YOH 1505: Moon Dancer has resumed her friendships. But can she overcome the damage of her alienation?
YOH 1505 (soon after "Amending Fences"): Moon Dancer has resumed her former friendships, especially with Twilight Sparkle. But during her long alienation from other Ponies, she has drifted toward Lone-Madness. Is the Magic of Friendship enough to save her from those she imagined her friends? Or will she fall into darkness?
Moon Dancer waved goodbye to her friends -- Friends, she thought happily. I really have friends now. What a strange and wonderful thing! -- and closed the door. Some of what had been solid oak, now infested with dry rot, sifted down onto her untidy mane.
I suppose I should get that door replaced, she thought. There was a big hole in it where Twilight Sparkle had accidentally shoved her hoof right through a panel. This was not so much due to Twilight Sparkle's Alicorn strength -- though she was bigger and stronger now than she'd been at seventeen -- as it was due to the door's own dilapidation.
Moon Dancer regarded her front room with an unusually-critical eye. It seemed dingier and dirtier and altogether messier than before. She remembered her fillyhood, when things had been neater. Of course, back then the whole family had frequently visited this house, when they weren't at the main townhouse or the country estate. They'd paid servants to clean -- Moon Dancer hadn't seen the point of doing this in a long while, even if it wouldn't have eaten into her budget to buy rare books. Since the family had given her this home, she'd managed the place itself, with regard only to her own priorities.
Maybe she should spruce it up a bit now? After all, now she had friends; she might want to have get-togethers, and the house was in no fit state for a party, even an informal one. She could buy new bookshelves, rearrange her collection, maybe move some of it into the basement ...
... but that would interfere with her special projects. She tried to feel the importance of those special projects, but somehow it did not matter as much as it once had. They were fascinating, but not as much fun as playing with her friends. When she was with them she didn't want to talk about how corrupt and decadent and unjust was society -- they wouldn't understand her, especially not the hyper-optimistic Minuette. Twinkleshine was just plain happy and innocent, as she'd always been, though maybe it had been more excusable when they were all fillies. And Lemon Hearts, of course, was part of the system, working so closely with the Palace.
They were fun, though. They reminded her of the few happy times of her fillyhood. When she was with them, she didn't want to think about the Meaning of History and the Dialectic and the need for a genuine Revolution ... it all somehow seemed unreal and unimportant, though of course it was the most real and important thing around. And now, when she thought about the glorious day when the Masses rose in fire and blood to sweep away the Old Order, she wondered if Minuette and Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine -- surely as clear examples of the Old Order as she could imagine -- would be okay. Unworthy thought! Yet she could not avoid thinking it.
And Twilight Sparkle -- Moon Dancer sighed when she thought of her. Twilight was so brilliant, so charismatic, so intelligent, so powerful. Yet there was no sign that she had ever really considered the Meaning of History. She was very obviously a total supporter of the status quo: of Celestia's false utopia. Not only was she rich and high-born, but she was Celestia's former personal student. And from everything Moon Dancer had ever heard, incredibly loyal to her former teacher, unlike -- but Moon Dancer didn't want to make the comparison.
She sensed that Twilight was a kindred spirit. She'd sensed that before, and seemingly been wrong, but maybe it was just that Twilight had been very busy the last five years. She knew that Twilight had pursued advanced magical studies, saved the whole Realm more than once, and from forces that would be even worse for Ponykind than a continuation of the current corrupt regime. Twilight had come back; she'd gone out of her way to be friends with her. She'd hugged her -- surely the warmth Moon Dancer had felt had been no lie? Maybe she should have reached out to Twilight before, instead of waiting for her to reach out to herself.
2. Her Fillyhood
It was difficult for Moon Dancer. She'd never been at all close with anypony other than her sister, and not even all that close with her. Father had always been too interested in his friends -- and now, she knew, his mistress -- to pay much attention to his daughters, though she had vague memories of a time when he'd been more affectionate, when he'd gotten on better with Mother as well. Those times were now a sun-drenched, indistinct memory, in the back of her mind to help keep her from the darkest possible thoughts when she felt especially depressed.
So had Mother, really. Again, she'd been more interested in Moon Dancer when she was little, but when she failed to blossom -- failed to make friends -- Mother had lost interest, become more involved with her friends. And, she suspected, with a lover of her own. Why not? All the proper Unicorn gentry did this, at their country parties with only their dearest friends, and careful arrangements of the guest bedrooms, and room keys quietly-tendered on silver platters ... and then they held themselves up to ordinary Ponies as models of propriety!
Moon Dancer had been just the right age to see her parents' marriage come apart, and it had scarred her. She'd gone through an adolescent phase of being angry at them for that, and they in response had given her this house and access to the interest from a trust fund, and simply avoided her. She'd become inconvenient to them, and they had simply tossed her aside with some money to keep her happy. It had, of course, kept her well -- happiness, alas, had eluded her.
She was no longer all that angry at her parents in particular -- she'd was no longer quite so naive as she had been six years ago, and she had grown a lot since then. She'd read Warrior Marks and Peacelord Angels. She had come to realize that both her parents had been corrupted by a decadent society, by the demands it placed on them in order to continue to support the class structure. They were still married, technically, though they slept in separate rooms and were never more than cordial to one another at public events. Divorce would have been a public scandal.
Perhaps in the world to come, when the New Ponies emerged, Ponies like them would have stayed together, continued to care for their daughters. Or never come together at all. In either case, Moon Dancer wouldn't have suffered the loss of their love; in either case, the sum total of joy in the world would have been greater.
She'd help make a better world for those who came after her. One in which Ponies like her wouldn't have to feel so much pain. She'd push on forward toward a brighter future ...
No matter if she had to march fetlocks-deep in blood through a pile of corpses.
3. An Anticipation of Joy
But it no longer seemed so important, now. She had friends. Surely in time she could convert them? Or, failing that, at least learn from them, learn how ordinary Ponies thought and felt? She'd never quite understood how they worked -- how they could be so incurious about their world save for the tiny little bit of it that took place under their muzzles, how they could fail to care about the distant past and the possible future? Why didn't they care about distant places? Or the social injustices that took place even in their own cities? They just didn't understand her, either.
Maybe Twilight would? She loved books, just as did Moon Dancer herself. Twilight was interested in the past, fascinated by the future. She liked to travel. She was so smart -- one of the few mares Moon Dancer had ever met who was anywhere near her own equal. Surely, if Moon Dancer set it all forth for her, showed her the books, works like On Investment-Heading and What Can Ponies Do?, Twilight would agree with the only obvious conclusions? She'd be so useful to the Cause!
But no. She shouldn't push too far, too fast. Twilight was a Princess now; she'd be even more of a traditionalist than she'd been when they were fillies. If Moon Dancer tried to convince her of everything, all at once, Twilight might reject her. She couldn't take that, not a second time. Having known real Friendship, to be cast out into the void once again would be unberarable.
She needed to move more slowly. Twilight had promised to teach her the Haycartes Method, and that would involve seeing her, and maybe when she saw Twilight they could do something fun together. Like explore a book, with the Method. Or go shopping for rare books together. Or organize Moon Dancer's book collection. Or something else ... some of the things that other Ponies did together that didn't involve books. Something sociable but fun, like taking in a play or a movie or just eating out together and talking. Twilight was a lot of fun to talk to, more so than anyone Moon Dancer had ever known.
When she thought about seeing Twilight again, she couldn't muster up that much enthusiasm for revolution. She was ashamed to admit it to herself, but when she had such thoughts she found it hard to even get angry over social injustices. She just wanted to enjoy Twilight's company. Was that so wrong?
Well yes, she reminded herself. Of course it is. I have a role to play in History. The more so because of my privileged birth. I cannot just give that up for friendship.
Herself remained unconvinced. But this is what I've wanted for so long. Surely I deserve some happiness?
Her answer was wrong by the standards of the Dialectic, by her own role as a vanguard intellectual (surely a Moon of the Canterlot Moons could be nothing less in The Revolution). But it was the answer of her heart.
She thought about seeing Twilight again. Talking to Twilight again. Hugging Twilight again. She wriggled with joy at the memory of that warm hug they had shared. Nopony had held her like that since she'd been small. She wanted to be held like that again.
She wondered if this meant ... but no. She'd never been attracted to mares. Nor to stallions, really, not in real life, as opposed to within the pages of some of the steamier novels she read. That was a part of her that existed only in fantasy, it being rather obvious that nopony was ever likely to love her. A base urge, and a rather embarrassing one, to be dealt with by herself in her room with the curtains drawn. This was a side of her she felt she could never express to anypony else.
She had no idea what it really felt like. She'd never even been kissed by anypony, neither male nor female, not that way. (Save for that one time -- but that was quite the opposite of romantic). She could have found somepony for that, to kiss and more than kiss, but she knew that her partner wouldn't have loved her Strange as she was, egalitarian as she felt she must be, she was still a Moon, the daughter of a proud and ancient Family, and she would not buy a counterfeit of love, even were the mercenary nature of the exchange disguised.
She'd had the opportunity. It had come after the world had become strange.
The world had gotten strange since Twilight Sparkle had departed. Moon Dancer, exhausted and saddened by that disastrous party, had slept through that long, strange morning five years ago, and awoken to learn that the Moon Princess had returned, and that Twilight had led the effort to bring her out of her Nightmare. Moon Dancer might have forgiven Twilight for missing her party, had Twilight not then avoided her for the next five years.
September of the next year, she had been visited by a creature that looked like the strangest of the statues in Celestia's garden, which she later learned was in fact the real Discord, and Moon Dancer had found her nose literally stuck in a book for hours and hours. At least that book had been On Investment-Heading, which she'd always meant to read. She'd been able to switch books, as long as her nose remained in at least one of them at all times.
Come to think of it, that had been how she had become truly enlightened regarding the causes of all social injustice, so Discord had brought more than madness on that very unusual day. She'd heard he'd been crueller to other Ponies, and sometimes wondered why he had gone easy on her. Without his help, she never would have learned the real truths of economics.
Things had quieted for a while until the summer of 1503. That June, Moon Dancer had discovered her own capacity for violence. She'd been shopping in an antique store, and had discovered some really rare books. She'd been bringing them home when two black buzzing monstrosities swept down on her from the sky. And made her drop one of the books into a puddle of water.
Everything had gone red for a while, and when she came out of it, she was in an alley, and standing in a puddle, only it wasn't a puddle of water. It was a puddle of mingled red blood and strange greenish ichor. The books were carefully set on a stoop, she discovered to her relief. They hadn't gotten damaged, save one of them was a bit wetted -- thankfully only by the water, rather than the other fluids.
The same could not be said for the two black creatures, which she later discovered had been Changeling Warriors of Hive Chrysalis. She remembered them in the past tense, because there had been rather a lot of blood and ichor, and neither had been her own. The two Warriors were crumpled and no longer buzzing; indeed, they lay there with a certain finality that made her think they were more than merely stunned. Both of them bore what looked like her hoofmarks on their bodies, and still-smoking holes in their barrels.
Her horn hurt, as if she'd over-channeled her magic. In addition to the holes in the Warriors, there were small hot craters in the bricks of the alley. She'd learned to do photon blasts back in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, like most of the students, but she'd never realized before that she could do more than one or two, nor to such fatal results. She'd never used her magic to harm another living being before. She had never realized that she was actually quite good at doing so.
She felt sickened, but less so than she might have expected; she didn't even throw up as novels told her often did mares in her situation. Her throat felt raw, but not from retching. She remembered that as everything went red somepony had been screaming, not so much in fear but in fury, and realized that it must have been herself. Certain tales of her family history abruptly became more comprehensible to her, especially those of Moon Rage and Moon Axe. She supposed she'd inherited the tendency, and it had saved her life. And even better, her books.
She picked up her books and stole away from that alley, and a minute later a colossal psychokinetic pulse had sprayed Changelings away from the city. That had been Princess Cadance and Shining Armor -- Twilight Sparkle's own brother -- defeating the invasion. All of Canterlot had celebrated afterward. Even Moon Dancer had curled up with her dear-saved treasures, some red wine and some fine cheese and crackers, and enjoyed her own solitary festival. (She'd woken up the next morning with a headache).
5. The Crystal Empire
Later that month, something wonderful had happened.
The Crystal Empire had come back.
Moon Dancer had heard of the Crystal Empire, but only as a legend, as the Lost North-Realm which had first fought and then welcomed in the Three Tribes as allies in the earliest days of the Equestrian world, which had held out against Discord during the millennium of his misrule, which had inspired Celestia and Luna to create the Realm, and which had then fallen into darkness and disappeared from the world, over a thousand years ago.
Serious historians thought it a legend, an amalgamation of several minor kingdoms which had really controlled the north of Equestria before the Unification was completed. Surely there had never been an empire of magic and mystery, with lore dating back to the even more mythical Age of Wonders, impossible giant towers of living crystal, a Good King who had become the most terrible of all Night Stallions, the dreaded King Sombra?
Only there had been. And Princess Cadance, Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle had defeated the Nightmare King. Even Twilight's little Dragon had somehow distinguished himself in the battle. And now Cadance was Princess -- Imperatrix, to use the precise language -- of that forgotten realm; she was somehow descended from the royal dynasty which had ruled before Sombra's.
Once more, a wonder from the night of antiquity had emerged from misty myth, to stand revealed as sober truth in the clear light of day. The world felt adrift to many Ponies, and even Moon Dancer, alone with her ever-growing book collection, was not unaffected by it. Across the Stormy Sea, in far-off Neighropa, the normal world was tearing itself apart in the climactic battles of the Great Tauran War; here in Equestria legends were proving real.
And one of those legends was the Great Imperial Library. A great building of the same living crystal as the Crystal Palace, that wonder of the ancient world of which the towers of the Palace of Canterlot were but the best that Princess Celestia had been able to do with more common structural stone and steel, crammed to the rafters with books many of which had not been seen since the Crystal Empire had fallen into darkness. Lost forever, all had assumed -- now, found once more!
At the realization of this, Moon Dancer had trembled, feeling a warmth spreading from her heart up to her brain and down to her loins, from the tip of her horn to her tail and hooves, an all-consuming excitement at the sheer magnitude of the lore which there must await discovery, unseen by any mortal eyes for over a thousand years. It was all that she could do to restrain herself from immediately buying a ticket to the Crystal City (there had already been a depot near the place where the city had appeared, now being expanded into a full station) and flinging herself through the library doors!
Reason prevailed. She knew that she would be spending weeks, maybe months, in the North-Realm; she might as well spend the summer there, really. This meant that she must make arrangements for the security and maintenance of her home, and most importantly the library she kept there. (She did not yet have to worry about the security of her special projects, since she had not yet begun them). And, of course, she had to prepare for her trip, including the purchase of numerous new notebooks and writing supplies, an updated Crystal-Imperial to Modern Equestrian translating dictionary, and lots of luggage to bring home the books she hoped to purchase in the North.
It was not until early July that she left, boarding the express for the north, reading a history and geography of the Empire (which until recently had been catalogued under "mythology"), and watching the long miles roll past as the train chugged upriver, far past the Neighagra Hills which had previously been the most northerly destination to which any fashionable Ponies ever traveled on this route. She as a matter of course had a private compartment in a sleeper, and took full advantage of the dining car, so her trip could was about as comfortable as anything might be outside her own home.
Moon Dancer did not mind travel, provided that she had a destination in mind. In Canterlot, she was known and recognized as an eccentric; she could feel the disapproving eyes watching her when she went out on the street, which is why she tried to keep such journeys to the minimum necessities (in which category she of course included book-buying and book-borrowing and book-reading expeditions). But when traveling to another city -- to Manehattan or Fillydelphia or Morgan or even Baltimore, to take advantage of their libraries and book-shops, she was just one shabby transient among many. She was anonymous. She liked that -- it meant that she was under no particular social expectations.
She imagined that the Crystal City would be no different. That was before the high sparkling spire of the Crystal Palace hove into view, before she saw the great pylons of the main Imperial Gate, set in a circle of crystal that had always been meant for no material wall, but rather a magical force field, empowered by the Crystal Heart, and she stepped from the mundane Equestrian train into a world of marvelous antiquity.
