Have you ever had one of those days where you wake up after being trampled, stabbed, and thrown around like a rag doll by a murderous vampire-buffalo? If you said yes, you have my sympathies, because they suck. Also, you're probably either delusional or a liar.
The first sensation that came to me was pain. Lots of pain. Tons of pain. Copious amounts of pain. Did I mention that it was painful? Because it was.
The worst of it was on the left side of my chest, with my back taking a close second, but the rest of my body ached as well. The very act of breathing stung horribly. I really wasn't looking forward to moving around in this condition.
With a quiet groan, I forced myself to raise my head and look around. Everything was blurry and indistinct. My glasses were sitting right next to me, so I picked those up and put them on. That helped immensely.
I was lying on a brown woolen bedroll inside a medium-sized teepee. It was fairly dark, with only a single streak of orange sunlight that leaked in around the entrance flap and spilled across the dirt floor. The air was filled with floating flecks of hot dust.
A quick examination of myself showed that all the paint that Little Strongheart had put on me had been washed off. Instead, I was covered in swaths of linen bandages. The white strips were concentrated most heavily on my ribs and spine, and there was a large rust-like stain that showed through the bulky poultice on my chest. I distantly wondered just how badly I'd been hurt and if any of the damage was going to be permanent.
Between the tent's entrance and me was Twilight Sparkle, who was lying down on a bulky cushion and reading a small blue book with “Advanced First Aid” printed on the cover. There were dark circles under her eyes and her normally-straight mane was slightly ruffled. She noticed me moving and set the book down on the ground.
“Good, you're finally awake,” she said tiredly.
I tried to respond, but my throat was completely dry and only a strangled croak came out. Twilight wordlessly levitated a nearby bowl of clear water in front of me.
While I drank, the memories of the previous day all came back. The buffaloes. The boulder. The fight with Ironjaw. Winning. Getting attacked afterward. Rarity saving my ass.
“We’re still in the buffalo camp,” Twilight explained while I was busy with the drink. “You were too injured to move to Appleloosa’s hospital, and their doctor’s not allowed to come here, so we’re using one of the teepees as a healing tent.”
“How long was I out?” I asked after the water was all gone and my esophagus felt marginally more normal.
She pulled the flap back slightly and looked outside. “The sun's about to set right now, so you've been here for about ten hours. Fluttershy and I spent most of the day patching you and Ironjaw up.”
“Iron—WHAT THE FUCK IS HE DOING HERE?!” I jumped up and backed away from the massive black buffalo, staggering slightly from the fresh waves of pain that resulted from the sudden movement. He was laid out across the opposite side of the teepee, and I somehow hadn't noticed his slow, deep breathing.
Like me, he had a bunch of bloodstained bandages running across his back and a few on his face. Despite the fact that he was clearly unconscious—and that at some point Pinkie had taken the opportunity to put a party hat on his head and tie a bunch of colorful balloons to his horns—the sight of him sent a surge of terror through my mind. My first instinct was to run right the hell away from him.
“Don't worry,” Twilight said quickly before I could bolt out of there. “I put a spell on him so he won't wake up for about a week. Now calm down and go back to sleep. You need to rest up and heal.”
I took a few deep breaths to get my pulse under control, then shook my head. That shock had made all of my fatigue disappear, and spells or no spells, I didn't want to have Ironjaw in my vicinity for another second. “No, I'm...I'm fine. Let's get going and find that cave—”
“No, you're not fine,” she broke in firmly. “I don't know what the definition of 'fine' is in Fillydelphia, but you're not. You had four broken ribs, two dislocations, six ripped muscles, a punctured lung, and Celestia knows what damage that boulder did to your spine. You're lucky to even be alive right now! And you say that you're fine?” She was glaring at me as she finished.
“Was it really that bad?” I asked as I took another look at myself. It didn’t look like I’d been through all that.
“Yes, and considering how much work we had to do to save your life, I'd really appreciate it if you'd lie back down let your body fix itself.”
I shook my head again. “Look, the whole reason that I got so fucked up was because we need to get into that cave and find the clue, right? So let's go there and figure out what Discord left for us. Then I'll rest up. Deal?”
I fully expected Twilight to protest some more, but instead she sighed heavily and gave a reluctant nod. “Alright, but please try to not break anything else. We used up all of the buffaloes' magic bandages, and those things aren't easy to come by around here.”
With a noncommittal grunt, I took a few unsteady steps to the entrance and pushed my way outside. Walking didn't hurt quite as much as I'd feared, but it was still pretty uncomfortable. My knees felt a little weak and the bandages restricted how far I could move my limbs. I definitely didn't want to do any more traveling than absolutely necessary.
On the other side of the flap was a pacing Little Strongheart, who looked up quickly as I appeared. Her expression brightened as she saw me, then her ears dropped as her eyes found the bandages.
“Oh my,” she muttered, then forced a smile. “Well, Cog, it's, uh...it's good to see you moving again so soon. How are you feeling?”
“About as good as I think I look right now,” I replied sourly.
Strongheart's smile slipped right off her face. “Oh. Well, you certainly look like you've been through a lot, if you don't mind me saying so.”
“He'll live,” Twilight reassured her as she followed me out of the tent. “Ironjaw got off easy, by the way. Just a concussion and some flesh wounds.”
