The cliffs were the first thing Amanita noticed. And the second. And the third. The sixth, too. Mainly because they made it too dark to quickly see much else.
Charcoal had said Midwich Valley would be deep. She hadn’t said it would be deep. Amanita craned her head to look, even leaning out the window, but the walls just went up and up and up and up and up. They must’ve been half a mile high, minimum, and they were sheer, with barely any foothills. Amanita was getting vertigo just looking at them and she wasn’t even afraid of heights.
And then there was the width of the valley, or to be more precise, the lack thereof. “Valley” was a misnomer, probably chosen to make the place sound less menacing. Midwich was only half a mile wide and it looked like it’d take less than ten minutes to walk from one wall to another, assuming you took your time. It wasn’t a valley; it was a canyon, a cleft, a rift, a wound hacked out of the earth by some immense force. With the mountains towering on either side, it felt like they were trapped between the jaws of the earth.
Combine the two, and Midwich Valley was swathed in shadow. It wasn’t even five and yet the immense walls blocked out the sun, leaving most of the canyon floor cloaked in gray. It was hardly pitch-black, more like just after sunset, but that didn’t make it feel cozy. The sky was far too blue for the dimness and one of the walls was still gleaming with sunlight that didn’t reach ponies. The color hadn’t yet bled out from the valley floor, but it was about to.
Amanita glanced out the window just in time to spot a passing sign: “Welcome to Tratonmane”. The words were clear, but it was old and battered and in need of repainting. It’d probably been up since the town was founded. Who was it welcoming, anyway?
“Holy cannoli. Now that’s a mother-ducking ley line.”
Somehow, Charcoal had been the one to say that; she was gawking out one side of the train, and once Amanita looked, she knew why. Midwich Valley was straight. Dead straight. So straight she had trouble believing it. Even with the forest hiding some of the strongest right angles, it just didn’t look natural, more like a drainage ditch than anything. She could practically see to the horizon, miles away.
Code was looking out the window, too. “Well,” she said, “at least we won’t have trouble telling which way’s north.”
“That’s north?” asked Bitterroot. “Actual north north, not north-northeast?”
“Powerful ley lines often align themselves to north or south if they’re close enough,” said Charcoal. She’d pressed her muzzle to the train window. “It’s an earth thing. That’s totally north north. I’ve never heard of a ley valley this defined before, sweet Shine…”
“And now,” said Code, “you get to study it.”
Charcoal was actually wagging her tail like a dog and her voice was downright dreamy. “Yeah…”
The valley was even narrower at the tunnel than at the rest of it, so the train had to curve as it approached the opposite wall until it was facing directly north. Midwich was on a slight downward slope, but the track stopped on a flat stony ridge; Amanita wouldn’t have been surprised if it’d been built up with magic. There was a platform next to the passenger car once it slid to a stop, but no station building. Two ponies were waiting for them in wavering lamplight, a pegasus stallion and a chiropterus mare, both well-bundled-up. Their postures were loose and they seemed to be chatting warmly.
With her baggage in her aura, Amanita stepped outside and immediately started shivering. Even through her furs, it wasn’t just cold, it was downright glacial, thanks to the shadows. If there was any opportunity for cold air to worm its way into her clothes, it was found and exploited as thoroughly as possible. She’d never felt it this cold, not even when she’d been a necromancer on the lam and had to trek through blizzards to avoid detection. (Well, there was once. But that was when she’d fallen into a nearly-frozen river, so that didn’t count.) It was cold. It was cold cold cold cold COLD.
The pegasus noticed her shakes and laughed, steamed breath enveloping his head. “Bit nippy, ain’t it?” he said. His voice was higher-pitched than expected, with no grit or gravel anywhere to be heard in it. His words sounded more joking than mocking, although he and the other pony were both taking the cold like champs.
“Come, Whipple,” said the chiropterus, “they’re outsiders. They merely need time to acclimate, nothing more.” She eyed Amanita, grinning impishly. “Although perhaps I ought to give you my coat. You seem to need it more than I do.”
“This, a-comin’ frae the bat named Midwinter,” said Whipple, giving the bat in question a playful shove. “Ye could get away wi’ wearin’ nothin’ in a cold-as-blixen blizzard.”
“That I could,” Midwinter said, smiling. “That I could.”
