> The Unicorn and the Crow
>  by Foxmane Vulpequus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Part the First - The Jeweler and the Jurist
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


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Chapter One



Evil Under the Sun



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“And that,” said Frost Pane, Frei dowager of Trotheim, “is the dozy, trumbly sort of town where nothing happens and the high houses are proud. They sleep all the day and sing all the night. I shall hate it, Rubyk.”

Rubyk, Lord Aktur of Trotheim, said nothing. It was a very full silence. His eyes followed the forehoof pointed in accusation toward the shoreline of the little town of Currycape, drinking in the sight as his nostrils drunk deep of the salt spray of Equestria’s South Seas. The white fur of his choker hedging a large onyx stone blowing in the wind was as eloquent an answer to the old mare’s protests as they warranted. It was not as though they had not been given voice by tens and clink-scale dozens, like the desperate merchants of the Jeweler’s District crying out their wares. Why did they do it? And why cheat the common folk with shaven weight and tilted scale? Why but that it was in the nature of things, just as surely as Celestia in her castle must raise the sun anew each day? – So it was with the old mare. She complained because she must, because it was the only song she knew.

And yet her eyes told a different story. They were full of the little dark dots of the Ice Sickness, where blood had pooled around the persistent black ice that entered into a unicorn’s body like a shadow and froze whatever it touched, killing off where and whatever she could not any longer keep warm under her own power. But the Freiof Trotheim’s eyes were fuller yet of relief. Her foreleg quavered, unsteady from the cold-shakes even as Frost Pane held it out to condemn the decadent little town of the decadent ponies of the decadent Southerlands. It was all a ritual, repeated like the first frost after the harvest, because it was just to be done. And, now done, Frost Pane, proud Frei of Trotheim, sank with a sigh of pleasure and an unsteady, rheumatic shake into a deck chair to await the docking of the ferryboat Merdoe in the harbour.

Rubyk still continued to say nothing and let the sea-breezes sweep his mane and choker with an air of aloof, highborn detachment. It was an habit of long years. Frost Pane snorted at it.

“Oh, frost your fetlocks, boy, and come away from there. Whom are you trying to impress?” the Frei said with a sneer. “It is a far many miles between you and the bench of Never-Melting Ice. Glowering at that coast will not bring it to you any faster.”

Rubyk’s ears and eyebrows raised up slightly, and he turned back to face the old mare. “Impress?” he said in a voice without much of the habit of personal warmth. It carried a timbre of the courtroom, the medical office, the morgue, but which was surprisingly soft coming from one of the tall frames of the noble unicorn clans of Trotheim. “No, grandmama; I am not trying to impress anypony.”

“And what do you mean to call it, boy of my daughter’s flesh, when you look ready to stamp your hoof and order all those rows of vain little houses on yon shore to appear in your dock?”

“I call it brooding.”

“By all Celestia’s undying spite! Not that sooth-scryer’s babblings again!” Frost Pane grumbled, sinking back into her deck chair with a sigh.

“Yes. By that same. Shinedeep does not See into the Aurora often, but I have never yet known an oracle of him to lead me astray. You remember that he was the pony who Saw the hiding-hole of that rat of a Chancellor who despoiled Papa of his gold. I could not have pleaded that low-born thief’s goal before the Never-Melting without that insight – it is a power beyond the ken of any unicorn. I suspect it is a gift of the Lonely God himself who did not see fit to make another alicorn.”

“You drive yourself to sickness!” Frost Pane snapped, the scolding coming from her mouth with all the vicious suddenness of a sleet-storm. “You turn your horn in and pierce through your own brain over this crock of rack and ruin and naught-sense! Tell grandmama, then: what does it mean, this Aurora-touched raving that tosses my grandfoal’s head like the thrashing of a fish?”

Rubyk closed his eyes and began slowly, deliberately, to recite.


Blood is spilt beneath Luna’s light



Seven to spill, but six to hide



Five cunning looks, four keep their nerve



Three coals in the cloak,



Two to smoulder



One to burn bright –



Quenched in blood not blameless


“Belly gas from a frost-touched earth pony dirt-scrabbler! That was no Seeing! It is as vain as an horoscopist’s scribblings and a twitch-augur’s ramblings! Words that mean nothing could just as well be a foal’s poem. And you, boy, you know that better than anypony. You disgust me!”

“Maybe,” said Rubyk, and shrugged.

“And you cannot know that babbling was meant for you!” accused Frost Pane, bringing her forehoof down upon the deck chair. The light and weathered pine cracked beneath it, and a thin rime formed upon it where her hoof had struck for only a moment before it was wicked away by the summer sun.

“Perhaps not,” agreed Rubyk, turning back to the shoreline.

“It has nothing to do with you or now or here! Impossible boy!”

“That is possible,” was all that Rubyk said. Frost Pane gave a cry of fury and stood, shaking, on her four hooves – but not from weakness. With a scream like that of a wild thing from Equestria’s untrod glaciers, the Frei of Trotheim took up the deck chair in her power and, horn aglow with crackling violence, hurled it into the ice-blue waters below.

“I go to drink before we land!” the Frei announced, regally. “Rubyk, you take care of that!”

“Yes, grandmama.” But the tall, very tall pony from Trotheim only frowned deeper in thought as sound of the old mare’s trot faded into the lapping of the waves.


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Chapter Two



The Hotel of the Shattered Past



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From the moment she had laid eye on the Trotheim ponies aboard the Merdoe, Madeleine Crumpet knew that this trip to the South Seas would be… call it more lively than her others. Among the tourists and socialites aboard the little luxury liner doing ferryboat duty, they stood out like carbuncle amidst chalcedony. She resolved then and there not to let them escape her – not for anything.

Not, she mused, that this was particularly difficult, so far as resolutions went. Towering over everypony else on the ferry as one of the Princesses might have done had the royal sisters taken a shine for a tropical vacation, one would be hard-put to miss them if she tried. The industrious little pony in Madeleine’s head had already set about categorizing them into the mental dossier (rarely used) marked “Interesting”:

Mare, unicorn pony. Pale-green coat, platinum mane. Obviously moneyed. Huge. Not entirely unattractive for a nag, but ill. But overall effect is… grotesque.

As for the other:

Stallion. Very MUCH a stallion. Unicorn pony. Tall, TALL specimen, with a singular icy blue-grey and cobalt mane. “Streaked through with the rich purple of darkling twilight.” I say, that’s not half-bad. She was proud of her little pony for that one. And both had the Northland eyes shot right through with gleam and facets of a well-cut sapphire. They were rich, they were handsome, they were terrifying, and they were the most likely customers she was likely to see for a while. The stallion even seemed to be one for jewelry himself, what with the onyx-stone choker about his trunk of a neck and the strange metal cube that depended from that same neck on a chain whose silvery links were each as fine and finely-wrought as a snowflake. She would just need to wait for the most… call it an opportune moment to make her introductions. Her mind whirled with the possibilities.

What were such ponies doing in the South  Seas? What did the Equestrian tropics offer that the high-spired palaces cut out of the long-silent glaciers and gloomy mountains and ancient pine forests did not?

A scandal: surely a scandal drove them off! – those were the gossipy whispers, but nopony ever approached them to ask. The stallion’s cold air kept even the most gregarious socialite at an healthy distance.

But that only made them more fascinating.

And so as the Trotheim ponies exited on the gangway of the Merdoe, standing horn, head, and withers above the common crowd, Madeleine kept a fascinated eye upon them without trouble. The captain of the key-hopping schooner, a buck of the tiny Clavia deer that made their home in Currycape and the surrounding islands, raised his shrill voice at the two giants, gesticulating wildly. Little sparks like stars visible in the daylight crackled at the tips of his antlers, and he stamped at the floor to punctuate whatever demand he was making, which Madeleine could not hear for the hum and clamor of too many bodies in too small a space. The stallion sighed and magicked something out of his rich, greyhide saddlebags and hung it on the irate little seabuck’s antlers. Her ears raising, Madeleine saw that it was a ring – and what a ring! An unalloyed gold band holding a Marquese-cut emerald glinted deliciously in the light. It was obviously a piece of no small value. And, with just a hint of the dry tang of coveting in her mouth, Madeleine saw that the captain knew it too. The deer captain stuttered just a few words, frowned, and waved them on their way with an impatient hoof – mollified, but evidently no less annoyed.

How queer! Madeleine mused. So, they were the jewelry sort of ponies after all! One would do well to keep an eye on such ponyfolk. She might well see much more interesting things.

And so, one did. With a smile at the captain, toting her saddlebags and a train of suitcases a few inches above the ground by her magic, Madeleine Crumpet kept at a comfortable distance behind the pair, who moved through the usual harbour bustle with the ease of sheer intimidation. The crowd of milling tourist ponies and deerish dock-workers parted before them like waters before the prow of a ship, and Madeleine Crumpet (and Madeleine Crumpet’s bags) walked easily in their wake. The old mare’s pace was slow, and grumbling with every hard-fought inch, she occasionally had to lean on the younger stallion due to a stumble brought about by one of her spindly knee-joints not working quite as it ought on the downstep of her trot. Each time this happened, she would cover up her thanks with snap and fuss, but each time she gratefully accepted the stallion’s helping shoulder to right herself. They repeated this cycle as they made their way along the dock and past the hawking market-stalls, ignoring the beaded kitch foisted on a new herd of mainlanders fresh from the ferryboat, whose mouth-cameras were already click-clicking with tasteless avidity. The two giants would have none of it as they moved with purpose eastward down the waterfront street, past the close-built structures with Hippolytan columns covered in chalky whitewash and walls of blinding solid colours, all topped by the quaint terra-cotta roof panels sloped to drive the rain from the odd scheduled storm back into the ocean.

They passed the Currycape government offices (which were really only another house, this one in an awful, emphatic magenta), then the dragonfire post to the mainland, then the town hall and its ricketed clapboard belltower, until at last it became obvious that they were making for the long causeway running east into the ocean waters. A dull-grey pegasus in a wind-weathered newscolt’s cap and a close-cropped mane and tail the colour of sandstone raised his voice over the din of the hoof-traffic of ponies and the petite Clavia deer upon the cobblestones.

“Last call! Last call for a cart to Hotel Clavia ‘ore the tide comes in! Last call – repeat, last call!” he bellowed, without a break, and with scarcely a pause for breath. The locals on the streets simply ignored the pegasus’ urgent clamor with neither a nod nor a glance or folded their ears and walked by with a grimace at the volume. Several of the earth pony tourists fresh off of the ferryboat came at a gallop down the waterfront, camera straps flying, saddlebags flapping. But the two tall and stately unicorns approached the pegasus crier deliberately and in no great hurry. Madeleine followed close behind, stifling a snort of a laugh at the contrast between the types they represented.

“-last call! Repeat, last call for those bound for the Hotel!” the grey pegasus continued, eyes going wide as he appeared to count the number of ponies stampeding toward him.

“We are going to the Hotel Clavia,” said the stallion in a voice barely above a whisper. “I will see to grandmama’s bags myself; do not trouble yourself.”

The pegasus jerked his head toward the giant, startled into a choked garble of sounds that were almost words. Whether this was more due to the sudden appearance of the two in his field of vision, or their actualappearance was difficult to say. “Er – yes – please… of course… happy to aid in your convenience in any way, uh… chief!”

The stallion nodded and the old mare snorted their thanks, and the stallion lifted their few bags into the rear of the cart while the old mare climbed in, drawing her legs onto the thin cushions on the wooden bench. She amply filled the space that would normally seat three adult ponies or a married couple with a cadre of tight-packed foals. The stallion did likewise, filling another such space even more thoroughly – almost comically.

That left only one row for the last lucky ponies of the last call. Madeleine, ever the fortunate mare, smiled the smile that she knew worked so well on this particular pegasus and turned her hips in just this way to catch his roving eye. The pegasus flushed a rosy quartz right below his eyes and, after he removed his hat with a respectful doff, his ear-tips as well.

“Delighted to see you again, Rock Skipper! Still in dear old Largo’s harness, I see,” said Madeleine, her melodious voice coloured by a hint of silvery laughter tastefully suppressed.

“M-Miss Crumpet!” stammered the pegasus called Rock Skipper. “G-glad to… that is… you’re on business here in Currycape again? None of the staff told me!”

“Now what kind of a greeting is that, Skipper? I thought I taught you better than that. But see to my bags first, if you’d be so dear, and we’ll see to your education later.”

More blushes and bungles followed, and Madeleine smiled as she entered the rear of the cart, studying her newfound interests in the front. As Rock Skipper hefted and fumbled her bags, voices among the clamoring ponies behind her, winded and desperate, called out:

“Stop! Stop for me! I’ve a very important appointment…”

“But I was to have lunch at the hotel with…”

“Wait, wait for me –”

“One side, one side! I’m already late!” By the sheer inertia of two earth ponies carrying heavy saddlebags, a mare and a stallion wearing identical citrine cabochons as wedding earrings pushed their way to the fore like tumbling boulders. The mare dropped her saddlebags in one smooth motion and staked their claim to the final bench with a leap and a graceful landing. Her husband flung their baggage into the rear before a gallery of judging, glaring eyes, while she smiled that smile of a socialite forced into a minor embarrassment, but who would bear it with philosophic grace. Madeleine thought that it looked about as genuine as a pyrite.

Rock Skipper rubbed at the back of his head with an hoof. “Er – last call… I mean – uh… carriage is full, folks! The Hotel Clavia apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause you. And… um… we will be running the shuttle-cart again after the tideswell passes over and the Princess starts the afternoon proper. Thank you once again for choosing the Hotel Clavia for your stay in Currycape, and I… uh… I’ll see you again shortly.”

Amid a cloud of complaints and the odd slander against his parentage, the husband vaulted into the cart and sat down beside his wife. Madeleine took in the couple with a glance, setting the little pony in her head to sorting and categorizing them into the rather broader categories of “Potential Customers” or “Not Very Interesting”.

Mare, earth pony. Age, early-middle, maybe 35 years at the outside. Cream-orange coat, teal mane, bob cut, worn short – obvious city lifestyle. Celery stalk cutie mark. Agricultural talent? Maybe ashamed of talent? – Flatter looks, status before skills. Easy sale if you watch carefully.

Madeleine turned her attention next to the husband. Stallion, earth pony. Also early-middle age, about five years older than the wife. Dark green coat with a… yellow undertone? Not unlike bile, really – pine-green mane in that slick Manehattan pomade of the business classes. Mark is… some sort of green citrus? Also agricultural? Muscles lithe but well-developed under coat – at least part of trade is physical. – Not a likely sale. Don’t waste your breath on this one, girl.

And so, like a marskmare raising a scope to her eye, Madeleine donned her most winsome smile and fell into the easy patter of talk about little things with the couple, never quite removing her eye from the more interesting travelers in the first carriage benches.

Rock Skipper finished the last knot tying down the baggage in the carriage rear, cinching the rope tight in his teeth. The pegasus folded his ears at the imprecations coming from the tourists and travelers too tardy and too timid to force their way, and he hurriedly yoked himself into the harness at the cart’s front.

“And we’re off, good ponyfolk! Thank you again for choosing the Hotel Clavia for all your luxury experiences on beautiful Currycape!” Rock Skipper said with a cheeky tilt of the hat. Then he shot off like a slingstone over the long causeway connecting the main island to the small one from which a single building rose, lone and glittering rosy in the tropic noon. With a flash of green, the smooth-polished emeralds in the yoke and cart harness were suddenly kindled to a gleam that pierced even through the high sun, and the rear carriage rose up an inch or so off of the ground. The ride was smooth for the passengers, and soon the only sounds aside from their voices that they could hear were the wind at their backs, the lap of the waves at their sides, and the clip of Rock Skipper’s hooves upon the stone..

“Rubyk, what is that stone there? Down there?” the great old mare in the front said suddenly, gesturing suspiciously at the causeway coursing beneath them. The stallion, apparently called “Rubyk” (what an exotic name! thought Madeleine with a twinge of glee) contrived to shrug while sprawled across a bench.

“Driver, what is that stone beneath your hooves?” the stallion repeated to Rock Skipper, who now moved at an easy trot. For a moment, the only answer came from the click-clock of hoof on masonry and the lapping of seawater just beginning to crest the top of the causeway. Only after a pause just long enough to make one wonder if she ought to cough to make herself heard did the pegasus answer with a small start.

“Sorry! Didn’t know that was you rightway, chief!” said Rock Skipper. “You mean, why is the causeway built like it is?”

“That is exactly what I mean.”

“Glad to tell it! It’s part of the history of Currycape here, which I figure most ponies out of these islands like as much don’t know much about. It was built by the native folk of these keys and islands in those days before the good Sun and Moon started to rule all the kinds of ponyfolk you’ve got up North.” (“Hmph!” the old mare huffed.)

“Anyhow,” continued the pegasus, “the deerfolk that lived here in those days were small, and they still are, but they could use magic sure as you and your grandmarm can, chief, and they were right geniuses working with what they had! Look close at those stones down there or just about any building on the islands built in the old days and you’ll see they’re really just a sort of conglomerated mish-mosh of whatever the old deer could get their hooves on. This road we’re on here is really just all the bits of pots and jars and rubble from the sea raids that they had to deal with.”

“Why is it built so low?” the old mare demanded. “Why am I getting wet?”

“Oh – erm… sorry,” said Rock Skipper. He unfolded his wings partly, and the rear of the carriage rose several more inches above the lapping of the incoming tide. The pegasus quickened his pace, the tide soaking his fetlocks with each fresh wave. He began again with just an hint of recitation. “Back when Equestria was not so peaceful, all of the tribes competed for resources. The earth ponies living on the south coasts of the mainland were longboat sailors and eventually started raiding down south here in the islands when the lean months came on. The Clavia got wind of the raids coming down from the coats and built traps for the ships around natural harbours to scuttle the Equestrians’ longboats. If the boats saw it, they would go around to the far side of the island and give the Clavia time to muster the militia. If not… well, there’s more than few wrecks down below here.”

“Clever!” the old mare said, approvingly.

“Oh, they’re a brilliant people, ma’am, if you live here and get to know them! I’ve heard so much of their history from our hotel’s proprietress. The Clavia tend to just call her ‘the mistress’ as she tends to know more about them than they do! You would hardly believe some of the stories –“

“Beg your pardon,” said the socialite husband, coughing once. “But you wouldn’t have happened to carry a certain pony today – earth pony stallion, big-boned, old, dirty coat? If not today, then perhaps yesterday?”

“Oh! Er… no, sir. I don’t think… I can’t say I remember anypony like that. I’ve seen plenty of ponies coming to the hotel, but it’s been all young couples and families so far as I remember,” Rock Skipper stammered. The pegasus panted, raising the cart height as high as he could without taking to the air himself. His hooves splashed noisily in the rising tide.

“Oh. Well, it is hardly the first time. How very usual for a pony like him,” said the socialite. There was a bitter edge to the word that made Madeleine turn her head and give him a re-appraising glance. Interestingly, the tall Rubyk did so also.

“Perhaps he may yet arrive on the island before the end of the day?” added his wife.

“Today, tomorrow, or perhaps the next week? Maybe he’s taken his money for a cruise to Griffinstone with a fresh bag of arm-candy for all I care.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case,” she added, soothingly.

“I am not.” The stallion lapsed into a terse silence and the mare drew back, a little hurt crease etched beside her comely eyes.

Perhaps madame might benefit from a bit of mare-to-mare time away from monsieur later. It may prove profitable for the both of us, mused Madeleine.

His coat just glistening with the first hint of lather, Rock Skipper began to beat his wings to raise both himself and the cart above the rising waves the cover the last span of the causeway. Madeleine looked to him with a touch of concern.

“Are you quite alright, Skipper?” she called out.

“…I’ll have you at the hotel in a moment, Miss Crumpet,” was all that the pegasus managed to gasp out. After perhaps a minute more, Rock Skipper had brought them out of the rising waters and up the final slope to the Hotel Clavia, and to her glorious front walk and gardens.

The Hotel Clavia… her proprietress surely ran a tidy ship. In all of her travels, Madeleine Crumpet had stayed in finer hotels fit for old nobles and the ostentations of the neauvelles riches, but none that were so honest as the old shell-and-sand brick fortress converted long ago into a place for tourists to rest their hooves and wash the sea-spray from their manes. Like their forebears, the Clavia of the present day took a swelling, family sort of pride in their own hoofwork standing lone and fearless like a watchman with face set firm toward the sea. Thus, no scars from battles in deep history were allowed to mar its handsome sandstone masonry. But now where gate-charms and wary sentries had once stood to greet the weary messenger of war, there faced gardens of palms and luxuriating orchids, hedges fine topiary, of Hippolyta and her train of mermares, of noble deer bucks and dainty does, all lining a polished walk of white marble streaked with veins of stark azure running up to the doors. Enchanted water-channels flowed at its sides, running cold and impossibly clear like a mountain spring from the fountain of marble and sparkling glass fantastically commingled like the truth and pretty lies of a fairy-story standing in the middle of the marble path, watering both the gardens and the thirsty traveler.

No traveler was so thirsty as Rock Skipper. As soon as the pegasus had loosed himself from the carriage and left Madeleine and the company sitting haphazardly on the gleaming walk, he fluttered weakly to the water-course and dipped his muzzle in up to his eyes and drank desperately.

“Driver!” said the society mare. “What on earth do you mean by –”

But Rubyk, the silent giant in the front, rose with enormous dignity, cutting off the protest. “He thirsts,” he said in the same whispery voice. The reproof was like a slap to the mare, and she glowered at him – but, perhaps wisely, said nothing more to the unicorn, whose very presence asserted an unspoken authority.

“Well!” said the mare. Then, as if throwing out a cutting retort, she repeated herself (“Well! One supposes that one must make allowances…”) and dismounted from the skelter-parked carriage, her line of sight never quitelooking in the direction of Rubyk. Her husband gave a sigh, and followed after her up the marble walk. He paused, then turned to Rock Skipper, who only just was raising his head from the water-channel and added, “driver, you will see to my wife’s bags, won’t you? And mine? I will see to your tip then.”

“Y-yes, sir!” the Rock Skipper stammered, lifting up his head.

“And our bags, we will see ourselves! This fellow, I like him. He has done more than enough to draw us and give us a silly war-song. Silly ponies like him deserve their reward!” The old giantess barked each word like a Captain of the Royal Guard issuing orders to a new recruit, with all the tender foundation of a belly-laugh. “Rubyk! You get our bags!” She stepped down from the carriage without even a bit of a drop.

“Yes, grandmama,” said the younger. Rubyk’s eyes and horn were surrounded with an icy light that cut even through the tropical sun and the white marble gleam, and he picked up the entire contents of the luggage cart in his magic. He began to follow after the old mare when Rock Skipper raised an hoof and choked and stammered to “wait, hold just a moment, please!” With eyes gleaming like a grand mage in tales of the old sorcery, Rubyk turned and said simply:

“Yes?” The voice was like the thunderclap of a calving glacier.

“I… uh… um… that’s my job!” muttered Rock Skipper. Rubyk regarded him for a moment, eyes ablaze with the inner fire of a snowdrift… and smiled.

It was a genuinely warm smile that came from this proud giant, a thing that should have seemed odd on the face of it (or, rather, on him). But Madeleine saw that this was a bit of presumption that came perhaps more from craning her neck to look up at the pony than any cause in himself. In spite of the obvious pride of bearing about Rubyk and his “grandmama”, there was no guile or meanness in this stallion – no vulgarly proud pony smiled that way.

Just who are you, my dear tall Rubyk?

“You are a funny fellow, friend pegasus,” Rubyk announced, letting his magic lower the various baggage to the ground. “When one stronger than you, who already owes you a debt, offers you help when you are much spent, you still refuse him. You refuse to let your own duties that which can truly be called a pony’s own, pass from your hoof into that of another. I call that noble.” Rubyk trotted until he stood towering over Rock Skipper. The pegasus rubbed at the back of his cap with a forehoof.

“Well, thanks chief. I can’t say I’ve ever really thought about it that way.”

“Consider it certain. Now, friend pegasus…” Still wearing that smile, Rubyk began to pile suitcases upon Rock Skipper, binding them tight with magic until his knees trembled. Yet this still did not amount to even half of the bags. “Now, see! You have all your duties laid on you, and more besides. And what is it to you if a friendly guest should take on himself that which is not laid upon you? Up! Up, and see to your duty!”

“Sure thing, chief…” said Rock Skipper, with a bit of a wheeze, and the two made their own way up the marble walk. Not quite containing her laughter, Madeleine followed.

Passing through the great door that was more like the portal of a Canterlot palace than of an hotel, Madeleine was greeted by the familiar scent of the native tiny limes muddled with sea spray and a dark, wood resin base note. It was another creation of the proprietress, a sort of olfactory signature for a breathing work of art such as the Hotel Clavia was. And she never tired of telling about that art and passion of hers that was this old hotel – as she was even now doing to a captive audience consisting of the socialite couple and Rubyk’s “grandmama.” The unicorn stallion stood aloof from the group, listening to Rock Skipper chatter on about island trivialities as the pegasus checked and sorted the bags. About the huge foyer that once served as a grand meeting hall and a place for the olden Clavia to make their last stand against their warlike foes (for Madeleine had already heard this speech and its explanations and praises and digressions many times), modern deerfolk in the employ of the hotel moved with quiet grace, changing carafes of iced lime-water, refreshing the pots of hot coffee and lemongrass tea for arriving guests, moving carts and bags wrapped in glinting, starry magic that defied the eye to look upon it, and upon them.

Madeleine was one of the few who knew the trick of it, and so she was the only pony – well, other than the hotel’s proprietress, who missed nothing, and saw everything – that took note of the tiny Clavia buck in a tuxedo who spilled a pitcher of water and began a wide-eyed search for a towel like a sight-gag in the background of some maudlin serial play. She smiled.

Oh, Doctor. Don’t you ever change, you hear?

All the while, the proprietress, a petite earth pony mare with a seafoam coat, coral mane, and a sort of triangular prism for a mark named Miss Largo, for she was one of those ponies with an honorific irrevocably bound to her person, continued her patter of historical facta. The misdirection was flawless. In spite of themselves, the Manehatten couple could not entirely dull the glint of genuine interest in their eyes, and “grandmama” drank in the passion of the speech like a traveler in Saddle Arabia coming on a desert oasis.

“…the Clavia were and still are such a clever folk, such a brilliant people, you must know. If ever one visitor to my establishment and our island ever comes to realize that, why, I will consider my life’s work here and all of Equestria’s debt to the deerfolk paid in full. Practically nopony on the mainland will ever tell you that something as mundane as glassblowing probably wasn’t developed by the Earth pony tribes, as we should all expect from our textbooks with the Royal imprimatur. …Ah! I see that you know the ones that I mean. The tribes only ever bungled the art, like everything else we ever stole from the deerfolk in those dim days at the dawn of the world.” The proprietress paused for effect and looked toward her audience with a conspiratorial glance.

“Why, Miss Largo!” exclaimed the socialite wife, in perfect rhythm. “Do you really mean to insinuate that Princess Celestia would allow a lie about the history of our people to be taught to all the foals of Equestria? I am stunned that you could be so bold to a guest coming under your own roof! Haven’t you any pride in Her who makes the sun to shine?” Although she put on a good show of being scandalized by the proprietress’ words, this rejoinder struck Madeleine’s ear as decidedly flat, without any real heat beneath it. It was something like the difference between a trombone played by a living pony and one synthesized out of magic pulses by a unicorn DJ.

Miss Largo shrugged. “Maybe when she sends back the chandelier in her private dining rooms at the Palace – and believe you me, I had a good, long look at it when I was on the house staff there in another life – I’ll learn to blush, but not until then. Take a good look around here,” she said, sweeping a forehoof toward the ceiling to indicate the light fixtures depending from the high ceiling by glossy threads, fine as gossamer-silk. They resembled nothing so much as clear or frosted-glass deerfolk antlers in soft hues of every conceivable colour, fused at the roots by a master glasswright. Their ends came to fine points on which glittered a single point of starlight, dancing like a joyful angel. Madeleine chuckled; oh, she knew this bit of the presentation well. Those chandeliers tended to take a pony’s breath away if she allowed herself to really see them for any length of time, and they did not fail now. Even “grandmama” raised a single eyebrow in begrudged approval.

“These are originals,” Miss Largo went on. “All of them, from the days before the war. Where are the artifacts from earth pony hooves, the art of a golden age long past? – dust, all dust, or a rotted-out stump of a spear, or an helmet nopony can now wear, or a thing that with a little imagination might have once been a sword or an hoof-axe. All that is left of our past is in boxes and under glass in museums run by unicorns, and I say let it moulder! For while we were fawnnapping among the deerfolk and pioneering the art of making war, this peaceful folk were building this –” she turned a circle and swept her hoof now to indicate the whole of the Grand Foyer – “and making those –” she indicated the chandeliers with a proud flourish – “and all they wanted was to be rid of the violence that came from us. We owe them a debt, Mrs. Orange, one that I have spent my whole adult life trying to repay.” (Ah! thought Madeleine. She filed the name away in her orderly mental dossier; thinking of them as “the socialites” had been getting tiresome.)

Miss Largo lowered her hoof and paused again, then gave a little laugh in her musical contralto. “Ah, do forgive my nerve. I only try to let the truth about history be known, as… unpleasant as it can be at times. Mr. and Mrs. Orange, Frei Frost Pane, Aktur Rubyk of Trotheim, please enjoy your stay and the hospitality of the Clavia to the uttermost, and if you should find yourself in need of anything, I will move the stars to see it done.”

“Rubyk!” barked “grandmama,” whom Madeleine realized had both a name and a proper title as Frei Frost Pane of Trotheim. Like a window shattered by an errant snowball, it suited her. “I like this mare! We do not see ponies with such long memories so often. Ask her something!”

“Yes, grandmama,” said Rubyk, who stepped toward the group, looming like a tower over the Clavia about their work. He cast his eyes up as if in faraway thought for a moment, then said slowly and precisely, “what of jurisprudence, Miss Largo? How did the bygone Clavia deal with the criminals of peace and war among them, whether of their own or those held captive as spoil?”

“My, my… it is not often that one hears such a perceptive question,” said Miss Largo. The proprietress smiled, instantly warming to the topic.

“You ask about deerish justice,” Miss Largo went on, beginning to ambulate about the chairs and tables of polished teak, seemingly moved as much bodily as in her words by her passion for the subject. “I tell you truly that in this they have excelled us as much as in any other way. Consider how the legal system of Equestria became fat and corrupt even as early as the generation that first penned the Tri-Pony Compact. Today when somepony has a case to appeal, he writes a long letter to the Princesses, who may or may not ever read it, then spends months waiting for a trial date, then he pays aircart or train fare to travel to the capital, then he waits at the end of a docket of petty nobles’ cares and squabbles for his own three minutes to have the Princess’ ear. That’s all – three minutes’ worth of seconds and as many heartbeats to make himself heard in the halls of justice. And then it is all over, all he is told to pay the clerk to fill up the Royal coffers on his way out, and he leaves as hollow as the whole process.”

The eyes of the gathered pony guests, and even some of the Clavia in the foyer, were magnetically drawn to the seafoam mare as she paced about, almost singing her velvety, impassioned panegyrics. She came to rest beside the Clavia buck who had upset the pitcher and laid an hoof on his back. All of the other ponies but for Madeleine started a bit as the little deer seemed to snap into sharp focus for the first time.

“The justice of my Clavia is not – and never has been – anything like pony ‘justice.’ We inherited a broken system from our foremares. But the deerfolk of the world do and have always done better than us in doing justly. They have no system, but a people to uphold. When one rejoices, all rejoice; when one suffers, all suffer, together. So, too, with deerish justice. When one is wronged, all take swift revenge so that no more have to suffer. No one to blame, no one to be resented – just the deerfolk against the world, as it has ever been. At least, Doctor Leaf, I think that is what you would say?” Miss Largo asked, addressing the last remark to the little tuxedo-clad deer at her shoulder-height, whose eyes flicked from pony to pony, clearly uncomfortable at the sudden scrutiny.

“I should say ‘yes’ in the main, Miss Largo,” he mumbled.

“There!” Miss Largo exclaimed, triumphantly. “You have it straight from the white-tail’s mouth, Mister Rubyk. Consider well that my Clavia have no crime among them. Would you not agree that this exceeds any pony ‘justice’?”

“How can I?” said Rubyk, sounding distant. “It seems that they have had too little practice.”

Miss Largo stopped still, a forehoof raised in mid-stride. The mare lowered it slowly to the ground, looking toward Rubyk with a curious expression on her muzzle. Then she chuckled.

“Perhaps, Mister Rubyk, there are some things that ponies do that are not improved by much practice.” She pronounced the sentence with the finality of a verdict, and the taciturn Rubyk did not answer her. She turned herself toward the variously assembled group of ponies and included all of them in her next words by a grand sweep of her foreleg. “But here you are in my dear Clavia’s shining jewel of the sea, and I have kept you all from your leisure long enough! Please, ladies and gentlecolts, lose yourself in your pleasures! I shall have your bags taken up to your rooms at once. Might I also offer you a salt tablet for your refreshment?” The proprietress punctuated the last with the flash of an oblong glass case containing number of small, round, white tablets flecked with orange and red.

“I like this mare still more!” laughed Frost Pane, taking the offered gift in hoof. Then she frowned, peering at it closely with an appraising stare. The old mare sniffed at the tablet, her brows drawn together with dark suspicion.

“What? What? What is this, Rubyk? They have done something to the salt!” Frost Pane accused, shooting a pleading look to her grandfoal.

“Is there a problem, grandmama?” said Rubyk.

“Ah, yes,” said Miss Largo, smiling knowingly. “I do find that they can be a bit… austere without some augmentation. I have my Clavia compound them for me and my guests. I like orange and hibiscus myself, which is what you have there. Is it to your liking, Frei Frost Pane?”

Madeleine was not sure if Frei Frost Pane knew herself. The old mare just continued to stare at the tiny tablet held in her shaking forehoof. Her frown only deepened at she placed it under her tongue and Rubyk led her as a support toward the stairwells. (She vocally, and very loudly, protested at the use of the lifts.)

“Oh, and Crumpet?” said Miss Largo after the other guests had turned to their own ways, their bags disappearing discreetly with deer porters down the corridors. Madeleine Crumpet faced the proprietress of the Clavia Hotel directly, whose face had lost all the caricatures of social pageantry and now bore the comfortable, unfeigned softness of meeting with an old friend. “You will of course join me at high table for dinner tonight? Say about 7:00?”

“Of course,” said Madeleine, taking the proprietress’ hoof in her own. “Did you expect anything else, you old show-off?”

“Well,” said Miss Largo, with a throaty little laugh, “frankly, it’s my hotel, and I’ll do as I please, as you well know. But we can catch up later, Crumpet dear. I’ve had Limon check all of you in already, so there’s no need to worry your head over that.” The earth pony nodded toward the little buck who had spilled the pitcher, whose face flushed again. But he nodded in return, comprehending her meaning. “Doctor Leaf will see you to your room. Until we sup, then?”

Madeleine agreed, and the two parted warmly. As she followed the deer known to all and various simply as “Doctor” Leaf down a corridor branching off the side of the Grand Foyer, she heard Miss Largo murmur in low tones to Rock Skipper, “there should have been two others on that cart… be at the town as soon as the tide relents… we can’t afford to cause any offense…” To all of which the Pegasus saluted apologetically, wiping his brow.

“I see that Skipper still has to grow a backbone toward ‘the boss’. He could do so much better for himself than just being relegated to Largo’s errand boy and personal weatherpony season after season,” Madeleine said to Doctor Leaf once they were out of earshot down the corridor. The deep, plush carpet on the floor was pleasant on her hooves, and it swallowed up their voices almost absolutely so that they did not carry either into the rooms or the Grand Foyer just without. Madeleine had long expected that there may have been some enchantment involved from her many times in the islands, but it seemed rather gauche to just ask. Whatever the case, the Clavia Hotel kept its secrets well. As they passed polished oaken doors and paintings of does in elegant evening dress from balls of yesteryear, Doctor Leaf sighed and nodded a sad assent. His voice was crisp and detached, with just an hint of an acquired Canterlot accent.

“It is not as though we on the staff have told him any differently, Miss Crumpet. I myself have been at him for years to go to the mainland to make something of himself. While I may not in the end have been able to escape the gravity of this place, he has a whole life ahead of him. We should all like to see him find a pretty little mare and get some real pony culture instead of what trickles down to these islands. I should like to see him live up in the clouds where he belongs, and I myself have been bold enough to tell that to his face. You see for yourself what came of it. I think that some great shock will be necessary to make him budge from this hotel and this town.” The Clavia buck shook his head as they came to an elevator. Unlike other hotels in Equestria, the panel of controls were doubled – one at pony height, the other at deerish and foal’s height. (Madeleine realized with some amusement that the renovators of the old deer fortress had not reckoned on a Rubyk or a Frost Pane when putting in the elevators.)

“I hope that it doesn’t quite come to that, Doctor,” said Madeleine as a glitter of starlight flashed on the panels and on Doctor Leaf’s horns. The smooth, polished doors of the same gem-streaked white marble as the walk outside slid noiselessly open, and Madeleine smiled a bit at the odd pair they cut – pony and tiny deer followed by a train of magicked baggage – in the mirror on the far side as they entered. Flameless torches shone cool lampwood-light down on the two from copper sconces on the walls. “But you’re quick enough to say ‘we’. How are the rest of the ‘family’ doing?”

“Oh,” said Doctor Leaf, waving an hoof. The elevator doors closed behind them without a sound. With a single arcing point of light from one of the Clavia’s horn-tips, the fifth floor button was illumined “Well enough, or poor enough as you please; take your pick. “Little Papaya isn’t so little anymore since the last time you saw her, though her voice grows sweeter along with her. Miss Largo has taken to putting her up on the grand stage in the dining room as the musical entertainment some evenings to sing and dance or play on the marimba. But in my opinion, somedeer could stand to take that doe down a peg.”

“Or two?” Madeleine asked, searchingly. She had a feeling from her last tour through the islands that Papaya might one day tend in that direction.

“Or three,” agreed Doctor Leaf. Madeleine expected at least a smirk from the little buck, but his face was as mirthless as granite. “She’s grown into rather a flirt. That girl is going to come to grief one day, and I just hope she doesn’t get herself hurt too badly when it does happen. Sorrell and Frond are just the same, happy puttering in the dirt. They do as good a job as ever with the grounds, as you can see. Seamoss’ rheumatism bothers her whenever Miss Largo has Rock Skipper gather up a storm for the town – and, of course, it’s far worse when that pony can’t keep a tight rein on it. I would not be surprised if Miss Largo will move her off of laundry duties soon for that reason. I, for one, will be glad of it when the staff can afford to put her up in a bungalow in town to give her rest from the work.”

“I’ll have a word with Largo,” Madeleine said as the doors slid open. Seeing nopony else in the corridor (this one carpeted in a lush aquamarine, patterned with conch and clam and every kind of shell), she added, “if anyone can get that old fraud to listen to reason, it will be dear old ‘Crumpie from Canterlot’.” Doctor Leaf allowed himself just the faintest suggestion of a smirk.

“And if the ‘old fraud’ ever heard you say that, I’m not sure how much ‘reason’ would be involved in the result.” The buck stepped out of the elevator, leading the way down the corridor. “But you see that things are still much the same as they stand as ever. The staff neither grows nor shrinks; like the town she only grows older, and, thank your Princesses, nothing ever happens. And we pray to the Ancestors that nothing ever will.” Doctor Leaf stopped before a door very near the end of the corridor, beyond which a window opened up toward the lovely, gaudy box-houses on the Currycape harbour, and lowered the train of Madeleine’s bags to the floor. He reached into his breast pocket and produced a narrow ivory-coloured shaft without teeth and without any feature but for a small sapphire stone cut like a smooth bead at one end held in his fetlock-joint.

“Your room key, Miss Crumpet, and your suite – 501, as always. I remind you that the keys are enchanted so that they cannot be taken beyond the causeway, nor can anypony handle them by hoof or mouth or magicking after you take it in your hoof.”

Madeleine took the key in her hoof.

“So if you are thinking of entertaining any gentlestallions in Luna’s night while you are on the island…” Doctor Leaf continued.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Madeleine said firmly. “I know that you are but doing your job, but I know my own mind well enough, to say nothing of how things are done here.”

Doctor Leaf was silent, but an inner tension played itself out in folds of irritation around the little deer’s eyes. “Yes, Miss Crumpet. Forgive me my brashness,” he said. Another brief silence fell, wherein Madeleine opened the door to her suite, sliding the narrow key into the hole. The tiny gem in the outer end, almost invisible, flashed a soft blue invitation, and Madeleine nearly flung open the door in nervy excitement.

“Ah!” Madeleine exclaimed. It was perfect. As always. She cantered over the threshold, into the suite bedroom off from the central living quarters, and threw herself onto a silken duvet the indigo colour of a hastening dusk, moving her four legs in luxuriant circles to feel the smooth fabric against her coat. Nice, she thought.

“Very nice,” she said, and threw her head back against the many, so many delightful pillows.

Doctor Leaf remained in the corridor. The Clavia cleared his throat. “Will Miss Crumpet be desiring her bags brought in by the staff, or will she prefer to handle them herself?” The buck emphasized the word staff only just above his steady, reedy tenor, but it was enough that Madeleine’s ears caught it and turned of themselves toward him. She sat up with a little grunt of effort, the covers being deep, and pouted in the buck’s general direction.

“Oh, Doctor, is that what you really think of an old friend? Come on in and bring my bags and let me make it up to you so that you won’t let an idle comment ruin my stay. Hurry up, Doctor Leaf! I give you my word that I will make it worth your while. I don’t bite – hard!” Madeleine laughed, the sound being swallowed up in the carpet and walls by the same warm, languid silence of the corridors. Doctor Leaf’s face was unreadable, his muzzle as expressive as a stone as he entered, pulling Madeleine’s train of bags in his starry magic grip, though he held his head high and proud. Well, thought Madeleine, as high and proud as anydeer could when their horns only come up to your withers. Even so, her eyes caught the flushing tips of his ears that all of the stoic professionalism in Equestria could not quite hide.

“Will Madeleine require anything else of me before I attend to my other duties?” he said, notably forgetting the honorific.

“So you do remember my name! I had been afraid that you’d forgotten it, dear Doctor. Just set the cases anywhere and give me my little black saddlebag. It’s hanging there on the case at the end.” The Clavia cocked an eyebrow but whisked the bag to Madeleine with a turn of the head, couched in a bed of winking stars. Madeleine touched her horn to the clasp, which only then opened with an obliging click.

“Come closer, Doctor Leaf,” the unicorn purred. “I have something for you.”

“What did… Miss Crumpet have in mind?” The little deer swallowed, audibly.

“Only this,” said Madeleine, and grinned a feline grin. Out of the depths of the small, black saddlebag, she magicked a gold ring studded with diamonds, bearing a brilliant pink pearl in the center, and hung it on one of the little deer’s antler-tips… just like somepony else she had seen recently. Doctor Leaf’s mouth dropped open.

“Consider that a contribution to Seamoss’ retirement fund. The old girl has had a hard life, and she deserves whatever rest you folk can find. What?” Madeleine said, laughing, as she slunk back upon her belly upon the bed, folding her legs beneath her. “Whatever did you think I had in mind, Doctor?”

Madeleine decided that the flush of flustered red that came on Doctor Leaf’s face might just have been the most adorable thing she had ever seen.


*********************************************



Chapter Three



Clouds of Witnesses



*********************************************



“Rubyk, you are sulking again. You would snuff out the Aurora when you sulk if nature would let you!”

“No, grandmama.”

“No?” snapped Frost Pane’s voice like the crack of a whip. “No, you are not sulking? Feh!” Frost Pane slammed her hoof on the well-lacquered coffee table that lay before the chaise sofa in the middle of their suite’s living area. A few splinters of wood exploded outward under the blow, along with a number of flakes of willowy ice that hung momentarily in the air before melting in flittering drops. The old mare length-wise took up the whole of the furnishing that was ordinarily meant for two adult ponies, with perhaps room to spare for a foal between them. In spite of the warmth and humidity of the outside air that flowed in from the picture window that opened up onto a balcony overlooking the hotel’s vegetable gardens and labyrinths of decorative tropical plants luxuriating in the beams of Celestia’s sun, Frost Pane lay with a tight-knit woolen throw in the deep aqua and green and reds of the Northern Aurora thrown over her body.

“I know what sulking looks like when I see it, Rubyk!” Frost Pane said to Rubyk’s back, the younger unicorn staring out of the open picture window. “You are not to sulk on this trip, and you are not to do it in front of me, and you are especially not to go bloodying up your horn with case nonsense while we are trapped here in these drumble-eyed islands! Is that clear? That is an order from the Frei of Trotheim!”

“Yes, grandmama.”

“‘Yes,’ you say. ‘Yes, of course,’ he says! So put away whatever that is or you will make yourself sick!” Frost Pane pointed an accusing hoof at the paper that Rubyk had gripped in his hoof and was reading with a hint of a near-sighted squint, rather than looking out over the scenery as he so wished to seem. With a tiny sigh, Rubyk folded the paper and magicked it into a small bear-leather saddlebag he had slung over his shoulder after their bags had been brought in by those tiny deerfolk.

“I cannot promise you that I will be able to abstain entirely from court matters, Frei grandmama. Duty only stretches so far.” Rubyk did not turn about as he said this. His eyes were scanning the horizon as he spoke, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of motion coming from the direction of the town. Curious, he stepped out onto the balcony. The cart was again en route to the hotel from across the causeway, this time bearing only two ponies. He could tell that they were both stallions from this distance, but little apart from that. One of them, the larger, was waving his forehooves about in evident agitation at that pegasus driver, who hung his head low and apparently made no reply. The other threw his gaze out toward the sea, apparently not wanting to look upon either. Curiously, another figure, this one airborne, and quite black against the sunlight, kept even pace with the cart below, as if in no particular hurry to reach the Hotel Clavia, or as if all its attention were upon the cart, and not upon its own destination.

“What duty could you possibly have in this dozy place?” Frost Pane herself only grew more agitated at the younger unicorn’s behaviour. She raised herself up on her forehooves and glared out of the door. “What do you think that you will be able to accomplish so far from the bench and from your precious Wall-Guards to do all the running-about and looking-into for you?”

“There is still Shinedeep’s prophecy. It befrets me. I must know what it means.”

An indignant light flashed deep in Frost Pane’s eyes. She raised her hoof again to speak, and a dull red glow began to gather around her horn. A number of small furnishings like lamps and decorative pictures and the menagerie of glass deer and animal knick-knacks belonging to the hotel all began to shake and rattle, threatening a sudden paroxysm of magical fury. Then the old mare gasped as her horn was suddenly seized in an icy grip. Lacy crystals of frost gathered on her horn like a metal shaft left out in the winter night with a cracklike splintering bone. The rattling in the room stopped in an instant, and Frost Pane’s head fell limp upon the sofa. Rubyk whirled about at the sound and took in the scene with quick, darting eyes. He was already moving toward the suite’s brass speaking-tube to summon the hotel’s physician with long-legged strides when Frost Pane feebly raised her voice again, now barely more than a whisper.

“Rubyk, do you see with what spear such worry will strike you through? You see what I am become? This sickness will come into your bones also if you do not leave off your brooding.” Frost Pane smiled thinly. Rubyk made no reply, but he met his elder’s eyes and twisted one side of his mouth upward in what was meant as a reassuring gesture.

“This is suite  503.” Rubyk spoke clearly and deliberately down the speaking tube. “A pony here is sick. Send your best doctor. Send him immediately. Send him with blankets and hot tea and tincture of stardew. Please. My grandmother is very ill.” A voice, gabbled and confused, burbled up from the other end of the tube located behind the concierge desk in the Grand Foyer.

“What was that, sir? We could not get all of that.”

Nostrils flaring, Rubyk repeated himself. His tone made it clear to the doe at the other end that he did not like having to repeat himself.

“Oh… oh, my! Yes, of course! We will send Doctor Leaf at once!”

“Bah…” said Frost Pane, sounding farther away than the voices coming up the tube. “You see how they slept like foals filled up with love and the season’s first icewine when you called? Was I not right as might about this town?”

“You were right, grandmama,” Rubyk said quietly. He knelt next to the chaise sofa. “You of course were right about the town. Don’t speak. That’s an order from the Aktur of Trotheim.” Rubyk breathed a warm breath onto the shivering old mare that pulsed with life and blood-heat and the stern, strange magic of the North. Frost Pane’s body seemed to suck up the heat like snow tramped before the hearth, and the violence of her shakes fell to a mild tremor.

He shivered.

A minute later, the hotel’s “Doctor Leaf” rapped on the door with an urgent staccato. Rubyk rose up and threw the door open with magic, and Doctor Leaf at once entered in. He was, Rubyk saw, another of the tiny deerfolk of the islands who wore the same darting eyes and high nerves that all his kind seemed to share. He carried a small brown valise in his mouth and was panting heavily as he came in, then froze. For a moment, he stood as though paralyzed, craning his neck to look up at the tall tower of pony and white fur before him, eyes wide and glassy. Then he seemed to recover himself and shook his head as though to clear it of some sudden drowse.

“I believe that you sent for a doctor… Mister Rubyk?”

“For her,” Rubyk said, and gestured toward Frost Pane. “My grandmare, Doctor.” His eyes narrowed. “And I told them to send blankets and tea, as well as medicines. I see that I was not obeyed.”

“On the contrary,” replied the Clavia. “I can answer to all of that.” The Clavia undid the clasp of his valise, which was hardly larger than a coin purse to the Trotheim ponies, and his antlers glittered as he drew out a downy white duvet and a silken sheet, followed by a silver tea set with handsome teak handles, the pot still steaming, and a tall, thin bottle of a dark liquid that seemed to contain, somehow, far-off flashes of a dull red light deeper in than the bottle would allow. It was an impossible feat, and therefore strong magic indeed. Even Frost Pane’s eyebrows rose in begrudging approval.

“Harummm…” mumbled Doctor Leaf, having taken Frost Pane’s temperature and vitals. He touched the tender part of his leg to her horn to feel the sharp cold coming off of it and took note of the dark spots and veins in her eyes. He pressed his muzzle to her neck, feeling the greater warmth of her core coming off of there and moved his cheek close to her back, feeling the heat from her flesh and the thin line of cold emanating from the Frei’s spine like an icy river cutting a channel through warm flesh. Finally, he wrapped the old mare in the blankets he had brought with him and poured two cups of steaming-hot tea, all in a graceful magic like the quiet glint of starlight. He put a cup to the old mare’s lips, and she drew on it greedily, as if her very life depended on that warmth running down her throat.

“I… believe that I know of this disease, although it is unheard of this far to the south of the Crystal  Mountains,” Doctor Leaf said, sounding somewhat tentative, although no more than any other physician in uncharted waters. “Your grandmother suffers from the Maneheim Ice Sickness, correct? And just before you called me, she was trying to cast some great magic, and the energy flowed right up her spine and froze her horn, just like that?”

“Something like that,” Rubyk agreed. He quickly changed the subject. “Do you notice anything amiss? Was there any damage from the attack?”

“What damage? What stomach-belch are you blathering, Rubyk?” Frost Pane grumbled. “I will be fine and fit enough to put your blood on my horn after I rest for a bit.”

“I… think not,” Doctor Leaf answered after a moment’s pause. He turned his head to Frost Pane, and looked the tall mare directly in the eye. “But you, madam, are not to take up any magic as long as you are a guest of the Hotel Clavia until I give you my blessing. The black ice persists by incorporating itself into living creature’s magical loci. For most creatures, that principally means along the spine, the nape of the neck, and in and through the eyes. But for bone-horned creatures like unicorns, the horn is connected bodily with the other loci. So whenever a unicorn channels magic up through their loci in a spell, it all funnels toward their horn as the apex of that energy, and all of the black ice follows. The only way to heal the Ice Sickness is to starve it; that means, madam, no spells, no magic, and as much rest as you can possibly take.”

“Do you hear this impudence, Rubyk?” said Frost Pane, barely above a mumble. She sounded weak, on the very verge of sleep. “He talks to us like foals. As if… we of Noble Trotheim… know not what the Ice Sickness is. As we do not by years see it take… our sons… our daughters… our noble stallions and sages…”

“Shhh…” soothed Rubyk, touching the tip of his horn to Frost Pane’s forehead. “I know, grandmama. I know. It is time to rest now.” A cool aura surrounded his horn and flowed down like falling snow onto Frost Pane’s half-lidded eyes. In only a moment, the elder unicorn was deep asleep and breathing to match.

“Your grandmother is a very willful mare, Mister Rubyk,” Doctor Leaf observed. Rubyk looked down on him, searchingly; but there was no guile in the little deer. He nodded toward the Clavia, sadly.

“I know, Doctor. I know. It is why I am here at her side, and not another.” Rubyk paused, standing tall, looming over on the little deer. Then he bowed, just once, short and shallow.

“Thank you. Perhaps now she may listen to reason that you have said to her the things that I and my house cannot say clear or loud enough.”

Doctor Leaf shook his head. “Please do not thank me if the cure has not yet taken. You clearly know about this sickness much more intimately than I do, Mister Rubyk. I only know it from books in my student days. You asked for all the right remedies. As long as you can make… or convince… your grandmother to take tincture of stardew thrice daily, and as long as she abstains from all magic, the climate here should take care of the rest of the healing.” He fixed Rubyk with a knowing stare and smirked. “But I suspect that I am telling you things that you already know.”

Rubyk laughed – just once. “You are a suspicious deer, doctor. Now, get out of our rooms before grandmama wakes. I might just join you while she naps.” The two pressed their hooves one to another and shook – just once. Then Doctor Leaf gathered up his little valise in his mouth and cantered like a silent ghost out of the suite. Closing the door with a feather-soft click behind him, Rubyk followed.


*****


Madeleine Crumpet decided, not for the first time, and not for the last, that life was sweet. The warm breezes blowing in from the ocean, the smell of fresh-cut hibiscus in the crystal vase on the false mantel, the smooth caress of silk sheets as she drifted off into a noonday siesta were all sensations delicious enough to drown in.

They also got old. Really, really fast. The little pony in her head had served her well in keeping all of her appointments out on the road without a need for a planner, but she was an antsy thing. Madeleine felt the drumming of tiny hoof-beats on the inside of her skull. Her mane began to itch and crawl with the uncomfortable ennui of the overworked. She could almost hear the little minx whispering those chocolate-smooth words that were so useful out on the road, but not when she was trying to enjoy the sea-breezes and silk sheets of an holiday: Don’t you think there’s something you should be doing?

“All right. I said all right, you hateful thing!” Madeleine groaned to nopony in particular. She rose to her hooves and began to pace the suite.

Bother it all. If she couldn’t let herself rest, she could at least let herself wander and engage in some pony-watching. Such jaunts were seldom unfruitful in the long run in her line. Maybe even with one of those lime and rum drinks from the pool bar with one of those deer-sized umbrellas – whatever the name is. That, thought Madeleine with a smirk, was one of the best ideas her little pony had come up with in a while. She donned her sleek black saddlebag, making sure that she had all the accoutrements as she trotted down to the Grand Foyer:

Sketchbook? – check. My little beauties? – good, everyone here and accounted for! Don’t you worry. Madeleine will find you all a nice home soon enough. Contingency plan? – well, we wouldn’t want to have a need for you, but check under the just-in-case heading. Madeleine smirked as she reentered the cavernous foyer. By happy chance, she came just in time to see the hotel’s proprietress greeting a fresh cart-load of arrivals from the mainland.

“…lovely to see you again, Calvados. I trust that your trip was uneventful?” Miss Largo said it in a voice that was as bright and comely as ever a guest heard, but there was a certain flat guardedness in the undertones that struck Madeleine’s ear as important. The Clavia Hotel’s proprietress had seen it all; it took a lot to put her off from a perfect semblance of perfect hospitality. It made Madeleine take a good, close look at the new arrivals.

The little pony in her head stood poised and ready to set down the details, but the pen seemed to slip from her mouth as Madeleine took in the first of the arriving party. He was an earth pony and a stallion of an obvious venerable age, but built thick and solid with a muscular vigor undimmed by age that he was proud to show rippling beneath his uncovered coat the colour of apple flesh – that is, apple flesh bitten into and left to sit in the open air for too long. His mane and tail were cut in a pagecolt style that was not only out of date, but also gave him a bizarre look like a foal grown too big for his mind. His mark was striking; it was a green apple fading and merging upwards into a brown, squat bottle with rounded shoulders. He was grinning broadly at the proprietress, but it struck Madeleine as a bit too toothy and more than a touch insincere. And he had a leering, hungry look in his eyes as his gaze swept over the Grand Foyer, resting for a few moments on each mare (and some of the does) as it passed. Madeleine decided that she did not care for it. Her little pony did not care for him; and the two of them were unanimous in that assessment.

Most definitely not a pony for jewels, girl.

The second was similar enough to the first in some to be startling at a first glance. He was about the same size and similar build, but was far younger, perhaps in his mid-twenties, and he had nothing like the coiled springs in his muscles possessed by the other. Rather, he tended to a slight pudge that clung to all of his features like a well-fitted jumpsuit (which, Madeleine thought, would have suited him very poorly). He wore the same style of mane and tail as the elder in a muddy brown, which contrasted his coat of warm, mottled red. Yet in him the effect was endearing, rather than uncanny. But the striking difference between the two lay in the fact that this one was a unicorn, although his horn was squat compared to most. His eyes did not share in the awful, hungry look of the other. His head hung low and he kept his eye upon the wandering gaze of the elder stallion.

That elder’s eyes lighted upon the proprietress and evidently liked what they saw there. “Well, how d’you do! If it ain’t ol’ slow-sales herself! How’s the ol’ Sun’s tricks treating ya’ these days?” guffawed the pony that Largo had, Madeleine realized with treacle-quick deduction, referred to as “Calvados”, sending up a belly laugh that shook the chandeliers. He spoke with a thick brogue that was similar to that of the farming provinces south of Canterlot, but with a sharper texture that made Madeleine think that was probably not his real provenance.

“Oh,” said the proprietress, waving an hoof with flawless vagueness, “how does that line from the Bard run? ‘The Sun may be a strumpet yet, but we, true fools, consent to be her drubbéd knaves?’ It sings as true today as ever.”

“Ain’t that the truth!” laughed Calvados, planting a kiss and a nuzzle on both of the proprietress’ cheeks in a soggy imitation of the quaint greeting-custom of the islands. By what Madeleine knew must have constituted an heroic force of will, Miss Largo returned the gesture with a smile that was a positively masterful performance. Behind them, the younger unicorn with the stumpy horn glowered a venomous look that jolted Madeleine from her vague feelings of distaste. It was the sort of look that one wears only when he is quite sure – and invariably quite mistaken – that nopony else is looking at him. And just as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared from the unicorn’s face, replaced by the same indrawn sulk as before.

Miss Largo turned toward Madeleine and threw her a desperate look. Madeleine understood her role completely. She donned a feather-light smile and stepped forward into the Grand Foyer to give Largo some relief from the odious stallion. Then the proprietress looked up and over her shoulder and… nodded?

“Well, good afternoon to you both,” drolled the proprietress with just an hint of an undertone of sheer, sweet, thank not-Celestia RELIEF! “Crumpet… Lord Rubyk… your timing is quite apt. May I have the pleasure of making introductions?”

“Naturally,” said that selfsame giant in a glissing whisper from somewhere altogether too close to Madeleine’s right ear. She jumped. Where had he come from? Something that big shouldn’t be allowed to move that quietly!

“Calvados, Pome, Mister Black, may I introduce the Lord Aktur of Trotheim and Madeleine Crumpet? They’ve also only just arrived, and both from such a long journey… no, no, Crumpet dear, you put more road-dust on your hooves in a year than most equines do in a lifetime, so don’t make a fuss…” cooed Miss Largo at Madeleine’s token show of denial. “Crumpet, Lord Rubyk, may I present Calvados and Pome Apple. Calvados is an old acquaintance of mine. He owns the plantation and runs the operation that makes that most scrumptious apple brandy from the mainland. I always seek to have the best for my guests, and what better way than to go to the source, as it were? And I must say what a profitable arrangement it has been for all parties concerned?”

“Y’all got that right!” said Calvados Apple, his mirth rebounding off of the walls. “Crummy hemp-balls, they grow ‘em big where you come from, don’t they?” he said to the quiet Rubyk. “What kind of hips the mares there got, anyway?”

“Uncle, please…” grumbled the younger. Pome Apple lifted his head, the tips of his ears flushing even more red.

“But I do! Never saw the point in doing less for m’sef,” Calvados Apple said. Although he was mainly interested in the novelty of the spectacle that was the strange Rubyk, Madeleine felt the sweep of his gaze light on the nape of her neck for just a moment. It was a singularly unpleasant sensation.

Perhaps he should have been enraged. But the huge, strange, fascinating thing that was Rubyk just blinked for a moment, not realizing the question that had been put to him (after a fashion).

“I believe that they are adequate to our needs,” Rubyk said as if the words tasted strange in his mouth. The giant was more puzzled than enraged. Calvados Apple clicked his tongue against his teeth and turned away as if, suddenly, the towering unicorn did not seem half so interesting. (And, really, what could a filthy mind do with a reply like that? Perhaps the giant was more canny than his puzzlement let on.)

“Well, it’s awful fine to go around gussying up to the slicked-up set, but you got one thing right, Largo: I amplum tuckered. That driver of yours could use some lessons on how to hustle, if you get my drift – and I hatehavin’ to wait. It was nice meetin’ y’all, but I think I’d rather lay me down and lay me out for a while.”

“I will have a word with him,” said Miss Largo, dry as sun-bleached sand. “Is there anything that I could see to for your comforts, Calvados?”

“Oh,” nickered the old stallion, “how about one o’ them sweet little does with the salt and the sashay when they walk? I say, that would be nice and comfortable, in-deed.”

“Uncle, they’re young enough to be your granddaughters…” hissed Pome Apple in the drawn and weary tones of a pony who had been habitually stretched beyond the breaking point. “Give it rest. It ain’t like you haven’t enjoyed yourself pretty well on this trip so far.”

“Aww, listen to that, y’all. Cute kid, ain’t he?” Calvados chuckled. “Well in that case, let’s just see what sort o’ tricks this place’s got for mares this time ‘round a’fore we meet up with the old lime fussbudget later. C’mon, boy!”

Pome Apple said nothing, but Madeleine could feel the storm cloud that hung over him unseen as he passed her by with heavy hoof-steps. Rubyk’s head turned alongside hers, watching the pair with a curious expression on his face. On another pony, one not so very strange, it might have been worry. On him, it seemed to be a wordless judgment with all the force of strong authority behind it. It made the back of Madeleine’s eyes itch.

A third stallion stepped forward to greet the proprietress. He extended a forehoof. Madeleine stared at him for a moment. So, too, for that matter, did Largo. He was a pegasus, built thick and broad-shouldered and easily as impressive for girth of muscle as Lord Rubyk was tall. His wings, even folded, were clearly as ample a match in breadth for his physical prowess as his coat was black. His coat was black as ink, black as coal, black as a thunderhead. The slate-grey tones of his close-cropped mane and tail only drew the eye to the absolute darkness of his coat. He was a negative presence in the room, a void where a pony might have been, and he made one’s eyes flicker over him rather than look at him too directly. Even his mark was indistinct. A… moon? A star? A wing? Madeleine’s little pony was at a loss.

The pegasus smiled. Madeleine knew that smile. It was the bland and unassuming smile of a comfortably-off civil servant in a comfortable job used to the creature comforts of hearth and home a bit too well. It was, she thought, decidedly off upon his features, as if it had been plagiarized from the commonest stallion in the street of any city in Equestria and the author of the theft had made no effort to conceal his misdeed by adapting it to the local topography.

“Proprietress Largo? How do you do?” said the pegasus with military precision.

“Oh, quite well indeed. You are?” queried Largo, taking the preferred hoof in hers.

“Jett Black, madame. I am an athletic instructor from Cloudsdale. Very pleased to make your acquaintance. No, Madeleine decided, he was not. There was something, or even everything, which made that statement a lie from the first to the last. Perhaps it was the way he held his hoof and himself with all the genial softness of a lumberyard, or maybe it was the plain fact that there was no way in a bramble-bush the owner of that voice had been within an hundred miles of the pegasus cloud-city for years. (And unless her ear had gone tinny on her, the voice had no colour or accent at all — and it was no small feat to intone such perfectly ordinary speech.)

“Delighted to make yours,” bandied Miss Largo, with an undertone that suggested she was as little taken in by the pegasus’ act as if he had worn a false mustache. “And what brings you to our islands, Mister Black? Business, perhaps?”

“You have said. I was commissioned to come here by one of my clients for some flight training during the off-season. I had hoped to avail myself of some of the famed local hospitality before my contract got underway,” said Jett Black, withdrawing his hoof to himself and bowing once to the proprietress. And that was no Cloudsdale mannerism, either. Just whom was this stallion trying to fool?

Then, abruptly, the mountain beside her shifted, and the pony called Rubyk stepped forward and said coolly, “I am Rubyk of Trotheim, and I, too, am here for the sake of another. Tell me, Jett Black of Cloudsdale: is it an happy affair that has brought you here?”

Madeleine thought that she saw the black stallion’s mask crack, just a bit. He turned toward the giant with an unfathomable expression. “I cannot say that it is happy, Rubyk of Trotheim, but it is work that I am bound to. There are also some certain matters that I must see to here on this island before I leave for brighter waters.”

Rubyk nodded his head. “Then would you consent to walk with me a while, friend Jett? Yours is a strong spirit, and mine is weary.”

“For such a request, I might just. Come, Rubyk of Trotheim, and let us have out what is in your heart.” It was a brief, strange, terse exchange, and to Madeleine’s bewildered eyes, the two stallions locked an embattled stare and set off in lock-step. They talked as they walked, the pegasus taking two brusque steps to every languid stride of his companion, speaking instantly with the ease of like-minded comrades. Each word was equal to its weight in lead. Madeleine and the proprietress watched them pass through the open doors. The two mares exchanged a glance.

“Well!” said Miss Largo. “What do you make of that, Crumpet?”

“Other than that pegasus is about as sincere as a cotton bridle? Not a thing.”

“I have to agree. Something about him rubs my coat the wrong way. And how those two got on together after knowing each other for — oh, call it ten seconds? I call it suspicious, dear.” Miss Largo waved her hoof absently in the air a few times and flashed a sparkling smile. “Oh, but don’t worry your head about them. That’s my job, and I have more than enough hooves to head off any funny business before it starts.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes,” Madeleine said absently.

After all, letting Largo have all of the fun would just be dull.

The two mares, having seen each other again only lately, said their goodbyes. Largo trotted off one of her daily constitutionals across the grounds, while Madeleine made for the poolside. There was just a chance she might run into the right Clavia to keep a little sneaking on the down-low, the little pony in her head rationalized. And a nice drink with a nip of salt on the rim sounded quite decent, too.

As she emerged into the south-side Solarium, Madeleine was greeted by the caress of sea-breezes and the assault of filly-shrieks and splashing upon her poor ears. But as she squinted, willing her eyes to adjust to the light, two more voices, more familiar, greeted her with quite nearly as much excitement.

“Miss Crumpet!” cried Mangosteen and Frond, doe and buck twins, nearly dropping their laden trays of iced cocktails as they rushed to her side. “Doctor Leaf told us that you’d arrived? When did you get in?” “How was your passage on the ocean, Miss Crumpet?” “May we get you any drinks? On the house!” “What pretty earrings! Can I try them on?”

“Miss Crumpet” laughed delightedly and bent her neck to kiss the two Clavia on the muzzle. “Slow down, you two! I can’t say ‘hello’ to every deer all at once, but I fully intend to not say ‘good-bye’ without at least a sit-down and a chat with all my old friends. Now take those to their rightful owners,” she said, gesturing toward the glasses filled with ice and every hue of the rainbow (including one that seemed to be nothing but rainbow), “and, if you please, bring me a soda with lime. Make that with just a splash of gin and a touch of salt on the rim. And then…” Madeleine bent low, leaning in close to the two Clavia and added in a conspiratorial whisper, “and then come and find me when you two trade off with your next relief. I’ve got a job for you both, effective at once.”

The two little deer’s wide eyes went even wider. They shot excited glances to one another.

“Does this mean you need somepony… watched, Miss Crumpet?” said Mangosteen with the quiver of a shared secret.

“Just maybe,” replied Madeleine with a wink. “But let’s have that drink first, you two, and then we will get around to talking shop. And if it helps…” Madeleine’s horn shimmered, and she lifted the flap of her saddlebag, drawing out a sleek coral pendant strung with handsome glass beads. Not too much, and not too little, and (she thought, lifting out another), they were cheap enough to come in pairs.

“Let’s just say that I intend to tip well,” she finished.

Frond touched his forehoof to the tips of his antlers in a jerky salute. “Yes Miss Crumpet! Ma’am! Sir!”


*****


Madeleine’s little pony was a mouthy little thing. She had been muttering something about letters — the mention of which stirred a dim memory in Madeleine’s mind. Then the vicious little thing seemed to go and bite her on the ear, and Madeleine had remembered.

The letters! She had forgotten to post them before she left from the mainland! Vacation or no, if she didn’t get those to the dragonfire post today… she gulped down the rest of her drink and bolted from the Solarium. If she got a start now, there was still a chance to get at least most of them done before she met with Largo and not be behind an entire week.

Madeleine’s horn blazed as she galloped, panting, into suite 505. With the concentration brought on by blind panic, she threw open her suitcases and lifted out dresses and blouses, neatly folded, and banished them into dresser drawers. There is, she thought, no gain in being messy. Then, at the bottom of one of her cases, she found the object of her search: a small, pewter ball with two raised circles that seemed to stare at her like blind, unblinking eyes. A dictosprite.

“There you are, my lovely,” she said, half-breathless. The ball, of course, made no answer. Madeleine trotted over to the writing desk and took up a quill, placing it into a small indent on the bottom of the thing. As she did so, two misty wings emerged from the other side as the enchantment upon the little pewter ball came to life, lifting it off of the desk so that it looked to all eyes like a living creature.

“Hello, you old pest! You’re looking well,” Madeleine half-gasped, still getting her breath back. The bobbing ball of metal, of course, said nothing. Instead, it scratched out her words in a flowing, perhaps only a little too-perfect script on the sheet of blotting paper beneath.

Hello you old pest. You are looking well.

“And I always forget that you never do inflections right,” said Madeleine, shaking her head. The dictosprite scratched that out, too, and with a sigh Madeleine changed out the blotting paper and brought a small bundle of scrolls of her personal stationery to the writing desk.

“My Dear Coralstone,” she began, and so passed a productive, if not precisely stimulating hour of arranging appointments, expressing her heartfelt thanks for this or that personal favor some-such-or-other stallion had shown her last year on her island tour (oh, she did hope that she remembered all of their names right; the dears had a tendency to get mixed up in her head sometimes) — and, most importantly, responding personallyto the hoof-wringing of the under-performing jewelry outlets. It’s just bad practice for the business, she thought acidly, trying to think of the best way to make the words of those letters bite in the kindest way possible. One should either accept failure and bow gracefully out of gem-mongery, or else she should learn from her mistakes and stop trying to sell tawdry kitch to tourists because they don’t know any better.

That didn’t nip too hard, Madeleine thought. Just enough to get those who could be coaxed back into line to shape up.

The staccato rapping of hooves at the lower door of Madeleine’s suite came too fast to be strictly decorous. Moreover, they played havoc with the silent dictosprite that hung suspended, winged and flapping and yet lifeless, over Madeleine’s writing desk. The eyeless, bobbing ball scratched a few confused, jagged lines onto the scroll Madeleine had been dictating. (She was finally onto thank-you notes, which while still a drudgery flowed so much more smoothly after a soda with lime and a splash of gin and a touch of salt on the rim.) She clicked her tongue against her teeth and made for the door.

“Yes?” she demanded, throwing open the upper door.

Nopony was there.

“Down here, Miss Crumpet!” a pair of excited voices shouted up at her. She looked down.

“That was fast!” she said, throwing open the lower door to admit Frond and Mangosteen. In one moment, the promise of fresh gossip had shredded her terse mood.

“Well,” said Frond, the little buck pointing to his short, velvety antlers meaningfully.

“…we’re the right kind of folk to come to if you want results,” finished Mangosteen. The doe eyed Madeleine’s saddlebags, which she had yet to remove. Madeleine caught the hint and magicked out the promised fee, hanging them around the twins’ slender necks. Brother and sister glanced each other over approvingly, then fell to laughing.

“You look ridiculous!” said Mangosteen, with tears in her eyes.

“Same goes for you! Like you’d ever wear jewelry in public!” quipped Frond.

Madeleine chuckled and waved the twins over to the chaise. They sat, poised on pins and still shooting insults at one another with their eyes.

“Okay! Dish,” said Madeleine, rapping her hoof on the sitting-room table. “You’ve found out something about that Rubyk character?”

Mangosteen nodded her head vigorously. “Oh, more than that, Miss Crumpet. Not just him, either.”

“That pegasus, too?”

“Jett Black? Yep, him too,” said Frond, beaming. Madeleine clipped her hopes together. Trust the twins to get a job done right!

“Well, then? Don’t keep me in suspense, you two.”

“It was like this…” Mangosteen began. “Frond and I found the pegasus and your Rubyk walking together in the gardens in one of those hedge-maze labyrinths…”

“It wasn’t exactly hard,” murmured Frond.

“Who’s telling this story, fuzzhorns?”

“Maybe I should be the one telling! Whose spell was it that got us up right behind those two so we could hear every word that tall one whispered? I don’t see your antlers all snuffed!”

“All right, all right…” soothed Madeleine. “One at a time, you two. You found the two stallions together in the garden.” That must have been an awfully long conversation. Whatever about, one wonders? “Then what happened?”

“Here,” said Frond. “I’ll be the tall one, and you can be that bulky black pony.”

“What, just like that?”

“Yep! Just like that. It was hard to hear, so I’m not entirely sure I got all the words…”

Mangosteen sighed and finished her brother’s sentence: “…but when we got up behind them close enough to hear, that pegasus was saying something like…”


*****


“…justice is rare even among the best. If you expect only virtue, either in them or in yourself, ponies will always find the means to turn truth into a lie.” Jett Black’s voice was deep and resonant even among the hedge-rows of sculpted hibiscus with blossoms in purple and scarlet and wine-hearted white.

“The truth is the Rock, and hooves are harder than stone,” replied Rubyk, quoting a well-worn proverb with the weight of a sledge-iron. The pegasus nodded his approval as Frond and Mangosteen crept closer under the cover of deerish magic, cocking their ears to hear the Trotheim giant’s low tones.

“So you see what I mean?”

“Not at all,” said Rubyk, voice smooth and dripping scorn. “If you had heard the cries for bread from the foals and widows whose fathers and husbands had been lost to the whitepelts, and seen the sin of their blood uncovered and unavenged upon the ice, you would know the voice crying out for justice. Like calls like, and ponies do not cry out for justice without a just thirst being in them.”

“You are naïve, friend. Your words are those of a foal,” said Jett Black to the unicorn who stood more than an head above him. “What you saw, you only thought you saw. I will tell you what is in a pony…”

Then the two abruptly turned, and Frond and Mangosteen cursed each other with acrid looks as the twins scrambled to keep out from under hoof. The twins dove under a bush, laying flat and absolutely still as the two stallions passed by. The two Clavia remained that way until the pair turned a bend and their voices faded. When they came around again toward the rear, it was Rubyk’s sad report that first reached their ears.

“…cannot be such a cynic as you,” said the tall unicorn, shaking his head. “I do not have the option.”

“The option?” Jett Black asked with a booming laugh. “Are you saying that you know the real truth about ponies, the truth beneath the truth, but for your birth or some other fleshly weakness you refuse to embrace it?”

“And now which of us is the foal?” Rubyk replied. His voice was melancholy, distant. “You speak of chains of duty and birthright that crush one to the earth, but I have a far lighter yoke on my neck. The truth beneath the truth is the justice and righteousness that governs all things, and which does so through us. That it should do so through ponies is not a burden on those born high into the world like the Princesses and my house, but a source of every joy to those who know and love it.” Jett Black nickered.

“I once thought that way myself. But you forget that even one of our Princesses once disabused herself once of that truth — and just consider the results. And as for myself… I found out that I was wrong. I believe in none of that rot any longer.”

“Then I’m sorry to hear that…” And then the two were again making their slow walk away, too distant to hear clearly over the rustle of the leaves. Mangosteen nudged her way out from under the hedges and gestured frantically at Frond to follow. Blinking, the buck rose and crept behind the doe, inch by inch, as the two stallions approached the exit of the labyrinth of flowers into the gardens.

“…you lead a life beaker than I can imagine, Jett Black. I pray to the Lonely God that you will reconsider your foal-headed stubbornness.” Rubyk’s tone was measured, and he betrayed no emotion as he walked bestride the pegasus stallion.

“That is because you imagine only a physical bleakness, like your glaciers and tundras, Rubyk.” Jett Black was equally stoical as the two stepped out into the open gardens and out of the silent privacy of the confessional. “But, like these flowers, that is only a mask for the deep truth that beneath are only worms. The real bleakness is the pony soul itself. You will see the worms one day if you look with honest eyes.”

“Then let me see the worms and sing for them an hymn of praise as unto Celestia Herself,” said Rubyk, and that seemed to bring the whole matter to a close. The two ponies exited the labyrinth and shot each other a look of what was perhaps begrudging respect, then turned from each other and began to go their separate ways — the pegasus back into the hotel through the conservatory doors, and Rubyk deeper into the gardens.

