Chapter 4
Stories
One day remained before I was to meet the others and lead them to the old convent. I figured now would be a good time to go back over what information I had uncovered. I knew that each major clan of the draconics had a book. My family had somehow retained ours, the scholar’s tome. The same book I had carried since foalhood contained many secrets.
I didn’t know that each book had a test before it could be read. In my foalhood I found it and assumed it was a book of riddles. In a sense I was right. The book was enchanted; it would only reveal its information to somepony who could solve its riddles. I am quite thankful the first riddle was the simplest or I may have given up and never found out any of this.
Just a year ago I figured out the last riddle. I will never forget it for as long as I live. I spent countless sleepless nights pondering the words. “What holds more value than gems or gold, more danger than a dragon’s maw? What is that which you may always obtain but never have enough of? Ponies, gryphons, dragons, and all beings have given their lives in search of it. Some find it and few share it. This is the strongest of powers, the key to all things.”
I thought the answer was simple, love was everywhere, and everyone searched for it. It is as dangerous as anything but is most definitely worth it. I thought the answer as clearly as I could and waited for its usual response.
Upon finding the solution to each previous riddle a small eye, like the one adorning the cover, would appear next to it upon the page. Try as I might I could not make the eye for this final riddle appear. I don’t know why it was so important to me. I was so close, I couldn’t stop now.
I could not dedicate my entire life to the book of course. I was traveling, as I always am, looking for a place to call my own, at least for a while. I had skirted around the edge of Canterlot never entering the city itself. The guards had a reputation for being thorough and I was very distrustful of the royal sisters and those that served them. I had to stop for supplies in the nearby town of Ponyville.
Imagine my surprise to find a town that willingly welcomed new arrivals. I was still in my disguise, my trust still nowhere near strong enough to consider revealing myself. A strange pink pony was there, Pinkie I believe she said her name was, offered to throw me a party. I got the feeling this was something she always did but I didn’t need any attention at the moment so I just asked her to skip the party because I was shy. She agreed but seemed downcast, she still welcomed me though, asked me my name, which I gave willingly, and asked me why I was in town.
When she heard I needed food she immediately pointed me towards Sugarcube Corner and told me it was the best place in town. I stopped in and bought what I needed, but as I walked out I saw a library not far away. I had some free time and I decided to stop by. A purple mare was inside and seemed right at home in the place. She seemed the type who knew quite a bit, I felt like she knew every book in the library cover to cover. Twilight, as she called herself, was interested when I told her about the book of riddles. She looked through the first few pages and somehow she knew the answers to most of the riddles. She told me she had learned a lot of what she knew from Princess Celestia herself.
Naturally I was stunned. Why was the princess’s favorite student living in this small town? I didn’t know but I knew I had to get out of there fast. If she had learned from Celestia and the rumors that Celestia hated my kind were true than I was in serious danger. I knew I had to be careful; discovery could lead to my death. She kept turning the pages and finally came to the last riddle. “Why doesn’t this one have a star next to it?” she asked. I said “I don’t know the answer to that one yet.” She laughed and said, “Think about it, it’s simpler than you are making it.” She pointed to all the books around her and said, “What is in all these books? What so many want and no matter how much there is it is never enough?”
I was dumbfounded; of course, the answer was right in front of me all along. The answer was knowledge. The second the thought crossed my mind a star glowed on the edge of the page, and the words all vanished. New words began to appear.
“By Celestia, what is happening?” Twilight gasped. The spell sent a burst of magic through the room that rattled the shelves. My amulet, with the symbol of the royal sisters on it, the only thing changing my mark and masking my eyes sparked and the spell faded from it, shorted out by the magic.
As the book’s spell ended and the rooms light returned to normal, Twilight glanced at me and saw my eyes. I braced myself for the scream but it didn’t come. She only looked at the pendant around my neck and asked “Hey was that a concealment spell? Why did you hide your eyes from me? What else are you hiding?” I thought quickly but knew I wouldn’t be able to lie my way out of this, then I thought back, she hasn’t done anything to make me think she would hate my kind, what harm would there be in her knowing?
My paranoia won out though and I just said, “My eyes have always been like this but ever since the Nightmare Moon incident ponies have been afraid of me for it. I got a unicorn to put a spell on this pendant to hide them. I am sorry for hiding that from you but I didn’t want to scare you.” Not entirely true but not an outright lie either.
“I have heard of the spell I think I have it in one of my books, wait here a moment.” She said before trotting off to another part of the library. I knew I should just take my book and run but for some reason I felt like I should let her help me.
No time to run now, she was already walking back. “Ok this spell seems simple enough, the Bright Eyes spell. Hmm that’s odd; the name of the spellmaker is inked out.” She cast it on the pendant and put it back around my neck. I checked my reflection and saw my eyes returned to the average rounded irises most ponies have. “There we go, good as new, now let’s see about this book,” she said, a bit of a sparkle in her eye.
“Thank you for all your help,” I said. I grabbed the book off the table and said, “Sorry for being so rude but I really must be going.” I rushed towards the door, she called after me to stop but I was already out the door. I pulled my cloak tight so it would hide my cutie mark; the spell she had cast had only affected my eyes.
I took flight, weighted down by my bags and disguise, and flew into the nearby woods. I didn’t want to be found so the woods seemed a natural place to hide. Little did I know these were no mere woods, this was the Everfree Forest itself! As I flew over the forest canopy I looked down, hoping to find a place to hide out for the night. The canopy became clear enough right before the mouth of a large cave.
I entered the cave cautiously, hoping to find it unoccupied. I had no such luck that night, I found an Ursa Major to be living in that cave, and as if that weren’t enough it was a mother. An Ursa protecting her cub is one of the most powerful forces on this planet so I quietly fled the cave, praying I would be left unnoticed.
