//------------------------------// // Equine Dreams and Stranger Things // Story: Eden Fire // by Sharman Pierce //------------------------------// Some of it was the drawings and compiled records that the captain had presented him. Some of it was the sheer other-worldliness the cavern presented. There was not another place in the world that had such technology and in such quantities. Cold Snap could recognize the steam engines after his long tenure in the Yellow Rose’s boiler room. They lay on one wall of the cavern, great metal shafts extending from their flywheels. Heavy brackets anchored the shafts to the rocky ceiling. At intervals, flat belts joined the powered shaft to the machinery below. It was like looking into an industrial jungle. On the far wall, piles of brown-red lumps lay piled like a mountain range next to heavy steel cylinders covered in identical rusty dust. Funnels, chutes, and belts traveled into other machines like rivers. Long-cold crucibles lined the circular forge, and iron claws hung motionlessly from a flanged track. Hammers, rollers, and titanic punches lined the path the finished steel would take until it ended where he stood. Coal dust smudged the walls, floors, and machines. The air still held the scent of coke, and Snap could almost feel the warm exhaust of burning coal. The entire facility had an energy to it, as if it was a beloved pet waiting for its master’s command. Indeed, everything had a preserved look to it, and it wouldn’t surprise him if the whole place could be ready to go by morning. The only reason Snap could recognize those machines was because of their basic similarities to common tools he’d seen the plantation blacksmith use. No matter how you sliced it, a hammer was a hammer and a punch was a punch. Still, that was like saying a penknife and a greatsword were both blades: technically true, but completely incomparable. Even if he had not seen the captain’s sketches, Cold Snap would recognize this place as foreign, or at least as a place far beyond what the world understood. Now that he was privy to the captain’s theories, he could finally grasp just how foreign it might be. Yet, seeing the real thing in front of him and having seen the very same thing in Captain Gideon’s dossier on Man rattled him. Here was the proof. No one else had even imagined such devices, let alone constructed them. There were still dozens of machines under their own shelters with purposes completely unknown to him, and probably to every creature out there except those on a very peculiar ship. Captain Gideon had not only produced them. He had synergized them to produce a warship unlike any that prowled the water. If he wanted to display a creation showing Man’s potential, he would be hard pressed to come up with one better. Shouting finally got his attention. Mr. Horn and Nebula were in a full-blown argument by now. “You don’t get it! Look at this stuff! You expect me to believe he made them too? Find one drawing, and you’re suddenly the master of metal?” Nebula snorted. Mr. Horn recoiled, his wings flaring defensively. “You haven’t seen as much of the world as you think you have. Certainly not what I have. There is knowledge out there that we can barely understand. You think the wizards and sorcerers would still be around if there wasn’t?” Nebula waved a hoof dismissively. “Irrelevant! Knowledge only gets you so far. You have to have the means to use it.” “I’d say this goes a fair bit beyond knowledge. Or perhaps you would like to claim that none of this is real? It’s here. It’s real. It goes far beyond the simple legend of an unstoppable vessel. All this is incredible and the result of leveraged skill.” Nebula blinked. “’Leveraged skill’? And tell me how that works? What master has the slightest idea how ANY of this works? There’s not a bit of skill out there anyone could lend to this project. Just whose help did he leverage, or are you back to blaming demons? Because I’d love to see what demon leaves their mark stamped in their work.” Cold Snap could see his friend getting worked up and moved to stop him. Then he froze as a familiar blue coat and gray form stepped behind the unicorn. “Perhaps you would like to see my help?” Captain Gideon’s voice froze Nebula immediately. As if a puppet controlled by a god, Nebula turned stiffly to face the captain. Captain Gideon did not smirk. He did not smile. He did not even glower. By all appearances, Nebula might as well have complained about the weather. “You wanted to see my help? The able bodies and minds that laid the Rose’s keel and layered her plates? Here they are,” he said coolly as he extended a claw. The Yellow Rose’s crew stood before the ship, paused in their work. One hundred and thirty-five souls stood nearly motionless under their captain’s eye. “Every one of them is a master of their craft and knows this ship intimately. They saw this vision bloom into reality. Did we borrow other’s knowledge? Yes. But such is the way of progress. We built upon the shoulders of the giants that came before us. Though in our case, we found other giants than you would expect. “You’ve studied the mechanical arts? Because in every tribe, tongue, and nation, there’s a