It was difficult being a gryphon in a pony nation, Gawain considered, as he languished in front of a heavily wooden door. He had first come to Equestria in hopes of starting a new life, with every expectation that it would be just like the employment brochures had said. Armed with a freshly-printed law degree and a can-do attitude, he had hoped to serve as a barrister – perhaps even a public defender.
It hadn't worked out as he'd hoped. Apparently passing the bar in Gryphodonia would get you only so far in Equestria – the different countries had different standards of excellence, and for all that thousands of bits had gone into his education, he could barely serve as a research clerk in any of the law firms that Canterlot had to offer. Worse still, pony lands were... strange. Something to do with the way that their magic interacted with nature meant that all of the usually edible animals in most of the rest of the world were distressingly sapient. He'd seen literal choirs of bluebirds, and a squirrel rugby team competing in an inter-rodentia league.
Fish were just about an option, but given that all of the ponies were herbivores, fisherponies were somewhat thin on the ground. The food he had needed in order to survive had come at a premium, and the money that might have paid for his articling in a respected Canterlot firm had dried up quickly – as had most of his savings. He was just about making rent in one of the poorer neighbourhoods in Canterlot, but only because he had begun to capitalize on his apparently more employable qualities.
Even if nobody wanted to hire a Grypodonian-trained barrister, Gawain still cut a fine figure of a gryphon if he said so himself. Large, by pony standards, broad in the shoulders and wingspan, and with his species characteristic sharp claws and beak, a pony he had met in a pub had been willing to hire him as a night watchman, paid under the table, and no need to bother the revenue stallions. Gawain had the vague impression that the legality of whatever he was guarding was a grey issue at best, but his options were limited; it was easy to moralize on a full stomach, but more difficult by far under current circumstances. The job was undemanding, and he was being paid enough money that he was making a living – with very slender savings. Now and again, a pony would show up, picking up or dropping off. If they had the right emblems on their outfits, they were allowed inside. If they didn't, he... encouraged them to remember other appointments.
He was reasonably certain that whatever contraband he was guarding, it wasn't any kind of recreational pharmaceutical. Too many deliveries, not enough pick-ups. If someone was smuggling relics out of some of the old jungle temples or something, what did he care? Equestria's law-enforcement community had missed the boat on hiring him to give a crap about their preferences. Instead, the gryphon occupied himself with an academic treatise on the concept of in medias res. It really was an interesting narrative technique, but not one popular in gryphon lands.
Taking a bite out of a hay-bacon sandwich and wishing to the Ancestors that it was a real one, Gawain pulled his cap down over his eyes and hoped for a quiet evening. Things would be... well, not great, but fine, just so long as he maintained his current holding pattern. Sooner or later, he would raise up enough money, and he would be able to get his life back on track. Just so long as nothing unexpected happened.
“Night Watch! Put your claws in the air!”
Ah. Shit.
* * *
A week prior...
It had been a few days since the – call it a party, since very few formal briefings have classically ended with an outright brawl(11) - and the newly formed Night Watch had more or less offered all of the apologies which they intended to give to one another. That having been accomplished, the subject had changed to the much more pressing concern of actually accomplishing the task that the princess had set before them.
Tirak's escape from his imprisonment had been the apparent result of mischance; there was no serious evidence to disprove the theory, and at the moment, no pressing reason to send a pony to Tartarus without something specific to look for. Cerberus was being better looked after, anyway, and it was unlikely another of the hell-plane's residents was likely to slip the leash, at least not the same way. In the interests of being thorough, Sharp Salute had asked for a comprehensive list of old enemies with a potential grudge against or predatory intent toward the ponies of Equestria.
It had not been especially heartening when Luna had looked awkward and muttered something about 'hundreds that she could remember off-hoof.'
