Everyday Life With Guardsmares
Chapter 122
Previous Chapter Next ChapterLily Glamerspear
Specialist Lily Glamerspear found that no amount of light could make these 'Halls of the Blind' any less spooky. She didn't find them particularly scary the first time she was here, to be honest, but after what happened inside, her hackles were up.
That was at least counterbalanced by an apparent girding of loins from her comrade, Specialist Sparkshower. She wasn’t quaking in her armor and nervously butting into her plot the whole way this time.
‘Thank Celestia.’
Actually Lily was a bit surprised that the old coot Ignacio hadn’t asked her to turn down the juice on her illumination. Usually when she had a spell cranked up to one hundred and ten percent (or, buck, even just one hundred percent), he complained about the 'noise' all her magic usage generated.
Not so, this time.
‘Maybe he's just managing to block it out?’
Or maybe he realized that, hey, Glamerspear and Sparkshower still need light to see, and it was awful creepy in these tunnels, annoying buzz or no.
‘Well…’
‘I should turn it down a bit, I suppose.’
It wasn’t like mere light kept away the shadow daemons from another dimension, did it? They had to be summoned, anyways. And it wasn’t like Ignacio was going to do that right here and now. Actually, didn't he say that lesson two would involve her summoning one?
‘Buck, I’d better preserve my mana for that.’
The instant Lily’s light bulb faded down from 'midnight stage show' to 'ordinary spelunking' level she heard a gasp from behind her followed by anxious whispers.
"Lily! What's wrong?"
Maybe Ms. Armor Plate hadn't quite gotten over her fear of darkness just yet.
"Nothing's wrong. I'm saving mana. And I want to prep our eyes for the dim light so we're not blind when I have to shut it off completely, that's all."
"Oh! Oh, I see. Right."
For somepony who'd been complaining just minutes ago that her light was too bright for the border guards, Artemis sure was clinging to it here in these spooky tunnels. It was like that old proverb: you can lead the pegasus through tight claustrophobic pitch-black tunnels again and again until she knows the way by heart, but you can't make her comfortable doing it.
Or whatever.
Ignacio silently led them on, which was something of another surprise. He was pretty snippy back in the Cave of Pillars. That seemed to be his usual attitude. Now, though, he seemed a lot more focused.
After a vaguely familiar turn and sudden ramp up, Lily was greeted with a familiar red glow.
"Here we are. Remove jour cloaks and jour armor. Place the water jugs with the others against that wall."
The instructions were very matter-of-fact.
Aldonza, the old eclipse-phase mare was here again, too -- the one Ignacio said made all of the Rookery's magical, iron-caged lanterns. Lily didn't see Rocinante, the infirm other Balladeer, though.
Sparkshower trundled carefully over to unburdern herself, minding the slope and the low gravity.
Lily decided to stick with where she was and removed her armor pieces first, but she called out to the other batpony present. "Hello, Madam Aldonza."
A face covered by another red-fringed black mask looked up at the unicorn from the circle of seat-pillows around the flameless fire. She spoke in a hoarse whisper.
"Hello, unicornio. Welcome once again." Aldonza pointed a forehoof at the empty seat next to her. "Whicheber of jou feeneeshes first, come and seet beside me. Ay habe a tool for jour journey."
‘A tool?’
A disguise, presumably, if Ignacio wanted their cloaks and armor off. He did mention 'dressing' her properly for the excursion.
Avoiding second looks in the Rookery during the batpony’s sleeping hours with those star-phase black cloaks was one thing, but neither of them would pass a second, closer inspection, what with the Royal Guard outfits underneath them, to say nothing of the obvious horn poking out of her forehead or the feathers on Sparkshower's wings. Given what Ebonshield did this morning at the Royal Engineer's Self-Propelled Air Defense vehicle demonstration, though, Lily had a pretty good idea of what was coming.
"I'm guessing one of those things is a disguise, right? Like, say, a magical suit of armor to make us look like batpony soldiers?"