common flaw regarding revolutionary innovations: magic. So many incredible possibilities are lost simply because magic can do more and faster. Take steam. It’s infinitely flexible and can power almost anything. “There have been several aspiring inventors that realized the potential locked in super-heated water, and while one produced a functional example, a single spellcaster produced a cantrip that could replicate it in moments. Thus, the inventor would be doomed to ignominy.” The captain raised his voice while still holding Nebula captive in his gaze. “Isn’t that correct, engineer?” A gray-dapple pegasus stiffened. “Aye, sir! They were happy to humiliate me.” Captain Gideon allowed himself one tiny smirk. “And that’s how he would have remained. Perhaps that steam cloud on his flank would get him a job pushing clouds, but I saw far more. So, I took him aboard. Now, he has built engines far larger that a hundred spellweavers couldn’t maintain.” Cold Snap saw the captain pause, his eyes wandering as if lost in thought or memories. Nebula looked confused, his earlier doubts warring with this slight upset of new facts. Mr. Horn looked like he couldn’t decide to feel vindicated or shocked. The captain seemed to have that effect on everyone he came across. And in a moment, his thoughtfulness passed. He wasn’t finished defending his ship’s honor. “And so I recruited a mechanic, but I found others who had their potential cut short in the name of tradition. Why should someone bother with your chemistry when enchantments have made it irrelevant?” A tawny griffon in the crowd bristled at the captain’s words. The captain paid him no attention. “Yet suddenly when shown the discoveries of Man, he created compounds beyond what magic could hope to replicate.” By now, Nebula was just about sitting under the weight of the captain’s lecture. The captain appeared as unruffled as the moment he started. Mr. Horn was caught up in his own thoughts, and slowly detaching himself from the conversation as he processed it. That left Cold Snap the only mostly unaffected observer of this puzzle slowly coming together. “Perhaps I should go into detail of sound transmission, or the effects of work-hardening on homogeneous rolled steel? Or introduce you to the expert on boring and button-rifling cannons?” “Bitch love cannons!” a diamond dog female shouted from the crowd. The puzzle wasn’t quite what he would have thought a week ago. Then, he would have thought that his captors were blood-thirsty raiders sailing away on a contraption they had barely enough knowledge to run. Now, he saw a range of experts in fields that he truly had not heard of before his unexpected captivity. And maybe slightly blood-thirsty. They had all suffered. They had been cursed with knowledge that none saw the use of. Instead of finding ways to apply their insights into the mysteries of creation, they were mocked and shown how irrelevant their discoveries were. Were the winds of fate unchanged, they would have vanished into obscurity. However, Captain Gideon had swooped in and gathered them into his patchwork crew. In this cavern was possibly the largest collection of scientific knowledge the world had ever cast off. Together, they had advanced scientific fields decades, perhaps even more. And in the process, Captain Gideon had created the most horrifying warship on the waves. The captain shifted, shattering his spell like glass. He tugged his cuffs and pivoted back to his beloved ship. “I hope this has enlightened you.” “Captain.” The griffon halted and stared at Cold Snap, a wordless question in his bright eyes. A week ago, Snap would have gone weak-kneed at that stare. In that time, he’d gotten an opportunity to know the captain better. He held his ground and his fortitude. “Do you believe magic is bad?” The captain smiled. “Do you believe the ax is bad? Magic is a tool, just like chemistry or forging. Each has their use. If one is used to the exclusion of the others, then it is a crutch preventing improvement. That is why the Rose is built as she is. She is a tribute to science and engineering. Magic is used only where it is best suited.” He snorted. “Though I’ve found the line between magic and technological wonders to be a very thin one. Now, I have a ship to prepare.” Without another word, he returned to his crew, and the work resumed. No one dared say anything for several minutes as they watched the crew repair and restock the ship. It was Nebula that broke the silence. “Perhaps I was wrong.” Snap shook off the last of the captain’s aura. “Wrong? What do you mean?” Nebula remained sitting. His hooves gouged the ashy floor as he worked through his thoughts and dealt with his emotions. “I mean that I attributed the entirety of the ship to our debonair captain. It was impossible, and I knew it. I was wrong to do so. He did not have to be an expert when he could find the experts.” “So where is that hard line that there was ‘not a bit of skill’ out there he could leverage to his needs?” Mr. Horn said. Nebula flushed. “That was an idiot talking.” A few moments later, his hooves stopped pulverizing the floor. “It’s a common thing really, especially in magic. Unicorns are supposed