Sweetiebelle didn't scream. She wouldn't, couldn't scream.

Despite everything, despite all she had been through in her short life, she had never had a nightmare, either waking or asleep, more frightening than this. She was someplace so far beyond fear she didn't even know what to call it. She and Mudpuppy huddled together in their cage, utterly frozen.

The creature that strode in through the door was a horror. It looked like a pony, barely. It was pony-shaped, at least. It had no mane or tail and its fur was little more than ragged scraps. It's bare, gnarled, scarred skin stretched over gaunt strings of muscle and knobbled bone. It had no face, as if it couldn't bother with pulling flesh up over the bare skull. Tiny, shrunken eyes glittered wetly in the depths of its eye sockets and wept steady trickles of St. Elmo's fire.

In hideous parody of an alicorn, it had both horn and wings- if you could call them such. Not merely one horn, but a line of them, A single large adult horn in the front, and short stumps trailing in a line down the back of its skull like a mohawk, sticking out through the few wisps left of its mane. It had thestral wings.. or the webless, sinewy parodies of them, that rather than stretching out in long thin wing bones, ended at the wrists in foot-long clawed fingers, with which it clutched and pulled at things around it. It wore a long, mildewed cloak that had been out of style among the aristocracy for at least a century or more, and clutched a skull-topped staff in one of its ghastly pseudohands.

Where the ragged cloak did not cover, Sweetiebelle could see tubes of fluids, strange bolted-on devices, and long, crude sutures. Even from here she could hear the clicking and wheezing of the odd devices bolted onto its body. She realized with a shock that she was seeing Cotton Mouth's handiwork on the creature, here. What was Cotton Mouth doing to him?

"Lord Malifec," Cotton Mouth said. "Welcome..."

He strode into the laboratory, skeletal head raised haughtily. A zombie honor guard, draped in the rusted remains of their armor, accompanied him, and stumbled their slack jawed way, one to each corner of the room. The stink of their sickly green flesh mingled with the chemical smells of the laboratory, making Sweetie and Mudpuppy's eyes water. Each one was trailed by a faint, blue-white flame of swamp gas, like the lost flame of a bunsen burner. It trailed behind them, flickering.

"So you have procured the alicorn foal?" Malifec said. In reply Cotton Mouth nodded toward the foals' cage. Malifec approached the cage, his bony hooves clacking on the wooden floor. "Eh? Two of them? Ah, I see... dullwitted kappa. Couldn't tell one from the other could they? Meh..." His eyes slid off Sweetiebelle as if she had ceased to exist, and fell on Mudpuppy. "Oh yes," he crooned. He reached through the bars with one wing-claw and seized Mudpuppy by the chin. "Yes, yes, it's true. Your little potion DID create an alicorn, didn't it, Cotton Mouth?" He cackled. "Perfect!"

"Oh yes, little filly," Malifec said, leering as he brought his head close to the bars and pulled her face in close. Sweetiebelle could see wisps of smoke drifting up from his false fingertips. He noticed it and chuckled. "See that? Were you a few years older, I suspect your aura would be quite unpleasant for me to touch. But you are still far too young, far too weak... and once I have subsumed you, I will be immune to it.

"Oh yes, you are going to be the means to restore me to my full glory-Your flesh and blood and bone will be used to finally perfect this body... and I will be master in the realm of life AND death-"

Mudpuppy hawked and spat right in the lich's face.

Malifec didn't even twitch as the spittle trailed down his bony face, sizzling. "Still full of 'pluck,' I see," he said with a faint sneer. "Good for you, I'm sure. Shouting in defiance or screaming for mercy, your end will be the same.

"I'm sure you're hoping your alicorn sisters," he spat, "will come to save you in the nick of time." He released her chin with a jerk. "You might as well give up that silly hope. I made the lovely parish of Malfou Unchartable centuries ago, and have been reinforcing it ever since. Not even Celestia herself could find this village now."

Sweetie's eyes went round at this. Making a plot of land Unchartable was simple, if expensive in power; it was a variation on the same method that was used to make rooms larger on the inside than on the outside. It gave the plot of land a half-twist through time and space, making it all but impossible to find, or escape from, if one did not know the exact direction to go and place to turn. Mostly it was used to make hidden compartments in furniture or secret rooms; to do so to an entire city required incomprehensible power. If Malifec had made all of Malfou disappear like this, there was no chance of the two fillies finding the narrow keyhole out if they tried to escape.

He seized the cage in his magic and wrenched it up off the floor. "Oh yes," he said, leering at the two terrified foals. "You are our guests now... from now... ON." His breath, hot and foul and reeking of embalming and the grave, washed over them.

For Sweetiebelle, it was finally too much. She toppled to the floor of the cage as the world went dark.

"Ready my chamber, Cotton," she heard the Lich say. "I wish to be replenished one last time..."

---

When Sweetiebelle came to, they had been moved once again. They were now in a circular stone chamber, as big around as the old Golden Oaks library had been. in the center of the room was what looked like a huge iron coffin, resting on a platform. The top was sealed with glass, and inside Sweetiebelle could see Malifec. Wires and tubes of oozing liquid were stuck all over him, pumping fluids from dozens of bottles and barrels around the base of the coffin into his body. He was lying still, hooves crossed over his chest, as if he were dead or asleep.

Mudpuppy was awake, too. Say what you will, Mudpuppy had all sorts of pluck. She was busy trying to use one of the rough, rusted bars of the cage to wear through the ropes on her forelegs. Silently she looked at Sweetiebelle and nodded her head at Sweetie's own ropes. Sweetie got the message and rolled to the other side of the cage to try and saw through her own bindings.