The moon princess had, to her credit, furnished her guard with the top threescore or so most likely suspects. None of them seemed especially credible as up-and-coming threats to Equestria, but then, nobody had predicted Discord or Tirak, either. A few dozen pony-hours of library research later, and some basic dossiers had been filled out; probably not enough to be actually useful, but enough that, in the unlikely but possible event that 'Drimzel the Devourer' reared her ugly mug, the Night Watch could conceivably do something other than look momentarily surprised.
The work had been necessary, and it had been heartening; the frankly immense task had become something that was at least conceivable in scope – having narrowed the possible threats that they were meant to combat from 'all things in existence'. This accomplished, the question had arisen as to where next the team might direct their attentions.
The Night Watch had split off, with different members each pursuing avenues that their skills suggested or encouraged. Zorada and Icewine had favoured academic angles, the zebra going to speak with her contacts in the corporate research fields, and the unicorn returning to the university for a quick look at just who might have been looking through catalogues of ancient evils readily at hand. That such catalogues even existed had come as something of a surprise to some members of the Watch, but as Icewine had observed, the university had, over the centuries, taken it upon itself to list and categorize just about everything of which its resident scholars could conceive, and as time had gone on such listings had grown quite extensive.
Sharp Salute had known some ponies from his Guard days, well enough informed to be unironically considered 'contacts', who kept their ears close enough to the ground that should some form of supernatural conspiracy be brewing, there was at least a reasonable chance that they might have caught wind of it. Sticky Wings had similar sorts of friends – more acquaintances really – that she had begrudgingly admitted to, presumably capable of similar acts of reconnaissance, but in differing circles.
Hot Streak, having no particular apparatuses in place to aid in the gathering or formulation of intelligence, had contented herself with gathering the various daily and periodical newspapers published over the previous few weeks, on the grounds that there was a chance that something remarkable or mysterious might have made the news. Promising articles were clipped out – dubious ones discarded. Hope sprang eternal, but after a rush of excitement, most of the tabloids were removed from the pile of searched papers, after a distressing number of false positives.(12)
In the end, the Night Watch's first real lead had been an amalgamation of efforts; Hot Streak had seen an article which had mentioned the recent wrongful arrest of a merchant banker by the name of Golden Fortune. The arresting officers were currently under investigation, and Equestria Daily was speculating that they might shortly lose their positions. As it had to do with an artefact trafficking ring, Hot Streak had set the article aside, where it had been spotted by Sticky Wings.
The facts-as-presented differed from her memory of the same events, and Sticky was immediately suspicious. “The thing is, he was guilty.”
Sharp Salute gave the pegasus a sharp look. “You sound like you have firsthoof knowledge of that.” Sticky nodded, and the elderly pony ran his upper teeth over his lower lip, thoughtfully. “There could still have been mistakes in the arrest procedure, or in how he was treated when incarcerated, but that does seem to paint this in a different light.”
“He mistook me for someone supposed to be selling him a magical amulet of some kind.” Sticky explained. “Trust me. I've been arrested a lot. Apple Peeler's boys are among the more professional of the various constabularies that have collared me, and the bust was good, I'm sure of it.” Leaving aside – for the moment – the fact that Sticky Wings apparently had a working knowledge of Equestrian arrest procedure from the point of view of the arrested, Sharp Salute had earmarked the article, and arranged a team meeting to discuss it.
Opinions were mixed. Zorada was fairly certain it was an old familiar foe of the Equestrian justice system rearing its ugly head again – rampant corruption. She had seen any number of companies bypass health-and-safety regulations in her time as a freelance corporate watchdog, and this seemed like a cut and dry example of a familiar tune with slightly different lyrics. Sticky Wings had suggested that some form of magic had been afoot, and Ice Wine had agreed that it seemed likely. Sharp Salute had listened to the ideas, before holding up a hoof and shaking his head. “Whatever the direct cause of this trouble, we don't have enough information. I should like for us to have more of it before we go jumping to conclusions – ideally, a good deal more. Thoughts?”
