Chalcedony Bay was exactly as Vermilion imagined. The vision granted by Luna’s table was faultless – even the angle of the rising sun’s light was perfect, as though the map had somehow known what hour of the morning they would arrive. The perfect white cliffs, tinted pink and orange with the dawn’s glow, ringed a wide, placid harbor. Docks and piers jutted out into the bay from the small collection of buildings huddled in a natural break in the cliffs, and further up in the slopes beyond Vermilion could see the vague forms of towers and steeples hanging onto the mountains.
“Haselnacht,” Quicklime said. The five of them had gathered at the Pearl Diver’s prow to see their destination. It had been two weeks since any of them had bathed in anything but the most perfunctory sense, using wetted towels and a bucket of fresh water. The pegasi, at least, were able to fly through the rain to get clean, but they all felt a bit ragged around the edges. Manes were matted; their coats flat and shiny with built-up oils. “Finally. Celestia, just get me off this ship.”
“Pretty place,” Cloud Fire said. He tilted his muzzle up and sniffed at the air. “Snowed recently, maybe just last night.”
“The mountains are all white,” Rose noted. “I don’t think that’s normal, this early.”
“I’m gonna check it out,” Cloudy said. “C’mon Zeph.” He jumped into the air, wings beating hard, and soared away from them across the placid water’s surface, leaving a faint trail of ripples behind him. Zephyr followed just a few moments behind, and soon they were nearly to the docks.
“Fucking pegasi,” Quicklime said. She pronounced the vulgarity with slow, careful precision, relishing each letter. One of the sailors had taught her to curse, and now they couldn’t get her to stop. It was like she’d discovered a whole new world.
The pegasi loved it. Rose just rolled her eye each time. Vermilion was horrified. For all that he knew, intellectually, that Quicklime was several years older than him, he couldn’t help but see the tiny unicorn as a little sister, now spouting out vulgarities like a dirty fountain. He winced and bit his tongue.
“We’ll be there soon enough,” Rose said.
“Not fucking soon enough.” Quicklime let out a long breath. “I’m gonna go pack my stuff. We better be docked by the time I get done.” She wandered away, exchanging cheerful, vulgarity-laced greetings with each of the sailors she passed. One anatomically creative suggestion made Vermilion blush.
“She’ll be happier once we get back on land,” Rose said. “I think she was just starting to get used to sailing, too.”
“I’ll be happier back on land. I never thought I’d miss dirt.”
“Some earth pony sailors bring little jars of it with them. Say it reminds them of home. I’ll just be glad to have real food again.” She shrugged, sniffed at herself, then him. “And a real bath.”
They made good time across the bay, even with light winds and reefed sails. As they approached the open dock, earth pony dockworkers hurled coils of rope to the ship and began hauling it in to tie up to the pier. Soon they had the gangplank extended, and workers began filing down onto the dock.
Zephyr and Cloud Fire were sitting there, waiting for them. Cloud Fire waved, then yelled: “Hey! Cherry! Get our stuff!”
When he finally made it down, the team’s luggage loaded on his back, the touch of solid ground beneath his hooves nearly sent him stumbling. It was too solid, too unmoving – his legs, accustomed to the sway of the boat, threatened to buckle with each step. Rose and Quicklime seemed unsteady as well, though Rose recovered her poise first. By the time they passed through the small merchant’s town at the bay’s edge the feeling had passed.
The road up to Hazelnight was wide and paved with cobblestones, an unusual luxury Vermilion had never seen outside of Equestria’s largest cities. Even in Everfree, the outermost neighborhoods had crushed gravel or even dirt streets. To cobble a simple road leading to the bay was an extravagance. Still, the rounded stones felt good beneath his hooves, and he wasn’t in any mood to complain.
“Kinda chilly,” Quicklime said. She hadn’t cursed since they disembarked from the Pearl Diver, and Vermilion dared to hope she’d left all those words behind. “I can see my breath.”
“It feels like early autumn, at least,” Zephyr said. She extended her wings, feathers fluffed to catch the air. “It’s not natural. Something messing with the weather.”
“Windigoes,” Cloudy said. “Calling it now.”