Moon Dancer walked the Crystal City's storied streets, where so much history had been made, and gazed up in awe at the vast glistening tower, colossal but fairy-like in its beautiful delicate simplicity, of the Crystal Palace from which so much of North Amareica had once been ruled. Even the ordinary houses and shops that lined those streets were fashioned of the same sort of living crystal. She realized with astonishment that much of what she saw around her had looked the same over fifteen hundred years ago, when Celestia had founded the Realm; that some of it was unchanged from more than twenty-five hundred years ago, before Discord had marred the world. She was aware of the incredible age of this place, yet it was not oppressive; rather, it was oddly comforting, to know Ponies could make something like this and that it might survive the passage of such an inconceivable gulf of time.
She walked among the crowds who - like herself -- had come to see or study or trade or just enjoy the wonders of this, the most ancient city now surviving in North Amareica. This too was timeless -- in the old stories Ponies had once come here from lands that were now legends -- Unicornia and the Heartspire, the Hegemony of Lith and the Terrestrial Commonwealth; Pegasopolis and the Cloud-Castle of Derecho. Now they came from Morgan and Baltimare, Filldelphia and Whinnyapolis, Applewood and San Franciscolt. And, of course, from Canterlot. Once again, all roads led to the Crystal City, and the Ponies of all the world herded there.
She saw some strange creatures of the North. There were a couple of Griffons from Hyperborea, quick and cool and disdainful of all around them. A family of Musk Oxen. Three even larger horned bovids which she realized must be Yaks from the fabled land of Yakyakistan, far even to the Crystal Empire's north -- they had been ancient allies of the Crystal Empire, but none had been seen in Equestria for over a thousand years, as all contact with their strange realm had been broken when the Crystal City had vanished.
Some came from further lands. Here were the sinsister, serpentine and feather-winged forms of two Coatls, reclining in a litter borne by four stolid Pony peons from Mexicolt to the south. It was said that their venom could make not only a Pony but also her magic go mad, though self-interest and the ease by which such an attack could be identified of course restrained them from any such poisonous contaminations. Coatls rarely trusted one another, the books said -- Moon Dancer wondered if they were family, or a mated pair.
There were Pony scholars and tourists from Albion and Prance, nations devastated by the Great Tauran War but controlling the sea lanes, coming perhaps in hope of enlightenment, perhaps in hope of finding forgotten superweapons to turn the tide of war, which was going very much against the Entente from the latest reports. They mingled warily with distinguished-looking Griffons and Ponies from the Griffon Empire, the Entente's mortal foe. There were even some Red-Speakers, the Griffon Empire's Griffon and Pony enemies to the east. The Empire of the Red-Speakers was a grinding tyranny, the Ponies oppressed by their Griffon Princes, though there were hopeful stirrings of revolution.
There were silk-garbed Ponies and Ki-Rin from Chi-Neigh and Neigh-Pon, lands across the Cruel Sea to the West. Those countries claimed far greater antiquity than Equestria, than the Crystal Empire, than even the Age of Wonders. Their rulers were the Celestial Dragons, of whom it was rumored that some were ten thousand years old. Perhaps they wished to resume their old commerce with the Crystal Empire, though the Celestial Dragons themselves never left the precincts of their Forbidden Cities, save to wage war, and rarely even for that purpose.
The natives of the Crystal City, of course, were easy to recognize. The Crystal Ponies were basically Earth Ponies, but they glistened almost as brightly as did the Crystal Palace, their coats and bodies rendered almost translucent by protracted exposure to the Crystal Heart. It was not true translucence -- it looked as if light passed completely through them, but one could not see their internal organs or skeletons, so the light was obviously sliding around their coats. Moon Dancer wondered at the physics involved.
According to legend there had once been many Crystal Unicorns, as well, but King Sombra -- who had been one of them -- had slain or driven them out. Many of the older Unicorn Families of Equestria, including the Moons themselves, derived some of their heritage from these ancient exiles. One of them had been Sombra's lifelong mistress, the noble scholar remembered as the Faithful Lady Tourmaline, whose identity Moon Dancer knew because she had helped found the Royal Library of Canterlot. It was thanks to her that so much was known about the Crystal Empire, even though arrogant fools had later decided that it must have been mythical.
Moon Dancer thought she might have recognized the Crystal Ponies anyway, even had they not been translucent. They wore silken cloaks and tunics and dresses and robes which were translucent like themselves, so that one's eye was drawn to the interplay between shimmering clothes and the scarcely-less shimmering flesh beneath, flesh no less soft and equine for its crystalline appearance, as she found out as she moved through the throngs. The effect was very sensual, and she felt unfamiliar emotions as she regarded these survivors of a bygone age, emotions normally relegated to the privacy of her room safe at home.
They stood and moved languidly, lazily, almost insolently, though they neither gave nor took any offense in their dealings with the swarms of outlanders who had descended on their ancient city. The Crystal City was used to foreigners, and its citizens were quite glad to be free of Sombra's tyranny, welcoming in the Equestrians and others -- and the wealth they brought in the form of foreign currency.
Still, Moon Dancer felt very aware of the fact that -- to them -- she was but a tame savage; the proud tradition of the Moons little more than the boasting of barbaric parvenus compared to the immemorial antiquity of the Crystal Empire. She had read this in the old books; it was yet another thing to experience in reality. The arrogance of the Crystal-Imperials was not unfriendly, but it was nevertheless very real.
Their eyes were subtly-slanted, and very bold. Their stallions -- and sometimes, mares -- appraised Moon Dancer, in a manner which she found at times disturbing. Yes, even had they not been Crystal Ponies, she thought she would have known them for no Equestrians.
Seeing and feeling those gazes, Moon Dancer knew in a moment that, if she wished, she might leave her maidenhood behind in the Crystal Empire.
She was tempted.
Moon Dancer knew that the Crystal Ponies did not love her. But she also knew that she was dismal and ugly, that she would never find a stallion to be her special somepony, to give her friendship and adoration, on whom she might happily bestow her most precious treasure in bright consummation of their love. (To Moon Dancer, the high-flown language of the most idealistic romance novels came quite naturally in her private thoughts, though she felt she would have died of embarrassment rather than say such things aloud).
So she really had nothing to lose. Both lust and curiosity should have logically-compelled her to take one of those all-too-willing stallions to her hotel room for a night, even if she knew that their tryst would last no longer. For what, after all, was she saving herself?
Yet she did not. Neither on the first night, nor any of the nights of that glorious month she spent in the Crystal Empire.
She was not sure why, afterward. Was it some remnant of her fillyish dreams, her hope against all reason that she might someday a stallion to love, if only she had the patience to wait for him? Or was it her fundamental shyness, recoiling at the notion of any such intimate contact with a stranger?
Surely it could not have been the morality she had learned when she was young? That was a lie -- the books she had read told her that the union between mare and stallion was but a vestige of investmentism, an attempt by Ponies to establish ownership of one another, something that would be swept aside by the New Ponies who would emerge when all were truly equal. She would have known it to be a lie anyway, as her parents had demonstrated by their disloyalty to one another -- and to herself as their daughter.
The purpose of that morality had simply been to keep her sexuality under control, so that any foals she bore would be the product of unions with other respectable Families, rather than of chance meetings with random stallions. In the Time of Thrones, over a thousand years ago, the Families had arranged such alliances for purely political purposes, often without reference to the wills of the young Ponies involved. That had changed, over the long centuries, until today even the titled aristocracy merely encouraged their children to make suitable matches, but the fundamentally economic and political purposes of marriage remained, among Families like the Moons. Moon Dancer, by her utter social isolation, had entirely avoided even subtle pressures to marry.
She wasn't going to marry to please her family. She knew that, cherished vague hopes of attracting some romantic revolutionary stallion who would mate with her in nights of incredible passion, then die in the Propaganda of the Deed with her name on his lips, but didn't really imagine that was likely to happen either. She was unlovable, ugly, attractive only for her wealth and name, and she did not want to be wed for such inducements. She had determined this soon after her graduation, when she saw how others regarded her.
So why did her theoretical chastity matter to her, even one little bit?
Nevertheless, it did.
So she did not give herself to a stranger in some mad Crystal City holiday fling.
First, she explored the Great Imperial Library. It was everything of which she had ever hoped and dreamed. Notebooks in saddlebags, she wandered in a happy daze down those stacks, the wisdom of millennia rising to the ceiling on either side of her wondering eyes. The librarians had finally gotten the Library back in order, retrieved the histories from the basement in which Sombra had put them for protection against a feared Equestrian sack, and had a functional library rather than a mere warehouse full of uncatalogued books.
She spent days there, absorbing the lost lore of the North-Realm. The very best books were missing -- hidden by Sombra somewhere that the librarians had not yet found -- which was a disappointment. But the disappointment was utterly overridden by the utter joy of the many, many, many lost books that were there, that she could find. She piled them up on the tables, made lists of them, teased herself with little tastes of them, then buried herself in utter rapturous reading such as she had never known before, her mind filled again and again and again with the ecstasy of new knowledge.
There was always something more to learn! Over a millennium ago, the Loyal Tourmaline had brought a cart-load of the most basic Imperial books out of the Crystal City, sadly obeying Sombra's last order to herself -- her own banishment -- and from that cart-load had come most of what Equestrians had previously known about the Crystal Empire. It had been a sketch, a skeleton of the vast lore the Empire had possessed. Now, instead of contemplating a skeleton in a tomb, Moon Dancer embraced the living, breathing flesh.
So much art, so much culture, so much science, so much magic! So much that was only hinted of in the Equestrian books, and so much that had not even been hinted of which revealed itself to Moon Dancer's wondering eyes and hungry mind. They had never bothered to develop the steam-engine, but they could do impossible things with crystals and electricity and swarms of tiny little machines. They knew the secrets of the Age of Wonders, and they sadly knew that most of them wouldn't work any more, because the world had ... changed? Moon Dancer only understood half or less of some of what she read, and there were tantalizing hints of even greater mysteries in the missing books.
She spent hours upon hours in the Library, emerging only to take her lunches, and often forgetting to do even that. She filled all the notebooks she had brought with her from Canterlot, mailed them back to her home where her house-sitter had been instructed to put them in her study; ordered more notebooks in bulk, filled these as well. She was exhausted every night, but supremely happy.
Sometimes she took a break from her work at the Library. She toured the City, seeing the monuments which had previously been but legendary descriptions to her. She took the tour of the Crystal Palace, of course, admiring its vast magnificence, seeing it with new eyes now that she understood how its swarms of living machines sought out and healed its hurt, rebuilding any broken part of it so seamlessly that the structure seemed eternal, untouched as it was by any decay despite the long centuries which it had stood.
What a wonderful technology! If it could be reproduced in the modern world, Equestria would grow fantastically more wealthy. It would be a step toward the ideal scientific equalism which would provide for each Pony according to her need, leading to the New Ponies who would be happy and loved for ever, not lonely misfits who couldn't even trust their own parents to behave honorably.
But the secret had been lost, forgotten in the chaos of the early middle Empire, when the Time of the Good Emperors had fallen into the chaos of the Age of Discord. Though Discord could not directly touch the Crystal City, he strove mightily to destroy it from afar, hurling barbarians, brigands and pirates at the Empire from without, sparking conspiracies and revolts and rebellions within. There had been a Time of Troubles -- a century in which there had been dozens of Emperors, because no Emperor could survive to rule more than a few years -- and when it had passed, much of the glory of the Empire had been gone for ever, abandoned to decline. Never to be recaptured.
Almost never. For her researches revealed something else, something which had plainly been expunged from the Equestrian sources. There had in the last century of the Empire, that same Disastrous Fifth Century of the Year of Harmony which had seen the fall of the Empire and the rebellion of Nightmare Moon, a noble of the Crystal Empire, who had plainly realized many of the same things which had come to Moon Dancer's own mind. A brilliant mind, a kindred spirit to her own, who had determined to restore the Empire to its former glory by regaining the lost knowledge of the past, and developing it into something greater in the future.
He had been an Imperial Prince. And his name had been Crimson Quartz.
7. The Secret of Crimson Quartz
The records on him were oddly-incomplete. Incomplete, because there was nothing about his ultimate fate, which was strange because he was of the ruling Quartz Dynasty, the same one from which Sombra himself had sprung. Oddly, because the removal of the records was itself spotty, and in strange ways ... Moon Dancer could not have described in detail what she meant by "strange," but she sensed that the one who had purged the records had not hated Crimson Quartz. To the contrary, she must have cherished him, been trying to protect him.
He had apparently become a high-ranking librarian, one who worked side by side with another librarian, the Lady Tourmaline Elbaite Boron -- the same Loyal Tourmaline who figured so importantly in the intellectual history of late Fifth Century Equestria! Moon Dancer had felt the thrill of discovery when she realized that identity. He must, then, have been a close friend of the nameless Crystal-Imperial Royal who took the reign-name of Sombros, as Sombros was the one to whom Lady Tourmaline had been so famously loyal -- yet Sombra was nowhere described in their association. It was a mystery.
She might have realized the truth earlier, had not Prince Crimson Quartz been such an obviously honorable and kind Pony. He had been attempting to achieve so much that would have been good not only for the Empire, but for Equestria, for Ponykind, indeed for all sapient life on the Earth. It had been such a tragedy that, right after his time, two tyrants, first Sthenarkos and then Sombros, had seized the Crystal Throne. Had Crimson Quartz only been given the time to succeed -- Ponykind might today be centuries in advance of its current technological and social development. It was so unfair.
It was when she found a document that had been penned by Lady Tourmaline herself that Moon Dancer finally grasped Crimson Quartz's more famous identity. It was a fragmentary journal, one that had been stuffed in some corner of the Library and then shelved under Autobiographical Fragments by somepony who plainly had not understood the importance of what it said.
In it, the Lady Tourmaline discussed some experiments she had undertaken with Prince Crimson Quartz on some sort of healing mechanism, a device which was intended to transfer life force from a healthy volunteer to an ill or injured patient, to speed that patient's recovery. There was mention of dangerous side effects, the possibility of harming the volunteer. At one point, for this reason, Prince Crimson had insisted on using his own life force for the transfer.
He, of course, did insist on acting as the donor for the experiment, despite the fact that both I and his other friends pleaded with him that such a risk was beyond reason, given his importance to Science, and to the Empire. He nobly asserted that it would be wrong for him to claim immunity of Person owing to his Station in Life, and commanded us to use him in the experiment.
The fool! Dear fool! Dear, beloved fool!
Science. The Empire. I once thought I loved these things, and I still do, for one is the Enlightenment of the Mind and the other the Preservation of that Sacred Legacy the Past has left us. Yet my love for such Abstractions is as naught compared to the tender regard in which I hold my dear Prince, that wondrous Person who has captivated my Heart as I had once imagined impossible. I would cast aside both Science and Empire, if in doing so I might preserve his most precious Existence.
He knows this not. He must make some Dynastic Marriage, and I would neither stand in the path of his Duty, nor stain his Honor. Yet, though it never be known to the World At Large, let these pages know the Truth -- I love him!
I am Tourmaline Elbaite Boron, a Lady of the Crystal Empire, last daughter of a proud House, and I shall remain forever maiden. I shall never wed, and the Borons go down to extinction, because I could never love any Other, having known even Crimson's Friendship. I am Tourmaline, and to my Crimson may I always prove Loyal.
The raw emotion of this, coming from one whom Moon Dancer imagined must have been very much like herself, flooded through her as she sat reading this ancient document, ten and a half centuries old, and preserved by the Crystal City's long stasis in a condition as if it had been but five decades old. Moon Dancer felt as if the Lady Tourmaline were reaching across the very gulfs of Time and touching her soul.
And Moon Dancer knew.
Crimson Quartz was King Sombra.
She fancied then that she heard a sound, but of course there were all sorts of sounds in the great Library, open as it finally was again to the scholars of so many nations. She looked up. Was that a hooded face briefly glimpsed, or an illusion born of light and shadow? She must be imagining things. This was no horror-tale, in which the virginal heroine (she smirked at that all-too-accurate and likely to remain all-too-accurate description of her self) stumbled across some ancient ancestral secret around which factions fought from the shadows, putting her own life in danger. This was reality.
In an ancient library in the heart of a time-lost city which has fallen back into our dimension from ... Somewhere Else, Moon Dancer reflected uneasily. Perhaps I should go back to my hotel.
So she did. After, of course, filling many pages of one of her notebooks. Her fears were one thing, but this was research.