Yet even after Jett Black had made his exit, Rubyk turned and stared into the labyrinth. It took Frond and Mangosteen several moments to realize that he was staring right in their direction. The Clavia froze and willed more magic into the glamour that covered them, antlers glinting dimly in the searching light of the noonday sun. Surely he couldn’t have seen them while they were in the labyrinth? There was no way! He couldn’t have had a chance to see them?

Could he?

After a long, glacial instant, Rubyk turned his head and seemed to change his mind about his destination. He instead turned back toward the hotel himself. In a moment, he, too, was lost to sight.

The twins rose and exchanged a glance. The two were shaking, though neither could quite say why.


*****


“Well!” Madeleine said. It seemed the only appropriate thing one could say. She said it again.

One didn’t get to eavesdrop on a conversation like that very often. Behind her, the dictosprite was dutifully taking down every word of the twins’ report in one long, unpunctuated scrawl.

“Did… you hear what you wanted, Miss Crumpet?” Mangosteen asked, cocking her head.

“Hmm? Oh, yes.”

“Should we… keep on watching them?” Frond asked, looking to his sister, somewhat lost.

“Very good… keep on if you like,” Madeleine said, sounding a thousand miles away. Brother and sister exchanged another glance, then turned to leave.

“Al…right, then?” Frond said. “Enjoy your stay… Miss Crumpet?”

“I will dears. Thank you.” The twins shrugged and left. Madeleine stared out of the window at the gardens, tracing their winding labyrinths with her eyes.

“Just who are you, my dear Rubyk? How is a pony like you made?” she mused, dreamily. The dictosprite continued its dumb scritching, setting down her words faithfully. Annoyed, Madeleine grabbed it in her magic and held it to her body. Its squirm felt oddly satisfying before she jerked the quill out of its grip, leaving it once more lifeless metal. She sighed.

No more letters tonight, her little pony told her firmly.

Well, obviously not after hearing something like that.


*********************************************



Chapter Four



Cards on the Table



*********************************************



“Crumpet dear!” exclaimed Miss Largo, rising up to her hooves from the high table in the hotel’s dining room. She threw her forelegs around Madeleine’s neck, embracing her and giving her a quick kiss upon each cheek. “I’m ever so glad that you could join us! You remember the Manehattan Oranges, I presume?” Miss Largo pointed out her dining companions already seated with her, who were the very same earth pony couple from the shuttle-cart ride and Miss Largo’s treat of the grand sweep of Equestrian history, now garbed in evening dress that they wore with a practiced ease. Both he and she rose, he offering her an hoof, she curtsying low in a sleek little red thing of a dress with sequins.

“Mandarin Orange,” she said, with all the smoothness of an accomplished social climber. “How do you do?”

“Oh, quite well, quite well.”

“Bergamot Orange,” he said, announcing himself with a pride that struck Madeleine’s ear as a bit too high for one high-born. That was the sort of upright up-puffedness one only found in the self-made stallion. He smiled, showing no apparent recollection of the events of the morning. “If you were wondering, I’m only a distant relation to my cousin Mosely, if you’ve ever been to one of his house parties in the Manehattan uptown.”

Madeleine had not been wondering. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Orange, although I can’t honestly say if I have had the honour of your cousin’s acquaintance or not. One meets so many ponies in her travels that she often forgets whom she oughtn’t. And is it Mrs. Orange?” she asked, going through the societal motions for the sake of it. There was no doubt from their manner that this was very much Mrs. Orange.

“Why, yes!” said Mrs. Mandarin Orange, and laughed the reflexive laugh of one who does so because it is the done thing. Madeleine shot a searching look toward Miss Largo, and the proprietress caught her meaning.

“Mr. and Mrs. Orange, may I present a good friend of mine and my dear little Clavia, Madeleine Crumpet?” Miss Largo said. Madeleine made a curtsy just low enough to show off the dangling necklace of diamond and hematite in platinum wire she had chosen to go with her onyx-stone earrings and seated herself at the table. “I hope that you won’t mind my taking the liberty of inviting them to sup with me tonight, Crumpet. The gentlepony had been expecting to dine with a business partner and his associate tonight, but Babaco – oh, yes dear, he’s made maitre d’hotel now, didn’t I mention? Babaco received a message from their suite with regrets, but that he would be unable to attend in-person.”

“I believe the exact phrase was, ‘I’m plum tuckered, so you all can go and do whatever you all like, for all I care.’” Although he said it with a good-humoured smile, and with an elocution that bordered on the unnatural, Bergamot pronounced the words with a certain edge that struck Madeleine’s ear like a well-hidden dissonance. It was a trifle jarring.

“Yes,” said Miss Largo, waving an hoof vaguely. “Whatever the content of the note, it was certainly most unfortunate. When I saw the Oranges standing alone without a friend or a dining companion, I said to myself, ‘that is not how the Hotel Clavia treats her guests.’ And so I brought them up to high table with me tonight, dear!”

“And what exemplary treatment!” exclaimed Mrs. Orange. “Why, I feel positively like a Princess under this good mare’s care.” She said this as a pair of whisper-quiet does came and set out water glasses and silverware before them. The Oranges seemed to only notice the after-effects with a slight start, but quickly accepted this competent, if silent service.

“Mr. Orange is a most respectable businesspony, Crumpet dear,” said Miss Largo, continuing by way of introduction. “I understand that he owns the souls of not a few greengrocers on the mainland.”

“Miss Largo certainly has a – ah – unique way of putting her perspective into words,” said Mr. Orange. “But that is more or less the shape of it. I am an importer of fresh and dried produce and spices from the South Seas, Griffinstone, and the zebra lands, and a wholesaler to the major Equestrian markets. It wouldn’t be immodest to say that, oh, ninety, ninety-five percent of all your bananas and oranges and suchlike pass under my hooves at some point.” It might not have been immodest to say so, but Bergamot Orange was clearly not a pony much given to modesty.

“How fascinating!” cried Madeleine on-cue. Did her voice crack just then? That had sounded a bit flat.

“Miss Crumpet, what is it that you do, exactly?” queried Mrs. Orange.

Safer ground! “I confess that I am in much the same line, actually. Only my work is in jewels. I make my own pieces and broker contracts between the miners in the Crystal Mountains and client jewelers throughout Equestria. It takes a mare’s touch and a bit of personal attention to see such things done right, so I do spend quite a bit of time on the road. As you might imagine, one’s business in this line picks up quite a bit now that the Crystal Empire is now on the maps again.”

“How absolutely fascinating! Quelle jolie!” Mrs. Orange’s timing was impeccable. Madeleine wondered if she had been a musician in another life. “Miss Crumpet, you absolutely must tell us more about your line. I insist!”

Madeleine smiled. Mandarin Orange was, as she intuited, very much a mare suited to jewels. “Let me tell you about my time with the Duchess of Baltimare on my last tour…”


*****


“Rubyk… what is this?” Frost Pane’s voice was tentative, leery, suspicious. She poked an hoof at the long, starchy crescents on her plate that were crusted in a fried coat redolent of honey and the sweet spices of the islands, frowning deeply at the unaccustomed texture.

“Plaintains. A local specialty.” Rubyk didn’t sound any happier about the matter of his plate. He took a dubious bite with teeth like knives. He chewed and swallowed, face showing only a stoical resignation. “Starchy. Good brown bread would be better.”

“What weak, flipsome meats! Bread fit only for foals and dungeoned jackanapes!” Frost Pane ejaculated, but weakly. The mare was seated on her haunches, being together with Rubyk altogether too tall for ordinary chairs, wrapped in a coarse white fur and a woolen mantle. She had recovered a bit since her collapse owing to her sleep and the little deer doctor’s medicines, but the quaver in her voice told more of her condition than any outward signs. The old mare scowled. “Haven’t they any strong meats? No fishes? None of those gull-birds that pester on the harbour?”

“I believe not, grandmama.”

“Bah!” said Frost Pane, the despond on the old mare’s face deepening. She lowered her head and tasted of the local specialty. Real worry came into her eyes, then.

“Rubyk, we shall starve! I shall be dust, and you will carry my cold bones back to Trotheim!”

“I… will see what I can do to buy real meats in the morning. Perhaps the town will have some creatures living in it with heartier stomachs than these deerfolk.” He did not sound entirely hopeful. Raising an hoof, Rubyk called for hot coffee and glasses of good apple brandy. As their dinnerware was whisked away by apron-clad Clavia grasped in their starlight magic, Rubyk cast his eyes around the dining room, idly noting the groups of ponies supping happily in the fading light of the dusk pouring in through the great window built to face the setting of Celestia’s sun, augmented by the dim light of lampwood made into trim that ran about the perimeter of the walls. Torches of lampwood set into wall-sconces began to come to iridescent life as they were touched by the first harbingers of Luna’s night. The shadows lengthening outside and the soft light brightening within were accompanied by the soft sounds of a young doe playing with mallets on a massive instrument of wooden planks and pipes on a raised stage at the side of the dining room. Rubyk listened for only a moment before he sighed and turned his face away. Some things were simply not worth the attention of the Pride of Trotheim.

The unicorn mare and the braggart earth married couple from the shuttle-cart ride were seated at the table on the dais by the northern wall, apparently as guests of the proprietress. From their words that he could catch from across the crowd and bustle, they were speaking pleasant social nothings at one another. There was nothing there for him.

Jett Black was seated alone at a table along the south wall, cradling a cup of coffee and watching the door with half-lidded eyes, lost in a faraway thought. The stallion was an heavy presence, and after they had met in the Grand Foyer, and seen each in the other a sparring-partner, and had walked together and said all that was to be said, they had parted ways, the decision final. He did not stir, although his glance showed that he felt the unicorn’s eyes upon him. Rubyk shook his head at the memory of the exchange with the recalcitrant Pegasus and continued to scan the room.

A stallion with his sweetheart over in the corner-nook by the window, each enjoying a glass of Champcourse… a family with many foals at the banquet-table babbling childish wonder, mummering parental banalities… a trio of stallions in business suits and ties over near the doors talking in low tones of bits and the crimes they would commit to take them (only they called them “marketing strategies”). All dull, all crushingly dull. Rubyk looked down into the dark coffee that was whisked before him with infinite resignation to weeks, or even months, of more of the same.

And then Calvados Apple happened.


*****


Madeleine was mid-stride through the telling of an amusing anecdote of one of her tours involving her, the Diamond Dogs of Rock Ridge, the new Sheriff there, and a can of turtle wax when she realized that neither of the Manehattanites was attending to her. Bergamot Orange’s ears were folded unconsciously flat against his skull as he fixed the doors of the dining room with a stare that could have cut glass.

“Why? What is he doing here now? Is he just trying to make me angry? Is he hoping that will make me stupid?” Mr. Orange did not even sound angry. He seemed genuinely perplexed.

“Dear, I’m sure there must have been some good reason –” Mrs. Orange began to say, trying to soothe her husband. She only succeeded in provoking him.

“Oh, you’re sure of that, Mandarin?” Mr. Orange snorted back. Mrs. Orange flinched. “I wonder how you could be so sure of that. He’s my kin, not yours. And I’m sure as apples rot that would be perfectly in character for Calvados.” Mandarin Orange wore an expression as though she had been struck by Bergamot’s hoof, rather than his words. She turned her eyes down to the fruit soup in front of them all, not really seeing it or much of anything else.

Miss Largo shot a warning glance to the maitre d’hotel, a Clavia buck who nodded and gestured for the wait staff to be alert for potential trouble. She threw a quick, apologetic smile to Madeleine that seemed to say, “I rather bungled it tonight, didn’t I, dear?”

“He’s coming this way. Bungle it all, he’s coming this way right now, isn’t he?” Mr. Orange gritted through his teeth. It seemed so. Calvados Apple walked with a brash swagger of his shoulders, and he did not fain to flick his tail like a whip as he walked. He was a mocking figure, ungarbed and unadorned among a sea of dinner jackets, and Madeleine could hear his low whistle and clicking tongue as he passed the mares among the dining room. Some returned a tut-tutting glare, while others… well, there was no accounting for taste, Madeleine supposed, but she had every right to call some of the looks that the lecherous old stallion received an affront to good taste in stallions everywhere. Pome Apple followed in his uncle’s wake, moving with the leaden steps of a carter long overdue for a break as if lashed to his elder’s side by an invisible tether.

The two coltish stallions stopped at the foot of the dais on which Miss Largo’s high table was set. Bergamot Orange glared downward from his seat, but said nothing, folding his forelegs tight across his chest. Miss Largo made a small motion with her head, and six or so Clavia clad in aprons stood discreetly along the far wall, aloof and unseen to the other diners, but ready.

Calvados Apple beamed and raised himself up on his hind legs. “Hey, you old sour Orange!” he said, and guffawed with a belly laugh that nearly shook the plates. “How in Tirek’s hind-ends are ya’?”

“Calvados, I admire your gall. Really, I do. But where in a rotten hay-cart were you today when you told me that you would meet us at the dock, or the week before that when you said that you would be on San Cheval until the Summer Sun Celebration was ended? And, pray, why did you even bother to come down to dinner if you felt so shagged out from your trip?” Mr. Orange controlled himself well. He might have been exchanging pleasantries with an old friend had she not noticed the unnatural monotone of his voice that never seemed to move more than an half-step. Generally, she found ponies who took up that kind of tone only ever did so when they had no other option for reining in a rage that would otherwise control them. Madeleine unconsciously pressed herself back from the table, but the tension seemed to flow entirely in one direction.

“Can’t a feller’ change his mind every once in a while, Bergie? ‘Sides, then I’d miss seeing all the pretty fillies all dolled up and bangled. And y’all know how much I hate missing out.” Madeleine felt his eyes on her body and jewels like the rake of cat claws. She shuddered.

“Yes, Cousin. I am quite sure that everypony eventually learns that you are not one for self-deprivation in your ‘hobbies.’” Mr. Orange’s voice increased in volume. “Did you come down to talk business, or is all this merely a social call? Now that you have finally decided to be in the same room as your cousin instead of wandering the seas like the Winged Friesian, perhaps you would be in the mood to discuss the shipping contract I sent to your estate three months ago over cocktails?”

“And miss out on dicin’ in the casino? Nah!” replied Calvados, dismissing the idea with the wave of an hoof. “We’ve got plenty of time in the morning for that. Ain’t like there’s anything better to do ‘round that hour here anyway. I found me a nice little coffee-place for our chit-chat in town over yonder. They’ve got more of these cute deer that’re easy on the eyes and a prim little gel with twistiest tongue you ever heard serving there. I find myself getting distracted if I don’t have something nice and pretty to set eyes on when talking shop.” Miss Largo let out a disapproving hiss through clenched teeth that was nearly inaudible.

“Ye-yes, of course. We’ve put it off for so long. What’s but one more day?” Mr. Orange tried to laugh, but it came out loud – loud, and hollow. Some ponies from nearby tables had begun to stare, including some mares throwing filthy looks at Calvados and the quiet Pome, who had yet to open his mouth to speak. Even the mysterious Rubyk and the old Frei of Trotheim were looking this way with rapt interest, a queer and frosty glint in their eyes.

“Slick as snot, Bergie boy! I’ll see you then and we’ll put the last spit on that contract, and then we’ll both go home richer’n one of your Manehattan street-mares in a slit-cut dress on a Moons-day night!” Calvados gave one last plate-rattling laugh and put his foreleg around his morose companion, grinning a drunk-apple grin. “Pome and I’ll head out there, eh, sometime in the morning. Sooner we can get this done, the better, right? And you and your lovely little Mandy’ll be at the dicing tables tonight, I reckon?”

“It… it would…” Mr. Orange swallowed, hard, and avoided making eye contact with the pony at the foot of the dais. “It would be our pleasure, Cousin Calvados.”

“Darn right! And I wouldn’t mind seeing some of you other ladies down there too, if you don’t mind my saying.” Pome looked as if he wanted to bury his face in an hat he did not have. Calvados waved his hearty farewell and turned to leave the dining room, but Pome remained behind for a moment. He shuffled an hoof on the ground, looking down to avoid the accusing eyes of the diners. He raised his head and said in an apologetic voice:

“I’m sorry.” After a moment, he added to clarify, “I’m very, very sorry, y’all. Uncle’s just… like that. Beggin’ your pardon, ma’ams.” The red unicorn did not wait for a reply, but turned and trotted quickly after the departing Calvados, as if he wanted to escape out from under all the staring eyes as quickly as possible.

It was Miss Largo who broke the silence that followed. “I see that fortune dealt you a troublesome hand in your kinfellows, Mr. Orange. My condolences.”

Bergamot orange let out a long breath that he did not know that he had been holding. “You are a very gracious, and a very frank hostess, Miss Largo. I apologize for the undiplomatic nature of my relations.”

“Oh, think nothing of it,” replied Miss Largo, and motioned to the Clavia on alert to be about their business – and to clear away the dishes and bring in coffee and nuts. “I do but regret that there seems to be some factor beyond my control to disturb the stay of one of my hotel’s guests. Although Calvados and I have our own… well, business arrangements, he is rather… brash. It bothers me whensoever I cannot be a perfect hostess.” Miss Largo turned toward Madeleine. “Crumpet, dear, you’ve been rather quiet. Tell us for a laugh: what did you think of our visitors just now?”

Madeleine tapped at her face with a well-hoplicured hoof, as though in deep thought. “I think ‘boor’ would be insulting to the pigs.”

A belly laugh just reserved enough for polite society went up from the high table. Really, what more could be said than that?


*****


“Rubyk, do you hear?” said Frost Pane in the loudest whisper that the nearby diners had ever heard. “Dicing tables! Dicing through the night instead of to lay silent and starve! We shall go, both you and I, and play for the great glory of Trotheim!”

Rubyk sighed and resigned himself to doing battle with dice and cards for the great glory of Trotheim. “Yes, grandmama.”


*****


“Bid two stars, double on hold!”

“Oh, do let me see… Two spades with Princess high, double on the run.”

“Ten bits, four moons, and exactly seven on the run.”

“That’s an awful gutsy move, Bergie. Twenty bits on your four moons, and twenty bits if the old nag’s got less than three stars up her garter. Call it and run ‘em.”

Rubyk watched the game taking place at one of the long tables felted in crimson in the Hotel Clavia’s lampwood-lit casino with no small measure of interest. Frost Pane had joined a table with a playing group already formed and a “quill” already in process and had watched the game with an intense scrutiny until their play was complete. Called “Keyrun”, the game seemed to be a mish-mash of the adversarial trick-taking card games known in Trotheim with a chance element of the dicing-games most common among the soldiery of every land appended by force. There was a Clavia doe dressed in a prim jacket and red bow tie acting as a dealer from a common deck, and it was she who passed the dice along to the winning bidder upon each hand, and so on to each pony in his turn. At any time, the winner could freeze the dice roll for the remainder of the hand and force its total onto his own under-bidders, paying in an amount equal to his original bet. It was a complicated, unintuitive hodgepodge that he seemed to understand no better now than when he had started watching. And the doe dealing seemed to take in most of the bits on the table into a clinking brass pot, so he supposed that few of the players understood it well either.

Naturally, Frost Pane took to it at once like a filly receiving her first spear. Rubyk was content to sit upon his haunches at the bar, and watch, and listen. Beside him sat Jett Black, who did not play games, but had an excellent reason for sitting and watching them played.

“Ponies fascinate me,” he had said upon meeting Rubyk’s questioning glance. And that was all that need be said.

The unicorn Pome also sat at the bar, tippling cider and looking like he wanted to crawl inside the bottle. Doctor Leaf, oddly, was working the bar, and he kept a professional eye on the red unicorn even as he seemed content to take his bits.

“Will Mister Rubyk like anything from the bar?” Doctor Leaf asked, in persona servum officium. The Clavia regarded the unicorn for an instant, noting the hungry look in his eye, and made a leap of studied intuition. “Or is it, perhaps, that the Hotel is unable to provide him with what he needs, and not what he likes?”

“Mister Rubyk” smirked a mouth full of teeth at the little doctor playing bartender. “You really are a most suspicious deer, Doctor. Something to warm my grandmare’s bones if you have it, and something to keep eyes open for me.”

“I can see to that. By the by…” Doctor Leaf undoubtedly would have leaned over to whisper in the unicorn’s ear, but their heights made that an impossibility. He motioned discreetly for Rubyk to lean in, and the unicorn drew his head down close. “Unless I very much mistake your needs, I think that you will be able to find what you seek at a stall on the harbour that opens and shutters in the early hours of the morning, before all the other vendors. It is run by one of my brethren who sees to it that the tastes of those… like you… are able to be nourished without alarming other ponies as long as they remain under our care.”

“You are… truly a remarkable fellow, friend doctor. You have my double thanks.”

The Clavia shook his head. “I am a doctor. It is my job to care for the body, whatever that might look like. I will get Rock Skipper to meet you before dawn in the Grand Foyer. The pegasus should know where the stall is, and he should doubly know how to be discreet.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll have your drinks out in just a moment, Mister Rubyk,” Doctor Leaf said, a bit more loudly. “One coffee and one hot toddy, coming up.” The Clavia’s gaze remained on Rubyk for a long moment. The little deer cleared his throat. “A-hem.”

Rubyk blinked for a moment, then sighed and magicked a small stack of bits from inside his saddlebags. Doctor Leaf quickly counted them and rapped his hoof, twice, on the counter.

Rubyk added two more of the gilded coins to the stack.

“Thank you, Mister Rubyk.”

Disgusted at his own largesse, Rubyk turned his attention back to the game. Some of the ponies originally seated to play Keyrun had run short on either luck or patience and so had left, and a group familiar to him by sight, if not by acquaintance, was now seated at the dicing-table. Frost Pane sat on the far left of the dealer, her size and cloaks still wrapped about her giving a wide berth of space between her and the other players. The coquette of a mare with a jade-and-pearl brooch mark from the shuttle-cart, and who had supped at the high table with the opinionated proprietress of the hotel, was seated to Frost Pane’s own left, directly in Rubyk’s own line of sight. Every now and again, her eyes would dart up from the gaming-table when the dice were passed to her on the run and regarded Rubyk with a glance that was deadly curious. It was never more than a moment, and he never quite caught her in the act. Benign enough for now, but Rubyk would make an end of it, personally, if she persisted; the honour of Trotheim was not a thing to be so lightly regarded.

To the left of the orange unicorn sat the stallion from Manehattan, his wife standing close behind him as a non-combatant in the little war of dice and cards. His muzzle bore a deep scowl; his forehead was furrowed in lines of consternation. Both seemed to run deeper than this game, even though the run had not been kind to him since he had seated himself. Rather, the events of the game seemed to be excavating the lines that had already existed when he had walked through the door.

At the right sat Calvados Apple, who was enough of a presence that he commanded no other descriptor. He had called for a cranberry juice from the bar twice already since the start of the game and had added to it from the contents of a narrow metallic flask worn on his inner thigh. The old stallion had grown only louder and more boisterous since the game’s beginning. It did not take a Trotheim logicmaster to connect cause and effect. Pome had only shaken his head each time the flask had made an appearance, returning to his cider with deepening sighs.

Calvados called for a third juice. “And make sure it’s brought out by some young thing with some glam!” he added, hollering over the nervy tension and faintly smoky atmosphere. He turned his eyes, rheumy and unfocused, to his cards dealt face-down and made an humming show of indecision. “Heh-hrm. Heh-hrm…”

“Is something the matter, Cousin?” Bergamot quipped. “You do not usually take this long to make a play. Haven’t you perhaps had enough for one night?”

“Enough of what?” Calvados challenged, voice slurring and vowels going long.

“Cards and dice and losing!” said Frost Pane with a frown as she peered at her own face-downs under her hooves.

“One could well think it,” Madeleine said in a whisper to the Trotheim mare that Rubyk saw upon her lips more than heard through the haze of noise. “He was just as dreadful at this game as any of us when we came in, but whatever decoction he’s been drinking clearly has done him no favours.”

“And such bids he makes!” Frost Pane eagerly bandied back to Madeleine, to whom she had taken a fast liking as a co-conspirator over the course of the game. “The Cousin makes such naked-bluster bluffs that it makes me itch. Soon he will not be bluffing and will move to take us all for fools. The Frei of Trotheim is not so easy a snare as that!”

“Are you going to make a bid, Calvados, or will you vault this hand?” Bergamot Orange sounded very nearly at the end of his patience with the old stallion.

“Are y’all saying I ain’t fit to play no more? Griffins’ groinfeathers, and I thought you had more brains in your head than that, Bergie!” Calvados erupted into bone-rattling laughter at his own private humour. A Clavia doe with white freckles under her eyes and horns with silvery gilding, the same who had been plinking and caterwailing on the dining room stage, gingerly approached the noisome stallion. She carried a glass of red juice on an enameled tray in a grasp of starlight more orange than yellow. He wheeled around and grinned broadly as he looked down and saw her.

“I see this place has some fine service!” Calvados announced to nopony in particular. “I asked for some glam, and buck my hide off if they didn’t find some pretty young thing to deliver the goods! How d’ya call yourself, honey?”

At the bar, Pome groaned. “Discord take the throne, not again…” Rubyk raised an eyebrow at that. Behind the bar, Doctor Leaf had arrested all of his other efforts and raised himself up on his hind legs, leaning against the counter to get a clear view of events. The physician was looking right at Calvados with wide, unblinking eyes, a frown creasing the corners of his short muzzle.

“Cousin, we’re still waiting for you to –”

“M-my name is Papaya,” the Clavia said with just a hint of a stammer. Her eyes went glassy in the moment, and it seemed that this momentary hesitation was more due to her heredity than any inborn shyness, for when she spoke again, her voice was velvety smooth with a purring curl. “And just who is the gentlestallion that wants to know, hmm?”

“Little sugarcube, if that ain’t the sweetest ol’ name I ever heard, I’m Princess Celestia! How’s my mane?” Calvavdos said, miming the shimmering wave of the Princess’ astral coiffure. Papaya laughed, and Madeleine shook her head.

“Should we… warn her, do you think?” Madeleine hissed to Frost Pane. The old mare shook her head emphatically.

“No. Little ponies and littler deer need to know the braying of the wolf before they can avoid him. Leave her be!”

“But what if she gets herself hurt?” Madeleine insisted, not looking at all convinced to Rubyk, who watched all of the proceedings with a calm eye – but stood ready to intervene if things went south.

“Do you warn the foal not to touch the flame, or do you forbid him to use the stove?” Frost Pane whispered back.

Madeleine had to admit, she had no idea of the right answer there.

“Cousin… really, I’ve been more than patient. Make your bid, or I won’t hesitate to get up and leave this quill,” said Bergamot, whose right eye was half-lidded, as though he were developing a severe headache on the one side. The Clavia dealer shot him a look of gratitude, and Calvados waved an hoof dismissively.

“One hundred bits, bid three Princesses, double on the run. Now, you little sugarcube, where’d you get this love bite from?”

“What are you talking about?” gasped Papaya, feigning an horrified expression. “Where is it? Oh, how could I have been so careless?”

“Why, girl, it’s right… huh?” Calvados said, running his fetlock over her neck “Aww, looks like I was wrong, sugarcube. That weren’t no love bite, but it sure as Celestia looked there ought to be one there – right there!” he emphasized, rubbing the doe under her chin. She giggled; Madeleine, Mandarin, and Bergamot all bore the same expression of abject disgust; Doctor Leaf snorted and glared at the stallion with eyes that could smelt steel. Motes of an unearthly light glinted threateningly on his antler-tips. Rubyk caught a sidelong glance from Jett Black and nodded. The Aktur of Trotheim stood, raising himself up to his full height..

And Calvados just laughed. In an instant, the tension was shattered. The old fool was just playing out what had been put into his own system.

Madeleine rose to her hooves. “I think with a bid like that, I’d better bow out of the quill,” she said, turning a plaintive glance to her companion for the evening. “Frei Frost Pane, will you join me?”

The proud mare of Trotheim looked to her stack of bits on the gaming-table, which was about half of its original size from the start of the game. “Ja. This is a crooked contest. What good is spearing the dragon when his hide is so hard?”

“Well, I, for one, intend to stay.” Mr. Orange’s voice had a venomous bite. Madeleine unconsciously moved herself behind the Frei of Trotheim, still gathering up her bits without the use of her magic, as a protective shield between her and the two stallions. “This is a pox-blighted bluff, Calvados, and I’m not about to let you canter out of here with some deer who looks like she could be your granddaughter and all those bits in the bargain.”

“Bergamot, what are you doing?” hissed Mrs. Orange, the socialite raising her voice for the first time since they had sat down at the gaming-tables.

“I’m doing what we would all like to see done, Mandarin. It’s another bluff. Our cousin can barely see or speak straight anymore. It has to be another bluff.” Bergamot rammed his hoof on the table, pushing several stacks of gold coins. “I match your one-hundred bits and bid three hearts, Princess high. Single on the run. I will win this hand.”

“Your funeral, Bergie. Ma’am?” Calvados said to the dealer. The doe drew a large pile of coins toward her with starry grip and stony face. She placed the pair of dice into Bergamot’s waiting hoof.

Bergamot took a breath.

Bergamot threw the dice.

The dice bounced, once, twice against the far side of the table and fell, showing faces of four and six. Bergamot smiled, viciously.

“Aww, give that here,” Calvados slurred. The dealer again took the dice in her magic and whisked them to the old stallion. He made a great show of shaking the dice and threw them with gusto and a knowing smirk. They skittered, bounced, rebounded, and fell again in front of the stallions, showing a three and a four. Calvados’ smirk grew wider, and colder.

“Seven. I do believe that means I can take my double now. Dealer?” The dice were again placed in Calvados’ hooves.

Calvados laughed.

Calvados threw the dice.

“Well, Bergie. That’s also a ten. I do believe it comes down to hands now. So show ‘em, boy, and prove you’ve got a spine to go with all them hoity-ways. Show them cards!”

Mr. Orange was actually shaking with anger – a sight that Madeleine had heard of, but never actuallyencountered in all her wide travels throughout Equestria. She backed away another unconscious step. But Mr. Orange kept his tongue and his silence, and he turned his cards and shot a defiant glare at his kinfellow. His cards showed three showing fields of hearts, a single black gem, and the unmistakable, smiling face of Princess Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville.

“Did I exaggerate, cousin? Did I stutter?” Bergamot growled out. “Let’s see your three Princesses. As you say, show ‘em.”

Calvados turned his cards. Bergamot slumped back, his muzzle gone suddenly pale.

“You… you weren’t bluffing.”

“No, I weren’t,” Calvados confirmed, showing the faces of Celestia, Luna, and Cadence with a leer of triumph. “And I’d keep a civil tongue in my snout if I were you, Bergie, seeing as I’ve got an awful lot you need. Y’all can just consider this practice. I’ll see you and Mandy in that pretty old town with the sun and the chickens, won’t I?”

Mr. Orange did not answer. He seemed to Madeleine like a gem in which all the inner fire was suddenly snuffed out like a candle. Mrs. Orange answered instead. “It… it would be our pleasure, Calvados. We… we both… look forward to a most fruitful discussion.”

“Oh, I’ll bet,” sneered a gloating Calvados, all the slur in his manner replaced by needle acuity. “I look forward to doing business – real business. Pleasure doing business with you tonight, though! For now…” Calvados raised his voice over the bassline thrum of the casino. “Pome! Git up! C’mon, we’re leaving – I’ve had enough of filly games!”

With a start, the unicorn half jumped, half fell off of his stool at the bar and cantered over to his uncle, listing as he went. The pair exited the casino in silence – one with head held high, the other staggering with his eyes fixed firmly on the floor.

Frost Pane trotted to Rubyk, her furs and cloaks making her seem to glide across the floor like a spirit of the ice. There was something different in the old mare’s black-spotted eyes; something very like worry. “Rubyk, it is strange and all of a muddle. I feel the cold on me like knives.”

“Let us return to our rooms, grandmama. I will have the deer draw you a hot bath.”

“Not that kind of cold, toothing-foal! You feel it too, do you not? It is the same as when the whitepelts would go out and stalk the glaciers; as when the Windigoes beat at the walls of Ponnibi and your father brought them loving-kind into Trotheim and we began to bite and devour one another. The kind of cold that comes from outside and makes a pony cold down through his liver and up through his heart! Can you not feel it, Rubyk?”

“I can,” said Jett Black, pointing with an hoof. Rubyk followed his gesture and watched Bergamot and Mandarin Orange walking slowly out of the casino. The stallion was a turbid shadow of his former self, his ears flat against his skull, his tail lashing at the air. Mrs. Orange put an hoof to his shoulder but he angrily pushed it aside and stomped away with punching steps that could crack an hoof.

For just a moment, Rubyk did feel that cold. A shiver like the Ice Sickness itself ran down his spine. “I think I do feel it, grandmama. And I am afraid for one of those ponies.”

But whom?

   e
> Part the Second - A Murder is (Not) Announced
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


*********************************************



Chapter One



Behind Closed Doors



*********************************************


Calvados Apple was dead. Very, very dead. That was the one certain thing. Rubyk found this a very uncertain place to rest his hooves, but he did not say so to Madeleine, who was looking upward to him with a face full of fear. Rubyk turned away from the thing on the floor that had once been a pony full of thrumming life, even if it had been wastrel, wicked life, and sighed. A familiar, cold fury had begun to rise up from within the belly of the Aktur of Trotheim, and with every slow beat of his heart it was pushed out through his veins to his hooves and tail and ear-tips, until his whole self was filled with a feeling like a thirst burning to be quenched.

“Why did you come to me, Madeleine Crumpet?” He trotted slowly around her, taking in what had been Calvados and Pome Apple’s suites with eyes glinting and blazing like a noon snowscape. “Why me, and not another? You could have run for one of the Clavia staff. You might instead have run to your friend, dame Largo, and set proper channels of justice in motion. You might have gone to his kinfellow, that Manehattan stallion. But you came to me. Before I take one more hoof-step on this craggy way, I must ask: why?”

The storm outside brayed like a hungry, predatory thing. The winds were vicious, the rain like merciless stones hurled down through the dark, as if the old hotel were still fulfilling its ancient function against invaders from the darkened sky. The old deerish magics built like a mosaic into the sandstone still held, repulsing the battering weather so that it did not venture across the threshold of the open balcony doors of the suite. Madeleine daubed at her forehead with a kerchief embroidered with a citrine “MC”, grateful to look at the perambulating Rubyk instead of the body of Calvados Apple lying prone between the chaise and the open balcony window, or the grim weather outside. “It wasn’t panic, Mister Rubyk, if that is what you are thinking. In truth, I did not know what other pony I could turn to.”

“What do you mean?” Rubyk demanded, fixing her with a corner-eyed glance. He made no apparent effort at harshness, and he did not raise his voice, but there was an insistence behind the words that weighed on Madeleine like a leaden saddle.

“I…” Madeleine swallowed. She closed her eyes; the sight of the body was one thing, but those cold eyes, looking at her like a butterfly under glass, were too much in present circumstances. “I know about what it is that you do. Broadly speaking, I mean. You are some kind of noble in your city – you punish evil ponies, and you investigate everything. You are a just pony, Mister Rubyk, and you were the only one I could think of when I saw… when I saw him like that,” Madeleine said, gesturing in the direction of the body.

Rubyk stopped in his stride and raised an eyebrow. “So you know all of that…” he murmured, sounding distant. But his next word was simple and pointed and altogether present. “Why?”

“Why?” Madeleine repeated the question, flummoxed by its abruptness. Should she understand it? Had she said something amiss? Sweet Celestia, there was a dead pony in the room with them, so why did he now ask this of her? What was he asking? Her mouth was dry as paper. Was there any water around?

“Why did you come to me and not another?”

“Oh!” Madeleine gulped in relief. She opened her eyes. “Because, Mister Rubyk, there wasn’t anyone else who was safe! Surely you must see that any of those ponies you mentioned – why, any of them might have done it!”

“Yes…” said Rubyk in the same distant murmur. He turned his attention back to the body. “But, then again, so might have you.” He wheeled on her with alarming swiftness, his towering body looming over Madeleine, who gasped and backed away slowly from his accusing eyes.

“I… I don’t understand, Mister Rubyk. What are you saying?” Madeleine licked at her lips, which had gone as dry as her mouth.

“Call your friend Largo. Get her up here. Now.” Rubyk’s tone took on a practiced imperiousness that was as frightful a noise as any night-creature’s voice Madeleine had heard in all of her travels.

“Mister Rubyk… I’m happy to help out in any way that I can. By all good magic, a pony is dead! But you surely don’t believe… you can’t think that I would be capable to…” Madeleine’s voice caught in her throat and her knees buckled as Rubyk of Trotheim seemed to be lit from below by a cold and clear and judgmental light that struck chill and fear into the deep marrow of her bones. It threw stark shadows over the sharp angles of his face and left Madeleine feeling utterly naked. And his eyes...! They tore into her like knives. No! Like icicles...!

It could not have lasted longer than an instant, but in that instant, Madeleine felt that the object of her fixity had turned on her and plumbed all her hidden depths and secrets – that all that was in her lay bare to this queer pony of the forbidding North. She gasped and heaved a wracking breath, as if she had just been held underwater and her lungs burned for life-giving air. She wanted to cry, but all her tears felt frozen up inside.

Rubyk regarded her for a moment, the flinty cast of his face softening. He turned his head away, toward the open door of the suite. “What I think or not, Madeleine Crumpet, is in the end irrelevant. All that matters is the facts of the matter, and I shall plumb its depths. If your horn is clean of this pony’s blood, you have nothing to fear from me.” With a gentle wag of his head, Rubyk motioned for Madeleine to leave. “I need some time alone in this room. Summon the proprietress. Don’t bother with the speaking tube. Go in person and bring her to me at once – but give me time to think.”

Madeleine rose to her hooves and gave a last glance of perplexity at the Trotheim pony, but she nodded and did as he bid, moving nearly at a gallop, though she moved with scarcely a sound in the carpeted corridor. With a flash of his horn, Rubyk closed the door behind her. It would not lock without the key, but the fewer eyes that saw him poking about a room with a dead body, the better.

Rubyk took the metal cube depending upon its chain from his neck into his hooves and lifted it into the air, hanging it upon nothing in the middle of the room. The cube began to turn, lazily, borne about on no particular axis. Rubyk raised his horn, and the cube was wrapped in a thin, gauzy veil of light. Then he thrust his horn downward, and the gauzy light burst and flowed outward with a sound like hard-driven snow, filling the suite with a dreamlike mist, white and pure. Rubyk closed his eyes and began to count aloud.

“…two… three… four… four? But what does that mean?” Opening up his eyes, he frowned and moved to the body and knelt on his long forelegs for a closer look. It was, as anypony could see, a truly grotesque sight, and one that would need an expert doctor and an autopsy to make comprehensible; at the moment, the thing that had once been Calvados Apple was just an enormity. Rubyk was no medical pony; yet even so, something did not feel right. What was it?

“What did you die of, old lech?” The unicorn’s frown deepened. There were so many wounds on the body, and all of a different type – a bruise upon the breast from a blow with no small force behind it; a bullet-wound in the left shoulder, with no apparent exit-wound; several long gashes on the face, as if raked by the point of some sharp object; a long streak of the unmistakable, unearthly pink of magic burn in the flesh below the skin running from stomach to throat. The stallion’s head had been struck just once, but hard, very hard, and Rubyk hoped that the poor devil had been dead and gone by then. Whoever had done this had been cruel, if not particularly thorough. The unicorn placed his horn on Calvados’ breast, trying to sense what vital heat yet remained in the body through that sensitive organ. Enough of the inner fire and deep magic of pony life still clung to the body that he guessed that whatever had happened here had only just happened. Rubyk also thought that he could feel the resonating thrum of enchantment coming from the body itself, which time had not yet been able to eradicate. “An enchantment couldn’t be one of the four… could it? It would have to get inside him somehow, and the only real way to do that is by… hmm…”

Rubyk turned to the table in the middle of the suite’s sitting room where three squat, thick-walled glass tumblers sat. Rather than use his magic and disturb them, he craned his neck to smell of their contents. The first two were drained to the dregs and had no especial odour. The third, however, struck Rubyk’s nose with the acrid, raking smell of the young apple brandy poured from a crystal decanter, still open, on the sideboard. Rubyk stared at it for a moment longer, tapping an hoof at the floor in thought. He looked into the bedroom. There was a small brown bottle upon the nightstand. His horn flashed, and he pulled it toward himself, peering at the label. The bottle declared itself as a vitamin tonic containing all of the necessary minerals and magical humours needed for strong and healthy muscles (“Trixie’s Great and Marvelous Miracle Elixer! – You’ll be awed and amazed at the energy you’ll have after only one dose!”). Other than this, the bedroom seemed exactly the same as his own suite, and completely undisturbed. Rubyk frowned and returned to the sitting-room.

His eyes continued to scan the room and found a few papers on the writing desk covered in a neat if not particularly imaginative script, mainly letters, and mostly stricken-through as the author seemed frustrated in finding the words to express himself properly. One other was written in the neat and uniform curling blocks of a Canterlot notary upon official parchment bearing the Royal letterhead – a title deed of some sort, Rubyk saw, but the lettering was so dense and tiny that he squinted and bent in close to read it.

But as he did so, the door of the suite opened, swift and yet deliberately, and the proprietress of the Hotel Clavia stood framed in the doorway, clad in a red silk dressing-gown. Her coral mane hung low and loose, and it had not seen a brush in many hours. In spite of her attire, she seemed utterly unsurprised by the state and contents of the tableau before her, and in the midst of an otherwise calm deportment, her mouth was set in a grim line just tending to a frown. She took in the sight of the unicorn and the body lying prone quite coolly, striding in without even a tremor in her hard-set features.

Behind the proprietress, there entered in what was, even to Rubyk’s experience, a strange train. Two Clavia bucks entered in behind their mistress, these larger and more well-muscled than others he had seen. One was clad in galley-whites with a white cloth band tied about his ears, while the other was wrapped in a dark-blue cloak with the beaded rain still upon it, with an holstered pistol and a length of bright-glowing lampwood hung about his waist. Both had the most massive racks of antlers he had seen on any deer upon the island so far, and the heads of both seemed to droop slightly with the weight of winking starlight that they bore. As they moved into the suites in lock-step, they pulled in their wake the unicorn Pome, looking even more miserable as he had at the bar the night prior, his head hung low. A dark, blotchy bruise was forming upon the left side of his face, just below his eye. He moved slowly, shuffling his hooves moreso than walking, but this was due to the cords or chains wrapped about his legs that seemed to be wrought from no earthly metal, but from the far-off Milk Road in Luna’s night sky up above. A similar cord was wrapped tight around his horn and weighed on the unicorn like a leaden crown. After these, Madeleine followed on behind, cringing as if she were flotsam in the current of events as they flowed about her.

Miss Largo stopped and stood at the false mantelpiece across the sitting room from the writing desk, keeping the body between her and Rubyk. The two bucks and their charge remained close at her side, and their eyes were wide and glassy and alarmed at the sight of Calvados’ remains. But they kept their wits and did not slacken their hold on Pome for even a moment.

“You must have a whopping knack for showing up where you smell out a need for ‘justice’, Lord Rubyk,” Miss Largo said at length, breaking the silence. “Crumpet tells me that you’re quite capable in this sort of thing.”

“I will not deny it,” replied that pony. “I am Aktur of Trotheim. I have seen the blood of many ponies shed, some justly, and mostly not. It is my office to search out and punish all murderers, thieves, mare-stealers, and traitors among my people. My duties inculcate a certain habit of investigation. I intend to assist the local police in their duties in just this wise.”

“Aktur,” repeated Miss Largo, rolling the word about in the velvet of her mouth. “That would mean something quite like ‘high prosecutor’ in our more temperate dialects – correct, Crumpet?”

“Er… I believe so?” said Madeleine, mystified at where all of this talk of abstract justice and job titles was going in the presence of death hard by.

“Good,” said Miss Largo. “It will make this easier to say” As in the Grand Foyer on the day before, the earth pony mare began to perambulate about the sitting room as she spoke. She gesticulated freely as she soliloquized, but she paced a widening circle around the body of Calvados Apple.

“Lord Rubyk, doubtless that thirst for justice has guided you well in the exercise of your duties. But I am afraid to say that Crumpet has been a bit too excitable, and perhaps a bit too hopeful in what help you might be. That odious pony there,” she said, gesturing at the body, “was murdered. Horrifically. This fact is not in dispute. Nor is the fact that there will be no need of your services in the matter of that murder.”

Rubyk blinked. His eyes narrowed. “What?” he demanded in a voice like an avalanche.

“Lord Rubyk,” Miss Largo said levelly, “I meant just what I said. For we have already apprehended the only pony that could have possibly killed Calvados Apple attempting to flee across the causeway. Which, I might add, is presently overswollen. He would have drowned had we not taken matters into our own hooves, and we had already done so when Madeleine stumbled upon the body.”

Rubyk snorted and stomped past Largo and the two Clavia and raised the head of the abjected Pome with his forehoof. “And you determined this how? Upon what evidence did all turn, and what trial did you make of it? Did you test your theories, refine and smelt them, wield them in the day of bitter struggle before the unflinching Bench of Never-Melting Ice? Did you do any of these before you accused this wretched creature of an heartless patrucide?”

“No,” replied Largo coolly. “We had no need for any of that. Let him tell you why, since I’ve not the stomach for it.”

For the second time, Rubyk blinked. “What?” He raised Pome’s head until they locked gazes. “What does she mean?”

Pome Apple mumbled something that caught in his throat. Rubyk leaned his head in closer. “Speak. What do you mean to say?”

“I said, it’s ‘avuncucide’, you pompous ox. Talk to me like I’m standing in front of you or I won’t be telling dungbeans.” Pome Apple glared and jerked his head away from Rubyk’s grasp. Now free, his head again hung low under the weight of magic fetters upon him. “S’ true enough. I wanted to kill Calvados sometimes, even though he was my uncle. Even though I loved him. Sometimes it welled up in me late o’ nights, but I ain’t a killing pony by nature. At least, I thought I wasn’t. I must have just… lost control. Lost my head. Lost everything, I reckon. I don’t remember it, but there he is – a pony don’t get deader than that. I just don’t think I could’ve done that. I know I couldn’t have done. Sweet Celestia… I feel like my guts are dying.”

Silence fell in the sitting room after these words. Rubyk’s anger turned to a deepening frown, his forehead creased in thought. Miss Largo spoke soothingly to the party gathered there.

“Lord Rubyk…” she said, in low and reasonable tones, “consider yourself in my position for just a moment, if you would. I have no great training in the rules of evidence and the stab-and-thrust of the courtroom that the Aktur of Trotheim claims for himself, especially if these are anything like the farce-trials I saw in Canterlot, that den of all miscarried justice. But when I see a pony fleeing in the night from a room in which a dead pony is found – like that – and who had every reason to do such things, I think that swift closure in the matter would be healthiest for everypony involved. Don’t you?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Rubyk nodded. It was a reluctant gesture.

“If what you say is true, then I have no objection. I must of course look into this matter thoroughly for when your own police are ready to arrive. Your Princess grants to the governing house of Trotheim the authority in their own persons for each to fulfill his office while in Equestria as he sees fit; it is the chief article of our treaty. I intend to stand as of Aktur and to prosecute this case personally before I leave this island.”

“Ah. There we come to a problem,” said Miss Largo. She fixed Rubyk with stare that was half gravity, half amusement. “I think you do not quite appreciate my meaning, Lord Rubyk. When you say ‘our own police’, what is that you mean? Constables, commissioners, chiefs and captains and lords, all lined up in ranks and wasted plates of gold? That is how they do things in the Capital, and for all I know that is how you do things in the North, but we have nothing of the kind here.”

Rubyk’s manner grew dangerously cold. “Explain yourself.”

Miss Largo gave a longsuffering sigh and did not quaver to look the Aktur of Trotheim in the eye. “How much more simply can I say it? Currycape has no police. Neither does any other island where the Clavia make their home. They have not learned to do barbarously as the three tribes did, and it is our pride here that we have not the need for such an iron hoof on our necks to civilize us.”

“What?” This time it was Madeleine who spoke. “Do… do you mean to say that there is no jail on the island, Largo dear? No courthouse? Not even a night watch?” The thought filled her with an odd feeling – something like a retrospective anxiety over all the time she had spent traveling in the islands without the familiar safety net of civilization.

“Oh, no dear – only that we have to take care of all that sort of thing ourselves. The Clavia are such a sensiblefolk in how they act for the good of the whole people that the ponies who live on the deerfolk’s islands do likewise.” Miss Largo turned to Rubyk with infinite patience. “Or, let me try another way. It is a week’s journey to the mainland from Currycape by ferry. A pegasus or a griffin can make the trip in half that time if they use every island between us as a waypoint, but she must still cross long stretches of water without a place to roost and rest. Even then, there is the chance of a sudden storm out on the open water because of the ocean diluting the old domineering charms of the three tribes. Do you see now how we are forced to do for ourselves?”

Rubyk’s eyes widened as the implications opened up before him. “Even if you were to call for a battalion of the Royal Guard, it would be weeks before they arrived.”

Miss Largo nodded her head and was about to reply when a wheezing laugh struck their ears. It came from Pome, the unicorn raising up his head by neck muscles that quivered under the strain. In spite of the situation, and in spite of the sweat that beaded on his brow from the effort, his muzzle bore a mirthless grin.

“And… who… plays the tune… that makes… the little deer dance?” Pome said, with laboured breaths. He looked directly at Miss Largo with a wild eyes, pupils shrunk to a crazed pinpoint. A snarl came on the faces of the two Clavia bucks, and the glint of starlight about their antlers grew brighter yet. Pome let out a wheezing cry as new bands fell upon him about the neck and back. His rear legs collapsed to the floor, and his forelegs shook with the effort of just keeping his body from complete abjection.

“Enough!” cried Rubyk with a shout that froze Madeleine’s blood in her chest. The Trotheim pony’s lips were pulled back in a snarl, showing two rows of white, wolfish teeth. “Enough of this! Call them off, Largo – now! You’ve no right to do this!”

In spite of her usual calm composure, Miss Largo staggered backwards at the sight of this… creature from the North that stood before her. She shot a frantic glance to the two Clavia, who saw her distress and, to Madeleine’s surprise, left off of their spell. Then, to the surprise of all, Rubyk offered an hoof to the prone unicorn. Looking at it in mingled confusion and distaste, Pome took it in his own and groaned and rose, wobbling, upon his hooves.

Rubyk wheeled upon Miss Largo, stamping toward her until they were nearly muzzle-to-muzzle. The proprietress had regained herself and met the advance with a calm unconcern. “If what you say is true, and you have no police, nor Royal Guards, nor any way to contact Their Highnesses in Canterlot to request official aid, then you leave me no choice. By the powers invested in me as Aktur of Trotheim, I am taking this investigation into my own hooves. There is something rotten in this murder, something that does not feel right. And while I am not convinced that this unicorn did not murder his uncle, neither yet are you. I am taking him from you and into my care. Is that understood, Miss Proprietress Largo?”

“Is that so?” Miss Largo said, inspecting some minutae on the false mantel as she continued to pace the room. “And how do you propose to go about this… activity, Aktur Rubyk?”

“I intend to do what you and your deer would and should do if you had police like the civilized world. I will question whosoever pony necessary, search wherever necessary, and requisition whatsoever I need. I will take that guilty pony with me back to Trotheim to face the judgment before the Bench of Never-Melting Ice. I will be Inspector, Detective, Constable, and Prosecutor, Largo. Do not impede me and it will go well for you.”

“Oh, my! Really?” Miss Largo smiled thinly. “You mainlanders have your methods, I suppose. Very well! I leave you to act as you see fit. If you do happen to find whatever pony is responsible for Calvados Apple being in that state –” she gesticulated without looking at the body, “then I will aid this search of yours. I will instruct the Clavia to not allow any of the guests to check out until your… activities are all concluded. You have the full disposal of all of my resources, Aktur.”

Madeleine, Rubyk, and even the two Clavia bucks in the room blinked at this sudden reversal.

“That is… very magnanimous. Thank you, Miss Largo,” said Rubyk.

The proprietress nodded primly. “So long as you find this character within three days.”

Another pause. The icy edge returned to Rubyk’s voice. “Come again?”

“Again, I wish that I could do more for you; really, I do. But that is simply impossible. You will consider the reputation of my hotel – of what the Clavia Hotel means and is for this island. This hotel drives the entire tourist industry of Currycape. The other keys and islands send their young fawns here that they can be apprenticed to a deer or pony who can teach them a proper trade to take back to their own villages. The town exists because of this hotel – because of my work, Mister Rubyk. If wind that there had been a murder here, under my care, should get back to the mainland, you would begin to choke the very breath out of us.” Miss Largo met Rubyk’s cut-gem eyes with all the hardness of a diamond. “You have my full blessing to solve this victimless crime according to your ways, Lord Rubyk. You will also do so with the utmost discretion, and you will not breathe a word of this to anypony whom you do not question and whom you do not ‘requisition.’ You will solve this ‘case’ within three days, for I cannot risk our safety beyond that. After that…” Miss Largo shook her head, and when she continued, her voice was softer, more tender.

“After that, all of this will be gone like a memory written in the sand. Those are my conditions.”

For a long while, neither Rubyk, nor anypony else in the room, said a word. The lord Aktur of Trotheim closed his eyes and flattened his ears against his skull, as if wrestling with some demon deep inside. When he opened his eyes, Madeleine saw a new feature in their glinting depths. Something very much like – worry?

“Alright, Largo. I accept your conditions,” Rubyk said.

But he did not sound pleased.


*********************************************



Chapter Two



Partners in Crime



*********************************************



“I didn’t ask y’all to help me. I’d appreciate it in future if y’all’d leave me to stew in my own mess.”

Madeleine cocked her head at Pome. Rubyk, true to his word, had taken the other unicorn “into his care,’ and the three of them were seated at a small teakwood table in the hotel’s soft-lit library illumined by the ubiquitous lampwood staves in sconces upon the walls and upright stands upon the tables. A large picture window looked out upon the uninhabited coast toward the north, whose forested hills were black ink-splotches in the blue night. A few hours yet remained until the dawn, and the storm had blown out most of its energy, allowing Luna’s moon to peek through the tattered remnants of the storm clouds onto the waters of the bay. A shadow of a figure winging its way over the waters was visible in the bright streak of moon painted onto the bay. That would be Rock Skipper, Madeleine knew, doing damage control with the remains of another storm that had gotten beyond his control; the pegasus would be treated to a private, perambulating lecture on professionalism and duties to paying guests from the proprietress in the morning, even as full as Largo’s hooves would be with tamping down the awful news. The atmosphere in the library was somber; but the cause of their conference was no happy one, either.

“You don’t wish to be exonerated?” Madeleine asked, sounding doubtful. Pome glared at her.

“You aren’t afraid of talkin’ with a fellow who may have just killed a pony like that?” Pome’s answer was disrespectful, challenging Madeleine with an irrational insolence. He shot a glare at both Rubyk and Madeleine before laying his head on the table, covering his eyes with his forelegs. “Do what y’all want. I need to rest. Just don’t go botherin’ me.”

A little red coming into her cheeks, Madeleine opened her mouth to reply, but Rubyk held up a hoof, shaking his head. Madeleine caught the gesture and, after a moment’s hesitation, swallowed down her pride and turned from the disconsolate unicorn towards Rubyk. The Aktur of Trotheim sat as motionless as a boulder, if a boulder could wear a furrowed brow.

“I suppose you are right, Mister Rubyk. I suspect he will come around to talking eventually.”

“Rubyk will do,” said that same unicorn. “Now, Madeleine Crumpet, I want you to do something for me. Perhaps a great many things, actually.”

“Oh?” For a second time in as many minutes, Madeleine cocked her head in some confusion. “What do you have in mind, ah… Rubyk?” Bare, the name tasted wrong. “And, please, just call me Madeleine.”

“Very well… Madeleine. Can you draw?”

“I should think so! I need to have some ability for making my own designs.”

“What is it that you design? Clothing?”

“Jewelry. I work as a broker for most of the large gemstone mines in Equestria, and I make my own pieces to make some extra bits to supplement my income.” Madeleine explained, touching an hoof to the heart-cut garnet earrings dangling from her ears.

“I see.” The Trotheim unicorn said it with the complete disinterest in finery that came with nobility, as if she were nothing more glamorous than a greengrocer. Perhaps it ought to have been degrading, even withering to her pride; Madeleine actually found it oddly refreshing. “To come to the point: can you describe the contents of Calvados Apple’s suite that were particular to it, rather than the other suites?”

“Oh, I should very much think so. I flatter myself that I do have an eye for detail.”

“Could you make a sketch of it from memory?”

“I… can surely try.” Rubyk nodded and whisked pen and paper to the table. Madeleine took up the pen in her own magic and began to describe the contents of the room as she laid down rough lines upon the sheet.

“There was a very small pool of blood under the head of the body, perhaps an hoofsbreadth and a span, without any evidence of blood spatter on the walls. The table had three tumblers and a bottle of Apple family brandy. One tumbler was about one-third full of brandy, and the other two were empty. There was a bowl of fresh fruit in the kitchen that had just been refreshed that afternoon and a vase of hibiscus on the mantel. I remember a suitcase of towels and ties lying open off to one side. The writing desk had a number of papers set upon it that seemed to have been read recently – oh, they were a bit askance, so I’d just assumed – and it looked as if a few quills had been knocked over onto the floor. Three, I think.”

Rubyk looked over the paper on which Madeleine had drawn her sketch and nodded, seeming satisfied. “Good; everything seems to be in line with the proportions. You do have a good memory, Madeleine. This was the room as I took note of it.” Rubyk removed the sleek, metallic cube that hung from the chain about his neck and placed it in the middle of the table, where it hung firm in place, without any apparent magic on his part. Suddenly, the air around the table became quite inexplicably colder – coldest of all the nearer one got to that cube. The surface of the cube was in a matter of moments covered in snowy flakes of sublimated ice. These drifted downward, hanging in the air like frozen motes of dust. The snowy ice in a few instants formed itself into recognizable structures, and Madeleine saw before her a nearly perfect reconstruction of Calvados Apple’s suite as she herself remembered it: a little diorama-in-frost. Rubyk examined the suspended image, comparing it to Madeleine’s hasty sketch.

“Very good indeed. An eye for detail and an accurate memory are gifts of the Lonely God not often united in the same pony. Now, for another matter…” his voice trailed off as he gave the mare an appraising look.

“Yes?” said Madeleine, feeling as though she ought to say something.

“Tell me how you knew I was a just pony; that I ‘punish evil’; that I ‘investigate things.’”

“I… oh, dear.” Madeleine grimaced. You’ve put your hoof in something foul this time, girl. “I suppose, given the circumstances, having secrets just won’t do. I… had some of the Clavia on staff keep an eye on you and report back to me what they could find out about you. I know them all well, and they’re always such dears to me – er, pun not intended. I did not mean anything sinister by it.”

“Why?” There was no hint of accusation in the question; Rubyk seemed genuinely interested to know.

“Because… stallions interest me, Mister Rubyk.” As long as she was admitting her fixation, the title was not something that could be safely dispensed with. It was one last shield between her and death by embarrassment. “And you and your grandmare – Frost Pane, I believe? – were the most interesting ponies that I have seen in ages. You looked so… foreboding, and dashing, and distant, and the way that you dealt with those silly Oranges on the way to the hotel made you just… interesting. And you are… tall.” Oh, sweet Celestia, the words were ash in her mouth. Madeleine’s stomach turned over as she realized just how shallow all of that had sounded even in her own ears. Nevertheless, Rubyk again nodded, accepting that response as placidly as any other.

“And you could ask these staff to snoop on other ponies besides me?” he inquired.

“Well… I suppose that I co – oh!” Madeleine exclaimed, catching the meaning. “I believe that I see your aim, Mister Rubyk. Whom did you have in mind?”

Rubyk sighed. “Madeleine, I wish that I knew. From all that I can tell, Calvados Apple was loved by few.”

An indistinct guttural grumble came from Pome at that remark, the unicorn’s head still covered by his limbs on the table; but he did not look up. Rubyk ignored the interjection.

“Let us begin by listing all of the ponies with a known connection with the victim. Due to Largo’s…” the Aktur of Trotheim frowned, and the chill coming off of the cube seemed to flash even colder for a fleeting instant. “Call them conditions, I cannot put out the general call for anypony who has evidence to come forward and present himself. I will need to approach them individually for questioning; or I shall need to have them watched in secret if to rouse their suspicions must mean my failure.” Rubyk stamped at the ground in agitation, and a white burst of snow fell from the hanging metal cube onto the table.

“Well,” said Madeleine, searching through her mental dossier of the past two days since arriving in Currycape, “if you would find some use in a nosy busybody’s speculations, I would put my money on the Manehattan stallion to have done it. Perhaps even both he and Mrs. Orange were parties to the affair.”

“Oh?” queried Rubyk. His horn flashed blue, and the scene drawn in ice changed in a dwarf blizzard like the inside of a snowglobe from a view of Calvados’ suite to the busts of two earth ponies, a mare and a stallion, eyes blank and sightless like the white marble statues in the Canterlot palace gardens. It was a quite decent representation of the two Manehattan socialites. However…

Madeleine peered in closer. “Narrow those cheekbones on Mrs. Orange. And Bergamot’s muzzle isn’t quite that prominent.”

“Oh. My apologies.” Rubyk’s horn flashed again, and the image changed accordingly. Madeleine sat back satisfied. Rubyk studied the two figures as they turned this way and that, his face inscrutable. “Perhaps…”

“Two-bit for your thoughts?” Madeleine interjected.

“It is indeed a possibility,” Rubyk conceded. “And while ordinarily I would scorn mere possibility, it is all that I have. There was a vile rancor between them ever since that incident at the gaming-tables the night of our arrival.”

A muffled, defiant tch came from Pome Apple. For a fraction of a second, Rubyk appeared to consider a response. But, finally, the Aktur of Trotheim determined to professionally ignore the slight.

“There seemed to be some bad blood between those three even before then. It most certainly could not hurt to ask them directly,” Madeleine added.

“No, it most certainly could not. Whom else did you have in mind?”

“What about…” Madeleine tried to add more names to the list of suspicious ponies. She had thought that they would come readily to hoof; that they did not was surprising in itself and left her more than a bit tongue-tied.

“Y’all are makin’ everypony waste their time,” grumbled Pome. The red unicorn raised his head, showing eyes full of a welter of anger, anxiety, apathy, and Luna alone what other torments of the friendless night hours. “I told y’all I might have done him in. I even told y’all I wanted to do in my uncle like that. You’d know what I mean if you had no choice but to live with that pickled old stallion. Why do y’all insist on draggin’ this out?”

“Are you saying that you did kill your uncle, Mister Apple?” Madeleine said.

“No. I never said that, and I ain’t going to. This is not Pome Apple’s confession. But I sure as hayseed ain’t sorry, either.”

“If you did it,” Rubyk added, quietly.

“Yeah. If. I ain’t saying anythin’ more than that.” The other stallion nodded, comprehending.

“Pome Apple,” Rubyk began, “I will, according to your wishes, consider you as my prime suspect for the murder of Calvados Apple. We will hear your testimony when we are ready. And…” the unicorn paused.

“Yeah?” Pome spat, still belligerent. “What is it that you want now, Mister Actor Rubyk?” The Aktur of Trotheim sighed, staring down his muzzle at the mess of a pony in front of him.

“For the sake of warmth and life, try to find somewhere to get some sleep, Pome Apple. You are a danger to yourself and everypony around you as you are right now. I will do everything in my power to clear your name if you are innocent of your uncle’s death; but I also will not refrain from putting you away in silence if you get in my way.” Madeleine heard an undertone of something very like… was it compassion in that proud voice?

No, she determined. Not quite. Compassion was only possible between ponies of a similar social standing. This was more like noblesse oblige.

“How magnanimous,,” Pome mumbled acidly. The unicorn made a mock-bow on his forelegs and scraped his way out of the room. Madeleine looked to Rubyk, whose face framed by the shadows cast by the wan light of lampwood looked thin and pinched.

“Is he going to be alright, Mister Rubyk?” Madeleine said. She had meant to ask, “are you going to be alright, Mister Rubyk?” but the words got jumbled somewhere between thought and mouth.

“He will.” The Aktur of Trotheim sounded very tired. “Even if I find that he did murder his uncle, in time this black mood will pass away like a nightmare with the dawn. I but wish that we had more to go on. We have two suspects to interview and precious little else. No constables, no coroner, no courts of evidence…”

“And three days,” Madeleine reminded him. Rubyk let out a low chuckle in spite of his exhaustion.

“Yes. How could I forget?”

“But you did say ‘we,’ Mister Rubyk. Repeatedly, I might add. Am I to take it that you are implying that I –”

“Naturally,” Rubyk said, so quickly that it startled the mare. “Friend Madeleine, you have good eyes and a sound mind; as that is all that I have here in my own person, that is all that my work here can require of anypony. You know the staff of the hotel; you know the town, and you have the way of a mare who knows what she wants and how to get what she is about. Especially, one might say, with those of the stallion persuasion. This is all most useful in our present line. We shall need to employ all of your talents to conquer the conditions that Miss Largo has set for us.”

“Why, Mister Rubyk, I…” Madeleine caught herself. She had been going to say, “I accept”, but there really was no choice in the matter for her, was there? “I shall do my very utmost.”

“Good. Very good, friend Madeleine.” The fatigue had vanished from Rubyk’s tone. He now spoke with the numb resolution a stallion with a long many hours of thankless, antagonized work ahead of him. “How soon do you wish to begin? Do you need some hours to rest like Pome Apple?”

“Is there any reason why we should not begin at once?” Madeleine rejoined, a tingle of excitement running from her horn down to her tail.

“None at all,” said Rubyk with a thin smile. “I leave this matter in your most capable care, friend Madeleine Crumpet. Summon a Clavia – any one will do – and have them fetch the Manehattan Oranges. I need to think.” Once more, Rubyk paused, as if turning over something of great import in his mind. “And have them bring a pot of strong Azteca coffee. This may take some time.”


*****


A pale glow of a lampwood torch caught Rubyk’s attention as he sat, alone, gazing into the shifting patterns of ice cast on the table from the metal cube that still hung motionless above it. The artifact responded to and represented the Aktur’s own thoughts, but at that moment it would have been impossible to say just what those were, other than a maelstrom of jostling abstractions. The glow of the lampwood torch was soon joined by the star-twinkle of deerish magic, and Madeleine re-entered the library with a young doe supporting both the torch and a tray bearing an handsome pewter coffeepot and cups.

Rubyk nodded his thanks and banished the tracings of frost on the table-top with a flash of his horn and a sound like the opening of a bottle of Champcourse, replacing the cube around his neck. “Were you successful in summoning the Oranges as well, friend Madeleine?”

“They should be along presently. I found old Seamoss still at work in the laundry and sent her to fetch them.” The mare chuckled. “So much the worse for the Oranges. She would stand at the door and knock for an hour, right through, just to make sure they’re out of bed.”

The stallion did not respond, but at least he did not seem dissatisfied. He regarded the doe who was setting places at the library table for coffee. “You are Miss Papaya, correct?”

The doe’s starry magic flickered and a silvery coffee cup rattled on the wood of the table-top as she went glass-eyed. Rubyk waved away her fears. She answered him with a stutter. “Y-yes, sir. Papaya is my name.”

“Have you worked here at Miss Largo’s hotel for very long?”

“Not long compared to others, sir. My grandbuck wrote to Miss Largo and got me the job here about three years ago. I’ve stayed here in Currycape ever since.”

“And Miss Largo has no qualms about such a young fawn like yourself working through Luna’s night?”

“Oh…” murmured Papaya, the little doe continuing to fiddle with the silverware. She flashed a nervous, dimpled smile at Rubyk. “You’re not the first pony to say that, sir. But we don’t get so big, so fast here in the islands like you do on the mainland. And most of we deerfolk take to the night like pegasi take the air. We don’t like to be seen, you see… unless we want to be.”

Rubyk piqued an eyebrow. Something else about that response struck him as notable somehow. Yet it seemed to dance just out of his reach.

“I seem to remember you were serving drinks in the casino last night. Are you and the other staff somewhat free in the duties that you take on?” Rubyk queried.

“Oh, yes sir! All the staff are trained in most if not all jobs that need doing in the hotel. Just as long as somedeer is able to cover for somedeer, you can do nearly any job that suits your fancy. Me, I like being up at odd hours; I like to gaze up at the stars in those quiet hours when most of the guests are asleep. Your Princess Luna’s nights only seem to get more and more beautiful since the end of her exile. Don’t you think so, sir?”

“Oh, naturally,” said Rubyk, as if he had been thinking off that all along. “Although they are incomplete without the Jewel of the North to shine Her bands upon the canvas of the Night Princess’ work. But one more thing, Miss Papaya. You are often abroad at night in the hotel and, I presume, upon the grounds when you are about your duties?”

Papaya bit at her lower lip, as if the doe were unsure of where this line of questioning might lead. “Yes, sir. Didn’t I already say?”

“And you would perhaps have seen anything out of the ordinary if, just perhaps, something of that sort might have happened in the hotel during those quiet night hours?”

“That – maybe. I couldn’t say for certain, sir. Maybe if I had a better idea of what you had in mind, sir, I might be able to help, but I can’t say one way or another without knowing what I’m supposed to be remembering.” Papaya’s smiling dimples faded in the lampwood glow, and the little Clavia looked from Rubyk to Madeleine and back again. “Will sir or Miss Crumpet require anything else for the moment?”

Rubyk shook his head and waved an hoof amiably. “No, Miss Papaya; you have been most gracious. Thank you for your time. If I have need of you, I will not hesitate to ask for you, personally.” Rubyk flashed a smile at the doe, who returned it instantly, as if by reflex. It faded like a puff of breath in the chill air. She gave a little curtsy and flicked her tail, then turned and retreated from the room, carrying her torch with her.

Madeleine shot a quizzical look at the other unicorn. “I’m no stranger to a Shadow Spade novel myself, Mister Rubyk, so I do understand the need to ask these searching questions. But do you really think that sweet little doe has anything to do with all this? She doesn’t even seem to know about the murder yet. I suspect Largo will wait until dawn to let all of the staff in on the dirty secret.”

“Friend Madeleine, we do not yet know even enough for me to know what I do not know. Whether or not it comes to anything, we have at least one resource to call upon to sort out our evidence. But the more important thing is to argue the case that the evidence provides, and not an hoof-span farther – no matter what that evidence might show.”

There seemed to be nothing fitting to answer that.

The two unicorns drank their coffee in silence. Madeleine watched the stallion opposite her drink down a cup of scalding, black, bitter jungle-coffee in two gulps, as if he were desperate to feel its heat in his throat. It was, frankly, just a touch unnerving. Madeleine was grateful that the silence between them was soon broken by the sound of approaching hoof-falls and a pair of voices remonstrating with one another. Rubyk’s eyes shot toward the door.

“There they are,” he said, then sighed. “The first of many.”

Bergamot and Mandarin Orange entered the library, the former wearing a nightcap and a blanket draped over his shoulders. Mandarin had evidently taken slightly more time in preparing for this unexpected interview than had her husband, and the mare had donned a practical, good-in-all-situations cream-coloured blouse and a tasteful necklace in carnelian and tourmaline that Madeleine recognized very well, noting with a swell of pride that it was one of her own designs sold in the shoreline stores in Currycape proper. Beside and a bit behind them entered in an arthritic doe carrying a lampwood torch in her mouth. She merely shook her head at the questions posed to her by the couple, not knowing any more about the reason for the summons than they.

“Goodness!” exclaimed Mr. Orange in his usual composed manner, breaking off his stream of inquiries fired off at the mute doe. “I must say, when I heard the knock at our suite door, this was not the sort of conference that I had in mind. Delighted to see you again, Miss Crumpet, and you also – Lord Rubyk of Trotheim, correct? I do remember your exquisite grandmother quite well, but I believe this is the first time we have met.” Indeed it was not, but Rubyk offered no correction. The usual introductions were had all around, and the old doe, Seamoss, her duty completed, smiled at Madeleine around the torch in her mouth and withdrew quietly from the room. The Manehattan couple seated themselves at the table.

“You must be very much a morning pony, Mister Rubyk,” said Mrs. Orange with a tinkling chuckle, gesturing with good humour at the coffee set. “I see you are quite prepared for…” The mare floundered. “Well, for whatever it is that your… companion? Friend? Yes, let’s say friend and leave it there… whatever it is that you two have in mind.”

“Let us say that I rise early by the necessity of habit, Mrs. Orange, and leave it at that,” said Rubyk. His horn gleamed faintly as he took up the coffeepot and offered it to the two Earth Ponies, who both waved it away.

“Yes,” muttered Mr. Orange, absently drumming his hoof on the tabletop. “Miss Crumpet… Mister Rubyk… may we dispense with these preambles and get to the core of the hay-bale? Why did you call us here in the dead of night? I can only presume that you had an excellent reason for doing so.”

Rubyk nodded and laid down the coffeepot. The Aktur of Trotheim sat tall and erect, looking down at the two Earth Ponies with ice in his marrow; Rubyk the pony sighed and looked at the two Oranges with a tired dullness in his jewel-cut eyes.

“Your kinsfellow, Calvados Apple, is dead. He was murdered this same night, and it falls upon me, Bergamot Orange, to find his murderer.” Rubyk’s voice was quiet and level, but the effect of these words was like cannon-shot. Mandarin Orange let out a gasp like a frightened filly and covered her face in horror. Bergamot slumped back in his chair, the blanket slipping from his shoulders as his body seemed to go cold, his eyes becoming dull and dead like obsidian in shadow. Madeleine could not help a small shudder.

Mr. Orange’s mouth opened and closed several times before he managed to choke: “Dead? No... no, it cannot be… he surely could not… not murdered. This is not so. Please, Miss Crumpet… tell us that your friend is jesting. Please tell us that this is an obscene jest on your part. I will press no charge against you if you just… please… tell me this is a joke.” Rubyk shook his head.

“I am sorry that this is the way that you must hear of it. There is a need for secrecy that chains my inquiries – hence my choice of a venue here. Mister Orange, I need for you and your wife to put away your grief for a very little while to answer some questions for me and friend Madeleine. Can you do this now?”

Mrs. Orange nodded, her eyes as wide and glassy as any Clavia deer. Mr. Orange swallowed, licked his lips, and said, “what is it that you need to know?”

Rubyk leaned forward, placing an hoof on the table. “Mister Orange, I believe that your suite is also on the fifth floor. For your own sake, can you provide an account of your movements throughout the day yesterday?”

Bergamot gaped at the taller unicorn, his nightcap dangling numbly from his head. He looked from Rubyk to Madeleine and back again, as if he were searching for some disconfirmation in their manner, some glance or gesture that would put the whole game up and show the prank for what it was. “For my own…? Great spirits, you don’t actually think that I…?”

“That will all depend on what you choose to tell me,” said Rubyk, as silken and quiet as ever. “I understand very well that there was friction between you and your uncle Calvados. It is up to you to demonstrate that while there may have been strife between you two, there is no fire beneath all that smouldering.”

Mr. Orange made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a groan and buried his head under his forelegs as Pome had done before him. Mrs. Orange took up the cause of her husband and began to speak in a quavering voice: “We can do that for you… Mister Rubyk… Miss Crumpet. There may not be that much to tell. We rose up early that day – though not nearly as early as this – as Calvados had asked us to do in order to meet him in town. The staff at the front desk can confirm that we requested a wake-up call that night after we went up from the casino. That pegasus the hotel employs took us into the town just after Luna lowered the moon and we went to the café near the harbour… I think it was called the ‘Pearl and Spoon,’ or some other such thing like that, if you care to check.”

Chai’s place… I thought it might be. Well, at least Calvados did have some good taste, mused Madeleine. Rubyk motioned for Mrs. Orange to continue and moved to take up pen and paper when a thought struck Madeleine. “Ah! Hold just a moment, Mister Rubyk!” She probed through a saddlebag with the expression of a sudden epiphany, extracting a small pewter ball from its contents. Rubyk’s eyes actually rose at the sight – perhaps it was only a fraction of an inch, but the icy face did move, Madeleine was sure!

“A dictosprite, friend Madeleine? You are indeed a well-prepared mare. Like the wise donkey of the proverb, you save the whole house much trouble by a little prudence.” Despite the gravity of the situation, the corner of Rubyk’s mouth jerked upward, just a little. The Aktur of Trotheim bowed his head at the earth pony couple to continue their testimony.

“Do you need for me to repeat any of that?” Mrs. Orange asked, eyes on the little winged ball as it scritched and scratched its way across the scroll on the table.

“If you would be so kind.” Mrs. Orange was so kind, then continued.

“Well, Bergamot and I waited at that café for nearly four hours after sunrise, I don’t mind telling you, waiting for Pome and that… that uncle of his to arrive. Oh, I don’t blame Cousin Pome for that. Probably he had no end of trouble rousing his uncle after all that tippling in the casino. But we had already gone through a few pots of coffee ourselves, and… well… we were just a bit perturbed.”

“What do you mean by ‘perturbed,’ Mrs. Orange?” Madeleine interjected. Mandarin opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated. Bergamot answered instead, his voice muffled.

“I was a fool; a twice-gelded fool. Did I not say so, Mandarin?” Slowly, Mr. Orange raised his head, showing a face lined with regret writ deep, with eyes full of an indescribable despair. “How much a fool I was; how much of a sharp-tongued foal I have been! I see what this is now about. Let me therefore answer you for myself. I have absolutely nothing to hide.” Rubyk met the gaze of the other stallion, who had over his few short sentences regained something of that immense self-possession that had earlier marked his every word and gesture. When he continued, his voice and deportment were precisely that of the bronzed socialite; only his tone carried the smallest vibrato, like an house founded on the quaking sand.

“Are you quite sure that you are alright, dear?” Mrs. Orange asked, placing an hoof on her husband’s bare shoulders.

“Yes, yes, Mandarin. I’ve got it all out now, you see? I’m fine; no need for a fuss.”

