3. Across the Nether Lands
Cozy Glow tried really, really, really hard not to complain when she and Tirek had set out across the sands, having been given the supplies they demanded from the centaur tribe without fuss. Cozy made it almost a whole half an hour without complaining. Given what she was putting up with, that seemed incredible. But even still, eventually…
“Wh-wh-what happened?” She demanded as her teeth chattered, hugging herself while she beat her wings. “Where did all the heat go?!”
Tirek was wrapped now in proper desert traveling robes, which included a thick woolen overcoat. “It’s actually not as cold as you think,” he said, “it’s just that the temperature dropped so rapidly that your body didn’t have time to adjust – ”
“I can see my breath, Tirek!”
A chuckle was Tirek’s only response. Slung across his upper back was a pack full of simple foodstuffs that wouldn’t spoil quickly, while he wore saddlebags across his lower back that were laden with water, and a pack atop his lower back contained camping supplies and a basic tent that would fit Tirek and Cozy. He trotted up and down across the dunes without issue despite the weight he was carrying.
Cozy, herself, carried only what she had before, save that Tirek had made her put on her jacket and hat not long after the sun had gone down. She hadn’t objected, deferring to his familiarity with his own homeland, and was glad she hadn’t since otherwise he likely would have been rubbing it in her face by the time she did put it on.
“What is wrong with this place?” Cozy asked, flying in front of Tirek to look him in the eye.
Tirek fixed her with a mocking stare. “I thought you were a pegasus! You were very insistent on that.” He waved a finger around at the air. “Humidity is what keeps heat trapped in the air at night. The desert has no humidity. Ergo, there is no way to trap heat.”
Cozy shivered, and hugged herself in the air as she flew alongside Tirek. “The Mild West doesn’t get cold!”
“I’ll just let you consider its name for a few minutes.”
Cozy’s response was a growl, and to drop down to the sand to give her wings a break. Tirek’s pace was measured, allowing her to easily keep up despite her much shorter legs. She glanced back the way they had come, though the oasis was now long out of sight, hidden by the dunes they had gone up and down over. Now there was nothing but sand in every direction, and a brilliant night sky full of stars and the biggest Moon that Cozy had ever seen. She wondered if Luna had pulled it down closer to the Earth today or something.
It was actually really pretty…but the kind of “pretty” that Cozy would have liked to see in a photograph or painting or something. Not in person. In person it was cold, and dry, and then there was the sand. It was abrasive and grainy and it got into everything. She could feel it in her jacket and it hadn’t even touched the sand! And unlike a beach, she didn’t have anywhere to wash it off, at least not until they reached Midnight Castle.
Which reminded Cozy of something. She beat her wings and took to the air again, flying alongside Tirek. “Hey, so…I just wanna ask something, about Midnight Castle.” She tapped her hooves together. “So…you said that you and Scorpan never got inside. But…well, Scorpan did. How do you think he managed that?”
Tirek bristled at the mention of his brother’s name, but Cozy hadn’t been pushing the “family” button. This was business. “I showed Scorpan many of the mystical techniques taught to me by Sendak the Elder,” Tirek finally answered, “but without the magic of ponies…if he really did become a cruel tyrant, I suppose he could have gathered the magic from a sufficient quantity of gargoyles and centaurs. Or perhaps he found some alternate way past the castle’s defenses…he was not unintelligent.”
Cozy nodded, filing that information away in her mind alongside everything else she had learned about Midnight Castle. “And…what about the fact that he got his claws on the Rainbow of Darkness? But then he put it back?”
“I don’t know.”
Cozy tapped a hoof to her mouth as she considered. “Back in the Friendship School we had a lesson on something called the Alicorn Amulet. It made whoever wore it really powerful, but it also made them act crazy. What if the Rainbow of Darkness does the same thing? Come to think of it King Sombra was pretty big on “darkness” too, and he seemed kind of loopy.” Cozy crossed her hooves. “You think that’s what happened to Scorpan?”
Tirek’s response was a grunt. Cozy frowned. “I’m being serious, Tirek! Getting a super-powerful artifact won’t do us much good if it’s just gonna make us fight over it or something!”
“It won’t do you much good,” Tirek noted, and flexed his muscles. “I’d win the fight.”
“You know what I mean!”
The centaur spent a few moments grinding his teeth together. Finally, he spoke up. “It would not surprise me if Scorpan fell victim to dark magic. He was always weak-willed, easily influenced. But I will not so easily succumb to any temptations it might offer, and I seriously doubt you would either. But if it puts your mind at ease, we shall be cautious with it.”
It did. Cozy wished she knew what the Rainbow of Darkness actually did. Based on its name, it was probably something similar to what King Sombra could do, forcing creatures to live their greatest fear over and over again and make them comply with the wielder’s will. Or maybe it was like the Pony of Shadows, creating things out of shadowstuff. Tirek had told Cozy that according to legend, Tirac had stolen the shadows of every centaur and cast them into the sky, imposing the Night That Never Ends…so maybe it was kind of like what Nightmare Moon did or wanted to do? Maybe it would make them powerful enough to move the Moon and Stars? And Nightmare Moon had supposedly possessed powers over nightmares, just like Sombra…
Wow, there were a lot of evil ponies that used darkness, come to think about it. And Cozy was about to become one of them! Well, assuming that having once used a bunch of special artifacts to try to exile all the magic of the world into a dark dimension that only she would be able to access didn’t mean she already counted.
They continued in silence for a few minutes, Cozy realizing that she really had grown used to the cold when she had distracted herself from it. Not that she was going to take off her jacket or hat any time soon.
She glanced to Tirek. “So…” she finally said, “given any thought to becoming King of Gar-Centauria again? Maybe after taking over your third of Equestria? I still call dibs on Fillydelphia by the way.”
“You can have your hometown,” Tirek said, “and no. Honestly. I’m being increasingly reminded of one of the reasons why I left.” He pointed a hand around at the desert. “Right now this is enjoyable because I spent a thousand years in Tartaros. It’s familiar, it’s…comforting, in its own way.” He shook his head. “But it’s like this all the time. Hot enough to cook meals on flat stones during the day…cold enough to freeze and steal breath at night. I hate it here.”
