Lazarus

“Another!” I called, slamming my empty flagon onto the bar counter. I had five bags of bits to burn, and it took a hell of a lot of mead to get me drunk.

The barkeep, never did catch his name, replaced my cup with a fresh, full, frothing cup of Equestria’s favorite poison. Killables always did baffle me with their lives; They’ll drink mead but avoid nightlock, despite the fact that the berries tasted far better. Mead will kill just the same, though much slower, I suppose. Perhaps that’s what it’s all about: How long their deaths take to play out.

“I am already regretting this decision, Tia,” said a voice, a new one amidst the gentle buzz of the pub. I could tell this mare was a royal from her voice alone, and the voice that accompanied her was familiar.

“I never would have chosen this as a meeting place, but I hardly have control,” said Celestia. I never turned around, but it was clear that she hadn’t noticed me. I sipped my mead and waited, half a minute passing before her small “oh” marked her realization. She said nothing as she clinked and clanked, in an impressively indiscreet manner, over to my, taking a seat to my left. Her companion stood by her side, apparently too nervous to sit down.

“Do you drink?” I asked, finishing my flagon off.

“Not without reason to celebrate,” she returned. “I assure you, if what you say is true, I expect to have a reason very soon.”

“I requested to talk with you. Who is the spare?”

“Princess Luna,” said the aforementioned spare. She did a bit of a curtsy in her elegant blue dress. “And you must be Lazarus. Charmed.”

“Ah. There’s two Equestrian princesses,” I said. “Sun and Moon, hm?”

“We didn’t come here for idle chit-chat,” said Celestia, leaning forward. “You said that you knew where Starswirl is.”

“Does she do that often, Luna?” I asked. “The not listening bit?”

“You have no idea,” Luna muttered.

“I said I knew how to find him,” I said. “And even that might have been a lie.”

“So you wasted my time?” said Celestia. “I had important matters to attend to on this night.”

“Yes, so sorry I interrupted your milk bath,” I said. “If you knew Starswirl, which I am gathering you did, you know how odd he can be. I am sure I know him, but it is very possible I understand him as well as the worm understands the sparrow.”

“Can we please discuss these matters elsewhere?” asked Luna nervously. “This place makes me uncomfortable.”

“You want to hear uncomfortable?” I scoffed. “Two corpses spilled their drinks on me since I got here.”

I dropped a pile of bits onto the counter for the barkeep, then gestured for the door. The princesses followed me out the door of the bar, and onto the cold, dark roads of Canterlot’s underbelly. These streets were filled with crime and scum and, were I killable, I’d be a bit concerned for my safety. But, as I am not, I welcomed attack.

“You… You have blood in your hair,” said Luna, pointing. I gripped the lock to which she was referring and took a look.

“So I do. Doesn’t it twinkle in the moonlight?” I said, slightly amused. “So, we’re elsewhere. Let’s talk.”

“What have we to talk about?” asked Celestia. “You are going to bring us to Starswirl. End of story.”

“Oh, that’s adorable. I don’t work for free, Sun Princess,” I said. “If I do this for you, I expect something in return.”

“And that something is a big bag of coin, I take it?” said Luna.

“Ah, but you give me too little credit, Princess of the Moon,” I said. “I don’t want your coin. Money can’t buy happiness, only a more beautiful misery. What I do want is a spot in your father’s academy.”

“Why?” asked Celestia, her hand subconsciously falling to the hilt of her blade.

“Because I’m horribly bored with my life,” I said. “After seventeen years, you’ve really found every conceivable way to die, and then the world becomes terribly dull.”

It was obvious that they were skeptical. They kept trying to discern my ulterior motives, of which there were none. Celestia clenched her jaw, clearly thinking.

“You will help us find Starswirl, and then we will discuss you joining the Academy,” she said finally. I grinned and began down the street to the right.

“Very good, then. I’ll take you, after I deal with some…” I tried to think of a delicate way to say it. “Some business that came up.”