She nearly let out a squeak when she saw one of Malifec's zombies standing right next to the cage. Fortunately she stifled it in time. She lay there barely daring to breathe, watching the zompony for any sign it noticed her. The creature continued to stare listlessly at the center of the room, no sign of awareness on its slack-jawed face.

For a moment Sweetiebelle's curiosity overcame her fear. She looked over the zombie pony-at-arms. Its armor was rusted to ruin. Its horn, she noticed with a squeamish lurch, had been sawed down to a stub; she had a sudden notion where Malifec had gotten his row of horns from. The swamp-gas flame that seemed to follow all his undead hovered next to it, billowing weakly in the dark.

Something about that flame was odd. Sweetiebelle peered at it closer. It almost looked alive, the way it moved and twisted about; every now and then she could catch a glimpse of- a face-

She gasped silently. It was like looking at a picture with a hidden image; once you focused your eyes just right, it just snapped into focus. The flame had a face of a pony. Sometimes it gazed listlessly off into space, other times it seemed to twist and turn in every direction as if the pony was lost, or looking for something... "Please," she whispered to the flame. "Please, can you hear me? Can you understand me? Please, we need help..."

"They can't hear you," somepony said. Sweetiebelle yipped and looked in the direction of the voice. It was Cotton Mouth, wheeling a trolley laden with beakers and other tools through the door. Sweetiebelle could see the lab on the other side before he kicked it shut. "They're as blind and deaf to this world as if they had truly crossed over to the other side. Good on you for figuring it out, though. And nice try."

"Why... why.." Sweetiebelle couldn't finish the question.

Cotton Mouth shrugged as he moved about the room, setting things in place. For what, Sweetie didn't care to know. "Malifec's magic can keep the bodies... well... ambulatory," he said. "But without a soul, a spirit to motivate them, they'd just stand in place till they rotted away. The trapped souls are 'asleep'... they cannot see or hear or feel the living world, but they give the body enough of a mind to remember how to walk, move about, respond to simple instructions, that sort of thing."

"That's horrible," Sweetiebelle whimpered.

"How astute of you." Cotton Mouth said, grunting as he pushed an enormous vat into the room. "to figure out that the activities of a Lich and his slave might be unsavory."

"Slave?"

"Do you think I'd still be here if I had free will?" Cotton Mouth snapped. "Oh don't go flinching and looking at him- he's not going to wake up for some time yet. And yes, slave. I stumbled into this ruin by accident- damn his hinkypunks, fifolets, whatever you call them and no, you don't want to know how he makes them- and thought I'd hide here. I hunker down in this rotting old mansion just in time for him to come back and catch me. He's done... things... to me that bind me to his will as sure as if my bones were chained to the floor."

"What does he need you for, anyway?" Mudpuppy said. She never stopped sawing. "Liches are immortal, ain't dey? Live forever?"

"Yes. Technically." Cotton Mouth said as he bolted pipes and tubes onto the vat. "If you can call it alive. They can't feel anything. Taste anything. Food is like ash in their mouths, they can't feel summer sun or cool breeze. Can't even walk in places bathed by sun or moonlight- 's why this place is overgrown and overcast all the time. Even feelings, other than ones of malice, are dulled to them. It's a miserable half-existence.

"And there's another thing they don't tell you in little Lich kindergarten," Cotton Mouth added. "Liches don't heal. Bet he felt like a right plonker after he figured THAT one out. All those promises of eternal life and vast power... and what does he have to spend more and more of his power on every year? That's right; patching his crumbling body back together." He left, and returned, wheeling more mad scientist gear into place. "For all his power of the undead, he's physically as brittle as any three hundred year old geezer would be."

"That's why he needs you."

"So what, y' gonna cut us up into parts, stitch 'em in to replace what's broken down?" Mudpuppy's voice was scornful, but it shook.

"No." He paused, swallowed as if the words tasted of bile. "That is how he used to do it. He's been luring ponies here with hinkypunks for hundreds of years, for just that. But...He and I developed a better way.

"I can use these machines to melt down living things to raw protoplasm. The 'living goo' in every living thing's cells. He can infuse himself with it, so that his body can sustain itself again, temporarily. It doesn't last long, eventually it wears off.

"But if he infuses himself with the protoplasm of an alicorn... an immortal alicorn... he'll have a truly living body again." He glanced at Sweetiebelle. "He'll most likely throw you into the vat as well just for luck."

"Then why not...?" Mudpuppy tipped her chin in the direction of Malific's mechanical sarcophagus.

"Because I can't," Cotton Mouth said. "I can't even think about trying it, or the geas punishes me." he shuddered.

"We could."

Mudpuppy's two word reply sent shivers down Sweetiebelle's spine. Could they really? Sweetiebelle knew plenty of fairy tales where the brave little filly stuffed the evil witch in her own oven, or tricked her into eating her own poison apple- but could she really do something like that in real life? Tip that monster out of his coffin, drive a stake through his heart or, or whatever it was you did to kill a lich? She saw the look in Mudpuppy's eyes and knew without a doubt the little swamp filly could... but Sweetiebelle didn't think she had that kind of cold hard nerve.

He actually seemed to consider it for a second. "You don't have what it takes to kill a lich," he said. "Even if you did, if you could... I would be forced to stop you. And if somehow you managed to do it..." he shuddered horribly... "The curse wouldn't let me die."

"And then you'd have to escape past an army of uncontrolled, rampaging zombies and masterless Kappa, and find your way out of this Unchartable ruin," he added. "I'm sorry. There is no escape. Not for any of us." He went back to his work.

"What are you going to do to us?" Mudpuppy said. He didn't respond.

