//------------------------------// // 12 - Waterworks // Story: Limits of the Horizon // by Beware The Carpenter //------------------------------// Fidora draped one arm around Obtrillion and pulled him close, and Obtrillion leaned his head against her shoulder. It should have been Twilight comforting him; it should have been her all along, but it never was, not once. Twilight got up, and took a step to embrace Obtrillion from the other side, but one short glance from Fidora cut her off. Fidora’s hoof was also shaking slightly at the memories of Ragarrock’s ‘teachings,’ which she and Obtrillion had lived through it together. Twilight didn’t have a place in her son’s life. Not yet. Twilight sat back down; trying not to feel jealous of Fidora, but when she got rid of her jealousy, all she had left was guilt. “You’re not still with Raggarock now, right?” “No.” “How did you get away?” Obtrillion didn’t answer, so Fidora did. “After the tournament, Obtrillion didn’t just win me but several million rupees, a small construction business, and eleven other slaves. Ragarrock allowed Obtrillion full control over his winnings, wanting to see how well Obtrillion could manage wealth and political maneuverings. Obtrillion was a genius in all his subjects, when it came to business; he had wisdom like a god. He built three million rupees into more than eighty in the first few weeks alone, mostly through gambling. Despite his performance at the tournament, many lords thought the contest had been rigged and wanted to prove Obtrillion wasn’t as great as he seemed. Obtrillion could use his telepathy to make them see rebuking him for his ‘false arrogance’ as the only thing that mattered, while making them dramatically overestimate their chances in whatever wager Obtrillion proposed, and make them avoid thinking about the consequences of losing. Between his genius and his telepathy, Obtrillion almost never lost. When he was hiring servants and assigning them tasks; Obtrillion could sense their skills and their trustworthiness and so corruption within any of Obtrillion’s businesses was virtually non-existent and with scarcely an exception, no servant was assigned above his abilities. Within a few years; Obtrillion was one of the wealthiest people in Timbucktoo. His businesses flourished and he rapidly acquired; markets, construction companies, morgues, forges, alchemy chains and more. Then, instead of hoarding his money, he devoted most of it to public works that would help everyone in Timbucktoo, gaining him considerable support among the great houses and un-housed masses. The most significant project he undertook was to create where you’re sitting right now. When Obtrillion became Ragarrock’s apprentice, the cities’ water system was centuries old, and most of the water available in the poorer districts was waste water that had already been polluted by the wealthy. When Obtrillion was twelve, he maneuvered a contract with Ferric’s steward and the assembly of great houses to award his companies to completely re-work Timbucktoo’s waterways; granting clean water to almost everyone in Timbucktoo.” “You sound almost too good to be true.” Breathed Twilight. “I was too good;” muttered Obtrillion, “That was the problem.” “What do you mean?” “I became too wealthy, too popular, too powerful; Ragarrock realized that I wouldn’t be his puppet forever, and one day I’d challenge him, so when I was fifteen he tried to get rid of me.” “You mean he spent six years training you and then tried to kill you?” “No; he didn’t want to kill me, he wanted to control me. He built a cryo suspension tank inside a vault, where he could put me into a medical coma, pump me full of nutrients then suck all my magic out; using me as an energy source. I learned about the tank a few days before it was completed. I wanted to just take Fidora and run, but then I thought about all the things I was doing and planned to do for Timbucktoo and how all of it would end if I left, so I gathered a group of my closest followers and attempted a surgical strike to kill Ragarrock.” Obtrillion sighed, “We failed; if I tried to run after that, then everyone who’d helped me would be killed or enslaved along with their families. Things… escalated, and eventually broke into full scale civil war. Tens of thousands died. The only reason we lasted as long as we did was because of these tunnels. Ever since I was Ragarrock’s apprentice, I’d dreamed about running away, and when I started redesigning the waterworks, I planned several small hideouts. After Ragarrock started hurting Fidora I started adding more and bigger hideouts to the design… it became something of a coping mechanism. When the war started, I was the only one with really accurate maps of the water ways which connected nearly every house in the city and was scattered with bases like this. We fought a guerrilla war across the city, but in the end I was captured and put into Ragarrock’s cryo dungeon. I was there for four years; I don’t know what he was using my magic in that time, but I’m sure it was nothing good. Ragarrock woke me up thirty-one times; a few times he came to gloat but most of the time he actually wanted to talk, or sometimes play chess. No matter how irritated he was that the only mind that could challenge his was one tenth of his age, he preferred that then to having no one that could challenge him. I think he might have also wanted to keep me on backup; an emergency plan if there was something he couldn’t fight alone, and thought he could control me for a short time. Three months ago, a solar flare fried some of the matrix that held my prison together and I managed to escape. I searched through my old hidden bases; most of them had been found and are either being used by Ragarrock, booby trapped or destroyed, but this one was untouched. When I learned that Fidora had been ransomed back from Ragarrock by her father, I went for her, she