Chapter XX: A Dancing Sky
"Your Highness, you need to take a look at the sky." The gazelle butler, Alfalfred, said as he entered the Emperor's throne room.
Emperor Bluehorn looked up from his newspaper. "Hm? What's going on, now?"
"The sky, Your Highness. You need to see it!"
"What's the matter with the sky?"
"Just go out and look at the sky."
"Alfalfred, I'm busy reading about the affair between the head chef of- Hey! Hey!! Hey!!! What do you think you're doing?!" Bluehorn yelled as he saw Alfalfred reach for the one of the window curtains. He gestured for the guards to grab him and stopped the butler before he opened the curtains. "Those curtains have not been opened for three-hundred seventy years. One does not simply open them to see the sky. My mother kept these curtains closed. And her father before her. And his mother before him. And her mother before - er, actually no. Queen Askari was my great-grandma's aunt-in-law through her twice-removed cousin - But anyway, and her father before her. And so on and so forth." Bluehorn put down his newspaper, got off his throne and walked towards Alfalfred. He gestured for the guards to let go of him and said, "But I know you. If you think whatever is wrong with the sky is so serious that you need to break a centuries-old tradition, then maybe it is that serious."
Emperor Bluehorn pulled aside the curtain next to him, revealing a shocking sight.
"By the gods..." A gibbous Moon was rotating high at the center of the sky, and the Sun was lying to the North. It had been moving to the right along the horizon. Opposite in the sky from the Sun, the stars shined. The mountains and forest cast shadows where they've never touched before and places normally veiled in darkness were bathed in light. As he stared at the sky, Emperor Bluehorn asked, "How long have I been reading that newspaper?"
"Well, actually, you haven't been reading the newspaper for that long," a guard replied, "Although, you've been in your chambers reading letters from the people and working on repealing a law for a few hours and before that you were in the indoor ampitheatre watching 'Mfalme Miguu Ndogo.'"
"An absolutely fantastic play, by the way." Bluehorn said, "You really should see it some time, Alfalfred. Experience the theatre a bit!"
"Yes, yes, Your Highness," Alfalfred replied, "but more to the point: What do we do about the sky?"
The Emperor pondered for a moment. "Well... it must have been that pony, Tympanus. He said he would help us win the war and..."
"Your Highness, do you even know what he planned to do?"
"N-no... He just said he needed the blue box for the time being and would return by sunset."
"At least he's kept that part of his promise. The Sun still hasn't set. It's been stuck on the horizon for the past fourteen hours."
Bluehorn's eyes widened in worry. He shut the curtains and hurriedly walked out of the throne room and down the hall to the alchemy laboratories, his jewelry jingling as he took long brisk strides. Alfalfred and one of the guards followed. As they walked down the wide torch-lit stone corridor, Bluehorn said, "Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?"
"Before now the Sun was just sitting on the Western horizon and I thought it was just the Pony King neglecting his duties," Alfalfred replied, "but now suddenly, the sky went into chaos. Something much more serious must be happening."
Bluehorn abruptly stopped in the hall and Alfalfred bumped into his rear. The Emperor turned, looked around and scratched his head.
"Wait, where's Golden Lead's laboratory?"
"We just passed it a moment ago, Your Highness." The guard answered.
"Why don't you lead the way."
The guard nodded and turned to walk the other direction. The three arrived at an iron door that had an engraving of circle with a dot at the center. From inside they could hear Golden Lead yelling to her brother, "Get the chains! Get the chains! Hurry up, I can't hold it down forever!" along with the hideous screeching of some strange creature. The guard took out a set of keys and unlocked the door.
As he opened the door, Golden Lead yelled, "Stop! Don't open the door!" But it was too late and a strange skinny four-legged creature charged out the door and past the guard, Alfalfred and Bluehorn.
The Emperor quickly turned and shouted "Mwamba hadi!" as his horn lit up, illuminating the corridor with its bright blue glow. A patch of the stone floor down the hall lit up with the same color and Bluehorn swung his head up. That patch of the floor detached and rapidly flew upward, hitting the escaping creature as it tried to fly down the hall. The creature was knocked out by the rock and fell to the floor. The guard quickly proceeded to tie it with a nearby rope, and Bluehorn and Alfalfred walked over to inspect it.
The unconscious creature was of the size and shape of an earth pony, but it was like nothing either the guard or Alfalfred had seen and Bluehorn had seen the like only once before. It had skin of black scales and a hard dark blue shell on its back. Protruding from the shell were a pair of translucent insect wings. It had a curved black horn on its forehead and ears that appeared as if the top half of them were eaten off. The legs were similar: they were jagged and had holes in them, as if a caterpillar had feasted on them. Instead of a mane along its neck, it had webbed spines.
