CHAPTER TEN
A RIPPLE UPON THE WATER
The Queen of Waters shuddered as the engines throbbed with power far below. Runcy could understand his friend’s obsession with the things – they really were fascinating, if a little too modern for his tastes. The smoke pouring into the night sky from the smoke stack was evidence that the black stallion’s company was doing something right. Coal and steam were the power source of Equestria’s booming industries, as indeed was magical energy to some degree. The sudden interest in technological innovation had lead some of the more industrious souls to make breakthroughs in scientific advancement and even managed to create some incredible hybrid machines which utilised both mechanical and magical components; amazing…truly, truly amazing. But what was really incredible right then was the fact that it was fast approaching time for dinner and Trestle was nowhere to be seen, and Luna’s ears could that stallion eat! Runcy leaned over the ships railing and watched the almost perfectly still surface of the sea as the great ship ploughed her way through the night. It was no wonder some ponies saw these trips as a ‘romantic excursion’ - the way stars reflected off the water together with the streams of yellow light from the many portholes could pull at even the coldest heart. This, if nothing else, was one of the sights he would never forget as long as he lived: the endless vastness of the sea, the reflection of the stars and the sheer timeless beauty of it all. He smiled; he would be with Lark and Silver a lot sooner than he’d expected, and they expected for that matter. When he got back he’d take them all to Madam Pomade’s tea rooms for cake and tea, if not one of her magnificent evening meals she arranged for her more discerning clients. He especially enjoyed the cream meringues: crispy and slightly chewy pillows of meringue sandwiching thick white cream with just the right amount of sweetness added, those strange green pieces he couldn’t quite identify, and there you were – sheer confectionary heaven. Naturally Lark was the real dessert aficionado of the family, but he had a sweet tooth too – he was just a little more ‘selective’ about what he liked. As for Silver, well, she’d probably have a nose bag of the things if she could. Runcy smirked and allowed himself a quiet chuckle; he’d have a look at the menu tonight and see what he could have. Perhaps they had meringue?
The ship’s engines sent another vibration through the deck. It was strangely comforting, in an odd sort of way, knowing that whatever was making this huge iron beast carry him home was working as it should. Now all he had to worry about was what to have from the generous selection on the evening menu. With a yawn and a stretch, Runcy pushed the door open to the dining suite. Inside the room was well lit, with many of the nobles from the palace already seated and tucking into starters. Runcy let out a sigh; still no sign of Trestle then. The enigmatic young stallion was more than likely having yet another tour of the ship, an indulgence the crew always seemed more than happy to permit for some peculiar reason. He looked up at the young mare in the shipping lines white uniform talking to the waiter and nodded to himself – Trestle may not know what that reason was, but they did. A fit, healthy, and wealthy stallion was a prime target for a single mare, and Trestle didn’t a have a clue did he? Runcy fought down the urge to laugh and gave the passing waitress a smile.
The unicorn mare floated out a notepad, “Good evening, sir, are you ready to order?”
“I’ll have the brie and cranberry please” Runcy asked politely, “And a pot of tea, I think – the old forest blue.”
“Certainly sir.” The mare made a note, “And for your main?”
“I fancy the jalfrezi tonight, with some ginger and turmeric rice too, please.” Runcy hoofed her the
menu.
“Feeling a little adventurous sir?” the mare said pleasantly.
Runcy smiled, “A little.” He knew who else was feeling a little adventurous too, wherever he was. Speaking of which he noticed the look the waitress had given him as she collected the menu. “Still got it, Runcy old boy” he muttered to himself with a grin.
The evening wore on, gently accented by a surprisingly accomplished pianist. He didn’t recognise some of the tunes but they certainly helped create a relaxed atmosphere. The service was excellent too: one starter, one curry, a rum and blackcurrant, were quickly followed by one pipeful of the very finest tobacco from the west country – what more could a stallion ask for? A little guiltily, Runcy was almost grateful the young lad wasn’t there with his incessant chattering. Peace, quiet and the open seas; this was where his heart lay, and all it was really missing was the creak of the wood and the snap of the sails. As the captain of the ship, he could imagine himself waving farewell to his beloved wife as the majestic vessel bore him and his merry crew to exotic climes and swashbuckling adventures of sword and sorcery. Although, not being a unicorn, he could do with a little less of the sorcery and for that matter, less of the sword too. As much as the thought of adventure appealed to him, his skill with a blade had been restricted to fencing lessons as a young stallion at Wheat Halls, and that was about it – he hadn’t so much as picked up a sword since. Not in anger at least. He closed his eyes and felt himself starting to nod off, the throbbing heart of the Queen of Waters lulling him to...What was that green flash?
A rumbling, thunderous sound rattled the windows, sending several glasses, crockery and cutlery clattering to the floor. Some of the patrons jumped up in alarm, but then just as quickly as it had started, everything became calm once more. Runcy clucked his tongue and closed his eyes for a moment, dismissing the sound as… He sat up suddenly. The diaries had spoken of magical devices used which gave off a bright green…flash. Oh goddesses…
As if reading his mind, the door to the dining room burst open and one of the crew leaned in, “Mares and foals to the life boats please. No need to panic everypony, there’s plenty of room and it’s just a precautionary measure.”
One of the passengers stood up, “What was that noise?”
“Just a technical problem, sir, that’s all. We’re looking into it to try and-”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. The room was suddenly filled with another brilliant green flash, followed almost immediately by a deafening bang that blew most of the windows out, showering everypony inside with lethal shards of flying glass. Screams and cries of pain and fear filled Runcy’s ears, adding to the high pitched shriek following the blast. What the hell was that?! Technical problems be damned! He stood up and gave himself a shake, throwing off the myriad tiny shards of glass. Thank Celestia none had gone in his eyes. As he made his way to the door, the floor beneath him suddenly began to pitch, making keeping his balance difficult. Abruptly, it righted itself, but then, slowly, the floor began to tilt once more. Icy tendrils of fear began to grip Runcy’s heart as he was knocked aside by ponies charging past him onto the deck, clamouring and yelling, screaming, calling for friends, family members…it was...unimaginable. A stallion barged past, slamming Runcy into the wall and causing him to cracking his head against something hard and metallic. Wincing in pain he snorted and shoved his way out of the main entrance and out onto the promenade deck. It was utter chaos. The whole ship was alive with activity, with members of the crew desperately trying to get the lifeboats off the davits and filled before lowering them away. High above piercing red distress flares burst in the darkness, sending out a call for aid while bathing the terrified passengers below in their blood red light.
Runcy pushed on, trying to reach a lifeboat. Where the hell was Trestle? Surely he’d be up here with the others, but where? Roughly, he pushed the thought away and moved on. With the sheer number of ponies on deck all heaving and yelling at once, the black coated stallion could be a few feet from him and he’d never see him. Runcy curse under his breath; he’d have to leave all his belongings too. Fortunately he didn’t have much of any significant worth other than his fathers pocket watch which he had in his waistcoat pocket and… “Oh goddesses…” Runcy patted his pockets frantically. The tears! They were in his cabin! Without them Silver could… He gave himself a shake and neighed as he began shoving his way through the crowd until he found the double doors to the stairs and the passenger deck. Here though, it was even worse. Ponies were all shoving and screaming at each other, trying to batter their way to the deck while some were fighting to try and pull suitcases and steamer trunks of all things up to the bloody lifeboats. Runcy couldn’t believe the sheer stupidity, the madness of it all. Perhaps he really had died, and this, where he was now, was his own personal hell. He shook his head and nickered, furious at himself for conjuring such idiotic thoughts. This was no supernatural hell, this was one made by hoof and horn, of steel, magic and equine mind. Runcy had to use his now to find a way past this horror and reach his cabin.
Water flooded through the gaping jagged wound in the great iron vessel’s hull, making her howl her death throws out into the dead calm of the night. The sea, cold and unforgiving, reached out to claim the dying ship, dragging her slowly down into her fathomless embrace for all eternity. About her sloping decks, the screams and howls of those who saw only the icy embrace of the reaper, lost the last of their reason and leaped from the railings that had only a scant few hours earlier seen the happy cheers and waving of loved ones as they departed for new shores. Now, those who had once been so eager to board the Queen of Waters, risked life and limb to escape that which could so easily become their slowly sinking tomb. The shouts of the crew, the bang of the distress flares and the hiss of water snaking its way through the once beautiful and grandest ship of Barbary Nights’s fleet, was drowned out by the deafening groan of iron passing breaking point. Runcy ran, part falling, part rolling, down the tilting corridors, rounding corners until finally…there it was! Oh thank the merciful goddesses! He fumbled for his key, unlocked the door and stumbled over the furniture and cases. His shirts, his ties, his hats, everything would soon be gone – but where, where was it? Case after case was ripped open and searched, the desk drawer, the night stand…it wasn’t there! Runcy’s eyes were stinging from the salt water, the acrid smoke from somewhere in the depths of the floundering ship finding it way to torture him even now. “Where…WHERE?!” Runcy neighed desperately, rummaging through the same cases, the same pockets, but the small jar with
the tears was nowhere…nowhere! “Oh goddesses, no, no, NO! Celestia, Luna, where the bloody hell is it? For the goddesses sake, you can do what you bloody well want with me, but let me do this one thing! Please, PLEASE!”
