Night came as harshly as ever to Moonrise, with the excitement and glee at the first night replaced with resignation. Yes, it was true that Moonrise was, if anything, too warm on the beginning of the first night. But they all knew what would be coming in a month’s time, and so the celebrations were short-lived.
Chain Mail’s advice had been sound, even if they couldn’t obey it. Ponies were upset to be forced back bunking with other camps. Worse since Quill’s own Lunar company was much larger than any of the others, too large to have room to take “guests” of their own. There were plenty of whispers about his demands that all the rest of the army had to live with, and nothing for Quill to do but let them whisper.
With the warmth of the “Core” keeping them all sweating in their fur during the first week or so, the only real difference the night brought was the end for all work outside the city’s walls. There would be no more preparing soil, and all the ponies making bricks or potato trays would have to do it in the city’s basement, instead of in the free air of the cave. Only the glass workshop, now named the Prism kept working, warmed by the lightning that melted sand and flux together into their windows. “As soon as you finish the last window, we must go to work installing them, even if the sunrise hasn’t come.”
It probably would’ve been wise to cut back rations while only the essential crew could keep working—those who maintained the air, now that they had somewhere warm to do it. But Quill resisted the urge. Cutting food for ponies who were only flopping around lazily might be a sensible choice, but it would also be a wound for morale.
Quill received no other assassination attempts, though Penumbra did repeat some whispers to him. A growing faction of Permafrost’s former camp, along with several others, who were already growing weary of his rule and wished that Aminon would take over.
He ignored her impassioned pleas to just execute all of them and be done, though that denial grew harder and harder each time. Sooner or later they would actually try something, and force his hooves. He would have to be ready.
That was what he expected when he woke to banging from outside, and the flashing bursts of magic. Soldiers screamed outside his tiny office, and he sat up suddenly. Penumbra was already out of bed, donning a robe and taking a dagger in one wing. But before she could reach the thin door, it blasted right off its hinges, smashing into the bricks on the far side of the room.
Penumbra dropped to the ground, not so much in a bow but a scream of agony, before vanishing into the shadows with a puff of smoke.
Destruction spread behind the doorway, ponies knocked away and even one soldier frozen solid, crystalized in icy horror with eyes wide and terrified.
Nightmare Moon stood in the doorway, her mane extending backward into eternity. Only a few faint pinprick stars were visible back there, beyond the swirling darkness of Nightmare.
Nightmare Moon’s voice boomed through his section, making ponies cowered on the far side shake and quiver with terror. “Our Sister torments she who should be queen! The sheep and cockroaches’ rule with the dogs, and flames still that should have been eternal!”
Those who could not get away, those who hadn’t been frozen and killed by the ice, were limp on the floor, drooling. Quill knew that look—it was why he didn’t look directly at Nightmare Moon. He wasn’t armored in his sleep, and without that protection, his own mind would not last much longer than theirs.
What happened to you? Quill remembered this version of the princess too, though it had been so long. The days of her uneasy relationship with Nightmare were over.
“Princess,” he said, forcing his old knees to bend and dropping to the best bow he could. “I am… honored by your unexpected visit.”
She stormed into the room, and where she stepped the hoarfrost followed, splintering into pale snowflakes on every surface. He could feel that same chill, clutching at his heart. If that wild magic targeted him, he would die as swiftly as anypony else.
All this time she’s seemed sane, I started to think of her like she was Luna already. She isn’t.
“You are the jailer! Death becomes the escape from which we flee! Trapped by the patterns She put for us. Her priority, her games! Why should we not escape it?”
Quill trembled as she approached, chancing a single glance up towards her face. Looking at her was a terrible window into spaces beyond, where the Hvergelmir sliced, and Nightmare dwelt among the mad infinities. Eyes within eyes watched him there, drawing him with gravity stronger than the moon.
“Because… Princess… you care about your ponies. You fought for them because you thought your sister was mistreating them. You saw them suffer and you saw she didn’t care. What kind of ruler would you be if you let them die now?” He still couldn’t look at her, just speak each word as clearly as he could, even as the frost condensed around his hooves and each breath puffed in the air in front of him.
The ground shook under them, shaking the walls of Moonrise with it. Nightmare Moon was suddenly inches away, staring down at him with barely-contained rage. Spears of ice pierced his desk, his bed, and a moment later brought his bookshelf crashing down into splinters, showering the room with precious manuscripts.
“THE STARS SING THEIR DIRGE TO ME, CREATURE OF WISPS AND NIGHTSHADE! WHERE I HAVE WALKED, YOU CANNOT COMPREHEND! THE DEAD CHILDREN OF THE STARS DESSICATE UNDER THE CRUEL SUN, AND THE UNIVERSE COUNTS IT FOR JUSTICE! WHY IN THE LIFE OF BILLIONS SHOULD THE NIGHTMARES OF A FEW BRING ME TO SHAME?”