“Good,” Chief Thunderhooves rumbled as he approached from the side of the teepee. “The sooner he recovers, the sooner I can banish him.”
“Banish him?” Twilight asked in surprise. “Isn't that a bit drastic?”
“He attacked your friend even after the fight was over. He then disobeyed a direct order to stop and tried to finish him off,” the chief glowered darkly, then slowly shook his feather-covered head. “No, Ironjaw's too dangerous to be around the tribe any longer. As soon as he is able to travel, he'll be exiled to the Gorge of Lament.”
“Well, we may be losing a tribe member, but we've gained one as well,” Strongheart said brightly. “I suppose now we can get on with the initiation ceremony.”
“I'm not gonna have to fight something else now, am I?” I asked seriously. My legs were already burning just from standing around and it was still difficult to take deep breaths. In my current state, I probably would have lost a wrestling match with a narcoleptic goldfish.
“No, the hard part's over,” she assured me. “It's just a few formalities and a celebration in honor of you making it through the tests. After we're done with that, you'll be recognized as a true buffalo pony.”
“Alright, I can live with tha—”
“YAY!” a pink cannonball shouted as it suddenly knocked me flat on my back and squeezed the air right out of me. Every injury flared up again simultaneously.
“OW! The fuck—?” I couldn't finish that thought, as Pinkie's embrace left me unable to breathe.
“Cog! You're awake! We were all so worried about you!” she squealed as her grip tightened even more. I futilely fought to break free.
“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted angrily as my ribs threatened to crack again.
“Twilight!” Pinkie yelled back as she released me and smiled wide. “Do you want a hug too?”
I gasped for breath and rolled over while the unicorn harshly began to lecture Pinkie about her rough greetings. As soon as the air hit my lungs, I started coughing violently. To my alarm, small flecks of blood came out of my mouth and landed in the dirt.
“Are you alright?” Rarity asked concernedly as she showed up. Applejack walked beside her, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy floated in their wake. The latter also looked really worried.
Upon seeing Rarity, I felt a small, barely-noticeable tingle deep in my chest. For a brief moment, I worried that Pinkie had succeeded in breaking something important, but some distant, seldom-used portion of my brain informed me that the feeling wasn't physical.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said as I wiped the blood from my mouth with a hoof. I tried to ignore the tingling, but the feeling persisted.
“He'll be fine,” Twilight said as she gave up trying to reason with Pinkie—judging by the pink pony's absentminded smile, she was only hearing every tenth word or so. “He'll be doing that for the next day or two, but it's nothing to worry about.”
Fluttershy helped me get back on my feet. “Cog, sh-should you be moving around right now?” she asked, her voice heavy with concern.
“Probably not, but let's worry about that later. Let's finish with the ceremony thing and get the clue first.”
“Typical stupid tough-guy stuff,” Rainbow muttered sourly under her breath. She seemed to be making an effort to look at anything and everything that wasn't me.
I deliberately chose to ignore that remark and instead turned to Rarity. The tingle got a little stronger as her eyes met mine.
“Hey, uh, thanks. For saving my life earlier.”
She smiled cordially. “But of course. What else are friends for?”
Friends, I echoed in my head. I'd already suspected that I had earned the ponies' friendship over the past days—with half of them, anyway—but hearing her say it out loud created a warm glow that spread through my whole equine body.
I felt the corners of my mouth twitch upward by a millimeter or two.
* * * * *
The initiation ceremony began with everyone in the camp gathering around the bonfire yet again. The sun had gone down already, and the flames cast a circle of flickering golden light and dark shadows. The chilly desert air was kept comfortable by the fire's warmth.
Rather than giving us mistrustful glances and sneers, the buffaloes had nothing but respect for me—and, by extension, the other six ponies—this time. Most nodded kindly and offered words of sympathy or congratulation. I suppose it was only natural that I'd knocked myself a few notches higher on their social ladder after surviving a fight with Ironjaw. Being wounded probably didn't hurt their view of me, either.
While we waited, I absentmindedly tried to pull out my cigarettes. Once again, I failed miserably. My hoof just pawed ineffectually at my stud stamp for a few seconds before I remembered that I didn't have any pockets.
“Cog, a-are you sure you're alright?” Fluttershy asked yet again. She cringed every time she saw the bloodstains.
I was starting to get irritated, but I tried to keep my voice even. “I'm fine, Fluttershy. I was fine when you asked me ten minutes ago. I was fine when you asked me five minutes ago. I'll be fine five minutes from now when you ask me again.”
“S-s-sorry, I-I just...” her voice trailed off uncertainly and she dropped her eyes to the ground. Dammit, she was still as adorable as ever.
“Look, I really do appreciate your concern, but don't worry so much. You did a good job fixing me up, and I'll let you know right away if anything changes.”
Fluttershy brightened up a little at my compliment. “O-okay. I...I just did the best I could. I-I mean, it could have been better, but the buffaloes don't have a doctor here.”
One of the nearest buffaloes (Was it Rockhorn? It's really hard to tell them apart.) chuckled under his breath and swung his head in out direction. “We've never had a doctor,” he said with a joking grin. “We eat our wounded.”
Pinkie Pie gasped. “Just like chiropractors!”
“Everyone gather around,” Little Stongheart said loudly as she stepped forward, which cut the discussion off before it go any further. The few other conversations died away as well and all eyes turned to her.
