The resemblance to an industrial factory not only persisted inside the castle, but grew. It was immediately apparent that the architectural style within was alien, but based almost exclusively on a sense of practicality. There were no grand entryways, foyers, or even areas that could reasonably be considered independent rooms.
It was wholly unpleasant, mainly because of the paradox of an ornate stone castle that within seemed to be completely unconcerned with habitation. Daring Do was not sure if it had been part of the asteroid when Flock found it, or if he had built it himself, but she knew that she did not like it. The whole place reeked of dark magic and evil things.
What the facility was used for was immediately apparent. The walls contained a number of chambers and alcoves. They were all occupied. By what was not something that Daring Do wanted to know, but in her gut she cold already tell. This was a collection. Even without looking, she understood what these things were. She could feel the evil radiating from them. Of the few times she had witnessed Wun Perr-Synt’s collection, she had felt the same sensation- -except that it was different here. While Wun displayed her acquisitions proudly, this one did not present its contents with any aesthetic foresight. They were not organized or labeled, or given lights and velvet cushions. Instead, they were arranged against harsh industrial pipes and gauges that surrounded their cells that kept them contained and cataloged with dreary precision.
“I didn’t take you for a collector,” said Daring Do, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.
Flock turned his head. “Because I’m not. I find no joy in acquiring these things, but I have to.” He gestured around them. “What you see here is the summation of several of your tiny lifespans of work.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“Protecting Equestria.” Seeing that this was not a complete enough response, he continued. “Although I am not a collector, this is a collection. Of artifacts, relics, texts, biological samples, machines, failed spells, whatever you can think of that is a danger to Equestria at large. I have taken it upon myself to secure these things in a place that no pony can reach- -and where they cannot reach Equestria.”
“They don’t look that dangerous,” said Rainbow Dash. She had approached a large unit housed in one of the alcoves and opened it, revealing a number of round slots containing long glass cylinders. Supercooled fog was leaking out of it as she removed one of the frozen canisters and peered through the glass.
A complicated geometric construction formed from yellow light suddenly appeared around the container, knocking her hoof back but preventing it from falling.
“HEY!” she cried. As she did, something within the cylinder screamed. Daring Do saw an unspeakable black thing strike against the frozen glass, shattering itself in the process and quickly re-forming its amorphous body.
Flock stepped over and angrily took the canister from the air. He held it out to her, causing her to grimace and look away. “Do you know what this is?” he snapped.
“Sorry,” muttered Rainbow Dash.
“Yes. ‘Sorry’. Clearly that warrants your absolution. This black substance? It is pure elemental shadow, one of the most dangerous substances known to exist.” He slammed it back into the cryopreservation unit between two other jars, one labeled as containing something called “godplague” and another filled with a warped blue fleshy substance labeled “D27”. Then he unceremoniously slammed the machine closed, and it decompressed with a hiss, freezing the shadow back into an inactive state.
“You should really keep it locked,” snapped Rainbow Dash.
“Why? You’re the first ponies other than myself who have been here in a hundred and fifty years. And the last one KNEW NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING.”
“I said sorry!”
Flock leaned to within inches from her face. Rainbow Dash gagged at the smell. Flock then twisted his head in a distinctly avian way. The effect was hideous, and for a moment Rainbow Dash was sure that she saw feathers interspersed with his dirty black fur.
“I don’t care. I want to inflict pain on you. But I’m exercising will power. Consider yourself lucky. And keep your filthy Pegasus hooves OFF MY STUFF.”
Daring Do cleared her throat. Flock immediately lost focus on Rainbow Dash.
“You’re not a good host,” she said, sarcastically.
“And your entire inbred race are good parasites,” snapped Flock in return. He began walking again. Daring Do and Rainbow Dash followed, but Rainbow Dash was quickly distracted by the various items that filled the place.
Rainbow Dash took flight to one of the higher levels and stopped in front of a room lit by harsh purple and red lights. From the ground, Daring Do could see that it was full of plants.
“Oh, hey,” she said. “A greenhouse. Anything good?”