He tried to look away, but this time he had no choice. Nightmare Moon jerked his neck, forcing him to look up into her eyes. The world spun, and he fell into eternity.
Gale had been swept up in the madness of nightmares before, and he knew the terrible damage it could cause. Soldiers who had killed and bled beside him were reduced to quivering wrecks, and some never recovered.
His last time in the hurricane had left scars that never fully healed.
Gale opened his eyes in the eye of the hurricane. He looked up into a swirling maelstrom, and was almost swallowed by it. Dark winds carried clouds of blood and shards of glass, swirling with stars that unraveled and danced together. Blasphemous flutes droned on at the center of creation, and the Great Ones whose touch could unmake even the sun.
For a moment, Gale looked directly into the naked abyss, which rendered all life as dross and crumbled all his accomplishments away. The creeping tendrils of madness washed aside like the tide battering the shore of a rocky beach.
You can’t frighten me, he thought. And in his confidence, the eye of the terrible hurricane widened. He saw the sheltered valley of his childhood, his very first sight of land after growing up in the clouds. His hooves settled into a crystal pool, less than an inch deep. A faint mist rose around him, obscuring the surface of the water. Only the occasional sacred lotus bloomed here, their pink buds opening to the moonlight high above.
The Sibyl’s tent in the center of the pond was gone, ripped right from its foundation. The all-flower had been torn up at the roots, and all the seeing stones were cracked and tumbled, their secrets covered with the moss of age.
He spread feathering wings and glided across the pond in a few quick strokes, elating in the renewed strength that pegasus wings provided. He landed on the tiny central island a few seconds later, his hooves settling on bare earth where once a curtain of fresh petals had coated.
“The storm rages,” said a voice from up ahead. Gale had never heard it before, though there was something familiar about it even so. He advanced on the broken ruin of the once-sacred flower, its stalk browning, and its petals withered. A tiny blue shape sat there in the ruins, staring down at nothing. “It calls my name.”
Gale took a few steps further, pushing aside the rotting plant until he got a clear view of the pony beyond.
She looked the way he might’ve imagined from a young Alicorn. Tiny wings, stubby horn, and oversized eyes, half-buried in slime and rotten plant. She hadn’t even bothered to try to climb out, and was slowly sinking into a growing pile of rot.
“It calls, but do you listen?”
Gale reached down, and hefted her up, settling her down a moment later onto clear ground beside him. She didn’t resist, didn’t even protest at the treatment that Luna certainly wouldn’t have tolerated.
She met his eyes, and never once blinked. “Mostly. The storm rages so loudly. Listen.”
He heard it. It screamed in Nightmare Moon’s own voice, twisted and distorted and repeated so many times that it was almost impossible to understand. Gale understood a few words—shouts of rage at her sister, cries of the revenge she deserved and the respect she’d been denied.
“I wanted to save them,” Luna whispered. “There’s so much magic in Equestria. Nopony has to be in the dirt.”
“I know,” he said. “And I wanted to help you. I still do.”
She looked up again, blinking tears from her eyes, wiping them away with the back of a leg. Gale didn’t dare touch her again. “The storm grows,” she said. “It took me. It doesn’t want to give me back.”
Gale turned to the side, exposing the rotten plant with its brown petals and smashing it with one hoof. Not callously—he pressed and pressed, until he exposed what he was looking for within. The seed, its thick black casing firm despite the rot. He bent down, washing it in the sacred pool, before offering it to Luna in a wing.
“You don’t have to care what the Nightmare wants, Princess. It’s only a guest in your mind. You’re the ruler.”
The seed lifted away from him in Luna’s magic, hovering between them for a few seconds. It faltered as the storm pressed in around them, shredding the ground in a sudden roar. Water lifted from the edge of the sacred pool, swept up and away and vanishing into the screaming void.
But it couldn’t close in around them. Gale stared up, waiting for the death that would shred his mind, but it never came.
Tiny Luna clung to his leg, quivering with cold and terror, until the storm finally stopped. It was so close, almost close enough to touch—but the sacred island survived. The pool around it was still untainted.
My memory, not hers, he realized.
Luna blinked, letting go suddenly and puffing out her chest. She glared up at the darkness, then shoved the seed deep into good earth. “I want… me,” she said.
Air flowed into Iron Quill’s lungs, burning as it went. He twitched and spasmed, then sat up. A thin layer of ice coated his body, his face. Everything burned with the icy numbness that could take a limb or even his life. He was still breathing, still alive, though for how much longer…
He half-expected Luna herself to be standing over him, somehow restored. But whatever he might wish was the case, the reality was cold, grim. Nightmare Moon looked no less imposing than her usual. Even so, the raging storm that had made her mane thrash about with madness in its depths was gone.