“Sir?” There was a shout from the door as a crewpony pulled himself partway into the room, “What are you doing in here? For Celestia’s sake, come on, she’s going down!”
“I can’t!” Runcy shouted, staring under the bed, “I can’t just give up! Don’t you see?”
“Is it worth your life?” the crewpony asked desperately, “She’ll be going down any minute, you
fool!”
A resounding cracking sound and accompanying boom from far below shuddered through the vessel and she lurched back suddenly, throwing Runcy and the crewpony onto the stomachs. In a rush, the white coated stallion got to his hooves, “Her back’s broken! Move it you fool or you’ll go down with her!” And with that, he turned bolted up the corridor.
“But…Silver…” Runcy closed his eyes. If he didn’t find them, if he couldn’t, then when would he ever find more of them? Veritas had given him a jar full of them and maybe…maybe they had more, but what if they didn’t? The damned things that made them were extinct, how could he- The ship shuddered once more, and slowly, unstoppably, began to tilt downwards. Runcy nickered, took one last look at the cabin, and charged out of the room. The corridor outside was tilting alarmingly, some of the doors opening and creating deadly pitfalls. Jumping and scrambling, his heart pounding and his muscles burning, Runcy dragged himself along the still lit route to safety. Water was howling up behind him now, snatching the last vestiges of majesty from the ship that had been his iron carriage home to his beloved wife and daughter. Now, that very ship was going to take him to his doom, down into the blackness, never to see them again - and it was all his fault. His own thoughtless stupidity, his own damned foolishness had done this! Why hadn’t he kept the damned jar on him? Why? WHY?! He reached the stairwell, the bottom part flooded, the top…unreachable. Behind him the broiling water was surging up, the sides of the corridor now the roof, the weight of it all hauling him down…down to the darkness. Despair clutched at him and he sank to his haunches in utter helplessness and felt the tears pouring down his cheeks… “Silver…Lark…I’m so sorry, my beautiful girls. I love you both so much…forgive me.”
A green flash, a mind numbing blast of sound and hot gas, and then weightlessness. Runcy let himself go. So…this was death? He waited, expecting pain, fear, darkness and emptiness. Would he go to the herd to be with his mother and father? How would he explain his actions, how could he face them after throwing his life away – and for what? He could only hope for forgiveness, praying that the goddesses would understand. They would weigh his heart and judge him, and then they would decide if he were worthy of the eternal fields of gold and green, the skies of blue and the diamond waters of the lakes of eternity – or oblivion. Unexpectedly, a sense of complete peace came over him, and a feeling of timeless serenity that felt completely at odds with the lurching sensation and the hard surface beneath his back. He opened his eyes painfully and looked about. He was…flying?
“Runcy?”
He looked up into the eyes of a familiar looking earth pony. “Sunny?” Runcy blinked and tried to move, but another pony was holding him down, “What…? The ship…”
Sunny shook his head, “She’s gone, Runcy.” He looked over the side of the sky chariot, the wind whipping his mane, “Thank the gods we found you in time.”
Runcy could feel his eyes closing again, and pain, wracking pain digging into his chest, but… “Oh, no! Trestle!” Runcy shoved the other pony aside and moved to the side of the chariot, making it bank heavily before the pilots were able to correct for the sudden change in balance, “Trestle! Dear goddesses, did you find him? Where is he?!”
Sunny held up a hoof as a look of intense sadness ghosted across his face, “I’m sorry, my dear boy, I don’t know. We came as fast as we could, but we can only carry so many.”
“But there’s hundreds of ponies down there!” Runcy gasped, “For the love of-”
“Most look to have made it away safely in the lifeboats,” Sunny said gently, “Young Trestle is probably in one of them. Don’t worry, the mainland rescue teams are already on scene. Thank the goddesses that the pegasi from the airship saw the distress flares and brought as many sky chariots as they could to rescue ponies.” He nodded to himself, “If we weren’t there…” He smiled slightly, “But you’re here now, and you’re safe. Well…mostly. We’ll need to get those ribs looked at.”
“My…” Runcy winced.
Sunny shrugged, “Imagine my surprise to see you flying through the air, and without wings too! Damned good luck I’d say. Looks like the gods favour you, Lord Runcy, very much indeed.”
Runcy slumped back and let the other stallion in the chariot begin tending to his injuries. They hurt like hell, but the turmoil in his heart was a pain that no pony could ever heal. He stared up at the stars, listening to the sweep of the pegasi’s wings and the wind passing by, “The tears…Sunny, I couldn’t find them. They’ve…they’ve gone. I’ve failed my daughter. I’ve… I’ve failed my family.”
“Gone?” Sunny raised an eyebrow quizzically, “I don’t…oh! Oh, ah…I think I may have a confession to make there my dear boy.”
Runcy’s ears perked up, “What do you mean?”
“Well, you see, I found them in your room when I was looking for you after the afternoon court session. I think you must have gone for a smoke or something, but anyway, I was on my way to arrange my flight and asked one of the couriers working there to pop them back to Lark for you in case you’d forgotten them.” He blushed, “Speaking of which, I think in all the excitement of going home early, I, er…sort of forgot to tell you.” “Sorry.”
All the pain, all the sorrow, all the anguish and the guilt, poured out of Runcy as water out of a bath. Suddenly he could breathe again, his body as light as a feather as a chuckle escaped his lips. Lord Spoon shook his head and watched the stars twinkling in the eternal night sky high above. “Sunny?”
“Yes, Runcy?”
Runcy smiled, “You’re a pain in the arse.” Sunny just grinned, and sat back to let the medical pony do his work.
The flight dragged on, and as much as it wasn’t especially unpleasant, what with the broken ribs, lacerations and broken glass that had apparently been lodged in him from when the windows of the dining room had blown in, Runcy was relieved just to be alive. As much as he would be the first to admit he didn’t believe in them especially, it truly was a miracle Sunny had found him – catching him in mid air of all things. That huge explosion, the green flash... Magic, it had to be. The problem now was that every time he tried to relax, every time he closed his eyes, flashes of images, the terrified push and crush of ponies all trying to get to the lifeboats, assailed his senses as if he were still there. It was something he knew, with absolute certainty, he would be dreaming about for years to come. Goddesses above, let Tres be safe, let them all be safe. The last thing he wanted was to have to travel to his young friends home and explain to his wife why her beloved husband was never coming home again – trapped in a metal coffin at the bottom of the sea. Runcy groaned and shifted in his seat, trying to get a little more comfortable, but it wasn’t easy; this particular chariot looked to be a plain, functional vehicle meant for short trips, not for… He looked over at his friend, “We’re not going back to the airship, are we?”
Sunny shook his head, taking a draw on his cigar, “It’s not safe. Not for us anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Runcy asked. Surviving a sinking ship, the fear, the expectation of death, his missing friend, and now this? Goddesses, what had he done to deserve this?! “Sunny, I don’t like all this cloak and dagger nonsense, so be frank with me.”
The older stallion watched him for a moment, his bright blue eyes reflecting the first light of day as it broached the horizon, “You’re not a fool Runcy, and I won’t treat you like one. The others, well… they don’t know you the way I do, nor do they fully understand how our families have known each other for generations.” He shrugged, “Distrust and deception are part and parcel of being a noble I’m afraid. Even the Primus, as much as he says he trusts you, and me, I doubt he truly does.” Sunny smiled, “Old habits die hard, my dear boy, very hard indeed.” He clopped Runcy on the shoulder, “The truth, Runcy, is that we’re in danger. Well, I thought I was in danger!” He chuckled, “I hadn’t thought that you were, or else…”
“That was why you chose to take the flight instead of taking ship with us” Runcy said quietly, “I know how much you hate flying.”
“Bloody unnatural if you ask me” Sunny sniffed, “No offence to our good pegasi friends of course, but for an earth pony, it’s just not our element.”
“You think somepony is trying to kill you?” Runcy asked raising an eyebrow, “And if so, why?”