“Devil grass. And several mutations that could eat a planet. And one that did. Plus some blood hyacinth.”
“Blood hyacinth?” asked Daring Do.
“Like a water hyacinth,” explained flock, “except that it does not grow in water.”
Rainbow Dash backed away from one of the several plant-filled rooms and descended to a different level. The cell she stopped at contained a flickering magical dome made of many complicated interlocking pieces. Inside sat a pony-sized machine consisting mostly of brass-like gears. “And this?”
“A reverse-entropic engine,” explained Flock.
“Wait,” said Rainbow Dash. “Like, a perpetual motion engine.”
“No. One that produces more energy than it consumes. At a geometric rate.”
Rainbow Dash did not seem to understand what that meant, but Daring Do did, and she found herself very glad that such a machine no longer resided on Equestria. “And you contained it in a time spell,” she said. “Creative.”
“A failed time spell,” muttered Flock. “There hasn’t been a true chronoplexer since Starswirl the Bearded. Or Thirteen of Thirteen I suppose. Filthy horn-bearers. Moronic students occasionally manage to produce ones like this, though. The sort that consume time on contact. I have several less complete versions on the lower level. Still linked to the students.”
Daring Do shivered, but Rainbow Dash pressed on. She landed and looked up at a number of warped, hideous statues and suits of armor. One in particular caught her attention. It resembled a pony- -many of them did, especially those with the greatest levels of pain etched on their face- -but was made of a type of stone that Daring Do knew did not occur naturally anywhere in Equestria. It appeared to be a mare, her body covered in armor. Her face was masked behind a single, flat plate with a white, luminescent gemstone set in the center. The whole of the figure was battered and pitted, suggesting incredible age.
“Why does this look familiar.”
“It shouldn’t,” said Flock. “That’s one of the few things I possess that is not cursed. It’s just a statue. I found it floating in the distant void, probably for several billion years. I have no idea which universe it even came from. There is an inscription on the bottom. It describes the arrival of something called ‘the World-Eater’.”
Rainbow Dash shivered, and did not point out anything else. Daring Do, however, suddenly had her attention drawn to one artifact. She stopped, even as Flock and Rainbow Dash continued on. To her left was a doorway that led to a large round area that could reasonably be called a room of its own. Daring do stepped in, feeling her hooves crossing a number of ornate curves of various metals that were part of containment spells that she did not understand.
In the center of the room stood a large block of ice. Daring Do touched it and found that it was extremely cold, despite the fact that there was no apparent means of refrigeration. She wiped her hoof across it and removed some of the condensation, only to see a dim shadow within it. Intrigued, she wiped it again with her whole foreleg until she could see clearly into the ice. Although the image was obscured, she saw a pony frozen in the center: a small, gray unicorn.
“Do I have to tell you too?” asked Flock.
Daring Do jumped back. She had not heard him approach. “No,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t bother apologizing. I hate apologies. And, frankly, this is the one thing here you can touch as much as you want. It’s made of enchanted frost. It will never thaw, and I know of no means to break it.”
“And the pony inside? Who is she?”
Flock shook his head. “I do not know. And I do not want to. Whoever she is, I am more than content to let her sleep.”
Daring Do took one last look at the small unicorn, observing as the condensation reappeared, obscuring her once more. Then she left her alone, nameless and frozen.
They returned to the main hall, and Daring Do looked up around her. There were more things of every type and every kind. She now understood that each and every one of them were dangerous items. They were not simply cursed, but unimaginably destructive.
“I think your collection is missing a few things,” she said.
“Really,” he said, sounding annoyed that she was bothering to speak.
“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash. “Where were you when Daring Do was finding the Sapphire Statuette? Or the Rings of Scorchero! I was there for that one! Those rings that were supposed to make the sun shine forever!”
“Both pointless. The statue in question is literally just a statue. It serves no purpose. Worthless.”
Daring Do scoffed. “That statue was incredibly sacred to the ponies that made it! It represents their guardian of the afterlife!”