“You’re not leaving us here!” shrieked Luna. I scoffed and gestured for them to follow, which they did. I led them through the different, yet familiar, network of alleys and side streets. I stopped them before the alley I had used to contact Celestia to give them a precursory warning.

“You might want to wait out here,” I warned.

“Not a chance,” said Luna. “This is a part of Canterlot that I keep suggesting to Father that he burns to ash, but he never listens.”

“Do as you wish,” I said. I strode boldly down the alley, my hooves clacking against the slightly damp cobblestones. I heard the panicked, gagged, muted screaming halfway in. At the end of the alley, backs against the wall and tied with some rope I had manufactured from nothing, were the four pegasi who had flown me to Canterlot. They were each gagged with a greasy cloth that I easily could have cleaned, but chose not to. Besides the bondage, they were also dressed in bruises and cuts, one of them bleeding from their nose. The same blood that tainted my hair.

“I am back, just as I promised, boys,” I said, reaching into my pack and withdrawing my knife. “I am a man of my word. I have honor. Unlike you four, who are thieving scum.”

One of them tried to speak, but was impeded by the rag. My horn lit up with it’s glowing, wispy white glow, raising my four suspects to their hooves. I used my hand to rip the rags from each of their mouths and threw them to the floor.

“Release us!” shouted one. I rolled my eyes in disbelief and mild amusement.

“Now, I’ve been captured and tied up more times than I care to admit,” I said. “And that has never once worked for me, even when I added ‘please’. So, keep your mouths shut, and this will all be over.”

“Lazarus, what are you-” began Celestia.

“These thieves, these scum!” I shouted, suddenly gripped with anger. “They tried to steal my necklace from off of my neck! This necklace which has been in my family for generations, before me, before them, before their families had names!”

“Look, we just-” started what I took to be the leader, silenced by my fist connecting with the side of his face.

“For what? You thought you could sell it?” I asked. “You’d get all of four bits for it. That’s what all this is about. One of you is about to lose their life, all over four fucking bits!”

The air around us seemed to constrict, and it looked like the four thieves would drop dead from fright before I even touched them.

“Whose idea was it?” I asked. I was met with silence. “Who suggested to steal my necklace?!”

“Thieves? We’ll admit to that,” said the leader. “Scum? We’ll take that, as well. But traitors? Rats? Weasels? Go fuck yourself.”

“You are trying my patience. I really don’t want to get blood all over the nice princesses over there,” I said. “See them? Look at how nice that dress is. Such a nice shade of blue. And your sharp tongue might ruin it with a spray of red.”

“Lazarus, enough of this,” said Celestia. Again, unexplainable rage gripped me.

“No! One of these men are going to die, because he thought he could steal from a Bethany and live to tell the tale!” I shouted. “Which one of you started it?”

Again, silence on all fronts. I pressed the blade of my knife against the leader’s throat, letting the steel of the blade slowly eat into his skin.

“Reveal the thief, and the other three go free,” I said, removing the knife. A small dripping of blood stained my blade. “I am going to ask only once more. Whose idea was it? If you wish to keep your silence, I’ll kill you all. I am going to free your hands, and you point to the ringleader of the operation.”

I gripped their legs with my glow, to keep them in place, then used my magic to melt the ropes into nothing. As soon as their arms were free, the other three pegasi pointed to the leader. His anger was as apparent as it was immediate.

“You fucking cowards!” the leader roared. “All of you! Cowards! Weaker than women!”

I looked the thief in the eye, gripping my knife tightly in my hand. I restrained his arms with magic, then gripped him around the back of the neck.

“Four bits,” I said. “If you were to melt four coins down, you could make two of this damned necklace. It’s not even worth ending your life over.”

Relief washed over his face, followed immediately by agonized terror as my blade entered his throat. I held the sharp steel in his throat, listening to him gurgle. I watched the life leave his eyes until he was nothing more than a shell of what he used to be.

“Four bits,” I said again. I took my knife to the nearest pegasi and wiped the blood onto his chest.

“Lazarus…” said Celestia shakily. “You didn’t have to kill him.”

