorm pulling out some of the money we had left.  Pearl had taken to shopping quickly and had found something that she thought we needed at every stand.  It was nice that we had found something that she really enjoyed doing but there was no way that we could afford to do this a lot.  Windstorm gave the money to an old mare that nodded to us and gave us a smile.  She continued her work making something else with outstanding speed.  There were vendors here that offered things that weren’t available in Bastion.  Also unlike Bastion, there was a much more cheerful attitude in the air.  There were bards everywhere that would sing anything for a little bit of money and there were also fortune tellers that would offer to tell you about your future for a small price.  I highly doubted that any of them could actually see the future but it was still interesting to watch how many ponies would give in and spend their money so foolishly.

After looking at everything in wonder for a few hours, it was beginning to get dark but nopony seemed to be packing up for the night.  I guess they didn’t have the same problem with hood ponies here and anypony could stay up as long as they wanted and continue shopping.  Since we had spent all of the money that we had brought with us, we began just wandering around the area and just looking at the spectacular architecture.  There was no chance of us getting lost because Windstorm could fly above us and easily point us in the direction of Oasis.  Pearl and Windstorm were focusing on the main attractions of the city and I was focusing on finding somepony that I suspected to be an assassin and looking for places that I could use to hide if need be.  ‘How exactly do you find an assassin?  It’s not like they just walk down the street in uniforms that scream ‘Look at me I’m an assassin!’  From what Dead Eye has taught me, I would bet that I could find one if I found somepony that had a concealed weapon and was trying to look completely natural in their surroundings.  Too natural,’ I continued pondering this and we made it to some sort of fountain that one of the locals had recommended that we check out.  While Pearl and Windstorm were running around it and looking at all the shiny things that others had thrown in, I noticed a pony that seemed to was selling things and passing out pamphlets to only some of his customers.  The only strange part of this was that they didn’t give the pamphlets to everyone that bought from them.  The ones ponies that were given the pamphlets seemed to be wearing clothing that obscured most of their body.  As one of those ponies was grabbing the goods, I saw the glimmer of steel attached to the inner part of their fore hoof.  I guess I had found something suspicious.  I told Pearl and Windstorm to wait for me, saying that I had to go find a restroom and would rejoin them shortly.  They agreed to continue looking at the area around the fountain and I ran off to the opposite direction of the suspicious pony.  After I was confident that I was out of their sight range, I began working my way closer and closer to the pony.  As I got closer I realized that it was a mare and she appeared to be selling an assortment of books.  I decided to pose as another customer and buy a book.  I talked to the mare and she seemed extremely friendly and I was going to purchase a book just to see if she would give me one of the pamphlets but then I realized that Windstorm had the rest of the money.  I continued browsing her inventory until I noticed that she had slipped one of the pamphlets to another pony and had cast a quick, nervous look at me before doing so.  I watched the pony with the pamphlet pass and I politely excused myself.  I began walking through the crowd and attempting to follow that pony.

I moved slowly and calmly throughout the crowd in an indirect path, but I never lost sight of that pony.  He appeared to be heading away from this fountain.  I lost sight of him around a corner and was forced to break away from the crowd and follow him around the corner.  I was surprised to see that there was nothing to be seen.  I noticed a piece of paper that appeared to be held down by a rock in the back of the alley.  When I went over to examine the paper, chills ran down my spine.  The paper read, “We know that you’ve been watching us.”  Underneath the words was a map of the city.  Highlighted in red were three fountains and in the center of it was a circle.  Beside this circle was written ‘We will meet tonight at the stroke of midnight’.  I guess I had found the assassins.  I just hoped that Dead Eye would be pleased with this sheet of paper.

“What took you so long Surefire?” Windstorm asked.

“I couldn’t find a decent place to use the restroom.  The closest place was a few blocks away and I don’t think my stomach agreed with all of that food we got at that snack bar.”  I gave a groan just to expound the point.

“I liked it,” said Pearl.  “I guess it just wasn’t for you.”

“Guess not,” I said.  “Anyway are you two planning to go anywhere else tonight?”

