Twilight held a wet towel in the grip of her magic and wrung it out over the bowl of cold water atop her writing desk, squeezing out the excess moisture. She carefully placed the damp towel over the eyes and forehead of the diamond dog lying on her bed and sighed.
She held a hoof gently against his cheek and noted that although his temperature had dropped considerably, he was still much warmer than she would have liked. Elevated temperatures were no joke, but they were already cooling him and there were other concerns at the moment, so she continued her examination.
Her earlier assessment of his size was fairly accurate. He was slightly bigger than a very large stallion, and despite his wiry frame, he was surprisingly heavy due to the well-toned musculature that dogs developed from a lifetime of digging. She’d had no trouble levitating him onto the boat once Sky Chaser had swung around and lowered them enough, but Twilight definitely wouldn’t have had a good time lifting him physically. He probably weighed as much as the Captain of the Guard in his full armor.
His coat was a light beige color, except for a patch of white that started at the tip of his short, pointed snout and ran down to his belly. His tail was thin and whip-like – unlike the stubby, clubbed tails of the Equestrian diamond dogs she’d read about – and curled upwards and in on itself.
“Is he okay?” Cadance asked from the doorway. Twilight and Sky Chaser had insisted that she stay in the hallway, much to her annoyance. She’d been asleep when Twilight had raised the alarm, so she was without her royal trappings, and her mane was a poofed out in a magnificently tangled example of bedhead.
“The pup seems a tad dehydrated,” Sky Chaser pointed out as he craned his head to look over Twilight’s shoulder.
“Severe dehydration, yes,” Twilight said clinically. She moved down to his extremities, examining them closely. “In addition, he seems to have burns to his paws.”
“Burns?” Cadance asked with evident concern in her voice.
“Likely from the sand,” Twilight explained with a nod. “Desert sand gets very hot during the day. Diamond dogs have tough paws, but with prolonged exposure… well…”
She gently lifted one of the dog’s forearms to show the ugly red welts he’d developed on his enormous paws.
Sky Chaser let out a low whistle. “Looks painful.”
“Yeah, but it’s only first degree burns,” Twilight said. “Superficial damage only, with no blistering. He’s very lucky.”
“If he’s dehydrated shouldn’t we give him water?” Cadance asked.
“Nah, it’s not safe while he’s unconscious,” Sky Chaser answered, sounding a little proud of himself. “Need to lower his temperature and get him awake, right, missy?”
Twilight chuckled. “Yeah, that’s right. His breathing is very shallow, so we don’t want to block his air-passage or he might start choking, and other ways of introducing fluids require tools that I unfortunately don’t have on hoof.”
Cadance shifted in worry. “What can you do for him right now, then?”
There was actually very little Twilight could do about the dehydration without an intravenous needle with a drip bag or an intubation tube. What she could do, however, was treat his wounds.
She went to her trunk and levitated the armor out, setting it aside as she climbed up on the edge of the container and rummaged around. Bottles clinked and clanked as she moved things aside, until she came up with the handle of a first-aid kit held in her teeth. She set it down and dug around some more until she found a small glass jar with a screw-on lid. She shook the jar between her hooves and eyed the contents carefully.
“Not a lot of it…” she assessed silently. She looked back towards her patient with a frown. A damp towel for his forehead was one thing, but medical supplies were another thing entirely. These supplies were meant for her needs and the princess’ – and Sky Chaser’s, she supposed. Any first aid she gave their guest would diminish what was available for them in the case of an emergency.
Additionally, this diamond dog was an unknown entity with unknown intentions. There was no guarantee that he wasn’t a threat to the princess’ safety, and what would be the point of patching him up if she’d end up having to rough him up later?
She shook her head at her own hesitation. The time for cold hooves was over – she’d made her choice about the matter up on the deck when she’d decided to rescue him.
“In for a penny, in for a bit…” she muttered as she took the jar and kit in her magic and moved back to the bedside.
First aid had been one of Twilight’s favorite subjects back in the academy. Helping your buddies was just as important, if not more important, than knowing how to hurt an opponent, as far was Twilight was concerned.
It only took a few minutes for Twilight to medicate and bandage the dog’s wounds, as well as double check for any additional visible injury. By the time she was finishing up, her patient had begun to stir.
The dog groaned weakly and tried to sit up. Twilight held a hoof to his chest and gently restrained him, soothing him with a quiet shush. Her patient jumped a little at the unfamiliar contact, but allowed himself to be pushed back to the bed.
The three ponies in the room listened as the dog said something in his native language, which sounded more like growls and whines to their ears than words. The inflection implied that he was asking something.
“Do you speak Equish?” Twilight asked carefully.
He reached up with a moan and removed the towel from his eyes, scanning the room with golden-brown eyes. “You are pony?” he asked with a dry, scratchy voice. “Basenji speaks your tongue, but with some difficulty.”
“Your name is Basenji?” Twilight surmised.
“Yes,” he said with a quick nod that caused him to wince in pain from the movement. “Where is Basenji?”
“You’re aboard my airship, pup,” the captain declared, making his presence known. “My name is Sky Chaser.”
“You rescued Basen—” Basenji cut himself off with a grunt as he apparently recognized the linguistic mistake he was making. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and spoke with more deliberation. “You rescued me?”
Twilight cleared her throat. “No, I did. My name is Decurion Twilight Sparkle, of the Canterlot Regiment of the Royal Guard.”
Cadance made a loud, dissatisfied noise from the doorway. “Honestly, you two,” she clucked as she levitated the water pitcher from the writing desk over to Basenji. “Just give him a drink already.”
Basenji’s eyes went wide at the sight of the jug. He reached for it, pausing only a moment to notice the bandages wrapped around his paws, and brought it to his muzzle. He chugged greedily at it and began coughing as he choked on the water.
“Slowly, slowly,” Twilight warned him. “You have severe dehydration. Drinking that quickly may trigger your emetic reflex.”
Basenji, along with the other occupants in the room, stared at her in confusion.
“You’ll vomit,” she clarified with a bashful tint to her cheeks. “Just take small sips or you’ll get sick.”
Basenji made a sour face, as though the very thought of vomiting made him nauseous, and sipped at the water as instructed.
Cadance stepped into the room, ignoring the warning looks from the other two ponies who obviously still thought she should be waiting in the hallway. “My name is Cadance,” she greeted. “It’s very nice to meet you, Basenji.”
The diamond dog’s eyes widened again as Cadance entered. He tried to climb out of bed, causing Twilight to tense up.
“Please forgive this dog for not bowing, God-Pony,” Basenji apologized as he gave up trying to stand. “My body is in great pain.”
“God-Pony…?” Cadance asked with a confused tilt of her head.
“You are she who is pegasus and unicorn, yes?” Basenji asked, pointing towards her horn and wings. “The God of Ponies who lifts the sun and moon?”
“Oh! No, that’s… I’m an alicorn, not a ‘God-Pony’,” Cadance corrected. She lowered her head, grinning abashedly. “And I’m not the one that controls the sun, that’s my aunt, Princess Celestia. I’m actually not even good enough at magic to use that spell…”
“Ah, I see,” he said. “But you are royal?”
“Yes, she is,” Twilight answered for her. “I’m her guard.”
“As you say.” Basenji managed a small, respectful dip of his head and returned to sipping from his water jug.
“If you’re feeling up to it, pup, maybe you could tell us why you were out in this blasted desert?” Sky Chaser asked.
“I was…” Basenji’s explanation died quickly. He began to search the room frantically, craning his head around and trying to see every corner of the room. “Where is my drum?”
Twilight lifted an eyebrow and went to the foot of the bed. When she’d spotted him at a distance, she’d seen a large cylinder bouncing against Basenji’s side as he walked. The object in question had turned out to be a large drum, just a bit bigger than a watermelon, but very light and well cared for despite its apparent age. After bringing him aboard, she’d removed his traveling cloak and the satchel he wore, and wrapped the drum and satchel up with the cloak.
She levitated the bindle and set it onto the bed with a squeak of the springs. Basenji set the pitcher on the floor and reached for his possessions with clear relief on his face.
“Thank you,” he said as he uncovered the bright red drum and inspected it. He smiled as he tapped gently at the skin with one claw. “This has been in my family for many generations. The skin is made from the rind of a Bassonova Fruit. It is very precious.”
Twilight’s ears flicked at the term. She wasn’t familiar with ‘Bassonova Fruits’, so it was likely something local, and rare if a drum made from it was considered precious enough to be an heirloom. In Equestria, drumheads were made from magically treated rubber films, so she didn’t even really have a frame of reference for what such a thing would look like. It had to be enormous if its rind could be used as the membrane for a drum.
“And this drum has something to do with you being in the desert?” Sky Chaser asked.
Basenji rested his paw protectively over the top of the drum. Despite the size of the thing, his massive paw was just large enough stretch across the circumference.
“Not so much, no,” he said softly. “I am searching for Dingo, my brother. We are from far to the South, of the largest pack in zebra lands. Two months ago, Dingo went missing – gone, without even a scent trail.”
“Oh my…” Cadance said empathetically.
“Our pack has many friends within the zebra tribes,” Basenji continued. “We asked them first, but they knew even less than we of his disappearance. After much time, our family gave up searching.”
Basenji unfolded more of the cloak and removed his satchel. He reached inside and pulled out a bundle of papers bound together with a colorful orange string. “I was seeing to tradition, disposing of his possessions as is custom in… in burial.” The word ‘burial’ caught in his throat, and Basenji reached for the pitcher. “I found a journal in his den.”