“You said windigoes were drawn by strife.” Vermilion slowed his pace to match Quicklime’s. “Nopony down at the docks mentioned any unrest. If ponies were fighting, we’d have noticed by now. What else could attract them?”
“Hm.” Quicklime was silent for a while. The road began a slow, steady climb upward from the bay, and Vermilion could see the town grow in clarity in the mists ahead. Less than an hour’s walk, he guessed. “Any hidden passions might do it. Murder, maybe.”
“Murder, passionate?” Rose asked. “What books have you been reading?”
Quicklime snorted. “I mean any crime undertaken with evil intent, even if it’s not obvious. Ask about missing ponies when we get there.”
“Speaking of getting there, what are we supposed to actually say to these ponies?” Zephyr asked. “They don’t know we’re coming, do they?”
Hm. No, they didn’t, not unless Luna had somehow passed a message this far from Equestria’s borders. While he wouldn’t put anything past their eccentric liege, she probably would have at least mentioned that to him. He thought about this problem, and after a few minutes of silence realized that the conversation had halted, and everypony was looking at him.
“What?” he said.
“What’re we gonna say to them?” Cloudy pointed with a wingtip at the mountain-borne town before them. “Hey, we’re from Equestria and we’re here to kill your monsters?”
“That, I mean… No, we’ll just… I don’t know, ask around?” Vermilion looked around for support. “Like Hollow Shades?”
“Hopefully not like Hollow Shades,” Rose said. She started walk again, and the rest followed her. The landscape that opened up around them as they cleared the cliffs was hauntingly beautiful in a desolate way; no trees grew this far north, only colorful shrubs now in bloom, surrounded by an endless carpet of sphagnum moss and flowering heather. Raw, bald rocks broke through the earth, towering like sentinels above the moorland. Nothing broke the cold wind that flowed down the mountains toward them. A thin layer of snow built in pockets around them, spackling the world with bright white spots.
“You know what I mean.” He trotted a bit faster to regain the lead. “We tell them we’re here to help. After that, well, I don’t know. We’ll have to see.”
* * *
Hazelnight seemed far above them. Until suddenly it wasn’t.
They rounded a gentle hill, and before them the mountains opened in a narrow, steep valley, crowded with granite buildings layered atop each other up the sides of the slopes. Ornate sculptures decorated almost every stone surface – gargoyles looked down from the corners of the towers; friezes of ponies engaged in every conceivable activity marched the walls. Towers and spires rose as though challenging the mountain peaks around them, topped with long vivid pennants that whipped in the wind. And all between the buildings and bridges and monuments flowed a river of ponies, their colorful coats providing a glaring contrast with the somber stone architecture.
But before the city lay a great camp, a valley filled with tents and lean-tos and the huddled forms of ponies under blankets with no shelter from the elements. Hundreds of them crowded in the empty, flat stretches of moorland beside the road, growing denser, louder and uglier as they approached the town. A babble rose from the squalor, a constant clatter of pans and hooves and voices, countless voices speaking in a tongue just a few degrees slantwise from the Equestrian Vermilion knew. Foals chased each other through the chaos or crouched near the open fire pits. The stench of open latrines assaulted his nose.
He stumbled to a stop at the sight. His companions fell silent, and they all stared at the chaos that began just feet from the edges of the road. Ahead, past the refugees, a line of ponies in armor stood between the camp and the city itself.
Hazelnight had no walls, but a series of watchtowers formed a perimeter along the mouth of the valley. The road, which had turned from cobblestones to fitted flagstones, let straight between two of them, and a pair of dull-coated earth pony stallions stood guard at their feet. After recovering from the sudden shock of the town and the encampment around it, Vermilion walked toward them.
The sentries straightened as he approached. They looked fit and young, filled out with muscles, but they wore their sparse armor uneasily, as though unused to its weight. They each had swords, sheathed against their shoulders, but their mouthgrips were pristine and unmarked. Nothing about these ponies – either their bodies, their stances or their equipment – struck him as experienced. They shuffled uneasily as Vermilion’s group approached, and ducked their heads in a semblance of a bow.
“Sir, ladies,” the nearest one said to Vermilion and the unicorns in turn. An odd accent lifted his vowels, giving them a melodic lilt that fit perfectly with the town’s archaic name. The pegasi they gave wary glances, but otherwise didn’t address. “Not refugees, are you? If not, welcome to Haselnacht.”
