Sharpeyes took her back down to the cave mouth she expected; the one that Luna and Summer Lightning had discovered before, halfway down the mountain, not too far from the cave with the pool and the mysterious old bowl.
That's a good sign, Luna thought. It's less likely, then, that Trixie is wandering somewhere within the labyrinth. Finding her in there would be difficult -- and essential, because she might die if she couldn't find her way back to the pool. But she more likely fled down the mountain, along that ledge. Dangerous for a Unicorn -- but then, Trixie does not lack for courage. Common sense, perhaps, but not courage.
"Hast thou scouted down along the ledge?" Luna asked. "And below?" It was easy, sometimes, for Pegasi to forget the limitations of wingless Ponies.
"Yes, Ma'am," replied the Pegasus. "Along -- and on the mountainside and in the forest below." He looked very solemn at that, and Luna suspected he was not innocent of the sight of what happened when a flightless Pony fell hundreds of lengths down. "There was no sign of her, save --" he pulled out a small piece of purple cloth. "I found that, caught on a rock -- there, just beneath that part of the ledge." He wing-pointed down theledge a ways. "By that outcropping, and beneath a bit."
Luna peered at the outcropping. It would force anypony on foot to walk a dangerously-narrow path around it. She could easily see how Trixie might have come to grief there.
She darted over to investgate more closely, Sharpeyes following.
Immediately, she saw the crucial clue; hovered to view it more closely.
"Here,"she said. "I can see where the ledge crumbled. And here, Trixie's hooves scuffed the dirt when she tried to keep her footing. Just below, she scrabbled to try to climb back up."
Sharpeyes followed her indications, nodded. "Do you think she went all the way down, Ma'am?"
Luna slowly descended the mountainside, lowering herself in a hover. "I see no signs of further scrapings on the rock -- neither blood nor hide, and this be not a truly sheer drop." She looked down. "The canopy be undisturbed." She dipped below, stood on the ground a moment. "Neither body, nor blood. She did not fall, or if she fell, she somehow managed to avoid a severe impact."
"She must have managed to get back on the ledge," commented Sharpeyes.
"Mayhaps," said Luna, flitting back up again. "She of a surety did not drop that distance straight, or bouncing off the rocks, without taking severe harm. If she survived that, we should expect to find her wounded on the ground. If not --" she left that unfinished, for it was obvious.
"Yes, Ma'am," agreed Sharpeyes. "We found no further sign of her along the ledge. Nor any place where she might have readily hidden. And I cannot believe that she simply galloped down the mountain, unseen and unheard, while we searched -- without us noticing her."
"T'would be uncommon dull-eyed of ye, Sharp-eyes," Luna agreed. She returned to the ledge from which Trixie had fallen -- or not fallen. "Might she have levitated, I wonder?" Levitation was advanced magic, but Trixie had her blood, and perhaps with it elemental power over Gravity?
Luna concentrated, her horn flourescing as she tried to sense psycho-kinetic residues. She detected a residue -- but it was not of any levitation spell. It was akin to teleportation -- also advanced magic -- but it was more.
"A Gate," Luna declared. "Someone opened a short-term Gate here, and I think Trixie went through it."
"Do you mean teleportation?" asked Sharpeyes. "Ma'am?" he remembered at the last minute to add.
"Akin to it," explained Luna. "A teleporting Unicorn opens a very small spacewarp, just enough for her body and what she bears to pass through to another location. A Gate, though -- that's much more powerful, it's a temporary linkage between two points in spacetime. One can pass through a Gate -- or reach through it, to pull somepony else through to the other side."
"Could Trixie have done that, Ma'am?" asked Sharpeyes.
"I would be great surprised if she could," replied Luna. "That be very advanced magic. I or my Sister could do it, and probably some other high mages, but if Trixie knew magic at that level, she would not have been wandering the land giving performances from a little varda-wagon. Which she lost," Luna remembered. "No -- someone else has meddled here -- and I would guess, saved Trixie from a fatal fall."
"But whom, Ma'am?" asked Sharpeyes, looking about nervously, as if expecting to see a powerful Unicorn mage watching them from an adjacent hill. "And where are they now?"
"As to thy last question, a mage with that skill might be many miles, even hundreds of miles, from here," said Luna, also looking around, and seeing nothing. "As to thy first --" She whiffed the residue, with scent beyond scent.
She got a surprise.