"He'll be... awake... or whatever he is... in another hour. You'd better make your peace with your Maker between now and then." He left the room, refusing to look at them. The door slammed shut.

Sweetiebelle couldn't help it. She started to cry. She couldn't take her eyes off the horrible machines in the middle of the room, or the horrible undead thing lying in the middle of them. She was so scared she almost wished she'd die just so it would stop.

Mudpuppy hissed at her. "Sweetiebelle!" she said. "I got some o' my ropes loose. Hep me get at my saddlebags."

Sweetiebelle sniffed. "Wh-whuh?"

"My saddlebags. I wore 'em under my gown. Three-eyes didn't check for 'em."

"Why did you wear them under your dress?" Sweetiebelle puzzled as she scooched over.

"Cause only a coo-yon would go anywhere wit'out dey saddlebags full o' usefuls," Mudpuppy said. "Now help me!" After a great deal of squirming, rope-chewing, tugging, and whispered oaths, the two of them managed to tear Mudpuppy's skirt away and open one of her saddlebags.

Hope surged in Sweetiebelle's heart; the savvy swamp girl probably had a pocket knife or some matches or some other tool they could use to escape. Her heart plummeted to her stomach when the saddlebag's contents were finally revealed. Nothing was in there but Dapper Blue's bags of seeds, all the little varieties sorted into neat wax packets. She pulled out a packet with her teeth and dropped it on the cage floor. "Great," she muttered. "Maybe Malifec would like us to plant him a veggie garden before he boils us down into goo."

Mudpuppy picked up the packet between her front hooves and looked inside it. "Sweetiebelle," she said oddly. "I don't know much about how you upland folk do your gardenin'. so maybe I oughta ask.

"Do you-all used any seeds with faces on them?"

The fillies looked at each other. "Mr. Blue's magic seeds," Sweetiebelle said with growing excitement. "He must have mixed up the bags!"

"I can get 'em growin' lickety sizzle," Mudpuppy said. "We get out of here, find us a some open ground or even a li'l mud, we'll have us a beaucoup arsenal! C'mon, we gotta get out of these ropes afore he comes back!" She set to chewing at the knots in Sweetiebelle's ropes with a will. Sweetie returned the favor.

Minutes crawled and flew by simultaneously. Their jaws and teeth grew sore, and soon Sweetiebelle was convinced that the taste of grimy rope was going to linger forever. At long last, the ropes parted, first hers then Mudpuppy's, just as the door creaked open. Thinking quickly, they both hid the frayed ends of their ropes underneath them as Cotton Mouth came in. "Wakey wakey, Master," he said scornfully, turning a crank on the side of the metal coffin. "I think you'll be awake for this..."

Slowly the coffin righted itself and stood on one end. Pipes and tubes gurgled, and the witchfire started smoldering in the Lich's lidless eyes. The creature toppled forward, its forehooves hitting the damp stone floor with a clack. He looked... still terrible. But at the least, less emaciated, his skin smoother and more supple. "So, it is time then," Malifec said eagerly.

"Yes, Master," Cotton Mouth said. He began plugging new tubes and inserting fresh needles into the undead necromancer's body. Fresh bottles of fluid were added; new potions and elixirs were set to drip. The steel tub next to the coffin was slowly filled with bubbling green ichor. The last bubble bath either of us will ever take, if we don't get out of here, Sweetiebelle thought, and gulped.

"Fetch the alicorn." Cotton Mouth went to the cage, unlocked it, and dragged Mudpuppy out.

He got the surprise of his life when the ropes fell away and Mudpuppy hauled off and kicked him right in the knee. he howled in pain and toppled to the floor. "Run!" Mudpuppy shouted. Sweetiebelle was already moving, seizing the seed packet in her mouth, leaping out of the cage and running as fast as her little legs would go, seeds spilling behind her and scattering across the damp stone floor. They dashed in opposite directions around the room, heading for the one exit from opposite sides.

"Stop her, you fool!" Malifec screeched. Sweetiebelle reached the door. She looked back. Both villains had ignored her entirely and focused on cornering Mudpuppy. She was trapped between them, Cotton Mouth standing akimbo, Malifec at the end of his tether of tubes and wires, his unicorn-horn mohawk crackling dangerously. "Give it up, little filly," Malifec hissed. "You can't fly with those feathers torn out of your wing. And you can't cast magic with that ring stuck on your horn."

Mudpuppy looked around and saw all the seeds scattered on the wet, muddy stone floor. She smirked at Malifec. "Well, Ah know sumpin you don't know," she said.

"Oh really?" Malifec sneered. "And what would that be?"

"I don't need my horn to cast magic," she said. She stamped on the floor with one hoof. A wave of magic rippled out from her hoof, spreading out across the floor. Seed hulls burst, rootlets probed down into muddy cracks, shoots and leaves reached upward for the light of the lanterns.

"What is this?" Malifec sputtered. Even as he spoke vines coiled up the equipment, the machinery, the walls, even the legs of the zomponies still standing unmoving around the room. Sweetiebelle kicked the door open, letting more light spill into the room. The vines became laden with blossoms and then with tiny green fruits that reddened, swelled...

Yes, thought Sweetiebelle, the chili peppers!

...into red, round fruit with rumpled, scowling faces.

"Tomatoes?" Mudpuppy yelled in exasperation.

"Tomatoes?" Cotton Mouth said in befuddlement.

"Tomatoes," Sweetiebelle facehoofed.

Malifec looked around him as fruiting vines continued to climb up every surface and tangle their way around the machinery hooked to him. Sweetiebelle fleetingly wondered what expression he would have had on his face if he'd still had one. "Is this some sort of joke?" he said.