“Ach, but where are our manners?” Whippletree stepped forward, flared his wings, and bowed. “Whippletree, militiapony o’Tratonmane,” he said with probably more grandeur than his position deserved. “Afteren I heard the call frae Canterlot, I’s a-thinkin’ you’uns deserved a welcome.” He was just past middle age and seemed to be a big pony in a regular-sized body, with his exaggerated movements and his thick neck. His coat, unusually floofy thanks to the cold, was a downright verdant green that would’ve been out-of-place if not for being mostly covered up by his armor. In spite of the situation, he was fully decked out, a battered iron peytral over what looked like a full-body gambeson. But battered or not, Amanita noted that it’d been fitted for him.
“Militia,” said Code. Her gaze flitted across the scars of Whippletree’s armor and his lack of a hard helmet. “Hmm.” Her voice was mostly uninflected, but Amanita caught a few slight downward hitches of skepticism, the sort of thing you only recognized after working a long time with her.
“Well, it ain’t like we can lick it tae Canterlot fer what you'un’d call ‘proper’ trainin’,” Whippletree said. His voice was as light as his wings were suddenly tense. “Midwich gives gooder trainin’, aryway.” With an air of not wanting to look at Code, he started to glance over the rest of the group, only to twitch like he’d been given an electric shock when he saw Charcoal. “Ah…” He wobbled forward and back as if he wasn’t sure which way to go. “What… are ye? …I mean no offense!” he yelped.
“I’m a kirin!” Charcoal chirped as the faux pas whistled away, missing her by a mile. “I’m new. We’re new. We only entered Equestria like two seasons ago. Half a year ago. It’s complicated.”
“I can imagine,” Midwinter whispered, staring at Charcoal. She coughed, licked her lips (probably chapped; Amanita was already wishing she’d brought some lip balm), and pulled herself up. “Midwinter Fire,” she said. “I have no association with the militia and was merely here to see the arrival of those sent to help us.” She looked at least a decade younger than Whippletree. Even beneath her thick clothes, she was the sort of lean that just looked swift, even though chiropteri were generally slower than regular pegasi. Her coat was a gleaming black, not unlike coal, that nearly hid her in the darkness. Her mane shone white and her eyes gleamed copper. A red gem was affixed in a pendant hanging from her neck. “Can we commence with the introductions?”
“Ahem. Yes.” Code stood tall, which still meant she was at least half a head shorter than everyone else. She slapped a leg across her chest. “Restricted Code. Ritualist.” She pointed at each equine in turn. “Amanita. Ritualist in training. Charcoal. Environmental magic specialist. And Bitterroot. Tagalong bounty hunter who’s not working with us.”
Amanita risked clearing her throat. “She’s a friend of mine.” Once she couldn’t take it back, her mind immediately began spinning elaborate theories on how that would lead back to her being outed as a necromancer.
“Well, pleasure tae learn y’all,” said Whippletree. “Speakin’ of, did…” He glanced toward the front of the train.
Tallbush was leaning against the engine. “Aye, they already learned me, and I them,” he said, standing up. “Do you'uns need ary help?” he asked Code. “With… arythin’?”
“Unlikely,” said Code. “We just need to drop off our luggage at the inn, and then we can get to work.”
“Mmhmm. Where’ll you'uns be a-workin’?”
“Until we get a better view of the situation, that’s hard to say,” said Code. “Down near where Tratonmane meets the forest, to begin with.”
“Right,” said Whippletree. He turned his attention to Tallbush. “I reckon we ain’t a-doin’ the, uh…” He glanced at Code. “The meetin’?” he half-whispered.
“Nah,” said Tallbush at normal volume. “Dinnae got nae reason tae hold an assembly.”
Whippletree blinked twice, then nodded.
“Hopefully, we won’t impose ourselves on you too long,” said Code. “We could be out of here when the train leaves in a week. But that all depends on what the land says.”
As Code checked their cargo for damage and loaded it onto sledges, Amanita looked out over Midwich to the north and, for the first time, examined Tratonmane itself as best she could. Thanks to the dearth of land, the town was packed together more closely than similar villages, the outlines of buildings only discernible by the chiaroscuric contrast of lamps in the streets; there was even a tower or two, from what she could tell. It was maybe four hundred feet across, but quite a bit longer, almost like a snake. Amanita guessed the population at somewhere between three and five hundred. A slim but swift river wove its way down through the valley and split Tratonmane in two. The sides of Midwich Valley outside Tratonmane, right up to the walls, were free of regular wooden buildings and instead had… greenhouses, it seemed? That was one way to grow food up here. The entire valley floor seemed to sag, the edges higher than middle, as if the mountains were holding everything up.