“Mister Orange,” said Rubyk with the same quiet deliberation, “what happened at that café after Pome and Calvados arrived?”

“Well, we talked for a bit before we got down to business. The conversation was mostly incidental, to say nothing of raunchy, and I do not think that I could repeat it if I tried.”

“Nothing at all?” said Madeleine, arching an eyebrow.

“Well…” Mr. Orange paused for a moment, then a flash crossed his face. “Our cousin Pome is a stallion of few words, but I do remember him saying something that struck both Mandarin and myself as odd. Calvados had just made one of those comments of his about one of those does that are so thick on the ground here – which I would rather prefer not be repeated by decent ponies – when Pome spoke up above his usual mumble. He said something quite like, ‘Uncle, if you know what’s good for your health, you’d better cut your tongue short while we’re here.’ And then Cousin Calvados actually did! I never knew the old fool to know when to quit, but I suppose he mellowed in his old age.”

Having just been in communion with “Cousin Pome”, Madeleine suspected that the stallion of few words had enunciated his sentiments rather differently.

“And what time was this?” Rubyk asked.

“It would have been about ten-o-clock when they arrived at the café. I remember that the belltower in the town, that one with all the peeling paint, had just chimed the hour.”

“It does run a bit slow – call it three minutes or so,” whispered Madeleine. No one heard her but the dictosprite, and it took down her words faithfully regardless.

“And after that you say you discussed business?” Rubyk continued. “What did that entail?”

A harder look, something like the glint of the light off the face of a flint knife, came over Mr. Orange’s features, and his answer had a craggy edge to it. “That was simple enough. We met to discuss a contract that I had my secretary prepare some months ago. Suffice it to say here that it regards an arrangement for me to distribute the apple brandy and cider that he ferments on his estate. I spend a considerable amount of time in the South Seas each year due to my investments here, but because of my own efforts, my company has laid the groundwork for a distribution system to move produce from the tropics to any part of Equestria in a matter of days, rather than weeks. Simply as a matter of professional pride, it is a triumph of magical and administrative engineering. I have every right to be proud of my accomplishment. It would mean an enormous profit for Calvados’ branch of the Apple clan to be able to reach any market in the civilized world! I just thought – rather, I hoped that he would be able to see that.”

For a long, pregnant moment, Rubyk made no reply. He regarded Bergamot Orange with an eerily quiet intensity. “But he did not see the generosity of your offer, did he, Mister Orange?” It was not really a question.

“No. No, he did not. I do not mind telling you that I was angry; anypony or any one of those deer who were there could tell you that. Oh, yes. He refused me, and my contract, and all of my good will, just as he always does. He told me, and I quote, ‘I’ll sell to anypony I horsin’ please, Bergie, and I never liked this conglomerating of yours, so’ …ah, say stick your head in the sand and you will get the full effect. I really do not know what I thought would be different this time. Perhaps I just hoped that the tropics and the sea breezes might soften him up a bit; perhaps I was just the thrice-gelded fool that I have been all along. Whatever the case, I lost my temper and said some things that I deeply regret now. Please,” and at this the stallion’s tone softened, and his face lost that sudden flinty glint, “if you do go talk with any of the ponies… or any of the deer… who happened to be there, please do not ask them to… to repeat what I said. Or if you must, please do not ask me to confirm it. Can you promise me that, Mister Rubyk… Miss Crumpet?”

“Of course, Mister Orange,” said Rubyk, making his tone softer still to palliate the Earth pony’s shattered nerves. “I know that this is not easy for you, but what did your kinfellows do after that?”

“What else? They left. Calvados stood up and nearly upended the table when he did. He even threw a cup at my head. I told Mandarin to get down, but Calvados just grumbled and growled at me that he had no complaints against her. I got between them regardless, but Pome put an end to any fight before it got started. Cousin Pome grabbed a cup out of the air and righted the table and put his uncle off to one side. I expect it must have taken some quite strong magic to do all that, but Calvados and I were not the only ones with high tempers at that point. By that point I was… done with saying what needed saying in the moment, and I suggested to Pome that it would be best if they left. They left by a northwise street farther into the town.”

“They did not go back to the hotel?”

“No, at that time, it would have been impossible. The noon-tide had come in, and the Pegasus wasn’t running the shuttle-cart over the causeway.”

“This would have been after the eleven-o-clock bell, I take it?”

“Quite nearly, yes. We could see the corner of the harbour where the causeway joins up to the main island from the café. I remember that the belltower chimed the hour again only a very few minutes after the negotiations… went sour.”

“I see…” muttered Rubyk, a frown beginning to suggest itself on his face. “You killed time in Currycape until the causeway reopened?”

This time, Mrs. Orange nodded and answered. “We walked the harbour district together until the causeway reopened. We did not want to run into Pome and Calvados by accident, as you might imagine. I rather suspect Pome was keeping his uncle occupied so that we could avoid one another.”

“When did you return to the hotel, Mrs. Orange?” said Rubyk, beginning to tap a rhythm on the table-top.

“As soon as we could.” This time it was Mr. Orange who answered. “We caught the first shuttle-cart back and returned to our suite straightaway. I even had one of the deer bring up room service for us so that we did not have to come to the main dining room and risk a full-gallop into those two. I intended for us to leave on the next ferryboat out in the morning. Mandarin and I had planned a little vacation here in Currycape after our business with Calvados was concluded, but circumstances now being what they were, I thought it would be best if the town saw our backs as soon as possible.”

“And…” Rubyk paused again, as if he were reaching for a thought he could not yet quite grasp the shape of. “Did you happen to stop anywhere else in that time when you could not return to the hotel?”

“We – no, not that I can think of, Mister Rubyk.” Was it Madeleine’s imagination, or was there just a hint of a stutter from Mr. Orange just now? She glanced down to the scroll. The dictosprite had not caught it, but…

Rubyk rose and extended an hoof to the Oranges. “My deep condolences for the loss of your kinsfellow, Bergamot Orange, even if you could not call him in any way a bread-mate. Although you must certainly wish to leave this town and this hotel as soon as possible, I must ask for your cooperation in putting off your departure for a few days more. I ask this of you now so that I shall not have need to compel you later.”

Mrs. Orange gaped at this frankness, but her husband took the proffered hoof in his own and shook it with an earnest stoicism. “Of course, Lord Rubyk. You have the full cooperation of me and my wife until this whole ghastly affair is cut and done.” The earth pony hesitated as if he were carefully weighing his next words, then he made a crook of his foreleg and took his wife’s hoof in his own. “Please, sir. Mandarin and I have always tried to make peace with my relations, and Calvados was by far the worst among the lot. Whatever you saw out of me – well, it was shameful. If there is anything, anything that we may do to help you bring this… this… criminal to justice, please tell me.” Rubyk was still for an interminably long moment, in which it became clear that the other stallion expected some token of response. Finally, Rubyk nodded, just once, as solemn a figure as the Reaper. Seeing it, Bergamot bowed to Rubyk, and Rubyk to Bergamot, and the two Oranges left the library, trotting slowly in an heavy silence.

Madeleine glanced to Rubyk, whose own face in the lampwood shadows had taken much of that same flinty cast as lighted upon Bergamot Orange. “What do you think? Was there a lie anywhere in there?”

The Aktur of Trotheim traced at the grain in the table-top with an hoof, leaving a white trail of quick-melting frost where it touched. “Not yet, no, not yet. The lie does not come out in the inquest, but only in the cross-examination. We must have more, friend Madeleine. I must have the evidence in my hooves, and I shall. But for the moment…” Rubyk’s hoof stopped its idle tracing, and he rubbed it back over its path, obscuring any trace of the white frost. Out of the great picture-window in the library, the dark waters of the bay were tinted with the first hints of violet twilight.

“I think, friend Madeleine, before we hear Pome Apple, we should first hear from the good ponies and fine deer of Currycape.



*********************************************



Chapter Three



Black Coffee



*********************************************



Rubyk and Madeleine trotted with purpose to the great fortress doors of the Grand Foyer, the mare taking two steps to every one of the giant. He spoke distantly, as if orating to an audience while consumed with private worries. “…find the oddities; snoop and sniff for whatever reeks out of its own place. Turn over and scrape under every strange stone, and listen close for every murky whisper. Let your eye glint everywhere and let that pearl of a memory shine a light on every darkened truth.”

A thin line of a smile crept onto Madeleine’s face; she knew perfectly well when she was being put-on. “So in other words, keep an open ear and ask impertinent questions? Oh, if that is all there is to this investigating business, then I shall be qualified for my policemare’s badge before the dinner-bell.” She looked for a response from the taller unicorn – but, there was nothing. Not even the hint of a flicker of a smile. She really could not predict this Rubyk. It looks as though you need to hone your craft, girl.

“I would say… yes. More or less. Do as you see fit, friend Madeleine, but whatever you do, please do it well.” He closed his eyes, cords of tension bulging on his tower of a neck. “We have little time… so very little time for everything.”

Madeleine nodded, the mare’s face turning grave. “I know this town, Mister Rubyk. I know its highlights and lowlifes, each just as well as the others. If there is anypony out there who caught wind of something strange in the usual herds off tourists, I’ll have it out of them… say, one way or another. Personally, I find one way is veryeffective.” That did bring a smile – brief, but real – to the Aktur of Trotheim’s leaden face.

“You have your methods, I suppose; one should never forget, ‘prudence for the harvest, and desperation for desperate times.’ Well, we are desperate, but I am not yet ready to despair. I put my trust in your capable hooves, friend jeweler.” He paused for a moment, as if to consider something. “And I should like to impose on you for one more favour, I think. May I borrow your dictosprite?”

“Most certainly; but whatever for?” said Madeleine even as she reached into her bags to retrieve the same.

“Call it an hunch. I may be wrong in judging such bilious stirrings, but I have learned to take notice when my kidneys lead me along a stream of thought… er, to rather mangle a metaphor.”

“Well, you are welcome to it, Mister Rubyk, if it will help,” said Madeleine, giving over that article into Rubyk’s outstretched hoof. It looked comically small in the grip of the Aktur of Trotheim.

“Well, then…” Madeleine gave a terse little salute that brought another ghostly hint of a smile to the giant’s face and sallied forth in her black saddlebags (was there anything more appropriate for a murder?). She went so intently that the doe attending the doors barely had the opportunity to pry them open. The few staff in the foyer turned from their tasks and watched their old friend exit, surprise written on each face.

Rubyk himself turned away from the doors and began to pace. The Aktur of Trotheim’s eyes were unfocused and half-lidded as he pondered heavy thoughts. Only by measure did he become aware that a feminine voice was calling his name – and rather insistently, as if she had been at it for some time.

“…Lord Rubyk? Excuse me? Lord Rubyk! Can you hear me, sir?”

“Hmm?” said the stallion, glancing up with eyes that seemed half-asleep. The Clavia doe at the concierge’s desk leaned against the counter, propping herself up on her front legs for more height. Relief washed over her face as she saw that she had finally gained the giant’s attention.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I was told that I might be seeing you soon. Miss Largo left a message for you – she said that you ought to receive it as soon as possible.”

“Did she?” Rubyk turned and approached the desk with long strides that gave the impression to the little doe of a stalking thing of the wild North. She flinched backwards toward the array of bell-ended brass tubes descending from the ceiling, but to the credit of her race, she did not look away from the giant.

“Y-yes, sir. I was told that if I saw you to extend to you Miss Largo’s invitation to meet with her in her office. She said that she has something for Lord Rubyk.”

“Did she?” the repetition frightened the Clavia, and she trembled. At this, Rubyk smiled, taking care not to bare his teeth. “Then, thank you very much for letting me know.”

“C-certainly. It is our pleasure, sir,” stammered the doe, uneasiness giving way to the easy groove of professional platitudes. Rubyk kept his smile easy and winsome and his face trained on the doe. She thought that something new glinted in the deep distance behind those gemstone eyes, something pensive and calculating. The Clavia’s teeth chattered. “Is there something that I can do for you, sir?”

“I think perhaps, friend – ah, how rude of me! Tell me, how are you called?”

“You want to know my name?” the doe said. It was evidently not what she expected. “I’m called Limon, sir.”

“What a sweet name!” The pony said it with warmth in his voice, real warmth, and not the false pretences of a stalking predator. The Clavia doe felt herself relax and did not suppress a little giggle. “Have you worked here at the hotel for long, Miss Limon? How do you find it?”

“Me? Why, I have worked for Miss Largo for… I suppose nearly ten years now! I don’t think there is anyone else, pony or deer, who would ever be a better or a kinder mistress.” The Clavia doe began to wave her hoof in what was perhaps an unconscious imitation of her mistress’ own mannerisms. She gestured absently at her own antlers, which bore only four stumpy points. “I’m not much of a sorceress really, so Miss Largo has me work the concierge desk instead. It’s a quiet job most of the time – but you would not believe some of the requests that I get! Why, last week I had a mare ask me if somedeer could come up to her room and peel grapes for her! No, she didn’t want to eat them – she just wanted to feel the way they squelched underhoof. That was one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen, I don’t mind telling you!”

Rubyk blinked. “Er… no doubt. But I do have a question for you, friend Limon.” He leaned in close to the doe and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Unless I mistake myself, you have heard from Miss Largo about the… call it an ‘incident’ last night. Correct?”

The Clavia’s ears drooped, and her face fell. “Oh, yes. Miss Largo told us all personally, or through some of the senior staff. Down here in the foyer, we had the news from Doctor Leaf just before dawn. Just horrible! I pray your Princess gives you all the luck you need in investigating.”

Rubyk winced. “In my experience, friend Limon, there is very little left to luck in justice’s clockwork. It is best that way.” Rubyk shook his head and returned to the same genial, if tight-lipped smile he had worn earlier. “But I do wonder if you could tell me one more thing. Just one would be most helpful!”

“Oh, certainly!” said Limon, brightening instantly. “What is it?”

Rubyk’s eyes went from the doe to the array of brass tubes behind her. “You say that you heard the news in the early morning. Were you here at your post all the night long?”

“Aside from a few short breaks for the lavatory, but I had Tinder take over for me for that and a short dinner down in staff quarters – her rotation ended about an hour ago, so she’ll be resting there now. But it was an awfully quiet night, especially for our bookings being so dense. I suspect that squall we had last night put everypony to bed early.”

“There were no calls for anything from the guest rooms?”

“No, sir. At least not while I – oh!” Limon exclaimed, her eyes suddenly widening. “Beg your pardon, Mister Rubyk sir, but I take that back. I only just remembered there was one request. It didn’t quite seem very important at the time, and I’m not really sure if…”

“Oh?” There was something more to that simple question, though whether it was eagerness or – or something else, some more intense sentiment, the Clavia did not know, and did not care to think. She nodded, feeling every inch of the itchy scrutiny those sleepy-looking eyes were throwing upon her.

“It – it was just after I came back from my dinner break. I took over again and was just setting down to read for a bit when Tinder said to me – just in passing – that there had been one request while I was gone. Some stallion staying on the third floor asked for a bottle of mineral water. Tinder had Papaya take it up to his room, and she said Papaya seemed grateful for something to do.”

Rubyk’s smile faded. “Ah. I see. Thank you for the information, friend Limon. What time might this have been?”

“Not very long ago at all, actually. I would say maybe – call it two? Two-and-a-half hours ago?”

“Thank you,” said Rubyk, the queer intensity of his words having disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Before I leave you and bid you a good and well-deserved rest, can you confirm for me that nopony – that is, no guest of the hotel – left through the front doors there during the night?”

“In that storm?” Limon exclaimed.

“I thought not,” replied Rubyk. “But in my business, surety is always valued over even the best guesswork. My thoughts, friend Limon. You have been most helpful.”

But as he turned and began to trot to meet the proprietress once again, his half-lidded eyes and smile were replaced by furrowed brow and troubled thoughts.


*****


Rock Skipper stood heavy on his hooves at the end of the blue-dappled marble path, which seemed to glow translucent in rose and Tyrian purple in the early dawn. Weary lines were etched beneath his eyes. His grey newscolt’s cap drooped over the pegasus’ eyes in a sodden slouch. He faced toward the rising sun like a garden flower opening its face toward the new day, as if his tired muscles were drinking in the clear light for nourishment like a plant.

“Good morning, Skipper.”

Rock Skipper was suddenly very light indeed as he let out a noise more bird than equine and leaped upward like a shot, beating the air with his wings. Then the pegasus clutched at his chest and gave a nervous laugh.

“Oh!” An embarrassed grin spread itself over his snout. “It’s only you, Miss Crumpet. Sorry for squawking in your ear like that. You caught me faraway, so to speak.”

“I knew that you were good at sleeping on your hooves, Skipper, but come now; your dreams are only as far away as your own head,” Madeleine chided, flashing a coy little smile as he fluttered back to the ground. Then the mare’s expression shifted, and she asked the pegasus in a voice tinged with concern, “you didn’t get a wink last night with that mess of a weather working going on, did you?”

Rock Skipper shook his head and laughed the bone-thin laugh of a pony who has resigned himself to his own exhaustion. “I must really look like something out of Nightmare Night. Behold, the terrifying zombie weather-pony! No, I haven’t seen the inside of my eyelids only for forever. That’s not too long, is it?” He looked from Madeleine back toward the sun, putting its light on his face like a sunflower. “I really have no idea what went wrong! Miss Largo had scheduled a warm rain shower to refresh the grounds and the farms around the town. I did everything that I was supposed to… I called up the clouds from the ocean… I shaped them rightly… I brought them in on a tether so they couldn’t get away from me… and even after I let them go and gave them a buck to start the showers off, everything seemed to be going right this time! I was sure everything was fine!”

“So what happened?” said Madeleine, cocking her head. It was not the question that she really had wanted to ask, but he had piqued her interest.

“Er…” Rock Skipper reflexively rubbed at the back of his damp cap with a forehoof. “After I made sure that the showers were going alright – and I was sure, Miss Crumpet! – I went back down to staff quarters for dinner. I was so hungry, and Mangosteen had made those fried plantains that she does so well, and I didn’t think it could hurt if I took my eye off of such a little weather-working…”

“Oh, Skipper,” sighed Madeleine. But the pegasus only grew more insistent.

“I swear on my grandmare’s pinions, Miss Crumpet: there was no way in Equestria that little shower I brought back from the sea could or should have turned into that typhoon it became! I got a good sense of how much magic those clouds had in them when I was rounding them up, and it was nowhere near chaining into a storm. I had to guide them back out to sea, they were so full of energy! It was like… like somepony else came along after me and gave them a jolt, somehow.” Rock Skipper heaved a ragged sigh and added, “but just try telling that to Miss Largo like I did and see how far it gets you.”

Suddenly, the pegasus froze as he realized just what he had said. “Er… strictly in confidence of course, ma’am. I don’t mean anything by it.” Quickly changing the subject, Rock Skipper lowered his voice, as if wary that somepony might be skulking behind one of the topiaries. “Is it true what Doctor Leaf said, Miss Crumpet? Did somepony really…?”

With a tiny jerk of her head, Madeleine motioned in the affirmative. The young stallion set his teeth in a grimace. “Ruff my downfeathers…” he muttered. “I’m awfully sorry you had to be here for that, Miss Crumpet… ma’am.”

“Oh, stop it, Skipper,” Madeleine said, a bit wearily. “I shall be thinking about that for a long while to come, and I could stand a distraction.” Not that there was call to say why she should be thinking about it. “See here, I’ve got to go into town to see to some business. Won’t you please take me over, Skipper dear, and then join me for a café au lait and a walk about town? Come now; Piper Chai’s place ought to be open at this hour, and you need some time without old Largo’s yoke weighing so heavy on your shoulders.” She smiled just-so at the pegasus and felt that little twinge of pleasure at the instant when he finally just melted. “What do you say?”

“Oh, fine,” Rock Skipper said, with much too much reluctance to be convincing. “You twist my gaskin something awful, but it isn’t like Miss Largo could get her feathers any more rumpled at me. Let me bring the shuttle-cart around and I’ll have you over there in a wingclip, Miss Crumpet.”

Not being a pegasus herself, or any other of Equestria’s residents that were gifted with flight, Madeleine had no real idea just how long a wingclip might be in relation to, say, a smidge, a titch, a jiffy, a few moments, an hoof-stomp, or any number of suchlike expressions. Nevertheless, a wingclip turned out to be not a very long at all. And after the ghastly night she had had, the whip of the air as the shuttle-cart sped across the causeway, Rock Skipper taking to the air so that the wheels did not even clatter on the masonry, was more refreshing than any cup of coffee. The two left the shuttle-cart sitting in the harbour district and began to walk into the town. Rock Skipper cast one last glance back at it, hesitating with a forehoof raised mid-stride.

“Are you coming along, Skipper?” Madeleine sang from up the street. Without even a waver, the pegasus trotted after her at a near-gallop. Oh yes, guests be dashed – he was coming along.

As the pair walked along the waterfront in Currycape’s harbour district, Madeleine cast her eyes all around, drinking in the inimitable sight of a South  Seas village in the fiery dawn. Like the rest of the world, Currycape was coming alive as it was touched by the gentle caress of the sun as Celestia guided it on its course fixed in the heavens. Unlike the rest of the world, it did so to a view of the sea waters turned to the red and gold of fine wines by a deep magic that no unicorn ever yet understood. The surrounding hills seemed to rise up in an hymn of blazing praise to the Unconquerable Sun. The terra cotta roof tiles that often looked pallid in the high noon-day, like a blemish in the skin just below the coloured blush of one’s coat, now gleamed in full glory like rough rhodnites. The mood of the scene was infectious, and the ponies and Clavia already about their business in the street brimmed with foalish exuberance. Madeleine had begun to fall into this course herself until a sudden question from Rock Skipper coinciding with the first of her targets here in town coming into view brought her back down to the hard earth.

“So…” The word hung in the air, orphaned and sterile, for so long that Madeleine thought that Rock Skipper had lost his nerve to ask whatever question followed. But the pegasus swallowed and asked with an unreadable expression on his face, “is there any special… I mean really special reason you asked me out here today, Miss Crumpet? Can I call you Madeleine?” The words came out of his mouth so fast in a tumble that it took Madeleine a moment to realize that the one question was really two.

“Not yet, Skipper. Maybe later.” Seeing the look of mingled disappointment and befuddlement on her companion’s face, she sighed. “Look, I really do want to treat you to a spot of coffee. Celestia and Luna both know you deserve it after wrangling that storm. But I do need your help, Skipper. I need a pony that I know I can trust.” With the pegasus more confused than ever, the pair seated themselves at one of the outdoor tables of the Pearl and Spoon, and after sharing an enthusiastic greeting and nose-nuzzle with Piper Chai, an earth pony mare with a coat the colour of milky tea and a talent for making, hooves to the ground, the finest cappuccino in the Equestrian South Seas – or anywhere else for that matter – Madeleine turned to Rock Skipper and ran through a rough account of everything that had happened. As she described the arc of events, from her discovery of the body, to Rubyk’s confrontation with Miss Largo, to the crushings condition the proprietress had laid upon the investigation, the pegasus’ tired eyes grew wider and wider. When she had finished and a bowl of warm coffee and milky froth lay forgotten on the table between them, Rock Skipper… saluted?

“Miss Crumpet,” the pegasus said with swelling chest, “it would be my honour to help you however I can. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll move the skies to see it done.”

Madeleine let out a breath she had been half-holding without being aware. “Thank you, Skipper. For both your help, and your… eagerness. In truth, I am awfully afraid of something that may just be a possibility, but a possibility that I don’t dare mention in earshot of anypony else on the hotel staff.”

“But isn’t Miss Largo the only other – oh!” Comprehension dawned on the pegasus’ features Madeleine gave a small nod, casting eyes around for any Clavia that might be attending to their conversation, if only for seeing Rock Skipper at such an odd time and place. Fortunately, they seemed to be alone but for Piper Chai, who had the minor matter of making the best coffee in Equestria to attend to.

“Skipper. Listen to me carefully. My instincts are screaming at me right now that one of the Clavia staff had something to do with what happened to Calvados Apple. Right now, I don’t have any proof – but that is why I need you. I need for you to keep your eyes open and your ears up for the next three days, and if you see or hear anything that might possibly connect with all this, drop everything and go tell Mister Rubyk. He isn’t a detective, and he doesn’t have the jurisdiction here as long as Largo holds the cards. Miss Largo might let us into staff quarters to ask questions, but we can’t wander freely in there like you can. I need you to be my eyes and ears in there. Please, Skipper!” Madeleine punctuated the last plea with eyes so large and plaintive that the pegasus had about as much chance of refusing as a pat of cold butter surviving the midsummer heat. In a volcano.

“Fine. I’ll do it,” said Rock Skipper, turning his face away from those pleading irises. “But on one condition, Miss Crumpet. Take it or leave it.”

Madeleine’s eyebrow shot up. “You have not given me your condition yet.”

“And I’m not going to.” Rock Skipper smiled – with just a touch of that nervous crinkle around the eyes – and rubbed at the back of his head again. “That’s my condition: accept my one condition. Take it or leave it.”

A gravely sigh came from Madeleine’s throat. If this was a joke, it wasn’t funny. “Fine, Skipper. I accept your… condition. Now do you mind telling me what in hay bales and hempseeds this is about?” In reply, Rock Skipper just cheerfully shook his head. Wonderful; her secret lifeline for solving a murder just had to choose this moment to go coy. The pegasus buried his snout in the bowl of milky foam and espresso, pleased with some secret joke. Madeleine watched him for a moment more, then waved to Piper Chai. The mare left her percolating coffeepots on the outdoor gem-burners and trotted over to their table on the terrace.

“Do you have time for a quick chat with a couple of old friends, ‘Chai?” Madeleine said with as much casual innocence as the mare could muster. The earth pony gave a good-natured shrug.

“I don’t see why I couldn’t. The back of the house should be able to handle the bits for a wingclip. It isn’t as though there’s a mad crush of tourists today. ‘Storm last night’ll keep most of the out-crowd in bed ‘til near mid-morning, I should think. And the shakers ‘mong the Clavia’re still hunkered down under theirs. That one really was a right wringer – beggin’ no offence on ye’, Skipper,” Piper Chai drawled, her accent as always unplaceable, but lazy. It was a drawling midge-modge of bits from every which where Celestia’s sun touched, with drooping vowels and uncommonly long “ills” and “ells”.

“None taken,” Rock Skipper gurgled through a mouthful of foam.

“Actually, ‘Chai dear,” Madeleine said, setting herself into the easy groove of comfortable gossip, “have you seensome of those ponies old Largo is putting up in her hotel now? You wouldn’t believe it. I scarcely can, anyway.”

“Oh, I dunno,” said the other mare with a giggle. “Some of the click-clacketing tourists snapping the Summer Sun Celebration’ll give any two-headed trotter you care to gape at a fair gallop at the track any ol’ day. This one’ll take ‘steamed milk with a ‘dop of honey for the little filly, oh no, that’ll be too hot for her little muzzle, ma’am,’ or another’ll take a mocha without the café. Plum foals, the lot of them!”

“But you haven’t seen these ponies,” Madeleine said with the purr of fresh gossip. “Why, let me tell you about a certain stallion I’ve run into over the past few days. He gets two out of three of ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ down better than anypony else I’ve seen – and, dear, you haven’t any idea the things I’ve seen…”

This line of chatter quickly grew monotonous in Rock Skipper’s ears, and he turned his attention back to what he would not like to admit to himself would probably be his only breakfast that day. Licking his lips free of white, milky foam, the pegasus sat back contented, feeling the leaden weights fall away from his shins and wing-joints. He sat, just sat, contented and quiet in the morning sun. It was a nice feeling.

Rock Skipper did not know how long he had sat like a statue; perhaps he had even dozed. Whatever the case, his world snapped back into focus with a feeling of total refreshment. At the same instant, his eye caught a familiar figure trotting down the harbour street. Although it turned off into a side street toward the north just as he swung his head around, Rock Skipper started as the one glance showed a Clavia doe that, even without the hibiscus behind her ear, few could mistake.

“Papaya?” he mouthed silently. What was that fawn doing up and about so early?

“I’ll tell you Maddie, I had some righter oddballs than you’ll have seen up there in Largo’s house down here in my little café just on morning last,” Piper Chai was saying in her unplaceable patter. “A couple – and I do mean a couple, Maddie – of those Manehattan high-snouts come in and sit on the terrace right about where we are now, and they sit there, just shock-still, not ordering anything but one little sip of espresso. Oh, other customers’ll come and go, but this pair sits there for three hours. Couple of cashews, if you ask me.”

“What, without even moving?” quipped Madeleine with a brightsome laugh. Yet a shiver of icy excitement seized the mare as she said it, and her heart leapt up even as her stomach sank low.

“Near as your nose’ll ever get to your face! Then these two stallions, both mama’s colts gone off to Uni with a little too much meat in the shoulders – which is just a rummy sort of look on anypony – they come down from Largo’s pile over on the island and sat themselves down with the nuts. Oh, you had to be there, Maddie! The stuffy-shirted nut would mummer some tail-kissing thing in that full-mouthed way that upper crust’ll give you a platter of pickles and tell you it’s cukes, and the old overstuffed colt’ll answer him back with a quip like as you’d get out of old Bell Bottoms’ bar when we get a tub of sailors docked in port. I tell you, you’d never see a fellow or a filly blush so hard at a little bawd in your life! Funny, though – the wife seemed to roll with the kicks as they’d come along much better than her beau-shackle. Both she and the other stallion, he was a unicorn who looked like a geld – and Celestia knows I’m not usually wrong about these things – they had their mouths on the bit to pull back on their little dogs ‘fore things ever got to bucks and biting.. Imagine it, Maddie! The stuffy one and the overstuffed old foal was like leashed dogs just looking for the moment to zip from master and go at each other. But picture two dogs with prettied-up fur and gussied tails, like those Prance poodles, all smiling at one another and trying to make nice to make business. I nearly burst a rib trying to keep from laughing all over ‘em!”

Madeleine tried to key her voice to the same chipper, gossipy dance they had been playing up to this point, but the mare could not quite stop a little quiver of vibrato excitement from creeping in . “You really do get all types, ‘Chai dear. But I hope at least it all had an happy ending?” At this, Piper Chai’s raucous smile faded, and the barista cleared her throat.

“Wish I could tell you ‘yea’, Maddie, as anypony’ll see it was so funny. But… not exactly.” Piper Chai grimaced and tapped her forehooves together. “In the end the dogs did get loose and get to fighting, and I had to come out and talk harsh with the both. Funny is funny, and I’ll own a little farce never did anypony a fleabite’s harm, but I’m not about to let a bout of hoof-knocks take place right outside my shop. In the bright loving middle of the morning, Maddie! It’s just bad for business. But even before I can open my mouth and say my bit, the other overstuffed colt, the unicorn, gets up with his stumpy little horn a-sparking and just as bold as you’ll please says to the bawdy old stallion he’s been keeping on his tether the whole time, ‘gerroff him, ya’ nunce,’ or something like that. After that, they left, and I’ll be waiting a good long time for customers to make my ribs shake from laughing that hard.”

“Wait, was there not a scuffle of some kind?” Madeleine asked. Piper Chai and Rock Skipper both regarded the unicorn mare quizzically.

“No…” said Piper Chai, perplexed. “Didn’t I say, Maddie? I think I’d ken that before anypony else if there was a fight right on my shop terrace.”

“Ah. Yes, you’re right, ‘Chai dear. I must have gotten mixed up somewhere along the way, I think. But I do believe Skipper and I are keeping you from your work at this point.” Piper Chai made a grumbled agreement at that and leapt spryly onto her hooves.

“Yeah, sad truth. But thank ye’ much for runnin’ out here to catch up, Maddie! Give Leaf my love; we townies scarce ever catch whiff of him these days.” Madeleine promised that she would, and the owner of the Pearl and Spoon bade her and Rock Skipper farewell… but not before pushing a biscotti on both, which Madeleine gratefully accepted.

As she chewed sweet citron and sultanas (oh, sweet Luna, that was good), Madeleine’s mind was racing. Either the Oranges are telling an outright lie or an half-truth somewhere, or Piper Chai can’t remember what happened in her own business just a day ago. Of those two, the latter just doesn’t seem likely. So why the misinformation?

She did not have an answer. But Mister Rubyk would know. He had to.

Didn’t he?



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Chapter Four



The Dark Lamp



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The proprietress’ office was a rather spartan, windowless affair tucked away around a corner of the third floor guest rooms past the lifts. Miss Largo had the small room paneled in unvarnished pine, and the walls held very little adornment other than floor plans and a topographical map of the island with the town of Currycape overlaid upon it. A few free-standing shelves stood against the wall behind the proprietress’ desk wrought from that same unlaquered wood as the wall panels holding bits of delicate glass bric-a-brac of deerish make. These were creations of woven spidery strands of glass fine as silk forming knots, then patterns, then likenesses of pony, Clavia, several of the lower animals, and a sort of bipedal creature in crystalline tailory that Rubyk only knew by sight from the old books about the olden ways. The room was lit by a single stick of lampwood fixed upright in a rough clay pot on the proprietress’ desk that should have left the office in a somber murk, but which was surrounded by a grating of triangular shards of glass that caught the light and magnified it throughout the room, making it nearly as bright as a tropical noon, if a bit wan.

His head stooped to fit comfortably within the room, Rubyk said simply: “No shadows.”

The proprietress of the Clavia Hotel arched an eyebrow. “Pardon, Aktur?”

“You had the lamp charmed so that there would be no shadows anywhere in this room.”

Miss Largo’s other eyebrow rose. “Yes. I did. I find that this room is too choking to work in without a brighter illumination than candles or lampwood, or even electric lamps can provide. But you make one wrong assumption, Aktur. As you can tell plainly from my mark, my gifts are twofold: I create order out of a mass of ponies and deer and show the beauty that can come from inside a society. Think of it as a prism scattering the light. Oh, it may be on a small scale here in this hotel, in this town, but when I worked in the capital, I was no less effective in making the Palace run with a most distinctly deerish efficiency it has never enjoyed since. Secondly, I make beautiful glass. It is one talent that I share with the Clavia. You might say the one is the material principle, the other the spiritual. But I have always believed that doing something right means that one must do it by herself – and hang the consequences.” The mare shot Rubyk a mildly annoyed look. Clearly, she had not intended the digression. “Has this anything to do with your investigation, Lord Rubyk? If not, I would like to discuss the reason why I asked you here.”

The Aktur of Trotheim shook his head. “No, likely not. I shall take no more of your time than I must, Miss Largo.” Nor, it seemed, did he intend to say anything else on the matter. With her nose scrunched, and with an immense and conscious decorum, the mare opened an inner drawer of her desk and bent herself down, extracting a scroll. She dropped it on the desk before him and craned her neck upward to look the unicorn directly in the eye.

“That is the reason I sent word to call you in here, Aktur. Take it up and read it if you care to, but I will give you the highlights.” Rubyk cocked an eyebrow. Taking the scroll up in his magic, he unfurled and brought it close to his face, squinting closely at lines of dense, willowy, and small script in silvery lead pencil. The proprietress of the Hotel Clavia cleared her throat and began to speak again. As she could not walk about the room, her hoof traced a walking path in a worn groove on the desktop. Yet instead of the easy, lecturing canter of her words the Aktur of Trotheim had already grown familiar with, the mare now spoke in terse, pizzicato phrases, biting off the straggling ends of her words.

“I had Doctor Leaf examine the body of the victim. That is his report on the time and causes of death. Time of death was between 10:15 and 10:45 PM. Apparent cause of death was complete thaumic kenosis caused by Earthsbane toxin ingested in massive doses, with contributing factors of systemic stress from bruised ribs, massive cranial injury, and a superficial gunshot wound in the left shoulder. All of these injuries occurred shortly before the time of death. Is there anything else you need for your purposes, Aktur Rubyk?”

Rubyk blinked and slowly lowered the scroll in front of him (which the proprietress had more or less encapsulated perfectly), regarding the mare on the other side of the desk with a long, scrutinizing stare. When he said nothing, she added, “do you see that I have done and am doing all that I can in order to aid your ‘investigation,’ Aktur Rubyk? Do you really think that I want an injustice – in my hotel – to go unpunished just because I want this whole affair dealt with in a timely way?”

“Of course not,” said Rubyk. Miss Largo noted with a detached satisfaction that even this cool giant could be shaken, for even he could not totally keep the shorn-tail surprise in his eyes from creeping into his voice. “But when did you –”

“While you were interrogating the Oranges.” Miss Largo smiled thinly. “I do believe you broke dear Bergamot. My Clavia tell me he refuses to get out of his own bed.”

The surprise written on Rubyk’s face turned to bewilderment, and his eyebrows reluctantly rose. “How do you know even that?” he said, laying a subtle stress on the “even.” Miss Largo waved an hoof absently.

“Oh, I make it my business to know what goes on in my hotel, Aktur. That is all,” she replied vaguely, staring at a point on the wall behind the unicorn. Then she leaned forward and added, “and I do have one more piece of… call it concrete information for your use, Aktur Rubyk. I believe in your line you call this sort of thing ‘evidence.’”

Miss Largo turned to the wall behind her desk, running her hoof along a fine, hidden groove in the wall. At her touch, a pane of the wooden paneling opened outward on an hidden hinge, revealing a wall safe with a combination lock. She applied a series of deft turns that clicked and resounded in the otherwise silent office, ending with one decisive clack as the safe opened of itself. She extracted a single object and turned, laying it on the desk before Rubyk with just the hint of a smile.

Rubyk could see the outlines well enough, but he bent down on his hooves to squint closely at the thing. It was a small – really, very small revolver pistol, almost a mousegun, with an handsome ivory-coloured pommel with a mother-of-pearl stripe and a few decorative insets of what he took to be topaz. The barrel was short, chrome, had no sights, and was pristine either from lack of use or diligence of maintenance. It was really a very pretty little thing. But…

“Where did you get this?”

Miss Largo settled back into her chair with a contented expression that just turned the corners of her mouth slightly upward. “Did I not say that I make it my business to know whatever happens in my hotel, Aktur? After I agreed to remit Pome Apple ‘into your care’, as you say – and you may be interested to know that he is stomping all over town right now trying to drown out the memory of it – I had my Clavia perform a sweep of the grounds.” She pointed to the pistol. “Do you know where that was found, Aktur?”

“I suppose that you will tell me presently.”

“Don’t let’s be cheeky, Rubyk – ah, do pardon me – if you please, Aktur.” She paused for a moment and placed her hoof on the piece. “This pistol was found in the bushes of the garden below suite  501. This is the real reason that I called you in here.” Quite suddenly, even the hint of a smile dissolved from Miss Largo’s muzzle.

“Aktur Rubyk, do you recall just whom is staying in suite  501 presently?”

Rubyk frowned and lowered his head for a moment, as if in earnest concentration. Then the Aktur of Trotheim actually started, as if he had been struck by a bullet. “But that is…”

“Quite possible, I assure you. Do you notice anything else odd about this pistol? It has no mouth-grip upon it. A pegasus or an earth pony like me could never use it, because the firing mechanism is on the inside. It needs to be fired by magic.”

Rubyk stared at the firearm, the glint in his jewel-cut eyes all but vanished. “This pistol belongs to friend Madeleine?”

Miss Largo nodded, the mare’s face hard as glass. “Is that good enough ‘evidence’ for your use, Aktur?”

Reluctantly, Rubyk agreed. It was very good evidence.


*****


After nearly ten minutes of Madeleine Crumpet’s meandering heart-to-heart with the third of as many jewelers down by the quay, the back of Rock Skipper’s eyes were beginning to burn. By the third stopover, the pattern of her method was recognizable: a full-orbed greeting, then an affectionate nuzzle, followed by pleasantries about the trip, the weather, eulogizing of the Princesses and “dear old Largo,” and a few feints in the direction of sales quotas (an unusually discordant note in an otherwise mellifluous sonata of banalities). Then, and only then, Madeleine would breach the question about whether whatpony or whodeer was minding the shop had seen any of the four ponies from the scuffle at the Pearl and Spoon on the day prior. It seemed an awfully inefficient way to go about fishing for information, and since Madeleine and the other unicorn mare running the boutique had yet to move to singing the praises of the mare that they would only respectfully call, “the Proprietress,” Rock Skipper was bored.

“Maybe I should go…” the pegasus muttered, heard by nopony at all as he rubbed at the back of his neck. His whole mane itched, and the thought of himself playing horse-hooky was only making it worse. He thought of the shuttle-cart, sitting lone and abandoned in the harbour district by the causeway. He imagined a queue of family tourists, mouth cameras ready to go click-clicking in the town, queued up from the door to the end of the marble walk. He thought of Miss Largo’s hard stare in that too-bright office, and shuddered.

“Miss Crumpet, my head’s going to be where I’d rather it not go if I don’t get back to work.” The sound didn’t travel far enough to cut through the gavotte of words the two mares were dancing, but it thundered in his own ears. With a sigh of resignation, Rock Skipper backed out of the boutique, which was scarcely wide enough for two adult ponies to stand abreast, and out into the open air. Unfurling his wings, as overtaxed as they were, and as overtired as he was, the pegasus took to the air, catching an updraft from the sea and began to make for the harbour district.

…but it would be a shame to waste this opportunity to cut a few loops in the open air…

“Oh, stuff it,” Rock Skipper to the rebellious little voice in his head. “You’ve made a mole’s hill of trouble for me already! I ought to drown you!”

…well, perhaps just a pass over the town…

“If it will make you shut up…” said the pegasus, flying supine into temptation. He banked to the left, tracing the main street of Currycape that led past the tourist shops and bangle-dens, then turned right, gaining altitude as the streets themselves sloped sharply up, and the buildings turned to angular lean-tos and thatch-huts raised like hackles on the steep hillsides. Several figures, both ponies and Clavia, waved to their weatherpony as he sped by overhead, and he returned the gesture with his cap gripped in his fetlock joint. His nose caught the sprightly, slightly rotten tang of the island’s citrus groves on a thermal as he passed by. But then an unusual sight caught the pegasus’ eye.

Eh? There was a familiar figure, feminine and petite, and most distinctly not a pony, making her way down through the hills toward the harbour district by the long way. Could that be…? He dropped altitude, fluttering his wings as he descended that he might get a better look.

It was!

“Papaya!” Rock Skipper called out, hovering his way to a rough landing on the path before the little doe in a cloud of dust. “What in Discord’s black name are you doing out here in the Withers?” The pegasus gave a stern look to the Clavia, who took a step backward at his sudden appearance.

“Nice to see you too, R.S.” the Clavia said, recovering herself quickly enough from her instinctive glass-eyed stupor to give an insolent eye-roll. “Look, it’s morning, okay? I know I’m trotting through the Withers. I’m not blind. That storm you couldn’t control was enough to keep everypony in and up all of the night. Trust me – there’s not some rogue with a truncheon behind every hut ready to pounce on the first waif of a doe walking by. I can take care of myself, Rock Skipper.”

The pegasus ignored this dodge. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you out here in the Withers at all?”

“That’s none of your business!” snarled Papaya, backing away another step. “What are you doing having a joy-flight over the mainland in the middle of the morning? Enjoy that coffee with Miss Crumpet a little too much, maybe?” Before Rock Skipper’s unbelieving eyes, the doe’s smile curdled, turning her face into a dimpled, poisonous-looking thing. “Maybe Miss Largo would want to know how you spent your morning after anotheraccident with the weather. It wouldn’t take her long to write up a new want-ad for a new weatherpony. Isn’t it the off-season in your ponies’ cloud city, too…?”

“Cut the bluster, Papaya,” Rock Skipper retorted, taking another step forward. The Clavia stumbled backward two steps, like a fawn first finding its legs. He shot a dagger-pointed look at the single canvas saddlebag Papaya had slung over her back and side. “What do you have in there, anyway? What kind of something does a girl like you bring out of the Withers in broad daylight after something like what happened up in the suites last night…?”

“Why’s it your business, then? So what if I have a buck in the town on the side –‘s’not like everydeer with eyes knows where your eyes wander off whenever a certain unicorn comes to town.”

“So you won’t show me? Oh, Papaya, not this again… Never again! You promised me! You promised everyone!”

“Leave me alone!” Papaya shrieked, golden sparks of starlight crackling and spitting even in the brightening morning sun. Shooting a venomous look at the pegasus, the doe willed more and more light to gather around her antler-tips until Rock Skipper shrank several steps back, shielding his eyes from the blinding glare. Then in a flash with sound like a singing wineglass, only the light of the morning sun remained on the pegasus’ eyelids. When he opened his eyes again, there was no trace of the doe on the path but a few hoof-prints in the dirt.

Rock Skipper spat, rubbing at his eyes. “What in haystacks was that about?” he muttered. He shook his head. It might be nothing… no, it was probably nothing, he told himself firmly. But, just to be on the safe side, this might be just the sort of thing Madeleine had wanted him to go to that lanky Mr. Rubyk with.

On his break, that was… whenever that was.

At least his mane had stopped itching so badly.


*****


“Why, thank you Garnet dear. No, no, of course it wasn’t your fault! If nopony like that came this way yesterday, so much the worse for them!” Madeleine said, adding a good-humoured, if sycophantic laugh. “I will just have to try elsewhere. No, no, dear – there’s no need to apologize! Come on, Skipper. It seems we must try again elsewhere… eh?” said Madeleine, casting about for somepony conspicuously absent. “Skipper? Where did you go?”

There was no answer. Just to be sure, she looked again. Then, just to be doubly sure, she looked outside.

There was most definitely no Rock Skipper.

“Bother…” Madeleine grumbled, tugging at her saddlebags. “It really is like Shadow Spade says: ‘the stallions always leave you when you need ‘em most.’”




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Chapter Five



The Doctor Speaks



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“Look! There he is!”

“Yeah, Frond. What about it? Miss Largo said he’s to go where he likes.”

Frond gave an hoof-smack to the back of Mangosteen’s head as Rubyk wandered slowly through the hotel gardens, turning his head slowly this and that way as if searching for something. The giant kept looking toward the rear of the hotel, sweeping the backside of the ancient building, murmuring something dark and inaudible.

“Ow! What was that for?” hissed Mangosteen, shooting a glare at her brother-twin.

“Because Miss Largo asked us to keep an eye on him!”

“Yeah? And we did! We told her everything we found out about the lanking stallion yesternoon, in her rooms. In case you’ve forgotten, I happened to be there.”

“Yeah?” said Frond, mimicking his sister-twin’s inflection. “And Miss Crumpet didn’t tell us to stop doing it, now, did she?”

Mangosteen had been glaring daggers at her brother before. Now they were daggers on fire. “Salt the ground, I hate it when you’re right.”

“What is he trying to do?” Frond said as Rubyk continued to walk in the gardens, to any eye looking like a mere loiterer, casting an occasional look back at the hotel as he continued to get farther and farther away, scrutinizing the balconies and Discord knew what else with the vaguest stare that could be imagined. “Bit of nutmeg in that head, if you ask me.”

“Oh, shushba!” Mangosteen whispered as the two Clavia ducked behind an hibiscus bush. “Do you really want to get on the bad side of somepony – or something – with those teeth?”

“Wait… wasn’t one of the suites where that old stallion got done in last night…?”

“He’s going to hear you, dumbtail! Go still, you nattering fawn!”

“Oh, Celestia, he’s coming this way! Get down!” Low to the ground, nearly on their bellies, the Clavia twins saw the ice-blue unicorn trotting slowly, painfully slowly, in their direction. From the long memory of instinct, the two went still as stones. Not even their chests rose and fell with the rush of breath. When the tall unicorn stopped, turned, and stalked toward the two where they lay nearly hidden in the foliage, bending his head within inches, to the credit of their people, their eyelids did not even flicker.

Rubyk smiled, showing off his wolf-grin. “You’ve got some sort of glamour on you. I can’t see you clearly, but I know there is somepony or someone there. Come on – get up.” He said it with coaxing, not as a command, but the Clavia found themselves moving by the same instinct that drove them to lie like dead rocks before they knew what they were about. The twins looked up, sharply up, into the face of the Aktur of Trotheim and flicked their ears in some embarrassment. Neither said a word.

“I believe you two to be those Clavia friend Madeleine set as a skulk-watch over me? Do I err?” For a moment, it seemed that the two Clavia had not heard him. Then, the doe gave the other, a buck – or was it the other way around? – a shove on the shoulder, and he (yes, most definitely he) cleared his throat.

“Um… yes? Yes, sir?” the buck said, a violent blush upon his cheek.

“Good,” said Rubyk, drawing himself up to his full height. “In that case, I have two requests to make of you.”

“W-what did you have in mind?” said the doe, huddling close to her brother.

Rubyk smiled what to anypony but a Clavia would have been considered a genial expression. To the two twins, it was like the rictus-grin of Death. “Firstly, I would be very grateful if you were to show me to where your Doctor Leaf spends his private hours. I wish to speak with him. Now.”

“Doctor Leaf?” Frond quavered. The buck tried to swallow, but found his throat altogether too dry for that. “We… can do that for you, sir. He… he spends the mornings asleep in the staff quarters.”

“Take me to him,” Rubyk said immediately, punctuating the command with the stamp of an hoof. Though it went unnoticed by the two Clavia, the grass underneath that hoof froze, withered, and died in the span of a second. “Wake him if you must. He has much that he must answer for.”

The two Clavia did not move. Rubyk squinted at the two. They had ceased to tremble, or even to move at all. They stood shock-still, posed one against another, eyes a pair of rolling glass marbles. Rubyk heaved a longsuffering sigh and added, “there will be a tip in it for you, too.”

Well, that was a different matter. Monstrous giant of the Northlands or no, bits were bits no matter who was tipping. The two Clavia twins plastered the same toothy grin on their short muzzles.

“Right this way, Mister Rubyk!” said Frond and Mangosteen, darting off. Rubyk sighed again, trotting close behind.

The staff area of the Clavia Hotel perhaps ought to have been well-hidden, out of sight of guests and prying eyes, elusive as a deer gone to earth. It was with a look of trifling disappointment that Rubyk approached a turning in the corridor on the ground floor beyond which stood a curtain of glass beads separating the staff area from the hotel proper. Yes, each and every bead of that curtain winked with its own universe of quiet starlight, and, yes, the corridor reeked of ancient magics scarcely known and ill-tamed, and all of those universes were each their own pocket dimension of stars and shining worlds, and nopony not invited could ever hope to come this way… but it was still only a bead curtain!

Frond pointed an hoof past the curtain to what lay beyond. “Just through there, sir. We’ve all our own assigned den-berths, so just pull on the curtains when you come to Doctor Leaf’s.”

“…you really waste this level of magic on a curtain, of all things?” Rubyk muttered under his breath.

Mangosteen cocked her head. “What was that, sir? I couldn’t hear you well.”

“You heard nothing, Clavia,” Rubyk shot back. The twins exchanged a glance.

“Alright…” said Frond, rolling his eyes when he was reasonably sure that the unicorn would not see. “You said that you had another request for the staff, correct, Mister Rubyk? What else can we help you with?”

“Hmm?” Rubyk replied absently, his voice and manner having gone distant. “Oh, I want you to stalk somepony like you were set to stalk me. I will let you know when I know just whom.” The unicorn stepped through the curtain of starry glass, which did not so much as rattle as he passed, and the sound of his hoof-falls was instantly swallowed up. Mangosteen let out a breath that had been tight-bound in her lungs. The twins said nothing; they had no need to. The look that they shared between themselves was enough to express their thoughts.

Just what in the hay was that all about?

It was not an easy thing to unsettle the Aktur of Trotheim. Young though he may have been in his post compared to his fathers and foremares that dealt with the same theft and graft and murder as he, and who stood before the same Bench of Never-Melting Ice to punish the wrongdoer and to do justice for the widow, the orphan, the wronged, ponies were the same everywhere. He had seen much in books and in deed about ponies and their glorious acts, as well as their secret abominations. There was very little that could surprise Rubyk of Trotheim.

Or so he had thought. For the ponies of Trotheim had not built this place, but deer of the Southerlands. And one thing became absolutely clear after he stepped through the curtain of wastrel magic: this was most definitely not Trotheim.

Nowhere in Trotheim, for example, would anypony think to build the servant’s quarters more opulent than that of the ponies that they served. In Trotheim, nopony would think to swaddle the servants’ living space in dark-green felt and scatter potted ferns and palm fronds about on the floor, nor paper the walls in ivy patterns, so that all in all the chambers resembled a forest more than the inside of a building. Nopony would think (because it was daft) to make such a room without windows or any light but the soft, persistent glow of lampwood staves set not only in sconces along the walls, but also scattered haphazardly upon the floor, like twigs, so that one had to pick carefully to avoid treading on them. It was all daft, all wrong. But, then, nopony had taken thought to make this room in this way.

The sleeping berths were little more than large, circular cushions of green velvet set in a pine frame in ranks along the shadowy chamber, over which were spread a canopy of the same material quite like oversized foal’s carriages. Each berth had its own curtain on brass rings that could be pulled around to shut out the dim light, a number of which were pulled shut, and each had its own low cabinet of alder with a gemstone lock upon the front. A very few Clavia lay belly-down on their own berths, legs folded neatly beneath them, either reading, writing letters by mouth or with the pen gripped in a stardust hand, or, as one doe in the corner was doing, threading the same glassy beads of scarcely describable magics onto necklace-strings.

Doctor Leaf was not laying idle behind his bed-curtains. The Clavia buck was seated on his berth with only his back legs beneath him, tracing neat ranks of print in a thick medical text with one hoof and jagged lines of scrawl in a scroll under the other. His large eyes were magnified behind a pair squarish of spectacles as they flicked from book to notes and back again, and a frown creased his muzzle.

Rubyk approached the buck, who glanced up at the sound of approaching hoof-falls and the sense of a looming, foreign presence. The Clavia’s frown became a scowl.

“I thought that you might come looking for me. I did not think that it might be here, of all places. You might have just sent a message for me and I would have heard it one way or another.”

“Doctor, when I read your report, it was imperative that I see you –” Rubyk began to say, but Doctor Leaf held up a warning hoof.

“Keep your voice down. I know that is not a problem for you, but my people are sleeping.”

“Ah.” Rubyk scowled and brought his head close. “It is well, then, that what I have to say may be said softly. Doctor, explain yourself.”

Perhaps as might be expected, Doctor Leaf looked rather lost. “I am happy to do so as staff of the Clavia Hotel. You must, of course, tell me just what I am to be explaining.” The buck sniffed. “Or did you particularly come here to accost me unawares, Mister Rubyk? Perhaps you wished to pull back the bed-curtains and demand your question to a glass-eyed little Clavia? Maybe you hoped that the element of surprise would be enough to pull out a confession without dragging out the hoof-screws?”

Rubyk’s jaw tensed, his lips curling back to show the bare suggestion of wolfish tooth-points. “I am investigating a murder, Doctor, with my neck under an iron yoke that your mistress has put on me for a reason that I am trying to understand. Spare me the theatrics. You lied in your report on the body of Calvados Apple. All I want to know from you is why.”

For a long moment, Doctor Leaf just looked into the snarl mere inches from his face, unblinking. The Clavia sniffed, closed the text before him, and lay down upon the cushions, folding his forelegs. When he spoke, it was in a detached, professorial voice that could have passed for a Trotheim logicmaster. “You are not the only equine – or deer – to have had a trying night. Who was the deer who was called from the mainland on an house call to sniff at a dead pony’s body? Or who was it who wrote out as good of an autopsy that you will find on this island, Mister Rubyk? I have not slept since the light of yesterday’s morning. I find these insinuations to be utterly beneath a pony of your station.”

“You have not answered my question,” was all that Rubyk said.

The Clavia buck glared pure vitriol at the unicorn. “To answer your question simply, then: I said nothing in my report of which I was not fully assured in my own mind. I left out one thing that I am still trying to confirm. If that makes me a liar, may I say that you have some very strange standards of truth in the Northlands?”

“What did you leave out?”

“That,” hissed Doctor Leaf, thumping the cover of the heavy medical text, “is precisely what I was trying to figure out before you saw fit to invade my people’s sanctuary. There is something that troubles me about the state of Calvados Apple’s body when I found it, but I have not yet been able to get my antlers about it.”

Rubyk raised his head. “To you as well, then…” he murmured, and Doctor Leaf’s ears turned toward him. The physician cocked his head.

“Do you mean to say that Earthsbane poisoning seems just a shade too convenient to you as well?” Doctor Leaf asked, after a moment’s hesitation. Despite the tension that hung in the air, there was a note of… was it hope in his voice?

“A murderer in one of the noble houses of Trotheim took it in his head to kill the head of an opposing faction at a dinner one evening during the fish course. It was done by dressing the pudding with black-ink sauce,” Rubyk said, the unicorn’s snarl vanished from his face. “It is a dreadful thing, too acrid and dank, but strong – very strong.”

“Strong enough to hide the rank coffee taste of an Earthsbane tincture?” Doctor Leaf asked. Rubyk nodded his head, grimacing at a remembered taste.

“Strong enough for that, and then some. It was a weapon poorly-chosen, for his enemy was an earth pony, and his tongue was far sharper for the poison than yours or mine would be. He laid his spoon down and threw fish pudding and plates at the servants and roared at the cook, and only after that did he get the withered lips and crinkling skin Earthsbane brings.”

“Did the victim live? Was the dose mild enough for that?” Doctor Leaf asked, failing to disguise his interest.

“He did. I learned much from the Trotheim doctors about poisons at an hoof-length during of that case. His poisoner… I pursued him for three months and won his conviction before the Never-Melting. I sealed him in the Trotheim glacier with my own horn.”

“For… how long?”

It was Rubyk’s turn to cock his head.

“Attempted murder is but a murder botched, Doctor. The glacier is eternal.”

Doctor Leaf shuddered.

“Whatever the nuances of your justice system may be, I can assure you that what happened last night was not ‘botched,’” Doctor Leaf said – very quickly. The physician took a long breath and added in more normal tones:

“There is no doubt in my mind that the victim expired just as I said. I would stake the honour of my profession that Earthsbane was the one cause of death. But if you are as astute as I believe you must be, Mister Rubyk, you also see the thing that vexes me.”

“To me, you are obscure.”

“Were that I even clear to myself,” Doctor Leaf murmured. He shook his head. “But I cannot but fear that the answer here is not so simple. Earthsbane is a poison that is ordinarily swift, simple, and cruel. It cuts the magical connection of the equine races to the flux of the world. Death is quick, and merciful when it comes. But then why…?” Doctor Leaf trailed off.

Rubyk caught the little doctor’s meaning. “Why the need to make such a mess?”

“Good,” said the Clavia, a note of approval in his voice. “It seems that we understand one another after all.”

“You have a theory.” It was not really a question.

“I have an hunch – that is all. But the movement of one’s gut is nothing to the oaths that we both uphold, Aktur.”

“I would rather have one pony with an honest stomach at my side than a score of skulk-dirk flatterers. Tell me the vision, and let the courts prove it gold or dross in the end.” Rubyk paused and squinted for a moment at Doctor Leaf. The Aktur of Trotheim grimaced. “Is it rather too late to say that I would rather have one such deerat my side, friend doctor?”

“Quite. But your scruples are appreciated,” Doctor Leaf sniffed. “Walk with me.”

Doctor Leaf rose upon his haunches and climbed down from his berth. Rubyk cast his glance around and saw that a number of glinting eyes were fixed upon him, some peering out from folds of hanging curtains. Doctor Leaf jerked his head toward the curtain separating the staff’s grotto hideaway from the rest of the hotel. The outside world asserted itself in sharp focus once they had passed the curtain of bead-universes, and Doctor Leaf led Rubyk into the gardens, and from there into one of the labyrinths. Rubyk raised his eyes and saw a winged equine figure out at sea whirling rapidly over the surface of the waters, coaxing streams of vapour upward, where they suddenly condensed and burst outward, like popcorn, into white, puffy clouds. It was an hypnotic movement, and Rubyk did not realize at once that the buck had broken his silence.

“Mister Rubyk,” said Doctor Leaf, in low tones, “I tell you this in strictest confidence. Do you hear me? What I tell you here, you must breathe to no other pony, nor deer, nor any other creature under the sun until your investigation is over. Possibly not even then. Do you agree to my term?”

Rubyk scowled. “Another shackle. I will accept your bond, Doctor, if only for that I love you for the aid you have given my blood-kin since we arrived in this haunted place. But though I may swear in my own person, yet an Aktur of Trotheim must at times move strong and swift to break all bonds and serve justice to evil. Say what you must with that before your eyes.” Rubyk’s hard eyes softened, and the unicorn added, “I am sorry that it must be so.”

“Harrumph,” sniffed Doctor Leaf, trotting ahead in the labyrinth so that his back was turned to Rubyk. The Clavia remained silent for four revolutions of the labyrinth as they moved closer to the center. As they stepped into the center of the labyrinth, Doctor Leaf stopped and sighed, and the pair stood still by the sundial.

“Answer me this, Rubyk,” said Doctor Leaf. “Does a strong and swift move involve a long slumber in an eternal glacier?” The unicorn looked down upon the petite deer with an expression as though he were staring up from the bottom of a deep well.

“It might, friend Doctor. In truth, it might.”

“I see.” Again, silence fell between them. Doctor Leaf turned his head down to the grass, appearing to wrestle with an Ursa Major within his own conscience. As the Clavia deliberated, pawing at the earth, Rubyk again squinted toward the winged figure in the distance building more and more clouds into a towering thunderhead. Once the figure had gathered past some ineffable threshold of “enough”, it stopped, hovering before the tower of clouds, and for only a moment, a glint like sunlight reflecting from a mirrored surface flashed from the figure, and gradually, Rubyk saw the nascent thunderhead darken and, little by ever so little, begin to swell. The figure began to make its way back toward the mainland when Doctor Leaf’s voice broke the still air.

“I accept your caveat, Aktur,” the Clavia said, moving to exit from the labyrinth’s heart.

“Why?”

“Call me a dazzle-eyed fawn, but I believe a pony who has guile on his mind does not announce that he mightdo a thing if duty compels it. He just does it, and toss the consequences.” A smile flickered across Doctor Leaf’s muzzle, but it was gone again as soon as his next whispered words. “I will tell you what I know, Mister Rubyk, and what I only think that I know.”

“I am listening,” said Rubyk, his voice no louder than another leaf in the breeze.

“I know this much: last night, there was a Clavia in that room with that horrible stallion shortly before he died. Very shortly. It might have even been when the victim… expired.” Doctor Leaf shot a glance backward toward Rubyk, but if he had been expecting a reaction from the unicorn, he was disappointed; the unicorn’s face might have been a sheet of ice for all the expressiveness it held.

“How do you know that, friend doctor?” came the answering rustle of the leaves.

“From the residue of the spells in that room. Did you count them, Aktur?”

“Four. More than that, I could not tell. I am not a seer into the Aurora or a logicmaster with eyes to see such things.”

“But you know your own talents well enough to recognize… let us say… a truthing-charm on a choker that you might put on a pony to loosen his lips?”

Rubyk’s eyebrows rose. “Yes. I would.”

“In the same way, I recognize that telltale feel of the magic of my own people. It has more… ah… ‘horns’ than your kind does, more jagged around the edges. Two of the spells that were cast in Calvados Apple’s suite last night were cast by Clavia, Mister Rubyk. I am as sure of this as I am that the same is dead and lying in stasis in the cellars.”

Rubyk blinked. “Why is he there?”

“I and a few of the other staff who wish to remain nameless took the body to the cellars. I am keeping him there rather than giving him the quiet burial in the bald hills that is all he deserves against hope that someone will be able to see what my bad eyes cannot.”

“I… see,” said Rubyk, looking down to the earth as he frowned deeply. A thin glow surrounded his horn for a moment from the unicorn’s concentration. “That… is indeed very strong evidence, friend Doctor.”

“And I warn you, Aktur, do not make me regret telling you this. As for what I only think that I know…” the Clavia trailed off.

Rubyk nodded encouragingly, casting his eyes around for hungry ears as they approached the exit of the labyrinth. “Say on, Doctor. I value even your suspicions.”

“I think that it was Papaya in that suite… at that time. No, no!” Doctor Leaf hissed, glancing back to the grim expression settling over the Aktur of Trotheim’s face. “Nothing like that. For I know this just as surely as I know that there was a Clavia in Calvados’ rooms: Papaya did not kill that pony. I know her. She simply could not have done it,” he said, laying stress on every word.

Rubyk looked away from the little deer. Doctor Leaf turned about, holding up a foreleg. “You don’t believe me,” he said as Rubyk stopped in place a few steps from the exit to the labyrinth.

“To the contrary, friend Doctor. That I do believe you is what makes me so very perplexed.” Shaking his head, the Aktur of Trotheim stepped over the body of the Clavia, trotting slowly in the direction of the Grand Foyer. Doctor Leaf watched the tall unicorn go, doubt gnawing at his bowels.



*********************************************



Chapter Six



The Grotto Spectre



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By the tenth jeweler she had bothered with impertinent questions – well, that morning – Madeleine Crumpet experienced a bitter and reluctant epiphany. She smiled, showing just a few too many teeth to be really sincere, at the Clavia doe who ran a kiosk in jade and coral gewgaws and said quickly,

“Really, thank you Pawpaw dear, you’ve been of the utmost help. No, dear, I mean it! I’m quite sure that stallion did look a titch suspicious walking down High Street! How excellent to catch up, but I’m afraid I really must be off. Look me up at Largo’s place, will you, while I’m in town? Lovely! Until then, dear, goodbye!”

Madeleine was not sure how fast one had to canter before one got up to a gallop, but she had certainly just expanded the definition.

Wiping her brow with the back of a fetlock under the high (and hot) sun, Madeleine heard the bell tower peal the high crescendo of the Celestine Chimes. She counted each deep gong of the brass bell that followed.

Eleven. Madeleine sighed. The tide would be swelling over the causeway at any minute, if it had not already. Too late to go back to the hotel for lunch.

Ah, well, it was time for a change in tactics anyway. The tourist-mobbed sections of Currycape had proven barren hunting-grounds – metaphorically speaking, of course! she added to herself, thinking of very tall unicorns – and so a visit among Currycape’s unmentionables and ne’er (and ne’er e’er) do-wells might well be in order. Chuckling, the unicorn mare turned down High Street and made her way northward, passing ponies buying and tourists click-clacking and bakeries hawking sugar-dusted tartlets made out of those tiny limes that grew like weeds on the islands. Though her stomach grumbled, Madeleine had too much coffee still running through her veins to bother about that now. How in Celestia’s blazing sun (and how it blazed to-day!) did that Rubyk keep himself so steady with all of the stuff that went down his throat? Perhaps it came with the territory of being – well – a giant, mused Madeleine as she passed an invisible line into another Currycape entirely.

Being a giant would not necessarily make a pony more resistant to the head-kick that was coffee, though. As she mused, tidy rows of bright-painted houses gave way to hunched clusters of thatch-roof shacks, and whitewashed Hippolytan columns seemed to melt into muddy lean-tos of scrap metal and wooden oddments. The well-kept cobbles of Currycape’s streets stopped abruptly at the edge of the flat lands near the shoreline, and only well-trodden dirt paths, dusty in the noon-day and a mire of slime in the rain, ran up the face of the hills until they became too sheer for anyone but a very sure-footed goat to tread on, let alone live there. Tufts of thick-stemmed grasses struggled for a purchase in the thin soil, and bits of refuse – torn receipts, a bottle cap here, half of the rest of the bottle lying not far away – blew and roll and tumbled freely in the stiff breeze blowing in from the sea. Madeleine passed several Clavia bucks on the dirt path who stared at her from dark-lined eyes as she passed, head held high.

“Hello again, Withers,” Madeleine said aloud to nopony in particular. “You’re looking lovely, as usual.” Yet in spite of the Withers being… well… the Withers, Madeleine returned the enthusiastic wave of a colt as she passed an hut where his mother, an unicorn mare named “Canvas Strap” – something like that – sat weaving palm fibers into baskets by careful levitation.

“Hullo, Miss Crumpet!” Canvas Strap – or was it “Sandal” something-or-other? – called out in a sweet, if raggedy voice. Madeleine flashed a bright smile and called back:

“Why, good morning dear! You wouldn’t happen to know if old Hodgepodge is still pitching his tent in the same little cleft in the rock, would you?”

“Thought you might be here for that, ma’am!” said the mare, giving a rasping laugh. “Naw, he’s struck the tent as Miss Largo didn’t want ‘his doings’ so as to be visible from the proper town. All for the clickety-clacks, you know! Hodge’s set up shop now down near the falls. Turn left up at the top of the hill and head into the woods until you see the old geld’s banner flapping in the breeze. And watch out for the bloatflies if you’re going up that way. They’re thick under the sun today.”

“Thank you, Ca – Sa… ah, thank you, dear! And do remind me to pick up one of your baskets on my way back into town,” Madeleine said airily. The colt and his mother – whatever her name actually was – waved an hearty good-bye. As she continued to trot through the Withers to the top of the hill, Madeleine felt the suspicious glances of the Withers ponies and deerfolk that had been upon her ever since she left the cobbles slide away from her like rain off a spellslicked cloak. She had the unspoken imprimatur; she was One of Us.

Of course, if all that failed, there was still the little bit of lead in her saddlebags that could put down any trouble before it really got started.

It did not take long for Madeleine to find the fluttering banner of Hodgepodge’s Pawn and Oddpodge showing its owner’s mark – a cluster of yellow bananas depending from an equally golden bit coin – on a field of black, flapping in the wind. It had been tacked at the edge of the wood to a tree using a nail that had seen better days next to the path that Madeleine knew led down to the river and falls.

“Really, Hodge? You couldn’t spring for a flagpole?” Madeleine muttered as she picked her way down the tree-lined path. Her tail flicked this way and that as the threat of stinging flies encroached in like an hungry cloud. “Don’t,” she warned, her horn aglow. The stinging insects seemed to think better of their plan and contrived to look busy amongst themselves.

“Yes, that’s what I thought,” grumbled the unicorn as she came to the site of Hodgepodge’s “shop.” There was seldom a term ever applied more loosely, thought Madeleine as she approached the black tent with its brass rings strung through any convenient tree branch. It was less a “tent” than a slouching compromise in an argument between forest and fabric. A flicker of magic thrust back what could, with some imagination, be called the tent flap, and the scowling head of a black unicorn stallion with a shaggy grey mane resembling nothing so much as steel wool flecked with rust thrust itself out into the light. Blinking his bleary eyes half at the light and half at the sight of his new customer, the unicorn’s eyes ran up and down Madeleine’s body. When he saw her mark, his whole face brightened

“Tirek caress me in the morning, if it ain’t Maddie Crumpet in flesh and flank!” the stallion cackled over the burble of the nearby river, showing the inside of a mouth that had as much silver and gold as most wallets. Madeleine smiled thinly and pulled her saddlebags just a little tighter around her as she ducked inside.

“Well, I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, good sir! Have we met?” she purred, looking around at the “shop’s” interior that, despite the fact that its contents were always changing, never seemed to change. The drooping bookcases groaning under metal scrap were neatly in the center as always; heaps of unsorted glass pieces and refuse stood (or, rather, slouched) along the back “wall” for Clavia glasscasters to buy up and remould. On the west wall sagged a few battered magic tomes and scrolls on a bookshelf actually put to its proper use, while on the east side stood a pegboard on which hung various mouth-tools, cutlery, and even a rusted sword that Madeleine suspected was very recent shipwreck salvage. While some of the tropical sun managed to break into the tent through an unsewn tear or a threadworn patch, Hodgepodge’s store was perennially lit by the guttering light of chipped lampwood staves that had been recharged in the bleaching sunlight a few hundred times too many, throwing grimy shadows on the hoof-trodden earth beneath. To the merchant and his usual customers, the occult air was an aid for the kind of business they got up to in here; for Madeleine, on a different mission, the crowding murk was merely annoying. The tip of her horn flashed, and a citrine light illuminated the tent around her as she walked about the piles of Hodgepodge’s “merchandise.”

“Well, if pretty lady doesn’t remember rummy ‘Podge, maybe he might see to interesting her in some, ah, verylate acquisitions? It’s sure as theft and taxes, I say, what a little glimpse of gold and gems can do for a gel’s memory. There’s some pretty things here, yes indeed, some very pretty bangles indeed, if the lady remembers how to ask proper-like,” Hodgepodge said, throwing a toothy grin toward Madeleine that glinted in the light of her illumination spell. Hodgepodge had set up an oblong table near the tent flap that was covered by a natty green cloth in better condition than most of the unicorn “merchant’s” merchandise to have a full view of the store. The shabby stallion stood behind it with abacus cradled in a foreleg and cash-box open on the table.

“Oh! Well, how about that,” cooed Madeleine with a little mock-exclamation. “I do believe I just remembered something.”

“And what would that be?” said Hodgepodge as Madeleine walked up to his table. She met his own smile with one just as smug.

“That I never ask about important things,” said Madeleine, throwing back the cloth from a corner of the table and showing the glass case that actually lay underneath. Hodgepodge laughed and whisked away both cloth and cash box, and the “pretty things” inside the case glinted in the light from Madeleine’s horn. Rings and bracelets cluttered in unkempt piles, some of which radiated the dull mental pressure of enchantment. Necklaces of pearls or chains or semiprecious stones were tightly wound in snail-shell coils and laid on a rough rectangle of violet silk. Opposite the jewelry was a group of thin-necked vials of variously coloured liquids huddled in conspiracy, each of which wore its own dirty, illegible tag like a necklace.

“Oh, yes,” said Madeleine, the mare’s gaze caressing a tight coil of malachite and lapis lazuli beads. “Very pretty, Hodgepodge. You’ve gotten your fetlocks around some nice little pieces this time. But before that…” Madeleine produced a platinum band from her saddlebag set with four pearls in each of the compass directions, sliding it across the glass toward the black unicorn. An hungry look came into Hodgepodge’s eye, and he took it up in an eager magical grip. As he rubbed each of the pearls across his teeth and made a show of trying the metal with his tongue, Madeleine’s continued the act, adding in a sultry whisper, “I’m not here just for pretty things. There will be time enough for them later. But I need a stallion with his eyes open right now. Can’t you please help out an old friend, ‘Podge?”

Wiping a thin bit of drool from the corner of his mouth, the black unicorn shrugged. “That all depends on what ‘Podge is supposed to have been seeing. Little things, oh, he sees those everywhere – here a spade goes missing, or down in town, an out-townie can’t find his click-clacking camera after he wanders a little too close to the hills up at the north side of town – disreputable sort of place, and all that!” Hodgepodge rasped, adding a phlegmatic chuckle. “But the big things, well… old ‘Podge is getting awful old. Lampwood gets awfully hard on the eyes through years, so many years, and his eyes aren’t what the young Hodge’s used to be…”

“Oh, fine, you old grafter,” snipped Madeleine, producing a brilliant-cut emerald and holding it up in her horn’s grip so that its internal faces reflected the citrine light. Rapine lit the black unicorn’s eyes, and Madeleine had to suppress a shiver of disgust as she felt his steely-grey magic take it from hers. “But it’s an awfully high price to pay for information, I hope you know.”

Hodgepodge’s glinting smile only broadened as the unicorn cheerfully added the platinum band to the others in the glass case, whereas he slipped the emerald into the cash-box and latched it tight, without even turning around to look at the operation. That, Madeleine realized, was a move that must have taken some practice.

“Glory to ginny old Sol Invictus!” Hodgepodge laughed. “It’s a miracle I tell you, pretty lady – these old eyes can see again, clear as the noon-day out there!”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Madeleine said, looking not at the other unicorn’s flashing teeth. She turned her eyes down to the piles of rings and fetlock bands in the case. “You haven’t seen any cameras coming up this way lately, have you, ‘Podge?”

Hodgepodge’s smile vanished. Madeleine had, admittedly, as little traffic with the Hodgepodge’s brand of business as possible over the years. But the expression of perplexity on the grimy miser’s muzzle did not seem to be a put-on. “No lying, Maddie, not a one. It’s been just the usual crowd of greasy hooves and families stuck out in the Withers for weeks. Anything in particular I should have been keeping my eyes open for?”

“Huh.” Well, it had been worth a try. “What about anyone from Largo’s pile of rocks?”

“Interesting question,” Hodgepodge rasped, rubbing his chin. “In the event that I had, what would be the point in me telling it to an out-townie without much of a chance to do something about it? Doesn’t quite seem fair to the good deer of Currycape to go wagging tongues without a good cause.” He shot a glance to Madeleine’s saddlebags.

Madeleine made a noise in her throat somewhere between a sigh and a growl. “Do all stallions have such appetites, I wonder? Let me have that one,” she said, pointing out a golden band studded with diamonds and one large, creamy pearl, “and if what you have to say is useful to me, I might – I said might, ‘Podge – let you have your hooves on this as well, as a gift… from me to you.” Madeleine produced, after a moment’s hesitation, a small, clear pebble with flat faces from her bag’s inner pocket. She slid it across the glass top of the case toward the other unicorn, leaving a deep scratch in the surface. Hodgepodge’s jaw actually went slack, and Madeleine saw (though it made her mane itch) saliva pooling around the stallion’s shining teeth. “Couldn’t you see fit to trusting an old friend? I swear by Celestia I won’t tell a soul who isn’t on a strict need-to-know basis.”

“I-I…” stammered Hodgepodge. The unicorn swallowed his spittle and picked up the stone, holding it to one eye. He licked his lips and said, carefully, “I think we just might be able to make a deal, Maddie.”

“So someone from the hotel was here recently. Who was it, and what did they buy?”

“Two Clavia from the hotel. There was one doe, a fine-looking young thing, came to see me twice over the past two days. Couldn’t tell you her name, but she left here not too long ago.”

“As in ‘this morning’, not that long ago?”

“Yeah. First time to buy, second time to sell.”

Madeleine looked hard at Hodgepodge. “And do you mind telling me what went on both of those times?” The black unicorn nodded his head, and in a moment that infuriating grin was back on his snouty face.

