Stygian was no hero, and it was not a scribe’s place to question a great wizard’s judgement. In this instance, though, Star Swirl had to be challenged.
Star Swirl cared for the last two alicorns in existence, Celestia and Luna. These young sisters of singular faculty—they could move the very sun and moon!—promised to bring lasting peace to the tribes of ponykind as the Princesses of Equestria. Star Swirl and the other Pillars were sworn to guard them from any potential harm.
What, then, was Stygian to think when Star Swirl welcomed into their fold the impossible third alicorn, Twilight Sparkle?
Two weeks ago she had stumbled into Canterlot Castle with a silver crown clutched to her head. She babbled incomprehensibly, but at last expressed her desire to treat with Star Swirl about the fate of Equestria. Whatever they discussed, Star Swirl’s response was swift. The Pillars began meeting in secret, Twilight and Star Swirl busied themselves with strange experiments, and the Castle seethed with new labors.
Meanwhile, Stygian’s doubts about this third alicorn grew. According to Star Swirl’s observations, every alicorn in history possessed overwhelming abilities, but Twilight had no talent with spellwork aside from a knack for levitation. Her zealous questions about the crystal seed the Pillars had planted months ago were never justified. Most troubling of all was her mere existence; Star Swirl’s own notes asserted, with vigor, that every alicorn had perished other than Celestia and Luna.
These doubts multiplied during Twilight’s visit with Stygian earlier that night for a “chat,” an alien term for dialogue. Such jargon abounded in her speech.
“I’m going to start teaching Celestia and Luna soon,” she had said. “Star Swirl gave me the oh-kay. Solaromancy, waxing and waning the moon, enchantment, tell-ah-por-tay-shun…er, travel in an instant, but I can’t really dem-awn-strate the spells.” Here she had taken a solemn affect. “Pluss, my old…my Ponish is kind of rusty, and I don’t want that to get in the way of their lessons. So would you help me?”
“I cannot. I am but a lowly scribe—”
“You’re more than that, Stygian, you’re an ah-may-zing scholar! Sure, you might be hanging out with heroes that ponies are gohn-nah talk about for centuries, but you’re no less im-por-tent to Equestria. Just think about it, oh-kay?”
He had pledged to consider her request. When she left, though, he returned to Star Swirl’s alicorn observations with a new aim: to find proof Twilight Sparkle was a danger to Celestia and Luna and bring that proof to one of the Pillars.
Stygian was no hero. Only a hero could show Star Swirl the terrible cost of his recklessness.
“Hel-loh.”
Stygian looked up from his desk. No pony had entered his study, but a creature sat on a stool across from him. White of coat and bearing ears of both a cat and a hare, its giant tail and dainty legs bestowed upon it comic proportions. Small red eyes refused to break their hold of him.
“Well met,” Stygian said. “Have you matters for the attention of the Pillars?”
“I’m not sure,” the creature said. “This is strange. Your language has the terms to ecks-plain…”
A string of foreign words, such as en-troh-pi, in-vest-i-gait, kon-sept, and de-tekt, followed. Stygian understood only the last sentence with any certainty.
“Have you seen a labyrinth?”
Stygian nodded. “Star Swirl hired a minotaur to build a labyrinth in the castle garden. I oft walk its stone path for meditation.”
“That’s not what I meant.” A brief silence followed, during which Stygian had the notion that the creature studied him. “My creators have sent me on a quest for sai-kick en-er-ji they can harvest to reverse en-troh-pi. They learned that a being which releases small quantities of sai-kick en-er-ji arrived in your world two weeks ago.”
Stygian’s spine shivered. Twilight Sparkle had arrived two weeks ago. “Could such a being appear like a pony?”
“Possibly.” Nimbly, the creature leapt onto Stygian’s desk. “Have you encountered a suspect pony?”
This sudden fervor deserved caution. “What would you do if you found the source of…this substance you describe?”
“I’m only able to observe a source of sai-kick en-er-ji. In lieu of my acting against it, I would teach you to use a Soul Gem which would allow you to battle the source, if necessary.”