There was a line not too far in the distance, where gray transitioned sharply to black. Amanita squinted at it and realized that that was where Tratonmane stopped. There weren’t any more buildings, there was a gap of land, and then Midwich Forest just… started. There was nothing gradual, nothing hazy, not even the slightest bit. Just a line so sharp and straight you could probably trace it with a ruler.
Amanita knew forests could be like that. She’d seen it plenty of times. But something about that got to her in ways the cold didn’t.
“Excuse me.” Next to her, Midwinter grinned. “I know it’s something, but remember to breathe.”
“Yeah,” said Amanita. “It’s just so… straight.” The forest line or the actual valley? Both, really.
“Truly, there is no other place like it in the world,” said Midwinter. “It is part of the reason I moved here.”
“Really?” asked Charcoal. “How did you hear about-”
“All set, we’re going,” Code said loudly. “Whippletree’s leading.”
With the station on the ledge, the crew had to head south to reach a downward slope before going north into Tratonmane proper. To the south, Midwich narrowed more and more until the walls finally met in a mild V shape. Several small waterfalls plummeted over the rim and down into the canyon to feed into the river, their roars oddly muted. Not too far from the station, with tracks leading to it, Amanita could make out the hulking, angular mass of a coal breaker. Well, Tratonmane was a mining town; it’d be more surprising if it didn’t have one. There didn’t seem to be many other buildings on that side of the station, just a few houses.
They reached where the rising valley floor met the ledge, then swung around to start downhill on the riverbank. Midwinter, however, came to a halt. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you four,” she said, “but I must be off. I have projects that need attending to.” Her piece said, she continued on upriver.
“Dinnae mind that,” Whippletree said casually. “She’s a throng sort, all the time a-goin’ forwards and backwards.”
Bitterroot surreptitiously glanced at Amanita. “Throng?” she whispered.
“Throng?” Charcoal didn’t whisper.
Amanita caught Tallbush rolling his eyes, but Whippletree remained as unfazed as Charcoal had been. “Oh, y’ken. Busy. A-bustlin’. Occupied. Y’ken.”
“No, I don’t ken,” said Charcoal. A pause. “Well, I didn’t. I do now!”
“I take it the mine’s that way?” asked Code, squinting upriver.
“Southmost point o’ Midwich,” Tallbush said quickly, still giving Charcoal a look that wasn’t a glare just yet.
“We might need to take a closer look at it eventually,” Code thought aloud. “Ley lines and mines have a rich history. Oh, and…”
She bent down and ate a chunk of dirt.
As she straightened up and swallowed, Code gave the shocked ponies a look like they were the weird ones. “What?” she asked, wiping her mouth down. “Earth pony, ley lines in the earth. I’m attuning myself to the ley lines. Obviously.”
“You’re… here to investigate the ley lines being bad,” said Bitterroot, her voice wavering between surprise and amusement. “Is that even safe?”
“On these timescales? Absolutely. I’m the High Ritualist, I’ve taken backlash far worse than this.”
“But-”
Amanita raised a hoof. “Bitterroot, if Code says it’s safe, then it’s safe. Trust me.”
Tallbush coughed and shuffled his hooves. “You’re, eh… a-feelin’ the magic, are ye?”
“I’m getting there,” said Code. “It’ll take a while to really get it moving around my hooves.”
“Eh-heh. Well, I, eh, I need tae go. I got… jobs that need doin’. Money. Freight.” And Tallbush was immediately trotting back to the station while trying to look like he wasn’t running away from anything, no sir.
Whippletree’s ears twitched, then he glanced at the rest of the ponies and shrugged. “Nae idea what’s gotten intae him. Let’s keep a-movin’.”
The houses started quickly once they reached the bottom of the ridge. The central road was nearly flat from constant usage and surprisingly wide; it wouldn’t have been that out-of-place in Canterlot, actually. Oil lamps and light gems lined the buildings and the scene would’ve been a cozy just-after-sunset one if not for the glare of the wall above reminding them of the light they were missing. Plenty of ponies walked the streets; mostly earth ponies and pegasi, with unicorns being relatively rare. In fact, chiropteri seemed to be more common than unicorns. Although that might’ve just been their eyes occasionally flashing in the gloom and infrequent, high-pitched chirps of echolocation.
On a whim, Amanita took as close a look at the nearest pony as she could, but although she searched, she couldn’t see any signs of malnourishment. She looked at the buildings; wooden, thick, sturdy, no gaps in the walls, even intact glass in the windows. Tratonmane was doing surprisingly well, considering its isolation.
Then she noticed the looks they were getting. The quick ones, with set jaws and lowered ears that saw them, then turned away. From just about every pony on the street. Some even ambled to the other side of the road once they were finished with their quick glare. They were familiar to her. The Tratonmanians were holding them in contempt.