"Paradise?" she gasped. She had a brief flash of memory -- of being the Cosmic Concept of Gravity, in the form of a vast sphere with too many heads and horns and wings, raining destruction upon a now-forever-lost alternate Earth. While one brave little pink mare, and her friends, defied her from an island at the top of the world. She had fought the Pinkie Pie who had been, then, and neither for the first nor the last time, fought her own Sister ...
"Ma'am?"
Luna realized that she must have been lost in a trance of memory. She had no idea what it had looked like from the outside, but Sharpeyes looked a bit shaken.
"Yes, Sharpeyes?" she asked. "Be anything amiss?"
"You were ... floating ... and glowing ..."
"Oh. I do that, sometimes. Never mind it. Now hush."
She bent again to the magescent. No, it was not the Paradise Entity. Not precisely. It was closer to a Pony. Closer to ... Pinkie Pie? But not precisely her, either. One of her kin, Luna thought. Definitely, one of her kin.
It also reminded her a bit of that strange blue fluffy Pony who had greeted her at South Dunnich. But not precisely her, either.
Something strange was happening around South Dunnich, Luna realized. But she wasn't sure what. And had no idea of whether or not it was hostile.
The Paradise Entity did not seem to be hostile, not any more. It had, in the person of its scion, Pinkie Pie, helped to free her from the Nightmare.
Luna decided to be diplomatic when next she met it, or its agents. It was no longer her foe. It might even be her friend, now. If she didn't turn it against her.
And she would be meeting it relatively soon. For she would not permit it to take Trixie Lulamoon, who was not only an escapee from her lawful custody, but also her own descendant, from her power. She would be polite about it, but she would find out what had happened to the itinerant magician.
She wasn't particularly worried that Trixie had been hurt, though. The Paradise Entity had always been benign to Ponykind: she remembered from Moondreamer that the inital program had been instructed to safeguard Pony lives against harm. It had saved Trixie from a possibly-fatal fall, and it was probably keeping her alive and well right now.
She did want to understand its purpose in this worldline. She knew it had first touched here over a thousand years ago, before the fall of the Crystal Empire. Iolite Quartz had been its prophet and priestess. But it had been still very weak -- then.
A lot could have happened in more than a millennium. Its power might well have grown.
"I think Trixie lives," said Luna. "She has found rescue. For now, I will see to Lieutenant Lightning. Search the area for any further clues to Trixie's location. Report back to me after you have made a thorough sweep."
"Yes, Ma'am." He swallowed hard, then flew off to begin the sweep.
She had given Sharpeyes a large area to search, but she knew that with his sharp eyes, he would be the most likely of any of her squad to spot what might be there to find. With the night vision in his helmet, he could search effectively even in the twilight.
Luna flew back up to the cave-mouth, landed, and stepped inside.
Starsoar was bent over a prone Summer Lightning, tending to the back of her head, where a small part of Lt. Lightning's yellow mane had been charred away.
What a shame, thought Luna, that'll leave a bare spot, until it grows out again.
Luna's own mane would have grown back over it in a day or two: her hair regrew rapidly, like all her tissues. Right now, Luna had all sorts of burns and scrapes on her hide, but they would not even be cosmetic problems after a good sleep or two.
It was good to be an Alicorn.
As Luna stepped forward, Summer Lightning saw her and struggled to rise.
"Hey!" Starsoar started to complain. "I can't --"
Then, he realized just whom had entered the ceave.
"Ma'am!" they both said.
Summer Lightning made it almost all the way to a a full standing posture, before she wobbled and began to fall over sideways.
Luna caught the Ranger Lieutenant in her aura, setting her down gently on her belly. 'At ease," she told both the Pegasi. "Lt. Lightning, I'd rather you remain lying down. You've been wounded."
"Yes, Ma'am," Summer Lightning replied. "But it's just a scratch!"
"Horseapples," said Luna. "You cannot even stand up straight right now. Keep lying down!" she ordered, anticipating the stubborn Ranger's attempt to stand up once more to diprove her assertion. Then she laughed. "Nopony be half so mutinous as a loyal officer."
Then, to Starsoar: "How bad hurt be she?"
Stasoar was a tall slim Pegasus with long, thin wings; his Pseudo Nocturnae transformation accentuated his sharp, intelligent features. He was veteran of many long-range patrol missions, and she knew trained as a field medic.
