//------------------------------// // 3 - Glacial Crossroads // Story: Death Valley // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// The world chilled even more as the train blazed north. Over the next day and a half, the group slowly left the heartlands of Equestria behind. Hazy horizons of snowy forests and rolling grasslands were sharpened into the jagged sawteeth of icy mountain ridges. Early on the second day, they had to switch from their train, an express headed northeastward for Griffonstone, to a mixed-goods train on a due-north branch line: a few mostly-empty passenger cars and plenty of freight. Amanita checked her itinerary for the fifth time that hour. Their stop, Waypoint, was a few minutes and less than a mile away — even as she read, she felt the decelerative twitch of the brakes — but she was in that last restless leg of a long journey, where you can’t stop fidgeting and being ready to be done. She sighed and looked out the window. The train was traveling next to a fast-moving river; beyond that lay a thick forest, and beyond that loomed a mountain range. Not stood; loomed. If you wanted to hide, you could do it easily there. She and Circe had spent a lot of time in mountain ranges, back when her attitude towards necromancy was a lot more… carefree. She pulled her coat tighter and took deep breaths. Code tapped her on the shoulder. “Amanita?” “Yeah?” Amanita asked, turning away from the towering shadows. “I can’t believe I forgot to ask you this before,” said Code, “but I assume you want to keep your status as a necromancer a secret, correct? At least for now.” Amanita barely held back a snort. Talking about necromancy to scientists in Canterlot was one thing. Talking about it to ordinary ponies, particularly ones way out here? She might get lynched. “Yeah. For now. If it comes out, things are… not going well.” “I’ll follow your lead,” said Code. She glanced over to Bitterroot and Charcoal as they stood up and stretched, ready to disembark at the station. “You two heard that, right?” Without looking at Code, Bitterroot nodded. “Don’t let ponies know Amanita can raise the dead.” “I fought we’d be- Thought we’d be doing that.” Charcoal adjusted her bag’s straps. “I’m ignorant, not stupid.” “Good.” The train slid into Waypoint Station and its whistle screeched. Before the conductor had finished hollering, the crew was off — the only people leaving. Little ribbons of snow chased each other across the empty platform in the wind. The depot building itself looked actually neatly built, with carefully chopped logs and surfaces carved to be flush with each other and an oddly large door, but was clearly more interested in function than in form, especially with the way the roof could use a new coat of paint. It would keep the worst of the cold out, and if that wasn’t enough for you, well, why were you up here to begin with? Bizarrely, Charcoal didn’t seem too put out by the cold, even with the way midwinter in the North was undoubtedly biting her. She breathed in deeply through her nose and grinned through the steam of her exhale. “Chilly!” she chirped. “Yep,” muttered Amanita. Her memories of Northern chill had never gone away, but she still held her legs close together. “It’ll probably get worse in Midwich,” Charcoal said. “Warm air rises out of slot canyons like that and isn’t easily replaced! Super cold.” Amanita wasn’t sure whether she loathed that bit of information or loved that warning. Once they retrieved their baggage, they entered the depot, not much more than a few benches and a ticket window. A pegasus mare, apparently in her late fifties and well-bundled in spite of the shelter, was whistling out a light and bouncy tune as she used a broom to clean cobwebs from the corners. When she heard the door open, she twitched and Amanita barely noticed her shoulders sinking. “Hello, Royds,” she said in a long-suffering voice. One of Code’s ears twitched. “Who?” The mare whipped around to look at them, then blinked in surprise. “Oh! I, uh… thought you’uns were… someone else.” Her words twanged with a mountain accent. She looked at each of them in turn, almost suspiciously. “Did y’all get off at the wrong stop? Nothin’ here but woods and…” Her voice trailed off. “The Tratonmane branch line ends here, right?” “…I reckon so.” One of the mare’s ears drooped; the other folded back. “You’re the ritualists, right? From Canterlot? For the ley line hootenanny.” She looked at each person in turn, lingering twice as long on Charcoal (who grinned, but took a step back). “We are. Except for her.” Code nodded at Bitterroot. “She’s a hanger-on.” “Shoulda known. Nobody’s never did gone up through that way since I been workin’ here.” “And how long have you been working here?” Amanita