Camaraderie is Sorcery

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 3:14.2 - Los Pegasus: The South

Chapter 3:14.2 – Los Pegasus: The South
Year 473 of the 1^st Age

It was a jubilant day in the small forest community of Rubelon. Built on the fringes of the Kingdom of Equestria, in the forest that separated the kingdom from the desert of the Equestrian Divide, it was a village of not ponies, but satyrs. These furred, broad-shouldered, bipedal creatures were native to the Storm Isles of the south, though their naval prowess had allowed them to establish colonies in Stygra in the last six millennia since they’d arrived during the Conjunction. This community was not a colony of the Storm Isles in any official sense; rather, it was one of many settlements across Equus where satyr refugees had fled the grip of the tyrant who had claimed their home. The current gleeful celebration was caused by news that the true king had reclaimed his throne and the tyrant’s reign was no more.

Among the celebrating satyrs was a single pony, one who’d come to them and listened to their plight when they’d asked him to—unlike most in Equestria, who either ignored them or wanted them gone. Nostracom the Wise thought of himself as an apolitical pony, and though he never sought to accumulate power for himself, the truth of the matter was that he meddled in affairs of state far more than he’d like to think. It was always through the creation of magical artifacts, usually created with the purpose of righting some wrong or protecting the threatened and oppressed. The alicorn had forged an artifact for the king-in-exile Crag, who was now seated on the Basalt Throne, thanks in no small part to Nostracom’s aid. With the Onyx Staff, Crag had managed to unseat the tyrant of the Storm Isles and reclaim his throne; neither he nor the satyrs of Rubelon would forget the alicorn’s help.

“What will you do now?” Nostracom asked the leader of the satyrs, who stood next to him at the feast.

“Now, I will have another drink,” the satyr laughed, grabbing a tankard the size of Notracom’s head to quaff.

“I meant Rubelon as a whole,” Nostracom gestured to the merrymaking village. “Will you return to the Storm Isles now that King Crag is rethroned?”

“I’m sure that some will, but most will stay. It has been three generations since we fled here. To many, this is our home, not the Isles,” the satyr replied. “We owe you a great debt of gratitude, Nostracom. One day, I hope we can repay it.”

“I am not in the business of collecting debts,” the alicorn said. “Your gratitude is enough for me.”

***

Year 1002 of the 4^th Age

Twilight Sparkle waved farewell to Pinkamena and Applejack before closing the portal they’d trotted through to Los Pegasus. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had already left, the Hunter insisting on flying to the Westerlands instead of arriving by portal, which left only one other Brave Companion to accompany Twilight to the Equestrian southwest.

“Are you ready, Rarity?” Twilight asked her friend, who was adjusting her saddlebags.

“You don’t think we’ll run into any battles, do you?” the smith asked nervously.

“Will we?” Spike asked eagerly.

“It is possible,” Twilight admitted. “Though I think we should seek to avoid that if we can. We are going to Los Pegasus to search for the Stellaetrix and to meet with the contenders for the kingdom’s throne. Both those tasks will be much more difficult if we get caught up in fighting.”

Twilight Sparkle had managed to vaguely determine where the pieces of the Stellaetrix were located. One was in the Westerlands, one in the north of Los Pegasus, and one in the south—the lands once ruled by the Kings of Mareagon and Neighvarra and the Dukes of Alcyon, before Los Pegasus had become ascendant. The land was currently being fought over by Marquesa Marigold (the late Queen Helianthus’s cousin), Lady Eriophyllum (the queen’s niece), and Duke Alfons (no relation to Helianthus, but who believed he should be king nonetheless). The Applewood Tower had made no claim to the Crown of Los Pegasus, instead declaring a statement of independence and neutrality. The sorceresses of Los Pegasus would not be involved in this war, other than to stand aside and claim they would not be subject to whomever won when everything shook out. Twilight reminded herself, however, that meeting with these ladies, lords, and mages had little to do with her primary goal: the retrieval of the Stellatrix for Luna. That Celestia’s co-regent had made such a request was alarming; it revealed that Luna, like Celestia, had drifted far from the power she’d held during the 3^rd Age if she now required a magical relic to command the night sky.

Curious onlookers had gathered in the square before Golden Oak’s laboratory, as they tended to do whenever the Brave Companions gathered and Twilight Sparkle opened portals to faraway places that most of Ponieville’s residents would never see in person. Ream and Baldavin, who would not be accompanying Twilight on this quest, were doing a good job of keeping the space in front of the laboratory clear for her to safely open the portals without slicing anypony in half. Focusing on their destination, the sorceress opened a portal to the southern fringes of Los Pegasus. Once again, it surprised her at how easily the portal had opened, how little it drained her magical energy by casting the spell. She knew that she’d eventually become used to the vast reservoir of power bestowed by her alicornhood, but at the moment, it didn’t feel like she would ever become accustomed to the change.

Twilight led the way through the portal, stepping out into the mostly unsettled lands abutting Equestria’s southern forest. Once Spike and Rarity had followed, she snapped the portal shut, revealing the South Equestry River to the east that flowed out of the forest before continuing north.

