Daring Do, Professor of Archaeology at the Golden Oaks University in Ponyville, is known as a pony of adventure, the protege and partner of the treasure-hunting Dorado Caballeron, a mare who has traveled the world and discovered great treasures since she was a filly under the wing of her Uncle Adventure. What most don't know is her drive to discover the unknown, born the day that she witnessed her beloved uncle killed by shadowy monsters after taking an idol of a strange dog-like monster.
After one of her colleagues vanishes while searching for the legendary Sunken Church, Daring Do crosses paths with private detective Phillip Finder and sets out to search for her friend and for the hidden temple. From that day, the two form a partnership that spans Equestria, facing eldritch threats, monsters from beyond their world, insane cultists, and deadly assassins from the sinister Order of the Golden Sphinx. Their partnership grows to encompass Twilight Sparkle and Luster Dawn, two of the brightest students at Golden Oaks University; Zecora, the mysterious shaman from the Everfree Forest; Rainbow Dash, a cocky Wonderbolts reservist; and the Anomalous Investigations Unit, a small, ill-respected branch of the Royal Bureau of Investigation that handles cases beyond the pale of reason.
Obsession drives Daring Do forward in a quest to uncover lost secrets and magical treasures and to protect Equestria from impossible threats...but what might it cost her and those around her? And all the while, an ancient evil stirs beneath Equestria, hailed by the haunting chant:
Dead Ahuizotl waits dreaming...
A reboot of sorts of my former series Ponyville Noire, Daring Do: Shadows Over Equestria is an adventure-mystery story with heavy influence from the Cthulhu Mythos and related spinoffs, particularly the Arkham Horror franchise. It features many of the same characters but under different designs and inspirations.
“Pop quiz, class,” the golden pegasus in the white shirt and red bow tie asked from behind her desk. The students looked back at her, most of them bracing themselves expectantly. “What’s the biggest danger in archeology?”
There was a brief silence as the twenty-two students all pondered the question, then a bespectacled unicorn in the second row raised his hoof. “Um…booby traps?” he asked timidly.
The professor chuckled and smiled indulgently. “Nice answer, Dewey Decimal, but no. Real life isn’t like the Compass Rose series. You want to dodge mercenaries through booby-trapped temples and risk life and limb to save the world, Professor Quill’s Intro to Creative Writing class is two floors up.”
A few students chuckled as the unicorn smiled sheepishly, his cheeks coloring.
“The biggest danger of archeology, or indeed, of ancient history, is mistaking myths for facts,” the professor stated, standing and pacing in front of the blackboard before her class. “At best times, this can send ponies on wild goose chases.”
“Like with Doctor Caballeron’s search for the Crystal Heart,” one of the zebras in the back of the class whispered to his friend, triggering a wave of sniggering through the students.
Professor Do fought down a smile and cleared her throat, covering the momentary gaff by adjusting her red reading glasses and brushing a loose strand of her greyscale mane behind her ear. “Okay, okay, settle down,” she said, waving her hoof. “You’re not wrong, Ifaa, but I wouldn’t let Doctor Caballeron hear that. And in fairness to him, while he was wrong about the Crystal Heart being in the Zebrican Highlands, he was very careful about his search and was able to find a number of useful artifacts about native zebra tribes.
“But yes, he put too much faith into legends and rumors that the tablets could be found there. He took several bits of theories, anecdotal evidence, and scraps of information and forced them to resemble a theory that he already held. That is the biggest error that any finder of fact, be they archeologists, historians, or detectives, can make: you force the facts to fit a theory instead of building a theory on facts.
“It’s a good thing that all he got out of it was nothing worse than some humiliation,” Professor Do continued. “In the worst situations, chasing rumors can result in irreparable damage. Exempli Gratia: the Griffon Empire’s hunt for Dhahabu in the 15th and 16th centuries. When they heard the stories of a city made of gold in the zebra lands, they blazed through the zebra tribes like a plague. Literally. They murdered thousands of zebras, devastated their cities, and destroyed much of their history, all in search of a city that didn’t even exist: it was all just misunderstandings and misinterpretations of a tradition practiced by new kings. It took the work of legitimate archeologists to help the zebra tribes regain their histories and identities.
