In the weeks that followed, Trixie continued to draw her “voodeedoo” maps, and Ivan sent out teams of investigators — most of them amateur volunteers — to investigate every spot she marked. Many of them turned up evidence that they thought might possibly indicate that a neolithic structure had once been present. Shortly after, new menhirs and dolmens were being raised across the land.
The Wiccans had been flooded with new converts and followers, while their books topped the best-seller lists. Ivan, however, had emerged as the de facto leader of what had come to be known as the New Stone Raisers.
Some even tried to move stones using authentic neolithic methods, or dig earthworks using antler and bone tools as the ancients had done, but Ivan discouraged them as much as he could. As he explained in a news interview, “I’ve studied those methods and practiced them, and I love them, but now is not the time for it. Those monuments were originally built over a span of centuries. We don’t have centuries. The clock is ticking now, so let’s bring in the bulldozers and cranes and JCBs and get this done.”
Trixie was also interviewed on television, several times, but she stayed on-message like the show pony she was, always speaking positively about the project but never offering any new specifics.
The questions became much harder, and Trixie’s answers more defensive, after Twilight Sparkle issued her report. Despite touring and scrying several neolithic sites, speaking with high-ranking Wiccans and exhaustively reviewing their literature, she and her colleagues had found no conclusive evidence that any actual magic was produced on Earth or practiced by any humans.
Until then the project had its proponents and its skeptics, but there had been a widespread feeling of open-mindedness, that this might at least be something worth looking into. After Equestria’s foremost experts on magic went on record that they didn’t see any possible way it could work, then opinions hardened, and everything changed. Shortly following Twilight’s report, Equestria issued a formal policy statement: The efforts of the New Stone Raisers were misguided and harmful. They would only distract attention and draw resources away from the pressing effort to Convert mankind, and might possibly mislead many humans into delaying their Conversions until it was too late.
After it had been, effectively, declared a crackpot effort, investigations of the New Stone Raisers project by the United Nations and other governments quickly dried up. Only in Britain, where the populace were already engaged in supporting it, did the government issue mild criticism while effectively allowing the New Stone Raisers to proceed unhindered.
The first Wiccan gathering at the refreshed, fully restored stone circle at Castlerigg was a gala affair with a much larger crowd than had been there before. Believers and non-believers alike filled the circle, stood atop the henge earthworks and milled around outside, since it was simply impossible for everyone to crowd in. Trixie was there, but around a dozen other ponies, most of them unicorns, were also in the circle.
When asked if she sensed the magic of the ceremony, Trixie once again bent to overwhelming social pressure and said yes, she did. To her surprise, other unicorns chimed in agreement. Did they sense something she did not, or were they just giving in to the mood of the gathering as she had done? There was no way to know, no way to ask them without revealing her own perfidy.
Katrina’s visits to England became infrequent during this time. By what Trixie gathered from the news, she was involved in some sort of upheaval occurring in another nation called Egypt — the same place that Desert Rose had been on her way to, Trixie belatedly recalled. However, human politics seemed like chaos. Equestria’s system of government was utterly simple and perfectly stable, and it provided no perspective for understanding the multitude of squabbling and maneuvering factions on Earth.
The video images she’d seen of fighting in the streets of Cairo were disturbing: masked men throwing fire bombs, riot police with shields and tear gas, cars overturned. Then there were the bombings. She worried about Katrina’s safety, but there was unrest in much of the human world now. Even in England there had been some rioting in the cities. Ponies would never behave that way, Trixie thought. But on second thought, was that fair? Who could say what they might do if they were facing the end of their world, or at least its complete transformation into something unfamiliar?
The ponies of Equestria had, in fact, faced dire threats in recent memory: Nightmare Moon’s endless night, Discord’s reign of chaos, the Changeling invasion. All of those had been resolved in less than a week, though. Equestria hadn’t faced the kind of relentless, grinding doom that the humans of Earth had to deal with now, month after month, year after year, watching their world being nibbled away.
Trixie shrugged off her musings and returned to her maps. Despite being a total fraud, she found herself more and more engaged in their creation. Designing a network of lines and symbols across the British landscape was a task that plucked some inner chord of creativity within her, and she was drawn back to the work again and again. The network of ley lines may not have any real power, yet somehow she felt compelled to perfect its layout and make it cohesive and elegant. Several times she’d made revisions to existing maps, causing frustration among the New Stone Raisers, but they always acquiesced and altered their monuments accordingly.
Unsurprisingly, no one — human or pony — had succeeded in analyzing the method or logic of her voodeedoo creations. Because there wasn’t any method or logic. This secret both haunted and thrilled Trixie, and the power to send humans scrambling with the stroke of her pen was sometimes intoxicating. Other times, guilt gnawed at her.