He held out the ream of papers hesitantly, and Twilight took them with her magic. Cadance and Sky Chaser crowded around, reading over her shoulder. The words were a mix of Equish, some sort of scratching that was ostensibly dog-writing, and zebra script. She turned the book around, trying to read it from different angles, and frowned as she failed to glean meaning from the seemingly chaotic scribbling. Even what was in Equish seemed to be either the writings of a mad-dog, or some sort of code.
“I can’t read this,” Twilight admitted. Her companions nodded in agreement, indicating that they couldn’t make heads or tails of it either.
“It is meaningless to all but Dingo,” Basenji sighed. “Six months past, Dingo said that dreams came to him – strange, terrible dreams that left him when he awoke. He knew not what the dreams were, he knew only that he was afraid. I believe the journal began with the dreams.”
“Did he display any other erratic behavior prior to his disappearance?” Twilight pressed, finding herself fascinated by the dog’s strange tale.
“I do not know this word, ‘erratic’,” Basenji admitted with a shake of his head, “but if you mean strange, then yes. He was disturbed, unpredictable at times – never violent, but very frightening. It was at first small occurrences, like baring fangs at shadows, but over months he became worse. In the days before his disappearance, he was confined to his den and under guard. That he could free himself with nodog witnessing is a mystery.”
He held out his paw and Twilight returned the journal. Basenji flipped to the last page and folded it over, holding it up for the others to see. Unlike the other pages, this one had no writing. Instead there was a map of the Zebrican continent, with a long, dotted trail leading from the center of the continent to a circled spot in the North, where the land turned to desert. The rest of the pages were chicken scratch, but the map page seemed to be startlingly accurate according to Twilight’s admittedly weak geographical knowledge of the continent.
“This is where Dingo has gone,” Basenji said with conviction as he tapped the spot on the page where the trail ended, “I have certainty in this. Nodog else believes he could yet live, but I feel it in my heart – Dingo lives and needs be brought home, no matter the sickness of his mind.”
“I’d say that’s as good a reason as any to be wandering the desert.” Sky Chaser motioned that he wanted to see the journal and Basenji passed it back. He sat on his haunches as he studied the map and pulled out his pipe, tapping the mouthpiece against his lip in thought. “Pretty silly of you to think you could make the journey without any water, though. This is a fair trot, and walking this desert’s no day at the beach.”
Basenji clutched the drum to his chest and lowered his head in embarrassment. “I had water, but it was not enough. I do not often travel far from the pack, and I did not anticipate crossing the dunes. Sand does not behave as dirt does. Tunnels were an impossibility, and I could barely dig beneath the sands enough to escape the worst of the sun.”
“What would make your brother come all the way out here?” Twilight asked. “What’s at that spot?”
“I do not know…” Basenji answered with a sad shake of his head. He squeezed the drum a little tighter, taking comfort from the familiar feeling of holding it. “If it came to Dingo through the Ways, it could be anything.”
Twilight blinked. Something about what Basenji had just said struck her as odd. The tone of his voice and the care he took to carefully pronounce ‘the Ways’ seemed to indicate a greater meaning than just intermediate Equish skills.
“What do you mean by ‘the Ways’?” Twilight asked carefully.
“I and Dingo are of a line of drummers,” Basenji explained, patting the shell of his drum for emphasis. “We keep the knowledge of dogs alive with story and song. We protect that knowledge for all dogs to remember. Some of that knowledge is the Ways – what is called magic.”
Twilight’s ears flicked excitedly at the mention of magic. Theoretically, all creatures were suffused with some modicum of magical talent, but very few had the intellectual capacity, or at least the inclination, to pursue research that tapped that potential.
“You do magic?” Twilight asked excitedly. “What sort of magic? You said ‘drummers’, right? Does that mean that drum acts as a focus? I assume you have to play it to cast spells, which means you can’t cast silently? I imagine that limits the battle applica—”
“Twilight,” Cadance said gently, cutting off the excited unicorn with a gentle prod at her ribs, “take a breath.” She gave Basenji an apologetic look. “Sorry about Twilight, she’s a little excitable, and this is the first time I – and apparently she – have ever heard of a diamond dog knowing magic.”
“You need not apologize, it is not so common,” Basenji said with a shake of his head. “It is The Way of the Old Dogs. Many packs have forgotten the Ways, this is why drummers are very important to dogs – we do not forget so easy.”
“So then it’s some sort of vision, is it?” Sky Chaser asked as he walked to the writing desk and set down the journal.
“I believe it is so,” Basenji answered. “The Old Dogs come to us in dreams, give us visions, whisper secrets to us. Dingo is very strong in the Ways, very connected to the Old Dogs. I cannot say for sure, but it is the will of Old Dogs, perhaps, that led Dingo into the sands. Regardless, I must find Dingo.”
Cadance strode forward, a kindly smile on her face, and placed her hoof comfortingly over Basenji's paw.
"Don't worry, we'll find him," she said confidently.
"Wait, did you say 'we' as in us?" Twilight asked in a panic. She waved her hoof between the three ponies in the room. "As in the three of us in addition to him?"
"Well, we can't send him back out into the desert on his own," Cadance replied. She turned back to Twilight and gave an amused grin.
"Please, Great Princess," Basenji interjected, "your guard is correct! You have been too kind already – Basenji could not trouble you further!"
"It's no trouble at all," Cadance answered cheerfully.
Twilight's armor lifted suddenly with a fling of telekinetic magic and returned to its place in her steam trunk, along with the medical kit. The lid of the trunk slammed shut aggressively, followed by the click of the lock.
"Your Highness, may I speak with you in the hallway?" Twilight asked in a curt, but professional tone.
"Of course." Cadance walked to the door, tossing another smile over her shoulder at their guest. "We'll be right back, Basenji. Captain, would you care to join us?"
Sky Chase hummed thoughtfully and sucked at his unlit pipe. With a silent nod he followed the two mares out of the room and shut the door behind them.
Twilight spun around to gape in shock at her charge. "Princess, you can’t be serious about accompanying him!" she whispered sharply.
"I’m perfectly serious, I assure you," Cadance replied in an equally sharp whisper. "If we send him back into the desert on his own he'll die!"
"We can give him water," Twilight hissed. "Or we can give him a ride the rest of the way to Saddle Arabia and he can try to make the trip again with fresh supplies. What we can’t do is deviate from our schedule to go on a doghunt for someone who – if that journal and Basenji’s story are any indication – is clearly in the grip of some sort of magically-induced mental break!"
“If Dingo is sick then it’s all the more reason we should help,” Cadance said. “We can fly Basenji there, help him find his brother, and fly them both to Saddle Arabia to arrange for medical care.”
Cadance turned to Sky Chaser, her smile tight and her tone unnaturally conversational. "Captain Sky Chaser, you were studying that map very carefully. How far out of our way would it take us to fly Basenji to where his brother is?"
The stallion’s eyes widened and darted nervously between the two mares as he suddenly found himself put on the spot. "A day at most, but likely closer to a half, Your Ladyship," Sky Chaser replied hesitantly.
"No," Twilight said with a stomp of her hoof. "Sky Chaser, I cannot allow this. I am solely responsible for Princess Mi Amore Cadenza's safety, and I say that the risk involved is unacceptable."
Cadance spun back to Twilight. "I can't believe I'm hearing this!" she shouted, no longer caring if they could be overheard through the door. "You're the one that spotted him and brought him aboard!"
"And now I'm starting to think that maybe that was a mistake," Twilight replied coldly. “If I knew he was going to rope us into some foolhardy chase for a lunatic, I would never have fished him out of the sand.”
Cadance narrowed her eyes, unfurling her wings just a bit. The fact that Cadance still had not straightened out her disheveled mane did nothing to diminish her commanding presence.
"Captain, if you'd give us a moment, please," Cadance asked as she held eye contact with Twilight, her voice taking a tone that indicated that she wasn't really making a request, "I think I need a word with my guard."
Years spent as an enlisted troublemaker had taught Sky Chaser that a smart stallion should never call attention to himself when another poor bastard was set to get an earful from a superior. More importantly, years of being attracted to a certain kind of mare – the kind as likely to hit you as to kiss you – had taught him not to get between two ladies in an argument.
"I'll just see about getting some more water for the pup," Sky Chaser said as he beat a hasty retreat down the hallway, to the door at the end of the hall that led to the galley. "I may be a while."
Twilight expected to have to argue the point, to have to explain in detail all the ways that deviating from their schedule could end in disaster. What she didn't expect was for Cadance's eyes to soften the moment the door to the galley closed, signalling that they were alone.
"We have to help him," Cadance said pleadingly. "He's telling the truth, and he's really worried about his brother, I can tell."
Twilight mustered up as much discipline as she could to beat back the urge to simply melt at the piteous look in Cadance's eyes. "How can you tell?" she asked.
Cadance brought a hoof to her chest, holding it tightly against her heart. "I can feel it," she explained. "I can sense the brotherly love he feels, and the uncertainty of what he'll find when he does catch up to his brother, if he even is on the right trail."
Twilight's heart skipped a beat or two as Cadance leaned closer and whispered, "We need to help reunite them."
"They're expecting us in Saddle Arabia," Twilight countered lamely.
"Sky Chaser said that it isn't far out of our way, and we're already ahead of schedule. Please… I want to do something that makes a real, noticeable difference for once, even if it’s just for one little diamond dog. Will you help me?”
Twilight shook her head weakly. She could’ve handled an argument, but the look she was getting was uncomfortably like the one she used to give her father when she wanted an extra scoop of ice cream. Only… it was something more than a foalish urge to ruin her appetite for dinner.