“It’s probably easier to show you than tell you,” Sunny explained. He took a lazy draw on his cigar and stretched his forelegs, “But suffice to say, we believe the circle has been infiltrated by those who see us as a threat to the government.”
“A threat to the government?!” Runcy kept his voice down, aware of the keen senses of pegasi, “Bloody hell, Sunny, it’s just an old boys club for funny hoof shakes and getting rat arsed away from the wife. How the hell are we a threat to the government?”
“Because we know things we shouldn’t know” Sunny said seriously, “You know some of it already – that was why the Primus confided in you.”
“Oh for the goddesses’ sake…” Runcy could see a very large pit opening before him; a pit not of his making, and worse still had no chance of avoiding. “That was what all those damned ‘behind closed doors’ meetings were about, wasn’t it? Damn it all, Sunny, I still don’t have a bloody clue what’s really going on here and now I’m becoming embroiled in what – attempted government assassinations of political opponents? Is that what this is?”
“You’re not far off the truth” Sunny replied.
“For Celestia’s sake, I have a wife and child, Sunny, you had no right to drag me into this bloody mess.” Runcy threw up his forelegs, “For that matter, I don’t even damned well know what it is!”
Sunny sighed, “You know about the negotiations with the changeling Queen, don’t you?” Runcy nodded. “But you may not be aware that the ‘expedition’ Celestia spoke of was in reality a punitive expedition into their territory around the time of the attack on Canterlot. An expedition that took us from war, to near genocide.” Sunny shook his head, “Runcy, Celestia knows that we know.”
“Well so what? Did she seriously think ponies wouldn’t find out eventually?” Runcy snorted, “And even if they did, who would believe it?”
“Very true.” The old pegasus nodded slowly, “But do you remember what we said about how she wasn’t able to fight off the changeling queen, the way she is using fillies to control the elements of harmony?” Sunny took a breath and rubbed his eyes, “Many of us have heard rumours, stories from long ago, about a ‘relationship’ Celestia had with a being from another world, one who stole her heart – and her power.”
“Oh come on!” Runcy sniffed loudly, “So the old girl had a coltfriend, is that really all that surprising? She’s probably had more stallions in the sack than I’ve got hairs on my arse. Why do you think so many want to join the royal guard? The pay?” Runcy barked out a laugh, “They all
fancy a shot at the big time, Sunny, so no…I wouldn’t be so quick to believe fanciful stories.”
“Fanciful?” Lord Aura replied, “You know Runcy, considering how much you like reading about your ancestors, I’m surprised to hear you dismiss it out of hoof like that.”
Runcy fixed his friend with a look, “I’m not, I’m simply suggesting that in all likelihood it was just a stallion she took a fancy to. Stories become warped over time; changed from storyteller to storyteller to make the tale more interesting to their audience.” He raised an eyebrow, “And yes, I have heard that story before – it’s as old as the hills and has more variations to it than you can shake a stick at.”
“And what about the seventh element?” Sunny asked, “The crystal of darkness? You recall what we spoke about, yes?”
Runcy’s ears perked up, “Seventh element? Ah, the crystallised darkness you spoke about that’s mentioned in Starswirl’s diary.”
The green stallion smiled, “Indeed.” At Runcy’s exasperated expression he relented, “Look, Runcy, in all honest it probably isn’t one of the elements of harmony at all, but that’s what the investigators are calling it.”
“You’ve found it?!” Runcy asked in surprise.
Sunny shook his head, “No, but we have some leads we’re looking into at the moment, and…some other projects that we’re working on.” He sat up and leaned towards his friend, “Runcy, can’t you feel it my boy? The world is on a knife edge; sure as there’s a hole in my arse, the changelings will recover their strength and come looking for blood. Next week, next year, it doesn’t matter – I can assure you they will come, and Celestia does not have the power she once had – we know that from Starswirl the Bearded’s diary. We, as a nation, do not have the strength to repel an attack from a foe such as those let alone our more, what you may call, traditional enemies.”
“But she’s already stated that the army is going to be modernised” Runcy replied honestly, “You know I have my reservations, but don’t you think you’re jumping the gun here?”
“You think?” Sunny sighed, “I don’t suppose I can blame you.” He rolled his shoulders, wincing at the aches and pains that age brought. Sunny leaned back and stared up at the lightening sky, “You remember what Starswirl said about the darkness being removed from the princess and it being lost over the forest?”
Runcy closed his eyes as realisation washed through him, “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? This ‘seventh element’ is the ‘darkness’ the wizard referred to – the power that Celestia lost.” He shook his head, “Good goddesses, Sunny, if this is true, if you find it…”
“If we find it, it could be the key to a power that we could use to bring Equestria back from the encroaching night, Runcy.” Sunny passed his friend a flask of brandy, his eyes shining with enthusiasm, “Can you imagine? The power of the princess, the strength to save our people from a fate that is simply too terrible to comprehend.” He looked about him at the orange glow of the sun, the blue of the sky tinged with its warming light, “This, Runcy, all this…is Equestria. It is our home, our heritage and our future. If we don’t protect it, if we don’t fight for it, everything our ancestors fought and died for would be for nothing. You need to face the reality of it my friend – we are facing the end. We are the last line…if we fall, the fate of our loved ones, our families and our children, will be sealed.” He clopped his friend on the shoulder, “Primus asked if you will stand with us, Runcy. Now I, as you friend, ask you: will you stand with me and fight for our home?”
Runcy felt a shiver run through him. Was all of this true? Was it…was this what Veritas had been moving towards? He felt sick inside, and yet also…excited. He’d never wanted power, he’d never wanted anything more than to see his daughter happy and healthy, but if all this was true and the changelings did strike as they had before – what would happen to Silver, to Lark, to the thousands, millions of ponies in Equestria? The changelings would see them as nothing more than food to be drained and left to die, empty, cold… and alone. He couldn’t let that happen. Dear goddesses, was this what Golden had fought for? To see their princess weakened, attacked in her own home and left lying at the hooves of one of those…those things? He felt a rush of ice cold burn through him, his ears and hooves tingling. Runcy gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes; he knew now, he knew what he had to do. Taking a cleansing breath he turned to his friend, the image of a white mare in gold and silver armour blazing in his mind,
“Tell me what I have to do.”
**********************
Coal dust, smoke, fire and heat, the sweating, heaving bodies of working ponies shovelling food into the insatiably hungry mouths of iron boilers – it was hell for some, but for others…it was home. Steam hissed incessantly around them in the eerily lit darkness of the boiler room while the shadowy figures of ponies tended the heart of the metal beast. Trestle stared in amazement at the sheer scale and wonder of it all. Above him, around him, stretching off into the distance, the enormous machinery moved with a musical rhythm all of its own. This was the heart of the ship – the sheer power of it all hidden deep down in the bowels of the iron lady, pushing her through the seas around Equestria. If there was one thing to be said about it all though; it was loud.
“These are the boilers” the unicorn mare next to him shouted, “We don’t use them all until we’re at full steam to conserve coal.”
“Don’t scrimp on my account!” Trestle quipped, “There’s plenty more where that came from!”
The mare chuckled, “We need to have enough to get to our destination though. It’s a long way to row the old girl!”
The black stallion smiled broadly, “How many work down here, Soot?”
“About eighty or so officers, stokers, fireponies and greasers” the mare bellowed, “We have two ponies per boiler, with the reserve teams up forw’d resting so we can have continuous maintenance of the engines.”
Trestle nodded, leaning close so she hear, “It must be very hard work!”
“Very!” she shouted back.
All about them the sound of the engine permeated everything. You could see it, hear it, even feel it through you – dum-da-da-dum-da, dum-da-da-dum-da…
“What do you call it?” Trestle shouted.
“Triple expansion engine” the grey and black spotted mare replied, scratching her short mane, “You see those large cylinders? They’re the pistons.” She pointed up into another part of the whirling assemblage of rods that slid up and down, round and round, in a mesmerising display of Equestrian ingenuity. “High pressure steam enters the cylinders from there, moving the first piston. From there it enters the mid-pressure cylinder and finally into the low pressure one.”
“And this moves these ‘pistons’?” Trestle asked.
Soot grinned, clearly happy to explain to another pony the intricacies of her beloved engine room, “That’s right!” They moved along, dodging past the myriad of busy engine room inhabitants, “The engines were arranged like this to help reduce vibration.” She stood on her hind legs and motioned towards the towering dark shapes above them, “You still get a bit of course, but this arrangement gives you a much smoother ride.” Soot nodded towards several unicorns, marked out more by their glowing horns than any of the meagre artificial light, “Those chaps are the oilers – they nip in and out of the old girls bits and pieces keeping her slick and well lubricated.” She gave Trestle a wink, “Good advice for any pony, wouldn’t you say?”
