Two of the white Pegasi approached Daring Do. Both had their masks retracted. One was female and looked exactly like white. The other was male, although the resemblance was still uncanny.
“Miss,” said the female. “The Grandmaster respectfully requests your presence.”
Daring Do stared up at her, almost disbelieving. Then- -with some difficulty- -she started to stand up. The stallion of the pair held out his hoof and helped her.
“Thanks.”
“Your welcome, miss.”
Daring Do stared at him, and then at the mare. “Okay. It’s nice that you’re polite, it really is, but this just isn’t normal. Normally the villain ties me up and acts like a horn longer than they are tall.”
“Neither of us have horns,” said the mare, confused.
“Never mind,” said Daring Do.
“Our fundamental purpose is to defend Equestria and the ponies within it,” said the male. “That includes you.”
“Also, we like your wings,” said the female. Her brow furrowed as she tried to think. “We like…you. Admiration, perhaps?”
“Oh,” said Daring Do, feeling even more uncomfortable. “Well. Sure. Thanks. So. What did the Grandmaster want to speak to me about?”
“We were not told,” said the mare. She and her brother flanked Daring Do and led her forward, toward the center of the room. “Nor do we need to know. We likely do not have the capacity to understand.”
“Of course you do,” said Daring Do.
The mare looked at her, and then back ahead. “Of course, miss.”
There was a momentary pause. “So,” said Daring Do. “Do you two have names?”
“No,” they replied in unison. Then once again they were silent.
Dulcimer was waiting for them when they arrived, as was Carillon, his lieutenant. Standing with them was Caballeron and a short but harsh-looking earth-pony wearing a complicated leather vest and shorts. Daring Do immediately recognized her as the changeling.
“Daring Do,” said Dulcimer, bowing slightly. “We are progressing ahead of schedule. With your help, we should have the ritual complete in only a matter of a half hour or so.”
“Ritual?”
“A formality,” said Carillon dismissively. “More complicated than you could understand.”
“Please, come this way,” said Dulcimer. He led them up a set of small grated stairs onto the ancient Exmoori catwalks that led over the molten gallium. Daring Do hesitated, but the white mare beside her reassured her, pointing out wordlessly that despite its age and being surrounded by corrosive alloy the metal was in perfect condition- -and that the Grandmaster himself was willing to walk upon it.
Daring Do nodded and climbed up the catwalk. Below it was a much more ancient arch of sandstone, its pattern complex and glimmering in the dim light of the metal below. It looked like a mirror, and she could see her face reflected in it.
“You too, doctor,” said Dulcimer, looking over her shoulder. “And your assistant.”
“Me? Why? Lord Knight, I don’t understand- -”
Dulcimer’s expression suddenly grew cold. “I do not intend to ask again, earth-pony. Walk.”
Caballeron was pushed from behind by one of the armored Pegasi. Not hard, of course, or even maliciously, they just drove him forward.
“We’re both prisoners,” said Daring Do. She wished she could gloat, but any joy in it had gone out of her. She sensed that something bad was about to happen.
The catwalk suddenly gave a light shudder. Daring Do looked behind her and saw that Solum Finis had climbed onto it as well. The catwalk was as wide as the arch below it, which was more than wide enough for his enormous form. He eyed Daring Do and smiled.
“I wish to see this,” he said.
Caballeron looked up at the Argasis and went pale. Any possibility of an escape was ruined by the mass of living silver behind him. The only option was to go forward, toward the pulsating sphere in the center of the room.
The journey was surprisingly long, and Daring Do found herself staring at the pools below her.
“Huh,” she said. “They really are shaped like a flower.”
“They are,” said Solum Finis. “Although I have not seen a flower in so long. Not since I came here.”
Caballeron was walking directly beside Daring Do. He looked at her with absolute contempt. “Flowers,” he muttered. “You’re thinking of flowers while we’re walking to…to…”
“To what?” Daring Do eyed him. “You know something.”
“I know more about this machine than you do. Because I was actually able to read it. And what he is planning…it cannot be good.”
The changeling put her hoof on his side, stroking it gently. “It’s going to be okay, herr-doktor,” she said. “As much as it wounds your noble pride, we need to do as they say. Just for now.”
The group suddenly stopped. Daring Do was led to Dulcimer’s side. Ahead of her, she could see the sphere, now up close. The hissing, electrical grinding as it swelled and then slowly collapsed into itself was almost unbearable even at a distance of almost ten meters. From this height, she could see that the central platform was actually quite large, and contained a number of altars built on the sandstone. They linked to machinery that led upward into the room, or outward and downward into a system of cables and pipes. Several corroded pylons stood at the edges of the sphere, and several more had been affixed to the ceiling. Most of the linkages, though, seemed to go downward. Downward to where the true elements of the Necroforge had no doubt been assembled.
