Ancient cities and false treasures.
She didn’t look like a madmare. Not at first glance. The neat mane, the plain flowing tail, and the well-kept coat—her appearance might be simple, but it was clear that she took decent care of herself. The Mule, who had been making up for lost sleep, half-opened one bleary eye and considered the Dark Lord Sassaflash, surrounded by satchels and bags and curled up at the back of one of the train’s benches like a hermit crab in its shell. She was hunched over a torn, tattered old book bound in some strange material that the Mule did not recognize. It was reminiscent of beaten willow bark, but thicker, and there was a vague familiarity about its texture that left him uneasy. He found himself hoping that he wouldn’t realize what it was.
Eon-old writings and buried towers.
The rows of neat, glass-backed benches lining the train car flickered into darkness as the Friendship Express plunged into one of the many tunnels lining the long, winding railway up the Canterhorn. Beneath the rattle of wheels and the rush of battered air, the old creature caught the papery flap of a page being turned. Daylight began to seep back into the train car as it neared the other end of the tunnel, and he saw the faint silhouette of the pegasus mare still poring through her book despite the near-total darkness. She looked up, noticed that he was watching her, scowled, and returned her attention to the book. One of the bags beside her wriggled slightly, and he decided that, for the sake of his own comfort, he should probably direct his attention elsewhere.
Strange beasts from the stars and from deep underground.
Six hours earlier, when the Mule and Sweetie Belle were wading through the chill, pre-dawn mists swirling in the hollows of Ponyville’s empty roads, the little filly had told him strange stories of worlds and beings altogether alien to the sane, sensible land of Equestria. Sassaflash, she said, had uncovered secrets that were hidden or forgotten by all other ponies. Sassaflash spoke with monsters and demons and wise skulking things. Sassaflash wrote in scripts that had crumbled to glowing cinders centuries ago, consumed in pyres stacked high with forbidden books.
Sassaflash knew.
It was a captivating story, and had clearly captivated the young unicorn. Oblivious to the Mule’s concerned gaze she had prattled happily along, telling him the things she had learned and the many, many more things that she would someday understand. To his surprise and consternation, she had even shown him some of the magic that the pegasus had taught her, scraping out a series of twisting sigils in the roadside loam and muttering in a language that didn’t seem to have been designed with the mouths of ponies in mind. The first three tries were failures, but after the fourth Sweetie Belle had raised her hoof—and the symbols had continued to write themselves. Little furrows dipped and swooped through the dust, their edges limned with a tracery of frost as they cycled back through the original sequence of patterns again and again.
“It’s like a ball bouncing up and down. You just have to ‘throw’ it right. It’ll keep on going like that for a while, but eventually it’ll go like this,” the little unicorn had waved her hooves wildly, “and fall apart.”
“Ain’t that something,” the Mule had responded, edging away from the swirling eddies in the dust. “Ain’t that just something. We best be getting on, Missy.”
Sweetie Belle might have noticed the hastiness with which the Mule distanced himself from the weirdly dancing glyphs; at any rate, she made no comment as she hurried along after him, and had remained silent as they left Mane Street by a side path and made their way down a sloping, tree-shadowed byway that led to the lake. Her companion supposed that she had told all she was going to tell.
As they made their way along a winding lakeside path, though, the moonlight off the lake flashing through gaps in the trees, the little filly had abruptly spoken up again. She told the Mule how sometimes Sassaflash would start to say a word and then stop, or slam books shut when she came in to a room too quickly. There were creatures or things, Sweetie Belle thought, that the tense, paranoid mare didn’t want her to know about, although she had managed to pick up a few details—nothing much, just random fragments and hints. They were large, maybe, and at least one of them was somehow associated with the color yellow. Another wore masks, or had different faces—she wasn’t sure which. Several of them were linked in some way to the ocean.
And all of them, whatever they were, were very, very, very old.
Every so often the Mule would mutter a surprised “Well I never” or a “You don’t say” as the little unicorn spoke, but for the most part he had remained silent, interrupting only to ask the occasional clarifying question—and even those were few and far between. He had enough to ponder as it was; he hardly needed more things to think about. So preoccupied was the old beast, in fact, that when they arrived at the door of Sweetie Belle’s home and the little unicorn had flashed a nervous smile and sidled inside, he had merely nodded vaguely and tromped off again—and only remembered that he ought to have told her parents what she had been up to a good twenty minutes after the fact. Too late then, of course.
