The cave reeked like somepony'd been sitting there all day boiling cabbages and sweating. I mean, I could smell it without even using my nose; I'd been breathing through my mouth for an hour by then, the stench of the bubbling swamp I'd been plodding through pretty much the worst thing that had ever hit me in the face.
Well, the worst thing till I reached the cave.
In the late afternoon sunlight, I squinted at the directions I'd gotten in town and hoped I'd maybe read them wrong. But no: I'd turned left at the grove of moss-draped cypress trees, had followed the string of patchy little grass islands deeper and deeper into the marsh, and now, here I was, staring with watery eyes at a cave partway up a rocky outcrop, my fetlocks covered in mud that stank like the alley behind a cheap diner. And the muggy air oozing past me from that cave carried a stench like that same alley after four days of a record-breaking heat wave.
I'd come this far, though, and if the stories I'd heard were true...
Pulling my hooves from the sticky brown slime, I started to climb toward the cave. "Hello?" I called. "I'm looking for, uhh, some information?"
"Really?" came a voice from inside: a mare's voice, but not creaky and old like I'd been expecting. "Let's hear the clatter of your bits first."
I stopped, undid my pack, and set it down carefully among the rocks so I wouldn't ding my skis. A little digging found my bag, and grabbing it in my teeth, I shook it toward the cave.
"Ah," that voice said, and the stink around me didn't just disappear; it snapped off like somepony'd thrown a switch. "Enter, O seeker of knowledge."
Carefully, I took my first deep breath in what felt like days. It didn't make me want to gag, so I clambered the rest of the way to the cave opening and peered in.
A stone tunnel stretched a dozen or so paces, its sides smooth and rounded, and at the end, in a small chamber scarcely lit by the cool blue light of her horn, a unicorn lay on a red cushion, her front hooves daintily crossed. "Forgive the dramatics," she said; the light got brighter, and I could see a low table and another cushion on the floor between her and me. "I like to make certain that my clients are sincere before I grant them access to my august presence."
In the stronger light, I could make out her cutie mark, too, a star-tipped magic wand with a swirl of pale blue behind it. "Take a seat," she said, gesturing to the other cushion.
My hooves shook as I moved to sit down. "My name's Double Diamond," I said, my stomach tightening at the thought that I might finally get the answers I'd been chasing for so many months. "And I'm trying to find a place called Kobresia."
"Ah," she said again, and the light seemed to get dimmer and colder. "The wind, it's said, never blows across the grasslands of Kobresia, so deep in the mountains beyond Yakyakistan that even the inhabitants of that distant kingdom—when they begrudgingly find that they must refer to it at all—call it 'Far Kobresia.'"
I wasn't sure if I was still breathing, her voice wrapping around me like the calmness I always felt at the top of a slope just before I leaped out and began to race down its powdery face. The blueness in the air seemed to swirl like the first flurry of the season, and I was sure I could see mountains rearing up against a winter sky.
"The wind, as I said," she went on, "is rumored never to blow through those tall, perennial sedges. Yaks will assert with much shouting and smashing of tavern tables that the wind there drifts and hisses and rustles and sighs. But that it might merely blow is something they will fervently deny.
"In fact, sir, those few yaks who claim to have stumbled, half frozen, from the ice-laden storms that howl in constant, swirling confusion through that northernmost of northern spots into the sudden, sun-drenched silence of Far Kobresia report that the stillness at first makes them wonder if they've gone deaf, if somehow the storms have affected their ears the way snow blindness will affect the eyes.
"At first, they wonder this.
"At first, too, they dance with elation, especially those who report that they'd felt Death's frosty but fevered breath upon their flanks mere moments before. For summer in Yakyakistan is a thing any of us ponies would call the depths of deepest winter, and even the majority of yaks, born and raised in the yurt-filled villages and thickly-insulated stone cities, find travel outside the settlements to be a tricky proposition at certain times of the year.