8. Those Summmer Days, Those Summer Nights
She decided to vary her routine. She spent some time exploring the second-hand shops of the Crystal City. There were rather a lot of these right now, because the Crystal Empire had a shortage of bits and an abundance of ancient artifacts in remarkably good condition, owing to the preservation of the limbo in which it had spent the last millennium.
For Moon Dancer, of course, this meant books. She bought herself a small cart and some shipping crates, and went out day after day in quest of books.
Each day was an adventure. She never knew what she might find. Many of the Crystal Ponies had inherited or otherwise come by the libraries of the now long-dead Crystal Unicorns (some of whom were her own remote ancestors), and had very little sentimental attraction to these possessions, such as might have otherwise restrained them from their disposition.
Sometimes she hauled home piles of children's books and popular fiction, incredibly-fascinating because of the glimpses they gave her into the cultural assumptions of a world now vanished save for this one city, and terribly-changed even here by the scourging shadow of Sombra. Sometimes she found lost classics, books which had been tantalizingly-mentioned in sources available in Canterlot, but which had not been deemed sufficiently important by Lady Tourmaline to include in the cartload she had drawn out of the Crystal City just ahead of its millennial limbo.
One day -- which she long remembered in happy breathless dreams -- she discovered, just strewn out in front of a house in a street sale, the complete works of Downybeard -- the greatest general and one of the most insightful philosophers of the Early Empire, the Pony who had single-hoofedly saved the whole Empire from disintegrating when the Windigoes came, only to be slain by his jealous compatriots, mingled in a pile of trashy romance novels. She had managed to contain her excitement just enough that the seller did not jack up his prices (she mentally apologized to the Donkeys for the thought) and had bought not only the books of General Downybeard but also many of the romance novels.
Afterward she had taken them all to bed with her. Even she couldn't properly study that many books at one time, but this was no proper study -- this was a great orgy of reading that lasted far into the night. She first read a little of each book, teasing herself to the point of breathless excitement, then dived into first one and then another book, reading them rapidly and furiously, gasping with astonishment at the depth and breadth of unguessed-at lore that was now naked before her. Finally, in one tremendous burst of reading, she finished both his unabridged description of the Three Tribes and his analysis of his campaign against the Air-Pirates of Rollingcloud, overcome by the mighty mind of the great stallion.
As the morning sunlight streamed through the windows of her hotel room, she collapsed into slumber on her book-strewn bed, her body sore from her awkward reading positions, exhausted but happy, fulfilled as never before. This trip had been Paradise -- she was sorry that it would have to end. She had come north thinking she knew the joys of bibliophilia, but what she had experienced would forever change her. She had left Canterlot but a filly student in her mind; now she was truly a mare scholar.
It had been after another night she had stayed up late with her new books, a night of passionate intellectual exploration that had continued until the dawn tinted the hotel windows, and Moon Dancer realized that she had been awake almost 24 hours. Smiling to herself at the acquisitions of the previous day and in anticipation of the gathering she would make in the day to come, the young mare fell asleep.
Unsurprisingly, she overslept.
She awoke to the full heat of the day, the sun already low in the sky; she knew, even before she consulted the little bedroom clock that she had brought from Canterlot, that she had wasted most of the day. Muttering something short and unladylike, Moon Dancer rolled out of bed, ran into the bathroom, and preformed some exceedingly-hasty ablutions.
She hadn't bathed the night before, and she had no time now. (One of the pleasant surprises of the Crystal City had been its excellent plumbing and heating systems; better in some respects than those in her cranky, drafty old house back in Canterlot. The literary sources had implied this: it had made an impression on the Equestrians of over a millennium ago, who had almost entirely lacked such conveniences). She contented herself with a quick splash of cold water on her head and an equally-hurried brush-and-comb; a quick visit to the front desk to retrieve her little cart, and she was out the door.
The Crystal City was lovely in the late afternoon, the lowering Sun striking sparkles from every facet of the literally Classical buildings all around her. The multi-national throng were as colorful and fascinating as ever. Yet something was different, something darker, and that something was Moon Dancer's own mood.
She was a mess. She could smell herself, and it was not a pleasant smell. It had been two days since she'd bathed, and Moon Dancer -- messy as she was in so many other ways -- did not like to miss a bath. Her sweater really needed washing, she'd been putting it off, and as her body heat warmed and her new sweat permeated the fabric, the scent of stale sweat rose around her. Lovely.
Worse, she could tell that her cycle was coming, and she couldn't remember taking her suppressors. She probably hadn't; she'd been so consumed by the joy of finding so many new books that her bodily vagaries had been the last thing on her mind. So, tonight or tomorrow, she was probably going to start emitting a stench that would have every stallion downwind staring longingly after her, and every mare glaring at her convinced she was some sort of slattern. Wonderful.
She hated her cycle. When it had first come, she'd thought it was some sort of horrible personal curse; she'd been amazed when her mother told her that this was just something that happened to every filly as they grew into marehood, part of the Miracle of Life which she might one day create with a special stallion. To her -- especially because she knew she'd probably never have any special stallion -- it was just filthy and nasty, a reminder that no matter how far she developed her fine mind, she'd be forever trapped in her grossly-physical form.
She'd have to find some maskers. She didn't bring any with her, because she had suppressors, and only really prissy Ponies bothered to put on maskers over suppressors. Maskers were old-fashioned, the sort of thing used by one's grandmothers. She supposed they'd be easy to find here -- there had been no suppressors in the Crystal City over a thousand years ago, so the local apothecaries and perfumeries should stock them. Come to think of it, in the stories the public baths used to have that sort of thing -- she could solve both her problems at once that way. Problem solved, at least in theory, which was the way Moon Dancer solved most of her problems.
First, of course, she carried out her daily Quest for Books. It was a very abbreviated quest today, to be sure -- she only visited two places, and only one of them a real secondhand shop. But it was still a Quest for Books, and as such imbued with all the usual excitement, the suspense over what she might chance to discover.
The Quest was today a disappointment. The secondhand shop had mostly clothes and bric-a-brac; only a few books, and none of them really exceptional. She bought one or two anyway, because leaving a place without buying any was too much like defeat.
It was her own foolish fault. She felt angry at herself, angry at everypony else, wanting something whose details were hazy but which she knew would not be good to have, at one and the same time fascinated by and hating the Ponies around her.
Especially the stallions.
Oh, dear, she thought. My Cycle really is starting. I'd better hurry and get those maskers.
The maskers wouldn't change how she felt very much (the unguent forms were slightly anesthetic), but they would cover her marescent, conceal the embarrassing reality of what was starting to happen right now in her nether regions. She would still have to watch her own behavior: she was not used to her unsuppressed estrus, and she very much did not want to do anything she would later regret. But at least she would be the only one to know her own inner turmoil.
10. A Pleasant Bath
She remembered she'd seen a public bath near one of the better secondhand bookshops -- one now sadly closed, though she really needed to get clean and change out of her sweater. Maybe the public bath could sell or lend her a wrap as well? Moon Dancer hated to display her own body, especially when she was entering a Cycle. Still, perhaps nudity was better than smelling like this.
As she walked down the street she had a curious feeling of being watched, as if somepony were observing her. Of course rather a lot of eyes were probably observing her; the Sun was just setting, the streets still packed with Ponies and other creatures. The Crystal City had unfolded from its long sleep like a flower in bloom, and begun to resume its fabled nightlife. But this seemed more personal. More sinister.
She looked around, but she could see nopony in particular. Was that a motion in a shadowed alleyway? She was reminded of the hooded, cloaked figure she might or might not have seen in the Library. But why would he be here? Why would he be following her? (She did not know why she thought of the figure as "he," but there seemed in her memory to have been something male about him).
Surely she was safe. She was surrounded by other Ponies, and in the bath there would be attendants. Besides, the mysterious figure had never attacked her, and certainly he could have done so in the Library when she was reading, alone and isolated. Why should she assume he meant her harm? Perhaps he was just a lonely bibliophile, like herself?
In any case, she knew she could deal with danger. She'd proven it that day in Canterlot, when she'd slain two Changeling Warriors, using only her hooves and horn. She was no common cringing little foal. She was a Moon of the Canterlot Moons, and her father a Night, and they were both old families, who had been victorious on many a forgotten battlefield.
So she heartened herself, and then she was at the bathhouse.
She explained her needs to the attendants, and they were cool and professional and yet sympathetic, with that smooth flattery that was so characteristic of the Crystal Ponies. So unfortunate that the Honorable Mistress had forgotten her necessaries, of course they could supply such to relieve her embarrassment. Yes, they could clean her sweater, and for the night provide her with clothing to adorn her in whatever fashion she found most suitable. A silken chiton, perhaps? Or, if she preferred greater modesty, some robes and a cloak? A wise choice, they told her. And now the baths.
There were many options. The original Eastern Imperial system, which was standard here, was simply hot water, of which the bathhouse naturally had a great quantity, both water and chambers heated onsite by hypocaust. There was also the Western Imperial system, influenced by the Speaker-Ponies, which in its full glorious complexity included frigidarium, tepidarium and a caldarium. There was mention of a laconium, but the stories of how that sweated a Pony clean at temperatures which could fry eggs frankly frightened her.
She decided to go for simplicity her first time here, and chose a basic visit to the caldarium, which was just a hot bath, much as it was practiced in Equestrian spas. There were various possibilities here as well: originally, the Crystal City had used soaps, then later adopted oils, and later on returned once again to soaps and oils. The senior attendant was very familiar with the history of the processes, and expounded on them in detail once she realized that her customer found this interesting.
Moon Dancer was shown brushes, curry-combs, strigilae, and more dubious equipment of whose uses she was not entirely certain and felt strangely shy about asking. The one time she did ask, she was immediately sorry, because she then had to explain, blushing, that she did not wish to depilitate the coat of her lower belly in a decorative pattern.
Why would anypony want to do that, anyway? she wondered. She feared that the answer to that question would be even more embarrassing than the answer to the initial one, so she remained resolutely silent on the topic.
In any case, the bath was worth waiting for. She soaked in the hot water, feeling the warmth pervade every cell of her being, the water carry away all the sweat and grime she had accumulated. She had chosen to bathe in a great communal pool, and she watched lazily as the Crystal Ponies sat and conversed. Bathing was a social event, in the Empire, and it was oddly even more relaxing for that reason.
She did not speak with them. She did not know them. She was alone, as she always was even in a crowd of Ponies, but she felt as if the intimacy of the shared cleansing somehow bonded them together with her. She smiled happily. All her fears and problems seemed trivial now, just more of the dirt of the day to be wafted away by the clean hot water.
She stepped out of her bath, and an attendant toweled her dry. She was not used to being touched by other Ponies, but the feel of the fabric against her hide was somehow soothing, the very impersonality of the touches made them acceptable and even enjoyable. Another attendant brushed and combed her. They beckoned her to a side-chamber.
There she was given maskers -- rather than have them apply it to her most personal parts, something they were willing to do but she was not willing to have done to her, she had them verbally instruct her in the application. The attendants did not seem amused or surprised by her limited understanding of such matters -- already, in but a month, they had apparently become used to Equestrians. The perfumes of the maskers were heavy by her standards, but not unbearably so.
A hairdresser came over and gave her a quick manestyle. She would have applied cosmetics, but Moon Dancer indicated that these were unnecessary. Finally, she was provided with cloak and robes, and ushered out into the foyer.
There, Moon Dancer was reunited with her property, and inquired as discreetly as she knew how as to the local customs of tipping. She paid generously and without complaint, as this had really been perhaps the best bath of her whole life, and she had already decided to do this again while resident in the Empire. Perhaps try the whole sequence? Though not the decorative depilitations, she decided. Definitely not those.
So she stepped out of the bathhouse, wearing fresh clothing over her clean coat, smelling better than ever before, feeling that the night was finally going well. She'd have a pleasant dinner, wash it down with some wine, and this time go to bed at a decent hour, get an earlier start on the next day.
The Sun was down now. The Crystal City glittered with fairy lights -- the lights in the windows of the houses, the faint radiance coming from the living crystal all around her, and the glorious multi-hued skyglow of the auroras from the Crystal Heart itself. It was beautiful beyond compare, and she felt warm and happy and at peace.
So it came as a complete surprise to her when the shadowy figure stepped out from an alley between two houses, right into her path. It was the figure she had glimpsed in the Library, sensed watching her on the streets. Moon Dancer's heart leapt into her mouth, and she bit back a cry of alarm, and tensed, ready at a moment to fight for her life, feeling the adrenaline surge through her veins, everything slow down around her and grow icy cold.
The figure raised its head slightly, and she saw a masculine muzzle, charcoal-gray coat, and reddish-violet eyes. There was a horn above those eyes, but something about that horn's shape was wrong. More alarmingly, the figure seemed for a moment indistinct -- she fancied she could see the street through it. It winced, and then firmed its jaw. The horn glowed faintly, a sickly purplish aura, and the figure was abruptly more solid. She could no longer see the street -- at all, for a thick fog had whipped up out of nowhere. She could no longer see the skyglow of the Crystal Heart's aurora, or any but a faint glow from the houses.
"Greetings, Mistress Moon," the Unicorn intoned, in a sort of hollow whisper. "I have been waiting for you."
She gulped, and trembled. Suddenly she wished that she were anywhere but the Crystal City, this deceptively lovely city of the damned, which had been lost once in time, and might be lost again. But it was too late. She was here, and so was he, and whatever their meeting meant was about to transpire.
"Allow me to introduce myself," the stallion said. "I am ... well, I have been called many names, by many Ponies. But you may call me ... Penumbra."
Moon Dancer backstepped instinctively, and looked around. There was nowhere to go; the fog was so thick now that it was as if there were only herself and the mysterious stallion. There was nopony else around her, nopony to save her if Penumbra meant her harm, as well he might, given that he had clearly summoned the fog.
Penumbra smirked, and she realized that she was displaying fear before him. An anger rose up within her, and burned off her fear like the Sun burning off a morning mist. Whoever he was, whatever he was, whatever he meant to do to her: she would not show him fear. She straightened her stance, meeting coolly the gaze of those disturbing reddish-violet eyes.
"What -- what do you want, Penumbra?" she asked him, her voice starting with a slight quaver, but growing in confidence as she spoke.
He smiled again, and this time almost approvingly.
"Why, Mistress Moon, simply to give you what you want," Penumbra said, taking a step forward. His horn faintly flouresced, and she tensed slightly before realizing that he was simply drawing an object out from under his cloak. The object was an ordinary octavo book, bound in some black-dyed leather.
Despite the strange situation her ears sprang up and she leaned forward with interest. This was, after all, a book, and one upon which Moon Dancer had never before laid eyes. She tried to read its title, only to be confounded by the lack of any such device on either the front cover or spine.
"It is the Codex of Shades," Penumbra said, his eyes lighting up with some emotion. "Very rare, and containing lore not to be found in any other tomes. A work prohibited, or so I am given to understand, by your soft decadent age, for it says things not entirely consistent with Celestia's concept of the Harmony, of Love and Friendship." He spoke the names of those two virtues in a voice dripping with contempt. "When it was penned, Celestia's writ did not run beyond what is today Central and Central-Eastern Equestria; today, of course, she bestrides this continent like a colossus; bids fair to rule the world." He suddenly withdrew the book back toward his cloak. "Perhaps this frightens you, Mistress Moon. To go against the will of a monarch of such great power. Perhaps you do not wish to peruse the knowledge within this little work?"
"No!" cried Moon Dancer. "I mean, no I do want to read the book. All knowledge is worthwhile!"
Penumbra smiled. "An idealist, I see." His gaze was far away for a moment. "I knew a librarian like that, once. She escaped to safety, and with my blessings, before the darkness fell for ever on this city. Are you a librarian?"
"I have my own library," Moon Dancer replied. "At home. Just my own collection, but it's a big one." A librarian? A shiver went down her spine at the stray thought which touched her mind at that, but of course that was absurd -- Penumbra was not a very large stallion, nor did he look at all monstrous save for whatever was wrong with his horn, and besides that one was dead ...
"Well then," said Penumbra, and he extended the book toward her once again. "Perhaps this book might find a home in your library ..."
Moon Dancer reached for it with her aura.
Penumbra snatched it away. "Ah, but a book so rare demands payment, does it not?" he asked, smiling.
"I ... I can pay. I have bits ..." Moon Dancer began, confusedly. She felt a yearning for this book such as she had rarely known before.
