Frost from Fire

by The Calm and the Quiet

Chapter 6

They gathered around the back of the Barracks. Sir Cypress had slung his armor back on. Someone had found Valiant a set of plates that didn’t fit properly—it had slots for wings he didn’t have, a helmet he punched his horn through, shoes that looked like they were squeezing his hooves. Tyto wore nothing but a scowl. A pegasus had offered Ghost some plates, too, but he’d declined. He’d never worn them before, and the idea of trying to put them on was upsetting. Cypress made it look easy, but Ghost knew that was only the ease of practice. He didn’t want to look like anymore of the fool in front of these pegasi.

General Arbiter said, “We’ll approach cautiously. I’m sending in some Strikers first to make sure it’s not just a bird caught in there.” He was back in his armor, gleaming white with a golden cape beset with sunbursts. At his side, Dame Starra looked dark as a raven.

“It’s not a bird.” Ghost’s horn was still lit up. It sent a green glow through the darkness.

Arbiter frowned. “How do you know?”

Ghost gritted his teeth. “Because of how strong the signal is. I’ve put a holding spell on the net so whoever’s in it doesn’t escape.” It was causing him a headache. The quicker they got the pony down, the better. At this rate, the holding spell would drain him into unconsciousness.

Arbiter nodded to Captain Stratos. The old pegasus took wing, followed by two of his soldiers.

Ghost sat down hard. His breathing was getting shallow. Pathetic, he thought. Keeping up a spell even this small is wearing me out. Magic improved with practice, but it could only go so far when one’s body was small and weak. Unfortunately for Ghost, he wasn’t the biggest or strongest unicorn.

He eyed Valiant. His brother could shatter boulders with a thought. The luck of being talented from birth, Ghost knew, but still. He envied Valiant. Everything was so easy for him—magic and fighting and being liked. But Ghost didn’t care about that. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

Sir Cypress moved closer, a question in his eyes.

“I’m fine,” Ghost said, trying not to pant. “It’ll be over soon.”

Cypress accepted that with a silent nod.

Stratos returned. He landed agilely, folding his wings along his back. “It’s a pegasus all right,” he said. “Wrapped up tighter than a cumulonimbus. We can bring him down if you want, General.”

Arbiter nodded. “Make it so.”

Stratos disappeared again.

Arbiter was already barking orders. “When the pegasus is brought down, immediately take Action Plan E, as we discussed. Dame Starra, you will put the prisoner under a containment spell. He will be brought to Canterlot for questioning.”

Ghost listened with one ear. All night, Arbiter and his soldiers had gone over his “Action Plans” but no one had invited Ghost or his group. A military problem, he thought. Too bad. I want in.

He was owed it. He’d tracked down this pegasus. It had been his suggestion to set the net. And it had been his spell that had alerted them all to his presence.

Wingbeats sounded in the darkness. The pegasi covered the moon with outstretched wings as they soared down, Stratos in front, his two Strikers in the back. Between them hung the mess of nets, a body tangled up in them.

They touched down and everybody moved in. Ghost, despite himself, found himself drawn by powerful curiosity. He broke the spell and pushed up between bodies and under legs until he stood at the front.
Surprise latched onto his stomach. Around him, soldiers muttered in surprise, turning to their neighbors to whisper.

Valiant voiced it first, blank with shock. “A mare!”

She was a small, spare thing, younger than Ghost had imagined an assassin. Maybe a year or two younger than him. A teenager. Pale orange coat and long elegant wings. One looked bent the wrong way, twisted with the feathers poking out like spikes. Her mane was a choppy affair of red-and-orange mixed so closely together that it looked like dawn. At her neck she wore a collar of silver stones that drank in the moonlight.

She looked up with blank brown eyes as Arbiter approached. “State your name,” he said.

The mare was silent. She blinked heavily.

Arbiter frowned. “You are not from the Barracks. Why are you here? Why were you in the Everfree?”

Silence.

Now Arbiter was angry. He stamped a hoof. “You are a suspect in the murder of Air Striker Slipstream. What do you have to say for yourself?”