“As a matter of fact, I do – client confidentiality and all that. Sorry, Maddie.”

Madeleine’s nostrils flared, and the light from her horn flared bright. Hodgepodge shielded his eyes, and when the light had died down, he regarded the mare with a wary glance out of the corner of his eye. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves.

Two gems and a platinum band is an high a price to pay for information, Madeleine thought. Sorry, Mister Rubyk, but I’m at my limit here.

“Never you mind that, Hodge,” said Madeleine, a touch too loud. “What about the buck?”

“Oh, old ‘Podge recognized him well enough. It was Doctor Leaf. He came up to see me in the wee hours two mornings ago, whispering at the flap there in that Canterlot accent of his. He never sells nothing, but on occasion I do get my hooves around some potions and such he finds convenient for physicking.”

“I see… does he often come at such hours?” Madeleine asked, wishing she had her dictosprite.

“It’s not un-usual to see him at such hours,’” Hodgepodge said, throwing Madeleine a smirk. Madeleine’s ear-tips went red, and she nearly snorted. Sensing the change in the air, Hodgepodge stepped back. “I-I mean, I think he comes whenever Miss Largo lets him off of her leash, what with her not liking her ‘little ones’ seen with the likes of Withers-folk.”

“I see,” Madeleine said again. Then what was the other doe doing out here in full view of everypony’s mother in a town full of tourists?

“I don’t suppose Doctor Leaf picked up anything unusual?” Madeleine said. It was a last shot in the dark. But Hodgepodge only shook his head.

“I told you, Maddie, old Hodge isn’t at liberty to say. All I can tell you is that he has a standing order with me for some certain tinctures and potions and – and I don’t know what else. I never had a head for the stuff.”

“Listen, ‘Podge,” Madeleine said as she reared up and drove her forehooves on the case with a shudder of glass. “A pony by the name of Calvados Apple was murdered at the hotel last night. There are circumstancesthat make it impossible to do this in the usual way. But I’ve seen the pony that is trying to solve this murder, and he will eat you alive if you know something about this and don’t tell me right now. So I ask you again: what did Doctor Leaf buy from you?”

The gleam from Madeleine’s horn seemed to narrow in on Hodgepodge like a spotlight. A bead of sweat ran down the black unicorn’s temple. “Now, when you say murder, Maddie…”

“I mean dead, gone, deceased! As in the mainland police or the Royal Guard will come here and start asking you these impertinent questions instead of me if we find out you’ve been holding out on us.” Madeleine fought to swallow down the snarl clawing up her throat. She succeeded – barely. The walk uphill had been long, and her empty stomach was making her peevish. Perhaps picking up one of those lime tartlets would have been the better course of action after all…

“I’m wouldn’t… I don’t mean no harm. If somepony’s dead, why, old ‘Podge’s door is always open!” Hodgepodge said, forcing a smile. “It’s only that… there’s a… there’s a trust between… between pawnbroker and clients…”

Madeleine slammed a third stone down onto the glass case, which nearly cracked under the impact. This one was red, angular, and dark like blood in the dim light.

“What do you know, ‘Podge?”

“P-poison, Miss Crumpet,” Hodgepodge said. The unicorn’s voice and magic grip shook as he moved the stone on the counter into the cash box. “But there’s some medicines, too. Doctor Leaf has a standing order for some of the stuff what the mainland controls along with some of the commoner stuff like Poison Joke and the downright mundane stuff like poppy-drugs for pain. I get them whenever my own suppliers on the mainland can zip them through the ports – which isn’t often. I don’t ask questions about what he might ever use them for. It’s not my business to know.”

“No, it isn’t,” Madeleine said. The mare was seething at what she had just done – three whole gems done and gone! – and seeing Hodgepodge’s bungled attempt at hoof-wringing was just too much. “It’s your business to keep the Withers running. I know it. I respect that.” She glared at the stallion, who winced and held his abacus out in front of him protectively like a shield.

“However, in the future, Hodgepodge dear,” Madeleine said, imitating Rubyk’s voice gone cold and terrible, “perhaps you won’t make such a mule of yourself when dealing with old friends. Good day.”

Madeleine turned abruptly and stomped out of the tent, flicking her tail at the cowed Hodgepodge and leaving him in darkness.

Outside the tent, Madeleine looked up at the cloud of flies that were beginning to descend on her.

“I do sincerely hope you are having better luck than me, Mister Rubyk.”



*********************************************



Chapter Seven



Wasp’s Nest



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Jett Black approached Rubyk in the Grand Foyer, wings ruffled and halfway extended. Rubyk lay taking up the greater part of a sofa with closed eyes and troubled brow – either thinking, or dozing, or both. “Aktur,” Jett Black said. “Why are you doing this?”

Rubyk half-opened one eye. “This what?” said Rubyk as if he were murmuring through a brass speaking-tube.

“You are a smarter pony than that,” said the pegasus, unfurling his wings fully.

“Ah. You mean my investigation.” Rubyk yawned and so cleared away the foggy sleep that had been starting to fill in the corners of his mind. The Aktur of Trotheim rose up upon his hooves and met the pegasus’ challenging stare with his own. “How did you hear about it, friend Jett?”

“My ears are open,” he said, folding them flat against his skull. “And I know that yours are, too. So why do you go through with this charade?”

“You object, friend Jett?”

“You may praise my Princess that I do. You will commit an atrocity against justice if you go on the way you are doing.” Jett Black glowered and beat his outstretched wings just once, sending a stiff wave of air through the Grand Foyer and mussing manes and loose papers. His wings snapped to his sides with a crisp movement. “What happened to Calvados Apple was no sin against anypony on the earth nor spirit in the heavens. It was justice itself. You will find that out if you keep going in this way.”

“So you say, friend Jett, so you say…” Rubyk said quietly, looking intently at the pegasus he had found to be so companionable not a day before. “Will you answer me but one question?”

Jett Black snorted in Rubyk’s face. “So you do intend to continue. Do not say that I did not warn you.”

“What was your relationship to Calvados Apple before you two came to this island?” Rubyk said, ignoring the remark. He earned a look of pure scorn for his trouble.

“Rubyk,” the pegasus said, slowly, clipping the edges of every word, “I had no relationship with Calvados Apple whatever before I came to this island.”

“I understand.” Rubyk smiled at Jett Black, showing the pointed tip of every tooth in his muzzle. “And I thank you for your advice, friend Jett. I take it in the spirit you intended. But if you get in my way again, I will tear you apart. Personally. Go from me.”

Frost was forming around Jett Black’s hooves. Noticing it, the pegasus tossed his mane and lifted himself into the air with two great wing-beats, looming over Rubyk’s head for a few long moments before dropping to the floor and storming out of the Grand Foyer through the doors of the old fortress. Rubyk watched him go, rubbing at his chin.

“Oh, do excuse me,” sounded Madeleine’s musical voice from the direction of the doors. The unicorn mare had only enough room to edge her way in past the combined girth of Jett Black and Jett Black’s wings as the pegasus blew through the doorway. Jett Black, and Jett Black’s wings, said nothing, but betook themselves both into the open air as soon as they had crossed the threshold. Spotting Rubyk, Madeleine flashed a weary smile and trotted over to the Aktur of Trotheim.

“Luck, friend Madeleine?” Rubyk said in his whispery voice.

“Unfortunately, Grandmare Fortuna had very little to do with it,” Madeleine answered. “I found out some things, but nothing that seemed like the sort of thing to solve a murder plot.”

“You read that serial-plot detective, though – ah… what is her name?”

“Shadow Spade?”

“That mare, yes. Does she not say that the little things, the things that ponies let slip because they really are unimportant become the strongest evidence for the right answer? There are many possibles, but there is always just the one solution that makes a world of sense out of all the truly unimportant details.”

“Something like that.” Madeleine looked up at the unicorn, a quizzical curl to her snout. “You never struck me as the type with the time to read that sort of thing, Mister Rubyk.”

“Just Rubyk – please. And you are quite right. I am not. But I find it helpful to know what other ponies think it takes to solve a crime like murder.”

“And what is that, Mis – er, Rubyk?” Madeleine said. Dropping the honorific still just tasted wrong. Rubyk looked down to her and opened his mouth to answer her when a shriek like a hungry wildcat of the North upon its prey shook the Grand Foyer.

“Ruu-byk!” cried the wildcat as she limped into the foyer, eyes alight with a fury that was scarcely equine. The Clavia behind the concierge’s desk – not Limon, but a Clavia buck Rubyk had not yet seen – crouched low, only the tips of his antlers visible. A few of the hotel staff went-glass-eyed and stood shock-still facing the Freidowager of Trotheim, while others took flight into an adjoining corridor, primal urges taking over. The wildcat snarled her trembling way to Rubyk, trailing a white fur rug behind her like a barbaric bridal gown, and collapsed into the whole of a sofa.

“Rubyk,” said Frost Pane, “I am dying, grandfoal mine. I shall be dead by evening come, and you shall give my bones to the fish for cleaning.”

“What is the matter, grandmama?” Rubyk said.

“I starve, Rubyk!” wailed Frost Pane. The Frei of Trotheim thrust out her back leg, pointing an accusing forehoof at it. “I waste away! You can see the very marrow in my bones for leanness! The food these deer would have us eat is fit for mules and beasts – not the pride of Trotheim!”

Rubyk heaved a sigh so deep it might have ruffled manes as Jett Black’s wings had done. “I will… I will see if the deer have another fish somewhere. I am hungry too, grandmama.”

“See it done! See it done soon! Oh, to have escaped from the Ice Sickness, only to waste away in a palace of delights with food for cows and sows and dogs! Oh, Trotheim, shall I ever again see your summerlong suns?”

Rubyk rolled his eyes and turned his head to Madeleine.

“I apologize for this interruption in our proceedings, friend Madeleine, but my grandmare needs her nourishment. I saw fit to purchase some suitable viands for us the last time I was on the mainland and had them stored away in the kitchens here. Please, if you would, see Frei Frost Pane to my rooms. I will join you both presently, and we may discuss then what to do next.”

Madeleine nodded and offered an hoof to Frost Pane.

A meal and a talk. That’s not so strange. I wonder why the secrecy? Madeleine thought to herself.

She did not need to wait long to find out.


*****


Though her stomach was screaming at her, calling her a daft filly and all manner of vile, unprintable things, Madeleine watched the spectacle of a Trotheim supper with a kind of bland fascination normally reserved for aircart fires and playoff games of buckball. It was beautiful; it was gruesome. As if they were in a foal’s pageant-play exaggerating the stifling table-manners of Canterlot’s courtly circles, Rubyk and the grand dame of Trotheim meticulously clave, piece by shuddering piece, a great silvery beast with an underbite more monster than fish; and like a pair of untamed, lumbering lupines from the far-off Everfree, the noble unicorns of Trotheim gulped down their tepid meal at a lupine pace, with all the dainty graces of Timberwolves set about their feast. Adding to the baroque absurdity of the scene was the thoroughly civilized way each would wipe their mouth of the piscine residuum and sip at their own beverage of choice – Whinniennese sherry for the Freidowager, and still more of his bitter, black coffee for the beleaguered Aktur of Trotheim – before repeating the cycle with a freshly carved piece of the poor half a creature lying on the sitting-room table. At the end, they even split the head (“grandmama” got the half with the eyes). It was revolting; and it was, like everything else about Rubyk and Frost Pane, utterly magnetic.

After… that was over with, Rubyk cleared away their dishes to the sideboard with a bit of distracted levitation and reopened the curtains, which had been drawn during the course of the meal. Frost Pane reclined on the couch, the furs draped over the grand old mare making her seem even more massive than she already was. Rubyk offered Madeleine coffee, or tea – or perhaps she might care for something with a bit more bite?

“No, thank you, Mister Rubyk,” she commented weakly as her insides, with a burst of ingenuity, suddenly invented a litany of fresh-coined abuses. With a look more apologetic than satiated, Rubyk sat himself at the table and cleared his throat. (Of what, Madeleine did not particularly care to think.)

“I thank you, friend Madeleine, for your patience in waiting for us. Not many ponies well understand what years of the subboreal cold beyond the Crystal Mountains have wrought in the generation of Trotheim… or why our ilk are rarely seen where your own Princesses rule.” He smiled at her, then, and - oh by Celestia, those teeth! And the bits that were still in those teeth! Madeleine smiled her own clammy grin in return.

I never want to see that again as long as I live.

“Why do you keep the pretty little thing waiting, Rubyk?” barked Frost Pane with the good humour of a full belly. “You have this killing business to discuss, no? You have lies and duggery to root up, yes?”

“Yes, grandmama.”

“Well, get on with it then, muff-brained boy! I shall sit here and listen and wipe your frostblained nose when you are ready to beat your horn in two from ponder strain.”

“Yes, grandmama,” said Rubyk again with the same mild agreement as one used in speaking of the weather timetables. He turned to Madeleine. “We have now heard the testimony of each pony who might in a sound imagination had anything to do with the murder of Calvados Apple. We have as accurate an autopsy report on that poor body as we are likely to get upon this island. I have heard all from the hotel staff, while you have seen everything that there is to see in the town. Tell me then, friend Madeleine: how much closer do we trot to the end of this road?”

“Frankly? I still hold that it was the cousin – you know, Bergamot. Something about that overwrought state you put him was awfully contrived.” Madeleine fished the scrolls of tight dictosprite script from the early morning on out of her saddlebags and unfurled them onto the table. Rubyk leaned in close, squinting at the text. Madeleine continued as he labored over the day’s evidence, line by nearsighted line. “Of all the ponies here in this hotel, I would say he was the most likely to kill his own cousin. Just look at how much he hated the old lech! What we saw in the casino last night was just the tail-tip of a long line of slights and grievances. I suppose that when Calvados told him to put his ‘city ways’ where he did, Mister Orange just broke. Ponies do for much less than that!”

“But why come here if there was that much rancor between them? Enough hate to kill one’s own kinsfellow…?” Rubyk muttered.

“You don’t think that was enough motive for murder, Mister Rubyk?” Madeleine asked, her voice twisting upward about a fifth in surprise. Rubyk raised his head.

“Hmm? Oh, no. I think he had every motive for murder. Bergamot Orange was full of such goads until just today,” Rubyk said, as if Madeleine had just asked him whether he thought grass was normally that lovely shade of fuchsia. In spite of the indecorum, Madeleine’s mouth hung open. Had she really heard that rightly?

“Did I really hear you rightly?” said Madeleine, the mare’s voice now raised in sheer perplexity. “Do you mean to tell me that you have strung us all along like beads on a line until now?”

“What? Oh, no, nothing of the sort. I said that he had every motive for murder. I am most unsure whether he had the one motive for this murder.”

“And what is the difference?” Madeleine rubbed her temples. “Perhaps I am beginning to flake under the strain, Mister Rubyk, but I cannot follow you. Please explain to an old piece of mica what in Tartarus you mean by that.” Somewhere in the background, Frost Pane suppressed a snicker. Madeleine felt that she had many years ahead of her before she would understand the cogwheels of that old mare’s mind.

“Most certainly,” said Rubyk, and Madeleine had to lift her ears to even hear him, so low had his voice dropped on a full belly. “Think of it in this way: a pony always has a reason for his actions, whether that reason is imbecilic or genius itself. But the action that he takes is always fitted to his ends, or else the end is not his realend.” The tall unicorn began to trace the long lines in the grain of the table-top. It was clearly an habit born out of long abstraction; but, if it helped the Aktur of Trotheim do whatever it was that he did, and did well, Madeleine supposed that she could find it only mildly irritating. “So when a pony decides in himself to make a crime, if he does it for the sake of the crime itself, he does it for an end in himself, and he cannot help but make it a beautiful crime. Oh, yes, Madeleine – a murder can be a beautiful thing, like the cold beauty of the mountain that claims the explorer who assays to try it unprepared. Such a murder is a crime of pride.”

As he talked, Rubyk’s horn began to softly glow with the light of a subtle, almost unconscious magic. The cube on the chain about Rubyk’s neck shone a pale light, and patterns of frosty lace spread out beneath Rubyk’s busy hooves. “If a pony acts for an end outside of himself, the crime of murder becomes a quite different thing. It might be quick, cool, and quite medical in the end. Or it might be a matter of a sudden moment of pounding blood and flushed ears, carried along by the same wild forces as stampedes and avalanches. The first calculates and leaves no evidence if it can be helped; in the second, to think is the same as doing, and it only thinks of how to hide what evidence it leaves behind.”

Madeleine felt a bit like a filly staring up at a sum on the blackboard. It seemed to her that there was a misty shape in the fog behind all of these digressions. If she could only reach out and take hold of it…! Rubyk took no notice of her as he continued to whisper, covering the table in opulent geometries with every word:

“The murder of Calvados Apple is a puzzle. It is like none of these criminal passions, and that is why it makes so very little sense.” Without removing his eyes from the increasingly intricate rings and spreading fractal blooms on the table, Rubyk’s horn grew brighter, and he drew the little scroll containing Dr. Leaf’s tidy mouth-writing out of his own saddlebags, offering it to Madeleine. She took it up and unfurled it, eyes scanning the neat lines. These widened as she realized exactly what she was reading.

“Your most estimable Doctor Leaf tells me that Calvados Apple certainly did not die of any one thing, though there was only one fatal stroke. He was beaten, poisoned, shot in the shoulder, and likely bucked in the head, and if one of these which came first was not enough to do him in, the next ones would surely compensate for whatever was still lacking in their malice. The real question, friend Madeleine, is not what the evidence shows. What we do not yet know, for what I do not yet see, is why all the types should be mixed up in this crime? Who was Calvados Apple? Why was this pony deserving of a beautiful blow upon the head, a cruel and chill-blooded poisoning, and not one, but two blows from a pony carried along by his own passions?”

Rubyk looked up from his tracing fixed Madeleine with a stare as hard as diamonds. “Bergamot Orange had every motive for murder; I firmly believe this. But he could not have had the motive for every murder. What I believe that the evidence demands us to say is strange: but it is true. Many ponies may have hated Calvados Apple; perhaps many ponies entertained the desire to kill him. But only one of them wanted him dead.”

A light came into Madeleine’s eyes, even as the ice beneath Rubyk’s hooves seemed to fall into her gut. “If that is true, Mister Rubyk, then for every kind of crime, there would be at least…”

Rubyk nodded gravely and heaved a great sigh as gloomy and mournful as the north wind. “At least one pony in Calvados Apple’s suites around the time of the murder, yes. It seems as ludicrous as a filly’s parade, but the solution makes more sense than the alternative, which makes a slaughter-muddle of the psychology.”

Madeleine barely heard the last words. Her mind was already leaping like a thief through an unknown darkness like a burglar on the Canterlot house-tops, leaping from roof to lonely spire. “But…” she said, choosing her words with great care, “that would mean we still have no idea who could have done each kind of crime. We are no closer now than when we started – not unless we could know which pony would necessarily commit each type of murder!”

Rubyk sighed again, a fricative growl more bestial than equine lying just below the surface. “There my surety stops. I cannot know which ponies in this hotel would have committed which kind of crime had they the right kind of driving hate hidden away beneath their throats. At best, I can say which type it seems to me least likely that they should commit if given the chance.” He snarled and rose, great agitation written into even that gesture, and Madeleine involuntarily flinched back. Fortunately for her, the Trotheim noble seemed not to notice. “What evidence do I have? What are my weapons here? The lies come out on the stand, but I do not have the means to catch anyone in a lie! What do I have? A pack of testimonies without a chink to even slide a knife through; one deer’s opinions on what made a pony into a body, and only two days. Two days for all the frozen wheels of justice to grind this case to powder – and may it take that miserable mare, Largo, with the rest!”

It was Madeleine’s turn for a frosty word. “I will thank you, Mister Rubyk, not to talk about Miss Largo in that way. She is an old and dear friend of mine.”

In an instant, the fury drained from the monstrous unicorn’s face, and his snout turned from that of a snarling beast to something much more equine. If it was possible in that mien, the Trotheim noble actually looked abashed. “I beg your pardon, friend Madeleine. I forgot myself for a moment. But our difficulties do yet have their root in her will.”

“Be that as it may,” said Madeleine, “and in the present case I don’t deny that Largo has been behaving rather more oddly than usual, surely there must be something we have missed? Where can we possibly go from here?”

“Oh, what impossible foals…” That did not come from Rubyk. Madeleine jerked her head to Frost Pane, the Freiof Trotheim regarding both of them with an half-lidded look of contempt. Frost Pane snorted and went on:

“Rubyk, you disgrace the house! You spend too long looking close at the cracks you miss the glacier about to calve away beneath you! Does grandmama need to chew your meat and spit it up again for you to save you the trouble?”

Madeleine had seen Rubyk take on a number of different expressions during their (very) brief acquaintance – everything from mirthful smiles to a cold and snarling anger. But she did not expect that she would see the one emotion now writ unmistakably upon his muzzle. Was that actually… embarrassment?

“What have I missed, grandmama?” Rubyk said. He sounded like a scolded foal.

Frost Pane slammed an hoof down, tearing into the sofa. “Listen to you! ‘Oh, grandmama, what have I missed?’ As if the pride of Trotheim were still learning his letters and showing his writing slate to his tutor for a candy-sweet. Feh!”

“Grandmama please, peace, peace, you must rest… You do not want another attack…”

“No, I do not, but you are like as the plague-frost to give me one! Fine for you then, and fine for me. I will tell you what my rheumy eyes see that you should and carry my grown grandfoal on my back.” Frost Pane leaned forward and rested her hooves on the table, sketching shaky lines in the middle of Rubyk’s geometries in frost using her hoof-tips.

“When fat and dozy ponies go on holiday, they bring with them all their house and cares and think they will reach back in time to the paradise-gardens, and seize a never-was for themselves by changing place.” Frost Pane drew the rough outlines of a squarish house and the archetypical desert island – an hump in the middle of the ocean with a single palm tree growing upon it. She wiped out the house with the flat of her hoof. “But they are fools and dung-daubers who so think, for they do not think, and they carry on their saddle their own worries as well as their house.” The palm tree remained a palm tree, but now it was surrounded by four walls and a garret roof.

Madeleine blinked. “I must admit, I’m a bit lost. What does this have to do with Calvados Apple’s murder?” she said. Or the price of pomegranates in Prance? – which she did not dare say aloud.

“In time, jeweler,” Frost Pane said, suddenly all sweetness and indulgence. Returning to her drawing, she desecrated a lacy spiral into infinity by setting down several crude equine stick-figures. “The end of the spear is that nopony ever summers or winters ever truly alone. Ponies go about with a thousand million phantoms in their own heads, and though they gallop into the frozen night and drink in the Aurora until they are slack-jawed prophet-dribblers, even then they cannot forget the weight of their own house on their shoulders.” The Frei of Trotheim drew another house, this one supported on the backs of the four ponies. Madeleine was suddenly struck by the image of stallions as pallbearers of a coffin the size and shape of an house.

“I… still do not follow, grandmama,” Rubyk said. The stallion had a nervous sort of smile plastered on his face. Frost Pane looked as though she might spit upon it.

“What a simple grandfoal is my lot…” The Frei of Trotheim shook her head. “Rubyk, the following is not the point – only learn from my long years!” She erased the curious pallbearers and began to draw more equine figures connected by lines drawn in quick, furious strokes that left gashes in the varnish.

“See, see, see!” she urged, pointing at the skewered figures that were already beginning to melt into a vague lack of outlines. “A pony never travels alone. His concern is for his house, and so the other way around by the wrongwise way. If one pony worries and cares, the whole house follows him. That is law; that is nature.”

Rubyk rubbed at his chin. “Do you mean, grandmama…” he said, glacially slow. “Do you mean that if one pony in a house had a motive to commit a crime, they might all have had the same motive?”

Slam! went Frost Pane’s hoof on the table like a gavel. A splinter flew and fell to the ground next to the sideboard on which rested dinner’s grisly remains.

“That is just what I mean to say, Rubyk! Now, now you see all! Oh, how long it took for my grandfoal to unstop his ears of the wax-plugs! Impossible boy!” But though she snorted and scolded, Madeleine saw the grin beneath the bluster.

Rubyk merely sat back, eyes tightly shut, as he digested this information (along with… urgh!). He was still as ice, and Madeleine could not see even that his sides moved with his breath. His lips moved, but no sound came forth that traveled farther than his own ears. But Madeleine could make out the outlines of a few recognizable words: “not alone,” “always two,” “look for pairs.”

“He will do that,” Frost Pane said to Madeleine as the latter stared on. “He is dead to the world until he sees it all at once for himself.”

“For how long?” said Madeleine.

“As long as it takes,” said Frost Pane. The Frei of Trotheim shrugged and settled back onto her couch beneath her furs. Her eyelids fluttered with a sudden wave of fatigue. “He will sit there until he pulls his mind out of whatever drifty place he’s fallen into.”

Rubyk’s eyes shot open, and he gasped with all the suddenness and subtlety of a lightning bolt out of the clear skies. “Can it be… yes. Yes, that might very well be the case. But I must know… I must be certain… And I need open eyes, wide open…”

“Something on your mind, Mister Rubyk?” said Madeleine. He did not answer her. Instead, he rose to his hooves and began to pace the room like a blind pony. He found his coffee cup from the earlier… repast… and poured himself fresh coffee until it overflowed. Lifting up the cup in his magical grip, he tilted his head back and poured the entire lot down his throat. Madeleine winced. Had he even felt that? He poured himself another and repeated this process twice more. Frost Pane merely gave a sleepy snort and closed her eyes.

Rubyk turned to Madeleine, the stallion’s face all alight with… with something. “I think, friend Madeleine, we have given Pome Apple long enough to rise up from the slime. Let us finally hear why he wanted to put away his uncle.”


*****


Finding Pome Apple turned out to be a more trying task than either Rubyk or Madeleine had anticipated. They found him in none of the common areas of the hotel, nor did the unicorn’s surly voice answer when Rubyk’s hoof thundered on the door of suite 505.

“Where under the high skies could he have gone?” Madeleine said as the two trotted once more through the Grand Foyer. In far-off Canterlot, Celestia was just putting the sun to its nightly rest, and outside the sunlight tarried in that uncertain state between daylight and darkness when the Princesses traded the throne of the vault of heaven. Rubyk frowned.

“I have an idea, friend Madeleine,” he said as he spotted Rock Skipper standing with his cap clutched in his hooves near the doors to the dining room. He began to make for the pegasus, but Rock Skipper saw the two as they entered and bounded over to them at a near-gallop.

“Chief! Miss Crumpet! Fluff my down, do I ever need to talk to you…” the pegasus said breathlessly. Madeleine scowled and made a tch tch sound, and with the wave of an hoof, the sound died in Rock Skipper’s throat.

“That’s a fine greeting for an old friend you just abandoned earlier this morning, Skipper. Where were you, hmm? Saw a cute young thing with a bow in her tail you just had to go up and get a better look at?”

The young stallion’s grey face went dirty-pink through and through from his ears to his neck. Rock Skipper slipped his newscolt’s cap back onto his head, pulling the bill down over his eyes.

“I’m… sorry, Miss Crumpet,” he said.

“You’re ‘sorry?’” Madeleine repeated, drawing out the word. “Oh, that I can see. You wouldn’t be that colour if you weren’t. So what was it, Skipper? Duty calling? What about Nature? – no, you know what? I don’t want to know. All I need to know is that you left me tramping through the Withers on my own, with nopony to help me if I were jumped or accosted or Luna only knows what else…”

“But… you’ve been in the Withers a thousand times, Miss Crumpet!” Rock Skipper said. The colour was beginning to drain out of his face, leaving only bafflement behind. “You know it as well as anypony local does!”

“Not the point, Skipper,” Madeleine said, rubbing her temple. “The Withers is still the Withers. The bad side of town is the same anywhere you go in Equestria. Just because I have ways to take care of myself doesn’t mean I couldn’t also stand the presence of a friend in unfriendly places.”

“But I saw…” began the pegasus.

“You saw what? That I was handling myself just fine? That I didn’t need any help? How did you figure?”

Rock Skipper’s wings drooped. “I – actually, never mind. It isn’t important. I will… I’ll see you later, Miss Crumpet.” Madeleine’s eyes followed Rock Skipper as the pegasus trotted slowly in the direction of the staff area. Rock Skipper’s eyes did not lift themselves from the floor.

Rubyk gave Madeleine a burrowing sort of look. “What?” she said.

“It is nothing at all important,” said Rubyk. “Come, friend Madeleine. Pome Apple still lies upcurled under some rock, and we must turn them all by hooves until he is found.”

Such darling imagery.

They finally found Pome Apple in the one place they truly last expected: seated at high table with Miss Largo as her own and solitary guest. Pome sat alone flanked by two empty chairs on either side in full view of the entire dining room. No shackles were placed upon the unicorn’s fetlocks, but judging from the two Clavia that stood like statues behind Miss Largo, clad in eveningwear instead of a guard’s cloak and kitchen whites, he had no need of any physical restraints. Pome stared down at his untouched plate of roasted vegetables, and Miss Largo sipped a mango sirop from a tiny cordial glass as Rubyk and Madeleine seated themselves at the high table.

“You know,” said Miss Largo, wiping her mouth with the corner of a napkin, “most ponies require an invitation to eat here. I do believe that this is the first exception since I came to head this hotel.”

Ignoring the proprietress, Rubyk said to Pome, “we are ready to hear your testimony.”

“And what makes y’all think I’m ready to give it?” Pome was tired. It was unmistakable in the ragged down-beat of his country accent. Still, the unicorn’s eye was defiant, and he sat shock-straight in his chair.

“That is still your story, is it?” Madeleine said, bringing the dictosprite out of her bag and setting it to busy flight. Miss Largo scrunched her muzzle and whispered something to one of the Clavia attendants behind her. The buck nodded and began to walk slowly at the edge of the dais on which the high table rested, his antlers sparking. A curtain like a heat shimmer descended around the table where he walked, and the sight-lines of the ponies dining outside all turned away from the dais. “You are still going to tell us that you ‘probably’ killed your uncle.”

“I still ain’t got a reason to change it,” Pome said. He glared a look that could rot apples. “Leastways of all to ponies who think they know what’s best when all they are is as good as head-bucking mules.”

And if she hadn’t been in the Withers earlier that day, such talk might have offended Madeleine. “I don’t think you are being sincere with us, Pome,” she said. “I think that you’re trying awfully hard to impress somepony. Maybe even that somepony is yourself. My only question is: why?”

Hit a vein there! cheered Madeleine as her words apparently struck home. The unicorn looked as if he had just taken a buck to the chest. Okay, it may have been a very limp sort of kick, but he definitely sat less easy in his own despond.

“Ridiculous,” Pome said. “Why would I need to impress myself? And what with?”

“For starters,” Madeleine said, letting her racing thoughts carry her along, “I don’t think that you always hated your uncle. You couldn’t possibly have hated him enough to come on this trip for… what, exactly? Business? Pleasure?” Like a jewel under a glass, Madeleine turned the unicorn over in her mind’s eye while he sat scowling.

“No,” Madeleine said. “You’re not a stallion that would go traveling for either of those. You’re not the world-trotting type, are you? There was another reason you came to this island with your uncle. What was it?”

“Duty,” spat Pome, the word ripping itself out of his throat. “I came along with him because I was the only one left to care about him. Do y’all understand that? The Apple clan mostly tries to forget about our whole branch of the family tree, and it’s been that way for a long, long time. Uncle Calvados had a way to make just about anypony mad at him – mad enough to spit. Is that clear enough for y’all’s standards?”

“As crystal…” Madeleine muttered.

“I’ve lived on Uncle Calvados’ plantation almost my whole life,” Pome Apple said. “It used to be that other family lived on the farm besides my uncle and me, and a few farmhands when the harvest comes around, but they all left. Uncle was… mean. In more than one way. The way it was told to me, one by one, his sons, his daughters, his brothers and sisters – all of them just up and left of a morning, each in their own time when they couldn’t take it anymore. The family all moved away for greener pastures in Manehattan or to help out on other Apple farms in Equestria.”

Like a burst dam, the torrent of words from Pome Apple continued without any prompting from Madeleine or Rubyk. Pome stared down at the tablecloth, meeting nopony’s eyes as he spoke over the scritch-scritching of the dictosprite.

“My mother was frail. One winter when we lived in Manehattan in a rented room, the radiator went bad. She got sick… and Uncle Calvados was my next-of-kin. So I moved back into that house, and I learned the family business, and I had to learn how to do for uncle what nopony else would or could. Eventually I became his secretary, assistant, companion – call it was y’all want, if it needed doing, I was the pony who pulled that cart. He… reared me like his own foal. I guess he was just lonely. So I loved him. Y’all understand that? I loved my uncle.”

“What changed?” broke in Rubyk. For a long moment, Pome did not answer.

“The letters,” he said finally.

“Come again?” said Madeleine. She looked down to the dictosprite transcript to make sure she had heard correctly. “What letters?”

“About maybe… three months before this trip, around the same time that I started to make arrangements for Uncle Calvados and I to come to the islands for his health and to meet Cousin Orange about his business contract, I started getting… well, letters. Notes, more like. They didn’t come in the normal post, and they would always show up slid through the mail slot alone. For all I know, whoever wrote them either is or hired a unicorn to zap ‘em wherever he wanted them to go.”

“These letters… notes… they were of a threatening nature?” Rubyk asked. Pome Apple shook his head.

“No. Not threatening. But they were honest. Brutally.”

“I don’t understand… what were they being honest about if not being threatening?” Madeleine said.

“About him, of course!” said Pome, as if that were the most evident thing in Equestria. “Uncle had gotten himself enemies, a few of them crazy over the years of him being… well, being Uncle Calvados. I usually just screened the crazy ones out before I gave ‘em to Uncle to read. It’s the crazy ponies that make threats.” Pome shook his head again. “Whoever this pony was, they weren’t crazy. All they really did was put down in black ink what Uncle Calvados had done over years. No accusing, no judging, nothing like that. Just… the truth.”

“Do you mind telling us what some of that truth might be? It might be relevant to your uncle’s murder,” said Madeleine, sounding a little too eager. Pome glared at her.

“Yeah. Matter of fact, I do mind. It ain’t relevant, ‘cause while my uncle may be dead, it weren’t for anypony writin’ a biography of what an awful stallion I got for kin.” Pome’s accent came out more thickly with the unicorn’s agitation.

“How do you know that, Pome Apple?” Rubyk whispered.

“I know it ‘cause one day, those letters, those notes, they changed. Oh, I’d been reading ‘em faithful up ‘til then. They were full of vile and acrimonious slander and lies – less’ that’s what I thought at first. But about the second month off getting’ them, I had to admit to myself they were all true. Somepony wrote them; I don’t know or much care who. But whoever it was, they knew, really knew who Uncle Calvados was. I started to see it for myself, started to see the real pony who had reared me up. And I hated what I saw.”

Pome began to crush an unused dinner fork underhoof. “I hated him. I hated my uncle after I started to see for myself. I’d just had blinkers on before then. It’s amazing what a pony can block out when they’re not willing to see, isn’t it?” Silent and sympathetic, Rubyk nodded his head.

“About a month ago – it would’ve been just a few weeks before we left on this trip – the letters started talking to me. Just… asking questions. Asking what I would do. Whether I wanted to live my whole life under that kind of pony. Whether I had any conscience left. Asking if I wanted to do something about it all. If I’d ever thought about it. I hadn’t thought about it – not up until then. But after that, I haven’t been able to think of almost nothing but.”

“And so you wanted to kill your uncle as of several weeks ago,” Rubyk said, eyes watching the dictosprite add it to the record in black ink.

“That’s right.” Pome gave the most mirthless laugh that Madeleine had ever heard. It sounded empty as a wine barrel. “You see now why y’all are just wasting your time? Take me back to Canterlot and have Celestia give me a royal escort right up to the moon. I’m ready to face up for what I did.”

Silence fell at the table. The soup course was brought by a dapper-dressed buck, but Rubyk, Madeleine, and Pome all ignored their helpings. Miss Largo sipped at her vichyssoise from a tiny sterling spoon, the mare’s eyes intent on the silent tableau on the other side of the table.

“How did you kill your uncle?” Rubyk said, barely audible.

Pome Apple shook his head violently. “I don’t know,” he said, rubbing his eyes with his forehooves.

“You don’t know?” Madeleine repeated, arching an eyebrow.

“Yeah. I don’t. After a certain point, everything just goes… weird. Fuzzy. I had drank a little bit, a really little bit last night – not more than usual, and not enough to put a pony under the table! But something got into the old donkey, and uncle and I fought. I don’t even remember what it was about – he was being just such a… just being Calvados.” Pome spat the name like an Hydra spewing venom.

“Where did you go after you and your uncle quarreled?”

“I went to the bar,” Pome half-snarled.

“Yes…” said Rubyk. “To put away your sorrows from you. For ‘in wine is truth; in strong drink, sleep.’ Of the pair of you and your uncle, you are the only pony who drinks.”

Pome looked to the Aktur of Trotheim and opened his mouth to answer, but realized that Rubyk had not asked a question. Pome’s mouth twisted into a true snarl, and Miss Largo made a motion to the Clavia standing near the high table. “How could you possibly know that?” Pome said to Rubyk.

“Merely a lucky guess from the evidence at-hoof, Mister Apple. Nothing more.”

Pome Apple made a bitter, animal bark of laughter. “Then Celestia blessed y’all with luck out of Tartarus. Well, I’m just a simple country fellow. Surely y’all have got me figured out right down to my liver. What else do you know about simple Pome Apple?”

“I know that you cast a spell in the room of your uncle’s death shortly before your uncle’s death,” said Rubyk. “Tell me what it was.”

Pome shrugged. “I can’t say.”

“Why not?” said Rubyk, his voice going cold. And not his voice only – the air around the high table began to feel perilously cold like the bite of a midwinter’s gale. The Clavia each took several steps toward the two stallions. Miss Largo cleared her throat and pressed her hooves together on the tablecloth.

“Aktur,” said Miss Largo quietly. “That will do, I think. This interview is quite nearly at an end. I invite you to say your cordial goodbyes to one another and continue your business at some other time.”

Rubyk’s glare might have speared through the stone walls of the hotel. “We are not done here, Largo. I have more that I must ask this pony to fulfill your idiotic conditions.”

Miss Largo only gave the tiniest of sighs and shook her head. “No, Aktur, I think that you are.” She motioned to the two Clavia, and their antlers blazed like stars gone nova. Madeleine fell startled from her seat as glassy chains like woven moonbeams fell upon the two stallions, wrapping tightly around the legs, mouth, and horn of each. Rubyk and Pome each fell from their chairs onto the dais with an heavy thud that went unnoticed by the diners outside of the deerish glamour that surrounded Miss Largo’s table.

The proprietress smiled sweetly at Madeleine. “Sorry, Crumpet dear. But that unicorn was beginning to make a nuisance of himself. I am certain that he will sort himself out before long, though. I will have both Mister Apple and Mister Rubyk taken to a safe place where they may… consider their conduct as befits an establishment like mine.”

And you didn’t say that for me, did you, Largo? thought Madeleine, a feeling like she had swallowed a diamond settling in the pit of her stomach as she looked at the seafoam mare sitting across the table. Clammy sweat beaded on the back of her neck.

“But you will join me for breakfast tomorrow, won’t you dear? Say, oh, 6:30? Here?” Miss Largo flashed a perfectly charming smile at Madeleine.

Madeleine swallowed hard. “Yes, of course,” she heard herself saying. Miss Largo cooed a few more social pleasantries that Madeleine did not hear, then rose to her hooves and led the two Clavia guards out of the room, carrying two bound unicorns in their wake.

And the other diners just kept eating their bananas and daisies.

Madeleine slumped to the earth, her rump hitting the dais hard. She barely felt the impact. Her joints shook, and she felt as though her legs would collapse like tinder beneath her.

“What does it mean?” she whispered. “Why, Largo?”

But there was no answer. The diners continued their happy dinner-chatter, the Clavia danced their silent dance, and the hotel ran on.

   p
> Part the Third - Giant's Bread
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


*********************************************



Chapter One



The Second Confession



*********************************************




Madeleine stepped through the curtain of little universes between the staff grotto and the hotel without stopping to consider the feelings of mystical oneness or disorientation this often caused in the unaware. Even if she did feel them, she did not care. Her eyes swept the sleeping-berths and drawn curtains until she found the one figure she was looking for. She trotted over to the one ladder near the back of the dim-lit chamber and craned her head up at the pegasus curled in on himself up above. The bed of cloud on which he lay was as grey as his coat.

“Skipper!” Madeleine whispered urgently. Rock Skipper had his back turned toward the mare, and he did not turn his head toward Madeleine at the sound of her voice. His tail flicked listlessly.

“What do you want, Miss Crumpet?” said Rock Skipper, indolent.

“Skipper, please,” Madeleine said, resting her hooves on the ladder leaning up to his cloud-berth. “I need your help.”

“Seems like you got on just fine last time,” said the pegasus, pulling his cirrostratus blankets over his shoulders with his wing-tips. “Aren’t you afraid that good old Skipper will just up and away again and leave you stranded?”

“Skipper, I…” Madeleine said. The mare stopped, and sighed, slumping to the ground. “I’m sorry about that. I am sure that you had your reasons…”

“And you didn’t want to hear them.” Rock Skipper stirred, and he hung his head over the side of the berth, staring down at Madeleine with an expression that was half anger and half… half Madeleine didn’t know quite what.

“I had just come back from the Withers!” Madeleine hissed, gritting her teeth. This was not going as she had envisioned.

“So what? There’s no excuse for being a shrike, Miss Crumpet.”

“I’m sorry!” said Madeleine in low tones. As she felt the prickling feeling of deerish eyes turning toward her, Madeleine realized that she did feel sorry – in fact, she felt just awful. “I’m… sorry. I’m sorry for lashing out at you like that, Skipper. I’m sorry for accusing you. I am not just saying this because I need your help, because I do, Celestia know that I do. I’ll even try to make it up to you with some –”

Madeleine paused. She had been about to say “with some pearls” before realizing what a ridiculous image that was. “I’ll make it up to you as best I can,” she finished, feeling the tips of her ears turning red. “But Largo’s taken Mister Rubyk and I don’t know what other pony I can turn to right now.”

“And why is that a problem?” Rock Skipper tried to sound unconcerned. Yet behind the bluster, Madeleine thought that she could hear a note of uncertainty in his voice.

“Skipper, think of the pony we are talking about here!” said Madeleine. “She gives with her right hoof at one moment and takes away with her left. First she says that she will give Mister Rubyk bit and full rein to investigate the murder, then after only a little trouble she takes him away in star-chains. Does that sound like a problem to you?”

“Wait, what?” Rock Skipper nearly fell out of his cloud-berth in surprise. “So when you say ‘taken away,’ you mean… the real thing?”

“Yes!” whispered Madeleine, trying to swallow the scream that was just waiting for a free moment to bolt and slip out of her throat. “Celestia help me, it’s as if she doesn’t want him to find out what pony killed Calvados Apple. I don’t know what to do, Skipper!”

“Oh.” The grey pegasus disappeared for a moment as he dove into the cloud that made up his sleeping-berth in search of something. He emerged a moment later and dropped to the ground with his wings tightly folded. The white corner of a paper concealed beneath his wings was just visible as he landed on his hooves with a feline quiet.

“Then I suppose we had best get a move on, Miss Crumpet,” Rock Skipper said in the same even, low tones. Then he smiled and put his other wing around Madeleine, pulling the mare close. Madeleine’s jaw hung slack, and she delegated body-moving to the little pony in her head as Rock Skipper led her, unprotesting, from the staff quarters. The pink in her ears deepened as Rock Skipper spoke rather noisomely that they might take a stroll down by the beach to look for pretty stones and shells scraped clean by the surf. Madeleine’s little pony was adept enough at the trite social dance to make the apt replies without any conscious thought on her part. Several Clavia sported an happy smile at the sight of their Rock Skipper finally having found that somepony special as the two passed by.

What a fantastic ruse! Madeleine thought, amazed in spite of herself once they were free from prying eyes. When all this messy business was over and done, she would need to find a way to thank Rock Skipper properly for being so quick on the wing.

Rock Skipper had not been joking when he mentioned a walk on the beach. Thus, if only to keep up appearances, Madeleine found herself trudging along the seashore with Rock Skipper, the evening lights of Currycape flickering like candles just across the causeway.

“Here,” said Rock Skipper, taking the paper folded tight against his body and offering it to Madeleine.

“What is this?” Madeleine said, the combined light of Luna’s moon and the glow of her horn just letting her eyes see the scrawled mouth-writing on the page.

“You asked me to snoop around and go where only I could. Well…” Rock Skipper said, sounding apologetic. “That’s a list of everything that I could remember that went missing some time in the last three months, both from staff quarters and from guest rooms – when they actually reported it. Turn the page over.”

Madeleine did so. The other side bore a similar list in the same broad, looping letters that was perhaps a third shorter than the other.

“And this?”

“That was everything from the first side that I found today in staff quarters. Most of it was put away in the same locker. We don’t use pony-keyed locks like the guest rooms do… nothing that a bobby pin, a good ear, and an uninterrupted minute can’t get into.” Rock Skipper flashed a smile – a real one this time, not a bashful neck-rubbing smile, nor the false one he had just plastered over his face.

Madeleine returned an only half-conscious smile as she ruffled the paper, turning it over and over in her magic as she compared the lists. The mare let out a sound that was not quite a whistle. “That is a lot of contraband. But you missed one, Skipper.”

The pegasus looked dumbfounded. In an instant, neck-rubbing Rock Skipper was back. “I don’t understand. What have I missed, Miss Crumpet?”

“Only this,” Madeleine said, bringing the gold band she had forced out of Hodgepodge and his grease-tent earlier that afternoon out of her saddlebags and displaying it to Rock Skipper in the citrine glow cast by her horn. The pegasus blinked at it, then at her, uncomprehending. Madeleine sighed.

“I mean that I know for a fact that this ring was stolen. It’s one of mine.”

“What, out of your room, Miss Crumpet?” Rock Skipper said. Madeleine shook her head angrily, fighting the urge to crumple the paper in her magic’s grip or to wave the ring under Rock Skipper’s nose.

“No, worse. I think it must have been stolen out of the staff area within the last two days. I gave it to Doctor Leaf for safekeeping for Seamoss’ retirement fund. And I had to personally buy it back from that grimy gouger up in the Withers earlier today! Do you see now why I might have been a titch upset, Skipper? I mean, in addition to the obvious?” Madeleine’s eyes narrowed.

“Who was it, Skipper?”

For a long moment, Rock Skipper said nothing. The pegasus picked up a smooth, flat stone from the beach in his forehooves, giving it a critical look. “Nobody knows for sure,” he said, and hurled the rock into the sea with a certain twist. Even on the unquiet waters, it bounced once, twice, three times before it sank beneath the waves. He made a quiet sigh and shot a look toward Madeleine.

“But we all know,” he said. “Once things started disappearing, it didn’t take long to figure out who on the staff was doing it, or why. It was maybe about a year ago that Papaya got a letter from home by mailgull. Her grandbuck had taken awfully sick: something had gone horribly wrong with his insides that star-magic just couldn’t fix. That’s the version of it that I heard, anyway. Papaya was awfully quiet about the whole thing. I overheard second-hoof that she had wanted to book passage on Captain Nuce’s ferry to get home as soon as possible, but her family insisted that she stay on. Apparently, they needed the money more than they needed her antlers back on the farm.”

“Oh, my…” whispered Madeleine. “Is her grandbuck alright?”

Rock Skipper shrugged, picking up another flat stone from the beach. “Dunno. She never talks about it to anypony, let alone the staff. Miss Largo might know, but I doubt it.” Rock Skipper cast the stone and it bounced four times before running into the crest of an abnormally large wave. He smiled.

Madeleine thought of the sweet-dimpled young doe, and how she had gone so wrong. Her heart cracked. Oh, if only I had known!

“She started stealing for her family,” Madeleine said sadly. Rock Skipper nodded.

“And sending the money home to help out the family. It didn’t take us long to put together what was going on after one of Doctor Leaf’s books ended up on Hodgepodge’s bookcases. None of us wanted to say anything to Papaya about it. I heard that Doctor Leaf went to her afterwards and told her that if she was going to carry on like that, she needed to be much more subtle about it.” Rock Skipper smirked. “I also hear that it was the only time that Hodgepodge ever gave anything back for free without a gun to his head, but there comes a point where a pony can be too credulous.”

Madeleine laughed, and the two moved farther down the beach. Rock Skipper’s eyes scanned the ground for more likely-looking rocks to practice on. They had walked a few minutes in silence when Rock Skipper said suddenly:

“I saw Papaya coming down from the Withers this morning.” The pegasus cast a third stone, a flat, three-sided specimen, getting six bounces out of it before it sank beneath the choppy water.

Madeleine’s stomach leaped up into her chest. “What was she doing there?”

“Oh, same as usual, I suspect. She was carrying a little bag with something in it she was awfully fussed to not let me see. My guess is that she had just come from Hodgepodge’s tent with a bag of bits. She teleported away when I tried to see just what she was carrying.”

Madeleine frowned. She contemplated looking for a stone to throw into the sea herself. “That does make sense, but it feels off. You saw her coming back from the Withers this morning, right?”

“Of course. It was not long after I left – er… had to go take a little flight.”

Smooth, Skipper. Smooth. “But that would have been only a few hours after Miss Largo told the staff about the murder. If she was being careful, the very last place Papaya would want to be seen is about half a mile in any direction from old ‘Podge’s tent.”

“Wait, what?” Rock Skipper blinked at her. “So, unless she absolutely needed to, she wouldn’t have gone to trade in something stolen?”

“Exactly,” said Madeleine, the rush of discovery creeping into her voice. “It would seem suspicious to anypony who happened to know a little bit about what was going on. Unless there was something that she absolutely needed to get rid of…”

Rock Skipper’s eyes widened, and he looked at Madeleine with a fearful expression. “But to need to get rid of something right then would tie her right to…”

Madeleine nodded gravely, though every inch of her coat prickled like the electric charge of a coming storm. “Right to Calvados Apple’s murder. Somehow, Papaya was involved with this. And I intend to find out how.” Madeleine raised her head high, setting her face toward the lights of the town stretching up into the hills. She tugged at the strap of her saddlebags with a frown; she had worn them for so long that they were beginning to chafe. Madeleine shook her head and began to trot resolutely in the direction of the mainland.

“Miss Crumpet?” Rock Skipper said, following close behind her. “Where are you going?”

“We’re going to pay another visit to the Withers, Skipper,” Madeleine said. “And we’re going to see if Hodgepodge would be willing to part with something else for free. I’m game for anything once; you?”

“I… don’t know,” Rock Skipper said, hooves kicking up the sand as he trotted alongside Madeleine. “What exactly are you looking for?”

Madeleine’s eyes flashed like hard diamonds. “We are looking for something that should never have been there.”


*****


“You have… no right. I seek… a murderer. I want to bring… justice… for the sin done… under your nose.”

“I am familiar with what your people call justice, Lord Rubyk. Anypony else might call that murder.” Miss Largo looked down at the giant of Trotheim lying prone on the floor.

Rubyk could not raise his head, nor his legs, nor shift his haunches under the weight of an hundred stars that lay in corded bands upon his body. The deer guards had left him the use of his tail, and he lashed up clouds of the cellar’s ancient dirt, though his face remained a stoic mask.

“Why… should I care what just anypony thinks… of the Pride of Trotheim?” Rubyk said. The unicorn’s words came out slow and laboured, and no wonder: his jaw was moving the weight of an hundred tiny suns. “There is… always a difference… between murder and justice.”

Miss Largo shrugged. “And either way, ponies end up dead. Do forgive me, Aktur, if you find me still a skeptic of your idealism at the end of all this.”

“I do not need… your approval. Unbind my head,” Rubyk grated, “and then we talk. Know… you want to.”

Miss Largo touched her cheek with an hoof, as if considering a novel proposal for pest control services on her hotel grounds. For a glacially long moment, she scowled and looked as if she was minded to refuse. But she finally gave a curt nod toward the two Clavia bucks kneeling in concentration on either side of Rubyk. One of them, panting at the exertion, put out the stars dancing on just one prong of his many-pointed antlers like a candle flame. The chains of starlight slithered down from Rubyk’s head and neck like a cosmic serpent, allowing the Aktur of Trotheim to raise his head and look about the hotel’s cellar. (A thin, starry cord like a watch chain was still wrapped about his horn.)

Pome and Rubyk had been taken into the wine cellars of the hotel. Each lay between large brandy casks laid up against the wall, two Clavia close enough to breathe on taking up the rest of the space on either side. The place had the feel of a dungeon about it; fitting, then, that it had been a dungeon in the glory days of the deerfolk, as Miss Largo could not stop herself from informing them on the way down here. The cellar seemed to be one of the few areas of the hotel not lit by the ubiquitous lampwood staves. Aside from the light shed from their jailers’ antlers and the shining bonds they cast, the only illumination came from a waxy candle in an old iron lantern Miss Largo had carried in her mouth on the way down. The tang of spilled wine and the dusty smell of antiquity filled the dark.

“Do you normally treat paying guests in this way, Miss Largo?” Rubyk said, voice as smooth and breezy as dinner conversation. Miss Largo shrugged again.

“No, but circumstances being what they are, I do what I must.”

“Must?” repeated Rubyk, the word coming out as a sort of rounded half-laugh. “What kind of ‘must’ is it that does what you have done, Largo?”

“The kind that wants to keep a fight from breaking out in her dining room in full view of paying guests,” said Miss Largo, adding still another shrug to the end of her statement. Rubyk squinted at the seafoam mare whose face was shadowed in the flickering lantern-light.

“No,” Rubyk said in an half-whisper. “That is not the case. You had another reason for this.”

“Pray tell me what it was, Lord Rubyk. You seem most assured of yourself. I would very much like to know my own mind.”

“Then you will be so kind, Miss Proprietress Largo, to give me an account of your movements last night until the time when you found me in Calvados Apple’s suites.”

“I have given you full access and a free rein to do as you see fit, Aktur. I gave to you the most sensitive evidence of the case in Madeleine Crumpet’s pistol. I even kept this suspect under my own eyes while you were bothering my staff in their own private quarters with a, pardon my language, most mulish rudeness,” Miss Largo said, gesturing toward Pome prostrate between brandy casks. She began to pace in the narrow space of the cellar, her hooves making crisp, agitated strikes against the stone. “Am I now to be considered a suspect to a murder simply because I wished to do my duty to my guests and my Clavia? Really, Aktur, this is outrageous.”

“So be outraged,” Rubyk said. “It is all the same for me as long as you tell me what I need to know.”

Miss Largo stamped the ground. The sound was like a hammer falling from the top of the brandy casks. “Very well, Aktur. You may come to see me in my office when you are ready and able to do so. I will tell you there everything that your not inconsiderable imagination may wish to know.”

“And when will that be?” Rubyk said, glancing first to the glass-eyed deer kneeling next to him and the red unicorn across the aisle, then at Miss Largo. The proprietress’ muzzle was posed in a rictus calm.

“As long as this present business may take,” replied Miss Largo with another shrug. “Good evening to you, Lord Rubyk. I leave you with the ample company of your companion for now. Please do not hesitate to let my staff know if you require anything.”

With this parting, Miss Largo took up the lantern and the dripping candle in her mouth and retreated up and out of the cellars, leaving the two unicorns in winy darkness save for the wan light of the chains about their bodies. As she reached the stairs, Miss Largo turned and gestured with her neck at the prone form of Pome Apple. The Clavia guards on either side of him removed the chains around his head and neck. Once freed, Pome glared at Rubyk.

“I suppose y’all want to keep on grilling me over the fire, then?” Pome said, voice coming out choked. The unicorn coughed on the dust.

“Since it seems that we are preordained to share the other’s company for the time being,” Rubyk said, a mirthless smile creasing his muzzle, “then yes.” Pome sighed and his whole face seemed to slump.

“Dung and haystacks, I might as well. Luna knows how long that crazy mare plans on keeping us down here. I don’t see how it’ll change y’all’s estimation of me, though.” He fixed Rubyk with a sad stare.

“I think you asked me if I’d cast any spells in Uncle Calvados’ room. Well, yeah. I did. I cast it on him.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. ‘Oh’. I took one look at Uncle Calvados when I came back to the room and saw the signs of Earthsbane poisoning, clear as day. Uncle was…” Pome gulped. “He was practically dead already. I either tried to purge the poison from his body, or I killed him. By Celestia, I wish I knew which.”

Rubyk cocked his head. “How do you know the effects of Earthsbane poisoning, Pome Apple?”

“Personally,” Pome said, spitting the word like a bad apple pip.

“Come again?”

“When I was a colt, I got into my mom’s medicine chest when she left me at home one day. There was a potion there in a pretty blue bottle that tasted sweet, like a cider just on the sweet side of fermented. And I spent the next few hours dying inside.”

“But –”

“But how?” Pome gave an half-choked, mirthless laugh. “If you haven’t figured it out by now, Mighty Actor, even Uncle’s severed branch of the Apple family tree is all earth ponies, back as far as the line has names. My mother left Uncle’s plantation before she had me, seeing how he didn’t exactly approve of the arrangement. She never told me, but I know that Uncle Calvados threatened to throw me in the river after I was born.”

“Ah. I see. You know this from the notes that you kept from your uncle in the last month.”

“Right. That and a compost heap of other sprite gunk I have no interest in telling you.”

“Because it has nothing to do with why you might have killed him?”

“No. Because you’re an ass.”

Rubyk frowned, though Pome could not tell whether this was due to his latest remark or not. “Thank you, Pome Apple. I have just one more question for you.”

“Just one? Good. Go ahead.”

“Other than the Oranges, were you acquainted with anypony else living on the island or staying at the hotel before you arrived on the ferry?”

The scornful look vanished from Pome Apple’s face. In spite of the unicorn’s jaw being forced against the cellar floor, he looked perplexed. “Anypony else? I can’t see how. I’d never been in the South Seas before we got the invitation from Cousin Orange for our business meeting.”

“Thank you, Pome Apple. I shall trouble you no more,” said Rubyk, nodding his head.

“What? No ‘just one more’ questions from you, Mister Actor?”

“No. I have had no sleep and far too much stimulant, and I must rest; and until Miss Largo decides that we have been kept down here long enough to behave ourselves like good little colts, I intend to do so. I shall determine who killed your uncle – even if that pony happens to be you. But I cannot do that without laying down my head for a while. So, good night to you, Pome Apple.”

Rubyk closed his eyes and, to judge from the sound like a winter’s gale whistling through bony trees, was quickly sound asleep. Pome snorted and turned his head away from the unicorn opposite him.

“Oh, shut up,” said Pome. Though to whom he was speaking, Rubyk could not say.




*********************************************



Chapter Two



The Citrine and the Caldron



*********************************************




“Miss Crumpet, are you sure about –”

“Shh!” Madeleine gave a perfunctory tut! and laid an hoof on Rock Skipper’s mouth. A spitting distance from their muzzles, the shell like a black pearl Madeleine had conjured around herself and Rock Skipper glittered dull in the moonlight. Outside, the light would bend around it, leaving a hole for the active equine imagination to fill in by its own fretful artistry in the dark. Inside, it glinted with internal reflections from crazy angles that made Rock Skipper queasy if he looked at them too directly.

“Of course I’m not sure, Skipper. I’d much rather be laying on my luscious sheets right now, maybe with some juicy company. But I don’t have any better ideas,” Madeleine said. She grimaced and shot an hopeful look at the pegasus, who had turned his cap down against his own nausea. “Any last-minute flashes of that lightning Cloudsdale intellect, by chance?”

Rock Skipper just shook his head. Madeleine rolled her eyes.

“Well, unfortunately, since I never got the knack of teleporting and you can’t fly me up to ‘Podge’s tent, we’re well and truly stuck. Let’s get going.”

Rock Skipper did not nod. The pegasus began to mechanically put one hoof in front of the others as the two made their way up the slope from the town proper into the hills, huddled together like a couple under an umbrella too modest for two.

The Withers had a sinister cast under the moon. Every palm cast a looming shadow; every hutch and sagging lean-to seemed its own sagging castle with flickering eyes for windows. Or perhaps that impression had more to do with things like the small clutch of Clavia menacing another of their number with starlight and half-shattered rum bottles in the shadow between hutches, or the odd whiff of strange zebra brews that wafted out of a windows as they passed. Rock Skipper turned his head in the direction of a choked scream farther down the hill, but Madeleine put her foreleg around him and shook her head.

“Eyes forward, Skipper. No time for that kind of thing,” Madeleine said with a touch of regret. Rock Skipper scowled, but nodded in agreement.

Madeleine dropped the pearly shield screening them from view as they reached the edge of the wood where Hodgepodge was keeping shop. Hesitating a few fearful seconds, she lit her horn with as dim a light as possible, throwing the light forward in a narrow beam.

“At least it’s not the Everfree,” Rock Skipper said, staring up into the black mass of trees.

“No, but slogging through tropical woods in the dark of night isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. After I find out what’s going on, I’m going to make somepony at the hotel draw me an hot bath and make Mister Rubyk buck the bill,” said Madeleine, grumbling as she made the first step under the cover of the trees. She swept the light of her horn along the ground for snakes or any of the more magical, and more dangerous creatures that sometimes crept along the edges of the outposts of civilization in the South Seas (like gem-eye spiders, she thought with a shiver). Fortunately, nothing appeared to molest the two as they stole along the path except for the odd bloatfly, which Rock Skipper shooed away with a wingtip.

The oily glow of guttering lamps added to the feeble light of overused lampwood shone out into the dark wood as Madeleine and Rock Skipper reached Hodgepodge’s tent. They shared a look, and Madeleine thrust her body through the tent flap first.

“‘Podge!” Madeleine said. “Hodgepodge! I do hope you’re in, because I need to talk to you right no –”

The words died in her throat. Hodgepodge looked up toward the tent flap with wide, watery eyes from a battered table surrounded by a curtain of gauzy grey magic that fluttered like muslin in the breeze. He was joined by Jett Black, who more than ever seemed like a pony-shaped void cut out of the fabric of the world. Whereas Hodgepodge’s coat merely looked dirty and dull in the dimness, the pegasus’ black coat seemed to swallow up the light cast by a tarnished brass oil lamp set on the table between them. He regarded Madeleine and Rock Skipper with an inscrutable coolness. There was a nauseating smell of something like half-burned tallow hanging in the air under the tent’s black canvas, and Madeleine did not mean to ask what exactly it was.

Madeleine saw the black unicorn’s mouth moving, but there was no sound. Hodgepodge seemed to realize this at the same moment as Madeleine, and he made a quick flicker from his horn that tore the gauzy curtain from top to bottom with a sound like a sharp intake of breath. The curtain dissolved into the thick, cloying air.

“Maddie?” Hodgepodge rasped, sheer surprise driving the unicorn’s voice up into a register he did not often use. He cleared his throat and quickly recovered himself. “You’re back soon. Forget something, maybe? Have a bit more to donate to poor old Hodge’s charity fund?” Hodgepodge flashed an oily grin at Madeleine. Behind her, Rock Skipper’s eyes were throwing daggers at the grimy black unicorn.

But Madeleine had no time for Hodgepodge’s grasping just now. She trotted slowly to the black pegasus looking at once at his wiry build and his dark eyes. Like coal, she thought. Very much not a jewelry sort of pony.

“I’ve seen you before,” Madeleine said, locking looks with the pegasus. “You are staying at the hotel now, I believe?”

“You took note of it for yourself. Spare me the preambles, if it please you.” Madeleine could recall (and not with fondness) an hours-long haggling session with a dragon in his lair early on in her career. Although this pony’s voice was not quite that deep and commanding, it was not by much.

“You were talking with Mister Rubyk in the gardens two days ago… and you were at the casino when we were all there for the game with Calvados Apple.” Madeleine took another step forward, confidence growing within her. “And I’ll stake a bag of pearls that you don’t have family or friends here in the islands, either. So, tell me: how did you know about this Sun-forsaken little tent, and why are you here?”

The pegasus’ eyes widened for a fraction of a moment before his face returned to stone-jawed blankness. “You are right, madame jeweler, that I am not a native of these islands, and I have no reason to come to or know about this tent of iniquities. But you have been rather busy today… very busy. I suspect we are about the same business.”

Madeleine started in shock. “Wait a moment. Did Mister Rubyk enlist you in this whole investigation business, too?”

Jett Black gave a deep chuckle. “As I have seen it, I believe you have that rather backwards. First, I believe that you sought out the Lord Aktur when you went wandering where you smelled bits and stallion to be had. You passed a door you couldn’t bear to see unexplored, and you saw something that you shouldn’t have seen. And then you didn’t know what to do, and you ran to your obsession du jour for help instead of asking around for the pony that actually can help with your friend Largo’s mad demands.”

“Oh, and let me guess,” Rock Skipper said, stepping up to Madeleine’s side. “You’re the pony that can really help, Mister Black?”

“I am,” said Jett Black, somehow without an hint of arrogance. He gestured with his massive wings to include Madeleine and Rock Skipper in the conference around the table. “It seems that we have the same errand here. Join us, madame jeweler, and let the truth come out.”

Hodgepodge chuckled. It sounded like he was laughing through a plug of grit stuck in his throat. Madeleine looked from the black unicorn to the black pegasus at the table with a blank expression.

Two peas in a blanket, these two. Steeling herself for what was about to come, she scowled and stepped up to the table, Rock Skipper standing rigid as a board at her shoulder. Hodgepodge grinned his warmest and toothiest (and grimiest) smile and, with a flicker of grey and the sound of a satisfied exhalation, the gauzy curtain descended around the four ponies at the table. After the curtain fully covered them all, Madeleine’s ears stood on edge at the unnatural pressure of silence.

“Maddie, this fine fellow bought something nice and pretty indeed!” said Hodgepodge through his yellowing teeth. “Something I think you’d be very interested to have a look at. How badly would you say you’d like to take that little peek…?”

Madeleine and Rock Skipper simultaneously shot a glare at the black unicorn that could have punctured steel. Jett Black reached beneath his wing, casting an hard something that made a muffled clatter as it struck the table.

“On the contrary,” said the pegasus, his coal-black eyes glinting like diamonds in the firelight. “Information ought to be as free as love between friends, especially where a pony has been murdered.”

Madeleine felt Rock Skipper press close enough to her that she could feel the warmth coming from the grey pegasus’ body. Too close to think, Skipper. She leaned forward over the table, away from Rock Skipper’s ‘protection’, and peered closer at the object, a necklace that Jett Black produced. A thin line of spittle ran down Hodgepodge’s chin he also took in the stones on the table. She blinked. It was… a necklace

Perhaps he is a jewelry sort of pony after all? She thought before the little pony took over. Polished malachite. Stones irregular and of inferior quality for jewelry-making. Hemp cord is rough, unsightly, and visible even between stones – probably utilitarian, enchanted or something, possibly to help out a pony’s latent magic. Center stone is…Madeleine gasped and started back so suddenly that she nearly fell over onto Rock Skipper.

“M-Miss Crumpet!” he stammered. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”

“No…” Madeleine said weakly. “No, I… I’m fine. Just… had a bit of a surprise, that’s all.” Her horn glowed as she took up the necklace and brought the center stone close to her eye.

Tight-packed semi-irregular hexagonal cells… thin channels suggesting the presence of blood vessels at some point in the past… and that colour is bleached, but no mere animal has a bone with a red carapace like that. Just to be sure, Madeleine held her horn close to the white center stone so that an amber spark flowed from its tip into the necklace, then touched her tongue to the malachites, then to the center stone. She was rewarded by a small spark, green, that jumped from the necklace onto her tongue. She jumped. That did not taste of her magic.

“Hornbone…” she muttered, horrified. She looked at Jett Black, feeling a cold shiver run down from her horn to her tail. The black pegasus no longer seemed so interesting. Madeleine was struck by the thought that he might at any moment leap upon her, and cover her with those wings, and then… and then…

Madeleine bit her lip. She tasted blood.

“I assure you, it’s quite spent,” Jett Black said with disquieting calm. “A curious sort of thing to find turning up in a pawnbroker’s tent the morning after a murder, wouldn’t you say? The enchantment on there might have been anything – so long as it was appropriately dark. The hornbone is one thing, but the malachite rather gives the game away, wouldn’t you say, madame jeweler?”

Madeleine nodded numbly, feeling her mouth going dry. What had she put her hoof down into? She removed the stolen ring from her saddlebags and set it on the table beside the necklace, taking care not to brush against it with her hoof. Spent the necklace might have been, but the twisted tang of foreign magic was not something Madeleine wanted to feel again. She frowned for a moment; did her saddlebags feel lighter than usual, or was she only imagining troubles?

“I need for you to be honest with me, ‘Podge,” Madeleine said. “Did the same pony bring both of these items to you?” And sod your “client confidentiality!” she added to herself.

Hodgepodge hesitated for a fraction of a second, then shook his head. “Nope, Maddie. I can say that with allnoble virtues.”

“Then what was that little hiccough about? Why not just say it right away? Why did you have to think about it?” Rock Skipper shot back, punctuating each question with an hoof-strike on the table. But the silent curtain swallowed up the sound and pressed down harder, and the pegasus shrank back, the tips of his ears going violently pink.

“I concur, ‘Podge. That was the sort of thing I would expect you to say.” Madeleine fixed the black unicorn with a flinty stare. “It wasn’t a pony at all, was it? Perhaps it was a sweet little doe from Largo’s hotel? And maybe, just maybe, she might have been one of your faithful regulars?”

Hodgepodge’s jaw clenched, and Madeleine allowed herself a little smile. The other unicorn did not say anything, but he didn’t need to: not with a scowl like that.

“I’m not saying nothing I wouldn’t say n’otherwise,” Hodgepodge said, “but I will say if, say, that thing is important for whatever it is that’s going on here, murder or no murder, I suppose I might say you can take it for whatever you have to do. Old ‘Hodge doesn’t go in for that sort of thing n’more. I aim to run a respectable business here, and I say it’s hard enough to make ends meet without having truck with things like that.” Hodgepodge made a showy dismissal of the necklace on the table, but his sidelong glance never quite stopped caressing the strung stones.

Madeleine swept the stones and the ring into her bags before Hodgepodge could change his mind. Three gems and a platinum band was still too much for that information, and she knew he knew it.

Jett Black gave another chuckle that made Madeleine’s mane crawl. “I see that the evidence is in the care of all the right parties. Now that the Aktur has everything he needs for his crusade, I will take my leave of you all. Good evening, madame jeweler.”

Madeleine held out a forehoof. “Wait,” she said. Her little pony had a question, but she had no idea how it would come out.. Jett Black and Rock Skipper both looked at her expectantly.

“Is there something else?” Jett Black said.

“Yes!” Madeleine shouted. Rock Skipper jumped. “How?”

“Beg pardon?” Jett Black arched an eyebrow like bushy pencil lines.

“How did you know to come here?” Madeleine demanded, raising herself onto her forehooves on the tabletop. Hodgepodge looked at the mare in shock. “How did you even hear about Calvados Apple’s murder when Largo is keeping it from the guests? What do you know, Jett Black?”

Smiling thinly, Jett Black answered, “I keep my ears open, Madeleine Crumpet. That is all.” The black pegasus cocked his head, and Madeleine could see the secrets lying just behind that smile.

And then all the verve seemed to flow out of Madeleine at once. She suddenly felt very tired and lowered herself to the ground, rubbing at her eyes. Whether it was from the sting of oily smoke inside Hodgepodge’s curtain, or the weight of too many secrets crashing down upon her at once, or finally reaching the bottom of that high hill called coffee, Madeleine felt as though her head was filled with dry cotton.

“Miss… Crumpet?” said Rock Skipper at the same time as Hodgepodge’s timorous “Maddie? You alright?” Madeleine rubbed her temples, but it did not seem to help much.

“I’m fine, Skipper.” I’m just at the center of a glass cage I can’t find a way out of. “I’m just… tired.”

“You have my condolences,” Jett Black said dryly. The black pegasus rose from the table, half-spreading his massive wings, and fixed Hodgepodge with a flinty stare. “I have what I came here for. I now think that this interview has gone on for long enough. If you would, please?”

“Absolutely – at once – been a pleasure, sir!” Hodgepodge’s tongue raced his teeth to say. The curtain fell once more, admitting the rustle and buggy screams of the unquiet night. To her own dim surprise, Madeleine heard other noises, small and songlike like children’s voices, from just outside of the tent flap rapidly receding into the black of the wood. But before she could ponder the meaning of that fact, her tired mind heard Jett Black saying to her:

“…one gone now. Only two days left for you and your friend to find justice. But I pray for your success, and I trust that we will be seeing each other again before we quit this island altogether. Good evening to you, madame jeweler.” Jett Black’s eyes went to the tent flap. “And take care how you go as you leave this place. This place is nothing fit for the likes of you and me.”

What in Equestria are you blathering on about? Madeleine wailed inwardly. She heard her overtired body reply instead, “yes… of course… good night.” Jett Black made a bow just an inch or so too deep to be really sincere, and the black pegasus stooped his head as he exited Hodgepodge’s tent. The force of his wingbeats threw dust into the interior as Jett Black rose into the night air and was quickly lost beyond the keening night-song.

“So…” rasped Hodgepodge, breaking the silence. “Anything else I can help you with tonight, Maddie? Need a new cap, Rock Skipper? You’d make a dapper fellow in red, or old ‘Hodge has lost his mind entirely.” Hodgepodge flashed his glinting teeth at them, but Madeleine just shook her head. Hodgepodge sighed and bade them a fine, fine farewell, and Madeleine and Rock Skipper began to make their way back through the wood.

The pair walked in silence. Madeleine hung her head, looking only far enough ahead in the moonlight to see the ground for her next hoof-fall. Either a murder investigation was particularly exhausting, or too much travel in too few hours had finally caught up with her. Behind Madeleine, Rock Skipper trotted close on the path. The pegasus looked as if he were struggling to bring up words from somewhere deep whenever she looked back, but as long as he was kept tongue-tied, just at the moment, she didn’t particularly mind.

They were out of the wood and out onto the bare hills where the Withers crouched and brooded under the moon when a soft voice confronted them.

“It’s a nice evening out, isn’t it, Miss Crumpet?” Madeleine jerked her head up as a shock ran from her horn down her spine. She felt the sharp pressure of a spell in the air around them as three Clavia, two before, and one behind on the path, walked out of the empty air as if they had just stepped down from the starry sky above. One of them, a petite doe with a golden chain around her neck, stepped forward.

“Ah,” said Madeleine, her nerves calming. “Yes, it is. You’re…?” She frowned as she searched her memory “I don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance, miss…?”

“Oh, that’s not important,” said the doe, flashing a strangely tepid smile. “We’re here on business.”

“What kind of business?” Rock Skipper said as he shot a wary look at the other two Clavia, both bucks. One was almost as thickly built as Calvados Apple, and in spite of his stature, the brass caps on his antler-tips made him stand tall enough to be nearly pony-sized. The other still had the half-spotty look of a young deer caught between foalhood and adult responsibilities, but his hide and muzzle were covered with pale, angry scars that Princess Luna’s moon brought into shadowy relief. Rock Skipper pressed himself closer to Madeleine. This time, she did not reject the gesture.

The doe gave a laugh that sounded like tinkling bells. “I don’t like to have to go into too much detail. Your black saddlebags are awfully pretty, Miss Crumpet. Sleek and black never goes out of style. May I try them on?”

Another shock, bone-dry and cold, shot through Madeleine’s body as full comprehension dawned. Trying to keep the citrine glow of her horn as subdued as possible, she reached out with her magic into the contents of her saddlebags, growing more frantic as her mind poked and probed in every corner. First one… then the other… where was it…?

It wasn’t there. It… wasn’t… there!

The doe kept smiling sweetly, but her antlers were a constellation of winking star-points. A golden chain like a serpent biting its tail appeared out of the air between them. The bucks each wore a dagger holstered in an hemp-fiber sling. The bucks looked grim and even a little apologetic as the daggers turned this way and that in their starry grasp.

“This is insane!” Madeleine burst out. “Are you really trying to rob me? Me? When I can just go to Miss Largo with one word and have you chased from one end of the islands to another? When I’ve been such a friend to all the Clavia on this island?”

The doe’s smile crumpled for just a moment. It was brief, but she hesitated before answering back: “That’s awfully funny, Miss Crumpet. It’s not kind to assume that everydeer cares a grass blade for what Miss Largo thinks she can do to us. The mare down in our old fortress might think that she is queen over all the Clavia, but you ponies really need to know your place.” Without warning, the golden chain flew forward like a striking snake and wrapped itself around Madeleine’s horn. Madeleine gasped as an heavy weight pressed down upon her neck. She strained her magic against it, but trying to lift the chain was like trying to shift a mountain. With a teaspoon.

“Please don’t be the cause of any unpleasantness. We’re good folk who sometimes don’t get enough to eat, and Hodgepodge doesn’t ask questions. Everydeer likes you, Miss Crumpet, but it’s always been deer before the tribes. I’m sorry about this – really.” The doe’s smile spread to the two bucks, and with a nod of their head, they, and their daggers, began to close in.

“Hold on, and stay still.” Rock Skipper’s voice was fainter even than a whisper, as if Madeleine had felt rather than heard it. Then she felt rather than heard Rock Skipper’s wings beating at the air, and felt rather than heard the pegasus’ legs lifting her body under her shoulders up off of the ground, and she felt the scream of vertigo ripped from her chest before she heard the chink! of a dagger-point striking hard gemstone. She heard the outrage from the trio of deer, all niceties and smiles abandoned, and the searing hiss of starlight at their fetlocks as Rock Skipper strained to keep them aloft. Dimly through the terror, she wondered how long he would be able to keep this up.