Ignacio, free of his crutch in the low-gravity environment, grunted dismissively. "Armor is for Stars, and to disguise jou as Stars would be more suspicious than to take jou out as jou are right now."
Having undone her water-carrying harness, Lily’s pegasus comrade spoke up with her helmet already halfway off of her head. "Stars aren't allowed where we're going?"
The batpony Balladeer shuffled over to the central fire and busied himself stirring the pot presently stewing over it.
‘Strange, it doesn't really smell like cooking in here. It just sort of smells like... nothing, really.’
"All are permitted to visit the Crater, but Eclipse seldom travel with anypony. And the place where we wish to go is accessible only with the escort Lunar, or else as an Eclipse."
With the use of telekinesis and the fact that Lily was just plain less armored than Sparkshower, the unicorn naturally finished undressing first and trotted her way over to Aldonza -- being very mindful of the fact that each step seemed to send her bouncing high into the air.
‘Take it slow, Lily.’
The ancient batpony mare dipped her mangy forehooves into a wide ceramic bowl in front of her, pulling out a long loop of string with a black metal disc dangling from it on a small ring. It almost looked like it could be a medal -- if it were shiny and gold, that is, instead of dull and black.
"Ay make only tree of teese. Eet ees fortunate that only two of jou habe come. There would not habe been enough for more."
‘So the prediction really wasn't that specific, interesting.’
Slowly, as if each movement was a terrible strain, the withered batpony mare brought her forehooves up to meet the unicorn’s brow. The effort made her limbs tremble, and Lily immediately dipped her head to make things easier.
"Gracias. Thees ees an amulet with wheech to disguise jou as one of us -- as an Eclipse."
She slipped it over Glamerspear and allowed it to rest around her neck, the iron disc dangling against her chest.
‘Strange, I don't feel any different.’
She looked down at her hooves and couldn't see any change, either. She glanced over her shoulders -- no bat-wings had appeared. But when her eyes turned to Sparkshower, who was down to unbuckling her croupiere, Lily saw the pegasus’ jaw drop.
"Thundershowers!"
‘Well, it must be working.’
"How do I look?"
Artemis shook her head. "How do you look? How can you even see me with that black mask on? Can you see through it?"
Smirking, Lily shrugged. "Sparks, I feel as naked as I did ten seconds ago. I can't even tell the disguise is working except for your reaction."
Still stirring the pot, Ignacio harshly chimed in again. "Of course it is working. Now, come here."
He lifted out a ladle-full of whatever was stewing and pointed a hoof at Lily. "This disguise jou wear depends on good behaviour. Jou must both move as a young Eclipse would. No running. No jumping. No flying. And do not use jour magic until I give permission. Remember also that we are blind. Do not turn to look at ponies or any other things. We only hear, we do not see."
Lily lifted an enquiring eyebrow. "But you turn to face us when we talk?"
"Older Eclipse learn to do this in order to be social."
Lifting the ladle, he sharply beckoned her forward. "Drink. Jou will need this, as well."
Somewhat hesitant, she tried to take a sip, but Igacnio tipped the ladle up until Lily was forced to drink the whole thing. It was piping hot, yet it was a totally tasteless beverage.
‘Was it really just water?’
By the time the unicorn was done chugging, Sparkshower had finished removing her armor and received her amulet of disguise from Aldonza as well.
"How do I look?"
Lily wiped her muzzle with one forehoof. Artemis looked exactly like she’d imagined a young Eclipse would look. Crippled wings, janky legs, rough patches of hair, already a tooth or two missing and a few of them crooked. A dark coat and a dark mane, too -- so dark Lily couldn’t make out the colours in here. And that same black mask with the startling red fringe.
‘No wonder she thought I’d been blinded by the disguise.’
Lily nodded. "You look just like an Eclipse. It's a perfect disguise, just like what Sergeant Ebonshield wore for this morning's demo."
Aldonza slowly bowed her head. "Gracias. Ay have make also the suit of armor which jour 'sargeanto' wears."
‘She did, huh?’