“Twilight, look!” Spike pointed to the east.

“I see it, Spike,” Twilight replied.

This far south, Twilight Sparkle had hoped there was no chance of running into a battle. She had been wrong. Two armies were clashing near the Equestry River, bearing the standards of supporters for Lady Eriophyllum and Marquesa Marigold. The trio’s destination was near the border between territories controlled by the opposing factions, but she hadn’t expected to see a battle here, so far from anything of strategic value.

“Twilight,” Spike said as he pulled at her robes and prompted her to look north.

A group of armored knights were galloping their way, their shouts barely audible. Twilight could easily open another portal for them or teleport away before the knights reached them, but that was likely to cause problems. A sorceress popping up unannounced and then immediately disappearing in the middle of a civil war would raise questions. If any of the knights recognized her, questions and allegations would be raised at the Kingdom of Cant’r Laht, and Celestia and Luna would have to deal with a crisis. It was better that they be captured and brought to the knights’ army to explain themselves—assuming, of course, that they didn’t attempt to strike down the intruders on sight. Just in case, Twilight prepared some defensive spells.

“What are you doing here?” one of the knights demanded after they’d surrounded the small group. His visor was up, so Twilight was able to see his eyes widen in surprise as he realized she was an alicorn.

“Who do you fight for?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“I could ask you the same question,” the knight retorted, but relented and answered Twilight’s question. “I fight for Lady Eriophyllum, the rightful Queen of Los Pegasus.”

“Excellent,” Twilight said, for they were (pending the result of the battle) in Lady Eriophyllum’s territory. “If you would be so kind as to take us to her, I would be more than happy to explain myself.”

The knight looked confused but eventually turned to lead them to a pavilion barely visible in the distance. As they approached, the three friends realized just how far the camp of Eriophyllum’s army stretched out. This pavilion had been moved here to be closer to the battle but remain at a safe distance. Unlike the other faction leaders, who would be in command of their own armies during a battle, Twilight Sparkle knew that Lady Eriophyllum would be found apart from it. Within the pavilion were Eriophyllum’s advisors, ponies either enjoying refreshments or speaking to a bloody, sweat-soaked soldier who’d galloped back from the battle to relay how it was going. Eriophyllum sat at the center of this scene in a folding chair too large for her, a four-year-old filly playing with a doll.

“What is the meaning of this?” a mare in wine-stained finery demanded as she rose and trotted toward the knight who’d brought in Twilight, Rarity, and Spike. “Why would you bring a sorceress here in the midst of a battle? I thought I told Applewood To—”

The mare cut off her tirade as she spotted Twilight’s wings and Spike behind her.

“I am Twilight Sparkle,” the sorceress introduced herself, though it was obvious the advisor knew who she was. “I wish to express Regents Celestia and Luna’s wishes to Lady Eriophyllum that this war will end swiftly.”

The young lady’s attention was caught by the mention of her name and she looked up.

“Does that mean,” the advisor said, trembling with excitement, “That Celestia has sent you to aid us? We have been without sorceresses since the beginning. This would change everything.”

“Celestia is not taking any sides in this war. She merely wished to relay her hope that this war would not last so long that it devastates Los Pegasus,” Twilight corrected her.

“You came all this way to say that?” the advisor asked disdainfully.

“No, we came to meet with the satyrs of Rubeling and are here to ask Lady Eriophyllum’s permission to pass through her territory to do so.”

“Ah, the satyrs,” the advisor said even more disdainfully, which Twilight hadn’t thought possible before. “The queens of Los Pegasus indulged their presence for too long. When this war is finished, they’ll have to be dealt with.”

“But I like the satyrs!” Eriophyllum objected.

Her advisor shot her a venomous look, and the filly went back to playing with her doll, but her attention was still on the conversation going on in front of her.

“Very well. You have the lady’s permission to pass through her territory to Rubeling,” the advisor said. “But I advise you not to stay long and to guard what you say while you are there. There’s no telling how many of them are spies for the Storm King, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they fought for him if he attempts to conquer Los Pegasus just as he’s conquered all the pirate kingdoms around Slaver’s Bay. He would never succeed here, of course, but why give him help?”

“Thank you. Lady Eriophyllum,” Twilight Sparkle said, causing the filly to look up and smile and her advisor to frown, but it didn’t matter. They’d met with the pony in charge of Eriophyllum’s faction and now had permission to meet with the satyrs.

***

Twilight’s motivation in traveling to the Rubeling Holdfast was the necessity of finding something Nostracom had created or a place the Stellaetrix had been in order to determine its current location. Twilight Sparkle had encountered many of Nostracom’s relics over the past year, but she couldn’t take the Crystal Heart from the Crystal City, the Staff of Kipit from Saddle Arabia, or the walls from Embariz; and the Alicorn Amulet was too dangerous to use. Some of the records on Nostracom’s life claimed that he’d had good relations with the satyrs of Rubeling (then known as Rubelon) and had sent them an unknown artifact. If they were truly fortunate, they’d find the Stellaetrix fragment still there.