I flew off again, beginning to doubt I would find a place to sleep that night when I saw a cloud bank up ahead. Draconics, while not being pegasi are still able to stand on clouds, and any flyer that has lived on the wing long enough knows that they can be a comfortable enough bed, provided a storm isn’t brewing.
A few days flight later I was clear of the forest. Even if that young mare had sent guards after me I doubt they would bother to track me over the width of the forest. I settled down in a tree in the middle of a meadow to the book.
I had no idea what the book would contain but to have enchanted a book not to reveal its secrets it must be information of incomparable value, or it could be that an old unicorn was very paranoid and kept either their spells or their most private thoughts within it. Thankfully this book was only encoded into riddles and didn’t contain any lethal curse.
The first few pages didn’t seem to make much sense, but then I noticed something written in very neat script at the top of the page. “Author List,” it said. That’s what it was; these must be the names of the authors.
I couldn’t help but notice two blank pages following that one both topped in the same extravagant script. Did that mean the book was unfinished? I had no idea at the time.
The next page was a cover page which depicted a draconic standing in candlelight, a scroll in hoof, intently studying a dragon egg. The next page seemed to be a mission statement of some kind.
“This is the Tome of Scholars, our clan believes knowledge should be held above all else. This is the culmination of our work. Much information has been lost and it must be found. If you are a draconic from our clan then congratulations on completing your test, it is now your duty to record all that you learn within these pages. The book has been enchanted to expand as needed. We hope that one day history shall be made clear and all will be explained, but until such time as this occurs we all will suffer. The other clan’s tomes must be found. Read on and see what you may learn. Good luck, and fear not the shadow.”
Naturally I was more than a little intrigued. I knew little of our race’s past. I had to know more.
I flipped a few pages and found a wealth of information on things I had never even thought about. Some of it I could see little point in knowing but I found a few drawings of incredible machines, recipes for useful potions, and even a few spells.
Moving on from that I found some of the most interesting stories I have ever read. Armies, glorious battle, of great heroes and victories, they were stories from Gryphon Wars of the past. The years wore on, the war didn’t end and the glory all gave way to the grief that wars bring.
Then there were shorter entries of peaceful times, after the war had ended, draconics living normal lives for as long as they could. The entries were less enthralling. I read on, and the stories become sadder. This is where I learned why I grew up in hiding.
The bottom of one page was even bloodstained, the last ink stroke dragging off the bottom of the page. It was messily written and hard to read but I could clearly make out what the last word said, “Why?”
The next entry was from written by the son of the previous author, and was clearly from at the least months later. He wrote of angry mobs forming. Draconics were being blamed for horrible things. A meeting of the clans was called. He worried that his family would be scattered. The book clearly changed hooves several times after this meeting.
Then the knowledge all turned to concealment. Ways to hide the draconic eyes. The original schematics and the different steps of development of the feather-flaps were contained in the next section. The first few ideas were grisly ones; one draconic even stitched the flaps to his wings. Then one of us had the idea of having them wrap completely around the wing, this would become the feather-flaps my family has used for as long as I could remember.
Then I began seeing names I recognized. My grandfather, the one who found the book and vowed to protect it had several entries. He had made it his purpose to try and find the links to the other clans. He found clues, but the clues always just led to more clues. One day he followed one of these clues to an old cave that became his tomb, or at least that’s what my grandmother, who wrote the next entry, said. Tears dotted the page as she wrote that she was with foal.
“I have already lost my husband to this search; I will not lose my foal as well. I have decided to lock the book away and hide it in the attic. The enchantment my husband, my dear Quickwit, managed to break will be reset by my greatest companion, a powerful unicorn, and if she can alter it farther to make it truly unreadable I shall have her do so. I will raise my foal and steer him away from this mad search. I can’t lose him to. This shall be, if I succeed, the last entry in this book, damn the knowledge, it isn’t worth this.”
I turned the page and found the next one blank but as I touched it with my foreleg it cut my skin and drew a drop of my blood. The stain crawled over the pages back to the start and formed my name on the next line on the list of authors. My name appeared in the same flowing script as the others, and despite the warnings and even knowing my grandmother had gone through so much and my grandfather had died on this quest himself, I couldn’t just stop. I had to know more, I had to find the truth.
It was that night the first of the nightmares came. I still have the same one sometimes. I see from my grandfather Quickwit’s eyes him running toward something on a pedestal. He triggers a switch with his hoof and set off some sort of mechanism. The cave starts to collapse and he turns to my grandmother and yells for her to run. He moves to follow as well but his leg is caught. She doesn’t want to leave him but he forces her to leave. Screaming at her to escape to live, for the foal if not for herself, the ground begins to crack. Eyes full of tears she turns from him, “I’m sorry!” and runs for the exit. He calls after her, “Don’t be sorry, you are alive, that’s all that matters to me,” I hear her weeping as she leaves but then I hear my grandfather sigh. “I don’t want you to die for me, live for me!”
The exit collapses behind her and then he sets his face in a determined expression, he struggles for hours but then it is clear he can’t free himself. He looks at the floor in front of him and sees another trap. “I won’t sit here and starve to death, if nothing else, my death shall be my own.” A tear rolls down his cheek as he stomps his other hoof on the button in front of him. It is at this point that spikes shoot from the wall to his left. He is hit by too many to count but at least his death is quick.
Is this really a dream, or was I somehow seeing the memories of those who came before me? I was unsure but somehow it all felt truthful and I decided it must be some sort of magic. I didn’t know if it was the tome itself or the stories that had caused it but my drive to know the whole truth was strengthened.