The Mule felt as though he had ordered a small sheaf of hay as an after-dinner snack, and instead an entire bale had thumped down on the table. Sassaflash knew about the Dreamlands; well, that was strange, and not a thing that any pony normally knew of. It might be that she knew some other things, too; magic for Earth ponies, some old legends and spells, and so on and so forth. He was happy to accept that.
So he had held out his hoof to receive some small dark wriggling secret, something unobtrusive that had squirmed down through the ages only because it was too small to be noticed—and instead Sweetie Belle had simply raised her hoof and pointed to the sky, and the black gulfs between the stars had suddenly become the silhouettes of titan towers and world-beasts, obscene and terrible in their immensity. They were truths that had remained hidden not because they were small, but because they were big—too big for any normal pony to hope to comprehend, too big for the world itself.
So Sweetie Belle had claimed, at least. So Sassaflash had claimed. The old half-blood wasn’t sure how much of it he believed, although he felt that he should probably figure that out fairly soon, given that he had agreed to go along with the crazy mare on whatever tomfool quest she had planned. At least Sweetie Belle wasn’t coming along. A filly didn’t need to be thinking about such things, whether they were true or not.
A shivering jolt disturbed him from his reverie. The train had reached the higher reaches of the Canterhorn, sweeping up and around the sides of the gigantic inselberg on spiraling tracks carved into the living stone. On one side of the train was solid rock, soaring up to the peak far above, while on the other side a precipitous cliff plunged a thousand yards down to the green, marshy lowlands below. Sassaflash was looking out over this dizzying vista now, her forehooves propped up on the sill of one of the train windows, and the other passengers in the train car—fortunately no more than an old dowager griffon with her grandchick and a Fillydelphian pony family, but they were quite enough—were looking at Sassaflash. After a moment the Dark Lord gave a disgusted little snort, apparently unable to see whatever she had been looking for, and glared at the Mule.
“You could have wedged it in place somewhat less firmly, Mr. Mule.”
“Beg pardon?”
She rolled her eyes. “Forget I said anything.” Backing up to the train wall, she glanced over her shoulder, shifted a bit to the right, and then raised her hind legs and slammed her hooves into the wall with terrific force. Before the stunned Mule could say anything, the mare had whipped around and reared up against the window, craning her neck high as she peered outside.
“Beg pardon, miss, but ponies is sta—“
“Silence! The Dark Lord—Ha!” A grin of fierce satisfaction spread across her face. Dropping down to all four hooves, she trotted back to her seat, and began rummaging through her overstuffed saddlebag. The Mule cleared his throat and tried again.
“Miss? Miss, ponies is staring. Could you be less…” He trailed off, unsure how to finish.
Sassaflash yanked her head out of the saddlebag and spat an irregular crystal on to the cushion beside her, its facets glimmering darkly. “Celestia forbid ponies should stare.” She dove back inside the bag. Her voice muffled, she continued, “They might think I was odd, and we can’t have that, now can we?” A notepad and a micrometer caliper landed beside the crystal, and the mare raised her head to stare at their unnerved fellow passengers. “I am the Dark Lord Sassaflash, and I am currently trying to take over the world. I was bucking the side of the train car in order to ready a tool for said quest. And it is all none of your business.” She stared daggers at them. “So kindly do us all a favor and ignore me for the rest of this trip. Further questions are to be addressed to my minion, Mr. Mule, who I’m sure will be both ridiculously polite and entertainingly rustic. Is this clear? Good.” The mare returned her attention to the various items spread out before her and began measuring the crystal’s dimensions with the calipers, scribbling down diagrams and equations in her notepad.
The Mule looked at the griffon, her grandchick, and the family of five ponies sharing the train car with them.
They looked back at the Mule.
Sassaflash scuttled out into the aisle between the seats, dropped the crystal to the floor, and set about measuring it again, apparently unsatisfied with the results she had obtained on her bench.
Nopony said anything.
