Prison Island
As yet another earthquake came to an abrupt end, Clover crawled out from beneath the relative safety of the table and surveyed her cell. It really hadn’t been the most unpleasant place to live in once; it could have passed for a comfortable apartment if it weren’t for the bars around the balcony and the lift platform that she couldn’t even control from her level. The return of the earthquakes had changed all that, and the room was now a mess of fallen and broken mirrors and wall hangings, disheveled furnishing covers, and more than few worrisome little cracks here and there. Clover was looking rather disheveled herself from worry, not just for herself but for all of Sohndar and the ponies her husband had sent in to rescue her.
“Hey Clover!” a voice called from the balcony door, pulling her out of her thoughts. She ran out to see the cyan pegasus pony hovering outside. “Are you holding up ok?” she asked.
“As well as can be expected, I think,” Clover answered, stroking a braid self-consciously.
“Good,” Rainbow said, “Because it’s time to break you out.”
“It is?” Clover asked, “But what of Aldro?”
“Twilight should be dealing with him by now,” Rainbow replied, “She’ll meet us here once she’s finished, and I expect to have you out of that cage before she arrives.”
“That may be difficult,” Clover said, “In order to free me you’ll have to rotate the lift, and to do that you’ll have to play the right sequence of sounds at the lift’s base. There are three possible sounds and the sequence is five sounds long. Aldro keeps the combination somewhere, likely in his new study. You’ll never be able to just guess it.*”
“Wanna bet?” Rainbow said confidently, “I happen to be pretty lucky when it comes to finding puzzle solutions. Just sit tight.” Before Clover could protest, she flew around the tower and dived down to the doorway leading in to the elevator.
The elevator looked like a cage, its bars made of a yellowish metal and spaced just far enough apart to comfortably reach a hoof through. A handle on a chain hung from the top, attached to the winch that obviously moved the contraption up and down. In the wall behind the lift cage were three buttons, each connected to a wire stretched up to a hemisphere with a horizontally oriented lever, and a pipe led from the top of that to something at the top of the shaft. “Ok,” she muttered, “play five notes and pull the lever. Seems simple enough.” She reached through the bars toward the buttons, paused in thought, and then pressed them from left to right and back again. She slid the lever to the right, which proved a little difficult as it wasn’t designed with hooves in mind, and let out a small sigh when nothing happened. “Round two.”
It took Twilight a few moments to locate the button on the ground that would open up the dome so she could get out, and once she had pressed it and turned around, she paused for a moment to take in the awe-inspiring sight of the fifth island. Her first thought was that it was mostly comprised of a white rock that had worn down by time and happenstance to resemble the stump of a giant tree, but as she reached the end of the walkway from the dome and started climbing the stairs at the end she realized it actually was a tree stump. Once she entered the stump, her attention went entirely to the elevator at the end, where Rainbow Dash was hard at work on something.
“Round fifty,” the pegasus grunted as she pulled the lever of the sound lock to no effect. “Gah!” she cried, whirling around to buck the bars of the lift cage in frustration, only to pause with her legs in the air as she saw Twilight.
“What are you doing?” Twilight asked with a trace of amusement.
“So much for being ready to go before you got here,” Rainbow sighed, “I’m trying to get this elevator turned around so Clover can get in it. Did ya get Aldro?”
“I did,” Twilight said proudly, levitating the trap book out of her pack, “It was a close call though; I had to use the book myself to convince him it was what he thought it was. It can only hold one prisoner,” she added when Rainbow gave her a confused look.
“Ah, well, ok, good. Oh! Gimme that for a sec!” Rainbow grabbed the book and flipped it open to the linking page before Twilight could protest and said “Tell me how to let Clover out,” to the trapped Aldro.
“What the…” the Kl’kai exclaimed in surprise, “Who are you?”
“I’m the pony telling you to cough up the code to Clover’s cell,” Rainbow shot back imperiously. Twilight felt that she should protest her friend’s actions, but couldn’t come up with any good reasons why when she thought about it.