“Would I be free to act as I see fit?”
“Of course.”
Stygian had found the help he needed. For the sake of Equestria, he would become a hero. He stuck out a hoof to shake. “I am Stygian, and I will wield your Soul Gem. And you are…”
“This is strange,” the creature said after a moment. “Your language has a name for me. I am the in-kyu-bey-tor.”
Stygian recoiled. He did not recognize this word, but it clearly shared a root with “incubus,” the name of demons who sat upon a sleeper’s body and cursed him or her with terrible dreams.
But could he refuse the aid this creature offered? Could he allow the young Princesses to linger in jeopardy?
“May I know you by the name…” Stygian thought a moment. It seemed best to eschew the first and last syllables, the most abhorrent parts of the creature’s name, leaving only the sweet sound of its middle. “Kyu-bey?”
“I don’t object,” said Kyubey. He rose to his four white legs, his tail swaying side to side. “To bind the Soul Gem, I must grant you a wish.”
In every fantastic story Stygian had read, a wish came with a price of hidden magnitude. The meaning of these stories was clear: resist avarice. Thus he would wish for a mere peppercorn.
“I wish…”
He wavered again. He had to consider more than the price he himself paid. Did not the future of Equestria depend on the sound use of his wish? If he could undo whatever lies Twilight had told to Star Swirl, and draw the great wizard to his side…
“I wish,” Stygian said, “that Star Swirl the Bearded would see the wisdom of my warnings.”
Twilight arrived at the Pillars’ regular meeting place, a set of benches arranged around a spindly oak sapling, for her fifth lecture on preempting Equestria’s upcoming threats. Her prior lectures had covered Nightmare Moon, King Sombra, Discord, and the Pony of Shadows, and each had produced immediate results. Celestia and Luna put more effort into bonding. Volunteers were preparing for a mission northward. The crystal seed was on track to break ground before Discord arrived. And today, Stygian sat confidently as an equal among the Pillars, although Star Swirl looked a little awkward sharing a bench with him.
In private, Twilight and Star Swirl worked to jumpstart Equestrian science. She told him about all the recent inventions she could remember, which he set about replicating. He quizzed her on recently devised spells and found ways to refine almost every one. Together they devised a way to supercharge unicorn blasts. Even Twilight’s automaton experiments from a previous reset looked like they’d be useful: Star Swirl thought an automaton could be enchanted to imitate ponies or other creatures, turning her failed stone soldiers into perfect spies.
At this rate, Equestria would be more than ready when the incubator arrived in a thousand years.
She began her lecture in Olde Ponish. “Lord Tirek and his brother Scorpan are creatures from a distant land—”
Stygian leaned over to Star Swirl. A peeved furrow began in Star Swirl’s brow, but his eyes softened as Stygian whispered.
“Is everything okay?” Twilight asked. Confused glances came from the Pillars, and she realized she’d slipped into modern language again. She re-asked in Olde Ponish.
“Of course, sweetling,” Meadowbrook said. “Continue, please.”
Stygian finished his furtive whisper, and Star Swirl responded with a distressed, “I see.”
Twilight wanted to ask what Star Swirl saw, but she swallowed down her worry and restarted. “In my history, Lord Tirek and Scorpan’s ambition was the conquest of Equestria. While Scorpan befriended Star Swirl and learned to love ponykind, Lord Tirek could not be swayed.”
Again Stygian whispered into Star Swirl’s ear. Twilight paused to watch them.
“Then we must take up arms against this Lord Tirek at once!” Flash Magnus said.
“Surely every creature can be made good, if given the chance,” Somnambula countered. “Could not Scorpan’s affection for ponykind allay his brother’s wrath?”
Stygian leaned away, and Star Swirl muttered another, “I see.” Then, in a commanding voice, “I too would argue that any pony can be made good.”
“Well, Tirek isn’t a pony…” Twilight scrutinized Stygian and Star Swirl. Learning about the Pony of Shadows in her last lecture had sent Star Swirl into a rage. He’d only grudgingly accepted her proposal to invite Stygian to their future meetings. Finding them sitting together today had been a pleasant surprise, but their behavior now made her think of her confrontation with Moon Dancer.