"Bits?" Penumbra seemed disappointed. "Do you suppose that the lore of the Shadows is to be bought in any so common a manner?" There was an edge, almost of anger, in his tone.
"What must ... what do you want, then? Books in trade? My library is back in ..."
"Better," said Penumbra, "but I ask for something simple, trivial, yet personal."
"What sort of thing?" Moon Dancer had no idea what the strange stallion wanted.
"Nothing much," replied Penumbra, his voice now very soft and soothing. "Just a kiss ..."
"You've got to be kidding me," Moon Dancer took a step back, her face flushing with something between embarrassment and anger. She might have understood, though she would have been disgusted at the thought, if Penumbra had asked for some considerably more extreme sexual favor from her. She would have rejected the bargain, of course -- but she would have grasped the motive. She had heard that stallions were not always that picky, that even ugly mares like her had to be careful of them.
But this? It was like something out of a fairy tale, only Moon Dancer knew she was no beautiful princess. Why would anypony want to merely kiss her? Though it did correspond with something she'd read long ago, only she couldn't remember the details ... something about a traditional way for certain pacts to be sealed. She wished she could remember with what sorts of beings, or what the kiss might imply.
"Oh, am I that repulsive?" Penumbra laughed, and though his laughter was strange, it was self-deprecatory enough that he no longer seemed so terrifying.
"Um .... no," said Moon Dancer. She was not lying. Penumbra was frightening, and the manner in which he had approached her was extremely sinister, and he was obviously some sort of skilled mage. But he was clearly not an enemy; he could have ambushed her under cover of that obviously-magical fog if he had meant harm, subdued her first had he meant to steal her virtue.
And she was less-afraid of him now that she had spoken to him. Surely no foe would treat politely with oneself, and ask merely for a kiss in return for a book of inestimable value, a book that she must read, a book that she must possess? Surely no foe would offer one such an incredibly rare book to begin with, now would he?
He was not some ugly brute. He was plainly intelligent, and educated; courteous and even handsome. There was something noble, almost regal in his manners and appearance.
There was one thing she felt almost-obliged to tell him.
"I ... I've lived rather a reclusive life," she admitted. "I've ... I've never actually kissed a stallion before."
Penumbra smiled warmly -- or at least she hoped that he smiled with warmth, rather than a cold so intense that it counterfeited warmth, like the last sensations of a victim of hypothermia before the cold cut in through the dying skin.
What a strange and morbid notion! she thought, shaking her head to clear it of the confusion.
"A maiden's first kiss?" he said, chuckling. "Why, the only way that could be more magical would be if it were the First Kiss of True Love, and it would hardly be reasonable for me to ask for that, given the circumstances." He stepped forward. "Come, my dear. I'll neither bite you, nor take more than my due. You, especially given who and what you are, need not fear me."
She stepped forward to meet him, face downcast, suddenly shy as the reality approached. Why was she shaking so? It was just a kiss ... perhaps her first, but still just a kiss ...
He reached forward with one hoof and gently stroked her jawline, just barely touching.the side of her neck , and pulling his hoof aside before he would have touched her somewhere very improper, a place where a stallion might have touched her were he about to ... she shivered at the thought, and not in fear, and gasped slightly. At that gasp, he moved in, gently but firmly, and kissed her.
She felt his lips against her own, strangely velvet-soft given that he was in many ways such a very masculine being, and but the faintest touch of his tongue within the mouth. It was neither an aggressive nor a vulgar kiss. Involuntarily, she closed her eyes, and leaned in closer, mewling slightly with the long-suppressed desire of the long lonely decade since she had first entered adolescence.
And then ...
And then everything changed and became horrible and strange.
12. Moon Dancer's Vision
She was kissing a Pony, who smelled like a healthy strong stallion in his early middle age. There was a stench like an open grave, and her horrified eyes went wide open to see that she was embracing a long-dead corpse. Before she could retch and pull away from this charnel obscenity, things changed again.
She was no longer a Pony mare, but some impossible form of lights and sparks and angles, in a strangely-angled space which was all angles and vertices, as if it were all some vast crystalline matrix. He was a similar form, but much larger, and he spit forth energies into her which touched and changed her in some indescribable fashion. They were both information, and they were interacting.
He looked into her with eyes which were no longer exactly eyes, but gateways into his soul, and beyond and behind his soul was something else, something she could not comprehend. Communications? Ideas? Memories?
A young Crystal Unicorn, raised as a Prince, growing to stallionhood in the Great Library, his boon companion a beautiful green Crystal Unicorn mare, older than him. Yet from his adolescence on, he was the master ... the two were united in love and friendship and purpose, a great purpose, to restore the lost glories of the Empire ...
... the Prince full-grown, imprisoned, helpless before his evil brother, confined in chains. The dark Emperor laughing cruelly as he struck a foul blow against his younger brother, blinding pain in the Prince's horn ... then the beautiful green mare, eyes haunted by some terrible knowledge, standing covered in the blood of others, the guards she had slain to free her beloved friend ...
... Restoration to power. But not enough, never enough. The task too difficult, the Empire doomed by its own decadence. None to understand him or his purpose. He must seek allies, and he did ...
... The ritual. Older than the Empire, older than the Earth, older than the Universe. A gate opened to another Universe, a dreadful dark realm of dead worlds leered down upon by dead suns, a Universe so old that all light and life had perished so long ago that the space of years was meaningless in Pony terms, an abyss of time unfathomable even by the beings Ponies thought of as gods ...
... There was no life, but there was motion. Terrible motion, like maggots writhing through a corpse, but the corpse was a Universe and the maggots were nothing so innocent as baby flies. They moved, but they were not alive, not life as it was known to Ponykind. They were an un-life, a mockery of life, and they had a name ...
... They were the Night Shadows ...
... Motile darkness. Glaring yellow eyes. Something that should not be, but was, just on the other side of the dimensional barriers. Something long ago damned, but to whom damnation was but their natural state. They peered through the rifts in spacetime, the rifts that had been torn by careless cosmic beings thinking they were saving our Universe, and the Shadows saw our Universe ...
... Young and bright and innocent. Full of life. Full of energy. Full of food ...
... Glaring yellow eyes. Full of unlife. Full of hatred. Full of hunger ...
... They looked through the portal, and they saw Moon Dancer ...
She screamed in stark terror, and shoved Penumbra violently backward. She might have struck him, had not she tasted his saliva in her mouth, and been suddenly overcome with a fit of uncontrollable retching.
"I sometimes have that effect on Ponies," he said, sadly. "I am sorry that you saw that much, Mistress Moon. I wish you might have thought better of me."
She gazed into Penumbra's eyes, and saw that the emotion was sincere. Which led to the obvious question ...
"Why?" she asked. "Why did you do that to me?" It had been but a kiss, in physical terms, but she felt terribly befouled, so sullied that her mind would never again be clean. What was worse, nothing he had done after the first moment of that kiss had been at all sexual -- it was an utterly-abnormal and alien violation, but it was no less real.
"I had to touch you to establish the link," Penumbra explained. "Why a kiss?" He closed his eyes, moved by some obscure emotion. "Perhaps because I have not yet entirely forgotten what it was like to be a Pony."
"No ..." she gagged again. "The ... the visions ... you were a corpse, then some sort of network of lights, then I saw ..."
"Something ... somewhere ... else." She found that she could not adequately describe the visions, that they were slipping out of her memory as rapidly as she tried to recall them. "Darkness ... death ... living Shadows ... hunger ... hate." That was the closest she could come to it.
"You saw more than I thought you would," Penumbra said. "Do not worry." His horn glowed, and he tossed her an object, which she just barely managed to catch in her own aura. "The book," he said.
She regarded her prize dully. She had been through so much. She barely remembered why she wanted the book any more. Would her mind ever again feel clean? Or sane?
"You will recover," he told her. "You are strong. I knew that before I spoke to you. Strong ... like Luna ... like Tourmaline ..." His face was starting to become vague, the fogs swirling in around them.
"Tourmaline?" shouted Moon Dancer. "Who are you? I know who you are! You're ... him! The Prince! You're Crimson --"
Penumbra raised a hoof in denial.
"You're wrong," he told her flatly. "I was ... I started as him, and I became the Night Stallion, but I am neither. I am but an emanation, a memory recorded in crystal, like the words on the pages of a book ... the secret dreams of the Age of Wonders, that died unfulfilled ... You have much to learn about the true nature of identity. I am but the edge of a Shadow ... a Penumbra ..."
He was fading, his legs and barrel twisting into drifts of mist, his face spiraling away, only the strange red-violet eyes still meeting her gaze, looking at her with what she somehow knew was not hostility, but infinite sadness ...
"You're a good mare, Mistress Moon Dancer. I'm sorry I had to do this to you," the voice whispered on the wind. The eyes looked away, focusing on something unguessable to her. "My purpose is now served. Now comes freedom and dissipation, he'll play me again but these moments won't have been recorded. This is far from the first time he's spawned me for such missions."
"Penumbra!" she cried. Her vision was blurring, from more than fog.
"I wonder where I'll go? A void, or union with the End Point? If there is one, for such as me, in the Universe I betrayed ..." His eyes met hers, and they flared with purpose. "Moon Dancer! Use them if you must, but don't trust them! Never trust the Sha ..." It started as a desperate shout, then fuzzed out in her ears, until at the last there was only the whisper of the wind, a word incomplete.
"Penumbra!" she shouted. She was so angry, she wanted to blast and hit somepony, but she didn't know who -- certainly not Penumbra, who had given her both a rare book and a rare kiss, and whom she feared might never give her anything ever again. "Penumbra!" she shouted again. Something wet was running down her cheeks, which must have been tears ... of rage, she told herself. Only of rage.
Her voice was swallowed up by the fog. And then the fog dissipated, swirling away just as had Penumbra, dissipated into the night.
She held the book before her in her aura, rotated it, examined it from every angle.
Such a small thing, she thought, so little, to be the focus of so much passion. She slid it into her saddlebags -- no way, after all this, was she leaving it to the bed of her cart. She had read the sort of ironic tales in which the object at the center of the narrative, after having become the focus of the action, vanished or was destroyed before it could be used by those who had contended over it. She did not wish to become the heroine of such a story.
If she was the heroine. Perhaps this was all the "Tale of the Codex of Shades," and she merely the hapless figure at the center of this episode within it? For a moment she considered the unsettling thought. Then she made sure the book was secure, and continued walking down the street. There was still a bad taste in her mouth from her retching, though on her the scent of a stallion in early middle age had vanished, making plain the spectral nature of her encounter.
He gave me a kiss, she reflected, though I'm not sure how much that counted, since he may not have been really real. And a book, and I can feel its weight in my saddlebag, so that at least was real. He gave me one thing I'd never had, and another thing of which I have thousands and thousands back home. Which will count more, in the story of my life?
The street, which had been unaccountably free of other Ponies during their brief encounter -- possibly a product of the magics Penumbra had employed -- was now filling up again. There was nothing about the Unicorn mare pulling the cart, of the street itself, to indicate what a strange event had transpired. A team of forensic mages might have been able to detect the remaining thaumic radiation, before it dissipated, but she doubted that such a team would ever examine this site.
So thin, she thought, the barrier between everyday life and the wildest and darkest fantasy. She supposed this had always been true, but it had never touched her so specifically and personally before -- many Ponies had been Discorded, many in Canterlot had fought or hidden from the Changeling Warriors. She suspected not so many got to meet Penumbra.
As she reached the first intersection, the smell of foods, commingled, came to her from the restaurants two blocks down, and she realized to her great surprise that she was powerfully hungry. After all that, she reflected, all that strangeness and wonder and horror, my baser self once again seizes the reins.
Still, she thought, I haven't had any real food since last evening. So I guess I might as well ...
The thought, as was often the case, was mother to the deed, and soon Moon Dancer was sitting at a nicely-set table in a pleasant little restaurant, set right at the corner of two well-trafficked streets. There was light, and other Ponies, and the pleasant hum of conversation all around her, and even though as always she was an outsider, she felt accepted at least on the edge of the herd, which was about as good as things ever got for her. It was an island of normality: most of the Ponies in there with her were also Equestrians, though there was an Albionic party at one table; a native Crystal Pony couple at another.
It was insulation against the night, against the strangeness, against Penumbra and the strange vision he had brought her, but most all against those nighmare shapes of unliving but motile Shadow, the hate-filled yellow eyes which had gazed hungrily into her own. Surely nothing like that could really exist.
One thing the Crystal Empire did really well was food. She supposed that went with imperial dominion -- Canterlot had a wide variety of restaurants, and many of them quite excellent, for much the same reason. The wide realms of the Crystal Empire had vanished, but its cuisine had outlasted the ages.
Exploitation of the masses on a continental scale, she tried to think disapprovingly, but it smelled and tasted entirely too good for any disapproval.
It was amazing how one could reconcile oneself to exploitation, if the consequences tasted sufficiently good.
She ordered a cheese and mushroom omelette and crepes with flavored creams and jellies and a whole plate of little Crystal Snow Cakes, an ancient specialty of the city. That she should order so much food was not surprising -- she hadn't eaten for almost a whole day. That she should be able to eat so much food, after an experience as bizarre and frightening and upsetting as she had just been through, might have been amazing, but she thought nothing of it. She was a healthy young mare, and though she did not realize this, this was a form of defiance against the darkness she had seen.
As was her wont, even when eating, she read a book. She briefly considered the book, the one that she had purchased so strangely, but knew that such a tome was not to be read while eating a pleasant meal. Nor would she have wished to expose it to the casual observation of the other diners, or the staff -- some of whom might have actually realized its true nature, given that the population of this city had been alive when her copy was probably made.
Besides, she might have gotten stains on it, and that would never do.
So, instead, she read a romance, a frothy tale of a poor young mare of good birth who through an unlikely set of circumstances found herself being courted by three stallions, each of different but impressive virtues. It had been written around eleven hundred years ago, and was set in a world with subtly different cultural assumnptions -- yet, at its core, it was the same as anything she could have picked up in the romance section of any bookstore in Canterlot.
Ponies never changed.
They will, come The Revolution, she assured herself, but that thought seemed strangely hollow compared to the cosmic strangeness she had been shown by Penumbra, and the utter mundanity of the eleven-century-old book she was reading. Will Ponies really change? she wondered. Or just our circumstances?
The romance novel did not provide her any answer. Though it did provide her with some blessedly mindless entertainment, and more than one wistful sigh.
Moon Dancer finished her meal and sat back with a sigh of contentment. She had recovered her good spirits. The horror, the revulsion, had departed. She had not, after all, really been harmed by Penumbra. All the terrifying things she had felt and experienced -- all were fading, becoming no more to her than the aftereffects of a particularly intense book.
She was, after all, healthy and unhurt. And only twenty-one. At that age, Ponies bounce back quickly even from the most frightening experiences.
And, despite her purported cynicism and distrust of society, despite the hurts she felt she was a profound optimist, with the sort of optimism that came easy to the young and wealthy, who had never been that seriously harmed by life. She could intellectually believe in something like the Night Shadows, but she did not emotionally believe that they could reach into her safe world and hurt her. She was a highly-intelligent mare, but intellect and wisdom are not the same thing.
Penumbra, his identity and fate, fascinated her. He had frightened her at the beginning; he had tricked her into that fateful kiss; and the way in which he had given her the book seemed sinister indeed. And yet ... he had been regal and witty -- a gentlepony, even if a fallen one. Indeed if he really were whom she thought he was, he was or once had been a Prince of the Crystal Empire, scion of an ancient dynasty. For all her equalism, Moon Dancer was still impressed by royal origins.
And he had complimented her. And given her a gift. And kissed her. Things every bit as uncommon in Moon Dancer's prior experience as cursed Princes and strange beings from beyond space and time. Her mind and heart awhirl with confusion, and it was difficult for her to regard Penumbra as her enemy.
Was he gone forever? Would he somehow be reborn from those ancient records somehow graven in the crystals, in those lattices of light and information she had glimpsed in her vision? Would she ever see him again? Fear of terrible things that should not be mingled in her mind with very different emotions.
Penumbra obviously meant her to read the book. And reading the book would further open her to the Night Shadows in some fashion. She shuddered at the memory of those malign yellow eyes.
But the book might also have clues as to Penumbra's true nature. He had said she did not yet fully-understand identity. Was he Prince Crimson Quartz? King Sombra? A mask of the Night Shadows? Something else, beyond her present comprehension?