“Yes. Because praying to Anubis clearly served them well. Hence why the temple to their primary god was not at all abandoned for the last four thousand years.”
“Well- -what about the rings?” protested Rainbow Dash. “Those ACTUALLY would have done something!”
“Please. Eternal day. So what? Just go to your ridiculous false-god and ask her to put the sun back down.”
“Those Rings of Scorchero would have summoned Daybreaker,” snapped Daring Do.
“And I don’t care. The world would still be intact regardless of how well-lit it became.”
“And if the whole thing turned into an endless desert?”
“Then the surface world dies. Not my problem.”
“Not your problem?” Rainbow Dash had become incensed. “What do you mean ‘not your problem’?”
“Rainbow Dash- -”
“No!” Rainbow Dash put her hoof down- -literally. “I don’t trust this guy! At all! I mean, clearly you’re not getting paid, right? Wizards don’t need money.”
“Not true,” said Flock, “but no. I don’t get paid.”
“So this is charity? All about protecting Equestria and whatever- -but then you don’t actually protect ANYTHING! What’s your deal, then? What are you trying to do?”
Daring Do actually found herself agreeing. “Yeah,” she said. “What are you trying to do, Flock?”
Flock turned his gaze from one of them to the other. He then put his hoof to his head. “Yes. Let me rephrase it. I suppose that I have boundless faith in pony adaptability. Despite being legion as crows, I’m still just one pony. I can’t track down every artifact. So I categorize them based on threat. Only the worst of the worst end up here. Contained in ways only I know how to contain them. Things that must literally not be allowed to exist- -and yet do.”
“Like the Hand of Doom.”
Flock’s eyes widened, and the whole of the room suddenly fell silent. “Come with me,” he said, softly.
They were led far into the castle, far deeper than it seemed to go from the outside. Daring Do had the impression that they were deep underground when they finally reached the edge of a large, octagonal room. It was one of many linked together, forming a vast honeycomb-like network.
It was a library. It had a cold and sterile appearance compared to the one in the Crystal Empire, or even to Twilight’s Royal Library, but the stone floor inlaid with curves of metals and the arching ceiling gave if a beauty that the other parts of the castle lacked. Shelves of books stood on exactly half of every facet of the octagon. Daring Do shivered upon seeing them. The tomes were dark and bizarre, and quite clearly evil.
“Great,” sighed Rainbow Dash. “Another library. So, what? More reading?”
“No,” snapped Flock. “Nothing in here is permitted to be read. Not by you at least.”
Rainbow Dash frowned. “So why have the books, then?”
Daring Do looked up at the shelves. “These are books too dangerous to be left on Equestria.”
“Of course. A personal area of study for me. As I do actually read them. Transcribe them, catalog them.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a wizard.” Flock shrugged. “It’s what we do.”
“Well, they say there was never a wizard that didn’t like reading. But I have to ask. Do you have anything here by Gxurab Al’Hrabnaz?”
Flock’s eyes narrowed but he did not hesitate in his answer. “Yes,” he said. “Almost all of it.”
“Wait a minute!” A look of realization crossed Rainbow Dash’s eyes. “That- -that was YOU! In the Crystal Library! You stole a book from me!”
Flock looked at her, and again did not hesitate. “Yes. You are correct. But that book you held was not one that would have helped you. In fact, it was profoundly dangerous. One I somehow missed. Those books must absolutely not be read. Under any circumstances.”
“Except by you.”
Flock did not answer. He continued deeper into the room, clearly having no intention of showing them the Al’Hrabnaz books. Daring Do stared up at what else he had and shivered. As an author, libraries normally gave her a sense of dizziness simply from what she thought of as the weight of the text around her. In this library, though, that weight was horrid and disturbing. The things written in these books had come at great and terrible costs, and should they ever be accessed again, the costs would only grow. Yet, for some reason, Flock allowed them to continue to exist.
She suddenly stopped, looking at one of the facets of the room that contained no shelves. Instead, it had a small, simple desk. Above it stood a picture. That was somewhat surprising, as Daring Do had not seen anything like that before, nor had she witnessed any evidence that Flock actually lived here.
