“Archeon and I were orphans,” Cirrus said. After returning to Aitran, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash had agreed to question the book-trapped stallions before discussing anything else. “My own parents perished during the Days of Chaos. I’m not wholly sure why Star Swirl chose me, a pegasus, and Archeon, an earth pony, as wards and apprentices, but I think it may have been partly political – a show of unity between the races or something. He treated us like sons, promised to try and teach us everything he knew about Writing new worlds once we were old enough. We came to live on Aitran so Master Star Swirl could devote himself to the work of creating and exploring the worlds, and shortly thereafter he brought Clover to join us as his wife.
“Archeon has us all fooled. Once he and I were old enough to be trusted with traveling on our own, he began to exploit and terrorize the inhabitants of many worlds, subtly at first so that he would not be caught, but growing more and more deranged as time went by. I tried to reason with him, but to no avail. Finally, Star Swirl left on an extended trip to another world and Archeon’s insanity reached its peak. Little Nyx, Star Swirl’s pride and joy… vanished without a trace. She probably discovered what he was doing…
“Now, I should tell you, even with the freedom Star Swirl gave to me and Archeon, there were certain books which he withheld. The red and blue books we are trapped in now are just two of them, and the most… deceptive of the lot.” He scowled for a second before recomposing his calm façade. “Archeon tricked Clover into entering another of the forbidden books,” he said, “After that, his derangement reached its zenith, burning book after book. Worst of all, when Master Star Swirl returned, Archeon attempted to pin the blame upon me, and he condemned us both to these prison books, but not before Archeon committed a final treachery, mortally wounding the old stallion. You must have seen for yourself, the evidence for my would-be brother’s violence and insanity. Do not release him from his book; he will only turn on you.
“Now,” the dusky blue stallion said, “to the business at hand. The final page separating me from my freedom lies within this very library.”
“Horse feathers,” Dash scoffed, “we’ve searched every nook and cranny of this place. There was only the one page we found sitting next to you when we first got here.”
“Did you look in the nook behind the fireplace?” Cirrus asked, quirking an eyebrow and smirking as Rainbow’s face fell, “I thought not. On the bookcase, on the far right of the middle shelf if I recall right, you’ll find a book that is only slightly singed. In it you will find many patterns. Put pattern number one hundred thirty three onto the panel inside the fireplace and you will be taken to the hidden nook. In there, you will find the final red page. You’ll probably also find a blue page, but do not take it. You will also find a green book. If you believe nothing else from me, believe this: that book is a trap like mine. Do not open it, do not even touch it, or you will be pulled into it and trapped like me. Remember: pattern one thirty-three. None of the others will work.”
“Got it,” Twilight said before closing the book. She shared a glance with Rainbow, and then pulled out the blue page and walked over to Archeon’s book.
“I was living on the streets when the Master found me and took me in,” Archeon said after being prompted for his story, “He brought in Cirrus at the same time, and I knew in my gut from the start that he was trouble. Born to a high-ranking pegasus family, I wouldn’t doubt. Such superior airs he began to put on as we grew up… He was a perfect little apprentice when Master had his eye on him of course, but once we were given free rein to visit the illusions he began to slither his way into positions of power among the figures that played out around us, moving like the slimy snake he is to squeeze as many riches and fine things as he could out of them. And he was jealous, oh so very jealous of Nyx and how smart she was becoming. He probably would have turned on me if he’d seen me as a threat to his advancement in Master’s eyes. His greed isn’t limited to the material you know. He wants power, fame, prestige.
“Nyx caught on to Cirrus while Master was away for some experiment in another illusion. Cirrus forced Nyx into a forbidden book, and then fooled Ms. Clover into going after her with no means of returning. Then, feeling free from any restraint, he ransacked the illusions until he grew bored, and then burned the books behind him. I tried, but I couldn’t get him to stop. When the Master returned, the snake tried to tell him that I was the culprit! Master almost saw through the ruse, but decided to punish both of us with imprisonment. It would’ve been temporary, but… Cirrus poisoned the Master, venomous-”
“Archeon,” Twilight said with concern, “You know Cirrus isn’t actually a snake, right?”
The bearded dun pony stopped and stared blankly for a second. “I need to get out of here,” he muttered at last, and then raised his voice back to normal, “You see what this is doing to me? Listen, one more page is left. It’s behind the fireplace. Go the bookshelf, on the far right in the middle there is a book with patterns in it. Use pattern one thirty-three on the panel inside the fireplace to reach the last page. Take the blue one, not the red. Cirrus does not deserve to be freed. There’s also a book a there, a green book. Do not open it. No, don’t even touch it! It is trapped like this book that holds me; it will do the same to you if you touch it. Please, please free me! I’m so close…” Twilight simply nodded as she closed the book on him.
