//------------------------------// // 9 What Lies Below // Story: The Twilight Enigma // by iisaw //------------------------------// Chapter Nine What Lies Below In which the reader is invited to speculate whether a mouse that hides beneath a cat's food dish is extraordinarily wise or exceptionally foolish, and if the term "mixed blessing" is applicable to the situation at hoof, or not. May 4th - 6th, 1014 In the Dragon's Teeth range, Marezambique I spent the remaining hours of light closely observing the airships far below us and making detailed notes about their movements. I was able to determine a pattern to their courses that could help us avoid them on the way down. I showed my diagram to Fluttershy and she nodded slowly. "Yes, I can steer Nebula around them, but I might have to use her engines more. It'll be noisier." "Can't be helped," I said. "Hopefully the sound of their own engines will hide our ours, but try to limit it, anyway. We're really low on energy." I tried to avoid worrying about all the things I had no control over, but with nothing else left to do, I fretted over the multitude of "ifs" that lay between us and safety. If the airships flew pegasus patrols at night… If our descent became unmanageable because of unexpected winds… If our power crystals held out… If only I could fly, or use my magic…. As the last of the evening light faded from the sky, the crew went silently to their stations. All were carrying the weapons that I desperately hoped they wouldn't have to use. Pinkie Pie paused to give me a nuzzle as she went past. She didn't offer any empty words promising a good outcome, but the touch of silent support was exactly what I needed at that moment. I turned to Fluttershy and Fairlead and nodded. Somepony had stuffed a rag into the bell of the engine telegraph, so when Fairlead rang for Slow Ahead, there was only a muffled clanking from within the housing. Fluttershy pulled back on the vent controls as gently as if she were scooping up an injured bird, and we began the long descent. It was maddening. Since we couldn't see the running lights of the Marezambique ships from above, I could only assume that we were steering clear of them, and assume that they hadn't changed their search patterns after sunset. The light of the waning crescent moon lit the peaks of the mountains just enough to use them to navigate by. It limned the ridges of the great dragon skull sufficiently for us to make out the edge of the eye socket, but the bottom remained a pool of absolute blackness. The air began to warm as we descended. As the gas cells compressed from the higher atmospheric pressure, we began to sink faster than expected. I opened the hatch in the side of the telegraph pedestal and threw the big knife switches to turn on the heaters inside the cells. I cranked the temperature control rheostat to the 75% mark, and the increased drain on our power crystals caused the engines to stutter a bit before they evened out again. "The heaters pull a lot of juice," Fairlead said to me in a half-whisper. "Keep a sharp eye on the gauges." I nodded and went to the rail to check on our descent speed again with my anemometer. We had slowed, but not as much as I would have liked. I went back and turned up the heaters to full, but then I could see the needles of the power gauges moving toward zero. The air got hotter and our engines began stuttering again. I shut off the cell heaters when the power gauges went below the 1% mark and the engines steadied out, but we were still sinking too fast for comfort. Mr. Fairlead signaled for the engine pods to be rotated from horizontal to 90 degrees straight up and rang for Half Ahead in an attempt to reduce our speed. The two crewponies assigned to guide Fluttershy as we got near the skull whipped their little white flags back and forth. I turned to the rail in time to see the vast bulk of stone that was the edge of the eye socket rush upward past us as we fell into shadow. Rarity lit her little bundles of twine, sailcloth, and tar and dropped them over the rail. I watched them fall and counted slowly under my breath. When they spattered on the sand below us, I did a quick mental calculation and said to Fluttershy, "Two furlongs, five knots!" We were still dropping far too fast, and didn't have much time to correct the problem. Fluttershy's eyes went wide and she gasped out, "Full Ahead!" to Fairlead, who was already reaching for the telegraph handles. The telegraph bell clunked and the engines roared in response. The deck pressed upward under my hooves for a moment. Then the engines sputtered