to be the ‘masters of the arcane’ and be able to warp reality.” He hung his head. “Most of us can’t do that. The few that can usually have egos to match. But they believe that if it can’t be done by magic, it’s not worth trying. Eventually, everyone else believes it because the expert said so. And sometimes, the expert was feeling lazy.” Cold Snap pursed his lips. So this entire ship was the combined efforts of scores of minds. He already understood that. However, was that the only question their mysterious captain hoped to answer with his creation? Or did he have a score to settle with it? It seemed awfully peculiar that he would begin an undertaking like the Rose on a whim. Somehow, the puzzle surrounding Captain Gideon only became more murky the longer he got to know the griffon. He was yet to see if continued association with the captain would prove excessively hazardous to his health. That might be an important detail. Adventure was fun and all. He still wanted to go home at some point. The last thing he wanted was to get caught in the middle of an affair he had no part in. Though, he was neck deep in it already and didn’t have the sense to bail out before now. No reason to assume he’d get smarter in the meantime. Just what was the captain’s angle on all this, and why was Man so damned important to this puzzle he’d stumbled into? That was the kicker. He didn’t know. Perhaps that was what drove him harder and harder into this mad chase. Either way, he suspected he would have time to answer that question. The good captain attracted questions like fruit brought ants. He’d get to the bottom of this Manness issue. Until then, he was a crewmate aboard the finest vessel in the water. He had work to do. He left his friend behind and trotted back to the stone jetty the ship lay moored at. “Clear the wharf and start the pumps!” the engineer shouted. With a rumble and a belch of steam, the water in Captain Gideon’s retreat swirled, and the Rose slowly settled into the bay. Cold Snap skidded to a halt, his eyes wide as he watched the ship sink. Then he realized the ship wasn’t really sinking. The water level was dropping. As the steam engines chugged, the ship settled onto great stone cradles. Finally, with a sickening slurp, the water vanished, and the ship stood suspended above dry-ish ground. Now, he could see all the damage the bunyip dealt to the ship. Warped plates and plugged rivet holes dotted her frame. Barnacles trailed her keel. And corroded lumps blistered her hull. She was a ship in need of attention. “What are you standing around for? This ship is your mistress! See to her!” the engineer demanded. All those divots and dings, the barnacles and bends, the creases and cracks in her skin...never stood a chance. _____________________________________________________________________________ Cold Snap wandered darkened corridors. The world was quiet, like everything had gone to sleep with the sun. Beneath his hooves, he couldn’t feel that tell-tale sign of life that everything nearly crackled with under the surface sun. Perhaps this deep under the earth, nothing truly awoke. Mr. Horn and Nebula slept. The entire crew had descended upon the Yellow Rose with a fury. Not a single barnacle or loose rivet remained untouched. It was like she had never gone into battle at all. None of the crew could be accused of slacking, and every one of them lived up to the captain’s expectations of excellence. Now they were all tired, and slept the sleep of the dead. Only Cold Snap couldn’t sleep. Too many questions burned through his head. First among them were his family and general worry about them, but there was nothing he could do about them. So, he set those worries aside. Second would be the mystery resting in Captain Gideon’s cabin. He’d been wondering about the thing they’d recovered ever since that fateful battle. The map seemed straightforward enough. With a bit of creative interpretation, the map seemed to fit a particular region on the zebra continent. That was as far as they got though. Despite all their best efforts, he and the captain could not make any progress on the jewelry or box. Since he could get nowhere at the moment, he set those concerns aside too. And focused on his third, and most pressing concern: Captain Gideon. Where should he start? The bird was an enigma. Seemingly compelled by his esoteric choice of study, he wielded knowledge unlike anyone else. His youth belied his capabilities, for he had shown himself to be both a capable warrior as any griffon should, a commander others never hesitated to obey, and an erudite scholar who knew the true meaning of the phrase “Knowledge is power.” Cold Snap sighed and continued to walk. His world consisted of dark tunnels, glassed by the earth’s fire, and crunching stones underhoof. Exhaustion dragged on his eyes, but his racing mind gave him no peace. At the heart of it, he didn’t know what to make of many things. He didn’t know what to make of Man, a long-extinct race that somehow led a golden age long before the pony tribes united to seize control of nature. He didn’t know what to make of their technology the captain seemed so bent on recovering. He didn’t know what to make