This image, though, was definitely of him. It was a large glass daguerreotype tinged in sepia. In it stood Flock, wearing a waistcoat as well as a neatly starched shirt with short sleeves below it. Although still sickly looking, his eyes were straight and his mane tied back neatly. He even bore a thin smile.
To his side stood another pony, a mare with the proportions of an especially well-built stallion. She wore clothing from a similar time period in addition to an unusual set of shoulder and hip-high boots. What little skin was between her boots and jacket was covered in unusual tattoos.
Flock quickly appeared beside her. He waved his hoof and the glass of the photograph instantly darkened.
Daring Do turned to him. “Who was that?”
“‘Was’ is the operant word,” snapped Flock. “I didn’t bring you here to look at useless photographs. It takes a considerable amount of energy to move beings like you here.” He stopped at a large, battered case. He opened it and removed a perfectly formed piece of moonstone, and then produced his watch. Opening the watch, he ejected the old stone. It was charred and corroded. Flock tossed it away and put a new stone into the system. The gears turned, shifting, and closed around the stone.
“Are you just going to leave that there?” said Rainbow Dash.
“The jellenheimers will deal with it,” muttered Flock.
“Wait, what?”
“They tend to congregate here. Never mind. Just don’t look into their eyes and you’ll probably be fine.”
Daring Do followed him through one open facet into another octagonal library room and stopped. “Why are we here, Flock?”
“You already know that, apparently.”
“I do. This is about the Hand of Doom.”
“It is.” He pivoted toward her. They stood face-to-face.
“What do you know?”
“A great deal,” said Flock.
“Then tell me. All of it.”
Flock began to circle the room, occasionally staring up at the collection of horrid books that lined four of the eight walls. “The Hand of Doom is an artifact of abnormal and incredible destructive power.”
“I already know that. What is it for?”
“It is not ‘for’ anything in particular. It is a piece of something much more substantial, the rest of which has been lost.”
“And reuniting it with the rest of the pieces would do what, exactly?”
“It cannot be reunited. It is a fragment of something long-dead.”
“Well if it’s just a piece, we don’t have to worry,” said Rainbow Dash. Even she knew that was not true.
“And the Exmoori?”
“Yes, the Exmoori,” sighed Flock. “They were the first to become desperate enough to try to use it. It had been buried and lost to time. The Exmoor ponies brought it back. They built a machine to harness it. As a kind of power source.”
“I figured it was something like that,” said Daring Do. “But what does it actually do?”
“Nothing. Or it did do nothing. It was never used. Because the Hand of Doom cannot be controlled. Not ever.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” Flock’s eyes narrowed, “that if somepony WERE to try to use it, they would invariably lose control. The results would be disastrous.”
“The same could be said of anything in here.”
Flock shook his head. “The Hand is unique. A threat which cannot be measured or even fully comprehended.”
“Meaning you don’t actually know what it does,” said Rainbow Dash.
“It causes destruction,” said Flock, simply. “Which is why it is given its name. ‘Hand of Doom’. Do you know what ‘Doom’ means in Exmoorish?”
“Pain,” said Daring Do. “Destruction. Extinction.”
“And betrayal. Dishonor. Failure. The Exmoori held the concept of death- -and by extension the dead themselves- -in endless contempt. Death was considered an unforgivable failure of the individual.”
“But everypony dies eventually.”
“And the dead are superseded always by the living. Which makes it surprising that the Exmoori did not appreciate the appearance of the false-gods. By their own beliefs, the Hateful-Sun and Destroying-Moon should have been perfect beings.”
“Which might be why they hated them in the first place.” Flock had clearly not thought of that. Daring Do, however, was more focused on something else than a discussion of religion. “You know an awful lot about the Exmoori, don’t you.”
“Yes. I do. And I know exactly what happened to them, and how they failed. But that’s not the point. This way.”