“Now, as I'm sure you're all aware, we have a new tribe member. He successfully completed the trials that were appointed for him, and as such we will now formally welcome him into our ranks. Isn't that right, Matriarch?”
The silence after her question dragged on for several seconds. Everyone looked around uncertainly when no response was made.
“Mother! Wake up!” Thunderhooves growled and prodded the sleeping cow.
“SHUT UP AND MAKE ME A SANDWICH!” she screeched and swung her hoof at him. Or, rather, at where she thought he was, which happened to be a full 180 degrees off.
“Matriarch, we're trying to finalize Cog's entry to the tribe,” Strongheart said soothingly.
The Matriarch looked around in confusion, then grinned. “Riversteps! It's so nice to see you again! How's your garden, dear? Say, did I ever tell you about the time that I made love with four bulls at once?”
“Yes, you have,” Strongheart said quickly. “Now, if you could just—”
“It was sometime in the winter about three centuries ago, just south of the Whitetooth Mountains. We were in a meadow and the snow was coming down—”
“I thought it was in the spring by a river,” Pinkie Pie interrupted, a confused look on her face.
“That was the other time! One of them, anyway. Now where was I? Oh, right, I remember now. One of those bulls was Lizardtongue, and he certainly lived up to his name—”
“Mother!” Thunderhooves shouted, clearly getting irritated with the senile cow. “We're not here for your stories! We have a rite to finish.”
“Well, why didn't you just say so?” she asked impatiently as she entered yet another moment of mental clarity. “So rude! I swear, buffaloes never behaved so shamefully back in my day! Now where did that stallion get to?”
“Uh, over here,” I spoke up, then winced as her blind eyes focused in my direction. She stood up and shuffled over to me.
“Ah yes, the one who survived the fight with Ironjaw,” the Matriarch muttered wheezily as she lifted a frail hoof and gently prodded the poultice on my chest. “Seems to me like you got the worst of it. But since you're still alive, it's time to move on to the last few steps. Where's my bag? We need the feathers.”
“Here, Matriarch,” Little Stongheart said and stuck her face into the battered satchel from before. After a moment of searching, she pulled her head back up. Two feathers, one white with a black tip and one blue with thin red stripes, were clenched in her teeth.
“Right,” the Matriarch continued as Strongheart messed around with the feathers and a couple of small metal clips. “We'll stick these in your hair. The white feather identifies you as a member of our particular tribe. Just in case you ever find yourself in the company of another one. The blue one symbolizes that you've successfully overcome the trials of the Ancients, and the red bits were added to show that you spilled a little blood while doing it.”
“Is that bit important?” Twilight asked curiously. She was watching the whole thing intensely and a small quill was frantically writing down notes on a piece of paper in front of her.
“Not very,” Chief Thunderhooves answered. “It doesn't make much difference, but we still make the distinction.”
As Strongheart clipped the feathers to my mane, I glanced around at the surrounding buffaloes. The feathers hanging from their heads all seemed to be either white or a very light gray.
“Am I gonna have to leave these in forever?” I asked. The way things were going, the feathers would be ruined before the week was over.
Strongheart shook her head as she finished putting them in. “You can take them out later if you like, but it's bad form to be in or around the camp without them. Anyway, we're ready to advance to the next stage of your initiation.”
“Alright,” I nodded. “What's that?”
“It is customary for the new member to perform music of some kind for the rest of the tribe,” the chief said gruffly.
I blinked a few times. “Music?”
“Music,” Stongheart confirmed reassuringly. “You could sing or play an instrument—anything goes, really. And don't worry, we won't kick you out of the tribe based on your performance.” She smiled sheepishly during that last sentence, and I could tell that she realized just how dry that joke was.
“Hmm. Well, I guess I could—” I was cut off by a familiar bouncing streak of pink that picked me right up and set me down on the nearest log bench.
“Play this!” Pinkie said giddily as she pulled a guitar out of her saddlebag and shoved it into my hooves.
“Wha....Okay, seriously, how the hell did you carry this thing around in there?” I asked as I inspected the instrument. It was a plain wooden acoustic guitar with twenty-two frets and steel strings. It wasn't a very big one, but it was still quite a bit larger than her bag was.
“By sticking it between the stove knobs and the bicycle chains, duh!” she said, like she couldn't believe I even had to ask. Literally everyone in attendance raised an incredulous eyebrow at that.
I sighed and shook my head. “Pinkie Pie, you are so random.”
My right hoof plucked at the strings experimentally. Somehow, they were already in tune. As if this wasn't weird enough already, I thought to myself. Then again, Pinkie was involved. If it wasn't weird, that would have been...well...weird, I guess.
I thought for several moments, wondering what song to play. My own guitar was gathering dust in my apartment's closet, but I could still clearly remember how to play a few of my favorite songs. So I could just pick one at random and be done with it, right?
Then I realized that I had two big problems. First was the fact that I had already exposed the ponies to some of Earth's music during my last visit. Would they recognize a song that they had heard years before? Would they make the connection if they did? That would lead to awkward questions.
The other issue, which should have been extremely obvious, was that I was going to have to play with hooves instead of fingers. In case you somehow don't know this, you kind of need fingers to play a guitar worth a damn.
So I needed a song that the ponies had never heard, was so simple that I could have played it with one or two fingers, and was fairly slow to compensate for my lack of dexterity. It took a few seconds, but I thought of one that could work. I stuck my left hoof up to the guitar's neck and gently pressed it against the strings. With a little twisting and discomfort, I managed to form approximations of a few basic chords.