“I agree with you both,” she said. “Creatures aren’t evil because they want to be evil. They might feel entitled to what another creature has, or they might think that the world is so rotten that evil acts are necessary to persevere. Any creature can be made good.” Then she focused on Star Swirl. “A pony prone to scheming may dupe others by appearing good while masking his true objectives.”
The words scheme, dupe, mask, and objective wouldn’t exist until hundreds of years later. However, when she’d first met with Star Swirl, she’d accidentally used those words to talk about the incubator. That’s what she got for not practicing Olde Ponish for years. The wise old stallion had figured out her meaning quickly enough, and she counted on his good memory to understand her now. To everyone else, she’d uttered a string of nonsense, keeping her suspicions hidden. To Star Swirl she’d sent a coded message: Don’t trust Stygian.
Star Swirl’s expression hardened. He swung his head around, but froze when Stygian again whispered into his ear.
“I see,” Star Swirl said.
And so did Twilight: Stygian was using mind control. A spell like that was way beyond his abilities, so he must have already stolen an artifact from Star Swirl’s collection. If she could figure out what, she could rewind and stop him. However, only his longer-than-usual cloak looked out of place. Whatever he was using, he needed to speak to Star Swirl frequently to maintain the effect. She had to get them apart.
“The rest of the information about Tirek is fit only for the Pillars.” She scanned the six heroes but avoided eye contact with Stygian. “The real Pillars. If you remember my last lecture, you’ll understand why.”
Star Swirl grumbled, “Ere yesterday you warned us against excluding any member of our present company.”
Recognition flashed in Stygian. He shot to his haunches. “You shall not separate me so easily.”
“There is no call for this ugliness,” Mistmane said. Stygian brushed past her.
“Whatever your plans for the Princesses, Kyubey has granted me the tools to stop you!”
Kyubey?
“Stygian, you overstep your station!” Star Swirl barked. As Stygian swiveled to face him, Twilight caught a glimmer near the top of his foreleg. Her telekinesis flew to it, probing until she could distinguish his flesh from the alien material, and ripped it off. She flung the anklet to a stone path a dozen paces away from them.
Then Stygian’s unicorn statue toppled over.
The remaining six Pillars panicked while Twilight processed the evidence. Stygian had become a hunter, and she’d ripped off his Soul Gem. She could guess his wish had been to control Star Swirl’s mind. But how had the incubator reached him?
“It’s this accursed anklet!” Rockhoof bellowed. He reared high in the air above Stygian’s Soul Gem. Before she could utter a single word to stop him, he fell on it with the force that had matched volcanoes in the legends, and a labyrinth of shadows enveloped them.
All wrong.
Blue Blood had been getting ready to call it a night when the bookish unicorn showed up and introduced herself. His schedule didn’t have anything about her, though he’d learned to expect that. Anarchy had been the hallmark of his first week as the President of Equestria.
He followed his friendly script with the mare: asked her about herself (brusque answers), suggested a brief tour of his office’s artwork (declined), and offered to order some tea or juice (also declined). Then he asked what was on her mind.
She said, “I am aware that you sent directions to abolish the Air Guard Reserve this morning. Those directions should be rescinded.”
The audacity shocked him. Equestria had been a republic for over a thousand years, and the realm’s President was its undisputed commander-in-chief. So who in the world could intercept his military orders? It was more than all wrong. It was a constitutional crisis.
“I sent those orders directly to Air Guard Command,” he scolded. “Ciphertext, secured courier. How did you even hear about it, miss… Who did you say you were?”
“Moon Dancer.”
Of course he knew her name. Her job, too, the Master of Mathematics at Star Swirl’s School, and how long she’d been at the school. Blue Blood never forgot a pony, a crucial skill for a politician, but acting like he couldn’t be bothered to remember her name reinforced his superiority. “Well, Professor—”
“My position is that of Master.”
Slamming the desk would be too thuggish, so he let a long scowl suffice. “Well, Master Moon Dancer, setting aside this breach of national security, I don’t see why your school for unicorns has any say about shutting down the pegasi’s Air Guard Reserve.”