He turned sharply and led Daring Do across the room. One of the unused facets of the large room was devoid of shelves and instead held a single large object. As they approached it, Flock waved one of his hooves at it. What appeared to be a covering disintegrated and vanished. When Daring Do saw what was underneath, she gasped.
“No way,” said Rainbow Dash.
Daring Do approached cautiously, realizing that she was shaking. There, standing before her, was a vast stone fresco- -all of it carved with exceedingly intricate, delicate figures and strange letters. Many of them she had already come to know well.
She whirled around. “Is this…”
“The original?” Flock shook his head. “No. Like the Exmoori themselves, the obsidian version was lost to history. This is the Mighty Helm version. Your copy was made from this.”
Daring Do looked up at the relief, and then slowly moved her hoof across it. Flock did not protest; if he had, Daring Do would not have heeded him anyway. The lines were cut deep, carved with incredible skill and conviction. The material itself was a type of fine-grain granite, something that the vast majority of ponies- -especially of that era- -would have found impossible to carve, especially in a single piece of this size. Even for a pony with the skill and tools, this was not the type of work that could be done in a single year, or two, or ten. This was somepony’s life work. Somepony whose name had been- -like the original he copied and like the ponies that had carved that one- - lost to history long ago.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“It’s a rock,” said Flock, clearly finding no significance in the stone apart from what was written on it.
“I’ve seen this part,” said Daring Do, pointing to one particular portion. Her eyes slowly drifted toward the remainder, a section written in a style of text she could not read. “But I don’t have this.”
“No,” said Flock. “Caballeron has that portion. Although at this point I believe he has a detailed copy of the whole thing.”
“But we have the original,” noted Rainbow Dash.
“Which is not helpful,” said Flock. “There is no difference between this one and the copy.”
“Then why show me?” asked Daring Do.
Flock was silent for a long moment. Then he stepped forward and stood beside Daring Do. “Did you know that I can read this?” he asked.
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
Flock pointed to the section that Daring Do had already translated. “The story of the Exmoori. How they stood against the false-gods and were crushed to oblivion for defying the Sun. Their hope to use the Hand, and their realization that doing so would bring nothing but pain to this world. The death of the last pureblooded Exmoor pony.”
“Pureblooded?” Daring Do looked at the etchings. It had not been visible in the etchings because the symbolic addition for the adjective had been so small. On the stone, though, it was obvious and clear.
Flock nodded. “The second-to-last Exmoor pony. Her son was Gigantes, a half-breed.”
“Gigantes was a Pegasus,” said Rainbow Dash. “That’s basic history. He was one of Commander Hurricane’s elite fighters.”
“Legends tend to diverge from reality. Two of the ancient races were completely expunged from history. Even their true races are not allowed to persist. No, that would be blasphemy. And remind the world that Celestia is NEVER kind.”
“That means we were looking in the wrong place.” Daring Do frowned, feeling her head starting to ache. “Lyskymm’s a dead end.”
“But Caballeron has the Spear of Extinction,” said Rainbow Dash. “And I was there, at the spot where Hurricane used it!”
Flocks’s eyes widened. “The Spear of Betrayal,” he said, softly. “You haven’t taken it from him yet?”
“I didn’t exactly get a chance!” snapped Daring Do.
“Well you should have!” Flock groaned, and put his hoof against his head. “Do you have any idea how much time I spent working with that horn-bearing inbred to make sure Caballeron acquired it?”
“Wait,” said Daring Do, recalling a black pony at Wun’s mansion. “That was YOU?”
“You were working with Caballeron!” cried Rainbow Dash. “TRAITOR!”
“I work with whoever I choose to get the job done,” retorted Flock. “And of course I helped him. There was no way you could get the Spear, and you need it to open the tomb!”
“What are you talking about?!”