“Uh, no,” Vermilion said. He looked around at the teeming mess that ended abruptly at the city’s border. “We’re visiting on behalf of Princess Luna of Everfree. Are these all ponies refugees? We, uh… look, we just need an inn.”
“You have money?” the other guard asked. “Inns’re expensive these days, and no sleeping in the streets. Vagrancy is punishable by expulsion.” He gestured out toward the camp.
“We’re here on the crown’s business.” Rose stepped forward. “And yes, we have money, not that it should matter. Why are all these ponies barred from Hazelnight? Where are their homes?”
The young stallion on the left snorted. His unfitted armor clattered as he pointed behind them. “Them? They ain’t got no homes anymore. They’re lucky they get the camp. That’s all that lets them live, you know.”
Rose’s eye narrowed, and Vermilion stepped in before she could say more. “We’ve come to offer help on behalf of Equestria and the princesses. We can’t do that if you won’t let us in.”
The other guard grunted, then nodded toward his partner. They stood to the side, opening the path into Hazelnight for them to pass. Their eyes never left Rose and Quicklime, though, and when the unicorns passed they leaned away skittishly. It was a tense few moments until they passed out of sight.
As they entered the city, traffic around them picked up. Never as much as in Everfree, but dozens of ponies walked alongside them as they crossed narrow streets bordered by high buildings. Most were dressed well, but around them, here and there, Vermilion saw ponies clad in threadbare clothes, worn thin at the knees and patched repeatedly. An air of nervous tension permeated the city, of hunger and desperation lurking in the shadows, like Vermilion could scratch the stone walls and find panic just beneath the surface. It set them all on edge as they walked.
“Not many pegasi around,” Zephyr observed. Indeed, she and Cloud Fire appeared to be the only ones, and they got more than their share of looks from the ponies around them.
“There weren’t any cloud cities near here when the Pact was signed,” Cloudy said. He did his best to ignore the odd stares from the townponies. “Derecho was near Everfree, Simoom was, uh, all the way out over the western deserts, and of course Huracan’s down the coast. Blizzard was up north, I guess, but more along the plains and not this far east. And no pegasus would want to move out here, anyway. The weather’s too wild.”
“What do you mean?” Quicklime asked.
“It’s not…” He trailed off, frowning. “Zephyr, help me out.”
“It hasn’t been worked much,” she said. She tilted her nose up to sniff the air. “I could probably shape some clouds, but they would just evaporate as soon as I left them. Unless you have a lot of pegasi constantly working the sky it’ll just revert to its natural state.”
They reached a large, open square, dominated by a fountain in the center. Some huge, wooly beast, depicted in rough-hewn stone, spat a constant stream of water into the air. An irregular, lumpy mass of white ice grew around it like a crust of mushrooms. Their destination dominated the far end of the square – the New Home Inn, according to the sign out front, rose several floors and spanned nearly the entire block, its gutters crowned with carved stone ivy that flowed down the bare walls.
“Geodes must be more lucrative than I thought,” Rose said. “This city is rich.”
“But filled with so many poor ponies,” Quicklime said. “What’s happening here?”
The inside of the inn was less ostentatious than the exterior; Vermilion might have even called it homey, like something he’d find in the working-class quarters of Everfree. A wood-paneled common room filled the bottom floor, crowded with rows of tables and lorded over by a huge hearth, above which reared the stuffed carcass of some many-limbed-and-taloned beast, its jaws frozen open in a silent snarl. Hazelnight had some experience with monsters, it seemed.
Quicklime went to find the front desk, and Vermilion led the rest of them to a table near the center of the room. A small fire burned in the hearth, and its warmth chased away the worst of the summer’s unnatural chill. Dozens of other ponies peppered the room, forming small groups around each of the tables or along the long bar opposite the fireplace. They filled the air with their accented Equestrian. Outside, flurries began to fall as Quicklime rejoined them.
“Okay. The place is full up, apparently. I had to beg to get us just one room. And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what it cost.” Quicklime let out a long breath that seemed to carry with it all the frustration of their two weeks at sea. “I’m finding the baths. Rose?”