and died, our power crystals exhausted. Nopony had time to curse before we hit. There was a hollow boom as Nebula's keel hit the sand and some ugly cracking noises came from below deck. Those of us who hadn't had the presence of mind to hold onto something solid were knocked off our hooves. Fluttershy hung from the spokes of the wheel, gasping out, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" The deck tilted to starboard as we settled, and the sound of our impact echoed around us for several moments. I went and hugged Fluttershy, shushing her and whispering, "It's okay. We're safe. You did it." Then everything was silent. Rainbow Dash and Applejack heaved the boarding ladder over the starboard rail and climbed down to the sand, followed by two other crewponies. They spread out until they could get a good look at the night sky above and watched for anything making a black patch against the starscape above. I organized the bucket brigade, and soon had most of the rest of the crew hauling sand up through the accessway to spread on the top of the envelope. Thanks to Gudgeon's brilliant design, the stiffening rods inside her shrouds wouldn't let Nebula's partially deflated envelope settle down onto the deck, and that gave us plenty of room to work below it. We kept at it until dawn, covering as much of the fabric as we could to the point where the curvature caused the sand to slide off. Then we hung sails and spare canvas below that. There were still small areas of dark blue exposed, but it would be very difficult to spot them from any distance. = = = The first day, ponies worked at whatever came to hoof. Fluttershy went with the damage crew and inspected every bit of cracked and splintered timber below decks. She knew next to nothing about aeronautical carpentry, but ran her hooves over the beams and planks, making whispered promises to Nebula to "make it all better." Nopony laughed or even smiled at that. Ket crawled up from the galley looking a bit gray. She was apologetic about being out of action, but I assured her that she could more than make up for it. She became a granite-colored pegasus with a sand-colored mane and flew up out of the eye socket to be our long distance lookout for enemy ships. Rarity crawled through the sagging accessway and vents and inspected the gas cells and the inside of the envelope. Rainbow Dash grumbled and complained. About twice an hour, she asked when the potion that Doctor Woundwort had given her would finish regrowing her flight feathers. The fourth time she came to me I gave up on telling her, "A half-hour less than the last time you asked," and threatened to pluck the rest of her if she didn't find something useful to do. Applejack and I ventured out onto the dunes to the huge fall of stone at the bottom of the eye socket. She played pack horse for me as I collected mineral samples in the hopes of finding the right compounds to generate lifting gas. Mr. Taleb led a team setting out block and tackle attached to sand anchors so that we could roll Nebula's hull to the best position to make repairs. Others slung their hammocks and rested for their turn at nightwatch. And all the while, in the back of our minds, we waited for the warning cry that would tell us we had been discovered. = = = I was almost hopeful by the dawn of the second day. We had been flown over by a couple of zebra ships, but they had been high in the sky and had held to their search pattern without showing any sign of having spotted us. I had found some mareaposite and had given the bluish-green crystals to several crewponies to use as comparison samples while they spread out to search for more. Rarity had reported that Nebula's fabric bits were in excellent shape, and Mr. Fairlead had given me a very positive assessment of the hull repairs. Pinkie Pie worked wonders at keeping everypony's spirits up, and even Rainbow Dash was in a much better mood. She had made several amusing shapes in the dunes around the ship, but was convinced she'd be able to reliably stay aloft, "tomorrow, for sure!" It would have been nice if I had been able to say the same, but I'd been so busy that I'd neglected my wing and it had stiffened up to the point where moving it was pure torture. My horn wasn't much better. I could cast some light when I needed it, but even a little levitation made my head hurt after a few moments, which was beyond irritating. With my cobbled-together gas generator, I could have replenished Nebula's supply in a few hours if I hadn't been magically crippled. As it was, we'd need the unicorn crewponies working full