Her horn stopped glowing, and she looked away. “I have healed the damage to your body, Quill. But I cannot create warmth with magic. You should join your ponies beside your mechanism, and wait for the heat within to wake you. I’m sorry I cannot do more.”
She glanced down the hall, at the trail of destruction she had left leading into their section, broken doors and soldiers blasted out of the way. She sighed, then vanished, leaving it to Quill to clean up.
He shrugged on his thick cloak, not bothering with the armor. It was still so cold, that he couldn’t bear the touch of the metal against his skin.
He strode out of the room, to nervous soldiers and former camp-followers watching him. He made his way over to the corpse. He didn’t recognize the face, though he knew they would never move again. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I think this might be my fault.”
This was what happened as he dislodged Nightmare’s firm control over his princess. Balance shattered, and the nightly battles for dominance returned. “Chain Mail!” he yelled, brushing the ice from his face with one hoof. “Are you still alive somewhere?”
He emerged from around the corner a second later, spear clutched under a wing. The way to the bunkroom. Sweet Celestia, were you going to try and fight the princess?
Quill could thank the stars he wouldn’t have to see that fight. “Aye, sir.”
He made his way over cautiously, tossing the spear aside and surveying the damage. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.” Quill lowered his voice to a whisper. But if you think it was my fault, everypony will. This won’t stay secret. The rumors would be getting louder, unless he could spin them somehow. Maybe this could be a rebuke for some unknown sin. He didn’t have the heart to try and frame a dead soldier.
He pointed to the pony. “Get me an honor guard. We have another stallion for the crypt, with full honors.” That was as close to defiance as he dared—in theory, anypony Nightmare Moon killed was an enemy to the revolution, and should be dishonored like the assassin.
But Iron Quill wouldn’t lie. He couldn’t spread news of Nightmare Moon’s insanity—if the army lost trust in their princess they would all certainly die. Starting with him, as soon as Nightmare Moon found out.
I hope Penumbra is okay.
Iron Quill stood in the center of the field, amazed at what his ponies had accomplished. There were dozens of growing trays, each one positioned at a slightly different angle. Each one filled with dirt. It looked a little pale from its source, and the smell wasn’t ideal—but it looked like soil.
Unfortunately for all of them, the actual fields were the easy part. There were no crops planted here yet, though the clay pipes to water everything were already in place. It would be more work turning more screws, but it was either that or carry buckets.
Of course, the most critical part of the arrangement was stacked at the tunnel entrance nearby—the windows. Each one was a sizeable triangle, large enough to let plenty of light in. There were dozens of windows now, along with metal bars that would reinforce them. Swords and spears and ballista bolts had all been hammered and melted into place, into the sections of a framework that would help secure the windows.
There would still be stone between each one, and careful craft of unicorn and earth pony alike would be required to make and set each window, even with the thick buckets of “paste” Sylvan assured them would be enough. Appleseed rose from beside one of the trays, gesturing enthusiastically at his work. “Is it not what we promised, Lord Commander? The soil is not perfect, but it will get better. We will continue to gather empty shells and peels and other castoff, and it will improve. The balance between what we take from the ground, and what we give, will be difficult here.”
“We will manage,” he said. “Either that, or we’ll die.” He walked away from the trays, down to where Cozen stood beside Sylvan, and her newly constructed device. It was… something. A square of metal, with tubes at its top and bottom and strange spirals attached to the front by cords and gears.
“This is how we keep the fields warm through the night?” Quill asked, eyes narrowing as he stared at what she’d built. The bricklayer had already arrived, so evidently she didn’t think there would be much need to move it.
“Yes, almost, mostly, sort of.” She gestured at the thick pipe leading into the top. “We already need to water the crops. I figure—accomplish both tasks at once.”
She cracked the side, and the strange spirals began to spin. A slight breeze lifted from them, brushing at his mane. “We can use cold water during the day, and at night, switch to warm water for an extra boost. The water will pass through metal on the inside, and air blows on the metal to share its heat with our farm. But I expect most of the heat will come from the sunstones. You felt yourself how good they are.”
“I did. So good in fact, that I wonder how hard it would be to make more glowstone, and convert it as you did to those. Our current solution isn’t warm enough.”
“Impossible,” Sylvan cut in, settling a final bucket of paste onto the ground beside the flat metal thing. “Alchemists have been trying to make glowstone from lesser rock for… as long as I’ve studied alchemy. Nopony has ever got close. In theory it is possible, but the mixture of precise elemental interactions required hasn’t been nailed down.”
“That explains why it’s worth more than gold,” Quill muttered. “If not converted, then… could we mine more? We have plenty of caves to search.”
This probably wasn’t the time to ask. The princess would be here any moment, and here they were discussing rock.