That'll work, I said to myself. It won't be perfect, but it's good enough.
I took a deep breath to prepare myself and began to play the actual song. The buffaloes and mares all cocked their ears with interest as the slow music filled the dry air. A few single notes with a hammer-on, a series of chords, more single notes, more chords.
The slides and bends that came afterward were a little more difficult, but they sounded decent enough. It wasn't long before I was strumming a simple four-chord pattern, which was a fair bit easier.
“So,” I sang quietly.
“So you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk-on part in the war
For a lead role
In a cage?”
I forewent the solo, instead playing the notes from the intro again. I probably could have pulled it off, but I thought it sounded better like that anyway. Then it was back to the chords again.
“How I wish,
How I wish you were here.
We're just
Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year.
Running over the same old ground,
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.”
A short outro followed, then I was finished. It wasn't the best rendition of that song, but everyone listening seemed to like it. A short round of polite applause broke out once I let the last note fade away.
After that, there were a few more stages of the ceremony to go through, which mostly consisted of the Matriarch chanting and the chief speaking. I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a peace pipe, but decided that it was probably for the best anyway.
Then it was time for the promised celebration. The buffaloes' idea of a party was to bring out some food and tell stories around the fire. I thought that Pinkie Pie seemed a little underwhelmed by how tame it was, but it was difficult to tell when she was constantly (and messily) devouring bowl after bowl of the gruel that our hosts provided.
I was pretty hungry myself, as I hadn't had anything to eat since the fruit salad on the train to Appleloosa. A few helpings of gruel took care of that, though it was a little annoying when Fluttershy tried to spoon-feed me. I proved that I could take care of myself by shoving my face into the bowl and licking out every last bit. It was an extremely uncouth way to eat, but still effective as hell.
Between bites of the gruel—which tasted like barley, with a touch of honey—the buffaloes asked questions. They wanted to know who I was, what I did, where I was from, and all kinds of personal information. I gave them as much information as I had given the ponies (that I was a tinker from Fillydelphia) and avoided the rest of their inquiries as best I could. I still didn't like lying, but I didn't dare to deviate from my story and risk exposing myself to the others.
By midnight, most of the buffaloes had fallen asleep and Little Strongheart finally agreed to lead the way to the sacred cave and Discord's message.
* * * * *
My knees felt like they were full of thumb tacks as we plodded along in the dark desert. I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore the pain and instead focused my attention on the wide, craggy mountain in front of us.
“Ain't this th' same cave where we was this mornin'?” Applejack asked as we approached the rocky mountainside. The wind was gusting erratically and whipped our manes and tails around forcefully.
“Yes, but that's not where we're going,” Strongheart replied as she trotted right past the dark hole's entrance. A blazing torch was held upright in a small canvas holster that hung over her shoulder, and the wind made the weak flame sputter and threaten to go out. “It should be right...about...here!”
She pointed at a bigger and darker hole about two hundred feet further along the side of the flinty mountain. A large arch of archaic symbols were carved into the rock over the tunnel's entrance. As we approached, the runes glowed with a bright orange light.
“Alright, now we're getting' somewhere,” Rainbow Dash said, then sped forward.
“Wait!” Strongheart cried out as the pegasus entered the rocky passage.
At the exact instant that Rainbow crossed the tunnel's threshold, I learned something about Equestria: there are two kinds of magic.
The first type is what I like to call “dumb” magic. It's the simpler of the two, and by all accounts it's easier to use. A “dumb” spell will work the same way on anything that it's cast at, regardless of what it is. For example, a unicorn's fireball usually doesn't care if it is cast at a tree, a rock, another pony, a stack of important papers, or nothing at all. To the spell, everything is just a target waiting to be burned.
By contrast, “smart” magic will make a distinction between potential targets based on the caster's intentions. It's much harder to cast and control, but an accomplished magician like Twilight can create spells that are able to function in multiple ways, depending on what it ends up affecting. I had actually experienced this kind of thing once before with the enchantments on the sword and shield that Princess Luna had given to me to fight the shadow dragon, but I hadn't realized or even cared at the time.
I had my second exposure to “smart” magic when the glowing runes shot out a lightning bolt that hit Rainbow Dash right between the eyes.
For an extremely brief moment, we could see all of the bones in her body, as if we were looking at her with a X-ray machine. Every hair in her mane and tail stuck straight out and small sparks of electricity arched between the feathers in her wings.
Then the force of the attack knocked Rainbow out of the air and sent her tumbling backward in the dust. The resulting thunderclap left a faint ringing in my ears and the air crackled menacingly as the energy dispersed.
“Holy shit,” I muttered to myself as we all ran toward the fallen pegasus.
“Dashie! Are you alright?” Pinkie cried out. Her characteristic smile was replaced with worry and panic.
Rainbow coughed and sat up as we reached her side. Her face was blackened and the fringes of her frazzled mane were singed, but she didn't seem to be seriously hurt.
“Ow,” she mumbled blearily as she rubbed the side of her head. “What the hell just happened?”
“I tried to warn you,” Little Strongheart said with a sigh of relief.
Once it was clear that Rainbow was fine, Pinkie's face split into a grin and she snickered.