“Do you feel that?” asked Dulcimer.
Daring Do nodded. She did. A sharp pain between her eyes, and a strong horrid taste in her mouth. The air was saturated with magic, and the ion field was arcing through it viciously.
“That is a magical suppression field. It neutralizes any magical source on approach. I cannot approach it. You, however, can.”
“To do what? I’m not exactly a wizard.”
“No, but you have interface authorization over this whole facility. As well as the ability to read Exmoori. Those altars at the bottom are control systems. You need to deactivate the field.”
“I barely read Exmoori,” noted Daring Do. “Wouldn’t Flock be a better choice for this?”
Dulcimer smiled. “Yes. But, conceivably, it would be possible to interfere with the controls in a way that would harm us, either with the field or the Hand itself. Essentially to betray us. If we send the wizard, there is a high probability he would simply take the Hand for himself. We have no leverage over him.”
Daring Do stiffened. “But you do over me?”
Dulcimer’s smile grew. He nodded to the rear. Daring Do looked. As she watched, Solum Finis raised one of his enormous silver wings. Three ponies stepped through. Two were guards, but a third was identical to them: save for the fact that she walked with her eyes half-closed, and the fact that there were no eyes beneath her lids.
“White!” cried Daring Do. She rushed to the girl’s side. “White, I’m sorry!” She looked White over for injuries. She was nude, so it was not hard. There were no bruises. Just the loss of her eyes. “It’s going to be okay,” she said, putting her hoof on White’s shoulder. “I think I can get your eyes back, if- -”
An orange field of light suddenly appeared around White, and she was lifted into the air. Daring Do looked over her shoulder to see Dulcimer’s horn glowing.
“Don’t,” she pleaded. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I don’t want to,” admitted Dulcimer, “but I assure you. It is necessary.”
He turned his head slightly, and White was lifted up over the low rails of the catwalk- -and suspended directly over the pools of molten metal below. As if sensing the heat or the situation, she opened her mouth to cry out- -but no words came out.
“Put her down!”
Carillon smiled. “I think the better request is for us NOT to put her down.”
Daring Do glared, and then stomped toward Carillon, making the whole of the catwalk shake. “She’s your daughter!”
“She is expendable. They all are. I can always make more.”
Daring Do raised her hoof to slap Carillon, and Carillon did not even recoil- -because a simple blow would never injure her. She was simply too old and too powerful.
“You will join Caballeron and open the field,” said Dulcimer. He spoke slowly and clearly, delivering his ultimatum with care. “Or I will be forced to drop Ms. White into the coolant. It would be quite quick. Simple splash, and then…nothing.”
“I need your word,” said Daring Do.
“My word?”
“Your word as a knight. That if I do what you say, you won’t hurt her.”
“Of course. While that was implied, your request is prudent. I give you my word as a Questlord of Inverness, as founder of the Order of the Red Bloom, and as a member of the Heartstrings bloodline. Help us complete our quest, and we will return this clone to your possession unharmed.”
“A heavy oath,” said Carillon. “I would have just dropped her.”
“Which is why you are not the Grandmaster,” said Dulcimer, softly.
“True.”
Dulcimer turned to Caballeron. “You will assist her, Doctor. Your knowledge of the language is more substantial. She will need your help.”
A glimmer crossed Caballeron’s eyes. One that Dulcimer had no doubt missed, but that Daring Do knew well.
“Of course,” he said, stepping forward. “I would be glad to assist. After all, I was contracted to do so, wasn’t I.”
“Indeed you were.” Dulcimer nodded to Carillon, and Carillon smiled.
There was a scream as the changeling was lifted into the air by an orange field of light. It was not the gentle, all-encompassing spell that Dulcimer had used on White. Instead, Carillon had grasped her by the neck.
“Argiopé!” cried Caballeron.
The changeling tried to respond, but Carillon squeezed tighter, expanding her spell as she did. The changeling’s eyes bugged out, and then her exterior appearance began to break down. She struggled, clawing at her neck, but in a matter of seconds she had been reduced to a black, generic changeling. The only unique fact about her was that her wings had been reduced to tiny translucent stubs, stubs that buzzed wildly and uselessly as she was held aloft.
“Dok- -tor!” she wheezed. Carillon responded by levitating her out over the vats of metal. Argiopé, upon seeing them, screamed and struggled, if only out of pure instinct.