The answer came soon and was as blunt as the ground: not long at all. Madeleine and Rock Skipper lay in a sprawled heap on the cobbles on the abandoned streets at the base of the hill. The flickering firelight from the hutches and lean-tos of the Withers up above seemed to laugh vindictively at them. Madeleine groaned and lifted her jaw from the soft flesh on Rock Skipper’s side – well, softer than cobblestones, anyway. The pegasus had inverted the two of them as they fell and took the brunt of the crash.

“Are you alright, Skipper?”

“Are you okay, Miss Crumpet?”

Madeleine stared at Rock Skipper under her hooves. Rock Skipper looked up at her and flushed. The two ponies stood and dusted themselves off, Rock Skipper using his wings and Madeleine with her tail, neither looking at the other. The green glint of peridot on the cobblestones caught Madeleine’s eye.

Must have fallen out of my saddlebags. Instinctively, Madeleine reached out and tried to take it up in her power. But the chain upon her horn, clinging tight as if it were bonded to the bone, sealed her magic like a leaden lid.

“Er… Miss Crumpet?” said Rock Skipper, pointing an hoof at Madeleine’s saddlebags. She looked down and saw that though the dagger had fallen during their escape, the tear in her bags remained and was wider than she had imagined. In fact, the peridot was not the only gemstone or stray bit lying on the ground.

“Oh, for the love of Celestia…” First the murder, then Rubyk gets taken away for whatever Largo’s paranoid reasoning was, then a mugging of all things, then her magic gets shut off for Discord only knew how long, and now this? Madeleine shucked her bags and began to move the contents of the torn bag into the other.

“You didn’t lose too much, did you, Miss Crumpet?” said Rock Skipper, rubbing at the back of his neck again. Madeleine looked up, lines of tension creasing her forehead.

“I don’t know. It’s too dark too see, too much to take in, too… too much, Skipper,” Madeleine complained. Rock Skipper pursed his lips and trotted to wherever he could see anything shining in the moonlight. He carried a cache of gems, coins, and gold-nibbed pens in his wings cupped like a bowl to Madeleine. She accepted them without a word.

Then, without warning, she threw her forelegs around the pegasus’ neck, withdrawing from the embrace almost as quickly.

“Thank you,” Madeleine said softly.

Even under the wan moon, Rock Skipper’s blush burned bright. “Just doing my job, Miss Crumpet.




*********************************************



Chapter Three



The Body in the Cellar



*********************************************




The sound started low at first, like an orchestra just beginning to tune their instruments in the dim burble of a concert hall – if those instruments happened to be ill-tempered cats. Soon, though, the sound swelled to a roar that bounded off of the stone walls and wine casks and seemed to shake the foundations of the ancient stone fortress now called the Clavia Hotel.

The bucks on either side of Pome and Rubyk were in a glass-eyed panic. Pome jerked his head up from a fitful doze in alarm. The noise mixed with the pounding in his temples to make a migraine like an iron spike through the half-unicorn’s head. Rubyk opened a bleary eye and sighed.

“Dear Celestia,” Pome gritted through the nimbus of pain and flashing lights around his head, “it’s a salting earthquake!”

“On the contrary, Pome Apple…” Rubyk said. “On the contrary…”

The sound swelled like a symphony playing an explosion of chords. It took on form and dimensions of rage with a thundering percussion of hoofbeats as it reached a deafening crescendo. It was, unmistakably, a voice. A voice that screamed like a brass section.

“Ruuuu-byk!” Frost Pane’s hoof-falls clattered on the masonry like the march of a one-mare army as the Frei of Trotheim descended into the cellar, dragging her train of furs behind her.

“Down here, grandmama.” Rubyk did not bother to raise his voice above a whisper.

“You dander-headed whipling!” The Frei of Trotheim barked out as she raged her way down the cellar, eyes ablaze with frigid light that made dancing goblins and cruel bugbears out of the shadows of wine barrels. She pressed her snarling muzzle to Rubyk’s nose, ignoring the quavering Clavia. “You thunk-brained gaffler! You let the dudgeoning deer-lover catch you and bind you? You? My grandfoal does better than that!”

“I did, grandmama,” Rubyk said, nodding his head. He showed Frost Pane the glassy golden chain wrapped around his horn. “They took me by surprise. It was a mistake on my part – one that I do not intend to repeat.”

“Hmph!” Frost Pane snorted a blast of frigid air from her nostrils into Rubyk’s face. “Yet the old blood of the Pride of Trotheim must rescue the young and the strong. And you make me traipse this salted rock to look for you when I was dreaming of real food in this hungry place!”

“I can hear you quite well, grandmama.”

“Good!” Frost Pane bellowed. The old mare turned to the Clavia buck crouched at Rubyk’s left, who was trying very hard to maintain the semblance of glass-eyed stupor. Frost Pane’s lips curled back in a lupine smile.

“You!” Frost Pane said. The buck flinched. “You will remove these glint-chains! Now!”

“I…I…” The buck shivered and swallowed loudly. “I cannot and will not do that. You must leave now for your own safety, ma’am. I will not ask you again.”

Frost Pane roared with laughter. “Oh, the serving-boy says ‘must!’ There is daring and gall and good spit in this one – I like this deer!” She grinned a smile that showed off every vicious tooth-point. “I like him much. I will like him better with sauce.”

The bucks on either side of the aisle panicked. Four bright bursts like novas cut the darkness of the cellars, and thick, ponderous chains like transparent gold fell upon Frost Pane, binding the old mare under tonnes of star-mass. Frost Pane’s knees shook as length upon length of chain fell from the vast space between stars and onto her back. The old mare looked down at the deer in surprise.

And then she laughed. It was a noise that froze the blood of the Clavia more than the hunting-call of any manticore or dragon of far Everfree. The old mare touched the tip of her white-frosted horn to the chains on her back. Frost spread from its tip over the gold links and down their long length, and the chains themselves seemed to quaver from the cold.

Then Frost Pane yawped in triumph and stamped her forehooves on the ground. The golden chains shattered with the destructive euphony of a thousand rocks thrown through the store windows of downtown Manehattan and vanished as they lay and smoked in shards on the floor. The Clavia either stared at her in glass-eyed shock or lay curled very still upon the ground.

Frost Pane grinned the more broadly and licked her lips. “Gallish deer make the Pride of Trotheim hunger. The sickness of the North lies in my bones. It eats up my magic; why should it not eat up yours also?” Her grin spread, her pupils shrank, and all the Clavia shook with naked fear as she pressed her nose right to one of theirs. “I like you. Take your magic with you and run, or I may stop liking you so well.”

Frost Pane snapped her teeth. The Clavia jumped and stumbled and fell like fawns getting their first legs, running as one to the cellar stairs. Pome and Rubyk just stared as the Frei of Trotheim howled with laughter, then broke down in an equally raucous coughing fit. The two stallions rose to their hooves even as the chains upon them faded like stars dissolving in the dawn.

“Thank you, grandmama,” said Rubyk. The unicorn’s joints cracked like gunshots as he stretched himself.

“I suppose y’all want me to thank you both now?” said Pome, wincing as he rose shakily upon his legs. “That y’all have me in your debt?”

“Oh, no, Pome Apple. I like you far too much for that.” said Rubyk. The tall unicorn actually smiled for the briefest instant before cold duty froze his features. “I want you to come with me.”

“…what?” Pome Apple said, raising an eyebrow.

“Grandmama has affrighted the little deer. Their magic cannot touch her; though whether this is some effect of the Ice Sickness unknown to the ponies of Trotheim or merely the end of swallowing down stardew like icewine, I cannot say,” said Rubyk.

“Is it my fault my medicine jigs and spritzes like cherry-figs in soda-water? If they did not make it to be drunk, it should not prance in the belly so well!” Frost Pane retorted.

“A little help here?” Pome said, an edge of irritation in his voice.

“I mean that they will not return so long as grandmama remains down here, which is just as well. We have work to do, you and I.”

Pome cut a swipe in the dust. “Sod this, will y’all just tell me what you’re going on about?” Rubyk merely lighted his horn, throwing a beam of stark, blue-white light into the cellar ahead of them and motioned for Pome to follow.

“Now that the little deer have learned that it is impossible to hold the Pride of Trotheim,” Rubyk said, casting his eyes and the light from his horn into far corners and behind racks of wine bottles covered with gauzy spider webs. “I want to see what they are hiding down here. I have it on good authority that what was once your uncle is somewhere down here. I want you and myself to have another look at him.”

“That is the last thing I want to see. Why?” said Pome as he trotted along behind Rubyk, though behind the contempt there sounded a note of curiosity. Chuckling to herself, Frost Pane swept along grandly in her furs in the rear.

“Why do I bring you along, or why do I wish for another look?” said Rubyk.

“Oh, indulge me,” spat Pome. “I suspect y’all are going to anyway.”

“It is not difficult, Pome Apple,” Rubyk said. The Aktur of Trotheim came to a door in the wall, squat and low and supremely old, studded with iron spikes in its heavy wooden planks set into the sandstone. He bent low, putting his eye to the keyhole. Pome watched, irritation and confusion both growing as the giant put his tongue to the keyhole, wincing as at some bitter flavour. Rubyk drew himself up and shook his head.

“First, I need you, Pome Apple, to help me get in here. Your uncle’s body is in this room. The magic sealing it is foreign to me, and neither grandmama nor I can pass this low-set door for little backs and hooves. Second, I want to watch you while you do to your uncle the one thing whatever you wish.”

Pome gaped. “What? But – y’all want me to… huh?!” Rubyk did not respond to the outburst. Instead, he turned his back to the door, placing one of his rear hooves on the iron-shod surface.

“On three?” Rubyk said. Blinking, Pome sidled next to Rubyk and crouched, muscles tensing.

“One,” said Rubyk. “Two…”

The noise as the door fell from its hinges in the close quarters of the cellar was absolute, a scream of metal and an explosion of splintering wood. Rubyk stooped his head to see through the aperture. Pome stared at a scene that the half-unicorn had not expected to see. The room beyond the door was evidently an ancient armory for the Clavia in their desperate defence against the pony tribes of Miss Largo’s view of Equestrian history. Brass spears and nut-shaped helms with two openings for a pair of antlers hung upon hooks on the walls. A rack of polished brass cones purposed as antler-tips stood to the side, and several salt-rusted mauls and maces and long-dulled knives with stone pommels lay on the floor like refuse – all small for ponies, all toys to the giant of Trotheim crouching just outside of the door.

But the curious thing was not that the body of a murdered pony was thrown into a disused armory in the basement of an ancient deerish fortress. It was that, to all appearances, this room was not simply allowed to fall into disuse. The old armory, and all that was within it, positively reeked of the magic of the stars. Old magic, new magic, overlaid and intertwined and soaked into the porous stone so deep that the traces of the spells once cast here blurred into a foggy ambiance of raw, alien power. The stones could not contain it all; old magic found new expression as it seeped out of the walls and ceiling, fluorescing as winking constellations scribed in sandstone and phosphorescing as a cool glow more like the Milky Road than crude lampwood. A golden blanket of magic lay over a distinctly pony-shaped object on a table of rough-hewn lampwood glowing dully in the middle of the room.

Eyes wide, Pome Apple stooped, his overgrown colt’s body scraping the sides of the narrow doorway as he entered. His mane and tail puffed and stood on end at the pricking feeling of foreign magic bearing down upon his frame. As he moved to the center of the room, motes of amber, gold, and silver flicked in and out of sight around his horn as magic called to magic. The half-unicorn did not dare to even magick the blanket that had been cast over Calvados Apple’s lean body. With a deep breath, Pome, pulled back the pall over his uncle’s body – for it was no spell at all over him, but merely magic soaked into every fiber of a bedsheet – showing the face of Calvados Apple. The Clavia that had brought him down here had evidently done what they could for the old stallion, closing his eyes and his injuries.

Pome’s entire face and muzzle drew up in disgust. “You’ve never looked better, uncle,” he said, bitterly. He paused, then spat upon Calvados’ face. He turned and began to trot back toward the door, with heavy, angry hoof-falls.

Rubyk shook his head. “Pray, stay for a moment longer, Pome Apple. Look at the pony you hate so much and tell me only one thing.”

“Oh, what more do you want from me?” Pome half-wailed. He trotted back over to the corpse.

“Does your uncle have any bruising under his coat on his ribs?” Rubyk said in the tone one would say, “did you pick up any hay down at the store?”

Pome cast a glance down to the brown coat of the prone corpse. “Yeah. There is.”

“Good… that is well,” said Rubyk, going whispery. “Are there three marks upon his chest?”

“Huh?” Pome peered more closely at his late uncle in the strange light of the armory. “No… I think there are only two. ’Bout hoof-shaped, too.”

Rubyk nodded his head slowly, as if the answer could not have been anything else. “Thank you, Pome Apple. I will ask no more of you.”

Pome did not respond immediately. A different air came over the half-unicorn in the unnatural light of the magic-charged armory. He took up the gilt-light sheet and pulled it back over Calvados Apple’s broken body.

“Would y’all mind leaving me alone for a while? I’ve said about all I feel like saying to you.”

Rubyk opened his mouth to speak, but Frost Pane laid a cold hoof on his shoulder. She shook her head sternly. Abashed, Rubyk nodded to his grandmare, and as one the Aktur and Frei of Trotheim turned and began to make their own way back out of the cellar, Rubyk again lighting the way. As they left, Rubyk cast one last glance back toward the door.

Behind them, in the constellated room of old wars turned tomb, Pome Apple sobbed silently into his hooves.




*********************************************



Chapter Four



Whispers of the Tempter



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Miss Largo perused the morning papers in her usual way: with deliberation, with poise and a rigid spine, and her constant breakfast – two bananas, peeled, and a plate of crudité with water – untouched until she had consumed that which was more important than mean food: information.

And, as always, she took her own good time. Madeleine shifted anxiously in her seat, the mare on the other side of the high table dissolving into images of grime-toothed unicorns, black pegasi with wings like Death’s own dark cloak, and ponies draped in bangles of hornbone and skulls and… and… and things that even her imagination did not dare to picture too clearly. Then Miss Largo, stern and prim and constant as ever, would snap back into focus and the smells of Madeleine’s hay frites and weak, milky tea would batter themselves against her nostrils. Somehow, coffee seemed out of the question just at the moment.

The proprietress chewed idly on a radish. “Trouble sleeping last night, Crumpet? You look like something the Clavia might dredge up from the wrecks after a bad storm – no offense, dear.”

With a start, Madeleine shook her head, perhaps just a bit too emphatically. “No, no! It was a fine evening, really. All of the staff are always so kind to me. This trip has been no different.”

Miss Largo smiled thinly. “I see that you have lost none of your acumen. Having the ability to say just what somepony wants you to say while meaning nothing at all is such a useful trick for the gem-brokery business, isn’t it?” Miss Largo chuckled as Madeleine’s mouth opened involuntarily, just the barest slit. “That’s more like it. Why don’t you ask me what is really on your mind, Crumpet? You’ll feel better once we put all this business behind us.”

Madeleine licked her lips. Her mouth was going dry an awful lot lately. “What did you do with Mister Rubyk, Largo?”

“You say that as if I have done something wrong, Crumpet. Honestly, I’m hurt. You don’t really mean that, do you?”

“What else am I supposed to think?” Madeleine rubbed her temples. “Mister Rubyk and I were making such progress. We spoke with all of the ponies who might have had something to do with the murder. We found evidence. We were doing exactly the task that you set us to do, and we were on our way to finishing in this ‘three day’ business you clapped on Mister Rubyk like a shackle. And… and…”

“And I stopped him from finishing his task? I stood in the way of justice? I aided a criminal in the most heinous act that ponies can do to each other for motives of my own?” Miss Largo said. Madeleine winced at the words, but the other mare just looked at her with tired eyes full of old affection. Miss Largo sighed and raised her hoof. In an instant, three serving-bucks approached the dining table and cleared away forks and cups and uneaten hay in their magical grip. Madeleine hardly minded; the hay frites were normally a cherished part of her island stays, but today even their oily smell was repulsive.

Miss Largo rose and trotted to Madeleine on the other side of the high table, laying an hoof tenderly on her shoulder. “Take a walk with me, Crumpet dear? I think there are some things between us that deserve their privacy.”

Madeleine bit her lip, but nodded. The image of the thing that had once been Calvados Apple, alive and breathing, swam in her vision and led her out of the dining room, down a corridor, and into the library. Dimly, Madeleine wondered why it looked familiar. Then the image dissolved and the proprietress of the Clavia Hotel regarded Madeleine with a face full of concern.

“What’s happened, dear? Is there something I’ve done to make you mistrust me?” Miss Largo said, taking Madeleine’s hoof in her own. Madeleine stared at the limb locked around hers, too numb to move. Miss Largo drew back, a sad dullness filming her eyes.

“I see…” murmured Miss Largo, the proprietress’ voice near inaudible.

“You haven’t done anything to me, Largo. But… I don’t know… just… why?” Madeleine said, fighting the urge to paw at the ground from the welter of irritation and emotions she couldn’t name welling up in her. This meeting was doing no favours for her mental state.

Miss Largo turned from her to the stacks of books, mainly histories and contrarian biographies suited her own tastes, running her hoof along the spines. “Again, Crumpet, you ask me ‘why?’ But I have to retort to you, ‘why not?’ Why should I not put away a pair of potentially dangerous ponies, either of which might have killed a pony on the night before last, when I see them about to come to a wizard’s duel and hoof-knocks before my guests?”

“But… Mister Rubyk didn’t –”

“Oh?” Miss Largo whirled on Madeleine suddenly. “He didn’t kill Calvados Apple?”

“No!” Madeleine snorted and did stomp at the ground, the blow of her hoof swallowed up in the ample plush carpet.

“Crumpet dear, how do you know that?”

Madeleine’s jaw hung open in earnest. She moved her mouth silently, trying to find words to form a reply, but no sounds left her lips.

How did she know that, exactly?

“I… asked Mangosteen and Frond to keep an eye on him. I thought he was an interesting stallion. They told me that he talked about… goodness, and justice… and that he actually prayed… I travel a lot, and hardly anypony I see ever prays…. and… um…” Madeleine trailed off, her words going thin and sour in her mouth.

“Is that all?” Miss Largo said, softly.

Madeleine grimaced. “Yes,” she said, and looked down at the floor. The proprietress padded softly over to her, throwing a foreleg around her in a tender hug.

“He prays, Crumpet? Shh… shh… you did nothing wrong at all. But what am I supposed to do with a pony who prays when he also has legs that can buck my doors down? Have you seen his teeth? Have you seen what he eats?” Miss Largo stroked at Madeleine’s mane, brushing away a few strands that had fallen in the unicorn mare’s eyes. Eyes that were full of embarrassment and gathering tears.

“Sweet Celestia, Largo…” Madeleine whispered, shaking. “I was a fool and a half…”

“No, Crumpet! You did what you thought was right… shh…” Miss Largo said, placing an hoof on Madeleine’s lips. “So what if he appears to be investigating? Isn’t that just what a clever member of the criminal classes would do to cover his tracks? He’s so foreign, Crumpet… I just wanted to protect my own… I just want to protect you, dear.”

“I’m sorry, Largo!” Madeleine wailed, crying into Miss Largo’s friendly shoulder. Miss Largo said nothing: there was nothing more to be said. She just stroked, and stroked, and stroked at Madeleine’s mane until the tears all stopped.




*********************************************



Chapter Five



Strong Poison



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Rubyk grinned as he found Madeleine in the Grand Foyer, not showing his teeth amongst the throng of Clavia and other guests brewing coffee, perusing their newspapers, and one old buck with dim eyes and darkening magic who was struggling to peel an orange.

“Friend Madeleine!” the Aktur of Trotheim said, beaming down on the mare. She looked at him with the slow movement of dread, her neck muscles tensing. “I am freed as you see – no small thanks to my own grandmama. Come! I am eager to hear of what you found while I slept in the starry dark. There is coffee yet to be drunk, and…” Rubyk paused. The Aktur of Trotheim flared his nostrils and peered closer at Madeleine. She gulped and made every apparent effort not to back down or away.

“Something has happened,” Rubyk said, sounding completely ambivalent. “You smell of terror. Old and new.” In spite of her fear, Madeleine felt a stab of annoyance. Yet again with the pompous not-questions!

“Something has.”

“Oh?”

“Mister Rubyk,” Madeleine began to say, but the stallion’s eyes stopped her words in her throat. It was like getting her tail caught in a jutting icicle. She swallowed. “Can I really trust you?”

Rubyk blinked. Clearly, of all the things he might have expected her to say, that was not on the list. Madeleine saw the change come over the unicorn’s face as he realized the import of her words.

“I see…” growled the Aktur of Trotheim. Madeleine flinched and closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable hoof to fall, for the foyer to suddenly chill the blood in her veins, for Rubyk to start thundering and stamping, or – something!

The hoof-fall never came. Madeleine opened her eyes to see a suddenly very tired Rubyk, Lord Aktur of Trotheim, pushing past her toward the coffeepots. He did not wait for something so mundane as a coffee cup. He simply magicked the whole tall pewter pot and began to sip from the spout, a soured look creasing his muzzle. He was no longer hiding his teeth.

“I do not know what has now given you pause, friend Madeleine. You might have imagined me as a monster. But you are right to do so. You have no reason at all to trust me.”

“You’re right, Mister Rubyk… I really don’t.” Madeleine sat herself on one of the sofas under a reddish light cast by the glassy antler chandelier, looking down at the carpet. Rubyk trotted over and sat himself down beside her, pulling in his legs and taking up almost all of the remainder of the sofa. It was a very tight fit.

“Do you think that I killed Calvados Apple?” Rubyk said in a whisper. Madeleine shivered. Cold seemed to radiate from the stallion in more than one sense.

Madeleine took a deep breath. “I don’t know,” she said, fixing his jewel-cut eyes with her own. Seeing them this close, they were more like aquamarines than sapphires. “All I know is the same from the beginning of… all this. That you seem to be a good and just pony. That everypony seems to speak well of you. That you’re not a cruelpony, no matter what may happen.”

Rubyk nodded, his eyes half-lidded as if in thought. “But a pony not cruel might still have murdered? Might still be capable of harming ponies if his justice and goodness demanded it?”

“He might have.”

“Am I such a pony?”

“I don’t know,” spat Madeleine before an half-mad chuckle forced its way out of her.

By Celestia’s mane, am I actually laughing? Madeleine shook her head, shooing the cobwebs and the nagging voice of her little pony reminding her that this was no time for a conversation like this, that she had not slept in Luna-only-knew how long, et cetera. There seemed to be a long, dark tunnel full of a very great deal of ceterastretching out before her.

“Mister Rubyk, how can you prove that you had no connection to Calvados Apple before you came to this hotel?”

Rubyk sighed. “I have no evidence I can offer to clear myself in your eyes. I have only the word of the Pride of Trotheim.”

“But I don’t know what that is,” said Madeleine, striking the sofa. “Whatever it is, Mister Rubyk, you scare me. You’re not a normal pony by any stretch of the mind. How can I know that you didn’t see Calvados Apple doing something you disliked and decide to kill him yourself? You’ve got magic to spare – I’ve seen that much myself. And…”

Rubyk let the silence fill the space between them. “And that is all that need be said,” he mumbled, sadly.

Madeleine hopped down from the sofa, looking into Rubyk’s eyes one more time. They were as inscrutable as an iceberg.

“I have to go…” she murmured, even as she started trotting away. She felt the cool pricks of his eyes at her haunches as her trot turned to a canter, then a gallop, as she fled toward the open great doors of the foyer, and out into the open air.


*****


Doctor Leaf looked up from a ledger held in the grasp of a few winking stars at the clip of hooves stepping from the silent corridor onto the stone-tiled floor of the hotel apothecary. Upon seeing whom it was, the Clavia buck turned back to the rows of bottles in clear and amber-glass upon the shelves of the glass-doored cabinet behind him, a look of mingled annoyance and puzzlement upon his muzzle.

The buck brought a clear vial to eye-level in the grip of his magic, scrutinizing its contents. “I had not expected you quite so soon,” he said without turning his head. “I’m not quite done yet, unfortunately. Unless this is particularly important, you may consider returning at some other time.” He paused and sent both the vial and the ledger to a low table in the rear with a wag of his head. A set of brass scales and weights lay upon it. Rubyk watched the deer’s movements with an appraising stare as he himself moved, shoulders stooped, into the small space, seeming to fill it to bulging by dint of his mere presence.

Doctor Leaf carefully weighed the vial with its cork, adding and subtracting more and more minute weights until the balance stood as level as the table. The little deer clicked his teeth in evident frustration and make a blotchy mark on the parchment with a bit too much verve. It matched the others on the ledger list from what Rubyk could read from where he stood.

Then Doctor Leaf sighed, raising his eyes from his work up to the giant. “You have been awfully silent, Aktur. Not ill, are you?”

“Not ill, no – but strained? That I am.”

“From causes beyond your investigation?”

“I admit it.”

“Then that’s different,” said Doctor Leaf, laying down his quill. He motioned with his head toward a squat, round bottle mostly covered by a wicker-weave on its base, drawing it toward the table along with two small, thick-walled stone cups perched high atop one of the cabinets. The Clavia eased the cork out with a wet pop and poured two small portions of clear, tawny liquid.

“To our work, then,” said Doctor Leaf, raising up his cup, “and all its attendant strains and woes.”

“Amen,” replied Rubyk in a whisper, tossing back the whole cup. It was for him barely a swallow. The physician sipped at his with a bit more care.

“You have an almost impossible task, Aktur,” Doctor Leaf commented between imbibing.

“And I know it now more keenly than ever,” said Rubyk, and the unicorn’s face seemed even more pinched.

“Then let me aid you as I can,” said the Clavia. He set his drinking-cup down and took up the ledger to put it toward Rubyk’s squinting gaze. “Whatever is the truth of this mess, I could not get one thought out of my mind: what if the murderer, however he ‘did it’ – did the deed with one of my medicines? What if I was in any way responsible for the death of that… admittedly unpleasant pony?”

Rubyk’s eyebrow rose. “What are you implying, Doctor?”

“Well, what did you come here to ask me? Certainly you did not come just for a social tipple,” said Doctor Leaf, refilling Rubyk’s cup.

“I wanted your opinion on where the poison in Calvados’ system could have come from. There are only so many ways that it could have been given to him from what I know of the events of that night so far.” Rubyk took the stone drinking-cup and threw it back. “Thank you, by the way.”

“Well,” said the Clavia, chuckling grimly. “Normally I serve alcohol to ponies under quite different circumstances, but this was professional – or, if you will, medicinal.” Doctor Leaf gave one more bone-dry laugh before he turned once more all to business. “Aktur, your business is your business, and your private affairs I leave all for your own. But I take my business – my real business, you understand, and not the daily drudgeries I bear for the sake of brute necessity – just as seriously.”

“You are talking in riddles, Doctor.”

“Then let me be clear. I am what you call a ‘medical pony,’ Aktur – in the loosest possible sense of the latter, but strictly in the former. I studied in Canterlot General; I took the same oath that every single nurse and doctor of your kind take before your Princess when they finish their studies: to do no harm. And I meant it. No Clavia should ever knowingly take the life of another. I merely vowed that I would always look on any pony who came under my hooves as a fellow whitetail.”

“Why tell me all this?” Rubyk asked, but his voice did not have the lift of real query in it. Doctor Leaf sighed.

“For the same reason I find to get out of my bed for the next shift, Aktur. For the same reason that I told you what I knew and suspected. Every single pony in this hotel is my patient,” Doctor Leaf said with sudden verve. Then the Clavia gave a long look at his cup and tossed it back all at a go. He coughed and looked Rubyk squarely in the eye. “Poisoning one of my patients turns your crime into a professional matter. You understand, I see.”

“I do. We are cut from the same cloth, Doctor.”

“So we are.” Doctor Leaf turned his attention to the shelves, bringing a number of bottles and cork-capped vials to the table in a burst of concentration. “I have been trying to satisfy myself on one point, Aktur – and I was nearly finished when you came in the door. That sheet records the current weight of each of the medicines and decoctions in my care that contain Earthsbane.” The Clavia shook his head, agitated, even as he placed another amber-glass vial onto the balance pan.

“So far, not a one is even a drop lighter. And I am coming down to the very most dilute mixtures now, just for the sake of my own conscience. But I am almost sure even now: wherever the poison came from, it was not lifted from my stocks.”

“I see…” whispered Rubyk, half to himself. “Then there are only a very few possibilities.”

“Oh?” said Doctor Leaf. It was the little deer’s turn to raise his eyebrow.

Rubyk stamped his hoof with an harsh crack on the tiled floor. “One: Pome Apple brought the poison along, foreseeing that he might have cause to use it on his uncle in such a remote place without police like this.”

“In which case he did his research well. But he hardly seems like the type.”

Rubyk nodded his head in agreement. Crack. “Two: Calvados Apple brought the Earthsbane himself in case he would ever have cause to use it for his wounded honour – like a senator of Old Roam carrying a flask of zebra-brewed hemlock for a quick and noble end.”

Doctor Leaf wrinkled his nose in rank disgust. “As a physician, I’ve never been able to understand the impulse. Unfortunately, the old deerfolk also had such a habit. It was lauded with wine and song as a way to leave these dust-and-bone frames and leap directly into the heavens to become a star with all one’s youthful powers intact. Never mind the ‘great leap’ was off the backs of one’s people.” The physician sighed as he placed a new sample on the balance pan. “The old Clavia would come together to throw a mountain into the depths of the sea if it meant avenging the wounded pride of one of their own: and the histories say that actually happened. Once. Murder – or crimes worse than murder – meant war between clans and bloodshed for generations. The populations of entire islands were wiped out by our own lust for honour.”

The little deer snorted as he shifted weights from the other balance pan, coming closer with each attempt to matching the weight of the vial. “But they would just go and off themselves and write doe-ballads about the victims of… of self-murder! I just don’t understand it, Aktur. If the coming of the pony tribes on their fearful longboats meant anything, it was that my people finally loosed the death-grip of their jaws on the notion that it is ever better to take the breath from a living soul for the sake of a mere inconvenience. Especially if that life should belong to one’s own self.”

Rubyk nodded his head with a slow movement of profound comprehension, but he did not meet the little Clavia’s eyes. For a long moment, he said nothing at all. When he stamped his hoof again, it had none of the gunshot intensity of the other blows. Clip. “Three… some other pony not yet accounted for brought the Earthsbane with them when they came to the island.”

Pulling the ledger-sheet back toward him, Doctor Leaf shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s impossible, Aktur.” He made a similar mark by the next item on the list and paused. “Or if not impossible, very, very unlikely. All medicaments and preparations containing Earthsbane, to say nothing of whole leaves or pure extract, are a highly controlled substance in all lands under your monarchy. All unicorns employed for harbour patrol are trained to cast a spell on all bags and passengers to screen for it and sixteen other poisons, drugs, and toxins harmful to pony or even nonequine life in general. A pure extract is usually only transported in a locked enameled box tethered to a unicorn or pegasus, and even then is registered to its destination – usually a research university. It’s not the sort of substance that normally just goes missing.”

“But conceivably a black market for it might exist?”

“I suppose,” said the Clavia, but he sounded doubtful. “But it would be far easier to divert a quantity from its legitimate ends in research or wizardcraft. A bribe to a starving student would be all that might be necessary to obtain enough poison for an hundred murders.”

“And you are quite sure, Doctor, that all of the Earthsbane on this island is in this room?” Rubyk’s eyes bore down upon the little deer like icicles. Doctor Leaf’s tail twitched as, for just a moment, he hesitated before answering.

“Yes…” the Clavia answered, just a bit too sibilant. “I think that I can safely say that is the case.”

“Good.” Rubyk held out his forehoof to the buck, and once again, for the slightest moment, Doctor Leaf seemed to hesitate before he touched it with his own.

“You have been exceedingly helpful, Doctor – in more ways than you know,” Rubyk said, punctuating the latter remark with a sigh too small for his frame. “I but wish all of the ponies on this island were half so cooperative as you.” Rubyk flashed a small smile that nonetheless gave the little deer a start.

“Your kindness is noted, Aktur,” said Doctor Leaf. But his eyes were focused on something in the distance as Rubyk turned to leave.




*********************************************



Chapter Six



Unfinished Portrait



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Mare. Schoolteacher. The earth pony Madeleine was watching had her own eye on two little figures splashing in the pool, unconcerned but still vigilant for the always possible just-in-case. Thirty-six years old, two foals. Madeleine squinted. Just had an hoplicure – but no external adornments? Sort of mare who saves for indulgences. As if to confirm her suspicions, the mare’s husband returned from the bar, a carefree smile on his muzzle, balancing a tray of two drinks full of fruit. The sort of thing that one buys when one has children and no time nor money for anything harder. Not a customer.

Madeleine champed her teeth, annoyed. Were none of the ponies in this hotel the sort for jewels and bangles around their necks? Canterlot was easier. The silly things were all over the ground in Canterlot.

She tried to turn her attention back to the sketchbook that lay open on the poolside chaise before her. But though her horn held a pencil that twitched to be put to good use, the page remained pristine and creamy-white. Madeleine closed her eyes, but the same images came rushing back in, pushing any thoughts of gems and gold settings out to the corners of her mind’s eye: a grotesque pony, shot and maimed even more grotesquely; Hodgepodge’s rotted-out smile grinning up at her, his tongue running over the unicorn’s cracked lips; Largo ordering her own guard to carry a massive, dangerous pony off to the cellars to keep everypony safe. To keep her safe. And, finally, piercing through them all, his eyes – those cold, searching, jewel-cut eyes…

“Your thoughts could fill a brass-bit thimble, jeweler. Pour them out into these hoary old ears and stop your fretting.”

Madeleine looked up from her sketchbook with a start, nearly upending the poolside umbrella that had been shading her lounging body.

“How do you do, Frei Frost Pane.”

“What, what?” demanded the same and clutched her furs tight about her. The old mare of Trotheim leaned in close, frost clinging to her horn and hooves even in the languid light of late afternoon. “Eyes do wander like that, but not when the heart leaps for joy to see a bread-mate. What has happened, jeweler?”

The Frei of Trotheim was not the sort of pony who asked twice for anything. She seated herself on her haunches at Madeleine’s side with a movement like a boulder suddenly tumbling from the top of a canyon. The little buck carrying a tray of drinks from the poolside bar gave a wide berth around the long train of white that flowed from the old mare’s shoulders like water, and a father together with his son gave a stink-eyed glare at the silly old fool, however large, who was blocking hoof-traffic.

Frost Pane did not seem to mind. In fact, the old mare seemed rather nosily concerned about Madeleine’s affairs, leaning in close to scrutinize “the jeweler” with a searching stare that seemed only too familiar. Below the black ravages of her disease, the facets of her eyes gleamed with the same cool thoughtfulness as… as…

Madeleine shook her head. “Nothing is wrong, Frei Frost Pane. Other than the obvious, I mean, which both you and I know about.”

Frost Pane’s stare just bored into her all the more. Madeleine felt a bit like a bug pinned on a corkboard and shifted her hooves beneath her, uneasy.

“Not so, jeweler. Not so,” growled the Frei of Trotheim suddenly, with a vicious shake of her head. “I may look out on you through these briars of dead veins, but lies are poor bangles for your ears. Some squint. Some squirm. But the lie makes you burn, jeweler.”

Well, now I know the talent runs in the family…

“But I assure you, I’m quite alright!” Madeleine said, a strained chuckle following her words. She fought the urge to fold her ears back and run from the mountain of a mare threatening to crush her..

“Not what I asked, jeweler. Not at all.” Frost Pane drew herself up, tall and proud and strangely regal with her horn crowned with unmelting frost. Whether done for intimidation or just out of habit, it was impressive enough that Madeleine felt the impression of being a bug-watcher’s specimen only increase – even her hooves felt fixed to the chair where she lay.

“You were happy enough to run with my grandfoal for a time. Why are you not with Rubyk now, charging the scent of blood to its end?”

Madeleine swallowed, but the hard lump that came up of a sudden into her throat would not budge. “I… have my reasons, Frei Frost Pane.”

“And you will tell me what they are.”

Madeleine clenched her teeth. Bother these ponies! “Could I not just say that I would rather wave my tail at the whole thing?” She lowered her voice to a whisper for the sake of the blissfully unaware ponies gathered around the pool. “After all, murder isn’t something a well-bred lady puts her hoof into every day. It got to be a bit too much for me. That is the honest truth.”

Madeleine had hoped to see some form of begrudged acceptance in the old mare’s keen and judging face. She had not expected to see the old mare rear suddenly and crash down upon the ground with a sound like an ice cube cracking, nor the gout of cold and misting breath that was snorted in her face. And in spite of her attempt at discretion, Frost Pane’s act earned them a gallery of staring wide and glassy eyes from those gathered around the pool.

“You are no fool, jeweler!” growled the Frei of Trotheim, her lips curled back into a snarl. In the space of an half-second, Madeleine remembered just why it seemed a good idea to keep the Northland ponies at an healthy distance. “So we suggest that you stop acting like one and begin to talk the real sense you have locked up in your head! My grandfoal does not suffer imbeciles, nor entrust his work to little foals. You will tell me why you run from him now, or I will be very angry and shall throw things into other things.” Frost Pane finished with a tone that suggested the words in your general direction might have been added without changing the meaning in the slightest.

Madeleine swallowed and licked her lips. Had her mouth ever been this dry? She opened her mouth to speak, but somepony had shoved a wad of cotton down between her vocal cords, and no sound came out other than a strangled half-gasp.

“Miss Crumpet? And… Ms. Pane?” Mrs. Orange’s voice was tentative, even confused as the Manehattan socialite trotted up to the pair from the direction of the hotel. She cocked her head as she came close and stared at the two: one snorting and grotesquely regal in furs, the other looking like she wanted to leap to her four hooves and bolt right then and there. “Is there something wrong?”

Frost Pane shot a contemptuous glance toward Madeleine, who felt a stab of regret – oh, Celestia alone knew why! Then the Frei of Trotheim tossed her mane and grumbled: “Presumption and gall, guts and bile! ‘What is wrong?’ you ask, little mare?” She pointed an accusing hoof at Madeleine from beneath her furs. Madeleine, for her part, felt her cheeks and ears burn as hot and red as a certain pegasus’ ever had. “Only that this creature has forsaken the good grace of the Pride of Trotheim! She imagines that the loyalty and favour we give is a thing lightly shucked like a bit of filth from her tail. And she imagines that she is in the right when she will not even tell the whither nor the why!”

Madeleine stood up from the lounge chair, feeling her four poor knees shake at the pricks of so many eyes upon them as more and more ponies turned to watch the little drama unfolding at the poolside. Nevertheless, she made herself stand as erect and tall as her petite frame would allow and met those eyes, crossed by the black lines and nodes of disease, and she reminded herself that the old dear needed a gentle response – even if she did feel the twinging urge to buck her in the pointed teeth. She took a steadying breath, and her little pony flicked through her mental dossier until she found the entries on the two Trotheim ponies.

“Frei Frost Pane, let me be as clear as I know how: you are wrong in that from the end to the beginning.” Madeleine spoke crisply, giving every word the edges and clarity of a cut diamond.

“Oh?” Frost Pane challenged, once again sounding uncomfortably like her grandfoal. The old mare bent her body so that Madeleine could feel the cold emanating from her horn-tip. “And what bangly-worded reason do you have to give me to prove that, jeweler?”

“Well,” said Madeleine, and took a step forward as she looked the old mare directly in the eye. Frost Pane blinked and drew her head back in surprise. The “jeweler” fought the urge to grin like a fool as she continued: “How about, for starters, you never gave me any reason why I should trust your Pride any more than I should trot out in front of a pride of manticores. Or maybe I could say it was seeing what you and that grandfoal of yours like to nosh? That would only be mildly disconcerting; no, it wasn’t that.”

Taking another two, then three steps forward, Madeleine no longer fought the mad urge to grin as all the pressure of all the past days’ unvented emotions came out in a tumble of pointed irony. Frost Pane leaned backward, staring down in wide-eyed surprise at the petite little mare jabbing her hoof into her fur-robed chest.

“Or perhaps – just perhaps – just maybe I am the rational pony here? Where was your Rubyk all during that night, then? Are you really going to tell me, Frei Frost Pane, that I am supposed to trust a pony without any alibi? Who never even stoops down to tell us what he was doing all that time when one blow from his hooves could have done the job as well as anypony else in this hotel?” She laughed (perhaps a bit madly, she realized, but unable and unwilling to stop the rising tide), and she turned toward Mrs. Orange. The poor Manehattanite’s bewilderment had only grown plainer upon her face since she had started to watch the unfolding scene before her, and her mouth hung open as Madeleine’s hoof pointed toward her, bringing her into the circle of this tirade.

“Even this lovely vision of a mare has a good excuse for not being the ‘dunnit’ pony! Even her husband – lovelycitrine ear-bobs, by the way, you must tell me which designer did them – didn’t go out all the night! And do youknow where your Rubyk was that whole time?”

Madeleine had thought, somewhere in a dusty, unconscious corner of her own mind, that Frost Pane would be the kind of pony to launch into a fit of red, apoplectic anger at this kind of treatment. Probably some tittering spider spinning webs in that same corner egged her on in that course. Instead, she was disappointed (stars alone knew why) when the old mare just continued to stare, eyebrows rising. But the Frei of Trotheim possessed herself well; she did not even blink. The air seemed to stretch tighter and tighter as two, then three, then a dozen seconds ticked by.

And Frost Pane still had yet to blink.

Madeleine’s ears flattened back against her skull. A bead of cold sweat began to slide down her temple right by the corner of her eye. Those aquamarines behind the black lattice cage just drilled into her.

Isn’t there anything normal about these ponies? moaned the little pony in Madeleine’s head. She had to agree.

Come on.

Come on.

Blink.

“Actually…” said the timid voice of Mrs. Orange, off in a distant somewhere that Madeleine only half-heard, “there was a short time when Bergamot…”

Madeleine’s head shot to the side, and she rubbed at her tearing eyes with a fetlock. “What was that, Mrs. Orange?”

Frost Pane snorted her haughty victory, but Madeleine’s mind had already leapt altogether onto quite another track. Her mind’s eye opened not onto the page of a mental dossier, but to an old mouth-scrawled notebook from days of sitting at a Canterlot sidewalk café, just pony-watching. The spark of unexpected recognition was already stirring in her head as she ran down the items on the list of tells and social cues, long since memorized.

Bridge over muzzle rises while ends of eyes droop; cheeks suddenly sallow and bloodless; restrained movements in shoulders indicating urge to place hooves over mouth stifled by practice; slight widening of mouth accompanied by flare of nostrils. Type: shame. Cause: inadvertent revelation of a fact preferred to be concealed by self or another.

Madeleine blinked.

Madeleine grinned like a foal.

“Or maybe this was all just a misunderstanding,” she announced, all prim poise. Madeleine began to gather up her sketch pad and pencils, magicking them into her bag. Frost Pane eyed her quizzically, even defensively, as if she expected the “jeweler” to suddenly leap upon her brandishing sharpened bezels.

“Why, Miss Crumpet…” said Mrs. Orange, sounding even more timorous, “that was… certainly an impressive valse-face on your part. If I may be so bold, what caused you to change your mind about… well, Mister Rubyk and that incident?”

“Hmm?” Madeleine hoisted her bag onto her back, tightening the strap in her teeth. “Oh, I’ve not changed my mind. Not quite all the way.”

“Then… why?” said Mrs. Orange.

Madeleine shot a cheeky smile toward Frost Pane. “I only just realized that I have something rather important that I need to do. You might say it’s only lately fallen onto my back. But better late than never, I say.”

As she turned to leave, poor Mrs. Orange more bewildered than ever, Madeleine heard the exact moment when the Frei of Trotheim caught on. Frost Pane’s laugh grew and swelled until she was bellowing for a celebratory round and toast to the “jeweler-pony’s” good sense for all the ponies gathered at the pool. It was the perfect distraction; it was also the perfect way for word of their little exchange to drift up to Largo, and fast.

Madeleine closed the wicket gate into the gardens, closing it softly behind her as she moved out of sight of the ponies singing paeans to Frost Pane’s magnanimity. She took a deep breath. Okay, so you still don’t know if Rubyk really didn’t kill Calvados or not. If he did, he’s a dangerous pony. Sweet Luna, he’s a dangerous pony even if he didn’t! But if he didn’t kill Calvados, he needs to know. And if he did… well, there’s just one more pony to be suspicious of to get the heat off him.

Her thoughts running ahead of her, Madeleine trotted to the hotel, her one goal flashing before her mind’s eye in garnet ink: find Mister Rubyk.

It didn’t feel like a very good plan, but it was a plan. And it was all that she had.

Madeleine suppressed a shiver.




*********************************************



Chapter Seven



Cold Shoulder



*********************************************




“He’s where?”

Like Rock Skipper when the pegasus had developed a sudden case of hoof-in-mouth, the galley doe called Endive rubbed at the back of her head with a fetlock, just below where her two stumpy, feminine antlers protruded. “It’s just like I said, Miss Crumpet: the tall one came down to the kitchens and strode in just as bold as you please. The poor little thing looked so lost, like a little foal, standing there with his hoof raised in the air like that. Chef finally asked him what he wanted, and he said so low you could barely hear him over a simmer, ‘I am looking for somewhere quiet to think. Can you help me, friend cook?’ And just like that, Chef shoved him in the walk-in, as he was blocking the hoof-path. Seemed to suit him just fine.”

Little? Madeleine thought, blinking to cover her incredulity. Then, because her mouthy little pony hadn’t yet caught up to her mouth, she said:

“You put him in the freezer?”

Endive pointed a cleaver toward the tall wooden door of the massive icebox. Polished turquoises set into a gilt-thread spell on the door glowed faintly in the harsh light of overcharged lampwood staves hung from the rafters of the kitchens. “Yeah, and I was about to go check and make sure the daft little thing hasn’t curled up and gone to sleep in there. Bad idea, sleeping in a walk-in. You hear tales about some poor ponies who decide on napping for a bit after the lunch rush and end up taking a dirt nap instead. This unicorn was a nice little thing. I would hate to have that happen to him.”

Alarmed, Madeleine glanced down at the galley deer. “Perhaps we might check on him… now?” Endive answered with a shrug and walked deliberately up to the door, laying an hoof upon it. The door hummed in recognition at her touch and creaked open on protesting hinges, releasing waves of tumbling white fog into the kitchen’s steaming air.

“Make it quick, Miss Crumpet. We don’t want to break a gem right before the dinner service.” Numbly, Madeleine nosed the door open wider and pushed her way inside.

Even though the inside of the icebox was lit by a guttering fire-ruby instead of lampwood (which tended to not work at all below a temperature of “subtropical”), Rubyk was impossible to miss. He had been wedged between two tall milk cans behind dangling bundles of banana skins stuffed with rice and beans and sewn back together with fine thread. It was a futzy (if delicious!) dish if ever there was one, and Madeleine supposed that it made sense to make as much ahead as possible – then she knocked her hoof on the side of her head, forcing herself to remember just why she was here. She stepped in front of the “little” lost pony that had wandered into the galley and coughed.

“Mister Rubyk,” Madeleine said, “I think I may have found out something rather important.”

Rubyk did not move. For that matter, he did not seem to even hear her. Looking over him in some alarm, Madeleine saw the hoary icicles drooping from the thin muzzle, the thin and sallow cast of Rubyk’s coat in the red light, his slumping shoulders, the solid shell of twilight colours where the outside of his mane had frozen. His eyes were closed, and his lids did not flutter. Madeleine put an hoof to Rubyk’s chest and let out a tense breath. He was breathing after all! Just… asleep? Thinking? Or, maybe – what did the llamas call it? Meditating?

Well, whatever it was, he had done enough of it. Madeleine reached into her bag and extracted a small hammer that she used for those little repairs and dings that traveling with baubles often made needful. Never thought I would be using it for this, though, she thought dryly, and proceeded to play an up-tempo 27/8 rhythm on the rim and handles of the milk cans by Rubyk’s ear. It really wasn’t half-catchy.

Rubyk did not move. “Stubborn, aren’t you?” Madeleine muttered, beginning to shiver at the cold against her bare flanks. She extracted a silken kerchief from her bag and waved the very edge of its corner against a very certain spot just below and behind Rubyk’s folded-down ear, nearly at the neck. There hadn’t been a stallion alive who wouldn’t melt at that spot being touched just-so!

Apparently, Rubyk wasn’t alive, or a stallion, or both. Madeleine nickered in frustration. The breath curled from her nostrils in thick, white, angry puffs. “Okay,” she said to herself, beginning to pace in front of him. “You have ice for blood, Mister Rubyk. I knew that, but it’s one thing to say it, and another to refuse the attentions of a beautiful mare, you know. You’re just lucky that I’m a patient pony.”

Madeleine stopped her pacing and took another long look at the still-frozen stallion in front of her, thinking quickly. The cold was beginning to seep up her legs, and the kitchen staff would be wondering why she hadn’t come out yet. Or worse, they might close the door to keep from losing too much cold air. Either way, she had to do something – soon.

And then a wicked little pony in her head whispered a wicked little idea into her ear. Being a wicked little pony herself, she grinned.

“Mister Rubyk,” she purred into his ear. “I hate to be the pony to tell you this, but your grandmama is brawling with ten stallions in the town. Right. Now.”

Rubyk’s eyes snapped open and his body jerked up, shock-straight, with a sound like shattering ice. The sound that came from his throat as he filled his lungs properly would have fitted a dragon (or an avalanche) far more than a pony. Madeleine took a step back as he fixed an eye ablaze like an arctic horizon on her and rasped like the howling wind:

“Where?”


*****


Being at the receiving end of a Rubyk-stare was not a place that Madeleine wanted to stand in for long, but she supposed that she had brought this on herself. At least they had moved out into the garden, where she didn’t have to endure the cold of an icebox and the stink-eyed stares of kitchen deer just trying to get the dinner prep done.

“You lied to me, friend Madeleine,” said Rubyk, looming tall over the hibiscus. There was a dark undertone of something less wholesome than anger in his quiet voice.

“I… did,” replied Madeleine. “But I only did it to get you out of that freezer.” She breathed deeply, trying to ignore the fact that this did nothing for the prickly scrutiny she felt crawling all over her coat.

“I do not like being lied to,” said Rubyk, who turned his eyes off somewhere in the distance beyond Madeleine’s head, so that he was not looking at her directly. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Why?”

“I… I learned something, Mister Rubyk – something that, no matter what happens or… or whatever did happen that night, I think you need to know about.” Madeleine gulped. This was beginning to feel like a mistake.

“Tell me,” he said, all imperious coldness. Then he blinked and turned toward Madeleine, as if seeing her there for the first time without the thrust of a spear behind his face. He smiled like a lamb. “Please?”

…and, once again, Madeleine didn’t know what to make of this pony. She took a breath.

“Mister Rubyk, I believe that, despite his claims to the contrary, Bergamot Orange did go out of his room on the night of the murder,” she said, waiting for his response

Rubyk regarded her with what she thought was a surprisingly blank expression. “You are certain of this… friend Madeleine?”

“I am.”

“How certain?”

“As certain as that oysters make pearls, and not the other way around.”

“That is quite sure.” His eyes went a bit misty as they seemed to turn inward. “But, I ask, and I ask again, for it puts the lie to all that has come before: why the lie at all?”

“What?” said Madeleine, almost involuntarily. The mare moved closer as Rubyk’s voice dropped off again to one of its low ebbs.

Rubyk frowned. “But, friend Madeleine, how did you come by this evidence? It is strange that good stallion from Manehattan would have told you directly. I knew that he was lying already; I hardly thought that he had it in him to attempt a double-lie. His brain is hardly a training-dummy for a Trotheim logicmaster.”

“Oh,” said Madeleine, flashing a sparkling grin, “he didn’t tell me.”

“Whom? Mrs. Orange?”

“Yes. But… not in so many words.”

Rubyk’s eye flashed bright again, and he turned it on her. “In so many words… was it perhaps in no words?”

Madeleine nodded again. Rubyk drew himself up straight, and all at once, the cold sluggishness that had rested upon his frame seemed to melt into the steaming air. A nervous energy was welling up inside that massive specimen of a pony – Madeleine’s eyes followed his musculature and traced the tendons like coiled springs that he seemed to keep barely held down as he began to pace and talk to nopony at all but himself.

“At last, I think that I begin to see the light. Ah! But that the Lonely Heaven would give me but a glimmer of understanding to confirm my suspicions! But such a grace is not given me now; therefore, we must be subtle. I may know; but I need the evidence to prove what I know. But how to get it?” Rubyk fell silent as an hunting wolf as he stalked around Madeleine, shoulders low and tensed. The cube that depended from his neck pulsed with magic like an heartbeat, shedding flecks of puffy, white snow that melted on the grass beneath his hooves where he walked.

“Trickery…” said the stalking pony suddenly, stopping shock-still with an hoof still poised in the air. Rubyk sighed, deep and frustrated.

“Erm…” Madeleine mumbled, taking a step in his direction. “Beg your pardon, Mister Rubyk, but… that’s about as clear as cryolite. What do you mean by ‘trickery’?”

“That I must resort to it,” replied Rubyk. There was a sad undertone in his voice that vanished as the Aktur of Trotheim rested his hoof on the ground and drew in a deep, deep breath. Another page of her old notebook flashed before her mind’s eye.

Deep breath to diaphragm capacity following ambiguous statement: following statement will be intentional deception.

“Friend Madeleine,” announced Rubyk, proud and booming in his official role. “I should very much like to have the use of your dictosprite again for a few hours.”

Madeleine blinked. Maybe not such a reliable tell, then.

“You certainly may,” she said, curiosity edging out caution. “But whatever for?”

Rubyk waved an hoof vaguely, reminding her quite strongly of a certain somepony who liked to keep her secrets to herself. “I have some letters that I must write and see to sending myself,” he said, flashing her a warm smile that belied the flinty and calculating look in his jewel-cut eyes. “And I would encourage you to see to any ‘business’ you may have in yon town until the evening. I understand that there is a fine watering-hole for coladas and stallions that you prefer while moored in Currycape. This afternoon would be a fine opportunity for you to see to your preferences.”

While her eyebrow went up, her jaw went down, leaving Madeleine looking (as she well knew) more than faintly ridiculous as she stood, gawping and trying to process what the tall stallion had just told her. “Mister Rubyk, just… just what are you planning?”

“I plan to see this through to the end.” He paused and added, “by Heaven.”

What a strange pony, Madeleine thought, as he resumed his pacing with half-lidded eyes. Dangerous? Oh, yes.

But dangerous was still interesting.


*****


Madeleine had given Rubyk the dictosprite. Oddly, and whether because of the crispness of his inflections or because he was an intimidating mass of teeth, magic, and muscle even to a soulless winged ball, he was somehow able to make its commas and full stops behave in a way that she had never quite mastered. She made a mental note to ask him what the trick was when all this… this was blown over.

Madeleine had gone into town, found her favourite cantina, and ordered a colada. And a daiquiri. And a nasty olive-juice thing when the sweetness started to coat her tongue. She had talked up the locals and the tourists out for an early afternoon-cap, the brawny pearl-trawlers coming back from their dives, who were only too happy to find some feminine company with an eye for their wares, and even found time to meet with a doe client who was all sweetness and solicitude and apologies – as they always were when behind on sales. But she had a new fawn, and family off on one of the nearby islands that wasn’t doing so well, and – well, Madeleine had sent her away with a nice, fat diamond in her little silk drawstring bag. Madeleine Crumpet was nothing if not a sympathetic ear.

Madeleine had returned to her room after the dinner hour, happy as a kelpie at a seaweed buffet and grinning like a school filly from the lingering tingle of hooves running down her shoulders – with half a dozen addresses of well-muscled ‘interests’ to call on later in the week tucked under the assorted gems and oddments that made up her bags’ contents.

Madeleine had seen the two letters pushed under the door of her suite before she even stepped over the threshold into her suite. The first bore the aggravatingly neat print of a dictosprite; the second bore a blocky, but joined mouth-writing bearing the inscription, “My Dear Madeleine Crumpet”.

Madeleine had opened the letters. The first was also written on the inside in dictosprite print, running quick and clipped, its speaker clearly used to a subordinate or secretary taking down dictation. It had run:

You are hereby summoned to appear at the inquest for the murder of Calvados Apple in the dining room of the Clavia Hotel at 9:00 AM tomorrow morning.

The Pride of Trotheim hereby claims authority over this establishment until this crime shall reach a resolution.

You are forbidden to leave the island until this order is lifted.

I, Rubyk, Lord Aktur of Trotheim, stamp this letter in ink by my own hoof.

And he had. It was a relatively small imprint compared to the pony that it supported. Below it, in a more personal, magical script, was added:

Friend Madeleine,

I pray that you will forgive my brusque mien in this summons. The events of the day demand this heavy-yoke approach.

I shall do you the honour to inform you that I intend to call you for a witness when I shall convene this court. While you may not fully trust me, I thank you for your aid in this case.

Whatever the case, I will come to the truth.

-R.

The second was filled with a single sheet of parchment. Its lines began in neat and uniform ranks, but as it went on, its neat edges began to shake and fray as if its owner was trying, and failing, to write under the weight of some intense agitation:

My Dear Crumpet,

I have been informed by the Aktur, in his “official capacity,” that pursuant to your late discussion with him, he now has sufficient evidence to conclude his initial investigations into the late unpleasantness that, naturally, I wish to see ended as soon as possible. I was understandably surprised to see you still in congress with the good official of Trotheim, even after my remonstrations. I am not hurt at all, Crumpet – only puzzled as to why you seemed to change your mind again so quickly. It hardly seems like you. I did look for you, but my staff informed me that you had left on some errand in the town. (Was that why Rubyk had sent her away, she had wondered – to keep Largo from coming across her on one of her “casual walks” around the hotel grounds?)

My only regret is that it seems that I have done something to diminish myself in your eyes. I only ask myself: why? Crumpet, what have I done that you would put yourself again in the path of a pony you know full well to be a danger and an unknown quantity? Have you so little regard for my love?

Perhaps the years have made us more distant than that, but you were not so reckless in our days at the palace in Canterlot. What changed? Or perhaps it is – I? Am I the same pony that you once knew? The same pony that took tea with you under that stolen chandelier and the pilfered treasures of your Princess strewn all about? Are you, too, going to slip away from me?

The next few lines were angrily scratched and blotted so badly that it was impossible to read what was once written underneath. When the lines resumed once more, they once again lined up neat and crisp like soldier-colts at a muster-call.

Of course, you are a grown mare, and you know your own mind better than I. Although one may proffer advice and an helping-hoof to an old friend, the company that a pony keeps is ultimately her own concern. I regret that this visit has turned out so miserably. I expect that I will see you at the Aktur’s kangaroo court in the morning.

What a farce.

Largo of the Deer

Madeleine had read over both of the letters, three times each. Then she had put them both into a drawer in the writing-desk and poured herself a rum.

Sour, she thought, and grimaced.




*********************************************



Chapter Eight



Witness for the Prosecution



*********************************************




“Aktur, will you do me the courtesy of telling us all the reason you have seated us like this? Your designs are - you will pardon my frankness - as plain as a mule’s muzzle, but it would be nice to hear it from the horse’s mouth.” The proprietress of the Clavia Hotel looked down on Rubyk, seated at the head of the dining room’s high table as she was, regarding him with detached coolness. Madeleine knew that look: it was the face of seething anger under glass.

Rubyk blinked at her. “What manner do you mean??”

“Like we are all parties at a Canterlot inquest, and me your judge and Princess,” said Miss Largo.

Rubyk shrugged. “Because you are.” The Aktur of Trotheim gestured grandly around at the ponies and Clavia deer seated in an arrangement very much like a courtroom in Canterlot, or Manehattan, or very nearly anywhere else under Celestia’s bright sun and rule. Miss Largo sat at the high table on the dais surrounded by four cummerbunded bucks each as large as a colt, an heavy, engraved silver spoon before her like a gavel. Below the dais, tables had been shoved about by strong magic, and chairs had been stacked one upon another, forming a sort of open gallery in front of a makeshift bench and witness stand. On one side of the cleared floor sat a number of guests of the hotel behind one of the hotel’s long banqueting tables covered with a white linen runner. There were Bergamot and Mandarin Orange, he with a dour, pinched look upon his snout, she wearing a pale expression near to nausea. There was Pome Apple with a greasy, sweat-soaked mane, eyes sunken deep, and smelling (how apropos) of unwashed stallion, but looking somehow more intact, more lucid than Madeleine had yet seen him. There was Jett Black, back straight as a reed, looking like a statue of some dread thing of Old Equestria carved out of a block of glossy-dark obsidian, the pegasus’ face a mockingly perfect mask of expressionless stone. Frost Pane’s presence in furs, her ears and body decked in gems as grand as the dame she was, clashed with the black pegasus for dominance, and her jewel-cut aquamarine eyes sparkled with pride behind the black blood-spots as she looked on her grandfoal defying his adversary at the high table. Madeleine herself was last in line and felt her side rather exposed for it.

At the other table were gathered mostly Clavia and hotel staff, with several exceptions. Doctor Leaf peered over his spectacles at a sheaf of papers spread out before him, reading and rereading the same lines as if desperate to find something he had missed. Limon and Mangosteen and Frond sat close together, trading whispers. There was also the elderly and rickety Seamoss, busy even now at some little tasks of mending and patching a frayed dinner jacket belonging to some guest or other who had ripped an hole in the breast. Beyond her was Rock Skipper, the grey pegasus fidgeting as he fought the primal urge to spread his wings and fly from the cramped, crowded space. There were even some townies that Rubyk had managed to recruit for this… whatever this was. Piper Chai was nonchalant as she sipped from a flask strapped over her flank that Madeleine suspected was only mostly full of her own top-flight coffee (though that, of course, was her own business) – and the mare was keeping two good breath-lengths away from Hodgepodge cringing at the far end of the table. The black unicorn looked miserable, shoulders slouching in on himself under such bright lights and so many eyes outside the canvas walls of his eminently respectable businessplace. He appeared dirty and grimy because he was those – but by Celestia, he looked old in the daylight. The pawnbroker’s knee joints were starkly knobby, his mane flecked with streaks of shame-faced grey where it stuck out like straw under the brim of his slumped stovepipe hat. A few hotel staff with aught else to do stood aloof at the fringes of this strange gathering, but all other guests had been cleared out and the doors sealed tight with glassy golden chains that glimmered like the night sky.

The air was still and stifling in the dining room as the sun climbed on in its daily course. Aside from the softened pomf-pomf of Rubyk’s hoof-falls on the well-trodden carpet and a few wheezing breaths from Hodgepodge, the only other sound in the humid tension was the incessant scritch-scritch of Madeleine’s dictosprite on a long scroll of yellowed paper as an acting court reporter.

Rubyk slowly turned back around toward Miss Largo, who met him with an impatient glare. “I gathered everypony and everydeer here whom I judge to be a witness or party in the unpleasant business that concerns us here,” said the Aktur of Trotheim, taking high, stamping steps as he stalked the enclosure like a predator of the wild North. “You set me a time limit, Miss Proprietress Largo. You were the one who bid me see this bloody affair to a close in three days for the sake of your sacred propriety, and I have done it, with or without police at my side, as is custom in all places where the light of civilization touches. So now judge for yourself whether I have been able in my sacred charge – I am ready for justice to be served here today and let all become known.” Rubyk trotted toward the “bench,” grinning in broad triumph at the mare sitting in place of a judge – and showing every wolfish point of his teeth at her. “That is the charge that you gave me, Largo. But is it what you really wanted?”

The four bucks behind the proprietress, as one, took a threatening step forward. Rubyk did not flinch as stars danced on their antler-tips. Miss Largo merely looked away and began to turn the great silver spoon in her hooves idly.

“Of course it is, Aktur. Stars above know what you must think of me, but you will find me a mare of my word. Let us then hear what your investigation has run to ground,” said the proprietress, regarding herself in the back of the spoon. “However, since you have seen fit to cast me in the rôle of an arbiter, and because this is still my hotel – and, frankly, because I find I like you very little, Rubyk of Trotheim - I will reserve the right to put an end to these proceedings if I am in any way convinced that justice – real justice, Aktur, and not the mockery that ponies make of it – will not be served by your accusations and ‘evidence.’ Is that understood?”

Rubyk nodded. “You tell me only to do my job. I intended to do it anyway.”

Then Miss Largo snorted, scorn dripping from the mare. Madeleine stared at the mare up on the dais as if seeing an altogether different pony in the place of her old friend – one that she did not at all like. “Just get on with it, Lord Rubyk, if you please. Aside from you, we are all being kept from our jobs here. I and these fine deer would like to get back to those as soon as possible.”

“Be patient, patient if you please…” said Rubyk, the two ponies dancing about each other like verbal fencers. “For ‘the mare who waits for good things builds her home of brick and copper, but to the colt who rushes headlong, the grass alone shall be for meat.’”

Rubyk smiled again; that never really ceased to be the most unnerving thing Madeleine had ever seen in a pony. “Mares and does, bucks and gentle stallions of Equestria, and of these jeweled islands, and wheresoever the Providence of the Lonely One has placed us in this world…” began the Aktur of Trotheim as Rubyk stepped into his role like a suit of plate-amour, voice swelling in the theatrics of recitation. “You are each brought here today from your callings in life to bear witness that a most inequine depravity was performed here. For not three days hence, a pony was killed in blood cold, so very cold, here in this very Clavia Hotel you all cherish so well. But that is not the wickedest thing you shall yet hear today. For at least one of those in this room was responsible for the death of the very late Calvados Apple – a death that one must call murder.”

Somewhere in the audience, Piper Chai gasped and began to hiss to Limon, whom she knew, in the gossipy simple pleasure of a fresh scandal. Pome and the Oranges received what was old news to them without a change in their hard-set eyes. Doctor Leaf, who was never a deer given to much levity, was as grave and lifelike as a block of lead in the wake of Rubyk’s oration. Mangosteen and Frond gave a low moan, the idea of murder striking the young deerish constitution very hard. Hodgepodge looked sick. Rubyk’s faceted eyes fixed each of them in turn like a fly on a pin as he circled and stalked some invisible creature in the center of the cleared space.

Mr. Orange cleared his throat and said, in a slightly unsteady voice, “do I hear you rightly, sir, that when you say ‘at least one’ of the ponies – er, et cetera – in this room killed my cousin, you mean that there might have been two?”

Rubyk rounded on him, and the earth pony flinched. “In fact I did not say that, Bergamot Orange. I said that at least one of those gathered in this room was responsible for the death of Calvados Apple. The death, do you understand? You will judge for yourself if my series of events best fits what I shall presently put before you. Only know this –” The atmosphere in the impromptu courtroom seemed to suddenly chill several degrees. “Whatever the outcome of this meeting will be, I will not allow a murderer to canter out of this room with the blood upon him unavenged.” Rubyk turned from Mr. Orange, who let out a breath.

“When all came to a sudden boil two nights ago, I knew that everypony would be quick to make known where they were at the time of the murder. Everypony always has an alibi proof against air and water and the searching blade of a truth-spell, if necessary – such is the case in the two-bit dreadfuls, and so it is in the stark reality of bloody muck that is real crime. Each of your alibis was as solid as a salt-lick. It seemed certain that none of you could have been responsible for the murder of the victim – even you, Pome Apple, for all your many protestations to the contrary. It is also true, trivially true, that each of you came forward with your perfect alibis in your own time. Now, why was that?” Rubyk spoke the words just loudly enough for the pony and deerfolk gathered in the dining room to hear their whispering import, hissing threateningly on all of their ears like winter sleet.

“Why did some of you wait and bury it in your testimonies deep enough that a Diamond Dog could scarcely tunnel down to it? And why did others place it at the fore, making sure that it struck my ear like the blare of the last trumpet?” He turned and regarded each of them in turn, and though she knew herself to be absolutely innocent, Madeleine felt a chill run from her spine to her tail. His eyes finally came to rest upon the Oranges, and Mandarin quivered as he opened his mouth and seemed to address his words directly to the Manhattan couple. “Another quandary: why did some feed me lies upon lies - little lies, big lies, half-truths and great lacunae of omissions – and so bury their own pleas of innocence so deep in their words? Did they not trust me to sniff them out? Did they hope to mislead me in some way, knowing that I had so little time? Or was it not their own good that they sought, but that of another?” Rubyk’s eyes rested for a moment on Pome Apple, who gruffly met his gaze before the Aktur of Trothheim shook his head and continued to stalk, addressing the whole assembled court.

“Consider first this series of events: A prophet in far-off Trotheim, moved by the truth-drunk madness when one touches the Aurora, has a vision of a murder in what are to him far and sweltering islands under the tortuous sun of Celestia’s blackest moods. He gabbles it in the hearing of the one noble of the Pride of Trotheim with the ability and authority to avenge blood for blood, who by the hand of Providence is moved to that very island town where the crime portended is to be done. Can it be, can it perhaps be true that all this was fated beforehand? That I should be there to be the one pony to suss out which from among these ponies and deerfolk, each with their own motive to murder a pony, one whom they hardly knew, and all of whom came to the same place, at the same time, all staying in rooms a few trots from one another?”

He paused, surveying their faces. Only Frost Pane seemed to be anything but confused, the muzzle of the Freiof Trotheim curling in disdain. “Coincidental, is it not? But it is the sort of mad coincidence that only conspiracy can bring to fruit and bud. But, mad as it was, I had to consider it. Or perhaps another series of events is more likely? What if instead, the truth were far simpler – and darker?” He paused, evidently relishing the moment. “What if, rather than murder, there was no crime against life done here at all – only many little accidents and petty crimes, fanned to flame by old grudges and the impulses of our lower natures, that the overwrought mind, even my own, insisted on seeing as one concerted act, one expert plot of murder? Was it all just an aimless tragedy, this grisly, bloody mess we have made for ourselves these last three days?”

“What?” roared Pome Apple, kicking his chair down and rising suddenly. His face was a study in shock and anger and a faint flicker of hope. His accent came out thickened by raw emotion. “Y’all mean that my uncle weren’t killed by nopony after all? What does that mean? What all happened t’him, then?”

“Order, please,” said Miss Largo, rapping the end of the large spoon on the high table. One of the bucks wrapped Pome and the chair he had upset in a cloak of starlight and set the one forcibly upon the other again, earning a poisonous glare from the half-unicorn. She looked to Rubyk with a mask of unconcern that could not quite hide the urgent curiosity just behind. “I admit, Lord Rubyk, these two possibilities are interesting. The second solves a great difficulty that I have been harbouring a murderer and a criminal in my hotel – however unwillingly. You believe one of them to be the truth?”

“I am sure of it.”

“Good. Then be about your business and let us know if we may all part from here on better terms,” Miss Largo said.

Rubyk turned to the seating gallery. “Friend Madeleine, will you approach the stand?”

Blinking, Madeleine rose before her mind had fully caught up to her body. “All right…” she said, shrugging her saddlebags onto her back. She trotted over to the table with stacks of chairs before it serving as a witness stand and lifted herself onto the white tablecloth. Rock Skipper shot her a supportive smile, which she returned before she quite got the reins back from her little pony.

“Madeleine Crumpet,” Rubyk began, “do you swear by Princess Celestia, her serene sister Luna of the Night Sky, and by all other powers the Lonely God has set up in this world to tell the truth before the eyes of those gathered here today?”

“I… do,” said Madeleine, feeling as though she had swallowed sand. “But… excuse me, may I please have some water?”

“Of course, dear,” said Miss Largo, motioning toward one of the bucks behind her, who obediently bowed and winked from view.

“You have no need to fear these proceedings, friend Madeleine. I only wonder if you might tell us what your relationship to the apparent victim, Calvados Apple, might have been.”

“I did not know him at all, Mister Rubyk. I would not have cared to even before all… all of this happened of a sudden.”

“Why was that?”

Madeleine sighed. “Must I really say this, Mister Rubyk?”

“If you please, witness.”

“I disliked Calvados as soon as I laid eyes upon him. I have seen many stallions like him in the course of my travels, but none to quite that degree. He was of the kind that act like an overgrown colt just coming into all the powers of his body, and all the hormones to go with them. Most stallions eventually come to put a bridle around those impulses, but I suppose Calvados Apple was the rare exception that proves the rule. Me, I like my stallions with a little less bulk and a lot more suave – but, then, who doesn’t?”

Rubyk blinked. Twice. “Er… thank you, friend Madeleine. Having somepony say it for the record is all that I needed,” said the Aktur of Trotheim. “Now, you were the one who apparently discovered the body two nights ago a little after 11:00. Please tell the court what happened that night and how you came to be in that area.”

Madeleine took a deep breath, putting her mind back to that horrible night…


*****


The door slammed behind Madeleine Crumpet with an angry flash of her horn, as if she were trying to shake the foundations of the old stone fortress now become the Hotel Clavia.

“Pah!” spat Madeleine, hurling her saddlebag into the corner of her suite without even bothering to use her magic. The leathern clatter as the bag struck the far wall felt distinctly satisfying after the day she had just had. “And, pah again!” she added for good measure.

Then she did use magic, throwing it against the other wall, just to hear that cathartic sound again. A stack of blotting paper from the writing desk, several unfinished letters crumpled in the waste, and anything that was not nailed down in the sitting room was caught up in one angry unicorn’s magical grip, whirling above her head as she contemplated sending all of it through the open balcony window. Only the thought of meeting Largo in her dressing gown in the garden… in the rain… explaining why her sofa cushions, complimentary fruits, and wicker chairs were sitting out in the elements… again… gave her pause. Disgusted, and starting to feel the magical drain upon her body, she lowered the odds and ends to the ground with a more or less (mostly less) graceful assortment of whumphs and thuds against the thick carpet.

“I need a drink!” Madeleine said to nopony in particular. She cantered over to the kitchen wall and ran her hoof over the bright-patterned wallpaper. If she remembered rightly, there should be a groove that would yield to just the right amount of pressure right about… aha!

The wall panel slid down, displaying a tall, slender bottle of dark rum and a snifter glass. A mouth-written note was attached to the neck of the bottle by a coarse bit of white thread.

“‘My Dear Crumpet:’” read Madeleine, a wry smile creasing the corners of her mouth. “‘For you and your gentlestallion of choice if fortune and female charms should favor. –L.’ Well, you got one of them, you old deer-lover, but it wasn’t for lack of trying this time! I’m starting to think I may be losing my touch.” She shook her head and took both the glass and the bottle, kicked fallen cushions and paper detritus out of the way, and threw herself onto the sofa. Even with the kick to magical ability that a foul mood could bring with it, there was no way she was going to be shifting that.

Madeleine sipped at the dark, dark rum, savouring the burn on her tongue. Where did it all go sideways? The morning was a whirlwind of business and buttering her clients, and she had even left off before the lunching-hour two gems lighter, courtesy of two belles dames from Prance on holiday during the rainy season. Madeleine chuckled, remembering how easy it had been. Always compliment the eyes; it never fails. Then there had been that very fruitful talk over lunch with Coralstone, who seemed to understand her position much better and how dreadfully important meeting sales quota was after that little heart-to-heart.

Madeleine’s smile faded. Right. It was right after lunch that the day had fallen over its own four legs and landed in the drink. Madeleine recalled Rock Skipper’s usual blushing and cringing and adorable forced conversation as he carried her back to the hotel after the tide-swell, and the luscious, boozy thing she had enjoyed poolside not long after.

And then… Calvados Apple had happened.

“Pardon’ me, darlin’, but if you don’t look the plum most scrumptious thing on four legs I’ve seen today, stick a’ horn on me and call me Luna.” Madeleine had actually fallen out of her lounge chair, and a wave of startled panic-magic had upset that lovely tropical slush-thing Mangosteen had made up for her. And Calvados Apple had stood over her and just chuckled.

“I have that effect on all you ladies,” Calvados said. The overgrown colt smirked, which made for a grotesque effect on his uncovered body of sinews and cord-muscle. “What’s yer’ name, sugarcube?”

“M-Madeleine Crumpet. Charmed?” said Madeleine before she could put a proper bit in her mouth.

“Indeedy-so! Sorry about yer’ drink. Mind if I join you? I’ll buy you another,” said Calvados Apple, leaning his weight on the arm of the lounge chair and throwing a toothy look that was half-leer at Madeleine.

In truth, she would rather chew glass. He was nearly as far from her type as it was possible to be and still be organic. But coladas of any sort didn’t come cheap, and so, once again, she found her mouth racing ahead of her brain, saying:

“Sure.”

The next fifteen minutes were time enough for the barmaid to mix up a new cocktail and for Madeleine to drink it down to the dregs, because if there was anything Madeleine had learned in her years of travel, it was to never turn down a free drink. They were also the most taxing to her social graces in as many years. Where moststallions had at least some innate sense of what to do when it came to the thrust-and-parry, weave-and-dodge of the game played with mares, Calvados Apple simply ran through any defenses with all the grace of a yak with a full head of steam. It was a thing of almost grotesque beauty, and Madeleine watched herself like a fascinated third party outside her own body as her mouth opened and closed in silent apoplexy. It scarcely seemed possible for a pony to be that much of a boor and not turn himself into a pig, but there he was, in whip-cord flesh and sinews!

Her drink over and done, Madeleine got up and spluttered and half-bolted from the pool, feeling Calvados Apple’s grin nipping at her haunches as she flew. She returned to her suite and lay down and tried to enjoy a bit of well-deserved sleep on silken sheets.

She dreamt of leering eyes and lewd words.

Had that been the end of it – had Madeleine only awoken feeling faintly grimy and unrested – that would have been alright, and she could have accepted one blotchy flaw in an otherwise pristine gem of a holiday.

But that hadn’t been the end of it. Wherever she seemed to go, there the traces of the old boor followed her. His wink from across the Grand Foyer; his raucous laugh and bawdy jokes heard just around the corner; his musky, vinegar scent left lingering in by the doors of the dining room, all making the hair of Madeleine’s tail stand on end in protest. By Celestia, she didn’t know why the old lech got under her coat, but he did!

