Present Day
Passenger train en route to Baltimare
Poison closed the forward door to her private car and sat across from Twilight. The car was less like a traditional train car and more like a mobile sitting room: richly carpeted in shades of red, a pair of mahogany benches ran down both sides of the forward half of the car. In the middle, on Poison’s side, there was a fireplace equipped with a forcefield to hold burning logs in place regardless of the motion of the train, while the rear end of the train was occupied by several cupboards which Poison had indicated were filled with bottles of wine, cider, and similar substances. In the center of the car hung a piece of expensive Imperial glowstone, carved in the shape of a seapony, which cast a soft white glow over the room.
“This is probably the last time I’ll get to use this. It’s a fairly long journey to Baltimare, so if you’ve got any questions, now would be the best time to ask them.”
Twilight lowered the hood of her borrowed cloak, pondering all her unanswered questions. Eventually she just decided to pick one and ask: “That drink that Cogspin had. If it wasn’t medicine, what was it?”
“It’s called kholesh,” answered Poison. “It’s rare to see any in Equestria because its only real use is part of some Camelonian ritual practice. I don’t understand it myself, but apparently Compass Rose and North Star brought the recipe back after their expedition in 1780-something. Ponies have no use for it, but apparently it’s highly addictive to emotivores, like Changelings or Windigoes. The stuff is technically legal in Equestria, but not even creatures that use it actually buy the stuff legally – like I said, changelings. They want to keep their cover intact. For some reason it has the same effect on Cogspin.”
“And how did Cogspin survive – or, maybe that’s not the best word – hang around this long? I saw him mentioned in the Equulaneum book, but judging from the dates he vanished two thousand years ago.”
Poison shifted. “Now, again, I don’t fully understand it. But apparently after he ran away from New Canterlot, he figured out how to bind his consciousness to a shard of Imperial crystal. That machine that you saw isn’t really him per se, it’s just his body. He projects himself into it to simplify interaction with others.”
“And how did he get you and the other Guildmasters to go along with his plan?”
“It varies. Iron Shod’s just going along with Shimmerthread, he bullied the Flim Flam brothers, Macaroon said she ‘just wanted to see all the little ponies’ faces,’ I don’t know why Stone did it, Grain was out for revenge for some perceived slight by somepony or other, and Shimmerthread practically worships the stallion. She tries to hide it, but she’d jump off the Canterlot Cliffs if Cogspin asked her to.”
“And what about you?”
Poison was silent for a second, looking down at the floor. “To be honest, I was just in it for the power.” She sighed. “I don’t know how I could have been that blind, but all I could see was that throne, and me sitting next to it, whispering in Cogspin’s ear.” She looked back up again. “I don’t want that anymore. There’s a price to pay, and it’s too great.”
Twilight blinked. While Poison seemed sincere enough, she had also been good enough to fool everypony when she had been Axle Grease’s personal assistant. After a moment of consideration, Twilight decided to reserve judgment for the time being.
“How did Cogspin recruit you? Did you know then who he really was?”
“He found us in the street. Me and my sister, I mean. In Baltimare. We were homeless and starving after our parents died. Cogspin found us and took us in. The official documentation indicates that Axle Grease raised us, but a more accurate statement would be that Cogspin taught us how to raise ourselves. It was sometime in that period that I lost my sense of empathy, and so did Cross Stitch, but I can’t pin down exactly when.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “This ‘Cross Stitch’ is your sister, right? Where is she?”
“She’s Shimmerthread. We changed our names when I was fourteen. Before then she was Cross Stitch and I was Feather Quill.” Poison sighed again. “She was so different before we met Cogspin. I wish I could get Cross back, but I don’t think that’s very likely at this point.”
Deciding it was time for a change of subject, Twilight cast around in her mind for a different question. “Who taught you how to do rune magic? I was always taught that it was a lost art.”
Poison shrugged. “You might find this hard to believe, but it comes naturally. I just had to learn the language, and I took a course in Baltimare University for that. I actually made my first rune spell by accident, only a few weeks after I got my cutie mark. Here, look.”
Poison lifted up her right foreleg, displaying a simple glyph tattooed on the underside of her hoof.
“I drew that on a chalkboard purely by instinct, and it transferred when I tried to rub it out. A few years later I discovered it was the Urbuck glyph for nuru, meaning ‘see’. I stuck these everywhere I could for a while, and a fair few of them are still there. If I focus I can look through them.” She closed her eyes and the glyph glowed bright red, even as she let her hoof fall down to hang just over the floor. “There is so much dust in this carpet.” She opened her eyes and the faint red glow surrounding her hoof faded.
“How is that possible?”