“We were going to just walk around for a couple more hours.  Are you going to join us?” Pearl asked.

“I think I better not.  My stomach isn’t feeling too good right now.  I think I’ll head back to the Oasis,” I said.  “I bet they have a good toilet there.  Can you fly up and point me back to there?”

“Sure thing Surefire,” he said.  With that, he jumped up into the sky and flew up high into the air.  He looked around and returned to the ground after doing a few flips.  “It’s over that way he said pointing to the street on the other side of the fountain.  “I guess we’ll see you tonight then.”

“Yeah, I’ll either be in the room or taking up one of the toilets.  See you later,” I said, beginning to quickly walk away.  I was pleased that this excuse would get me back to Dead Eye faster and also give them an excuse to not find me in our room when they returned from their explorations.

“Well this is… interesting,” said Dead Eye after looking at the paper I had given to him.  “This definitely wasn’t what I was expecting.  I thought I told you not to let them see you.”

“I swear I didn’t let them know that I was following or even interested.  The vendor wouldn’t have had time to tell that pony even if she had a suspicion about me.  And where did the pony that I was tailing go?  I looked around and I hadn’t seen anywhere that they could have gone,” I said.

“Probably some sort of tunnel system that they have going throughout the city.  I bet they had an entrance to their little subterranean system there and they just left you this note to spook you and also give you a meeting point with them.  Obviously you impressed them or otherwise they wouldn’t have given you this invitation,” he said.  “Still I don’t like it.  I like things being on my own terms.  It could also be a trap.  They don’t know who you’re working for and may assume you are spying on them for Windstorm.  In that case they may ambush you at the meeting tonight so we have to be prepared.  I’ll probably follow behind you until we figure out whether they are hostile or not so that we still have the element of surprise.” Dead Eye was pacing about the room, obviously thinking about the best way to attend the meeting.  Dead Eye sighed, “Well there’s no use postponing this any longer.  Go make a scene and go to the restroom.  I’ll try to make some sort of diversion.  Just be ready to go when you hear everypony yell or shout or something.  Just make sure to lock the door so nobody figures out that you aren’t actually here.  No use making your friends think you’re any more of a liar than they already do.”

Dead Eye moved away from me and I went over to mix in with the other ponies in the common room that we had been given.  After a while, I told one of the guards to tell my friends that I was in the restroom if they came back and I went off.  After a few minutes of sitting and waiting, I heard a couple ponies sneak and everypony begin to run off.  I took my cue and left the restroom and met up with Dead Eye on the now vacant balcony.

“What did you do to clear them out so fast?” I asked.

“Oh nothing special,” said Dead Eye.  “Just set the floor on fire with some of these chemicals that I got from nurse Night.  Turns out that they don’t actually burn things but they make a great illusion.  I’m pretty sure most of them ran for the stairs or flew off the balcony and down to the first floor to get help.  Now is our chance to escape.”

“How do you plan on doing that exactly?” I asked.  “If you haven’t noticed we are on the top story of a building and neither of us are pegasi.  I thought we would just take the stairs and then wait until everypony went back up.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” asked Dead Eye.  With that, he jumped over the corner of the balcony and yelled “Follow me!”  I peered out over the edge and saw that Dead Eye had actually grabbed onto some of the supports that held the balcony up and was shimmying closer to the building.  I nervously climbed over the edge and followed suit.  Dead Eye seemed to be pretty confident in his ability to scale the edges of this building, but I was less than confident.  I felt more secure when I reached the building but I still didn’t like the fact that if I screwed up, there wasn’t going to be a second chance.  Dead Eye told me to climb exactly where he was climbing so that I wouldn’t make a stupid mistake and slip.  If I fell, I would probably take him out too because he was directly below me but luckily that did not happen.

When we were close to the bottom of the Oasis, Dead Eye jumped across to another building’s rooftop.  I followed him and asked, “Why did we just risk our lives to get down here?  It would have been so much easier to get up here from down there on the street.”