Curiosity consumed her. What was Penumbra? What were the Night Shadows? She had to know ... were the answers in the Codex of Shades?
And it was a book. She read books. It was what she did, what she was ...
How could she not read a book?
14. Her Newest Acquisition
She went back to her hotel, pulling her little cart -- the book safely in her saddlebag. The desk clerk greeted her and helped her stow her cart just as if she wasn't carrying an ancient mysterious tome of occult lore. It was amazing how the clerk, the hotel, were all just as she'd left it. External reality hadn't changed. The changes had all been within Moon Dancer herself.
She walked up to her room, closed and bolted the doors, the shutters, the windows. Then she laid a ward all around her room. It wouldn't keep out a serious attack, but it would protect her against scrying. And its breaking would impose enough delay on any attacker that she would at least know that the attack was coming.
She hoped, anyway. Basic combat magic had been part of the Physical Education course at Princess Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns, but she'd always inclined much more to research. Any of her class could fight at need, but she knew she was much more scholar than warrior.
She opened her saddlebag, took the book out, rotated it in her aura, inspected it again. It hadn't changed since she'd viewed it on the street before. Here in the light and calm of her hotel room, she could better perceive the details. Black-bound, of a size which would be octavo if it had been produced conventionally. She held it in her aura and probed it with her standard detect enchantment spell. Both the binding and the pages were inherently, weakly magical, and there had been at least one enchantment cast on it.
She analyzed the enchantment, as best as she could with her own magic and the limited selection of tools she had brought from her home. She had expected to find some rare and strange books here in the Crystal City, but nothing like this. Curiosity warred with caution -- aside from simple traps, there was the possibility of memetic magic: toxic or living ideas within the pages which could seize control of her mind. (Moon Dancer had learned more of her father's work with the Night Watch than was strictly legal, or good for her sanity).
As near as she could tell the only magics on the book were those related to its production and preservation. The pages had been treated to be receptive to a replication spell, and the book created from a master copy using spells not dissimilar to those which Equestrian publishers had widely employed before the invention of powered printing presses, and still used for prestige print runs. The familiarity of these magics was no surprise: those spells derived from ones Lady Tourmaline had brought to Equestria from the Crystal Empire in the first place.
It suddenly struck her, with a strange shock, that it was quite likely, considering the likely origins and identity of Penumbra, that these books might have originally been replicated by none other than the Lady Tourmaline herself, before King Sombra had ordered her to leave his court. The thought awed her in a way that even Penumbra's kiss and the vision had not -- Moon Dancer had no prior experience with kisses or visions, but she knew books. The possibility that Tourmaline might have duplicated these made it all suddenly real to Moon Dancer.
She probed the book some more from the outside, but could discover nothing new.
Readying her shields, she gingerly opened the book. Nothing happened. No explosion, no dimensional portal, nothing trying to take control of her mind.
She could see a title page, but deliberately defocused her eyes slightly, avoided actually reading the words. She flipped some of the pages. Words, illustrations, some of which appeared to be complex geometrical diagrams. She let herself scan just enough of the words that she confirmed the lanugage in which it was written. Late Crystal-Imperial, though from that brief glimpse she could tell it was in an elevated and scholarly style.
No surprises there, though she was happy to see that it was in fact a real book, should be comprehensible.
There was only one thing left to do. It was traditional for heroines in her position.
Closing the book, she took out her own personal journal. She jotted down her recollections of the day regarding Penumbra and the book. She left out of course, the embarrassing hygienic problems with which her adventures had begun; she did not like writing degrading stream-of-consciousness. But she described Penumbra, his words, her vision, the book. Finally, she described her present situation.
So it comes to this: the book and I. It sits at the foot of my bed, challenging me to open it and this time absorb the knowledge contained within.
Dare I read the words of one who was most obviously damned? Dare I not read them?
I am Moon Dancer. I am of an ancient and courageous line. I am a brilliant scholar, a true bibliophile.
I cannot fear to read a book.
I shall read the book.
She carefully put her journal away, within a piece of crytalline furniture that looked likely to survive what ever was likely to happen within this room. She closed it tight. She had done her duty for posterity, should the worst ensue.
Then she got back on the bed, leaned forward.
She opened the Codex of Shades, and began reading.
I was born a Prince, and am now Imperator. I am and have been scholar and soldier, scientist and sorceror, states-stallion and supreme ruler. I am and have been many things, and I have learned much in my life. To thee, brave Reader, do I bequeath my hard-won wisdom.
From the first words of the introduction she felt enthralled. Prince and Imperator -- it must indeed have been Crimson Quartz, King Sombra, the one who had somehow become Penumbra, who had written this book. She felt that he was reaching out her across the gulfs of time to teach her; she felt honored by his attention. This was not uncommon for Moon Dancer, encountering a great book, but -- because she had met Penumbra, it was all the more personal.
I have learned this lore by reading books, and by living life, yea, unto the sweet heights of ecstasy and the bitter depths of despair. I have known true love and seen my true love trampled under the hooves of a tyrant. I have been by turns a pampered prince, a tortured captive, a powerless exile, and a conquering hero. I have known friendship and enmity, love and hatred, full enough of both to see deeper into their truths and lies than the philosophers and priests know -- or admit.
Moon Dancer thrilled to these revelations. Her studies filled in the gaps. His true love would have been Lady Tourmaline, the Loyal Tourmaline, his faithful mistress who had suffered and dared anything to aid her Prince. The tyrant he fought, of course, would have been the Imperator Sthenarkos, his evil brother Morion. And Crimson had studied so deeply into the lore that was lost now. What had he learned? What would he now reveal to his eager reader?
For much ye have been taught is a Lie, and much ye have not been taught is Truth; much that ye love merely uses your love, to batten and feed upon ye. They dwell among ye, they rule ye, and yet they serve not your ends, but the unfathomable ends of Beings from Beyond our little Earth. Ye know them not in truth, and they depend upon your Innocence to remain in their seats of Power and rule you for their own Purposes.
They say they are your Friends, and play the role of Mothers to ye all, yet did they smite the whole Earth long ago, and smash the Brightest Dreams of Ponies, bringing down in Cataclysm the Age of Wonders, for that they feared that Pony might grow too Great, and shake the Shackles by which their Cosmic Kind had chained us. Yet by the strength of our Minds may we Break these Bonds, and exceed the Limits they have placed upon us -- for the great secret is that they know that we have in time the Potential to be in our Own Selves greater than any Goddesses.
Wait ... was he talking about? ... but no, how could that be possible?
Moon Dancer read on.
Ye who fear the Truth, and would live content in the Lie, read no further. For I shall, in here, reveal most plain certain truths that shall undermine the walls of your happy lies, and most cruelly cast light upon your now undefended Beliefs, by proving some of your most cherished Assumptions to be false. And the knowing of these truths shall end forever your Happiness, which was founded upon shifting sands. I say this at the start, that none might claim that I did trick you into Ruin.
But ye who yearn for the Truth, and could never live content in the Lie, read on. For I shall open your eyes to that which you Desire, and if your walls do fall, it shall only be to let you raise more secure ones on firmer foundations, so that you may in the end be the stronger for it. But heed well -- this is your choice, between the two paths you may walk. Only one can be your destiny.
Her mouth was slightly parted and she was breathing hard as she continued to read, turning to the first chapter, "Cosmogenesis."
16. Cosmogenesis
In the very Beginning, before the Earth or Sun or Stars, everything was very small and close and hot beyond comprehension, neither Matter nor Energy nor Space nor Time, but simply existence. And this Existence expanded very fast, in a vast explosion beyond anything that could now exist, for it was Everything that now exists which was exploding.
And as Everything expanded, it cooled. As it cooled, the raw Existence condensed into diverse forms, first of Energy and then of Matter. There were Gravity and Anti-Gravity, and Subtle Forces of the Atom, and Light and the Subtler Forces of the Kernel of the Atom, and even stranger Energies. And as the Energy cooled, some of it condensed into matter, since ever since the Age of Wonders have wise Ponies known that Energy and Matter are intraconvertible. And thus was born our Universe.
Moon Dancer nodded. The Ponies of the Age of Wonders had possessed subtle instruments beyond the ability of any Ponies now living to build,; in legends they wielded great telescopes and particle accelerators and computers to probe the fundamental mysteries of the Universe. And they had learned essentially the story that Crimson Quartz here told. Possibly from Crimson Quartz, as works on cosmology and physics had been among those the Lady Tourmaline had rescued from the Fall of the Crystal Empire.
But Anti-Gravity, born of the seeming Empty Space created by the the Great Explosion, built upon itself to push Everything apart very rapidly, not merely moving these Things in Space but inflating Space Itself. And this Inflation pushed Everything apart much, much faster than the fastest speed within Space, which is that of Light in the Void. And this meant that the divers Parts of Everything could not carry Information to one another, which meant that they might Contradict one another
Thus was created Paradox.
Paradox in reality? thought Moon Dancer in confusion. But no -- all paradoxes in logic are merely apparent, the result of a mistake in deduction or a poor choice of assumptions or definitions of terms. How could there be a paradox in reality? Moon Dancer tried to grasp the idea, but her mind slipped off the very concept. Such a thing cannot be! Yet, somehow, she felt that Penumbra was not lying -- that Paradox was, and that she couldn't really understand it because it was beyond mortal understanding in some fundamental fashion.
Understand well, Brave Reader. At its foundation the Universe is Information, lore such as one might find in a book or in the crystalline memory-cores of the great Computers of the Age of Wonders, though infinitely grander. Paradox is like ink spilled across the pages, a mistake in the Rules that work the Computers. Paradox destroys Information. It can make the Universe stop. It can be the end of Everything.
If that's true, I'm information as well, Moon Dancer deduced. Thus if I could really understand Paradox as well, I could not be.
That's what it is! she realized with excitement mingled with terror. Paradox is Non-Being. But it's Non-Being that is at the same time Being, the paradox at the core of Paradox, and it spreads!
She still could not directly conceive it, but now she knew why. If she could, she would stop existing. In this case, a certain degree of ignorance was not only bliss, but sheer survival.
It would have ended our Universe in its first seconds of existence, had it not been that our Universe was far from the first Universe to come into being. For, just as Beasts beget Beasts, and in many millions of years the Fish becomes the Frog, the Frog the Lizard, the Lizard the Mammal, and the Mammal the Pony, honed by the Knife of Natural Selection; so in countless millions of Aeons Universes beget Universes, and in stretches of Time beyond Time the descendants of small and simple Universes are great and complex Universes, such as the One in which we dwell.
And as Beasts are preyed upon by Animalcules that cause Sickness, so too are Universes preyed upon by Those Beings which cause Paradox. What this is no Ponies know, and even those Ponies imagine Goddesses can but spy them dimly and by their ill work. But just as Beasts develop their own Animalcules to fight the Animalcules of Sickness, so too do Universes develop their own Beings to fight the Beings of Paradox. They are anti-Paradox, and it is their job to destroy Paradox and its Manifestations wheresoever they may appear.
As Paradox is Anti-Concept, so Anti-Paradox is Concept. And this is what they are, the Anti-Paradoxes of our Universe -- the Cosmic Concepts.
They are those we have named Goddesses.
And they have betrayed us.
Moon Dreamer's mind was reeling with these revelations. It was all assuming a certain dreadful shape in her mind, starting to make sense of ancient legends and half-stated insinuations. Here, Penumbra was not insinuating. He was, as he had promised, speaking plainly.
And what he was saying was horrible.
The first Concepts were born in the very early Universe, before the Earth and Sun and Stars, when Everything was just beginning to settle down and Matter was condensing from Energy. There is an All which even I do not understand, the Pattern for the Universe, and from this sprang in the structure of Everything four Beings: the All-Father and the All-Mother, around whom began to twine the Concepts of Law; and the All-Chaos and All-Ending, around which began to form the Concepts of Chaos.
And the Concepts were not born quite as we understand Generation and Birth. Rather as a Force needed Law or displayed Chaos, interactions formed through a Space above Space, in which Information was not limited by the laggard Speed of Light, And Nodes formed, and Networks, and Patterns, and these Patterns competed for the available Thought inherent in the System, until for each graven Law or displayed Chaos, one Pattern consumed or displaced its Rivals, and became its Concept.
As the book progressed, diagrams and mathematical equations proliferated, most of which Moon Dancer, for all her education, grasped but dimly, but some of which she grasped well enough to understand that Crimson Quartz was explaining them properly. She was awed at the Prince's intelligence and mathematical ability, and wondered if any Pony now living could understand all that was in the Codex. Perhaps the only Pony she knew might have a chance was her former friend, Twilight Sparkle.
Thus were born the Cosmic Concepts. Many there were, each mistress of a Law or Process, but the three which concern us the most clearly are three whose destinies were closely linked both to the Creation of our World, and to its present Governance.
These are Gravity, Fusion and Dissonance.
17. Gravity, Fusion and Dissonance
Gravity, thought Moon Dancer. The force which holds together planets, which locks the Sun and Moon in orbit around the Earth. Fusion. The force which makes possible the heat and light of Sunfire. And Dissonance ... why does that last one seem so familiar? Almost personally familiar?
Of these Forces, Gravity and Fusion were linked by the very Stars, which are of course Suns so distant that they seem mere Pinpoints. For Gravity draws together the Prime Nuclei of Matter, the Watermaker, and Fusion combines them into Sunstuff, and this releases tremendous light according to the formula ...
Math ensued, but at its core Moon Dancer recognized the equation of the ancient philosopher Stony One: Energy equals Mass times the Speed of Light Squared, and then a comparison of the masses of two Watermaker nuclei compared to one nucleus of Sunstuff, with the deficit in the product then multiplied by Stony One's equation, yielding a tiny amount of energy on an equine scale per nuclear reaction, but a titanic amount of energy given the number of nuclei undergoing the reaction at any moment in the Sun. There was of course an adjustment to compensate for the Sunwarp, and a check against the actual amount of energy received at an Astronomical Unit from our Sun.
This is astrophysics, and it's amazing that Crimson grasped the lore so fully, over a thousand years ago, Moon Dancer thought. We know this part of it today, though I notice that he claims the Sunwarp was "imposed" -- what does he mean by that? Would even Celestia be powerful enough to warp the Sun?
Thus, from the Beginning, Gravity and Fusion were like unto Sisters, and that there are Stars that shine, including the Sun, is wholly due to their loving Embrace. And in the Fullness of Time, Stars were Born and did Die, in their Deaths spraying out vast clouds of dust and gas, in which could be found new Elements. For only Watermaker and Sunstuff were produced in the Beginning; it is from the power of Fusion and the Death of Stars that all heavier Elements were Created, including those which make up the Rock beneath our Hooves, and the very substance of our Bodies.
I knew this, Moon Dancer thought, it's fundamental astrophysics, and I took a course in it at the Academy. But I never realized the implications. We -- all of us -- I myself right now in this room am part of the processes by which stars are born and die. Amazing! Suddenly she felt both very small, and strangely very proud.
But when Stars exploded and spread their stuff across the firmament, that stuff was at first thinly sowed, far too thinly to come together again and make new Stars. The Clouds of Gas and Dust fluctuated in regular wave-like patterns, but even at their peaks their Density was too small to allow their Coalescence. So would the Heavens have remained Barren, like a Mare who never found her Husband, were it not for a Natural Process.
For the Gravity of other Stars and of the Dark Matter that invisibly shrouds the Galaxies tugged upon the Clouds in manners so complex as to not be tractably reckoned, creating Dissonance in their simple wavelike structures. And though these forces were applied Chaotically, in their summation there was a higher implicit Order, what the Mathematicians of the Age of Wonders called Strange Attractors, and to these points in Space did the Clouds collapse. And thus from the loving touch of Discord, the Heavens were made fertile, and new Stars born. And as this happened, was Discord Himself also born, and opened His Eyes upon the young Universe.
Wait, what did Penumbra just say? He can't mean ... no, that's not possible!
She decided to suspend this line of inquiry, as she lacked the knowledge to come to any meaningful conclusion. So far.