Earlier, Cadance had voiced her concerns that she was being shut out of important decisions and events by Celestia, and in her expression, Twilight could see intimations of just how deeply those fears ran. Hidden within the depth of those big, doe-eyes was something Twilight could empathize with: the feeling of uncertainty in one’s self. She knew that look because she’d seen it in the mirror enough to recognize it. No matter how well Twilight scored in a test, no matter how quickly she ran an obstacle course, she was forever beating down that niggling little voice in the back of her mind that said, “You could be doing better.”
Cadance wanted a win. She wanted to feel that she was fulfilling her purpose by bring together two beings bound by brotherly love. Twilight knew it because if their situations were reversed, it’s what she would have wanted.
To the Princess of Love, this was a matter of duty.
“We have no idea what’s waiting for us there, Cadance…” Twilight said in a final attempt to convince the princess of her recklessness. “I’ve got this feeling in my gut that this might not be a simple retrieval – especially if magic’s involved in some way.”
“I’m not worried,” Cadance said, the corners of her mouth turning up into a smile. “No matter what happens, I know you’ll protect me.”
The last of Twilight’s resistance blew away with the force of the tired sigh she heaved.
* * *
The Old Mistress moved along the cloudless skies above the desert at a quick pace. Morning was already well underway and the only respite from the oppression of the sun was found beneath the ship’s balloon. The fine sands of the dunes had given way to a baked, rocky terrain with sparse patches of brush as they sped along their journey into the unknown.
“I really don’t like this,” Twilight murmured as she peered through the enormous windows of the cockpit to the deck below. Cadance and Basenji were sitting near the bow, talking animatedly about something or other. The dog had apparently never been in the air before and was understandably excited about the experience.
“You don’t think the pup’s on the up-and-up?” Sky Chaser asked. He tapped a gauge on the wall and turned a crank next to it, causing air to hiss through the brass pipes that crawled along every surface of the cockpit like ivy. The ship swayed slightly from whatever his adjustment did, and he hurried to the wheel to straighten them out.
“I don’t think he’s lying,” Twilight admitted after some thought, “and the princess doesn’t sense anything deceitful from him with that empathic magic of hers. I at least trust that he’s not going to try to make trouble for us.”
“But that doesn’t mean he won’t be trouble without realizing it,” Sky Chaser said wisely.
Twilight turned to watch as Sky Chaser went from gauge to wheel to lever, manipulating the various mechanisms that kept them afloat. He’d mentioned something earlier about the shift in temperature requiring a ‘skilled hoof at the wheel’.
“I mean, am I crazy to think that this is crazy?” she asked in vexation. “Unknown elements, unknown theater, unknown magic!”
She groaned as she rubbed the spot between her eyes that now throbbed with the warning signs of an oncoming migraine.
“How is this my life?” Twilight bemoaned. “My first mission and I’m already in a situation where the best outcome is that I don’t get court-martialed for putting Princess Celestia’s niece in unnecessary danger.”
“Bah!” Sky Chaser scoffed. “You won’t be court-martialed, missy! Banished, maybe, but I’m sure they can deliver your pension checks to wherever Her Highness sends you.”
“This is only my second week on the job…” she groused.
“Oh…” Sky Chaser paused as he considered this. “That’s going to be a mighty small check.”
“Joking aside,” Twilight said with a roll of her eyes. “Do you think I made a good choice by bringing him aboard?”
Sky Chaser slowed his frantic systems checks as he mulled the question over. He retook the captain’s wheel, his forehooves on the handles, and gently nudged it to keep the ride smooth.
“I can’t rightly say if it was a good or bad choice,” Sky Chaser answered, “but you saved that pup’s life, and that means you made the right choice, regardless of whether or not it was good for the mission. A lot of folk don’t get the difference, but if I were in your shoes it’s the choice I would’ve made.”
Twilight turned back to the window as the sound of Cadance’s laughter reached her from the deck. Basenji was gesturing wildly with his paws, apparently in the middle of some joke that Twilight couldn’t hear over the sound of the machinery, the rushing wind, and Cadance’s giggling. He was grinning widely, the weariness of his injuries temporarily forgotten as he shared his story.
If she’d left him lying face down in the sand, he would have died. In the face of that fact, Twilight couldn’t help but agree with Sky Chaser’s assessment. It may have been an inconvenience to her in the long run, but she felt a sharp twinge of shame at ever having even considered turning her back on another living creature that needed her help.
“Thanks for not trying to order me to keep the vessel on course, by the by,” Sky Chaser said suddenly. “I know it’s in your power to attempt to commandeer the ship.”
Twilight smirked at the emphasis the old soldier put on the word ‘attempt’, subtly hinting at how well the order would have gone over with him. “If I’d tried to give you the order the princess could have just overridden it.”
“All the same,” he replied with a shrug, his eyes still fixed on the horizon. “You didn’t, and she didn’t, and we all walked away from the standoff as friends – nopony giving orders to nopony. Guards I’ve known in the past would have been more eager to start throwing their weight around.”
“I would’ve if I had to,” she admitted.
“I know you would’ve,” he chuckled.
Twilight let the issue drop and walked over towards the navigator’s desk set against the rear wall of the cockpit, just to the side of the staircase leading up from the cabin. Above the table was a cubby with a dozen compartments, each one holding a detailed map of a different region of the world. Compasses and drafting pencils were pushed haphazardly aside to make room for a large copy of the map from Basenji’s journal, drawn perfectly using a transcription spell onto a sheet of tracing paper. The thin, nearly translucent paper had then been pinned atop another map of Zebrica marked with useful cartographical information.
The map, as Twilight had guessed, was unnaturally accurate when overlaid atop a professionally drafted navigator’s map. Basenji has denied that his brother had ever studied map-making, which lent credence to the notion that the drawing had been made while under the influence of some kind of magic – which only made Twilight all the more uncomfortable with this detour.
“Any idea what we’re heading for?” she asked as she scrutinized the map for the umpteenth time, trying to get a hint at what awaited them.
“No more than I had the last time you asked, missy,” Sky Chaser said pointedly.
Twilight returned to the window with a sigh. She squinted into the distance, only just barely making out a blemish on the smooth horizon directly ahead of them. She cast her long-range vision spell and focused it as tightly as she could. Through the heat haze, the outline of some large structure became apparent.
Sky Chaser had corrected their heading to match the map in the middle of the night, and by morning’s light they’d spotted what they all presumed had to be their final destination.
“Still too far away to make out what it is,” Twilight sighed. “It’s probably just a mountain.”
“Likely so,” he answered, clucking his tongue a few times in consideration. “Not much else out here it could be.”
“I really, really don’t like this,” she repeated.
“Aye, so you’ve said,” Sky Chaser pointed out. “You should head on down to the deck and get some air. It’ll be good for those jitters. Besides, we’re a few more hours out, and it’s going to get mighty uncomfortable inside of doors once the sun’s high enough to have her say.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow and cast a questioning look at Sky Chaser’s thick coat. It was a little ratty, and frayed along the hems, but it looked very warm – a good coat for floating along on chilly high-altitude winds. If the beads of sweat on Sky Chaser’s forehead were any indication, it was decidedly less-suited to desert travel.
“Speaking of uncomfortable heat,” she quipped. “How long are you going to wear that jacket?”
Sky Chaser snorted and let loose a loud bark of laughter. “Missy, this captain’s jacket came with the boat, and it’s never coming off. I’ll be buried in it.”
“Hey, that’s a real fear if you get heatstroke,” Twilight informed him.
“I’ll risk it.”
Twilight shook her head with a chuckle. Her gaze returned to the deck, where Cadance and Basenji’s conversation seemed to hit a comfortable lull. Basenji was up on his hind legs, leaning over the side and trying to see the underside of the boat, while Cadance sat at the very fore of the ship, her mane billowing in the wind.
“Staring at your fillyfriend, eh?”
Twilight sputtered. “What!? No!” She turned sharply and marched for the stairs, her hooves thunking against the wood with every stomp. “I’m going below to check my kit! Let me know if anything happens!”
Sky Chaser watched the girl shuffle hurriedly out of the room and down the stairwell. A few moments later he could hear her door slamming over the whine of the propeller’s engine.
“Huh, that was an odd reaction,” Sky Chaser huffed with a furrow of his brow. “I think I may have lit a powder keg here... Didn’t think the lass would take a bit of ball-busting about that crush of hers so seriously.”
He returned to his duty, never noticing that back on the deck, Cadance had risen to her hooves and turned to stare up at the cockpit with worry etched on her face.
* * *
The sun was directly above by the time they’d reached their destination. Their best guess had been right, and they’d found themselves flying above a small mountain. It didn’t seem like anything special – just a hill in the midst of a vast expanse of arid, rocky desert. What was interesting was the campsite on the Southern side of the mountain, indicating that someone, possibly somedog, was recently in residence. Even more interestingly, there was more than one tent.
After a brief fly over to check for danger – at Twilight’s insistence – Sky Chaser began to lower the airship. As they dropped altitude, they encountered a surprising amount of turbulence.
“Strange winds…” was all Sky Chaser had to say on the matter, though the contemplative look he gave the ship’s balloon indicated to Twilight that something had struck him as odd.
They touched down at the very edge of the camp’s perimeter. The ship groaned and creaked under the weight of itself as it settled into the earth. Four hatches slid open just below deck-level with loud thunks, followed by four deafening bangs as the pneumatic harpoons fired the emergency anchors into the hard soil.
Cadance and Basenji were already lowering the gangplank by the time Twilight and Sky Chaser had joined them on the deck. Basenji was visibly nervous, his bandaged paw rubbing anxiously over the skin of the drum hanging at his side.