She had thought that, maybe – just maybe! – she might find some relief at the gaming-tables in the casino. But no. There was Calvados Apple, yet again, feeling up some young thing who may have been mare or doe – oh, bother it all, did it matter? And then he had caught her eye as she stood beyond the banks of slot machines and smiled, and – ugh!

Largo’s gift went down smooth and sweet, and it was almost enough to scrape the taste of Calvados Apple from her mouth.

Then a peal of thunder ripped through the suite, followed by another sound, distant and sharp. Madeleine jumped at both.

“What in bright carnelian…?” muttered Madeleine, crossing over to the open balcony window. The rain from the sudden squall that had come up out of the sea about an hour ago beat impotently against the old enchantments warding the hotel. Drops of rain hurled down like bullets rebounded off the unseen barrier, spraying the balcony outside, or slid languidly down an unseen surface like oilskin. She didn’t dare go out in that kind of untamed weather. But there had been something.

Another set of sounds came in through the open windows, muffled both by the rain and the enchantment’s distortions. Although diffuse and indistinct, Madeleine heard the jagged, angular sounds of ponies’ voices raised in hot anger though the words blurred out into a murky drone. Then, all at once, they were cut off by the wind and lashing rain.

Where do I know those voices from?

Madeleine magicked the dregs of her drink over to the sideboard. Her tail swished idly as she thought. Whatever was going on between other guests of Largo’s hotel, it certainly had nothing to do with her. But, to drop the other hoof, she had just spent the afternoon stalked by the unpleasantest stallion in all of wide Equestria. She owed herself a little diversion.

Slipping on her saddlebags from where they lay in an heap by the wall, Madeleine moved into the fifth-floor corridor, ears cocked for any hint of scandal creeping through doors. Her ears swiveled in the direction of the other suites; the tailing patter of hooves not quite silenced by the deadening spells on the carpets struck her ears before it was completely lost to rainy white din.

Did I only imagine that? Or…

“Or” and curiosity won out in the end. As if by some cautious, feline instinct, Madeleine crept down the corridor on soft-treading hooves, ears swiveling this way and that for any more hints of stray voices. As she approached, she saw that the door to suite  505 had been left ajar. The amber-studded key had been left in the lock.

Curiouser… thought Madeleine, the thrill of novelty running through her; and a little bit of liquid courage, compliments of the house, also probably had something to do with it. Surely one little look-see couldn’t hurt?

She was through the door before she had finished thinking.

She gasped. Her knees went weak; her four legs shook like jam. But the sight in the sitting-room drew her on, and she placed one hoof in front of the other with mechanical detatchment. Like an art gallery funneling the crowd toward its prized Neighples sculptury, there was the body – and it was most certainly a body and not an he anymore – of the same pony who had dogged her all the afternoon. Calvados Apple was dead. Quite dead. Mockingly dead. Feeling her head going swimmy, Madeleine stuck a fetlock in her mouth, bit down until the skin broke, and laughed, weakly.

It was perverse, but her only thought was: Now I’ll never be able to tell off the old creeper properly!


*****


“…and that was when I came to find you,” Madeleine finished. She licked her dry lips and gratefully accepted a tumbler of ice water from the buck who had vanished a few minutes earlier.

“Thank you, friend Madeleine,” said Rubyk, the Aktur of Trotheim nodding as if all this was exactly what he had expected to hear. “Though you may not know it, you have lighted much that lay in darkness still. This court owes you a debt.”

“I do wish you had let me know that one of my guests was bothering you, Crumpet,” said Miss Largo. The Hotel Clavia’s proprietress sounded more put out at Madeleine’s holiday being disturbed than at the account of bloody murder. “I would have made sure without going to these ghastly extremes that he would not bother you again. But, let us return to business. Perhaps you can clarify something, dear. Those hoof-steps that you say you heard, they were going away from 505 after you heard the gunshot?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Rubyk looked up at the proprietress with an hard expression. “I do not believe witness Madeleine Crumpet made any reference to a gunshot in her statement, madame proprietress. How is it that you come by that word?”

Miss Largo gave a dismissive shrug of her shoulder. “It ought to be obvious,” said the proprietress. “I saw the body of the victim for myself, as have you, as did my own staff physician-in-residence. There was a bullet-wound in the shoulder given shortly before the time of death. What else could it have been but a gunshot? Clearly it must have been something small that the killer took with him when he bolted from 505 – which must be the patter of hooves that Madeleine heard as she stepped out into the hallway. And how long were you in the corridor, dear?” Miss Largo’s tone of condescension warmed as she addressed the last question toward Madeleine.

Rubyk’s expression did not soften. If anything, it only grew more flinty. “How is it,” he began, with icy intonation, “that this pistol belonging to Miss Madeleine Crumpet was found outside the hotel the morning after the murder and appears to be the tool which gave Calvados Apple that very shoulder wound?” Rubyk stamped his hoof once, making a sound like distant summer thunder. The little mousegun with the mother-of-pearl insets appeared with an answering crackle, suspended in the air and covered with steaming frost on the short barrel.

Madeleine gasped and covered her mouth with her forehooves. “Is… is that where it went?” she said, bloodlessly. “I realized that it was gone last night in… in the Withers. Rock Skipper and I were alone, and three Clavia from the town came on us suddenly, and I… I went for my gun in my bag, but it wasn’t there. Oh, Mister Rubyk, what must you think of me…?”

“Just at the present, Madeleine Crumpet, I cannot say,” said the Aktur of Trotheim. His tone was crisp, all business. “What I can say with all knowledge and authority is that all but one of you here lied to me in some way over these late three days. Let us say, for sake of argument, that I am not yet convinced you are the ‘but one.’ What would that do to the case now before this judgment-seat?” Rubyk looked gravely at the faces scattered around the dining room.

“The evidence of this pistol is loud enough to speak for itself. The trigger takes only a feather-touch of a pull, but both it and the safety mechanism are completely internal. There is no mouth-grip on the stock, nor any way for earth ponies or pegasi to easily hold it on these smooth surfaces. Only somepony with some magical aptitude who knew the piece well would be able to carry it and wield it, let alone fire it. Miss Crumpet fits all of these, perhaps exclusively.”

Miss Largo’s eyes made a motion toward one of the Clavia bucks at her side, who made an almost imperceptible head-movement and stood at rigid attention. The proprietress picked up the silver “gavel” in her hooves. “I remind you that I hold the power to end these proceedings and let justice take its course if I judge you to be flailing aimlessly. I am not far from there now. Is there a point to this speculation, Aktur?”

Madeleine wondered if, maybe, just maybe, the inscrutable look Rubyk shot to her was meant to be reassuring. “There is purpose in everything that I do, madame proprietress,” he said. “We are here to consider all sides, all possible angles of the crime that was thrown down here as a gauntlet to us – to me – that all justice may be done. If it means that we must think on the ludicrous and entertain the scarce-possible, then so be it.”

“We are here at your demand to give you an hearing, and that at my sufferance,” Miss Largo snapped back. “Now I will ask you directly, and no more dancing: just what are you driving at?”

Rubyk’s gaze lingered on Madeleine, and the tall unicorn gave a tiny nod. In truth, she would like to know the same; was that look meant to be reassuring?

“What if, just perhaps, this gun were not carried away from suite 505 by the owner of those pattering hooves the witness claims that she heard? What if Miss Madeleine Crumpet happened to be a much closer observer to the events of 505 than this testimony now before us would suggest? In other words, madame proprietress, honourable guests of the Clavia Hotel, what if the witness were inside Calvados Apple’s rooms at the time of the murder?”

A cold silence descended upon the dining room. The effect on the Clavia in the gallery was frightening to watch. Mangosteen and Frond looked at the giant with identical expression of betrayal. Many of the deer at the periphery snorted loudly and did not restrain themselves from pawing at the ground. Doctor Leaf looked up from his papers with a start. It was the only time Madeleine had ever seen the little physician baffled.

Miss Largo sat high and upright in her chair, a thin smile creasing her lips. “I think this farce is now at an end, Aktur. I gave you fair warning, but perhaps – oh, that is a fine word – perhaps you took me to be only jesting. Well, it is a loss for you and all the ponyish kind of ‘justice’ today, Rubyk; I never jest. And I have always wanted to say this. By the powers you invested in me…” The proprietress raised her gavel.

“Wait!” The single word ripped from Madeleine, raw and untamed like a shriek. Stunned, Miss Largo (and every eye in the “courtroom”, realized Madeleine with an hot flush) turned toward her. Madeleine swallowed once. It felt like swallowing gravel.

“Largo, don’t end the inquest on my account,” Madeleine said, half-believing the words coming out of her mouth. “Mister Rubyk is right: we do need to turn all the angles of this thing, the same as when a jeweler turns a diamond to cut it. I nearly saw a pony murdered in front of my eyes these last three days. I can’t simply forget that and go winging off on my travels selling bangles again as if nothing ever happened.”

The proprietress of the Hotel Clavia stared at Madeleine, wide-eyed. “Crumpet, I am only trying to do what is best for you. The Clavia look after their own first, and so do I. Are you saying that these… these beastlyaccusations are true?”

Madeleine shook her head. “Mister Rubyk hasn’t made any accusation, Largo. And he hasn’t done anything that you have not already. And in spite of all that, I… I trust him.” Celestia only knows why! “And you were right, too. He is dangerous. But I still trust him that he knows what he is doing with all of us in here. Please, hear Mister Rubyk out!” She shivered.

And may Princess Celestia and the Lonely God of Trotheim help me if I’m wrong.

Miss Largo looked down on Madeleine with a new expression contorting her muzzle, one that the other mare had never seen on that face directed at her before: it was disgust. The proprietress turned away and looked out into the gallery at nopony and nodeer in particular.

“As you like, Crumpet dear,” Miss Largo said, the words coming out thin and full of a strained warmth. “Well, Aktur. It seems that we will play your game after all. It is your move. I am still unconvinced that this is not a waste of your dear time. So play it well.”

Rubyk smiled wolfishly. “Thank you. Trotheim has no further questions for the witness. You may step down, friend Madeleine.” He turned toward the gallery.

“Trotheim calls Mandarin Orange to the stand.”




*********************************************



Chapter Nine



Fear and Perjury



*********************************************




Mrs. Orange was a consummate fidgeter. She shifted her weight unevenly on her haunches and moved her forehooves shyly under the pricks of so many eyes, as if she were trying to hide one behind the other.

The butterfly brooch that Madeleine had fobbed off on the Manehattan mare seemed to dance gaily on the collar of the pink taffeta that hung too loose from her shoulders. It was not a dress normally worn in sunlight, or even under close observation. Madeleine’s jeweler’s eye easily found the hidden creases where tears had been repaired from the inside with fine thread. The hem was well-sewn, but higher than one on such a dress should have been. It was either a dress that belonged to a more ambly-bodied Mrs. Orange in time past, or else a dress that had belonged to some other mare for whom the Manehattan social life had not been kind.

Off in the gallery, Bergamot Orange watched his wife with anxious eyes.

“Mandarin Orange,” began Rubyk, speaking softly to the mare, “you should know that no matter what happens here, nothing ill will come upon you or your Bergamot from what you tell me now. Although I understand nearly all, there are a few things that only you can make clear to me.”

Mrs. Orange watched him with the same anxious eyes as her husband, flashing a nervous smile for them both. “I… of course I’m happy to help in any way that I can. Calvados Apple was my family, too. By marriage, of course, but… oh, of course I will help you. And yet…” Mandarin’s voice trailed off, but the rest of her words were easily read on her face.

“And yet I might have handled this differently than making a public spectacle out of you,” Rubyk agreed. Mrs. Orange replied with a short, nervous laugh.

“You have a very blunt way of speaking when it suits you, Lord Rubyk. My husband and I like that in you.”

“I promise, then, that I will take no more of your time than I must, Mandarin Orange. The reason that I asked you to testify before this court today instead of your husband Bergamot is because I want you to confirm one thing that you said to Madeleine Crumpet. Perhaps you did not even mean to say it.”

“What… are you thinking of, particularly, sir?” said Mandarin Orange. Her smile strained at her cheekbones.

“I am mainly interested to know your husband Bergamot’s whereabouts twenty minutes to half an hour before the confirmed time of death. Can you enlighten me on that point?”

Mrs. Orange’s smile grew, if possible, even more strained. “He was… he was in our suite, sir, with me. We were together in our rooms all the night long until your summons came.”

“You did not go out all the night long?”

“No, sir.”

Rubyk sighed. Madeleine heard him mutter: “Why? Why this lie, and of such a flagrant stripe?” He trained a stare on the mare in the witness stand. Mrs. Orange drew her hooves in close, protectively close, as if huddling for heat, and tried to show the warmest smile that she could.

A touch sadly, Rubyk said: “Mandarin Orange, I would that you made this easier for me. For I happen to know, upon an authority most worthy of trust, that in this you lie – or you tell an half-truth to deceive, which is worse.”

“B-but… how… somepony saw Bergamot go out?” Mrs. Orange blurted. She was not sure whether to point to herself or genuflect toward her husband, and so she nearly fell off the witness stand trying to do both at once. Mr. Orange groaned, burying his snout under his hooves.

“No. But it is no great leap from a wife biting down on her words when she speaks of her husband, even while she groans and burns to talk of that horrible night, to there being something she keeps in what she does not say, for his sake.” Rubyk shook his head. Madeleine suspected that the giant was trying very hard to keep himself from patronizing.

Mrs. Orange glanced toward the gallery. Her mouth formed an ‘o’ of sudden comprehension as her eyes found Madeleine, and she looked down at the butterfly on her bosom in disgust.

“So your husband did go out on the night of the murder. Will you tell me why, or shall I call him up to testify?”

“No, Mister Rubyk.” Bergamot Orange rose like a pony bound for the scaffold. “It was a long shot that you would not figure it out. You have me at the point of your horn. I will keep nothing more from your graces.”

Rubyk’s lips curled back into a snarl. “See to it that you do not.”


*****


Mr. Orange took the stand. The Manehattan stallion sniffled and daubed at his snout with a kerchief monographed with an ‘O’ from the inside of his tawny waistcoat. It was, rather like his wife’s dress, rather frayed under the daylight. The citrine wedding-band on both of their ears were easily the costliest bits of their attire and were the only pieces that seemed to be kept well.

Rubyk paced the open gallery in front of the witness stand, his bare flanks and shoulders showing spring-tensed muscles beneath, like a wolf about to pounce. “So. You kept back from me some very vital information at our first meeting, Bergamot Orange. But of all the lies swirling around in this courtroom now, yours was easily the most simple-minded – and a pony must wonder at how little you must regard the Pride of Trotheim to do so.” He stopped and smiled, and Mr. Orange shuddered. “But I am sure that you had an excellent reason.”

“Yes, if you will hear it,” said Mr. Orange, wiping at his eyes.

“Oh, I would. Humour me.”

“You know that I was not on good terms with my kinsfellow, Calvados.”

“Anypony with eyes might have known that. You are, excuse me, not a very subtle stallion, Bergamot Orange. One wonders how you manage the mangle-fields of Manehattan carrying that sort of temperament.”

“But I assure you, I am!” Mr. Orange protested. “Mister Rubyk, I admit without qualm that everypony here has seen me failing to put my best hoof forward in these last few days. But there is a world of difference, as broad as the gulf in kind between our two Sovereigns, between Calvados Apple compared with anypony else. I am afraid that I lose my head – lost my head, I mean to say – when I dealt with him. But I had rather hoped that this visit might be different: that I might finally be able to keep bit and bridle on my temper when it came to the old mule. I thought that I had grown enough callouses in the right places, hardened my hooves a bit so that he would not be able to goad me so anymore. I but regret to say that seems not to have been the case.” Mr. Orange hung his head.

“That is a very eloquent apology for a few bursts of temper,” Rubyk remarked, dry as dust. The Aktur of Trotheim flashed his horn, and a long scroll bearing rows of tight, too-regular dictosprite script was suddenly floating before him, crackling with frost. “According to a record of that last interview between us on the night of your kinsfellow’s death, you said: ‘I even had one of the deer bring up room service for us so that we did not have to come to the main dining room.’ Again, you leave out a key detail. Why did you try to imply that you had not gone out?”

“Because I was afraid!” Mr. Orange half-laughed, quiet, with a distant look in his eyes. He tapped a rhythm nervously on the wood in front of him with a well-scrubbed hoof. “I knew that everypony who knew about the murder would think of me in the space of a moment. I only wanted to do for Mandarin and myself what I ought to have done from the first and flown these islands as soon as possible, and so leave my name as clean again as when I came. I should have left on that first ferry after your three days were over and done, Lord Rubyk.” He met the challenging eyes of the same.

“My name is clear, sir. Let it be said as clearly as possible: I did not kill my cousin, even if it seemed to the eyes of ponies and angels alike that I wanted to.”

There was silence from the gallery, and even Miss Largo looked expectantly from Bergamot to Rubyk and back again, as if some response was demanded by this challenge. Rubyk tapped at his muzzle in thought.

“No,” answered the Aktur of Trotheim, “you did not. Seeing you here now, without so much as a whimper of resistance before you tell all, I well believe that you are a coward, Bergamot Orange. But you lack the comfortable digestion of a pony who might put away his own blood. You will go away from here in disgrace, but not in shackles. But there is still that which I do not understand.” The scroll with the dictosprite scrawl was lifted up to Rubyk’s eyes. “The fact that you did leave your rooms half an hour before your cousin’s murder and made every effort to conceal it can only mean that you went to suite 505 at that time. Why?”

Mr. Orange sniffled again, blowing his nose rather more noisily this time. “Mister Rubyk, if that was not the sunlit truth, and were not meeting under such… unfortunate circumstances, I might have protested rather corporally, as long as the odds may have been for me. But you said it well: as ponies go, I am a coward. Mandarin and I met with Calvados and his nephew at the café my cousin fixated himself upon. When he did finally come to talk business, it was easily three-quarters of an hour before we even broached the subject that brought us all out here in the first place. And when we did broach the matter of the contract that I proposed… suffice it to say, the resolution was less than ideal.”

Rubyk did not immediately answer these vague generalities. He cast a glance toward the other side of the gallery where Piper Chai was still whisper-gabbing with the hotel staff. At length, with eyes half-lidded, he spoke softly, as if for the sake of his own ears and he only suffered the others in the dining room to overhear: “I see… the lie was not a deception of the will at all. It was merely the invariable outcome of a coward seeking to keep his face from growing long in the mirror.” Then the Aktur’s eyes snapped wide and he said with clear authority:

“Piper Chai of Currycape!”

“Oh?” said the barista, unflapped; in her trade, Madeleine knew, a pony could not go far if she had a nervous disposition. “Wossat then, Act-Lord?”

“I believe that in recent statements taken by Madeleine Crumpet, you indicated that there was no altercation between the witness on the stand and the victim of the murder. Can you confirm this?”

Piper Chai gave one of her echoing belly laughs. The glass in the windows rattled. “Cor! You all in the courting-business do get on your pompous way, don’t ya? Nay-on, there weren’t no scuffle in my dinky shop that mornin’, and no to-and-go lashing with tongues or fetlocks, neither. It was all done civil as I’d seen it or I’m Princess Celestia in a bonnet.”

“Thank you, Piper Chai. That will be all; you may stay or go as you please. Bergamot Orange, until now I did not understand why you had lied to me at that first interview. You insisted that you had acted violently then. You were eager to tell it to anypony who would listen. But the contradiction was trivial to see – surely you knew it of all ponies! The only reason that you might then have had to say that an argument between you and your cousin took place at that morning meeting, when plainly there had been no such thing, was if you felt the need to confess something like it.” Rubyk stopped for a moment, perhaps to observe the effects of these words on Mr. Orange. They were profound. The Manehattan’s stallion’s breathing became ragged. His eyes welled up, and his whole manner again crept close to the edge of tears.

“Yes,” said Rubyk, softly. “I think that it must be so. You did act out in violence, but it was not at Piper Chai’s café.” The Aktur of Trotheim raised his voice to booming volume. “Bergamot Orange, you struck your cousin Calvados Apple on the night of his death. This court demands of you an account of yourself!”

Mr. Orange’s cry was small, stifled, pathetic, like the little agonies of a sick foal. “I did not mean for it all to happen like this!”

“Start at the beginning. You went to Calvados’ room because you were angry, or because you desperately needed to change his mind about your business dealings following the events of the morning. Which was it?”

“Th-the latter, Lord Rubyk. It is true that I was angry with him almost beyond words. I might have acted upon that if I did not need his help so badly. By Luna, the fact that I needed Calvados only made me angrier!” He choked down a neighing sob and continued on.

“My business has not been good in recent years. There have been too many lean harvests on the plantations I contract with for any number of reasons: mana drain sapping the land and the earth pony tenants on it at planting time, a Parasprite swarm sweeping down from the mountains just before the harvest, rogue zebra outlanders raiding the farms – even a volcanic eruption in Marepore that ruined an entire banana grove. It is the very reason you have all seen your prices rising in the city markets lately.”

“I would not know,” sniffed Rubyk. Mr. Orange looked at him, coughed, and cleared his throat.

“It… is almost as if Discord returned to torment me – and my finances – personally. My funds are and have been lean. I am even now borrowing bits against the day when my fortunes may change to keeping paying the ponies in my employ, and to impress the ponies I need to impress. The contract that I had my solicitors draft was meant to be a win-win agreement for Calvados and myself. It would have given me the immediate funds that I need as an advance to expand my distributive power and for him to gain a larger market share for the harder side of the Apple clan’s offerings.” He heaved a quivering sigh. “Unfortunately, Calvados did not see things in that way.”

“So you have said. So you always say when you gloss over your actions. What happened once you went to your cousin’s suite, Bergamot Orange?”

“To begin, I found the door already open…”

“Was the key in the lock at that time?”

Mr. Orange frowned, puzzled, behind his haze of snotty sorrow. “No, I do not believe so. It looked to me as though the door had been left like that intentionally.”

“Thank you. Please, continue.”

“I knocked, of course, but given that the door was already open, I let myself in. Calvados was in the sitting room lounging on the divan. Pome was not in at all so far as I could tell. My cousin was just sitting still, watching the first beginnings of that miserable rain beat against the closed balcony window. When he heard me enter, Calvados turned about to face me with a punch-drunk grin on his muzzle. But when he saw that it was I who stood in the doorway, that changed in an hurry. He looked… I should say disappointed. Or perhaps angry might be closer to the fact. He looked as angry as I felt, and that only fired my temper even warmer.”

“Can you describe the sitting room as it was when you entered?”

“Let me think… yes, I think so. There were short glass tumblers on the table as if Calvados was expecting somepony – who was obviously not me. I do not recall ever seeing a liquor bottle or cabinet in the room, so perhaps he intended to fill his own and his guest’s glass out of his own private flask. Or, perhaps Pome was simply en-route with a bottle of something from the downstairs bar if Calvados wanted to do his tippling in. The writing desk was closed and had a few paper-corners jutting out of it, as if it had been closed in some great hurry, and I remember that the wastebasket was full of wadded, half-finished drafts of letters in Pome’s writing.”

“How did you know that it was Pome Apple’s writing, rather than his uncle’s?”

“You like proverbs, I believe. ‘How do we know to eat the green grass, and not the toothsome gem?’” Mr. Orange said, making a thin, nervous laugh in his throat. “The difference between a unicorn’s script and even my mouth-writing is a difference as wide as that. I read much correspondence in my work, Mister Rubyk. The writer of those letters was a unicorn, or else I am.”

Rubyk blinked. “That is most perspicacious of you, Bergamot Orange. And I may trust this testimony?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Then Mr. Orange turned his head and coughed. “Also, at least one of them was signed and chanced to be lying at the top of the heap. I just happen to be a quick study of my surroundings.”

“I… see. You are of course most laudable. Please now tell us what else your powers noted.”

“Really, aside from the hotel’s own decorations, I cannot recall any other – no! No, hold that!” Mr. Orange bit his lip. “There was something else. I am astonished that I did not remember it before now. There was music playing in the suite. It was a mare singing, naturally, warped vocals over thrumming baselines, very low. A Countess-Somepony, I do believe. It is nothing that I know about myself, you understand, but I know enough about my cousin to tell you at least this much: Calvados was upset by something. He only put music on when he was in exceptionally low spirits.”

Rubyk tapped at his muzzle. “I heard no music when I was summoned to your cousin’s rooms. This is the first I have heard this evidence. Were circumstances different, I might dismiss the detail as spurious. But given the strangeness that surrounds this case…” The Aktur of Trotheim sighed. “There is nothing else for it; let the court decide if there is anything in this music. What was the source?”

“There was a sounding-gem over on the mantel – one of those new spell-recorders available in Canterlot that wrap a song up into a gemstone and play it back when somepony hoofs it into the enchanted base that comes with it,” Mr. Orange said.

“I know those things,” Madeleine cut in. “They’ve an awfully tinny sound that always seems to be screaming right into your ears. But I don’t recall seeing anything like that when I came upon your cousin, Mister Orange.”

“That is more fascinating than you know, friend Madeleine,” said Rubyk. “And yet this very pony, who has been caught in his own lie but a few short minutes ago, avows it. Perhaps he knows that we would not have seen this item and thus wishes to place the phantom of another pony in those rooms between us and himself, besides the murderer?”

Mr. Orange groaned and laid his head down upon the witness stand, but Miss Largo cleared her throat, loudly, cutting through the heavy air in the dining room with a polite knife-edge. “I believe that the Aktur will find that such a stand and gem were delivered to suite 505 by the request of Mister Calvados Apple on the day of his arrival. I keep a supply of popular artists on hand for the comfort of my guests. Trotheim may consider this detail relevant to case if they wish, but its representative will kindly keep to his evidence and refrain from vaulting speculations.”

“Ah.” Rubyk grinned thinly, hiding his teeth as he nodded in the direction of the proprietress. “Vaulting? Perhaps. But neither Madeleine nor I saw this gem nor heard this music, if there was indeed music. Does the court not see the implications of these facts?”

“It implies that there was somepony else in that room between the time that Mr. Orange left and Miss Crumpet arrived, and that they took the gem and stand with them when they left,” Miss Largo answered. “But you have said so yourself: you intend to prove that there was a witness in 505 at the time of the murder. It seems that this only helps your case, if it is true.”

Rubyk shook his head. “I would that were the case. It is Providence that shows forth this truth now, but it is an hard Providence, for it raises more questions than it answers.”

“Namely?” said the proprietress, leaning forward.

Rubyk stamped his hoof, once. “Firstly: why did the witness flee the scene, if he were not the murderer himself?” Twice. “Why did the witness or the murderer take the gem with them when they left?” Thrice. “Why has the gem not been found, but the gun has?” Four times. “ Finally: why did Madeleine Crumpet not hear the sound that she describes as so very tinny and oppressive when she heard what you yourself called a gunshot?”

The Aktur of Trotheim turned to the witness stand with a labouring look on his face. “Mr. Orange, you must help us to clear up these difficulties. Pray, continue your testimony, and I will pray for light that I may better understand these dark things. What passed between you two then?”

“I greeted him calmly, and I will swear that by the Unconquered Sun. But he rose up and looked and me in… in hate. It was as if he had just placed his hoof in something vile and wanted to scrape it off as soon as possible. Whatever simile I can call to mind, it does nothing to change the fact that my peace was not welcome,” Mr. Orange said. He grimaced, a scene playing itself out before his eyes.


*****


“Buck a salt-lick, Bergamot, what do you think you’re doing here? I done told you and the other half of that bit of gold on your ear to git. How loud I gotta’ to say it? I ain’t interested!” Calvados Apple’s face was a snarl made flesh, stretched over a muzzle contorted in an inequine anger. Bergamot Orange flinched back at the sight, every inch of his nerves urging him with the prods of unconscious instinct to back out! Run away!

Instead, the Manehattanite took a step into the room, shouting down the screams and hot flushes of his own body. Then, boldened by the ease of it, he took another.

“No, Calvados. I want a word.” Calvados stomped over to give it to him. In a moment, the two stallions were standing muzzle-to-muzzle in front of the divan.

“Y’all city ponies done lost all the grit in your craw. Your kind think they want to make a day trip, trot out into the country, see how what I do is done. They only see the bottle of pretty brown stuff that smells like apples. And all of ‘em leave with mud on their hooves and fake little smiles on their faces. It’s all just a span too rusticfor your kind once they start poking around. Here’s the funny thing about city folk: they don’t never come back for a second look.” Calvados’ voice was quiet, but it held a dissonant undertone. The muscles under his coat tensed, as threatening as serpents.

Bergamot drew himself up taller. “I came here to talk business, Calvados, in good faith. But I can play your game, too. Is that supposed to impress me, cousin? Do you think that I am nothing but a penthouse reveler who has forgotten his roots? I assure you, I have not forgotten how to scrape in the dirt when I must.”

Calvados spat, his saliva slowly leaching into the thick carpet. There was a thin strand of blood in it that floated on the surface for a moment. “Business, huh? You think I’m in any mood to talk about bits right now?” Calvados laughed. “You know how I got to the top of where I am today, Bergie? I’ve learned how to say no when I need to not say yes. When Grandpap Poire said that I’d run the farm into the ground by stilling the cider, that nopony wanted to buy that muck, I said ‘no’ and I was right. I’ve learned how to say no when something don’t smell right. This whole thing that y’all have thought up, even this trip to butter up my belly and tickle my ear all nice-like, it’s all just pretty white snow on a’ heap of compost. And the more you beg and whinny, ‘oh, please, cousin – if it pleases you, cousin!’ just makes me retch. So dig the street gunk out of your ears, city boy: ‘no’ really does mean no.” Calvados grinned and blew a stream of hot, sour air into the other stallion’s face.

Bergamot ground his teeth hard enough to hear a tiny crack through his jaw. “Calvados, Mandarin and I are not trying to swindle you! That… that is the most ludicrous thing that I can conceive! Please – I have been waiting for a very long time now. All I want is a proper conversation about the contract. Surely you can spare a few minutes to go down to the bar and go over the terms? You will find that everything is perfectly on the level if you actually take the ten moments it will take to read it.”

Calvados snorted and turned abruptly, flicking the end of his tail at Bergamot’s nose. Bergamot rubbed at the spot and Calvados snorted again – in laughter. “I don’t like ponies who beg, little colt. I’m giving you one last chance, since I’m a much busier stallion than you seem to think I am. Git, or I’ll do it for you. Your call, Bergie.”

“Calvados, we are family! Please – I need your help! I… I do not know what Mandarin and I are going to do if I do not have this contract. If you will not do it because you love me, do it for the sake of the name of Apple!” Bergamot was almost shouting. His gorge rose with a welter of hot emotion. He felt as though he were breathing steam. Bergamot had to move. He had to do something!

Calvados cast a cool eye back toward him and turned away. His glance lingered on the writing desk for a moment. “Family? Grafting Diamond Dogs, all y’all. I ain’t the bumpkin you think I am cousin. I see the shadows y’all think I’m too blind and too dumb to notice. You think I don’t have my ear to the ground? You think I don’t know, cousin?”

Bergamot’s mouth hung open. “You know… what? Calvados, what are you talking about?” The Manehattanite looked around the room, searching for some clue, some direction – anything to make sense out of this sudden turn. His gaze focused on the writing desk and on the papers crumpled in the wastebasket.

“Have you… has somepony been threatening you, Calvados? Is that what this is about?” Bergamot said, voice soft. For a moment, Calvados looked back, the old stallion’s bushy brows raised in surprise. For a longer moment, he regarded Bergamot uncertainly; the question seemed to hit a mark.

Then, without warning, Calvados rounded on Bergamot and struck him with the side of a forehoof. Bergamot fell and gasped, the breath forced from his lungs as he struck the floor.

“Think I’m stupid? You think I don’t see the double-bluff?” Calvados’ eyes were wild, blazing. “Awfully convenientfor you to just deduce all you need to in the nick of the moment, ain’t it, cousin? It’s like you Manehattan folk all just turn Shadow Spade when you need to! Well, I’m not falling for it!” Calvados bellowed.

Bergamot lay still, breathing ragged. He opened his mouth as if about to make some reasoned reply.

Then he looked at Calvados’ smirking, triumphant face.

Then the world went red.

“Oh, sod this, and sod you, cousin!” Bergamot’s back hoof lashed out as he bucked as hard as he was able. There was a dull impact of hoof on flesh, followed by a scream, more of shock and anger than of pain. That scream struck Bergamot’s ears like an hammer-blow. The Manehattanite righted himself, bolting out the open door as fast as his four legs could gallop. He felt the heat of pure rage burning at his tail.

Bergamot did not look back.


*****


This narrative was not without its own tears, and by the time it was done, the pony on the witness stand was in an obvious bad way. Madeleine looked with pity on the bloodshot eyes and sniffling snout of a stallion weighed down with regret. But the act of confession seemed to lift some of the weight on his shoulders, and he sat a little higher in his seat. The burden on his back was still there, to be sure, but he looked to be bearing it better.

Rubyk, for his part, did not seem so satisfied. The Aktur of Trotheim growled softly as he paced the gallery, looking to his own hooves. A trail of frost followed in his wake. “This is new. New evidence, new data, and I have no time to think… Calvados was being threatened enough to effect a change in his manner on the night of the murder? By whom? For what ends? And what has all this to do with the theft of a gem-stand, locked doors and keys, and a death by poisoning?”

Rubyk raised his head, and the tension of the whole courtroom was written on his muzzle in craggy displeasure. “Yet still must Trotheim thank you, Bergamot Orange. You madden me. I have not the faintest idea what any of this yet means, but that it holds the key to these locks within locks, I have no doubt.”

Mr. Orange smiled nervously down at the contorted face of the giant stalking the gallery in front of him. Miss Largo cleared her throat.

“Am I to take it that you have no further questions for the ‘witness’, Aktur?” said the proprietress.

“None. I would that I did, but I do not,” grumbled Rubyk.

The silver “gavel” struck the high table with an heavy finality. “In that case, kindly allow us to move things along. Call the next pony to be privileged by your ministrations.”

Rubyk scowled, but nodded and turned, his eyes moving slowly along the gallery. Some huddled together at the tables exchanged nervous glances as the Aktur of Trotheim regarded them with raised hoof and a chilly glance that was not mere simile; Madeleine shivered as the chill of his perplexity washed over her in waves.

The upraised hoof struck the ground.

“Pome Apple, you will now approach the stand.”

Madeleine had expected some show of resistance from the coltish unicorn, but aside from a few token gestures, Pome was surprisingly compliant. He was a guarded mass of pudge and muscle where he sat, and he looked down on the gallery with an almost perfect morosity.

“Pome Apple, perhaps you can explain –”

“Why I killed my uncle?” Pome said, giving a mirthless smile. There was an heavy stillness that followed these words. Rubyk heaved an agitated sigh.

“Enough of that. You still insist on this impossible tale? Then your lie is as simple to detect as that wreck who went before you. Why, why does everypony wrapped up in this business cling to their own little lies? What have you to gain from it, Pome Apple? Why keep at this impossible lie even after what you have already told me?”

“But I am keeping nothin’ back. ‘s’called ‘atonement,’ if I’m not mistaken. I say that I killed my uncle: as I see it, that’s the only way it could have happened,” Pome said. His stumpy neck raised in defiance.

“And I say that you are wrong!” Rubyk screamed. Even the hotel’s proprietress winced at the volume. Frost Pane, however, gave a nickering laugh. Rubyk’s breaths grew ragged as he made a visible effort to control himself.

“Prove it, then. ‘Cause otherwise, I think I just confessed, Mister Actor. And if I done confessed, well… there’s no need to hold anypony here longer than we have to, right?” Pome’s smile was oddly serene for a pony who had just confessed to murdering his own kin. Miss Largo looked from him to Rubyk in some bewilderment.

“I judge by the standard of pony justice that you desire, Aktur, but even given that, I find myself at something of a loss. Am I to take it that you have positive proof that the younger Mister Apple is innocent of his uncle’s murder? Because I confess that unless you can provide this to us now, I can see no reason to drag out these proceedings even further.”

Madeleine had to admit, she had never seen the giant from the North look so lost. The fury drained from his face, and he cast his eyes down to his hooves.

“A moment to think, if you will – I beg. I must… I must think.”

“Of course,” said Miss Largo, and smiled.

Rubyk seemed to collapse in on himself as she watched. The stalking giant simply sat and closed his eyes, gnashing his wicked teeth and furrowing his brow with deep, vicious gouges. Twice, he drew blood from his own lip. The cold that came from him was terrible. A thin casement of glassy ice formed from the tip of his blue horn downward, and drops of moisture in the air around him actually began to condense and make for an indoor snow-flurry as Madeleine watched. Frost Pane stared at her grandfoal with a curious expression. Madeleine leaned and whispered into the old mare’s ear,

“Is that… as dangerous as I think it is?”

Frost Pane angrily drew her furs more tightly up around her neck. “Yes. The cold makes a clear mind – as every fool and foal well knows. But the fool-boy will throw himself on his own sickbed if he does not come out of himself!”

“And does he do this… often?” Madeleine shot a glance at the rimed unicorn, who was as motionless as a stone.

“Yes! Too!” Frost Pane would say nothing more after that. The old mare’s face bore a curious, pinched expression around the eyes. It looked strangely like worry.

The seconds stretched out like hours, with nopony willing to break the tense stillness like a treacherous sheet of ice on the surface of a pond. It could not have been more than a minute or two at the most; it felt like a year.

Then the Aktur of Trotheim made a harsh gasp for breath as fresh breath rushed into his air-starved lungs. As he rasped and coughed, shaking the ice and cold from himself and moving his massive limbs experimentally, as if to ensure that they were still under his own power, Madeleine realized that he had not even been breathing! But as he raised his head up to the witness stand, the giant from the North no longer looked lost: he looked ready to commit a murder.

“I see now…” the Aktur’s voice was a whisper in the ears of the silent gallery. It sounded like the scraping of monstrous claws on the floor of some far-flung stone cavern. “I have been wandering in a maze of mirrors, lost in diffractions. But I am not the only one who has been so deceived.”

Rubyk pointed an accusing hoof toward the stand. A chunk of steaming ice fell from the limb. “Pome Apple, you have not sought to deceive me and this court, but you could not have avoided walking the way that you chose. I will show you, all of you, that it was impossible for Calvados’ blood to slick your stump of an horn. I will forceyour innocence upon you, you recalcitrant fool. But you will first answer me two questions.”

Pome glared a look that, if it had the force of a buck behind it, would have knocked the Aktur of Trotheim through one of the dining room’s picture windows. His stump of an horn sparked a threatening gold and red. “I’ll answer, but y’all and I are going to have words later. I don’t much ‘ken your pomp, Mister Actor.”

“Please just answer the Aktur, Mister Apple,” said Miss Largo, a hint of a sigh weighting her words. “I will not hesitate to remove you again, if necessary.”

“Fine. Everypony pile on the bumpkin. I see how it is.” Pome Apple crossed his forelegs over his chest and closed his eyes.

“Pome Apple,” Rubyk said, with frigid clarity, “did you at any time see the pistol of Madeleine Crumpet shown to this courtroom before this morning?”

“No.”

“Did you ever purchase an Earthsbane preparation either before coming to this island or once arrived upon it?”

“No. I’d never do that even to Uncle Calvados.”

“I did not say that you poisoned him. I asked only if you ever purchased or obtained it in any way.”

“I knew what you meant. The answer’s still no.”

“As I thought…” said Rubyk, narrowing his eyes. “Pome Apple, will you now then tell this court exactly how you propose to have killed your uncle?”

“Dunno. Y’all tell me if you’re all so clever as that.”

Rubyk’s jewel-cut eyes flashed with a pale, angry light that was mirrored around his horn. The light was mirrored in the cube depending from his neck and flowed outward, washing the ponies and Clavia in the gallery in the same light that prickled with the promise of magic.

“Tell you? Pome Apple, I intend to do better than that,” said Rubyk.

The dining room went white.




*********************************************



Chapter Ten



Hostile Witness



*********************************************




Madeleine stood at the edge of a long platform that looked down upon a large, circular indentation in the… ground? And what was she standing on? It seemed… hard? soft? white? maybe grey? Little details like that seemed fuzzy, but unimportant. Everything beside, beyond, above, behind her was grey, indistinct, unimportant – the impression being forced upon her with the force of impulse. She tried to focus her eyes on a point where she was not meant to look, but by dint of whatever magic brought her here, her eyes simply goggled. Being seen like that would be... rather unseemly, so she abandoned the idea of getting a better look around.

She cast her eyes around the circumference of the pit, seeing the others from the dining room also glancing about and coming to the same conclusions: whatever they were meant to see in this… place? It was down, and not out.

So Madeleine looked down into the pit. Then she gasped.

Well, that’s impressive.

Below them all was an image of the Hotel Clavia’s suite  505 seen from above as if it were carved out of ice and moulded in delicate sculptile snow. It was similar to the reconstruction that she had seen Rubyk conjure many hours earlier in the library, writ large. It was accurate down to the wounds on the snowy-white image of a pony lying just where she had herself found the body of the old lech. Seeing it all again in this way made her shiver for reasons quite apart from the hungry cold that came from the pit, which seemed to draw the heat from her phantasmal body. How a vision (she assumed) was supposed to make her feel the cold in bones she did not have while in it, Madeleine had no idea – but, then, there was very little that she understood about the strange stallion who had walked into her life three days ago...

…who was striding out over the open expanse of the pit on his long legs as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Of course, thought Madeleine, and she did not suppress an eye-roll.

Rubyk said nothing. Instead, the Aktur of Trotheim stamped his hoof on… something, and the scene in the pit shifted like a storm in a snow-globe, showing Calvados on his four hooves and laughing. There was another snowy-white pony in the sitting room facing Calvados, with his tail toward the door. Pome Apple, she realized: the two figures had the same stocky cast to their frames that was not only from the crudeness of the materials of which they were formed. No words came from the figures in the pit, but the contour of their argument came wafting up to the onlookers.

For an argument it was. Even without the exact words used, the spectators of the vision needed none to know a row unfolding before them. The impressions drifting up intensified like the volume of an instrument being played all the louder as the quarrel went on. The Pome figure reared, bringing both its forehooves down on the icy floor in a silent stamp. Calvados tossed his mane and gave a statuesque sneer. The snowy Pome charged at the other. There was a brief struggle of shoves and shoulder-pushes; then Calvados gained the point with a brutal throw that sent the unicorn hurtling toward the door. Pome’s double lay on the floor by the door, stunned. With a wicked smile on his muzzle, Rubyk’s Calvados-figure began to advance on his nephew… closer and closer he came, until he stood with an hoof raised to stamp down upon the prone figure.

The snowy Pome snarled and shot a spell from his horn at his uncle. Calvados staggered back, lost his balance, and fell to the floor. The snowy Pome did not waste the opportunity. He rose, wobbling, and his icy horn gleamed bright to throw the door open before he dashed out into the hallway. The Calvados-figure did not pursue. Instead, the stallion paced the sitting room, setting out tumbler glasses on the table from where they sat on the sideboard with a decanter full of some manner of liquid. It seemed to be water in the vision Rubyk was feeding to them… somehow… but decanters generally had stronger stomachs than that.

Rubyk nodded his head, and an orb glowing purple like a twilit, frosty horizon emerged from his horn and hung over the scene. Then the snows whipped themselves up again, and Madeleine watched as a new figure of frost, this one a perfect replica of the slender form of Bergamot Orange, pushed his way through the door. The scene played out almost precisely as she envisioned it in her head. She turned a glance upward to watch the face of Mr. Orange. The Manehattanite bit his lip in a way that made it clear that, yes, this was, if not perfect, somewhere uncomfortably close to his own memory of the events.

The blizzard stirred the scene again as Mr. Orange rushed out of 505. When the rooms in the pit came into focus once again, they seemed to Madeleine somehow less solid, less certain. The snowy figures moving within were wispy about the edges, and Rubyk’s muzzle curled back slightly to show the tips of his teeth as he concentrated on the vision.

The white facsimile of Calvados was seated on his haunches at the table. The door of 505 eased itself open, and a new figure entered about which it was impossible to say much. Like the indistinct greyness that surrounded all of them, Madeleine’s eyes slid off of its surface. Whether pony or Clavia, mare or stallion, buck or doe, the only thing certain about it was the horn – or antlers – upon its head. Calvados rose to greet it, grinning broadly, and the wispy figure closed the door behind it. But as he rose, an eddy of snow swirled in the bedroom, and a small, deerish figure shimmered into the onlookers’ view, warped as if viewed through a pane of ice. The second figure magicked the decanter over from the sideboard and poured drinks for the both of them. As Calvados and the murky figure talked in the sitting room, the Clavia moved out of the bedroom on hoof-tips. The others did not appear to see it. Invisible… Madeleine realized as another of those purple lights flickered into being over the scene. Deerish discretion was never put to so foul a use, though, as the little figure crept behind Calvados and poured a few drops from a vial into Calvados’ drink. A wave of nausea carrying the cold malevolence of that act washed over Madeleine as she looked on.

Calvados and the other figure drank, then fell to talking. But Madeleine’s cheeks flushed with blood as tempers flared again. Calvados pounded the table with his forehoof even as he seemed to sway unsteadily. The other figure produced a gun – the very image of Madeleine’s own little pistol – and fired a steady shot into Calvados’ shoulder. Calvados’ double collapsed, and Rubyk (thank Celestia!) made no effort to transmit his obvious pain to the gallery. The murky second figure galloped to the picture window and threw it open, hurling the pistol out into the dark night before it paused and slipped the sounding-gem on the mantel into the bag slung over its side. Then it flickered, winking out of their sight entirely. (Two more purple lights flashed on.)

The scrape of an ivory key in the lock of the door sounded through the room, much louder than the sound had a right to be. The deerish figure’s ears turned toward the door in alarm. It made a quick dash for the bedroom, and Pome Apple entered just as its flanks moved out of the sight-lines from the door of the suite. Pome’s double seemed to gasp and ran to Calvados’ form, shaking it at first gently, then softly as it writhed weakly on the ground. The onlookers felt the sudden tearing absence in their gut as the snowy Calvados expired before their eyes. Pome’s double bent over his uncle – his former uncle – shaking with anger and grief.

Then he reared up and drove both his forehooves into Calvados’ head in a single, savage blow. Madeleine gasped, and her breath left her as she fell back onto her haunches.

It’s not real, she thought, frantic to make her quavering legs believe it. “It’s just a reconstruction…” she whispered as Pome Apple’s double ran from the room. Then the blizzard covered over everything beneath them, and the view of the suite in the pit dissolved entirely in swirling white.

Rubyk shook his head, and the onlookers felt, rather than heard the sigh that he gave. He lowered his head, and the blizzard breached the sides of the pit.

Again the world went white.


*****


“If that is not quite the truth, I say that it is something very like it,” said Rubyk, soft and sad as a sigh. The whole vision had taken the span of a few breaths.

For a long moment, nopony at all spoke. Those in the gallery, hotel guests and townies alike, exchanged shivering glances with one another, just breathing into air-starved lungs.

Miss Largo took a sip of water to steady her shaking hooves. Then the proprietress of the Clavia Hotel cleared her throat and said in a voice that masked most, but not quite all of the quaver:

“A most fascinating theory, Aktur. You have managed to violate all laws of mirabilent consent by presenting your views so forcefully, but I can overlook that for the sake of our goal here.” But Madeleine saw that the seafoam mare did not quite meet the Trotheim noble’s unblinking stare. “Only answer me this: what were the lights that you showed to us?”

“Each represents a spell cast in the room around the time of the murder. I counted the imprints on the world that had not decayed when I investigated the crime scene.”

“Ah,” Miss Largo replied, sounding pensive. “That is, I grant, a possible version of events. How do you propose to prove it to us?”

Rubyk turned toward the witness stand. “Pome Apple, you have seen what I say did and did not happen in your suite three nights ago. Calvados Apple died of Earthsbane poisoning. You did not have Earthsbane on your person at any time, in any form, before the murder. I have done exactly as you asked and told you exactly howit was impossible for you to kill him. Now…” Rubyk stamped the ground with an hoof and snorted. “Kindly balk your mulish character and tell me what I got wrong.”

Madeleine glanced up to see that the red colour had drained out of Pome Apple’s face. The stocky unicorn sat still, looking ashen and anaemic, his eyes focused on some far-distant point.

“But I… I couldn’t have…” Pome stammered.

Rubyk challenged: “You could not have what?”

“I couldn’t… I didn’t do what you showed me doing! Sweet Celestia, y’idiot, I’m a pony, not some animal!” Pome half-shrieked, his voice breaking. His eyes darted this way and that, searching for some fixed point or life-raft to cling to in the rising tide of panic.

“What could you not have done?” Rubyk repeated, implacable.

“Look, you got flesh and blood, same as me. What y’all showed me doing at… at the end, there… when that puppet of me you thought it was all fine and swell to fling at all of us did what you made him do to Uncle Calvados… I never did that! I’ll swear by Celestia and Luna and all the stars that’s no lie!”

Rubyk crossed the gallery until he stood at eye-level with the unicorn on the witness stand. His jewel-cut eyes, unblinking and half-lidded, met the other’s, wide and staring with contracted pupils. The Aktur of Trotheim tapped at the floor in silence as the two stallions just… stared at one another. It made the hair of Madeleine’s mane prickle.

“Trotheim will accept this testimony,” Rubyk announced suddenly. Then he flashed a warm, even sympathetic smile at Pome Apple. “You make things still more difficult for me, friend Pome. I am sorry that I was forced to break you, but you brought this upon yourself.” He sighed.

“This case would have been so easy had my solution been the right one – a fit of brutal vengeance from an gelding when the object of his hate could no longer answer back nor do anything to stop him. Oh, yes: the dead make easy targets. But I see that I was in error. I need time to think, to eat, and to rest.”

Miss Largo tapped at her chin thoughtfully. “It seems that we will not soon finish this affair, Aktur Rubyk. Unfortunately, my dining room has other, quite more necessary uses than a courtroom, and my staff will require time to fit it to those ends.”

“What do you propose, madame proprietress?” Rubyk said.

“That all those in this room reconvene in the library following the lunch service – and I believe that you are scheduled for table service, Doctor Leaf,” said Miss Largo, glancing down at the little buck in the gallery, who nodded meekly. “And in the meantime I will be in my office. There is something about this whole affair that troubles me.”

The proprietress shot a glance into the gallery. It was only for a moment, and Madeleine could not tell what pony it landed upon, but that one small gesture held a world of suspicion.

Rubyk nodded. “Understood. I would rather have your aid than you for an enemy, Largo. But I will come to the bottom of this case.”

The proprietress smiled thinly. “You will, Aktur. At this rate, you surely will.”

Pome Apple just shook.


*****


Rubyk shook with rage as Pome Apple charged at him again. The shining marble of the Clavia Hotel’s frontside walk shook with the clatter of their hooves beneath them. Rubyk braced his huge, lanky frame and stamped his hoof, throwing down a patch of glassy ice in front of him. Pome lost his footing as his front hooves struck the ice, and he fell down, heavy, shoulder-first. Rubyk caught his weight and momentum on his own shoulder and, with tendons straining mightily, hurled the stocky Pome Apple into a triumphantly rearing topiary. His lips curled back into a rank snarl.

“Is this how you repay your benefactors, friend Pome Apple?” Rubyk said, twisting the words with a vicious sarcasm.

“How… dare you?” Pome spat a gob of sputum and quickly righted himself on his four legs. He pawed at the soft, grassy turf. “I don’t know what passes for kin-bonds where you come from, but there ain’t never been an Apple who’d do what you made me out t’be to one o’ his own family!”

Rubyk frowned and raised a foreleg in a defensive posture, but said nothing. A howl of animal fury and an hissing constellation of crimson sparks burst from the half-unicorn, and Pome Apple threw out the full force of his stumpy horn’s magic in a crude, serpentine trail of sparks that, fueled by rage, swelled and spiraled up, higher and higher, swarming like locusts. Rubyk’s eyes widened as Pome turned his horn down toward him, the sparking mass rushing down upon him at the command, and the proud Aktur of Trotheim galloped for the fountain with leaping strides. His horn flickered frantically, raising a wall of frosty ice out of the fountain spray.

Pome’s spell hissed and clawed and boomed dully at Rubyk’s shield like muffled thunder. But the tall unicorn’s spell was quickly outmatched, and he pulled his limbs and as much of his frame as possible behind the cover of the fountain itself with a grimace as a few sparks singed his mane and shoulder. The rest hissed and died in the waters of the fountain, throwing up a cloud of foul-smelling steam into the torpid tropical air that hid the two unicorns each from the view of the other. The steam condensed and mixed with the remaining spray of ice, forming a mist over the pavement that threw the light of the sun and made it impossible to see farther than a squinting-distance away.

Rubyk stood, ears swiveling all around for any hint of an hoof on marble. The Trotheim unicorn’s tail lashed the air as he bent his forward body in a runner’s crouch, flanks and haunches ready to shoot him forward on an hair-trigger.

For a long moment, nothing at all seemed to happen. The sun kept to its appointed course in shining, the fountain continued to burble pleasantly – and though there seemed to be equine voices of some kind nearby, those were for Rubyk a distant concern.

Clop.

Rubyk whirled around, horn ablaze with hoary fire. A blade of dread-cold magic clave the air before him, cracking the marble and blacking the grass where it struck the earth.

Pome was not behind him. Confused, Rubyk squinted through the curling mist that was just beginning to thin out, looking for the movement of a red coat that should have been there. He toppled and fell, hard, as the owner of that coat rammed into him on his unguarded left side, horn and hooves lit with the violent light of battle-rage seeping out bodily as raw, untrammeled magic. Rubyk’s right side struck the marble pavement.

There was sickening crunch of a rib that Rubyk heard loud in his ears. He howled in pain, a sound no equine, nor deer, nor any civilized creature in all of wide Equestria ever made tearing from his throat.

It was the warning to all prey – the hunt was on.

For just a moment, Pome Apple froze at the chilling scream. It was a moment too long. Rubyk’s long hind-leg lashed out and swept the half-unicorn’s fetlocks, knocking him off balance and throwing his rump to the ground. Pome swore and in a few seconds righted himself, but it was long enough for Rubyk to roll himself to a sitting position on his haunches. Before the half-unicorn could mount another charge, Rubyk had enveloped the entire fountain in a gleam that seemed to draw all other heat and light around the fountain in on itself. The brilliant marble darkened to a stormy grey. As Pome tensed his muscles to spring, a spear of jagged ice lanced out of the fountain and struck the ground in front of him, skittering on the marble pavement like glass shards.

Another spear of ice, then three, then a hail of frozen arrows rose from the fountain, each marking its prey. But Pome was ready for this and leapt sideways from the pavement and into the grass, rolling as he struck the soft earth.

“Haaagh!” The half-unicorn cried from his belly as he stuck the landing onto his four hooves, planting them deeply in the soil beneath the plush grass. A red glow that flickered like fire was kindled around his hooves and grew brighter as he took strength from the earth, until his body and hooves blazed like an oven. Rubyk growled and again held up a foreleg defensively, the spark of a spell screaming for release straining at his horn-tip.

With a snarl that showed every stained tooth in his mouth, Pome lowered his horn slowly to the earth, the veins and tendons of his neck bulging as if under the strain of an iron yoke. A single spark, clear and cherry-red, leapt from Pome’s horn and was sucked up into the greedy earth with a whip-crack and a whiff of ozone.

For a dreadful moment, nothing happened. Then the seagulls, for whom not even the threat of a magic duel could keep from their scavenging, turned away from the island and out to sea, raising an alarm to anypony and anything that would listen.

Rubyk felt the pulse beneath him before there was any quiver of a twitch in the ground, but he threw his forelegs over his head not a moment too soon. A limb of earth, grass, and blue-streaked marble stone shaped like a massive foreleg of an unseen and monstrous golem tore itself from the ground and stamped at the spot where Rubyk had stood but a moment before. The Aktur of Trotheim threw himself by his gangling hind legs onto the same patch of grass where Pome stooped to wield his spelled weapon, while the massive earthen foreleg continued its stamping search for his blood.

Pome’s grip on his spell was broken as Rubyk contorted himself and kicked hard at the half-unicorn’s shoulder where it joined his neck. Pome screamed as his strained muscles tore, and his earthen weapon crumbled and fell to the ground, as if the pony to whom that monstrous limb belonged were struck by that same blow. He spat, raising himself up to charge again, but he yelled in pain and collapsed to the earth, debris and clods of earth still raining down around their ears.

Rubyk laid an hoof on Pome’s injured side, pressing down until the prone stallion yelped a cry that had none of the heat of anger. The two bared their teeth at one other.

“I expect atonement from you, Pome Apple. You will answer my questions now.” Rubyk growled and placed his horn within a breath of the other’s stumpy own, his eyes ablaze with a fury scarcely contained.

“Fall into Tartarus, for all I care!” Pome spat in Rubyk’s face. The proud Aktur of Trotheim’s eyes became slits of anger, and with a snarl he drove his horn down upon Pome’s.

In the span of moments, Pome Apple went from violent, wailing screams, to sobs, to weak and pleading whimpers. Frost formed from the tip of his horn; the half-unicorn could feel the terrible cold biting at the corners of his eyes.

“Do you yield to me, Pome Apple?” Rubyk demanded.

“I… don’t… for all I care, you can…” Pome wheezed. It was the wrong answer. Rubyk increased both the pressure on the half-unicorn’s shoulder and on the magic that flowed through their ice-locked horns. Pome’s hooves, blazing with power only a minute earlier, scaled over in fragile plates of fine ice. He wailed weakly as cold bit at him from the inside-out like a merciless winter’s gale, running from his horn down his spine, and from there into each of his bones.

“Do you yield?” Rubyk insisted. There is a note of pleading in his voice.

“I… y-you…” Pome stammered, lips numbed too far to speak clearly. “Y-yeeesss…” In that very instant, Rubyk jerked his head up and pulled his magic back into himself. Pome fell down weakly upon the ground as a pony exhausted, curling upon himself for warmth. Rubyk threw himself down by Pome Apple’s chilled frame, pressing himself close to force as much heat as possible into the other stallion’s body.

“You will require healing and brandy soon. But first, you will tell me what I want to know, Pome Apple. Then, and only then, I will see that you receive all care and a place to do your quiet grieving,” said Rubyk, whisper-soft and as gentle and genteel as ever his manner was.

“F-f-fine…” Pome sputtered, but he did not push the other pony off. “W-what d’you want to know? N-not like I got… any choice now, is it?”

“No,” Rubyk agreed. “You do not.” The Aktur of Trotheim tapped his hoof on the ground without any apparent concern, or even recollection of the combat only just moments passed.

“You will tell me the spell that you cast in your rooms when you returned and found Calvados upon the floor.” Rubyk showed his teeth, but not in malice – it was a warm smile that he showed to his downed opponent. “You are, by the way, a most impressive magician. Bear it in mind if your uncle’s line should come to be a stench in your nostrils.”

Pome’s body shook, but not from cold. “D-didn’t I already say?”

“You told me that you cast a spell upon your uncle, which I could have told you from my own eyes,” Rubyk said. “But I have seen the cut of your magic now – first-hoof, one might say. You are not a subtle pony. Your spells are not subtle spells. Just what were you trying to accomplish?”

“He… my uncle wasn’t dead when I returned… back to our rooms. I… I weren’t sure if there was time to do anything, seein’ as I knew Earthsbane when I saw it. Sweet Luna, though – I had to try to do somethin’. So I tried to… push all of the poison out of him.” Pome hung his head. “It was all I could think of to do.”

Rubyk looked down sadly and put his foreleg across Pome’s shoulders. “We have little time until the proprietress comes to take us away once again, but I should be glad to lend you an ear if you need it.”

“I ain’t that soft,” Pome snapped, sniffling. “But thanks all the same. He… moaned when I did it to him. It was the sound a pony makes when the entire world is pain and the world just gets a little smaller. The pain doesn’t get any worse, but you can feel it sharper.”

“I know it,” Rubyk said in a voice quiet and full of regret. The two stallions sat in silence for nearly a minute. The sheepish voices of deer nerving themselves to confront and restrain the two of them, criminally dangerous magic-users both, struck their ears with a quiet urgency.

“One more question,” Rubyk said, speaking quick and low. “What was the nature of the title deed Calvados brought with him?”

“I wondered when you would get around to that. Figured you’d have the whole thing pegged as tiff over the will by now.”

“It was not?” Rubyk queried.

“No.”

“What, then? What was it about?”

“Wrong question, Mister Actor.”

“Come again?”

“Uncle Calvados didn’t bring the title deed with him. He didn’t have any reason to.”

“Then…” Rubyk blinked. “You? You brought the deed?” The unspoken why hung in the air like a dust-mote.

“I wanted to confront Uncle Calvados with it. It was one of the things that the notes talked about, and when I went digging through the moldy old papers in uncle’s office, the truth ended up being worse than even what the notes would have me believe. Uncle Calvados never owned a board or a square hoof-span of our plantation after old Poire Apple passed on; he just buffed and bullied his way into making everypony think that he did. Trouble was, he found where I stuffed the deed into my suitcase. I never got the chance to confront him: hecame after me.”

The scowl that formed on Rubyk’s face seemed to well up from a deep wellspring of disgust for injustice and false dealings. “Who owned your uncle’s plantation, Pome Apple?”

“My mother.” The half-unicorn said it with a numb anger that made Rubyk glance at him, disgust turning to surprise.

“…I see why you hated him.” Rubyk rose to his hooves. “Can you stand?” Pome tested his wobbling knees and nodded. Leaning on the taller unicorn, Pome rose also, and the two together turned to meet the group of dark-clad Clavia approaching them from the great front doors of the hotel. Pome bent his neck as if to accept the noose, while Rubyk turned his eyes up to the skies, proud righteousness holding him erect.

“Mister Rubyk!” The pony at the head of the pack of Clavia was not the hotel’s cool proprietress bringing a rebuke for the ill-use of her property. Instead, it was Madeleine Crumpet. She was followed closely by an ashen-faced Mangosteen, a sick-looking Frond, and a group of five other deer moving shoulder-to-shoulder, trembling, as if afraid to break physical contact for even a moment.

“Friend Madeleine?” Rubyk peered at the mare and frowned, taking in the sight before him. “I fear you bring the worst kind of news. Where did it happen?”

“Largo’s office. Please… I think you need to see this for yourself.”

 
> Part the Last - Curtain
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


*********************************************



Chapter One



Nemesis



*********************************************




Rubyk’s slender frame cut through the crowd of gawping deer like a cool knife. His eyes moved slowly over the scene, but Madeleine could almost hear the quickening thoughts, possibilities half-conceived, and theories upended all jockeying for position in his head. It was all that she could do to focus on him. The alternative was to think about what was sitting right in front of them all – and she wasn’t ready to see that yet.

Despite the uneasy light that filled up even the farthest corners of the room, a shadow seemed to lay upon the office of the Hotel Clavia’s proprietress. The neat shelves of blown-glass ornaments from the old deerish world had been thrown to the floor and lay in jagged shards underhoof, delicate spindles trampled to bright dust. The chairs had been bucked, and gouged, and been violently overthrown.

So, too, had Miss Largo. The seafoam mare was curled in on herself under a cloak of translucent stars, staring up at the world through wide, frightened eyes, breathing impossibly slow breaths. The faces of Dr. Leaf and the other half-dozen and two Clavia bucks and does in cummerbunds, kitchen whites, and scullery-bonnets glistened with sweat beading on their fine whiskers. Their antlers blazed like torches.

The proprietress’ eye seemed to follow Rubyk as he made his careful, high-stepping way over the shattered glass – and into another crime scene. Doctor Leaf’s head rose at the sight of the Aktur of Trotheim, and the physician made a frantic gesture with his hooves at Frond and Mangosteen peering in from between the giant’s spindly legs. The twins gave frantic nods and pushed their way past Rubyk, each touching their antlers to Doctor Leaf. The little twins staggered at the weight of an enormous magical burden was moved onto their shoulders. Their faces quickly settled into the same grim lines of concentration as they struggled at the one thing that mattered just at the moment –

…saving the life of their mistress.

“Earthsbane!” snarled Dr. Leaf at Rubyk’s impassive frame, the Aktur’s jewel-cut eyes glinting with steely-bright anger as they darted over the ruined office. “Earthsbane again, under my own roof! Aktur Rubyk, if you have any answers, if you have any love of justice in you, I beg you – find the pony that had the gall to use poison twice under my roof, and… and… wreck them in the ocean!”

Rubyk’s hard eyes met the doctor’s bloodshot own. “When?” he rumbled. “How?” he added a moment after, in tones less like a thundersnow.

“I don’t know!” Dr. Leaf cried, the buck grinding his forehoof on the ground in frustration. “All I can tell you is that a few minutes ago, Miss Crumpet screamed and came running out of this room for somedeer, anydeer to come quickly – that something terrible had just happened. Java was working on the floor and came first. She put out the call for more Clavia, and I came as soon as I heard what she –” and here the physician pointed his accusing hoof right at the staring eye under the thick cloak of magic – “decided to do to herself! It… it…” Dr. Leaf spat on the ground. “It” was too much a mangle of anger and disgust for the buck to put into words.

Rubyk narrowed his eyes, turning his bulk about to face Madeleine. She shivered and stood, very alone, just beyond the doorway. “Friend Doctor,” said the Aktur of Trotheim without turning about, “how long does your patient have until the poison takes her?”

“One-hundred heartbeats,” answered Dr. Leaf without a moment’s hesitation.

“You have an antidote?”

“Yes, but it will take time and deer-power to prepare. We don’t have much of either.”

“What you do then, do quickly. Call all the staff in this hotel into this room to maintain this spell if you have to, but you will not let this pony die before I have examined her on the stand.” Rubyk’s gaze fixed Madeleine, and one again she felt the pricks of icicles being thrust through her coat. If only there was some way to tell what was going on behind the mask, said the little pony in Madeleine’s brain, while the rest of her gulped audibly.

And then the unthinkable happened.

“One amendment, Aktur,” purred the baritone voice of Jett Black from just beyond the doorway. Madeleine jumped, the hairs of her mane standing on end. It was only then that she realized that Rubyk’s sight-line wasawfully high to be looking at her. “By all means, let the good doctor go, and quickly. But I will be the one examining Proprietress Largo when she awakens from her poor choices.”

A wisp of white curled out of Rubyk’s nostrils. The Aktur of Trotheim visibly fought to control his rising temper. “Jett Black. You will explain yourself. Now.”

The black pegasus nodded his head curtly and lifted one wing. There was an object beneath held close to his body that Madeleine’s eye seized on instantly. A flash of pewter in the shape of a silver crescent surrounded by the duller glint of thirteen delicate stars of black onyx stone gleamed in the unnatural, blazing light of that strange scene. A badge, she realized. Suddenly, the shards and fragments of the pegasus’ strange words and stranger conduct seemed to fit together with a chilling logic.

“I am Corporal Jett Black of Her Majesty Princess Luna’s Shade Corps. I speak in persona regina, as it were. And by the authority vested in me, Canterlot shall now take this investigation under her wing.”

Jett Black smiled thinly. His eyes were mirthless coal. “However, I judge that there is very little need to drag this matter out further.”

Rubyk pressed forward and breathed his frozen breath into the pegasus’ face. “And why is that?”

Jett Black gave a vague shrug. “Is it not obvious, Aktur Rubyk?”

“Humour a poor foal who never drank the mead of wisdom. What is so very obvious to you?” The Aktur of Trotheim’s voice was not a whisper. It was the hiss of a knife being slid from its sheath.

If Jett Black was in the least intimidated by the giant, he made no show of it. “If you prefer to be obtuse, be happy in your own mind. But if you do not find that mare’s actions, even toward you, in the least bit suspicious, there is a different word for that, Rubyk of Trotheim.”

Rubyk of Trotheim tossed his mane, highborn contempt in every inch of his features. “And I will not be goaded by you. Am I such a fool as you think? Do you really believe what you are thinking had not appeared before me, plain as a vision of the wandering drifts? I knew from the first that Largo was likely to have been behind the death of Calvados Apple. It is the privilege of the Pride of Trotheim to have the Sight for such unrighteousness.”

Jett Black cocked his head. The corners of his thin smile twisted upward, just slightly. “And you really think that there is any further need to investigate? I would say that the suicide of the mare lying there is more than proof enough of guilt.”

Before Rubyk could reply, there broke in the thin sound of a tiny hoof grinding on glass. “I remind the most honoured representatives of Trotheim and her Highness the Princess of the Night that this was a near suicide, and that there is a patient of mine in dire need, and I request with all meekness that both will kindly move out of my way or make themselves useful,” said Doctor Leaf, a restrained tightness of deep anger edging his voice. The little buck stepped carefully forward, pushed past Rubyk, and thrust a bag of golden bits into Jett Black’s smirking muzzle.

“Corporal, you have wings. Kindly take these to the mainland and procure for me every drop of tincture of stardew that this will buy. If there is more to buy, pay for it yourself. But get it. Quickly!” Doctor Leaf shoved at Jett Black’s broad chest with his forehoof. It was like shoving a stone mountain for all that the huge pegasus actually moved. Even so, perhaps not quite knowing why he followed the order, Jett Black nodded numbly. The agent of Princess Luna turned and left the rest of them alone in the uncanny blaze.

After he left, Madeleine sucked in a breath. They seemed to come more easily without the pegasus looming in the hallway. Doctor Leaf looked at Rubyk and Madeleine both with an unfathomable expression.

“…I don’t trust him, Aktur,” announced the physician suddenly. He shook his head. “For what it is worth. But there is no time for that now.”

Rubyk made no reply. The Aktur of Trotheim turned back to the office, squinting into the blaze of light, stepping again carefully over the broken shards upon the floor.

“Doctor,” said Madeleine, “what can we do?”

“Let him go on looking,” Doctor Leaf said sharply. “If the Aktur can find some little clue in there to whatever pony is lying behind all this, let him go on. Miss Crumpet, you gather up the staff, every last one that you can find, and meet me in the apothecary. Have Limon bring the pegasus down to us the instant he returns.”

“And then?” said Madeleine. She felt Largo’s imploring eyes directly on her own. Right now, she couldn’t move away from the spot if the whole hotel were burning down around their ears.

“And then we seek the grace of the Ancestors.” Dr. Leaf stepped heavily from the office, leaving Madeleine with Rubyk, the deer, and the dead.

No! she screamed into herself. Not yet! There was still hope. There had to be.

Rubyk peered at the fixtures in the room that had survived where they had been thrown onto the floor. Rubyk stepped behind the desk and began pulling open its drawers, one by one. He blinked his jewel-cut eyes and frowned at the contents of the third. His horn flashed bright even though the white blaze, and he magicked out a large blue gem with large, dull faces. He tapped it with an hoof-tip.

“It’s mage-crystal,” Madeleine said, the words coming out automatically. Rubyk blinked again and looked up at her. She blushed.

“It is not a gem?” he asked.

“No… a gem makes a harder clatter when you strike it. This was done up in an alchemist’s lab somewhere. If you add certain minerals and dyes to molten glass, you can get a kind of ultrastructured glass like this that can act like a poor mule’s version of a gem. It depends on what you need it to do.” Madeleine crossed over to the desk to peer at the crystal.

Might as well make the most of the situation. Madeleine took the crystal up using her horn and held it up to the light cast by nearly an hundred antler-tips, putting her eye to the flat top-face. Her lips moved as she silently counted the internal reflections, noting the way the light curved and warped around a deep-blue something in the middle. Whatever was in there felt substantial to that ineffable intuition unicorns shared. It wasn’t much, but this crystal definitely had a use – probably to store something, some spell or other. And had been used.

“And recently,” Madeleine explained to Rubyk, who said nothing, but nodded his assent to facts. The Aktur of Trotheim turned his attention to the wall behind the desk. He squinted.

“Come here, friend Madeleine,” he said. “Do you see that the panel here has been closed with too much force?”

Madeleine blinked. “What panel?”

In answer, the cube depending from Rubyk’s neck glinted snowy white. Rubyk breathed out a stream of bitterly cold air that sent a frisson up Madeleine’s neck. In a few moments, the bare pine panel on the wall showed a distinct hairline fissure outlined in the white of a quick-melting frost.

But now that she knew what to look for, the splintering where it had been closed at the corner, hard, was plain as tourmaline.

“It looks as if somepony bucked it closed.”

“Precisely,” said Rubyk with a deepening frown. “The proprietress opened the panel by running her hoof along the groove of some mechanism in the wall near the side where you are standing. Friend Madeleine, I fear that my hooves are too coarse and my eyes too weak for this. Would you please?”

“I can… certainly try,” she said. And she did. She ran her hoof along every knobby, rough, piney inch of the wall. Unfortunately, there was no telltale click or other sign that her ministrations had any effect. Rubyk sighed.

“That is a pity,” he said. “What I am about to do is beneath the dignity of ponies, let alone Trotheim. Please stand back, friend Madeleine.” Her eyes widening (and hers were not the only ones doing so), the cube around Rubyk’s neck began to shed its puffy flecks of snow in earnest. A constant stream of the same cold air now flowed from the giant’s mouth, penetrating the hairline cracks and forming thin, drooping icicles around the sides.

“Ah… Mister Rubyk?” said Mangosteen in a strained voice. “That… that belongs to Miss Largo. What are you…?” The little doe did not have a chance to get any more out. In the next moment, quick as a thought, Rubyk stamped his hoof, flared a violent cyan from his horn, and made a sound like distant avalanche from his throat.

The wall exploded. Madeleine and the Clavia threw themselves to the ground, and she felt the shards pass overhead, throwing the office into an even more chaotic disarray. Thank Celestia, the stunt didn’t seem to have affected the Clavia’s focus on their dying mistress! Frond raised his head angrily and even though the strain demanded: “By the fathers, why in Equestria did you do that? That was where Miss Largo kept her private…!”

“I know.” The avalanche had not completely gone from Rubyk’s voice, and the Clavia again shrunk back. Miss Largo’s staring eye seemed to regard him with reproach, and the proud Aktur of Trotheim hung his head slightly. “Forgive the bluntness of my method. Whatever Trotheim has taken, she will recompense, four times over. But for the sake of the truth, I must know.”

Madeleine rose up again, a slight trembling in her knees. “Know what, Mister Rubyk?”

Rubyk turned to the bare nook in the wall where the pinewood panel had been. The wall safe with the combination lock stood ajar. He pried it open.

It was empty.

Rubyk let out a long, long sigh. “I thought so. I had hoped for it not to be the case, but the circumstantial evidence is too damning.” He fell into silence. The Aktur of Trotheim lowered his eyes to the floor and raised his forehoof, holding it close to his chest.

“You still have no right to just rifle through somepony else’s private things!” Frond exclaimed. The buck pointed an accusing hoof at the pensive Rubyk. “And… y-you don’t have jurisdiction here anymore! The… the pegasus does!”

Rubyk turned to the buck in surprise, as if seeing him for the first time. “Oh, of course,” he said, distantly. “When Canterlot speaks, Trotheim must decrease. That has been the arrangement since the world waxed young and the Tribes drank of the same spirit of unity. True, I am Trotheim…” He nodded, almost glibly. “But now I act for the sake of my own conscience. I plan to see my duty through to the end.”

Rubyk stamped his hoof to the ground with a sudden, sharp crack. His whole frame straightened, and his presence seemed to fill the room. “The bitter end. Do you understand me, Largo? You gave me three days to put all to rights. I shall yet succeed, in spite of all your efforts.”

Miss Largo made no answer.

“Friend Madeleine,” Rubyk went on, “you should proceed according to the good Doctor’s instructions. I have but two more inquiries to make before nightfall. Come what may, this farce ends before your Princess raises the sun again.”

Madeleine was troubled at these words. “Where are you going, Mister Rubyk?” she said to Rubyk’s retreating back as he, too, moved to leave the ruined office.

“To see two friends,” he replied. Rubyk stopped and added in a whispery undertone, “and you would do well to keep that… er... crystal close by you, friend Madeleine. Find it an home among your other gems. Give it many friends and lessons in harmony!”

Rubyk left, laughing a forced, insane laugh. It could not hide the fearful creases around his eyes.




*********************************************



Chapter Two



The Thief



*********************************************




The Clavia at the hotel had not taken the news well. Most were still standing glass-eyed and numb where Madeleine had first given them the news. But those of hardier constitutions, once they had overcome their first shock, dutifully went ahead of her to the apothecary. And after sending an half-dozen deer to relieve those keeping their mistress from her hundredth heartbeat and bring her dying body down to the apothecary, now a makeshift hospital, they were ready to begin. Largo lay still as death under the gauzy cloak of starlight that was the only covering between her and the old grey mare with her scythe. Madeleine was never a pony given to idle superstitions, but even she could see the flicking of a shadowy cloak out of the corner of her eye and hear the hiss of a whetstone when her thoughts wandered too far into black worry.

No. Not today. Don’t you dare die on me, Largo.

Dr. Leaf’s face and those of the nearly two-dozen hardy bucks and does in every imaginable state of dress were keen as knives as Jett Black entered, a canvas sack in his mouth and the hint of a sneer on his muzzle.

“Do you have it?” said Dr. Leaf, along with the forty eyes fixed on the black pegasus. Jett Black set the canvas sack in their midst.

“Yes. Every last drop of tincture of stardew from every chemist and druggist and back-alley drubber in this town. All bought dearly with Canterlot’s gold. The Princess shall be sending you her invoice once I submit my report.”

“You are certainly a well-informed pony, Corporal,” observed Dr. Leaf blandly as he wasted not a moment in extracting the bottles of sparkling red, pouring them into every available bottle, vial, and bowl. He glared at the pegasus. “I don’t intend to receive such a bill from your Sovereign. That privilege belongs solely to my patient.”