Flock pushed past Daring Do. She recoiled, not wanting to touch his grotesque body. “This portion,” he said, pointing at the new section that Daring Do had not read. “It describes the facility. How the machine works. That’s far beyond you, but it also describes the facility’s defenses. The Sink, where the Rabid Ones roam; the Defenders in the facility proper, although that likely meant Exmoori soldiers that are now long gone; several sets of traps, and finally this, beyond which lies only Solum Finis and the Hand of Doom itself.” He put his hoof against the stone over an insignia that Daring Do recognized as the signature of the last pureblooded Exmoor pony combined with the cartouche for death, rendered in the second term that also meant dishonor.
“What is that?”
“The final gate, which will ask for the blood of a child of Exmoor. Blood whose residue exists on the end of Caballeron’s Spear.”
“So you knew this. And you didn’t say anything.”
Flock stared at Daring Do with his blank expression. “Yes. Honesty is the most important of the Elements of Harmony.”
“Um, excuse me?” said Rainbow Dash.
“I didn’t need you to do the translation. I followed you because I think that you may be able to provide the missing piece.”
“What piece?”
Flock pointed up at the carving. “I can read this. All of it. I know the exact history, I know how the system works- -I could even build this machine again, if it came down to it, just from this schematic alone, even if it was created to warn me not to.” His expression suddenly darkened. “But nowhere on this stone does it say WHERE the Hand actually is!”
“Of course not. The whole point was to keep ponies from finding it. To warn them, like you said. Why put a map to it on the warning?” Daring Do still frowned, though. That tended to be exactly what ancient civilizations did, in her experience.
“You have no idea how hard it is for me to admit that I am not able to do something. I have not had to do it for a long, long time. But you are supposedly the best at this.”
“I am. But why should I help you?”
Flock stared at the carvings. “Because,” he said, not looking at Daring Do, “Caballeron is on the other side. With a full copy of this stone, on paper. How long do you think it will take before he finds the way?”
Daring Do frowned. “And if he does, the Questlords get the Hand.”
“Yes. And the Order of the Red Bloom is known for being especially vicious, in case you were not aware. They will try to use it. And they will fail. The destruction to our world will be unimaginable.”
“And if you find it?”
Flock’s eyes flicked toward her. “Then we will decide on a way to contain it. I can take it here, if you wish. Or you may present it to one of your false-gods. What becomes of it does not matter, so long as it is not awakened.”
“Why don’t we just destroy it, if it’s so dangerous?” asked Rainbow Dash.
Daring Do and Flock both gaped at her, and then ignored her ridiculous suggestion.
“Right,” said Daring Do. She took a step back from the stone and looked it up and down. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”
“I’ve given you no reason to. If you knew the things I’ve done, you would not trust me either. But I assure you: all my actions are for the good of Equestria.”
“I’ve heard that before,” muttered Daring Do. Still, he was right, in a sense. If Caballeron really did have a complete version of this carving, then it was only a matter of time before he figured it out. He might even have an advantage in that department; as a linguist, he was far more advanced than Daring Do. Yet here she stood with the Mighty Helm version of the stone itself and a pony- - if he really was a pony- -who could read it easily and in its entirety. This might well have been her only chance.
The allure of finding the artifact first began to call to her. It was a familiar feeling, and she felt her eyes searching the stone even before she had made up her mind as to whether she would help Flock or not.
It was different put together into a single piece. The components were all there on paper, but not together. Sometimes not even in the right order. Daring Do, to her dismay, found that several of the frames she thought were supposed to connect were actually on completely opposite sides of the stone, separated only by a number of thin grooves that ran in linear or geometric patterns throughout the stone.
That caught her eye. The lines had never been substantial in the drawings, and she could see why. For the most part, they neatly divided sections of the text. Whoever had made the rubbings had either ignored them completely by using them to set the edge of the rubbing paper on, or only taken the especially thin ones that could not be avoided. Together, though, the lines were extensive. And they did more than divide the text.
An idea suddenly occurred to Daring Do. It was a ridiculous idea, but one that as she thought it made more and more sense. She stepped forward, her mouth slightly agape with surprise at not having seen it before. She ran her hoof over a large, perfect circle that was one of the nexuses of a particular section of lines.
“This,” she said.
“Yes,” said Flock. “It’s a division in the text. They are traditionally marked with oblique lines in Exmoori writing.”