“I know. It’s unfortunate, isn’t it?” I said, putting my knife away. “Shall we depart now?”

My horn fired up again, gripping the heads of the other three thieves. I used all the strength I had to slam their heads against the stone walls, their heads cracking like an over-ripe melon, and dropped their corpses to the floor. Together, Luna, Celestia and I exited the alley, with me two words bouncing around in my head.

“Four. Bits,” I said again.

Celestia

It was very rare that I admitted to making mistakes, mostly because I had faith that everything happened for a reason. I believed that anything that ever happened was meant to be, and that it wasn’t my place to question fate. My family, particularly my mother and Uncle Discord, had long ago taught me about a funny little thing called destiny, how some things are just supposed to happen. Looking back, that added a dimension of irony to my quest for the Elements of Harmony. I suppose I believed that even destiny had its limits, but, for the most part, I could not truly make a mistake, as everything was meant to happen.

As Lazarus shuffled out of the alley, leaving four corpses behind, I realized I might have made a mistake.

“We don’t have all day, princesses,” said Lazarus, terrifyingly calmly for a man who had just ended four lives. Luna and I followed a short distance behind him, my hand always on the hilt of my sword.

“Celestia,” hissed Luna. “You never told me he was a Bethany!”

“I never knew myself,” I whispered. “I assumed his only name was Lazarus. Still, it doesn’t matter much. This changes nothing.”

“Are you mad? This changes everything!” Luna half-shouted. “He is a Bethany. As in, of House Bethany! What good could possibly come from him?”

“Are you girls enjoying your little chat about me behind my back?” asked Lazarus, not turning around or breaking stride. “Calm yourself, Princess Luna. I don’t know what rumors you’ve heard about my House, but I assure you, any and all issues have been dealt with.”

On that ominous note, silence fell over us. From there, it was mostly our quiet shuffling to the North Gate of Canterlot. It wasn’t hard to get out of the city undetected, mostly because hardly anyone knew that I had returned. The ones who did weren’t aware of my punishment. Us three stood silent until after we left the boundaries of Canterlot.

“So, Celestia, I take it you spoke to Starswirl before he left?” asked Lazarus. “What did he tell you?”

“He said that he was heading north,” I said, deciding to keep Lazarus on a strictly need-to-know basis. “Last time I saw him was twelve years ago.”

“Hm. He said the same thing to me before he left,” said Lazarus, keeping an ample gait across the grassy plains. “If he said he was heading north, why were you nearing the Badlands?”

“Starswirl the Bearded had the unfortunate combination of extreme paranoia and an odd sense of humor,” said Luna. “Knowing him, he went south as soon as he said otherwise.”

“And besides, I had explored all of northern Equestria in search of him,” I added. Lazarus laughed derisively, throwing back his head and all-but howling at the moon.

“Why, pray tell, were you searching northern Equestria?” he cackled. I drew my sword and poked him in the back with the sharp tip, spitting a tiny bit of blood on my blade.

“You first mocked me for going south,” I said. “Then you mock me for going north? What should I have done?”

“You were right to go north, but you didn’t go near far enough,” said Lazarus. “If he was going someplace in Equestria, don’t you think he would’ve said precisely where? What if something happened to him? Wouldn’t he have wanted you to know the name of the place he was going, so you could send help?”

“That is logical, but Starswirl never told us the name of where he went,” said Luna.

“Exactly,” agreed Lazarus, nodding his head. “And why would he do that?” Suddenly, all the pieces fell into place. It all made so much sense! And I had reached it before Luna did! Not a particularly smart mouse, am I?

“Because he was going someplace else,” I said. “Someplace that wasn’t in Equestria. A place that doesn’t have a name.”

“See? I knew you could be clever if you put your mind to it,” said Lazarus, ignoring my sword slashing at his back. “Hey, mind the clothes. I only have one spare set, and I expect to need them soon, knowing where we’re going.”

“So, when Starswirl said he was ‘going north’...” said Luna. “He really meant he was going north.”