“Yes, please.” Rose stood and shook out her mane. It had started to turn stringy after so long without soap, and her muzzle wrinkled at the touch of the bangs falling across her face. “How about you, Vermilion?”
“Eh.” He shrugged. “I’ll get one later.” Or not. He didn’t feel any dirtier than he did during summers at the farm, after long days spent harvesting in the blistering sun. At least now he wasn’t plastered in so much mud and dust that it formed clumps in his coat that crumbled off in cakes with each step.
“Mhm.” Rose stared at him for a long second, then sniffed quietly. “Don’t wait too long. Come on, Quicklime.”
Cloudy snorted once the two were far enough away not to hear. “Esh, unicorns.”
“They’re allowed to want to be clean,” Zephyr said. “It’s an admirable trait.”
“I think it’s more of a mare thing,” Vermilion said. He noticed Zephyr staring at him, and quickly ammended: “Or, uh, a unicorn mare thing.”
“Smooth,” Cloudy said. “So, Hazelnight. Nice place, except for the surly guards and army of homeless ponies outside the city. At least there’s no monsters yet.”
“It’s cold.” Vermilion looked past the light crowd through the porthole-shaped windows that dotted the wall. A steady curtain of snow fell upon the town, dusting the cobblestones and statues and ponies’ manes as they walked through the streets. Even the warmth of the fire could not completely banish the unsettling chill in his breast at seeing snow in the height of summer. He couldn’t imagine how the ponies in the camp outside town were dealing with the weather. “Something’s wrong here.”
“Just noticing that now?” Zephyr said. She gestured with a wingtip toward the windows. “It shouldn’t be that cold. Pegasi can’t do that, not really. We can make storms, sure, or clear them, but how warm or how cold it is depends on continent-wide weather patterns. This? This is some weird shit.”
Vermilion’s ears flicked back in annoyance. Quicklime wasn’t the only one who’d picked up a habit for vulgarities among the sailors. Still, he kept his tongue – complaining would just lead to both pegasi cursing up a storm, simply to watch him squirm.
At least Rose wasn’t doing it yet. That was something.
“So, leader.” Cloudy leaned over the table, shoving his muzzle up in Vermilion’s personal space. “What do we do?”
Vermilion pushed the pegasus back onto his side of the table. “Nothing today. Tomorrow morning we’ll try to find whoever’s in charge of this town, tell them why we’re here.”
“And if they don’t want our help?”
Vermilion shrugged. “I dunno. We’ll figure something out. We always have.”
“Inspiring,” Zephyr offered. She glanced around the room, then lowered her voice to continue. “I think we need to be careful here. Remember what Quicklime said about windigoes – they don’t just show up out of nowhere. They’re attracted by strife or hatred. And this town feels like it’s on the edge of something bad.”
“If it’s windigoes,” Cloudy said.
“What else could it be?” She ruffled her feathers and shook out her wings. “This place just gives me the creeps. There’s something unnatural about it.”
“I know. I feel it too.” Vermilion found his gaze drawn again to the falling snow. It tugged at his eyes, capturing them, hypnotizing him with its steady, endless cadence. “Keep an eye out for anything. Keep an eye on each other. Whatever’s causing this, remember, we’ve fought worse.”
“Here here,” Cloudy said. “Damn, now I need a drink.”
* * *
The unicorns rejoined them in time, and they ate in the inn’s great commonroom. Barley was apparently the staple crop up in Hazelnight and formed the basis for their dishes, though sprigs of sorrel and honey and clever roasting techniques lent the grain a surprising degree of variation. Even their drinks were a sort of barley tea, with a strong earthy flavor that grew on Vermilion the more of it he had. And, of course, they had beer. More beer that Vermilion had ever seen. Zephyr and Cloudy Fire overindulged, as expected, and they dragged Quicklime with them, plying her with mug after mug until she was a giggling mess on the floor.
The inn apparently catered to the well-heeled of Hazelnight; nopony in the crowd seemed to have the threadbare, haunted mein of the ponies in the streets outside, much less the refugees encamped beyond the walls. The crowd was friendly enough, but the team’s Equestrian accents clearly set them apart as foreigners, and nopony seemed eager to engage them in casual conversation, much less answer questions about the city. Even after hours talking and drinking and eating, Vermilion knew nothing more about what plagued Hazelnight than when he’d arrived.