That was quite a resume. Magic lanterns, suits of armor glamered to disguise, amulets that did the same...
‘Wait a minute!’
Lily looked anxiously between Ignacio and Aldonza. "Hold up. When did you receive the premonition that we'd be coming this afternoon?"
Dipping the ladle back in the pot, the Balladeer of Ghost took a distinct moment to lick his lips before answering. "This morning. As we were going to sleep."
‘It can't even be two in the afternoon!’
‘That old batpony mare made three magical disguise artifacts in the span of a few hours?’
Lily’s mouth hung open in shock, and she slowly turned to face the enchantress again. "That's... not a lot of time. Do you usually work so fast, miss Aldonza?"
Aldonza furrowed her brow and turned her head left and right, like she was thinking things over. "Fast? Ehh, perhaps not so, but..."
What Lily’d said seemed to have upset her.
"...Unicornios cannot also do such theengs? Eben though jou can move the bowls of fabada weeth such ease?"
Telekinesis was the basic stuff any unicorn could do, and apparently that was impressive enough for her. But Lily had never heard of anypony imbuing multiple magic items in one day. Brewing potions or scribing scrolls, yeah, sure, but churning out an amulet every couple of hours? Assuming these were permanent devices, of course, and not just the anchor points for temporary spells -- but why wouldn't they be? Sergeant Ebonshield said her armor was something the batponies had kept around since the invasion a year ago. And this was the same batpony who made that piece. Lily was speechless.
The silence was broken by a cheerful exclamation which, thankfully, missed the point. "Oh, unicorns can make great things too, like my Bradamante lance, made by Anthony Theolonicus. But this illusion is perfect, Miss Aldonza! You're really amazing at this, just like Ignacio is amazing at what he does."
That got a melancholy smile from the wizened enchantress. "Jou are kind to say so."
Under the disguised pegasus' illusory black mask, Lily saw her grin. "Hey, I know I'm not supposed to fly, but what happens when I flex my wings?"
The unicorn saw the pathetically small appendages stretch out with thin, scrappy leather stretched between them. "The Eclipse wings move when you do. But I don't think you should do that, Sparks."
Ignacio dropped the ladle back in the pot with a splash and a clatter. "No. Even the young Eclipse such as you would have already learned the uselessness of those limbs. Now that we are set, let us go."
Lily frowned. "Wait, doesn't she need this drink you just gave me?"
The Balladeer of Ghosts whinnied and pointed a forehoof at Sparkshower. "Jou, pegaso, jou often fly very high up in the sky, jes? With no shortness of the breath?"
With some hesitation, the dark blindfolded batpony that was now Lily’s comrade spoke up. "Yes, sir. In addition to high-altitude work with the AWACS, my formal training is in armored reconnaissance, and that is often conducted at very high altitude as well -- it's easier to cover large distances without enemy encounters that way."
He grunted affirmatively. "Good. Then jou will not need this to help jou breathe the thin air of the surface lunar. But jou, unicornio..." Raising a forehoof, he pointed at Lily and then the bubbling pot. "...Jou did need this, or else jou would very quickly have found jourself exhausted and short of breath, or even feeling as if jou are suffocating. The air is not plentiful, on the Moon. Here in the Halls it is not so bad, because we are deep underground. The Crater is not. The drink I have given jou opens up the blood vessels." Sniffing, he tapped her on the chest. "It takes effect quickly but lasts only a short time. If jou feel uncomfortable afterwards when we return, jou must tell me so immediately."
That got a muzzle scrunch out of her. "What do you mean, 'uncomfortable'?"
"Jou may find that the movement of blood brings a kind of arousal, down below. If this lasts more than a few hours then we must administer an antidote, which Aldonza shall prepare while we are gone."
‘What the actual buck? Did this blind batpony just force-spoon me a roofie?’
‘Well, no, that would knock me out -- this is some kind of... performance-enhancing drug?’