A joke. At that moment Sweetiebelle remembered two things: a cutie mark crusade she and the others had tried a month ago, when a traveling puppeteer had passed through Ponyville, and a joke.

The joke.

Not just a bad joke. The worst, most awful, most terrible joke in the world. The joke that was so terrible she'd never even actually heard the first half; the joke so awful that she'd gotten a spanking and their uncle had gotten thrown out of the house just for teaching her the punch line.

It was perfect. The target was open, the tomatoes were ripe, and she knew what to do. She took a deep breath and her horn lit up.

Malifec opened his mouth to say something, only to have, to his surprise, a dollop of light fly into it and small filly's voice come out:

"THE ARISTOCRATS!"

SPLATSPLATSPLATSPLATSPLATSPLATSPLATSPLATSPLATSPLAT!

Malifec and Cotton Mouth yowled and disappeared in a torrent of salsa as the trollmato plants lining the room proceeded to force feed Malifec tomatoes at machine-gun speed and velocity. Glass smashed, the steel tub and the coffin dented, and both villains went down in a spray of vegetable guts.

Cutie Mark Crusaders Ventriloquists, YAY! Thought Sweetiebelle. "Come on!" she yelled at Mudpuppy.

Mudpuppy took the hint and ran for the door, dodging trollmatoes and slipping in puddles of raw ketchup. She reached the door just as the tub toppled over, sending Malifec and Cotton Mouth scrambling for their lives as the flesh-dissolving goo spread across the floor. "Come on, that won't stop them for long!" Sweetiebelle said. The two fillies ran out of the chamber of death, out the laboratory door, into the murky night and freedom.

---

They ran heedless of direction, only seeking to be lost in the swamp and the night. But there was no shelter to be found; any time they found someplace that looked safe in the crumbing ruins of Malfou, they were rousted out by the glowing red eyes of the Kappas in their pools, or the moaning of the wandering zombies as they closed in. It didn't matter where they ran, Sweetiebelle knew. Malfou was Unchartable; their chances of finding the one route that led out of that terrible trap was next to zero. But they ran anyway.

They were almost to the point of exhaustion when Mudpuppy suddenly turned. "This way!" she said, picking up the pace again. Sweetiebelle struggled to keep up with the lanky legged filly. They turned another corner and there it was; a low hillock, surrounded by swamp water and flooded by moonlight. The only thing that stood on it was the crumbling corner of some long- decayed building; all of the rest of the little islet stood grassy and bare in the light. "That's it, that's safe!"

"How do you know?" Sweetiebelle said.

"I... I just do," Mudpuppy insisted. "I can feel it... Come on!"

She was right. One of the features of an Unchartable plot of land was that some part of it had to be a counterbalance. The islet was that counterbalance for Malfou. By a twist in time as well as space ,Malifec had turned the swamp-drowned city's dimensions a half-turn, making the entire city and any trace of its existence disappear from outside eyes, even hiding it from the face of the Sun and the Moon; The sky over Malfou was always dark and overcast, and the night was always on the dark of the Moon . But that grassy islet was the fulcrum upon which the Unchartability turned, and was the counterpoint- there, the sun always shone, and the moon was always full, and had blessed the ground there with their light unceasingly for three hundred years. Its soil was clean of the taint of Malifec's evil experiments, and saturated with light touched by alicorn magic. Malifec's hoof had never trod there, and never could.

They took a brief, terrifying swim through the murky waters surrounding the island, and climbed up the hill on dry land, not stopping till they reached the peak. The two worked together, using their hooves and teeth to pry the magic suppressor rings off each other's took shelter in the shadow of the cornerstone. "We can rest here," Mudpuppy said. "F'r a little while.."

"And then what?" Sweetiebelle shivered. Something out in the darkness moaned; she pressed in to Mudpuppy's side.

Mudpuppy looked up. The rest of the city was dark and lightless, but once they'd climbed up on the islet they'd been able to see the Moon again. "We can see the moon here," she said. "If we can look up and see the Moon, they can look down and see us."

Sweetiebelle nodded. "So what do we do? Do we light a fire? Malifec and Cotton Mouth will see it too."

"I got an idea," Mudpuppy said. She pulled off her saddlebags. "First we gotta see what Mr. Dapper Blue gave us..."

They were fortunate. The seeds were carefully sorted into folds of wax paper, and unlike the first were properly labeled in wax pencil. The next hour was spent in hasty work, fumbling with shaking horns and hooves as they worked their way around the island, planting seeds in the soft black soil with a sharp stick, scattering others out over the water, laying out row after row till they had worked their way back up to the peak. Somewhere in the middle Sweetiebelle started singing softly, to try and still her frantically beating heart.

"Hush now quiet now

It's time to lay your sleepy head

Hush now quiet now

it's time to go to bed..."

It seemed to help; at least Mudpuppy didn't object- Sweetie could hear her breathing calm and her hooves move more surely. Her own heart beat a little more steadily. She worked faster.

It had been a long day, and an even longer night. It had been hours since they'd rested, slept, or ate, and they'd not dared drink the muddy water of the swamp. They dug through Mudpuppy's panniers and found, to their less than enthusiastic amusement, a couple of moon pies from the parade, and a single bottle of water. They shared their meager meal and got ready.

"Aright," Mudpuppy said. "Once we starts this Fais Do-Do, dat bone face couillon an' his zombie pets are gonna come runnin.' We goanna hafta hold 'em off till somepony sees all the light and come to save us, or till de sun come up. We put all the sunflowers, the sunshrooms, an' the chili peppers up here closest to us, so's they last longest, and so's we can chunk them lil red devils at 'em. Ifn' it gets real bad, start chunkin' more seeds around an' I'll try an' make e'm grow again. Hokay?" Sweetiebelle nodded, licking her lips.