asked before anyone else could. “Forty years.” The mare trotted into the ticket booth, muttering nothings to herself. She opened up the ticket window, dropped a name plaque on the desk — Travel Stamp, it said — and pulled out a rubber stamp and ink pad that somehow managed to be dusty. Once she licked down the stamp to get it wet (why would she do it like that), Travel said, “You’re sure you need to go thataways? ’Cause them jaspers’re odd folk.” “Unless there’s a town closer to the ley line, yes.” Code fished out a coin purse and dropped it on the counter. “How much for four-” “What makes them odd?” asked Charcoal, poking her head around Code. When Code shot her a Look, Charcoal protested, “I’m just asking!” “Four tickets,” Code said quickly. Travel gave Charcoal a Look of her own as she rang up Code. “They jus’… keep to themselves,” she said. “Which don’t sound like much, ’cept they don’t leave that gulch noways. Only pony who comes out ’ere drives the train. Once a week, coal an’ lumber out, supplies in, an’ that’s that. Friendly enough fellow, when ’e says anythin’. And nopony else ever comes out. Not ever?” She shook her head. “You’d swear they’re a-worshipin’ the mountains up there.” Amanita frowned. She’d been in enough small Northern lumber or mining towns to know what came off to other ponies as weird. An oddly strong connection to home, stolidity, living out here to begin with… Plenty of ways. But because of those similarities, a lot of those towns formed close bonds with each other. So for Tratonmane to be weird compared to another mining town… “Anyway…” Travel stamped out several tickets. “Y’got lucky. Train’s comin’ in about half an hour. Give it another half-hour to switch goods, an’ you’uns’ll be off.” “Thank you,” said Code. “How much for-” Amanita’s ear twitched as she heard something heavy step outside. She didn’t think much of it, but Travel’s eyes immediately grew huge. “Y’need to stay there for a little while longer,” she said quickly. She snatched the tickets back and tore them up. Code remained unreadable as the steps grew closer and closer. “Why?” “I want to avoid yak hugs,” whispered Travel. The entrance door banged open and the frame was immediately filled with the blinged-out mountain of shaggy fur that was a yak. “GREETINGS, TRAIN PONY!” he bellowed in a voice that literally shook the foundation of the building. His misting breath was so dense it was practically steam. Amanita couldn’t hear Travel’s long-suffering sigh, thanks to the yak’s echoes, but she didn’t need to; she could feel it in her bones. “Hello, Royds.” Royds marched up to the ticket window, hanging out just behind Code. “Yakyakistan sends many thanks to ponies!” he roared (Code actually stumbled forward a bit). “Waypoint and Tratonmane trees still perfect for Puunmurskausmas!” “Once again, I sell tickets, you furry bullhorn. Thank the head lumberjack.” “Train pony is station master! Train pony responsible for making sure trees loaded onto trains quickly! Train pony good at that! But yak will talk to lumberjack too, yes.” “Well, you’re welcome,” said Travel, “but as you can see, I’m busy-” She gestured at Code and grinned nervously. “-so darnit, you’ll have to keep moving.” “Apologies at time not being perfect! Yak hopes next time will be perfect! Yak see you later!” (Travel’s wheeze was probably some form of strained laughter.) Royds turned to the door- “Why do you chalk- talk like that?” asked Charcoal. “Without articles or conjugations or grammar.” Amanita immediately cringed and she didn’t need to look to know similar reactions were coming from each of the other ponies. Yet Royds himself seemed unconcerned with the faux pas, assuming he noticed it at all. “Yaks smash pleonasms,” he declared sagely. “Yak speech simple, yet clear and obvious. Yaks need no more words; why use more words?” Bitterroot glanced at Amanita. “Pleonasms?” she whispered. “I think that’s ‘using too many words’,” Amanita replied. Charcoal raised a hoof declaratively, saying, “…” She stroked her chin. “Huh. I might have to try that.” “Indeed!” Royds gave Charcoal a light, friendly slap on the back that probably risked breaking her legs. “Yak speech very effective. Yak speech perfect! FAREWELL, PONIES! FAREWELL, NOT-PONY!” And he departed, leaving behind only wet yak footprints and little earthquakes. After a moment of silence, Travel breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thankee,” she muttered. “He can get rather…” “Wood pony!” Royds bellowed from outside. “Diplomat yak!” a pony bellowed back. “…excitable, an’ I’m old. One o’ these days, he’ll just sqush me right flat in a hug.” “Yaks do be like that,” said Code. Travel quickly stamped out another set of tickets and exchanged them with Code’s