He might as well have been speaking to the ground. The mare made no motion that she even understood what the general was saying.

Arbiter made an angry sound under his breath. “Dame Starra,” he said roughly, and the unicorn bent her head.

A silver outline surrounded the pegasus. The touch of magic did nothing to change her blank expression. Even as the net lifted over her head, she remained inert as stone. Dame Starra retracted her magic as the net folded itself neatly on the ground, though her horn retained a silver glow. Waiting. Ready.

“Stand,” Arbiter ordered.

The pegasus obeyed, stepping out of the net, turning slightly to free her injured wing.

Ghost felt a new wave of shock. Her cutie mark was a portrait of a tree being blown in the wind. A perfectly normal mark for a pegasus, but on her cutie mark it was nighttime. A half-moon shone like a coin against her flank.

Valiant actually gasped. Captain Stratos made an inelegant sound of shock. Even Tyto looked surprised, his claws curling into fists at his side.

General Arbiter clicked his teeth together. He set back his ears. “Pony, your cutie mark is taboo. How did you come about such a marking? How is the moon related to your special talent?”

The pony just looked at him. It was like she was sleepwalking. Her eyes were focused but somehow hazy. She didn’t answer him.

Ghost watched from behind Valiant’s shoulder. This wasn’t what he’d planned for at all. He thought he’d catch the green pegasus. He thought they’d catch the murderer. But this mare looked hardly older than Slipstream. Was she capable of killing somepony? She didn’t look capable of answering any questions.

Frustration got the better of Arbiter. With a stomp of his hoof, he lit his horn. It spilled hot streaks of golden light over the ground. A few cinders landed on the mare’s flank. Almost imperceptibly, she flinched.

Ghost blinked. Nopony else had seemed to notice. They were focused on Arbiter’s loss of temper. But Ghost saw. She’s aware. She’s just playing safe.

“Take her to your holding cell,” Arbiter ordered Stratos. “Lock her up till morning. Then I’ll take her back to Canterlot and we’ll see if the Princess can’t work some spell to get her to spill her secrets.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but mind magic isn’t possible, is it? You can’t get her to tell the truth unless she wants to.”

That’s right, Ghost thought. You’re sharp for a pegasus, Captain. This mare can keep her mouth shut and nothing will get her to spill her secrets. Mind magic wasn’t possible even for a goddess. A pony’s mind was entirely their own, made up of electricity and atoms and energy, like any machine. The difference was that you could change a machine, you could alter the way it ran or moved or changed, but there was no altering a brain.

Arbiter put his ears back again. “Then we’ll give her something to help her along.” His horn glowed threateningly and Ghost caught his meaning.

Barbaric, he thought as Dame Starra slid her magic around the mare once more. Pain doesn’t make ponies tell truths. It makes them say anything to get the pain to stop.

Captain Stratos and General Arbiter questioned the pony for hours after that. Ghost, awake in his cot once again, couldn’t sleep imagining it. She’s too young, he thought. She must be. He remembered old case files of the time before Nightmare Moon’s expulsion, when murder had been more of a problem. A young filly had killed her sister in a fit of rage brought on by starvation. The Sisters’ War hadn’t lasted long but it had lasted long enough.

But there wasn’t that problem now. Ghost turned onto his side, bunching his covers up to his chin. Unless Nightmare Moon was back. Unless she had gotten this mare to do her dirty work. But how? Why? Why would Nightmare Moon want Slipstream dead? Because she knew about the missing fillies? Because she knew about Eglantine? Did that mean Eglantine was kidnapped by Nightmare Moon?

The mare’s cutie mark was the big mystery now, not missing fillies or murdered parents. Why would somepony have the moon in their cutie mark? Nightmare Moon’s cutie mark did, of course. As Princess Luna, she’d raised the moon each night. But that kind of magic was far outside the scope of a normal unicorn, much less a pegasus.

Ghost tossed again. His mane was itching him. One of his hooves was uncovered and cold. There was a lump in the cot.

It was everything and nothing all at once that made him get out of bed. He trotted to the door. It swung soundlessly open.