Despite the economy being in tatters, money was never a problem, and Bit Coins flowed freely. Not only did Lord Peter continue his support, but donations poured in to the New Stone Raisers from countless sources, large and small. Trixie even heard from Florence that a number of the most wealthy humans had contributed anonymously, unwilling to have their names associated with the crackpot scheme, yet secretly believing it might work. The movement also spread beyond the British Isles into mainland Europe, despite the governments there being much less friendly toward it.
These were not the only events that transpired during the long summer. More unpredictable spasms of weather broke out around the world, beyond anything human science could forecast or pegasus ponies could control.
Across the ocean, the isles of the Caribbean were falling one by one, converted to Exponential Lands where only ponies or other species native to Equis could survive. Cuba was gone. Florida was gone. The Yucatan was being nibbled away. Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina were gone. As the summer waned, New Orleans was subsumed, and the scramble began to evacuate or Convert everyone from Houston, the fourth largest city in the USA.
Mexico and Central America would take the hit next, as the Barrier also began crawling up the heavily populated east coast of the USA. Many Americans had fled westward, if only to buy themselves some extra time among the ranks of the human race.
The idea that people could be Converted and simply move back into their old homes and continue their old lives, albeit in a somewhat different shape, had proved hopelessly naive. Human cities were designed around technology that no longer worked and which magic couldn’t directly replace. Inside the Exponential Lands, endless work was required to adapt buildings, infrastructure and institutions to the new reality. One of the first priorities was a new telegraph and telephone system. This was beyond state-of-the-art by Equestrian standards, but to newfoals it might as well have been smoke signals. Newfoals, still coming to grips with their new bodies, new limitations and new abilities, were aided by pony advisers from Equestria, but there were never enough to go around. The sheer scale of the problem was staggering. The best that could be said was that none of them starved, although many newfoals who became earth ponies were unhappy to be drafted into farm work.
Trixie watched all this from afar with the feeling of a lump of stone lodged in her belly. Other ponies were doing what they could to help humanity survive this unwanted, wrenching transformation. She, on the other hoof, was doing… what? Giving them false hope? Perhaps even leading them to destruction?
Oddly, the Barrier somewhat slowed its advance across the Atlantic, causing some puzzlement and debate amongst the savants who studied it. The New Stone Raisers latched onto the news and crowed that it was the first evidence that their efforts were beginning to pay off.
Trixie tuned into the news, where the usual talking heads and pundits were quick to deflate those claims. As one explained, “It’s a common misconception that the Barrier is a perfect circle, or even sphere, growing outward from its point of origin at an even pace in all directions. That has never been the case. For as long as we’ve been studying it there have been fluctuations and irregularities in its rate of spread. Now we’ve seen that progress in the open Atlantic has slowed, but the reasons are unclear. It may be something about the mass of water and ocean depths that retard it, or it may be related to the lack of human population in that large area. Then again, it may be nothing more than random chance. We’ve seen absolutely nothing to suggest, though, that it has any relation to all this neolithic style monument raising going on in Britain — especially given the distance. After all, it’s still four thousand miles away from Britain.”
To the New Stone Raisers, and to the Golden Dawn, there was no such doubt. Lord Peter personally called Trixie to congratulate her, and a call from Katrina soon followed. It was during this conversation that Trixie raised a question that had been growing in her mind: “What now for me? I mean, is my job here not done? Even Trixie the Traveler eventually feels a call to return home.”
Katrina replied, “You’ve mapped out virtually an entire ley network for Britain, but what about Europe? What about the rest of the world? Unless we can break that curse and allow you to teach others how to do what you do, we still need you here.”
“I…” Trixie hesitated. “I could at least visit home for a bit, and then return, couldn’t I?”
“Perhaps,” Katrina answered. “I regret that the situation in Egypt has occupied more and more of my time, and I have not been able to engage as I wished with events in England. In light of this recent news, I am arranging a gathering at Lord Peter’s home. I would be pleased if you can attend, and then we can discuss your situation together.”
And so, a few days later Trixie found herself again a guest at the estate of her employer, Lord Peter Feathering-Walthamstone. As before, the place was bustling with guests, some of whom she recognized and more whom she did not. The mood was decidedly upbeat, and many humans accosted Trixie to offer her thanks and congratulations. None of them expressed the slightest doubt toward her work.
When she met Katrina, she was struck once again by something she’d noticed before. Katrina always seemed perfectly composed and self-confident. It wasn’t the strident self-confidence of Trixie’s stage persona. The feline lady always seemed at peace and utterly unflappable, bringing calm to those around her. In a way she brought to mind Princess Celestia, or at least what Trixie had heard about Celestia. Katrina greeted Trixie warmly, but in a matter of seconds she sensed the little pony’s unease. “What is troubling you?” she wondered.
Trixie glanced downward and rubbed one foreleg against the other. She glanced around and then asked, “Could we speak somewhere privately?”