“Beats me. I spent some time doing my own research, but I couldn’t find any precedents.”
Twilight cast around for another unanswered question. “How exactly did Cogspin manage to take the throne? You mentioned he tricked Celestia, but you never said how.”
“That is an interesting story. Have you ever heard of Princess Aurora?”
Twilight thought about it. “No, never. Is she another long-lost sister of Celestia’s?”
“Not exactly. Historical records of Aurora are sparse, but Cogspin managed to figure out that she was born to Celestia about a thousand years ago – shortly after the banishment of Nightmare Moon. His source didn’t record the filly’s father, but it did note that at the age of twelve she mysteriously disappeared. Celestia launched a kingdom-spanning search for her daughter, even going so far as to contact representatives of Gryphon, Zebrica, and the Dragons. The search turned up nothing, despite lasting a century. Do you see where this is going?”
“I think so. Cogspin claimed he found what happened to Aurora, and offered to tell Celestia in exchange for the throne.”
“Oh, Cogspin didn’t just claim to have found Aurora. He actually did find her. He told Celestia where she was too, just like he promised, only he banished her before she could go rescue Aurora.”
“So she was in Equestria then?”
“Better, she’s in Canterlot. She got herself trapped in a larger version of the time-lock that Cogspin used on you. He built it to trap Discord himself, but Celestia managed that particular task first. Celestia never found the time-lock because Cogspin used a really ingenious cloaking device. Everything is hidden, thaumatic signature, sight, smell, even scrying can’t perceive it. The only way to find it is to walk into it.”
“It must be somewhere out of the way, or else half of Canterlot would be trapped in it by now. If that were the case, surely an investigation would have been launched.”
“I don’t doubt that there are a lot of ponies in there. It’s existed long enough for it to be very unlikely at best that nopony has stumbled across it. But you’re right, there are few enough that it doesn’t spark an investigation.”
“One last thing. What’s our plan, once we get to Baltimare?”
“I mentioned I had a hidey-hole in Baltimare. I figured we could hole up there for a while while we take stock of what we know. It isn’t much, but it’s the best I’ve got. Unless you’ve got something?”
“What exactly is this hidey hole of yours?”
“It’s where Cross Stitch and I lived when we didn’t have anywhere else. Used to be the foreman’s office of an abandoned factory. There were two keys. I have one, we gave the other to a friend named Box Car for safekeeping.” She held up an old-looking key. “We shouldn’t stay for long. It’s just a place where we can get a plan together and then go.”
“Agreed.”
Baltimare
Several hours later
“So what kind of a plan did you have in mind?” asked Twilight. The two had arrived in Baltimare without incident, but Poison had accidentally attracted the attention of a group of reporters waiting at the station for somepony else. After a while she had managed to distract them by claiming to be on ‘urgent business for the king’ and shooting them all dark looks. After that they had kept to back roads to keep from drawing any unnecessary attention to Twilight. That had been successful up until now, and was no longer necessary since they had reached the factory that Poison had mentioned.
Pushing open the building’s side door, Poison replied, “Well, I know most of the places Cogspin’s checked already, so unless they’re moving constantly we can rule those out as places to find the princesses. Hopefully you can provide some educated guesses and we can prioritize those based on likelihood.”
The building’s interior was dingy and poorly lit – most of the original lighting system had blown out a long time ago, and what was still functioning was powered off. However, clusters of small glowing crystals – Canterlot glowstone, the cheaper variety - had been tied up to the former lights, giving of a faint yellowish glow and illuminating a long hallway with discolored, off-white paint peeling off of the walls. There were several doors in the hall, all of which they walked past without investigating.
“Hmm. That’s odd,” observed Poison as they climbed a set of stairs. “Those glowstones weren’t there when Cross and I lived here. We had to navigate by Cross’ hornlight.”
“Does that mean somepony else has been using this place?”
“Hopefully not. I’d rather stave off any confrontation, friendly or otherwise, at least until we get out of Baltimare.”
“Whoever they were, they may well have left by this point. Glowstone remains functional for decades.”
Reaching the top of the staircase, Poison withdrew the key from her saddlebag and inserted it in the door before them. With a click, she pushed the door open, and froze.
Looking past her, Twilight saw that the former office was full of ponies. On a couch at the far side of the room, a tan earth pony stallion in a beat-up hat and scarf reclined. At the desk sat a muscular bat-pony, a pair of thin, dark brown unicorn twins, and a minotaur, playing poker. In the center of the room stood a trio of pegasi, who Twilight recognized after a moment of thought as Wonderbolts, out of uniform – Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and Soarin’.
They had all fallen silent as soon as Poison had opened the door.