An open gate greeted the alicorn, unicorn, and dragonling as they reached the Rubeling Holdfast. It was set into a high wooden palisade that stretched several paces to either side of the gate. The rest of the palisade was lower, mainly meant to keep out wildlife. There was little difference between the forest on either side of the gate; the satyrs had built their town among the trees, only chopping down enough of them to thin things out and make room for homes. Most of the buildings visible through the trees had wooden roofs and stone foundations, some so sturdy they looked like they had been built thousands of years earlier and survived both the Long Winter and Discord’s reign. Satyrs stopped what they were doing as they noticed the trio entering the town, and one holding a quarterstaff approached them.

“An alicorn,” he said as he drew closer and stopped to incline his horned head reverently.

“Hello, I am Twilight Sparkle of the Brave Companions, apprentice to Celestia, Crown Princess of Cant’r Laht,” Twilight introduced herself as she looked up into the satyr’s eyes. “This is Rarity of the Brave Companions, and my page Spike.”

“I am Stake Brolen, leader of this holdfast,” the satyr said as he straightened. “We are honored by the presence of one like the Great Smith.”

“Nostracom the Wise?” Rarity asked.

“Yes. He was a friend to our forefathers in a time when there were no other ponies willing to make the attempt. Of course …” Brolen said, spreading his three-fingered hands and giving a slight smile as if to say that nothing had really changed. “Why have you come here?”

“We are looking for something that Nostracom may have sent here, a magical relic,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Do you mean the Onyx Staff? If you are seeking it, then you would have to go to the Storm Isles and pry it from the grip of the Storm King. Fate, it seems, is cruel; the Great Smith made the Onyx Staff to help King Crag displace a tyrant, and now it has found its way to the grip of another. It was very distressing for us to learn of such a tragedy.”

“No, it’s not a staff we’re looking for,” Rarity said. “Did Nostracom send you any other artifacts?”

“If he had, I would think that anyone in the holdfast would know it by heart, but we can make certain,” Brolen said as he motioned with his free hand for them to follow him.

As they passed other satyrs, they all stopped to stare at Twilight Sparkle and gave her reverent bows when she looked their way. After a while, it started to make her uncomfortable. This was nothing like the stares she’d gotten in Ponieville as a sorceress when she’d first arrived; there was more power behind how they looked at her, just as she was much more powerful now. Her wings singled her out, wings that she still had no idea how to use. Granted, she had only been an alicorn for less than three weeks, but it didn’t feel like the novelty would ever wear off, and the way others looked at her now made her feel self-conscious.

The destination to which Brolen was leading them turned out to be a massive stone statue of Nostracom the Wise, hidden until the last moment by the equally large manor house build beside it. At the hooves of the statue were scattered candles—some alight, some dead, and some only pools of wax—flowers, food, and smithing tools left as offerings in Nostracom’s memory. The shrine to the ancient alicorn was currently abandoned apart from a single satyr leaving a pie, who made a quick bow to Twilight before trotting away.

“Clarite,” Brolen said as he rapped on the door of a small stone building next to the statue. “Visitors.”

“Oh my tides,” a satyr with strings of beads wrapped around her horns said in surprise as she stepped out of the building. “Another alicorn.”

“Hello, I am Twilight Sparkle, and this is Spike and Rarity,” Twilight said.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Clarite said as she wrung her hands nervously. “I’ll have to write this down.”

“Don’t be rude, Clarite,” Brolen said as he blocked the path back into her hut with his quarterstaff as she made to retreat. “Twilight Sparkle wishes to know if the Great Smith sent us any magical artifacts besides the Onyx Staff.”

“I’ll check the Red Book,” Clarite said excitedly and pushed Brolen’s quarterstaff away to bustle into the stone shack.

When she returned, she was lovingly holding a book bound in red leather. After pushing aside some of the offerings at the base of Nostracom’s statue to make some space, she set the book down. Inside was beautifully illuminated text that Clarite flipped through, speaking softly to herself as she searched the pages.

“No, never,” Clarite said when she concluded her search. “In 507, he did send a message claiming that he would be sending something important, but there is no mention of it again in the Book.”

Twilight knew that Year 507 of the 1^st Age was around the time that the Stellaetrix had disappeared, so it was possible that Nostracom had meant to send a piece of it here. If he had, though, it had never arrived. So where was it?

***

At the satyrs’ insistence, Rarity, Twilight, and Spike spent the night in Rubeling and departed in the morning, after Clarite had spent the night painstakingly going through her Red Book and soundly confirmed that no mention of Nostracom sending an artifact other than the Onyx Staff to Rubeling existed within it. Twilight Sparkle opened a portal to the path outside the town of Andars. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake as the day before, and she scried out their destination before leaving to be sure there woudln’t be any surprises. She also wasn’t going to risk appearing unannounced and not immediately speaking to the pony in charge. Andars was where Duke Alfons was gathering his forces in preparation for a push either toward Los Pegasus or to crush Eriophyllum and Marigold now that they were weakened from fighting each other. The latter strategy seemed likely, given that the large swaths of territory pledged to Alfons’s cause were divided in twain, with the eastern portion nestled between areas friendly to Eriophyllum and Marigold.

