Paradise loved the concept of language. It was the foundation of her favorite pastime: reading. It was really a trick of the mind when boiled down to its most basic mechanics. On the spoken side, grunts had been assigned meaning and putting them in certain sequences conveyed an idea. On the written side, squiggles on the page had become letters which were also put into sequences to convey ideas. In their brains, meanings had been assigned to what are otherwise meaningless.
She thought about this as she looked at the sheet of old Borean text Twilight Mist had provided her. It was some kind of message left in the machine below them, but it was gibberish to her. The straight lines and sharp angles were just squiggles. Even if they were not, the sequences they were arranged in had no meaning in her mind.
Looking to her cheat sheet with thirty runes and their meanings in Old and New Borean as well as Common, she thought back to what Ribbon had told her and Wind Whistler. When they were brought here, something was changed in their brains so they understood spoken Common as if it was the Equestrian they had spoken their entire lives. Yet, text was different.
She figured whatever change that happened to their brains required a foundation. As Wind Whistler pointed out, Common and Equestrian had the exact same sound inventories. This made sense because both were composite languages. Proto-Ponish was developed from the languages of the three tribes, actually predating Equestria by several centuries as a language of commerce and diplomacy much like Common. Sounds were added, dropped, combined, and split. Both these languages seemed to keep the consonants as distinct-sounding as possible so any speaker could pick it up.
That was a foundation for understanding the spoken language. Ponies knew the sounds, so only how the sequences were interpreted needed to be changed. The written language was a different matter. Ponies had never used runes like these. There was no foundation to build upon, so they were nothing but unrecognizable squiggles in their minds. They would need to be learned. At least the language was phonetic so words were literally spelled as they were said.
Though, now that she had the chance to scrutinize these runes, she seemed to remember some of the oldest charms created by Starswirl the Bearded resembled the Old Borean runes. Perhaps, in his travels across worlds, he had come to this place. Unfortunately, that would be no help to them. Time had finally caught up with him decades ago, and she doubted he ever spoke of this world if it never made it to the page.
“How’s it going?” Blueflower’s voice asked.
Paradise spun around with a start, realizing just far she had fallen into her thoughts. “Oh, Blueflower, hello.”
She organized the books and papers on the desk. “I’m still getting use to reading things in these runes. I should probably sit down with some of the more basic stories and read through them get my brain to recognize them naturally.”
She sat back. “Then I have the old language to go back and translate.” She picked up the translation book she had bought. “At least I have a reference for the words. Hopefully the syntax will be similar enough to Old Ponish that I can put them together in proper sentences.”
“You should probably concentrate more on learning the current language before trying to translate another,” Blueflower said. “You shouldn’t jump into the deep end before you even know how to swim.”
“You’re probably right,” Paradise said. Blueflower was certainly right, but Paradise felt a rather embarrassed starting over from almost square one in her profession of language. She typically would just jump into translating old texts, but this was not Equestria. Whether they liked it or not, as long as they were here, these runes were the alphabet.
“What has you so interested in the old language anyway?” Blueflower asked.
“Oh, Twilight Mist found a message in the databanks of the machine down there,” Paradise answered. “We’re wondering if it’s the instruction manual, and if it might tell us more about how to use it.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to your work,” Blueflower said.
Blueflower turned to leave the library, but a thought came to Paradise. “Blueflower—”
Blueflower stopped and turned to her.
“Do you think it’s right for us to simply claim this castle?” Paradise asked. “I know the previous owner died, but it feels odd to just declare it ours.”
Blueflower grinned. “There’s an old saying that possession is nine tenths of the law. We were brought to this castle in the first place, and it’s the only shelter we’ve found with no living owner. Would you rather be out there in the wilds, especially knowing what’s out there?”
Paradise’s veins became icy rivers at the thought of the harpies. Forget the uncontrolled weather and any possible beasts out there. Those things lurking in this world made Paradise grateful to be encased on stone in some obscure fjord. “I see your point.”
Blueflower again turned away to leave, and Paradise went back to her reading. If anything it would get the harpies out of her mind.
* * *
Blueflower had lived her entire century and a half in Canterlot as a lady of the court. She was actually there for the events surrounding the Elements of Harmony and the Princess of Friendship. In fact, she was quite a vocal critic of Princess Celestia’s methods in facing the seemingly endless crises of that period. She stopped at a mirror and looked at the face staring back at her. It was a much older one she shoved into the Alacorn Princess of the Sun’s.
* * *
It was just after Tirac—or Tirek, or however he spelled it—was recaptured and sent back to Tartarus. Equestria was recovering from the damage he and Discord had caused. Blueflower watched from the balcony as storefronts replaced their windows or just nailing boards to them because the damage was too severe to reopen.
There was a change in the atmosphere of Canterlot even more so than after the Changeling attack the previous year. Ponies avoided the shadows, and almost never went anywhere alone after dark. The fear was almost tangible.