Starsoar looked at the back of Summer Lightning's head again, then turned and shone a magelight innto the Lieutenant's eyes. "Basic stunspell," he stated. "Delivered from behind, point-blank range, probably by a Unicorn using her own magic. Some superficial electrical burns. Confusion and dizziness as expected -- should clear up within the hour."
He looked up at Luna. "If you're asking, Ma'am, I'm guessing that the assailant was Trixie Lulamoon, and I'm pretty sure her intent was non-lethal. The power of the spell was too little to kill anypony, but a tiny foal or somepony already on her deathbed: and that only with some luck. And Lietenant Lightning was unconscious for minutes: more than enough for any would-be murderer to finish her off."
Luna nodded. "That sounds logical." She had thought much the same herself. "Trixie did not impress me as a killer." Though she had been wrong about that before, more than once, and at least once with horrid consequences.
Still, she had to have some faith in her own powers of judgment, or she would spend all her life dithering, instead of leading. And while Trixie did not seem likely to commit cold-blooded murder, Luna could easily see her lashing out in hysterical fear, even at a rescuer.
Luna bent down to examine Summer Lightning.
Summer had seen better days. Her orange eyes looked dazed, the pupils dilating a bit unevenly. She gulped in nausea.
"How dost thou fare?" asked Luna, softly.
"Lousy, Ma'am," replied Summer. "My head hurts, and -- I've failed you." She met Luna's gaze, swallowed, looked ashamed. "No excuse, Ma'am. I've failed you completely."
"You did let Trixie Lulamoon escape," Luna observed. "Yes, in that, thou hast failed. THou wert to bring her out, to Our custody, and she is gone. That was thy failure."
Summer somehow managed to look even more miserable, her ears drooping.
"Of course,"Luna continued, "thou didst bring her out alive from the Dragon's lair, which was in fact the most important charge I did lay upon thee. and neither I nor thou didst think that Trixie, being rescued from the Dragon's chains, would turn on one of her very erescuers, and prefer the hazards of climbing down a mountain face a-hoof to the relative safety and ease of evacuation by the Night Guard."
She smiled slightly at Summer, and was rewarded to see her ears perk up. "I, too, did fail. I thought I had won her trust, but was wrong. I should have warned thee of her parlous mental state, and I did not do so. So, we are both failures, here.
"I being of higher rank, I could dump all the blame for our failure onto thy shoulders, and flit off free of blame. But I will not do that. 'Tis beneath me, and cruel to thee. So, come! Let us put this failure behind us, and move on to better choices in the future."
Joy lit in Summer Lightning's face. "I -- thank you, Ma'am! Thank you!"
"I did decide on a use for thee when we spoke in the caverns," pointed out Luna. "Trixie's foolish act will not sway me from it."
"Thank you!" repeated Summer.
"Thou may not still want to thank me after knowing me longer," said Luna. "I mean to work thee hard, as my aide." She meant it, too. On the other hoof, she knew that, to an ambitious, intelligent officer like Summer Lightning, the chance to prove herself by hard work would be irresistible.
Summer gazed at her in utter adoration.
"Now," said Luna, "tell me what happened after I gave over Trixie into thy keeping."
Had this been a fictional story, Summer Lightning would have told her a harrowing tale of high adventure and hairsbreadth escapes, which would have culminated in some amazing plot twist providing a tantalizing hint as to the actions and fate of Trixie Lulamoon. That would have been the point of Summer's flashback.
But this was reality, and Luna had come to personally attend to Summer Lightning as much from personal and professional concern for her subordinate than for any real likelihood that Lightning knew what had happened to Trixie. This both was for the cause that a commander known to care for her troops got much better service from them, and that Luna simply liked Summer, and thought this the right thing to do.
As it turned out, Summer Lightning didn't really remember much that was, at first glance, useful in adressing the mystery of Trixie Lulamoon. Though Summer and Trixie had gone through a rather exciting time of it, escaping the battle between Luna and the Lightning Drake.
And some of what she remembered turned out to be more useful than Summer herself knew.
"The first I saw of Trixie," Summer said, "was her bolting down the tunnel we'd come up by. I figured she was running from the Dragon, and that running with her was the only way I could keep her safe. So I did. I'd heard the sounds of the start of your battle with it, and frankly I didn't want to stick around there any longer than I had to." She shivered all over. "I hope that doesn't make me some sort of -- coward."