"Hokay. Let's do this." Mudpuppy took a deep breath. Magic flowed out of her, from her hooves, her wings, her horn, into the air and water and soil around her. In a slowly expanding wave, the hill sprouted, bloomed, grew thick with stems and vines and leaves. A chorus line of sun-shrooms sprouted first, and began spitting out their tiny spores of light. The sunflowers came soon after; motes of light began showering down on the slopes of the little island till it glowed like a bonfire. The plants gulped down the motes of sunshine and grew even faster. Within less than five minutes the moonlit hill was covered with a green army.

Mudpuppy let out a whoosh of air and sat down. Sweetiebelle hugged Mudpuppy in glee. "You did it!" she squealed. But even as she spoke, rustles of discontent began breaking out all up and down the little island. Peas and corn began pelting other plants. Squash began thumping up and down in agitation.

"Oh no," Mudpuppy moaned. "We planted the wrong kinds next to each other! Stop it, Stop it all of you! We all gon' die if de zombies come and you all fightin..." She dashed back and forth, trying to get the plants to stop fighting, to get them to listen to her- but to no avail. She sagged in despair as their garden kept right on squabbling with itself. "They'll be too busy fighting each other to even notice the zombies coming. What do we do?"

Sweetiebelle looked out over the swamp. She could hear Malifec and Cotton Mouth shouting, faint in the distance, egging the zombies and kappas on. They would see the light of the glowshrooms and sunflowers soon, and then it would be all over. "No! No, it's not FAIR!" she said, stamping her hoof as she wept tears of frustration and rage.

What could she do? Sing them a Lullabye? What good was that? She knew she was just a stupid filly who couldn't even get her stupid cutie mark, that all she was good for was hanging in the back and trying to talk everypony out of things, only to have them ignore her. Why would anypony listen to her now?

But didn't they understand?... they had to fight together, or they were going to die! They had to listen!

All that anger and pain and need swelled up in her like a balloon. As her horn lit, and a tiny globe of magic the size of a pearl settled on her throat, it came out in the only way it could.

Do you hear the ponies sing

From the mountains to the glen

It is the music of a people

Who will not be slaves again...

The plants stopped fighting. Slowly, rank by rank and row by row, they turned to face her, mesmerized. The flowers and plants around her weren't the only ones; Mudpuppy was staring openmouthed as the tiny, muddy filly sang.

Will you join in our crusade?

Who will be strong and stand with me?

Beyond the end of darkness

Is there a dawn you long to see?

Then join in the fight

For the right to live and be free!

This wasn't heartsong, Mudpuppy knew. Heartsong was something that just happened, that swept ponies up in it, and came and went as it pleased. This was different. This here, Mudpuppy thought with an icy thrill that ran down her spine, this had come because Sweetiebelle had called.

It was saying what she told it to say. And the garden of mayhem around her was listening. Every plant swayed in time. The sunflowers were singing in chorus with her. Even the squash and pumpkins were thumping out the tempo on the soft loam.

Will you give all you can give

So that our banner may advance

Some will fall and some will live

Will you stand up and take your chance?...

And cooee, if Mudpuppy wasn't feeling the rush herself.

...When the beating of your heart

Echoes the beating of the drums

There is a life about to start

When tomorrow comes !

"YOU LITTLE VERMIN!"

That falsetto shriek was a show-stopper. Everypony... everyplant... stopped singing and faced outward into the night. While Sweetiebelle had been singing, Malifec had found them. He was standing just outside of the ring of moonlight, on the far shore, grinding his lipless teeth in rage. His kappas were gathered around him, and Cotton Mouth stood, or crouched, by his side.

"It would seem," Cotton Mouth said, clearly taking effort to project, "That they are inside the Counterbalance, where you cannot safely go, Master."

Malifec glared at his slave and seethed. "You press your luck with your impudence, Cotton," he hissed. He motioned to the Kappa around him with his skeletal wing-hand. "Go! Fetch the one with the wings to me." He looked up at the two fillies. "You may have the other one for yourselves," he leered.

Sweetiebelle shuddered, but she never stopped stamping out the tempo. Neither did the plants. They waited in silence.

The Kappas crawled into the water and began swimming for the island, the humps of their shells and their red glowing eyes showing above the surface. They weren't even halfway when the first one vanished with a yowp and a splash. Then another, and another. One almost made it to shore; it was just within the range of light cast by the torchwood stumps when dozens of tangle kelp vines lashed up out of the water, wrapped around its throat and dragged it to the bottom.

The first line of defense had held.

Cotton Mouth cleared his throat. "It would seem," he said, "That you are fresh out of Kappa, Master."

For a moment it looked as if Lord Malifec would throw Cotton Mouth into the water after them. Instead he held his staff up to the blackened sky and let loose with an inarticulate scream of rage. Lightning lashed from the staff and from his horns, turning darkness into daylight. Then came the moaning... Out in the distance Sweetiebelle could make out dozens of swamp gas lights slowly making their way towards the little island. Then there were hundreds, rising up out of the swamp water, digging their way up out of the mud... she remembered what Mudpuppy had said; there had been two thousand souls living in Malfou when it had disappeared into the quagmire...

"GET THEM!" Malifec said, pointing. "BRING THEM TO ME!"

She upped the tempo of her hoofbeat.