“She’s certainly hot and steamy” Trestle said with a smirk.
Soot gave a raunchy laugh and winked, “Come on, there’s more to see yet!”
The two moved on through the fire lit darkness. Soot was a mare of indeterminate age, and a unicorn who had served on ships at time when they were moving over from sail to steam. Here, covered in coal dust, oil and grime, the spotted mare with the smokestack cutie mark was in her own personal element, flitting for one coal blackened part of the engine to the other like some grimy butterfly. Trestle felt oddly enthralled by the situation – both the engine, and the enigmatic mare.
“This is where we control most of what goes on!” Soot shouted, “Telegraph here sends the orders down to us: slow ahead, full, reverse and so forth. We then move that lever there to confirm the order.”
“What are these things?” Trestle asked, motioning to a bank of brass flaps at the end of long pipes.
“Speaking tubes!”
“What?”
Soot leaned close to Trestle’s ear, holding up her hoof, “SPEAKING TUBES!”
“OH!” Trestle turned and bumped his muzzle into her, “SORRY!”
The mare shook her head and laughed, “DON’T WORRY, YOU GET USED TO IT!”
Trestle marvelled at the bewildering sound that permeated the air around him like a physical force. It was just…everywhere! He followed his guide into a relatively quieter room that was separated from the rest. In this one, enormous steel shafts as wide as tree trunks spun at frightening speed, through to what must have been the stern of the ship.
“Propeller shafts” Soot said, rubbing her ears, “hang on.” She lifted her hoof, “Cover your nose and blow. Helps clear the old hearing tubes!”
Trestle did so and, incredibly, it seemed to work – to a degree, “Hey Soot, what made you decide to work in an engine room then? Did you always want to do something like this?”
“Why does anypony do what they do?” Soot replied, rubbing her forehead. She took off her cap and let her short black and navy blue mane spill down her neck, “You just follow your heart, and your cutie mark.” She leaned down to rummage behind a chair, “I come here sometimes for a bit of peace with a cuppa and a sandwich.”
“Don’t you go to the canteen?” Trestle asked.
“Canteen?!” Soot laughed, “Nah. The canteen for stokers is up in the bow. By the time we got there it’d be time to come back. Don’t like us hobnobbing with the rich folks, dontcha know, what-what!”
Trestle chuckled and accepted a cup of hot tea from the mare, oblivious to the way her pale green eyes watched his every move as he swallowed each mouthful. “Hey…can I call you Trestle?” she asked.
“Sure!” Trestle replied happily. He passed the cup back which Soot accepted with a smile, “We’re friends after all, right?”
“Yeah…” Soot put her cup down and moved towards him, flicking her mane out of her eyes, “Friends…”
“Um…Soot?” Trestle looked at her, a little hint of concern in his heart, “What are you…?”
“It’s dark, it’s noisy…” Soot smiled, “Nopony will see us down here, Trestle.” She brushed past him with a light nicker, her eyes conveying more than her words ever could, “Would you like me to show you…the best part of the tour?”
The black stallion’s heart leaped into his mouth, “Soot, I can’t…I’m married, I…”
“I know.” She leaned in and nipped Trestle’s ear, sending a shock of heat burning through him, “But what happens in the stokers hold…stays in the stokers hold.” She brushed against him, turning her rump to him, “I know you want me, Trestle, I can see it in your eyes. I’ve seen it from the moment you entered my lair.” Soot licked her lips and smiled wickedly, “Do you want some, sir?”
Trestle’s defences melted like ice before the furnace and he let out a rumbling neigh, lunging forwards and grabbing the mare in his forelegs. He knew it was wrong, it was so, so wrong, and yet…the heat, the steam, the smell of the coal, oil and smoke…it was another world, another Trestle. Goddesses forgive him, he was losing control…
“Oh, Trestle!” Soot gasped as the black stallion bore her panting and snorting to the rag strewn iron decking, “Goddesses, I…” She froze, “Did you feel that?”
“Huh?” Trestle muttered, his muzzle deep in the mare’s mane.
“No, Trestle, listen…” She pushed him off her suddenly and looked to the door, “I know my ship and that wasn’t good.” Soot reached for handle, pushed down and carefully opened it. The mare’s large eyes reflected the fireball heading towards her as she stared in open mouthed horror. Suddenly, strong forelegs grabbed her and pulled her roughly away as Trestle bucked the door shut with a deafening bang. Almost immediately all other sound was drowned out by the hellish roar of flames.
“Get down!” Trestle threw himself over the stunned sailor, while flame and smoke lapped the edges of the door. What the hell was that?!
Quickly regaining her senses, Soot pushed Trestle away and reached for the door again, waving off his concerns. “Right…” Taking a breath to steady her heart, she pulled it open and gasped in horror, “Oh…oh, no…”
Trestle pushed in beside her and immediately had to look away to avoid emptying his stomach. Bodies, or rather pieces of them, lay strewn throughout the smoking wreckage of the engine room. What had once been sailors, ponies who Soot had worked with every day, had been reduced to little more than quivering lumps of meat and bone. Occasionally fragments of uniform still clung to dripping pieces of… Trestle closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, “Don’t look.”
Soot pushed him out of the way, “To hell with that! These are my crewmates, my family, and we help each other come hell or high water. We’ll have to check for survivors and see if there’s anypony we can help.” If there was anypony left to help... She took a breath and let out a resounding shout, “HEY! ANYPONY! HEY!”
“HEY!” A shout came back from the darkness, “SOOT? THAT YOU?” A grimy stallion trotted around the corner of an assemblage of pipes and valves with blood trickling from his ears, “I CAN’T HEAR A BLOODY THING!” Suddenly the ragged and half stunned creature dashed up to Soot before rubbing his ears frantically, “YOU OKAY?”
Soot nodded and clopped him on the shoulder “What happened, Crates? Did one of the boilers blow?”
The stallion shook his head, “I DON’T KNOW. I WAS WORKING ON THE NUMBER TWO EXPANSION VALVE AND THE NEXT THING I KNEW, I WAS FLAT ON MY FACE.”
Soot nodded to Trestle and Crates, “Come on, there may be more survivors!”
The engines groaned and creaked beside them, pouring steam from cracked and broken pipes, the wounds of the ship leaking its vital fluids into the cavernous engine room. Thankfully, despite everything the lights were still working. “Thank the goddesses for magic” Trestle murmured. Judging by the sheer size of where they were, finding injured and surviving ponies was going to be a task in itself, but a combination of Soot’s horn and her encyclopaedic knowledge of the vessel soon had them rounding up around thirty ponies in various conditions ranging from concussion, broken bones, to…Trestle couldn’t look, his stomach felt like emptying itself just with the little he could see.
“Bridge? Bridge! This is the engine room. Explosion between number one and number three boilers” Soot yelled into the speaking tube, “Bridge! Damn it, the tubes must have been severed.” She turned to the others, “Get that wreckage cleared away crew, if we have to get out of here in a hurry I want these damned doors accessible.”
Trestle followed where Soot was indicating and saw the twisted and torn metal that had once been two of the ships boilers, now completely unrecognisable. Fire, smoke, steam and water was everywhere. Wait…water? Trestle span round, “Soot! There’s water coming in!” Several of the crew confirmed it:
“Outer hull plates are buckled, chief, we’ve got sea water coming in here.”
“I’m on it! Cloth, get the welding gear and patching kits.”
The sound and bustle of the crew left Trestle standing lost amidst a small army of crewponies, all of them seeming to know exactly what to do with little need for Soot to do much more than join in the task of clearing the twisted metal.
“Upper hatch is clear, Chief!” A voice from up in the lofty heights of the engine room shouted down.
Soot nodded, “Thank Luna for that!” She turned to Trestle, “Keep out of the way, sweet hocks, I don’t want a high society lad like you getting his hooves chipped.”
Trestle spat, “Bollocks to that! I spent my twelfth birthday in the mines digging my first sack of coal. The Coalfords know how to work, Miss Soot.”
The mare clopped him on the rump with a cheeky wink, “Well said!” Soot turned to the others, “With a will boys!”
Work continued as magical lights flashed in the smoky and sooty darkness that covered everything in a layer of coal dust and dirt that choked the lungs, eyes and ears. Throughout it all, the filth covered ponies worked: earth ponies and unicorns, cutting, dragging, clearing, whilst others vented the steam and did what they could to avert another disaster. “Trestle, you can go up top with the wounded. The rest of us will get this fixed up.” Soot bellowed over from the control panel. Even without the engine, the noise of the ponies hard at work seemed even louder somehow.
