The portal shimmered and swirled like disturbed water in a basin.
Doctor Caramel Crisp looked down at the serial number carved into the bottom of the crystal window frame. Project 12-28-22 had been a long time waiting, but here it was in its moment of glory. She couldn't stop shaking.
On the other side of the reinforced glass, Doctor Stone Meadow turned to the desk beside her and grinned down at the tome left upon it. No matter how many times they'd seen her look at it, she never ceased to smirk at the title. On its spine in golden lettering were the words A Thousand Years of Teleportation and Portals: Entering a New Realm of Magic and Science.
With a cackle, she swatted at it with a backhoof of a swipe. It clattered in the wicker basket next to the desk. In an instant, it compressed the reams of paper she’d dumped in there to a suggestion of white at the bottom.
“Good grief,” murmured Caramel to herself. “She did it. She actually went and did it.”
Behind Caramel, the other doctors watched the swirls and smirks warily through glass as thick as a brick wall. Despite the fact that most of them had grubby white coats, shiny red lumps on their forelimbs, and bags under their eyes, their faces were scrunched up into sneers and grimaces. Only Doctor Lance was smirking. Caramel simply stared, slack-jawed and eye muscle twitching every few seconds.
They watched as Doctor Stone Meadow patiently plucked random kitchen utensils, bathroom bottles, and toy shop bric-a-brac from a table and threw them into the portal, one at a time. As one, they glanced up at the clock hanging over their glass wall. Quarter past seven taunted them.
“I don’t get it,” said one at last. “It’s garbage. A miracle of science, and she’s using it to dump garbage.”
“Now, now!” said Doctor Lance, and his smirk widened. “She’s building up to something.”
“Yeah,” said Caramel, still staring. “A psychotic breakdown.”
Behind them, the double doors swung open and the Suit walked in.
None of them had to turn around to know it was the Suit. Apart from the flood of perfumes that suggested a botanical garden had been packed into every molecule in the room, he couldn’t help but jingle, rattle, and clink wherever he walked. Even his steps thudded with the golden horseshoes he’d had fitted years before, though they all knew they were just iron horseshoes with gold leaf added.
“Hey there, my friends!” he purred, and a few of the doctors shivered and inched away from him. “How’s my favourite cuckoo clock counting down today, my friends?”
Doctor Lance spun round, reared up, and – still smirking – bowed with a flourish. Around him, the other doctors took their time to do so much as turn.
“Just testing it now, sir,” he said cheerfully. “I don’t think it’s anywhere near being finished yet, but –”
“But nothing, goldie oldie.” The Suit cruised through the rank, forcing the stallion to quickstep out of his way before he inspected the room beyond. “I’m on my last limbs here, sweethearts. ‘When the storm-cracked wall is trembling under thunder, The pallid stench of mortar tastes like heaven’s greatest wonder’.”
“This wall’s gonna topple hard, then,” whispered the blue mare to her partner.
“That crazy mare,” murmured Caramel to herself. “She said she'd do it. And she did it.”
“Get me in the cocoon, o myrmidons of industry, o butterflies of steel and stone. Papa ain’t seen his children for months now.”
A few seconds passed while the doctors stared up at the ceiling, mouths working feverishly. Keeping up with the Suit was the mental equivalent of a ten-second triathlon. Already the older ponies were sweating and frowning.
Finally, Doctor Caramel blinked out of her stunned reverie and turned and swallowed. She was going to have to take the initiative again. Great.
After a quick glance about in case of any last-minute saviours, she hopped smartly forwards and her horn flashed bright pink. The Suit vanished. On the other side of the glass, the Suit flashed back into place, jingling and rattling, and clinking as he strode over to the giggling Doctor Stone Meadow.
At once, the Suit’s face was set in stone. “Revelation dawns, sweet pea. Time to put away childish things.”
The doctors pressed their faces up against the window. A blue earth pony shook her head, squeaking slightly on the glass.
“Did he really just say that?” she whispered. Beside her, a pink stallion gulped.
Doctor Stone Meadow spun round, eyes bulging, all thought of lobbing the toothbrush through the portal forgotten. “You call this ‘childish’, good sir knight? ‘You dare compare my flare and wit, With a nasty newborn’s nagging skit?’ I, the indisputable great Doctor Stone Meadow, she of the giddy heights of the Everhoof and the darkest depths of the Lunar Sea?”