Axes flash, broadsword swing,

Shining armour's piercing ring

Horses run with polished shield,

Fight Those Bastards till They Yield

Midnight mare and blood red roan,

Fight to Keep this Land Your Own

Sound the horn and call the cry-

The sunflowers joined in on the final line- and so did the gourds, the torchwood stumps, the gator plums, everything with a face and a mouth in a boneshaking bass:

How Many of Them Can We Make Die!

Zombies by the score waded into the water and approached the island. Dozens were yanked down by the tangle kelp or peppered full of holes by the tiny seashrooms, but the sheer volume of undead won out. As they entered the ring of moonlight they slowed drastically... still, they came on. A hundred or so reached shore and planted their hooves among the potatoes. Had they possessed any free will or minds of their own, they might have questioned why said potatoes had little blinking lights. With a deafening roar the entire first wave of zombies were blown to kingdom come. Bits of undead rained down over the water. The second wave made it to shore in the gaps- only to be zapped to a jittering halt by starfruit sparks, then mowed down by volleys of flaming peas shot through the wall of torchwood stumps.

"Laissez les bons temps rouler, you fils-putain!" Mudpuppy whooped, and began pouring magic into more seeds and plants.

Spitting with rage, Malifec flung a fireball at the alicorn. Two umbrella palms sacrificed their lives to shield her at the last second. A noxious cloud of poison cast by him was blown away by the spinning leaves of several giant clover. His magic sputtered. He refrained from anything more, cursing in some awful forgotten language.

He must be usin' nearly all his mojo to keep those zombies moving forward, she thought. "Keep it up!" she yelled, and raced to fill the gaps in the line with more seedlings.

Everything descended into bedlam. Potato mines erupted; pea plants spat torrents of peas that burst into flame, gator plums devoured zombies whole, peppers turned stretches of zombies into charcoal, melons arced through the air, decapitating zomponies, squash gourds hammered zomponies into pulp till they themselves burst. Flame and explosions and produce flying at killing speeds were everywhere, with sunflower seeds raining down in a constant shower and two fillies desperately rushing to fill the widening holes in their defenses with still more magically-sprouted plants. It would have been comical, if not for the soul-numbing horror of the grue and violence and the endless moaning of the zombie horde.

Sweetiebelle sang battle marches till her voice cracked. A watermelon vine cracked open one of its own melons and gave it to her; she ate the cool, wet flesh, slaking her throat, and fed hooffuls of it to Mudpuppy as she cast. They fought on.

The night ground on. The effect on Malifec's shambling hordes was devastating. Dozens, then hundreds of them were crushed, dismembered, incinerated. And still more came on. The garden army had destroyed hundreds, but Malifec's minions numbered over a thousand... slowly, plant by plant, row by row, they trampled the island's green defenders. The plants were crushed underfoot, torn apart and devoured, and fewer and fewer rose in their place.

Sunrise was still hours off yet, when Mudpuppy sank to the ground, her horn and hooves smoking. "I... can't..." she sobbed for air. "No more..."

"C'mon, just a little longer," Sweetiebelle pleaded, trying to hold her friend up. She was staggering herself. "We're... we're almost there-"

Mudpuppy puffed out her cheeks and strained. Only a few guttering sparks fell from her horn. "That's it," she slurred, tears welling in her eyes. She slumped to the ground, utterly burned out. Sweetiebelle slumped next to her. She had exhausted her own magical well, running back and forth, singing and drilling seeds into the ground.

She looked out over the battlefield; the hillside was covered with crushed plants and scattered bits of zombies. The sunflowers were left; there was a scattering of pea plants, a thumping, half-cracked gourd here, a heroically flinging melon plant there.

And there were still hundreds of zombies still coming.

The last few plants to sprout had been two or three massive black mushrooms that, at the last minute, had detonated all around the perimeter, shattering hundreds of zombies and flinging the horde back a hundred yards. Now there was nothing left between the two fillies and the next wave of shuffling zombies. They had maybe two or three minutes before the undead ponies reached them and...

She flopped down on the ground sobbed. She hurt. She was so tired, and cold, and all she wanted was her mother. The sunflowers crooned around her, confused and distressed. "It's over... I'm sorry," she said- to whom she didn't know. She didn't cry. She didn't think she had any tears left.

Mudpuppy whimpered into her side, shaking in fear and pain. Sweetiebelle felt her heart twist in sympathy. It seemed she had a few tears left after all. She offered the only comfort she had left... She cuddled Mudpuppy close and softly sang.

One day I will be...

Back in our old street...

Safe from the noise that's...

falling around me...

The air, the swamp, the whole world stilled, as one filly's voice filled the night sky. Her eyes drifted closed as her voice swelled, and the music came out. She did not see the flare of light on her own hip, barely felt the strange lingering sting through her bruises and rope burns as her horn, then her heart, began to glow.

The zombie horde... halted.

"What are you doing?" Malifec snarled. "What are they doing?" he turned to Cotton Mouth. No answer was forthcoming from that quarter; the wretched snake oil salespony was standing there unheeding, tears of guilt and shame and regret pouring from his eyes.

We've been cowering so long

Oh, what I would give,

I ask so little

Oh, what I would give

to stand at the bus stop

Or browse in a bookshop

to sleep and always be still...

The sunflowers joined in, singing in harmony. Sweetiebelle glowed from within as the music poured from her.

The undead stood, transfixed. The soul-flames that attended them congealed, took the form of faces. Mares, stallions, old nags, young foals, all of them listening raptly, their eyes awakening and filling with tears. Imprisoned in their own bodies, they had been unable to see or hear with their own eyes or ears. Not even a heartsong could have reached their hearing. But this went beyond music, beyond mere sound. This was more than heartsong- it was soul-song. Pure soul-music, pouring forth, carrying all the fear and pain and loss and grief of a lonely, frightened child...