“And leave you to have all the fun?” Trestle grabbed a piece of iron girder and threw a chain round it, “No thanks!”
Soot shook her head; she’d never understand stallions, let alone nobility. Still, a little fun with the young fellow before he went on his way would have been just the ticket on this voyage. She harrumphed; it would have been! No chance of that now, especially with the amount of injured and, goddesses help them, the dead. She’d never lost a crewpony before. Injured, yes, sick, definitely, but never killed. She couldn’t understand how it had happened either. The Queen of Waters was fairly new ship, and the boilers had only just passed their inspection last week. How the hell could two of them just blow up like that anyway? They’d had a problem last month with a fire in number three bunker, but that wasn’t-
“CHIEF!”
Soot hurried over to the crewpony staring into the now mostly cleared wreckage, “What is it?”
The stoker shook his head, “We’ve found something.” He looked up at her, lost for words.
“What the hell is that?” Soot stared at the small silver egg like thing. It had a tiny green light on it and despite being an inanimate metallic object, it somehow managed to ooze menace, sending a chill down her spine. Her horn tingled furiously. “Get away from it” she whispered, “Everypony, get the hell out of here now.”
“But chief!”
“Damn it, do as I say!” Soot gave her sticky mane a shake and rammed her hat back on her head, “You too sweet hocks.”
“No.” Trestle fixed her with a look, “I don’t leave friends in the lurch, Soot.”
“Bloody…STALLIONS!” Soot nickered and turned to the others, “Well? What the hell are you all waiting for?”
The crew watched her impassively. One of them even laughed, “We don’t abandon our posts, chief. You know that.”
A look was all it took. “Back to work then, all of you. Unicorns to me. I want that thing shielded, but for the goddesses’ sake, no direct magical fields on it. And somepony get me a line to the bridge, will you?”
“Aye, aye, chief!”
Trestle moved closer, “What the hell is that thing?”
“I don’t know” Soot replied honestly. She watched the egg like it was a snake ready to strike, “But I don’t like it, not one bit.”
“Can’t we just chuck it overboard?” Trestle asked.
Soot shook her head, “If I thought it wouldn’t just go off the moment we touched it then yes.” She saw Trestle face and nodded, “I think it’s a bomb.”
Trestle paled. A bomb? Dear goddesses, why?! Equestria had been at peace for so long and they didn’t have enemies other than…the changelings…He closed his eyes and sighed; maybe he should have paid more attention to what had been said in the meeting. He groaned inwardly; it was too bloody late now…
“CHIEF!” A voice for the top hatch called down. “Cap’n asks if you can give him any power. We’re drifting.”
Soot called up, “I can’t give him anything other than my best regards.” She took a breath, “Tell him we’ve got a problem down here and he’d better get his arse down that ladder or I’ll tell his missus what he was doing in port last Thursday!”
“So what now?” Trestle asked.
Soot shrugged, “I don’t know what makes you think I have the answer, sweet hocks” she said bitterly, “I wish I did.”
Trestle did all he could do, returning to help move the wreckage following the directions of the other crew members. At least they were making some headway, even if that…thing, that ‘bomb’ as Soot called it, was hanging over them like a headspony’s axe waiting to fall. Surely she couldn’t be right about it being a bomb though, could she? Where would anypony find such a thing anyway, and why would the changelings try to damage a steamship? Best take his mind off it and just work, just work and try to forget what he’d very nearly done with Soot. What the hell was wrong with him? Was it the oil, the smell of coat and the dark surroundings confusing his emotions? He loved his wife, loved her! How could he betray her like that? How?! Trestle gritted his teeth and hauled for all he was worth, pulling the pieces to one side and heading back for more. His jacket removed and down to his shirt sleeves, he was a mess – a black stained, sweat sodden mess, and he didn’t give a damn any more. If his wife found out, it would be all over. Goddesses forgive him… for that matter he couldn’t forgive himself.
“What’s the damage chief?” a pony in a dark blue tunic with brass buttons appeared through the gloom from the upper gantry. “Captain wants a report asap.”
Soot shook her head, “Have a look for yourself.”
The officer followed her over to where the other unicorns had thrown up glowing overlapping shields around the mysterious device. “What is that?”
“Hell if I know” Soot shrugged, “But I’ve had two boilers blow, my crewmates killed and now there’s something that’s radiating magic unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.” She gave her ear a scratch and huffed, “I’m not one for melodrama, Lieutenant, but I’d say this is some sort of energetic thaumaturgical containment vessel.”
“A what?” The lieutenant asked.
Soot turned to stare at the silver egg shaped thing, “A bomb.”
“A bomb?!” The officer frowned at the device and shook his head, “Are you sure, chief? The captain trusts you, and so do I, but a bomb?”
“Best I can offer” Soot replied, “But if it’s not a bomb, then are you willing to take the chance and leave it here?”
“Can we move it?” the lieutenant asked.
Soot shook her head, “Without knowing how it activates? No. All we can do is keep the thing contained and…” The lieutenant slowly turned, looking up to where the loud groaning was coming from. Soot was already moving, “Hell fire! We have to open the emergency release valves or we’ll have more than crap on our hooves!” Quickly jumping from one part of the engine room controls to another, the chief engineer shoved her crew out of the way, nursing the engine’s controls, “Damp down those bloody boilers!” she shouted, “Open the vents in the upper-”
Trestle ducked instinctively. Scalding hot air as thick as a brick wall blew him off his hooves as it howled through the engine room, an untamed wild hurricane of fury burning all it touched. Screams of pain from the scalded ponies mingled with another – his own. His ears, his forelegs and shoulders, neck…dear goddesses…he was on fire! Celestia help him, he was going to die down here, lost in the darkness – alone, lost and-
“Trestle!”
The stallion opened his eyes, staring up wildly into the face of Soot. He tried to speak, to say something, but his throat was fire, his body burning coals – goddesses help him, it wouldn’t stop, it wouldn’t stop!
“TRESTLE! Look at me, look only at me, we’re going to get you out of here, okay? Can you hear me?” Soot went to touch him and hesitated, looking down at the steaming…thing before her. She swallowed, “Somepony help! Get us some bloody help down here!” As if in answer to her cries the main doors burst open, the relief stoker crew having battered their way through the last of the wreckage emerged into the charnel house of smoke, steam and fire. Soot stood and gave her orders quickly, sending the wounded out and replacing those simply too exhausted to continue. Covered in scalds, his fur hanging off him in blistered, matted folds, the once magnificent black stallion was loaded into a makeshift stretcher made from old sacking and carried out to safety. Soot watched him go. It was probably just as well – poor guy, she hoped he’d be alright. The two of them seemed to have quite a bit in common, if you liked engines. Strange that, really. Nobles didn’t usually have any interest in mechanical things, and goddesses forbid they might get their oiled and polished hooves dirty. But Trestle…now he was different from most she’d met. Perhaps in some other world, some other time, the two of them really could have had something beyond a quick romp in the engine room storage cupboard. And she hadn’t even had that! She smiled bitterly; perhaps one day she’d see him again. She turned to stare at the small silver egg and her smile faded.
Perhaps…
Trestle felt and saw nothing of his surroundings. Everything in his world had been reduced to nothing more than a screaming endless crescendo of white hot agony, his body shrieking its messages into his brain from his tortured hide. Every movement, every jolt, was like he was being sandpapered down to the bone. He’d never live through this – never! “Illustria…I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry…” he muttered, “I’m so sorry…” About him the stokers, gripping the corners of the tarpaulin in their mouths or magic, hurtled up the stairs, never faltering on their way up to the corridor that lead into the crew sickbay. They were still running when the blast rocked the floor beneath them and sent both them and their injured charge crashing into the wall. Trestle shrieked in pain and quickly, mercifully, felt the darkness of unconsciousness pulling at him, taking him down and away into its indifferent embrace. Darkness…empty, cold, wet… All around, voices, muffled and distant came and went with the calming, swaying motion. It was peaceful here, quiet and calm; he wanted to stay…stay forever.
Trestle sighed, letting his mind set itself adrift, barely noticing the green flash that illuminated the world about him. He couldn’t see nor hear much at all now, and it was just as well really…just as well… He deserved this: death. He had dishonoured his family name, his father, his mother, and most of all his beloved Illustria. She would hate him now, and she would be right to. He was a betrayer, a liar, and a pony who wasn’t fit to be called a stallion any more…if he ever had been. Trestle wanted to simply go now, to be cast adrift on the endless seas to vanish into the oblivion of nothingness. It was over, all of it…betrayer… Whether time passed, whether the universe had come to an end and sucked him down into the void, he neither cared nor wanted to feel anything at all. It was time to go, to let go and simply...disappear.