“Now why, pray tell,” Aldro said slowly, “would I do what you say? Look at me: trapped in the dark void of a faulty linking book, granted only a small window of light for brief moments beyond my control and no way out. What, little pony, could you possibly threaten me with to make me help you further your goals?”
“Uh…” Rainbow said, looking to Twilight for help.
“I’m afraid he may have a point,” Twilight said, shrugging, “Maybe there’s a clue laying arou- Ahhhh!” An earthquake cut her off and both ponies bolted out of the hallway into the open air. The rock beneath the giant tree stump cracked and the stairs built into it threatened to come loose but ultimately held on.
“I think they’re getting worse,” Rainbow said, continuing to shake even after the quake ended, “If we don’t get Clover out quick, the tower might just fall… Wait, idea!” Tucking the trap book under one wing, she ran back into the elevator and pulled down the cord. Twilight, galloping a few steps after the pegasus, barely managed to jump up into the lift cage before it rose out of reach.
“What in the worlds are you up to?” the lavender mare asked in breathless irritation. Rainbow just gave her a smug smile and waited for the elevator to reach the top before taking the book in her front hooves. Clover was standing near the middle of the room and gave the pair a confused, slightly disappointed look when she saw the lift cage still stood between her and freedom.
“All right,” Rainbow said, opening the book so Aldro could hear her and see into Clover’s cell, “Here’s the thing Aldro: this tower we’re in might not be stable for much longer, and we’re going to get Clover out of it one way or another. Either you tell us the code to turn the elevator around, or Clover switches places with you and we leave you behind.”
“What?” everyone else exclaimed.
“Are you crazy Rainbow?” Twilight asked, “we can’t trap Clover in the book! Star Swirl would be furious, and I can’t imagine what he’d do!”
“I must object as well,” Clover said, “and not just for my own sake. This cell is under surveillance, and once Aldro’s loyalists know he’s in here they’ll release him.”
“We’d have plenty of time to get away,” Rainbow argued, “and once we’re away and everything’s settled we could just find some little creature nopony’ll miss and swap it into the book to get Clover out. I’ll just need to remember never to mention that part to Fluttershy.”
“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight began, only to trail off as the sound of low laughter began to issue out of the trapped book.
“Ah, you poor fools,” Aldro chuckled, “do you realize how hopeless you’ve made things? Star Swirl’s faith in you was admirable, and perhaps well-placed, but the tasks he set were impossible.”
“Says the dog we managed to trap in a book,” Rainbow retorted.
Aldro laughed loudly. “Don’t you see?” he said, “By succeeding in that, you’ve sealed your doom. You don’t dare let me out and you’ll never convince me to help you free Clover. You can’t leave without her, not without betraying Star Swirl. In fact, by trapping me you’ve also guaranteed there will never be another Age in which to take shelter. Two-Forty-Three can’t sustain life by itself, and the Fifth Age will soon collapse on itself. You’re doomed.”
“Are you really so petty Aldro?” Clover asked, “You will die as well, when the world’s collapse destroys your prison.”
“I’m as good as dead in here anyway,” Aldro said, “the only regret I’ll have is never getting to see Star Swirl’s face when he realizes his wife and two trusted friends have died along with the entire population of an Age he couldn’t preserve.”
“Except most of us won’t be dead,” Twilight said with a confident smile even though she wasn’t in Aldro’s line of sight, “The Moiety are ‘overseeing’ a mass evacuation to Tay even now. That’s partially the reason Rainbow and I even made it to this point.”
“Oh? Wonderful,” Clover said with a smile of her own.
Aldro’s mirth died as he blinked in confusion at Clover. “What is Tay?” he asked.
“Tay is the name the Moiety gave to the world I linked to for them,” Clover answered, walking right up to the bars and leaning her face in close to the trap book, which Rainbow helpfully held at a comfortable angle, “I wrote the link about a month ago, using a book you had rejected as a failure.”