“Thank you!” Cozy threw her hooves wide. “I kept saying…”
“Yes, yes…” Tirek waved Cozy off. “The warm winds of Equestria are much more inviting. And the magic that I can take, or learn…” He looked to Cozy. “What were we going to do with Canterlot again?”
“Neutral meeting ground for us and Chrysalis,” Cozy said. She dug into her saddlebags, and pulled out notebook and flipped it to a map of Equestria drawn in crayon and divided into colored areas: Cozy’s pink in the east, Chrysalis’ green in the south, and Tirek’s red out west. They hadn’t figured out what to do with the north yet.
Cozy started pointing out all the additional details she’d added. “Here’s where the FIENDship Express is gonna pass between our three kingdoms, and this is where we’ll put the giant statue of the three of us standing atop all our enemies, and then here is the roller coaster…it’s not to scale, though…”
Tirek was only half-listening, Cozy knew. She finished describing everything, then stuck the map back into her saddlebags. The silence lasted for a few more minutes after that before it started getting to her again.
“I spy with my little eye something – ”
“No,” Tirek interrupted.
A few more minutes of silence.
“We’re off – on the road to conquest! Although the dunes are – ”
“I’m not singing either!”
Cozy pouted. “It’s that or ‘Eye Spy’, Tirek! You can’t expect me to stay quiet the entire trip, we’re gonna be traveling for days…”
“I could drain you of magic,” Tirek counted off on his fingers, “carry your unconscious body, and then restore you when we get to Midnight Castle.”
Cozy’s response to that was to fly up, land on and lie down on Tirek’s back between his saddlebags, and put her hooves behind her head. “When you’re ready!” She giggled, wriggling to get comfortable.
Tirek groaned and rubbed his eyes. “Something beginning with ‘S’.”
“You have to say – ”
“I spy with my mighty eye something beginning with ‘S’!”
“That’s the spirit! Hmm…”
“I mean, it’s not the worst way to pass time,” Rainbow Dash said, “but I don’t think we’ll get much out here.”
“You’d be surprised,” Daring countered. “Every time I’ve had a partner on one of these trips, sooner or later, we play ‘I Spy’. I leave it out of the books, but…”
They’d set out from Istanbull as soon as the Sun had begun to set, Daring getting her hooves on only on a map and compass, water, trail rations, and a simple two-pony tent and bedrolls for the two of them, not having time for anything other supplies. Then they’d headed into the desert, and spent the night either soaring through the air or trotting across the dunes when their wings needed a break. Daring wasn’t nearly as fast as Rainbow Dash, but even a slow pegasus could fly much faster than a ground-bound pony could canter.
They were soaring at the moment, riding a westerly wind that was doing most of the work for the two of them; all they needed to do was flap their wings on occasion and make small adjustments to keep at the right heading. Beneath them, the sands of the Nether Lands rolled on by, while above them the Moon was edging towards the horizon and the Stars were beginning to slightly fade out as in the East the first tinges of pre-dawn light were beginning to shine.
Most of their flight had been filled in with Dash filling in Daring on the details of what she’d been up to since the two had last seen each other. World-saving stuff, Wonderbolts stuff, Frienship School stuff, the usual. Daring had, in turn, talked about some of the stuff that hadn’t made it into Daring Do and the Great Rainbow Caper in an attempt to keep it friendly for the foals.
But as awesome as the stories were, they did eventually run out…and so now they needed some other way to pass the time. And of all things, Daring had suggested “I Spy”.
“I mean, what is there?” Dash asked. She began pointing things out. “Sand, moon, stars, sky, horizon, oasis, cloud, dune, palm tree, cactus, water…and yeah, we’re done, that’s everything in the Nether Lands. I just spied everything.”
Daring shrugged. “You forgot something big.” She pointed off a ways to something several hundred feet below and about a mile out. “the light’s not great, but see those rocks?”
Dash did, a straight line of them running for several thousand feet. Daring pointed up, and the two pegasi beat their wings, gaining altitude rapidly. As they rose, Dash saw a second line of rocks, then a third. She squinted a moment, then her eyes widened as she realized that there were more lines, barely visible but becoming more so as the pre-dawn light continued to grow, forming a giant picture in the ground, visible only from the air. Dash couldn’t make out what exactly the picture was supposed to be yet.
“They’re geoglyphs,” Daring said, “made by gargoyles, one of the natives of this part of the world. Every few hundred years they leave Stone Mountain and carve and build a new one. That one’s a spider.”
Dash blinked. “Who’d want to make a giant picture of a spider?”
Daring chuckled. “Gargoyles.”
“You said that…” Dash rolled her eyes. “I mean, why do they do it?”
Daring could only offer up a shrug. “Gargoyles are very isolationist. Their whole society lives in just in Stone Mountain, right in the middle of the Nether Lands. They don’t like visitors. There was a time when they teamed up with the centaurs – that’s what Gar-Centauria was – but the kingdom collapsed only a few decades after it was founded.” She looked pointedly at Rainbow Dash. “You might actually know something about that since you helped defeat Tirek. Ever hear of Scorpan?”
Dash wracked her mind. Her eyes widened when she remembered. “Tirek’s brother? Wait, he wasn’t a centaur too? How does that work?”
“It’s…complicated. And probably biased. Never was able to meet a gargoyle to talk about it with, just some centaurs, and they’re kind of standoffish too.” She looked west, towards their destination. “The centaurs say that Scorpan was a cruel, evil ruler. But that doesn’t match up with what we know about how he left Equestria…”
“You don’t think it has anything to do with the Sun Stone, do you?” Dash shivered as she remembered a trying couple of days with a certain blue unicorn magician and her delusions of grandeur. “Like, maybe Queen Rosedust wanted to get rid of it for a reason.”