“You’re spending a lot of time watching from up here, my little pony,” a warm and gentle voice said.
It was meant to be comforting, but it brought Blueflower’s blood to a boil. “I’m more than fifty years old and a lady of the court, not a wide eyed student in your school. Please don’t refer to me that way.”
Princess Celestia came to stand beside her. “Sorry, Lady Blueflower.” She turned her attention to the streets below. “What are you watching?”
“Your folly,” Blueflower said plainly. “None of this would have happened if you confronted Tirek yourself when he was still weak.” She turned to Celestia. The alacorn towered over her, her coat the palest pink and her dawn grated hair wafting despite no breeze. Her horn stood tall on her forehead and her wings could envelop Blueflower. The sun gleamed on her gold chest place and jeweled crown.
However, all Blueflower saw at the moment was a gilded fool. “Please tell me you’re going to kill that thing this time. There’s no reason to keep him alive.”
“And here I thought you were a bleeding heart liberal,” Celestia said. “I seem to remember the speech you gave about how execution was one of the last vestiges of barbarism.”
“He’s an enemy at war with us, not a common criminal,” Blueflower stated. “It’s not like you tried him in court the first time you imprisoned him or this time. You just threw him into Tartarus on nothing but your own judgment.
“And look at the damage he did after you became aware of him.” She pointed to the streets. “Lives have been destroyed.”
She turned to the streets again. One of the boarded up business speared her heart. “Tailor Tape made my cutinera dress, and now he’s lost the boutique he put decades of hard work and sacrifice into.
“If Tirac escapes again, we’ll go through all of this again. More lives will be torn apart.” She thought of other communities out there, appearing like nothing but patches of brown and gray in the plain of green from Canterlot’s mountainside perch. Tirac’s rampage had to have been even more devastating to the ponies living there. “He’s down there plotting his next escape, you know. Even if it takes a thousand more years, he’ll find a weakness.” She glared up at Princess Celestia. “He’s an undeniable threat to all of us and shouldn’t be allowed to continue.”
After a pause, Celestia asked, “Did he get you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Blueflower asked in response.
“Please humor me, Lady Blueflower,” Celestia said in a gentle but stern tone.
“No,” Blueflower said. The next sentence made her twist inside. “I hid.”
“That’s all you could have done,” Princess Celestia said.
“Because you let him get that powerful,” Blueflower stated. “Why did you send Discord after him in the first place instead handling it personally? And what did you think sending Princess Twilight Sparkle into hiding with your collective powers would do? You have had several critical lapses in judgment this past year and half, but your blunders almost cost us everything this time. Do you even think things through anymore?”
Blueflower stopped when she remembered she was speaking to the highest of the princesses and a powerful being more than twenty times her age. She could find herself in a cell next to Tirac for this.
Celestia looked down to her and smiled. “You need to have faith, Lady Blueflower. We’re all alive and have our magic again. We will rebuild. Tailor Tape’s boutique will be reopened under a pony of good reputation; I have made assurances of that. As for him, he will make dresses again in another community. Things have a way to work their way out.”
Blueflower shook her head as she watched the streets. “No. We work things out.”
* * *
As much as she hated Princess Celestia’s methods, Blueflower found herself becoming more and more like her as the decades past and she entered the second half and now third quarter of her life. She picked up her sense of humor and even tendency to call those under her little ponies. However, one thing she would never accept is just having faith.
Things never simply work themselves out. Problems required effort and direction to be solved. Though, she knew she could never do it all. Along with honing magic on par with even the alacorns, she had become a very good judge of character over the past century.
Yet, she found herself thinking of what the Alacorn Princess of the Sun would do in this situation. Her resources were limited, only thirty-seven ponies and the contents of this castle at their disposal. That seemed to be right up Princess Celestia’s alley. Only they were it. No reinforcements waiting should they fail, no royal guards to protect them, no massive country rich in resources to call upon, and no magical items to summon friendship-powered death beams. Though, the Elements of Harmony were designed to vanquish abominations, and were most likely powerless against this vicious yet mortal foe.
That was the wrinkle to all this. The harpies were not friendship-hating abominations but a race like ponies. This would not be a battle of ideas as a war of material gains and losses. Their objective was the save the girl the harpies held captive, and the harpies’ objective was to claim the locket they had in their possession. At some point, they had to clash—pitting their resources against one another—with one side claiming their prize and the other being destroyed.
Ponies, despite the multiple calamities they faced in those few years, had not fought a conventional war in millennia. Not even the hostile encounters with the changelings or the Storm King could be called anything close to a war, and Equestria lost the main battles only for Princess Twilight Sparkle to pull victory out of nowhere.