“That chapter of history stands as a stark reminder of budding archeologists,” she concluded, giving her charges all a severe stare. “We don’t just deal in clay tablets and bones and shiny rocks. We deal with the lives and livelihoods of real creatures, both living and dead. We don’t just hunt for treasures and relics. Always bear that in mind: our actions have an effect on others.”
Her students all nodded back seriously, the weight of the responsibility she had placed upon them settling upon their shoulders.
Professor Do glanced at the clock. “Five minutes left, class. Any further questions?”
A pegasus in the middle raised his hoof. “So, if traps aren’t a thing, what about that king’s burial site that you and Dr. Caballeron found in Griffonia?” he asked.
Daring let out a small chuckle. “Okay, Caballeron’s graduate student exaggerated a little. They made the entrance a maze to deter grave robbers. And there wasn’t a moat around the king’s tomb; the water table had eroded and flooded part of the tomb. It just so happened to have some fury rays in it.” She shuddered a bit. “And the less said about those guys, the better.”
“But there was a magical spear in there, right?” the student pressed. “Buried in the king’s sarcophagus?”
Daring chuckled again. “Yes, I did find Sil'verklyuv’s legendary spear in his sarcophagus…after making my way through the maze, dealing with the rays, and making sure the whole thing wasn’t going to fall on my head. But the legendary part was mostly legend. The most special thing about that spear was the griffon who wielded it. And honestly, we got more value from the remnants of the village around the burial grounds. Remember, folks: it’s almost never about the big, shiny treasures. You get way more information out of the mundane stuff. And if you find yourself swimming around predatory fish in a flooded tomb, either something’s gone very wrong, or you’re just as crazy as I am. And my name’s Daring Do, so I at least have an excuse.”
The pegasus lowered his hoof, looking rather put out, though most of the rest of the class laughed.
“Any other questions? Yes, Luster Dawn?”
“You said once that nearly every legend had some basis in reality, right, Professor?” the sunshine-maned pink junior in the middle row asked.
“Yes,” Professor Do nodded. “Every story gets changed and embellished over time. How many of you played the game ‘Telephone’ when you were kids?”
Several of her students nodded, a few chuckling at memories of simple messages being translated into nonsensical phrases.
“It’s the same thing,” Professor Do stated. “What might have been a minor battle gets turned into an epic conflict, an ordinary diamond gets turned into a cursed emerald from an ancient temple, and superstitions turn into tradition. That’s part of the struggle with studying ancient history.”
“So where do you think the stories of the Abominations came from?” Luster asked.
A few students stiffened at the taboo name, a tense, thick silence dropping onto the classroom. A branch adorned in crimson leaves tapped at the classroom window, like an interloper whose attention had been drawn by the utterance of that title.
Professor Do frowned, leaning against the desk and taking a breath. “Long ago, before ponies understood magic, they had no control over the movement of the sun and the moon, the weather, or crops. They prayed to deities that they could try to appease to try to get some control over their lives. Their lives were harsh, so they came up with harsh gods that watched over them; all gods, after all, are reflections of the creatures who worship them. Over time, the stories became conflated and blended with other legends and stories, diluted and altered and misinterpreted over the generations until we get the stories we have today.”
“So you don’t think that there was any Discord or Tirac or any of the other Abominations?” Luster asked, leaning forward and lowering her voice as if afraid to speak the names aloud.
There was a brief surge of uneasy whispering amongst some of the students: even the most skeptical ones were still and silent, looking between Luster and the professor with pensive frowns. A few hooves and talons reached up to stroke rosaries and other icons worn about necks or forelegs.
Professor Do paused to consider her answer, staring down at the floor for a moment, then took in a breath. “As archeologists–no, scratch that, as scientists–we should always be open to the possibility that a new discovery might change what we think we know. But until someone actually publishes documented proof of the existence of a god, I’m going to withhold judgment.”
The bell rang to signal the end of class. “Okay, class, Introduction to Archeology chapters two through four for Thursday, and I want you to start thinking about what your semester projects will be: either an archeological discovery or an archeologist that you want to do a presentation on. And no, you can’t do Compass Rose!”