They heard it. And it awoke them to what they had become.

The song rose, spread, filled the sky... A growing sound came from the zombies; a moan that rose to a wail of anguish, horror and despair as their spirits awoke in the rotting horrors that their bodies had become, as their memories were restored of the monstrosities they had been made to do. As one, their eyes blazing, they turned on Malifec. Spectral voices spoke, and this time Malifec was the one who heard.

"What have you done to me?"

"Monsters! You made us into monsters!"

"Living corpses... oh Maker, the pain-"

"You turned us on our own families!"

"My husband-"

"My sister-"

"My children-"

"You turned us on foals. On Innocent foals!"

"Monster!"

"Villain!"

"Demon!"

Roaring in fury, the zombie horde closed on him, moving with more frightening deliberation than they had in centuries. Malifec screamed in rage and lashed out with his magic. But irony of ironies, the practice of Necromancy suffers one fatal flaw: all its most destructive spells are designed for afflicting the living- not the living dead. Lightning lashed from his horns and scored unheeding flesh; poisons and curses to wither living bodies washed over corpses without affecting them; eldritch flames sputtered out, and there were scores of hooves to take the place of those that fell charred to ash.

They mobbed him...and dragged him bodily to the island. "NO, NO!" Malifec screamed. But mercy was not forthcoming. He was dragged through the water, and up onto the islet. The moment the moonlight touched him, the instant the sun-blessed earth met his lich's flesh, he began to burn. Rotting hooves held him down to the Sun and Moon-blessed earth, the shower of sunflower seeds was allowed to fall on him unimpeded. He went up like an oil soaked rag dipped in phosphorous.

In moments it was over; the lich crumbled to ash, then less than ash. There was a massive lurch as the whole world seemed to shift sideways; Sweetiebelle staggered. She looked up and laughed; in the distance, flying across the face of the Moon was the Fabulosity; close behind it was the Surprise. The Unchartable spell on the ruins of Malfou had broken.

The living dead gathered around her, almost reverently. She looked up at them. The specters hovering over them smiled at her; some with tears. One of the zombies coughed, moved its lips, and managed to speak.

"W-w-e're sor-ree.." it rasped. "Th-thank- yo-o-u..."

"It's okay, it wasn't your fault," she whispered back. "And you're welcome." The ghost smiled... and its corpse crumbled to dust. All around, zombies began crumbling into piles of earth. Soon, nothing was left but the ghost flames.

Sweetiebelle felt a new song bubbling up inside her. A song of sorrow ending, of gratitude, of farewell, of utter joy. There were no words, and she doubted there ever could be, but she sang anyway. The guttering flames began to close, to swirl around her as motes of light swirling up into the sky... all of them singing. She joined in, her wordless song blending with theirs, as the light swelled within her-

Mudpuppy stood, gawping at the place where her friend had been. There was a scorched spot of earth, nothing more.

---

On the deck of the Fabulosity, two alicorn mares suddenly stood straighter as something strummed across the cosmic strings of the universe. "Did you feel that-?" Rarity gasped.

"Indeed I did," Luna said. Over on the deck of the Surprise, Pinkie Pie could be seen hopping up and down maniacally (even more so than usual) and pointing. They had seen the strange fireworks in that direction earlier; now they could make out a single, pale white star slowly descending. Luna's smile spread across her face. "Full speed ahead," she said. "The missing foals have been found!"

They flew in over the ruins of what once must have been a fairly sized city, to a hill that glowed in the moonlight. The princesses, heedless of their guard's warnings, took wing and arrived first. Rarity hit the ground at a gallop and was the first to reach them- two exhausted, muddy and tattered fillies, surrounded by a ragged garden of flowers. She swept them both up in her hooves and wings, hysterical with relief. None of those who gathered around missed the new cutie mark on the half-conscious little Duchess' flank... or her two tiny, snow white wings.

Luna landed a few strides away. She chose to keep her distance, let the loved ones reunite in relative peace for a moment. She watched as Rarity showering her admittedly over-wrought affections on Mudpuppy as well; it pleased her that the poor foal had found a surrogate mother in the melodramatic fashionista. The filly seemed confused at the attention at first, but was more than happy to accept it.

Luna cast around at the hillside, taking note of the craters and scorch marks, the crushed and mangled plants, and the countless hoofprints torn in the sod. It was with some bemusement she considered the debris. "It would seem there was something of a battle here," she said aloud.

"A bit of one." Her guards whirled on the voice, weapons ready. A badly deformed pony waded slowly ashore, limping on three legs. He dropped his battered silk hat in the mud and knelt before the princess. "I surrender myself to you, Princess Luna."

Luna looked him over. He positively reeked of corruption by dark magic. "What is your role in all of this?" she demanded, her eyes flaring with anger.

He didn't even quail. "Unwilling minion," he said. He pointed to a particularly large scorch mark with a half-crumbled skull sitting atop it. "If you want to see my boss, well- he seems indisposed at the moment."

Luna's lip quirked at his morbid sense of humor. "And what would you have?"

He lowered his head. "Kill me quickly."

Luna blinked. "You would not plead your case? Plead for mercy?"

He grimaced. Luna saw that he was sweating and holding himself still at a great cost of will; she realized he was in terrible pain. "I may have been a slave but have my own crimes and sins," he said. "The deaths of thirty-five foals is just the start. And after what my 'Master' did to me... a swift death would be the only mercy." Something bulged and shifted under his coat, eliciting a grimace of pain from him. "He swore that if he perished, that he would see to it that I would never be able to die. No matter how desperately I wanted it..." He hunched over. Luna clearly heard bones crack.