Much of what ponies knew of war came from speculative fiction which was based more the imagination of the authors than any fact. They created tales about weaponized spells that could level of a city, even though no such spells had ever existed and would kill dozen of magic-users casting it. They would also be impractical as it would destroy the spoils as well as the population. Really, it was just wish-fulfillment for crazed survivalists rather than trying to capture the real facts of war.
What she and this collection of ponies faced here was more primeval. The harpies were using technology rather than magic. They might not even have magic. Yet, those longbows were deadly, she could tell just by looking at the long shaft of yew wood and feeling the tension build in the string when it was drawn. The arrows loosed from them would skewer a pony like a kabob. Not even the armor the royal guards wore would protect them from what were practically spears. That was the reality they faced.
She again focused on the face in the mirror. These tangents of thought were not going to get her anywhere. “What would you do in my position, Princess Celestia? Or did you send us here to make some kind of point?”
A kind of answer came in the lights above her dimming. The glowing crystals in the chandeliers were fading. Bow-Tie ran down the hall as more of the chandeliers as well as the sconces lost their glow.
“It’s happening here too,” Bow-Tie mused aloud.
“What’s happening?” Blueflower asked.
“Half the lights in the common areas are fading,” Bow-Tie answered. “These crystals just started giving out.”
Blueflower looked to the almost dark chandelier. She had seen Paradise’s expression when she suggested where they would be without this castle. “What about the other mechanisms of the castle?”
Bow-Tie shrugged. “They seem perfectly fine. Magic Star sent Wind Whistler, Sparkler, and Moondancer into the mechanical room to investigate the heat pump and other machinery just to be sure.”
“I should see what they’ve found,” Blueflower said. She looked to the chandelier again. “Try to figure out what’s up with these crystals.”
* * *
Heart Throb flew around the darkened chandelier in the foyer. It was the second most beautiful fixture in the castle after the one in the ballroom. Without it casting the light, the sunlight coming through the stained glass made splotches of different colors on the walls.
She pushed back the refractive crystals to the ones that should be glowing, only they were simply milky and looked rather dull. “Come on, darlings. Why have you given up? You make such a beautiful chandelier that welcomes all who visit the castle.” She looked around at the harsh patches of light and shadow and cringed at the garish sight. “Now it looks like its straight out of a horror movie.”
A series of knocks came on the main doors. Heart Throb sank to the floor and approached them. More knocks came at the door.
A face, or something roughly shaped like a face, tilted into view in one of the windows. “Hello,” a gentle voice said, muffled by the glass. “Anyone home?”
Heart Throb gave it a second’s thought, but decided to answer the door. She pushed it open just enough to crane her head out. “Yes, darling?”
A wrinkled, human man with a long white beard and mustache stood on the stoop. A yellow robe with borders of red triangles around the edges covered most of his body and a red hat covered his wiry, white hair. His eyes, behind a sphere of a nose, were wide with shock. “You did show up!”
“Excuse me?” Heart Throb asked, taken aback by the outburst.
The man quickly regained his composure and looked to Heart Throb with gentle eyes. “Sorry. Where are my manners? Greetings.”
Heart Throb glanced to the drawbridge which was still up. “Hello. How did you get in here?”
The man stepped aside to reveal an ornate rug that was floating several centimeters above the ground. “A flying carpet.” He stepped in front of it. “I apologize for bypassing the perimeter wall, but I saw your drawbridge was up and I have urgent business.”
“Business with whom?” Heart Throb asked. “There are only ponies here.”
The man nodded. “I know.” He bowed. “I am the Wonderful Wizard, known as Whizz for short. I must speak with an older, white pony with a horn coming out of her forehead and a silver streak in her blue mane.”
Whizz held up his hands to form a circle with his fingers and an image of Blueflower appeared between them. “This is the pony I want to talk to. Is she here?”
“Oh, well come in.” Heart Throb backed up and opened the door more. “Forgive the bat cave. We suddenly have a light issue.”
Whizz stepped in and looked around him. “I see that?”
* * *
One of the many fields Wind Whistler had studied was mechanics and in particular alternative technologies. Refrigerators and air conditioners in Equestria used easily compressible refrigerants that could absorb and release significant quantities of heat quickly. However, this world seemed to not have such chemicals. Instead the refrigerator room needed ice to maintain its colder temperature and the interior temperature of the castle as a whole was regulated by this heat pump.
The concept was simple. At a certain depth, the temperature of the ground was constant at roughly ten centigrades above freezing. By pumping air from the castle through tubes running that deep, its heat is dispersed and the air returning is much cooler.
The machine hummed along, the pumps running on whatever was powering them. With the lights going out, it was logical to be concerned with the other equipment. However, fortunately, they seemed unaffected.