“I trust that you know your own work, Doctor,” Jett Black said, shrugging and turning to go. “You should trust that I know mine. And in my line, a pony does not go far unless he is willing to muck his hooves in the dregs. I’ve done as you needed. Now, I have a report to complete. And if you are able to save that mare on the table there, I will need to have the proper papers to bring her with me to face judgment in Princess Luna’s own court. You will kindly excuse me.”

The snort that came from Dr. Leaf was anything but kindly.

“Quickly!” he urged the Clavia huddled together in the room. The tension and the body heat were stifling. “We need to get this all concentrated down to a gel as soon as possible. Move the liquid out – you’ll make a mangle out of it if you just manage to magick up some heat! Once you get the alcohol out, the stardew will collapse on itself, so don’t stop until then! And be careful. The mistress needs every last drop we don’t scorch or spill. So don’t you dare screw up.”

None of the other Clavia dared say a word. Madeleine accepted a shallow stone mortar from Doctor Leaf, understanding the unspoken command. She bit her lip, nodded, and got to the tricky spell-work.

It was easier for the Clavia. It had to be easier for them. They had more horn-tips to seize on the intangible, slippery stardew, which threatened to slide out from under Madeleine’s magical grip and out onto the floor – which was not going to happen. Not with Largo an hundred heartbeats from…!

Madeleine took a deep breath and focused every gram-weight of her attention on the red liquid in front of her that shimmered and writhed like a snake trapped underhoof. Driving the liquid from the tincture seemed to take tedious ages. The stardew resisted her magic at every turn, either threatening to skitter like a mercury bead from her horn’s grip, or suddenly and with a mind all its own to flare up in protest with a violent heat at the foreign magic urged upon it. It was slow going, and more than once Madeleine nearly dropped the makeshift vessel when the snake seemed bound and determined to bite. But, being a jewel-wright did come with certain benefits – one of those being a bone-headed patience at tedious tasks with precious materials. That, and the urgency of the task at hand, soon reduced the stardew to a few grains of impossibly red, glossy wax once it had finally given up the fight.

Doctor Leaf glanced in her direction, checking the progress of the work of the Clavia gathered in the room. The apothecary was occasionally peppered by an horrified gasp and groan as the deer fought the stubborn stardew and it broke out from under their glittering magic, striking the wall or floor or sending a spurt of burning red into their faces. Madeleine couldn’t stop the prideful flash of a smile from playing across her muzzle as the physician’s eyes rested on her.

Doctor Leaf took the mortar away from Madeleine without a word.

There’s gratitude for you, she thought in an huff. Then she seemed to feel Largo’s staring eye upon her temples. Her cheeks flushed with a sudden burst of shame at her own naval-gazing. Sorry, Largo.

The rest of the process did not take long. Even with spills (and one poor doe who needed her eyes flushed immediately when her tumbler of stardew erupted violently without warning), Doctor Leaf raised an authoritative hoof.

“That’s enough!” barked the physician. “Save your magic if you’ve bungled it. We need all we can get for this next part.” Working quickly, the buck’s magic took down bottles of white powder, syringes, gauzy bandages, a long glass tube, and so many other things that Madeleine was dizzied as he held them in a whirling cloud of stars above their heads.

“You!” Doctor Leaf barked, pointing at a buck in kitchen whites. “We need these ground to a paste. Now! The rest of you, we won’t have much time once the stasis is lifted. The mistress only has eighty heartbeats left, so this has to be done right the first time. We need to get as much stardew into the mistress as possible – by everymeans possible. If there is anydeer squeamish here, leave. Now. We don’t need you here.”

Doctor Leaf looked into Madeleine’s eyes with the intensity of a jeweler’s drill. She blanched and got the message.

“I’ll be back, Largo…” she whispered, turning her back on the Clavia, some of whom were shifting their hooves uneasily. “You’ll be back too, right?”

Largo’s staring eye blinked at her, just once. Then the Clavia moved into a circle, cutting the sick mare off from Madeleine. She turned, numb, her body putting one hoof in front of another.

That one eyeblink was the only thing in the world. Madeleine watched it once, twice, an hundred times – one for each heartbeat. They seemed to pass by with each clip of her hooves on the cobbles underneath where her hooves had carried her. Counting down.

Blink.

Clip.

Blink.

Clop.

Blink.

Clip-clip-clop.

Madeleine blinked. That was too many hoof-beats.

“Miss Crumpet?” said the voice of Mangosteen, small and timid, breaking into Madeleine’s world like the peal of the town bell tower. Madeleine blinked again.

Where there was one, the other would not be far.

“Are you alright?” queried Frond, close by his sister. The young buck’s voice held a note that showed he did not expect the answer to be a good one. Facing the twins on the outdoor patio by the gardens (how had she gotten there?), Madeleine forced herself to smile.

“Not in the least. But thank you two for coming, anyway.”

“I know,” said Mangosteen, hanging her pretty head. “I can’t believe that somepony could… could do that to Miss Largo. It’s just not right.”

Madeleine regarded the doe with a long, lingering look. “But she did it to herself. There was nopony else who could have forced Largo to take poison. I just wish I understood why.”

Frond shook his head emphatically. “No. Miss Crumpet, that’s just not possible. I know it’s not possible.”

Madeleine looked from brother to sister again, studying their faces with a close intensity. There was something shared between their faces, sparkling just below the surface like the promise of an uncut diamond, that seized her attention and refused to let her look away.

“How?” said Madeleine.

“We did what you asked us to do, Miss Crumpet,” Mangosteen replied, not quite meeting Madeleine’s eyes. “Right from the start.”

“I don’t like the pegasus,” Frond continued, shifting his forehooves. “He’s not like Mister Rubyk. He’s… cold, Miss Crumpet.”

Madeleine shuddered. “I know exactly what you mean,” she mumbled, half to herself. “But what does this have to do with… with L–” Madeleine choked, the words catching in her throat. Mangosteen rested her head on Madeleine’s shoulder.

“We kept our ears open, just like you asked. I didn’t think this was important until now, and it’s just a hunch…” Mangosteen trailed off. Her brother provided the resolution to the thought:

“We saw Papaya on… on that night, Miss Crumpet. She was in an awful state. She was walking around her berth in the staff area just a tail-shake from glass-eyed, like she wasn’t even in her own body. We… we all know what she gets up to, and why, so all of us keep an eye on her when we’re bedding down. But she just wasn’t herself.”

Madeleine chewed the inside of her cheek. She tasted blood. “Papaya not herself? When was this?”

“About two-thirty to four in the morning, she kept pacing up and down the rows of berths, not saying a word to anydeer. She looked… well, she looked like she’d been in one of the old wars. It was only after Rock Skipper came back in from quelling that bad squall that came up of a sudden that she finally gave out pacing and pulled the curtains on her berth. Whether or not she went to sleep I couldn’t say.” Frond said, his muzzle creased into a grave frown.

Somewhere, deep inside her mind, a dim understanding, dark and uneasy, was beginning to well up. She looked again from one twin to the other. “Where is Papaya now?” she asked, realizing that the Clavia doe had not been among those mustered to Doctor Leaf’s side for their grim task. Nor had she been present at the morning’s “trial”, for lack of a better word.

“The mistress has her on a night schedule right now. She usually wakes up around the lunch hour. She’s probably in her berth now,” said Frond.

“…I need to talk to her. Right now.”

The twins cocked their heads. “To Papaya, Miss Crumpet? How come?” queried Mangosteen.

Because I need to get Largo out of my mind, or I’m going to go crazy, Madeleine thought. “Because I think this might be important to what happened on the night of the murder,” she said. “Frond, can you go find Mister Rubyk and tell him exactly what you told me just now? And Mangosteen… could you come with me to the staff area?”

“Yes, Miss Crumpet!” said both twins. “But why?” added Mangosteen.

Rubyk’s nervous laugh and warning echoed in her ears. “I’d just like some assurance, that’s all.”

Frond made for the front gardens, where he said that the Aktur of Trotheim had last been seen by one of the staff. Madeleine meanwhile followed Mangosteen down the many turnings that seemed to be at just-odd angles, past the corners that seemed to shy away if she looked at them too closely, and on past the bead curtain into the silence of the staff berths.

“Which one belongs to Papaya?” she said in an instinctive whisper. Mangosteen pointed it out – the peach-coloured curtains were tight-drawn.

“Thanks,” said Madeleine, trotting over to it. Mangosteen followed, confusion on her muzzle.

“Where is everydeer?” the doe murmured. “There’s always more of the staff in here than this.”

“They all must be with Dr. Leaf. Word must have trickled down even here.” Madeleine’s mane itched in the eerie silence. So why are the curtains of only this berth drawn?

She took a deep breath and drew back the curtains. A pair of staring eyes, wide and bloodshot, set above a snuffling muzzle in a frightened face, peered back at her. Madeleine smiled.

“Hello, Papaya,” she said.

“Hello, Miss Crumpet…” the little doe choked. The hibiscus blossom behind her ear was a tattered wreck. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.

“Do you know why I came here?” Madeleine said gently, trying to step as carefully as possible. Whatever happened to this poor thing, she’s a wreck. No sense in making things worse.

“Yeah,” sniffed Papaya. But the doe didn’t move. Instead, Papaya stared down at her own hooves, not meeting Madeleine’s eyes.

Madeleine just waited. There was no sense in rushing when rushing might crush her only chance of confirming her suspicions.

“I didn’t mean to do what I did,” Papaya said suddenly. The doe was half-sobbing. “I really didn’t mean for any of it… any of this. I knew what everydeer thought of me before… I suppose I deserved it then. Miss Crumpet, what will they think of me now?”

Madeleine laid a comforting hoof on Papaya’s tear-streaked cheek. She lifted the doe’s chin, gently. “I can’t say for sure. But I know somepony who I know will make sure that you’re treated right if you tell the truth about whatever it was that you did.”

“I don’t know if I can, Miss Crumpet…” Papaya whispered. “I’m afraid that I might be the one who… who killed Miss Largo!”

Madeleine felt her heart starting to force its way out of her chest and up her throat. Willing her hooves and voice not to tremble, she swallowed it down again. “I know that’s not the case. I know that you couldn’t have done that.”

“But I know that I did!” Papaya wailed, and buried her tearing face in the crook of her forelegs. “I just dread… I know that I made the mistress do what she did to herself. I don’t think it, Miss Crumpet… I just know it. And… and when the others find out…”

The rest of her words were choked off by eerily silent sobs that wracked the little doe’s body. Madeleine reached toward her to comfort her by… well, she didn’t quite know what she planned to do. Her own mind was still reeling from Papaya’s words.

Her hoof was stayed by Mangosteen, who took the other doe up in a grip of starlight that burned bright and prickly enough to hurt. Papaya let out a yelp of surprise.

“When the others find out what?” Mangosteen said, a growl edging her voice.

“M-Mango?” stammered Papaya. Her self-pitying sorrow was gone in an instant. She struggled in the other doe’s grip. “Put me down!”

“Not until you tell Miss Crumpet what you meant by that!” Mangosteen shot back, eyes ablaze with the deep-glinting fires of a garnet. Papaya’s muzzle curled into a snarl.

“I was talking to her, browntail, until you stuck your nose in!” Papaya said, buckshot sparks of pale orange ripping from her stumpy antlers. Mangosteen yelped in pain as one of them seared her shoulder and dropped the other doe roughly on the ground. Papaya stumbled onto her four hooves and the two Clavia faced each other, shoulders low, nostrils flaring, pawing at the ground.

This was getting out of control. And fast. Come on girl – do something!

But what could she do? Madeleine wasn’t about to throw herself into the fray of thrashing forelegs and the jagged, unguided lights of Clavia magic whose only intent was to cut, and maim, and hurt. Papaya struck at the side of Mangosteen’s muzzle with the edge of a tiny hoof wrapped in something like old-fashioned hoplite greaves cut from the night sky. Mangosteen yelped in pain and leapt at the other doe, taking her by surprise and knocking her off balance for a moment. That one moment was enough. Mangosteen’s small, sharp antlers glittered like spears and showered her foe with a spray of starry sparks that made Papaya hiss. Papaya shifted her weight and shoved Mangosteen away with her shoulder. The two does glared at each other, ignoring Madeleine and everything else but for the other Clavia in the room. The two does resumed their low crouches and began to paw at the ground again: a prelude to another round.

No – Largo wouldn’t have it, and neither will I. Madeleine searched frantically through her saddlebags. She threw aside pens and pencils, organizers, brooches and bangles, pearls and peridot and bags of golden bits, looking for the one thing on her that might be able to bring this to a quick end without anydeer – or anypony! – getting hurt. Come on! Where are you, you cheeky little…

Meanwhile, Papaya and Mangosteen had gone at each other again. Instead of the mad rush of their first exchange, the Clavia circled each other warily, looking for an opening to vent their pent-up emotions on the other. Their horn-tips sparkled like the edge of a well-whet knife.

Mangosteen moved first. She charged forward suddenly, pushing a curved, glinting shield of a thousand points of light before her. But this time, Papaya was ready and met the blow with a grip that took hold of the other doe’s magic and hurled her little, unresisting body into another berth with the momentum of her charge. Mangosteen yelped at the impact and did not immediately right herself. Papaya conjured her own shield of orange and advanced toward the fallen Clavia, step by inching step. Once she was about two deer-lengths away, Mangosteen suddenly scrambled to her hooves and threw out her curved shield to meet Papaya’s advance. The two combatants braced their legs against the earth, neither giving an inch, their shields and horns giving off stray flecks of crackling starlight. The room was filled with the deep thrum of too much magic in too little space.

There! Madeleine’s little pony yelped in triumph. And while the crass little thing celebrated, Madeleine hurled her missile into the fray. Between the combatants’ grinding shields, there fell a little square-cut aquamarine. For one long moment, the two does stared at it as it hung, falling impossibly slowly through the magic concentrated there, like a pebble through an honeypot. Like stars fading in the morning light, the shields each grew dull, then dim.

Then the room exploded. Madeleine let out a rather undignified grunt as the air was forced from her lungs by the pressure wave that came from the arcane energies in the room suddenly imploding upon themselves. But she at least fared better than the two does, who were knocked to the walls on opposite sides of the room and lay dazed on their sides, glass-eyed. Madeleine went to Mangosteen first and righted her by magic. The Clavia blinked at her.

“Miss… Crumpet? What did you…?”

“Oh, only stopped you from killing yourselves,” Madeleine snapped. “What under Celestia’s burning sun were you thinking?”

“I… I just…” Mangosteen stammered, but Madeleine did not wait for her spluttering to become a real reason. She turned her back on Mangosteen and crossed over to Papaya, setting the other doe on her hooves and offering her a kerchief for her tearing eyes. Papaya leaned against Madeleine’s side and hung her head, sniffing quietly. Madeleine stroked the doe’s neck, just waiting.

“M…maybe it would be best if I went back home. Nodeer is going to want me around, Miss Crumpet. Maybe they already don’t… They all know what I do… what I can’t seem to stop myself from doing. I’ve seen how they all look at me…” Papaya said. Her voice was low and flat; this was a broken doe. Madeleine lifted Papaya’s chin and said tenderly:

“Whatever you do, Papaya, is your choice. But whatever you’ve done, you can’t just run away from. Believe me, I’ve tried to run from my own shadow, too. I know that you couldn’t have made Largo do what she did – just like I know you didn’t kill that horrible stallion. But whatever you did do, I need you to be honest about, right here and now. Can you do that for me? For an old friend?”

Mangosteen’s ears flattened and reddened with a shamefaced flush as Papaya just sniffed and nodded. Madeleine caught Mangosteen’s glance with a look that promised words later in the absence of her mistress’ ability to see to that duty.

“I… I’ve done a terrible thing. I was only trying to follow orders… I never meant for any of it! I shot him, Miss Crumpet!” Papaya fell to the ground, her legs giving way beneath her. The doe wept bitterly at Madeleine’s hooves. As for Madeleine, she was reeling, somewhere far away from her own body. She seemed to watch as her own traitorous mouth demanded:

“With my pistol?”

“Yes!” wailed the doe.

“When did you take it? How did you take it?” Madeleine went on. It was as if the little pony in her head had staged a mutiny.

“I nipped it from your bags when we were in the casino… Miss Largo knew that you always keep it close on you. I’m sorry, Miss Crumpet, but… it really wasn’t very hard. I could have taken more, but the pistol was all that I was told to get. She… the mistress… she said that you wouldn’t need it for the time being. Miss Largo didn’t say why… just that she needed it for something. I never found out what.”

With a minotaur’s force of will, Madeleine clamped down her treacherous lips. She took a long, deep breath. Then, for good measure, she took another.

Largo? Largo was the one who took my pistol? “And what did Largo say when you gave it to her?”

Papaya shook, fighting the glass-eyed terror that was threatening to paralyze her. “I never did.”

“You kept it?” Madeleine’s mouth said before she had a chance to think.

“I told the mistress I couldn’t get to it after all… that you kept your bags too close for me to undo. It was… it’s just such a pretty thing, Miss Crumpet. I couldn’t bear to let anypony else have it. I… I never meant to hurt anyone!”

Madeleine and Mangosteen looked down at the quivering doe with disbelieving faces. Mangosteen’s jaw actually hung open, as if she were unable to even comprehend what she was hearing from the other Clavia. That makes two of us, thought Madeleine.

“Okay,” said Madeleine, choosing her words carefully this time. “I admit, I didn’t expect this. I could forgive you, Papaya. I still might. But there are still two things that I don’t understand.”

“What?” said Papaya.

“Why did you shoot Calvados Apple?” It was another bad move, and Madeleine fought the urge to throttle her own subconscious as Papaya groaned and curled up upon herself like a fawn. Just like that, the Clavia was in no fit state to answer any questions whatever.

“S-She went up to two rooms on special requests that night,” said Mangosteen suddenly. “Once during the storm – it was after that she was so agitated – and once again at 2:30. Frond and I never got the name, but if it was 505…”

Madeleine blinked at Mangosteen and looked down again at Papaya. The doe’s shaking only got worse. Madeleine had a flash of sudden, cold clarity about what happened in that room. If this was what Mister Rubyk felt in the line of just doing his job, the Aktur could keep his title and his city. This… was awful.

“The…” Madeleine cast about for a word strong enough to use for Calvados Apple. “Pig! Mule! Slime-guzzler!” All too, too weak. Frost Pane would have had a fit. She spat on the ground instead.

“Oh, Papaya… I’m so sorry…” Mangosteen said, approaching the other doe and mare on hoof-tips.

“I had to do it, Miss Crumpet…” Papaya croaked out. “He wasn’t like he was in the casino that night before it all happened. He was different… loud, and angry. He seemed just like another way to get a few bits and a nice body for a little while. I went up to 505 when I did because he asked me, personally. It…” Papaya licked her dry lips. “It was clear we wanted different things.”

“And… you shot him,” said Madeleine, trying not to draw the connection between “Calvados Apple” and “a nice body”. That was the last image that she needed right now. Papaya just whimpered and gave a tiny nod of her head.

“And… what happened then?”

“I ran away. It wasn’t safe there.”

“I know…” Madeleine cooed, trying to soothe the doe insofar as she could be soothed. “Believe me, I know. I’ve been there. But that’s not really what we need to know. What did he do… after you did what you had to do?”

“I really don’t know, Miss Crumpet! I didn’t – I couldn’t stay around to find out! All I know is that I… I didn’t miss, but I didn’t really hit him either. He… he looked so angry…” Papaya was wracked by a new round of trembling and needed more soothing than words alone could give. Mangosteen said nothing, but lay down in solidarity beside her herd-mate in a gesture welling up from a deep and primal deerish instinct; the recent unpleasantness between them was but a dim memory. It was some minutes before Papaya was fit to speak again, but when she did, it was in the strained, flat tones of exhaustion.

“I couldn’t believe what I had done at first, so I didn’t. I went back to the casino and served from the bar until I rotated out for the next shift post. Then when I was walking through the foyer, a call came to the front desk for a mineral water. But this was right around the shift change, so nodeer was around to take the request. I was still riding the fear-surge after what I had done, so I volunteered to take it up to the third floor.”

“Is this important, Papaya?” said Madeleine. It was difficult to tell if the poor thing was telling the prosaic truth or just talking just to fill the empty space with words because the alternative was to be left alone with her thoughts.

“I… I think so. Maybe. Now I’m not sure…”

The twins’ words from before were echoing in Madeleine’s ears. She was nervous and agitated after coming down from an errand to a guest’s room. Madeleine thought she knew exactly who that guest might be.

“What pony did you deliver to, Papaya?”

“That… that stallion,” Papaya said, an hitch in her voice.

“The black one?”

“Yes… the pegasus. Miss Crumpet, he… he frightened me.”

Feeling the bile rising in her throat, and fighting the urge to stamp her hoof – oh, hadn’t the poor thing suffered enough? – Madeleine said quietly: “Papaya, what did he do?”

“N-nothing. He was a perfect gentlecolt. He was nothing like… like the other one.”

“Then how were you scared?” Mangosteen broke in.

“It wasn’t anything that he did… he just seemed so huge and powerful and was breathing like he had been exercising – oh, Miss Crumpet, you know how snorty the stallions can get when they start to exert themselves. And his coat was damp, too, and he showed off every muscle, but he wasn’t lathery at all. It should have been a fine body on any stallion, but… but I just couldn’t think that. Not then, and not now. He thanked me for the mineral water and… and he looked right through me. I just knew, somehow, that he knew what I had done. It was a look that… that made my whole body cold. I think I just stood there glass-eyed while he closed the door in my face.” Papaya’s body had ceased to quiver, and she lay eerily still like a fawn in hiding.

“What did you do after that?” Madeleine asked softly.

“I… think I must have gone downstairs back to the staff area. I don’t really remember very well. It’s very strange… I didn’t regret what I had done before I saw that stallion’s face, but ever since then, I haven’t been able to get that look or the gunshot or… or any of it out of my mind. And that’s why… that’s how I just knew that what happened to Miss Largo is my fault! Oh, Miss Crumpet!” Papaya broke down into silent sobs that shook her body, but the little doe made no sound.

Madeleine heaved a sigh of relief. It had all been nothing in the end, and Papaya hadn’t done something unthinkable. Then she frowned.

Something smells off here.

“Papaya, can you remember anything else about the room that you delivered the water to?” Madeleine said suddenly.

“The… room?” Papaya said, raising her head.

“Yes – was there anything that seemed out of place for a hotel guest? Maybe something that was odd for the hour of the night?”

Papaya blinked at her, her eyes both bleared and glassy. “Out of… place? Well… now that you asked…”

“Yes?”

“I couldn’t see into the room, Miss Crumpet. The stallion – the pegasus – he was too big and his wings too wide to get a look around. But… I do remember hearing something strange.”

She heard something? “What was it?”

“Just the wind, Miss Crumpet. But… it was awfully loud.”

“That storm was awfully loud,” Mangosteen agreed.

“No…” said Papaya, shaking her head. “I mean louder than it should have been. I think the pegasus must have opened up the door to his balcony. The hotel would have kept the rain out, but they like to feel the weather on their wings. They’re awfully sensitive there, aren’t they, Miss Crumpet?”

Madeleine started to shake her head knowingly, thinking of a certain Cloudsdale barber she had met on her last trip to Manehattan. Then her head caught in the middle of the motion, and she gasped.

“It can’t be…” she murmured. But there was no other explanation. Ponies only order a mineral water if they come from certain rarefied social circles in the Royal court, or if they have been exercising and need the salts. If he was breathing hard and his coat was damp, then that could only mean…

“Jett Black was out flying in that squall?” Madeleine said aloud.

“He what?” said Papaya and Mangosteen at once. Madeleine bit her lip.

Why was a Canterlot intelligence officer flying in an uncontrolled squall coming off of the sea? Why was there a storm that made a perfect distraction during the murder of Calvados Apple in the first place? And why did the victim have his balcony doors open when he didn’t have wings to enjoy the draft? Madeleine scowled. There were too many unanswered questions!

“Papaya, you poor thing… thank you for all your help. You’ve been through an awful lot and an awful ordeal – one that I wouldn’t wish on anypony. It might be best if you got away from Currycape until you feel fit to return to duty,” said Madeleine.

“T-thank you, Miss Crumpet,” sniffled Papaya. “I will try. Maybe… maybe it’s time I went home to my mum and grandbuck and just forgot about the hotel for a while.”

Madeleine noticed that Mangosteen did not voice an objection.

The mare and the two does said their partings. Madeleine turned to leave, her head starting to fill too full to think clearly.

“D-don’t forget this, Miss Crumpet…” Papaya’s voice called out. In the wobbling grip of her magic, the doe brought the aquamarine into Madeleine’s view, still shining with the inward light of the magic it had absorbed from the scuffle. Mangosteen just stared at the bobbing gem.

“Are you quite sure, Papaya?” Madeleine asked. “Can’t your grandbuck use it?”

Papaya shook her head. “It’s not mine,” she said weakly. “Take it away, Miss Crumpet. I’m not sure I want anything that isn’t mine ever again. Please…”

Madeleine looked at Papaya.

Madeleine smiled.

Madeleine took the gem.




*********************************************



Chapter Three



The Shadow Over Currycape



*********************************************




Back out on the terrace, a little of the day’s gloom seemed to have lifted itself from off their shoulders. Madeleine and Mangosteen trotted in the direction of the front gardens. Whether or not that was the best place to find Frond and Mister Rubyk, it seemed a sensible enough place to start. From there, they could check the front desk to see if anypony from the morning’s trial had gone back to the mainland yet. (The thought that it would be just a tad difficult to keep the details mum from the guests now that the hotel’s proprietress herself had been an apparent victim had crossed her mind – but that was a future Madeleine’s problem, and she had not had the pleasure of acquainting herself with that lovely mare yet.)

“Do you think she means it?” Mangosteen asked abruptly, the clip of their hooves crisp and sharp against the white flagstones.

“Papaya?” Madeleine said.

“Uh huh.”

Madeleine shrugged. She hoped that the little doe’s change of heart from thieving would extend farther than the shock, but there was no way to know for sure.

Ultimately, that wasn’t what mattered now. Largo’s face, filled with fear under that starry shroud, swam up again into her mind’s eye. For a few moments, out of her own body, it was all that she could see as she mechanically placed one hoof in front of another.

Then a familiar (and unwelcome) voice said:

“Miss Madeleine Crumpet, is that correct? Your timing is apt. May I impose upon you for a moment?”

Madeleine could not help the gasp that escaped her as she whirled about to see Jett Black standing only a body’s length from them. Where under all the bright skies had he come from? Although his wings were folded neatly at his sides, he still gave off an oppressive feeling of looming.

“Corporal,” Madeleine said, nodding curtly, hoping to sun and moon and stars that the hitch in her voice wasn’t too apparent. “Of course you may… but may I inquire as to how Largo is doing, if you have any news to give?”

The pegasus smiled without showing any teeth. “Naturally. Allow me to put your fears to rest: the proprietress will live. Word came to me the moment that physician had her stable. She is, as I understand, resting in an unused guest room on the bottom level so that the staff may keep a constant watch over her as she recovers.”

Jett Black’s smile faded. “I hope that you will forgive me that I must interrogate her at the first opportunity that her health will allow. What has happened here is… unfortunate. My duty as Canterlot’s representative, however, is absolute.”

Madeleine took a moment to push the screaming little pony in her head down – far down – before answering. Beside her, Mangosteen eyed the pegasus with an expression that showed her to be on an hair-trigger to bolt, or fall down glass-eyed, or both. “Of course, Corporal. That is wonderful news.”

“I am glad that I have at least one piece of good news to deliver today. This whole affair has been… unfortunate. But I repeat myself. Now, then…” Jett Black cleared his throat and when he continued, his voice was masked by an officiousness that gave an hard bite to each crisp consonant.

“Since the proprietress has been removed from her office, I have returned there to make my official investigation of the most recent crime scene in this case.”

“Horrible, isn’t it?” Madeleine said, turning her head with a showy little shudder.

“Indeed. But there are traces there that an investigating officer can read like a book if he has the experience and the know-how.”

“And what did you read there, Corporal Black?”

“It is not so much what happened before I came that I am concerned with now, but what came after. And in this case, that is as plain as the misdirection you are trying now. I saw that office before its owner was taken away. I also saw its state after you and the Aktur had your way with it.”

Madeleine flicked her tail. “Yes, Mister Rubyk is rather forceful. I admit that. But he was only doing what was necessary, Corporal. After all, would you have known where to look for the secret safe if he had not cleared the way for you?”

Jett Black regarded her silently for a moment. Then he unfurled his wings to their full breadth, covering Madeleine and Mangosteen in shadow. His badge showing the thirteen stars was clearly visible, glinting in the unnatural shadow his body cast. When he spoke again, it was in a troublingly quiet near-whisper that reminded Madeleine only too well of somepony else.

“Tampering with a crime scene is an high felony in the Canterlot courts, Miss Madeleine Crumpet. As one who was merely present on the scene and allowed the alteration unknowingly, of course you are safe from prosecution. But I can extend to you no protections if you knowingly persist in aiding the Aktur of Trotheim. I allowed him to act as he did in this case up to this time so that I would have no need to reveal myself too soon, and your aid to him has been invaluable even to me. But now that I have, under the terms of our treaty with Trotheim, he no longer has investigative rights. As such, what he has done is a crime: one that I will see to in time.”

Madeleine bit her lip to stop her knees from shaking. Jett Black was just a pegasus, she told herself – he was no marauding alicorn bent on cloaking the world in an unending night. But the chill on her neck surely made it feellike the sun had gone away. “Corporal. I must confess that you have lost me. What Mister Rubyk has done is surely his business, and I expect him to own up to it like a stallion should. But what has this to do with me?”

Jett Black’s stare turned to a glare. “Miss Madeleine Crumpet. Did you or did you not remove evidence from that room upon your search?”

Madeleine hesitated. Think!

“Do you have any evidence that I did?” she said, her mouth dry as dust.

“Is the testimony of eight hotel staff who saw you do it sufficient for you? Or will you prefer to submit to a search of your bags and own up to the consequences as a stallion should when I find it in your possession?”

Think, think, THINK! There had to be something, some way that she could –

Oh.

Well, there was that.

Madeleine put on her best pout. It fit her like an old, comfortable negligee. “Oh, Corporal. Why is that you military types have to be so efficient at your jobs? It’s true: I confess. I held on to one thing from Largo’s office for safekeeping. But you saw how things were in there, yes? I only did it to keep anything more of Largo’s from being clod-hooved any more than it already had. You understand, don’t you?”

Jett Black stared at her. Then, perhaps even a bit sheepishly, he blinked. The pegasus folded back his wings, and the feeling of a sudden freak eclipse faded.

“Thank you… for your cooperation,” he said. “You have made the right decision. I shall take it now, and there need be nothing more said about this when we get back to the mainland.”

“Of course. You make everything so clear, Corporal. Just do give me a moment, will you?” Madeleine smiled at Jett Black, who made no reply. She opened up her saddlebags and made a show of searching through its contents with her forehooves… pushing the blue-glass crystal far to the bottom. Then, sitting where she had laid it near the top, she extracted the aquamarine that she had taken from the staff area. The starlight within was still dancing its whirling gavotte; even under the sunlight, you couldn’t possibly miss it.

And the pegasus didn’t. The change that came over Jett Black’s face was a little alarming, maybe even because it was so subdued. It would have been easy to miss for a normal eye and was as subtle as any other social tell – especially in these thick-bodied military types – but the slight upturn at the corners of his muzzle, and the twitch of relaxation in his shoulders, was unmistakable. Relief. So he was after the sounding-gem!

“That seems to be in line with the description provided by the staff. If you will see fit to entrust that to my care, I will cheerfully forget that this chance meeting ever occurred.” Then the Corporal smiled, and Madeleine felt her practiced pout crack. She couldn’t suppress the shivers any longer.

There was something deeply wrong about that smile.

“Y-yes, Corporal. Forgive me; the heat seems to have gotten to me for a moment. One wonders how you get by in your black coat in this awful weather.”

Jett Black took the gem from her magical grip, slipping it into a black pouch worn close to the body under his wing. Then he turned his face back toward Madeleine and regarded her with a strange expression. It took Madeleine a moment to recognize it. It was scorn.

“You forget, Miss Madeleine Crumpet, that this is not the first of our meetings. I am a Shade, in case you have forgotten even that. I have had ample opportunity to observe you and make the proper inquiries since you first began to play the Aktur’s fetching-mare. Do not play your games with me.”

Jett Black did not wait around for a rejoinder. Instead, he spread his wings wide again and beat at the air one, two, three times and began to circle high overhead as if searching for some target on the ground. Then he made a line for the mainland, lofting himself off a sea-thermal until he was just a dark blot against the blue sky.

Naturally, it was only after the pegasus had left that Madeleine’s treacherous mouth thought of all the witty rejoinders to the last word of that last aggravating, irritating, condescending…!

“Chauvinist mule of a cloud-lumping savage! See if I care what you think of my ‘games’ – I bet I’m a grandmistress at them compared to you, you…!”

“Miss Crumpet!” Mangosteen said, covering her ears. Madeleine stopped where she stood, hoof raised to the sky, and laid her ears back.

“Er… sorry,” Madeleine said. She shook out her mane. “Normally, I choose my words better than that. That pegasus just… there’s something just off about him. It only comes off up close, but… well, a girl is entitled to lose her head every once in a while, isn’t she?”

Mangosteen looked back at Madeleine with wide eyes. “But you actually got away with it! How did you know that he didn’t know that the gem wasn’t the same as the one you found in the office?”

Madeleine chuckled and swished her tail playfully. The two began to trot in the direction of the Grand Foyer.

“I once met an intelligence officer in the unicorn auxiliary of the Royal Guard when I was in Canterlot,” said Madeleine. “He was a military type too, and the biggest blabbermouth I’ve ever seen once you gave him a drink and pat behind the ear in just that one spot that every stallion has, somewhere.”

“Huh?” said Mangosteen, the little doe cantering to catch up.

“I mean that the type gets so used to keeping everypony else’s secrets – the Princesses’, the courtiers’, their own families – that more often than not, when they really need to keep one to themselves, they’re so bursting with pent-up secrets that the little gossipy foal in them can’t help himself. Keep too many secrets for too long, and eventually you’re going to tell somepony something.”

“Still in the weeds here,” said Mangosteen, shaking her head as they stepped up to the great double-doors at the front of the hotel. Two bucks and a doe in sweatbands were picking their way through the wreckage of the fountain and talking in low voices about repair and labour costs to put the garden to rights.

“The Corporal made one mistake he couldn’t help but make: he tried to bully me by saying that he had interviewed all of the staff present in the office when he was in there with us,” said Madeleine.

“Oh!” said Mangosteen, eyes going wide. “But… Frond and I were with you and Doctor Leaf the whole time! He never interviewed us!”

“Exactly, but that’s not quite all the point. He’s the sort of stallion that preens himself over him knowing more than anypony else, but he misses the important little details of a thing. If he can even tell a doe and buck apart, let alone eight Clavia out of an whole hotel staff, I’m Princess Luna’s private hoof-scrubber. He got so wrapped up in trying to press his advantage over the poor little traveling businessmare with an eye for the stallions – if I do say so – that he forgot one little thing.”

“What was it, Miss Crumpet?” Mangosteen asked. Madeleine flashed a triumphant smirk.

“How did he know that the gem Mister Rubyk found was blue?” Madeleine pushed on the doors with her magic, and they swung open to let out a torrent of sound.

If the garden outside was in ruin, the Grand Foyer was in bedlam. A queue of guests that could be more accurately called a throng was clustered together in front of the concierge desk, voices raised at poor Limon behind it, who was pressed back against the bell ends of the brass speaking-tubes.

“…outrageous, young lady! No hotel in Canterlot – no, in Equestria, treats its guests this way!” bellowed a chestnut stallion in a business suit that was looking a little rumpled from the heat and crush of so many bodies. His two companions, and their suits, were in as fine a condition and shot shifty eyes at the irate tourist mums and their nickering foals all around them.

“Please… please remain calm. I know that this is much to ask of all of you, but –” Limon was interrupted by the schoolteacher mare with the hoplicure, who had a mouth on her that shocked her foals, her husband, and probably could have turned the heads of a battalion of the Royal Guard.

“…can’t leave? Can’t allow us to leave? I demand to see the owner! Right. Now!” With many other words of a stronger sort added in Mangosteen’s cheeks flushed.

“That… I am afraid that is impossible, ma’am,” Limon said.

“Then make it possible!” exclaimed, of all ponies, Piper Chai, who looked genuinely distressed and not just angry. “If my coffees are not changed, how shall I sell them? I cannot stretch myself catty-on over to that shore, can I? Am I such a pussycat?” Beside her, and equally wretched, was Hodgepodge, who worried at a grimy bit of black felt in his teeth – probably to keep himself from charging, screaming, through a crowd of so many ponies.

“Pardon, excuse me, pardon me good sirs!” Madeleine said, sailing breezily to the front of the mob, flashing a bright-toothed smile at all the stallions in her way. She found it quite easy going. Limon flashed her a look of sheer relief.

“Limon, dear, why don’t you tell me for all the ponies here? Just what in the hay is going on?” Madeleine said. The little doe relaxed, her focus narrowing only to Madeleine and not spread out among the snorting mob beyond her.

“It’s like I’ve been trying to tell everypony this whole time, Miss Crumpet: the hotel is on lockdown! That Corporal from Canterlot took the reins and handed down the order, saying the whole island is under Canterlot’s hoof until further notice, and that nopony was to go over to the mainland until he gave the say-so. And anypony or anydeer that goes over the causeway will be pris… prosse… brought to trial!” Limon said, the words coming out bunched up one against another.

“…what a farce. Do you expect any of us to believe this charade? I demand to speak to the proprietress at once! I’m her personal friend; she’ll see me! I know that she would never put up with this display!” The voice came from an high-sounding mare with a Fillydelphian accent in a broad-brimmed hat and sunglasses. Madeleine turned, saw the blank-mirrored expression of the mare behind her sunglasses, and smiled at her. She walked into the mob, who watched the two mares with the sudden attention paid to street fights and train crashes.

Then Madeleine struck the other mare on the side of the muzzle with the back of her hoof. The sunglasses tumbled off the mare’s face.

“Madam,” said Madeleine, “you are a dunce.”

“How… how dare…” the mare stammered. Her face had been the colour of a perfect raspberry. Apoplexy had darkened it to that of an inedible beet.

“Because the reason you are here is because the proprietress was poisoned, you straw-brained idiot! And for all we know, you might have slipped it into her drink while she wasn’t looking, since you evidently know her so well!”

The colour drained from the Fillydelphian mare’s face. “I… did not know. I’m…”

“Sorry?” quipped Madeleine. She snapped her tail at the ground, stopping just short of snorting in the foolish mare’s face. “Good. Because I am a good friend of the proprietress – my friend who was just poisoned, you see? Now quiet down and do as this young doe tells you if you don’t want the nice Corporal from Canterlot to drag you back to the mainland in a prison-yoke.” Madeleine glared at the mare, who picked up her sunglasses in her teeth and was suddenly struck with the memory of an urgent appointment. Around them, the clamor of the crowd had fallen silent. Madeleine asked Limon:

“I suppose that Doctor Leaf is having no one at all in Largo’s room until he gives his say-so?” Wide-eyed, Limon nodded.

“Y-yes, Miss Crumpet.”

“Well, if that’s the doctor’s orders, who am I to say otherwise? Let me know if you have any other problems, Limon dear,” said Madeleine, shooting a smile behind her at the concierge desk as she turned to leave. Limon returned it gratefully.

Mangosteen trotted anxiously beside Madeleine as the mare made her way to the stairwell and up to the fifth floor. The stone steps, sconced as they were in the same lush blue carpet as the halls, seemed to shake beneath every tromp of her hooves.

“Are you alright, Miss Crumpet?” Mangosteen asked.

“No,” said Madeleine. “Just… tired of a sudden.” The two walked on in silence.

“Is there anything I can do?” Mangosteen said as they came to suite 505.

“Oh, please just tell Mister Rubyk that I need to see him as soon as is convenient. I think I will just lie down for a bit.”

Mangosteen blinked, the doe regarding Madeleine with a perplexed look. “Alright…” she muttered, looking over her shoulder as she went. Madeleine held a thin smile on her face until Mangosteen had rounded the corner. Then she fished her room key out of her bag, opened and stepped through the door, and bucked it shut with a rear hoof. She cantered to the balcony door and all of the windows, checking the locks. They all held. Madeleine nodded to herself, then entered the bedroom.

She laid herself facedown on the silken sheets and buried her face in the pillow.

Madeleine screamed until her throat was raw.




*********************************************



Chapter Four



The Burden



*********************************************




The hoof-beat at the door was hard to hear: soft, low, and timorous, like a child’s knock. Madeleine raised her head up from her tear-stained sheets, slowly. Had she really heard something just then?

The knock came on again, just as quiet as the first. Who in the wide world of Equestria knocked like that? All of the hotel staff were trained to make their presence boldly known when going up to a guest’s room. Then a familiar voice bellowed clear through the closed door:

“Did my son whelp a sculling-filly?! Or does my grandfoal have mince for marrow?! Observe how Trotheim should announce herself!”

Then Frost Pane’s hooves thundered and crashed on the wooden door like a war-hammer of the Northlanders of old. Madeleine scrambled quickly to the floor and made a stumbling rush to the door as something in the hinge made a distinctively unhealthy-sounding crunching sound.

“Jeweler! My grandfoal answers your summons! Open this door at once! – ah, so you have not gone early deaf like the frost-nipped fool who goes out into the night without his hat! Good, good!” Frost Pane said (very loudly) as Madeleine threw the door open, just as quickly as she could get her magic around the handle. The Frei of Trotheim grinned her jagged smile downward, her great forehoof still poised for another hammer-blow of the gods. Madeleine stole a quick glance at the surface of the door. The paint, and a goodly portion of wood, had been gouged away in deep gashes cut by each successive blow. Beside the Frei of Trotheim stood Rubyk, holding a forehoof close to his chest. Behind them both, standing as if he did not want to come too close to Trotheim when she was announcing herself, was Rock Skipper, worrying his weather-worn cap between his forehooves. The pegasus looked up to Madeleine, smiling a sheepish grin, but his face fell quickly at the sight of her.

“Hello, Miss Crumpet. Sorry to bother you like this. Er… are you alright?” said Rock Skipper. Madeleine turned her head away, acutely aware of the puffiness around her eyes and the salt-stains running down her cheeks.

“Quite, Skipper. I will be fine. Really.”

“Miss Crumpet, if you need to talk…” Rock Skipper began, but Madeleine turned to Rubyk and said, cutting him off:

“Have you found out anything, Mister Rubyk?” Rock Skipper shut his mouth, and the Aktur of Trotheim lowered his hoof to the ground. Rubyk took a deep breath.

“Yes, friend Madeleine. The case that I should present before the Never-Melting is beginning to be clear before my eyes. And have you continued your inquiries? – or have you needed some moments to grieve?”

Madeleine snorted and tossed her mane. “Can’t a girl do both, Mister Rubyk?” Rubyk smiled thinly at that, and Frost Pane guffawed… loudly.

“I like this mare still more the more I see her, Rubyk! Come, jeweler! You shall talk with my grandfoal and brood over your plans for the coming war like good generals, and eat, and drink, and make your heart fat before the battle like a mare of Trotheim should!” Madeleine and Rock Skipper both stared at the elder mare.

“Er… I should love to, Frei Frost Pane. Mister Rubyk, what did you have in mind?”

Rubyk cleared his throat. “Come to my rooms, if you would – both you and our friend pegasus. I have found him and the young buck you sent to me invaluable.”

Madeleine nodded, and in the span of moments, she found herself once again gathered around the sitting room of the Trotheim ponies. While the table held no grisly feast this time, a rank note of harbour-reek still hung in the air. Rubyk himself served thick-black coffee and brandy from a massive samovar on the sideboard into cups that were like eggshells to the Northland giants. Madeleine watched the Aktur of Trotheim swallow down hot, steaming coffee, unmixed and undiluted, like a salt-sick pony drinks water. The dark circles and creases around his eyes stood out stark in the blazing light of the sunset streaming through the open balcony door. Frost Pane sprawled herself and consumed the whole of the chaise, the muscles along the length of her whole body animated by coffee and strife. Rock Skipper shifted his hooves nervously where he sat at the table, his eyes flicking from Madeleine to the Trotheim nobles and back again.

“You wanted me here for coffee and what else, chief?” Rock Skipper said after nopony said anything for an uncomfortably long stretch.

“Ah.” Rubyk laid his eggshell down. “I shall need you in time. Things come now to the endgame against this murderer and perjurer. I shall need you, friend, to give testimony so that friend Madeleine and I may spear him to the wall when we confront him.” Rock Skipper flinched at this choice of words, and Rubyk added in his near-whisper, “so to speak.”

“You found something new, Skipper?” said Madeleine, a strange excitement crackling in her voice.

“Yeah – out on the beaches…” murmured Rock Skipper, but Rubyk held up an hoof and said:

“Let us consider things in their proper order. There is one puzzle that has bothered me since the beginning of this misbegotten case, and I now have the solution. May we see with shining eyes where it shall lead. Friend Madeleine, I shall need to ask your aid here.”

“My aid?” Madeleine said.

Rubyk replied by magicking a small, conical stone onto the table with a crackle of frost. Madeleine peered at it. Then she recoiled.

“Mister Rubyk… where did you find this?” Madeleine’s voice was muffled beneath the sound of her own heart thundering away in her ears. Rubyk closed his eyes and said, distantly:

“I have been bothered for some time by one question: why was there no hint of the events in Calvados Apple’s suites coming to the ears of the doe on duty at the concierge desk at the time through the speaking tube?”

“Wait…” said Rock Skipper, looking toward Madeleine. “Miss Crumpet? Just what is that thing?”

“Just look at it, Skipper. Think back to the other night.”

“Not hornbone again?” Rock Skipper groaned. The pegasus moved back from the table.

“Yes, and I’m nearly certain that it came from the same horn. The poor thing…”

Rubyk nodded, his face cast in a thin-lipped frown. “And such could be used by somepony for any such enchantment that he wished.”

“Yes, that’s…” Madeleine closed her mouth. Oh, right. Not a question.

“Will you do me the honour of examining the spell upon this item, friend Madeleine?”

Madeleine shuddered, but nodded. Her eyes traced the bone spurs and long-dead nerves, searching for the higher refractory order of magic imposed from the outside. Turning her eyes from the horrible thing, she shook her head.

“I know that this is hornbone, Mister Rubyk, but black magic is thankfully rather outside of my usual expertise. Beyond what you already know, I don’t know if I can tell you anything further.”

“That is well enough. I said that I found the assistance of the young Frond invaluable. That included gaining access to that which was prohibited to me to investigate. If I cannot go forth as Aktur…” Rubyk smiled. “I can certainly play the chamber-dresser’s assistant.”

Not a picture I thought I’d be imagining today.

“I thought that the reason the speaking-tube did not sound might be due to some obstruction. Had the incidents that took place in Calvados’ suites been heard, especially the gunshot, the staff surely would have been alerted, and the body would have been discovered long before you came across it, friend Madeleine. Thus, when young Frond gave me the privilege of his company, I used it to enter Calvados’ rooms once more. I abstracted that piece of hornbone from the speaking-tube,” Rubyk said in his whispery voice.

“But there was nopony that could have placed it there but a member of the staff!” Rock Skipper protested, the force of a new horror overcoming the one on the table before them. Frost Pane nodded sagely.

“Ah, yes. ‘Frigid waters on bare pelts are the treacheries of friends’… I know this saying well,” said the Frei of Trotheim, sounding uncommonly subdued.

“But… who?” Rock Skipper said. The pegasus looked toward each of the others, but found no answers written on any of their faces.

“Worry not about that for now, friend pegasus. That we have the ‘how’ is enough for the moment. What I am rather more interested in is whether this fragment has the same source as the necklace that… well, ‘showed up’ most fascinatingly the other night.”

“The necklace?” Madeleine shuddered again, remembering all of the circumstances that surrounded thatparticular piece of evidence. “I have it here, Mister Rubyk.” She lifted it onto the table and dropped it like an hot rock. The Aktur and the jeweler peered in close to examine them.

“A perfect match, to my eye,” said Rubyk.

“Then your eyes are better than you let on,” Madeleine said. “I am – unfortunately – certain that these came from the same poor soul.”

“But what does that mean?” Rock Skipper ejaculated loudly. The pegasus rubbed at his temple. “Sorry, chief. Didn’t mean to shout. It’s just… brrr, there’s some things somepony just doesn’t want to think about too hard, you know?”

Rubyk nodded his head. “And so you should not. My forebears were forced to face such evil; the land in the North makes the shadows in equine hearts lengthen just as the ice makes righteousness gleam the brighter. Trotheim shall never again suffer a warlock to live. But that is beside the point. One can gain such baubles in back-alley shops where the light and good ponies fear to tread, where the names of the poor souls sacrificed to the whitepelts’ black gods are traded for mammon and the lust of the eyes. But though we can but say a prayer on behalf of this poor, forgotten one… tell me, friend Madeleine, what does the common source of these trinkets found together suggest to you?”

Madeleine bit the inside of her cheek. “Obviously that they were in the possession of the same pony at the same time. The alternative… thank Celestia… is just too unlikely.”

“Indeed. The question is thus who and where,” said Rubyk. Madeleine tapped a rhythm on the table as she thought.

“Well, it certainly wasn’t from here,” Madeleine said. “Hodgepodge may not have scruples to speak of, but his is the only place to get a thing like that anywhere on the island. And the fact that the Corporal was there with it as relating to his investigation…”

Rubyk held up an hoof. “We cannot yet say as much. Say only for now that he was there with the necklace. That, at least, is fact enough to begin to make a case.”

“Wait…” Madeleine murmured. “Do you suppose that he was lying, Mister Rubyk?”

“Friend Madeleine, I have not the evidence to say. But if you want my opinion…” The Aktur of Trotheim heaved a sigh like a gale scoring the tundra. “Tell me, is it not a natural thought that a skulk of your Princess should find but little difficulty in procuring hornbone and other such things unfit for the light of the day? Would he not find ample means through his position to transport these items through the ports by invoking his name and title, and making little threats, all so that his bags and person are passed over lightly? Yes… it is my theory – no, my conviction! – that this Jett Black is deep at the heart of this whole matter, from the beginning to the end.”

Rubyk frowned, and the dark circles under the Aktur of Trotheim’s eyes made it seem that a shadow was cast over the giant’s face. “But I cannot prove it. I have been backed to the wall. I need more evidence… I need more time… I need more than I have here in this town! Ah! Had I but one logicmaster or mare of the wall-guards, I should not be forced to tie my own hooves and let sin go unpunished under the sun!” Madeleine had never heard the proud stallion sound so mournful. Rubyk hung his head as if the weight of a thousand lives rested on his shoulders.

“Feh!” Frost Pane’s snort was quick and dismissive. “My grandfoal has forgotten his spelling-lessons!”

Rubyk’s manner seemed to go suddenly and wholly vague. “What do you mean, grandmama?”

“Do you see, jeweler? Do you see how he dons his eelskin and slips away when I tell him he is about to put his foot through the ice? Well! If he shall not listen to my counsels, then I shall pour them into your ears, and you may make him drink and drunk on the wisdom of hoary age,” said Frost Pane, the Frei of Trotheim’s neck held high.

“What my grandfoal forgets,” continued the old mare, looking right past Madeleine and Rubyk into the dwindling light of the evening pouring through the balcony door, “is that when your enemy masses his force in his fortress, you must strike at him in the dark, or you must march with the clamor of a thousand armies and drive him from his stronghold by force of fear. He forgets what he learned when he doddered on my knee! The Pride of Trotheim learns these lessons with its milk-sop!” She slammed her hoof on the table before them.

“Do you see what I mean, jeweler?” Frost Pane demanded, though now she was looking directly into the shadows ringing Rubyk’s jewel-cut eyes.

Even if I don’t – and I don’t –someone else does, Madeleine thought as she watched Rubyk’s eyes widen and his forehead contract. He stood for a moment in silent thought. Then, with a thin frost beginning to form on his horn… he smiled.

It was one of the most unnerving things Madeleine had ever seen.

“Yes. I do believe that will work nicely. Thank you, grandmama,” said Rubyk. Then, with upraised voice, he wheeled suddenly on Rock Skipper. “Friend pegasus! We will have your evidence now. Quickly, quickly!”

“Oh! Er… you mean that thing we found on the beaches, chief? I’ve got it here,” said Rock Skipper, who produced from a canvas saddlebag a sort of metal wheel in the early stages of corrosion. Madeleine examined it with a searching glance.

No, not a wheel, she quickly decided. The balance is off. It looks as though it was meant to lie flat like that. There was an indentation in the center surrounded by three prongs. It seemed… incomplete.

Wait…

Madeleine dug through her saddlebags, looking about for the one thing that might fit into that receptacle. If that thing is what I think it is…

The glassy blue gem fit into the notch and prongs like a leg into a silk stocking. The stars dancing a gavotte inside phosphoresced a wan and sickly light on the faces of the ponies gathered around it. A sound came to their ears, thin and dim like a voice speaking through a tube miles in the distance.

“What drip-nosed mewling is it that I am listening to, Rubyk?” grumbled Frost Pane.

“I confess, grandmama, I cannot tell.”

Neither could Madeleine. The sound was, frankly, rather odd. It was not unlike an echo of a mumble heard from all the points of the compass at once, or like the tromping drone of a train engine on a long trip. Rock Skipper let in a short intake of breath.

“Is that…” the pegasus murmured. Madeleine and Rubyk fixed him with a stare as he chewed his lip. Then, breaking the stillness in a voice that was just too loud, Rock Skipper exclaimed:

“Chief! Miss Crumpet! I know what this is! It’s the wind howling from that awful squall the other night!”

“Are you absolutely certain of this?” Rubyk said.

“Positive. I was out in it to try and put things right. You don’t forget a sound like that in a wingclip,” said Rock Skipper.

Rubyk seemed to accept that explanation as evidence enough. The sounds then changed and took on a more distinct shape of equine voices, pushing the wailing of the winds into the distant background. The first definitely had the baritone that could belong only to a barrel-chested stallion, while the second might easily have been a mare. The voices were broken and clamored one over another such that it was impossible to tell the shape of more than a few words at once:

“…came here finally… took your time…” said the baritone voice.

“…sure… know what you want… don’t look so good?” queried the second. In response, the first voice swore a something with sharp edges that the sound of the wind did not drown out.

“…course I don’t… everypony against me… don’t want to… then I’ll just take…” said the first voice, now ridged with a sinister import that came even through the unnatural distance of the recording spell.

“S-stop!” cried the second voice, now distinctly female, in tones of distress that left little room for doubt as to what they were hearing. In the next moment, the report of what could only be a gunshot rang out, louder than seemed possible through the muffled distance and howling winds.

In that moment, Madeleine knew exactly what they were all listening to.

“Dear Celestia, it wasn’t just playing sounds. The gem was recording them!” Madeleine gasped.

Rubyk’s face fell with a leaden gravity. “That is the only sound inference. Meaning that we will soon hear the murder of a pony with our own ears.”

Nopony said anything to that.

The recording continued with a clamor of hooves and the dull slam of a door, followed by pained, gasping breaths. The baritone voice – it could only be Calvados Apple himself – muttered dark, angry things in an undertone, too low for the sounding-gem to pick up. But the one thing he did not do was run or cry out for help.

“Mister Rubyk, don’t you find that strange?” Madeleine said.

“That he does not raise his voice in the rage of pain.” Not a question. So he had noticed too!

“Oh, yeah!” Rock Skipper exclaimed. The pegasus’ voice shook, along with most of the rest of him. Madeleine threw him a sympathetic smile; poor Skipper just wasn’t built for this kind of thing. “Now that you mention it, that is dodgy, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have thought the thick old codger was so tough!”

Madeleine shook her head. “If I’m any judge of a pony’s character – and I am – he wasn’t. Calvados was the type who gets what he wants, where he wants, whenever he wants. Stallions who indulge themselves like that… they don’t take pain well.”

Rock Skipper looked at her with a strange expression. “How do you know for sure, Miss Crumpet?”

“Trust me: I know.”

Rubyk tapped at his chin. “It is as friend Madeleine says, I think. I will spare you the proverb to prove the point. But if he is of the type to cry his pain, and he does not, then the obvious answer to the riddle is that he cannot. Now, soft!”

The Aktur’s warning came with a muffled thump that Madeleine could guess was the sound of Calvados’ body falling to the floor even through the distortion of the gem’s recording. Calvados’ murmurings had gradually lessened in volume and given way to laboured breaths as they talked. Now even those were spaced farther and farther apart.

At least he went quietly, Madeleine thought. The poison must have done him in by then. That she was so unmoved by the fact perhaps should have bothered her more than it did. Then Rubyk’s face sharpened and his ears stood erect, and the attention of everypony in the room fastened upon him. The Aktur of Trotheim shook his head in agitation.

“Not me, not me! Listen!” said Rubyk.

And so they listened. As they did, Madeleine’s ears also rose. What in the name of all nightmares is that? It sounded like an huge inrush of air into the room, followed by soft hoof-falls on the carpet. Confirming this impression, a new voice, soft and low, then came to their ears:

“…been dead already… a long time. Too long…”

“…be alone. How fitting…”

“…done playing games. You won’t ever…”

“…goodbye, old friend.”

And then… there came a sound that Madeleine would never forget, no matter how long she lived. It was surprisingly soft, but impossible to mistake. It was the crunch of hoof against bone. She recoiled and found Frost Pane’s foreleg wrapped protectively around her body, the expression on the old mare’s face hard-set and ashen. Rock Skipper sat down hard and looked ready to be sick. Rubyk simply closed his eyes and moved his mouth silently. There was another rush of air on the recording, and then nothing at all but the unquiet howling of the wind.

Rubyk lifted the glass gem from the stand. “…I have heard all that I need,” said the Aktur of Trotheim.

“Hey, chief?” Rock Skipper said softly. “Was what we heard just now… was that…”

Stamp. “Friend pegasus, you would do well to leave me to my thoughts for a moment.”

“S-sure…” stammered the same, biting down on his tongue.

Sorry, Skipper, but I think I need a moment, too. Frost Pane was keeping Madeleine from crumbling to the floor, but her foreleg was a shaky support. Rubyk’s jaw set itself like iron, and once again cold began to radiate from the giant, billowing over them in shivering waves. Frost Pane pulled Rock Skipper in close like a foal clutching at a stuffed toy.

“Shushby!” the old Mare hissed into their ears. She leered at the two smaller ponies, a strange, swelling pride settling onto her face. “See now what he will do! When Trotheim sees a sin unpunished, we do not relent from it! See! See what hardships my Rubyk sets for himself and tramps down in the streets, like blood in the dust!”

“Frei Frost Pane, I think I can see that well enough for myself…” said Madeleine, her voice weak. What she was seeing before her own eyes looked like nothing less than a pony freezing himself to death. In the space of a minute, steaming icicles drooped from the Aktur’s nose and chin, and his coat darkened to a cyanotic blue beneath a crust of feathery scales of white frost. His breaths slowed as the temperature in the room fell, and still he sat, cold and lifeless as marble. The bite in the air around the giant was nigh-unbearable, and Madeleine felt Rock Skipper’s wing fold around her. She did not push it away.

What ARE you, Mister Rubyk?

And then, with all the sudden shock of a corpse opening up its eyes, the Aktur of Trotheim… laughed. It sounded like the wheezing rasp of the ten-day invalid, it seemed to come from a hole as deep as the sea-bottom, and it was most certainly mad. He looked at them all and smiled, his lips too numb for speaking. But that did not stop him from mouthing words.

“I… understand… all?” Rock Skipper said, reading the giant’s half-dead face. The pegasus rubbed at his cap. “Um… good for you, chief?”

Madeleine pushed him aside. “Mister Rubyk, do you know what happened to Largo?”

Rubyk nodded, slowly, and even that seemed to take a great amount of effort. He was evidently not yet in full command of his muscles. “I… do. From beginning to end… I understand all… that has happened here.”

“Who? Who was it?” Madeleine demanded.

Rubyk fixed her with the same stare that had pierced her right through on the night of Calvados’ death. She met it with a spine of diamond. “Largo… what happened to her, she brought on herself. That which befell her was at her own hooves.”

There came a timid knock at the door. Numb, Madeleine turned toward it. “Skipper, get the door, won’t you?” she said. The pegasus opened his mouth. “Now?”

His mouth hanging open, Rock Skipper nodded and plodded toward the door, moving as numbly as Madeleine felt.

“Largo’s poisoner was… Largo?” Madeleine said, her mind not grasping what she said. “She tried to… it was suicide?”

“At…ath…” the giant slurred. Frustrated, Rubyk tossed his head, shaking off some of the ice that clung to his lips. “Attempted. What a depth of despair that mare has been in… and I did not see it. She has a faithful keeper in that doctor. But, yes. There is no one else.”

“Why?” The word burst out of Madeleine like a gunshot, tearing her throat raw. She looked into Rubyk’s face and said again, more softly, “why her, Mister Rubyk? Why did she do it?”

Somewhat pathetically – his shoulder was frozen in more than one way – Rubyk shrugged. Madeleine had never seen a pony give such a sad or as weary a shrug as that one. “Friend Madeleine, unless I mistake myself, that is what we are all about to find out.” Rubyk looked up over Madeleine’s shoulder toward the doorway.

Frond stood in the doorway, the little buck’s forehoof still upraised. The Clavia had seldom looked so miserable.

“Begging your pardon, Mister Rubyk… and you too, Miss Crumpet… but…”

Rubyk shucked off the white frost from his coat and shook out the ice in his tail. “Where does he want us?” said the Aktur of Trotheim, who staggered forward on spindly knees that had not yet quite begun to work again.

“T-The Corporal… Jett Black… he wants all of you in the casino. ‘As soon as possible,’ he said.” There was a tremor in the young buck’s voice. His eyes were half-glossy and focused on a point far in the distance.

“Then so we shall. Go now, friend Frond, and see to everyone else that you have been sent to fetch also,” said Rubyk.

Frond started. “H-how did you…?”

“Providence,” said Rubyk, showing a smile without teeth to the buck. “Only do me one last favour.”

“What is it, Mister Rubyk?” In reply, the Aktur of Trotheim bent himself down with great effort and whispered something into the Clavia’s ear. Then he straightened himself and Frond nodded with new and sudden vigor. In a moment, the buck’s eyes had lost their glassy look, and in their depths there was the fire of epiphany.

“Yes, I think I can do that, Mister Rubyk!” said Frond.

“Good, good. And once you have it, hide it as you are able and come to the casino at once. I shall need it sooner than later,” said Rubyk. In answer, Frond bobbed his head twice and galloped off, eager to fulfill whatever mission he had been given.

“It is time to end this game the Corporal has been playing all along,” said Rubyk, sounding — and moving – as if he were still half-dead. “Come, friend Madeleine, and bring your pistol! I may have need of you both before this night is through.”

Madeleine could contain herself no longer. “Mister Rubyk, what in Celestia’s name are you thinking of doing?”

“I am thinking of doing justice, friend Madeleine. But more importantly,” said Rubyk, his eyes ablaze with anger cold enough to kill, “I am thinking of how to win.”

“Whatever you say, chief…” murmured Rock Skipper. The pegasus’ teeth were still chattering.





*********************************************



Chapter Five



Verdict



*********************************************




The Aktur of Trotheim half-trotted, half-stumbled into the casino, supported on his left by Madeleine’s shoulder and on the right by Rock Skipper’s outstretched wing. The giant’s steps were slow, stumbling, overlaboured like an old stallion who had lost both his balance and his dignity. But Rubyk simply plodded forward, his jewel-cut eyes dull and filmy.

“Are you sure you can do… this?” Madeleine said, close to the Aktur’s ear. Whatever this turned out to be. Rubyk just sighed.

“Assurance is a luxury, friend Madeleine – and my people are too accustomed to privations to cling to such a fleeting dainty.” Okay, clear as slate. Why should I expect any different?

Eyes. Pairs of eyes – shining, dull, gleaming, glassy, fearful, crying, hating eyes – were on them from the moment they entered the casino, bearing up the Aktur of Trotheim between them. Frost Pane carried herself and her train of white fur in their wake with brash dignity, and Madeleine doubted that the old mare was even aware of the stares. Rubyk, for his part, kept his eyes fixed in front of him, turning neither to the right, nor to the left. His jaw might have been made of iron.

For the second time that day, Madeleine found herself in the middle of an improvised courtroom. The gaming tables had been roughly moved roughly aside to form two counselor’s desks facing an high chair of dark cloud and spiny teakwood on the dais that Madeleine supposed must serve for the judge’s seat – if only that Jett Black himself sat upon it, looming down upon the entire crowd like a grim buzzard. It seemed to Madeleine that every guest and staff Clavia were thronged three-deep on the sides of the casino, waiting in an eerie silence among the crush of bodies. The semicircle of the very Keyrun table at which she had sat only a few nights ago was filled with a cast of familiar faces: from the Oranges, to Pome Apple, to Doctor Leaf and Papaya, and even Hodgepodge (hyperventilating and ready to bolt at the flick of a tail), nearly everyone connected to the case was there. Frost Pane huffed and, without consulting anypony else, took her own place among the witnesses, shoving aside Hodgepodge, who mumbled frail apologies gnawed the grit in his hat between his teeth glinting perversely in the lamplight.

Largo was nowhere to be seen.

Jett Black nodded curtly at Rubyk’s pale face as the Aktur mechanically took his place behind the long baccarat table that served for a prosecutor’s bench. “I am gratified that you are able to join us, Aktur Rubyk. I do not expect these proceedings to take long. They are, as you can see, most irregular.” The Corporal smiled, and Madeleine felt her stomach twist inside her, even though he was looking well up and over her shoulder. “Having Trotheim in our midst will let us see that justice is done all the more swiftly. May I count on your aid?”

Rubyk nodded his head, looking as tired as Madeleine had ever seen him, but said nothing. He met Jett Black’s gaze from the judge’s chair, unflinching. Jett Black’s smile broadened, and the Corporal reared and brought his forehooves down upon the earth, calling down a peal of thunder. There could scarcely have been a more effective gavel. All whispers from the crowds in the gallery, from the worried fussing of the Fillydelphia mare to the wailing filly in the back, died away in an instant.

“Mares and gentlestallions…” crooned the pegasus on the dais. Beside him went the unmistakable scritch-scritchof a dictosprite cast in the unmistakable silvery-white of pure platinum. “The inquest into the murder of Calvados Apple shall now come to order. Let the record note that I, Jett Black, Corporal of Princess Luna’s Shades, sit in persona regina. Three nights ago, a stallion was murdered by Earthsbane poison in this very hotel. Yes, good ponies: under your very noses! However, Canterlot has conducted her own investigation and is ready to present findings to prove the guilt of parties here present on the island.” Jett Black paused and cleared his throat. “The accused is Largo of Currycape. Will any stand to her defence?”

A thick silence followed. Madeleine glanced at Rubyk, but his face was impassive. As the seconds ticked away, it began to light on her that wasn’t his job here.

Then… who?

A timorous voice rose from the other table. “I shall be counsel for the accused,” said Doctor Leaf. The Clavia strode forward, no signs of fear on his face or glassy sheen in his eyes. “I… I intend to present evidence to demonstrate that our mistress could not be responsible for the death of Calvados Apple.”

The Corporal nodded, as if he had been expecting this answer. “Very well. Do any other parties have evidence that they desire to present before Canterlot?”

As if waiting for the right cue, Rubyk slammed his hoof onto the table with a sudden violence that tore the felt overlay and left frosty streaks where it struck. “Trotheim shall present evidence also.” In answer, Jett Black gave the Aktur a look that Madeleine could not at first identify. It was cloaked beneath courtly mask and polish, but there was no mistaking it as it lingered: it was a sneer.

“That there will be a minor problem of procedure with that, Aktur Rubyk,” said Jett Black. “I believe that you voluntarily relinquished your investigative rights to me in the presence of witnesses not twenty-four hours ago. With my being the agent of Canterlot present and on the case, per the rules of the treaty between our people, one marvels that you have evidence that could be anything but grossly illegal. Do you claim that with my presence on the island you, in fact, had such rights as the treaty allows you?”

Rubyk bared his teeth. “No.”

“Do you therefore claim that Trotheim has standing to present evidence in this court?”

“No.”

“Then I applaud your zeal for the law and for justice, even if it is a zeal lacking temperance.” Jett Black cracked his neck. The noise of it in that stillness was deafening. “Unfortunately, as you can see, there is little that I can do in the present circumstances. The law binds my hooves just as tightly as it binds yours. Surely you understand?”

“I understand all. Trotheim has no standing and no rights in this case. It is my duty as Aktur to fall silent where the treaty forbids me speak,” said Rubyk, holding the hoof that had gouged an hole in the table close to his chest, as if for comfort.

“Then it seems, regrettably, there is little more to be said. Let us then begin with the victim –”

Slam. A second hole joined the first. “Then I shall break the treaty. Trotheim shall present evidence.”

Silence fell again, somehow even thicker this time. “Overruled,” said Jett Black, quietly. “Aktur Rubyk, that will do. I sit in the stead of Canterlot, and every word that you speak will reach the eyes of my Princess. Let us simply say that you have been overwrought and overzealous and put this grandstanding behind us. This need go no farther.”

“No. We follow this road to the end,” replied Rubyk, soft and low. “And if Canterlot shall not allow Trotheim to present her evidence, then Trotheim shall make war with Canterlot.”

“Rubyk of Trotheim, you cannot possibly be serious!” A change came over the Corporal’s body, though his face remained as impassive as ever. His muscles seized with a sudden rigid poise, and a quaver of anger like the rumbling of distant thunder lay under his jocular tones.

“I am not of Trotheim, Corporal Black. I am Trotheim,” Rubyk whispered. “You will allow me my rights as Aktur to probe your case and witnesses, or you will shatter the blood-bought peace between the Aurora and the Moon. We will march upon the Sun and bring with us our clouds to blot out the noon-day. Our sons shall bring down the stars in your heavens to the ground, and our daughters shall scatter the stones of your fine houses, and there shall be none to deliver you from the Pride of Trotheim in that day, which Canterlot thought a light thing to scorn. Now, will Canterlot permit Trotheim to present her evidence, or will she not?” At the Keyrun table, Frost Pane beamed a grin that was all teeth and jagged points.

“Out of your own mouth do you condemn yourself,” Jett Black snapped. Rubyk shrugged.

“And out of yours do you condemn your people. That is no concern of mine,” the Aktur of Trotheim rumbled back. The two stallions locked gazes, and Madeleine had the sense of a great battle being fought just out of sight.

Jett Black glanced up and over their heads. “My Princess will hear of this,” the Corporal growled. “I assure you that the Moon does not regard threats with understanding.”

“But you will allow me to present evidence.” It was, Madeleine noted with a grin, not a question.

“Yes!” spat the Corporal. “Now, the both of you, proceed!”

(“You see!” gushed Frost Pane to a bewildered Mrs. Orange. “You see how well my grandfoal has learned his lessons! What a day of glory to these old bones!”)

Doctor Leaf shot an inscrutable glance at Rubyk, then bowed himself low on his forelegs toward the high chair of wood and cloud on the dais. “If it please your honour,” said the physician, “I should like to know for what cause this charge has fastened upon our mistress. The people of these islands have never found fault nor cause for alarm in Largo of Currycape. It is therefore unthinkable to us that she would sully her hooves in this way.”

Jett Black shook his head, making a great show of a reluctant sigh along with it. “I wish that were the case myself, counselor. However, I know for a fact that the proprietress of this hotel has a long history of criminality, even if it were not done in her own name. Perhaps you were not aware?”

Doctor Leaf’s nostrils flared. The little deer pawed at the ground once, then caught himself and stopped. “Your honour, I would request, in the name of a fair hearing, that you explain yourself. What, exactly, are you referring to?”

Not “what are you talking about?” thought Madeleine, stealing a glance at Doctor Leaf, whose face was a blank mask. It was, she thought, a peculiar choice of words. Does he know something he isn’t showing?

“I can at least tell you that. These proceedings are irregular enough that I see no harm in disclosing all,” Jett Black said, his smile as smooth as oil. “I came to this island originally to investigate the thefts of a number of artifacts of deerish antiquity from the Royal  Palace in Canterlot over a decade ago. It was a quite cold case, I assure you, and a long shot that I should actually find them on this expedition. But, to my own great surprise, my mission was a resounding success! Now tell me, Doctor, what do you suppose was stolen, and where do you suppose I found them? You ought to know; you see them each and every day.”

“Speak plainly!” snapped Doctor Leaf. “What does this have to do with the mistress?”

“Those chandeliers in the foyer are quite tasteful, wouldn’t you say?” Jett Black continued, as if the buck had not spoken at all. “Your people have truly fallen from a great height if you could once create such beautiful things that could last through a thousand dark years of war and decay. It is just as well that they have been kept in such a safe place, true?”

A shadow flickered across Doctor Leaf’s face. Jett Black’s slick smile did not waver as the pegasus went on: “And that goes just as well for so many of the little glass trinkets that I found as I wandered the halls of this fine old fortress. All of them in such pristine condition, and all of them true relics of antiquity! I flatter myself that I have an eye for such dainties. How much more amazing, then, that they survived in a place like this backwater of the Sun and Moon’s wide rule!”

Doctor Leaf had gone horribly pale by this point. The buck’s ears drooped, bloodlessly. “I say again: what does this have to do with mistress Largo, Corporal?”

“Such a brave face,” Jett Black patronized. “Mares and gentlestallions, I shall be plain. The mare known to you variously as Largo of Currycape, ‘Largo of the Deer’, or else simply as the proprietress of this world-class hotel, has for many years been a thorn in the side of my Princess by conducting an illicit trade in relics of the Clavia for her own benefit and enrichment. The chandeliers hanging in this very hotel are proof enough of that. They – and all the rest of the pretty trinkets you trot past in these storied halls – once hung in their rightful place in the Royal Palace, where they brought greater glory to the Sun and Moon. I ask the court: is this not the very duty of every citizen of our empire where the Sun touches? But the mare responsible for the bloody crime that has called us all together here tonight felt no such civic duty in her breast.”

“She has been called by many names over the years,” said Jett Black, watching Doctor Leaf with an hawkish glint in his eye. “‘Allegro Vivice’, or ‘Poco Poco’, and perhaps even by her given name some of the time – which I will not give here. Out of respect for such an opponent, I will let the accused keep at least one secret. But the factremains, Doctor, that your mistress is a liar and a thief in the highest degree, and I would have taken her away in irons regardless of the sad events that bring us together here tonight. Is that clear?”

It seemed quite clear to Doctor Leaf. The little physician clenched his jaw, and he made no answer to the pegasus’ accusations. Instead, Rubyk’s quiet reply came from beside Madeleine:

“A moment, Corporal. I do not doubt that what you say of the accused is true. Trotheim had her own suspicions on this matter. But all of this is petty. We are here concerned with the murder of a pony. You know as well as I that the mind of a thief is not often the mind of a murderer. How do you intend to prove your case?”

“I know as well as you that the equine mind is capable of many kinds of evil, Aktur Rubyk. But since you have asked me for proof, I shall give it. Tell me, how did Calvados Apple die?” said Jett Black.

“I-I can answer to that,” said Doctor Leaf, regaining himself just a little. “There is no doubt in my mind that the victim died from a lethal dose of Earthsbane, in spite of the other injuries sustained on his person. Those were either mild compared to the damage from the poison, or else inflicted after death.”

“Ah!” said Jett Black. “Yes – Earthsbane poisoning. A terrible way for anypony to go. How can you be so sure?”

Doctor Leaf drew himself up to his full height. “If I could not tell that, I do not deserve my title. Earthsbane poisoning in the earth pony type presents certain unmistakable signs in terminal cases, namely a cracking of the lips and a withering of the skin as the victim’s magical connection to the earth is severed. The cause of death in such cases is total systemic failure brought on by thaumic rheostasis. Make no mistake: if that stallion was murdered, it was by poison.”

“Thank you. I believe that you would consider this testimony beyond doubt, Aktur Rubyk?”

“Yes.”

“Then the obvious question is: where did the killer get such a dangerous poison, and how was it given to the victim?” said Jett Black. “I credit you with enough diligence to find out through your own investigation that no merchant in the town or in the backwater with the charming name have anything to do with Earthsbane. They at least seem to have sense enough here for that.”

“You are quite right, Corporal,” whispered Rubyk. “There is no possibility that the poison came from any shop on this island. It is so also unlikely that such a quantity of Earthsbane, in such a potent form, could have been brought in from outside.”

“Hmm!” rumbled Jett Black. The pegasus sounded satisfied. “I am glad that you are aware of the port protocols, Aktur. It will save us all here time in the long run.”

“Indeed,” Rubyk replied, nodding his head. “The only pony could have possibly brought in such agents from outside would be you yourself – for so the proverb says, ‘the shade may hide what the light does not wish to know.’”

“Surely you do not believe that I concealed an illegal poison on my person when I came to this island?” quipped Jett Black, sounding rather amused than offended. Rubyk shook his head with an emphasis that bordered on the violent.

“Not at all. It is far the simpler to presume that the poison was here from the very beginning. In truth, if the accused was half so prolific in crime as you claim, it becomes more than plausible. ‘Never presume two evils where one malice is enough.’ Indeed, I intend to prove that it was the same poison, twice applied, that was responsible both for the murder and the attempt on the life of the accused.”

“Indeed?” said Jett Black. The pegasus’ eyebrows rose. “So you say. Then I must credit you with a certain genius, Aktur. It seems that we are of a like mind as to this case after all. Perhaps I was hasty in taking this investigation out of your evidently most capable hooves.”

“Mister Rubyk, what are you doing?” hissed Madeleine in the giant’s ear. “I thought you said that the Corporal was behind all this!”