“Precisely. I do admit, this would have been a much quicker journey, had Celestia come alone,” noted Lazarus. “I can teleport one, but two useless mages? That’s a lot of dead weight.”

“Pah! How dare you!” exclaimed Luna. “I’ll have you know, I’m at the top of my class in my father’s academy! I’m three years ahead of my age!”

“Really? Can you teleport?” he asked.

“Only to places I’m familiar with, currently, but I am far from useless!”

“And, once again, my dear sister supports me when my name has been insulted,” I muttered dryly.

“Oh, well that makes things far more simple,” said Lazarus, stopping us. “Everyone touch hands.”

He offered his hand forward, which Luna and I accepted after only a moment of hesitation. His horn lit with wispy white light, which spread to engulf all of us.

“I am about to attempt what is called a back-handed teleport,” he said. “I am going to teleport to a place I’ve never been before, that I’ve never even seen. The dangers of a back-handed teleport is that I must remain totally focused, or I run the risk of splinching all involved. While that’s not a big deal for me, I would assume that you’d like to avoid that.”

“Right, of course. I’ve been told that splinching is rather uncomfortable,” said Luna with a nod. Her horn lit up as well, slowly engulfing herself in blue glow.

“Well, I guess I’ll just come out and ask the foolish question,” I said. “What in Tartarus are you talking about?”

“Splinching occurs when your focus shifts or waines during the teleportation process,” explained Lazarus. “If you’re not steady enough, you’ll send some of you where you want it to go, but leave the rest behind. I’ve splinched myself in half, once. Ah, if only I could replicate it.”

“The odds of us being splinched rise to 76% when doing a back-handed teleport,” said Luna. “Besides that, he could stone-splinch us, which would be us teleporting into something that’s already there. Like a mountain.”

“What could happen then?” I asked, despite my better judgement.

“One of two things. Either we teleport the mountain into our bodies, melting our blood and sinew into the mountain,” said Lazarus. “Or, and this is only slightly less likely, the universe cannot cope with two things taking up the same space, and it implodes.” I decided to stop asking questions before they told me something else utterly terrifying.

Their melding auras surrounded me, shrouding me with powerful arcane magic. This was a different type of teleport, not like how my sentry brought me home from the South. This was more shaky, trembly, like the aura would dispel itself at any moment. The world itself seemed to collapse onto me, a loud pop rocketing from through my chest. I felt like I was folding in on myself, the air being pressed out of my lungs. Just when I thought I was about to die, everything stopped. Sound, feeling, sight. Everything paused for a second that felt like an eternity. For all I know, it was.

Then everything came flooding back at once. The air that had left me suddenly forced its way into my chest, stretching out my lungs to accommodate the new, unexpected guest that was oxygen. My ears rang with such intensity that I was afraid I would never hear properly again. My skin went numb, and I hardly registered that I was sinking to my knees, dropping into something soft and cold.

“Lords and ladies, that was awful!” I wheezed.

“That’s what happens when two strangers use their magic in tandem,” coughed Lazarus. Immortality apparently did not save him from fatigue. “Be thankful we made it here.”

“Where is ‘here’, exactly?” asked Luna, equally out of breath. “Where are we? Where do we go?”

“This is the frozen north. The nameless place that Starswirl left to,” said Lazarus with a certain air of confidence. “If he’s alive, he’s somewhere here. At very least, he left some sort of clue as to where he was headed next. If we’re lucky, he casted a large spell at some point that I can pick up on.”

His horn lit with white light, and as he began pacing slowly, I took the time to properly survey my surroundings. I had collapsed on the bay of a frozen lake, a clear, perfect mirror of crystal water. Everything else for as far as I could see was snow; Snow hills, snow valleys, snow plateaus. In some places, the fluffy, freezing white went as high as my stomach.

“For the love of…” muttered Luna, lifting the hem of her dress slightly. “I loved this dress. It’s ruined now.”

“Nobody made you come,” I noted. “You could’ve stayed home.”