bits. “Tratonmane’s thataway, if’n y’wanna watch for the train.” Travel pointed out a window, opposite the side they’d come in. “Beyond the woods, on the other side o’ the mountains.” Amanita took that as an opportunity to leave, exiting the station to take a look at the town and the mountains. Waypoint was a decent size for its isolation, with plenty of buildings, including at least one sawmill. Maybe it wasn’t thriving, but it was doing alright for itself. Amanita had enjoyed worse in her travels. It was practically familiar. The mountains, though… Amanita wasn’t scared of mountains. She knew them. Ish. She’d spent years in mountains. But looking at this range, at these giant slabs of stone and snow, she was looking into the wilderness in more ways than one. She knew virtually nothing about ley lines, and the closer she got to the mountains, the more acutely she felt that and the more likely botching everything seemed. The sight of the mountains almost repulsed her with fear. But she held. She looked up at the mountains and fruitlessly told her beating heart to slow down. She’d botched things before, after all. Her life, for one, throwing it away to chase after a dead marefriend under a lich’s tutelage, and that had worked out well. Ish. She could do this. She had to do this. She’d be a one-trick pony otherwise. That was why she couldn’t stop her skin crawling. The locomotive didn’t produce any smoke or steam. That was what Bitterroot noticed when she first saw the Tratonmane train approach. It was a narrow-gauge one, with several flatcars loaded with lumber, several gondola cars loaded with coal, two boxcars, and a single passenger car at the very back. (She wouldn’t be surprised if that one was more out of obligation than anything.) The actual engine was a bit short and squat, resembling the K-36’s out west with some strange doodads bolted on. And yet it didn’t have any smoke. She’d have to ask the engineer about that. Travel was lying next to her, sucking on a twig, watching the train approach with an air of familiarity. Bitterroot gave her a little nudge to get her attention. “Pretty big train for something that only comes once a week,” Bitterroot said. “In course it is. That there’s all o’ the town’s goods for the week,” said Travel. “Really?” “Train’s the only way in or outta Midwich.” Travel worked the twig around in her mouth. “Less you wanna walk the long way ’round. Or fly, since you’re a pegasus an’ all. It’s the lifeblood o’ the place. Cut it off and the town’d die.” Bitterroot looked back at the mountains, really looked at them. Now, it was easy to see just how impassible they were, with no easy passes or gaps that she could make out. There weren’t even many foothills; the mountains just jutted straight from the ground. It was more like a natural wall than anything she’d seen before. And they were going right into the middle of it. “Ley ranges are like that,” said Charcoal absently. She started making jerky upward gestures. “You get all this energy, and it just kinda pushes the mountains up and keeps them together as it rises from the earth… We’re real lucky there’s a train to there, or else there’d be… I don’t know. Not a very good path. Why do ponies build train tracks everywhere? It’s weird.” “Don’t ask me,” Travel said. “I just live here.” Charcoal glanced at Bitterroot. “You live in Canterlot. Do you have a compulsion to build things?” “Nope. It’s because of wing envy!” Bitterroot said brightly, flaring hers. Charcoal tilted her head. “I’m serious. Pegasi can get to places easily. But transporting supplies there, that takes more effort. And railroads are pretty much the best high-volume freight system there is that isn’t rivers. So sometimes, pegasi assemble in a fertile or resource-rich area pretty quickly, other ponies get there faster than usual so they don’t miss out, railroads are built to bring in supplies for the booming population, and then everyone realizes we’ve laid another hundred miles of track through the middle of nowhere.” “Hmm. That… makes sense. But it’s-” “It’s really oversimplified. That’s the gist of it, but there are- You live in Canterlot, right? I’ve got a book I can lend you when we get back. Wake of Steel, by Wood Tie. It’s about nothing but this.” “Hmm. Sure, I’d like that.” Charcoal looked at the mountains again. “I wonder why Tratonmane was pounded- founded there, though. It’s so far from everything. I guess Waypoint was already a place where-” Travel snorted. “Other way ’round. Waypoint started for Tratonmane. Why d’you think we’re called ‘Waypoint’? That’s what we are. Nopony cares enough to name us anythin’ else. ’Specially not us. Our history ain’t much, afore you ask. Y’ever heard o’ the… Fuel Vassalage Commission?” She said the last