Daring shook her head. “I don’t know much about the Sun Stone – didn’t even know that was what Caballeron was here for. But from what I can remember, all the legends say that it’s just a big gemstone that emits light and warmth. It’s not like the Alicorn Amulet.” She tsked slightly. “Can’t believe that was just sitting in a shop in Canterlot, means that I went all the way to Dream Valley for nothing…”
“Hey, wasn’t the Cauldron of Reeka there? I thought you went there for that!”
“You know I take some liberties with the stories A.K. Yearling writes.”
That got a laugh out of Dash. By now, the Moon had been set and the Sun was rising into the sky, banishing the darkness. The temperature was already beginning to rise as well. The two pegasi continued on for a few more miles, but at the first oasis they spotted from the air Daring pointed down and had them land.
“We’ll wait out the day here,” Daring said as she touched down. “No one travels the desert by day if they can avoid it. Learned that one the hard way last time I was here…”
Dash eyed Daring. “That untold Daring Do story again?” she asked.
“No.”
“No meaning yes…?”
Daring’s response was to kick a little sand Dash’s way, which was answer enough. She chuckled, but helped Daring set up their simple tent, making sure to put it in the shade of a copse of palm trees for all the protection from the Sun that they could get. Dash found herself wishing that Spike was here, so that she could send a letter to Celestia asking her if she could turn the thing down a bit. Or Celestia herself, Dash supposed…
Once that was done, Daring unfolded the map she’d grabbed, and looked it over while checking her compass. “We’re making good time,” she said. “If we can canter and fly like this the whole time, we’ll make Midnight Castle the night after next.”
Dash stretched and unstretched her wings, loosening them up after hours of stiff-winged soaring. Daring was doing the same with her own wings. “What do you think we’ll find when we get there?” Dash asked.
“The usual. Traps. Puzzles. Normally he prefers jungles but I’d still say there’s about a one-in-five chance Ahuizotl will be there…keep an eye out for cats.” Daring folded up the map and tucked it away, then took off her helmet and shirt and made for the oasis. “With luck, we’ll be in-and-out before Caballeron can even reach Midnight Castle.”
There had been no oasis to stop at for Tirek and Cozy Glow, but they had been able to settle down in a depression between two particularly tall dunes. The tent was square in shape, and Tirek had kept the flaps on the north and south partially open to allow air flow, while keeping the interior protected from the full glare of the Sun that would come in from the east or west or overhead. It was still warm on the inside, but far cooler than it would be outside.
Cozy had spent a twenty minutes complaining that there was no way that she would be able to sleep in this heat, tossing and turning on her sleeping mat and going on and on about the sand in her mane and coat and tail. Fortunately by the twenty-first minute she was out like a light, and currently – around noon – was sleeping peacefully under her light blanket, hugging a stuffed toy cactus that she’d brought with her.
Tirek’s own sleep was decidedly less restful. He drifted into it every now and then, but his dreams kept taking him backwards to places he didn’t want to go, and were full of faces that he didn’t want to see and words he didn’t want to hear.
He should have anticipated this. Of course returning to the Nether Lands was going to drag up old memories that he’d spent a thousand years repressing. It was a wonder he wasn’t insane, though he suspected something about the nature of Tartaros played into that as well. Insanity was a form of escape, after all.
Nevertheless, the result was that when Tirek closed his eyes…
“You don’t understand, brother,” Scorpan said, “the ponies…they’re peaceful. Divided, but innocent and at peace with each other. There’s an entire kingdom waiting for us back in the Nether Lands, larger than any of the pony realms…when father passes – ”
“A kingdom of sand and heat and desiccation,” Tirek countered. “Vorak’s kingdom is nothing! We will not eke out a miserable existence there, not when there is a fertile land such as this ripe for the taking! We can conquer and plunder each of the pony lands, take what we will!”
“For Gar-Centauria?”
“For us! We owe nothing to father. If we return to Gar-Centauria at all, it will be to shame him with what I have built! With what I can do!” Tirek pounded a fist into his palm. “He wants me gone. Not simply away from Gar-Centauria…he wants me gone, and you too now that he knows that I shared my knowledge with you. He fears our magic, my magic. It’s time I gave him a reason to fear it…”
Scorpan eyed Tirek. “Vorak is a terrible father. But Tirek, you haven’t put much effort into being a good son. You’re right, father fears your power…and so you gain power to shield yourself in case he acts on that fear. You have each forced the other to become the very things you feared…”
“I fear nothing!”
“I wonder where the cycle began. I wonder if it even matters anymore.”
Tirek growled. “It’s not like you to be so bold, brother. You’ve been spending too much time with the ponies.”
“It was your idea.”
“To gather information. Not to go native. Perhaps it’s time we made our move before they influence you further.”
“You should listen to them. They’re wiser than you know…and wisdom is the greatest sort of power there is, even you agree to that. There are two young alicorns, Celetia and Luna, and their mentor Star Swirl…”
Tirek grit his teeth, but then a thought crept into his mind. So, it was those three that were trying to convince his brother and he to run back to their homeland? These ponies that were slowly turning Scorpan against him?
“Perhaps I should meet them,” Tirek agreed. “Tomorrow.”
Scorpan smiled. Tirek smiled too. Tomorrow, he would meet this Star Swirl. Tomorrow, a head would roll…
Tirek was awake. There was no transition, no moments of lucid dreaming followed by the realization that the dream had ended – he simply had his eyes open once again. Glancing outside, he saw the Sun was a bright as ever, though the slow tilt of the shadows at least showed Tirek that it was past noon. Cozy Glow was still passed out with her stuffed cactus.
He grunted. He used his magic to call over a canteen and took a long drink of water, then lay back down and tried to sleep. But even though he did continue to drift into it, he continued to wake up as well. Always with memories of Scorpan. His weak-willed brother, so easily influenced by the wills of others. The ponies. His father Vorak. Even Tirek himself, if he was being honest with himself. He was by nature a follower…
No doubt that had played into his apparent fall into evil and tyranny and cruelty. Bereft of a leader, he had proven unfit. Inept. He’d probably tried to emulate his father’s practices with only a fraction of the talent for it, and as this had grown worse no doubt he’d cast about, flailed desperately as he’d looked for an escape.