“Hey buddy, give me a hoof with him.”
“Buck me, look at the state of him. You sure he’s alive?”
“Hang on…yeah, he’s breathing – barely.”
“Help me get him loaded boys. Pilot Feather, get your arse up front and kick it into gear girl. This
fella’s gonna need some serious TLC.”
“What’s the point, skip, he’s a goner. Look at him!”
“Belt up and do as you’re bloody well told!”
“Waste of my bloody time…”
Stars came and went. The sky, the blue of day, the sun, the moon, darkness – it was all a jumble now of colours, hues, bright light and the nothingness of the void. Death wasn’t so bad, really. It was just…different, that was all. A bright light appeared over Trestles head, blinding what little sight he had left. The herd was here, they were calling him at last. For what he was worth, he wouldn’t have bothered.
“Nurse, more of the silverwood cream please.”
Trestle could hear the voices, whoever, whatever they were. He wasn’t even sure they were voices – nothing really mattered now after all.
“What about his hooves, doctor?”
“Hmm…no, they’re not too bad. Concentrate on all the affected areas, but make sure you cover the rest of him as well. Several coats should do for now, and then we can wrap him.”
Time probably passed; somehow, somewhere, all according to the unfathomable whims of the gods and goddesses of whoever believed in them. Hah! Who did? If they did, then things like this simply wouldn’t happen would they? Pain, suffering, the sightless, blinding white nothingness. No, if the goddesses were real, if Celestia and Luna were themselves deities, then how could this, any of this, ever happen? Trestle’s consciousness began to waver in and out, taking him from a muzzy, empty void, to a simple nothingness, a sleep like state of peace he never wanted to wake up from. In fact, all he wanted now was to simply let go, to just…drift…
“Hoy!” A voice floated over to him, bright a chirpy, “Hey, you okay there sweet hocks?”
Sweet hocks…nopony called him that but…Trestle opened his eyes into the white light. A pair of big bright eyes stared straight into his, her dappled coat surprisingly clean beneath that mop of mane. Soot smiled at him and winked mischievously, “See you made it then.” She chuckled, “All the bits that matter, anyway.”
Trestle stared down at himself and looked back at her in bewilderment, “Soot? I…am I dead?”
“Dunno, do you feel dead?” she asked.
“How the bloody hell should I know?!” The black stallion snorted and span around in a circle checking his body over, “I’m…I’m not hurt?”
“Nope.” Soot slowly walked around him and gave him the odd prod, “Everything in full working order, my inquisitive stallion.” She shook her head, “Come on then, the rest are waiting for us.”
Trestle hesitated, “Rest?” He blinked and there, just on the edge of his vision, he could see them – the ponies from the engine room: Crates, Cloth, and more, many, many more, all walking towards one single point in the blinding brilliance. He looked around himself and sighed; so… this was it then eh? What a way to go... The queue of ponies was surprisingly quiet, with many of them bearing expressions of surprise, wonderment, confusion, and occasionally…fear. Trestle frowned to himself for even bothering to question such things. After all, did it matter any more? He’d miss Illustria of course, but she’d be here one day and rejoin him. But…what if she found somepony else when she found out he’d passed over to the herd? What then? Oh, Celestia, it didn’t… He sighed and shook his head. Perhaps…perhaps this was just the way of things. Perhaps death, like life, would have a path laid out for him – hopefully one that didn’t end up in searing agony. He shuddered and moved along with the queue, slowly meandering towards a destination that nopony there seemed to even question. What would be the point if they did? Still, at least Soot was there, the pony he’d flung himself on and…well, it was probably best not to think about that too much. Anyway, in the light, clean and trim, she looked completely different. Was it the darkness, the grease, oil and smell of the machinery that had spun his head so completely? She was a quite attractive mare, granted, but looking at her now, he just couldn’t see what had gotten into him. Strange…very strange indeed.
“Name?”
“Soot Smudge.”
The alicorn behind the desk tapped his quill against his bottom lip and ran a hoof down the list of names in the huge book open before him. “Ah, here you are.” The quill floated down into the ink well before being passed to the dappled mare, “Sign here please.”
Soot took the quill in her own magic and passed it back. “What now?” she asked.
The alicorn waved towards a door that simply hung with no visible signs of support in the air a few feet to the left of him. The previous pony had gone through and left it open, leaving a view of the interior of a rather neat office where a black coated mare with half moon spectacles sat behind a desk covered in paperwork. Beside her a green stallion and purple mare stared out at the proceedings. “Soot? SOOT!” The purple mare cried out in joy and ran towards them, her black mane flying out behind her, “Oh, goddesses, my daughter! My beautiful, beautiful baby foal!”
Soot frowned in confusion, “Mum?”
The green stallion trotted close behind her, his hat tilted to one side above a slightly long suffering expression that belied the fact he looked no older than their daughter. “Hello, love” the stallion said in a matter-of-fact manner. He shook his head, “I told you something like this would happen one day, didn’t I?”
“Oh, don’t start that, Brindle!” the mare tutted, rolling her eyes. She suddenly took in the black coated stallion and frowned, “Who’s this?”
“Oh!” Soot released her mother and wiped her eyes before turning to Trestle, “This is my…erm, friend, Trestle.”
“Is it now…” Soot’s father gave Trestle a look that suggested he was not impressed at all. “And you are…what, to my daughter?”
“f…friend, FRIEND!” Trestle coughed, “Yes! Friend!”
Soot chuckled, “Well, come on then ‘friend’, get yourself signed in and let’s see what’s what, eh?”
Trestle nodded. Everything was happening so fast, he didn’t know which way to turn! Taking a breath, he turned to the alicorn and reached for the quill.
“Name?”
“Oh! Erm, Trestle. Trestle Coalford.”
The golden coated alicorn narrowed his eyes and turned the page in his magic, flipping it back and forth. “You’re not on the list.”
“I…I’m what?” Trestle’s heart skipped a beat.
The alicorn shook his head, “No, I can honestly say, you’re not on my list.” He tried a smile, “Sorry about that.”
“Wh…hang on, what do you mean you’re ‘sorry about that’?!” Trestle snorted, “I’m dead!”
“Well it would seem that you are somewhat mistaken on that point” the alicorn replied a little sarcastically, “Now move to one side if you please, I have other ponies waiting you know.”
“Hey, now hang on a minute!” Trestle banged his hoof on the desk loudly, “You can’t just dismiss me like that! What am I supposed to do?!”
The alicorn looked down at Trestle’s hoof and scowled, “Do?” he asked, “Well you can take your hoof off my desk first of all, this is teak you know, not any old rubbish.”
Trestle’s anger began to bubble up, “Sod your bloody desk!” he snapped, “What about me?”
The alicorn sighed and adjusted his spectacles, putting his quill down pointedly, “Listen, Mr. Coalford, the eternal herd is for ponies who have expired. You, however, are not. If you were, you’d be in my book. You are not, therefore you are very much alive.” He flexed his wings and raised an eyebrow, “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Of course, I’m not an idiot!” Trestle snorted loudly, “I…what, I’m still alive? Then…what am I doing here?”
“It happens from time to time,” the alicorn said with a dismissive wave of his hoof, “I suppose you’ve heard the expression ‘half dead’?” Trestle nodded. “Well, in this case, you quite literally, are.” The strange alicorn raised hoof to forestall him, “Look, just wait over there. You’re already beginning to re-corporealise.”
“Re- what?” Trestle looked down at his body, “I…I can see through myself! Oh, goddesses, I’m a ghost?”
“Gods give me strength…” The alicorn rubbed his face with his foreleg, “No, you’re not a ghost, your soul is going back to your mortal body, that’s all.”
“Oh, well that’s alright then isn’t it!” Trestle’s heart was hammering in his chest, “Bloody hell fire, haven’t I been through enough? What-”
“Trestle?”
The black stallion turned to face the dappled mare who reached out to him and planted a kiss right on his muzzle, “Before you go, this is for you.” She pulled him into the kiss, long and deep, folding her forelegs around him and indulging in the startled stallion until she’d had her fill. Gradually, Soot moved away breathily, “Pity we didn’t have any more time for… ‘other’ activities, sweet hocks,” she whispered in his ear, “Remember me, and the rest of us, okay?”