two words slowly, like they were another language. The name was vaguely familiar, but Bitterroot shook her head. “So.” Travel bit off part of the branch, swallowed it, and stuck the rest behind her ear. She sat up straight and continued, “Two, three hundred year ago, we get steam engines. And those engines, they’re mighty useful for gettin’ around, but they need coal, and lots of it. So Her Highness, she wants a head start on fuel, so she goes an’ sets up this big scheme where she pays for towns in faraway places across the country to mine coal.” Charcoal’s ears went up. “Ooo! Like Tratonmane!” “Yes, indeedy. Celestya pays — well, paid, now — she pays for vittles an’ medicine t’ go up there, so long as coal keeps comin’ down. An’ it still is. There’s such towns all up an’ down these mountains. Waypoint, we’re just where Tratonmane hits the branch. Otherwise, we ain’t nothin’. Which is nice when y’don’t want much.” There it was. Bitterroot knew her rail history, but logistics were a bit less interesting. She’d probably read about the FVC a dozen times, only to forget it each time. Knowing where a particular hunk of coal came from was definitely a less interesting part of trains. “I see lumber, too,” Bitterroot said, pointing. “Is that also part of the commission?” Travel just shrugged. “Lotta trees out ’ere. Get some real good earthers ’oo know how to grow plants, and you can grow trees faster’n you can cut ’em down. Neat way to bring in more bits. Waypoint makes money that way, too. My ma said Tratonmane also sold charged gems or summat, but that stopped a few years afore I’s born.” “Mmhmm.” Bitterroot went back to watching the train; by now, it was already pulling up to the platform. The engine slid smoothly past the depot and came to a stop with the passenger car right in front of the station doors. Immediately, a grayish unicorn stallion hopped out of the engine and trotted back down the train, whistling something. He came to a stop at where the passenger car connected to the hopper ahead of it and ducked in between the cars. Curiosity pulled her forward like a magnet and Bitterroot was next to the stallion when he clambered back onto the platform. “Hey,” she said. The stallion actually flinched and looked at her with sky-blue eyes that probably should’ve been sparkling but seemed dull at the moment. “…Hidy,” he said. His ears were twitching in anxiety. About foreigners, maybe? Bitterroot couldn’t blame him. They were intruding. His coat was as gray as the mountains around them, his mane coal-black, but he also looked a touch too slender for his own good, like he wanted to be the physical sort but had trouble committing. He still had time left in his life; he hadn’t yet hit forty. She nodded towards the locomotive. “There’s no steam,” she said. Not from the engine, anyway. The stallion’s breath was steaming up plenty hard. (Then Bitterroot abruptly realized that he was wearing thick furs. Not unusual this far north, but if there was a firebox, the heat ought to have kept him warm. If. The furs were clean, too.) He blinked and twitched back maybe half an inch. “I… guess nae.” His voice could’ve had a lot of rumbling gravel, but he needed to put it in himself and didn’t feel like it at the moment, so it was rather unmemorable at the moment. “How come? If you don’t mind me asking, I mean. I like trains, and-” “Missis, can ye walk an’ talk?” the stallion asked, his voice tense. “Got a schedule tae keep-” He nodded towards the engine. “-and ye’re a-holdin’ me up.” His accent was even thicker than Travel’s. “Yes I can,” Bitterroot said quickly. She started walking for the engine; the stallion was at her side almost immediately. “So, train. No smoke.” “Havenae had a fire burnin’ in…” The stallion clicked his tongue and looked up. “…dinnae ken. Long as I been a-drivin’. Dinnae need one, aryhow. Replaced the firebox wi’ some magic hootenanny. Drives the engine jes’ fine.” Bitterroot had heard of those. Arcane dynamos of some kind. You were supposed to be able to drive locomotives with them, saving money and weight on fuel, since you were using thaumaturgical batteries rather than coal. At least, that was the idea. As was its wont, reality felt the need to intrude, and most such dynamos were still disappointingly inefficient, utterly impractical for trains. Unless the route wasn’t long and the train wasn’t big and you only needed to make a single round trip every week. And if you didn’t need a firemare… Bitterroot looked back down the train to be sure. No conductor. “And you’re the only pony who drives the train?” The stallion looked at Bitterroot, squinting. It was an expression Bitterroot had seen plenty of times before; he was trying to get a read on her for some reason. Then he glanced