The class began to file out of the classroom; Luster Dawn was the last out, casting a furtive, guilty glance at the professor as she exited.
As the door shut behind them, Daring Do sat down behind the desk with a sigh, casting her eyes over the contents of the desk. An open binder with carefully labeled lesson plans took up the center of the table. Pens and pencils and blank paper were precisely placed to the right, an antique brass nautical compass serving as a makeshift paperweight, the face turned to align with the needle. Placed across the front of the desk were a few of her favorite trinkets from her previous expeditions: a fertility idol from Zebrica, a statue of Faust recovered from Saddle Arabia, and a rust-covered hipposandal of iron, carefully cleaned and polished as much as she could. The latter she picked up and studied with a wistful sigh, studying the carefully shaped metal.
Forging the young minds of the new generation, Uncle Ad. Just like you did for me. Is that gonna make it better?
“You’re rather eager to poke at the Compass Rose series,” an accented male voice said from the doorway.
Daring Do smiled and looked up to see a brown earth stallion with graying hair, his smiling mouth surrounded by a permanent five o’clock shadow, wearing a simple white dress shirt and a tie designed to look like an old-fashioned map on yellowed parchment. “I’m sure A.K. Yearling can stand a bit of ribbing from little old me,” she replied.
The stallion looked at the ancient metal in her hooves with curiosity. “You know, I never asked,” he said. “You’ve had that since you came to University as a student years ago. What’s so important about that?”
“It was the first artifact I ever found,” Daring Do replied, smiling at the little shoe as she set it back down and rose to her hooves. “I was five, and helping my uncle excavate a burial mound near Haystacks. He let me keep it: my first treasure, he called it.”
“How precious,” Doctor Caballeron smiled, joining his younger colleague as they proceeded up the hallway. “I wish I still had my first treasure: a doubloon I uncovered from the riverbank back in my village. One of dozens from a chest that had fallen overboard centuries ago and been lost in the mud.”
“So you’ve been trying to outdo me since before we met?” Daring answered with a grin, opening the door to the Department of History Faculty Offices. As always, they were greeted by the massive portrait set behind the receptionist’s desk, depicting the small farming village set in the shadow of the Everfree Forest that would one day grow into Ponyville. A quiet buzz of voices filled their ears as students pestered professors for aid with papers or protested grades and assignments; teacher assistants bustled back and forth with reams of copies and folders of tests. The receptionist, a light green changeling, was busily sorting mail, peeking at an open textbook on griffon history in between letters.
“Don’t feel so bad, mi amiga,” Caballeron smirked, patting her on the head like an indulgent parent as he checked his message box. “I have been doing this longer than you, after all.”
“Which is another way of saying that you’re getting too old for this job,” Daring smirked back, taking the contents of her own letterbox.
“Don’t start with me, chica,” Caballeron replied. “I’ve still got a few discoveries left in me.”
“Like the Crystal Heart?”
Caballeron’s face twisted for a brief flicker before returning to its normal smile. “In fairness, I did make some significant discoveries.”
“Hey, I’m not denying that,” Daring replied as they proceeded down the labyrinthian maze of hallways.
They reached a doorway with a frosted glass window labeled Doctor Dorado Caballeron, Archaeology, Ancient Cultures and Languages. “Just you wait,” Caballeron replied as he unlocked his office door. “One day, the name Doctor Caballeron will be repeated across the empire and beyond!”
“I’m sure it will,” Daring replied, proceeding past his office as he closed the door.
Her own office was further down the hallway, located at a turn. Her heart warmed at the sight of her name painted on the frosted glass window: Associate Professor Daring Do, Archaeology and Ancient History. If Uncle Ad could see her, he’d be…
Her heart dropped back into her stomach like a cinder block into a pond at the thought of her uncle and her step faltered as she proceeded down the hall, her smile vanishing like a cloud of steam on a windy day.
Her mood did not improve as she passed the office door next to hers. Behind the words Professor Family Tree, Ponyville History, the window was dark, the lights turned off.