“What's so funny?” Rainbow demanded crossly as she got back on her hooves.
“Oh Dashie, you just look so...” She paused to pull a pair of sunglasses out of thin air and put them on. “...shocked.”
We all looked at her in disbelieving silence for a few seconds. Pinkie slid the shades to the end of her nose and looked over them in every direction, as if she were expecting something to happen.
“Huh,” she mumbled disappointedly.
“Ooookay,” Applejack said slowly, then addressed the buffalo. “Jus' what in tarnation was that all 'bout?”
“Ancient enchantments,” Strongheart explained, and she pointed at the pulsing symbols. “These make it so that only a member of our tribe can pass through unharmed. The rest of you must wait here while we go inside. Come along, Cog.”
She walked right on into the gaping hole and out of the wind, which allowed the torch to recover and give off a decent amount of light. The carved runes glowed even brighter as she passed underneath them, but nothing else happened.
“Alright, I'll be back soon,” I told the others and stepped up to the hole.
“Wait, are you sure about this?” Rarity asked hesitantly.
“Why wouldn't I be?” I asked, surprised by her question. The others gave her a searching look as well.
“Well...it's just that...I'm not comfortable with the idea of you wandering off in your present condition,” she finished quickly and dropped her gaze to the ground the ground. I thought I could see a faint bit of red in her cheeks.
“Don't worry. He'll make it quick, right?” Twilight said, directing the last word pointedly in my direction.
“You won't even know I'm gone,” I promised, then cautiously stepped into the rocky tunnel after the buffalo cow. Again the symbols got brighter as I did so, but no lightning came.
“Follow me,” Strongheart said and began walking toward the darkness. I fell in step beside her.
“So, how far is it, exactly?” I asked as we slowly plodded away from the moonlight and our friends. My voice bounced off the walls and repeated my question a few times.
“Not far,” she murmured as she walked straight ahead, letting the torch illuminate the darkness as she did so.
The earthy air had a wholesome quality that somehow made my ever-present craving for nicotine subside, though it didn't disappear completely. I took a few deep breaths, but was forced to stop that when my left lung objected painfully and threatened to start another coughing fit.
We kept moving along the dark tunnel for about a minute or two without talking. The ground dipped downward at a shallow angle and banked gently to the right. Soon, the passage's entrance was completely out of sight.
The tunnel's rough walls were covered in crude paintings, most of which seemed to be about buffaloes. There were swarms of buffaloes running, setting up camps in the desert, talking with each other, wrestling with each other, playing some kind of game with a ball, and so on. Hundreds of them. There were a few ponies and griffons and even a zebra or two as well, but they were vastly outnumbered.
“These paintings are our tribe's history,” Strongheart explained softly. “They're a chronicle of our members. Now that you are a part of us, we'll have to add you in.”
She stopped, lifted the torch out of its holster, and stuck it in the ground. I watched curiously as she stuck her face into her bag and pulled out a small clay pot. She pulled off the lid, dipped her hoof inside, and drew out some charcoal-gray paint, which she smeared onto an empty section of the wall.
“This is you,” she explained as she added a second dollop.
“Do I really look that bad?” I asked as I eyed the indistinct smudge of paint. It didn't look like a pony, or anything at all for that matter.
Little Strongheart allowed herself a small chuckle. “Well, yes, but that's beside the point. You have to touch it now.”
“Touch it?”
“Touch it.”
I reached out and touched it. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, for a few seconds, nothing continued to happen. I was just standing there with my hoof in the dripping paint.
Just as I was starting to think that I'd become the victim of the lamest prank in history, the paint started to move. As I watched, the dark liquid bubbled and swirled. It shifted around and stretched out in every direction as if it were alive, both obeying and defying gravity at once.
Five seconds later, it stopped. I speechlessly pulled my hoof away. Where there had previously been a dark, shapeless splatter was now a distinctly pony-like painting. It even had a couple of gear-shaped spots on its flank that were a slightly lighter color than the rest.
“Huh? What just happened?” I asked uncertainly.
“Magic, obviously,” Strongheart said plainly as she picked up the torch once more.
“Well, I figured tha....Wait, you can do that?” I looked at her sharply.
She stared back at me, a trace of confusion coloring her expression. “Of course. Surely you don't think that only ponies are capable of magic, do you?”
“I...uh...I don't know much about magic,” I replied truthfully.
Stronheart accepted that with a slow nod. “I suppose that's not surprising, since you're not a unicorn,” she said quietly as she started walking down the tunnel again and I followed about half a step behind. “Our magic isn't the same as pony magic, but it exists. Who did you think enchanted the entrance back there?”
“Hmm.”
The wall paintings became even more numerous as we continued our journey, and some of them actually covered up other, older pictures. Along the top of the tunnel was a streak of brilliant white paint that twisted around in fluid swirls. I nearly dismissed that whole thing as a fancy cloud, then did a double-take as I noticed a pale buffalo face sticking out of a thin tendril.
I looked closer and saw more faces in the streak. Dozens of them. Scores of horned heads looking down impassively at us.
“What are those?” I asked and pointed.
“The Ancients,” Little Strongheart answered, not even bothering to look up. “According to the legends, the spirits of our ancestors bring the clouds that pass over the desert every year. Supposedly, they can choose to hold back the rain if we make them angry or haven't honored their memories enough. That's what the stories say, anyway.”