“Is full armor really necessary?” Cadance asked delicately as Twilight emerged from the cabin.
“I have to at least pretend to be doing this by the book,” Twilight replied as she tugged at the buckles and straps of her armor with practiced tweaks of her magic. Wearing her armor also had the added benefit of concealing the knives tucked away beneath her breastplate, which she was certain Cadance wouldn’t approve of. “Sorry, Basenji.”
The diamond dog gave a worried look, but nodded in acceptance. “I understand. You have your duty, and Dingo is not of his right mind.” He turned to gaze out over the camp, his nostrils flaring as his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Also, this place smells… strange. I do not trust it so much.”
“Agreed, that’s why I’m going down first,” Twilight announced as she stepped forward to disembark. “You all stay aboard until I’ve swept the area. Pull up the ramp behind me and wait for my signal.”
“Why can’t we come down with you?” Cadance asked with a curious tilt of her head.
“Because if anyone was here and wanted to parlay, the sound of the emergency mooring system would’ve brought them out of their tents,” Sky Chaser supplied. “I’ll come with you, missy. These days I’ve got more piss than vinegar, but I’m still infantry. I’ll follow your lead.”
“Glad to have you at my back,” Twilight said with a grin. She turned to descend the ramp, but paused as she realized her wording and who she’d been talking to. She shot a withering glance back over her shoulder, eyes narrowed and lips pulled tight as she waited for the entendre to drop.
Sky Chaser merely smiled wordlessly.
The pair of soldiers descended the ramp quickly and hit the ground at a trot, staying low to make themselves smaller targets as they crossed the short distance of open space between the camp and their ship. The hard, sunbaked terrain was freed of brush and stones by whoever had set up the camp, but they still watched their steps in case of traps.
From their fly-over, Twilight had memorized the layout of the camp and counted eleven tents of varying construction and materials. They quietly approached the first tent, which seemed to be made of decorative rugs stitched together and hung over a skeleton of tent poles and rope.
Twilight signaled Sky Chaser to hold back with a silent flick of her tail. She dropped down and lifted the rug-wall of the tent, peeking inside to search for occupants. There were basic furnishings – a bed, a table, some pillows – but the tent was otherwise empty. She got back up and silently signaled with hoof gestures, relaying a message to the effect of: “Zero occupants, follow, watch my back.”
Sky Chaser nodded and followed as she rounded the corner and moved to the next tent. He kept close, his ears perked and eyes scanning for danger.
The camp offered very little in the way of clues. The camp had been established long enough that footprints were useless for telling them how many individuals were in residence, but judging from the prints left behind, the camp occupants were all diamond dogs. Other tents were as sparsely furnished as the first, and the tidiness of the dwellings was as unsettling as anything.
They moved from tent to tent, Sky Chaser keeping watch while Twilight took point, checking corners and darting in and out of tents in search of anyone who could answer questions. Within five minutes they had made a full circle of the camp, searching the structures on the perimeter and moving inward as they went. At the center of the camp were a stone well and the remains of a long-dead fire.
Twilight went to the well and created a small spark of magic that glowed brightly even in the hot summer sun. She dropped the spark into the well and watched it tumble into the darkness like a match, fading until it eventually extinguished in the pool of water far below.
“Nobody home,” she said quietly once she was satisfied they wouldn’t be set upon by someone skulking in the well. She swept the camp again with her eyes, looking for any signs of movement. “This is weird.”
“I’ll tell you what’s really weird, missy,” Sky Chaser said as he peered into an enormous black cauldron set over the ashes of the fire pit. “Someone left the stove on.”
The pot was large enough to bathe in, and was obviously some sort of communal stew pot for the whole camp. As she approached, the smell of something fetid filled her nostrils. She looked into the cauldron and wrinkled her nose at the burnt, moldy remains of the abandoned meal. From what she could see through the mass of flies buzzing around within, the pot had once been a mixed stew of vegetables, gemstones, and chunks of something blackened that was probably meat.
“Definitely diamond dog cooking,” she said greenly.
“Aye, and abandoned in a hurry.”
“Where do you think they all went?”
“Can’t rightly say,” Sky Chaser admitted with a frown. “Last I seen the likes of this I was in Prance, helping the locals with a bandit problem. The brigands got wind of us coming and broke for the hills. This, though?” He jerked his head in the direction of the pot. “This tells me that whatever spooked off these dogs, it wasn’t us.”
Any further hoof-wringing was cut off by Cadance’s shout of: “Everything okay!?”
The two soldiers turned back to the airship where Cadance stood, waiting impatiently with the gangplank floating overhead in a field of light blue magic. Basenji was running back and forth across the deck excitedly, lifting his nose and sniffing deeply at the air.
“I told her to stay quiet until I gave the signal,” Twilight muttered into her own hoof.
“To be fair, you only said to stay on the boat, you didn’t mention anything about staying quiet,” Sky Chaser snickered. “She probably took our standing here and jawing as sign we were finished.”
“Ugh, she’s going to be the death of me…” She lifted her galea and wiped away the beads of sweat on her forehead with a flick of magic. “If the sun doesn’t kill me first…”
If the unfiltered light of the sun bothered Sky Chaser at all, he didn’t show it. He laughed and waved at their friends waiting on the ship. “Aye, she’s going to be a chore, that one. I don’t envy your assignment.”
Cadance replaced the ramp and stood aside as Basenji hurried to get down. The dog ran for the camp, loping along on all fours, his head down and ears flat as he searched for scent trails. Cadance spread her wings and leapt over the side with a quick flap, gliding her way to the center of the camp to rejoin Twilight and Sky Chaser.
Basenji joined the group a moment behind Cadance. “Many dogs were here,” he declared as he sniffed the ground curiously. He took a moment to sniff at the pot, and something about the rank meal caused him to sneeze.
“We guessed that from the tracks,” Twilight nodded. “It’s all paws – no hooves or claws, so we can discount ponies, zebras, minotaurs, and griffins.”
“Yes, yes, only dogs, I smell this,” Basenji said eagerly. He crawled along the ground swiftly, snorting loudly at the dirt and reminding Twilight of the time she and her father had been taken truffle hunting by a neighbor showing off his purebred truffle pig. “It has been more than one week, but the scents are still strong.”
Basenji paused, his ears perking as he inhaled deeply at one of the many tracks. “Dingo! This is Dingo!”
Basenji took off, following the trail of his brother’s scent through the camp. His companions followed him as he entered the tent nearest the mountain. It was one of the larger tents, made of white-painted canvas. During her sweep, Twilight had surmised that it had belonged to whoever was in charge of the camp, because unlike the other tents, this one had a large carpet for the floor. There was also a large table that sat low to the ground, surrounded by enough pillows to seat the entire camp. Aside from these small extravagances, the tent possessed no other outstanding qualities.
Basenji made a circuit around the table, sniffing at all of the cushions, before making a beeline for the thin mattress on the ground at the far end of the tent. “This is Dingo’s bed!” he explained excitedly.
“Great news,” Sky Chaser said. “Now we just need to find the pup that sleeps in it.”
“I can do this thing,” Basenji declared. He sat on the bed, legs crossed in a position that would have been difficult for a pony, and pulled the drum into his lap.
Basenji looked at his paws, still wrapped in bandages, and tore away the bindings with his teeth. He inspected his palms until he was satisfied that the magical ointment Twilight had applied had sufficiently healed his burns, and rested one giant paw atop the drumhead.
“You’re going to do magic?” Twilight asked with a note of excitement in her voice that made her companions chuckle.
“Yes, the Ways will bring us to Dingo,” Basenji said with a sharp grin. “The Ways of Old Dogs – magic, as you call it – are what bind all dogs together. Dogs from old times, dogs from now, dogs that will be; all are family. Dingo did not wish to be found, so this did not work at a distance, but now he is close, and even he cannot resist my drum.”
Twilight had spent years trying to understand magic as a tool. Her brother may have been the one renowned as a scholar in the field, but magic was her talent and she was very good at it. Those many years of practice and self-study allowed her to feel as Basenji’s magic began to gather.
It started as a rumble in the air, a vibration that she felt as a tickle at the tip of her horn. He raised his paw up and brought it down with a heavy thump that shook the air. The force of the strike caused the magic in the air to surge and shiver down her horn to tickle her brain in a strangely enjoyable way. He lifted his paw and brought down the other with a soft tap, changing the frequency of the vibrations in the air.
He began to tap and beat on the drum rapidly. The rhythm was strong and exotic, and brought every nerve in Twilight’s body alive with the sensation of unfamiliar magic.
The magic in the air coalesced into a pale, glowing mist that hung about Basenji’s body like a fog. Within seconds he was engulfed in the field of magic, and with a final, decisive note, a tendril of smoke emerged from the cloud and darted off. The spell snaked its way across the ground and out the back of the tent.
Twilight released the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, and beside her came two more sighs of withheld breath. In the end, the casting of the spell had taken less than ten seconds, but it felt infinitely longer.
“That’s really…” Twilight began to say.
“…wow.” Cadance said, finishing her thought.
Sky Chaser nodded, that cocksure grin of his wide on his face. “It was a right pretty show, and I bet you could dance to it,” he quipped, not having sensed how impressively magical the feat actually was.
“I didn’t know there was magic in music like that,” Twilight added. “I mean, I’ve heard of magical arias, but I thought the power was in the words and voice, not in the music itself.”
Basenji smiled knowingly. “There is ‘magic’ in all things, Twilight Sparkle,” he explained as he stood and adjusted his traveling cloak. “As all things have magic, through magic all things are connected. Even dogs and ponies are connected through the Ways – though pony magic is much too… flashy? Is this the word? Dog Ways are very subtle; pony Ways, not so much.”