Albeit one with a weird side-effect. On this second visit, and especially after being stunned by Ignacio's various magical revelations in the Cave of Pillars, Lily had sort of resigned herself to doing what he said without objection. Maybe that wasn't exactly the wisest course of action.
Still, what could she do but press on?
Ignacio was ten bouncy, low-gravity steps ahead of her, waiting at the entrance to the tunnel system. "And jou must use jour light sparingly for the voyage to the surface, unicornio. At the exit there may be visitors."
As Lily stepped forward, hesitantly, her mind started to crank through questions again. "I thought you said that nopony ever comes in here but you Eclipse?"
The unicorn came in behind him, and batpony-Sparkshower in behind her, same as before. This time, when she lit up her horn, she tinted it red: it was how she had been trained to provide illumination at night -- the red hue didn't mess with low-light vision as much. If it was dark on the moon and she couldn't use her light there, then she’d need that lack of interference.
Plodding along hurriedly, Ignacio took a fork in the tunnel that Lily was certain wasn't used getting in. "Visitors do not enter, but they do present themselves. They leave gifts and offerings. And they sometimes linger to make requests."
‘Huh.’
Well, he did say they got their food that way -- ponies leaving stuff at the entrance.
Sparkshower piped up from behind her. "Shouldn't we know some basic phrases in your language? In case there is anypony there?"
Ignacio didn’t let up in his surprisingly spry pace.
‘He's leading us upwards.’ Whatever magic allowed for the tunnels to connect to a cave under a mountain in Equestria, at least the general rules of physics still seemed to apply for getting to the surface.
"No. As the elder, I will speak for us as a group. That is the way."
His answer was curt and harsh.
Lily hadn't known this pony very long; she’d really only met him what, four times now? But he was sounding more like the angry colt who shouted down at Ebonshield when she asked for a simple demonstration, rather than the merely cranky and mysterious one whom she’d seen ever since.
He was in his common form when he met her at the river in the Cave of Pillars, but something had soured since then.
"Is everything all right, Mister Blazon? Sorry again if we were running late when we finally met you."
Sparkshower must have picked up on it too, in spite of her fear of these caves. Maybe her enthusiasm for yet another wondrous magical item was offsetting her fear of these dark enclosed spaces.
The Balladeer of Ghosts stopped in his tracks.
Suggested background music: Kenji Kawai - 'Nightstalker', from 'Ghost in the Shell' [1995]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amKt8ttja1E
With a sigh, he slumped his shoulders.
"I am... I am not upset with jou."
He lowered his neck and bowed his head until his muzzle almost touched the ground.
"Rocinante, my brother, whom jou met last time, he is the one who delivered the divination of jour arrival."
Lily heard him sniffle.
"But these...were his words final."
‘Buck.’
Sparkshower gasped. "Oh, I'm so sorry!"
It was only two days ago that she’d met that colt. They had said he wasn't long for this world, but even so...
Lily shook her head. "I'm sorry for your loss, Mister Ignacio. You know, we can always come back and do this another time."
With a sudden fury, the old colt spun around and rose high on his hind hooves, flailing his forehooves up so they actually hit the ceiling with a loud CLACK.
"NO!! This is a thing we must do NOW!"
The instrument hanging from a cord around his neck swung to and fro from the sudden motion as, with some hesitation, he sat back down again, panting from the exertion. Red tassels on his black mask shook violently as he explained himself.
"I did not tell jou the divination complete. Rocinante said jou would come today, jes, but also that I must take jou and whoever came with jou to the Crater, no matter what! And he said that I must train all who come, without delay!"
Still breathing heavily, he brought a forehoof up and scratched at his brow. It was a rare sign of exertion from the mage. He didn't even break a sweat when he was testing Ebonshield in the Grand Hall, with all those shadow-creatures.
"...There was no explanation. Only these words, and then no more..."
Finally, he inhaled deeply through his nose and seemed to be at rest. "That is the way with the divinations spontaneous. The emotions powerful, and the feeling intense of what must be done to avoid disaster."