Ice Wine raised a hoof. “I think I know the reporter who wrote the article.” Knew, yes, liked... not so much. But that was beside the point. “I could go and ask her if there was any information that she couldn't follow up on. Maybe she might be willing to share? Looking at the article, it sounds like she was a bit put out that so little information was freely given.”
The reporter in question, a unicorn by the unlikely name of Poison Pen, had been a classmate of Ice Wine at the Celestia School for Gifted Unicorns. Where Ice Wine had not mixed well due to a short temper and otherwise lackadaisical attitude, Poison Pen had been the class gossip, and the two had butted heads more than once. Pressed upon the subject, Ice Wine admitted that he detested Poison Pen, and that it had been reciprocated, but he respected her ability to work a story down to its bones, and then 'grind those bones into a fine powder'. “If nothing else, the authority of working for the Lunar Guard should help at least a little.”
Sharp Salute was less convinced. “If this is going to be an official outing, rather than a basic fact-finding, you shouldn't go unaccompanied. Guard teams stick together, and it's worked for generations for a reason. This Poison Pen might not be the sort to turn violent, but someone is trying to get this Golden Fortune off the hook, and they might not be so polite. Hot Streak, you're with Ice Wine.”
Ice Wine blanched a little at that. He had been working down at the ranges with the other unicorn, and even with Princess Luna's advice and assistance, things had gone rather spectacularly – in the sense that all of those misfires had certainly been visually spectacular. “Permission to set myself on fire and save time, sir?” Hot Streak looked hurt, but Sticky Wings snickered.
Sharp Salute, for his part, looked unamused. “Denied. We need to start working together as a team, not taking pot shots at one another when the opportunity arises. While it's unlikely that you're going to end up in a combat situation for something so relatively innocuous, situations can change rapidly when you're working in the field.” For a moment, years seemed to slough off of the old earth pony, the injection of steel into his tone giving it a firmness that beggared defiance. It was only for a moment though, and as the command that brooked no argument seemed to be accepted, Salute regained the decades quickly, looking and sounding tired.
The sergeant continued. “Back here, Sticky Wings and Zorada, I'd like for you to find out what you can about which of the members of the House of Lords are causing the most trouble for the Guard in Manehattan. There's usually one or two that are for sale, and if you're trying to find the root of an obstruction of justice, you rarely have to look beyond a few auspicious deposits in the accounts of whatever young lordling or lady has recently developed a gambling problem.”
Zorada nodded, making a few notes with a quill she habitually kept behind an ear. “It is always at least a little off-putting to rediscover that be they zebra, pony, or any other civilized species, 'how much and who to' is a relevant question in most any culture.”
Hot Streak was chewing her lower lip nervously. “Are we sure that this is within our mandate? I mean, I set the article aside because 'people mucking around with old artefacts' sort of seems like one of the things we're supposed to look into, but I'll admit, we don't have any real direct link between that and 'Equestria threatening dangers'.”
Sharp Salute gave a laugh, with enough years of cynicism behind it to qualify it as primordial(13) “If we find something in all of this relevant to the job we're ostensibly being put to, then bonus. If we get to the bottom of it, and it turns out to just be ponies being mutton-headed and greedy, then justice is still served. If it's just a bad lead...” The earthpony shrugged. “Then we're really not much worse off than we were before. We're here to be vigilant, so we might as well try.”
It was hard to argue with that.
* * *
The meeting with Poison Pen had been arranged in the mid-afternoon, in a small bar and grill in uptown Canterlot. The restaurant was affordable, even on an academic's pay, and was within a short trot of the head offices for Equestria Daily, making it a reliable gin joint for those members of the fifth estate that were occasionally fond of tying one on. The bar's status as 'neutral ground' allowed journalists of every stripe a chance to let their manes down and relax a little, without worrying that some erstwhile colleague might be pumping them for information. While Ice Wine had never been there before, he was familiar with the bar's reputation – that is to say, infested with journalists – and as such had brought enough bits to ply snoopy reporters with drinks until the scheduled meeting time. Members of the public were not, reportedly, covered by the 'neutral ground' policy.