"But there are always those who feel confined by the usual, aren't there?" Over the dim image of the landscape, her sideways smile made me think of a newly risen crescent moon. "Pedestrian they call the life they lead among blizzards that would challenge the heartiest pony adventurer. Sneering, they turn up their noses at the commonplace reality of the thriving civilization the yaks have wrenched from a landscape few other species would consider close to habitable. Hooves heavy with disgust, they turn their backs on the fragrant feasts and festivals and raise their shaggy brows to the heights of the mountains beyond, the sky so crisp there, it seems ready to shatter.
"Now, the mountains of Yakyakistan, sir, if you mention them in the vicinity of what we call mountains here in Equestria, you will feel the ground tremble beneath you at the comparison."
I couldn't stop a little tremble myself. After all, it was when stories of those mountains had started reaching even our isolated little village that I had started my journey across Equestria.
"And yet," she was going on, "the shuddering sense of unworthiness that our mountains feel when they're forced into contemplation of the mountains of Yakyakistan is nothing compared to the unease that the mountains cradling the heart of yak civilization feel when their attention is turned to the behemoths beyond them, geological features that rise from the very center of the world to scrape white, cloudy scars across the blue face of the sky.
"These, no yak would dare call mountains. The word is too small, too ephemeral, too much a breath of air to describe objects so very much of the earth. These, the yaks have no word for.
"We ponies, were we ever to see even the casual, workaday mountains the yaks call home, we who breathe a constant atmosphere of magic and wonder would have our breaths taken away at the majestic splendor of the scene. Should we then catch a glimpse of the mountains beyond those mountains, our poor, stricken minds would view them merely as 'even bigger mountains.'
"But to the yaks, that similarity is an illusion and a lie. They know mountains, don't they? And these things simply aren't that."
Leaning forward to see those remote mountains more clearly, I had to catch myself before I slid off the cushion. "And there?" I asked, hardly able to get the words out. "That's where Far Kobresia is?"
Her left eyebrow arched like a thunderhead. "Were we in a Yakyakistan tavern," she said, "we would now be digging ourselves out from under the rubble of their response to that question." She held up a hoof. "But some very few yaks, sir, some very few will fall silent at the mention of those mountains beyond their mountains, their ears folding tight into their manes. These yaks will widen their eyes, flare their nostrils, and begin to speak of Far Kobresia."
Another flash from her horn caused the misty landscape to shift toward me. "It was never a land settled by yaks. Far from it. What land the yaks can call their own has been carved and scraped and formed and shaped by countless generations, a place that has grown with the yaks and because of the yaks, a nation created by long, cold centuries of effort. All Yakyakistan is a testament to the power of persistence in the face of overwhelming odds, and as such, it is a testament to the yaks themselves.
"But Far Kobresia, those who will speak of it at all will say, is a place not made by yaks. It is, they mutter, their great eyes rolling from side to side to be certain none of their fellows in the tavern are near enough to hear, a place made for yaks.
"And this distinction, sir, is at the very heart of the matter. As an illustration, let me relate a story that's told of Prince Ruddigore, the last yak to visit Equestria before our dear Princess Twilight recently reopened relations with the far north." The mountains shrank and changed till I was looking at the familiar outline of Canterlot. "According to the annals of Seneschal, the administrator of Canterlot Tower at the time, Prince Ruddigore was found missing from his rooms the morning before his party's scheduled departure. When questioned, his aides shrugged, mentioned that His Highness had expressed an interest in seeing the crystal mines below the city, announced that they were unconcerned, and lumbered off to the breakfast buffet.
"Seneschal, however, was extremely concerned, and she rushed down into the mines only to hear a whirling, screaming bedlam echoing along the tunnels ahead of her. Following the tumult, she rounded a corner to see that a section of floor at the bottom of the main shaft had collapsed under the impact of Prince Ruddigore's displeasure concerning certain Equestrian mining techniques. The prince was struggling at the center of a pit filled with fine, crystalline powder, his struggles only causing him to sink more steadily.