at the ponies she was traveling companion to, loading their baggage into the passenger car, and she got it. “I’m not really with them, I’ll keep mum on any… rules violations,” Bitterroot said quickly. Too quickly? “One of them’s my friend and I’m giving her moral support. I’m a bounty hunter, not a ritualist.” When the stallion still looked doubtful, she dug into her furs and pulled out her bounty hunting license. “See? Independent, not working for the Crown.” The stallion glanced only briefly at the license, but Bitterroot could still see the tension leave his body. “Yep,” he said. “Jes’ me. Been that way fer more’n ten year, bringin’ everythin’ in an’ out. ’Tis tough, bein’ responsible fer everythin’, but eh. Somepony’s got tae do it.” He twitched, as if realizing something, and actually laughed a little. By now, they’d reached the engine. Bitterroot leaned into the cab. Many of the gauges were missing and where the firebox normally was, now there was a large panel protecting… something. The battery, probably. But the controls still looked like those of a normal steam locomotive, just simplified to account for the lack of steam management. Brakes, regulator, sander. Easy. Bitterroot could probably drive it herself if- “Ahem,” enunciated the stallion. “Got me a job that needs doin’. Ye can marvel at it everwhen we get back tae Tratonmane. Really, ye can.” “Right,” said Bitterroot. One last look and she pulled out. She headed back towards the passenger car; her own baggage needed packing. “Name’s Bitterroot, by the way,” she hollered out. “Tallbush!” the stallion yelled back. “Pleased tae meet ye!” A bit of shunting juggling left the full freight cars behind in Waypoint and the passenger car coupled to the front of a new set of empty cars. (Bitterroot found the juggling fascinating, but she knew she was the only one who did.) The process was quick, and soon the train was away with the crew from Canterlot. Up close, the mountains weren’t quite as unassailable as they had appeared, even if that wasn’t saying much. There were sideways canyons in the range, almost like slots, that weren’t easily visible from Waypoint. But the route through them was winding and the train had to take it slow as it climbed across wooded slopes and through ravines, hanging onto the mountainside for dear life. Tallbush had said it’d take nearly an hour to reach Tratonmane from Waypoint. And from the snailish way the mountain was crawling by, Bitterroot was sure that wasn’t an exaggeration. At least the car wasn’t drafty. Charcoal was leaning out the windows, marveling at the mountains for reasons Bitterroot couldn’t tell. (“Pretty mountains” counted, she supposed. They were quite pretty.) Amanita was sitting in a loose, worn-down seat, reading something and waiting for the trip to be over. And Code… Code was sitting in the middle of the car, eyes closed, taking long, deep breaths. In through the nose, hold for two seconds, out through the mouth, hold for two seconds, repeat. Her breathing was easy and steady, borderline mechanical in its regularity. She didn’t move much except to pivot as the train rounded curves. Somehow, even though her eyes were closed, she always ended up pointing north-ish. Eventually, Bitterroot couldn’t help herself. “What’re you doing?” Code didn’t twitch. “Trying to feel the ebb and flow of the area,” she said without opening her eyes. “Getting a head start on the primary form for the ritual. It needs to be tuned to work for the particular… region it’s performed in. Cacti don’t grow in apple orchards.” “Can you feel anything?” “Not really. Moving makes it harder to keep the connection to the earth.” Code shrugged. “It passes the time.” She’d lived with a necromancer for moons, she’d been resurrected twice, and Bitterroot still didn’t get rituals. Code didn’t seem to be doing anything, just sitting there. At least when Amanita did magic, you could watch the pretty sparkles. Maybe it was an earth pony thing. “That it does. Wish it could for me.” Finally, Code opened her eyes to stare at Bitterroot in confusion. “What? What do you mean?” The fact that Code sounded so surprised surprised Bitterroot. It was a simple thing. “Well, you’re feeling the earth, right?” “And you would feel the air.” Code squinted at Bitterroot with the air of a teacher disapproving of a homework-neglecting pupil; the glasses didn’t help. “You’ve never done a lick of magic besides flight and cloudwalking, have you?” “I can do other things besides that?” “Quite a bit more. There’s more to weather-wrangling than just trying to kick clouds, after all.” Code looked like she was going to continue, only to glance out the window at the passing mountains. When she turned back, she said, “I can try to teach you, if you