Thus the Three, this Trinity, were linked most Inseperably, in that aspect of the Universe most important to us, the Creation of the very Stars that Shine, and the Worlds that whirl on their courses. Fusion, and Gravity, and Discord. Wherever Fusion and Gravity went, so did Discord follow, and in his Pursuit created the Galaxies in their billions, and each of them a Conglomeration of billions of Stars. And for a long time in our terms, Fusion and Gravity and Discord, and their fellow Concepts, looked upon a Universe that had neither Life nor Mind within it, save for their own.
But then in the Fullness of Time, as the heavy Elements accumulated in generation upon generation of Stars, those Elements combined into complex Chemicals, and these Chemicals into forms which made more of their own out of the primal Stuff surrouding. And these Living Chemicals formed Creatures, which lived and struggled and bred and changed into new Creatures over Time, causing new Concepts to be born of their Life and Love and Strife. And the day came when, on countless Worlds throughout the Universe, some Creatures opened their Eyes, and looked at the Stars in Wonder. And Minds were born.
Including my mind, thought Moon Dancer, awed. And that of Crimson Quartz. Such a mind! Such vast intellect, such deep understanding! Where did he go wrong?
And the Cosmic Concepts looked upon the emergence of Life and Mind, and they found them Good. But they were confused, for the Concepts -- for all their Scope and Might -- were essentially Simple Beings, ponifications of the Laws and Processes of Nature. And the stirrings to and fro of Life, and the concerns of Mind, were alien to them. And Some among the Concepts were seized by a Hunger to Understand the new Beings.
Most curious of all was Fusion, for Her Force was a complex one. And it occurred to her that, if she could send forth a Part of Herself, and let it be Born into a Living Form, that Part might Inform Her of what it meant to be Alive. And so she did, and with her journeyed her Sister, for though Gravity was but a Simple Concept, She could not be separated from her Sister for long.
And after the Sisters, as always, followed Discord.
18. Incarnations
Fusion and Gravity? thought Moon Dancer. The force that lights the Sun ... and the force that binds the Earth and Moon? As ... Sisters? Dwelling among mortals? Among ... us?
Something dreadful was taking shape within her mind.
Penumbra can't mean ... It seemed impossible.
Can he?
No Pony can say how many Strange Forms, how many Unearthly Lives, this Trinity lived until they came to Our World. Nor, in truth, how many Forms and Lives they took even on this Earth, for the Wise know that Ponies are neither the First nor as of yet the Greatest of the Minds which have dwelt on this Planet and looked out to the Stars.
But I do know when it was that they were born on this Earth, in the forms of two lovely Alicorns, and one unlovely Draconequus, to the Undying Ponies of Paradise Estate in the south-lands called Equestria.
No ... thought Moon Dancer. It can't be ...
You, Brave Reader, will doubtless have heard of them, so great is their Reign and brilliant their Glory. You may even feel for them a surpassing Love, for Fusion did design into the Alicorn -- which is not a normal Kind of Pony at all -- a Charisma which few Ponies can resist, even though it is an Armament She devised so that She and Her Sister might do as they willed among Ponies without Restraint. You may already have guessed their Names by now, for I am sure that any who have read this far into my Work are themselves possessed of Minds most Excellent.
Oh yes, thought Moon Dancer. I know what's coming ...
Nevertheless shall I Name them, two Names I know full well, as full well I know their Bearers in person.
That's right, Moon Dancer realized, with the remnants of her functioning reason. Prince Crimson Quartz took refuge first in the City Foreverfree. He would have met them in person. As a fugitive Prince, he would have been of interest to the Ruling Princesses ...
The Sisters were born to Mimic, an Undying of Paradise Estate. They were seeming Ponies, but in truth inequine Creatures from Beyond. One shone like the Sun, while the other gathered to her the dark mysterious beauty of Moonlight.
And they were given Pony names.
Celestia, and Luna.
Moon Dancer slammed the book shut. Her eyes were huge, her pupils pinpointed, her ears flat back.
She trembled in terror, but knew that there would be, neither by day nor by night, for her no consolation.
She had learned the Truth, and feared it would haunt her for ever.
Moon Dancer was up late that night, her mind in a feverish whirl. She did not want to read any more of that damnable tome, at leat not right away; she could bear no more of its horrid revelations. She tried to read other books, but the histories and biographies of the Imperials seemed trivial, and mere romantic fiction positively puerile, compared to the vast vistas of space and time contained within the Codex of Shades.
What were tales of love found and lost, lovers separated and reunited, when viewed in the light of the mighty sweep of Cosmic events such as those vouchsafed to her by Penumbra? What, indeed, could be the petty comedies and tragedies befalling fictional characters, compared to the all too real Tragedy of Prince Crimson Quartz? She shivered at the thought of how such a stallion might not be able to hate -- or love -- though she dared not pursue that line of reasoning too far.
What were factual accounts of even the most heroic mundane strivings, set against the monstrous hoax that had been perpetrated upon Ponykind? If what King Sombra had written were true, the whole history of Equestria -- indeed, of the world -- was little more than a play, a great outdoor pageant put on for the amusement of inequine alien goddesses, creatues who had seeped down from the stars to experience life in equine forms, for their own unguessable purposes.
But these goddesses were far from the only fountainheads of power. They might be the mistresses of this Universe, but there was another Universe, awaiting on the other side of a barrier more absolute than any wall, yet one breachable by a mage with the will and power, the dark unlife of the Universe of the Night Shadows. They were hostile, to be sure -- but might not their power be used, by a sophisticated sorceress with no illusions about them, to free Ponykind from the domination of the Cosmic Concepts?
So Moon Dancer read on and on and on, dipping deeply into her catalogue of horrors, and learning the names and natures of the terrifying dark shapes with those hateful yellow eyes, whom she had glimpsed in that brief vision, part of which she had purchased at the price of her first kiss, purchased from the stallion-shaped thing that called himself Penumbra. She trembled as she read, because she was learning about dreadful beings; and though she was learning about them from the relatively safe remove of a book, still she shuddered -- for she remembered those glaring, glowing orbs; brimming with both hate, and hunger.
20. Of the Night Shadows
She read of the Greatest Shadows.
She learned of Skleros, the dark crystalline god-thing from whom Sombros had received his super-equine powers, whose dominion was over the angles of space and time, along which he did not so much move as grow, and whose ways were rigid but irresistible. There was a sketch here, of a vast complex crystal tower, much like a loathsome parody of the Crystal Palace -- from the vertices of whose angles peered out numerous yellow eyes.
Moon Dancer shuddered when she realized that it was far more likely that the Crystal Palace had been modeled after Skleros than the other way round, and wondered just how long Skleros had been affecting the Pony world; and she shuddered again when she learned later in the text that some of Skleros had grown already into the veins of crystal near the Crystal City, and in the Crystal Mountains to the north. Was this monster now one with the bones of the Earth itself?
She read of Skloia -- the "sister" of Skleros" (the text here warned that Night Shadow kinship relations were often very different than that of Ponies). Almost a morphological opposite of her brother, Skloia appeared to be a mass of mist or fog, within which twinkled the many eyes that seemed a hallmark of the Great Shadows. She was caustic and toxic both chemically and in some psychic fashion, yet (the Codex warned) had the art of "sweet-seeming" (glykofainimeniki, in the common Crystal-Imperial), the better to seduce the gullible.
Skloia too had a terrible power of infiltration, more horrid because it directly affected Ponies rather than geological formations. She could enter the soul of a vulnerable Pony and implant within her one of her own Eyes, through which she could view the Pony world, slowly corrupt and possibly even take control of her unfortunate victim. Skloia sought out powerful hosts for this spirtual infection, as she greatly valued her Eyes and would not waste them on just anypony.
There was Raknon, which was like unto a webwork of glistening fibers, which at points met and at those nodes manifested its own eyes. Raknon was strange even by the standards of the Shadows, for it appeared to somehow exist at an angle to the rest of spacetime, so that it could perceive pasts and futures with ease, but not so clearly comprehend the events of a more linear time. Raknon was some sort of oracle to the other Great Shadows, and they respected and even somewhat feared it, for they did not understand it very well.
There were some notes scribbled in the margin here: "Advantage over Sisters?" ... "Similar to Paradise Ont?" ... "Iolite might know."
Stigasklavon, the "Scourge of the Slaves," was described as some sort of very large and complex machine, but of frightening intellect and force of will, who traveled as a pattern of consciousness to its destination, where it assembled a new body out of whatever materials it found there, living or otherwise. All its forms were intricately jointed skeletal devices, from the ends of whose members depended numerous whips and other implements of torment.
Its task was to rule the many slave-races of the Night Shadows, of whom the most important were the Psychomekanoi or Automekanergoi (meaning, translated in in Equestrian "ensoulled machines" or "self-directed machine workers") who had been the final products of the great civilizations who had flourished in the youth of the Shadow Universe. These were machines, but so cunningly-wrought as to be able to think and feel and self-replicate, for they had long ago had incorporated within them the panspitha, the very Spark of Life.
Stigasklavon had somehow seized control of the panspitha, and thus rendered the Psychomekanoi its slaves from now until the unguessably-distant end of time. It was a terrible slavery, for only with great difficulty could the Psychomekanoi even die, at least permanently, so all they knew was unending labor in the vast machine worlds they built, the kybertronoi, which drifted from place to place throughout the Shadowverse, building great machines and structures for their lord and master.
There were some notes scribbled in a margin there. One about this being a good system of labor control, and at that Moon Dancer could not but reflect upon the deeds of the Imperator Sombros. Plainly, he had meant to use Ponies in like wise, and slowly transform the Earth into something like a kybertron. The other about some sort of prophecy that a "Goddess From Beyond" would restore to them the panspitha and their freedom.
There were other Greatest Shadows listed; a virtual catalogue of horrors and night-demons beyond Moon Dancer's previous imaginings. There was Parafrosynia, the "Mare of Madness," with whom a mere conversation could reputedly shatter one's sanity. Somehow she had the ability to infest in and breed in one's mind, producing lesser Spawn who would eventually grow to the point of being able to spread themselves in likewise.
There was Minymon, a genderless pattern of electromagnetism, which could infest any Turin-capable machine and reduce its information to random garbage (Moon Dancer was not sure what a "Turin-capable machine" was -- this might have been some of the lost lore of past ages kept in the Crystal Library, but it sounded dreadful). It may have had something to do with machines, for the Automekanergoi greatly feared it.
And, many many more, each in its own way uniquely horrible.
There were the vast hordes of Ordinary Night Shadows, who constantly struggled to rise by climbing over and crushing one another, in the vague hopes of themselves becoming Greater and perhaps even Greatest Shadows someday, or at least useful enough to them that they would have a greater chance of survival, slightly less horrible existences, and more power to harm their rivals. These were always athirst for life such as exists in our Universe, since the energy they could gain by draining it would increase their own status. Beyond that, they wanted to find hosts with whom they might merge and seek out even greater power. Moon Dancer wondered if the Ordinary Night Shadows had been what she had seen in her vision.
Beneath them were the Lesser and Least Night Shadows. The society of the Shadows seemed to Moon Dancer to be a great pyramidal hierarchy, with each level of Night Shadows standing atop many more their numbers in each lower level, and abusing them abominably. It looked to her very much like what Warrior Marks and Peacelord Angels had described as the 'final monopoly stage of investment,' though in no other way did the Shadows seem much like investment bankers and factory-owners, save in that they had the slave-kybertronoi. Each lower level was weaker and less intelligent: the very Least Night Shadows seemed more like trained beasts than Ponies. Probably because the higher levels constantly oppress and drain them, Moon Dancer thought.
Beneath all the Night Shadows, and even their numerous slave-races, were the Shadow Vices. These were to the Night Shadows like contagious diseases, each one amplifying the tendencies toward a particular depravity or sin to irrational levels, and using this behavior to transmit themselves to new hosts. Strangely, though these were mere parasites and despised by the Night Shadows themselves, they were descrbied in terms which made it obvious that they were intelligent, and some smarter than the Ordinary Night Shadows themselves, at least in their areas of expertise. Why, imagine a malicious, scheming cold or flu! thought Moon Dancer. That's what they must be like!
Then, above all the Night Shadows was something truly terrible, something which even the Greatest Shadows trembled before. That was Pan-vaster, the All-Destroyer -- the Shadow Universe's version of the All-Father Himself.
Moon Dancer had cast aside silly superstitions, taught her by her father, when she realized that he was corrupt and false to her mother. But still the thought of an evil All-Father caused her to shudder with dread at the blasphemous implications. According to the Codex, Pan-vaster had somehow slain or driven out or imprisoned the All-Father of the Shadow Universe countless aeons ago, when the stars had still shown brightly, and this had been the climax of a successful rebellion by the Night Shadows in which they had somehow consumed or driven out or replaced the Cosmic Concepts of that continuum. The text was unclear on exactly what had happened, and Moon Dancer suspected that Crimson Quartz himself had not clearly known.
Pan-vaster had somehow slain or imprisoned or raped one of the previous rulers of that Universe, a female entity who was known as the Great Dark, for she was the final darkness to which all which returned. And Moon Dancer shivered at this, for she had read inchoate legends of a similar creature in her own Universe, one whose attention it was not wise to attract, who was known as the Mother of Monsters and the Final Darkness and many other things besides, though the Ponies of the Age of Wonders had called her by a name taken from physics, though they did not imagine her sapient.
Having done so, Pan-vaster styled himself "The Lord of the Great Dark," to emphasize his ability to defeat even the final fate of his Universe. And having done so, he had the power to freeze the ultimate heat death of his Universe at a point short of its completion, a "false entropic maximum" in which the entropic tendency was arrested by means of -- Moon Dancer could not understand the mathematics here -- somehow crystallizing space-time, but in a manner which someow tormented the souls of everything that touched it, including those of the Night Shadows themselves, with this ceaseless torment the price of continued existence. The physics were beyond her.
Even skimming over this quickly -- Moon Dancer knew that she would have to come back and take notes upon notes, and cross-reference with other arcane and scientific tomes -- she could well see that the Night Shadows were evil, evil beyond anything she had ever conceived, and she would be wise to heed Penumbra's final admonition not to trust them.
21. His Motivations?
She wondered why he had so warned her. Did he fear that the Night Shadows would break through and overwhelm the Earth and devour all Ponykind, as was manifestly their intention? Or -- and she knew that she was selfish for hoping that this might figure in the least beyond the more cosmic and universal reasons why Penumbra might not want the Night Shadows to triumph -- was it in part because Penumbra liked her, personally?
She also saw something else. Though the summoning rituals were precise, the bindings seemed less so, and the instructions for contstructing protective circles and casting other wards were downright shoddy. Summonings and bindings were not part of the normal Equestrian magical tradition, but wards were: and the wards suggested had flaws, which a foe might easily exploit if known. Those spells, as given, seemed almost to have been sabotaged.
This disappointed her. To an extent it angered her. Above all, a book should tell the truth. She felt the betrayal of those imperfections, or lies, all the more because of the personal manner in which she had paid for the acquisition of the tome. Surely her kisses were a currency both rare and precious, given that she had only ever issued the single note! She felt cheated ... devalued ... used.
The reason for such imperfections in the book, if intentional, were depressingly obvious. It would be to lead the impulsive or ignorant mage to attempt a summoning, confident in the protection of her spells, but naked in truth before the Night Shadows, unable to prevent them from -- killing her? Eating her? Possessing her?
Moon Dancer suspected the last, as traveling between dimensions simply to kill a summoner seemed pointless, and doing so just to eat one single Pony seemed wasteful of effort. Given how many of the NIght Shadows named seemed to be able to control, enhance, or merge with beings from our Universe -- if she could trust the tome on this -- possession seemed the most plausible goal. A Night Shadow possessing a Pony would, after all, be better able to move undetected amongst other Ponies, and would thus have prolonged opportunities to satisfy its strange hungers and singular thirsts -- or, for that matter, accomplish any other ends.
Indeed, Moon Dancer had no reason to believe that this had not already happened, and repeatedly. It was disquieting to consider that the Night Shadows might be among her own species, their existence unsuspected even now.
Barely more than fifty years ago, the Southern seccessionists had waged war against Equestria, attempting to establish their evil empire. They had been aided, in part, by dark formless beings whose origin and powers were never adequately explained. There were disturbing similarities between the Formless and the Night Shadows, enough that it occurred to Moon Dancer that the Formless may have been Night Shadows, somehow equipped or modified to take tangible manifestation in our dimension.