Moon Dancer froze for an unsettling moment before she said, “I suggest discussing the matter with my headmaster.”
“Who’s that, Starlight Glimmer?”
“No, our headmaster is…”
She said a name. An impossible name, which she repeated at Blue Blood’s command. He demanded she explain, answer his every question, swear an oath that she had told the truth. Then he made a final command.
“Show me.”
* * * * *
Moon Dancer left him to wander alone through a mausoleum of curiosities. Vials of bubbling fluid, orreries spinning on their own, auras flickering around metal poles, creaking bookshelves, and looming doors filled the hallway down which Blue Blood walked. Amidst all this, his gaze stuck to the other pony.
The stranger was, among the many thousands of ponies Blue Blood had met, a unique specimen. The pink unicorn had a jet black-and-red striped mane covered by a navy hat patterned with stars. A matching cloak seemed ready to disintegrate. Although taller than any stallion Blue Blood had ever seen, the pony had a feminine facial structure and two horribly diseased eyes. A pitiful tuft of hair hung from the stranger’s chin.
In short, Star Swirl the Bearded looked nothing like his description from legend.
Not that it surprised Blue Blood to discover another legend proven false. Equestria’s mythical origin story was a saga filled with alien monsters, demigods of chaos, alicorn princesses, and epic quests. However, all the realm’s ponies were taught the dull truth in school: Stygian’s “Labyrinth of Shadows” had been nothing more than an assassination plot against the Pillars of Old Equestria; “Discord’s Reign” had been a civil war with a poetic name; Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had been unicorn figureheads disguised with wings to bring peace to the realm; and their “Journey to the Moon” had been a deification rite paving the way for a republic.
Then again, the legends had nothing as preposterous as a thousand-year-old wizard meddling in current affairs.
“You know, I’m not sure if there’s a protocol for this kind of circumstance,” Blue Blood said in a cordial tone. When he switched to making demands, the tonal shift would highlight his seriousness. “How about we just have a little talk, stallion-to-stallion?”
The wizard turned his head, locking his glitter-strewn eyes on Blue Blood. “I am amenable,” he said in a voice like crunching fall leaves.
“Great.” Blue Blood trotted closer. “You know, I’m a bit new to the job of running Equestria, but I thought they’d briefed me on all the realm’s secrets. So imagine my shock when your assistant told me… Are you playing laurys?”
It was: Star Swirl sat hunched over an antique laurys board. However, the pieces weren’t all standard. Blue Blood recognized the veil, mirrors, and medusites, but the adventurer statuettes arrayed across it were wrong.
“I think you have your pieces mixed up there,” Blue Blood said. “For one, the mezzmer is supposed to be a unicorn—”
“The hunter was a pegasus,” Star Swirl snapped, jabbing his hoof at various pieces, “supported by this unicorn and this earth pony from above, while a unicorn, an earth pony, and a pegasus engaged on the frontline.”
Blue Blood sucked his teeth at the misstep. Star Swirl had invented the game and no doubt bristled at being told he was playing it wrong. Best to change topic. “Well, as I was saying, your assistant Moon Dancer shocked me with the news about you, but now that I’m here, I think she really undersold it. I have so many questions for you!” He pulled up a stool and sat on the other side of the laurys board, like a worthy rival. “But let’s start with who’s got the loose lips over at Air Guard Command.”
The wizard’s ears flicked forward. “Do you not desire the secret to my extraordinary longevity?”
“Organic hay and exercise, I’m sure,” Blue Blood said, waving away the wizard’s amateurish attempt at evasion. “That’s what my doctor always tells me. Really, now, how’d you hear about the Air Guard Reserve? Crystal ball? Oracle cards? A fortune cookie from the carryout place?”
Star Swirl cackled. “You are an indubitable blackguard. No, several of your staff partake avidly in The Adventure Book.”