Perhaps it had been that desperation that had driven him to seek out the Rainbow of Darkness. Maybe he’d seen the powerful artifact as his only hope of retaining power. But magic was a means to an end, it was not an end unto itself. The end was power. The power to control one’s own destiny. The power to make others bend to your will and carry out your commands.
But Scorpan had no will of his own. No destiny to seize. He was – had been – only a hanger-on, lurking in the shadow of greaters. No wonder the kingdom had collapsed. Tirek could see Scorpan sitting on Vorak’s throne, looking small on it even though he hadn’t been small in stature. It was a vision that Tirek had witnessed often of the past thousand years. He hadn’t had much else to do in Tartaros other than think of all the ways his brother was going to fail without him.
A fate he deserved for betraying him.
When Tirek next looked out of the tent, he saw that the shadows were lengthening, though it would be some hours yet before sundown.
Tirek had been introspective for a thousand years. Now was not the time for that, not now that he was free. Rolling onto his hooves and stepping outside into the growing evening of the Nether Lands, he trotted up the taller of the nearby dunes and looked out upon all that was left of Vorak’s, of Scorpan’s, kingdom.
Sand and heat and desiccation, and nothing more.
And he hated it.
Tirek almost lost it right then and there, but he remembered Cozy Glow sleeping below. He spared a moment to wave a hand over the tent, wrapping it in one of his containment bubbles and soundproofing the bubble.
Then he turned back to the Nether Lands and roared.
He flexed his muscles, crossing his wrists as he built up magic between his horns, and let loose a blast of pure, unfocused magic. It hit a dune several hundred feet away and burned the sand, scorching and fusing it with a massive wave of heat and power. Crystalline cracks sounded through the dune as it was turned into a mound of blackened glass inside and out.
Tirek grunted as the sight…and found that he didn’t really feel any better. So he’d turned sand into glass. So what? It wasn’t an improvement. Had he been in a forest and burned down an acre or two that offended him then at least he could be assured that the forest would change, grow anew into something better. Here…he’d turned sand into useless, burnt glass. He’d taken something from which no good could ever come and made it worse.
He turned around, tromping back down the dune and to the tent, banishing his bubble-shield with a wave of his hand, and settled back down, determined that he was going to get some meaningful hours of sleep before setting out again tonight.
He did notice that Cozy’s toy cactus had slipped from her grasp, however. He took a moment to roll it back into her hooves. She grabbed it tightly without waking up.
Cozy Glow had suffered betrayals of her own, Tirek knew, easily as fundamental as his own and which had driven her to seek power and control in her life the same way Tirek sought it for his. So why did she sleep soundly? Was it simply because she was a child? Or because they were in the Nether Lands rather than Fillydelphia, where she’d grown up? Or was it the fact that she’d been able to get revenge upon pony who had betrayed her?
Maybe that was what was missing. Tirek had been betrayed by his own father. Vorak feared his magical power and so had planned to one day kill Tirek…but Tirek had never had a chance to act first. And when Scorpan had betrayed him to Star Swirl and Celestia and Luna, Tirek had been locked in Tartaros – and only counting the days going by had made Tirek realize that Scorpan had passed on through no action of Tirek’s, simply time and tide. There was no closure, and there never could be.
Tirek grunted once more, closing his eyes and trying to get sleep. Well, if there could never be closure, then there was no sense in letting it bother him. And so he wouldn’t. It was that simple.
Rainbow Dash was straddling some middle realm between sleep and wakefulness when she realized her ears were twitching. Groggily, she opened her eyes in the darkness of the tent, letting out a long yawn and rubbing her eyes. Her first thought was to how thirsty she was, though that was rectified with a long swig from her canteen. But her second thought was that there was a kind of low, distant drone filling her ears, one that sounded kind of familiar…
She looked, and saw that Daring wasn’t in the tent. That set Dash to frowning; she was an early riser, so how had Daring beaten her to consciousness? More to the point, why hadn’t she woken her up?
Dash climbed from her bedroll and stepped out of the tent, getting the room needed to stretch her wings and limber up a little. The Sun had set and a Moon was edging its waning crescent form over the horizon, the night sky gradually filling with stars as they winked awake. As had happened last night, the temperature had plummeted from the heat of the day, the desert seeming almost as relieved as any of the creatures in it for the day to be over.
The low drone hadn’t gone away. It was coming from somewhere to the east. Dash gave her wings another flap, then took to the air. Her intent had been to fly high, but before she could get more than a few feet off the ground she heard a whistle and saw Daring, who had alighted atop a palm tree – and was using the broad fronds for cover.
Dash flew up beneath her, hovering in place. “What gives?” She asked. “What’s that drone sound?”
Daring was frowning. She waved Dash up. “Straight east,” she said, “in the direction of Istanbull. See those lights?”
Dash looked, squinting at the darkening eastern horizon. There were a series of lights. At first Dash thought that it was more stars, but the lights were clustered close together and several of them were winking in slow, regular patterns. Her eyes widened as she realized she recognized the droning sound at last.
“An airship?” She asked.
“An airship,” Daring confirmed. “Not the Wind Drifter, her engines don’t sound like that. I think it’s a Saddle Arabian one, maybe a third the size of Wind Drifter. Smaller…but faster. And I’ll bet jangles to bits that Caballeron is aboard."
Dash threw her hooves in the air. “Well that’s just great! I thought that Caballeron was going to be crossing the desert on hoof!”
“Yeah, I thought that too,” Daring shook her head. “That’s what all the supplies he was stocking looked like. Sorry, Dash, but your plan might have backfired…lighting a fire under Caballeron’s rear must have made him somehow convince Emira Numnah to loan him an airship.”