Daring Do frowned and pulled a pale blue hippogriff TA aside. “You seen Professor Tree today?” she asked.
“No, Professor Do,” the young mare shook her head, fumbling with the reams of copies tucked beneath her wings. “Her office has been locked all morning.”
Daring’s frown intensified. “That’s two days in a row,” she mused aloud. “Where is she?”
She thought for a moment, then proceeded to the front desk, where the changeling receptionist was now fully engrossed in his textbook. “Hey, Setae,” Daring greeted him, causing the changeling to jump slightly before collecting himself. “You got the key to Professor Tree’s office?”
Setae blinked. “I-I do, but I don’t know if I can let you in, Professor Do,” he stammered.
“Listen, she’s been gone for two days,” Daring pleaded. “If there’s something in there that can help find her, I need to take a look.”
Setae swallowed, glancing around to make sure that no one was watching.
“Okay,” he finally said, reaching beneath the desk and pulling out a drawer. He rummaged around in it with his magic for a few seconds before extracting a ring of keys. He sifted through them for a moment before selecting one and passing the jingling ring to Daring. “It’s that one.” He glanced around. “Promise you won’t tell the Dean?”
“Don’t worry; I’ll take responsibility for this,” Daring smiled at him before heading back to Family Tree’s office.
She unlocked the door and pushed it open with a creak, reaching out to snap on the lights with a wing. Professor Tree’s office was a case study in neatness: the books about Ponyville’s history on the shelf were all organized by author, the trays of papers were all stacked so perfectly that Daring imagined that her colleague had used a slide rule, and even the jar of pens and pencils on the desk was organized by color and size. Most of the desk was taken up by a large desk calendar, with events carefully penciled in, each type of event marked with specific colors.
The only decorations that Daring could see were two framed photographs on the desk. One depicted a dark green unicorn mare in a light gold blouse, her gray-streaked brown mane drawn into a bun, smiling at the camera.
The other showed the same mare in a tight embrace with a blue-gray unicorn with a fluffy white beard and mane, his green eyes twinkling behind his thick glasses. Both ponies were dressed in high-end clothing: the mare in a dress the color of early sunrise, the stallion in a pressed black tuxedo with a red tie. The duo was beaming at the camera, backlit by the glow of Canterlot.
Daring sighed sadly at the picture before turning her attention to the rest of the desk. “Okay, what were you doing, Family?” she said to herself.
She flipped through the tray on the desk, scanning through the interdepartmental letters and other notices. She discarded some letters to other professors and students that Family Tree had written, but at the bottom, she discovered two letters that drew her attention.
The letterhead for both documents was the Golden Oaks University’s coat of arms: a bright green shield depicting an open book with a golden oak on both pages, beneath an open eye. Spread beneath the shield was a scroll with the motto Corda et Mentes. The date for each letter was the Fifth of the Moon of Harvest, last Monday, the day that Family disappeared. Daring read the first letter in silence:
Golden Oaks University Library
Dear Professor Family Tree,
This is a friendly reminder that your books are five days overdue. Our records show that the following books are due:
Haunted Ponyville by Campfire Tales
Secret Societies of Equestria by Sub Rosa
Truth from Fiction: the Sunken Church by Campfire Tales
Lost Treasures and Artifacts by Treasure Map
Tombs of Ancient Saddle Arabia by Nile Waters
Please return these books as soon as possible.
Regards,
Twilight Sparkle Assistant Librarian
Daring made a face. “Family wouldn’t look twice at books like this,” she thought out loud. “She never had any time for legends and ghost stories…or history outside of Ponyville. And she’d never let library books go past their due date.”
She turned to the second letter.
Office of the Dean of History
Dear Professor Tree,
For the last time, the board and the President have made their decision and you have to abide by it. It doesn’t matter what other ‘evidence’ you’ve found.
Face it: ponies have looked for the Sunken Church for years and never found it. You haven’t proven that it exists, and your arguments are ultimately based on a first-year student’s paper. I’ve reviewed Luster Dawn’s paper myself and I have to say, I really don’t understand what you see in it: it’s a C paper at best. I even talked to her about it myself during her freshmare year. Even if her theories are true (which I doubt), the University can’t afford to go on more wild-goose chases. So, no, they will not sponsor any expeditions to uncover the church, and the President has insinuated that if you bring it up again, he will censure you for it.
