No sooner were they through the opening in the air than Liz’s Sorcerer armor began to rumble, and the stallion sat up in bed with a panicked screech. “Eeeh!” He held up his wings over his face. “Mom! There’s…” He stopped, clutching at his chest. “How’d you get in?”
“I dunno, but I know how we’re leaving.” Jackie moved past him to the cloudy wall. Night sky waited out there, with at least two little moons circling somewhere vastly far away.
She could hear ponies moving somewhere further into the house, no doubt rushing to the aid of this child. Awkward questions that she didn’t want to answer right now.
So she kicked, and a section of wall beside the window puffed away. “Come on!” she called, hovering in the air just outside. Flight took almost nothing from her wings, more directing her than actually holding her weight. Good thing too, they’re not as strong as they should be.
And outside, Jackie could see what looked even more like an Equestrian sky-village, some of its many windows glowing warmly in the light. There were no stars, just a uniform yellowish haze overhead, but at least the moons glowing up there were pretty.
Liz emerged from the opening a moment later, expression pained. The engines on her wings roared like she was an old-fashioned jumbo jet about to take off.
“I think we missed a variable…” she called, her voice strained even in the suit of powered armor. “I feel like… a million pounds. Barely… move…”
Shit. Jackie didn’t know exactly what she had gotten wrong. She just did the same thing she always did when she was in danger, and cut her way into the Dreamlands, shoving Liz through before following her in.
There was a city square on the other side, with huge cloudy pillars holding up cloudy roofs and many figment pegasi drifting between them.
Liz collapsed on her back, clutching at her chest with both hooves. “That… that was awful.”
On the other side of the opening, Jackie could hear the colt and his mother talking. The mother was scolding him for breaking his wall again. Jackie summoned a nice piece of black cloth, and settled it right against the barrier on a cloud-tripod, where the opening to the dreamlands would be almost invisible against the night.
“There’s nothing there, Argon. You’re not getting out of this one. Now get back to bed before your father comes down here.”
She held her hoof over her lips until they were gone, finally turning to Liz. “Must be… something with the gravity. I’m wondering if maybe that colony… maybe it isn’t on a rocky planet at all.” She pushed the cloth aside, glancing down. She could see no ground, even between the floating homes. Just distant yellow haze, denser the further she looked.
“Pressure is fine, our suits can do deep ocean. But we don’t build for higher than Earth gravity.”
“It’s okay, I can keep an eye on her.” Misty landed on the clouds beside them, at pony size now. That meant she was bigger than Liz, even without armor of her own. “This is safe territory, Jackie. Nothing’s going to come for her up here.”
“If you…” Liz frowned, looking up at her. “Can you teach me what you did? If I have to be a songless landwalker for a few minutes, I can manage. Seemed like it worked good enough on you going the other way.”
“Well… no,” Jackie admitted. “There is unicorn magic for transformation, but I’m not a unicorn. What I do is… dreaming, basically. I can be whatever I want in here, and advanced thestral magic lets me take dream stuff into the real world. You’re not a thestral, so my method won’t work for you.”
“That magic you used last time worked pretty well,” Liz said. “Until I…”
“Yeah. No kidnapping tonight. But you’re not helpless, so… if you stay awake, and you stay with her, Misty… let me know if anything shady happens. I’ll be able to get to you almost instantly.” She stepped back through the opening, shoving her summoned cloth aside. It puffed away as soon as she didn’t need it.
There was cloud around the edge of the house, maybe fifty feet before it trailed away. The wall was already fixed. But the colt hadn’t gone to bed. He’d opened the window, and watched her settle on the cloud. “I know you’re real,” he said. “You’re trying to get me in trouble, huh?”
She shook her head. “Sorry, kid. You were just the first dream I found.” She nodded once to Misty, then banished the portal with a gesture. “I’m sorry my friend’s engines woke you up. They weren’t expecting…” She trailed off. “What kind of planet is this?”
“Home,” he answered, as though it were obvious. “What kind of planet would it be?”
“I honestly don’t know what I was expecting.” She took off, which as before took almost nothing from her. More just choosing a direction. “Kid, where is the guy in charge? Pony with a horn, I think, he should…”
The colt pointed up. “Palace is by the elevator. Where else would it be?”
She shrugged, then set off as quickly as she could. “Thanks kid. Hope you don’t get into trouble because of me.”
She did her best to ascend up the city, following the direction the child had pointed. But her wings didn’t really move that much faster, and she only sped up a little. At least I can’t hurt myself like an idiot. Dreams had a way of self-regulating for realism—if she tried to push this pretend body much farther, it would come apart.
She wasn’t sure what the “elevator” was, but that mystery solved itself as she passed out of the residential parts of town and over to… god, what even was that?
It wasn’t an elevator so much as a massive tower, rising so far above her that it was lost to sight. That must be a thousand stories tall. It was the largest structure she’d ever seen, even bigger than Axis Mundi had been before Charybdis’s monstrous horde had bombed it.