“You’ll know it if you see it,” Sylvan said. “Glowstone is so elementally active that it reacts violently to all of them. It corrodes the metals of the earth, it turns to ash when exposed to naked air. It creates flames when placed in water. And if you try to light it on fire… honestly I don’t know, but I imagine it’s just as dramatic.”
“Curious.” Quill wasn’t sure what he could do with that one. If air transformed it, then it was possible there was a supply in the caves somewhere, hidden in some remote pocket near the moon’s center. They might have to scrape a thick layer of ash away.
But whatever he might wonder about that potential, it would have to wait, because a faint blue glow was approaching from down the tunnel. A wave of bows passed through the ponies waiting to get started, one that Quill soon joined. He waited with his head down until Nightmare Moon reached him.
“Arise,” she instructed. “All of you! You have come to work, have you not? This day will not last. Use the warmth well, and the light.” Quill looked up, just in time to see her horn begin to glow brilliantly blue. He didn’t meet her eyes—Nightmare Moon had been remarkably aloof since their evening meeting.
“I suggest you work quickly,” she said, settling down onto her haunches there in the entrance. “And mind the wind when you remove that door. There is still a vacuum outside, at least until we allow the air to rush out again.”
Quill stood beside her, looking over the crowd. “Mares and stallions, hear me! The princess will not create a vast field for us outside, only the area above and around us will be safe. Do your work and do not wander.”
He glanced up and down the tunnel for Penumbra, though he already knew she wouldn’t be there. The Voidseekers hated to be out in the sun. They couldn’t fight in it. But even in her full-body wraps, she would be miserable up there just walking around beside him.
I’ll miss your protection. “Door unicorns, forward! Melt the ice, let us through! We have work to do.”
Iron Quill was one of the first to emerge from the farm-tunnel and out onto the surface of the moon. The soil still felt icy under his hooves, even though the night had been over for days. He clambered out of the opening, along the ramp leading down into their crater.
He could still see the ruts the wagon-wheels had dug, and thousands of overlapping hoofprints. This would be the later workers, those who had gone out to harvest the ore that removed poison from the air. Strange that they wouldn’t blow away in the wind.
What wind?
Iron Quill got out of the way, letting Silver Needle and Cozen direct the workers. They outlined the exact position of their windows on the ceiling with paint, then let the miners go to work. They were lucky to have enough earth ponies for the job.
Though how long the job would take, that was harder to answer.
It can’t be longer than Nightmare Moon’s concentration. We have to seal these windows before she runs out of magic.
Sylvan climbed the slope to the edge of the shield, waving one leg weakly towards him.
Quill waved back. “You don’t have any work you could be doing?”
“Not until we’re ready to secure them,” he said. “Even then, the unicorns will be working the brushes. Make sure they coat the joints on both sides of one window, and both sides of the other.”
Having two panes of glass—one near the top of the shaft, and one near the bottom—had been his idea. While it meant five bolts of lightning had been spent instead of two, it also meant that they might actually have time to fix a crack if they saw one.
“It’s remarkable work,” Quill said. “They’ll sing songs of your cleverness back in Equestria.”
Sylvan rolled his eyes, then settled onto his haunches. “I don’t need a song. I would settle for a seat by the fire in my family’s manor. In Manehattan, you know, by the sea. I would stay awake for hours into the night, just listening to the waves. Do you think I’ll ever hear them again?”
Iron Quill took a long time to answer. “Do you want me to lie to you?”
He laughed in response, letting silence return. Between them, anyway. Down below, Cozen shouted, pickaxes fell on stone, and a unicorn melted rock with a powerful spell. Another cart of glass windows arrived, and Silver Needle’s inventory crew began to unload each stack of two glass sheets in place.
“Have you ever performed a military wedding before, Quill?”
He looked up, startled from his reverie. “Have I ever…” He nodded weakly. “Long ago, yes. While I served… another. Any captain or above can perform one. Not since we were banished here.”
“What do you think of Cozen?” he asked. Quill looked more at the alchemist than the unicorn he indicated—and suddenly everything was clear.
A few months of working together to barely keep everypony alive have really brought you two together.
“In Cloudsdale, my father always said that every marriage is the union of equals. You must find a partner who you can look into the eye and respect. Simple breeding or gold is not enough. The two of you—seem well matched.”
“Good, good.” He rose again, reaching into a pocket and flashing a tiny wooden box. “I know it isn’t much. But I might’ve prepared a little something for her. It isn’t gold, but… I melted it from the rock, I’m sure she’ll appreciate the work that took. Understand what it means.”
He flashed the bracelet inside, and for a moment Quill was transfixed. There was a dull silvery metal, flaked with impurities and a few bits of moon-gravel. Yet the look of it—he’d seen it before.
“I want to know how you did that,” he said. “But… not right now. Don’t distract Cozen with your question. But when the last window is in place, then you may ask.”
He had no doubt in his mind that her answer would be yes.