“All right,” she said, heading over to the bookcase, “Right end of the middle shelf…” She tapped the book in question with her hoof a couple times, and when it didn’t crumple into ashes she pulled it out with her magic. The edges were blackened, but the volume was solidly intact. The brown cover was marked only by a square made of four smaller squares. Twilight opened it to a random page and found a pattern of small squares set into a grid six squares tall by eight wide. A quick flip through the book revealed more patterns of the same type. With a satisfied nod, Twilight closed the book and then reached up to press the painting-switch to open the secret passageway.
“Where are you going?” Rainbow asked.
“Down to the home,” Twilight answered, tapping a hoof patiently while the bookcase formed into stairs, “We’ve got a lot of information to sort through, and I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.” The pegasus’s stomach rumbled and Twilight gave her a small smile before beckoning down the passageway with a tilt of her head.
While Rainbow Dash took charge of scavenging through the pantry, Twilight made full use of the table in the sitting room, setting out the three journals (discounting the one still stuck in the rocket), what notes had survived the adventure up to this point, the torn note regarding the hidden vault, and some odds and ends borrowed from the sleeping quarters to symbolize certain things. She held Nyx’s empty diary in her magic as she jotted down fresh notes in it, making connections wherever she could find them. The sudden introduction of a large bowl of salad into the middle of her system brought the unicorn back to reality and she looked up to see Rainbow Dash taking a seat across the table from her with a salad of her own.
“Start talking egghead,” the cyan pegasus said, “This affects me as much as you, so I want to get my two bits in.”
Twilight took a few bites of her food to buy time to decide on a starting point, and then said, “Right now, we have two versions of what happened, with the only fundamental differences between them being who is at fault. Cirrus claims that his collections of expensive-looking stuff are due to a healthy love of fine things and wanting to live in comfort, and that Archeon is a sadistic monster who ravaged and destroyed the book-worlds for giggles. Archeon says he was merely preparing for his own defense against attacks by others, and Cirrus is at fault for stripping the worlds of their wealth and destroying the remnant.”
“Archeon never called those places ‘worlds,’” Rainbow said, “He always used the word ‘illusion.’ He doesn’t think they really exist. Isn’t that a bit odd considering he lived here for so long?”
“It certainly is,” Twilight replied with a nod, “and when we bring all the evidence together- the things he kept in his rooms, those sea charts in Baseli, and that ‘altar’ in the Forestsea…” She shuddered. “He may believe his own story, but he was certainly not a sane pony before he wound up in that book.”
“Cirrus wasn’t a great guy either,” Rainbow said, “I’m pretty sure Arcy was telling the truth about Cirrus being jealous of Nyx. Did you notice how hard it was for him to even say her name without losing his cool?”
“But it was Archeon who gave us an actual explanation for Nyx’s disappearance,” Twilight said, “So either Cirrus doesn’t actually know what happened to her, or he was trying to cover his tracks by being vague.” They both fell silent for a few moments as they ate and thought.
“You know,” Rainbow said at last, “We might be on the wrong track, trying to pin the blame on just one of them. I mean, if only one of them was bad, why didn’t the good one do more to stop them? Also, there was a machine in Archeon’s Forestsea room, which I think was meant to control the illusion above the altar. It had a message on it from Cirrus though. He said ‘He is coming. It is time, my would-be brother. Remember, take only a single page.’ I bet they were in cahoots with one another.”
“I’ve been leaning toward that myself,” Twilight said, lifting up the torn note, “half of this was found in Archeon’s territory and the other half was in Cirrus’s. This vault it talks about was important enough for them to try and obscure its location and use, but they didn’t want to risk forgetting how to get at it. However,” she dropped the note with a sigh, “even if they’re both bad ponies, we’re going to have to take a risk on one of them soon unless Princess Celestia gets a rescue party to us.”
“Could we let them both out?” Rainbow pondered, “If they have each other to deal with…”
“They’ll be twice as likely to turn on us,” Twilight said, getting up from her seat, “Between the two of us, we can probably handle one shifty or insane pony, but not a pair who have a history of working together. So the question is, Cirrus or Archeon?”
“I wish it could be neither,” Rainbow said dully, getting up as well, “I can’t stand liars and back-stabbers. I’ll leave it up to you Twilight, I’m sure you’ll make the most logical choice.”
“Ok,” Twilight said hesitantly. Will the logical choice be the right though? she thought as she grabbed the pattern book and led the way back up to the library.