The mechanical room was one of the areas afflicted with the sudden loss of light. Light from Sparkler and Moondancer’s horn provided harsh illumination, but it was enough for them to survey the large machine sending pipes in every which direction. With the stark and intertwining shadows, it looked like some monstrous creature frozen in place. Even Blueflower was taken aback when she first saw it, but Wind Whistler immediately recognized it as just a lifeless machine that was there to help them.
Sparkler opened a bulkhead on the side of the machine to reveal some dials indicating flux of air through the system, temperature, and electrical current used. They were all right in the middle of their green areas signifying they were all at optimal levels.
“Doesn’t seem to be any problem here.” Sparkler closed the bulkhead. “It’s just that those crystals are losing their glow.”
“But why?” Moondancer asked, not bothering to hide her fear. “What do we do to get it back?”
“Generating light expends energy,” Wind Whistler said. “The crystals must have exhausted whatever stores they had.”
“Why so many at once?” Sparkler asked.
Wind Whistler shrugged. “If they were all installed at once, they would reach the point of exhaustion at roughly the same time.”
“That might explain why the lights in the private rooms haven’t gone dim,” Sparkler said. “We’ve been closing them off at night, and those mirrored strips probably conserve the light.”
“The question is if their energy is permanently drained meaning they must be replaced, or if they can be somehow recharged,” Wind Whistler said.
“What about the chamber under us?” Blueflower asked.
Wind Whistler pressed the button her headset. “You still have light down there?”
“Yes,” Twilight Mist answered. “Whatever lights the ceiling isn’t like the crystals you have up there. I also believe I have an answer for how the machines up there get power. Whatever supplies electricity for this thing also supplies it to the machines up there.”
“Good to know. Wind Whistler out.” Wind Whistler released the button. “We’re getting power from below us for the machinery. So, our only concern is lighting.”
“That’s good to know,” Blueflower replied.
“Why doesn’t this castle just have electric lights then,” Moondancer asked.
“You would need light bulbs to convert energy from the electrical current into visible light,” Wind Whistler answered. “It’s a much more complex device than the electromagnetic motor running this heat pump and might be beyond the technology of this world. Instead, they use those glowing crystals which were a reliable and safe light source until they started to fade.”
“Yet the chamber down there has light bulbs or something similar,” Sparkler said.
“Just because they exist does not necessarily mean they can be replicated,” Blueflower said. “From what our scouts reported, electricity and even these glowing crystals seem to be non-existent outside of the castle. After the fall of an advanced civilization, several technologies are lost in the confusion as the infrastructure collapses. Even a machine as simple as this requires infrastructure to be manufactured.”
“Actually, the diamond dogs had some of those glowing crystals and use them for their lamps,” Sparkler said. “They called them something quartz, but they were asking for prices more on par with diamonds. I guess I should have asked how they worked.”
“I also believe whoever built this castle and whoever built the machine below us were too different civilizations entirely,” Wind Whistler continued to return them to the topic. “Along with the architectural and decorative differences, the gap between the technical knowledge to build this castle and that chamber is astronomical. We’re talking a difference of centuries if not millennia.”
“Yet, they’re connected,” Moondancer said.
“By a secret elevator and apparently some electrical cables,” Wind Whistler replied. “Likely, the builder of the castle discovered the machinery and built over it so they could control access to it.”
“So the chamber is more advanced yet older?” Sparkler asked. “It’s like this world is moving backwards.”
“Cataclysms have a way of doing that,” Blueflower said. “War, natural disasters on a global scale, or a pandemic could bring down even the mightiest empires. The machine below our hooves is a relic from a long dead civilization that a younger one commandeered in the more recent past.”
Crashing and rattling echoed around them, sending Sparkler clear off her hooves. Several overdramatic screams and comments were indicative of Heart Throb stumbling through the dark. The pink mare came into the light with a bucket on one leg and a mop on her head.
“That’s a good look for you,” Moondancer commented.
Heart Throb scowled. “I came to inform Blueflower she has a visitor.”
“Who?” Blueflower asked.
“A brightly dressed man who calls himself the Wonderful Wizard,” Heart Throb answered. “If you will excuse me, I will try to make it back upstairs and regain some dignity.”
She pulled the mop off her head, and it took a couple of kicks to get the bucket off. She disappeared back into the darkness and did not go ten seconds before making a clatter. “Blasted castle going dark all at once,” she grumbled. “I think I chipped my hoof polish, and there’s no possible way to fix it here.”
* * *
Blueflower brought Wind Whistler into her meeting with the Wonderful Wizard along with Galaxy and Magic Star. Galaxy and Magic Star made sense. Magic Star was her undeclared second in command and Galaxy was the leader of the Crystal ponies. Wind Whistler had been given no leadership position nor did she desire one. She was probably there to represent the pegasi and was the most levelheaded choice. Also, she was curious about this wizard and how he knew they specifically were here.