All the doctors groaned. The Suit, grinning wide enough to fit a banana sideways into his mouth, raised a hoof – sounding like a wind chime in a hurricane – and gestured towards the portal.
“Behold! Yesterday’s technology.” His eyes twinkled as he said it.
Doctor Stone Meadow reared up and pointed at the portal. “Au contraire! Tomorrow’s world. Beyond that portal lies the realm of gods and heroes, spies and revolutionaries, heavenly stars and demonic cities. With this magic, we can create all worlds with nothing but an utterance.”
Doctor Lance rolled his eyes and chuckled under his breath. “Oh, here we go, here we go, here we go…”
“Deserts at my command! Jungles at a word! We can travel down to the darkest chambers of ancient tombs, and up to the tallest skyscrapers of future cities. Portals and incantations! Alternate histories and possible futures! Every possibility is just a word away!”
The Suit laughed and stamped a hoof. Immediately, one of the unicorn doctors turned and rushed out of the door.
“A word,” he purred. “A word, you say? Try a word and more bits than the average pony can count. Where’s the popular appeal? Where’s the business sense? We already have portals that cost a country to make and only benefit the odd billionaire.”
“The very odd billionaire,” whispered one of the earth stallions. A couple of colleagues tittered.
“She's done it now,” murmured Caramel, still falling into a silent world of her own. Her mind had gone blank out of sheer self-defence. Age-old memories lurked in her shadow. “This is how it always starts. She's done it now.”
Beside her, Doctor Lance chuckled under his breath. He was hunched in a ready-to-pounce posture, his gaze fixed on the swirling vortex. Something of the predator glinted in his smirk this time.
As soon as the unicorn doctor rushed back in, the others noticed the mug of hot chocolate hovering ahead of her. A flash later, it was on the other side of the glass. The Suit grinned and took a sip from the steaming rim.
“Ah,” said Doctor Stone Meadow, who casually fell back onto all four hooves. “But I’ve found a way.”
“I’ve seen the budget for this thing. The bill alone –”
“Is but a hundred times what we’ll need to make this thing go.” Doctor Stone Meadow winked and swiped at a teddy bear, knocking it into the swirling colours. “The portal needs only enough power and magic to get the basics of a world’s logic. It doesn’t have to find the whole world from scratch each time. And thanks to advances in mental advancement, we have access to the greatest single repository of information the world has ever known.”
Despite themselves, the doctors chuckled and nodded at this. The Suit frowned and downed the rest of his drink.
“And that is?” he said.
Doctor Stone Meadow grinned and tapped her skull. “Flights of Fancy, Land of Nod, the Castle in the Air – my word! Just a pigment of a figment of a foal’s imagination, and the mind paints afresh a city, a planet, or a nation.”
Caramel felt her face prickle with sweat. Only her professional pride forced her not to curl up and rock back and forth. Echoes of old shouts ran through the back of her head.
“Daydreams?” The Suit shook his head wearily. “You’re telling me the revolutionary new principle was some kiddie fairy tale kitsch?”
“Ah, but we put the ‘kit’ in ‘kitsch’.” She threw a spatula into the portal and trotted over to the frame to lean against it casually. “A child has no brain, but an adult has no heart. It takes qualified genius and naive innocence to turn leaden fantasies into scientific gold.”
“And the benefits?” The Suit was grinning again.
“What the mind can conceive and believe, my work can achieve.” She strolled back to her spot and threw a frying pan through the swirling rainbow of the portal. “In only a hundred bits.”
“A hundred bits?” The Suit whistled; behind him, the doctors exchanged worried glances.
“Initially. Once set up, however, there would be little need for anything but paper and ink. Quite a nice saver, do you not agree?”
“Still. Compared to the mountains of yesteryear, that’s almost hills. And the money I actually spent on this was…?”
Despite the frantic waving and head-shaking of the doctors, Doctor Stone Meadow gestured to the laden tables. “I wanted to move in. Someone needs to operate things from the other side. And I do like living large!”
Caramel had to shake herself; she'd almost fainted. No! It would not do to faint now. Not this time.
