I eyed the ring of metal on the floor. Silver and bronze colored metal intermingled, multiple runes etched into its circumference. It was easily large enough to hold eight ponies side by side and it was as thick as my hoof. The stonework surrounding it showed some slight charring just beyond its perimeter but the interior seemed unblemished.
Well, if you consider having a slick patch of crystal instead of fitted stone unblemished. I assumed it was crystal from it’s fellow circle in the Crystal Empire. I hoped it was, actually. I’d never heard of this type of magic before, and as such, I viewed it with a reasonable degree of cynicism.
“Are you sure this is safe?” Twilight whispered. Her ears were pinned back and her tail drooped twitching with fear. Where she stayed well away, though, her ersatz twin almost skipped into the circle as though heading for her favorite chair.
“Oh, it’s quite safe!” the Archmage giggled. “I tested it very extensively before using it myself and just a short hop at that. This is the furthest I’ve laid a circle, but considering it allows for near-instantaneous teleportation beyond regular mantic limitations has opened up so many possibilities! I can advise both King Sombra and Queen Luna without taking days of travel. A simple summoning spell lets me know when I’m needed at either place. Though sometimes my wife does abuse the spell to check up on me while she’s on tour.”
“Tour?” I asked.
I remembered the image of Rarity showing up but hadn’t made much of a connection.
“She’s quite famous in the music scene. She’s coming back from a tour with Coloratura and Songbird Serenade raising funds for Charity.” She shrugged. “I don’t understand why she enjoys pestering me under the guise of ‘just checking in.’ I told her the spell was for emergencies only.” She muttered as she adjusted her robe and pulled her thick grimoire before her, pages flashing by quickly.
I glanced at Twilight before climbing in myself. As I passed over the circle, I felt a tingling sensation flow over my coat, making some of the hairs stand on end. Once I was in, however, it died and was replaced by a warm glow of gathering mana. The runes that had gleamed dully in the light of the lamps glowed brightly with amber light, fading from time to time before brightening again.
“I-if you say it’s safe,” Twilight whispered before climbing in. “I guess I can trust myself.”
As soon as we were all in, the Archmage shook a sleeve up to clear her hoof. “Now, please keep in mind not to touch the circle if you aren’t familiar with ley line magic. Uncontrolled it can rip through you and begin a mana torrent and burn everything within a square mile to a crisp.”
Well, that’s reassuring, I thought, grimacing.
Twilight shrank away from the edge of the ring, a tiny whimper slipping free.
The Archmage touched her hoof to the ring and whispered a few words under her breath. The runes flared brightly and the entire structure took on a rose colored glow. A low humming sound, more felt than heard, began to fill the space around us.
“It will take a moment to attune the ring. It’s not needed for every trip, but I do like to make sure everything is in order. And it never hurts to make sure everything is tip top.”
A hazy sheen was beginning to build between us and the rest of the room, looking like heat waves rising from asphalt in the summer.
“So where exactly are we heading?” I asked. The humming was starting to cause a throb in my temples.
“Straight to my arcanum in the Crystal Empire.” Twilight’s twin removed her hoof from the ring and sat down. “I have access to the rarest tomes there.”
I didn’t have to see Twilight to know how quickly she perked up.
“You have books on Umbrum?” My doubt was evident.
“I have books on just about everything!” The robed pony would have pranced if not for the tight confines. “Some found in the ruins of the formerly lost Library of Bucephalus in the Great Wastes!”
“Wait, you found it?” Twilight’s excitement was palatable. The Library of Bucephalus had been lost ages ago in the days before the founding of Equestria, during the great freezing brought on by the Windigoes. The possibility that it had been found at all, regardless of which reality, was enough to intrigue me as well.
“Oh, no,” she replied. “I merely cataloged, restored, and copied what was salvageable. My copies are exact reproductions, down to the doodles in the margins.” She was vibrating in glee.
The haze around the ring was now almost like water in an aquarium tank, a definitive line between here and there.
“You may want to take a deep breath,” the magus said.
But before I had fully inhaled, we were gone.
Now, I have travelled through a fair number of portals in my time. My own teleportation spell, Celestia’s a few times, and even a few piggybacked on Twilight’s on occasion.