The man Heart Throb had described sat in the study with a lantern holding a crystal glowing at full power on the table next to him. He looked to them and grinned so broadly it forced his mustache up. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“I am Blueflower, the leader here.” Blueflower sat in the chair opposite to him. “Forgive the darkness, Wonderful Wizard. Our castle is suddenly running out of light.”
“Please, call me Whizz,” Whizz said. He looked at the poorly lit ceiling. “And I can see your problem. It seems your solei quartz is out of energy.”
“Solei quartz,” Sparkler said from the doorway. “That’s what they were called.”
“Yes,” Whizz answered. “You’ll need to change them out for another set and recharge this one.”
“How?” Wind Whistler asked.
Whizz chuckled. “You really are new to this world. You simply set them out in the sun and they will absorb the light.”
“Nice and simple,” Magic Star said. “But, where is this other set? We need to get some light back in here now.”
“There’s a utility room next to the heat pump where they’re kept in cases,” Whizz answered. “This castle has at least three sets if I remember correctly.”
Blueflower turned to Sparkler standing at the door. “Get Moondancer and find them. Then tell all the others to start replacing the crystals.”
Sparkler nodded and disappeared from view.
“Anyway, now that your lighting crisis is on its way to being solved, we should get to the real reason I came here,” Whizz said.
“How do you know us, or at least what we look like?” Blueflower asked.
“It’s because this castle was previously owned by an old friend of mine: the Curious Curator or Curt as he preferred to be called,” Whizz explained with a chuckle. “It was his lifelong project to restore this old castle in pristine condition again as a piece of history from the old Borean Empire. He even cast an environmental protection spell on it so the elements wouldn’t degrade it.”
He heaved a sigh. “However, he had become a very old man, and…while he was very good at preserving artifacts and buildings, there was nothing he could do to preserve himself. This winter ended up being his last.”
“Sorry to hear of your loss,” Blueflower said.
“He had been sick for a long time, so I had already gotten most of my grief in and his death came as more of a relief that his suffering had ended,” Whizz said wistfully. “I still miss him, especially when I see something he would want to preserve for posterity.
“But the point is, while he was lying on his deathbed, he asked me to view the future of his castle,” Whizz continued, apparently pushing his grief aside for now. “I gazed into my Magic Pool, and it showed me ponies from another world. You were particularly prominent in the visions it provided.” He pointed to Blueflower. “Needless to say, we were both in disbelief. Still, I come by the castle from time to time to see if ponies were living here, and this time there were.”
Wind Whistler was not sure if they should reveal what was under their feet. He might know, or might not. Then there was the issue of trust if he did not. “What can you tell us about the history of this castle? You mentioned it was a part of the Borean Empire.”
Whizz nodded and sat back in his chair. “This was a summer castle of the Valkyrie Queens starting at the beginning of their dynasty. Some even say it was built before the main palace in the capital. Its precise location was actually a closely held secret, visitors were only allowed to enter and leave by the Bifröst. The Curious Curator only found it by accident, and then he kept it secret because he wanted it to be completely refurbished before revealing it to the world. He had just finished too before he took ill.”
“Why was it such a secret?” Wind Whistler asked. “If it was just a vacation locale, such a clandestine status would seem unneeded.”
The Whizz pointed to her. “I like you. You have an inquisitive mind.”
The Whizz shrugged. “They were a weird royal bloodline. Obviously they hid the location and nature of the Bifröst. Fortunately, because no one knew where this castle was, the harpies never found it to raze like the rest of the empire. All the solei quartz and electric machines were still here.”
“You know of the harpies?” Magic Star asked.
“You do?” the Whizz asked.
“We’ve had a few encounters these past two days,” Wind Whistler said.
The Whizz leaned back in his chair. “This is bad. This is very bad. If they’re back in Boreas, they must be after the Bifröst again. The thought of those feathered devils wielding that kind of power is a thing of nightmares.”
“Should we tell him what we found under the castle?” Wind Whistler whispered into Blueflower’s ear.
“Not yet,” Blueflower replied.
The Whizz turned to Blueflower. “Have you found the secret chamber?”
Wind Whistler’s heart flew up into her throat. “What secret chamber?” she asked, wanting to make sure he meant what she thought he meant.
“The one just off the royal bedchambers,” Whizz answered.
Wind Whistler let herself relax.
“I didn’t even know there was one,” Blueflower answered.
Whizz grinned. “Come with me.”
* * *
Whizz led them up to the top of the keep and into the royal bedchamber Blueflower had claimed. It was much as Wind Whistler expected. It had the typical fixtures of a bedroom only more ornate. The bed had a canopy over it, and the wardrobe was much larger. The bed was perfectly made, and everything was spotless—Blueflower apparently being as much a stickler for neatness as Wind Whistler.
“I’ve slept in here for two nights already,” Blueflower said. “I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary.”
“Well, you might have missed this.” Whizz went to a chess board and moved the two queens to the center of the board so they were in front of each other. The wall pulled in and slid away to reveal a wooden door.