And at the base, like a toy castle set in front of the real thing, someone had built a fortress in the clouds. Pointless waste of time. A single pony could just break through the whole thing if they wanted.
She was more interested in the gardens stretching around it, dark green clouds with a thin mossy layer growing on the upward-facing surface. Maybe if we’re still here come daylight I can look. But no, this wasn’t some dream she could accelerate and explore for months. This was the real world, and somewhere vastly far away Athena’s troops were preparing for war.
I won’t be able to infiltrate again. Now that she had tried that once, Athena would find some method to prevent it. And if Jackie made a single mistake, she’d get a bullet in the head and that would be the end.
I’d be ready to die if it was for a good reason. There had been a time long ago, when Jackie had screamed at Archive for being so eager to die. Every problem she encountered was solved the same way—“I’m immortal, so everyone get behind me.” Well they had, and it had gotten them straight into a dark age.
There were guards on the wall, guards that wore no armor or clothing of any kind. Come to think of it, Jackie hadn’t seen textiles in the cloud bedroom either.
She landed on the wall, directly in front of one of the watchmen. “Excuse me,” she said, loudly enough that she couldn’t be missed.
But even so, he still started in surprise, spreading his wings and nearly lifting off the wall himself. “You shouldn’t be up here!”
“I know,” she said. “But this is kind of important, and I’m not really big on laws anymore.” She nodded slightly towards the distant tower entrance. “I’m sure he’s asleep or whatever, but I need to talk to your… princess? Is that what you call him?”
“Regent,” the guard responded, gesturing over with a wing. “Alidade, get over here! We’ve got a drunk!”
“No.” She stepped forward toward him, closing the distance so fast her body blurred for a moment. She froze, head throbbing as she tried to hold the dream together. She managed, if only because the world she was in would’ve killed her in moments. She had strong motivation. “I only drink when I’m with company, and you aren’t nearly pretty enough. I’m here to speak with Oracle.”
From the wall all around, ponies were running. Well—running in strictest possible terms. They didn’t run much faster than they flew. “What h-house are you from?” the guard stammered. He glanced over his shoulder, shifting nervously. He had no weapons she could see, no gear at all. But his mane had been shaved almost straight, maybe that counted.
“Earth,” she said. “The dumb name for me is Dreamknife, if those legends made it this far out. I’m the one who knows where you sleep.”
He swallowed, looking away. “Here to see… the regent.”
“Yes,” she said. “And no, I’m not here to kill him. I already tried once, and he saw me coming. He’s Oracle, he’s probably already expecting me. Go on, ask. I can wait here.” She sat down on her haunches right in front of him. “Either that or arrest me. But I wouldn’t suggest trying that.”
A pony ran off with the message. She was hardly gone five minutes before another pony returned in her place. “Oracle is waiting in the throne room,” the pony whispered. “He instructed me to say… that the visitor is late.”
“Yes fine.” Jackie rose to her hooves again, annoyed. “I used to just kill the ponies that got in the way. But that’s more complicated when they haven’t sold their souls to sea monsters. Let’s go.”
The castle’s construction was massive and spacious, but as much made from clouds as everything else. Except for the parts that weren’t—strange metal supports that all seemed to attach towards the center of the building. They passed several rooms with metal floors that looked far more like factories than anything a palace might need. But Jackie couldn’t make sense of what they might be making, and didn’t really care.
The throne room was far from the regal grandeur the incredible tower had led her to expect. They stepped inside, and immediately her eyes were overwhelmed by the glow of computer displays. There was a single throne in the center of the room, surrounded by a battle station any PC gamer would’ve been proud of.
Except he wasn’t gaming. She could see only numbers moving on those screens, moving so quickly it was like a background filter from The Matrix.
“Leave us,” Oracle said, spinning his chair around. “We will require only a moment. My visitor is in a hurry.”
“You could say so,” Jackie said, not even waiting for the guards to scurry out behind her. “Does that time travel of yours let you see what kind of fucking monster Athena became? You know you had a moral responsibility to stop her. Should’ve… strangled her in her cradle.”
Oracle had changed—he was larger than she was, with the same over-large pegasus-looking body, though he had a long horn to go with the wings. His body seemed to glow slightly with internal light—not magic, but a controlled hydrogen fire. Those tubes running up his chair weren’t there for show.
“That’s an interesting perspective,” he said, voice flat. “And where does the responsibility end? I should kill every despot before they can commit their crimes, yes? What about every mass murderer? What about the ones who kill only once, or those who evade paying taxes, or…” He shook his head. “I am one pony, Dreamknife. And I cannot shape the future any differently than you can. I act in the present, and my actions have consequences. I just have more vision.”
“Fine,” Jackie said, marching right up to his throne and glaring. “You know why I’m here, then. It’s sea monster Mk2 back home. Guess you’ve moved on from Earth, maybe things are great here, but you don’t get to leave. Time to get shit done.”