Dash felt herself quivering with anger. Sure, no matter how fast the airship was, Rainbow Dash was way faster. Even Daring was faster, despite not being a trained Wonderbolt with a need for speed the way Dash was. But that was over a distance measured in just a few miles. No pegasus could sustain their maximum flying speed for very long, they needed to pace themselves, break for ground-pounding every now and then. And sleep. Sleeping was important.
But an airship could just keep ploughing forward. It didn’t need to slow down or take breaks at a steady pace. It didn’t need to sleep.
Dash and Daring both headed back for the ground, and started packing up their camp quickly. Dash looked to Daring. “If we haul butt, fast as we can – ”
“We collapse from exhaustion, get heat stroke, and die of dehydration in the desert,” Daring interrupted. “The pace we were traveling at is already the fastest we can go if we want to actually make it to Midnight Castle.”
“Well if we don’t think of something quick then Caballeron is going to beat us there! And in this sort of race, there’s no silver medal for finishing second!”
Daring finished stowing the tent while Rainbow Dash rolled up their bedrolls. She looked Dash up and down, rubbing a hoof to her chin as she considered. “That tracking spell Glory Pose hit you with has to have worn off by now, right?”
“I dunno! Twilight isn’t here, she’s the one who knows all about magic.”
“Okay, fine. We’ll just have to risk it. You’ve read Looters of the Vanished Hutch, right?”
“Only like five times! It was your first published book, of course I’ve read it, I mean I read Quest for the Sapphire Stone first, but I went back and read them all. Definitely a solid story, fast-paced, I can see why you decided to start with that instead of one of your earlier adventoooohhh,” Dash grinned. “The stowaway scene?”
“Stowaway scene,” Daring confirmed. “Airship instead of a boat, but the principle’s the same.” She took to the air for a few seconds to get the airship’s bearing, then came back down. “I’m pretty sure they’re gonna pass near this oasis. If the tracking spell’s worn off then they’ll have no reason to stop here and will just keep going. We can board the airship from the aft.”
“Of course, if the spell hasn’t faded out,” Dash observed, “then we’re going to be facing down a bunch of horses and ponies who are ready for us. And have an airship.”
Daring smirked. “C’mon, if you’ve really read all my books then you know there’s always a leap-of-faith moment. We’re just getting it out of the way early, before the ruin. Hopefully.”
Dash hadn’t been objecting; this was the best option available to them, since there was no way they’d beat an airship across the desert. They weren’t going to get to Midnight Castle first; the best they could settle on was a tie.
They had time for a quick dip in the oasis, at least, washing off all the sweating that they’d been doing while sleeping away the day in the heat. Then it was down to business.
“Okay,” Daring said once they’d shaken and air-dried themselves, then taken refuge in the copse of palm trees where their tent had been set up. By now the drone of the airship’s engines had become much louder. “So we let it fly past us a few hundred feet, then we should board from the top of the balloon, probably won’t be expecting to be approached from that angle and the balloon will hide our approach better anyway. But they probably do have at least one watch pony up there so be careful.”
Dash nodded, fidgeting slightly as she peeked through the low shrubs and tall grass of the copse, watching the airship approach with Daring. This was the hard part, the waiting as the drone of the airship grew louder and louder. It was entirely possible that Caballeron and his Saddle Arabian allies were even now readying for attack. Knew exactly where they were. If the airship had any mounted ballistae or cannons it could cut loose with pinpoint precision. Sure, Dash could dodge, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be shot at.
The airship was at least now close enough to see. She was smaller than Wind Drifter, her balloon only around five hundred feet in length and her gondola maybe half the size. Her running lights displayed her name proudly, though it was in the cursive, weird script of Saddle Arabia that Dash couldn’t read. She also appeared moderately armored along her hull and balloon, and there were indeed ballistae poking from her gondola…
Dash held her breath, though the propellers of the airship would certainly have covered up the sound of her breathing even if the distance hadn’t. The airship floated forward through the night slowly and steadily and inexorably, the vast bulk of its balloon blotting out stars and even the crescent moon…
…but it didn’t slow down as it passed by overhead. Dash let out a sigh of relief as the airship drifted almost directly overhead, its propellers beating a steady rhythm and sending down a light wind to the two hidden pegasi. And then it was past them, and continuing its never-slowing flight west towards Midnight Castle.
Daring tapped Dash’s shoulder, and she nodded. The two pegasi waited for the airship to gain about a quarter-mile on them, then took to the air, flying straight up first to well above her low cruising altitude. They left their camping supplies behind – they wouldn’t need them now. Once Dash and Daring were about a thousand feet up, they set out west themselves, diving towards the airship as fast as they could fly without leaving behind any tell-tail contrails of pegasus magic. So well slower than Dash was used to…but speed wouldn’t win the day here.
Daring had been right: rising out of the top of the dorsal side of the balloon was what almost looked like a pillbox, with a series of short but wide windows and light shining out from within. The pegasi approached from high above the pillbox, matched speeds with the airship, and then dropped altitude down towards its roof, which thankfully lacked any kind of skylight. They touched down as lightly as possible and hunkered down.
Dash crawled over to the edge of the pillbox’s left side, then held her mane back as she peeked over the edge and into the pillbox. Just inside, she could see a bored-looking pair of Saddle Arabians, who glanced out the windows occasionally but seemed more interested in the card game they were playing on the floor.
Dash went back over to Daring. “Two of ‘em,” she said, trying to both whisper and be heard over the airship’s propellers. “But I don’t think they’ll be a problem.”
Daring nodded. “Anywhere but the Nether Lands, I’d say we stay up here the whole ride – but we’ll never make it through a day exposed like this.” She pointed down, over the fore side of the pillbox, and Dash looked. Below was a hatch that would lead down and into the balloon and then the gondola.
“Let’s move,” Daring said, crawling to the edge of the pillbox, then dropping down and pressing herself flat against the balloon, below the windows. She checked inside the pillbox, then waved Dash down, who followed.
The hatch was unlocked, which was probably a violation of some regulation or another but perfect for their needs. They slipped inside, closed the hatch behind them, cutting off the sound of the propellers aside from a constant dull thrum that reverberated through the airship. After several moments, both let out sighs of relief.