“You… you lie,” Aldro said, “It took me nearly thirty years to refine the materials in just the right way, and even then the links aren’t stable without the fire marbles.”
“The link isn’t very stable,” Clover admitted, “but the world of Tay is. It’s hospitable, inhabited, and a better home than Sohndar ever was. I may not survive to see my husband or my dear daughter again, but I can die without regret Aldro.” Her voice dropped slightly, taking on an almost pleading tone. “Can’t you see now? I, a pony of simple origin in a world you claimed to have created, have accomplished with rejected paper something you have failed to match. Does the fault lie with the books, or with the one who wrote the words?”
Aldro grimaced and dropped his gaze. After a moment, he muttered, “Middle, right, right, left, middle.”
“Come again?” Rainbow asked, leaning over the top of the book expectantly.
“Middle, right, right, left, middle,” Aldro said more clearly, “It’s clear I’ve lost, but I want to have a word with Star Swirl before the end. Do not leave me behind.”
“We weren’t planning on it,” Twilight said, taking hold of the book, “Rainbow and I are just the errand ponies. Your fate is in Star Swirl and Clover’s hooves.” She closed the book and put it away as she pulled on the elevator cord. “We’ll be right back up,” she told Clover. At the bottom, she stepped out to make room while Rainbow tapped out the sequence Aldro had supplied and pulled the lever. The lift cage rotated around as it rose, and a short moment later it came back down with Clover by Rainbow’s side.
“Thank you both,” Clover said, grabbing Twilight and Rainbow in a brief hug after stepping out of the elevator, “I can’t believe you’ve managed this, capturing Aldro and freeing me. Now, I’ll go see how the evacuation of the village is going and fetch my daughter. Meet us by the Fissure and prepare to signal Star Swirl.”
“Signal, right,” Twilight said, “Uh, how are we going to do that?”
“Didn’t you read my journal?” Clover asked, “I wrote down all the steps we’ll have to take. Be safe, and I’ll see you again soon.” She brushed past the Equestrian pair and trotted off toward the spinning dome.
Looking sheepish, Twilight levitated Clover’s journal out of her bag and looked at it. “Looks like I’ll be reading on the run,” she said, and then shot Rainbow a look as the pegasus started to snicker. “Let’s go.”
Dome Island
The trip back to the place where the Sohndar adventure had begun was blessedly uneventful. The flat plain where the covered Star Fissure was located was unoccupied when Twilight and Rainbow arrived, and a quick investigation revealed that the cage booth that had been built around the point of Linking entry was open and unarmed. During the brisk walk from the island’s dome to the fissure plain, Twilight had been speed-reading through Clover’s journal to find the entries relevant to the fissure and telescope as well as Star Swirl’s notes on his work on the Sohndar book in the hopes of finding a clue to possible means of sending a signal to him.
Eventually, as she approached the inverted teardrop-shaped telescope and put the books away, she reached a conclusion. “The image in Sohndar’s linking panel was nearly impossible to see anything clearly in,” she said, “and it’s likely to be worse now, so I guess our only option is to do something so dramatic to the structure of the world that it makes a noticeable change to the book. And the only way to change Sohndar that much while on it is to crack it open.”
“Wanna run that by me again egghead?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“The fissure under this metal plate isn’t actually part of Sohndar,” Twilight explained, “No one’s sure what it is exactly, but all the theories I’ve read point to it being like a gaping wound in the world’s fabric, a gateway of sorts to some other reality that opened because Sohndar is just that unstable. Aldro sealed it up before it could spread and cause more damage, but now we’re going to open it again, and it’ll probably break the world beyond all hope of repair.”
“Yikes,” Rainbow said, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“It’s the only idea,” Twilight said with a sigh, “I’ll wait until Clover and Nyx get here though, so we can get out as quickly as possible once Star Swirl comes with the book out.” Rainbow nodded and sat back while Twilight contemplated the telescope. According to Clover’s journal, it would be the means of opening the rift. The telescope was positioned over a thick pane of glass which was currently covered with a locked plate. The journal helpfully contained the combination to the lock, acquired by Moiety spies some time ago, and also pointed out a mechanical stop that would need to be removed to allow the telescope to be lowered far enough to break the glass.