Behind the doctors, the double doors burst open. Armour glinted in the dim light. Two stocky stallions strode in, their faces carved from alabaster and their hooves leaving scuffs on the tiles. With the fluid grace of curtains, the doctors drew back and let the guards through. Both charged their horns, smothering their entire bodies with light, and strode right through the glass as though it were air. Only when they flanked the Suit did they stop and stand to attention.
Finally, the Suit dropped the mug. It vanished in a flash. On the other side of the glass, a green stallion levitated the mug and galloped out of the room. Rings struck against rings, necklaces and pendants tapped each other, and a gold tooth flashed as the Suit leaned forwards and placed a hoof on the Doctor’s withers.
“That’s so sweet,” he said through clenched teeth, “but what the hay has it got to do with comic books? Enchanted Enterprises ain’t the goshdarned space program.”
“You said you wanted 3D comic books,” said Doctor Stone Meadow without a trace of a shiver or even a flinch. “I got you 3D comic books.”
And she burst into fits of giggles.
She was still giggling when the guards on both sides of her levitated a forelimb each. The doctors almost backed into the corners when the three passed. Doctor Stone Meadow was dragged through the glass and out the double doors, and echoing back at them were her giggles fading away.
Behind everyone's backs, Caramel grimaced and clutched at her head. She was crouching.
The villagers had long since retreated indoors. Even out of the window, the much older filly Caramel – adjusting her apron’s knot with her magic – could see an ocean of heat haze distorting the timber planks of the opposite house. Overhead, the sky was pure blue. Net curtains were drawn up either side of the street. Horn aglow, Caramel sighed and slammed the shutters.
“It’s lunchtime!” she yelled, her voice now deeper and worn out. “Come get it while it’s fresh!”
Mom limped into the room, dragging the cast behind her while her rear left leg hopped to keep up with the front ones. She cast her gaze over the table and rolled her eyes.
“Bowls of hay?” she said. “You’re not much of a culinary artist, I’ll say that.”
“My talents,” Caramel said, unfastening the apron with her magic, “lie in other areas. As you’ll soon see!”
Mom smirked and brought herself up to the table. “I wonder what it’ll be this time. New species of beetle, maybe? Miracle herb solution that turns out to be a gas producer? Or a follow-up for ‘Sunset Splodge’, the great impressionist painting?”
“Hey, that last one was your fault,” said Caramel with a smirk. “I told you for years I don’t paint, but would you listen?”
They stood on either side of the table and leaned forwards. For a while, nothing but the crunch of hay under champing molars could be heard. Mom hummed with appreciation and swallowed.
“This tastes salty,” she said.
“I ‘ike it sal’y,” said Caramel through a mouthful of hay.
“Don’t talk when you’re eating. And I’m not complaining about the taste. It’s good.”
There was a hasty swallow, and a brief fit of coughing. “Oh… ahem, OK. Uh, thanks.”
The room was Spartan. It was little more than an oversized wooden crate, echoing slightly whenever they spoke. Caramel’s gaze drifted over to the lighter square in the corner. Dad’s dresser used to stand there. Even as she stared, she could’ve sworn she saw its memory still there, teetering dangerously under all the gears and levers and metal chunks he’d normally kept in plain sight.
For a moment, Mom stopped eating and gave Caramel her full attention. “So…” she said cheerfully, “what’s the big news?”
Caramel wiped her mouth with the back of her hoof – ignoring Mom’s wincing – and grinned at her. As she did so, her mind drifted back to the letter tucked under the welcome mat, and she grinned even more broadly.
“First,” she said imperiously, and threw in a wink. “A little parlour trick. This is something I picked up during my exchange week in Canterlot.”
Humming in what she hoped was a vaguely mystical manner, she reared up and waved her forelimbs, trying to weave a bucket-sized ring before her. Totally unnecessary as it was, the suppressed giggle it got out of Mom made it seem right.
Her horn flashed, and she spread her forelimbs wide before the plumes of green smoke. She blushed at the powder dribbling from her hoof, but then it had been cheap stuff, and the joke shop had hosted quite a nice sale.
“Ta da!” she said, and the plume vanished to reveal the envelope, which ripped itself to shreds and revealed a scroll.