“How dare you!” cried Caballeron, approaching Carillon. “How DARE you! I have been nothing but loyal to you, and THIS is how you repay me?!”
Dulcimer put his hoof on Caballeron’s shoulder. Caballeron stiffened.
“Daring Do was not the only one we put a tracing spell on. I’m well aware that you were planning to betray us.”
Caballeron pushed him away. “Only because you have no sense of professionalism!” he spat. With a harrumph, he turned away. “Drop her in. I don’t care.”
“N- -no! Doktor! Caballeron, please no! I’m too pretty!”
“Fine,” shrugged Carillon. She released her spell. Argiopé plummeted. Daring Do heard a splash and saw the liquid gallium ripple.
“Great,” sighed Solum Finis. “Now my coolant is contaminated.”
Caballeron screamed. He ran to the edge so fast that Daring Do had to grab him to keep him from falling in himself.
“ARGIOPÉ!” he cried, reaching out desperately. “No! You didn’t, you can’t- -”
“Stop! STOP! There’s nothing you can do!”
“You monsters! MONSTERS!” He turned around and swung at Carillon. She dodged easily and struck him in the chest with a light surge of magic. Caballeron gasped and doubled over in pain. “How could you,” he still managed to whisper. “She…she didn’t deserve that.” He shook his head, and then much more quietly. “It should have been me…”
“Carillon,” sighed Dulcimer. “You’ve made your point.”
“Have I?”
“Yes.”
Carillon sighed, and the gallium rippled again. Over the edge, Daring Do saw the changeling emerge, unburnt and covered in a gleaming orange spell. She had fallen completely silent and balled up, shaking and silently weeping.
“Argiopé!” gasped Caballeron.
She looked up at him. “Cab…Caballeron?”
“Hold on, Argiopé. Don’t move.”
“S…sure.”
He glared at Carillon. Carillon smiled. “Next time she doesn’t get a heat shield. That metal is close to four thousand degrees. I just measured it. You’re only going to get one warning.”
“Of course.” Caballeron stood up and took a deep breath, assuming a noble posture. “You’ve made your point. As much as it pains me, I will do as you say.” He extended a hoof. “Daring Do?”
“I guess we don’t have a choice, do we?” Daring Do took Caballeron’s extended hoof.
“Excellent,” said Dulcimer. “I knew you both would see reason.”
“Stuff it,” snapped Daring Do. “I don’t care how weirdly polite you are. If you weren’t holding White right now, I’d shove you down there myself.”
“Then you would do well to remember that I am, in fact, holding her. And that I do not know how to perform a heat-shield spell.”
Daring Do glared at him and walked past with Caballeron. The white Pegasi watched them as they approached the edge of the sphere’s influence. Immediately, Daring Do felt the effects. Her knees became weak, and the whole world seemed to spin.
“Get up,” snapped Caballeron, pulling her to her feet. “Sweet Celestia, don’t embarrass me.”
“Embarrassing you is the least of your problems.”
“Hardly.” He helped her forward, and the field and the noise it made only grew more intense. “You have defeated me a number of times. For you to act like a weakened old maid right now would be unforgivable for my image to my subordinates. Even if you are.”
Daring Do pulled her hoof away from him. Her senses were beginning to stabilize and the vertigo had lessened. She still felt as though she were on the verge of spilling her oats- -and in fact would have almost liked to, if only to embarrass Caballeron- -but she managed to hold what little food she had eaten down for the time being.
They approached the first altar. It had once been made of stone, but had since been almost overgrown with the Exmoori machinery that interfaced with it. Caballeron reached it first, and touched at a large flat panel. “Stupid technology,” he muttered. “It won’t work.”
“Let me try.” Daring Do pressed the screen and it immediately ignited with light, showing a number of familiar and unfamiliar forms.
“How did you- -”
“I control the interface.”
“That’s good,” said Caballeron, pretending to look at the screen but covertly peering behind him. “You have full control over the security system.”
“Which isn’t even present in this room. And, in case you haven’t noticed, White is being held over liquid metal. As well as your changeling.”
“She has a name,” snapped Caballeron. “And she isn’t ‘mine’.”
“Sure she isn’t.” Daring Do pressed one of the symbols on the screen. It shifted, and she began to read through the displays.
“There,” said Caballeron, leaning in. “It states that you need to disengage the sensory systems before starting to bring main power down. Here. Press this one.”
Daring Do did so, and the screen changed. She put her hoof on a bar and slid it backward. Somewhere, the machines shifted. Part of the Exmoori equipment pulled a set of long probes out of the liquid metal. They had long since melted away to nothing.