It was almost certainly just them being foreigners — Tratonmane probably had a well-oiled routine that didn’t react well to Crown agents being tossed into the works — but that wasn’t the only place she’d seen them. They’d also been present years ago, after Northern townsponies learned she and Circe were necromancers but before Circe killed someone to use as a thrall and that turned to fear. Amanita had only seen them a few times, but it wasn’t a look you easily forgot.
She glanced behind her. Bitterroot seemed to have noticed, from the way her eyes were flicking back and forth. Code was supremely unconcerned. And Charcoal was losing a quarter-inch with every twenty steps she took as her ears grew more and more limp. Amanita slowed her pace until she was side-by-side with Charcoal. “Don’t take it personally,” she whispered. “We’re-”
“I know. Foreigners. I, I once did it myself,” mumbled Charcoal. “But it’s hard not to.”
“Remember, we’re here for each other,” said Amanita. “Feel free to talk to me about… anything.”
“Mmhmm,” Charcoal hummed vaguely. “But-” Her ears and head snapped further up at the same time; she looked straight ahead like a pointer dog. “What’s that?” she asked.
“We’re a-comin’ up on the square,” said Whippletree. “If’n y’ever-”
“No, the tree.” Charcoal picked up speed until she practically galloped past Whippletree to the silhouette of a tree.
And what a tree it was.
It was easily the largest tree Amanita had ever seen, several dozen feet thick at the ground and several stories tall. Thick, gnarled branches, free of leaves, reached upwards as they twisted around each other; they weren’t clawing for ponies but holding up the sky. It was too big to move much in the wind, but the movements Amanita could see were slow, portentous, like a ship of the line or a siege engine. Amanita had never seen its like before and she knew she’d never see its like again. As if to emphasize its grandeur, a thick road ringed it, lined with more lamps than anywhere else in Tratonmane. It was clearly the center of town.
Charcoal was almost touching the trunk, staring straight up. “Wow wow wow,” she gasped. “Wow. Ley lines and a ley tree like this? I’m in Elysium. Karma’s gonna have to kill me to balance everything out.”
“Karma doesn’t work like that,” said Code.
“Oh.” From Charcoal’s voice, she literally could not care less. Assuming the sentence had registered at all.
“That there’s the Great Ash,” said Whippletree. “Somethin’, ain’t it? Tratonmane grew up ’round it. ’Tis how we kenned this was someplace special.”
“Heh. Yeah…”
“Ash trees don’t normally get this big, do they?” asked Bitterroot. “You could practically fit a house in there.”
“It’s… You know how earth pony magic helps plants grow? But ley lines are nothing but earth magic. If the line’s strong enough, plants can use that instead. This…” Charcoal rapped the tree trunk. “…is basically what you would get if you had a dozen earth ponies pouring their magic into one tree nonstop for ages. Look at how pig it is. Erm, big.”
“If it’s been feeding on the ley line all this time,” said Bitterroot, “I’m not sure ‘pig’ is wrong.”
“It’s probably older than most other ash trees, too,” said Charcoal. “Ley trees often survive things that would kill other trees. You, you know Princess Twilight? How she used to live in a library?” She pawed at the ground and her tail whipped through the air. “Uh, uh, Golden Oaks! Yeah, that. I’ve seen pictures. It was a library, you know? They hollowed the entire inside, but the tree, it still had green leaves. You know how that’s possible?” She stomped on the ground. “Ley lines. Enough magic to keep it live even though they removed its heart.”
“There are an unusual number of ley lines around Ponyville,” said Code. “They come from the Tree of Harmony. Or,” she said, her voice dropping like an earth pony thrown from a hot-air balloon, “what used to be the Tree.”
“What used to be the Tree?” asked Bitterroot. “What happened to it?”
Code’s ears immediately folded back. “Let’s. Not. Talk about it,” she said in a voice that was a bit too level. She took a bite of dirt the same way a stressed pony would take a swig of any sort of alcohol.
“Hang on…” muttered Charcoal. Her horn pulsed and she delicately ran a hoof over the Ash’s bark. “Is it… dead?”
“Aye,” Whippletree said, nodding sadly. “Musta been… ten, twenty year ago. The Ash jes’ stopped makin’ leaves. Shame. I loved it in the summer.”