-----
It took an awkward eternity (or possibly half an hour—but if so, it was a very long half hour), but eventually the train swung around the last cliff-hugging curve, and not long after that passed through the last echoing tunnel. As they blinked at the sudden return of sunlight, the griffon chick and the two youngest ponies simultaneously squealed in delight and plastered their faces to the windows, clambering up to precariously perch atop the seat backs so that they could get a better view. Not more than half a mile ahead, beyond a mounded, grassy jumble of half-cliffs and half-hills, a great host of shining minarets, towers, arches, and spires leapt skyward from the mountain’s face: Canterlot, the City of the Sun, seat of the immortal Princesses and the hub around which all Equestrian civilization spun.
Before long the foals and chick were joined at the windows by the Dark Lord’s minion, his eyebrows raised in appraising interest. He had seen the royal city many times before, of course, during the annual Hearth’s Warming Eve reunion (attended with great conscientiousness by all seventeen mules in Equestria)—but that was in the dead of winter, when the city was a galaxy of warmth and light glowing in a sea of cold grayness. Canterlot in summer was a different creature entirely. The tapering towers had had a spun-sugar delicacy in the festival’s lights, but now they gave a sense of immense, graceful strength, proud and noble as the curve of a workhorse’s back.
Hooves tapped against the train’s wooden floor, and to the Mule’s surprise the Dark Lord Sassaflash joined him at the window, standing at his side and staring up at the celestial city with an unreadable look on her face. Her left ear twitched several times. As they entered the city proper she drew back wordlessly from the window and returned to her bench. The old creature turned to look back at her.
“What’s our business in Canterlot, if’n you don’t mind me asking?”
The pegasus raised her head. “This is not our stop, Mr. Mule. We will be remaining on the train. Canterlot has baked under the Sun for a thousand years, and its mysteries have long since been bleached out of existence.” A note of disdain crept into her voice. “I have no use for this place.”
“You sure about that?” The Mule tilted his head. “They make some real good food down along some o’ them—hup!”
The train had just pulled up to the station, and had stopped with a sharp jolt that sent the Mule’s hooves shifting and clattering across the flooring as he tried to maintain his balance. One of the foals tumbled down from his perch with a cry, as did the chick. The Dark Lord merely swayed, her hoofhold on one of the seat backs keeping her steady. Directing a sharp stare at the Mule, she said, “Food? Mr. Mule, I am bent on a campaign of global domination! Do you honestly suppose that I have time to sample the local cuisine? My path is a strange and dark one, and woe betide any who—Oh, for goodness’ sake.“ She stopped and glowered down at the griffon chick. He had fallen against the edge of one of the seats, striking his forehead against the polished wood, and was now squalling lustily and clutching his head in his claws. His grandmother gave a screech of alarm and rushed over to her grandchild. Rolling her eyes in exasperation, Sassaflash started to resume her curtailed monologue but was cut short by another, louder shriek from the griffon.
A vivid red stain was wicking its way along the chick’s white feathers, seeping from a gash on his forehead.
For a moment Sassaflash made no move, merely watching with an appraising, dispassionate eye as the older griffon began to flail her way through the first stages of hysteria. Then, with a contemptuous snort, she dropped to her hooves and strode over to the stricken chick. Tapping his grandmother on the shoulder, she commanded, “Stand aside.”
The elderly griffon looked up, wide-eyed and panicked, and stared at Sassaflash. The mare frowned. “Stand aside, I said. I am merely strange, not insane—and I know how to treat wounds.” Seeing the hen’s hesitation, the Dark Lord turned and barked, “Mr. Mule! I require you to vouch for my sanity! Also medical gauze, in the blue bag on your left. I will require that as well.”
Her minion considered this while he rummaged through the indicated bag. As he handed the gauze to his employer, he offered, “I reckon you might be sane.”
“Thank you so much for that ringing endorsement.” Sassaflash turned back to the chick’s grandmother. “Let me help him. I assure you, I am very capable.”
After a moment’s further hesitation, the griffon drew haltingly back. Sassaflash knelt beside the sobbing chick and declared, “Infant! The Dark Lord Sassaflash demands silence!"
