The Trinity of Moons: Mending Shards

by Cloud Ring


Chapter 36: Intersection

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The camera was floating above the surface at a height of nine steps, or three talls — it was the latter, long ago deprecated height measure that was displayed in the upper right corner of the flickering screen. Solid did not know exactly in what era talls became obsolete. Background processes brought the hint into the left side of her field of vision, but Solid was not paying much attention — she was still trying to come to terms with her being effectively shut down for a time by unknown reasons.

It was not even one of past-Solid’s triggered minor memory or ability accesses; in that case she would be warned at least.

From her point of view — both herself and her programs, whose logs Solid scrutinized — the time that passed did not contain events.

The time itself was running, and the internal timers kept counting, and the result correlated with the opinion of other ponies; still, it was void.

But the perception of the void was two-sided, in more than one sense of the word. On the one hoof, not quite sapient background processes reported that nothing at all had been happening around. The world was absent, and they were required to maintain the vital activity of the body, which — and nothing beyond it — continued to exist. They issued alarms in a preset sequence, got no response from consciousness, and switched to supporting the body, waiting for the world to reappear.

Consciousness, on the other hoof... Solid Line could not find another description, even if she wanted to: she was floating in the ocean of endless stars, and the stars were around and inside her. There was ebb and flow and unhurried life from all sides. The sky differed from the ocean in nothing and everything, like the two sides of a window — mirrored glass, an alien voice intervened, interrupting Solid Line's thoughts — depending whether you were outside of it in the inescapable icy twilight; or inside, where ingenuity, art and courage strive for a better song.

She flew in space and drowned in water, gasping for the air that was not. She was aligned to the single direction of the voice that was not there, of the measured beat of her heart, of the flow of blood in her veins; she was pressing herself to fall asleep as it was required by the voice to finally get out, outside, into the darkness and cold, and meet the thing that awaits.

She never could, because the dream’s door was forever closed to her. Through dreams and mirrors, the Red seduces...

Solid Line did not finish this thought. The cat landed heavily on her withers, and Pink pushed her to the side, “Don't leave us... again. Okay? We were so hopeworry about you.”

A short beep from Signal meant about the same, but more with a tinge of ‘It is too early for you.’

Solid shook her head in an attempt to recover and tried to imitate a guilty smile — facial expressions were still for the most part beyond present-Solid. But for Pink, the intention was, obviously, more important than the deed — she broke out a smile, reciprocal and toothy, and held out a glass of orange juice coming from nowhere.

Solid took it with a question not asked, took a sip, and returned her attention to what was happening in the projection; Storm and Pink were already staring into it. 

The recording was low-contrast bordering on outright muddy; coloration was tinted to green, and occasional black spots were flashing here and there. But Solid’s programs took care of all these recording artifacts without so much as direct order — annoyance was enough. Thanks to that, Solid got a filtered but clear image, with the colors most likely correct.

There were four ponies in the laboratory.

Two unicorns, one noticeably older than the other. An earth pony opposite them and a bit to the side. A pegasus is in the air between them, on top of an irregular tetrahedron. By the rhythmic ebb of the camera, the shooter was also a pegasus, and one of those who preferred to keep afloat rather than stay true to the surface. 

Stands, markers, meters and books, laid out in a semblance of order, and rectangular traces of dust where the beds, now piled up in faraway corner, had recently stood, gave out that the room was not made as a laboratory in the first place but rather refurbished, and in a hurry. On the whitish uneven floor, face-to-face in a rectangle, stood clear and shiny mirrors; the camera watched them from the side and from above, peering into the space framed by them.

This space was distorted — the surfaces of the mirrors themselves seemed to encircle the sphere, so that all the angles of the quadrilateral were obtuse.

Solid frowned. Past-Solid could have created a similar effect, but there was no practical use in it, it required constant fueling by magic and over time turned the space to the everside with the risk of a chain reaction. 

The tower where Solid slept was based on the same principle; but Black Moon drew the lines, placed the stones and spelled the words with at least ten times better precision, care and caution, if not raw power; and Black Moon clearly defined the terms, limits and fees for the everside, as well as means for unraveling the contract. Here... no matter how much Solid Line looked for it, she saw no hint of bounding lines. In theory, with sufficient initiating charge, this structure could consume the world.