“Well, it had to happen eventually,” said Charcoal, her own voice a bit downbeat. She did a circle around the tree, keeping her hoof on the bark all the while. “Ley lines don’t make things immortal, although they do live longer. It must’ve been, I dunno, six or seven hundred years old. That’s old for an ash. And they don’t do well in shaded areas, to poot. It’s a miracle it lasted as long as it did.” The look she gave Whippletree was pleading to the point that Amanita was disconcertingly reminded of a puppy. “You’re keeping it up, right?”
“ ’Course we are!” Whippletree sounded offended at the very thought and his wings were fidgeting aggressively. “Its roots are ’neath all the town. It’s part o’ Tratonmane an’ we ain’t a-choppin’ it down arytime soon. It’ll take a big shift in town fer us tae be rid o’ the Ash.”
“Great!” Charcoal smiled up at the Ash and tapped its trunk. “Hang in there,” she whispered. (A passing pony gave her an odd stare.)
“Aryhoo,” said Whippletree, “you'uns’ll be a-stayin’ right o’er there.” He pointed at a large, stocky building, probably an inn or tavern (or both), deep in shadow on the western side of the square. The sign over the door called it the Watering Cave. “Cannae say what the rooms’re like. Drink’s good, though.”
“Mmhmm.” Code glanced northward, then at the sledge she was still dragging, and sighed. “I’m itching to get to the forest and get to work, but we need to get our cargo out of the open.” She took a step towards the Cave.
“Hey, wait a sec,” said Bitterroot. “Why don’t I do this? I’ll get us a room, get this all taken up, everything. You can get started.”
“You’re sure?” Code asked.
“Hey,” Bitterroot said with a casual shrug, “it’s not like I’ll be doing anything down there. Might as well make myself useful.”
“Then thank you.” Code was out of her harness almost immediately.
“If you came here just to see what it was like,” Amanita asked as she set her bags down, “why are you offering to do busywork for us first thing?”
Bitterroot looked at Amanita and grinned. “C’mon, we just got here. I’m sure it’ll be more interesting later.”
“If’n y’wanna see the forest — cannae imagine why — jes’ follow the road.” Whippletree pointed down the road. “Hard tae get lost.” He glanced back south down the valley. “If’n ye dinnae mind, I think I’ve some other things that require doin’. But I’ll be here in the future, if ye need me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for your help,” Code said, giving Whippletree a nod. She didn’t give him any time for a response, instead immediately turning and trotting north, Charcoal right at her tail. Amanita gave Bitterroot and Whippletree a quick wave, then took off after the others.
The houses of Tratonmane thinned quickly as the trio headed northward. One moment, they were in what was nearly downtown, then the buildings vanished and lamps were thin on the ground, replaced by open fields and chicken runs; tall grain on one side, and untilled earth on the other. Flashing lights flitted through the dark in the open field. If she squinted, Amanita could make out the shapes of foals with light-gem necklaces, playing some kind of game. After a moment, she heard their voices.
“Gotcha, Wythe!”
“Nuh-uh, nah ye didnae!”
“Did too!”
“Did not, Plumb, ye school butter!”
“Oh, that’s-”
“Foals!” a matron said firmly. “Keep it civil! Wythe, dinnae say things like that!”
Imagine trying to raise a foal in an environment like this. But they seemed to be doing alright.
Charcoal had galloped ahead of Amanita and Code and was taking the time to examine the grain. A nearby earth pony farmer was eyeing her, but although the grain was ripening, Charcoal didn’t seem interested in trying any straight from the stalk (which placed her willpower a little bit higher than Amanita’s, honestly). “Rye,” she said. “Good rye. Out of season, too.”
Amanita felt a centipede slithering down her spine. Lots of rye. For lots of rye bread. As she’d told Princess Twilight and Celestia, necromancers liked rye bread. Necromancers also liked the cold, the isolated, the remote-
No. No, this was… coincidence. Rye didn’t mean necromancers were here. Right?
“Makes sense,” Charcoal continued. She broke away and followed after Amanita and Code. “Rye glows- grows well in the cold, did you know that? It does. And, hey! Ley line! That’ll make up for a lot.”
…Huh. Very much coincidence, apparently.
Apparently.
“So, wow, we really gotta fix this,” Charcoal rambled. “If we don’t, they could… starve next year. Yeah.” She rubbed her stomach. “Bad ley line means bad plants.”
“Consider it your motivation,” said Code.
The river found its way next to the street and meandered back and forth as they walked. Lamps were less frequent; Amanita lit her horn to provide them some extra light. Further ahead, just off the road and near the edge of the river, more lights clustered together, some shining everywhere, some focused in beams. Soon, Amanita heard the unmistakable whack whack whack of wood being chopped.