“Y…yeah…” Trestle shivered, his lips tingling with the afterglow of the kiss. He watched her, saw her waving to him as she walked through the door with her parents, disappearing, the white clouds swallowing her, the pony standing over him…
“Shhh…don’t move, you’ve been through a great deal, my friend. You need rest now; plenty of rest.” The teal stallion motioned to a nurse in a pink uniform who passed him a clipboard, “We’ve covered you in a cream which will help regenerate the skin, so you’ll find your movement is going to have to be restricted for a few days while it takes effect. We’ve covered your body in a breathable wrap that will help the medication stay fresh and do its job.” He motioned to the nurse, “If you need to go to the toilet then the nurse will take care of that for you. For now, just try and relax while you get well.”
“D…Doctor…” Trestle tried, his throat raspy and dry.
“Yes?”
“Did…did anypony else…make it?”
The doctor nodded, “Many did I’m please to say, but the casualty list is still being sorted out by the port authorities. Was there anypony in particular you were wanting to find out about?”
Trestle went to nod instinctively but forced himself to remain still as the doctor had instructed, “My…my friend, Lord Runcy…Runcible Spoon, and the chief engineer, Soot Smudge.”
The doctor nodded to the nurse who made a note, “I promise we’ll do our best to find out for you, Lord Coalford.”
And with that the sound of hooves faded away into the distance. White light, a different light, made the room feel suddenly cold and sterile. Occasionally a different coloured light would blink and he found himself counting the seconds before each flash: one, two, three, flash, one, two, three, flash, one… Slowly, gently, Trestle drifted off into a fitful sleep. There, the darkness and gentle nothingness of a dreamless sleep awaited him, and he was glad of it. The terror of the engine room: the sounds, the steam, the screams of the wounded and dying – he would never forget…never. “Soot…” he whispered helplessly, “I’m sorry, I’m so, so, sorry…” He sniffed back a tear but even that stung.
“Tres?”
Trestle opened his watery eyes to a tissue dabbing his cheeks and the blurred image of a mare in a pink and white dress, “Can you hear me?” Trestle took a sip of water from the tube the medical team had left near his mouth. As kind and thoughtful as that was, he couldn’t help but feel like some bizarre medical experiment. “Lusi?” he breathed, “Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me, who did you expect? ‘Soot’?” The mare huffed, “Well, I suppose I should be glad you’re back here alive and…not so well.”
Trestle closed his eyes and sighed; he deserved this, and Illustria’s reaction was all too typical. He loved her, he really did, but sometimes she just had this matter-of-fact way about her that made him feel as though he were a piece of furniture. Still, he’d never lied to her, and he wouldn’t now.
“Who’s Soot? One of your friends?” She asked.
Trestle swallowed, keeping his eyes staring at the ceiling, “She was one of the stokers on the Queen of Waters – the chief engineer.”
“Oh?” Illustria took a grape from the fruit bowl and munched on it thoughtfully, “And where is she now?”
“I don’t know” Trestle replied honestly, “I think…I think she’s with the herd now.”
There was a long pause. “Tres, did you and her, ‘do’ anything together?” She paused, “Please, tell me the truth.”
Trestle felt another tear trickle down his cheek, “I kissed her.” A flood of guilt seared through him as hot as his skin… and it hurt…it hurt so much more than the pain of the scalds. “I lost control.”
“Was she beautiful?” Illustria asked calmly, “A mare with fine curves, sleek legs and a tail trimmed just so?”
Now she was baiting him. Trestle fought back the urge to shout, to scream and howl to the world how sorry he was. Goddesses, this was torture – worse than torture even! He gritted his teeth and kept his voice level, “No, she was quite plain really. Early twenties, covered in oil, sweat and grease from working down in the engine room.” Trestle waited for coming storm.
“Hmm, you know, I thought it was something like that.” The terracotta mare took another grape and popped it into Trestle’s mouth, “You do talk quite a lot in your sleep, Tres.”
A shiver ran through the black stallion’s body as tears sprung anew from his burning eyes, “I’m sorry, Lusi.”
“I know,” she said calmly, “I thought something like this might happen. There you are, a young stallion in your prime: wealthy, handsome, and with no wife in tow. How could any mare resist such a tempting prize?” Illustria sighed, “Is that what you liked about me? That I was a ‘plain’ girl?” Trestle could see her now, in her farmers garb covered in mud and straw, looking at him with that curious expression of hers that he’d fallen so hopelessly in love with. He smiled, “I fell in love with the farmer’s daughter. Muddy, sweaty from a days work and with straw in her mane.” He gritted his teeth, trying to fight back the emotion, “I loved her from the first day I met her. And now, I’ve lost her. I never deserved her in the first place.”
“No…no you didn’t.” The mare moved closer and stared into Trestle’s eyes; her terracotta coat, as fragrant as it had ever been, smelled of fresh hay and strawberries, her emerald green eyes as bright as gemstones glistening with tears of her own. She brushed her cream and white striped mane to one side and planted a gentle kiss on his muzzle, “But I still love you, even if you were unfaithful to me.”
“Oh…oh, goddesses, Lusi, I’m…”
“Stop it.” She kissed his again and grinned broadly, “You haven’t lost me, silly. And anyway…I’m the one who should be saying sorry.” She sighed, “I nearly lost you, and here I am, fussing about something like you snogging a boiler room mare.”
Trestle opened his mouth to reply, but couldn’t. It wouldn’t make any difference; what he had done he had done and Illustria knew it. Suddenly she grabbed his muzzle and pulled him into a deep kiss, huffing and pawing at him with a frightening urgency that took Trestle’s breath away. “Lusi…Lusi, Ouch! Ow, hey! Careful!” Trestle winced as his wife, lost in her own world of need, grabbed him around the neck.
“No” she whispered into his ear, “I need to wash you clean. I have to drive any thoughts from your mind of that ‘other mare’ and remind you why, Mister Coalford, that you are mine.” Illustria licked the edge of his ear, eliciting a whimper despite his condition. “You know, seeing you wrapped up here like a ham in a griffin’s shop, is quite useful really.”
“It…it is?” Trestle croaked nervously.
“Mmm…” Illustria smiled, “I can do whatever I want to you, and you can’t lift a hoof to stop me.”
“What…?” Trestle froze as he felt a hoof trace down his side. The crinkling noise of the sheeting sounded like crackles of electricity, her hoof little more than a faint sensation down his flank.
“Hello…” Illustria’s voice drifted up from the bottom of the bed, “Everything still intact I see. Pity about your tail, but that’ll grow back.”
“My tail?” A sudden thought rushed through Trestle’s mind – his tail had… “OH! Oh, goddesses…!”
A muffled voice came back to him from the depths, “Oh…shush…”
********************
“What do you mean ‘nothing’?” Twilight threw her hooves up in the air in disbelief, “you must have seen something! Come on Spike, think!”
The little dragon frowned, “I keep telling you, Twi, all I did was touch the book and you collapsed. A few seconds later and here we are.” He looked into her eyes helplessly, “Oh, come on Twi, give me a break!”
Twilight clucked her tongue, “I know Spike, but it just doesn’t make any sense. I was just sitting here, like this and then you touched the diary. You, not me! How can you-”
“You had your left hoof on the bed” Spike said quietly. He lifted Twilights foreleg, “There you go, like that.”
Twilight froze, looking at the still sleeping filly, the place the diary had been, and...wait...of course! “Thaumaturgical conduction theory and practice!”
Spike rolled his eyes, “I’ll go and get the book then...” Solemnly he stomped off down the stairs while Twilight stood up.
“Oops! Better keep it down or we’ll both be in bother.” Quickly and quietly, she hurried down the stairs to the ground floor and set up a sound deadening spell around the bedroom – far simpler to do that then to cover the whole of the library. Of course, it also avoided the distinct possibility of having to deal with overtired fillies.
“Here you go,” Spike said passing Twilight a green fabric bound tome, “Thaumaturgical Conduction, Theory and Practice, by Professor Thumble Crumbs.” He chuckled, “Wouldn’t like cleaning up after him with a name like that!”
Twilight clucked her tongue at Spike’s terrible pun and took the book in her magic, floating the ancient publication over to the reading table. In typical Twilight style, she quickly located the chapter she’d been looking for, “Here” she said taking a sip of her cocoa, “This chapter is all about infusing magic into inanimate objects so that they can be accessed at a later date. It’s a sort of magical memory storage device creator.”
Spike sniffed, “Naturally.”
“But this is some seriously advanced stuff, Spike. What’s puzzling me is that since the diary was written as a place to record memories in the first place, why bother placing a spell on it? Was it to take the reader into the memory of the writer to give a visual reference to the text?” She tapped her chin in thought, “But if that were so, how did this affect Silver the way it did and how is Erin connected to this?” She shook her head, “Or is he in her head at all? Hmm...”