"The crystals all around hummed and vibrated at the sudden instability, and Seneschal reports that the unicorns on the crew were forced to suspend any use of magic due to fears that the walls might come tumbling down. Instead, the earth ponies miners had formed a chain, one holding the rear hoofs of another, each lowering the rest further into the pit. 'Your Highness!' the pony on the end was yelling as he drew ever nearer to the still struggling prince. 'Give me your hooves, sir! Give me your hooves!'
"Seeming not to notice, Prince Ruddigore merely continued striking out at the sand slowly sucking him into itself, and Seneschal, who had studied the yaks before and during their visit, went cold. Knowing that time was of the essence, she leaped onto the living chain of ponies and clambered down the shouting miners till she reached the pony at the end. Dangling herself from his forelegs and stretching as far as she could, she called, 'Prince Ruddigore! Take my hooves, sir! Take my hooves!'
"The prince's attention snapped immediately to her; his hooves seized hers, and all were drawn safely from the pit."
I blinked, the scene breaking up like smoke in the blue darkness, and felt my cheeks heat up. "I...I don't understand."
"Yaks don't give, you see." Her voice had become very quiet. "They only take. It's how they've survived in the mountains of their birth, and it's colored their every impression of the world. So when they're presented with gifts, or when they meet with objects they can neither take nor use, the vast majority of yaks will quickly become prickly and annoyed." That quarter moon smile wavered over her snout again. "More prickly and annoyed than they normally are, I mean, of course." Her horn sparked, and the image of a yak smashing a table full of wrapped presents swirled into being. "And in the case of these mountain beyond their mountains, most will start smashing things as a way of changing the subject.
"A small minority, however, accepts the very existence of these mountains as a challenge. These few turn away from the trappings of civilization and strike out for those storms that dwarf all other storms, for those temperatures that plunge further than any other temperatures, for those crags and crevices unmatched among the world's every other crag and crevice."
Cold air burst around me, my cutie mark twitching, and I sat forward again. But it was gone almost at once, more pictures of yaks appearing.
"Most of these adventurers," she was saying, "return quickly and are welcomed with much hearty crashing and stomping back into their local taverns, their fellows yearning to hear the wild and dangerous tales of unyielding stone and snow that all yaks expect from those who enter that misbegotten land beyond. But now and then, a traveler will return with a different tale, a tale less welcomed and more dangerous. A tale of Far Kobresia."
I caught my breath, her words like snowflakes in the dark silence: "It's only those travelers who have lost their way who seem to happen upon Far Kobresia. Those travelers who slip unexpectedly or who come up against an unplanned-for obstacle or who find themselves battered and beaten by the wind and terrain nearly to the point of death are those who lurch sideways in the blinding gale and fall not into a ravine but onto a cushion of sedge grass. They feel the sun settle sweetly and gently over them, and as the ice melts from their eyes, they can only blink at the rolling green meadow surrounded by the heights of the mountains, the sky a clear, almost painful blue.
"This is when they report their elated dancing, the sedge grass crunchy and perfect between their teeth. They always seem to wander into a bosky dell dappled with shade from the swaying but silent grasses standing higher than even the tallest yak's horns, a pool of water flowing from the side of the hill and away in a winding brook. They settle down and rest—none are ever quite sure for how long—but their strength returns eventually.
"And that's when they notice the wind.
"Not blowing, of course. No, it slinks and it whispers, they say, chatters and whines and speaks to them in the sounds that trickle over their ears from the grasses.
"Most of those who tell these stories will become quite agitated at this juncture and pound out the point that the wind speaks lies. It tells them, they say, that their loved ones at home don't miss them at all, that they were never well-regarded among other yaks, that they're better off staying here in the comfort and care of Far Kobresia where all their needs will be met and all their burdens lifted.