I raised an eyebrow at her scoffing tone. “I take it that you don't believe that?”
She shook her head. “Of course not. Contrary to what you may have heard, we're not a bunch of backward savages. We know that clouds are either made or form naturally. The Matriarch is the only one who still insists that the Ancients are real, and that's only when she's not screaming at every rock or cactus that gives her a funny look. The rest of us just go along with it to keep her happy.”
I wanted to press for a little more information, but our conversation was cut short as the tunnel opened up into a small rounded cavern. The razor-sharp stalactites that hung from the ceiling immediately reminded me of my fight with Ironjaw and how badly it had almost ended.
Little Strongheart stuck her torch into a crude stone brazier that stood off to the side, and the wood within it immediately caught flame. The new fire illuminated the rest of the place nicely.
Unlike the one from that morning, this cave's many stalagmites had all had their tops cut off and replaced with short wooden blocks. Each piece of wood was covered in carvings and paint that all blended together in hypnotic patterns. A few had runes and letters scrawled on their surfaces, and one or two glowed softly as we came close.
“What are these?” I asked as I inspected one of the blocks more closely. The edges were lined with wavy symbols.
“These are our totems. The writing is mostly prophecies and predictions that came from either the Matriarch or her predecessors.”
“Really? What kinds of prophecies?”
Strongheart indicated the totem that I had been looking at. “If I remember correctly, this one says that some kind of plague will spread across the world. And the sign that it's about to happen is a whale and a bowl of petunias falling from the sky.”
I stared at her in disbelieving shock. “What.”
“I know, it doesn't make any sense at all. That's one of the reasons why none of us really pay attention to the Matriarch.”
“Huh. That's interesting. So, where's the clue?”
“Over here,” she said quietly and stepped up to the biggest totem, which stood at the far end of the cave. It was at least nine feet tall and the air around it pulsed with a faint blue light.
The top of the scarred wood had been skillfully sculpted and painted to look like a large raven's head. Great care had gone into each carved feather, and a polished black stone served as a beady eye. I could have sworn that the thing was actually looking at me as I approached.
But if the top of the totem was a piece of art made by a buffalo who knew what he was doing, the bottom half was anything but. There, the paint had dripped and smeared before drying, and most of the inscribed words were messy to the point of being completely illegible. As a readable account, it left a lot to be desired.
Jumbled and confused as the buffaloes' work was, Discord had made it abundantly clear which part was his doing. He'd put several colorful arrows on the totem, which all pointed at a bunch of black letters.
N
E O
R M E
H A I F
T O N G E
A D R I T D
“Another puzzle,” I groaned to myself. “That's just great.”
“We've tried to figure out what it means,” Strongheart offered evenly. “But we haven't been able to find a pattern that makes sense. As far as we can tell, it's just a jumble of letters.”
“There's a message in there somewhere,” I muttered as I examined the paint intently. “You just need to find out how to see it.”
* * * * *
I spent the better part of an hour staring at the clue and mentally demanding that it solve itself. Frustratingly, that didn't happen.
Reading the rows of letters in order obviously didn't give any kind of clear message. Neither did moving the lines around, no matter how I cut them. Reversing the order of the letters proved to be completely ineffectual. Reading in a zigzag pattern didn't help at all.
Little Strongheart had brought along some pencils and a few pieces of paper, which I quickly filled up with scribblings and copies of the clue. I tried writing the triangle of letters upside down, rotated both ways, upside down and rotated both ways, and anything else that I could think of. Nothing made the letters form coherent words.
I tapped my hoof against the floor in agitation. Something was nagging at the back of my head, and I struggled to figure out what exactly it was. It was like an itch inside my skull, and the only way to scratch it was to work out Discord's clue.
“Fuck,” I whispered for the dozenth time and rubbed my temples. My head felt swollen and my injuries ached. I wanted to sit down in the corner with a cigarette and a stiff drink while I unraveled the mystery.
Then it suddenly hit me. The corners! If I took just the three letters that made up the corners of the triangle and dropped the top one between the bottom two, I got AND.
That's a start, I thought as I excitedly crossed those letters off my written copy and wrote them in a blank spot underneath. That left just eighteen more letters to decipher.
For a minute or so, I was stumped again. A small part of my brain insisted that I was on the right track and that there was a method to the madness that was only just beyond of my mental reach. I could feel that I'd made some progress, and I refused to back down from the challenge.
Hmm, I thought as I considered the problem yet again. If I got the first three letters by reading in a clockwise motion...
I wrote down the three letters that were placed clockwise in relation to the corner ones. TOT. That wasn't exactly a proper word, but I was already taking the letters that were clockwise in relation to those letters. HEI. And again. RFR. Once more. EED.
At this point, the outside layer of the triangle was entirely crossed out. That left another, smaller triangle. I took off the corners (OMG) and read the last three letters clockwise like before (AIN).
My pencil quickly wrote out the letters one last time, leaving spaces where it seemed appropriate to separate the words.
AND TO THEIR FREEDOM GAIN
I spat out the pencil and eyed the message critically. It was worded awkwardly and was perhaps even less informative than the first clue, but the words had come from a clear and simple (if obscure) pattern.
Little Strongheart peeked over my shoulder at what I had written. “Is that what it means?”
“Took you long enough to figure it out.”
Strongheart and I both looked around for the source of that voice. Other than the two of us, the cave appeared to be completely deserted.