Whizz opened the door to show the small room past it. “Old Curt took months to figure this puzzle out. However, it was worth it.”
A gold tiara sat on a table with a pair of long, white gloves and gold slippers for a human woman. The tiara had a cluster of small diamonds in the middle of a flower made of gold leaf.
“Did these belong to the Valkyrie Queen?” Wind Whistler asked.
Whizz shook his head. “They’re items Curt found elsewhere and decided to keep in this little alcove. The gloves and slippers are something you really need to see.” He chuckled.
Blueflower stepped into the room and picked up the right glove to hang it on her leg. There was a ring sewn to the second outmost finger. “They’re lovely, but they’re meant for—”
She stopped when the gloves and slippers began to lose their form and reshape themselves into for gold horseshoes that went over the hoof with silver bows on the front. “As I live and breathe,” Blueflower exhaled.
“They’re magic as you can see,” the Whizz said. “They change to fit an owner they accept.”
“What can they do besides self-tailor?” Blueflower asked.
“Try them on and twist your right front hoof clockwise once they’re all on,” the Whizz said.
Blueflower put the shoes on her hooves. The one for her right front hoof was last. She twisted her hoof clockwise and suddenly vanished.
“Blueflower!” Magic Star blurted.
“Yes?” Blueflower’s voice asked casually. “What is it?”
“You’re still there?” Galaxy asked.
“Of course, it’s an invisibility spell,” Blueflower replied. “Let me guess, twisting my hoof counterclockwise will make me visible again.”
The Whizz nodded.
Blueflower reappeared. “Nice.” She held up her right hoof and looked at the shoe on it. “This could be really useful down the road.”
Galaxy picked up the tiara with her magic. “What about this?”
“It’s just a tiara Curt had made,” Whizz answered. “He figured it would be fitting for a queen’s secret chamber.”
“If only we had the queen,” Magic Star commented. “Or, well, princess in our case.”
The Whizz furrowed his brow.
“Our rulers assume the title of princess,” Blueflower explained. “It is a personal preference.”
“Indeed,” the Whizz mused aloud. “What can you tell me of the world you come from?”
“Why do you want to know?” Magic Star asked.
The Whizz raised his shoulder in a shrug and sat down in a chair. “I’m curious. It’s not every day you meet someone from another world.”
“Unless you’re us,” Galaxy whispered in Wind Whistler’s ear.
Blueflower sat in the chair at the desk, looking almost natural in the strange shape of the furniture. “We come from a land known as Equestria, populated mostly by ponies like us. There are three kinds, earth ponies like Magic Star, pegasi like Wind Whistler, and unicorns like Galaxy and myself.”
The Whizz looked to Galaxy and her shimmering coat and mane. “What’s with your hair?”
“I’m from the Crystal Empire,” Galaxy answered, “ponies from there have coats and manes made of a kind of biological crystal. Its luster is based on our mood.”
“Well, it sounds like a fascinating place,” the Whizz said. “How did you end up here?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Blueflower answered. “We come from all corners of our country, but we woke up in this castle three days ago.”
“Well, we woke up in the desert with the crystal plants,” Galaxy added.
“We call it the Jewel Desert,” the Whizz said.
“I’m assuming your magic pool didn’t say how we got here,” Blueflower said.
“Sadly no.” The Whizz leaned back in his seat. “I’m assuming you’re trying to get back home.”
“Naturally,” Blueflower said. “Though, we understand we knew to be prepared for the possibility of being here a long time if not permanently.”
“I’ll help anyway I can,” the Whizz said. “That’s actually what I do. I’m a helper, using my magic to help solve people’s problems. I don’t know how to send you back, but I’ll put my head to it.”
His tongue came out from under his mustache and licked his lips. “Do you have any honey?”
“Honey?” Blueflower asked.
“I got a big sweet tooth,” the Whizz said. “There’s nothing like some honey on toast.”
Blueflower looked to Wind Whistler. “We never even thought of getting honey.”
“That’s all right.” The Whizz slapped his knees and stood up. “We should get your castle lit up again.”
* * *
As the Whizz had said, there were several crates in a room next to the heat pump. Inside, incased in mirrored foil, were solei quartz crystals of various lengths. The small stubs went into the sconces on the walls while the longest shafts were for the large chandeliers. One set was dim while the other shined brilliantly.
Wind Whistler and Paradise sat down with a schematic of the castle and planned out a system for quickly and efficiently replacing the hundreds if not thousands of crystals throughout the castle. With Paradise’s cheat sheet on the runes, they were able to determine the names of each room and the crystals needed for each. The cases were organized so each one held the crystals of a particular room or section of hallway.