Reaching out a forehoof, he tapped the enchanted iron medallion dangling from Lily’s neck. "Aldonza worked furiously to produce these amulets; she is too humble to say so, and perhaps also too upset. Whereas I... I rushed to the Cueva de los Pilares as soon as... As soon as I took our brother to be buried."
Withdrawing his limb, Lily saw him push his mask up and rub his foreleg across his muzzle to dry his tears. "I am upset, jes. I am tired. I am sad. I loved my brother, and I miss him. But we must go, now. I know that in his dying moments, he saw a future terrible which must not come to be."
Replacing his mask, he still appeared unsettled. "And even if I thought he did not see truth, I must, all the same, honour his last request."
‘Bucking Tartarus.’
‘That's a heavy load to dump all at once.’
For a while, the three of them just stood there in the cramped, dark tunnel in silence. It was so tight, there wasn’t even really enough room for Lily to exchange glances with Sparkshower here; all she could do was look over her shoulder and catch a glimpse of her now-dark muzzle with two flashing-white batpony incisors.
With an exhausted whinny, Ignacio Blazon got back to his hooves. "Come. We have wasted time enough. The exit is not far."
He turned around and continued the ascent. Lily was at a loss of how to reply, so she just followed after him.
‘What can I even say?’
‘And why could it be so important that I learn the secrets of Eclipse magic?’
He said the divination was spontaneous.
That he had to do this to avoid disaster.
That was a lot to take in. And this was supposed to just be a casual afternoon visit -- if Ignacio hadn't been around or had been unwilling to teach her anything at this hour, she wouldn't even have been too broken up about it! Kinda funny that she even had the random impulse to want to come down here now in the first place, after such a busy morning already.
‘Huh. Maybe that impulse wasn't so random.’
Lily was so deep in philosophical thought she didn’t notice when the tunnel started to open up. She didn't even notice when pale grey rays started to filter in from an opening ahead, illuminating the ceiling high above and the walls far apart.
"Lily, there's enough to see now, I don't think we need your light any more."
‘Huh?’
‘Oh.’
The faux-batpony unicorn switched off her magic. All she saw of the tunnel exit was blackness, but the tunnel around her was brightly lit. When Lily finally ascended to the mouth of the cave only to stand three abreast with Ignacio and Sparkshower, what she saw nearly took her breath away.
"Buck me."
"Celestia!"
Suggested background music: Paul Ruskay - 'Great Wastelands', from 'Homeworld' [2000]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM8GYS305EE
Before them stretched a vast, dusty plain, as empty as any desert Lily had ever heard of.
But what really made it so alien was just how grey it all was. Grey rocks peeked out of grey sand pock-marked with grey craters, against a backdrop of jagged grey ridges in the distance. It was so starkly grey she wasn’t even sure how vast the landscape really was -- were those hills a mile away, or ten? The bleak black shadows and white-scorched sun-faces didn’t help, either.
There was a sun above her, but it, and the sky it sat in, were alien, too. The sun was white, instead of yellow, and it swam in a sea of blackness.
And it was not alone.
A bright, blue orb was hanging up there, too.
Even looking at it all the way from here, and even with the sliver of shadow along one edge, it was unmistakable.
Sparkshower was gaping at the sky just as Lily was. "Is that... That's our planet!"
Lily answered, breathlessly. "Yeah."
Sparks took a deep breath. "It looks so small from here."
Lily nodded, speaking quietly. "Yeah..."
She couldn’t even begin to fathom just how far away she must be for it to appear so tiny. All she could really make out were blue oceans and white clouds. What seemed like a slice of the Equestrian continent was visible, barely, along the bright side of the circle. If it were later in the day in the capital, maybe it'd be rotated so that Lily would just be able to make out Canterlot mountain from here.
Well, eagle-eyed Sparkshower would.
Lily would need her helmet again, with its magnifying visor.