want. How to feel the energies in the land. I can’t say how good I’ll be, since we’re different tribes, but I can give it a shot.” Eh, what the hay. Maybe she’d learn something. Anypony could do ritual magic; this might be the first step towards that. And if not, it’d pass the time. Bitterroot plonked herself down across from Code. “Sure. Hit me.” “That quick?” Code asked, raising an eyebrow. “Alright.” She looked at her own hooves for a moment, turning one of them over like it was an archaeological artifact (of the kind that didn’t risk melting your face off). “First things first,” she said. “Try to clear your head. You’re new to this, so we’ll need to do everything we can to help you focus on the magic.” Heh. Empty your mind. Something Bitterroot was either very good at or very bad at, depending on the situation. Stakeouts, where she could be waiting for hours on end? Blanker than a whiteboard, where anything put in it would vanish in moments. Otherwise? Yeah, no. Closing her eyes, she tried to shift into stakeout mode. No big movements while not forcing herself to stay completely still, deep breaths, steady. “There’s magic all around us, all throughout reality,” said Code, “and we barely scratch the surface of it. You’re a pegasus, so you’re attuned to the air. Reach out. Feel it in your feathers.” Bitterroot decided against talking back to her teacher, decided educating somepony on anatomy was more important, and spoke up. “You know that, technically speaking, feathers are dead, right? They’ve got no blood vessels in them, no nerves…” “Yes. That’s why feeling anything with them is noteworthy.” Point to the expert. Bitterroot extended her wings to make them more… there. Feelable. There was just enough wind in the car for her to notice. Normally, she tried to ignore those winds, but if she was trying to feel magic in them… She breathed in. She breathed out. She’d had a teenage job as a weather wrangler, and she still remembered the unruly nature of storms, the static zing around clouds. She’d just assumed that was built-up lightning, but maybe that was unfocused magic? She reached for the memory, tried to recognize it in the winds around her- And suddenly her wings seemed to expand. It was a hazy feeling, like an incredibly minor buzz from an electric jolt, but it was absolutely there. In fact, it wasn’t so much a feeling as awareness. She knew all the ways the air was gently ruffling her feathers without actually feeling anything. More like… proprioception. Sort of. Not really. In spite of her shock, she tried to stay calm. She managed to hold it for another moment as miniscule winds flitted about her before she just had to look at her wings. The feeling vanished the instant she opened her eyes. Her wings didn’t look any different. “Yeah. You felt it.” Code was grinning. “It’s always a punch when you first break through to the aether. I still remember my first time. Just the life in everything.” Bitterroot hadn’t felt life, but that was probably just because she was a pegasus and not an earth pony. What she had felt was an atmosphere that was slowly gaining energy. What was normally cold and dry — how did she know what those felt like? — was getting charged bit by bit as they approached the ley line. It was the electric thrum of a thundercloud, but turned down to one percent and everywhere. “It’s… Wow,” she said quietly. She was already closing her eyes again. “I didn’t realize what was all there.” Code laughed. “Most unicorns don’t realize it’s there, and they can sense magic more easily than either of us. They just rip away the magic they need and never let themselves get immersed.” The buzz was almost coming back. Bitterroot could feel it. “And this… kind of magic is how rituals work, right? Why any tribe can use them.” “Indeed. It all comes from the same source. Different tribes just use it in different ways.” “Does that include restraint rituals?” Worth a shot. “…Technically, yes. If you can draw the circle, write out the runes, and donate the blood.” And almost immediately, Bitterroot put the kibosh on that idea. The buzz slipped away from her as she shivered. “It’s not much blood,” Code said, far too casually, “just a few drops. You need to give some of your own life to restrain another’s. But blood is blood, and it can usually only hold for a few minutes, anyway. Rope would serve you better.” “Uh-huh,” said Bitterroot. But a blood sacrifice was a blood sacrifice, and that thought rolling around in her head made it hard for her to find the buzz again. “And as for the magic itself, I wish I could help you more, but I wouldn’t know how. Different access mechanisms. Just keep examining it and you’ll learn what everything means. Oh, and if you suddenly get the urge to burst into