“Because you need the practice kid,” said Dead Eye.  “What? Do you think that getting to Smoothtongue won’t require you to climb buildings in Bastion?  This gives us an opportunity to practice for Bastion without actually putting us in danger’s way and I have a feeling you have somepony from the guild tailing you.  If they can see that you are actually good at what you do, they may be more reluctant to try and kill us if it comes down to that.”

“Oh,” was the only response I could think of and we continued moving from rooftop to rooftop and got closer and closer to our meeting point.  I was looking all around me and still couldn’t see anypony following us, which I didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing.  While I was doing a periodic check for anypony spying on me, I did happen to notice Pearl and Windstorm in the middle of a street and they appeared to be heading back to the Oasis.  I hoped this meeting wouldn’t take too long.  After all, how long was my ruse with the restroom going to work anyway?  It was only so long before somepony banged on the door and demanded to know if anypony was in there.  I pushed these thoughts out of my head and thought about the task at hand.  I was going to have to go in and talk to these ponies and I didn’t know whether they wanted me to join them or whether they wanted me dead.  Suddenly a thought came across my mind.

“Dead Eye,” I started, “I thought you said that you thought somepony was trailing me.  If that’s true, then they would have also seen you while we were climbing down the Oasis.  Doesn’t that kind of ruin the element of surprise that you were wanting?”

“Yes, but that was only a suspicion.  Who knows, maybe they aren’t as good as I thought they were and they haven’t sent anypony to follow you.  I’m still going to try and hide out while you do the talking,” said Dead Eye.  He shrugged, “It will still be better than going in together and if they aren’t hostile then I can just come out of hiding.”

“That sounds reasonable,” I said.

“Let’s hope they think the same thing,” he said.

I stood where the piece of paper indicated that I should meet the assassins.  It was slightly awkward to be standing alone in the center of an ally with nopony by my side.  It felt like I was just standing there like an idiot.  I knew that there were ponies watching me intently but I couldn’t see them and I wondered how many there were.  I was scared that they might decide I was unworthy of joining their cult and just leave me here like this and I would be disappointed.  Dead Eye was right.  I needed to practice in a city and what better way to practice than to learn from the experts.

Finally a pony in a black cloak seemed to come out from nowhere.  Actually I had seen where he had come from but I hadn’t seen him.  It had looked like a shadow had walked into the center of the alley and was standing there looking at me.

“Hi,” I said nervously after the pony had not said anything.  “My name is Surefire and I found this note that told me I was supposed to meet somepony here at midnight…”

“We know,” was all he said.  He strangely reminded of the Mistress from the guild with the hood of the cloak obscuring his face.

“So… What do you want me to do?” I asked.  This was a strange meeting but I guess every place you go there’s some sort of weird ritual if initiation.

“Follow me,” he said.  With that he abruptly turned around and walked back from the shadows he had come from.  I followed behind him and watched as he slid a hidden plate on the ground sideways to reveal the entrance to a tunnel.  I guess Dead Eye had been right.  I wasn’t sure whether to reveal if I had brought him along with me or not, but decided to remain silent because he had probably seen me go into the tunnel and would be able to follow.  I’m sure that if he wanted to he would have jumped down and also revealed his presence.  I continued following this pony into the depths of the tunnel and was surprised at how steeply we were going down.  I wondered where this would lead.  I hadn’t seen the tunnel branch off yet so I assumed we would be going to some sort of atrium that these assassins claimed as their base.  I wondered how large the atrium of this place was because we had gone a good hundred feet underground.  When we arrived in the room I was shocked.  It appeared to be a complete underground city.  There were at least fifty ponies that I could see when I entered into the main room.  There appeared to be large sections of chairs and tables that some ponies were seated at and just relaxing.  The hooded pony that I was following lead me behind this building to what I assumed was the center of the complex.  The walls were supported by the same type of wood that held up our balcony back at the oasis.  It formed a lattice across the top of this excavated area and above the framework of trees was the strange sandstone that all of the buildings were made out of.  It looked secure enough, but I was never going to get over the fact that everything here in the Sunfire kingdom looked like it could be knocked over by a good gust of wind.