Instantly, Mom’s ears were erect. “Wow! They’ve replied already?”
“Even better!” Still levitating the scroll, Caramel unfurled it and flipped it round to show the gigantic stamp on it. “I’ve been accepted! Unconditionally. Weeks in advance.”
“Oh, my sweet little angel!” Mom’s eyes began to well up. She flapped her hoof in her face to ward off tears. “You did it! You went and showed them! I mean,” she added hastily, “I knew all along you were good enough to get in, of course. It was just a matter of whether the magic academy saw sense or not. And they have! Oh, my darling, you are going to be so happy there. I remember my time at that place as the best years of my life…”
“Whoa, whoa. Relax, Mom. You’ll let your dinner get cold.”
They both glanced at the fried hay, which sparkled with salt. Both of them chuckled and shook their heads, and Mom reached across and plucked the scroll out of the air. Even now, her eyes gleamed as they stared at it.
“Oh, we absolutely must have this framed. I don’t want the other mothers to be jealous when they see this next poker night. I want them to be frothing at the mouth!”
“There’s a spell for that, you know.” Caramel smirked at her.
“You’ll have to teach me, some time.”
Behind her winks and smiles and laughs, Caramel felt her heart grow and become elated at the way her mother’s smile stretched against her jaw. Great idea, she thought, leading in with this. Look at her; swelling so much just having the scroll in her hooves. I could ask for our life savings, and she’d hand them over without a second to think.
All the same, Caramel took deep breaths, and then a few mouthfuls, before she swallowed her doubts down and continued.
Briefly, she flashed some magic and stuffed the scraps of envelope under the table. Instead, she focused on the diary she’d stuffed under the table earlier, and lifted it up for Mom to see.
“This,” she said, “is a double whammy discovery. It took me weeks to get this right, but I think you’ll find it’s been worth it. Watch this.”
Mom was giggling with anticipation when Caramel flicked the book open and let the bookmark flop out and onto her fried hay. Holding it up so the page was right in front of Mom, Caramel groped under the table for the ink pot she’d stashed against the right leg, smacking her hoof against it once or twice before she eased the hoof down on top of it.
“As you will observe,” continued Caramel, “this page is full of foalish squiggle and useless trivia. I’d love to replace it with more worthwhile facts and artistry, but oh deary me, there just isn’t enough room left.”
“Oh, you’re a regular B. D. Barter, aren’t you?” Mom smirked and shook her head at the folly of youth.
“If only,” added Caramel, who’d decided just then not to gesticulate with her left foreleg, “I could wipe away these useless notes and clear the page for my studies. Heehee… enter the Black Pot of Erasure!”
Barely had the last word ended when she clasped both hooves over the pot and whisked it out for Mom to see. Not that there was much to look at; it was just a black inkpot with what looked like ink floating inside it.
I really should’ve spent some time sprucing up the cover, she thought idly, but the rest of her wasn’t interested.
“So,” said Mom after rubbing her chin and peering at the pot, “how does one, uh, ‘enter the black pot of erasure’?”
“Very funny, Mom.” Caramel’s grin barely flickered. “Now, if you will observe my pot and its mystery substance –”
“That’s ink, isn’t it?”
Caramel lowered the pot to the table. “Mom, come on. Work with me here.”
“Oh all right. Astound me, dear.”
“Thank you. Observe!”
With a little flourish, she dipped a hoof into the pot until the edge was black and gleaming. Carefully as she could, she stepped onto the table with the other hoof and reached over the cover to wipe the page, right where Mom could see it. Caramel didn’t see the result, but memory and imagination filled in the gaps.
She’d remembered practising with the stuff ahead of time. First, she’d had to ignore the slight tingling of the strange black ink on her hoof – the first few weeks, she worried she’d caught something off it or that it was dangerous. However, the town physician had dismissed it as dehydration, and given her mouth often felt like it was full of sawdust, she was inclined to believe him.
Then, there was a slight fizzing. Mom gasped and drew back from the wisps of smoke, but Caramel didn’t stop rubbing the page. Nothing was going to happen; the smoke was just the ink evaporating away. All the same, she’d spent hours earlier checking her hoof for burns and discolorations.