Granted, the projection did not capture precise magic flows on the other side, which was a pity; only minor disruptions of light around and above the mirrors were giving away the immense power drawn in there.

There were less extreme ways to look at the everside. The easiest one was to ask the feline; they saw it always and with no tools. However, it in itself required a tool — an interpreter; or a good rapport with your own cat. Reasons or ways that would support scalable initiative for traveling or colonizing the everside were unknown to Solid Line. At best, a pony would plan a brief and perilous raid for a small adventuring team, or a run for an unlikely safe spot considerable only in most dire circumstances; nothing more lasting.

The sleeping users of Black Moon were considered absent for a reason. Free of traces, to be exact.

There was no life on the everside. Along the main axis of eternal flow, it was lying ‘upstream’, beyond the line where life first comes into being, strictly opposite to dreams and death in relation to reality. In general, everside was somewhat trying to remember this and keep its rare guests safe. Unfortunately, it was so very forgetful, and if a pony were to describe its mood the best word would be nasty.

For now another thing was more important.

"Pink, you said they summoned the Red here? But they go in the opposite direction. They should turn half a circle if they want to reach beyond the mirrors...” Solid Line asked, unsure.

Pink nodded, “Just listen.”

Solid nodded and did just that. The voice from the record said, “...in order to stay at a great distance from the Red so, while contacting the enemy, still remain out of its reach...”

She twitched her ear and turned to her programs; as expected, they had been recording from the very beginning, so Solid rewound the inner record to at least get the idea of what is going on, “This is our testing ground, and we perform the deed here on our own,” said a small, middle-aged, dark yellow unicorn, looking at the camera which was still hanging in the air although lower than it was, “We have an agreement necessary for our attempt: that all of the Moons would not interfere and even actively avert Their gaze from the land for this short and perilous time. We agreed that in case of failure, our descendants will reimburse Them for the damage and all losses which would happen, so it will be fair, and in case of success we will reach an understanding about the Red…”

Solid asked to stop the recording; Storm glanced at her with narrowed violet eyes and shook her head. Pink answered without waiting for an actual question, “These are their last notes. The project — in their main purpose — would have been closed anyway. They just use it, and power plants meant for sustaining cubic nines of ponies here, for their attempt. I myself negotiated with Engie here about this meeting,” Pink nodded at the screen.

“I promised on behalf of the Red that everything would go well. I didn’t make it so, in any of all the meetings. We have tried many, many times and more. We rewound time again and again, I came with different gifts and with different words, and still everything was running about the same course.”

Storm intervened, “Can you rewind time? If so, why didn't you actually do it? This is the ultimate weapon. You could, for example, step back, find another group of researchers, or for this one suggest something different, warn them that it will go wrong. I thought the Red would think of that,” Storm snorted; Solid assumed it was either irony or superiority.

Pink turned to Storm, “The Red has power only over what did not come to pass and only at home. In reality, and even more so at the everside, it is unable to undo and replay anything important. At best, to fix a small, inconsequential touch,” Pink sighed, “Once we saw the result, we tried and kept trying for a while. But the event has already happened, do you understand? If the Red could, then at least nopony would be hurt.”

Storm nodded curtly, “Uh-huh. I got it. Ontological protection. We harness it to clear moonlight and defend ourselves against magic. Anchor the state of important things, and they will stay so… unless Moons take combined focused effort, which they will not.”

“—while contacting the enemy, still remain out of its reach...” the unicorn in the projection said, again.

Solid listened to his plan and explanations in case of a disaster, for those who would find the recording. 

They were going to summon the Red to a conversation without touching reality. First, they were to reach the everside. Second, from there, to make the call through two fundamentally different boundaries. Third, to negotiate with the Red. In the worst case, all the consequences would remain only on the everside and nowhere else.

The space between the mirrors stretched and curved, as if a giant transparent ball had been thrown into it — a growing one — and in less than a beat, the expansion swallowed the shelvings, the leader of the group and the pony who kept recording, One more beat later the entire lab followed suit, turning into a huge hall with walls lost in the whitish bright fog immeasurably far from the ponies.