song, that’s normal. Doing so will let you draw in even more magic, although you’ll want to stay vigilant if it’s in a minor key…” It was amazing how much you could notice when noticing was all you were able to do. The train, for example. Everypony knew trains rattled and rumbled. Rails weren’t perfect, after all. But the more Amanita paid attention to it, the more she thought she could take a stab at the tracks. They were well-worn, smoothed out by frequent use, but still sturdy. The route wound enough that there wasn’t much of an attempt to keep the tracks straight. Fair enough; given an environment like this, it might’ve been too much hassle. For most of the trip, the train had been crawling upward, but it’d crested a hill and started shuffling downward a while back. It actually wasn’t the worst train ride Amanita had been on. She’d tried reading, but anxiety made her mind skip like a record as she read the same sentence over and over and the same thoughts kept flitting through her head. Now, she was just keeping her head down. It was always the same; the build-up to the doing was worse than the actual doing. It’d been true for necromancy, it’d been true for running from her master, it’d been true for prison, it’d been true for offering her services to the Guard, it was going to be true for ley sanitation. Right? Right. The carriage twitched as it went over a slight dip in the track where some of the wood would probably need replacing in the next year or so. It wasn’t the kind to just disintegrate beneath you, at the very least. Wood was stronger than most Canterlotians gave it credit for. Knowing that didn’t make the build-up any easier. It was still there, and she was in the middle of it. Tratonmane inched closer with every turn of the wheels, potential disaster along with it. She kept getting an image of a lynch mob forming after it was found out she was a necromancer. And what would she do about that? Murder somepony and resurrect them to show that she meant well? Ponies didn’t take well to people getting murdered to prove a point. She was slipping slightly forward as the train went over bumps; the downward slope was just steep enough for that. She wiggled her way into a proper position. She just wanted a bit of status quo. Whether or not to keep her status as a necromancer secret kept penduluming; good idea, bad idea, for the best, for the worst… She’d almost gotten it back in Canterlot, where everypony knew her, but coming here felt like she was being uprooted. Even though it was only, what, a week? Two? Not long. Probably not even a full moon. It wasn’t like- “Hey!” chirped Charcoal, making Amanita twitch and shattering her thoughts to pieces. “Didya see the tree line? We’re getting close!” “No, Charcoal,” Amanita said, remaining hunched over her book like a vulture over a corpse, “I did not see the tree line.” She hadn’t snapped, but the silence was oddly tense. “Areyoubusy?” Charcoal asked quietly. “Um, wow, I am so sorry. I’ll just, um, be… over-” “No!” Amanita said quickly. She raised her head; Charcoal was already shuffling away, ears down. “You’re, you’re fine. I’m just- stressed. I…” She rubbed the back of her neck; she didn’t look away. “I want this to go well. And I’m… worried of what’ll happen if it doesn’t.” “Yeah,” said Charcoal quietly. “Me, too.” Silence. “Tree line?” blurted Amanita. “Oh, yeah!” (Amanita wondered if all kirins could switch moods on a dime or if it was just Charcoal.) “Come, come take a luck! Look!” Charcoal pulled Amanita to a window and pointed. “You see how the tree line keeps getting higher?” It only took Amanita a moment or two to find it. The effect was surprisingly strong. “Yeah.” “The trees get more energy from the ley line, so they’re hardier, so it takes worse conditions for them to be able to not grow! It’s really neat, if you-” Darkness suddenly overtook them and a thunderous din battered their ears. Amanita tensed up and was ready to duck under a seat to hide from the specter of danger when she realized: tunnel. They’d just entered a tunnel. And hadn’t Tallbush said the tunnel was the last thing before Tratonmane? Either he had or everyone thought he had, since everybody began scrambling to get their baggage together. Besides her clothes, Amanita had a large bag stuffed with notes and ritual paraphernalia, necromantic and non-necromantic alike for both. (Anyone looking inside would probably be very confused.) And if anypony happened to die while they were out here, well. That wasn’t worth keeping her secrets for. She’d be ready. Hopefully. The carriage jolted slightly as the brakes were applied. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the train emerged from the tunnel into an evening gloom as it entered Midwich Valley.