“What dae y’think?” a stallion said. “Ought we dae some grubbin’?”
“Nah.” The mare’s voice was panted, like she was keeping herself from breathing hard. “We’ll get ’em-” Whack. “-on the morrow.” Whack. “We still need-” Whack. “-tae get these logs-” Whack. “-up the skid road-” Whack. “-and I ain’t doin’ it while we’re all done fer.”
“Alright. Thankee.”
The darkness sharpened into about a dozen and a half equine silhouettes crowded around fallen trees and stumps, chopping, cutting, sawing, whatever it took to make those logs easier to manage. The trees, both standing and downed, were bigger than most other trees Amanita had seen, although nowhere near the mass of the Great Ash. Code called out, “Hello, there!”
Almost immediately, the axes stopped chopping as all the ponies looked their way. Most of them were earth ponies, but Amanita caught the wings of pegasi, the eyeflash of chiropteri, or the horns of unicorns from a few of them. The cold radiating from the crowd was unconnected to the snow. About two seconds before the silence shifted from tense to awkward, an earth pony with an ax draped across her back stepped forward. “Keep on a-workin’, woodhicks!” she hollered. She was the same mare who’d been speaking before. “Them bein’ new ain’t nae reason fer you'uns tae footercooter!”
As the lumberjacks hesitantly resumed their work, the mare leaned against the nearest fallen tree, one with a trunk almost as thick as she was tall. It was hard to say whether she was large for her small size or small for her large size; she was well-muscled and had disproportionately large hooves, at any rate. She’d been working so hard that her furs were actually slightly open so she could cool off. Her coat was a shining amber, her flowing mane bandsaw gray. “So,” she said, her voice as flat as a frozen-over pond, “what brings you'uns here?”
Code cleared her throat. “You may have heard that there’s a ley line in the region that went bad for some reason. We’re the ritualist team sent to heal it.” She pointed at each team member in turn. “Restricted Code. Amanita. Charcoal.”
Amanita almost raised a hoof to wave. But that was dorky; she didn’t want to look dorky, did she? Or would it seem endearing? Did it matter? They might only be here a week and she didn’t think she’d be talking to the townsponies that much. But if she was wrong and they seemed aloof-
The mare looked at Code for a long moment before saying, “I heard.” She clapped a leg across her chest. “Crosscut. I’m the teamster fer these loggers, the finest ponies in Tratonmane.”
“Don’t let the militia hear you say that,” said Amanita. The joke sounded forced the second it escaped her control.
Yet Crosscut laughed anyway, although the laugh was bitter. “They hold wi’ that view! They ain’t a-workin’ on the edge o’ Midwich every day.” She fixed Amanita with a glare that wasn’t exactly enraged but so disapproving that Amanita still took a step back. “If ye kenned a single cusséd thing about our valley, ye’d ken we’re less’n twenty feet frae the nastiest wood in all Equestria.”
Amanita took another look at Midwich Forest and, while the darkness might’ve played a part, thought that assessment had a pretty good chance of being accurate. Code, however, seemed unfazed. “Forests do have a habit of being nasty places,” she said blandly. It wasn’t a refutation of Crosscut’s words, but it wasn’t not a refutation, either. “The Everfree, for example. Between the strange magic running through it and the monsters living in it, the Everfree’ll kill you if you look at it funny.”
“That right?” Crosscut snorted. “Midwich ain’t a-waitin’ fer an excuse. Ferget the wolves, lowlander, the trees theirselves are what’ll get ye. This dark, this long, they’re-”
“Oh, Shine,” gasped Charcoal, clapping a hoof to her mouth. “These are all night trees?”
“And they’re encroachin’ on our town more every year. Movin’ an’ all.” Crosscut spat on the ground as Charcoal leaned back from the forest. “Let ’em come. More wood fer the kiln.”
Amanita felt like she’d missed something and was flailing as if she’d gone too far up a staircase in the dark. Coughing loudly, she said, “Um, excuse me, but, uh… what’s a night tree?”
Every woodcutter and Charcoal stared at her like she’d made the sort of mistake that put you on the cover of tabloids for the next few weeks. “It’s a tree,” Crosscut said, somehow managing to not sound too insulting by explaining the obvious. “At night.”
Amanita was absolutely sure she’d missed something, and now she was suspecting she’d missed it years ago. It was only a mild assurance that Code looked the same way. “And… that’s… important?”
“Well, yeah,” said Charcoal. “Day trees and night trees aren’t the same thing.”
A blank stare from Amanita, mulled confusion from Code, nods from the Tratonmanians.