The hallway was empty. Nopony even waited by the doorways now. It was quiet.

Ghost slid out of the room, closing the door softly as he could. The Barracks’ blueprints were something the Tower’d had, back in Canterlot. He’d read them and memorized the layout, just in case he ever needed to investigate them for a case. Bless Celestia that I did, he thought. He knew exactly where the holding cells were.

The elevator pony was gone, probably asleep. Ghost crept in slowly, trying to keep the sound of his hooves from echoing in the empty space.

He stared at the spellmarks on the harness and platform. They were pulsing softly white, fading in and out like a heartbeat. No, not like a heartbeat. They were too irregular. They pulsed like the wind.

Ghost craned his head back. Above in the open shaft, he could see the night sky with its scattering of stars. Clouds passed by like tattered lace.

I could make it go, he thought. The Barracks had no stairs. If you couldn’t fly, you used the elevator. This was the only option.

He was readying his spell when he heard someone approaching.

Panicking, he ducked behind the closed grate. It was full of spaces. Anypony could look in and see him.

Ghost crouched down as low as he could, squeezing his eyes shut like a colt. Please walk by, he thought. Please walk by. This will be so hard to explain.

He waited. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead to his chin, dropping to the ground. His muscles ached from holding his position.

The sound faded away. Ears straining, legs trembling, Ghost held position. When he was finally sure they were gone, he released a low breath of relief.

The grate swung open. Ghost leapt up, scuttling to the back of the elevator, his brain already spinning, trying to come up with a good reason to be here in the early hours of the morning.

Sir Cypress looked at him levelly, but there was a note of scorn in his expression. He had no plates on. Just dark green coat and disdainful blue eyes.

“Not allowed,” he said.

Ghost gaped for a moment, heart hammering. “You nearly scared me to death,” he said resentfully.

Sir Cypress didn’t even blink at that. “Ghostwriter. What are you doing?”

“You know exactly what I’m doing.” Peeling himself from the back wall, Ghost trotted over to the harness once more. Studying the magic, he said, “I’m going to find out what that mare was doing in the net. Why she has that cutie mark. Everything, basically.”

“General Arbiter—”

“Is a fool,” Ghost finished. “More concerned with station than finding out the truth. He believes this will bring him some sort of glory in Celestia’s eyes. He wants a promotion, not a closed case.”

“That’s different from what you want?”

Ghost glared at him. “I can’t believe you just said that. I’m doing this to find your daughter, you know.”

“Not another book?” Sir Cypress asked, quirking one eyebrow. “Maneco sold well.”

A sour taste filled Ghost’s mouth. Does everypony think I’m some sort of soulless monster? “It’s not about money,” he spat. “It’s about finding out what happened. And if—never mind.” He turned away. “I’m going. If you want to come along, you’re more than welcome.”

For a moment, Cypress just stared at him. Then he stepped into the elevator, filling it up with his bulk. Ghost was squashed against the harness, smashing his cheek up nearly into his eye.

“How am I supposed to figure out how to move the elevator when I can’t breathe?” he said to Cypress.

The green knight gave him an odd look. Then, slowly, he raised one hoof and reached past Ghost’s shoulder, to a switch he hadn’t seen on the wall. It clicked and the elevator coasted slowly downwards to the ground floor, coming to a bouncing stop at the bottom.

Ghost blinked rapidly. “How did—”

“It says ‘For Emergencies.’” Cypress slid open the grate and stepped out into the hall. Ghost, still stunned, followed him.

Down here there was more action. Solar Guard walked up and down the hall, their hard-shoed hooves clanking. Stratos and Arbiter were nowhere to be found, but somepony worse was: Dame Starra.

She sat at a desk with a tapering candle, reading something by its weak light. Her head came up as they approached.

There goes our sneaking option. Hopefully Sir Cypress is good at thinking on his hooves. “Dame Starra,” he greeted, coming up to the table. Cypress followd more slowly, his hoofbeats heavy on the wood floor. “I’ve read about you.”

She looked at him strangely. Her eyes were liquid and black as ink in the candlelight. “Have you?”