ran away with me… and that’s been my life.” Twilight sat in silence; trying to come to terms with everything she had learned. All that suffering, everything Obtrillion had gone through… she’d been a horrible mother, she should have protected him. What Celesita had done to her… was worse than anything Ragarrock had ever done to Obtrillion. “...How did you find me?” “Back when I was Ragarrock’s apprentice; I tried to find you, or dad or… anyone. Five different families tried to claim me, giving elaborate reasons about why I was left at the orphanage, but I knew they were all liars. I spent hundreds of hours and millions of rupees trying to find where I belonged, but I never found any trace and…” he looked mournfully at Fidora, “I… couldn’t fall behind in my studies. I still hoped that you might be looking for me, so I decided to help us both. I sent some of my people to vandalize the arches of each city gate and then maneuvered one of my construction companies the contract for repairing them. When the time was right, I mixed about a pint of my blood into the concrete of each arch, and enchanted them so if any direct relative of mine passed through the gates it would let off a beacon. This morning when you came in to the city, you triggered my spell. I paid one of the guards to let me see the records of people coming into the city and as soon as I saw your picture in the gatehouse’s logs, I knew it was you. By then I had your name, and when I heard that you had asked about hotels, the rest was just a matter of time.” Twilight nodded, wondering what he had been doing before the beacon rang, “So what have you two been doing for the last few months?” “We outsmart people for money.” “…I’m sorry?” “Fidora and I go to the places where our appearances weren’t as well known and use a variety of methods to take money from people who have more then they need.” “You’re professional con artists?” “You didn’t complain when we were in the markets.” “What are you talking about? We just walked through the markets.” “I… thought you’d noticed.” “Noticed what?” Obtrillion lifted his saddlebag, and tipped it upside down, spilling a small river of rupees, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and several ornamental daggers. “That bag was empty when I went to find you this morning.” Fidora’s eyes lit up at the hoard of stolen booty, Obtrillion followed her eyes to a pearl pendent, trimmed in gold, that was nested on the top, “I knew you’d like that” he said picking it out and fastened it around Fidora’s neck, giving her a kiss on the cheek which she seemed to melt into. Twilight stared in horror; this wasn’t righ - Obtrillion locked eyes with her, “Reaching out to my former followers would be dangerous for them and us. If we didn’t steal, my options would be starving or else to degrade Fidora to a prostitute. I’ll take stealing.” A wave of nauseous guilt overcame Twilight, saturating her revulsion to stealing, but that didn’t make it go away. “But… what about the people you took this from?” “Don’t worry; I didn’t take too much from any one person; most of them probably won’t even notice that their money is gone.” “How many people did you steal from?” “Sixty-one.” “How did you steal from that many people!? I watched you the entire time, I didn’t take my eyes off you once; you didn’t even bump into anyone.” “Magic.” “But I watched your horn, it never glowed.” “My horn doesn’t glow when I use magic. It never did.” “That’s... not possible.” In answer, the table between them rose into the air. Twilight looked between it and Obtrillion’s horn closely, looking for any flicker of an aurora of magical energy; both were empty. "Actually..." said Obtrillion hesitantly, "Raggarock found out that my horn does give a glow, but I use an ultraviolet wavelength so no one can see it." Twilight was about to ask how Raggarock learned that, but then realized she didn't really want to know. Everything about her son's life had been nothing but pain; and Twilight was afraid that if she learned one more way Obtrillion had been abused, that she would simply break down and cry. “May I ask you a question?” asked Fidora, after several minutes passed in silence. “Of course.” Nodded Twilight. “Even though you’ve hardly said anything about yourself, Obtrillion probably knows you better from your reactions than you know us from our story; but I don’t know anything about you except you forfeit your foal and stayed away for almost twenty years and, I'm trying not to hate you for it. Why come looking for him now? What changed?” Twilight began her story a second time; explaining her blackout, the buffalo raid on Ponyville and how she had come to Timbucktoo to demand the truth from Shining Armor, before being found by Obtrillion. Fidora nodded her head periodically, asking few questions. When Twilight finished she cocked her head and waited like she expected Twilight’s story to continue. “So?” “So what?” “You say you have this ‘cocient’ device that can track your brother’s movements and tell when he’s alone. Is he alone now?” Twilight pulled her cocient out from her saddlebags and put it on the table where Obtrillion and Fidora could see it. At first, Twilight thought that being underground had stifled her cocient, but the half-dozen signatures that were visible came clearly, suggesting it was working perfectly. “Where’s Shining Armor?” asked Fidora “Gone.” Sighed Twilight, “He’s out of range; even if we knew what direction he was in, we wouldn’t know if he was alone.” “Who’s this?” asked Obtrillion, pointing to the only solitary signature on the screen. Twilight looked, “That’s… Mute Wind; he’s my brother’s pegasus commander.” “How long as he been with your brother?” “Since the beginning” said Twilight, thinking she saw what Obtrillion was thinking, “...Since before my blackout.” “Do you trust him?” “…Yes.” “Well why don’t we go talk to him then?” Chapter Thirteen >>> Perspective