In the predawn of the next morning, Emerald woke to the sound of knocking. The glow of the Sun could barely be seen to rise through the stained glass. He wrapped himself in a robe and answered, finding a royal messenger on the other side of his chamber door.
“The Princesses have summoned you for an audience,” said the messenger respectfully. “You are to appear in the Watch Room in one hour. There you will be debriefed by Princesses Celestia and Luna in the company of Miss Twilight Sparkle, after which your new position will be discussed.”
“New position?” Emerald blinked.
“I have recited the message verbatim, and there is nothing more to say,” said the messenger. He bowed deeply to Emerald and retreated backward through the door.
Emerald yawned and began preparing for his audience with the Princesses. He brushed his hair, threw his cloak over his back, and washed his face. Then he worked on his treatise at the writing desk and watched the Sun slowly push its halo above the horizon until the time for his audience arrived.
He walked slowly up the spiral steps with apprehension. From time to time he paused to stare at the tapestries in near total darkness, trying to delay his audience. He still had a story to tell, hidden truths to reveal; and even more than his own identity, he dreaded to speak the truth about Spade.
Emerald took a tremendously deep breath. Still he felt unable to get enough air to clear his mind. He sighed the breath out and started up the stairs once more.
He knocked on the Watch Room door and Princess Celestia’s voice bade him to enter. Inside, the two princesses stood at attention, and a tired-looking Twilight Sparkle was just getting up from a seated position as Emerald entered, rousing Spike from a nap. Celestia wasted no time.
“The purpose of this meeting, Emerald Alembic,” she said sternly, “is to clarify the nature of the incident in Ponyville last night. You shall reveal everything you know about the assailant to us. We will discuss the reason for my pupil’s involvement afterward.”
“Just start from the beginning,” Luna added with a contrasting gentleness. “How did you meet him?”
Emerald looked at Twilight apprehensively before beginning.
“Stowaway Spade was a pony of the Earth tribe,” he began, “long before the union of the tribes and the founding of Equestria. It was over two and a half thousand years ago that I first met him, as the leader of the group that attacked my wife and tried to steal her from me.”
Emerald could not hold back the first few tears when his memories came rushing back, but he quickly regained control of himself.
“I suppose you can see where this is going,” he continued. “When she was attacked, it was Spade who delivered the kick that eventually killed her. I never forgot the faces of the stallions who attacked us that day, and I spent decades tracking each of them down, while I waited for the flower that would fuel my research.
“Fifty years passed before I collected the River Rose on the first of the Double Harvest Moons, and I studied its magic tirelessly. Within a week I had decoded its time magic enough to engineer a spell, then several more spells in the following weeks, including the time seal. I prepared the time-reversal spell immediately; I refined it and perfected it as a ritual full of magical seals strong enough to do what I intended for it.
“I haunted the homes of each of her attackers, performing all my research hidden away in Earth tribe territory. They had all grown old in the decades that passed, and always I was paranoid that one would die and I would miss my chance at revenge. But they all clung to life, and I would use their determination to live against them. Here was my plan:
“Just as they had taken from me the pony I loved most, my only family, I would take away their families. I would leave each of them alone, separated by a thousand years from everyone they loved and cherished.
“I had perfected my time spell during the first full moon of the Double Harvest, so I only had 28 days to wait before the River Roses bloomed again. When the Double Harvest Moon returned, I made my move.
“I snuck into their village, and into each of their homes, one by one. I caught them in their sleep and teleported them far away. I readied my time reversal spell, which I used to turn them all back to newborn foals. I carefully preserved their memories, so they would remember what they had lost. This was the most vital part of my plan.
“Then I sealed them. Each one of them I froze in a seal that was to last two thousand years. When they awoke, they would find themselves in a foreign world, orphaned foals with no family, fully aware of the family they would never see again. Their memories were their suffering: their memories were my revenge.
“I did make one mistake. There was a member of the group named Lucky Lips, nicknamed Lucky Lowlife. I never could decide which name I hated more. He was the first one I attacked. He loved to gamble and drink, so he was passed out when I caught him. I cast my time spell, and once he was a foal I sealed him.
“But I had never actually used the spell before. I was inexperienced. I didn’t aim for the heart, and the seal began to shut down the infant’s organs. Watching a baby die at my hooves threatened my resolve. I tried to revive him, but the seal was a field of untouchable time magic, and time magic couldn’t help him. Desperate as I was, I went on with my revenge.
“Only one of them was any trouble in his old age: Stowaway Spade. He was still a hearty Earth pony, and he fought back. The very same cold lightning spell he used against me last night, I used to subdue him all those years ago. The wound left him near dying, but my spell brought him back to infancy and perfect health, and I completed the seal.