* * *
Wind Whistler joined the other pegasi in replacing the crystals in the ballroom as well the foyer, library, and the halls of the servant’s quarters. The chandeliers were large and high above the ground. They were no doubt lowered for humans to replace the crystals, but the pegasi could do it from the air.
Hearth Throb pranced in place before she was given one of the long shafts that would go into the massive chandelier overhead.
“How does it feel?” Paradise asked.
“Cool, surprisingly,” Heart Throb answered. “I imagined something putting out this much light would be more than a little warm to the touch.”
“It must emit almost all of its electromagnetic radiation within the visual spectrum,” Wind Whistler commented.
All eyes turned on her, and Wind Whistler realized she might be the only pony in the room to know what any of that meant. “It doesn’t produce heat, just light.”
“Well, it will make that light from the grandest place in the whole castle.” Heart Throb flew up to where Medley had removed one of the spent shafts.
Wind Whistler took to the air and watched Heart Throb as she carefully slipped the crystal between the metal strips and slipped one end into the top and then the other into the bottom of the casing. She let go, but the crystal began to tip over and she had to catch it. “How does it stay in?”
“There’s a lever at the bottom that brings it up so the crystal is in tight,” Medley said, still holding the spent crystal.
“I’ll get it.” Wind Whistler flew down to where the small knob of metal was. It took a couple of tries, but she managed to push it to the other side of its slot, and the bottom of the casing rose slightly. Heart Throb let go and the crystal stayed in place.
“There we go darlings,” Heart Throb said. “That’s one down and only several hundred more to go.”
Firefly, Lofty, and Surprise repeated the process one the next of the five remaining crystals in the chandelier. This one still had a bit of glow to it, but it was very faint compared to the new one they replace it with. They continued, putting the spent or mostly spent crystals in the cases vacated by the new ones. The chandelier was back to its original brilliance within minutes.
Wind Whistler searched the walls for a lever like the one she found in her room that controlled the overhead lamp. There was none exposed, but one of the panels had a handle like a door. Behind it was a wall of levers with the largest in the center.
She pushed it down and the light from the main chandelier faded to nothing. Between its light gone and the smaller chandeliers above the balcony still holding spent crystals, the ballroom went almost completely dark. She pushed the lever back up and the light returned.
“Well, the chandelier is done, and we can shut out its light when not in use,” Paradise said from behind her. “Though, do we need to replace every crystal? Some of them still have a bit of glow to them.”
“It only seems logical,” Wind Whistler replied as she closed the panel. “The crystals are kept in sets meaning they’re meant to be replaced and recharged all at once.”
Paradise heaved a sigh. “Then we might as well knock out the chandeliers on the balcony and the sconces on the columns.”
* * *
Fizzy and Shady were working on the dining room’s iron light fixtures. They could be lowered the tables and each stub was replaced in a flower like holder that would close up into a ball to protect them.
Fizzy levitated a stubby piece of crystal out and put in a shiny new one. “These are a really nifty idea, aren’t they, Shady?”
“Doesn’t the Crystal Empire have light up crystal like these?” Shady asked.
Fizzy shook her head. “No, we use candles and light bulbs like the rest of Equestria. Though, we do have crystals to go over them.”
“I didn’t know that,” Shady said. “I thought everything was crystals up there.”
“When we get back home, you should come up the Crystal Empire,” Fizzy said. “It’s the beautiful place you could ever see.”
“‘When’?” Shady asked in response. “Don’t you mean ‘if’?”
Fizzy shook her head. “I mean when. We’re going to get back home, I know it.”
Shady heaved a sigh. “I really wish I could see things like you can. I’m just use to the worst happening.”
“Have you ever thought that’s because it’s all you think about?” Fizzy asked. “You’re not thinking of the better things, so you miss them.”
Shady paused. “I had never thought of it that way.”
“Less talking and more replacing,” Cherries Jubilee barked as she walked past them.
Fizzy took out another dim crystal and put a new one in its place. Shady was doing the same with a little more of a smile on her face. Fizzy joined her in grinning knowing she was in a better mood.
* * *
Despite all that had to be done, Wind Whistler and Paradise’s system made replacing all the crystals only take a couple of hours. Blueflower toured the relit castle and was pleased with what she saw.
“Well done, all,” she said to them as they gathered in the ballroom. “I know this was a rather mundane task, but I would say changing the lights makes this a bit more like home.
“Speaking of which, I think we need a new house rule. When you leave a room, close off the lights. We want to conserve their energy as much as possible.”
“Yes, Lady Blueflower,” the other said in a way purposefully indicative of a class of students to their teacher.
The Whizz chuckled. “I think I’ll take my leave now. You seem to be settling in nicely.”
“I’ll show you to the door,” Blueflower replied.
They walked down the halls with the ponies dispersing to various places around them. “What about Whizz as just a man?” Blueflower asked. “Do you play cards?”
“More of a backgammon player, actually,” Whizz said. “And, as I said, I have a sweet tooth for honey.”