“You know, I really expected better of you,” Discord's voice continued while we kept searching for him. “I thought you'd be done with everything by now. Instead, you've been wasting my time and patience.”
Little Strongheart tapped my shoulder and pointed at a length of wall above the lit brazier. I looked and noticed that the flickering light left a faint but clear shadow on the stone. A shadow that looked suspiciously like it belonged to a certain draconequus that I knew.
“Is that so?” I asked the disembodied shadow.
“Yes, actually,” he said back with a huff of annoyance. “You're supposed to be entertaining me, but instead I had to watch you spend a whole night carrying a boulder around. That was so dull! It bored me to tears! But I guess sometimes you just have to make your own fun.”
My eyes were drawn to one of Discord's shadow's arms, specifically the one that belonged to a lion. A sudden realization sparked in my mind.
“You asshole! You messed with those rocks!”
He crossed his arms and his head distorted as if he was stucking his nose in the air. “So what if I did? After suffering through that first test of yours and not getting a second one, I think I deserved to see something a little more actiony.”
“So you made me fight a fucking psychopath?” I could feel my anger rising by the second.
“And I helped you get in the ring in the first place,” Discord said, his voice both smug and unconcerned.
“What the hell? Why?”
Shadow-Discord waved a hand dismissively. “I just told you why. And if you don't like me interfering, keep things interesting and don't let me get bored. I tend to get creative when I'm bored. Adjö!”
Without another word, he slid over to a narrow crack in the wall and slithered out of sight. For a few seconds, the only sound was the fire crackling.
“What was that about?” Little Strongheart asked, speaking for the first time since Discord's appearance.
I shook my head. “I have no idea. C'mon, let's get out of here.” I carefully picked up the loose pieces of paper in my mouth and started walking toward the tunnel.
“Hold on,” Strongheart said, and I paused. “Do you remember what we said about records of what's written on the totem?” She tilted her head forcefully at the burning brazier.
It took a moment of thought, but I did clearly recall Chief Thunderhooves saying that copies weren't allowed. So, after taking a few seconds to ensure that I had the clue thoroughly memorized, I trotted over and obediently dropped the papers into the flames. Within seconds, only ashes remained.
Little Strongheart nodded approvingly. “Good. Sorry, but rules are rules. You saw how the chief is.”
“Right. Can I at least tell the others what the clue means? I mean, technically it's not what's written on the totem thing, and it'll really help.”
She considered for a moment, then nodded again. “I guess there's no harm in that.”
* * * * *
A few minutes later, we were back outside. The mares were all eager to hear what I'd found, and I quickly told them everything.
When I explained what had happened and what Discord's puzzle meant, Rainbow Dash facehoofed hard. “Another useless clue? This whole trip was just a fucking waste of time!”
“Hold yer horses,” Applejack said. “We can't be tossin' out information jus' 'cause we don' like it. We don' exactly have much ta go on, anyway.”
Twilight nodded. “I agree. We can't discount anything, no matter how insignificant it may seem. Although I must say that it's a very odd choice of words.”
“'And to their freedom gain,'” Rarity muttered, rolling the words around on her tongue. “There must be a reason why he didn't make it 'and to gain their freedom.'”
“Maybe...” Fluttershy began, then stopped and looked at the ground.
“Maybe what?” Pinkie asked.
Fluttershy flushed with embarrassment as we all looked in her direction. “I...I was just thinking that m-maybe it's like the first clue. M-maybe Cog will have a d-dream an-and then it will make sense.”
The group's collective attention turned to me, and it was my turn to feel self-conscious.
“Uh...I don't think so,” I said uncomfortably. “I think that was a one-time thing.”
“What are you talking about?” Little Strongheart asked, her face filled with confusion. “What's this about dreaming?”
Pinkie took it upon herself to answer. “Well, it's a reeeeeally long story, even though it's kind of a short one. When we were in Manehattan, we found the first clue, and it said something about a mystic mare, but it was a fake. Then Cog had a dream about the mare from the fake clue and she told him the real clue! And isn't that weird that a giraffe only has seven bones in its neck?”
The buffalo looked even more puzzled than before. “I...I still don't understand.”
“Join th' club,” Applejack muttered.
None of us said anything for a few seconds. The only sounds came from the gusting wind and the flecks of sand and dust that it whirled around on the ground. It suddenly occurred to me how cold the desert was at night, and I shivered reflexively.
Twilight cleared her throat softly, which gathered our attention to her. “Well, if we're done here, we should get going. While you two were in the cave, we got a letter from Princess Celestia, and she wants to meet with us in Canterlot as soon as possible. She sent a train just for us, and it should be arriving in Appleloosa soon.”
“Leaving so soon?” Strongheart asked, a trace of disappointment in her voice.
Twilight nodded. “I'm afraid so. We need to head out at once.”
I groaned inwardly at the thought of the long walk back to the town, but kept my expression under control.
* * * * *
We returned to the buffalo camp first to let Chief Thunderhooves know of our departure. He also seemed unsatisfied about it, but acknowledged that we should heed the Princess' call without delay. The Matriarch was too busy snoring to care one way or the other.
We shared a few brief farewells. Strongheart seemed particularly reluctant to let me leave without waiting to heal properly, but offered no active resistance.