“It is difficult for me to acknowledge that I thought about erasing his memory. He was the only one I feared would be a threat after the seal was broken, and I hadn’t yet learned any localized memory magic. But he was the one I most wanted to revenge myself upon: where was the justice in sparing the only true villain?
“My cruelty was my doom. After the seals expired, my victims were free. They were helpless babies, and their foalhoods were harsh. Children though they seemed, I watched them closely and let myself enjoy my revenge, for in truth it was old men I was punishing. They realized their loss, they remembered me as their captor, and their old leader, Stowaway Spade, was my equal hair for hair—he plotted vengeance.
“I ought to have seen it coming. When they were grown they attacked me in my laboratory. It was difficult work fighting them off, but I managed it. I desperately wounded all of them, even Spade, who managed to escape. Did you see the scar that runs from his left eye to his ear? That was the fight where I gave him that scar.
“I knew that my time magic couldn’t return them to the age of colts again—not outside of the Double Harvest—so I healed them one by one and immediately erased their memories. First I erased myself from their memories, then I erased Spade: I couldn’t risk them recognizing him as their leader anymore. I placed a weaker seal on each of them, which will last another four hundred years yet.
“I searched around for Spade but he was nowhere to be found. I knew he was as tenacious as I was, though, and that I would not be safe unless I got moving. I packed all of my equipment, my research, my books, and moved to a new home in a small village by the sea.
“It wasn’t long before Spade found me again. Bear in mind, this was six hundred years ago. Even then, in the backwaters of Equestria, there was still a rift between Lunists and Celestials. Twilight, it won’t be difficult for you to guess what I mean by that: there were many who felt that Luna had been banished wrongfully, and thought of rebelling against the monarchal leadership of Princess Celestia.
“Spade didn’t have much trouble convincing a group of Lunists that I was a belligerent Celestial—after all, I was loyal to the Princess throughout my years, even serving in the Royal Guard under a pseudonym a hundred years earlier—and he rounded up a posse so large that even a barrier spell wouldn’t have held them off for more than an hour.
“They attacked in the night. I heard my door crash open, and I knew I had to act quickly. I immediately snatched up the journal I was working on at the time, two or three books as would fit in my saddlebag, and escaped my home through a back window. I felt so awful leaving all of my books behind, all of my equipment, but it was that or my life.
“As I expected, the house was surrounded. I fought my way through at the personal cost of an almost crippling wound to my leg. I pushed past the pain and ran as fast as I could, but the Lunists were close behind.
“ ‘Burn the Celestial!’ they cried in unison. And Spade’s voice above the rest, ‘He massacred the Lunist tribe at Asturton!’
“Now, I can honestly say I’d done no such thing. Surely this was how Spade convinced them to pursue me, and pursue me they did. A forest bordered the coastline, and it was into this forest I ran; or rather, I should say I limped quite quickly. My wounded leg bled a constant stream, and caused me such agony that I don’t remember much of the escape, with the exception—for some reason—of a bird most brilliantly white, seamless and unearthly, as if it were merely a bird-shaped rip in the heavens. I glimpsed this bird only for a moment, and my next memory was of being sheltered by a kindly old stallion in a forest cabin.
“I was so desperate to warn him I was being chased, that I must have repeated myself dozens of times in my delirium. The stallion was a unicorn, and I trusted him when he said my pursuers would not find me. I discovered later that he always hid himself with an invisibility spell. In fact, you could say his talent was invisibility, but I will not bore you with the conversations I had with him during my recovery.
“I say recovery, but I so dreaded becoming crippled by my wound that I healed it with time magic, and hid this fact from my benefactor. I pretended to be injured so that I would not need to leave. I insisted on changing my own bandages because of this, but I’m sure it did not take him long to catch on. After a week I felt safe enough to thank the stallion and leave his cabin, but not before he had taught me a number of invisibility spells.
“It was almost one hundred years later that I was first attacked by the mysterious masked stallion you saw last night. How could I have known his identity? Any reasonable pony would have assumed Spade dead of old age by then. Yet his magic was strong, and I fought as well as I could.”
“But you knew who he was,” Twilight interjected. “Before he took off his mask, you called him Spade.”
“I hid after the initial attack,” Emerald said as if he hadn’t heard her. “I hid with invisibility spells, and I did not let anyone remember me. It took the mysterious attacker thirty years to find me again. When I confronted him, he revealed himself to me. First by his voice, which I knew in an instant by the chill it sent through my blood, then he removed his mask. I nearly fainted then, seeing him stand before me a century after he should have died.