“And let you get killed by a Bethany? I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Wow, you do realize that I can multitask, don’t you?” asked Lazarus, stopping his pacing. “I can hear and walk, both at once.”

“Apologies. I meant no disrespect, but…” Luna said uneasily. “You must understand my discomfort.”

“No, actually, I don’t,” said Lazarus. He began pivoting slowly, his horn tilted slightly forward.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Anyone of any importance in any House knows all about your little House Bethany.”

“Guess I’m not that important, then. Care to explain?” Lazarus’ tone never varied from slight annoyance.

“House Bethany, pioneers of Dark Magic,” said Luna. Lazarus just rolled his eyes.

“Please. Your royal family cast it’s fair share of black magic, just as my House did,” he scoffed. “We all have our demons, Princess Luna. The past is not an easy thing to escape, especially when your past is plagued by a darkness that is not your own. I implore you to recall that I am only Lazarus of Bethany. I am not House Bethany itself.”

His horn flashed slightly in the direction of north by north-east, if Luna’s moon was to be trusted, over the frozen lake.

“What my House did before me, whether good, bad, neutral, chaotic, evil, does not matter,” said Lazarus. “What they did is in the past. The past does not define me, for the past is not today.” Luna was shocked, to say the least. She had sensed it as well, saw it in Lazarus’ eyes, heard it in his voice. Just as I did, she saw the shame that Lazarus had for his House. A man who murdered four thieves in cold blood over a piece of jewelry was ashamed.

“I… Of course. My sincerest apologies,” said Luna, giving a curtsy and bowing her head in respect. Luna was certainly better than me when it came to the diplomacy of being a princess.

“Water under the bridge, so long as we leave the past where it belongs,” said Lazarus, still not particularly upset. “Ha! There, north by north-east, a spell was cast three months ago. Can’t tell what it was, but it was probably him! And his trail is fading, fast.”

“Let us go, then!” I declared, vigor filling my veins. Lazarus said nothing before running, full of piss and vinegar, across the frozen lake. I was about to follow, until I saw the tiny fissures spread in the ice. The frozen, reflective surface cracked, but not from Lazarus’ weight. That’s when I noticed the shifting beneath the surface.

“Lazarus!” I called, barely a second too late. The lake burst into an upward plume of freezing mist and hail, and something emerged.

A true daemon in every sense of the word, it was a massive, angry beast. Lazarus barely had time to stop himself before sliding right into his giant gaping maw. The thing didn’t seem to be made of any matter I’ve ever seen, instead comprised of some sort of odd, solid, pitch-black smoke. Arms the length of two men, laid out head to hoof, that moved ungracefully and heavily, and ended in massive, quad-clawed hands. As far as I could tell, it had no face other than a beak full of several sets of razor-sharp teeth. As Lazarus retreated slowly backward, the beast used his massive arms to push the rest of him from the depths of the lake. His legs, four of them connecting to the bottom of a seemingly ever-growing and shrinking torso, were long and thick, ending in three-toed claws. From it’s rear grew a long, spiked club of a tail. Finally, large, tattered blankets of smoke plumed from his back into the most terrifying and mysterious wings I had ever seen.

“Luna, Celestia, run,” said Lazarus quietly.

“It’s…” said Luna, words dying in her throat. She hiked up her dress and ripped out the wand that she had tied to her thigh with a leather strap. The wand was of blackwood in a similar construction to mine, with a gemstone of amethyst rather than ruby.

“Do nothing,” said Lazarus quietly. “I’ve woken him, but he doesn’t quite sense us yet.”

Almost as if the hellspawn could hear us, he shot his head forward, the tip of his snout a mere two feet from Lazarus’ chest. I could see the breath from the beast clouding into a grey smoke and warping around Lazarus.

“Alright. Maybe he has sensed us,” said Lazarus. “He’s… He’s thinking, looks like.”

“Thinking about what?” I asked.

“If he should kill us or not,” he said with a gulp. “Which, I fear, he can easily do. To any of us.”

“But you’re immortal, aren’t you?” said Luna. “You can’t die.”