Poison Pen made her entrance ten minutes late, with all of the social grace of a wounded hydra, and Ice Wine felt an old familiar flame stirring deep inside of himself at the sight of his old classmate.
“Oy, are you quite alright?” Hot Streak asked, seeing the expression on her co-worker's face.
“Heartburn. Really bad heartburn.” Ice Wine popped a couple of antacids into his mouth, chewing and swallowing the tablets with the aid of a glass of water.
Poison trotted her way over to their table, while Ice Wine did his best to bury his reaction in his cup. The purple and green unicorn gave the two guardponies an appraising look. “I'm here. What is it that you want?”
Hot Streak glanced over at Ice Wine, who gave a 'go ahead' gesture with his spare hoof, still clinging feebly to the conceit that he was just so damn interested in the contents of his rapidly emptying water glass. She shrugged. “Miss Pen, we're here representing the Palace.” The journalist's eyebrows shot up, but she didn't interrupt, so Hot Streak continued. “We read your article about Golden Fortune's arrest, and we wanted to ask you a few questions. We believe it may be related to a matter of Equestrian security.”
Poison Pen's expression had rapidly shifted, from mild annoyance to something resembling – at a distance, and in bad light – delight. “Is that a fact?” She purred, producing a quill, a bottle of ink, and a notepad from her purse. “There was a fair amount of good reporting quashed in that article-” she was there interrupted by a derisive snort from Ice Wine, which she gallantly ignored, “- but I had thought it was just a case of the Old Stallions Club in the house of lords not wanting a wealthy backer to be embarrassed. What would you like to know, and more importantly...” the journalist left a pregnant pause long enough to develop morning sickness “... how can one hoof wash the other? What's in it for me?”
Ice Wine had recovered enough by this point to retort. “Princess and Country?”
Poison's expression did not shift an iota. “And?”
Ice Wine gave Hot Streak a glance that said little that was repeatable in polite company, and nothing which was fit for print, but which summarized to 'do you see what I meant?' She gave him an encouraging smile.
He relented. “And, if your information is useful, an exclusive interview with members of Princess Luna's new guard faction. After our current investigation is finished.” Poison Pen seemed to consider this, until he added “Or, we can go speak to Shocking Headline. He's always looking for new material.”
Poison Pen sputtered. “That muckraker? Fine, but you owe me one, smallfry.” Ignoring the narrowing of Ice Wine's eyes, the reporter continued. “I had a feeling there was more to the whole Golden Fortune story, so I looked into some of the holdings he had purchased, ostensibly on behalf of his investment group, and discovered that there were a lot of warehouses...”
* * *
“And so it looks as if there is a collection of mystical bric-a-brac being collected in a warehouse down by the Canterlot docks.” Ice Wine flipped to the next page of his notepad. “Owned by a Lord Clearing House, of the Manehattan Houses, the warehouse in question is in a block that was sealed off after the Changeling attacks due to excessive magic contamination.” He raised his eyebrows at that. “It would help to explain why there's been some difficulty winkling out the specific location of the cache. Most artefact detection spells and tools aren't finely enough tuned to discern between background radiation and shaped spells.”
Sharp Salute rubbed his grey jaw. “Interesting. And then due to some form of malfeasance, Peeler's guards can't get a warrant to search noble property, and they have to start defending themselves against some pile of horseapples of a 'wrongful arrest' conviction.” He shook his head. “Your friend say anything about the sort of stuff that this group supposedly had?”
Hot Streak shook her head. “No sir. Only that it tended to be expensive stuff, pulled from old ruins, bought from collectors, or 'missing' from museum archives.”