Basenji was up and on the trail before Twilight could respond. The ethereal tether vanished with gentle puffs as Basenji followed it, the way pegasi burst through clouds in the sky. When he reached the tent wall, he merely lifted it up and slipped beneath the canvas. A quiet whisper of sliding steel gave him pause, and he turned to find his pony friends emerging from the tent through an enormous zipper bathed in light blue energy.
“Pony magic may not be subtle,” Cadance said proudly, “but it has its uses. Case in point: this little number, designed by me. It’s good for tents, and great for getting out of itchy formalwear in a hurry.”
They didn’t have to follow the trail very far. The spell continued on only a few dozen more paces before stopping abruptly against the sheer rock of the mountainside.
“Your spell seems to be broken,” Sky Chaser commented once they reached the end of the trail. He craned his neck and looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hoof. The mountainside was sheer vertical rock, going up at least a hundred meters, and would be impossible for ponies to climb without the aid of wings, magic, or some serious mountaineering equipment. “Unless we’re meant to go up.”
“No, not up,” Basenji said. He waved his paw through the final remnants of the spell and placed a paw against the rock. “We must go through.”
“Why go through when we can go around?” Cadance asked. “Or better yet, over? We can get back on the ship and you can cast the spell on the other side of the mountain.”
Basenji shook his head. “You misunderstand.” He leaned forward to sniff at the wall. “This smells of magic.”
Twilight pressed her horn to the wall and concentrated. “He’s right,” she said as she stepped back to run a hoof over the warm surface. “There’s definitely something magical here, and it’s strong. Maybe it’s some kind of barrier?”
Basenji nodded. “This is Dingo’s Ways. It is an ancient technique, used to hide dog dens from the eyes of outsiders.”
“An illusion?” Twilight asked, her eyes wide in shock. She slipped one of the long, flat blades from beneath her breastplate with a pull of magic – studiously ignoring the disapproving grumble from Cadance – and tapped the cloth-gripped handle against the rock. “But it’s solid rock. I can feel it and it reacts to physical objects.”
“A trick of the mind combined with a shield to halt physical ingress,” Basenji reasoned. “I have never seen such things combined so effectively. Even in madness, Dingo’s mind has brilliance.”
“Can you break it?” Sky Chaser questioned.
“Such a thing is beyond my skill to craft,” Basenji admitted, “but to break it is infinitely simpler.”
Basenji motioned for the ponies to step back as he regained his cross-legged position. He knit his brow in concentration and gave a quick rap on the drum with a single claw. His scowl deepened as he gauged the reaction, and he thumped again. He repeated this process several times more.
Thump.
Scowl.
Thump.
Glare.
At last, whatever secrets the spell held unraveled themselves, and he began to play. The song was more complex than the location spell he’d cast in the tent. His paws were a blur of frantic motion, raising the tempo to something like the sound of stampeding hooves, broken only by an occasional hollow tap against the wooden shell of the drum.
The wall stood unaffected and unblemished as he played, until Basenji’s paw rose high and struck with a hard, final note. Cracks spread across the surface of the rock, like glass under pressure, and the barrier came down without sound, fading into nothingness and revealing the mouth of a cave thrice as wide as the four of them standing abreast.
Air rushed from the darkened tunnel with a soul-chilling howl, rushing over them like the dying-breath of a giant. The group huddled together unconsciously, shivering despite the punishing heat of the midday sun.
“It feels like somepony just walked over my grave…” Cadance said tremulously.
Basenji stood suddenly as his hyper-developed night vision – a result of his species’ subterranean nature – caught sight of something in the distance, and he bolted into the darkened maw of the cave’s entrance.
“Basenji, wait!” Cadance shouted as she galloped after him.
“Princess, wait!” Twilight shouted as she galloped after Cadance.
Sky Chaser, in a show of what he felt to be incredible self-control and personal fortitude, resisted the urge to shout, “Missy, wait!” as he hurried to keep up with the group.
They didn’t have to run far to catch up with Basenji. As Cadance rushed headlong into the darkness, she cast a simple illumination spell just in time to avoid running past Basenji in the darkness.
Basenji was crouched low against the tunnel wall, huddled protectively over a pile of red wooden splinters. He gently brushed away the splinters and held the tattered remains of a drumhead tightly against his chest.
“This… this is Dingo’s drum…” Basenji explained as he turned to the others, his voice shaking and his face clearly grief-stricken by the sight.
Cadance stepped forward and placed a hoof comfortingly on his shoulder. “Would he, or anyone else, have been able to get through the barrier he put up without that drum?”
“Dogs can always dig,” Basenji answer quietly. “If Dingo wished to leave, he would only need dig around the seal.”
“Then why bother with the seal at all?” Twilight asked. The mote of light at the tip of her horn intensified slightly as she leaned forward to closer inspect the remains of the instrument. “And why do this to his own drum?”
“It may have something to do with that.”
They turned to Sky Chaser and followed his gaze to the opposite wall where letters were carved directly into the stone in shallow, angular letters at just above eye-level. The language was not one that the ponies were familiar with, and all three turned expectantly to Basenji.
Basenji knew diamond dog marking when he saw them. Dog tunnels and caves were filled with notes like this, scratched out using their bare claws. A cold knife dug into his heart at the realization that it was written in a jagged approximation of his brother’s script. His mouth went dry and he licked at his lips fruitlessly as he read aloud: “Dream no more, you who broke my seal, father’s teeth are upon you.”
They stared in silence at the wall, at the words of a mad-dog who had led them across the sands and through a hidden passage into the frozen maw of the earth. Mystery was heaped upon mystery, and every new clue to finding Dingo’s whereabouts only created more questions, more confusion, and more unease.
The spell of the eerie message was broken as Cadance split from the group and began to march on shaky hooves deeper into the tunnel.
“What are you doing?” Twilight asked.
“Looking for Dingo,” she said simply. “The spooky curse, or whatever it is, only proves that he’s sick… it’s… it’s just a symptom of his ailment. He needs our help.”
Twilight cast one last glance at the ominous sign and groaned. “Wait, Your Highness.” She galloped forward and took her position at the front of the group. “You and Basenji will be at the rear, Sky Chaser, you’re on point with me. Two-by-two formation, watch your buddy and shout if you see anything.”
“Aye, missy,” Sky Chaser answered. He gave a half-hearted salute and went to her side.
Basenji and Cadance nodded and fell into a sloppy formation at the rear, while the two soldiers led the way into the darkness with Twilight’s spell lighting their path. Twilight and Sky Chaser each had their senses at full attention. Periodically they would look back to make sure the two less-stout members of their unit were keeping up and hadn’t been spirited away.
After ten minutes of walking they had yet to come across another sign that anything had entered this deeply into the passageway. The only change in the terrain had been the deepening of the passage’s mild slope, which was now fairly noticeable and leading them deeper underground.
“Well, missy,” Sky Chaser whispered once the eerie silence became unbearable, “I should’ve asked earlier, but I don’t suppose any of those fancy certificates you’re so proud of were from a class on subterranean combat.”
Twilight shook her head. “No, but as soon as I get back I’m going to write a letter to the military academy’s headmaster about the gap in the curriculum.”
“Incidentally,” he continued, “you remember that bad feeling you were having earlier?” He paused to wait for Twilight’s nod. “Starting to think it’s contagious. I’ve come down with a case of it myself.”
“Trust me, whatever bad vibes you’re getting are nothing compared to what I’m feeling.”
Sky Chaser raised an eyebrow. “You know something old Sky Chaser doesn’t?”
“Yeah,” she said with a sidelong glance at the old soldier. “You don’t know that I’ve had to refresh and strengthen the illumination spell I’m casting three times since back at that little note Dingo left us in the wall.”
“It’s losing strength?”
She shook her head. “No, the spell has maintained perfectly balanced and regulated power levels, and my own reserves aren’t even close to tapped. I’ve just had to strengthen it to keep the same level of illumination up.” She tossed another look over her shoulder to check on the princess, who seemed to be in the midst of her own hushed conversation with Basenji. She felt a twinge of jealousy at that, but squashed it down flat. “I’ve been watching the Princess, and I’m certain she’s had to do the same a few times, as well.”
Sky Chaser frowned. He didn’t know a lot about unicorn magic, but what he did know is that illumination was one of the simplest spells a unicorn could do. Even foals that didn’t even have a handle on levitation could do a fair approximation of a night light.
“What would be causing a thing like that?”
“I don’t know,” she stated simply. “I don’t sense any magic being worked on us, but…” Twilight shook her head to clear away the oncoming train of runaway thoughts. “We just need to be very careful and get ourselves checked out by medical professionals once we get to Saddle Arabia.”
Further chatter was cut as a cry went up from Basenji. “I see something ahead!”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed and her muscles tensed in readiness. She increased the strength of her lighting spell once more, pushing away enough darkness to reveal the massive gateway before them. Two gigantic doors stretched from floor to ceiling, carved from the very rock of the mountain. As they approached, she noticed that there were reliefs carved into the stone – some depicting diamond dogs performing various acts, while others were more abstract patterns that may have been writing – but any significance they had to the creators was lost on her. They were works of art, blemished only by the dog-sized entry hole dug into door on the right side.
“Someone was in a hurry to get inside,” Sky Chaser quipped nervously.
“What is this door, Basenji?” Twilight asked.
“I do not know,” Basenji sighed. “It is of a design of the Old Dogs, but I have not the knowledge to decipher meaning from the carvings beyond this.”