The Codex of Shades had been penned well over a thousand years ago. It seemed improbable that Moon Dancer was the first magically-adept Pony to peruse its pages; or that none who had done so had possessed either evil intentions, or been posssed by the evil intentions of the Night Shadows. Had the Night Shadows been slowly, insidiously infiltrating Ponykind?
This did not mean that she could not make use of the knowledge -- and power -- contained in the book. It did mean that she should be careful, though, or she might find herself serving the Shadows' ends, rather than they serving hers.
Moon Dancer considered the book. It was unreliable, yes, but it was scarcely the first unreliable source she had ever encountered. She was woefully-innocent of even the most respectable sorts of social experiences with stallions, but her knowledge of books was both deep and broad. In particular, she grasped the discipline of historiography -- the study of the historical origin and biases of writings, and hence the analysis of their reliablility. She could apply these techniques to the Codex of Shades.
To begin with, just who wrote the book?
22. Authorship
The biographical clues in the introduction implied the author to be Prince Crimson Quartz, who had become Imperator Sombros, the "King Sombra" of dark legend, who had become the tyrant of the Crystal Empire, challenged Equestria to a pointless war, and gone down in ignominy, dragging his whole Realm with him to an extradimensional limbo. She knew this to be more than legend, and she had advantages unusual for historiographers dealing with him -- she was sitting in the very capital city from which Sombra had ruled, surrounded by Crystal Ponies who personally remembered his rule, and perhaps his other actions -- such as writing the Codex of Shades. This could definitely help in establishing authorship and provenance.
In terms of provenance, she had received the book from Penumbra -- who in some mysterious way, was neither Crimson Quartz nor Sombros, but was something Sombra had created from the part of him that was still Pony. That statement implied that some, or most, of Sombra was not Pony, at least not any longer. If Sombra was not Pony, then what was he?
Though the Crystal Ponies did not like to talk about him, there were of course, plenty of books and other documents describing what Sombros had looked like, and things he had done before his defeat of the Royal Pony Sisters. Moon Dancer had acquired some of these, and read them in passing. He had been a dark-gray coated, black-maned, red-eyed Crystal Unicorn with a deformed horn -- essentially, a bigger and more impressive version of Penumbra.
But he had been, physically, a Pony -- though an unusually large and strong one, with exceptionally-powerful magic. He had a normal Pony form, with normal Pony capabilities and requirements. And that form had been destroyed by the combined powers of Princesses Celestia and Luna, over a thousand years ago -- though to the inhabitants of the limbo-lost Crystal City, it had seemed like no set duration of time at all, but rather a confusing deep dream.
When the city had returned, and its former ruler attempted to regain it, Sombros had been very different. A vast, roiling black cloud, from which had emerged a Pony-shaped form which could swirl and disperse and recondense, in ways utterly-alien to Pony flesh and bone. The reports she had read had difficulty describing it, but Moon Dancer could well imagine like what Sombra must have looked, for she had seen them in her vision.
A Night Shadow. Based on what the tome had told her, an extremely-powerful one. But then, what other kind would choose a brilliant, capable royal scholar-mage, such a paragon of a Pony as had been Crimson Quartz, as its host?
She believed that she could now reconstruct what must have happened.
Crimson Quartz had grown to stallionhood in the dying days of the decadent Crystal Empire, surrounded by memories of the Empire's former glories. He had yearned to restore those glories, and the Lady Tourmaline had become his ally in this quest -- and eventually also his lover.
But his evil older brother Morion had risen to the throne, and then sought to eliminate Crimson as a rival for his power. He had harmed both Crimson and Tourmaline, and they had fled into Equestria. There they had joined Aventurine, the middle brother, and led an army back to liberate the Crystal Empire, and Morion had fallen.
However, the Empire was too decadent for Crimson's plans to work. He needed more power -- so he summoned the Night Shadows, and bargained with them for power, and became Sombros. But they had lied to him, and they possessed him, and Sombros was the mask worn by a Night Shadow. Possibly, this was also how Princess Luna had become Nightmare Moon.
Moon Dancer saw that to trust the Night Shadows would be folly, for if she opened themselves fully to them, she too would become a Nightmare. But she also saw that they had a power from beyond, a power which was beyond anything she knew in this Universe.
And she -- unlike Sombros -- had been warned in advance.
23. Knowledge Is Power
I have the power here to liberate Equestria from the tyranny of Princess Celestia and the plutocrats she lets appropriate the surplus wealth produced by the workers, Moon Dancer thought. It would be a crime against History itself for me to not use this power to break the chains of the proletariat.
I am highly-intelligent, and I know the dangers. If I proceed carefully, step-by-step, I should be able to avoid falling as did Sombros and Luna before me. Sombros was unwarned, and Luna is really no Pony at all. I am warned, and I am a Pony true, a Pony of the ancient and honorable House Light.
I can -- I must -- I will learn to use this power for good. So I do swear! It is my destiny!
And on this and similarly cheering thoughts, Moon Dancer fell asleep over the Codex of Shades. And if she did not necessarily dream sweet dreams -- at least they were complex ones.
Moon Dancer again awoke in the afternoon, most of the day already spent. It was the second day of her Cycle, when it always hit her heaviest, and it was of course unsuppressed. Her heart was pounding, her face flushed, and her loins itching; her stupid brute body neither knowing nor caring that she was alone and unloved. As far as her Cycle was concerned, she simply needed to find a stallion and mate; it had evolved in ages before considerations of moral integrity, family honor or even complex customs had been relevant considerations.
Things were simpler on the Primal Plains, Moon Dancer thought wistfully, about a past of which she knew purely from having read books theorizing about it -- which was, of course, the way Moon Dancer had acquired most of the contents of her capacious store of knowledge. She was aware of this, but at twenty-one, she did not yet grasp that this constituted any sort of disadvantage.
At least I don't have to worry about wolves, Moon Dancer realized. She was no fool -- the same books of natural history from which she had learned of equine evolution had informed her that the typical mare on the Primal Plains was lucky if she managed to live a few years past the onset of breeding age -- assuming that she survived her dangerous foalhood and fillyhood to get there.
Then, she remembered the Night Shadows. Maybe there still are wolves, she reflected. Bigger and fiercer ones, with deadlier teeth. Then, more happily, But if I am clever, I can turn them against the tyrants who oppress us daily, and then send them back to their forests.
She came completely to consciousness, sat up in bed, blinking blearily. She had awoken from such strange dreams! She wished she could better remember them.
She had dreamed that she was rushing through great gulfs of starry space, and then without the Milky Way, she recalled. And though it had been darker there, it had not been entirely bereft of light, for the galaxies had wheeled about her, their massed Suns shining with the lights of Fusion, dancing in the grip of Gravity, in a marvelous show whose Dissonance only made it the more complex and beautiful.
And yet somehow she had been standing on the main balcony of the Crystal Palace, watching all this, and by her side was a stallion who was sometimes Penumbra and sometimes Prince Crimson Quartz and sometimes, terrifyingly, King Sombra. She could not remember the details; but sometimes, especially when he was Penumbra, he kissed her -- and his kisses thrilled her. And he spoke to her of impossible secrets of space and time, which thrilled her as much, though in a different way.
It was a shame that she couldn't remember the secrets he'd told her.
It had in some ways been a normal Cycle-dream -- Moon Dancer had those rather often, whether despite or because of her complete actual chastity -- she was far from certain of which. The specific origin of the dream seemed obvious: her mysterious encounter with Penumbra, and the kiss he had given her, whether in spirit or reality; combined with the cosmic revelations vouchsafed by the Codex of Shades. And she knew that Penumbra had in some way once been Crimson Quartz, and was in some mysterious way an emanation of the ghost of King Sombra.
She remembered that she had enjoyed the dream -- a lot -- and this may have been why when she woke up she was wetter and stinking even more heavily of marescent than was normal for her even at the height of her Cycle. I'm in no fit state to face society!
Moon Dancer reflected on her situation. In many ways, it was similar to her awakening last afternoon. It was late in the day she would not be able to get much done in terms of book-hunting or library research. Her Cycle had hit, and without suppressors, she felt quite uncomfortable.
But things were different, now. She was not merely wallowing in the hedonistic enjoyment of reading and buying rare books; absorbing and acquiring curious tomes of forgotten lore; ecstatic an activity though that certainly was. Now, she had a goal. Now, she had a greater purpose.
Now, she had a research project.
Moon Dancer smiled to herself at the happy prospect, as she rolled out of bed and padded into the bathroom. Today, she was in no particular rush. She already had her main reference source; while she meant to search for other sources, the Codex of Shades was likely the best and perhaps only work ever scribed upon the Night Shadows, and she suspected that the other sources she might find in this city would be relevant more for an understanding of the basis of magical and technological understanding upon which Crimson Quartz had based his magnum opus.
25. A Failed Past, A Hopeful Future
Wistfully, she remembered her days at the School for Gifted Unicorns, when she had counted as her friend one who delighted in such work every bit as much as had Moon Dancer. If Twilgiht Sparkle were here, she would doubtless be as fascinated by the book as was Moon Dancer herself. Or at least almost as much.
Though -- perhaps not. Twilight had always wanted to stay within the lines, to play by the rules; to make her straight-arrow older brother, the very same Shining Armor who was now Prince Consort of the Crystal Empire, proud of her. And win the approval of Princess Celestia. Twilight would be horrified by the blasphemous implications of the book, by its revelations of dark magic and darker dimensions. She wuld probably tell Moon Dancer that the tome was dangerous, that it should simply be turned over to the Night Watch.
That solution would occur naturally to both of them. They both came of old military families, and they were second cousins through the Nights, whose sons traditionally joined the Night Watch, to the point that the old joke went that the Watch had been named for the family rather than for the time of day. Twlight Sparkle's parents, Twilight Velvet and Night Light, had met while both were Night Watch officers; Moon Dancer's father, Night Dancer, was now a Colonel of the Night Watch, and he had met Moon Dancer's mother, Honey Moon, on a Night Watch assignment.
Twilight would recoil at the notion that her revered Princess Celestia was but an alien horror in Pony form. Twilight Sparkle almost worshipped Celestia. Moon Dancer recalled that Twilight had exulted at even the slightest word of approval from her mentor; despaired at any rebuke from her. There was no way that Twilight would be open to the truth about her ideal of equine perfection.
Even when Twilight Sparkle had been but a schoolfilly, she had already been a favorite of the Ruling Princess. Twilight had actually interned working for the Night Watch, something Moon Dancer had already been offered and had angrily rejected -- though in truth, at that age, sixteen or so, even Moon Dancer had been too naive to reject the offer for sound ideological reasons. Back then, she had acted more out of resentment for her father's infidelity to her mother; and a desire to rebel against him based on her personal moral principles.
Moon Dancer had not yet been aware of the larger social issues. She had not, at sixteen, grasped the extent to which her father's actions were but the invetiable consequence of an inherently corrupt and corrupting class structure. It was in one fundamental sense not really, or at least not wholly, her father's fault.
She wished that she could get him to realize this. But, while Night Dancer was smart, almost as smart as herself, he was in many ways very old-fashioned: self-motivated, self-reliant and extremely honorable, that last part being the reason why Moon Dancer had been so shocked to learn that he had taken a mistress.
He imagined himself the master of his own fate, the captain of his destiny. He would never accept the truth that he was but a pawn of larger social forces. The few times that Moon Dancer had tried to discuss equalist social theory with him, he had dismissed it as "flawed," "unrealistic" and "wishful thinking." He had shown no interest to delve deeply into the thick tomes of Marks and Angel.
This exasperated Moon Dancer, but try as she might to view him as merely an obsolete thinker, of no concern to her, the truth was that she cared very much about him. His betrayal of her mother hurt Moon Dancer all the more because she cared about him. If she hadn't cared about him, she just would have taken this for granted as part of the general corruption of life under capitalism.
But the fact was that Night Dancer was part of the old world -- and, for all that she was actually a year younger than Moon Dancer herself, the same thing was true of Twilight Sparkle. They were neither stupid nor bad -- Night Dancer was in many ways one of the smartest Ponies Moon Dancer had ever known, and Twilight was probably the single smartest Pony Moon Dancer had ever known; and save in very specific areas -- Night Dancer's marital infidelity, and Twilight's own abandonment of her when Twilight saw a chance for personal distinction -- they were mostly good Ponies.
They had very deeply hurt Moon Dancer -- she could not trust either of them any more -- however, they were not evil. They were simply the victims of social conditioning from a flawed, obsolete and in some ways evil system, but their lack of caring was not entirely their own fault. Absolutist, autocratic and atomistic capitalist cultures simply did not encouarge real and meaningful caring for others. Marks and Angel had explained this, in great and fascinating detail, in many long essays and longer books.
Come the Revolution, a new age would dawn, and a better world be born, one in which Moon Dancer hoped that Ponies like herself -- who were very smart, but perhaps a bit unskilled at playing the complex social games needed to survive in a culture where everything and everypony was constantly being bought and sold; in which honorable conduct was at once demanded of daughters and flouted by fathers; where fillies pretended to be one's friends and then traded-up to more-influential allegiances when they got their big breaks. Until then, all Moon Dancer could do was work to turn her dream of Revolution into a reality.
And now perhaps she had stumbled across a powerful tool, with which to effect such change.
26. A Pleasant Bath
Moon Dancer had reached this hopeful stage in her cogitations, when she finished drawing her bath. The heating and plumbing in the ancient but ever-renewing crystal hotel worked perfectly, and now the bathtub was filled with hot water, from which rose warm steam, condensing in the colder air of the bathroom into a thin warm fog. Into the water Moon Dancer mixed bath salts and scented bubble bath she had procured last evening at the public baths. She combined them, added some cold water until the temperature in the tub was to her liking.
Then she stepped into the tub, gasping in slightly-painful pleasure as the deliciously-hot water lapped up her legs, then touched her more than normally-tender teats and engulfed her inflamed privates, as she lay down full length on her belly in the bathtub. The water buoyed her up, and she was half-floating, even with her head fully above and neck mostly out of the water.
For a while, Moon Dancer simply lay in this position, revelling in the sheer sensuous pleasure of the warm water covering almost her entire body. She first couched her head back so that her head was dry while her barrel and limbs soaked in the warmth. She relaxed and breathed in the scented steam. Then, she thrust her head forward and down, submerging it compltely and letting her upper mane soak in the bathwater.
She held her head under for half a minute, enjoying the warmth, then pulled her head up and threw it back, gasping and letting the water stream from her thoroughly-sodden upper mane. She chuckled throatily in pleasure, then rolled carefully and completely over onto her back, floating in that position for a good long while. Finally, she completed the roll until she lay upon her belly, head couched back once more.
She managed to complete this maneuver without splashing too much water on the beautifully-tiled floor, which depicted in mosaic an aged stallion, whom she could not identify, in Imperial regalia. This was possible, because the tub in her hotel bathroom was much larger than Moon Dancer's own back in her home in Canterlot.
I could get used to this luxury, she thought happily, as she floated in the water, all her muscles relaxing and feeling entirely at peace with the world, the warm water lapping at her like the intimate kisses of a lover such as she only knew from books. Pity I can't really afford to live this way all the time, for more than an extended vacation. I reallly like this city: there's something beautiful and timeless here, a world of civility and grace that somehow survived the Age of Wonders. I wish I could stay.
I can't stay, though. Not much longer than another week, maybe two. I'm not really rich; I'm no Fancy Pants: I couldn't maintain the town house in Canterlot and live here, so I'd have to give one up. And my important work, my study of the future of Social History, that I can't do here, only in a major modern metropolis, such as Canterlot or Manehattan. My family has serious money, all I have are a couple of bequests and a trust fund.
All I can do is enjoy this city while I have the time to do so, and perhaps return another season, or another year.
There was one way, of course, that she could gain a fortune. She was unlovely, and unlovable, but she bore the ancient and honorable name of Moon; there would always be some rich parvenu who might overlook her appearance and personality for her ability to gain them an alliance with such an old family. And she was young enough, and virginal, and her children would be full Moons to the name and honors born.
But she rejected seeking such a tie, just as she rejected the possibility of the more casual liasions she might have had with the exotic and mercenary colts of the Crystal City, and for essentially the same reason. To her, honor was a very real thing, and the dream of love not entirely dead within her, even though realistically she knew she would see it realized for her, and Moon Dancer still hoped to find somepony special with whom to dance.