of the Captain. This was a puzzle, and Cold Snap was missing far too many pieces. Rocks crackled underneath him. They echoed in the empty halls. The walls grew straighter and taller, but Snap was too thoroughly lost in his ruminations to give much notice. Once or twice, he stumbled as the rocks underhoof slipped. At some points, he felt like he was wading through the debris. Crach! Snap blinked and looked at the rocks around him. His breath froze. “Not rocks. Bones.” Pony. Griffon. Dog. So many others. They were old. They were covered in dust and broke with the lightest touch. They stretched from wall to wall as far as he could see in the gloom. Gone too were the glassy lava vents. In their place rested moldering stonework. Old, foreign, and imposing despite the cracks and dirt spilling from its faults, it hovered over Snap like a waiting hammer. His breath quickened. He had to get out of here. Back to the ship. Back to his friends and safety. He turned, scattering bones like a wave. The corridor stretched into darkness. There wasn’t even a sign he’d come this way. He whirled again, his breath catching and rattling like the bones around his hooves. Just a blank wall met him, and he stumbled backwards in growing panic. His rump jabbed something sharp and not stone-like. He risked a glance. A skeleton lay sprawled across a stone block, tatters hanging across its form. Its ape skull lay open in silent scream while its hands clutched a dark box. A place of death. Cold Snap spun and galloped down the way he came. White shards sprayed out behind him. Never mind safety. He had to get out now! The corridor turned, and he nearly slammed a wall in his mad dash. Dirt trickled from the ceiling with every thunderous pound. A warm glow lit before him. He snorted and poured on speed. It was as orange as a fresh dawn, and he could feel the sun’s blessed warmth from here. Over there was safety and promises of leaving this horrible place behind. He stumbled through, and blinked to adjust to the sudden light. His euphoric smile cracked and collapsed as he saw the truth. This was no outside. There was no warm sun, only a raging fire. It filled the air with stifling heat that sucked the sweat from his body. The flames consumed nothing, yet were everywhere. Despite all the writhing flames and the heat, two trees stood in the center of the inferno. Their leaves gleamed in the warm light, and their bark stood as white as bone. Fruit hung from their branches unlike any he had seen before. They waved in the flames as if it was only a summer breeze. It was surreal, and he felt his body taking an unconscious step forward. As if it were a living beast, it surged and pulsed. Tongues of fire crackled, seemingly angry at his intrusion. One came too close, and he smelled the disgusting scent of charred hair. Finally, that snapped some sense into him, and he finally felt how the room was cooking him. He stumbled backwards into the wonderful coolness of the corridor. The flames were not satisfied. They flowed through the doorway, intent on claiming him. Cold Snap’s heart pounded, and he galloped without care for stone, bone, or wall. The world rushed by him in a blur, and in the back of his mind he could hear the flames just behind him. His hooves scrabbled for purchase on the tunnel floor, and his eyes widened in shock an instant before he slammed into a body. “Oi? What’s the tiny pony running from so quickly?” the burly minotaur asked. “Fah. Fu. Fire!” Snap wheezed in between ragged breaths. The minotaur looked shocked and turned to his companion. Midshipmare Blue blinked in concern and took a test sniff. She lit her horn and shook her head. “Nothing. Volcano certainly isn’t acting up, and there’s just flooded tubes that way. Don’t know what you mean. You were dreaming. Didn’t take you for a sleepwalking type.” Cold Snap gawped. The pony cut him off. “Never you mind that. The captain is looking for you and he’s got a burr in his feathers about it too. Come on, you can run a little more.” They rushed through a groggy camp with the crew looking around in sleepy befuddlement. They pounded up the Rose’s gangplank and through her iron halls. Without even an announcement, Midshipmare Blue slammed the captain’s door open and shoved the confused Cold Snap inside. The captain lurked around his desk in the barely lit room. His intense gaze pinned Snap to the floor just like it had when he first joined the ship. This time, the captain looked confused. It was not an expression the pony was used to. In fact, he realized it scared him. The day-old wound on his hoof throbbed with his pounding heart, and his parched throat couldn’t get out a single word. The captain did not wait for that. Instead, he swept something off his desk and strode towards Snap. Without a word, the griffon pulled one of Snap’s hooves out from under him and slammed something hard into it. Cold Snap yelped at the pain, but the captain’s iron grip held him still. He lifted his claws. The jeweled thingamabob sat there, its faceted surfaces glowing with pale blue light that pulsed to every throb in his hoof. Its polished surface reflected its cool light everywhere except for a tiny spot of dark blood.