Twilight anxiously checked her gear again and nodded. “Everyone wait here, I’m going in.”
She breathed deeply and cantered forward, her hornlight bright as she stepped through the makeshift entryway. She made it only a few steps in before the sight before her registered fully and stopped her in her tracks.
Here, in a cavern in the very belly of the desert, she found herself in a city.
As far into the darkness as her spell would light, she saw row after row of houses. Most of the domiciles were small, squat huts, arranged with streets running between them in a grid, though she did spy a number of larger homes. Some houses were made from cobbled stones, packed tightly with earth, while others were made of proper bricks. She looked up and found that the ceiling was too high to see, as whatever strange properties the darkness in this place held seemed even more pronounced here. As she scanned her surroundings she found yet more structures built into the very walls of the chamber, high above the ground floor and reachable through a maze of staircases that connected the different levels of the city.
Despite the beauty of the scene, she couldn’t shake the sense of wrongness. Twilight had grown up in Canterlot, one of the largest, finest cities in the world. Canterlot’s grandeur was vibrant, alive with the noise and activity and very essence of the citizens that lived there. This city was cold, dead, and silent. It was alien and unsettling. She squinted into the distance and frowned as she noticed one other very odd aspect of the place: every window and doorway was sealed with bricks.
She was so enchanted by the sight that she didn’t register that her companions had filtered in until Cadance was right beside her.
“It’s incredible,” she whispered as she pressed against Twilight’s side.
“I have never seen such a city,” Basenji said. He spun around, trying to drink in every inch of the place. “To think that such splendor was hidden beneath the sands.”
“This place is really something, alright,” Twilight said, “but look at the size of it. I’m not sure how we’re going to find Ding—“
Twilight’s comment died in her throat as she spied something down one of the side streets – a discolored stain amidst the sandy brown of the unpaved street. She walked towards it, her heart beating faster as she came around the side of a house to where the black splotch had soaked into the earth. A distinctly metallic scent filled her nostrils once she was close to it.
It was blood.
The bloodstain streaked off down the street, indicating that whatever had been bleeding had been dragged away. The ground had also been disturbed, as though from a struggle.
Basenji was at her side in seconds, his nose snorting powerfully at the ground to find the scents hidden beneath the stink of spilled blood and recently damp earth. He sat up and released a deep, shuddering sigh of relief. “It is recent, but it is not Dingo,” he whispered.
“Then whose blood is it?” Sky Chaser asked. “And more importantly, what spilled it?”
“Your Highness,” Twilight snapped as she rounded on the other mare. “We need to leave. Now.”
“I must not go!” Basenji shouted in a panic. “You may leave if you wish, but I must stay! I must find Dingo!”
Cadance glanced nervously between Twilight and Basenji. She looked to Sky Chaser for help, but the old stallion was busying himself inspecting the blood trail.
“I… I think Twilight is right, Basenji,” she said. “Things are more complicated than we thought they’d be. Something terrible happened here and we still don’t know exactly what’s going on. I think we all need to follow her advice and fall back for now to reassess.”
The emphasis the princess placed on the word ‘all’ was not lost on Basenji. He shook his head furiously. “I refuse. I will not abandon Dingo.”
“Please, Basenji,” she pleaded. “We’re not abandoning your brother, but we can’t do this with just the four of us.”
“Exactly,” Twilight added. “We can come back later with more guards.”
“Yes!” Cadance agreed enthusiastically. “We can ask the sultan of Saddle Arabia for help, and he can get into contact with the Zebra Nation. We can even have word sent back to your pack. I’m sure the other diamond dogs will want to know about this place.”
Basenji’s mutinous expression faltered as his eyes drifted back to the spilled blood.
Cadance pressed the break in his resistance. “You still feel that he’s alive, don’t you?” She waited until he gave a nod. “Then he’ll be fine for just two more days. With a larger party we’ll find him faster, and with less likelihood that anyone will be wounded.”
“I’ll lead the party myself, if it’ll make you feel better,” Twilight assured him.
He worked his jaw in thought, rubbing his paws together nervously. “There is wisdom in what you say… Very well.”
“Good, let’s get back to the Mistress and back in the air,” Sky Chaser said eagerly. “I may be an earth pony but I’m more comfortable in the sky than underground. And besides, this place smells like a crypt.”
Twilight sniffed the air and noted the musty smell that had overcome her so gradually she hadn’t even noticed it until it was pointed out. It was that stuffiness that always accompanied truly old places, like very deepest archives in the Canterlot library that her brother had scolded her for sneaking into as a filly. Only this smell was far less comforting than the warm scent of old books.
The faint traces of a memory from foalhood came to her as she took in the scent.
She was very young, and an aunt had died – some distant relative she’d never met. The ashes had to be interred in the family mausoleum, so she, her brothers, and their parents had made a day of the thing. Her father had opened the old stone vault and the musk of generations of her family as they quietly waited out eternity wafted out. It wasn’t rank or foul – it was just death.
“Yeah,” Twilight agreed as she led the way back into the tunnel, “it does smell like a crypt in here…”
Sky Chaser shivered slightly and popped the collar of his peacoat up. “We’re going to catch our deaths in this damned place,” he muttered as he cast one last look at the bloody remains of some unknown dog.
* * *
Twilight lay on her bed, staring at the tiny motes of light floating around her ceiling. The electric lights had proven too bright for her current mood, but she also desperately didn’t want to be in the dark, so she opted to cast a more playful, less energy efficient variant of the illumination spell. The lights fluttered about overhead, winking like fireflies and creating a soothing compromise between light and darkness.
Once they’d left the cave, the first blush of evening had fallen upon them. Twilight could have sworn they hadn’t been underground for more than an hour, but somehow time had gotten away from them.
Basenji had insisted on doing what he could to replace the seal his brother had erected. Though he didn’t have his brother’s skill, he was able to craft a passable approximation of it. Unlike Dingo’s spell, Basenji’s had manifested as an unnaturally smooth dome, just a shade or two darker than the color of the surrounding rock. It was obvious even from a distance that something was there, but it did create a relatively stout barrier that would keep anyone from crossing the threshold.
With the barrier in place, Sky Chaser had hurried them back up the ramp and onto ship. Once he and Twilight had made a quick sweep of the ship for stowaways – the remainders of the camp’s occupants were still unaccounted for, after all – he’d taken them to the air and set their course directly for Saddle Arabia.
Safely away from that strange place, the group had decided to try and get some rack. They’d fished Basenji out of the desert in the middle of the night, and in the excitement of their newfound quest, no one had gotten any real rest. Twilight, Sky Chaser, and Cadance had all taken to their rooms, while Basenji had decided to take the blankets and pillows he was supplied with to make a bed for himself in the hold.
Cadance had tried to offer him her room, saying that she could bunk with Twilight – to Twilight’s barely hidden fluster – but the dog had insisted on not putting anyone out. It had come as a relief to Twilight that she wouldn’t be sharing a bedroom with the princess, but the rush of excitement only served to remind her of the troubles she’d been having moments before they’d met their guest.
The more she thought on it, the more it seemed that the restlessness she'd felt that night had been nothing but jitters from her mission, or some other unrelated issue… but then she had to go and talk to Sky Chaser.
All his highfalutin talk about love and “having a chance” had put a seed of something in her brain. It turned a harmless and easily ignored attraction – a day-to-day, run-of-the-mill crush – on an urbane, beautiful, funny mare, and made it… awkward.
Awkward was a good word for it. Every time she looked at Cadance now, there was Sky Chaser’s voice in her ear telling her that Cadance liked her back.
Twilight had had crushes before. Not many, to tell the truth, and none had been particularly intense, but she’d had her share. It was just a part of growing up that you never really grew out of, if anecdotal evidence and romance literature was any indication. Besides, all those past attractions had been very short lived.
That’s how these things went: first somepony catches your eye intellectually or physically and you get a little flutter in your heart, and a few days, or even a few weeks later, you get over it. Crushes were a lot like the flu, like that. But Sky Chaser’s encouragement had given some hope to those emotions, whether she wanted that hope or not.
She sighed and clutched her upset belly. Their short time back on solid ground had pulled the hard-won sky-legs right out from under her, and her airsickness was back in full force.
At least it was something to concentrate on for now that wasn’t the princess. She knew she could shake this attraction, same as any other crush, it would just take a little more time than usual. All she had to do was limit off-duty exposure, keep her head down, try not to stare, and this whole thing would blow over.
A gentle, almost timid knock at the door shook her out of her thoughts and brought her attention crashing back to reality. The door opened a crack, just enough to let Cadance’s voice drift in.
“Twilight, it’s me, are you awake?”
Twilight briefly entertained the notion of laying her head down and pretending to be asleep, but lost her nerve for the ruse just as she was lowering her head. The rusty bedsprings squeaked shrilly as she sat up and replied: “Yes, I’m awake.”
Cadance stepped into the room, the hinges creaking more loudly than she recalled, and shut the door behind herself with a gentle click.
The most analytical part of Twilight’s mind noticed that Cadance was still wearing her royal fineries, which she knew the princess removed before bed. She reasoned that this likely meant that Cadance hadn’t even attempted to sleep, despite her assurances that she’d try to get some rest.
The rest of Twilight, the parts that were less than fully analytical, began sending up flags of panic. She felt her stomach flip at being alone, in her bedroom, with the princess. That sense of awkwardness fell upon her again and she cursed Sky Chaser’s very name as the princess trotted forward and tilted her head towards the empty spot on the bed.
“May I?” Cadance asked innocently.