“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you don’t notice it!” protested Charcoal. “When a branch taps your widow- window, window in the day, it’s just the wind, right? But, but, but, but when that happens in the night, suddenly it’s real scary. Even though nothing changes. Except-” She waggled a hoof Importantly at Code. “-the tree’s now a night tree, not a day tree.”
“Day trees leave houses alone,” added Crosscut. “Night trees can crowd all ’round a house they dinnae like, pound the shingles off the roof, bust in the window glass an’ the door panels… That’s the sort o’ night ye dinnae wanna head out intae. Even y’all city folk ken that.”
“It doesn’t always happen that bad,” said Charcoal. “If they’re well-tended or given enough magic, night trees are pretty much the same as day trees. They just stay-” She whipped to look at Crosscut like there was a rope through her nose. “We’re so close to a ley line you’ve got a ley tree glowing- growing in the town square. How can you have this many bad night trees?”
Crosscut just shrugged. “I dinnae ken. And my ma says it weren’t this bad when she were a filly. This forest was jes’ a forest fifty year ago.”
“And nothing happened?” Charcoal said. “It just started?” It was like every part of her body had been turned towards interest; her ears were pointed straight at Crosscut, she was leaning forward, and she was practically bouncing on her hooves.
“Sure enough, bit by bit,” said Crosscut. “Nothin’ you notice right then, Ma says, but when yer a-lookin’ back, ye can see all the signs an’ omens an’ whatnot. It’s-”
One of the pegasi tapped Crosscut on the back. “Hate tae butt in, but can ye borrow me some strength? Ax got stuck.” She wrapped her hooves around the ax in question and gave it a hard yank to demonstrate. It didn’t budge.
Crosscut tapped the ground with a hoof, flicking towards the pegasus, and Amanita felt a strange buzz in the ground. Next to her, Code’s eyes snapped wide open and she started massaging the dirt with her hooves. The pegasus blinked like she’d been flicked on the ear, flexed her wings, and casually yanked the ax out with a fraction of the effort that hadn’t made it twitch before. “Thankee,” she said, and went right back to chopping.
The buzzing stopped; Crosscut didn’t seem to have noticed. “It was little thing after little thing,” she said. “Took more’n-”
“What was that?” asked Code.
Crosscut blinked. “What was what?”
“That.” Code pointed at the lumberjack. “She couldn’t pull the ax out, so you… let her borrow your strength?”
“Aye. And?”
“Earth pony strength. Magic.”
“…Aye. And?”
The look on Code’s face was one Amanita recognized well; she was anticipating a paradigm shift. “…How?”
“By… lettin’ her… use it?”
Code dropped onto her haunches and rubbed the bridge of her muzzle as her mouth worked soundlessly in what was probably a mantra of self-control. Then she calmly took a breath, calmly stood up, calmly adjusted her glasses, and calmly shrieked, “You can give your magic to other ponies?”
“Dear land, how’s that a surprise? It’s jes’ magic, ain’t it? I shape it, she uses it.”
And Amanita’s mind took off so fast it’d probably be rainbooming if it were physical.
Magic was magic. That was fact. Any ritual could be worked by a pony of any tribe; the magic was molded by the acts and the symbolism and the paraphernalia of the ritual before the pony picked it up. This had been proven time and again, and was now such a basic fundamental part of ritualism that most ritual students were already taking it for granted before their first year.
But then, who said the magic had to be shaped by the ritual?
Each of the pony tribes controlled magic and cast their spells in their own way. There was absolutely nothing saying that the pony who controlled the magic and the pony who cast the spell had to be the same pony, or even the same tribe; everypony just assumed there was. But the magic wrought by a ritual could technically be done by any unicorn of sufficient power, since they shaped the magic directly. On a fundamental level, there wasn’t much difference between “ritual” and “unicorn” as a source of prebuilt magic. And from there, just the very notion of ponies mixing magic sent ideas spinning through Amanita’s mind, threatening to block out everything else.
She immediately took the deepest breath she could, forcing herself to feel the cold air stab its way down her throat all the way to her lungs. That was for later. They’d just opened up a new field of study, but now, they needed to work on the ley line.
“…because of liminality,” muttered Code as she sketched metaphysics diagrams in the snow. “But alicorns can use all three, so why not other tribes?… If tribal differences are mostly biological-”
“Why’re you'uns a-lookin’ that way?” Crosscut asked, looking back and forth between Amanita and Code like she couldn’t decide which disaster to watch. “It’s jes’ borrowin’.”