We then left the camp behind and began the trek to Appleloosa, which was fairly uneventful. Despite the aches in my legs and spine, we arrived in the town and found our way to its small train station without any kind of incident.
“Wait here,” Twilight said. She stepped off the platform and walked away along the row of wooden buildings.
“Where are you going?” Rainbow asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I need to have a few words with Sheriff Silverstar,” Twilight called over her shoulder.
The other ponies and I exchanged glances as she trotted into the darkness. Then we all sat down on the wooden benches and waited for the train to show up.
The town was gloomy and still. Most of the buildings were dark and very few of the inhabitants were still out and about at this hour. The wind whistled through the alleys between houses and blew a few unsecured window shutters around.
It's like a ghost town, I thought to myself as I watched a few tumbleweeds rolled across the street.
After about ten or fifteen minutes of uneasy silence, the train came into sight. It was painted a dusky blue and consisted of only the engine and a single passenger car, and it wasted no time in pulling up to the station's platform.
The combined noise from the chugging engine and screeching brakes woke up about half of the town. Lights came on, windows burst open, and doors cracked. Everywhere, pony heads appeared and peered in our direction to see why a train was coming in the middle of the night.
Once the train stopped moving and shot a bunch of compressed air out of the brakes, a brown pegasus stuck his head out the window of the engine compartment. His medium-length blonde mane hung limply from his head and his coat was spatted with black coal dust. Thick round glasses distorted his green eyes and made them look even bigger than they were.
“Miss...Sparkle?” he said uncertainly as he looked the six of us over.
“She'll be returning soon,” Rarity assured him.
Right on cue, Twilight rounded the street corner and headed in our direction. To my surprise, she had Braeburn right on her heels.
“Alright, let's go,” Twilight said as she made a beeline for the passenger car's door.
“Do ya'll really have ta leave so quick?” Braeburn asked unhappily. “Ah was hopin' ya'd stay fer a few more days.”
“Sorry, cuz',” Applejack replied. “But if th' Princess wants ta see us lickety split, Ah ain't gonna tell 'er no. 'Sides, th' sooner Ah git mah sis back safely, th' sooner Ah can stop worryin' 'bout 'er.”
“Yeah, Ah guess so,” Braeburn allowed, then he focused on me. His eyebrows shot up into his hat. “Whoa. What happened ta ya? What's with all th' bandages?”
“Long story,” I said as the rest of the ponies filed into the train. “If you ask the buffaloes, I'm pretty sure they can tell you all about it.”
“Maybe Ah will. Ya know, 'sa shame Ah never got a chance ta show ya th' rest o' th' town. It ain't often we get visitors 'round these parts. Maybe next time?”
“If I'm ever out here again, I'll let you know,” I reassured him.
Braeburn face brightened up a little at that. “Well, good luck out there.”
“Thanks, we'll need it.” With that, I climbed aboard the train.
As soon as my hooves left the platform, the train's wheels started turning. The engine puffed and chugged mightily as we got underway toward the nearest turnabout. Through the glass in the far door, I could see the conductor pegasus fiddling with knobs and levers to keep the locomotive running.
Outside the windows, the Appleloosa ponies were still staring curiously, obviously trying to figure out what all the commotion was about. Braeburn waved a hoof as we began to pick up speed. A few seconds later, I couldn't see any of them anymore.
The interior or the car, like the other train, was filled with benches and tables. The six mares had already seated themselves on the padded seats. Rainbow Dash was too preoccupied with sleeping to notice anything around her.
I laid down on a bench that was directly across the cabin from Twilight's perch and shared a table with Fluttershy's. The yellow pegasus gave me a tired smile, then yawned and closed her eyes. Seconds later, she was fully asleep, despite the continuing noise from the train's engine and wheels.
“What did you need to talk to the sheriff about?” I asked Twilight in a whisper, so as to avoid waking Fluttershy up.
The unicorn tiredly blinked her eyes a few times before answering. “Huh? Oh, right. Sorry, I'm having trouble concentrating right now. I had a few words with him about the trouble between Appleloosa and the buffaloes.”
Applejack raised her head and looked over. “Ya mean th' problems they've been havin' tradin' with each other?”
Twilight nodded. “Yes. It took a little persuasion, but I got Sheriff Silverstar to agree to talk with Chief Thunderhooves about it. Hopefully they'll get to the bottom of everything and it will all blow over before things get ugly.”
“How big of a problem is it?” I asked curiously. The train hit a small bump in the rails, and the windows rattled in response.
“Judging by the buffaloes' actions, it's pretty bad. I mean, they wouldn't let Appleloosa's doctor into their camp, and they refused to even consider letting even one of them take their rite of passage.”
“Lucky them,” I muttered under my breath as a shifted my weight to get more comfortable. My back prickled painfully.
Twilight didn't seem to notice my comment. “If things go according to plan, they'll work it out and eventually forget that anything even happened. When we get to Canterlot, I'll see if the Princess can send somepony to keep an eye on them and make sure that they really do work things out.”
“Well, that's good,” Applejack said with a stifled yawn. She set her head back down and tilted her hat so that it covered her face.
I took that as a sign that it was time to go to sleep. The bench's padding was comfortable, the noise level was tolerable, and I was worn out to the point that I really wouldn't have cared if it were otherwise. I curled my legs up underneath myself as best as I could and let my aching muscles relax.
It took all of thirty seconds before I drifted off.