“No, no, that’s not it.” Daring Do leaned over. “Look here. It’s the history of the machine, and two lines go straight through it. And this?” She pointed at the cosmology section. “The pony races each have a line going through them. It’s almost not even there…” Daring Do ran her hoof over it, finding that it was so thin that she would not have even been able to slide a knife’s edge into it if she had tried. “I didn’t see it, but it makes sense. All of it makes sense!”
“What?”
Daring Do stepped back and laughed. “They’re divisions. Not in the text, but in the stone itself.”
“It’s a single piece of stone.”
“Yes! Because that’s what the Mighty Helm carved it as! But what if the original wasn’t?”
Flock stared at it. “You mean it was in pieces?”
“Yes- -no. Not quite! Look.” She stepped forward and traced the lines with her hoof. “The Exmoori were an advanced technological race, right?”
“Not the most advanced, no, but more so than the rest of you primitives.”
“What if the original was mechanical?”
Flock froze, and then looked up at the stone. He then looked down at Daring Do, and at the stone gain. His mouth opened as if to deride her suggesting, but then he found himself walking closer to the stone and inspecting it carefully.
“Oh mane,” whispered Rainbow Dash, who was shaking from a combination of missing organs and extreme excitement. “Daring Do, I wish I could marry you.”
“I’m not your type, Dash, and you’re not mine.”
Rainbow Dash blushed, realizing that what she had thought was a wish inside her own head had actually been spoken out loud.
“Yes,” said Flock.
“You’re not my type either,” said Daring Do.
“Not that. You’re right. You’re actually right!” He broke out into a sound that was almost like laughter, but so grating that it raised the hair on the back of Daring Do and Rainbow Dash’s necks. “It is! These shapes, this could represent a mechanical mechanism!”
“Too bad the original is lost,” said Daring Do. “The Mighty Helm copied what was written on it, but not any secret mechanisms.”
“No, they didn’t.” Flock stepped back. “But the shape is complex enough that I believe the original mechanism can be reconstructed mathematically. By extremely advanced mathematics, of course, but ones that I am by no means incapable of.”
He produced the moonstone-powered clockwork dial that he carried and placed it on his chest. It seemed to sink into his chest, and it held there even after he took his hoof away. The gears inside it then began to turn and shift, rearranging themselves into new and complicated patterns.
The moonstone crystal suddenly shifted, and the whole of the stone before them appeared to separate from itself as a yellow, translucent hologram of it appeared, pulled forward and apart from the original.
“Let’s see what I can do.”
New elements appeared on the hologram, behind it and linked to the various pieces. The pieces then swung and shifted, sliding against one another at various angles. This did not work on the first try; the pieces would often slide in ways that either interfered with one another, or in ways where no real, definable mechanical system could propel them.
Flock continued, though. He performed the necessary mathematics and abstract processing, and the mechanical structures became more refined. His testing accelerated as specific motions became clear, to the point where only Rainbow Dash was able to follow the rapid motion of the components.
Then, suddenly, it all stopped.
“I have it,” he said.
The holographic version of the fresco changed slowly. Daring Do watched as the pieces shifted. Some moved backward into the system, connecting and interacting with complex three-dimensional curves and angles. Others split and twisted, or moved past one another on a path to new destinations. Watching it was impressive, both in that Flock had been able to decipher something so complex and that the Exmoori had been able to design and carve it in the first place.
Then, finally, it all stopped. Flock stood in front of a completely different fresco, one that now resembled a symmetrical star.
“So this is the right conformation?”
“It’s the only conformation,” said Flock indignantly. “If you are right, this would be the only alternate form it could take.
Daring Do nodded and approached the hologram. She looked at it carefully. What had before been the history had been split and merged with the technical data in ways that were no doubt enigmatic and interesting, despite being completely indecipherable to her.
It may have been her inability to fully translate that allowed her to grasp its true meaning. Rather than being bogged down in searching through the details of the newly formed words and text- -as Flock clearly was, his eyes continually pouring over the hologram even as Daring Do examined it- -she noticed right away what needed to be noticed.