time for at least a week to do the job, and that wasn't counting the time and energy they'd have to spend recharging our power crystals. Add to that the fact that the rockfall we were mining for mareaposite seemed to have covered the opening to the dragon's optic canal, and it made for a very frustrated pirate captain. I suppose I wasn't being the most cheerful pony around, and perhaps my nerves were a little bit on edge, so I think it's perfectly understandable that I got the slightest bit snappish when the big rumbling boom shook me out of my bunk on the morning of the third day. "What was that?" I yelled as I ran from my cabin. "If Rainbow Dash hit the hull again, I'll strangle her with my own hooves!" "Captain on deck!" somepony shouted. (Well, duh!) "It was an avalanche, Twilight," said Rarity. She pointed to the cloud of dust rising over the broken zygomatic fragments in the distance. "Celestia trample it!" I swore. "If that dust gets above the edge of the eye socket, the zebra ships could see it and come to investigate!" Rarity put a hoof against my shoulder and I turned to see her frightened expression. "Applejack and Chestnut are out there." "What?" "They went to get more of the mineral about an hour ago, and…" I was already over the rail and scrambling down the ladder. Rainbow passed me about halfway to the rocks and the muffled sound of hooves on sand grew behind me. I skidded to a stop when I saw Dash dragging Chestnut away from a jumble of sharp boulders. The arrow wound in his side had reopened and was bleeding freely. "Where's AJ?" I asked, dreading the answer. Chestnut coughed and pointed to the new-fallen pile of rocks. "S—she's under there." The smallest piece of stone in the pile weighed at least half a ton. Rainbow Dash threw herself onto it and began pulling. She somehow managed to dislodge a boulder twice her size and it crashed down, scattering those of us who were looking on in despair. Dash continued to frantically struggle with a slab that must have outweighed Nebula until I climbed up beside her. "Rainbow, you're not going to…" "Don't you dare tell me what I can't do, Twilight! I'm going to save her!" She turned away from me and pounded her hooves against the granite. I caught the flash of pink out of the corner of my eye and dragged Dash aside just before Pinkie Pie hit the slab. Pinkie didn't have the incredible strength of her sister Maud, but she certainly knew her rocks. The slab split along its length and shifted under our hooves. Pinkie hit it again, and a smaller piece broke off and began sliding down the pile. Dash struggled when I tried to drag her to a safe distance. "Let the expert do her job!" I hissed into her ear, and she gave up and came with me. Above us, Pinkie paused, eyeing the stone beneath her for a moment. Then she struck it with the edge of her hoof. It didn't look like a particularly hard blow, but the rest of the slab fragmented and the pieces rumbled down to the sand. The rest of us cleared away the chunks as well as we could while Pinkie continued to work. More crewponies arrived and carried Chestnut back to Nebula. A few minutes later, Pinkie had tunneled down to nearly the level of the sand. "Twilight!" "What is it, Pinkie?" "This rock is funny. I think it might fall if I break it." "Hang on! I'll be right there!" I scrambled up the slope and carefully lowered myself into the tunnel. Pinkie was standing on a flat piece of stone, frowning. She tapped a hoof against it and it rang hollowly, as if there was a void beneath it. A moment latter somepony else knocked on the stone. From beneath. "AJ, is that you?" I called. "You're alive!" Pinkie Pie shouted. "I ain't dead," came the muffled reply. "But I ain't exactly comfortable, if'n ya get my drift." "Are you hurt?" I asked. "Well, I got banged up a mite when I fell down the stairs, but there ain't no broke bones I know of." "Stairs?" "Yep. Looks like you were right 'bout the Labra-whatcha-call-it. Now all ya have to worry 'bout is gettin' that big ol' rock outta the way without dropping it on my head." "Can you move away? Maybe down the stairs until you're out of the way of where the stone will fall?" There was a long pause and then Applejack said. "I s'pose. But I gotta tell ya, Twi, If'n anypony told me before today that I'd be skittish of a buncha steps strung t'gether, I'd have told them they was nuts. But, this place…" There was another pause. "This place ain't right, Twi. It plum scares the sugar outta me." "I understand, but the fragments of this rock could bounce quite a ways when it shatters, so you've got to get a good