The three ponies were in the small office in the palace that had been put aside for them. Luna was working on finding them better quarters, but the day guard had flatly refused to share, and most of the rest of the unused rooms large enough for the Night Watch had been declared historical grounds and added to the tour run by the Canterlotian Historical Society(14). As yet, the supplies closet in the basement that had been emptied out for their use had yet to have anything of historical import happen in it, although a member of the Historical Society had been tasked to stop by every Wednesday to make sure that nothing significant happened when they weren't paying attention.
Ice Wine was fairly confident that nothing could happen. If a pony was lithe, nimble, double-jointed and severely determined, they could just about turn around in the room, which might be a heroic accomplishment, but far from a historic one.
Sharp Salute pondered for a moment. “Alright. Here's what we're going to do. We don't have much reach where the Day Watch doesn't, but we do have a few advantages. We answer directly to Princess Luna, and she'll support us as long as we don't overdo it. Just as importantly, our funding comes from the princess, and not from a stipend afforded by the House of Lords.” He gave a humourless smile. “All we need is some thin pretence under which to prod our noses into that warehouse, and maybe we'll get some answers about this whole affair.”
* * *
“Night Watch! Put your claws in the air!”
'Ah. Shit.' Thought Gawain, for whom a quiet evening had just evaporated. True, he could try to fly away, but there weren't that many gryphons living and working in Canterlot. Whoever this 'Night Watch' was, they had led with globes of piercingly bright light, killing Gawain's night vision and rendering them all but invisible in the glare. It was impossible to tell how many there were, and even whether running was even vaguely an option.
He put his claws in the air. “What can I do for you fine...” He squinted. “Ponies?” As his vision normalized, one of the self-proclaimed 'night watch' looked more and more like a zebra. This seemed... unlikely, and Gawain's subconscious forced him to reconsider, waving Occam's razor at him in a threatening manner.
“We have a warrant to search these premises!” There was a pause, and Gawain realized that a swift, hushed conversation, as much a whispered argument as anything else. “Strike that. We have reasonable cause to prod about somewhat. But still within the premises!”
Gawain considered this for a moment. He was mildly sure that Canterlot's venal aristocracy had some hand in the ownership chain of the warehouse that he was standing in front of – but if the Night Watch was the Lunar equivalent to the Day Guard, a reasonable line of logic to follow, then they had the backing of one of Equestria's diarchs. Triarchs? There was a new one, after all – but perhaps that was incidental. The point was, when it came to 'who is likely to be protected from prosecution', their noble most likely beat his, if the noble that was probably extant in his org chart somewhere was willing to stick his or her neck out for 'help, hired' to begin with.
It was a bitch to lose the job, but it beat the hell out of being arrested. “Come in, come in, let me get the door for you, I surrender unequivocally, and incidentally, would like to turn Princess' Evidence.”
Wasn't it just so hard to hire good help these days?
11: Only two, in fact, in Equestrian history. The first, a planning session between Brigadier Golden Delicious and Admiral Hurricane, had led to fisticuffs over (direct quote) “what she said about our Neville.” The latter brawl, considerably more renowned in the annals of military history, had been between Captain Shining Armour and Corporal Helping Hoof over the possibility of Changeling infiltration in the Guard and royal palace. Shining Armour's surety that such a happenstance would be inconceivable was not well-regarded in written histories of the incident, the foremost of which had in fact been written by Corporal Helping Hoof. Petty office politics struck again.
12: 'Night Princess Plots to Steal Equestria's Cutie Marks?' Luna had snorted derisively, and requested that Hot Streak save the crossword.
13: In that it was gently bubbling, would eventually evolve into more modern-day cynicism, and had suspicious looking things floating about within it.
14: When asked why she put up with the historical society, whose primary goals seemed to be declaring that parts of the Palace could no longer be used because History had happened there, Princess Celestia had once explained to Luna that informing the society that history had pretty much happened everywhere would break their collective hearts, and that she didn't have it in her to do so. Besides, she said, it kept them off the streets and out of mischief, and that alone was worth the sacrifice of the Irritatingly Pink Drawing Room.