“Look,” she said, pointing at several points on the hologram. “The cosmology. The six races are all in different spots.”
“So?” said Rainbow Dash, squinting to see them.
“They’re not symmetrical.” Daring Do leaned close to the Pegasus diagram, and at the new ideograms that surrounded it. One stood for mountain. Another stood for ice.
“They’re locations,” she said, leaning back. “It’s a coordinate system.” She looked across it, spying two symbols at an unusual oblique angle. “Over there,” she said. “That’s the symbol for Luna, and that one for Celestia. Those are the anchor points, the horizon.” She looked at the other insignias and the text near them. “The unicorn one says ‘mountain’, ‘waterfall’, and ‘temple’. That must be Canterlot. And the Pegasus one is Lyskymm. The earth-pony one has ‘fire-mountain’ and ‘ocean’.”
“Like in the story,” said Rainbow Dash. Daring Do looked at her, frowning. “You know. Rockhoof. He saved an island from a volcano. With a shovel. It’s like the most earth-pony thing ever.”
“Right,” said Daring Do.
“I know the island,” said Flock. “What about the others?”
“Thestrals are from Ponmania. Walkalachia, specifically. And the Exmoori one seems to reference the Crystal Citadel. But…” She leaned over toward the last race. “I don’t know this one. I don’t even understand what it is, or who they were. And we need all six to triangulate with this coordinate scheme.”
“Southwestern Equestria,” said Flock. “In the desert.”
“But there’s nothing out in those deserts.”
“Not anymore,” he said, darkly. “But I know what location it’s referring to.”
“Then can you calculate it?”
Flock paused. “Yes. I can. And I have. I know where the map is pointing.”
“Where?”
Flock paused, and Daring Do wondered if he was actually going to tell them. She realized that in her haste, she had expended all of her leverage. He no longer had any use for them, if he wanted to simply go after the Hand of Doom on his own.
“Hyperborea,” he said.
Daring Do groaned. “Cadence’s haunches,” she swore.
“What’s wrong?” asked Rainbow Dash. “I mean, we know where it is, right?”
“Sure. We know. But we can’t get there, can we?”
Rainbow Dash frowned. “Why not?”
“Because it’s Hyperborea! As in, average yearly temperatures of two hundred below and mountains that make Lyskymm look like a tiny pile of horse dung. No one goes to Hyperborea, not even me. And if anypony did? They don’t come back.”
“So you’re just going to give up?”
“I kind of have to. All the gear in the world couldn’t get us over the first set of hoofhills. You’ve seen the weather outside the Crystal Empire?”
“Yeah. It’s bad.”
“That’s because it’s on the very edge of Hyperborea. The EDGE.”
Rainbow Dash preemptively shivered. “We’re going to need thicker coats for that.”
“We’re not going. I’m not going to let you put yourself in danger for something we can’t retrieve. If the Hand is out there, it’s safe. Caballeron’s a greedy, arrogant jerk but he’s not stupid and doesn’t have a deathwish.”
“I can get us there,” said Flock.
Daring Do and Rainbow Dash stared at him. “What?”
“You heard me. This thing.” He pointed at the dial on his chest. “I can reenter space wherever I so choose. And if that location is where I think it is, I can do so without burning up my crystal. If you give me a few hours to reset several of my gears.”
“So you can just teleport us?”
“Yes. Essentially.” Flock turned to them. “And Caballeron is allied with the Questlords. Extremely powerful unicorns. He can also teleport using their magic.”
Daring Do winced. “So quitting isn’t an option,” she sighed. “Same as ever. Right.” She clapped her front hooves together. “You need time to prepare. And so do we. I really, really need to sleep.”
“I do not,” said Flock.
“Good. Because there’s something I need from you.”
“Do you think you have the right to ask that?”
“No. I know I do. Because I’m still missing two members of my team.”
Flock nodded slowly. “Of course. I’ll send part of myself to retrieve them. Immediately.”