Camps were scattered around Andars as they arrived, including one that had taken Twilight by surprise in her initial scrying. A camp of yurts was situated west of Andars. Whether the south Equestrian bison were here by coincidence (since the town was along their migratory route) or for some other purpose was unclear.

Twilight, Spike, and Rarity entered Andars without being stopped, the guards merely waving them through, although they did cast quick glances at the alicorn. The town was bustling with activity, and everypony was involved in some way in war preparation. Smiths’ hammers sounded endlessly, bakeries loaded guarded carts with provisions, and street vendors attempted to sell everything from weapons to lucky charms to the ponies conscripted into service. Nopony stopped them as they entered Andars’s castle, either, or tried to lead them to Alfons other than to point the way to the great hall.

When the two ponies and dragonling entered the hall unannounced, every eye turned to them. The banquet tables had all been pushed together to form one massive surface upon which Alfons had laid out his plans. Duke Alfons himself stood upon the tables, frozen mid-step as he trod over the maps like a titan. Alfons was solidly built and a capable warrior, but it was a dangerous cunning that glinted in his piercingly attentive eyes marked him out as the most capable of the contenders in the south of Los Pegasus, despite having no legitimate claim to Helianthus’s throne.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Alfons addressed her, breaking the silence that had fallen over the room. “I knew Celestia would send somepony, though I hadn’t expected it to be you. I assume you’re here to negotiate a peace, likely one involving my surrender.”

“No, just to convey Celestia and Luna’s hope that this war will be concluded quickly. Whether you are victorious or not is up to you,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Is that so?” Alfons said, looking amused. “Well, perhaps I misjudged the regent of Cant’r Laht. I anticipate meeting her at next year’s summit, should she choose to hold it, as King of Los Pegasus.”

“We also came to ask for permission to travel through your territory,” Twilight Sparkle said, ignoring Alfons’s boast.

“As if I could stop an alicorn from going where she pleased. That would take all of Applewood Tower, I imagine,” Alfons said, and grinned as if sharing a joke with himself. “But I do appreciate the motion of asking permission. Yes, you may go where you wish.”

As Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and Spike turned to go, a familiar bison entered through their exit.

“Strongheart?” Rarity asked. Though she'd gained a more muscular physique in the intervening years as she’d matured, it was undeniably the same bison they’d met back in Appleoosa.

“Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, and Spike,” Chief Strongheart addressed them and bowed as she named the dragon. “I didn’t expect to meet you here.”

“Nor we you,” Rarity said. “What are you doing here?”

“I have allied my herd to Duke Alfons,” Strongheart said boldly, though she felt the need to explain herself. “Our people have always tried to stand apart from ponies while living on the same lands, but when war closes your markets to us or gives excuse to attack us as ‘other,’ we cannot stand aside. Duke Alfons is best placed to grant us what we need: a strong ally who will work with us instead of against us. When the fighting is over, I will not only be Celestia’s Warden of the South, but a warden of Alfons as well. Three-quarters of our migration will be in lands that have agreed responsibility for any mistreatment we may receive, answerable to us and to their own vassals. The Aseibakh Ordu has learned a new way to survive, something our brethren in the north and west have not.”

Strongheart was motivated by more than just the opportunity to secure in Los Pegasus what had been gained in Cant’r Laht two years earlier only by a battle that had cost her father’s life. The bison herds of Stalliongrad, the North, and the Westerlands became openly hostile to ponies and were attempting to carve out a khaganate for themselves; she was striving to prove the good intentions of her herd by allying herself to a pony contender for the Throne of Los Pegasus. This recent rise in hostility had given ponies (many of whom already had great dislike for the bison) an excuse to act against them. It was a necessary step to protect her herd—one that had to be made, even if her choice would affect the outcome of the war.

***

Year 549 of the 1^st Age

Nostracom the Wise gave his workshop one last look. He had set the foundation for the original building more than two centuries earlier, when he’d decided to put down roots here in the southwest of Equestria in order to invent his artifacts in a more permanent location. Now, with regret, he was pulling up those roots. He’d created plenty of new magical artifacts in the last forty years, but his one failure continued to haunt him. Sorceresses still searched far and wide for the pieces of the Stellaetrix, but the alicorn would provide no clues to help them. Besides being hounded constantly over the lost artifact, the workshop reminded him of its destruction. He was sad to leave but would not miss the constant reminders of his poisoned idealism.

The inside of the workshop was bare, all but trivial things removed by Nostracom and stored in the pocket dimensions he’d bound to his saddlebags. One of the benefits of the workshop had been a place to store a collection of tools for artifact creation, but from now on, he would carry them all with him. Nostracom intended to travel again, as he had in his earlier years as an alicorn, but he wouldn’t restrict his travels to Equestria and its fringes. The continent was replete with his works, but there were many lands on Equus who had heard only whispers of the great enchanter. He would travel the world, meet the different creatures that inhabited it, and make magical tools along the way. That was his quest now, and one that would hopefully help him forget the Stellaetrix.