Neither Twilight nor Rainbow had paid the large green-brick fireplace much thought after their first look around the library, but now it was the most important wall in the building. It looked like it had been built behind the wall, with an arch carved into the wood paneling to expose it. The mantel itself was framed with white stone and was big enough for Twilight to walk through, although she had to duck her head pretty low to do so. The interior was more than adequately sized for her to turn around and for her to hold the pattern book open next to her, and there was no flue to prevent her from standing upright. In fact, there was no chimney, as Twilight remembered Rainbow mentioning previously. Above her head was only a ceiling and a dark light bulb. Looking back down at the entrance, she spotted a red switch on one side and hit it. A silvery-grey panel slid down to cover the exit and the light turned on, focused on the panel. I guess this is what they were talking about, Twilight thought, but how does it work? There were no buttons, sliders, or any markings on the panel; it was just a solid sheet of metal. Twilight gave it a tap with her hoof and a small square suddenly jutted out with a springing noise. “Well ok then,” Twilight said, pressing the square. It sprang back, leaving the panel surface flat and unmarred again. Satisfied that she’d figured out the mechanisms involved, Twilight opened the book to the hundred and thirty-third pattern and set to work copying it onto the panel.
Once the pattern was formed to her satisfaction, Twilight closed the book and waited. After a second of nothing happening, she frowned, opened the book back up, and double-checked her work. “Either I got this wrong somehow, they gave me the wrong pattern, or I have to do one more thing,” she mused, scratching her head, “What would Rainbow do?” Her eye fell on the red switch and, with a shrug, hit it again. The light went out, and the panel, the floor, and part of the wall behind her all rotated in a half-circle. The light switched back on and the panel slid up out of sight, presenting Twilight with a small alcove with two shelves. The bottom shelf held the red and blue pages, and on the top shelf sat a green book. “Ok,” Twilight said, licking her lips nervously, “here we are Twilight, decision time. Do we release the slimy, calculating Cirrus, or Archeon the sociopath? Do either of them even know how to get to Equestria from here?” The question gave her pause. She hadn’t even wanted to consider that option, but now she couldn’t help it. She had never explicitly asked Archeon if he knew of a way, and she wasn’t sure Rainbow had either. Cirrus had refused to give her a straight answer on the subject, but he’d put a lot of effort into sounding like a pony of his word. If Twilight had to be honest with herself, she could easily see the dusky blue pegasus sweet-talking his way into or out of anything he wanted to. And yet he got trapped in a book, she finished, driving that line of thought out of the spotlight. It was a gamble, and the odds didn’t seem to be in her favor.
Twilight’s eyes drifted up to the green book. While the two stallion’s stories had shared the same basic framework, there were only a few details that they had absolutely agreed upon, besides insisting that the other was wholly in the wrong. The first detail had been the pattern that had brought her to this point, which made sense considering they both stood to benefit from telling the truth about it. The second detail had been that Star Swirl’s wife Clover had been trapped in a forbidden book, although whether it was a trap-book or a link to a dangerous world they hadn’t said. Although Archeon mentioned that she hadn’t taken a way out with her, Twilight thought, probably meaning an Aitran book. Detail three was that Star Swirl was dead, although the means of his death weren’t consistent. The final detail, and the only other one that was totally consistent between the two, was that the green book was not to be opened or touched.
“That is curious,” Twilight reasoned aloud, “While it obviously wouldn’t do them any good for their potential liberator to end up trapped like them, no book I’ve run into warps you anywhere by touching the outside. And I’m pretty sure it has to be physical contact anyway.” She smirked as she wrapped the green book in her telekinesis magic and gave it a light upward push. The book slowly floated up from its spot, already marking itself as different from the red and blue books, which were magically bound to their alcoves. Still erring on the side of caution, Twilight floated the book closer and opened it with her magic to the first page. The pages were white and written upon with solid black ink, in Old Equestrian characters written in a painstakingly geometric style that filled the entire page with almost no margins. Twilight started to read the words out of reflex, but then caught herself with a wry smile and flipped to the back page. The linking panel sat in its usual place filling up half of the final page, and the image it showed left Twilight’s jaw hanging. It was not the roiling, hissing void that had alternately backed and covered Cirrus and Archeon, but stone-walled room containing a large desk covered in books, loose papers, writing implements, and equipment Twilight couldn’t identify. Twilight’s attention was held by the pony standing behind the desk: a grey unicorn with a long flowing beard wearing a distinctive blue robe with a matching pointed hat that had bells sewn around the rim and a single bell weighing down the tip. He had been focused on writing something, but after a second, he looked up and his blue eyes widened in surprise behind his half-moon spectacles.
“Who the devil are you?” he asked.