“That foals’ toy?” It was apparently the hot new thing with Canterlot’s colts and fillies. Blue Blood recalled a presentation by Twilight Sparkle, the Master of the Library at Star Swirl’s, about how the books were enchanted to make up stories based on the reader’s mood. In a few weeks, copies would be sent to Ponyville for some experiment.
“The tomes are constructed for purposes greater than mere entertainment.” Star Swirl reached out to a piece on the board, seemed to reconsider, and withdrew his hoof. “Their enchantments make them sensitive to the feeblest undulations of psychic energy. Regular accounts of their assays stream into these chambers.”
“Psychic energy? You mean, like, mind-reading?”
Star Swirl froze for an unsettling moment. Then he slid one of the laurys pieces into the center. “An individual volume is capable only of what is necessary to reveal a particular nemesis. However, ponies with sufficient aptitude can compare the reports from different volumes and thereby divine certain conspiracies. What is your opinion on that?”
“It’s interesting.” Blue Blood nodded thoughtfully, as if anyone could approve of a book that pried into the inner thoughts of unsuspecting ponies. When he remembered they’d passed these books out to foals, he swallowed the outrage by silently counting to ten. “So what do you use to track threats now? I doubt you’d just let those scoundrels run around unmonitored.”
“How intuitive.” Star Swirl rose and trotted to a side door. A faint droning noise came from it. “My current devices are of exceeding subtlety, although they are limited by their nature. Are you aware that earth ponies tell the bees of their dead?”
Blue Blood nodded warily. Star Swirl was probably testing him with such a morbid question. “They have some myth about bees going out and telling the world. It’s quaint.”
Star Swirl’s hoof connected with the door. “One should not be so quick to dismiss myth.”
He pitched open the door, and buzzing exploded into the hall. Borders shuddered in black and yellow as bees crawled over every surface of the room beyond. Small holes studded the walls.
Star Swirl strode into the room at a glacial pace, giving the bees a chance to land on, and then swarm, him. “I have bred into this species a multitude of remarkable qualities, such as docility to ponies, nocturnal activity, and imitation of sounds. Yet apiculture’s boundaries linger. Winter’s frost forces their hibernation, for one. The Adventure Book will thus complement them well.”
Star Swirl looked around the room while his horn twinkled softly. The twinkling flashed as an aura snatched a bee out of the air. “They communicate through their movements—a dance, per se—but they can replicate sounds and speech if one listens with care. Here, this bee is from Ponyville… Ah! She’s seen the local bakers, Carrot and Cup Cake. They have a son and a daughter, Pound and Pumpkin.
“Although this bee sees the daughter playing by a wooded area by herself. She’s usually inseparable from her brother. A fox nears her…”
The wizard’s eyes narrowed. “An albino fox? Maybe not. A small, white, fox-like beast, then. It approaches her, but… The beast is taken from her? That’s madness, she’s alone…”
The bee whined.
“Pumpkin says, ‘I saw him first.’ She takes the beast again, but then it falls to the ground. ‘Don’t push me,’ she says…to no pony.”
The bee whined again, producing a sound almost like “wish.”
“And then Pumpkin says, ‘I wish I didn’t have a brother,’ and… Oh.”
Star Swirl’s aura released the bee. For a moment, he teetered on his hooves.
Suddenly his legs splayed to his sides. His head sagged to the floor. “Of course you disbelieve.”
Blue Blood suppressed any reaction at the non sequitur. Far from disbelieving, he felt certain the wizard had poured his intellect into spying on the innocent.
“I would have you witness one last demonstration,” Star Swirl said in a hoarse whisper. Without waiting for a response, he trudged back into the hallway. Bees peeled off.
Blue Blood followed him through a second side door and into a coliseum of statues. Rings of granite ponies gazed down on a gray block sitting in the center of the floor. A ceiling rose to astonishing heights above the stony audience, and roosts jutted from the walls. Blue Blood wondered if pegasi were hiding in them until he realized a wizard like Star Swirl would know how to teleport up.
“I have made a collection of these statues for the sake of posterity.” Star Swirl pointed to a group near the top. “Do you mark your predecessors?”