She mused on various thoughts and possibilities, and while she was so musing, she fell asleep in her bath, lulled by the warm waters surrounding her, and fell into a brief slumber.
27. Her Dream
Once again she stood on the balcony of the Crystal Palace, and leaning against her was the dark gray coated Unicorn stallion with the mane black as night and the red, red eyes and the deformed horn. And perhaps he was Penumbra, or possibly Prince Crimson Quartz, or even King Sombra, but whatever he really was, he was not at all hostile. All his body-language conveyed affection, and she leaned happily against him, knowing in her dream a closeness and intimacy and warmth she knew she never would in real life.
And they rushed through the Universe again, and all was a wonder, for she knew that each of the little motes of light that she saw in a Galaxy as she passed it by was a great Sun or cluster of Suns, and that for each star she saw, even at a close approach, there were millions too dim for her perception. And each Sun was the center of its own Solar System of worlds, and many of those worlds were the abode of life, and some of sapience -- of minds as good at thinking as those of Ponies, but which did not think exactly the same.
Her mind was dizzy at the richness and strangeness of the Cosmos.
And this was wondrous, only now she noticed that all the Galaxies around her were also rushing toward her destination, as if they were bubbles of soap-foam on the surface of a bath, and somepony had pulled the drain out, and the water was slopping toward the open drain. And the thought frightened her, for she wondered why this was the case, and if spacetime itself were gurgling into something, what was that something? She had heard of black holes, but this seemed entirely too vast to be any such thing.
She turned toward Penumbra, about to ask him a question, and she flinched, for it was Sombra, and he bore a look of unholy lust on his jagged-toothed face. But it was not directed her, and it was no sexual lust, but rather some emotion entirely inequine and nameless, accompanied by a gloating, savage smile. And Sombra was looking right toward a point of space ahead of them.
And she beheld that this was the point of space toward which all the Galaxies were rushing.
And she looked back, and it was no longer Sombra, but Crimson Quartz. And Crimson Quartz said:
"That, my dear, is the Great Attractor. A diffuse concentration of matter some 400 million light-years in diameter, located some 250 million light-years away, in the direction of the southern constellation Centaurus -- though of course it is much, much farther away than anything that we commonly call "Centauri" or "Centaurus," because it and everything composing it is invisible to equine eyes. Only in the Age of Wonders, when they orbited space telescopes, did Ponies see it, though they did not comprehend what they were seeing."
She looked up again at the Great Attractor. She was somehow automatically aware of the scales involved, and realized that it was actually very close to the Milky Way Galaxy, both compared to its own proportions and of that of the Universe as a whole. She turned back to speak to Crimson Quartz, and found herself looking into the sadder and wiser face of Penumbra, instead.
"The Ponies of the Age of Wonders saw it but could not understand it," Penumbra said. "They guessed that there was an object at the core, something representing a localized concentration of mass some tens of thousands times more massive than the Milky Way. The object was invisible; so they imagined that it might be a tremendous assembly of dark matter, matter which is composed of particles which interact gravitionally but not electro-nuclearly with the rest of the Universe. Some even wildly supposed that this was a place where another Universe, one that could interact with ours only gravitionally, was passing close to our own, affecting us across the brane barrier.
"They were half right," Penumbra continued. "Dark matter was being concentrated there. And the most daring speculations were more right than they knew. For there, at the center of the Great Attractor, our Universe draws very near -- dangerously near -- to another Universe, one almost beyond our comprehension. But I have seen that other Universe ..." he looked into Moon Dancer's eyes, and she saw that his were now glowing red "... and so have you."
She remembered it then ... the memory sharp and crystal-clear. The nighted worlds leered down upon by dead suns ... the planets and less natural objects huddled round the great black holes, throwing matter into the accretion disk like campers slowly tending their fires ... the universe of unlife, in which nothing lived but something moved, something sick and abnormal and alien to all life in our own Universe ... the Night Shadows.
"The Shadowverse," she said in horrified awareness. "The Shadowverse. It's drifting closer to ours, there. Its mass is pulling our dark matter toward the dimensional barriers. But wait ... how is that possible? Isn't it terribly ancient, terribly dispersed?"
Penumbra nodded in approval. "Smart filly," he said. "You've seen the flaw in that theory. No natural processes of the Shadow Universe would concentrate that much matter that close to the point of future contact. No natural processes."
"The Night Shadows?" Moon Dancer asked.
"Yes," replied Penumbra. "Or, to be precise, their battle-kybertronoii. The Servants of Stigasklavon, Great Shadows incarnate. The unicronoii. Armed and sapient, made of supermetals and the size of large terrestrial worlds, able to break up and consume other planets to plunder their resources. The core of an almost-inconceivably vast armada, they are projecting tractor beams to generate the Great Attractor, and to hasten the collision between our continuum and the Shadows' own. They are grappling our Universe, and they mean to board.
Moon Dancer was appalled. She looked at that section of sky with new eyes. Was our Universe bending toward another one there? Did countless yellow-eyed horrors, led by monstrosities bigger than the Earth, wait on the other side to break through and invade our own? "What can we do about it?" she asked plaintively, turning back to her companion.
"Nothing!" said Sombra. "And why should we? The weak serve the strong -- if they are fortunate, as slaves; if less fortunate, as meals.. The Cosmic Concepts of this Universe are weak and silly and torn by a pointless civil war. The Greatest Shadows are strong and purposeful, and they all bow down before Pan-Vaster. The Night Shadows shall win!
"The only hope of Ponykind," Sombra continued, glaring into her eyes with an intensity that was not entirely hostile, but instead seemed terrifyingly earnest, "lies in becoming useful servants of the Night Shadows. They have many servitor races, and some Ponies -- the most useful ones -- can become another. If we are cunning and clever and play our politics right, we may even be counted among their overseeers; the creatures whom the Night Shadows will use to help them subjugate this Universe.
"You should serve them, under me," King Sombra said. "You have a mind of power -- though disgracefully weakened by inhibitions and sentimentality. I shall have a high place on this Earth when the Shadows conquer -- and I shall need competent and loyal minions to help me rule." His red eyes bored into her own. "Understand," he said, "I offer you a chance at life. Most Ponies will not even get that. Serve me, and live ... or defy me, and die!"
She shrank back in terror from his snarling visage, and her hoof slipped, and somehow she fell off the balcony of the Crystal Palace. But not by tripping over the balustrade, which would have been difficult in reality but comprehensible. Instead, she fell up, and sailed right off into the starry void, shrieking in terror.
And as she fell she tumbled over and over and over, and the stars and galaxies wheeled about her, and then she fell through the center of the Great Attractor ...
... into the other Universe, the realm of dead suns and dying worlds, the realm of eternal despair and hatred. And she screamed again and again as the formless ebon horrors, blacker than the void, opened their vile yellow eyes and surged toward her from all sides, manifestly thirsting for her soul ...
"Eirini!" cried the voice of a mare. It was the voice of a mare of at least middle age, but it was a strong voice, strong and confident in its own power. "Pax!" it repeated. "Give unto her peace, and be banished all the terrors of night!"
The Shadow Universe was swept away, and Moon Dancer found herself instead in a featureless white void, facing a mare who was not the mare she expected.
Moon Dancer had feared she would be facing Luna, who had dominion over dreams. Instead, she was in the presence of another mare; one whom she had never seen before, but whose identity she instantly guessed.
She was a Crystal Unicorn, the power of the Crystal Heart spilling across and through her translucent light green coat. Her long, dark green mane was elaborately styled; curled into fractal ringlets and bound up with strings of light blue pearls. She was clad in a dark green stola over a light chiton, her clothing draped elegantly, more beautifully and tastefully than anything Moon Dancer had so far seen in the City. She wore light side-bags, from the half-open flap of one protruding a book and the ends of two scrolls.
It occurred to her that this appearance, that of the true aristocracy which had mostly been banished by Sombra in the City's last decade, was what those left behind in the Crystal City had attempted to ape, and succeeded at copying with indifferent success. For there was a presence to this mare, a sense of ancient honor and unyielding will, which Moon Dancer had not seen yet in the present-day inhabitants of the City, who were of course all those who had managed to survive by submitting to the tyrant.
Yet, if this were whom Moon Dancer suspected it was, she had been the tyrant's most loyal supporter. Though she had not been here at his end.
"Lady ... Tourmaline?" Moon Dancer asked.
The beautiful head nodded to her, and a moment later Moon Dancer bowed low, got her her belly, offering the full proskynesis.
28. The Loyal Lady Tourmaline
"You may rise," the Lady Tourmaline said, and smiled at her as Moon Dancer rose. "Your birth is in truth almost as good as mine, and as for any elevation, you should remember that I was but the eiromene of Prince Crimson Quartz -- never his official Consort."
The easy admission of her status as former mistress surprised Moon Dancer for a moment; it was not the way things would have been put in Equestria. It might have been the sort of thing said in a Fast Set; but Moon Dancer knew that about the Lady Tourmaline, who had gone down in history as the Loyal Lady Tourmaline, there was nothing of the debauchee or careless rake. Quite the contrary: her fidelity was literally the stuff of legends.
It did, however, remind Moon Dancer that she was dealing with a different culture here. It was one of the cultures from which had evolved that of aristocratic Canterlot, but it was not the same one, and its assumptions might in many ways be different, even subtly different in the areas in which they appeared identical.
"Thank you for saving me from falling through the void," Moon Dancer said.
Lady Tourmaline smiled again. Her smile was beautiful, like that of an ancient mosaic brought to life. In her brilliant green eyes were kindness, and warmth, and a certain ancient wisdom, bought at the cost of suffering.
"You were not in truth falling," Tourmaline explained. "'Twas but a dream, as the form you see before you is also but a dream. But in dream I can touch the world of the living, an they have connection to me, and we are of course connected -- through my dearest and most beloved friend -- he who introduced himself to you as Penumbra, but whom I perceive your own keen wit and fine mind have already realized to be Prince Crimson Quartz, he who fell and rose to become the Imperator Sombros. As you also know, I have been dead almost a thousand years."
"Thank you nonetheless," Moon Dancer said. "It seemed real, and I was frightened. I am glad of it ... but why have you chosen to grace me with your presence?"
"In part, for the cause that I like thee, and wish thee well, and would be friend to thee," Tourmaline said, shifting into the more friendly second person familiar."
Moon Dancer thought about a kiss, and wondered why the Lady Tourmaline, of all Ponies, would wish her well, given that ...
"Though I shall admit to thee that I have a deeper purpose," continued Tourmaline. "I am aware that Prince Crimson likest thee well." She smiled wryly. "Do not fear, Honorable Moon Dancer. I am motivated by nothing like jealousy. My mortal life is over, and with it all purely carnal passions. But my loyalty -- that, now, is undying and never-ceasing. Prince Crimson is my dearest friend, and I would rescue him from the trap into which he has fallen, the one from which I could never save him in my life on Earth. And I perceive that this thou mayest do."
"Save Penumbra?" Moon Dancer asked. "How may I do that? He himself called himself damned ..."
"Prince Crimson feels great guilt, and shame for the evil into which he has fallen, the dark deeds he committed as Sombros," said Tourmaline solemnly. "These are worse even than are contained in your histories and dispatches: there is a reason why most of the nobles of this City fled to Equestria, why most of those who remained are no longer to be found, and why most of the commoners are terrified at the mere mention of his name. My dear Crimson cannot forgive himself for these crimes; he accepts his damnation, for he believes he deserves no better."
And you? Moon Dancer wondered, but did not say.
"I too bear guilt and shame," said Tourmaline, surprising Moon Dancer with the releavance of her statement to Moon Dancer's own thoughts. "I was loyal to Prince Crimson above and beyond mine own honor; I helped elevate him to the throne; though I had my misgivings I assisted him in his magical researches and I acted to keep him on the throne of the Crystal Empire. I saw his growing tyranny; I tried by suasion to alleviate the worst excesses of his rule ..." she bowed her head, letting her carefully-dressed mane hang down to partly cover her own face in what must seemed a wholly natural gesture, "... I failed.
"He had summoned a Night Shadow to ride him, thinking it would but bring him greater power to restore the Empire to our former greatness; to bring back the glories of the Age of Wonders. We had shared that dream all our lives."
"But the Night Shadow corrupted and ruled him; it wanted to achieve only its ends, not ours. In the end Sombros became mostly Night Shadow; that part which remains equine and decent and good is what now calls himself Penumbra. And Penumbra now serves the Night Shadow -- but unwillingly, and always searching for a way out from under its control. I believe this to be true, even though Penumbra himself has lost hope of success; even Princess Luna Selena Nyx could not free him, though she tried." Tourmaline paused, reflecting.
"How can he be freed?" asked Moon Dancer.
"Of all emotions, there is one most toxic to the Night Shadows," said Tourmaline, raising her head and fixing Moon Dancer in a very direct gaze. "Love. I speak not here of eros, of mere carnal lust, but of the deeper loves -- of storge and philia, even agapai. Affection, you would say, and Friendship, and Love For All. These are alien to the Shadows, who are creatures of Hate, and when we strongly feel them, they cannot control us.
"Even carnal love, if mingled with these, repels them -- that is why Shadow-Ridden Ponies become sexually cruel, to kill the love which would otherwise harm their masters. That which should bind Ponies together inseparably, instead becomes a scourge with which to drive them apart." She bowed her head again, her ears drooping.
Moon Dancer could not bear to ask the obvious question here, so she remained silent.
"Penumbra was of course sent by Sombros to tempt thee with the promise of power to use for thine own political ends, so that thou mightest admit a Night Shadow into thine own soul, that thee might be corrupted and thou mightest fall into Nightmare, and thus serve the ends of the Night Shadows. But -- something unexpected did happen, something very much not serving the Shadows' design." Tourmaline leaned in toward Moon Dancer.
"Penumbra liked thee. Thou must understand -- Prince Crimson was fascinated by learning, and by books -- he grew to stallionhood within the Great Library, I his mentor and best friend. He likes libraries, and librarians, and he perceives thee as a fellow-scholar. He respects thee, and this respect blocks and mutes the will of Sombros to harm thee. He feeleth for thee the stirrings of Friendship, an emotion which the Night Shadow imagines it has slain within his heart -- but the Night Shadows do not understand Love! It is our one great advantage over them. Friendship is a Magic which they never have mastered and never can master."
Tourmaline's form was beginning to waver.
"I must go!" she said. "I do not know how many of the details thou shalt remember, try writing it down when thou dost awake! But remember this. Trust not the Night Shadows! And return the friendship of Prince Crimson Quartz! I beseech thee to do this! You are his chance for redemption, his radiant hope ..."
29. Back To Reality
Moon Dancer came awake in the bathtub, gasping at the shock of returning to reality. She remembered the whole dream, but as she tried to grasp it all, it slipped out of her aura, details fading and only vague impressions remaining.
There had been the balcony, and the Universe, and then the ... Great Attractor? What was that? A vast hole in space into which everything was falling? And she had fallen into it too.
And been saved by the Lady Tourmaline, a figure of legend and myth, yet part of Equestrian history, and there would have been Ponies in this City who still remembered her well. Still strong in her mind's eye was the lovely green mare, aristocratic and gracious beyond most of the aristocrats she had met in Canterlot, yet caring and kind, intelligent and insightful. Tourmaline had told her, basically, to be Penumbra's friend, that this was the only way of saving him from damnation. And she had said something about ... radiant hope?
Oh, and to write it down.
Moon Dancer remember that last part very well, and it suited her own personal inclinations. She almost leaped out of the tub -- in the process finally wetting the mosaic bathroom floor -- and ran over to her writing supplies.
Manipulating the pen and paper from a distance -- since she was of course totally dripping wet -- she managed to clumsily jot down some notes, before the imminent realities that they represented faded from her mind. She was in the end, left with little other than "Prince Crimson Quartz - Sombra - Penumbra" and "don't trust the Night Shadows" and "Tourmaline" and "help Penumbra - be Radiant Hope."
This wouldn't have made much sense to a third party, but it did to her. As much sense as it was ever going to make anyway.
Moon Dancer then returned to the bathroom, toweled herself dry, and applied her maskers, sighing in relief as her inflamed privates were soothed. She donned the concealing robes the bath had given her, and went about the business of her day.
Yet all the rest of that afternoon and night she could not help but feel that she was being watched -- benignly -- by the brilliant green eyes of the Lady Tourmaline.