Just let it go, Family. This won’t bring your husband back, and none of us like seeing you do this to yourself. Please, talk to a therapist or something. At least get in touch with Doctor Ego in the Psychology Department.
Sincerely,
Professor Blotting Paper Dean of History
Daring Do frowned at the letter. “The Sunken Church…have I heard about that?”
A rapping at the door caused Daring to start and look up. Standing in the doorway was a tall reddish-brown earth pony stallion wearing a gray trilby and a battered green fishing vest, the pockets bulging with gear; Daring’s eyes briefly went to the snub-nosed .38 Colt in the shoulder holster on his right side; at the same hip was a carved wooden L-shaped club, lightly decorated with what she recognized as Aborigineighal designs. He scanned the room with stormcloud gray eyes shaded by black bangs before focusing on her.
“G’day,” the stallion said in a low Aushaylian accent. “‘Phillip Finder, private detective.”
Daring frowned as a bell rang in the back of her head. “Professor Daring Do. Aren’t you that detective that solved the Thunder Bridge murder?”
Pride briefly flickered on the stallion’s face before he resumed his neutral disposition. “Should be the Thunder Bridge suicide. An easy enough problem. I’m looking for Professor Tree.”
Daring’s frown deepened. “She’s only been gone for two days. Who hired you?”
The stallion was silent for a few moments as if considering his answer. “She ever mention the Sacred Order of the Golden Sphinx?” he finally asked.
Daring Do’s eyebrows rose into her forehead. “That’s that secret magical order, right?” she asked. “No, she never mentioned them. What’s this about?”
Phillip held up a hoof. “Best if we start at the beginning. When did you last see Family Tree?”
“Monday afternoon,” Daring reported. “I last saw her leaving her office in a huff after her last classes. She looked pissed about something.”
“Had she been acting unusual lately?” Phillip asked.
Daring Do sighed. “She was a professor here when I started as a freshmare ten years ago. She used to be friendly and open, but after her husband Silver Spark died last winter, she became a lot more sullen and distant.” She glanced at the photo on the desk and shook her head. “He was one of the only ponies she was close to. I don’t think she ever got over it.”
Phillip took the photographs on the desk and studied them for several long seconds, committing Family Tree’s features to memory. “What was she working on recently?” Phillip asked.
“Judging by these letters, something about the Sunken Church,” Daring said, passing over the two letters that she’d found in the out tray. Phillip studied both letters with a pensive frown. “It must have had her pretty preoccupied if she would miss library books.”
“What’s the Sunken Church?” Phillip asked.
“Not sure,” Daring answered. “I think I remember something about legends about a secret church in Ponyville, but I don’t remember the details.”
“Mmm,” Phillip nodded. “Thank you, Professor.”
He made to leave, but Daring blocked his path. “Hold on a minute,” she scowled. “Family Tree was a friend and a good coworker. She disappears while apparently looking for a legendary temple on behalf of a secret fraternity, and then you just show up with your fedora pulled down over your eyes–”
“Trilby,” Phillip corrected.
“Whatever,” Daring rolled her eyes. “The point is, I’m not just gonna sit and be left wondering what the hell is going on. I’m going with you; you might need my help, anyway.”
Phillip frowned at her for a beat, apprising her in silence, then the corner of his mouth twitched upwards. “Ripper,” he nodded. “We’ll give you a burl.”
“...I beg your pardon?” Daring asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Give you a try.” Phillip stepped back and gestured. “After you.”
“Gladly,” Daring Do said, leading Phillip Finder out of the office and down the hall. “We’ll go see the Dean first.”
The Dean’s office was at the very end of the hallways, deep in the bowels of the History Department. Daring knocked at the door labeled Dean of Office.
“Come in!” a voice called from within.
Daring Do opened the door to behold a large, luxurious office with sumptuous chairs facing a large felt-covered oak desk. Behind the desk sat a white-maned jenny, her mud brown coat spotted with white. She wore a charcoal gray suit and a set of thick glasses that magnified her owlish yellow eyes. She looked up from the letters that she was working on with a slight frown.