The rather intimidating griffin, Black Talon, who seemed to have been promoted to Katrina’s personal bodyguard since they’d last met, started to interpose, but Katrina raised a hand to forestall him. “Of course.” She stood and gestured for Trixie to follow. Katrina led her to Lord Peter’s drawing room and closed the doors while the griffin stationed himself outside. Then she found a seat and gestured for Trixie to continue. “Please, share with me your concerns!”
Trixie said, “I want to return to Equestria, and not just for a vacation. I feel like I’ve done enough here.”
“This is more than merely a bit of homesickness, I think? But we still need you here.”
“No! I’ve done… I’ve mapped out a network of ley lines for pretty much all of the British Isles. It’s finished.”
“But there’s still Europe, there’s still the rest of the world. If we could break your curse and you could explain your methods to others, then it would be different.”
“There is no curse!” Trixie blurted, then sat back, wide-eyed, and covered her mouth with her front hooves.
Katrina pinned her with a steady gaze, ears turned forward, but said nothing.
Trixie stumbled on. “I mean… There’s no curse because there’s no secret to reveal. I never knew what I was doing with those maps. They’re only random doodles. I think I’ve caused enough harm here, and I don’t want to do any more.” She dropped, lowering her head to the floor and covering it with her arms. “Please don’t throw me in the dungeon!”
Katrina looked more puzzled than angry. “But your maps work, don’t they? Our volunteers have found ancient monuments at the sites you marked.”
“No!” Trixie objected. “I’ve seen how these volunteers work. They want to believe so badly, to them any mound of dirt becomes a neolithic monument, every random stone is a broken menhir. I’m a stage magician! If there’s one thing I understand, it’s people wanting to believe in magic. They can see anything if they want to badly enough, but it’s not real.”
Katrina listened grimly, then prodded, “But you did sense magic during the ceremonies.”
“No! I… I wanted to, and everyone around wanted it so much, that I just… I just said what they all wanted to hear. I never felt any magical discharge at all. I’m so sorry!” As her confessions poured out, her tone became more distraught.
“And now the barrier is slowing,” Katrina added.
“They said on TV that it’s only coincidence. Just like all those monuments my maps supposedly led to.”
Trixie lapsed into miserable silence. Katrina was also silent for a few moments, but then she said, softly, “Trixie… In my experience there’s no such thing as coincidence.”
Trixie blinked through teary eyes. “What?”
Katrina leaned forward and placed a comforting hand on her mane. “You speak as one who has lost faith in herself. I still have faith in you, Trixie. All of this has happened for a reason. There is a reason why your actions and thoughts have been at odds, and it’s not because there’s anything wrong with you. You have been guided.”
Trixie shook her head dumbly, which prompted Katrina to continue. “When you were in the stone circle, you say you felt no magic. Yet, you were there and you witnessed the ceremony. What did you experience? What was it like?”
Trixie thought for a moment, then answered, “It was strange, and confusing, and… beautiful. I looked up at the stars, and they seemed to be looking down on us, and there was such energy in the crowd…” Her words trailed off.
“So you did sense something, though not what you expected. Perhaps your unconscious mind knew what to look for. And when you drew your maps, what did you see on the page?”
“See?”
“You must have seen patterns there, in your mind’s eye, or else you could not have drawn them.”
“Mind’s eye? But that’s only a metaphor.”
“Metaphors have far greater importance than most people know.” She leaned back and raised her hand, palm upward. “I have been thinking of you for a while, Trixie. If you truly wish to return to Equestria, I won’t stand in your way. However… I believe you have accomplished far more than you realize, and what you have told me today only cements my decision. I would like for you to come with me to Egypt.”
“Egypt? Why? I thought you wanted me to stay here.”
“You don’t need to be here to draw maps, Trixie. You can continue to create them in your spare time, and we can send them to our friends in Europe. Egypt also has ancient monuments. Your mere presence would lend cachet as I advocate their restoration as well. Beyond that, though, I would like for you to formally join the Golden Dawn and to learn the ways of Kemetic lore and magic. I would make you my personal student, if you are willing.”
Befuddled, Trixie said, “I don’t get it? I mean, I already know how to do unicorn magic, and I’m not sure human magic is even a real thing. I’ve never even seen Moondancer do anything with hers.”
“I need a pony skilled with unicorn magic, Trixie, and you are skilled. You could become my court magician on that basis alone. However, I believe you have even more potential. I can teach you things far beyond the muddled myths of the Wiccans. The magic they practice is that of nature and chaos. Kemetic magic is that of civilization and order.”
In Trixie’s mind whirled images she’d seen on TV, and she asked, “Will I be safe in Egypt?”
“Not entirely. There is no life without risk. However, I promise you will be as well guarded as myself.”
“Can… Could I think it over?”
“Of course. I find it’s always helpful to sleep on a big decision. Please let me know when you have made up your mind.”