“And so I did,” said Rubyk, inaudibly to anypony but her. “But truth is truth, and no Aktur is fit for duty if he flinch from the light, no matter how painful the gleam. You must trust me, friend Madeleine.”

Doctor Leaf took an hesitating step forward. “Far be it from me to tread on the tails of the glory of Canterlot or the Pride of Trotheim, but…”

“Yes, counselor?” said Jett Black, his smirk underlining every syllable of the title.

“I keep a record of all medicines containing Earthsbane in even minute quantities that come under my care here on the island. If there was any Earthsbane here, I assure you on my Oath to my art, I would know about it. And not one drop has gone from any of my stores in the days before or since the murder,” said Doctor Leaf. The physician held himself tall, unwavering in the conviction of the expert, and cast a challenging look at the Aktur and the pegasus.

“Is that so?” said Jett Black, who sat back in the high chair. “Aktur, what do you make of the defence’s claim?”

“I find no reason to doubt it.”

“Nor do I. But perhaps you will let the defence know what other possibility exists?”

“Other possibility? What other possibility? Stop talking in riddles!” Doctor Leaf half-screamed. “Whatever it is, please, tell me! What have I overlooked?”

“You overlook the easiest thing to miss: the very tip of your own muzzle,” said Rubyk sadly. “The possibility exists – indeed, it seems beyond all doubt – that the poison used was from a private stock unknown even to the physician of this island. And the only place that stock could exist is with the proprietress herself. If anything in this case seems sure, it is that the Earthsbane was Largo’s own.”

For the second time in as many hours, Madeleine felt the ground falling out from beneath her hooves. The cruelly logical little pony in her head ran down the list of reasons why it couldn’t be! Madeleine threw at her and shook her head at each one. But it was the only explanation that made sense of it all.

Have I been blind? she thought. “How can you be sure?” she said.

“I know it because I did not find it. And I never shall find it. If any yet remains, I expect to find it at the bottom of the sea. But because I did not find it where I knew it must be found, I am firm to stand on my own four hooves and declare to this court that Largo herself was the owner of a quantity of Earthsbane that must by needs have been moved.”

Jett Black merely continued to sit back, amusement curling the corners of his mouth. “Aktur, circumstantial evidence is one thing, but to found a case on a lack of evidence altogether is, I admit, a novelty. Perhaps you will do us all a favour and speak plainly.”

“As your honour wishes,” Rubyk growled, bowing low. “The mystery is not great. Within the proprietress’ own office, there was a safe. It was sealed. I opened it, and I found it empty.”

“As I recall, you did rather more than open it,” Jett Black said. “And that was after you were forbidden to interfere with the investigation. You will answer for this as well as for your threats, Rubyk of Trotheim. But do go on – what is the great significance of the empty safe? Aside from the fact that there was nothing in it?”

Rubyk bowed himself even lower, his knees trembling from lingering weakness. “Oh, Jett Black of Canterlot, you know.”

“I know what, precisely?”

“You know well the meaning of the safe. For it was you that emptied it after you forced the proprietress to die at her own hooves and destroyed her office.”

The choking silence of the makeshift court seemed to bear down like a yoke on every pony gathered there. The Aktur’s words were like a cold breath on the neck that made one shiver before one quite felt their effects. Doctor Leaf looked up at the dais with eyes widening in incredulity, followed by a deep and slow-welling anger. Pome Apple’s face reddened violently, his ears laying flat against his mane. Mrs. Orange fell back and leaned weakly against her own paling husband. Frost Pane laughed and clucked through her teeth, muttering adulations or imprecations under her breath — it was difficult to say which.

And throughout it all, Jett Black just continued to sit back and smile.

“You…?” Madeleine muttered. Her mouth felt utterly dry. Beside her, Rock Skipper glanced at the faces around the room in varying states of disbelief – as if he had to do something under the strain of all the nervous energy. Rubyk stood erect and still as a statue.

“Ah. Aktur Rubyk, I am afraid that I have let you get rather far afield in your reasoning. I but regret that I did not step in to take over this case from the start,” said Jett Black. It was perverse to Madeleine’s ear, but the pegasus actually sounded… pained?

“Do you deny that you ransacked the proprietress’ office?” Rubyk demanded quietly.

“No, of course not. When I assumed my full responsibilities on this island, I took on myself everything that would include. I naturally investigated the proprietress’ office. What more would you have me say? How does that possibly connect me to either of the crimes before this court this night?”

“Do you deny that you knew of the poison in Largo’s office?” Rubyk continued, slow, implacable, like the grinding of a glacier made equine.

“You,” sighed Jett Black, “are fishing. This is… well, frankly rather disappointing. I expect rather more from youthan conjecture and circumstantial evidence. You have a reputation that precedes you. I regret to say that it seems scarcely justified.”

Rubyk shook his head. “I gave you your one chance, Jett Black. The blood of your broken wings be upon your own head.”

Then the Aktur of Trotheim tossed his mane and stamped his hoof and cried out in a loud voice: “Leaf of Currycape! You will approach the witness stand now!”

“What?” spat the little deer, wheeling on Rubyk. After he had said it, the tension in the doctor seemed to snap, and he said: “Yes. Of course, Aktur. Whatever you need of me, I am at your disposal.”

There followed a few brief moments where no one was quite willing to say to the giant pony with the jagged teeth, “what stand?” After glancing about at the silent, staring faces around him, Rubyk snorted and summoned a tall wooden chair from the side gallery (that happened to be underneath the mare from Fillydelphia, who fell like the important and dignified mare that she was). It appeared in their midst in a puddle of melting damp, followed by a small sound like cracking ice. Madeleine saw the Aktur of Trotheim wince. A thin rime of frost clung to his horn.

“Are you alright, chief?” said Rock Skipper, who also saw the movement.

“I will have to be,” replied Rubyk, and there was something in his tone that forbade anypony to say anything further. Doctor Leaf looked at the chair with detachment and mounted it, sitting tall as if he did not feel the hundred eyes on him even at that moment.

“State your name and occupation,” said Rubyk, striding to the center of the courtroom on his listing legs.

“Leaf of Currycape. Physician of the Clavia Hotel, not to speak of the town of Currycape, and many other things besides. But is all this ceremony really necessary? What more do you still want from me?”

“Leaf of Currycape,” Rubyk continued, “I want you to have a look at something. Perhaps you are familiar with it – and perhaps you are not. In either case, we will gain much. Friend Madeleine, if you would?”

He couldn’t mean the gem. That left only one possible thing the Aktur could be referring to. She produced the slug of hornbone from her bag and held it in her magic for the little buck and the rest of the court to view. Doctor Leaf’s face showed no response. Neither, for that matter, did Jett Black.

“What is this, Aktur Rubyk?” Doctor Leaf said at length.

“You do not recognize it.”

“Other than that this is unicorn hornbone showing an unusual degree of decalcification, I do not.”

“Kindly confirm this for the court. Once again: you have never seen this bit of hornbone in your days.”

“Yes! What does this have to do with these cases?”

Rubyk nodded his head. “Doctor, you have at once made all clear. There is now nothing that is unknown to me. Trotheim commends you.”

Doctor Leaf sighed. “This has been an exceedingly long day. Please, spare me the theatrics.”

“Very well. I found this hornbone lodged in the speaking-tube of Calvados Apple’s suite. The enchantment upon it is badly decayed, but is there any doubt in your mind that this hornbone is the reason that no whisper of the events of that bloody night reached the ears of the staff at the front desk?”

Doctor Leaf’s body slumped. The physician wet his lips with the tip of a pink tongue. “That is certainly plausible, Aktur.”

“Witness. Could anyone but a member of the staff have placed this object in the speaking-tube?”

“No… the keys are enchanted to open only for guests and the cleaning staff. So unless the guest had some reason to want privacy that badly…” Doctor Leaf’s voice trailed off, and he shot a glance at Pome Apple, who glared back defiantly at the buck.

“What did y’all think of my uncle?” Pome Apple said, spitting a gob of contempt onto the carpet. “I’d been traveling with him for weeks, and I ain’t ever seen that before in my life. It wasn’t his, and it sure as the day is hot ain’t mine.”

“Order in this court, please,” said Jett Black, sounding bored.

“Thank you, friend Pome. You need not rise up and approach the stand – what you have just said is testimony enough. We know now that only a staff member could have placed this in the speaking tube.”

“But where does that get us?” Doctor Leaf said.

“Someone connected to these events placed this hornbone so that there would be no witnesses to what transpired that night. But they did not succeed. There was one witness that they did not account for. And from what you have said, I have no doubts that they are presently in this court.”

“There was a witness to the murder? Who?” said Doctor Leaf, glancing from one astonished face to another.

Rubyk fixed the physician’s wandering eye with a cold stare that made the blood around Madeleine’s heart run cold. “Leaf of Currycape, I do not like it when ponies twist the truth in my presence. I like it still less when they do so under an helpful mask. You know well what you heard in Calvados Apple’s rooms that night, and you will now testify. What did you hear, and why were you there?”

Doctor Leaf’s eyes slowly traveled the length of the room, and for what might have been the first time since Madeleine had known the buck, words seemed to utterly fail him. He gingerly wet his dry lips several times before he opened his mouth and said in a small voice:

“I cannot tell what I don’t know.”

Rubyk nickered and stamped his hoof, wincing at the impact. A scroll filled with slanted lines of unmistakably regular dictosprite text flashed before them all, held in the grip of the Aktur’s icy magic.

“Why do you deny the truth that you and I know so well? Why do you perjure yourself, doctor? I have your very words. ‘Two of the spells that were cast in Calvados Apple’s suite last night were cast by Clavia… I am as sure of this as I am that the same is dead and lying in stasis in the cellars.’ And again, ‘I think that it was Papaya in that suite… I know this just as surely as I know that there was a Clavia in Calvados’ rooms: Papaya did not kill that pony. I know her. She simply could not have done it.’”

“How did you transcribe that?” Doctor Leaf said, his voice going shrill in alarm. “You swore you would tell no soul!”

“I swore no such thing!” Rubyk growled. “My investigation is over doctor, and your bond has no more claim on me. Now, I happen to know the naked truth: you did your uttermost to protect this little doe from the consequences of her actions. Papaya was the doe who shot Calvados Apple. I have the testimony to prove this, and you shall not deny it! You knew and did not tell me.”

“Fine!” spat Doctor Leaf. The physician glared at the giant of a unicorn looming over him. “I do not deny it. If you had come to me before now, I would have told you that myself without this need to publicly shame me. But you have leapt to false conclusions, Aktur. I told you what I suspected – what I thought by observing the girl with my own eyes. I was not in that room. You cannot prove that I was.”

Rubyk shook his head, a low rumble burbling out of his throat. “No, doctor. I do not think so. Out of your own mouth you spin a web in which you hang your own neck. You have said it yourself: two of the spells cast that night, in that room, were Clavia spells. Friend Madeleine, would you please bring your pistol forward to exhibit to the court?”

Still numb, Madeleine stepped forward. “Here, Mister Rubyk.”

“Thank you. Doctor, you will note that the firing mechanism is internal. Could anyone but a unicorn or a Clavia have used this weapon?”

“I suppose that your Princesses could have, but I am a simple country doctor. Your logic seems sound, but who am I to say?”

Ignoring Doctor Leaf’s commentary, Rubyk continued: “Then the levitation to grip, hold, and fire the pistol was one spell. Pome Apple’s first spell upon his uncle was another, and his bungled attempt to save his uncle’s life was another. Papaya stated in her testimony that she immediately fled the scene, and I will have that girl confirm this if you still wish to squirm out from under my hoof. She had neither the time, the motive, nor the focus to cast another. So tell the court: what was that fourth spell that had to be cast by a Clavia? And how did you know so emphatically that Papaya could not have killed Calvados Apple?”

The two figures’ gazes clashed for a few seconds longer before Doctor Leaf turned his head away. The buck groaned, bitterly.

“I tried to be so careful to cover my tracks, but in the end, I failed. Yes, I admit it. The fourth spell was the invisibility spell of the Clavia. My own spell, to be perfectly clear.”

Rubyk’s eyes glinted with steely fury. His voice was soft with a whipcord tension. “And you maintain that you do not know what happened in Calvados Apple’s suite that night?”

“Yes. I will maintain it because, Aktur, I do not know.”

The Aktur snorted again, his breath turning white in the cloying atmosphere. He put his muzzle nearly against Doctor Leaf’s face. “Explain,” was all that he said. Doctor Leaf’s body trembled and he inhaled deeply.

“I… entered the suite earlier that day when Calvados and Pome Apple returned from the mainland. I simply lay concealed in the hallway under my people’s native glamour and walked in behind them. And I know what you will think – and no, I have no idea who wedged that hornbone in the speaking-tube. That’s nothing at all to do with me.”

“Why?” Rubyk pressed. Doctor Leaf swallowed.

“Miss Largo’s orders. I was told to be present with my medical kit on hand and to be ready for anything. All I knew was that she feared something would be going on in that suite that night – I honestly don’t know how. I got some of the other staff to cover my turns in my regular duties and was in the suite for the whole of the afternoon.”

Rubyk frowned. Clearly, something about the physician’s answers sat ill with him. “So I see…” he murmured. “Then why do you claim to know nothing of what happened there that night?”

A sigh moved the little buck’s frame. “Do the words ‘sheer, blind panic’ mean anything to you ponies? Look at me. Am I one of your race?”

“You are not. What of it?”

“Very well! I am not a pony. I am a deer. Let me ask you a question, Aktur Rubyk: you have observed my people. You have some inkling of our ways. What do you think hearing a gunshot at close quarters, bounding off the walls, does to one of us – even a Clavia of a sturdy constitution?”

Rubyk blinked. “You… were frozen?”

Doctor Leaf nodded. “Your narrative up to that point at the earlier trial was commendably accurate. After that, I am afraid that there is little more that I can tell you. I don’t know precisely how much time passed. When I came to myself, Calvados Apple was already dead and the room in the state that you found it.”

“Exactly as I found it?”

“Yes. I am quite sure of that.”

The Aktur of Trotheim’s frown deepened. “You removed nothing from the room?”

“No. I am a doctor. This is, regrettably, not the first time that I found myself at a crime scene purely by happenstance.”

Then Rubyk sighed. It was a sound both frustrated and mournful. “Doctor, you can tell me nothing more. I have no further questions.”

“One moment, if you please,” said Jett Black’s smooth voice. “I would like to clarify something. You say that you entered the suite on the proprietress’ orders?”

Doctor Leaf turned toward the dais with a small start, as if he had forgotten about the pegasus. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“When did you receive this direction?”

“It was just after the breakfast service. The mistress came to me while I was working in the apothecary and asked me there, in private.”

“How did she look at the time? Was there anything unusual about her bearing?”

“Unusual? No, not at all. Speaking professionally, I should say there was nothing at all amiss about her at the time – physically speaking. Speaking personally…” Doctor Leaf paused.

“Yes?” Jett Black said.

“She seemed… distracted. Detached. Perhaps even a bit cold.” The physician’s words were slow and clipped, as if he spoke them with no small reluctance. Jett Black – if such a thing were possible – smiled gravely.

“Then I believe the shape of the events that day and night are clear. However, I have a very different conclusion than Trotheim. Canterlot shall state her conclusions for the record, and the Aktur may follow the proper channels to the appeals court, if he should be so inclined.”

Jett Black continued: “Let it be recorded clearly that the Aktur’s investigation and cross-examination has conclusively demonstrated that Earthsbane poison was in the possession of the proprietress of the Clavia Hotel, Largo of Currycape, at the time of the murder, and that there were no other sources of such poison available on the island. Let the record also show that Leaf of Currycape was instructed by the proprietress to lie in wait for the victim, and has himself confessed that he was at the site of the murder for the entire afternoon. In other words, he has no alibi for the time of death, which he took great pains to conceal from all investigators. He had every opportunity to slip poison into the victim’s drink or food under the cover of the invisibility spell that he himself confessed to using. I submit to the court that this is damning evidence of collusion to premeditated murder between the accused and the witness currently on the stand.”

“No!” Doctor Leaf cried, jumping to his hooves. The Clavia’s eyes were wide, unfocused, glassy. “That is a lie! The mistress would not… no, no! She did not ask that of me! And I would never… I am a doctor!”

“On the contrary,” said Jett Black, blandly. “Many doctors can, and do.” The pegasus’ smile faded. “Leaf of Currycape, I charge you with the murder of Calvados Apple by Earthsbane toxin. Under Canterlot law, you have the right to an advocate appointed by the Royal Courts, but if you choose to appoint another advocate in your defence…”

Crack. Rubyk’s hoof struck the ground, sending up a plume of white, curling mist. Frost clung to the Aktur’s coat in leprous patches.

“Trotheim demands to cross-examine.”

The silence from the black pegasus in his high chair was cool, and deafening. “Do you think this necessary, Aktur?” Jett Black’s smooth voice said. “If it is only to fill up the formalities of courtly procedure, I do think we have breached that point already.”

“It is most necessary.”

A low rumble like thunder, nearly inaudible, came from where Jett Black sat, deathly still. It seemed to Madeleine that a storm cloud was brooding over the casino, a great glacier rising up like a fist to meet the unquiet heaven. “Then please feel free to proceed. You find some fault in my statement?”

Rubyk nodded. Madeleine could hear his neckbones crack. “Canterlot has, as is her custom, leapt straight to her conclusions without considering all the evidence. It is the gangrene in that which she calls justice.”

For a fraction of a second, Madeleine saw anger, real anger, flicker across Jett Black’s face like light off jagged flint. It was gone in a moment, replaced by the same smooth smile – but she was sure it was there. Whatever you are doing, Mister Rubyk, keep doing it.

“Trotheim has the floor. You may proceed, Aktur.”

“Jett Black. Who placed the hornbone in the speaking tube?”

The pegasus gave an exaggerated shrug of his broad shoulders. “That is immaterial to Canterlot’s case. Trotheim has already proved that a staff member must necessarily have placed that hornbone in the tube due to the exclusive access to the rooms granted by the key system used here. Suppose that it was one of the cleaning staff, or that witness on the stand there. Suppose that it was the proprietress herself, for all the sense that makes. Where does that get us?”

“Does Canterlot then persist in throwing dust into the air with her grimy wings?” said Rubyk, a sneer of contempt curling his muzzle.

“Enough!” shouted Jett Black. The pegasus’ feathers flared, and his hoof ground against the wood of the chair beneath him. “Rubyk of Trotheim, you have reached the end of this court’s patience! Make your point, or I will hold you in contempt – and fie on your armies! You will see just how far the bravado of barbarians can go against the full might of the Sun and the Moon arrayed against them!”

“Very well. Canterlot wishes to argue that a staff member placed the hornbone in the speaking tube? But I beg of this court: why should that be so? What would the collusion that she alleges between the proprietress and the good doctor have to gain from cloaking the events in silence? Is not poison itself the quietest way of blackening a conscience with the sin of murder? Why, then, this need to be unheard?”

“To keep the victim from crying out for help,” Jett Black bit back. Rubyk shook his head emphatically.

“Friend Pome, will you tell Canterlot whether you could do anything but lie quietly and wait to die when you took Earthsbane so many years ago? Could you have called out for help even if you wanted to?”

“No. It ain’t a pretty way to go. And thank you for bringing that up,” Pome grumbled.

“Thank you. Mares and gentlestallions, I ask you to consider: if to place the hornbone would not aid their aim in any way, if it were completely unnecessary, could a Clavia have plugged the speaking-tube? Could the proprietress herself have done it? It defies reason; it stinks in the mind. No! Let us place no such filth before our eyes any longer!”

“Mister Rubyk…” Madeleine said, a dim suspicion in her mind beginning to take a new and very present form. “If it wasn’t a staff member that plugged the speaking tube, and it wasn’t Largo… who did? And in Celestia’s name… why?”

“Order in this court!” Jett Black shouted over a sudden peal of thunder. The pegasus loomed down upon them all, larger than life, with his wings folded tightly at his sides. “Counsel will be silent unless addressed!”

“No!” Rubyk boomed, the Aktur’s voice resounding like an avalanche. “Jett Black, you will be silent before Trotheim, unjust judge! For it was none but your hoof that placed that hornbone, and your threats that forced Miss Largo to give over the poison that she kept for none but herself. Jett Black – you are a murderer, a liar, and a cheating gutter-rat, and I swear by the Lonely God and the Pride of Trotheim that I will bring you low!”

Jett Black glowered – but there was an hint of a smile still on his muzzle. “These are serious charges, Aktur. How do you propose to prove them?”

“Jett Black. Will you kindly tell the court where you found this evidence?” Rubyk stamped his hoof again, repeating the wince that rode along with it. Before them all hung the hornbone necklace that the pegasus had brought to Hodgepodge’s tent in the Withers. The necklace gave off a pulse of cold nausea at the touch of Rubyk’s magic that passed through the gathered ponies with a shudder. Madeleine set her teeth against the sudden sensation of wrongness and watched Jett Black, who may have been a lump of coal for all the effect it had upon him.

“I found it on the beaches when I combed the island on the morning after the murder. It had by then become quite evident to me that there was some manner of ill deed going on in this hotel. I held it close by until I could make my own inquiries,” Jett Black said, unruffled.

“Ah,” Rubyk said, nodding his head with an audible creak of his joints. “The beaches are quite a convenient place to lose things if one needs to. Is that not so?”

“I quite concur. That is why I began there.”

“And what did you conclude about this necklace in connection to this case?”

“That there is no such connection. It is a dark thing in itself, but I saw no way that it could have any relation to the murder of the victim. I gave it over to that mare in your counsel after I made my own deductions. I thereafter focused my efforts on the proprietress herself. As you yourself have proved, I was not wrong.”

“No connection? None? And what of the fact that that hornbone that you found upon the convenient beach and the one in the tube were taken from the same poor soul?” Rubyk’s voice had dropped back down to a whisper, but even so, not even a foal’s cry competed with him for attention in the crowded casino.

“So that is your line?” Jett Black said, seeming to relax just slightly. “I admit that it is interesting, but hardly conclusive evidence of anything. I have no cause to doubt your expert testimony, Aktur, but those might have been bought from the same back-alley curiosity shop or zebra shaman. And unless you can prove that I or anypony else was in possession of both of those black magic artifacts, at the same time, neither you nor I nor anypony else can demonstrate connection to this case.”

Then the pegasus’ face clouded over, and there was new steel in his voice as he said: “I have reached the end of my patience. Threats or no, Aktur, you have wearied this court with your fishing and your baseless accusations, and I will see to it myself that you will stand at the High Court before my Princess to answer for your behaviour. Do you have anything that you wish to say in your defence?”

Rubyk heaved one great, long sigh. “You had every opportunity to confess, Jett Black. I gave you chance after chance to unburden your sins. You chose this weary road; you leave me now no choice.”

The Aktur of Trotheim turned his head sadly. “Friend pegasus? Friend Madeleine? Bring it now.”

Neither Madeleine nor Rock Skipper needed to ask what he meant. They came forward as one, and Rock Skipper set the rusted stand on the ground in front of Rubyk. Madeleine reached into her bag and extracted the blue-glass gem, glinting in the citrine light of her horn.

Jett Black rose. A colour like an ember suddenly unearthed from the ashes began to burn hot in his ear-tips. “Aktur. What is the meaning of this?”

Rubyk shrugged. “The beaches are quite a convenient place to lose things – is that not so? The meaning is on the tip of your tongue. Let us hear it from your mouth, and not another.”

Jett Black stomped to the edge of the dais. Madeleine met the black pegasus’ flinty gaze with the cool defiance of a well-wrought pearl. “Madeleine Crumpet, did I not demand of you your cooperation? You have deliberatelywithheld evidence from the agent of Canterlot. Whatever consequences the Princess brings upon your head, you bring upon yourself.”

Rock Skipper, the tips of his ears burning with the same red heat, pushed past Madeleine and extended his wing in front of her protectively. “We heard what you did! You can’t just stand up there all high and mighty like your wings never needed preening in your life and gibe down on us like that!”

“Enough!” howled Rubyk.

“Order!” thundered Jett Black.

Rock Skipper’s wing snapped obediently to his side. The Aktur and the Corporal were lost to themselves, willing murder at one another as they traded glares.

“Enough" indeed, Madeleine fumed. It was time to end this. She jammed the gem into the holder and, with her horn ablaze to amplify the sound so that a diver in the shipwrecks below the island could hear it, the recording of what happened in 505 echoed off of the walls.

It took a only few moments for Jett Black to recognize the sound assaulting his ears. When he did, a fearful change came over the pegasus. Madeleine looked up from the gem to dais and saw, not a pony, but a demon of Tartarus staring down upon her, naked fury aglint in his eyes in the firelight of her spell. She shuddered and put all of her strength into the conduit of her horn, as if to force the remembrance into his ears by sheer volume.

Jett Black’s body shook as his words, muffled and indistinct, but undeniably his, spoke the last rites over Calvados Apple’s body. A gasp spread throughout the crowd at the awful sound that followed. The schoolteacher mare on holiday with her family covered up the ears of her closest foal – too little, too late. The mare from Fillydelphia made a show of fainting. Pome Apple and Frost Pane stared fixedly at Jett Black – the one in a cold and rising fury, the other with the same contempt one felt for treading on a bit of foal-sick.

Through it all, Rubyk stood immobile as a stone. “You have wings. You entered the victim’s room through the balcony window while he was absent and administered the poison mingled with stardew, likely in the tonic that he took every night for his health. You incited a storm using your native powers mingled with black magic to ensure that nopony should see you as you entered again after Calvados Apple was already as good as dead.”

“Or it might have been a suicide. Perhaps the victim was weary of living his miserable life of drink and mares and decided to spare Equestria the trouble.” Jett Black grated.

“Calvados Apple did not drink.”

“More’s the pity. It might have made the earth able to bear such an excuse for a stallion. Prove that I did this, Aktur. You have no proof that I entered that room with intent to kill a pony.”

Rubyk shook his head and stamped his hoof, and one final time, caked with ice, an empty bottle of red glass tumbled from thin air onto the floor. It rolled and pointed toward the agent of Canterlot like the hoof of the Pale Reaper.

“This was stardew, Jett Black. I have seen more than enough of it of late to know the smell. A very helpful little buck found it in your room. Why was that?”

Jett Black said a stormy nothing.

“Do you have anything to say in your defence?” Rubyk pressed.

Jett Black snarled. “Like hell.”

Rubyk’s jewel-cut eyes were lined by hoary frost, but they were as merciless as a spear as he said in a still, small voice: “So let it be. Jett Black of Canterlot, Trotheim charges you with the willful murder of Calvados Apple, with blackmail and the self-murder of Largo of Currycape, with the possession and willful use of black magic paraphernalia, and with the deliberate obstruction of justice of a lawful criminal investigation. How do you plead? And I urge you, if there is any remorse in your breast, confess your sins, for the Lonely God and the Pride of Trotheim are merciful to those who seek repentance.”

For an infinite moment, Jett Black’s slack form and ashen face made no reply. He seemed not to even have heard the question. Rubyk growled and opened his mouth again as if to repeat himself when Jett Black’s face twisted in an inequine paroxysm of black anger. The pegasus unfurled his wings to their full breadth, eclipsing Madeleine, Rock Skipper, and Rubyk in shadow. At his side, on a silvery chain drawn around his body below where his folded wings had concealed it, hung a third shard of what was unmistakably unicorn hornbone – and Madeleine had seen quite enough of it lately that there was no mistaking it.

The hornbone pulsed with a prickling, nauseous energy. It raked Madeleine’s mane and horn, and she saw the black shadow gathering around it, dark even against the Jett Black’s inky coat, beating harder and faster like a murderous heart.

“Skipper!” she shouted. “Mister Rubyk! Get down!” His eyes wide, Rock Skipper did just that, covering up his head with his forelegs and wings. Groaning his frustration, Rubyk dropped a moment later, and not a moment too soon. The dark pulse that erupted from Jett Black was like a burst of wind, biting down to the marrow, hateful red and mercilessly black. Madeleine, Rock Skipper, Doctor Leaf, Pome Apple, to say nothing of the rest of the crowd, were thrown back as far as the walls by an unseen buck to the chest. Voices cried out all around Madeleine, more from shock than from pain. Madeleine skidded hard on her belly against Rock Skipper, who braced his hooves against the ground and managed to absorb the brunt of the pulse. She heard the grunt of wind knocked out of the poor colt’s lungs by the impact – sorry, Skipper! – but she had bigger problems to think about. Like the second shock wave that followed a few seconds after the first. This time, however, she threw up a glassy shield from her horn in front of herself and Rock Skipper, and the black magic sputtered and died against it, running down in oily streaks like filthy rain against a window pane.

And somehow, somehow, Rubyk was still standing. He looked positively awful, sick with icy patches and streaky magic burns all over his coat. His jewel-cut eyes were speckled with white the same flecks that marred those of the Frei of Trotheim – only these were the garnet-red of arterial blood, violent and fresh. But when Madeleine looked at his face, there was nothing there but ice and steel. There was no more mercy, no more compassion, no more pleas for confession and absolution, no more pony to speak of. The rigid figure before her was the Aktur of Trotheim – nothing more, and nothing less.

Jett Black snarled and drew his wings back. The hornbone held at his side began to pulse again. Nausea stroked Madeleine’s stomach like an unwanted, wandering hoof. Her face hardened into a glare.

Not this time, Corporal.

The gunshot rang out louder than any peal of pegasus-thunder and broke the spell over the room. The evil pulsing and vile feelings stopped, leaving behind a vacuum of unquiet relief. Jett Black stumbled off of the dais, looking around for the source of the shot, at the same time checking himself over by instinct. He turned toward Madeleine, and at the pistol in the grip of her horn pointed toward the ceiling, wearing a mask of sheer surprise.

Rubyk had not even flinched. The Aktur of Trotheim took a threatening step forward. “The accused has pled. Trotheim’s sentence is now passed. Jett Black, you will accompany me to Trotheim. Accept your sentence and you shall find rest within the Never-Melting. Resist Trotheim and die.”

“Damn you!” Jett Black boomed. The pegasus bounded from the dais and covered the space between him and the door with massive strides and wingbeats. He turned and snarled at the courtroom, and there was not a pony there any longer, but only the creature from Tartarus. The hornbone at his side pulsed again, and the great wooden doors slammed shut with the metallic klatch of the lock.

“No!” Rubyk screamed. He galloped to the doors, sloughing frost. The Aktur of Trotheim’s hooves shuddered against the wood and carved deep gashes in the varnish — but the doors held firm.

“Chief!” Rock Skipper yelped, gliding to Rubyk’s side. Rubyk growled, but nodded at the pegasus, and the two stallions together put their shoulders to the doors. However, they still did not shift an inch. Madeleine galloped toward the pair and put her magic to the door, but yelped as a black spark jumped from the metal lock to her horn.

Then the wail of a wildcat shook the walls of the casino.

“Feckless! Gormless! Toothless! Move aside!” Frost Pane’s remonstrance came even as the old mare sprinted toward the door at a full gallop, tearing the carpet beneath her hooves. Rubyk’s eyes widened, and he dove quickly out of his elder’s way. Rock Skipper froze, perhaps in fear, perhaps from the frightful absurdity barreling toward them. Madeleine grabbed the gawping pegasus around the neck and pulled him aside with a sharp jerk.

The Frei of Trotheim cackled with laughter and crackled with frost as she slammed into the doors with the force of a cannonball. The doors burst outward and the lock exploded as black magic was introduced to and had a catastrophically awkward first meeting with the Pride of Trotheim.

“You see, Rubyk? That is how you ought to break down a door!” Frost Pane guffawed, shouting her victory with full throat.

“I will remember it in the future, grandmama. Now, quickly!”

Rubyk ran through the shattered door and over the black-smoking lock, which was evidently still dazed and had not yet had the reality of its situation catch up to it. Madeleine dropped Rock Skipper and set off after him, her four hooves drumming a war-beat under her. Rock Skipper grunted and flapped wobbling after them.

“Friend jeweler!” Rubyk called over behind him. “The foyer!” Not that there was much difficulty in following the trail of frosty, white hoofprints struck into the plush carpets like hammer-blows. Madeleine held her pistol at the ready in her mouth as she ran, ready at a moment to twist its internal mechanisms to fire if it came to that. Rock Skipper brought up the rear, unsteady in the air. Behind them, the quiet patter of Doctor Leaf’s hooves, and the mad, tromping steps of Pome Apple, joined in the chase.

Madeleine heard a feeble little cry. Rubyk’s teeth were bared as he emerged into the Grand Foyer. He howled at what he saw, a sound that chilled the marrow of Madeleine’s bones. “Too far! Too far! You will not add this doe to your sins, Jett Black!”

Jett Black looked up from the fallen form of Limon, his enormous forehoof resting on her head. The chain of starlight that had lashed the great doors shut was quickly fading, and in a few brief moments would die away. He let out a dragon’s rumbling growl and said in calm tones:

“She put herself in my way. You think me a monster, but I am only doing what I must. She is not dead, but stunned.”

The pegasus rolled aside as a jet of pale-blue light clipped his wing where his body had been a moment before. Rubyk whimpered from the effort, but fired another jet from his frosted, cracking horn. Jett Black merely sneered and lifted up his wing. The hornbone chained at his side pulsed darkly, and Rubyk’s spell crumpled to frost.

“Have a little class,” Jett Black snarled. The pegasus rose into the air and beat up a vicious downdraft of wind and black magic with his broad wings. The sickly pulses that came with each beat set Madeleine’s teeth grinding against the pistol’s pommel and sent the Aktur of Trotheim stumbling to the ground on his weakened forelegs. Rock Skipper squawked at the first downdraft, but kept himself aloft by sheer weatherpony grit and flew doggedly at the Corporal’s neck, forehooves outstretched.

It was suicidal. Maybe even brave. But it did the job. With demoniac strength, Jett Black backhanded the smaller pegasus and sent him crashing against a wall, where he lay crumpled in an heap – not moving, but breathing (thank Celestia!). But it gave the window of opportunity that Madeleine needed. She transferred the pistol from her mouth into her grip, held it to her eye, took aim at the Corporal…

…and was shoved roughly down as a battering ram off equine pudge crashed past her and into the foyer. She dropped the pistol as Pome Apple bounded and snorted to the middle of the foyer, waves of raw, untrained magic pouring from the half-unicorn. Jett Black’s eyes widened at the primal scream that ripped from Pome Apple’s throat, and the pegasus dropped to the ground at the sight of the furniture that was rising up in the half-unicorn’s magical grip. He was forced to run pell-mell for the doors in front of the lounges, chairs, crystalline decanters, coffeepots, and glass detritus that were so many missiles under the hoof of the enraged Pome Apple.

“Y’all… killed… my… kin!” Pome Apple bellowed at Jett Black, the pegasus straining his bulk at the doors. Jett Black made no reply, but was through the smallest opening that he could force open in the next instant. Pome Apple dashed at the doors, throwing them open with the sound of a thunderclap.

No.

That wasn’t the sound of the doors.

The storm raging outside had sprung up from the sea without warning. Unlike the storm of three nights ago, this was no small squall that a lone pegasus could hope to control with bit and bridle. This was a wild, untamed monster, blind, angry, and dumb, venting its cruel, stupid rage on anything that stood in its path. It was the kind of storm that nopony had any business to be out in.

Madeleine spat a word she had picked up from a Stalliongrad sailor as the rain lashed at her face. The drops were dark, and heavy, and driven like knives.

“Corporal!” Madeleine’s voice was swept back into her face. “Pome! This is suicide! Come back!”

The shriek of a bolt of feral lightning upon the walk answered her call. Jett Black and Pome were lit up in stark red and black silhouettes for the span of a flash against the ruined fountain, hooves lashing the air in a desperate and bloody combat. Moments later, a crash of stones tumbled blindly in the darkness.

“The fools will kill one another,” Rubyk said, limping out to Madeleine. The raindrops froze as they struck his pelt, forming a shell that lay heavy on his shaking shoulders. “As Aktur, I must subdue them both before the lighting scorches their corpses.”

“In the name of whatever it is you serve… Aktur, you are unfit for duty!” Doctor Leaf snapped, coming to his side. Points of yellow starlight on his antler-tips lit up the ground around the Clavia like so many guttering lampposts. “You can’t not have seen what you are doing to yourself! If two ponies want to add to their crimes this night by killing one another, I will not let a third be on my conscience!”

Lighting flashed again, and so did the Aktur’s eyes. “Friend doctor, this is not the time…”

“I. Said. Stand. Down!” Doctor Leaf rammed a crown of twinkling stars onto the Aktur’s brow. Rubyk’s knees buckled beneath him. He shot a scandalized look at the physician before his eyelids closed in a bespelled sleep, numb to the storm’s bite.

“Doctor…” Madeleine gasped.

“That’s enough out of you, Miss Crumpet. You can’t have failed to notice what was happening to that pony.” Doctor Leaf glared at her in the wan light cast by his own antlers.

“We needed him! The Corporal is going to get away if Mister Rubyk doesn’t…”

“Doesn’t what? Seal him in a block of unmelting ice to drink his own water? Chain him to a glacier for an hundred years?” Doctor Leaf said above the raining hammer-blows and howl of the winds. Somewhere out in the darkness, Jett Black shouted in pain. “Not on my watch. The Aktur is not the only one with an oath to uphold.”

Pome screamed. There was nothing but pure, blind fury in that awful sound. “Fine!” Madeleine said. “You have a few other patients that the Corporal made for you, if I remember rightly. Take care of them, why don’t you? And… give Skipper my best.”

Doctor Leaf moved in front of Madeleine. The Clavia pawed at the ground. “Miss Crumpet…” he growled. “Whatever you are thinking of doing, I suggest that you forget you ever thought of it.”

Madeleine stared at Doctor Leaf’s haggard face, at the lines of too much inscribed into his muzzle: too much emotion, too much worry, too much for any one deer, or pony, or anyone else to bear all at once. She glanced out into the darkness, toward the sounds of the unseen combat.

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” she said, and sighed. The Clavia’s body relaxed. “But get over yourself.”

The crash of thunder might not have been able to shake the Clavia doctor, but the same could not be said for a gunshot fired skyward at close range. Doctor Leaf’s face froze in glass-eyed shock and Madeleine pushed past him into the stormy gloom. It was like running into a bed of nails.

A pulse of sickly nausea washed over Madeleine, followed by a swell of overwhelming anger. Madeleine pushed through both toward the source, her horn drawing her on through the dark toward the dueling magics. Her hoof struck something hard upon the ground, and Madeleine fell hard upon the walk, the wind knocked from her lungs. Another flash of lightning lit up the area around the fountain. Jett Black’s battle with Pome Apple had not been kind to it. The two combatants stood, bloody and panting, glaring murder at each other across the jagged rubble of the fountain.

Madeleine raised her pistol. “Corporal! Please, stop! It’s over!”

Jett Black and Pome Apple turned to her as one pony. Blood ran from a gash beneath the horn of the half-unicorn and from the nose and mane of the pegasus. “Butt out!” said Pome. “He’s mine – mine, you hear?!”

“I know that it is over. What would you have me do, Madeleine?” wheezed Jett Black, in a voice as dry as dust. The very air around him reeked of nauseous black magic; his face was naked despair. “Let the Aktur have his way with me? Surrender myself to the good pleasure of barbarity?”

Ignoring Pome, Madeleine took a bold step forward. “I don’t know why you did it, Corporal. But I do know that Mister Rubyk doesn’t change his mind. If you just admit your own guilt and… and confess…”

A look of mingled pain and sorrow passed across the pegasus’ face. Then Madeleine felt unclean power grab her by the mane and throw her to the ground. Her chin ground against the shards of stone beneath. She reached out for her pistol with her magic and, with a flush of panic, nothing at all happened. It was as though she tried to move her tail or a leg and the limb was simply not there any longer.

Pome Apple cried out. Madeleine glanced to the half-unicorn and saw that he was struggling to raise himself up from the ground under the same unseen hand. His horn sparked and spat with ineffectual rage. Jett Black actually smiled – thin, forlorn, and mirthless, but a smile nonetheless.

“I chose this path long ago. I have no regrets – none whatever,” said the pegasus.

“Then…why?” Madeleine said, biting her lip not to retch. Pome strained under the weight of magic upon him and pulled himself slowly, inch by unstoppable inch, toward Jett Black. Jett Black shrugged.

“Ask the Aktur. I severely underestimated him – and you.”

“You…” broke in Pome Apple, who stomped the ground with his rear hoof. Cracks spread beneath the blow. “Killed… my… Uncle!”

Madeleine threw herself out of the way of the mad pony’s wild charge. The wake of the magical surge running through Pome Apple knocked her down as he passed. She ground her teeth at the marble shards gashing her pelt. Come on girl — you’ve had worse, her little pony urged.

Jett Black leapt into the air, beating his great wings against the winds to stay aloft. The pegasus passed overhead, landing a blow on Pome’s temple near his eye with his forehoof. Pome cursed and clapped his hoof to the wound. The half-unicorn stared upward in naked fury from his one open eye.

“And I tried to make you see what kind of a pony that miserable creature was!” Jett Black spat, all poise gone. “Whom do you think sent you those letters, you stupid boy? If it weren’t for the sake of your family, your blood would be running in that fountain. You ungrateful bumpkin!”

Pome Apple’s jaw went slack. “What…?” he began. But he had no time to finish before another blow came down upon his head, knocking him out cold. Jett Black’s silhouette loomed over Madeleine, a fearful shadow half-seen in the dark.

“You’ve no right,” Madeleine said, cocking her pistol. It trembled in the grip of her horn.

“I knew that from the beginning. I knew it might come to this in the end. And I have no intent of facing retribution. I will hide away from you, from the Aktur, and from anypony else who might be stupid enough to come find me. Justice is an empty grave of a word. You will see that for yourself soon enough.”

“You were awfully quick to place the blame on poor Doctor Leaf, Corporal. What’s the matter? Guilty conscience?” Madeleine hoped to goad the pegasus into doing something rash. She jumped as she felt his breath upon her neck. When had he even moved?

“No. I deserve to live. Calvados did not. The buck does not. And unless you put down that little toy, neither will you.”

Madeleine swallowed. The pistol fell to the ground. Jett Black’s hoof came down upon it with a crunch of machinery gone ruinously wrong. Madeleine felt hot tears welling up at the corners of her eyes.

“So that’s it? You fly away in the dark, and no one can stop you?”

“That is exactly what is going to happen.”

“He’ll find you. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? There’s nothing you can do to stop him.”

“He can chase me to the ends of Equestria. It will not change what happens here this night.”

“Damn you.” She said it gently, without emotion. She felt rather than saw the nod Jett Black gave in reply.

“If I believed in justice, I might believe in damnation. So be it on my head. Goodbye, Madeleine.”

There were no more words between them. Madeleine felt the rush of air and heard the beat of vulture’s wings, and then there was only her, her tears, and the lonesome wail of the storm.

“I’m sorry, Mister Rubyk,” she whispered, her tears mingling with the cruel rain upon her face. “I’m sorry, Largo. I couldn’t stop him. I’m so sorry…”

The jeweler bowed her head.

And then an arrow from the bow of a god split the sky, and a scream of terror cut the night like a knife. Madeleine’s head snapped up.

“Corporal?” She galloped towards the falling figure, tumbling insensibly toward the black waves billowing over the causeway. In the eerie afterglow of the lightning bolt acting on the magical residue the struggle between Pome and Jett Black had called up, the fear on the demoniac face was the most horrific sight of the past three days. His wings were seared and charred by the surge of untamed power that had ripped through him moments before. He fell as a stone, rigid and unmoving, but his eyes were open and alert, and the pegasus was very, very aware.

“Corporal!” Madeleine reached the end of the island in the span of moments. Beyond her, the bluffs dropped precipitously into the sea. She watched, numb, as the sea seemed to open its mouth and close over Jett Black’s falling form. The storm bellowed its triumph song.

Because she could not stand to look down at the spot where the Corporal had disappeared, she looked up. And there, in the last light of the eldritch afterglow, there seemed to be a face of… something, not quite a pony, looking down upon her, staring into Madeleine with a stern, yet kindly look. It felt strangely familiar.

It was also too much. Much too much. Madeleine was not a mare much given to swooning, but Celestia herself would be forgiven for losing her composure after all that she had just been through. Madeleine found herself grinning madly as the world went fuzzy around the edges. A small figure and a candelabra of little lamp-lights stood above her head. She giggled.

“No justice? No justice? Guess you found out the hard way, didn’t you, Corporal?” Madeleine grinned up at the face staring down at hers in the rain. The figure just shook its head. The last thing she heard before everything went quiet was a soft and familiar voice muttering over and over:

“I have an oath… I have an oath… no matter what, I have an oath…”





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Chapter Six



And Then There Were None



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Birds.

Birds were singing.

Madeleine listened more closely. It was all that she could do. Her eyes were closed, their lids like lead. So were her limbs.

Birds… what a pretty song they made out here on the islands

No… not birds.

That was Rock Skipper?

“What…?” Madeleine said. Her voice was weak even in her own ears. Slowly, sore and trembling, inch by painful inch, Madeleine pulled herself upright in the bed she had been laid in. By whom?

“Ah, friend Madeleine. It is good to see you are yourself again.” Rubyk’s whispery voice sounded even more faint than usual. With as much effort as it took to move her body, Madeleine opened her eyes.

“Mister Rubyk?” The room came into focus only with an effort.

“Do not trouble yourself with much. The good doctor is zealous that his patients receive rest.” The Aktur of Trotheim grimaced. “He is quite forceful about it.”

Madeleine stared around her. The pair of them, along with many other ponies and deerfolk, lay on beds, sofas, chairs, and whatever other furniture of the hotel could be laid hold of, making an infirmary out of the Grand Foyer. Limon lay to her left on an hard bench covered with chintz cushions, dozing in the tropic morning flowing in from the open doors. The doe’s head was wrapped tightly in bandages. Beyond her lay Rock Skipper, singing a soft but tuneful sea-shanty. (Since when did he have a voice like that?) To her right…

Madeleine couldn’t help a gasp. Rubyk looked awful. Frost Pane had donated her white fur, which was draped over the Aktur’s huge, lanky frame, along with several duvets and comforters. All combined, it still could not keep the giant’s body from a constant shiver. He looked weak – no, he was weak. He looked as if he was the lone survivor of a cruel blizzard only just staggered in to the salvation of a warm fireside. The same black flecks that marred Frost Pane’s eyes were now in full evidence in his. Still, in spite of it all, he smiled.

“The Ice Sickness is not a kind thing. Yet I might also look worse,” said Rubyk.

“How could you possibly look worse?” Madeleine said, returning the smile.

“I might be dead. Corpses are never beautiful.”

Well, that killed the mood.

“Yes, you might be,” agreed Doctor Leaf, annoyance written into his every feature as he strode up to them from the beside of the mare from Fillydelphia (who was taking great pains to let everypony know what she thought of the breakfast service, or lack thereof). The Clavia bore a familiar bottle of sparkling red liquid. He avoided Madeleine’s eye. “And you will be if I can’t get you stable. You’re a fool, Aktur. You pushed yourself beyond what any equine should ever be forced to bear.”

“As you have said,” agreed Rubyk.

“And so I say it again, just so I make myself absolutely clear. Drink that. That’s the absolute last of the stardew on this island, and I have a very special patient that could use it just as well as you.” Doctor Leaf sighed. “But, I do owe you a debt. I at least shall do what I can for you, and if you happen to live through what you’ve contrived to do to yourself, I will give you my proper thanks.”

Rubyk’s jagged smile only widened. “The Pride of Trotheim has borne worse than this. I shall not go just yet, I think.”

“I am… glad to hear it,” Doctor Leaf said, his face scrunched into something that was not quite a smile.

“Doctor?” Madeleine said. “Is that special patient…?” she trailed off, leaving the question to hang in the air. Doctor Leaf turned his back to her.

“Miss Crumpet, you will kindly understand that there is very little I wish to say to you right now, and that I have many ponies who need my help. But… yes. If you wish to see her, she is in her private room being attended by the staff. Now, if you will excuse me.”

“Miss Crumpet?” said Rock Skipper’s voice, back to its bashful prevarications. “Do you want somepony to come with you when you see her?” He winced and grabbed at his bandaged ribs. Evidently, they were still tender.

Madeleine shook her head and rose to her hooves. She tried her knees. Not quite there, but good enough to walk on. It will do.

“No thank you, Skipper. I think I ought to go alone.”


*****


The proprietress of the Clavia Hotel raised her head up from her pillows. She was feeble, and even her smile quavered as Madeleine entered the room. “Crumpet, dear… how good to see you.”

Madeleine moved to the bedside of her friend. With a numbness that should have shocked her, she wondered if that was still the case. Largo – or whoever she was – motioned to the young Clavia buck standing a watchful guard for some privacy. He removed himself from the room with a curt nod, but remained loitering close outside.

“So… just what is your name today?” Madeleine did not mean for the words to sting, but they struck the seafoam mare like a dagger.

“It’s Largo. Largo of Currycape. And I mean it. I may have had some days of ill-discretion in time past, which you evidently know all about now, but those are all behind, well behind us now.”

“Okay, Largo,” said Madeleine. She took a long breath. “I pray to Celestia that you can give me a reason not to knock you in the head right now.” Largo winced. “What in the name of Trotheim did you mean by… by…”

“By letting the Corporal go through with it?”

Madeleine stomped the ground. “And then you had the gall to go and off yourself! Did you think for a moment what that would do to me? To your staff? What about Currycape? What about all of the families that send their little fawns to you so that their villages don’t turn into what the Withers became when it shriveled up died?”

The proprietress trembled and turned her head away. “The deer have long been my one and only love. At the nadir of their society, a doe did not shrink from a death with honour when continuing to walk beneath the sun would bring disgrace. Now my name is dragged through the mud, and I do not have even that.”

“Spare me,” said Madeleine. She fought the urge to slap the mare in front of her. “You have more to worry about than just your name. I want an explanation, not an excuse.”

Largo winced again and laid her head back on the pillows. Even sitting up for such a brief time was too much for her. “If I must, I must. What do you want to know?”

“We know the poison was in your office. Did you… did you plan all of this?” Madeleine demanded.

“Oh, Crumpet,” the proprietress groaned. “Is that really what you think of me, dear? Of course not. I may not hold much fondness for the descendants of the tribes, but I hardly have it in me for that kind of thing.”

“Then why in Celestia’s name did you have Earthsbane in your office?”

Miss Largo frowned through the haze of her fatigue. “Please, Crumpet… you know how I feel about that name. It was for personal use, dear. I knew that Canterlot might come looking for me eventually, and as it happens, I was entirely right. The Sun wanted her bangles back after all.”

“Well,” said the proprietress, a faint flush of colour coming to her cheeks, “she cannot own by right what was once stolen already. I regret nothing. The chandeliers, and all the other fruits of the low-born thievery of the tribes, rightfully belong to the deer. To my people, and not to the mainlander tyrants that lord it over us as if we were foals and not scions of a great empire ground to powder under the iron hoof of Canterlot. Do you think I would have even one kind ear on the mainland, Crumpet? Have you seen what the papers do to dissidents over there? No, no – that would be far too generous to hope for from the like of the spotless Sun in her castle on the mountain. I kept Earthsbane for the one use to which I should ever put it.”

Madeleine let out a breath, feeling some of the tightness in her chest ebb away. “I won’t say I’m pleased to hear it, but it’s better than the alternative. But how did the Corporal get his hooves on the Earthsbane in your office?”

“Oh,” said Largo, waving an hoof vaguely. “He stopped me before I could swallow it.”

The matter-of-fact way that she said it did nothing to ease the stony silence that followed. The proprietress cleared her throat and continued:

“It happened the morning before the… incident. I was in my office going over the accounts when I heard a knock at the door. It was Corporal Black. At the time, I only knew him as just another guest, albeit one about whom I had some reservations. He had the look of not a few guests who come to me personally in order to register some complaint or other. Well, I flatter myself that I am nothing if not a gracious hostess, and I keep a few specialty salt-tablets and other dainties on hand to stroke the hooves of these mainlander tourists in justthe right way. He closed the door behind him and showed me his credentials. At that point, I knew that the game was up. I did not plan for all of this, Crumpet, but I had at least planned for that. I said some pleasantries and intimated that I had some articles that would be of interest to him in a… personal capacity. I believe that the Corporal expected a bribe when I opened up my office safe. I had only just wrested the cork from the vial of Earthsbane toxin I kept for just this situation when the Corporal grasped what I was about to do and threw me to the ground. I struggled to take the vial from him, but… well, you saw for yourself what that stallion was like.”

Too well, Madeleine thought, and shuddered.

“It was at that point that Corporal Black… changed. He took a sniff of the vial’s contents and, even while I was still struggling to reach it, said, ‘I would like to propose a deal.’”

“And so you took him up on it?” Madeleine said, as icy as Rubyk had ever been.

“What choice did I have, dear? While I know that stallion came here with murder in his heart, I do not believe the Corporal had yet worked out in detail just what he would do. Whatever his plan was before the fact, the opportunity that such a poison so close by was too tempting to pass up. We arranged that in return for his silence on my past… indiscretions, and for his promise that not a blade of grass belonging to any Clavia would be harmed, he would take half of the poison, and I would retain the rest. ‘In the event you might need it,’ he said. Now,” added the proprietress, seeing the look of disgust that crossed Madeleine’s face, “don’t think for a moment dear that I intended to let him get away with whatever it was he was planning. I was not about to choose the noble way at that point. The game had changed, don’t you see? I made all my inquiries. I saw for myself how he looked at that poor stallion. I laid my trap for him and made Leaf stay just where he was needed, and I made sure that there would be a record of what transpired. That’s why I left the recorder in the suite, and that is why I personally collected it when everything went so wrong. Crumpet dear, whatever you may think of me, I was not about to let that awful stallion have his way without a fight.”

Madeleine’s head was whirling. “You… you weren’t trying to help the Corporal?”

“No!” Largo said, vehement.

“But I don’t understand,” Madeleine said. It seemed as through the floor was moving beneath her. “Why did you do everything else, then? Why did you make sure that Mister Rubyk and I faced every obstacle that you could throw at us these past three days? I can only assume that those Clavia that Skipper and I faced down in the Withers the other night were your doing as well.”

The proprietress sighed. “Your assumptions are seldom baseless, dear. But again, what choice did I have? In spite of everything that I tried, I could not prevent Calvados Apple’s murder with the poison that I had provided – and how would that look in the eyes of the courts, to say nothing of the press? I had rock-solid evidence against the Corporal, but because I was the only one that knew about it, I could show my hand. He might have caught wind of it and destroyed it. And that very nearly happened. I had to stall. Once Canterlot’s dog left my island and left me in peace, I planned to travel to the mainland personally and gain an audience with the Princess myself — as unpleasant as that might be to me — if I had to in order to make sure that justice was done. I swear it, Crumpet. But you and the Aktur… complicated matters.”

“You made it worse.”

“I am sorry, Crumpet. If I did not make it look as if I was playing along, I feared what would happen to you. I am so, so sorry that you were wrapped up in my folly. I played the only cards that I had. And when I saw at our farce of a trial that nothing, nothing was going to stop Trotheim’s dog from sniffing out the truth, that the Corporal knew there had been a recording gem in the room, I knew that my hand would not be enough to win. That was why I took the part of the poison that was left to me.”

“That doesn’t make this any easier to swallow.”

“I know.”

There was a long silence between them. At the end of it, Madeleine sighed and moved closer to the bedside. She laid the back of her hoof onto the seafoam mare’s clammy forehead.

“After all the dust settles, I am going to be away for a long time, Largo. Maybe even a very long time. What you did is unforgivable.”

The proprietress of the Clavia Hotel closed her eyes. “I know that, too.”

Then Largo opened her eyes again to warm hug around her shoulders and tears on her neck. Madeleine pulled back from the embrace, her lips curved upward in a fragile smile.

“But I expect you to have two bottles of rum in my suite for the next time. And maybe even some handsome flanks for my rooms one night.” Madeleine raised her eyebrows impishly. “I know you know a doe with an eye for the goods.”

Largo of Currycape just stared at Madeleine, as if she did not understand the words. Then she started to laugh. It was soft, it was feeble, but still, it was laughter.

“Oh, dear, dear Crumpet! I think that can be arranged.”





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Epilogue



*********************************************




Should I? Madeleine asked herself not for the first time. It was a rude question on the tip of her tongue. It was impertinent. Maybe even impudent. But if she did not ask it now, then when?

“Mister Rubyk… how do you stand that?” Madeleine asked the Aktur of Trotheim. The strange giant wore an haggard, tired expression upon his face and his grandmare’s train of white fur wrapped several times about his shoulders for a mantle. He looked better than he had three nights past, when he had pushed himself closer to the gates of the cold underground than anypony should, but the bite of white frost still clung to his hooves and muzzle and horn-tip.

But to stamp the other hoof, the cold that poured from him made him a refreshing companion under the tropical sun. The Aktur of Trotheim laid down the steaming flagon of coffee grasped between his trembling forehooves and threw Madeleine a wry smile across the wrought-iron table outside of Piper Chai’s café.

“Mainly, friend Madeleine, I ignore it. Coffee is vile; but it is warm, and to be without is viler still,” said Rubyk.

“Well!” said Piper Chai, striding by their table. “I suppose there’s nary no more refill in your future then.”

“Apologies. Please, friend, may I have another? I am so cold.”

“A please? Heart, go on still!” Piper Chai laughed. “One minute, tall, cold, and sultry, and I’ll get you all the vile stuff you want.” Madeleine shook her head.

Oh, honey… you’re trying too hard. Some stallions just aren’t for chasing.

Madeleine watched Piper Chai humming breezily as she went about her own special craft. Vile or not, the coffee that mare made was good. She turned away, watching the other ponies gathered together in the town for one last, lingering recognition of the strange kinship that had brought them together. After the events of the last week, the parting could not help but be bittersweet. Pome Apple had not entirely lost his chronic soured mien, but even with the scars upon his cheek and the patch over his eye, the half-unicorn walked and sat as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The younger Apple held himself with a gruff dignity, as if he were striving in every way to be the type of pony that Calvados wasn’t. Rock Skipper was healing well from his encounter with the Corporal, but the white gauze bandages that poked out from beneath his newscolt’s cap showed he had a long road to a full recovery still ahead. (“At least I don’t have shuttle-cart duty!” the pegasus said.) Still, the past week had not dimmed his cheery vigor, nor kept him from blushing like clockwork at a nicker. The Oranges were very nearly the same ponies that had come to the island, but the Manehattan veneer seemed to lay rather more thinly upon them both. Madeleine thought that she could just see the ponies beneath coming through when they were not putting on the mask just to speak. And it was not happy ponies that she saw beneath.

Meanwhile, Frost Pane had shucked her cloak of furs and even now was striding about the harbor street, proud and unadorned and unbitten by the cold. The tropical air had done its medicinal work, and there was no longer any rime of the Ice Sickness on her horn and knobbly joints. The old mare thrummed with a vigour that came pouring out of her in yawps and belly-laughs and raucous yarns, each one illustrated by wide gestures and little dancing snow-figures of abominable creatures and hunting parties of ponies carrying spears. Each one seemed to end with the glorious triumph of a pony braver than all the “gutless skag-menders” around her. It was magnetic. The fawns and fillies and colts of Currycape (and their horrified mothers) looked up with the gawping mouths and wide, staring eyes of a crowd captivated by a bank robbery.

To her left, ignoring the spectacle, Bergamot Orange cleared his throat. “I mean no disrespect, Lord Rubyk, but this all appears to be verging toward a repeat of recent events – which events I would as soon forget. I for one have business on the mainland to return to. This has all been… well, an experience to remember, let us say. However, speaking only for myself, I will be very glad to get back to my own work so that I can begin to put Currycape out of my mind.”

“I do not intend to keep you here longer than your will can bear, Bergamot Orange,” said Rubyk. “But insofar as it touches upon your family, I have one more discourse I would make, if you can bear it.”

“My family?” queried Mr. Orange.

“Our family?” grumbled Pome Apple. The two stallions looked at each other with some surprise, as if seeing one another for the first time.

Rubyk nodded his head; Madeleine could hear the joints of his neck creaking. “You perhaps wonder why the… late… Jett Black determined in his heart to sin against you and against Heaven.”

Pome Apple crossed his forelegs. “Should I care?” he asked, but he did not quite manage to sound disaffected. There was a sudden hunger, a thirst to know in his tone.

“Oh, Lord Rubyk, really!” Mrs. Orange said, and sighed. “Is this necessary? I think that I speak for all of us when I say that we have had quite enough of that stallion in our lives to last a lifetime.”

“No you don’t,” Pome said suddenly. “I’ll hear you. I want the closure. Maybe then I can stop hatin’ that black devil as much’s I hated Uncle Calvados toward the end. I got an idea in my head – and maybe it ain’t too far off the mark. What’d you find… Aktur?”

Rubyk looked at and right through Mr. Orange. The greenish stallion shifted his forehooves and cleared his throat. “I think,” he said, glancing toward Pome and away from his wife, “if it regards my family, I have a duty to hear you out.”

“Darn straight,” grumbled Pome approvingly. Rubyk leaned back in his chair.

“The good doctor forbade me to rise from my couch in my convalescence, but as an honourary scullery-stallion, I had friend Frond look into the Corporal’s rooms just one more time. I suspected that I would find some evidence there to confirm my suspicions. I have seen much, too much of the corruption that lies upon the equine races in my time as Aktur, and I know this much: there are not many things in this world that can fuel an hatred like his. The kind of hate that waits for years and decades without dying and plots murder in the heart is the abomination of love rotted out and eaten by worms. I knew that there was some connection between Jett Black and Calvados Apple and your family… yet I had no inkling of what that connection might be. But I was unprepared for what friend Frond found among the Corporal’s personal effects.”

Wincing at the crackle of the tiny ice crystals in his shoulders, Rubyk reached beneath his wrappings with his teeth and pulled out two items from their folds: A tiny notebook bound in canvas, and a tarnished base metal locket on an hempen string.

Abyssinian gold; moulded. Twenty or thirty-odd years old. Worn extensively, the little pony in Madeleine’s brain recited automatically. Madeleine scowled and buttoned the mouthy mare’s muzzle. There were just some times that instinct needed to shut up and dunk its head.

Rubyk opened the locket. Inside, there was a small portrait of a dimpled earth pony mare done in fine horsetail-brush strokes in black ink. The detail work was admirable. Then, as Madeleine peered in for a closer look, the mare started to look startlingly familiar.

Nor was she the only one to notice. Mr. Orange allowed a gasp to slip from his cultured mouth, eyes wide in disbelief. But Pome Apple was even more profoundly moved. The half-unicorn’s jaw hung open, and he looked from Rubyk, to Mr. Orange, to the locket, and back again.

“Is this a joke?” Pome said. He looked as if he very much wished it was.

“I thought that there was a resemblance,” said Rubyk, sadly. “Tell me, who is this mare?”

“My mother!” exclaimed Pome Apple.

“My cousin…” murmured Bergamot Orange.

The two stallions exchanged another look, and something passed between them that Madeleine could almostsee, like the shimmer of a spell glanced out of the corner of the eye.

“Then the last piece of this puzzle falls into place,” said Rubyk, who sighed as if he would give anything to notsee so clearly. He nudged the canvas notebook open. The interior was filled with leaves of pasted letters filled margin-to-margin with crisp block letters of an officious mouth-writing. Other pages held pressed flowers sealed with waxy resin, apple pips, and other little tokens of young affection that held a deep meaning for the mare that kept the book of memory scraps. Still others held doggerel and sonnet-blocks heavily crossed-through in an heavy and affected mouth-script. It was all romantic in the worst senses of the word. Rubyk turned the coarse leaves until he came to one very near the end of the book. On the left-hand face lay one of the crisp letters that seemed to fill up every other page. On the right were words large enough to read even upside-down, carved viciously into the paper and smudged by years-old tears.

It is over. I’m so sorry. These six months have given me a lot of time to think. My brother won’t ever allow this. I was a foolish filly to ever think that we could be together. It would be best if you take all these things back. Forget about me if you can. I will do my best to forget you. It is the only way that I can be happy. I loved you, but I can’t anymore. Goodbye.

Madeleine blinked. What in the world…?

Rubyk began to read the letter on the other page. “My Dear Reinette,” he began:

It has taken so long, but I am finally ready. These months in the cold hinterlands have made me a different pony – one that I hope you will still recognize. But I could almost swear to the faceless abstraction the races of the Northlands call upon in their prayers and their law-courts that these privations of home, of comforts, of soft beds and gentle foods, and most of all the love of a mare I have suffered have made me a better stallion. The brutality and kindness of the pony tribes of the North are deep and given equally in full measure, and one cannot but come away from this life changed in ways that I can scarcely now express, let alone fathom. Even now in my dreams I see reflections of the sky-thing the Northlanders name the Aurora dancing on the black behind my eyes. Call it perversity, or perhaps young-blooded idiocy, but I could not restrain myself from the temptation to look upon the thing that was so sternly forbidden to us Southlanders. The beauty of that moment, of colours I cannot hope to comprehend dancing before the lonesome stars, shall remain with me as long as I draw breath. I know of only one other sight to match it – and I know that she is waiting for me to come for her.

But all of the pain of our long separation has been worth it. My promotion into the Intelligence Corps of the Royal Guard from this mean auxiliary life is all but assured, and I can finally throw the dust of my tail at Manehattan. And while a city-born pegasus from Manehattan is one thing, a Canterlot soldier is quite another. With the money I have earned and the status of a real Guard, not even your family can object to our marriage any longer.

I will return for you soon. Too long have I been away from the comforts of home with only the faint sweet smell of apples on the breath of memory to keep me warm at night. I hunger for the verity of the true article. And you will never again need fear the bite of want. Only just a little longer – and then I can at last make you happy.

Yours Ever,

Jett Black

Even though she had not been the one reading these old words, Madeleine’s mouth was still dry as dust. Pome sat in a stunned silence, no sullen quips coming to his lips. Mrs. Orange’s face was a study in mixed emotions, passing from admiration of the letter’s sentiment to horror at the implications, then back again, and everywhere in between. Mr. Orange looked on his cousin with an expression not unlike pity.

Rubyk quietly turned the leaves of the notebook. “There is much more in this way,” he said softly. “He loved your mother for the long days of a balmy summer. He was poor, huge, and of ‘city ways’ – all of which your uncle disapproved. But Calvados was already head of the family by that time, so they made every effort to keep their passion one for another to themselves. They pledged themselves to one another after weeks of secret meetings in the orchards and dalliances in Manehattan when the family’s cider and spirits would be sold to the brokers.” Rubyk lifted up his head.

“Thus far I can gather,” Rubyk continued. “But I cannot fathom why your uncle would set his heart against something so good and kindly as even this young love – and my heart aches to think of what that stubbornness cost him.”

But it was not Pome Apple that answered. Mr. Orange struck the table in front of them in a fit of sudden temper. “I can tell you that. I swear by the Sun, the Moon, and whatever it is your kind swear to, Lord Rubyk, my cousin was a fool and the captain of a ship of fools. That was his tradition, and the tradition of his father before him, and his father before him, and so on down the line. In his world, earth ponies married earth ponies. It kept the magic in the family strong, or so it was said. In reality –” Mr. Orange trailed off, looking to his kinfellow.

“…the truth was, he was a mean old bastard who kept his family in line with a bullwhip and the threat to cut them out of the will if they didn’t walk the line,” Pome Apple finished, heaving a deep sigh. “Those letters the Corporal sent were absolutely right, once I started looking into the old histories. I don’t need to read what you have there to know that’s true.”

“And eventually it cost him even his family,” Rubyk said. “Far better to endure the slings and arrows of an uncertain world than to dwell in such an house of strife. It must have been when all of his family had already left him ruling his little fiefdom of apples by himself that he called back his sister to be with him.”

Pome nodded savagely. “Obviously, I ain’t got wings on me. Looks like mom couldn’t even stand the sight of Uncle’s hide after she got bullied into turning down… him. The pegasus, I mean. Maybe she just did some running around with any old stallion that turned her way after she got out from under Uncle Calvados’ hoof. I wasn’t very old when we came back to the plantation, so I don’t remember much. But even though he was kind to me and mom, even more to me after mom died, I remember her crying when we stepped across the threshold of the old house. Does that sound like somepony who likes her life choices?”

Mr. Orange shook his head. “This is beastly. Cousin Pome, I assure you that I had no idea of any of this. Had my father the least notion that one of our family was in want in our own city, I know that he would have shifted the sun itself to see that wrong righted! I know that it is rather too little too late, but I want to extend to you an open invitation to my own house in Manehattan if you so desire. You are family, and I do not turn away or turn out family.”

“Oh,” said Pome, spitting a gob onto the ground. “I know it’s too late. Both the old stallion and that pegasus, whatever his connection to me and mom and you might have been, are gone as gone gets. Good riddance to ‘em both, I say. I don’t much take to anypony killing my kin.”

“Ah… indeed?” said Mrs. Orange, trying to fill the strange pause that followed.

“Yeah. Indeed, as you city-ponies say,” said Pome. The half-unicorn smiled suddenly. “But you know what? I think I will take you up on that offer… Cousin Bergamot. I think I’d like to see for myself for once just how the ‘other half’ lives. And we have some unfinished business now that the old fool isn’t around to be himself. I thought your offer of a partnership was a pretty lil’ idea. Maybe I’ll just wait around Manehattan until we can get the details hammered out with your people.”

Mr. Orange’s ears rose up. “That is the first good news I think we have had all this cursed week. It will be our honour. Do you hear that, Mandarin? We have a deal!”

The quiet tears falling from Mrs. Orange’s eyes were confirmation enough. Just how hard up are they? Madeleine wondered. Then the little pony in her head chided her, and Madeleine had to admit that the little hellion was right. It was none of her business.

“You are taking this rather well,” Rubyk noted to Pome Apple as he rose up together from the table with the Oranges. Pome turned his one good eye to Rubyk’s face and smiled even broader.

“Can’t change it, can I? Didn’t do it, did I?”

Rubyk frowned. “You did not… and can not. This is true.”

“Then what’s the point in fussing myself over what the pegasus did with my mom back when? He hated my uncle. So did I. And then I hated him for killing Uncle Calvados. And now he’s dead. So I’ve got nothing left, got it? I ain’t saying it’s perfect for anypony, but it’s a fresh start, isn’t it?”

“There…” Rubyk paused, choosing his words. “…is certainly some wisdom in that.”

“And some tom-fool idiocy, too,” Pome said. “Don’t think I don’t know it. But it’s mine, and I’ll make my own fool decisions, Mister Actor.”

That, Madeleine thought, described the half-unicorn in a nutshell. She watched the three ponies, Pome together with the Oranges as they trotted toward the harbour, bound together by the strong, ineffable bonds of that thing called family.

It made Madeleine a bit wistful. Just a bit.

“So…” said Rock Skipper, broaching the awkward silence. “You’re leaving too, chief?”

Rubyk downed the last of Piper Chai’s good coffee. Wry misery fought with the obvious relief on his face. “Yes, friend pegasus… you will forgive me, but I am tired, most tired. This place holds only bitter times for me.” The Aktur of Trotheim smiled a shark-toothed grin. “Present company excepted, naturally.”

“Is ‘tired’ what you call that, then?” Rock Skipper said, waving an hoof at the giant’s frost-nipped limbs and furs. Rubyk laughed. It sounded like the lonely wind of a winter’s night.

“I call this ‘cold’. We of Trotheim do not feel it much. It is something of a novelty,” said Rubyk.

So are you, Mister Rubyk. So are you. Madeleine shook her head. “It’s been an honour, Mister Rubyk. I hope you will find a quiet patch of sun somewhere to keep warm,” she said, swallowing down the lump that appeared in her throat of all of sudden.

“Ah, friend Madeleine, have no fear of that. I will rest me here on these islands until my bones are fit to carry me back to my home.”

“And… how long will that be?” Madeleine asked. Just one more question. As long as she kept asking questions, “goodbye” was that much farther away.

“Oh, my grandfoal’s flesh is soft, and his bones crush like candy-silk,” Frost Pane cackled, leaping to the tableside with alarming vigour. The cobbles seemed to shake beneath the old mare’s hooves. “It will be long, dreary, and tiresome. It will be time enough to sing all the old songs and sleep all the long day and swill strong drink with sturgeon bread until he grows fat and trumbly. I shall hate every moment of it, jeweler.”

Rubyk sighed and shot Madeleine a longsuffering glance. “And somepony must look after grandmama.”

“Oh, come along you doting delly-foal and leave the jeweler and her poppet-doll. We shall lay sun-kissed on the ferry-deck and drink those fruity punch things with brandy in until we come to another island with these funny little deer on it. And then you can have another murder and return to Trotheim with a prize in chains instead of the fish-story you carry now.”

“That… sounds half-nice, grandmama.” Briefly, Madeleine wondered just which half. “But it is also true that we must go to catch the ferry. Friend Madeleine, I thank you for everything. Trotheim owes you a debt.”

“How much?” Madeleine said, flashing a grin.

“An astute question.” Rubyk flashed his own shark-tooth grin. Strangely, it no longer shocked her. “How about this: the Pride of Trotheim shall swear to Madeleine Crumpet that if she should ever find herself in the Northland, she shall be fêted and sung like one of the Princesses, as only the ponies of the North can do.”

“Can do, Mister Rubyk. You have a deal,” said Madeleine.

“Good. It is all I can do for you now… but I hope that Trotheim shall see you before the long night of winter. And it is I that speak. Do you understand, friend Madeleine?”

“Perfectly, Mister Rubyk,” she said. Her grin was even more strained. “You’d better go if you want to catch your ferry. Captain Nuce waits for no stragglers. Not even Trotheim.”

“Feh!” spat Frost Pane, flicking her tail at the buildings and beginning to stomp her way toward the harbour. Rubyk lingered at the table a few moments longer, his foreleg held close to his fur-swaddled chest.

“Er… the Lonely God watch over you both. May the One who watches Trotheim give you blessed days and quiet rest. May you never know unquiet or want.” The words of this stilted benediction came out tumbling and memorized. Rock Skipper scratched at his neck.

“Thanks, chief. Now I know who to blame when I feel them eyes on the back of my neck late at night,” said the pegasus. Rubyk didn’t seem to know what to make of that; so he made nothing of it. The Aktur of Trotheim cleared his throat and gathered his furs about him and set off after the Frei of Trotheim, two giants parting the sea of dwarves about them.

And Madeleine was left alone with Rock Skipper. The pegasus shuffled his hooves beneath him.

“You’re heading off today, too? Miss Crumpet?” The words seem to tumble over each other out of his mouth, falling to the tabletop with a silent thud.

“It’s work, Skipper. I can’t stay here on the islands forever,” said Madeleine with a shrug. “You know how it goes: clients to see, mares and silly fillies to fleece. It’s a living.”

“Do you think you might be coming back to Currycape soon?” Rock Skipper said. Not “if” but “how soon.” Smooth.He had removed his weathered cap and was turning it slowly over in his forehooves, showing his fine, sandy mane underneath. The pegasus’ wings were ruffled from the tension of everything that Skipper had swallowed down and was not saying.

“Probably not, Skipper. I do have business here in the town, and I had most of my little goslings in a row even before all this nastier business happened.”

“Oh.” Rock Skipper’s ears drooped.

“Yes. ‘Oh’. Don’t be like that, Skipper,” said Madeleine. “I am coming back.”

“Oh… oh!” The pegasus’ ears shot up again. “That’s… good. Very good!”

Oh, indeed. You couldn’t be any more obvious if you tried, silly boy.

Then Rock Skipper smiled. That… wasn’t the usual sort of smile that came from the pegasus. “Say, Miss Crumpet. Before you go, do you remember what you promised me?”

Madeleine blinked. What promise? she thought.

“My condition? For helping out? You accepted it.” Rock Skipper pressed, leaning in closer.

“I think I might just remember,” said Madeleine, straining her brains to just remember. “But it has been a very trying week, Skipper. Maybe you could see fit to reminding –” Then her eyes widened and she pulled away as the pegasus leaned even closer in, aiming a kiss at her cheek. He got the tips of her ears instead.

But he wasn’t put off quite yet. Blushing like a flame, the pegasus announced: “Miss Crumpet, this is my condition. Will you perhaps, please, please consider being my wingmare? Just for a bit. It won’t take much off your time at all!”

Madeleine blinked again. Rapidly. This was Skipper’s condition? “Even though I won’t be back in Currycape for a very long time?”

“Even then, Miss Crumpet. Even if it’s just for when you’re out here on the islands!” Rock Skipper pleaded. “Won’t you please consider it?”

Madeleine opened her mouth, the polite but emphatic no taking shape on her lips. Then, she paused to consider. She thought of Rock Skipper, all alone and out in a storm, taming the weather that the Corporal had drummed up to cover up his crimes. She thought of Rock Skipper charging bravely at the Corporal – reckless, but brave – and of the night in the Withers up near Hodgepodge’s tent. She could still feel the beat of his wings against the heavy night air in their flight down the hill.

And then there was the way that Skipper blushed, his coat going like rosy quartz under unpolished outsides… and his fringe, which was cute in a Rock-Skippery sort of way. Then her mind went to turn the pages of the little black book tucked away in her saddlebags, lists of names of stallions in cities on her circuit off Equestria and their… notable attributes coming to mind. She calculated how long it would take before the pendulum-swing of her travels would bring her back to Currycape. And she looked, really looked at Skipper blushing right before her eyes. It was, to her own surprise, cute. Maybe even a little bit handsome.

Madeleine smiled. “Maybe, Skipper. Give me some more time to think on it.”

Rock Skipper beamed a punch-drunk smile and swished his tail. Madeleine thought of the names on her “A” list.

Granted, it was a pretty big maybe. But there was no harm in giving a stallion something to hope for.