“I don’t know if I mentioned it yesterday. I’m Ghostwriter, Scibe of Canterlot’s Tower.”

“Ah.” Dame Starra pulled out of her reading at that. Ghost cast a quick look at the papers. With a frown, she rustled the parchment together and tapped them into a stack, but not before he noticed what they were. A map of Equestria. Now that is interesting. “Can I help you, Scribe?”

“Yes, I think so.” There’s no way I can ask to go in there. She’d never let me. She won’t even let me look at her maps. That meant the only option was distraction. “I was wondering if you’d have a chat with my friend here, Sir Cypress. He’s in the Twenty-Second Sun Brigade under General Counterstrike.” He leaned close to her, bringing a hoof up to his mouth like he was whispering a secret. “He’s a big fan.”

Dame Starra’s ears flicked forward. “Is that so? Did you see the Battle of the Five Packs?”

Sir Cypress was a trouper. After a quick glance at Ghost, he said, “Yes. I was in the left flank.”

“I was in the vanguard.” Dame Starra leaned forward. “Do you remember when Sunrise Gleam pulled from formation and took down two of the timberwolves herself?”

“Quick as an arrow,” Cypress said, smiling his slight smile. He leaned closer to Dame Starra, nodding as she recounted the tale. He nodded, just barely, enough for only Ghost to see.

One hoof at a time, Ghost stepped back. Dame Starra didn’t notice. She was listening as Cypress described his knighthood ceremony, adding in her own comments, totally enraptured.

Ghost was at the door now. He stood there for a moment, trying and failing not to look out of place. When the Guard turned the corner at the end of the hall, he nudged open the door and slid inside.

It was lit by a lantern hanging from the ceiling. Half the room was normal—a table and chairs, a few empty tankards, a window that was boarded over. The other half was fenced off with iron bars that reached the ceiling.
And inside was the mare.

She was reaching through the bars trying to reach a platter of food somepony had left just out of reach. As soon as she spotted him, she dropped her hooves and the blankness returned to her face. She stayed pressed up against the bars, her expression out of focus.

Ghost scoffed. “Save it,” he said, coming over to stand in front of her. “I already saw you.”

For a second longer, she held out. Then her body relaxed and her brown eyes filled with intelligence. But she still said nothing.

Ghost looked her over. There was a small burn on her right flank. Almost identical to a horn-tip. His stomach filled with bile.

With one hoof, he kicked the plate closer. It was prison food—dry grass without flowers, a lump of misshapen rye bread, a cup of water. It had been cruel to keep it just out of view.

The mare stared at it as it scraped to a stop in front of her. She looked up.

Ghost sat down on the ground in front of her. “Go on, then,” he said gruffly. “You must be hungry.”

It was like a candle had been blown out. One second she was sitting on the hard floor looking wary and the next she’d pounced upon the food, shoveling it in as quick as she could. Within seconds it was all gone and she was gulping down the water.

From within his pocket dimension, Ghost pulled a package of daisy heads. The mare took those and ripped the bag open with her teeth, emptying them into her mouth. She took the pouch of dried fruit he offered her, too, but now she was slowing down.

She’s starving. When she breathed in, he could count her ribs. Wherever this pony has been, she’s not been eating properly.

As she chewed, she watched him. There wasn’t aggression in her eyes, nor cruel calculation. It was all wary curiosity. The same way a pony would watch the forest for manticores. She didn’t know if he would hurt her yet.

The idea of harming another pony made Ghost’s skin crawl. “Are you still hungry?”

She looked down at the bag of fruit. It was almost empty, just a few curls of apple left. She shook her head.

Now we’re getting somewhere. “What were you doing out in the woods?”

Her head snapped up. At once, her defenses were back up. She shoved the bag from her chest and let the fruit tumble all over the floor.

With a sigh, Ghost reached out with magic. He picked the dust off and put them back in the bag, storing the leftovers in his pocket dimension with a flash of green light.

At this, her eyes widened.

“Haven’t you seen a pocket dimension before?” he asked. “It’s just like teleporting, only you keep everything in a set amount of space. The mass has to go somewhere, so I keep it in my body. It makes me heavier than I look by a margin.”