“-then perhaps-” Code blinked, forced out a cough, and adjusted her glasses. “This… borrowing,” she said. “It’s… unknown in Equestria.”
“Unkno-” Crosscut whipped around and yelled to the lumberjacks, “Ay! Woodhicks! The Crown dinnae ken borrowin’!” The work didn’t let up, but laughter rippled through the group. Amanita felt her cheeks grow warm.
But either Code’s red coat was hiding her own reaction or (more likely) she was just unflappable. “Regrettably, we don’t,” she confirmed. “Forgotten dogmas in arcane study.” Her voice dropped. “By Celestia, how did we miss that…”
“An’ you'uns came here tryin’ tae help us wi’ magic?” Crosscut snorted. “Forget me, but it’s hard tae confidence you'uns if’n y’dinnae ken borrowin’.”
“Good thing we’re not here to borrow magic, then,” said Code. She ate some more dirt.
Crosscut didn’t look particularly reassured.
“Is that working?” Amanita asked Code.
“It’s hard to say,” said Code. She looked down and massaged the ground beneath her hooves. “I’ve never felt a ley line quite like this before.”
“How?” Crosscut’s ears twitched back slightly, and Amanita noticed the nearby pegasus pivoting an ear towards them.
“It’s still too early to say for certain, but lines are rarely this… focused,” said Code. She closed her eyes, slowly swaying back and forth; Amanita felt magic thrum around her. “You can see it from how defined the valley is. I think it’s contained entirely within Midwich. That’s quite unusual for healthy ley lines, let alone sour ones.”
“Worth payin’ it ary mind?” Crosscut asked.
“Not sure,” Code said. “We’re still in the preliminaries. We’ll need to do some actual readings before we can say for certain.”
“So we should follow the river.”
Amanita twitched; somehow, she’d forgotten about Charcoal. The kirin was staring off downriver into Midwich Forest, making little hmm, hah, heh grunts of thought as she rocked her head back and forth.
“Nay,” said Crosscut, almost reflexively.
“Yay,” responded Charcoal. “If you’re near a ley line, the course a river takes can tell you a lot about the line. It’s all, y’know, shaped by the energies of the line, the ebb and flow and strength and character and I’ve read several books about this, it’s really neat. It’s like a… glass through the earth into the line itself. If you really want to study ley lines, you look at two things: mountains and rivers.”
“Ye didnae listen at me when I told you'uns Midwich is dangerous, aye?” said Crosscut. “An’ now ye want that you'uns jes’…” She flicked a hoof towards the forest. “…head straight in. Belly o’ the beast an’ all.”
“Of course I listened and of course I don’t want to!” said Charcoal. “What kind of idiot do you take me for? But we’re not here to be safe. We came to take a look at the ley line. The river can help us study the ley line. That’s all there is to it. We want to help.” She glanced at the forest and scooted away from it by an inch. “Even if I really don’t want to go into the forest made entirely of night trees.”
Crosscut looked between each of the ritualists, then at Midwich Forest, in turn. “Ye’d do that?” she asked, somewhere between ashamed and surprised. “Danger an’ all?”
“Reluctantly,” said Amanita. “But yeah.”
For a long moment, the only sound was the continued thwack of axes and buzzing of saws. She shook her head and wiped her forehead down. “If’n it needs a-doin’, it needs a-doin’,” she muttered. “If it comes tae that, keep yer minds out an’ yer swords close, aye? We dinnae want ary more outsiders comin’ ’round ’ere.”
“Of course. We could use some help,” said Code. “A militia detachment, maybe, for protection. But following the river is a good idea, as long as we watch out for-”
The howl of a wolf cut through the darkness.
The lumberjacks all snapped to look at the forest; herd instinct (they called it “peer pressure”, now) made Amanita tense up. She’d heard wolves before. Didn’t mean she liked them. The echo rumbled and rolled up and down the valley, seeming to flatten out other sounds as it passed. There was something violent in that howl, ominous and threatening. And based on Tratonmane’s reaction, perhaps something worse.
Another howl. Closer.
“Leaf, git tae the hall, ring the bell, now,” Crosscut hissed. She wasn’t looking at anypony in particular, but a pegasus promptly took off for Tratonmane, wings pumping hard.
Before Amanita could ask what that was about, the lumberjacks pulled back from the forest; some brandished their axes and saws, some unsheathed swords or took up spears. They all immediately assembled into a defensive line, facing Midwich.
“You say yer ritualists.” Crosscut twirled her ax and didn’t look away from the forest. “I hope ye also ken how tae fight.”