***

Year 1002 of the 4^th Age

They were here for an important reason, but Twilight simply couldn’t restrain herself from unapologetically gushing over Nostracom’s workshop, at least for a minute. Of course, the ruins in which she was standing were far from how they’d been in Nostracom’s time, but some of them were still incredibly preserved. Like Yliiena the First, the second alicorn had enchanted his home to last far longer than it would have naturally. After Nostracom the Wise had left to wander Equus in the mid-1^st Age, other sorceresses had moved into his workshop, at first to search for secrets or in anticipation of his return, but eventually a magic community had grown here. After a brief hiatus during Discord’s reign, it had been reestablished under Celestia and Luna’s rule and persisted well into the 4^th Age, until the 683 Act of Magical Union had compelled all magical communities and schools in the region to consolidate into the Applewood Tower. The village had been abandoned ever since, and many of the buildings had been reduced to their foundations as farmers and villages from the surrounding area had scavenged it for stone. The original workshop buildings still stood strong, though a little blackened by sporadic fires over the years.

Twilight Sparkle led the way into the workshop, conjuring up light to allow for a closer examination of what little was left to see. Empty rooms filled with weeds that had taken root in the layers of dirt that had gradually blown in were all that was visible to the naked eye. With her alicorn-enhanced sorcery, however, Twilight could identify an avalanche of magical signatures. Hundreds of magical artifacts had been created in this room, by Nostracom the Wise as well as the sorceresses who’d followed in his hoofsteps and made their homes here. The magic was deafening, but Twilight managed to sift through the remnants until she found a likely candidate: an artifact whose signature had been triplicated.

“Spike, I need a map and compass,” she told her page, and he dutifully produced them from his satchel.

Sitting on the ground, Twilight laid out the map of Los Pegasus on the ground and placed the compass atop it. She kept the magical signature of what she believed to be the Stellaetrix in her mind and focused on the compass. Lines were etched magically across its underside, in a pattern with no meaning even to sorceresses but which represented the Stellaetrix’s signature. Twilight set the compass down on the map as the needle began to spin. It swung back and forth between Northwest and Northeast for a couple seconds before settling several degrees east of North. Twilight moved the compass so that the arrow pointed toward the location of Nostracom’s workshop and, taking a quill and inkwell from her saddlebags, drew a line across the map along the direction of the arrow.

“The Stellaetrix is somewhere along this line,” she announced as Spike and Rarity carefully examined the map.

The line cut across the scrubland and plains of Los Pegasus and into the Red Mountains, but there was one point on that line that held the most promise as the location of the Stellaetrix: the Applewood Tower.

***

Retrieving the Stellaetrix from the Applewood Tower would not be an easy task. Secrecy about the Brave Companions’ mission had been important from the start—and now, even more so. The Applewood Tower was the largest collection of sorceresses in Equestria apart from Cant’r Laht, and none of them would tolerate a powerful magical relic slipping through their grasp. Twilight hoped she would not have to purloin the Stellaetrix from them, but such a possibility seemed unlikely to her. Keeping the possession of such a relic hidden from the rest of the world wasn’t the Applewood Tower’s style. They were secretive, to be sure, but not in such matters. Of course, it was possible that a single member had managed to keep its presence unknown from the rest, but that was a scenario that Twilight hoped would not come to pass. The best case would be that the mages of the Tower had no idea the Stellaetrix was there and wouldn’t miss it.

Rarity, Twilight, and Spike trotted up the path to the Applewood Tower, flanked by rows of apple trees unseasonably in bloom. Constructed among the foothills of the Red Mountains, the Tower was a stunning sight, a magnificent stone tower that rose far higher than any structure could without the aid of powerful sorcery. The tower housed hundreds of floors, each as wide as a Cant’r Laht noble’s manor. All travelers were forced to take in the building’s immensity as they approached, looming larger and taller before the eyes, even for sorceresses like Twilight Sparkle (due to the presence of powerful enchantments that prevented portals and teleportation). Around the tower were concentric rings of apple trees surrounded by a circular wall into which was set a singular gate that stood open to the trio. A filly in sorceress robes was standing in the gateway as they approached.

“Oh, you’re—” the filly said in astonishment as she recognized Twilight Sparkle (or at least her alicornness).

“—Twilight Sparkle of the House Haltrotsun, leader of the Brave Companions, personal protégé of Celestia, Crown Princess of Cant’r Laht, and the sixth alicorn,” an older sorceress finished the filly’s thought as she stepped out from behind the wall, “Which makes the others who?”

“Rarity of the Brave Companions, not a sorceress,” the filly answered as she looked to Rarity, then turned her attention to Spike. “And Spike, page to Twilight Sparkle and heir to Dragonlord Ingrirtireth of Tyrannus.”