“Oh!” Twilight exclaimed. “Yes, um, let me just…”
She tried to rise so her princess could have the bed to herself, but Cadance held up a hoof quickly.
“No! No I meant just… um…” Cadance sighed and made a shooing motion. “Just… just scoot over.”
Twilight did what was asked and tried not to stare as Cadance climbed onto the bed next to her. The springs groaned again as they were burdened with the weight of a second occupant.
“Very pretty.”
Twilight’s head snapped around, her eyes wide as she stared at the princess. “W-what?”
“Your spell,” Cadance clarified with a tilt of her chin towards the ceiling. “It’s the Lightning Bug spell, right?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s Star Watcher’s variant of the Simple Illumination spell,” Twilight said with a nervous chuckle. “I was, um, feeling playful.”
“I always liked this one. I could never get the magical-current values uniform, though. The little bugs are supposed to all be exactly the same and burn for the exact same length of time, but mine are… well…”
Cadance’s horn glowed with magical energy which condensed like droplets of water in the air. The globules of floating magic – all of different sizes and varying levels of brightness – rose to join Twilight’s ‘bugs’.
“As an alicorn, power’s not really an issue, but I’ve just never had the control for really fine-tuned spellwork,” Cadance explained regrettably.
“I like your variant better, I think,” Twilight said with a smile as she watched Cadance’s lights dance. “They’re more energetic. It looks more like actual lightning bugs than my spell. It’s got more… heart, I guess.”
The natural pinkness of Cadance’s cheeks intensified just a shade at the praise. “That’s very sweet of you to say.”
For a while they said nothing else, content to watch the tiny sparks of magical light dance about on invisible aetheric currents. It had been a hard day, and solitude had done nothing to relieve the stress of it. But in the company of a good friend, the silent moment was invigorating. Even Twilight was able to forget her troubles, despite the fact that the source of half those troubles happened to be sitting next to her on the bed.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Cadance said, breaking the spell of comfortable silence. “I wanted to apologize. This thing with Basenji’s brother was…”
“More than you expected, I know,” Twilight finished for her.
Cadance nodded abashedly. “It was unfair of me to put you in that position. It’s just that I really wanted to… I don’t know how to explain it…”
“You wanted a win,” Twilight said.
Cadance shot her guard a curious expression. “Yeah… yeah that’s it exactly. How’d you know?”
“Because,” Twilight answered with a shrug, “if I were the Princess of Love, it’s what I would have wanted.”
Cadance made a show of huffing in annoyance, but the grin she wore betrayed her display. “Oh, so you think we’re that much alike, do you?”
“I think I know what it’s like to spend your whole life living in the shadow of somepony that shines as brightly as the sun.”
Cadance watched the bugs flitter above as she let that thought sink in. “You’ve mentioned that before.”
Twilight shrugged again. “It’s a big part of why I am the way I am, I think,” she rationalized. “I’ve worked very hard my whole life, trying to live up to somepony else’s reputation. Lately, though, I’m starting to realize that it’s hard to be your own pony when you live like that.”
Cadance nodded knowingly. “Doesn’t help when you have to live up to more than one reputation, and one of them is your own.” She cast a sidelong glance down at Twilight. “Did you ever read the book? The one they wrote about my fight with Prismia, I mean.”
Twilight nodded.
“I never liked that book,” Cadance said with a very unlady-like snort. “It romanticizes the story too much.” Cadance lifted an arm and held a hoof to her forehead in mock-swoon, her other arm outstretched as though pushing something away. “A poor orphaned pegasus, taken in by a loving elderly earth pony couple! Her village beset by the evil witch Prismia, who knew only bitterness and sorrow!”
Cadance brought her hooves together under her chin as the tone of her voice became increasingly dramatic. “With her magic pendant, Prismia spread her hatred to all the ponies of the village, and made their hearts grow cold! But that sweet young virgin maiden strode forth, her heart so pure and loving that no dark magic could touch it! She snatched the pendant from the witch’s neck, and used it to spread the power of her innocence and love to save the village and reform the witch!”
“Is that not how it happened?” Twilight asked with a raise of her eyebrow.
“Mostly,” Cadance said with a snicker. “Just the prose is a little too flowery for my taste, and the fight in the book was written to make it seem like it was much easier than it really was.” Cadance stretched a wing out and ran a hoof up her side, along the ribs. “The process that made me an alicorn included some really powerful healing magic. If it didn’t, I’d have a real wicked scar right here from where Prismia knocked me out of the air with a spear of magic ice. The crash knocked a tooth loose, too.”
“Whoa,” Twilight whispered. “Sounds like it was a doozy of a fight.”
“Trust me, it wasn’t anything a professional soldier would have been impressed by,” Cadance sighed. “I was unbelievably lucky that she didn’t kill me. I got my shots in, though. You want to know how I actually got the pendant off her in the end? I distracted her by dumping a bucket of fish on her head.”
“A bucket of fish?” Twilight repeated with a laugh.
“The village I’m from is the number-three producer of salted fish in all of Equestria, so you better believe I dropped some fish on her!” Cadance said with genuine hometown pride and a beat of her hoof to her chest. “My poppa always said, ‘Ain’t no prollum too big ya can’t solve it with a bucket o’ fish’!”
“He sounds like a funny guy,” Twilight remarked with a grin.
“He was,” Cadance said, her smile faltering a bit. “He died not too long after I ascended, and momma went just a few days later… Her heart just wasn’t strong enough to go on without his…”
“I’m sorry…” Twilight whispered. Cadance had said that her adopted parents were elderly, but to hear that they’d died was a bit of a shock. Twilight thought of her own parents, and how much she would miss either of them if they were gone.
“It’s okay, they got to see me as a princess, at least. They were the first thing I saw when I got out of the room.”
“The room?” Twilight repeated curiously.
Cadance nodded. “I don’t know any of the real technical stuff, because I don’t have the head for magic to understand it, but Aunt Celestia says it’s the only place the Ascension spell can be cast. The way she explained it, it’s a place that’s sort of alive with a mind of its own. It summons ponies with big, important destinies once they realize what they’re supposed to do with their lives. For me, it was realizing that I wanted to devote my life to spreading love to every living thing. That was the place where I met Aunt Celestia for the first time, got my Cutie Mark, and became a princess. It was a very busy day for me.”
“Sounds like it,” Twilight said with an impressed whistle.
“Anyway, after that, I started studying at Canterlot Academy. Ponies started expecting me to be special right out the gate. I had to live up to Aunt Celestia’s expectations, the expectations of everypony that read that book, the expectations of my royal title… it’s been… overwhelming…”
Twilight felt a tickle against her sides as Cadance brushed a wing against her.
“It’s nice to finally have somepony to talk to about this stuff,” Cadance said softly. “I wasn’t kidding when I said most ponies are too intimidated to talk to me. Nobles are out of the question, because they don’t really care about me for anything but my title. Guards aren’t much help either. You’re the first guard I’ve ever had that wasn’t all business and frowny stares.” She chuckled sadly to herself. “And I already told you how things went with your brother…”
Twilight felt a light jab from Cadance’s wing, drawing her attention. She looked into Cadance’s big, beautiful eyes and in the back of her head she could hear Sky Chaser’s words again: “…I reckon you’ve got as fair a shot at her as anypony…”
“Thank you for being my friend, Twilight Sparkle.”
A knock at the door tore Twilight away from Cadance’s hypnotic gaze. “Oh, thank Celestia,” Twilight muttered under her breath. “Come in!”
The knob turned and Basenji entered. He was not wearing his travelling cloak, but his satchel and precious drum were eternally at his side.
“Forgiveness, please, if I have interrupted,” Basenji said with a bow. “I was going above and heard voices.”
“What interrupting?” Twilight asked, her voice slightly louder than normal. “What would you even be interrupting? It’s just me and the princess having some girl chat! Chit-chat! Gossip! Pillow-talk!”
Twilight slapped a hoof over her mouth, eyes wide at the implication of that last synonym.
“Anyway…” Cadance said as she cast a worried look at her friend’s behavior. “Couldn’t sleep, Basenji?”
“N-no,” the dog answered. He shook his head and wrote the strange response off as the eccentricities of foreign ponies. “My body is tired, but my heart is filled with worry for Dingo. I saw the wisdom of seeking aid, but every moment brings more doubt that such was the correct course to take.”
“It was the right choice,” Cadance assured him. “We’ll find him, don’t worry.”
Basenji nodded. “It is not only Dingo that I worry for. Other dogs were with him, and one may have lost his life.” Basenji sighed and slumped against the wall beside the door. “I am a drummer. All dogs are my dogs. I worry that others may have been taken by this… perversion of the Ways.”
Twilight managed to shake the last of her embarrassment and joined the conversation. “You think they were summoned there the same way as your brother? Strange dreams and all?”
“Summoned, yes,” Basenji agreed. “This is perhaps the word. But summoned by what? Questions after questions... I feel as though I am the one that is mad.”
"I know the feeling," Twilight grumbled. "I don't like how little we know about what was going on at that mountain. Seems like the only one of us that's made of iron is Sky Chaser."
"I'm sure he's bothered, too," Cadance said. "He's just tired. Old ponies need their rest, and he's been on his hooves as long as we have."
Twilight chuckled. "Don't tell him that. Old stallions like that don't take kindly to the implication that they can't keep up with us youngsters."
A scream rent the air, bringing all three occupants of Twilight’s room to their hooves and paws.
“Was that Sky Chaser?” Cadance asked in a panic.
Twilight didn’t waste a moment. Her heart began pounding, blood rushing through her veins as adrenaline spurred her into action. She went straight for her trunk to fasten a baldric – a simple sash with scabbards for her knives – around her chest and levitated three of the blades into place. The fourth knife floated up to her face and she bit down on the cloth grip of the handle.