“Professor Do,” Dean Blotting Paper nodded. “And…?”
“Phillip Finder,” Phillip nodded in greeting. “Private detective. Looking for Family Tree.”
Blotting Paper pushed her lip out in her distinctive expression of disapproval. “I see,” she said slowly. “How can I be of assistance?”
“We were looking in her office for clues, and we found a letter from you,” Daring said. “You mentioned that she’d been asking about the Sunken Church and something about a paper.”
Blotting Paper let out an irritated huff. “Family Tree had been pestering me and the board of directors to allow her to perform an expedition to uncover and explore the ‘Sunken Church.’”
“Hold on,” Daring said. “What is the Sunken Church?”
Blotting Paper scoffed. “Allegedly, the Sunken Church is a secret temple to the Abominations buried beneath a legitimate chapel. No one has ever found it despite several searches.” She sniffed. “Professor Tree was arguing that she could find it and that it contained some mystical artifact, a gem from Saddle Arabia. The basis for her theories was an amateurish freshmare paper that connected loose strands in a manner that would not impress a conspiracy theorist.”
“What exactly did Luster Dawn say in her paper?” Daring asked.
“I do not remember,” the jenny scoffed. “I’ve been with the University for thirty-six years. I’ve seen many an amateurish paper in my day. They all blur together.”
Phillip was silent for several seconds. “When was the last time that you saw Professor Tree?”
“On Monday afternoon, when she was leaving,” Dean Paper replied, studying the detective with a gaze that had caused dozens of students and staff members alike to wither in their seats. “She did seem to be in a hurry, now that I think about it. Rather odd, as she’s lived alone ever since her husband passed last spring.”
“She have any friends or family in town that you know of?”
“We were not close, Detective Finder,” Dean Paper answered. “But she was a private individual who preferred solitary activities. I cannot imagine her being close to many ponies.”
Phillip grunted. “May need to question the other staff.”
“I doubt that you will get much more out of them, but do as you think is necessary,” Dean Paper said with a dismissive gesture, turning back to her paper. “If that will be all, I am quite busy.”
“Thank you,” Phillip said, turning and leaving.
Daring followed him out. “The library is across the quad. You coming?”
“Bonzer. After you,” Phillip said, a small but genuine smile rising up one side of his face.
Daring returned his grin and led him out of the History Department.
Secret of the Sunken Church Part Two: Between the Pages
In the very center of the quad of Golden Oaks University was the school’s namesake, a huge golden oak tree that had been planted at the university’s founding in 1740. The aureate leaves on the branches swayed slightly in the wind, producing a comforting susurrus beneath the overlapping voices and hoofsteps. Brick buildings marked the perimeter of the verdant quad, stone as old as the university itself watching over the student and faculty members that milled up and down the pathways cutting through the verdant field. The clocktower atop the administration building to the north of the quad displayed the time as a quarter past one.
Professor Daring Do exited Stinking Rich Hall and took in a breath, ruffling her wings in the midday sun; the heat settled comfortingly into her wings, mixing with the faint tingle of flight magic that danced through her feathers. She took flight, flapping a few feet above the ground; after spending so long in the classroom, some flying was exactly what she needed.
“Come on, the library’s this way,” she said to her companion, leading him down the vivid brick pathway. Phillip Finder followed in her wake, his head turning to take in every detail.
“You have any theories?” Daring asked as they passed a gardener that was tending to a bed of flowers, green energy swirling from his sunshine hooves as he restored the wilting flowers.
“Not enough facts yet,” Phillip replied, skirting around a cluster of giggling students.
“Well, we do know that she was doing a lot of research into the Sunken Church,” Daring commented. “Enough to keep pestering the board about it. And she was agitated about something before she disappeared.”
“May be related. May not be,” Phillip stated.
“Have you checked her home yet?” Daring asked, dipping to avoid the low-hanging branches of the trees planted in a row outside the campus center building.