It was hard to pull her eyes away from the little circle of blue and white, but Lily turned her attention to the desolate terrain before them. There were a few more sizable craters, but none of them particularly stood out to her eyes. She turned her head left and right, then looked back over her shoulder. It seemed this tunnel exited from the side of a tall, fairly steeply-sloped mountain. As with distances, Lily was not quite sure how tall it was. There were no trees or anything recognizable to figure it out. With all the other hills and deformations, Lily couldn’t really tell how far the edge went; there seemed to be some kind of ridge-line in all directions.
"So... Where's this crater, then?"
Ignacio's muzzle twitched. "We stand in it presently."
Lily shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand."
"Young Eclipse do not shake their heads. They have not learned to communicate with gestures yet."
He stretched out a crooked foreleg and swept it across the vista before her. "A thousand jears ago the Great Mother fell here. The force of Her impact threw up a ring seventeen kilometers wide and almost two kilometers tall. We stand with our backs against that ring, just inside the crater."
Lily did a double-take to look back up the 'mountain' behind her.
‘Two kilometres? The top of that slope is two kilometres up?’
‘No way…’
It looked like it shouldn't be more than a dozen stories.
Sparkshower cleared her throat. "Why is it so flat here? Shouldn't the ground slope downwards more?"
Ignacio pawed at the ground just outside the tunnel. It was dusty and sandy, and he easily made a deep hoofprint. "Only the top layer of the Moon is this loose dust. Beneath the surface is rock more solid. The ring is composed of that soft material which was blasted away in Her landing."
Sniffling, he kicked his hoof to erase the dusty print. Lily couldn't help but watch as the specks of grey dirt floated unnaturally slowly back to the ground.
"But the firmer rock, the heart-rock we call it, this the Great Mother penetrated directly, deeply." He pointed directly ahead. "That place is called the Well of Shadows. We stand only six kilometers away from this hole."
Ignacio turned to Lily. "Close jour eyes, unicornio, and open jourself to the Crater. Listen."
Lily did as he said, shutting her eyes and straining herself to hear anything.
‘It's deathly quiet here.’
As a weak wind brushed briefly by her, she could faintly make out the sound of a few grains of grey Moon-sand shifting place. But beyond that...
Nothing.
She opened her eyes again. "I don't hear anything."
Grumbling, the batpony trundled over to sit behind her and clapped his forehooves firmly around her ears, flattening them against her nave.
"Not with these! Open jour third ear. The one which senses the magic." Quickly, he delicately touched one forehoof against her horn before returning to earmuff duty. "This instrument."
‘Yeah, I’m not sure if just admonishing me to sense magic is going to help me figure out how to do it.’
Still, that’s what she was here to do, so she gave it another shot and closed her eyes once more. This time, even when she felt another feeble movement of air against her coat, she didn't hear anything moving with it.
‘Come on, Lily.’ Out there was some unfathomably deep hole, drilled down by Nightmare Moon's body when Princess Celestia blasted her off the face of Equestria a thousand years ago. And at the bottom of that Tartarean pit was where that powerful villain had rested, the merging of Princess Luna and her own malevolent 'Accursed Shadow' from another, demonic dimension, which the Princess had summoned and bound to herself as a pathway to power.
‘If any place is going to be just absolutely soaked with residual magical energy, it's there.’
Lily couldn't sense the magic in Sparkshower's Bradamante Lance, no, but the magic imbued in a weapon or amulet would be like the merest flapping of a butterfly's wings compared to what should be the thundering of carriage-wheels and iron-shod hooves against cobblestone streets of that place.
She tried to think through the problem a bit. Now was the kind of time when she’d wish maybe she had gone to the Schola after all, like her brothers did before her.
And like Lily’s mother always wanted for her.
‘Well, there's no sense wishing for training I haven't got at the moment. I’ll just have to reason things logically.’
‘Hmmm…’
If she was going to sense magic with her horn, which was the same device she used to channel mana for her own ends, then surely it'd be a lot harder to do it while channelling.
Sort of like... trying to hear someone else talking while shouting over them. Except now her ‘mouth’ and her ‘ears’ were the same piece of equipment.