“Stay here!” she commanded around the obstruction in her mouth.
She was out the door and in the hall before either Cadance or Basenji could protest. Sky Chaser’s cabin was on the opposite side of the hall, one door over from Cadance’s room.
The time for social niceties was gone the moment Sky Chaser had called out in distress. She turned the knob with a twist of magic and threw the door open, knife held at the ready to defend her friend. The rooms were all the same, she’d learned, and she was able to flip the light switch telekinetically. The light flipped on and dispelled the darkness of Sky Chaser’s room.
Red.
Everything was red. The walls, the bed, the ceiling – it was all painted dark red. And all that redness glistened wetly in the bright light of the bare bulb swinging from the ceiling like a criminal at the end of a noose.
Sky Chaser was in bed, his eyes staring at the door without occupancy, as though in his final moments he’d been looking for somepony, anypony, to burst in and help him.
Standing over him were two of his killers. Each was easily the size of a pony and covered in thick, chitinous black armor. They had too many legs, too many eyes, and too many damned fangs.
“Sky Chaser! No!”
Twilight was startled by the sudden cry from Cadance, who had followed her into the hall. She dropped her knife and it fell to the floor with a thud.
“Cadance, don’t look!” Twilight shouted.
The monstrous spiders had finally taken notice of the intrusion and turned to look at them. Three more of the things fell from the ceiling and joined their brethren as they reached their spindly legs towards the door.
Spiders were fast, but Twilight’s mind and her magic were faster. She flung the knife at the nearest one, striking it cleanly in the face, but her knife merely slid off the thing’s carapace without a scratch and lodged itself in the wall. Her horn flared brightly, and a solid bolt of compressed magical energy struck it with the force of a cannonball, slamming it against the others behind it in the small cabin. The monstrous things crashed against the hull hard enough to crack it and writhed angrily in a jumble of tangled legs, but were otherwise unaffected.
Her jaw dropped as she watched them detangle themselves. Whatever these things were, they were incredibly resistant to damage. She knew that a smart soldier knew when to retreat, so she yanked the lost knife from the wall and levitated it into the empty pocket of her baldric before slamming the door shut.
“Get back to my room!” she commanded the princess.
They ran for Twilight’s cabin, and even as they shut the door they could hear the sound of Sky Chaser’s door being reduced to splinters.
Twilight’s horn glowed as she built power. Every piece of furniture in the room, except her steam trunk, was piled against the door. She closed her eyes in focus and the makeshift barrier shimmered with a bright pink wall of magical energy.
Her shield and barricade in place, she opened her trunk and began rooting through it.
“What is happening?” Basenji asked as he clutched his drum to his chest. “Where is Sky Chaser?”
“He’s gone,” Cadance muttered.
Twilight looked up and felt her heart twist in her chest at the sight of her princess. Cadance was staring at the floor, head down and wings drooped as she barely managed to hold back her tears.
She went to her princess and knelt down beside her so she could look up into the taller mare’s distraught face.
“Cadance, look at me,” she said with authority. “We need to keep it together right now, okay? I know you’re a brave pony, and I need that brave pony with me here, right now.”
Cadance swallowed hard and nodded. She still looked on the verge of tears, but there was enough steel in her eyes that Twilight knew she’d be fine for the moment.
The sound of splintering wood filled the air again and through the barricade they could see long, skinny legs poking holes through the door and scratching ineffectively at the pink barrier. The shield was one of her brother’s designs, and nothing was getting through so long as she maintained the power levels.
Already, though, she could hear the things moving on to the rest of the ship. She could hold the shield on a single wall for a good long while, and if needed she could put a bubble shield around the three of them capable of holding the creatures back for hours. But shields didn’t matter if the enemy pulled the ship apart around them, and strong as they were, it was only a matter of time.
Considering their speed, durability, and presumed strength, a battle in the tight quarters of the ship was heavily against her favor. Plus, she had Cadance and Basenji to look after. The more she thought about it, the clearer it became that the ship was likely a lost cause.
“What is this?” Basenji asked fearfully.
“Spiders,” Twilight informed him. She went back to her trunk and pulled out her saddlebags, which she began to fill with supplies. “They’re big and they killed Sky Chaser.”
“Have you got a plan, Twilight?” Cadance asked shakily.
She nodded and continued packing. “I do. It’s pretty extreme, but I’ve run the scenarios in my head and it’s the option with the highest degree of likelihood that all of us make it out of this alive. These things are too tough for half-measures.”
“I trust your judgment,” Cadance said.
“I as well,” Basenji agreed.
“Okay, first I need to know, princess, can you fly with Basenji on your back?”
“I… I think I can,” Cadance stammered with a flush. “No, I know I can. Just not very far.”
“You don’t have to go far,” Twilight explained as she set the bags aside and stared at the various potions tucked away in the pockets lining the trunk. She began uncorking bottles and mixing them together in seemingly random ways. “You just have to get him to the ground. My hooves are full, so I also need you to take out the wall behind us. Think you can blow it?”
“If I may,” Basenji said. He stood on his hind legs took a wide stance, his drum held tightly against his hip. He beat a quick tattoo on the drum and within moments cracks began to form along the wall. As his paw struck the final note, a portion of the hull crumbled to dust and blew away in the wind, revealing the dark blue night sky.
“Good work,” Twilight shot over her shoulder as she continued mixing chemicals. A few of the bottles were now vibrating from the force of the reactions corked within, and Twilight secured the stoppers with liberal amounts of epoxy. “You guys get out and get far away. I’ll be right behind.”
“No way,” Cadance declared. “You don’t have wings. I’m not leaving without you. I can carry you both.”
“I’ll be fine!” Twilight snapped. “I mean it. I don’t intend to die here.”
Cadance blanched at the thought. “You better not…” she said as she allowed Basenji to climb onto her back. She spread her wings and leapt from the airship, gliding away to safety.
The feeling of relief Twilight felt knowing that Cadance was out of danger was short lived as the spiders chose that moment to redouble their efforts at breaching the barrier. She could see their eyes, glowing unnaturally bright red like burning coals, peering at her as they scratched at the shield and removed parts of the wall in an attempt to find a way inside. Luckily they weren’t smart enough to try breaching a different wall, or the spell would have been much harder to maintain.
Their eyes gave her pause. Spiders, even giant ones, shouldn’t have glowing eyes. That could only mean one thing: magical constructs.
She ground her teeth in anger. It didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was sending the filthy things back to Tartarus.
She placed the cap on the final bottle, a slim vial of amber color liquid that glowed with the reaction inside, and set it aside gently. She spared only a moment to inspect her armor, which she’d thrown carelessly against the wall in her search for supplies. All that time spent trying to get it to fit properly, and in the end all it was good for was the gold used in the alloy.
Twilight shoved the armor back into the trunk with a curse as she slipped on the heavy saddlebags. The vial she’d just set aside flew up and uncorked itself, dumping the luminescent brew onto the armor.
The reaction was immediate. The gold in the armor began to heat rapidly, quickly bringing the highly unstable chemicals she’d mixed to boil inside their containers.
Twilight slammed the lid shut and bucked it towards the barrier as she bolted for the exit.
Twilight held her breath as she leapt out of the ship and into a freefall. She tried not to panic as the ground rushed to meet her in a show of what her instructors used to call “wet physics.”
She closed her eyes and refocused the energy being spent on her barrier towards creating the bubble shield her brother had taught her. A properly cast shield was stiff, unyielding and impenetrable so long as you could supply the magic to maintain it, but what she really needed was something softer. She concentrated on making the bubble firm, but with enough malleability that it would cushion the impact rather than resist it.
Twilight opened her eyes once she was certain the spell was cast to her liking, and to her shock she was only a few meters from the ground. Panic overcame her at the last second, and she was certain she’d screwed up somewhere. Some part of the output was wrong, or her capacity to offset the kinetic energy, or her fundamental conceptualization of the spell patterns was wrong. Her mind buzzed with fancy arcane-talk for what essentially boiled down to: “I goofed and went splat.”
She flinched as her shield hit the ground, and magic flowed from her in response to the load her spell was under. The sensation of falling to the ground was replaced with the sensation of falling upwards as the bubble’s elasticity came into play and tossed her back into the air. Her airsickness returned a thousandfold as she bounced along the rocky desert landscape.
She bounced a few more times and released the bubble with a loud pop, tumbling into a rolling stop. She was dizzy and feeling ill, but all her insides were still on the inside.
Twilight barely had time to gather her wits when her homemade bomb went off. One of the chemicals had reached its transition state and exploded, breaking the other containers open and mixing the various cocktails into a potent mix of explosives and accelerants.
She watched as the Old Mistress went up in flames like kindling, and a few moments later the flames reached whatever fuel the engines used, creating a second kaboom that shook the night air. A third, final boom went off seconds later when the ship's ballast system failed and released all the highly pressurized air at once.
The flaming wreckage didn’t float long. The flames had found their way to the balloon and released the helium back up into the sky. The bright ball of fire slowly sunk from the air like a setting sun – a sad reminder that it was officially the night of the Summer Sun Celebration.
“That was for Sky Chaser,” Twilight declared shakily. “Nothing gets by the Guard.”
The adrenaline came as fast as it went, and training only helped during a crisis, not after. All at once she was hit by the fatigue, the airsickness, and the rush of what she’d just walked away from.
When Cadance and Basenji found her a few minutes later, Twilight was leaning against a rock, shivering and vomiting what little dinner she’d had into a desert bush.
* * *