“Very good,” the older sorceress told the younger before turning to the Brave Companions. “Pardon me for the quiz. I am Pritolius, Enchanter of the Tower, and this is my apprentice, Beanus.”

“Hello,” Beanus said with a wave.

“Hello,” Rarity replied.

“If you would follow me to the Tower,” Pritolius said, gesturing with a hoof along the path to the Applewood Tower. “I’m sure you’ll want to freshen up before dining with the Circle.”

“Are we … expected?” Twilight Sparkle asked as she followed Pritolius down the path.

Among the apple trees, several sorceresses and sorcerers could be seen practicing their spells, reading thick tomes, or teaching their apprentices. While the entire Kingdom of Los Pegasus was in chaos, the Applewood Tower was a place of tranquility. Despite the Tower’s stance placing them at odds with other factions in the succession war, they were unconcerned about attack. As a place so filled with sorceresses, they never doubted that they were safe.

“Of course,” Pritolius answered. “The Circle has been keeping track of your movements since you entered Queen Helianthus’s former lands. They were sure you would arrive here eventually, though they were not certain of the exact date. Feasts have been prepared the last three nights in anticipation of your arrival.”

“All that for us?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, though mostly for you,” Pritolius admitted. “The Circle is quite eager to meet a freshly minted alicorn.”

***

“There are sixteen members of the Circle: thirteen senior enchanters, a second enchanter, a first enchanter, and a grand enchanter, in ascending order of importance,” Twilight briefed Rarity as she prepared for the feast, relaying information that she’d gleaned in part from her studies, as well as grilling a hapless apprentice she’d cornered in the Applewood Tower’s halls. “The grand enchanter commands the Applewood Tower much like the matron of sorceresses is supposed to command the sorceresses of Cant’r Laht. The first and second enchanters are first and second in line to take the grand enchanter’s place when they die or retire. Neither the grand enchanter nor the first enchanter vote on Circle matters, although the first enchanter can break any ties.”

“Twilight, darling, do you really think I’ll need all this for a banquet?” Rarity asked as she styled her hair. “I doubt they’ll want to speak about how they govern their own home.”

“Of course,” Twilight said as she paced back and forth. “I should be briefing you on etiquette instead. Do not ask them about their families. Members of the Applewood Tower are forbidden from siring or bearing offspring, and most of the sorcerers are gelded to prevent the possibility of such a thing occurring. … Probably best not to mention that either.”

“Twilight, relax. Everything will be just fine,” Rarity assured her.

“I know, it is just that I am among my peers here and … I guess I am just nervous. They will all be asking questions about my transformation into an alicorn,” Twilight said as she flexed her useless wings. “It is important that we make a good impression on them.”

“And put them at ease,” Rarity said.

Though Twilight had warded the rooms that the Applewood sorceresses had given them against eavesdropping the moment they’d arrived, she double checked to make sure everything was still in place and active. It wouldn’t do to let them know the real reason they were here. Tonight, once the tower was asleep, they would need to do some snooping around to find the Stellaetrix fragment, and they couldn’t do that if the sorceresses were suspicious.

“A moment!” Rarity called out as a knock sounded on the door.

A fresh-faced young sorcerer was there waiting for them when they opened it, and he led them to the feast. The Circle’s meeting room was at the top of the tower and the rooms they’d been given were near the base, but they wouldn’t have to climb hundreds of flights of stairs to reach their destination. Instead, the apprentice led them to the hollow central column of the tower, where his mentor awaited atop a hovering platform. The dour sorcerer tapped his staff upon the platform as the Brave Companions and Spike stepped upon it, and they went whizzing upwards. The sorcerer kept his eyes upward as they ascended past rows of glowing gems in different configurations marking the floors, watching out for and dodging other platforms as they passed them. They pulled to a stop at the top of the shaft and stepped back onto the solid stone of the tower proper.

“Run along, Keanus,” the sorcerer told his apprentice after they’d departed the platform. “I want a flawless recitation of Leonorus’s Principles of Imbuement tomorrow.”

“Yes, Master Quinirius,” Keanus said before trotting away, sneaking one last peek at Twilight Sparkle as he departed.

“Please, this way,” Quinirius said, gesturing with his staff, and he led the way up a short flight of stairs to the floor above.

The Circle’s meeting room was completely circular, with a table in its center that wrapped almost completely around the room, leaving space for a pony to enter and speak to all around them. Seated at the table were fifteen of the Circle’s members, and Quinirius took his place among them after leading the Companions and Spike to their seats. Ordinarily, the Circle’s members would be placed to divide the table into sixteenths; with their guests, however, the seating arrangement had been adjusted to allow for nineteen. As the guests sat down, servants began bringing out the food.

“To renewed relations with our sisters and brothers in Cant’r Laht, and to the sixth alicorn,” one of the sorceresses at the table said as she raised a glass. The others followed suit and took drinks of their own, the Brave Companions included.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Twilight Sparkle said. “I know no Cant’r Laht sorceress has set hoof in the Applewood Tower before.”