And Dash couldn’t help it – she was grinning. “This is awesome,” she whispered as the two started descending the spiraling metal stairs that lead down the balloon. “I feel like a spy! I should do stuff like this more often…so where to now? There has to be a cargo hold, I guess, we going to hole up there?”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Daring nodded, as the two reached the bottom of the stairs. She pressed her ear to it, listening. “Of course, I have no idea where the cargo hold even is…here’s hoping horses label things.”
The two were quiet for a few moments as Daring listened for the sound of anyone on the other side of the door, then she slowly opened it. It creaked far louder than either pegasus would have liked, but when both stuck their heads out they found themselves looking at an empty passageway. They stepped out and closed the door behind them, then Daring looked around at the walls, finding labels (in more Saddle Arabian, unfortunately for Dash) and arrows quickly.
“This way,” she said, waving Dash on. The two crept through the passage, keeping low and moving quickly before they finally reached the cargo hold – and found the door already standing adjacent, and the sound of voices inside.
The two pegasi looked to one another, but unfortunately it remained their best bet. They slipped inside the cargo hold – a long, narrow, dimly lit room full of crates packed floor nearly to ceiling on its left and right side, leaving only a narrow lane between the two rows of crates for creatures to walk through. Fortunately it was easy for the two to fly up to the top of the crates and squeeze themselves between them and the ceiling. Only after that was done did either of them start paying attention to the talking ponies.
“…this much,” a female voice – Glory Pose’s, Dash realized – said. “I’m not made of money, Caballeron.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Caballeron joked. Dash and Daring both tried to glance down the length of the room, and found Caballeron digging through a set of luggage rather than a crate, Glory Pose beside him. “I thought you were the richest pony in Fillydelphia now that the Glow fortune is no more.”
“Yes, and I didn’t get to be the richest pony by throwing away bits and yachts and…” She shook her head. Behind her, the cargo hold’s door was opened wide, and a gray-and-blue pegasus pony stepped in. Glory didn’t seem to notice him. “Look, Doctor. You have been very good for me over the years. But I would ask you to please stop spending my money.” She rapped a hoof on the deck beneath her. “By the time we’re done here Emira Numnah is practically going to be able to buy Fillydelphia!”
“I promise it will all be worth it. But I do apologize, my de – ah ha!” Caballeron called out, making Glory jump. He held up a bottle of sparkling wine, unopened. He held it out for Glory to inspect the label. “I grew up with this. It’s my family label. My mother was terribly disappointed when I went into archaeology rather than wine.”
Glory inspected the bottle, still not noticing the pegasus that had come up behind her, though he made no effort to hide himself. “You said you had something to make me feel better,” she said.
“Trust me, this will,” Caballeron insisted. He closed up the luggage. “There is no way for Daring Do or her lackey to beat us to Midnight Castle now! And the Shamshir will cut through the sky at the same pace regardless. Why not enjoy the ride, eh? She is a fine ship.”
“The finest!” The pegasus exclaimed. Glory shrieked, stumbling away – and towards Caballeron, who seemed quite pleased with this result as he caught her deftly.
The pegasus pressed on like he hadn’t even noticed, grinning widely. “Jannah M-class airship with a twenty-thousand pound cargo capacity, five six-cylinder engines with two hundred fifty horsepower each, can go from zero to one hundred kilometers an hour in twelve point five seconds. And have you seen her color? Especially in the sunrise, the glint off of her golden balloon…”
Glory and Caballeron both stared. After a few moments, Caballeron released Glory, gently patting her withers. “Well. I think the wine is looking – ”
“Aren’t you the pilot?!” Glory finally exclaimed. “Are you – the colors are the same – shouldn’t you be in the…the…whatever?!”
The pegasus shrugged. “My shift ended, I was going to get a meal. I saw the door was open and popped in. Was I interrupting something…?”
“Ugh!” Glory stomped off, though she stopped after a moment, seized Caballeron’s wine, and then left.
Caballeron and the pegasus exchanged glances – and Rainbow Dash had to bite back a gasp of surprise when the pegasus’ form rippled with blue magic, and left behind a changeling drone with a blue-gray carapace, bright blue eyes, and darker blue elytra, frill, and tail.
Caballeron, meanwhile, took it in stride, holding out a hoof. “Thank you, Cilia.”
“No problem,” the changeling replied, his voice mostly unchanged. He bumped Caballeron’s hoof. “That’s my limit, though, anything past this is up to you.” He licked the air. “But…you’ve got a chance.”
Caballeron laughed, and the two left the cargo hold, closing the door behind them. Dash and Daring waited a few moments before glancing at each other.
“So…” Dash asked, “is Daring Do and the Trouble at Midnight Castle going to include Caballeron trying to hook up with his employer?”
Daring was grinning. “Are you kidding? This is too juicy to miss out on.”
The night’s travel from Cozy Glow’s and Tirek’s makeshift camp westward had proven to be just as uneventful – and boring – as the first night. By now Cozy Glow had at least adjusted to the coldness of the desert’s night, and could better tolerate the heat of the day during the early dawn or twilight when they set up or took down camp.
Tirek was growing increasingly despondent, though. Cozy knew exactly why and so tried her hardest to not step on Tirek’s hooves. She tried to be distracting without being annoying, a delicate game that mostly consisted of trying to keep Tirek’s mind either on their eventual prize and future goals or, failing that, at least on something other than his family. They’d started up a mental game of chess, but Tirek wasn’t as good at playing it in his head as Cozy was. And “Eye Spy” got old pretty fast.
So it was a relief when Cozy started to smell salt in the air, followed quickly by the sound of waves lapping at a shoreline, a sound that gradually grew even as the Moon sank beyond the horizon and the Sun began to rise. Rather than set up camp, Tirek and Cozy pressed on, wanting to make the shore – and their destination.
They climbed up and over one last, really tall dune…and Cozy’s eyes widened.