Rose just had one mug. Vermilion had a few, but as an earth pony, they barely gave him more than a light buzz. He found himself smiling more than normal as the room began to empty for the night.
The snow tapered off as the sun set. Despite the high latitude of the city and its mountain overlook, enough heat remained to melt what had fallen, turning it into a gray slush on the stones. The scent of ice and wet granite teased at Vermilion’s nose all night.
Finally, Rose declared that they’d had enough, and with Vermilion’s aid they hauled Quicklime up to their room. Vermilion was about to climb into bed with them when Rose grabbed his ear with her magic, twisting it as she led him to the door.
“Ow!” He shook her grip off. “What gives?”
“Bath first.” She shoved him out into the hall with her shoulder. “Come back when you’re clean.”
Ugh. He was clean. Clean enough, anyway. He tried to argue the point, but Rose countered by closing the door in his face.
Fine. He went to find a bucket and some hot water, with half-a-mind to not bothering to dry off afterward. After all, she’d just said he had to be clean.
The inn’s baths were in an expansive stone basement, filled with steaming pools apparently fed by hot springs deep in the mountains. A faint hint of sulfur charred the air, and the pools were surrounded by a scaly buildup of bright minerals. He eyed the pools warily and let them be.
Fortunately, like most baths in Everfree, there was a separate station for washing, filled with buckets and sponges. The pools weren’t meant for getting clean, after all – they were for relaxing, if one was so inclined. And with Rose’s chipper warning about what hot water could do to testicles still in his mind, he wasn’t feeling very inclined to take a dip at all.
So, the bucket. He filled it with a mix of warm and cool water from a trough along the wall and dunked it over his head to get started.
Perhaps it was the preternatural chill that surrounded the city, but for some reason he lingered, filling bucket after bucket with warm, then hot water and letting it sluice across his back. The hot touch reminded him of walking through summer in Everfree just weeks ago. He closed his eyes and let out a quiet sigh.
He lost himself this way. Time passed. The others upstairs no doubt wondered what had become of him, but he found he didn’t really care. They’d be fine without him for a little while. He luxuriated in the warmth, breathing in the sulfur-scented steam, and found himself wondering if maybe a soak in the baths wouldn’t be a bad idea after all.
A sound interrupted his reverie. Somepony clearing their throat. He started out of his daydream and spun. “Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t hear you, I—”
“No worry, friend,” the intruder said. He stepped up to the trough Vermilion had been blocking and filled a bucket of his own. “You look like you need some time.”
It was a pegasus, coffee-coated, darker than Zephyr by several degrees and with an icy blue mane. He looked to be approaching middle age, with a dusting of silver on his muzzle and a network of lines around his eyes. A mark of a stylized cloud being shaped by a blade adorned his flank. But more than anything he seemed to exude a sense of great exhaustion, of a pony who, having run or flown all day, merely collapsed into sleep before waking to repeat his labors again. Weariness cloaked this stallion like a blanket.
Vermilion realized he was staring. “Oh, uh, sorry. I, uh, haven’t seen any other pegasi around here.”
“I know. Odd, ain’t it?” the pegasus said. He spoke in unaccented Equestrian, as though straight from Everfree himself. He offered a hoof. “Stratolathe. Just call me Strato, or Lathe.”
Vermilion tapped his hoof. “Vermilion. Good to meet you. Are you, uh, from Equestria too?”
Strato paused before answering, filling up the bucket with hot water and upending it over his head. It matted his mane, plastering it to his head and neck and turning his already dark coat nearly black. Whiplike cords of muscle stood out beneath his skin, and he let out a long breath that shouted of relief. “I am. You were with those two birds in the commonroom, weren’t you? I wanted to introduce myself then, but you all seemed to be enjoying yourselves.”
Vermilion nodded. “We’re all from Everfree, on business for the crown. We’ve been told that a monster might be threatening the town. We’ve been sent to destroy it.”
Strato shook his head, spraying water across the stone tiles, and squinted at Vermilion. After a moment he nodded. “Aye, I guess I can see that. You’ve the look of a warrior about you. That pegasus mare, too. Reminded me of some real soldiers I used t’know.”