“Even Celestia,” a sorcerer said with a wink and a nod.

“But you are a special exception, aren’t you?” said the one pony in the room Twilight had met before, the chief sorcerer accompanying Helianthus’s invading army two years earlier and her guest at the Grand Galloping Gala: Tranquiliodus. “An alicorn and heir to the kingdom. But though you may be from Cant’r Laht, you’re not of it anymore, are you?”

“Ponieville is my home now, if that is what you mean,” Twilight said.

“Yes, and a Ponieville sorceress is a far different animal from a Cant’r Laht sorceress, isn’t it?” Grand Enchanter Regulus, in his resplendent robes, said. “But, before we open up and speak about your unique position on this ever-shifting chessboard we call Equestria, I imagine you have some message that Celestia wishes for you to deliver to us, as you did to the bickering nobles of these lands. That is how you normally do such things, is it not?”

“Yes, actually,” Twilight said. “Regents Celestia and Luna wished to express their hope that the succession war in Los Pegasus will end swiftly with minimal loss of life.”

“Ah, that is our wish as well,” Regulus said with a smile and others in the circle nodded somewhere between sagely and smugly, depending on the pony. “This war must end, and we are endeavoring to do our part to end it. Although, we cannot allow the opportunity afforded us by this turmoil to slip past. The Dominions of Cant’r Laht, and now the Kingdom of Cant’r Laht, have been the only thaumatocracy in Equestria for a long time, but that need not be so.”

“Do you intend to become King of Los Pegasus?” Rarity asked.

“No, of course not,” Regulus said with a wave of his hoof. “But an Applewood Tower that is able to decide its own fate apart from the whims of nonmagical rulers would be much better able to communicate and work with other sorceress-led kingdoms; wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, I suppose it would,” Twilight Sparkle said hesitantly, watching Regulus.

“Excellent! We are in agreement, then,” Regulus said merrily. “Now, let us enjoy this feast and our time together. I am sure we have many questions we wish to ask each other.”

***

Year 507 of the 1^st Age

Leonor approached the grove of apple trees confidently. Nostracom the Wise, for all his supposed wisdom, would never look for him here. In the alicorn’s desire to cut himself off from the Stellaetrix, he probably wouldn’t even check that the pieces of his precious artifact had reached their destinations. He wanted them gone, and Leonor had fulfilled that wish, although not in the way Nostracom had wished. After traveling south to give the impression that he was bringing his piece of the Stellaetrix to the satyrs, he’d doubled back north.

The unicorn stallion was dressed in sorcerer’s robes now, and he’d practiced putting on airs like a sorcerer. The mages of the fledgling Applegrove Circle would never suspect he wasn’t what he claimed to be. He was a Source, though not one with enough magical potential to ever become a sorcerer; at least, not until he had the Stellaetrix. With it, he could draw on its power to perform feats he never could have done before—maybe not feats comparable to controlling the stars or raising and lowering the sun and moon, but enough to impress other sorceresses. He would finally have his time to shine, and with what he’d gathered from Nostracom, he’d be a grand enchanter like no other.

***

Year 1002 of the 4^th Age

In the end, Twilight Sparkle wasn’t certain who had gained more information from the feast—her or the Circle— which was surprisingly satisfying. The Applewood Tower was obviously keeping secrets, and its leaders were just as scheming as any Cant’r Laht noble, but they had shown a surprising amount of openness tonight. Twilight Sparkle resolved not to be taken in by it, but it was hard not to feel a tad wooed. She wouldn’t let it distract her from the true reason the Brave Companions were here, though.

Once all was dark and silent, she, Spike, and Rarity snuck out of their chambers. Twilight had managed to cloak them all in invisibility before leaving, along with a healthy dose of wards to prevent counter-spells from counteracting or detecting the magic. She also brought the compass she’d enchanted before with them to detect where the Stellaetrix was. It was definitely somewhere in the Applewood Tower, as the needle had spun wildly around the compass face while in their chambers. The only mystery was whether they would find it above or below. There was far more to search above, and far more sorceresses and sorcerers, so they began their search by descending.

Each level they descended brought disappointment as the Stellaetrix failed to appear, but also a minor victory in that their snooping had not been detected, and they continued on unimpeded. The bottom floors of the Applewood Tower were mostly used for classes and storage, with the servants’ quarters and kitchens located in buildings along the compound’s outer wall, so the rooms they searched were empty of any ponies. One particularly ancient gargoyle squatting among shelves of tomes turned its head their way once, but eventually decided what it had seen was only its imagination and returned to stone. As their descent went on, they eventually passed underground into the tower’s foundations. Moonlight streaming through windows had provided some light above, but down here it was pitch black. When Twilight was certain there was nopony nearby to hear them, she whispered an incantation that would allow the three of them to see in absolute darkness, and they continued on.

They had descended several stories belowground when they reached the catacombs beneath the tower. Ancient sarcophagi were arranged in concentric circles, holding past prominent members of the Applewood Tower. One of them, upon which was inscribed the barely visible name of Leonorus, was pointed to by the compass as Twilight circled it. Many of these graves had magical artifacts within them, the sorceresses and sorcerers choosing to be buried with them, and Leonorus’ grave was no exception.