Blueflower chuckled. “I’m sorry we can’t accommodate it at the moment, but I think Sweetie is looking into getting some beehives for honey and pollinating the trees. If she does, we’ll send you part of the first batch as payment for your services.”
Whizz waved his hand dismissively. “Not necessary. I’m just glad to see old Curt’s project being looked after. Taking good care of this castle is payment enough.”
“Then as a gesture of friendship,” Blueflower said.
“If you insist,” Whizz replied.
“Speaking of the apple and cherry trees, were they also your friend’s doing?” Blueflower asked. “We’ll be happy to have the fruit regardless.”
The Whizz gave a short nod. “The old orchards had long since gone fallow. The new grafts were something he got to bring the grounds back to what they were in the old days. Though, he chose more recent and popular breeds.”
The Whizz stopped. “By the way, you didn’t happen to find what was under the castle, did you?”
Blueflower stopped and felt her skin prickle. “You know of the machine below us?”
Whizz nodded. “Curt found that old elevator, and took it down. He never got that thing to work, so he didn’t bother even cleaning up that dust pit. However, that is very old technology, we both knew that.”
“We believe it’s what the Valkyrie Queens called the Bifröst,” Blueflower replied. “We managed to make it work.”
Whizz exhaled a groan and stroked his beard. “It’s even older than them. The columns like those down there are only found in the ruins of the Ancients.”
“The Ancients?” Majesty asked. “That’s a rather vague name.”
“That’s because little is known about them. We don’t even know what they looked like let alone actually called themselves,” Whizz said, staring off into his own thoughts. “We just know they were very advanced and very old. Some say millions of years old. This planet is littered with artifacts and ruins from their civilization, but most of it is corroded bits and pieces of little use beyond confirming the existence.”
“According to the Boreans, the first Valkyrie Queen was a handmaiden of their gods and received the Bifröst from them,” Blueflower said.
“No doubt that was the story given to them when she took power,” Whizz said. “However, as we’ve come to know more about the Ancients’ technology, I and Curt suspected what really happened was a woman stumbled across that machine down there and used its technology to make it seem she had the power of their gods. Regardless, if you have managed to get it running, you control one of the greatest powers on this planet. That was the real reason Curt wanted to keep this castle a secret. He feared evil might come looking for the Bifröst.”
“No wonder the harpies are after it,” Blueflower commented.
“The harpies,” Whizz grumbled. “I still can’t believe those feathered devils are back in Boreas. How many are there?”
Blueflower shrugged. “We don’t know. We’ve encountered at most three but suspect there are more.”
“They haven’t found the castle, have they?” Whizz asked.
“Fortunately no,” Blueflower answered. “However, they kidnapped a girl and are after her family’s locket. It’s what reactivated the machine.”
Whizz placed his hand on his forehead. “Then they must have found the Valkyrie Queen’s bloodline.”
“I thought she died,” Blueflower said.
“She did, but her infant daughter disappeared,” Whizz replied. “They believe she was sent to be raised a commoner. The harpies must have managed to track her descendants.”
He turned to Blueflower, his eyes suddenly harsh and lips tight under his mustache. “You must use whatever you’ve found down there for good and protect it from those who would use it for evil. Especially those feathered devils. I don’t know how you were brought here, but you appearing in this castle was more than just happenstance.”
Blueflower felt as if a weight had landed on her. “We will keep it safe from those who would abuse it. You have my word.”
Whizz’s expression quickly lightened. “Then this castle is in the perfect hands, er hooves, um…pasterns?” He stroked his beard. “Whatever body part you use to hold things.”
They began walking again. “Does this place have a name?” Blueflower asked.
“It’s called the Appendix Fjord,” the Whizz answered, “but it’s a rather derogatory term for the place. The appendix is a small organ that many believe serves no purpose in humans, and this fjord is considered useless because of the rocks at its mouth. No one even bothered to enter for centuries, mapmakers just copying the old maps for its shape.
“However, when Curt did find this place and spent some time here,” the Whizz said, “he began calling it Dream Valley because it said it was as if it came out of the most wonderful dreams. Naturally, he castle would be Dream Valley Castle or Dream Castle for short. Personally, prefer his name for it.”
“Dream Castle in Dream Valley,” Blueflower mused aloud. “A bit whimsical but fitting, and I agree far better than the demeaning name others have given it.”
They continued to the foyer, and the Whizz pushed open the door to where his flying carpet was still hovering over the stoop. “I must say goodbye for now. However, don’t be a stranger, and know you always have a friend in the Wonderful Wizard.”
He stepped on the carpet and it lifted off before flying away. “And pop those feathered devils in the kisser for me.” Blueflower waved until he disappeared over the cliff.
She inhaled and exhaled a sigh. This world and even this castle just would not stop with the surprises.