The chick’s eyes widened, and after a hiccup or two he stopped crying, apparently struck dumb by the novelty of the situation. The Dark Lord nodded. “Acceptable.” She inspected the wound in silence, and then cut off a length of gauze, rolled it into a pad, and pressed it to the chick’s head with her hoof. Reaching out with her other hoof, she hooked the elderly griffon’s claw and pressed it down over the gauze pad. “Hold for a quarter of an hour.” She removed her own hoof. For a moment she gazed at the griffon chick with a strange look in her eyes, and then without another word trotted back to her seat and nestled in amongst her books.
For a moment nopony said anything. Then the fearful grandmother, claw still in place, quavered, “Well?”
“’Well,’ what?” The mare gave the griffon a quizzical look. Then comprehension dawned. “Oh. The chick. He is in satisfactory condition. No damage to the skull. He must be taken to a doctor for a proper examination, but for the present, continue to apply a firm, steady pressure to the wound. If the cloth becomes soaked with blood, apply another piece of gauze over it without lifting the first. Mr. Mule, another piece of gauze, if you please. Thank you.”
A long, awkward pause. The Dark Lord Sassaflash frowned. “I would appreciate it if everypony would stop gawking at me. I have no plans to do anything noteworthy for at least another five hours. The majority of you should be debarking at this time, in any case.”
The others shuffled sheepishly out of the car, the griffon going last and holding her grandchick in a crooked foreclaw. When they were gone, the Dark Lord turned to the Mule and demanded, “Food? Really?”
Her minion blinked. “Say what, now?”
“Food. Before that minor interruption, you were waxing rhapsodic on the qualities of Canterlot cuisine. We will not be stopping for any. That must be perfectly clear.”
“Um. I didn’t—that weren’t…” The old creature trailed off, staring at the Dark Lord Sassaflash in utter bemusement. Eventually, he gave a helpless little shrug, and said, “If’n you say so, Miss Sassaflash.”
“Yes, well. I do say so. Fine as the food may be, we will not be stopping. I cannot afford to purchase more train tickets, in any case. We will continue straight along to the Hollow Shades. Oh, would you kindly stop making those noises! Most of the stories about the Hollow Shades are greatly exaggerated. It was my foalhood home, in point of fact.”
“I ain’t sure that’s a comfort.”
“Indeed?” asked Sassaflash, in a voice that could have frozen helium.
“Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t sure it’s distressin’, neither. I just ain’t sure it’s a comfort.”
“Charming.” The Dark Lord gave him a sharp look. “On that subject, I would have words with you. It has become clear to me that your apparent humility during our initial encounter was a front. You have thoughts and opinions. These are counterproductive traits in a minion.”
“I also got a strong back, and you got a powerful heavy load o’ baggage there. Somepony’s gon’ have to carry it.”
“That fact was not lost on me, thank you. I have no immediate intention of dismissing you.” She scowled. “But no more insurrections.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” he reassured her. “Mostly I only do that after eating a whole lot, or if’n I’ve had some soda pop. Also, sometimes I get a mite belchy.”
The only response he got to this statement was a bewildered stare. He smiled a vague, good-natured smile back. Eventually the Dark Lord lowered her head into her hooves, muttering, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“Well, when you figure it out, you be sure to tell me,” said the Mule. He turned, looking out the windows at the towers of Canterlot shrinking behind them as the train sped on. “They’s one thing I ain’t clear on. We just left the home o’ the only Gods I know of, if’n you can call the Princesses that. What’s this God you’s fixing to kill?”
“’Eructation,’ maybe? But if that was it, why also mention belchi—I beg your pardon?” Sassaflash glanced down at the ancient book lying open in front of her, its yellowed pages scarred with weird, angular characters and unwholesome diagrams. One page was almost entirely taken up by a crude drawing of a sprawling, swollen thing, many-mouthed, its bloated body covered in curling grey fur—cilia?—and draped with many long, flabby flaps or limbs. A tiny stick-figure pony had been sketched into the lower left-hoof corner of the diagram, presumably to indicate scale. The artist had apparently had very grim tastes, for the stick figure was headless, and a trail of black ink spatters led away from it to a spot just below the bulging toad-slug-sloth thing, where small dark blots had been depicted gathering around an unseen object.
The Dark Lord looked up again. “A very old one, Mr. Mule.” Her voice regained some of its usual melodramatic grimness as she repeated, “A very great, old one.”