The sandy desert of the Nether Lands sloped down, transitioning from a desert to a sandy beach with sapphire blue water lapping at the shoreline. It was actually really pretty, just like most of the Nether Lands that Cozy had seen.
But what was almost straight ahead was not. A half-mile offshore, the waves were suddenly broken by a spire of black rock that rose hundreds of feet into the air. Cozy Glow had heard the name “Midight Castle” and had expected something like a black twin to Canterlot, beautiful in its own right if dark and spooky.
It wasn’t. Midnight Castle, sitting on the spire’s flat top, was an ugly, twisted thing of black spires, reaching like claws into the sky. The light of the Sun almost seemed to try its best to avoid the structure and the plinth it was on, creating an area of pervasive darkness and shadow.
And on the beach, facing the plinth, was a statue. Four statues, actually, each around a dozen feet tall. As Tirek and Cozy approached, Cozy got a better look at them. They were two gargoyles and two centaurs, all adults. Wind and sand had eroded down the finer details of most, but Cozy found herself looking first at a male centaur who looked a lot like Tirek…but different too. His facial features were more angular, his beard cut differently. Vorak, Cozy guessed. On his right was a gargoyle female in ornate robes, wings spread wide: Haydon. Standing to the left of the centaur was another gargoyle, and Cozy got to look at Scorpan for the first time. Finally, to Haydon’s right was a statue of Tirek himself. All four were adults.
The statues were…unremarkable. Cozy had almost expected some kind of grand display of the royal family of old Gar-Centauria, maybe in some kind of pose that suggested some kind of emotion, or perhaps imposing, trying to warn others away. Instead, the four statues simply stood there, dull and lifeless, staring out at Midnight Castle.
Cozy glanced to Tirek. The real Tirek, not the statue. “So, um…” She ventured. “I…guess you’ve never seen this before, huh? What do you think?”
Tirek was staring at the statues himself, looking them over. “I think…” he said, and turned around, towards Midnight Castle, “that we have arrived.”
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Oh...and yes, Cilia is that self-insert changeling I threatened y'all with back in Trouble in Tiatarta. Don't worry, he's an extremely minor character, I just felt like finally pulling a Stephen King and cameoing in one of my stories.
Ooh. Another highly interesting chapter. I can't wait to see what happens in the next one!
There's so many nifty details in here I love! The mention of Daring and Rainbow flying slow to avoid leaving a contrail, the expression "jangles to bits," and... most of the stuff Daring says regarding her editing adventures into A.K. Yearling novels.
I'm a little surprised that neither pegasus is concerned that the changeling, who's seen tasting the air for emotions, might've figured out that there's others about.
Cozy confirmed for inferior Anakin Skywalker.
Okay, great chapter. I liked Daring Do setting Dash straight on why pushing yourself hard in the desert is stupid.
Also, is it good or bad I'm imagining all the gargoyles as character from Disney's Gargoyles, even the non-gargoyles turned into gargoyles, like a gargoyle version of David Xanatos and Fox and Elise?
Should be 'nothing'.
Yeah, it's definitely a theme. Light and sunshine don't seem too conductive to evil and villainy in Equestria. Unless you're an evil Celestia, I suppose.
Also, this reminds me of a headcanon I read somewhere -- can't remember where -- that "Pony of Darkness" is broadly a general term ponies tend to apply to anything equine, evil and associated with darkness. Besides Stygian and whatever's haunting the old castle, it'd thus have been applied to Sombra and Nightmare Moon as well.
“We’re off – on the road to conquest!”
“We have only each other to blame!”
“Any alliance can fracture if you scheme and plot”
“But we get on so well that there's no way that ours could rot!”
Yay update! This is moving along nicely. A potential connection between Glory and Cozy, huh? Interesting.
I think Caballeron's best bet would be to introduce Glory to Zephyr Breeze. After five minutes, she'd be wanting to claim anyone else was her significant other in order to get the creep to leave her alone.
Pssst, Dash! Why not just pretend the airship is, I dunno, a barn?
I wonder if those statues are of people turned to stone?
When you think about it, it makes sense why most villains want to conquer Equestria. Its like the Thundercats anime version, the ponies get the best lands and resources while the rest of the species get scraps. Makes you think that ponies are the true monsters instead of innocent and pure creatures.
Now there's a dark thought...
It seems to me that one of the fundamental roots of Tirek's problems is a hatred of the Sisyphean problems he seems to be eternally cursed with. No matter what he does he can never seem to change his situation.
And so it goes again, and again, and again.
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Inferior to Starlight, obviously. (That said, she gets some points for being able to literally walk on sky... innately, at least, as opposed to the spell Starlight can use)
Tirek, your filly is freezing.
That is a perfect name for a The Equestrian West!
Perfect.
So we have confirmation here that Cozy is the crazy impractical one of the bunch as opposed to Chrysalis, who totally owned that role in cannon.
That's some manner of world building, I guess.
And know we know just were you are getting the entire plot of the search for the Sunstone from.
Really thought you do a better job obscuring where you ideas came from, but since it is a sub plot I guess I can ignore it.
Dang I can't decide who I feel more sorry for Caballeron, or Glory. They totally deserve it though. And Caballeron totally deserves a blast spell to his plot.
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He's a oddly tragic character once you think about it.
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I have a theory about that actually. When we see those yellow glowing eyes at the ending of the episode who else has eyes and a shape just like that in their introduction? Someone who already lives in the everfree forest? And is a long way from home to be there?
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I mean there's been a few head-cannons about that actually. Light Rain by alarajrogers is a pretty good one. It also makes sense Celestia would use her powers to keep ponies from traveling into dangerous territory by making them desolate wastelands. I mean consider how fast the badlands turns around when the changelings befriend ponies as opposed to the days where they had a vested interested in seeing any ponies that crossed they their territory captured.
Fun chapter. Loving the interactions and can't wait for all groups to finally meet. Kinda wish we saw more of Caballeron.
Nice to see Cozy being intelligent about this. Mind altering artifacts are logically danerous to use. It would make sense that this would indeed what turned Scorpan to the dark side.