Although she wasn’t casting a spell right now, or even getting ready to cast one, Lily knew that every unicorn had a natural horn draw rate. A faint little trickle, not even enough for the teeniest magical effect. But Ignacio said he could 'hear' her, even when she wasn't casting. Maybe it was enough to be a problem?
She tried to focus and cut it off. It was a little like holding her breath; a function of mind over body.
‘Come on…’
‘I want zero mana input.’
‘Nil emission output.’
‘Total horn shutdown.’
‘Passive receiver only.’
After a minute, there was a kind of numb feeling centered on her forehead, as if she’d slapped an ice pack against her head for too long.
‘That's got to be it. ‘
But even so, she still couldn’t 'hear' anything at all.
Furrowing her brow and scrunching her muzzle, Lily started to slowly shake her head, about to admit defeat.
‘Wait -- there's something in my view.’
A speck of dim light that moved when she turned her head.
Frowning, Lily opened her eyes and stared at where it seemed to have appeared. But there was nothing particularly bright there -- just a small plateau ahead of her.
She shut the world off again.
It took a minute for the afterimage of the Lunar surface to disappear, and another minute of gently moving her head around afterwards to pick it up. She tried to keep her eyes fixed in their sockets, too.
And then there it was once more... the speck of light.
It was so faint she couldn't even make out the color.
She just knew there was a light out there.
Unintentionally, her eyes flickered left and right behind her eyelids, and Lily sucked in her teeth at the prospect of having lost 'sight' of the little dot, only to realize that their movement didn’t seem matter at all. With her eyes closed and her head steady, even if she 'looked' left or right, she still 'saw' the spot in the same place.
‘Weird.’
"I think..."
‘Damn, I wish I had a blindfold.’
It was bright enough out here in the sun that just shutting her eyes wasn't quite making things dark enough.
"...Artemis, cover my eyes, would you?"
"Uh, okay."
With Ignacio still holding her ears tightly, Lily heard muffled hoofsteps and then felt two hooves press up against her face. Behind her eyelids, things went dark.
And the little dot of light started to come into focus a bit more clearly.
"I think I see something. Something that I'm not seeing with my eyes."
"Jes?"
"A speck of light, in the distance, ahead of us. It's really faint."
Lily tried to point at it with a forehoof, reaching over where she assumed Sparkshower's shoulders were. When she steadied her foreleg at the position, Ignacio suddenly released his grip on her ears.
"Jes... For jou it is the sight. Of course. I should have guessed this. The third eye, not the third ear. Hmm..."
She felt Sparkshower's hooves move away, and opened her eyes to find Ignacio stepping in front of her and gently pushing them aside. "The buzz jou make always diminished just now. I could still hear it, but never so quietly as this. What did jou do?"
"I tried to cut off all mana flow to my horn. Sorta like holding my breath, I guess." Instinctively Lily released her horn from the strangling grip, and the numbness in her forehead started to dissipate. "To be honest, I'm not sure how long I can do that for. I've never heard of somepony trying to do it, either."
The old batpony mage chuckled. "Ah! Perhaps that is another adventure for jou and jour books, eh? And jour experts? But we are not done here, yet. Indeed, we have only just begun."
Taking a deep breath, he composed himself and scanned the horizon. "Let us go! Perhaps jou have sensed the Well of Shadows, and perhaps not. On our walk to that place where the wall between our world and the Shadows is thin and weak, let us test jou, and see if jou can find again this 'speck of light' in the direction correct."
Ignacio nodded to himself, almost muttering. "It is good that jour pegaso comrade has come with jou. I think I begin to see some purpose to her presence, and perhaps also behind this prophecy."
Then he looked over his shoulder to speak back to Glamerspear and Sparkshower. "Once I am confident that jou have the senses proper, then we shall enter the Well, and there we shall see if jou can call forth one of the Accursed Shadows. If jou can, then I shall teach jou also to banish it."
Suggested interlude music: 00:00-03:21 - Paul Ruskay - 'Epsilon Base', from 'Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak [2016]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n69x2PYqdDg