"The travelers declare that this is when they leaped to their hooves in horror at the offer, and some will bellow that they then glimpsed through the undulating curtain of reeds the bleached bones of other yaks, the sedge grass wrapped and twining about them. Galloping for their lives, they relate in varying degrees of detail their frantic flight from that terrible place, the wind still tugging at them and urging them to stay. They charge out along a gap they spot in the cliff face ahead and are soon struggling their way through the howling blizzard toward the right and proper mountains and the civilized world below.
"And the lesson the yaks will draw from this experience at their top of their lungs and in the crash and clatter of furniture scattering from one wall of the tavern to another is that the world is full of dangers, dangers that often appear in very appealing guise: the vast, snow-covered peaks of a monstrous mountain range, for instance, or a pleasant and marshy field of grass. 'You must beware, ponies!' the storyteller will roar in conclusion. 'You must always, always beware!'"
The image of the shouting yak in front of me popped, sparks scattering and making me flinch. My chest was pumping like I'd just finished a downhill slalom, and I opened my mouth, an avalanche of questions tumbling through me—
But she held up a hoof. "There is, however, another, less-common version of the story one might perhaps hear now and again. In this version, the wind, once it resolves itself into words, does not speak in scuttling and murderous tones. It speaks quietly, warmly, and simply. 'Stay as long as you like,' the voice seems to say. 'Enjoy your time here in whatever way you may wish. My only desire is to reach out in friendship and perhaps be considered worthy of receiving your friendship in return. I know it's a lot to ask, but I hope you'll at least give us a chance to get to know each other. I have much I'd like to offer you, and having a friend would mean ever so much to me. Do you think that's possible?'"
Gentle, rolling grasslands rustled in the air, snow-covered peaks rising beyond, the whispery words seeming to float over the whole scene.
A clearing of throat drew my attention to the mare; she puffed her cheeks and blew the image to dust. "The few yaks who tell this version of the story," she said, "will conclude in small and distant voices by saying that the offer surprised them so completely that they ran from Far Kobresia until, shaking with cold and uncertainty, they found themselves arriving somehow back at their home town or village. These yaks won't take their eyes from their mugs during the entire time that they're speaking, and if you stop in at the tavern the next evening looking for them, more often than not, you will not find them.
"'Far Kobresia,' the other yaks will answer should you ask them, and for one night, the phrase will be accompanied not by the shattering of crockery or wallboards. It will instead be muttered with a curled lip and an occasional spit onto the tavern's floor. And neither you, sir, nor any of their fellows will see those odd and quiet yaks ever again, not should you stay in Yakyakistan for another twenty moons."
Stillness settled over us, and it took me a moment to unfreeze. Then I bent around, grabbed my bag of bits again, and dropped it clanking onto the table. "How do I get there?"
Eyes half closed, she remained still for another moment. "If the unknown attracts you so strongly," she said at last, "there are many mysteries closer to home."
"Mysteries?" I shook my head. "I'm talking about the slopes. I mean, can you imagine what the skiing'll be like there?"
A third quiet moment went on, then she shook her head. Her horn flashed, and a rolled-up piece of parchment dropped from nowhere onto the table. "Take it and go."
Stretching the parchment out between my forehooves, I blinked at it. "This is an EquestriaRail tour map."
"Exactly." A blue glow surrounded the bag of bits, and it drifted up from the table. "You can take the train as far as the Crystal Empire, and I understand that they're currently widening the road from there to Yakyakistan."
I couldn't keep from leaping to my hooves. "This is great!" I rolled the map back up and stuffed it into my pack. "Except—" Looking over my shoulder at the cave mouth, I sighed. "Is there any quicker way back to town? Or do I hafta walk another whole hour through that muck?"
She gave a little snort. "Turn right when you leave the cave, and you'll see a hill crowned with willow trees. Town's just on the other side."
"All right!" I wanted to jump over the table and hug her, but that seemed a little forward. So instead, I said, "Thanks so much! You've, like, made my dreams come true!"
"Yes." She gave another of those sideways, quarter moon smiles, but her eyes stayed half closed. "That's what The Great and Powerful Trixie lives for, after all."