"Nay," said Luna, "Thou'rt no coward. Certes not for wanting to live, and carry out thy mission, rather than perish to no good end."
"Thank you, Ma'am," replied Summer. "Well, so I shot like a cannnonball right after her, and it was a good thing that Idid, because Trixie nearly ran off the first drop-off in sheer terrror! Not that it wasn't hairy, with the Dragon roaring and lightning flashing behind us, and all kinds of explosions shaking the tunnel around us. We could feel the shockwaves, and rock dust was billowing down the tunnels after us. I was far from sure we'd make it down to that old fort before everything fell on our heads.
"Trixie skidded to a stop at the endd of that first drop-off, teetering on the edge, and she was about to go over when I grabbed her and flew her down to the next level. She actually complained about me grabbing her -- something about 'How dare you marehandle the Great and Immaculate Trixie?' -- and I might have snapped something back at her; the next huge boom, which sent debris rattling down the crack near the top of the old stairwell, reminded us to focus on getting the hay out of there.
"So we kept on running. We galloped down the spiral stair, and more than once I had to save Trixie from taking a tumble -- I might have fallen too if I didn't have my wings -- and those times when I grabbed her she stopped complaining. Even spraining a leg would have been pretty bad for a Unicorn, in a situation like that.
"I think she realized by then that she needed my help, and that the last thing on my mind with a perfect Tartarus erupting behind us was groping her." Summer Lightning wrinkled her muzzle. "She still cringed a little each time, though. That mare does not like to be touched!"
Luna noted that. It was somewhat unsuaual for Ponies, a physically affectionate species, to be so shy of mere touches. Of course, Unicorns had always been the physically-shyest of the Pony Kinds. But still, Trixie's prissiness in that regard was unusual.
Luna felt more sympathy with Trixie over this than Trixie would probably have guessed. Luna herself had never been able to strike a good balance between affection and dignity. Depending on her mood, she might be all over a Pony she liked, to the point of embarrassing herself; alternately she would project a chill aloofness that made Ponies think she scorned them, even when she wanted to be their friends.
This was a good part of the reason why she feared a future meeting with Twilight Sparkle. She knew that she would be likely to either seize every excuse to touch her, or alternately behave with extreme arrogance. Either way, she would alienate the young gentlemare who bore Dusk Skyshine's spark; she would ruin any chance of befriending her.
Her Sister, of course, had never had any such problems. Sometimes, Luna thought that Celestia had dropped from Mimic directly onto all four hooves, making small talk and charming all who met her.
"So we ran and flew down the stairs," continued Summer Lightning. "We wanted to put a lot of solid rock between us and the battle. It must have been really intense back there, becausee we could hear these huge thudding booms that shook the stone around us and pulsed the air -- we could feel it in our bones -- each time this happened, dust and pebbles would sift from the ceiling, reminding us why we needed to keep running." She looked at Luna, admiration shining in her eyes. "That must have been some fight. I wish I could have seen it."
"Thou truly wouldst not have survived," Luna told her soberly.
Summer swallowed, hard. Then, she resumed her tale.
"Just in time, I remembered that the stair in the magazine was broken -- it broke under me, of course, when we came up -- and warned Trixie, else she might have fallen through. Things were very frantic: noise was echoing and dust and rocks falling down the missile tubes, and our visibility was limited, even with my magelight and Trixie's horn. I flew her down to the magazine floor, and we ran, sometimes stumbling over obstacles in our path. The air started to smell a bit bad.
As we got deeper into the old fortress, things got a bit better. The fort had been well-built, and now we were no longer in direct line from the tube. The noise faded away to distant thuddings, and only a little dust came down. We breathed a bit easier, both because we felt less threatened, and because the air was better here.
"We passed through, into the mines, and that's when things got actually dangerous." A shadow passed across her face. "The mines weren't in nearly as good condition as the fortress, and even though we were farther from the fight, every time one of those big thudding noises shook the mountain, there were some very alarming creaking noises all along the tunnels, and more than once we heard the rumblings of something falling in.
"I had the most unpleasant thought: that the roof would fall in on us, and four thousand years later other Ponies would dig out our bones and date our remains by my supplies, and wonder how we'd wound up in tunnels thousands of years older." Summer shivered. "Not the way any Pegasus would want to go -- trapped underground like that!"
"Trixie may have been having the same thoughts as me, because she was not slowing down, any more than me. We went through the mines pretty darn fast, considering that they were narrow tunnels. I took the lead, and was really glad of my chalk markings, because those tunnels all looked pretty much alike.