“He explained how he used my lab, my research, to master alchemy and prolong his life. He was inspired to do this by a note I left in one of my journals, where I speculated that even an Earth pony should theoretically be able to use an external magic like alchemy.
“He boasted, laughed at me, knocked me over and wounded me terribly. But he was an Earth pony, through and through, and though his channels were strong, he could not control the magic even so well as a younger unicorn could. He faltered, and I went in for the kill.
“He put up a barrier in time to block my attack, but it was too weak and it shattered. The aftershock threw him back. I’ll never forget the look of fear in Spade’s eyes: like watching a bear run panicking from a filly—it’ll make any sane pony afraid of the filly instead. Believe me when I say that was the first moment I doubted myself. I was afraid of what I was becoming. We both knew that if I was on the offensive he was no match for me, so he fled. And I let him.
“He attacked me again every few decades, always improving his offense, but always too weak to defend against me. I never showed him mercy again, but with time he didn’t need me to.
“I’ve spent all my time preparing as well, looking for a way to tie up the loose ends of my incomplete revenge. Now I fear I’m out of time. His barrier spells are too stable to drive him back now. I can’t beat him like this.”
“Alone, you mean,” came Luna’s immediate response.
Emerald’s eyes brightened.
“You’ll help me?” he said.
“Absolutely not!” Celestia roared. Her authority was immutable; even Luna seemed to cower in shame before her.
“Emerald Alembic,” the Princess of the Day went on regally, “you may have swayed my sister to your sympathy, but it is not the duty of the Crown to assist in vigilante justice. We will not help you to revenge yourself.”
“Sister, be reasonable,” Luna began.
“Which brings us to your new position here in the palace,” Celestia continued. “You will work full time training the Royal Guard to defend this castle against the enemy you have brought to our walls. That is our fee for sheltering you from him. My student, Twilight Sparkle, will be temporarily apprenticed under you, with the immediate aim of potions studies. Furthermore, you are forbidden to handle the Elements of Harmony henceforth. Is this clear, Emerald?”
“Perfectly,” Emerald replied through clenched teeth.
“Then you are dismissed,” said the Princess.
“You have such kindness in your eyes, Your Highness,” Emerald said. “Why do you hide it behind such belligerence?”
“It is my kindness that refuses to allow you to make a mockery of the laws of Nature. You will not toy with lives so long as I raise the Sun. Oh, and Master Alembic,” she added with that condescending address, “please refrain from teaching my student anything unethical.”
Princess Celestia marched from the Watch Room alone. Emerald was left there, seething with frustration beside Luna and Twilight. Spike had resumed his nap.
“He’s not stupid enough to attack the palace,” Emerald said, nearly growling. “You saw how he ran from you, Luna. He’s afraid of you and your sister: alicorns powerful enough to move heavenly bodies. There’s no point fortifying the city against him.”
“I’m sorry that you can’t study the Elements anymore,” Luna said with her usual tenderness. “But we could—”
“No, no,” Emerald shook his head, “I don’t need the Elements anymore.”
Luna cocked her head in surprise.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“I only had to handle the Elements for ten minutes to know they’re worthless. They’re only a tool. There was something you said last night, Luna, about internal growth magic. I need to investigate in that direction.”
“Are you saying the Elements of Harmony are powerless?” said Twilight, desperate to be included.
“In the way a water pipe is powerless,” Emerald sighed. “No one thinks pipes make water, do they? Modern unicorns should know better. Jewels cannot be magic, they can only harness it. Where from? That’s the mystery. And the technology is how the magical channels are shaped and sized.”
“Do you think you can replicate the channels?” Luna suggested. “Create new Elements?”
“No, that would be reckless,” Emerald said. “I studied the channels in the Elements, and they aren’t complex. It’s a simple magnifying charm, not even magical—it uses the cut of the gem to amplify the magic as it passes through. It’s pure geometry.”
“Like alchemy,” Luna said.
“Precisely. External magic. The right combination of seals should replicate it.”
“But there’s more to it than that,” said Twilight.
“How do you figure?”
“The jewels in the Elements all resemble my friends’ cutie marks. Mine, too.”
“Oh, that’s obvious enough,” Emerald replied. “Rarity’s, a five-faceted diamond, indigo like her mane; yours, a six-pointed star. It’s no coincidence, but you’re thinking about it wrong. In truth, the Elements of Harmony have no physical form until a bearer comes forward to claim them. In the ancient days when a single alicorn could bear the Elements on her own, all six Elements took on a single shape. When they were passed on to the next bearer, their shape changed. Always the cut of the gems is tailored to the one who bears them.