distance away from there. We'll be through as quick as we can, okay?" "Alright, Twi." Applejack's voice became softer and more muffled. "I'm goin' down the stairs now. Gimme a minute and then bust 'er open." I climbed out of the tunnel and gave the rest of the gang the good news. There was laughter and cheering and relieved sobbing. I gave them the few moments of emotional release they needed and then sent Rainbow Dash down to join Pinkie. "She's going to crack the slab, but the place is so narrow that she's got nowhere else to stand. You need to support her until it's safe, okay?" I didn't bother to ask her if she thought she could do it. Dash's capacity for accurate self-assessment always erred on the dangerous side. I could only hope her nearly regrown feathers could support them both for the time it took the debris to settle. I watched from the tunnel mouth but kept everypony else at a safe distance. It all went according to plan. At first, that is. With one precise kick from her left hind hoof, Pinkie Pie broke the slab into a couple dozen head-sized chunks. Rainbow Dash flapped furiously, keeping both of them from dropping into the darkness beneath until the fragments had stopped bouncing and sliding into the hole. Dash set Pinkie down at the head of the stairs about the same time I made it down to them. I lit my horn, winced, and peered down into the area below us. The others all crowded behind me to get a look. "Are you okay?" I called out to Applejack as I took a cautious step downward. "I'll be better when I'm outta this place, I can tell you that!" came the echoing reply. I couldn't see her. The meager amount of light my horn was shedding showed only a few lengths of the rock-strewn steps below us. "Hang on. We're coming!" Rarity thoughtfully took over flashlight duty from me and we carefully descended the steps until we came to a turn. Around the corner, the stairs ended at an uneven surface that acted as a landing. I realized we were standing on the orbital plate of ethmoid bone near the superior orbital fissure. It seemed the steps had somehow fused with the skeletal anatomy of the dragon. "Applejack?" I called. "I'm here!" came the answer. "Where're y'all?" "Coming! Can you see our light?" "Can't see much but this glowy writin'. I can't rightly tell which way I came down, neither." That was worrisome. "Just stay where you are. We're coming for you." I assumed that the natural path leading further down would be through the orbital fissure and led the way. "Don't trip over the edge of the lamina papyracea,"[1] I said as I carefully stepped over it. ----------- [1] A thin plate of ethmoid bone forming part of the medial wall of the orbit and the lateral wall for the ethmoidal labyrinth. And no, the irony was not lost on me. ---------- "The what?" asked Pinkie Pie, a second before she caught her hoof on the bone ridge and face-planted. She bounced right up and turned to the ponies behind her. "Hey guys, watch out for this sticky-up piece!" Much to our surprise, we discovered that a spiral wrought-iron staircase descended into the orbital fissure. The railings were stylized acanthus leaves lightly sprinkled with gilded berries. The thing wouldn't have looked out of place in a fashionable Canterlot townhouse, but in that place, it was decidedly creepy. Since Rarity was creating the light, she had to go first. She did so without hesitation, and I followed close behind her. I could only make out dim shapes past Rarity's head when she reached the bottom of the staircase. Even the startled way she said, "Oh, my!" didn't prepare me for what I saw when I stepped out onto the landing beside her. We stood at the top of a cavernous shaft that fell away into darkness below us. From side to side it was filled with a profusion of stairs and landings in every imaginable style. It was so confusing that it took a moment for me to spot Applejack, nearly a furlong away from us and a half-dozen lengths below, waving her old battered hat to catch our attention. "How in the world did you get down there, darling?" "I don't rightly know. I swear I couldn'ta gone down more'n a flight or two!" I scanned the maze of steps, trying to figure out a way to get to Applejack from where we were. The place was far too crowded to fly though, but the stairs were also too far apart to risk climbing or jumping between them. Behind me, Fluttershy gave a gasp of fear. I turned and saw what had scared her. The spiral stairs behind us were gone. In their place was a heavy oaken flight, covered in a plush carpet. Beyond and above it were... more stairs. = = = =