And now, she knew by the stare Mom was giving the page that the words were being wiped away. Not so much as a comma would be left, so long as the strange black ink was rubbed on the spot and she didn’t miss it.
“Is it blank?” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.
Mom glanced up at her, mouth open, and then closed it and nodded.
“Voila!” Caramel’s hoof shot back and she spread her forelimbs wide. “My own yet-to-be-patented Mystery Ink! No more fumbling about with sandstone or pumice, no mucky wax tablets or bits of rubber that snap in your grip. It’s no more complicated now than painting a canvas with a hoof. And best of all” – in spite of Mom’s yelp of astonishment, she darted the hoof into her mouth and licked the gunk off with one swipe of her tongue – “completely and utterly harmless.”
“Bravo!” Mom’s hooves stamped on the planks in applause. “Bravo, my daughter the inventor!”
“You like it?”
“It’s great! Oh, you’re so clever, Caramel. That magic academy won’t know what hit ‘em.”
Suddenly, Caramel gagged and retched and stuck her tongue out, beating it with both hooves. Shivering and groaning, she stood back up and turned to Mom’s raised eyebrow. There was a thump as the diary, momentarily ignored, landed with a tremor on the tabletop, making the bowls rattle when they bounced.
“I thought you said it was harmless.” Mom jutted her lower chin.
“It is harmless,” she said at once. “What it isn’t, sadly, is tasteless. But” – she levitated the diary once more, trying to ignore what had just happened, and with one hoof whipped the bookmark off the table to join the envelope scraps under it – “I’m just getting started. As if it wasn’t enough to solve many a storage problem in books, so I have solved many a storage problem with books.”
Even as she said it, she blushed. To say she’d solved it was utter cheek; the actual technique had been mastered centuries ago by a host of great magicians. This was just evidence that she could do it at all, and any magically knowledgeable critic could’ve picked her technique apart in seconds, pausing only to say things like, “And I don’t like your shoddy presentation skills either.”
As though unveiling the secret of eternal life, she flicked the pages across to the second bookmark, which immediately filled the vacancy on the tabletop. Mom’s wide eyes narrowed. Her nose wrinkled.
“Well…” she said. “Uh… it’s… quite a vivid picture, isn’t it?”
Caramel’s memory gave her a glare. “Quite a vivid picture” was understating it. The picture was twisted and coiled and wrinkled and frozen in the act of stretching its three jaws as wide as possible, with as much inky black mess as possible. As a result, the thing looked like it had been frozen in the act of leaping at someone, which – Caramel winced – was totally accurate.
“This is the secret to my inky success,” she said, trying to rally some bravado into her leaden voice. “The ingredients are naturally harvested from the spittle of a rare creature from beyond our borders.”
“What!?” At once, Mom had reared up and stamped two hooves either side of her bowl, making a second rattle. “What are you saying, Caramel? You’ve been looking for creatures like this?”
“It’s OK, Mom. It’s OK. This one’s no problem if you know what you’re doing, like I do.”
“Where?” Mom said sternly. “Where have you been?”
“I only went once!” Caramel’s voice was rising; she hadn’t expected this bad a reaction. “It’s not as vicious as it looks. I had complete control over the thing, and I got what I wanted without a hiccup. It was Haycart that gave me the idea of doing things this way. Look, I’ll show you!”
And Caramel’s horn glowed brighter. Her eyes burned with concentration. Despite herself, she yelped at the shock coursing through her horn.
In hindsight, she really, really should have asked Mom to step back first.
There was a burning light from the book, and a loud crash, and then the room echoed with the screeching hiss of long-suppressed rage. The thing had grown until it almost buckled the table legs and towered over the bowl, dripping black ooze over the salt and hay. Mom screamed and threw herself backwards, landing with scrabbling thumps on the floorboards.
“It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK!” Caramel yelped over the screeches and screams. “It’s under control! Don’t scream! Don’t scream! You’ll set it off!” The tail whipped at her bowl, sending it crashing against the wall. “Hold on!”
The sheer rush of pain that burned through Caramel’s horn, when she sent the creature back into the diary, was nothing. She looked up into Mom’s wide, cracking, straining eyes, and only then knew what real pain was.