In the center of this large area was a dark red crystal that was about 20 feet high and 7 feet across.  The crystal rested on a small area of dry land surrounded by a deep pool of black water.  There was a small boat that looked like it could hold two ponies and transport us across the pool.  Close to the boat, I recognized some of the plants as Nightshade, a poisonous plant that nurse Night had told us to stay away from.  I guess it made sense for these assassins to grow it.  After all, you never know when this stuff will come in handy. The hooded pony lead me inside of the small boat and he took a pole and pushed us across.

When we got off on the small dry slip of land where the crystal was, the hooded pony began talking.  "This crystal represents us.  We are the stone upon which this city relies to keep power.  Without assassins there would be wars over power.  You have experienced in your own country have you not?  We have watched you as you have watched us.  We have seen your skills and have deemed you worthy of entering our fold.  Understand that we are not simply contract killers, but a potent political force that serves none but the common good.  We have seen the corruption in society and have forfeited our lives to better the ones on the surface.  We have joined the darkness to become a force of justice.  We take only the lives of those ponies who have forfeited them because they have destroyed the lives of another.  Do you understand our mission?" asked the pony.  By this time he had taken off his cloak to reveal a black stallion with a pure white mane.  His cutie mark was a set of scales that were balanced.  The words Death and Life emblazoned on the opposite sides.

"I understand your goal," I said.  "What do I have to do to join?" This pony had been dead serious in his speech and I already agreed with most of the principles he laid down to join.  I felt that these ponies weren’t going to be as bad as I had thought they were going to be when Dead Eye first told me about them.  Where was he anyway? I was sure he would agree with the rules that this pony had laid out.  After all, hadn't I already thought that ponies like Smoothtongue had lost the right to live when they took another ponies life for personal gain?

The pony that had been leading me threw me an ornamental knife. "Climb to the top of the crystal and deposit some of your blood on the topmost tip.  If you do this, you will have passed the initiation for the Angels of the Night, as we prefer to be called.”

Times like these make me wish I were a pegasus.  It would be so simple to just fly up to the top, make a small cut in my fore hoof, and smear the blood on the top of the crystal.  Nope.  I had to do it the old fashioned way. I walked around the base of the crystal and looked for the best way to begin my assent.

The crystal was an irregular shape and reminded me of a flame the way it was formed.  The red murky interior of the crystal also seemed to whirl around and give the impression of fire. I found a small crevice near the bottom of the monstrous crystal and began my climb there.  It took me a few tries to finally reach this first foothold because of how slick the crystal was.  My hoofs would slide across the glasslike surface and cause me to fall off before I could get a good hoofhold.  I hoped I would be able to make the other jumps with greater ease because it would be a pretty long fall straight down if I missed a jump.  I took my time with the jumps and made sure to overcompensate so that I wouldn't fall short and have to try to find purchase on this smooth rock.  After about an hour of climbing had elapsed, I finally reached the top of the crystal.  I was using all of my limbs to hold onto the top and so I had to use my mouth to pry the knife out of a makeshift weapon sheath that I had in the side of my cloak.  Using a knife with my mouth was something Dead Eye and I had never covered, but I figured that it shouldn't be too hard hitting myself with it.  I cocked my head to one side and swung my head towards my right fore hoof.  The knife sunk in and tore throughout my flesh. 'Damn they keep that thing sharp.' Now that the blood was flowing down my fore hoof, all I had to do was wait until a drop of my blood dripped onto the spire and my initiation would be complete. I waited in pain as the blood gathered into a small drop and finally fell onto the crystal.  I was surprised to feel the crystal begin to glow a bright red and hum.

I began sliding down the side of the crystal as I slowly loosened my grip and let go.  I decided that I didn't want to be close to that crystal if it was doing something weird and decided that the safest way to get down was to jump from the top.  I pushed off of the crystal as I slid down and dove into the pool beside it.  I swam across the pool of black water to the opposite bank and walked over to the pony that had lead me here.  He turned to me with a smile.  "Welcome to the Angels of the Night, brother.  You have passed the test and now have joined our fold."