"Thus, in the case of your friends, the shape of their Elements is not symbolic of the Elements themselves, but is a way the Elements are altered so that a new bearer can use them. For this reason they are always depicted as a sextet of hexagonal-cut gems, rather than any specific shape they've assumed throughout history.
“The fact is, the Elements of Harmony only amplify the internal growth magic of the bearers. That seems to be their only function. Magic, for instance, is the Element closest to the source, the one element that has to be in harmony with the other five to work. Twilight, that’s why your ability to wield your Element depends on your strong friendships.”
Twilight and Luna nodded knowingly.
“It’s all symbolic,” said Luna. “Just as your feelings toward your father become your feelings toward stallions in general, the closer you are to the bearer of Honesty, the more you embody Honesty itself.”
“Exactly. And because it’s symbolic, the physical drama of it never actually needs to occur.”
“Do you mean,” said Twilight, “that I don’t need my friends to wield the Elements of Harmony?”
“What I’m saying is that the nature of time is change; and the nature of change is growth; and the nature of growth is magic. A pony must be so fully absorbed in life that every tiny change is accepted, appreciated, not struggled against—in other words, Inner Harmony. Only such a pony can use all the Elements by herself.”
“Celestia,” said Luna.
Emerald nodded gravely.
“She’s the only pony in generations who has used the Elements on her own,” he said. “Only an alicorn is capable of it. Only an alicorn has seen ages come and go, and learned to let go and flow with the seasons of change. Old legends call alicorns the Masters of Harmony. You could say the Elements are a locked door, and total detachment is the key.”
“I don’t think it’s fair to call my sister detached,” Luna argued.
“Look at it as an insult if you must, Luna, but for now the only insult is that there is no chance of having her help.”
“I don’t think she can help, either way,” said Luna. “Nowadays we rely wholly on Twilight Sparkle and her friends to wield the Elements of Harmony, because my sister is no longer connected to them.”
“That's what Princess Celestia said when we were fighting Discord,” said Twilight. “I don’t understand. How could that happen?”
Luna shook her head. Emerald sighed deeply, a look of disappointment hanging heavily on his face.
“I feared that might be the case,” he said. “Inner Harmony requires acceptance and detachment. The last time Celestia wielded the Elements was to seal you, Princess, am I right? No doubt she has suffered from the guilt. She lived with her decision for one thousand years, growing less and less sure of herself over time. If she could not forgive herself for what she did to you, it would be impossible for her to harness the Elements of Harmony. At least that is one possible reason.”
Luna hung her head as if she had been scolded.
“For the moment,” Emerald went on, “I’ll have to resign myself to my duties. Miss Twilight Sparkle, it seems you’ll be my apprentice until further notice. Are there any specific potions you’re supposed to learn?”
“Princess Celestia wants me to study healing potions,” she said eagerly, “but to be honest, I’d much rather learn alchemy. It’s sounds so interesting, so—”
“Woah, now,” Emerald interrupted, “don’t get ahead of yourself. If you can’t brew a decent potion, you won’t understand alchemical equations.”
“Is it that difficult?” asked Twilight.
Emerald shook his head, uncertain of how to answer.
“Ordinary unicorn magic is like a math problem. This is why intellectuals like you are better at it than others. It’s a riddle, an equation that must be followed through correctly each time it’s used. The concentration required can be intense when you’re first learning a spell.
“Alchemy, on the other hand, is a recipe. Similar concept, but it’s the yin to the yang. Magic requires logic and abstract thought, alchemy requires symbolism and imagination.”
“Imagination?” Twilight blinked.
“The reasons are pointless to explain, but in summary, you have to imagine each ingredient—each symbol—so vividly, that it’s like experiencing it for real. Sometimes, an emotion is one of the ingredients. You haven’t had a bad day until you’ve come across Guilt on an ingredients list.”
“To think of emotion being necessary for a spell,” Twilight mused, “it’s surreal.”
“At first. You’ve mastered your intellect, but you’ll have to master your entire being to use alchemy.”
“Kind of like using the Elements of Harmony?” Twilight smirked.
Emerald was dumbstruck; he stood and thought silently until he was snapped out of his reverie by Luna’s voice.
“I’ll be going to bed now,” she said, stretching her wings and yawning. “Do your best, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Thank you, Princess,” said Twilight.
“Sleep well, Your Highness,” said Emerald.
Twilight and Emerald bowed and left the Watch Room together. The Princess of the Night fixed her eyes on Emerald Alembic with a fond gaze. She did not stop staring until the door met its jamb with a loud crack of the wood.
She shut herself up in a small rotunda recessed into the walls of the tower, closed it off with thick, dark curtains, and fell asleep, begging not to dream.