The sound of little hooves on the rock drew Twilight from her thoughts and she looked over to see Nyx round the rock face and walk over to her and Rainbow. “Hey girls,” the filly said, panting a bit, “Thanks for freeing Mom. She told me to tell you to go ahead and start signaling Father. She’ll catch up in a minute.”
“All right Nyx,” Twilight said, “Thanks.”
“How’s the raid going?” Rainbow asked as Twilight tapped out the combination to the cover lock.
“We were just about finished when Mom showed up,” Nyx answered, “There were only a few Maintainers still putting up a fight. The village in Tay’s getting kinda crowded.”
“They’re all safe at least, right?” Twilight said as she lifted the cover and exposed the glass. She pulled the stop out of its place with a casual telekinetic tug and turned her attention to the lever and button on the telescope’s support railing. She turned the lever down and pressed the button, and the telescope slid downward a foot or so. With more button presses, she brought the telescope down until it was resting right against the glass, and the paused and looked around. Clover still hadn’t arrived. “How far behind you was she Nyx?” she asked.
“She should be here any second,” Nyx said, “Just go for it.”
Twilight cast one last worried look toward the path Clover should be coming from, and then turned back to the telescope and pressed the button to lower it one last time. There was a deep groan as the pneumatic pressure of the telescope struggled to overcome the resistant strength of the thick glass plate until finally, with an omnious but quiet sound the glass began to crack and then gave way. Color seemed to drain out of everything in the area, leaving a uniform brown tint behind except in the eyes, coats, and manes of the ponies. The ground trembled and split, and Twilight backed away as the metal plate the telescope was mounted on buckled and collapsed into a deep chasm below, accompanied by a sudden rush of air. The rift grew wider as sections of the ground broke off and fell into it, swallowing the rest of the covering metal as well as the giant strange-handled knife at the end.
“Whoa,” Rainbow called over the roaring wind being sucked into the rift, “This is crazy!”
“I’ll say,” Twilight replied, looking up in time to see Star Swirl the Bearded materialize in the arrival booth.
The ancient unicorn sage took a second to get his bearings, looking impressed at the state of things, and then galloped over to the trio. With a joyous cry, Nyx pounced on him with a big hug, which he returned with equal joy. He only took a moment before letting her go and came up to Twilight and Rainbow with a look of concern. “Where is Clover?” he asked.
“Star Swirl!” the mare in question called out as she ran into view, a satchel tied to her back over her dress. He and she hugged each other and exchanged quiet words for a moment, until a sudden lurch in the earth reminded them of the current predicament.
“What of Aldro?” Star Swirl asked.
“Contained,” Twilight said, bringing out the trap book and levitating it over to the stallion.
“Wonderful,” Star Swirl said, taking the book and putting it in a bag at his side, from which he then took another book and said, “Now let’s go home.” He opened the book and held it out as Nyx and then Clover touched the linking panel and vanished from sight. “My friends,” he said, turning to offer the book to Twilight and Rainbow, “ladies first.”
Smiling, Twilight lifted a hoof to lay on the panel, but before she could she saw a unpleasantly familiar unicorn in battered guard barding and a crazed look in his eyes gallop onto the plain and fix the group with a murderous glare.
“Demons!” Arcem howled, “Deceivers! Destroyers! Vengeance!”
“Watch out!” Twilight cried, pushing Star Swirl aside as the furious Maintainer leapt and tried to throw up a barrier to hold him back. Her magic activated too late, and she went down under Arcem’s weight, the two rolling to a stop at the precipice of the fissure. The world lurched again and the ground gave way beneath the struggling unicorns, dropping them into the starry unknown below.
“Twilight!” Rainbow exclaimed, spreading her wings and diving in after her, “I’m coming!”