She looked at him. She licked her lips. And she spoke.

“Glasses,” she said. Her voice was hushed as a whisper, higher-pitched than he would have guessed.

Ghost frowned. “What?”

“You wear glasses,” she said. “I’ve never met a unicorn who wears glasses.”

Ghost touched them self-consciously. “Yes, what of it?” This wasn’t exactly how he’d imagined the conversation going.

“Why don’t you fix your vision with magic? Can’t you do that?”

“Yes, I suppose I could.” He’d thought about it before and always decided against it. “If I wanted to.”

“You don’t?”

“Why were you in the woods?” he countered.

She didn’t take the bait. Coming over to the bars, she wrapped her hooves around them, resting her chin on a crossbeam. “You can make things vanish and appear at will. You can hold a pony in a net for an hour despite her struggling. You can make an alarm spell that doesn’t alert the captive. But you wear glasses.”

The hair on the back of Ghost’s neck rose. “How did you know about the alarm spell?”

She watched him. Her brown eyes were unsettling, especially this close. There was hardly a foot of space between them. “I was in the woods because I was flying,” she said. “And your net got in the way.”

“What were you doing out there? Are you a soldier?”

“No.”

“Did you kill a pegasus filly here yesterday?”

“No.”

“Are you a murderer?”

She paused. Another blink of those brown eyes. “Yes. But I didn’t kill the filly.”

Ghost’s stomach clenched. “You admit to killing ponies, though.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “But not this one. Do you believe me?”

“I don’t believe anything until I have proof for it.”

“But you believe in magic.”

“What kind of question is that?” Ghost snorted, looking away. “Of course I do. I’m a unicorn.”

“What is your proof for magic?” she asked. “That you can move things? That you can make things disappear? Where does that power come from?”

“My horn.”

“Don’t be pedantic.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Ghost said roughly. He pushed away from her, heading for the door. “If you have nothing important to say, then you’re not worth my time. Let Arbiter take you to Canterlot for questioning. Doubtless he’ll lock you up when you tell him you’re a murderer.”

He was almost to the door when she said, “But I won’t tell him.”

Ghost paused. Without turning around he said, “And why not?” He spun to face her. She was in the same position, linking her hooves around the bars, her tail a matted mess. “You told me. What’s the difference?”

“Because,” she said simply.

“Because why? I’m getting tired of your games. Spit it out.”

“You fed me,” she said. “I trust you.”

Ghost couldn’t help it. He laughed. “For that you told me a secret?”

“You told me one, too. You just don’t know it yet.”

Ghost groaned. “Why do you have a moon in your cutie mark? Are you a follower of Nightmare Moon? Some kind of cultist?”

He expected her to answer. But she was mute once more. The look in her brown eyes was maddening, that patient openness. And yet she said nothing.

“Well?” He walked over to her, back to the bars. “You were chatty before. What’s changed?”

“I’ll tell you. But you must do me a favor.”

“Haven’t I already?” He tipped his head to motion to the daisy heads.

The mare didn’t even glance over. “This is different. I have answers you want, Ghostwriter.” When he flinched in surprise, she smiled. She had a warm smile, soft and slight as daybreak.

Ghost folded his arms across his chest. She'd surprised him. That was new. Nopony had ever gotten the jump on him like that before. “State your terms.”

“You get me out of this jail cell and I’ll go wherever you want and tell you everything you want to know.”

“That’s it? How do I know you won’t take off.”

She swung her head around to gesture to her injured wing.

Ghost ground his teeth together and thought. “I’ll set off every alarm from here to Canterlot if I do that. I won’t be able to go back home. I’ll be a fugitive.”

“Yes,” she said.

“They probably won’t let me be a Scribe for a long time.”

“Yes.”

“And I’ll be reported to Princess Celestia almost immediately.”

“Yes.”

Ghost sighed. “This better be worth it,” he said, standing up. His horn heated up as he readied himself.

The mare smiled once more. “Vesper,” she said. “My name.”

Ghost nodded. “Vesper.”

Then he released his spell.