This was a completely unfamiliar experience however. I was at once everywhere, but I was formless. I could feel the mana of the world flowing through me, humming like a live wire. I could sense the life of the planet, and it felt invigorating. For a moment, I thought I could feel my wings.
Then it was over, and we were in a round room not much larger than the ring we sat in. I took a deep breath, the crisp, cool air letting me know that we were definitely in the north. I stretched and turned to Twilight and stopped at the sight.
She was sitting still, her eyes closed in an expression of complete serenity, as though nothing bothered her at all. Her horn held a faint glow to it which faded as she opened her eyes.
“That,” she breathed. “Was amazing!”
She climbed languidly to her hooves and sighed happily.
“It is a bit of a pick me up, isn’t it?” Archmage Twilight asked, skipping towards the door. “Sometimes I’ll just nip over to the castle and back in the mornings. Better than coffee.”
I could believe it. I felt like every sore muscle had been massaged away and my mana reserves were topped off. It may not have been as euphoric for me as it obviously was to the Twilights, but it was still damn relaxing.
Following the magus through her tower, I was struck by how stark it was. Twilight’s castle had always accumulated little bits of bric-a-brac over the years, gifts from her friends and family or things she had been curious about, mementos of her adventures.
There wasn’t a single bibelot or gewgaw or bauble on any of the tables we passed. They were set with a vase with various flower arrangements in them, or a planter with various herbs or plants, some of which I recognized from my studies in Alchemy in the days of schooling.
She paused before a door, silvery runes set into the heavy oak barrier. She whispered a phrase, horn lighting up. The runes lit in sequence, and the door creaked open.
And I gaped at the room beyond. I thought Twilight’s library in the castle was huge, but this repository dwarfed that by an order of magnitude.
Fully five stories in height and several hundred yards along a wall, every square inch was packed with books, scroll racks, reading stands, and chalkboards with my friends familiar writing on it. There were even stacks of books on the floor with their edges perfectly aligned -- and likely in alphabetical order -- set by a cart filled with another load.
Twilight stared numbly.
“Pinch me,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Pinch me,” she repeated. “I want to make sure I’m not dreaming.”
I pinched her shoulder and she started to smile.
“It’s real,” she giggled.
“Every bit.” The magus started pulling books down in a very familiar way. “And this is just my main research archive. I wish you could see my personal collection, but we are pressed for time.”
I rolled my eyes as both Twilights began pulling books down, one searching for a particular reference, one just exploring the contents.
“You have Canterlot Cantabiles volume thirty one?” Twilight had a manic look in her eyes.
“Of course!” her twin piped out. “That’s where it starts getting good.”
I grabbed a book on a shelf near me and scanned it’s cover, but the text was written in symbols I couldn’t decipher. There was, however, a rather crude depiction of a manticore and a creature I had never seen before. I replaced the book and was about to ask how they were faring when the door at the far end opened and admitted a slim Unicorn mare with a brown coat and a dark black mane. She stopped short, seeing the Archmage with a book in her aura.
“Oh, I’m sorry Your Eminence,” she said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was just looking for…” she trailed off as she looked at me.
I froze as recognition struck me at the same time.
“Sorla?” I whispered.
“Princess Sunset?” she gasped, at the same time.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, taking in her appearance. The last time I saw her, she had been horribly scarred from the backlash of a spell she had tried to cast in the Crystal Empire of my world and branded with several thaumic circles by Chrysalis. Her unblemished coat and cutie mark were of a book over a crescent moon which was hard to take in compared to that memory.
“Forget that,” she said, her eyes flicking back and forth between Twilight, myself, and the Archmage. “What is going on here?”
“This might sound a little odd,” Twilight said. “But we were forced out of our timeline.”
The mare closed her eyes and sighed.
“Just what I needed.”
“Is your father about, Your Majesty?” the Archmage asked.
“Not currently. He went out with Hope to survey some of the new aquifers in the western plains.” she replied, looking a little uneasy at the title and I felt a pang of sympathy.
Somepony else that doesn’t feel up to the task, I thought, sighing and settling in to repeat the story again.