“Twilight, you’re not going to …” Rarity gasped as Twilight began to pry the sarcophagus open.

“Let us just hope that the Stellaetrix is in here so I didn’t defile a grave in vain,” Twilight said.

Twilight’s sorcery burned through the stone, and the lid came loose. As she shoved it aside, Spike helped to hold the cover and lower it to the ground. After millennia, there was nothing left of Leonorus’s remains, but the sundial Twilight had sensed was still intact. Drawing it out of the grave, she examined the dial with her magic and confirmed that it was wrapped in powerful enchantments to hide the artifact’s true nature. Breaking them, the sundial returned to its true form, one third of a disk covered in diamonds: part of the Stellaetrix. They’d found the object of their search; now, they just had to reseal the grave, return to their chambers, and find a way to leave the Applewood Tower without the sorceresses here realizing what they had lost.

***

Several Months Later

Alfons trotted in a stately manner down the long carpet that ran the length of the hall. Arrayed in rows to either side of him were his new vassals, lords and ladies who had pledged their loyalty and service to him alone. They bowed as he trotted past, as was proper. Lady Eriophyllum stood among retainers, and she watched with awe as Alfons trotted past her. Alfons and his armies had defeated her, but she had not shared the fate of Marquesa Marigold; he would not execute a filly. The advisors that had used her as an excuse had not been so lucky. Enemy heads would decorate the walk to his castle until they rotted away beneath the sun.

Chief Strongheart, now his Warden of Alcyon, stood among the gathered nobles. Her broad shoulders made the aristocracy next to her bunch up against each other, eliciting a smile from Alfons as she raised her head to honor him while others bowed, her bunching muscles nearly knocking them over. Alfons’s nose twitched as the oil poured on his forehead ran down it, and the smile disappeared.

He was almost at the end now, approaching his throne, a wooden masterpiece with a ruby set into the head. To one side stood Grand Enchanter Regulus, a pony he was now forced to acknowledge as his equal. Under the new charter drawn up, the head of the Applewood Tower and Alfons would rule his new kingdom jointly. It was irritating to allow anypony to stand beside him, but it was a worthwhile sacrifice to ensure the loyalty and power of the sorceresses of Los Pegasus. Not that these lands would be known as part of Los Pegasus anymore. The mages of Applewood had also convinced Alfons to curb his ambitions and not seek to become King of Los Pegasus. His support in the north was far less than in the south, and he would have enough difficulties ruling his new kingdom without worrying about constant rebellions which could claim—and rightfully so—that he was a usurper. He hadn’t taken Los Pegasus, but he would rule a fine kingdom nevertheless; with powerful allies on his side, perhaps one day he could do what Helianthus never could and expand into the Equestry Valley to the east.

“Behold, King Alfons of Applewood and Mareagon!” the elderly bishop who’d been standing opposite Regulus said as she placed the crown upon his head, and he took a seat on his royal throne for the first time. “Long may he reign!”

Comments

[TasermonsPartner]

Another great chapter of worldbuilding and intrigue!

I, personally, liked the twist that Lady Eriophyllum was a 4-year old filly. And I also liked the fact that Alfons didn't kill her (though who knows if that will still hold true when she is older). Still, there were plenty of humans who, if in his position, wouldn't hesitate to kill a child then and there just to eliminate any future threat to the throne.

The backstory with Lenorous was interesting, and the twist very unexpected! Still, I wouldn't have minded an escape scene, or a scene where they get caught, or nearly so, and have to think of a way out.

The background with the satyrs was neat too! Hope Alfonso doesn't kill them all.

“Hello, I am Twilight Sparkle of the Brave Companions, apprentice to Celestia, Crown Princess of Cant’r Laht,” Twilight introduced herself as she looked up into the satyr’s eyes. “This is Rarity of the Brave Companions, and my page Spike.”

Since they're going with full titles, they could point out that Spike is son of the Dragonlord. It's actually amazing he doesn't get more respect for that (not that he'd want it, really). I mean, even if all of Applewood went up against a single adult dragon, they'd still probably suffer heavy casualties before subduing it, and if they had to go up an entire dragon army, or the dDragonlord himself? *shudders* (Not that the Dragonlord seems to take much interest in his son, but still, you'd think they use more caution so as to not offend him?)

Her wings singled her out, wings that she still had no idea how to use. Granted, she had only been an alicorn for less than three weeks, but it didn’t feel like the novelty would ever wear off, and the way others looked at her now made her feel self-conscious.

She's had them for three weeks and hasn't asked Dash or Fluttershy to teach her how to use them yet?

“Rarity of the Brave Companions, not a sorceress,” the filly answered as she looked to Rarity, then turned her attention to Spike. “And Spike, page to Twilight Sparkle and heir to Dragonlord Ingrirtireth of Tyrannus.”

Ahhh, there's the title.