Personal protective fields responded with an emerald brilliance. Some books, unable to withstand the expansion of space, were torn by their stitched leaves, the mirrors dispersed on the four sides of the cross in the glowing distance, as the smallest gaps between them became long nines of steps.

Everside was anything but benevolent, and nothing could count on its mercy. Only on its insincere hospitality to intelligent life — squeamish curiosity, if one was to name a pegasus a flier. Or on the terms of the visit, meticulously worked through and agreed with. Or on their own wit and power.

However, Solid knew the necessary protective formulas. As the five on the projection likely did too, judging by the occasional greenish sparks of their fields.

They had to reach for each other, run and fly if not fall towards a meeting point. Solid leaned forward, peering. Yes, the everside for sure. Much larger than reality, much emptier than it. And the light. This white light from nowhere is a signature.

“Do you think it was a good idea to hurry so much? I didn’t even make a copy for key patterns to follow...” the unicorn from the recording asked; his companions replied in a hurry that they had nothing to do with it and not a single pony put magic in the transition to the everside. They were meant to give him time to finish the speech and provide patterns and instructions. He shook his head. Solid asked Pink, “Does he believe them or not?”

Pink said thoughtfully, “No, but he doesn't want to pressure them too much over this. He rather wants to let it slide.”

Storm commented, “Indeed, the fuss will not help them now. They have already arrived there, upstream. Business first, debriefing later.”

Signal countered with a firm and close touch to the cheek and exhalation into Solid’s ear, “Yes, he trusts them of course. They are his family. They went in together."

The team on the other side of the projection assembled and pushed all mirrors together to a straight line with no cracks in between, which in itself took their time. They tried to support each other, but the uncaring vastness of what had recently been a cozy room, and now rivaled in size of the White Moon’s main chambers, apparently was getting on their nerves, and the white glow from above highlighted them, lifeless, indifferent; from the shadows on the floor, Solid realized that the camerapony was indeed a pegasus.

Four drops of blood taken from each of the four — Solid noted that the fifth, the one who filmed, did not participate in the ritual — was enough for a scarlet dripping surface to spread over the mirrors and soak in greedily. Behind it, instead of reflections, the forest — the ocean; and yet the forest, Solid decided — was lying, deep and full of life, in shining yellow and consuming orange.

All four bent down and lowered their heads, as if an unbearable load had been laid on their backs; nopony else looked at their friends on the sides anymore — only forward, beyond the mirrors. The earth pony, unable to support the weight of her body any longer, sank to the white floor. She did not look away either.

Not a desert. Not a scorched battleground. Not a waste dump. Not any other place that has been described as the world of the Red in any and every foal horror book.

Everything looked familiar, albeit a little creepy, because nopony is ever calm when they enter a forest. Solid Line saw soft soil under the trees, from the branches of which heavy drops of recent rain fell, large multi-colored insects that were flashing in front of the camera, and for three beats Solid felt like her nose was tickled by sweetish rot.

The Red appeared at the border of the mirrors.

It wore neither the image of a monster, nor the color of red. Except for the mane; but even that was interspersed with narrow yellow stripes, reminiscent of a flame. Its main color was yellow too, and in the open and curious gaze of cyan eyes there was neither deceit, nor anger, nor desire for revenge. If not for one detail, Solid would not even have thought it was the Red. After all, a horn of this shape, pointed and overly long, was a family trait of many unicorns, and often spoke of great magical talent.

Except that one detail — the wings on the sides, very thin and weak, curved at an unnatural angle. That was the real sign. That was the signature.

“Hello?” the Red asked. “Didn’t you want to talk?”

A reddish-brown mildew covered its front leg, rising from the soil; slugs slid up from the mold, in a matter of beats they climbed on legs of the alicorn to the shoulders and neck, and disappeared on its nape. The Red looked at its leg, awkwardly stepped aside, stomped a few times, and managed to free itself from the invasive but considerate and loving touch of the mold. Again the alicorn turned its gaze to the border between the everside and its refuge of dreams most bitter and thirsty.

“Sorry,” it said. “They also want to talk to me, but for now I can take a shot at talking with descendants of cold-blooded killers, for sure. What do you need so gravely that you dared to cry for the damned one, and even made an offer of life in advance? And make no mistake — I promise nothing beyond the talk. After that, I still might feed you to my subjects,” it smiled.