"The vitality elixir I worked on so long," he gasped. "He... altered it, so that it would make my body and organs grow out of control If he ever removed his influence. Now that he is dead, his powers are no longer keeping it in check..."

"I understand," Luna said. "Do you have any last requests?"

"My research," he said. "You must believe me; I was onto something. Something incredible." The brief gleam of a fanatical researcher flickered in his eye. "It all went wrong for me- but other researchers, better minds might glean something from it. That would make up for... at least a little of all this." He spasmed and sweated. "All my papers are in the manor- locked away in a fireproof safe." He grinned sardonically. "I figured on it all ending in pitchforks and torches, decided it would be a shame if all my work went up in smoke..."

Luna nodded. "I will see it done." She lit her horn. "Have you any last words?"

"Just two," he rasped. More bones cracked; half his face swelled. His spine writhed and twisted. He looked up with beseeching eyes. "For as little as they're worth: I'm sorry."

Luna pointed her horn at him... hesitated...

"Do it!" he said.

Moonfire blazed over him. Instantly he was consumed; ash, then less than ash, fell to the muddy grass. Cotton Mouth's long purgatory was finally over.

---

Sweetiebelle felt herself carried aloft, with the sound of beating wings all around her. She came completely to as the guards carrying her set down gently on the deck of the Fabulosity. When she opened her eyes, there was Rarity and her guards and the rest of the crew... and two faces she wasn't expecting.

"Momma! Papa!" she cried as the two ponies all but piled into her. She burrowed into her mother's neck as they wrapped her in a three way- no, a four way, here came Rarity- hug. "How did you get here?" she squeaked.

"We were passing through Neigh Orleans on our trip and decided to stop and see the sights," Pearl said, sniffling. "When we heard about what happened..."

"Bless the Mayor for getting you to the Fabulosity," Rarity sniffled.

"Guess you got in a little kerfluffle, didja now," Magnum said. He had tears in his eyes and a proud grin on his face. "Lemme take a look at you, shortstop-" he backed up a step and then goggled. "Well ain't that somethin'," he said. He grinned. "...Princess."

"Oh my golly gee!" Pearl added.

"What?" Sweetiebelle looked down at herself- then her wing wiggled, the feathers tickling her side. She did a double take, carefully stretching her tiny wings out. "Oh... wow." She blinked at her family. "So that's what happened." She turned around in a circle, flapping her wings experimentally, looking herself over. "Oh, omigosh... I got my cutie mark too?"

"Oh goodness gracious let me see!" Rarity squealed. There it was, a pale blue musical note, overlaid on a blue-white star that was framed by a golden laurel wreath.

"Oh I KNEW you were going to get something in music, Sweetiebelle," Rarity gushed. "What's it for, can you tell us?"

"Oh that's obvious, dontchaknow," Pearl scoffed. "It means she's gonna be a big famous music superstar, you betcha."

Sweetiebelle's memory flashed back; to a crowd of smiling, tearful faces, freed by music that only they could hear. Faces that flickered and burned and turned into a cascade of blue-white stars, shooting up into the sky... she smiled sadly at her family. "It... means something very special," she said. "But I... really don't want to talk about it just yet." Then her chin crumpled and she started to cry.

Pearl swooped her daughter up again. "It's all right, Sweetie," she crooned. "You don't have to talk now. You're safe now, you're safe..."

Across the deck another reunion was taking place. Mudpuppy's hooves had barely touched the deck when she was tackled by a frantically babbling Twig. He nearly strangled her as he hugged her. An indignantly squeaking salamander crawled out of his mane, scolding her for dropping him back at the parade...

And there was Meemaw. She hobbled up, her wrinkled face unreadable. "What you gone got into, poor child?" she croaked. She wrapped Mudpuppy in a hug.

"Meemaw! There were kappa. An' zombies... An' a lich- a right big evil bokor-wicked as de day is long-" Mudpuppy couldn't help it. She just started babbling all that happening. And shaking a little.

"A bokor?" Meemaw Catfish's eyes went wide. She gave Mudpuppy a severe look. "Did ye blow his haid off?"

Mudpuppy gave her a gaptoothed grin. "Sho nuff we did."

Meemaw's face creased into a smile. "That's a good gal," she crooned, patting Mudpuppy on the back with a chuckle.

Mudpuppy's smile faded. "Meemaw... Cotton Mouth was dere."

Meemaw went stiff. "Him?" Her voice was cold.

Mudpuppy shook her head. "Taint no matter, Meemaw," she said sadly. "Ain't no point in hatin' him no more. He did some wicked tings, Meemaw- but he weren't no monster. Not like dat lich." She shivered; then her eyes turned sad. "He was just a pony dat was full of reckless pride. And he was dat bokor's slave, from the day he ran away till the day he died. That evil creature did awful things to him, Meemaw... " She remembered watching from afar as Cotton Mouth had all but crawled to Luna's hooves, his body twisting itself to pieces, and begged for death, and felt an upwelling of pity. "He spent every minute of his life, all these years, regrettin' his sins. Like you always said, dere ain't no profit in speakin' ill of de dead."

Meemaw didn't say anything at first. Her chin just wobbled a bit, and she gave Mudpuppy another long hug. "You kin come back to de bayou if'n you want, chile," she said. "If you tink you ain't ready for all dis..."

Bruised and battered, exhausted and magically burnt out, Mudpuppy still shook her head. "De world don't ever ask us if we ready for it," she said. "It just shows up one day. I gotta go do dis, might as well do it now." She looked over at Sweetiebelle and her family. "Besides," she said with another gaptoothed grin. "SOMEpony sensible like has gotta look after dese crazy city ponies."