"I wasn't sure what Trixie was thinking, because she wasn't saying very much." Summer frowned. "Maybe I should have been worried about that. Most Ponies would have expressed some emotions in a situation like ours; but then I wasn't saying much either, beyond 'Go right!' or 'This way!' when there was a choice of paths. But then, I'm often quiet when things get dangerous: is Trixie?" Summmer stroked her own chin with a hoof. "Ponies can react differently in the same situation, but I can't help thinking that this was a sign that Trixie was close to snapping.
"But perhaps I'm basing that on what must have happened. At the time, I trusted her, because I was leading her out of danger and it would have been crazy for her to have turned on me.
"We made it out of the mines, and I can tell you I was glad to put that part behind me. I never wanted to be a miner much before, and now I want it even less, though the way up wasn't so bad, especially in some of those lower grottos. But I didn't like that mine going up, either, and it was worse on the way down, because it kept threatening to fall in.
"We went through those natural fissures and down those cliffs we'd climbed up. Going down was actually easier, because I didn't have to worry about lighting my field and letting the Dragon know we were here. The noise had really died down now, but every now and then the rock would tremble and remind me that the Dragon knew quite well that we were here." She laughed, and with some genuine humor. "Or at least that you were here, Ma'am!"
Luna smiled back at her. "That he did," she agreed.
"Trixie was completely silent now," said Summer, "breathing raggedly, ears flat and her eyes pinpointing. She wasn't even reacting very much to anything we had to do, just doing it, like some sort of windup Pony. I was glad that she was cooperating. This meant I could fly her down the vertical parts, instead of having her climb and being constantly ready to catch her if she lost her footing. Climbing down is always harder than climbing up, especially if you don't have wings.
"Finally, things flattened out, and I didn't need to help Trixie so much. I could feel the fresh air ahead; I remembered we were approaching that exit onto the mountainside; it occurred to me that, given what was going on above, it might be possible to get out this way without the Dragon noticing. That way, we wouldn't have to go all the way back down through the wet caves we traversed on the way up. I could see the cave mouth, some stars twinkling in the night sky. I stopped for a moment ..." She winced.
"Then, nothing. Everything went black, and I woke up with a killer headache, Starsoar tending me. And ... no Trixie." She looked at Luna. "She must have stunned me from behind. But why?" Her tone was plaintive.
"I do not ken," Luna said, honestly. "I can but suppose that by then Trixie may have thought the whole world hostile; all her foes. Mayhaps she feared I had rescued her from the Dragon but to cast her into a dungeon, like some Ogre willing to wall her up in an oubliette. She had, after all, by some readings broken the law by sneaking into his hoard.
"I would not have done these things, but she knew this not." Luna sighed. "And now she is gone." Her eyes narrowed. "Though I think I know who -- or what -- has taken her. And where I may find it."
"Who is that, Ma'am?" asked Summer. "And where?
"An old foe," replied Luna. "I hope, now, a friend. And as to where -- well, a place thou knowest well."
Summer stared at her, mystified.
"Starsoar," Luna said, "The Lightning Drake has submitted to me, on condition of the restoration of his hoard upon his eventual release. His name is Blue Blaze. He is to be excavated and brought unharmed to a house where he may be healed and then paroled. We may take a trophy but otherwise must honor his hoard. Ye must announce yourselves Our minions in this, that he know ye no foes. Other details of how to treat him will may be found in the Restricted Archives of the Night Watch."
"Yes, Ma'am," said Starsoar. "You'll be busy?"
"An I return," Luna said, "I will resume management of these -- and many other -- affairs." She glanced at Summer Lightning; briefly scanned her spine. "She is fit to be moved. Bear her to my infirmary in the Night Wing of the Palace at Canterlot. Send to her quarters for her personal property. When she is recovered, she shall begin her service on the staff of the Night Guard."
Starsoar nodded.
"As for me," said Luna, "I go to converse with that old foe, and possible friend. It may well be a Power, and I cannot speak with surety of how long shall be the conversation. But if all go well, I should be back here soon."
Starsoar and Summer both looked at her in confusion.
She could spare no more words for this. The need to know burned in her.
She stepped out of the cave, and leaped into the sky.
Like a streak of shadow she shot through the night air, headed for the answer to her questions.
She headed toward South-Dunnich.