“That’s Zephyr,” Vermilion said. He stepped back as Strato set down the bucket, then followed him over toward the pools. While there were none here like the frigidarium in Everfree, filled with ice-cold water, there was a gentle, still pool that didn’t steam like the rest. Vermilion tested it with his hoof and found it lukewarm. “She’s amazing with a spear. Cloudy – uh, Cloud Fire, our other pegasus – he’s pretty good with a spear, but not like her. I’ve never seen anypony… well, no, I’ve seen one pony better than Zephyr. But she’s gone now. She, uh, died a few months ago.”
“I’m sorry t’hear that. Always sad when a warrior passes into the next world.” Strato stepped gingerly into the pool, as though each movement of his joints caused pain. When he finally lowered his haunches beneath the water, Vermilion caught a glance of a half-healed wound, a savage crescent of toothmarks all along his thigh. Whatever had bitten him must’ve had the jaws of a giant.
Strato saw him staring, and chuckled. “Just a lil’ scratch, friend. Pay it no mind.”
“If you say,” Vermilion mumbled. He followed Strato into the pool and settled on a submerged bench, allowing the water to rise just above his withers. “May I ask what brings you to Hazelnight? We’ve seen no other pegasi here.”
“Business. Fightin’s my business.” Strato closed his eyes and leaned his head against the pool’s rim. “Used to be a soldier down in Everfree, but that didn’t pay too well, y’know? So I figured I’d head out on my own, goin’ wherever the pay was the best. ‘Bout a year ago, that was up here.”
“Fighting what?” There didn’t seem to be much worth fighting over up here. Except geodes, he supposed. They’d made the town rich enough.
“Same as you.” Strato opened his eyes to squint at Vermilion. “Monsters, savages. There’s other towns up here besides just Hazelnight, towns with nopony who knew a spear’s blade from its haft. The lord here hired me to patrol them, teach a few ponies in each town how to defend themselves. Was easy work for a while.”
Hm. Vermilion stared through the water at the red marks on Strato’s thigh. “What changed?”
Strato was silent. He turned his head away, and his eyes strayed to the placid surface of the pool. Only their breaths disturbed it, sending tiny ripples across the water to rebound against the stone walls.
Vermilion waited. Months ago, he might’ve asked again, but he’d learned something about patience since then.
Finally: “Everything. There’s always been monsters up here, friend, but not like this… Enormous wolves that hunt alone at night. Ponies who seem like you and I, who wander through the woods and over the moors, whose breath can freeze a stallion to death. Will o’wisps come down from the glaciers. And something that flies overhead at night. I can never see it, but sometimes it blocks out the stars, like a hole in the sky. It’s always up there, and the woods are full… All those little towns I talked about? They’re gone now. Hazelnight is chock full of refugees, and the ponies who didn’t come in from the cold… I don’t know. Whole towns, just gone.”
Vermilion swallowed. He tried to imagine Strato not as a wounded, age-hobbled pegasus, but a warrior in his prime, and found it quite easy. “You fought back?”
“Aye, as best I could.” He shook his head slowly. “Wasn’t good enough. Would take a lot more than just one old bird to save Hazelnight. Even you five, I don’t know what your plan is, but five blades ain’t enough for it.”
“We’ve faced long odds before. I think you might be surprised.”
“Hm.” Strato squinted at him, then let out a quiet chuckle. “Alright, Vermilion. Maybe Lord Graymoor will take a shine to you. Celestia knows this town is outta options. Me? I was thinkin’ of catching the next boat south, goin’ anywhere else. But maybe I’ll wait around a bit.”
“Graymoor.” He’d heard that name uttered a few times over the course of the night. “He rules Hazelnight?”
“Eh. ‘Rules’ is a strong word. Maybe he oversees things. And with all the refugees we got here these days, it’s all he can do to keep the town from flyin’ apart. He’s a good pony, though. Cares about his folks.”
“A sign of a good ruler,” Vermilion said. “You think he’ll want to meet us?”
Strato laughed at that. It was full and deep, and for a moment Vermilion caught sight of how the pegasus must’ve been in better times, hale and hearty, with a strength that inspired all around him. “Son, if you’re here to help, I know he will.”