“Um, who’s Erin?” Spike asked.
Twilight waved the question off and turned back to the book, “I wonder if memories can become trapped somehow in the magic of the spell – not the ones the creator intended, but others...” She nodded quietly to herself, “Spells can deteriorate over time and this one is one of the oldest i’ve ever seen.”
“How can you tell?” Spike asked.
Twilight shrugged, “It’s just a feeling you get; like walking into a really old house.” She turned the page and read on, “It’s possible the spell is becoming unstable and that means potentially unpredictable too.” She huffed and gave herself a shake, “I don’t like it Spike, and I don’t think young Miss Spoon here should be reading any more of them either.”
“More adult orientated, huh?” The little dragon asked.
Twilight shook her head and shut the book with a snap, “No, I mean it’s dangerous. We need to isolate the spell until we can repair it or remove it.”
“Um, we have though haven’t we?” Spike asked. He began picking his sharp teeth with an equally sharp claw, “It’s in the isolation box, so it can’t cause any more harm.”
“Well we can’t leave it in there forever can we?” Twilight said, flicking a speck of dust off the lid with her tail, “We’re going to have to do some more research and find out what’s what!”
Spike sighed and got to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Twilight asked in surprise.
The little dragon wandered off into the kitchen, carrying the tray of empty mugs, “I think we’re going to need a refill.”
Twilight smiled and settled back into an enjoyable evening of her favourite pastime. Chalk dust flew, scrolls were consulted, books checked and diagrams and magical charts laid out for quick reference. Soon, covered in ink smudges, pencil rubbings and chalk, Twilight made the final adjustment to her calculations and tapped the focussing crystal above the brass framework which Spike was still setting up around the containment box.
“Are you sure this is safe?” Spike asked, “Maybe it’s best left in the box?”
Twilight carefully adjusted one of the frames nodes, “And how would we learn anything then? Come on Spike, where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Asleep in my bed” Spike muttered.
Twilight peered at him over her spectacles, “What’s that?”
Spike twisted the last part of the frame into place, “Ready when you are!”
Twilight rolled her eyes and returned to indulging herself in her craft. The frame, a set of bronze, brass and silver worked rods and wires, held magically charged crystals and gemstones that had been calibrated to precise thaumaturgical wavelengths. She took a sip of her cocoa and felt the electric thrill of excitement make her tail tingle. She’d been waiting for this; to be able to try out her newest acquisition – the…
“Magical Inference and Materialisation Grid – Mark Two.” Spike read from the cover of the box, “Mysteries of the Arcane, REVEALED!!!” He turned the box over and clucked his tongue, “This device should not be used in an urban environment. Recommended minimum safe distance for activation is two hundred yards. Do not allow children to play with this device. Risk of fire,
electrocution, drowning and explosion.” He looked up, “Sounds perfectly safe to me” Spike said sarcastically, “It goes on for another paragraph about the various mortality risks. Do you want me to go on?”
“Don’t be such a worry wart,” Twilight said, channelling magic into her horn, “you can’t learn anything without taking a few risks.”
“You did hear me read out the ‘minimum safe distance’ part, right?” Spike asked, “We’re kinda indoors here, so rather than two hundred yards, we’re more sort of ‘one’?”
Twilight ignored him, “Put your glasses on spike.”
“Oh, joy...”
“Ready?” Twilight took a breath, barely able to contain her excitement. “Lets do science!” A quick pulse of magic from her horn and the frame began to hum into life, sending a warm tingling sensation through her. The feel of a magical field building up was familiar, and yet always that little bit different each time. Every unicorn had their own unique ‘frequency’ of magic, it was one of the ways she could nearly always tell Starswirl’s spells from other wizards, but this one was very strange indeed. It was as if something had intruded on the original magical hoofprint and tried to overlay it somehow. It was probably her imagination, but worth noting for later. In matters of research, you never overlooked anything no matter how small. Twilight nodded to Spike, “Now!”
Obediently, the little dragon, sporting his thick goggles, apron, thick gloves and long iron tongs, gripped the edge of the containment box’s lid and paused, “Um, Twi? The girls?”
Twilight’s attention never wavered, “Shield spell.”
“Ah...” Spike shook his head and carefully lifted the lid, flinching back as if something was about to attack him – it wasn’t. Slowly he opened his eyes and stared up at the large green image of what looked like some sort of green box made up of lines that pulsed with unseen energy. “Well, that was unexpected.”
Glowing and pulsing, the thin cube shape hung suspended in the air above the large red focusing crystal. Twilight’s eyes went wide, “Excellent...” She lifted a small sheet of paper in her hoof, nodded, and began making notes furiously. Meanwhile, Spike sat back and watched with a mixture of fascination and boredom as Twilight’s magic pulsed, making the image of the cube rotate, focussing, zooming in and out – it was quite awkward on the eyes really. He shrugged and munched down another biscuit; it didn’t do to interrupt Twilight when she was on one of her ‘exploratory research missions’, even one’s that had him genuinely intrigued. He’d had a look at the diary
himself, but it hadn’t done anything to him – perhaps it just didn’t work on dragons. Just in case, he checked his claws and tail – all still very much attached. Twilight was in her element now well and truly, rushing about here and there, tweaking this, twiddling that. He hadn’t seen her this lost in her work for quite some time, and to be fair, it was good to see her happy like this. Twilight was a young mare who loved nothing better than studying things, and this, whatever it was, was just the thing for her. She’d been strangely distant of late, and it all started around the time the Starswirl exhibit came to Ponyville. Whatever it was bothering her though, she’d never told him, but she’d been spending a lot more time than usual lost in her books and travelling to Canterlot or the ruins of the old castle to find ancient books. He grinned to himself; pity she hadn’t found a spell to change her coat colour lavender again! Now, if only he could find his camera…
“Spike...” Twilight’s voice was a low whisper, “I’ve done it.”
“Huh? Done what?” Spike brushed the evidence of his latest biscuit away from his muzzle, “Why is it glowing like that?”
Twilight’s eyes gleamed in the bright green light, “Because I fixed it.”
“What, you fixed the spell?” Spike asked, genuinely surprised.
Twilight nodded, “It was a memory spell, locked into the diary.” She motioned towards the cube as it simply sat there, still...and silent, “I was right when I said the spell was designed to work alongside the written word. It was clever, very clever indeed, but despite some deterioration It looks like somepony has interfered with it.” She lifted her notepad and drained the last of her cocoa, “I found a newer spell – one that appears to have been deliberately designed to alter a readers perception, effectively making them ‘think’ like the character in the memory.”
“What, so you think somepony reading it would start thinking they were somepony else?” Spike asked.
Twilight nodded, “That’s my guess.” She glanced up at the balustrade and the ponies sleeping beyond, “I think that’s what happened to Silver Spoon. The memory of her ancestor affected her quite profoundly – possible more than it would with a non-family member because of the genetic disparities.”
“But you managed to get rid of it, right?” Spike asked, “I mean, the diary is safe now, yeah?”
The once lavender unicorn grinned broadly, “Do you want to find out?”
“EH?! NO!” Spike squeaked, “I’m not touching that thing!”
“Suit yourself.” Twilight stood up and brushed herself off, “I think I’ll go and have look for myself at this ‘Golden Spoon’. She sounds like quite the mare.”
“You’re not going into that diary thing again are you?” Spike shot to his feet and rushed over to his friend, grabbing her leg in his little claws, “Don’t! Please, Twi, I don’t think it’s safe.”
Twilight gently moved him away, “Thanks Spike.” She gave him a kiss on the forehead, “But research is never without some risk. Anyway, I’ve fixed the spell and the intrusive one has been removed so there’s nothing to worry about.” Spike’s worried expression gave her pause, “Spike,
honestly, it’s perfectly safe. You can always stay here if you want to.”
“What if we need to get out in a hurry?” Spike asked, “Twilight, I don’t-”
“Here.” Twilight showed him a blue gemstone on a gold cord, “I’ve tuned it to the spell. If we’re in there more than an hour, it’ll break the spell matrix and pull us out.”
“Us?”
“I’ve made one each.” Twilight raised an eyebrow, “If you’d been paying more attention instead of eating all the biscuits, you’d have seen me doing it!”
“Oh...” Spike stared at the open packet and the crumbs inside, “So...it’s safe though?”
“Mmhmm!” Twilight nodded towards the cube floating over the diary, “Hold my hoof.”
Hesitantly Spike reached out, “Okay, so what happens ne-”