“To him, I can. This is a Smog Daemon,” said Lazarus. “A creature made from the darkness of man. His claws rend your flesh and soul alike. All he need do is run his claw through me.”

“Then why hasn’t he?” I asked.

“Like I said, he’s thinking. Smog Daemons are awakened by bitterness and darkness,” he explained. “Any grim emotions, really. If he decides that we are too dark, he’ll shred our souls to pieces. Nevermind what that does to your body.”

“So, what do we do?” asked Luna. For the first time since we met, Lazarus fell silent, not in condescendence, not in arrogance, but in genuine ignorance. He had no idea what to do next.

“Lazarus, reach your hand back,” I said slowly. “Don’t question me, just do it.” Good lad he was, he obeyed without a thought. Now it was Luna’s turn.

“Sister, reach forward and begin walking towards Lazarus. Try to think of happy things,” I said.

“Like what?” she hissed.

“Think of Uncle Discord. Cadence,” I said. “Think of the sweets that Ms. Pinkamena bakes for you. Think of that feeling you get when you receive top marks on a class assignment. Think of Mother.”

Luna closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and extended her hand. Slowly, she inched her way forward, whispering something under her breath. I later learned that she was singing Mother’s favorite lullaby.

“Perfect, just like that, Luna,” I said. She latched hands with Lazarus, and now only I had to follow. I closed my eyes and focused as hard as I could on her, the mare that people swore looked near-identical to me. Her soft, kind voice. Her long, straight, beautiful maroon hair. Her very presence exuded an air of power, but her soul was as gentle and innocent as a child. I wished I could be half the mare my mother is… was.

I stepped forward, the snow crunching beneath my hoof. The cold sliced at my face, piercing the heart beating in my throat. Every step was call for celebration, because my plan was still holding. My hand wrapped around Luna’s, allowing me to breathe slightly easier.

“Get us the hell out of here,” I whispered. Luna’s horn lit up, as did Lazarus’, their glow melding to surround us. A wild grin grew on my face, my being filled with what I initially perceived to be joy. I soon found out that I was feeling confidence, bordering arrogance. And the Daemon did not like that.

He reared his ugly head, letting out a screeching roar unbefitting of any natural creature. He shot forward, mouth agape, and snapped shut a few inches from Lazarus before the world collapsed around us. Air fled us, into the darkness in that which we were surrounded. With a pop that rattled my bones, everything returned to us.

“Gah!” screamed Lazarus, falling to his knees. Blood dripped onto the floor, the clean, throne room floor, from Lazarus’ right hand. Perhaps it’d be more accurate to say where his hand used to be, because now nothing remained from the elbow down. He gripped his bleeding stump in what I could only perceive to be true agony.

“That… Was unexpected,” he panted. “I’m all for pain, but I would not do that again.” That was when I realized where the teleport had spit us out.

“What the blazes!” bellowed none other than my father, King Solaris.

“Ah, you must be Luna and Celestia’s father,” said Lazarus. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but I seem to have misplaced mine.”

“What are you doing in my throne room?!” demanded my father.

“A few things. Primarily?” said Lazarus. “Primarily, I’m bleeding.”

“What were you doing with my children?” My father’s wings were threatening to spread to their full extent.

“See, I was in a spot of bother,” said Lazarus. “Your daughters, the little angels, saw my struggle and offered to give me a hand.”

My father’s wings, as well as his temper, exploded. It looked as if he had grown taller, broader, more powerful. Like he could destroy you by swearing in your direction.

“Father…” said Luna gently.

“Say, do you happen to have any regeneration potion on hand?” asked Lazarus. “Rowling’s formula for regeneration?”

My father’s eye twitched, and you could practically see the smoke pouring from his ears. If I were to guess, the only thing that kept him from screaming was his fantasies and musings about how many ways you could execute someone.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’. Oh, well. Guess I’ll make the trip home. Nice meeting you, and girls?” said Lazarus. He shot me a toothy, mischievous grin. “Same time next week?”

With a loud pop, Lazarus was gone.