Blue Blood, the 153rd president of Equestria, saw. Where Star Swirl pointed, Blue Blood expected there would be 152 statues of the former presidents.
“And this,” Star Swirl said, pointing to the block in the middle. “The very last slab that Starlight Glimmer prepared, reserved for your statue.”
Blue Blood approached it. The cut face had an uncanny softness to it. “What kind of stone is this?”
“Gorgonous medusite, a mineral renowned for its ability to capture flesh. It is even warm to the touch.”
Curious, Blue Blood pressed a hoof to it, expecting a mild glow at best. Comforting heat flooded back instead. A funny sense overcame him as he imagined a sculptor transforming this block of stone into his likeness.
“Blue Blood, I hope this helps you better understand the scope of your office. Despite your vast responsibilities and the profound effects of your volition, you are but a steward of Equestria’s perpetuity. A century hence, few will recall your name, much less your legacy.
“By contrast, the Air Guard Reserve has persisted since the foundation of the republic. It has faced many challenges, but every one of your predecessors rose to its defense out of respect for the choices of their antecedents. Would you not enter into that progression of respect and thereby ensure your place in their company?”
“No.”
Blue Blood paused to let the moment sink in. He exhaled slowly as he dropped the facade. It wasn’t often that he got to actually speak up for his ideals.
“Once I leave, I’ll ensure that the Air Guard Reserve is shut down, and then order that your bees be fumigated and every copy of The Adventure Book be burned. You did not found, and I was not elected to lead, a realm that conscripts its citizens, abuses nature, or skulks in the shadows of a police state. We’ve committed too many mistakes out of fear of unnamed threats. That’s how I’ll make my legacy: fixing those. And they’ll make so many statues of me that I’ll never be forgotten.”
A little of the facade came back as he prepared to win over Star Swirl. A thousand-year-old wizard who helped found the realm would be a useful ally for his next project. “That said, there are plenty of problems that could use your expertise.”
Blue Blood turned back to gauge Star Swirl’s reaction, but the wizard was gone. “Star Swirl?” He stepped away from the block—
Faceplant. Blue Blood tried to stand up, but the hoof he’d placed on the stone wouldn’t budge. He tugged to no avail, then tried to flex his leg. The joints up to his shoulder felt stiff and numb.
Hooves clattered hard onto the ground behind him. He twisted around, yelping at the pain arcing down his back, and saw Star Swirl with wings, massive blue wings flicking the air, while Moon Dancer’s limp body levitated in front.
“I did everything,” the wizard said.
Blue Blood didn’t respond. Why did his side feel so heavy?
“Every act and omission of which I could conceive to avert your tampering.” The aura around Moon Dancer’s body flared and its form distorted. “I tried to evade your attention, but you sought me out. I appealed to your goodness, but you had none. I indulged your ego, but it is insatiable. I described to you the mortal peril which Equestria must escape, and you laughed at me!”
What was the old horse talking about? Blue Blood opened his mouth to answer, but his lungs refused to release their air.
Moon Dancer’s body had become unrecognizable. Its shoulders bulged, its fetlocks trailed, and its hide had turned lily white… Now Blue Blood recognized it; the body had transformed into a perfect impostor of him.
The impostor rose. It looked him in the eye, with his own eyes, and then its horn twinkled as it stole his clothes.
“If you will not teach me how to spare you, then go, join the eternal company of your predecessors. You have proven amply that yours will always be a necessary sacrifice.”
Blue Blood’s view darted to the statues around the coliseum. Had they all been victims of this trap? Were they all ponies turned to stone?
The enormous wings folded beside the ancient wizard’s barrel as the imposter trotted away. Pain shot through Blue Blood’s chest, and the edges of his vision grew dark. His muscles gave out, but he remained locked in place. Before Star Swirl could adjust the cloak bunched up around his neck, Blue Blood caught a fading glimpse of his murderer’s cutie mark.
Strange. It was exactly the same as the school’s librarian, Twilight Sparkle.
“The first thing you must know is that I have so many regrets,” Twilight Sparkle said as she removed her hat, revealing the ash-gray tiara underneath, “but I will set them all right.”