Bluehorn turned around and saw Golden Lead and Pyro by the door to the laboratory, both looking embarrassed. Bluehorn walked to them and irately said, "Explain."
Golden Lead hesitatively answered, "It-it's a hybrid, Your Highness. A pony-dragon-insect hybrid."
Alfalfred gasped and quickly stepped away from the creature. Bluehorn frowned and scolded Golden Lead and Pyro. "I thought I cut off all funding for your hybridization experiments last year! Didn't I make it clear enough that I wanted this to stop?"
"We did stop, Your Highness." Pyro responded, "But, um, this one just hatched from an egg in the storage room."
Bluehorn heaved a frustrated sigh. "Golden Lead, I thought I told you to get rid of all the eggs!"
"I did, Your Highness." Golden Lead replied, "It's just that- it seems there was one egg accidentally left over. But I made sure all the other eggs were dumped into the Sea."
"Dumped into the Sea? Are you sure that's enough to destroy them?"
"Well... um, no. But I'm certain that wherever they are now, they're either destroyed or carried far away."
"I hope to the Gods that you're right."
Suddenly the rhinos and Alfalfred heard a screech from behind them. They turned and saw the hybrid struggling to escape from the rope. As they approached it, the hybrid hissed at them, baring its long fangs and glaring with its completely blue eyes.
Bluehorn sighed again, "I don't have time to deal with this now. Guard, kill it. Hybridization is dangerous, and I just want it ended once and for all."
The guard nodded and levitated a torch over the hybrid. He then dropped it and let the creature burn. Its horrid deafening screeches of pain echoed through the palace, reaching the ears of everyone within. The hybrid writhed and squirmed in anguish as it was engulfed in flames. Soon it stopped and fell limp and lifeless. The guard let the fire continue for a while longer and then lit up his orange horn and said the incantation, "Kuizima mwali," to put out the fire. All that remained of the hybrid were its ashes.
"Anyway," Bluehorn said as he turned to face Golden Lead and Pyro, "we have a larger problem on our hooves. Tell me, did that pony, Tympanus, say anything about what he was planning? What did he have you do for him in the laboratory?"
"He said he wanted to become an alicorn in order to take the power over the Sun and Moon away from King Concordius." Golden answered, "So we made him a potion that would take the horns and wings of the king and give it to Tympanus."
Bluehorn thought for a moment and said, "So... if Tympanus was successful then that means that Concordius fell. And since Concordius is the only one who can control the sky, then that explains why the sky is dancing. So we have nothing to worry about after all! Everything is just going according to plan!" Bluehorn turned and began walking briskly down the hall towards the throne room, but Pyro ran over and stopped him.
"Wait, Your Highness! Did you say the sky is dancing?"
"Yes. The Moon is spinning and the Sun looks like it's been moving along the horizon and all kinds of chaos must be happening with the Stars. So it's a clear sign that Tympanus succeeded in his mission."
"But, Your Highness, I read that when there is no control over the sky, then all the celestial objects would just hold still. For them all to be moving around like that would take powerful magic from an expert sorcerer. If Tympanus took Concordius' power, then he must be the one controlling the sky. So why isn't he keeping the sky in order?"
Bluehorn took a few pondering steps past Pyro and down the hallway. He sighed as he came to the realization that he made a foolish mistake in trusting Tympanus. He sat on the floor and put his hoof to his forehead. Alfalfred walked over to him and said, "Your Highness, what is it?"
"Oh, Alfalfred. Why am I such an idiot?" Bluehorn said as he stood back up. "Why did my old man ever think I was capable of being the Emperor when I'm so thick?"
"Your Highness, don't be hard on yourself like that."
"No, no, no. I made a vow at my coronation that I would do only what was best for my people, and I failed. You can see from the sky that Tympanus obviously never planned to bring peace and harmony at all!"
"Your Highness," the guard joined, "maybe, instead of being down, you could try doing something about it?"
Bluehorn was silent for a moment and saw the wisdom in the guard's words. "Right! Absolutely right! What do we do? We have to find him! So, send out our fastest gazelle across the Emerald Plains. Post guards on every watch tower inside and outside the city. Set out scouting hawks. Send our zebras into the Uruhu Forest. Tell them all to find an alicorn going around in a blue box... and that sentence was not as silly as it just sounded. Now, go!"
The guard smiled to see Bluehorn finally taking on military action as the Emperor. "Immediately, Your Highness." He proceeded to carry out the Emperor's commands as quickly as possible, and soon the entire military in Rhinopolis was mobilizing to search for a blue box.