Because what else can solidify your victory then a rollercoaster surrounding a monument to you and your teams victory? But seriously I love this line. Really brings out both the villianous, mega maniacal and childishness of Cozy.
So the centaurs are now magicless, poor, distrustful nomads and the gargoyles are hyper isolationists. Quite sad, really.
A cactus... I love that. Reminds me of a certain artwork of Cozy holding a cactus.
You got me to feel quite bad for Tirek. Considering the circomstances that slowly made him into what he is and his incarceration its no wonder why he's like this.
That is sad. I wonder if Cozy did indeed donate it to charity or if it was confiscated after her incarceration.
I guess it makes sense that there would still be unreformed changelings out there. I doupt all of them would have been in the hive at Chrysalis's downfall.
Suddenly Ganondorf.
I knew those reformed changelings were up to no good!
... A plush cactus sounds adorable.
'You have each have forced the other' - remove one each
There was also one sentence with a repeated 'on', but I lost where it was.
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Cilia is Reformed, actually - unreformed changelings don't have elytra, and I would have mentioned the leg-holes. Like I said, he's just the self-insert cameo I threatened y'all with back during Trouble in Tiatarta. Minor spoiler, I suppose, but he's not going to be playing too big a role, mostly for the same reason that Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayhem didn't play a big role in Muppet Treasure Island.
"Hey man, just play the gig, never get involved in the politics!"
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I think I've commented before that, between Tirek's ease at setting up camp in "Frenemies", him catching the falling bird and then letting it go in "Summer Sun Setback", and then the glimpses we get of the centaur lands in FIENDship is Magic, that Tirek just put me in mind of Wind Waker Ganondorf, who is my favorite take on the character for giving him a degree of introspection and sympathy - while still showing him as the villain.
kantopia.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/ganonspeech.jpg
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Eh, I wouldn't call any of Chrysalis' plans in canon really all that wild or impractical, at least within the context of the fact that it's a Saturday morning cartoon. Cozy Glow, by contrast, is the one who first concocted a plan to banish all the magic in the world to another dimension, without any apparent plan to in some way replace it.
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Tirek definitely puts me in mind of Greek legends. In particular, what we saw of his relationship with Vorak in FIENDship is Magic put me in mind of Uranus and Kronos, or Kronos and Zeus. Plus, how many Greek tales spin around the idea of someone's efforts to avoid a given fate instead being the very thing that creates it?
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[[[Gargoyles intensifies]]]
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One of my favorite reaction moments in MLP remains Dash's when we first met Zephyr and he insinuated that she was carrying a torch for him.
10304468
I had to stop myself from rewriting the entire song. "We're Friendship Bound" is my favorite song in the entire series.
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Thanks for the comments!
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Zephyr was put to hilarious good use there. His return appearance in the 200th episode was ... decidedly not.
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She used a bunch of shape shifters to launch a military assault on the capital of a nation, thereby sacrificing the greatest advantage she had over Equestria from the get go.
When she finally utilizes a more pragmatic strategy in To Where and Back Again she acts like it's total genius that no one else could've thought of.
And it wouldn't have even worked had the Equestrians wised up after the first invasion and developed ways to break Changeling disguises.
She's been leading the Changelings for how long with no understanding of their strengths?
Cozy Glow comes off as anti-social, possibly a under educated child, from the get go, given how poor her acting is in Marks For Effort and her frequent use of Golly (a term so far only ever used by country ponies).
If she's half as self absorbed as most people think she is, it makes total sense she wouldn't really understand or care how magic works, as long as the world still works, and given the fact that the sun and moon are still working even without The Royal Sister's interference and no one (including herself) has actually lost their flight, it really doesn't surprise me she assumed everything was fine.
She's not a unicorn after all so she doesn't care about them, and it makes sense she could give up cloud-walking if she wanted to, given the fact we never actually see her use that ability.
Plus if love is merely an emotional effect in Equestria, then Chrysalis whose species supposedly thrives on it, is both uniquely bad at sensing and using it.
Where as Cozy does at least understand enough of her tactical position and has at least a little common sense on how to manipulate ponies and thrives at deceiving them early on, Chrysalis focuses on Military Strength, which is pretty much antithetical to her position, and doesn't usually consider alternatives at all, until much later in the show.
Cozy is just a kid after all and not entirely emotionally stable. It makes sense her plans would have some holes. What is Chrysalis's excuse?
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Ah, yeah, I picked up that he's reformed. But like, "We sure are fooling their eyes and ears from where we are. Good thing ponies can't smell emotions in the air that might give us away. Hm, a changeling."
I lost it at the FIENDship Express.
Way to the in closely with G1. I wonder if this story will feature Cozy turning into a dragon.
This was a fun and interesting lore chapter if I wasn't hooked before I am officially now .
Ah, so we'll actually get a motivation for Cozy to be a sadistic little monster!
Lol, "Raiders" reference. You must be as old as me.
Digging the story so far. Cozy and Tirek maintain their solid chemistry, and I like the very tiny elements that gradually show that whether they admit it or are even conciously aware of it or not, they're starting to view each other as more than mere "allies"; such as when Tirek puts Cozy's cactus doll back into her hooves, or how Cozy keeps trying to distract Tirek from his gloomy mood. Those aren't the actions mere allies do, but they're probably not conciously aware of that.
Decent world building too, painting a clear picture of Gar-Centuaria and it's peoples. Gives the setting that real, lived in feel that adds to believability.
I imagine once all three groups reach Midnight Castle, things will start to get a little crazy. The way the castle is described, gives me a serious Castlevania vibe, although that could be all dark, brooding, evil castles in general.
I'm really loving this so far. As fun as the Indiana Jones gimmick is in the Daring Do episodes, it does get old, and your bringing actual character to the... characters... is exactly what they need. I'm particularly amused at Caballeron.
Cozy and Tirek are also a great parallel to the parental relationship Chryssy develops with Ocellus and Smolder in the previous story. I look forward to seeing it develop!