“We have to run the auxiliary drive next to start the shutdown,” said Caballeron, reading carefully. He pointed at one of the other controls. “That is over there.”
They started walking and passed almost to the far side of the sphere. “So,” said Daring Do. “I’m guessing you have a plan?”
“Why would I have a plan?”
“Because you always have a plan. Every single time I defeat you, you always manage to escape. So what is it now?”
“It would be a trade secret. Even if I had one. Right now? I intend to survive. I do not mind giving them the Hand.”
“I can’t let that happen.”
“Then hopefully you like roast Pegasus.”
Daring Do’s mouth felt dry. The fumes of the metal were intense at the second console, but she did what Caballeron demonstrated, changing the systems before her. The violet sphere began to distort violently as it lost cohesion.
“There isn’t much time. We need to bring it down now.”
Daring Do already knew that. The latter systems were written in the half of the Exmoori system she could understand, and she began the shutdown sequence.
“Warning,” said a voice. It was Fuzzypoof’s, and seemed to come from everywhere at once. “If the containment field is removed, the central reactor will be exposed. The results will be invariably disastrous. The protective shield cannot be restarted under present conditions. Do you wish to continue?”
Daring Do and Caballeron looked at each other.
“Should I press it?” asked Caballeron.
“I never took you for a gentlecolt. No. But be ready. It’s as much your fault that we’re here as it is mine. And whatever comes out, we’re going to have to deal with it together.”
Caballeron winced. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
Daring Do pressed the button.
The containment sphere buckled and shrunk. Its sound did not fade immediately, but seemed to hum and distort in a long, somber way. As if it knew that it was dying. The gold iridescence of the shield slowed and vanished, and the violet became pale and translucent before eventually dissipating entirely. This left the true center of the chamber- -the power source of the ancient Necroforge- -exposed.
Daring Do was not exactly sure what she had been expecting to see. What she saw, though, was most certainly not it.
There was a Hand. An oddly familiar Hand, one that Daring Do had seen numerous times in her dreams. Except her mind had always rendered it as enormous for some reason, when in actuality it was relatively small. It was a metal hand and forearm not much thicker or larger than a pony’s foreleg. The metal on it was almost black, but the design was relatively simple. It was adorned with five fingers, all of which were distinctly pointed. Something that Daring Do interpreted as machinery could be seen inside their joints.
It was what the Hand was connected to that surprised her. She had assumed that it was in a holder of some sort, but had never bothered to imagine what that holder might be like. It rarely mattered unless it had a component that could be tricked by the placement of a well-weighed bag of sand.
What it actually sat atop, though, was far more grotesque. The hand- -a right hand- -was attached to what appeared to be a statue of a pony. She held the hand aloft, trying to tear it away with her other hoof, her face contorted in an expression of absolute agony. The pony represented was a unicorn- -but did not resemble any known lineages. She was the same size as a normal unicorn filly, but clearly fully developed and thin. Her ears were long and pointed, like those of the ancient purebloods, but her horn was straight. Daring Do realized that the type of pony that this statue represented might well have predated the purebloods entirely.
Then she noticed what was carved into the statue, and felt her heart sink. The pony represented was covered in scars: signs of deep cuts, beatings, burns- -as well as several bite marks from several rows of numerous tiny, reptilian teeth. Her body was likewise inscribed with foul symbols that seemed to have been seared into her.
The only thing she wore was a collar, which was in turn connected to three massive chains. They had been obscured by the protection field, but now Daring Do stared at them almost with awe. They were enormous; each link of strange, corroded metal was at least as tall as a full-grown stallion. They only grew thinner at the terminal point.
More than chains were linked to the pony statue. Strange implants had been placed in her spine, and many of them lead to cables. Some of the cables, like her, were carved in stone; others had simply decayed away. Still more, though, had been attached to an Exmoori scaffold and interfaced to a significant amount of machinery. Others had been placed on different parts of the statue, and on the Hand itself. That seemed to be how the Exmoori were attempting to control it and to direct its force downward, to where Daring Do assumed there were the ancient remnants of the original trihorn machinery.
“A statue?” said Dulcimer, approaching it.
Solum Finis laughed. “She is no more a statue than I am a golem. But you’ll see soon enough.”
“I suppose so,” said Dulcimer, quietly. A frown suddenly crossed his face.
“Grandmaster?” asked Carillon.
“There’s a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“A minor one. I’m dealing with it.” He turned to the others. “Let us begin, regardless.”