“Yes,” Phillip replied, pausing to avoid colliding with a rowdy coterie of hoofball players wearing the gold and red of the Golden Oak Owls rushed past, laughing and playfully wrestling with one another. “Door locked. No sign of anything suspicious. Neighbors said that they saw her arrive Monday night. Car gone Tuesday morning.”
“Hmm,” Daring mused as they pressed on.
“What car did she drive?” Phil asked.
“A ’39 Chevroneigh 2-Door Sedan with blue paint…no, wait, she had it painted green this summer,” Daring reported. “License plate…” She frowned in thought for a moment. “T73 RE4. She had that car since before she got married, took good care of it.”
Phillip gave her an appraising look. “You’re the first pony who could tell me more than the color. Observant.”
“Part of being an archaeologist,” Daring replied, a thrill of pride nonetheless running down her spine at the praise. “My Uncle Ad told me that archaeologists and detectives are almost the same; we both study clues to try to figure out what happened in the past.”
“Your uncle sounds like a smart pony,” Phillip said.
The pride in Daring’s chest was crushed as immediately and thoroughly as a brick dropping on an ant. The echo of a scream from decades ago sounded in her ears; her uncle’s face flashed before her eyes, twisted in agony.
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “He was.”
Phil studied her, a frown flickering across his countenance. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to–”
“It’s fine,” Daring waved him off, burying the old pain once again. “You didn’t know.”
They rounded a corner, trotted past a three-story-tall student housing complex, and Daring was cheered by the sight of her favorite edifice in Equestria. “Here we are,” she said, gesturing with a wide smile.
The Golden Oaks University Library was as old as the university itself and had grown over time. The original marble facade of great gray pillars was set against a three-story building of vibrant brick that spread across the block like a ruler resting on its throne. Two statues of Faust flanked the stairs leading to the silver doors, each greeting visitors with a kind but enigmatic smile. Over the doors was a great metal shield displaying the university’s coat of arms.
Phillip paused and looked up and down the building with a glimmer in his gray eyes, letting out a low, admiring whistle.
“Just wait until you see the inside,” Daring said, leading him to the great silver doors.
They proceeded inside, their hoofsteps muffled by the lush carpeting. A team of librarians stood behind a long desk to the right. Most of the rest of the massive floor was occupied by huge shelves packed with books. Students milled through the shelves, taking books to desks for study groups.
Daring grinned at her companion, who was hungrily drinking in the sight. “I could spend weeks in here,” he breathed.
“I have spent entire weekends in here,” Daring said, approaching the desk with the librarians. “Hey, Bookmark. Is Twilight here?”
“Yeah, she’s upstairs in the Hippology and History section,” the red-maned hippogriff nodded.
“Thanks,” Daring said, pointing Phil towards a set of stairs.
They ascended two flights of stairs and emerged onto another floor, entering a wing labeled Hippology and History Section. Greeting them was a portrait depicting Captain Sweet Tooth’s historical meeting with a hippogriff delegation in 1826; the picture depicted the bubblegum pink earth pony mare shaking hooves with Admiral Cloudfall in the shadow of Mount Aris.
More bookshelves were organized across the floor, with students flitting in and out of the rows. To their left was another desk with a young purple unicorn mare sitting behind it, nose stuck in a book.
“Twilight?” Daring called.
The mare turned a page but didn’t look up.
“Twilight. Twilight Sparkle! Hello!”
The mare jumped slightly and looked up. “Oh! Professor Do, hello. How can I help you?”
“Phil, meet Twilight Sparkle, assistant librarian, currently working on her doctorate of magic,” Daring said. “Twilight, this is Phillip Finder, private detective. We’re looking into Professor Family Tree’s…” She paused for a moment to decide which word to use. “Absence.”
“She’s missing?” Twilight asked. “Is this about what she was looking into? The church?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Daring said.
“Did you know her?” Phillip asked.
“I like to think that we were pretty close,” Twilight mused. “I liked talking to her about the local history and helping her with some of her research. I even met her husband once.” She sighed. “She turned into a completely different pony after he died,” she said sadly.
“When was the last time you saw her?” Phillip asked.
“Last Monday,” Twilight said. “She returned the books that were overdue and paid off her fine. She seemed…angry. She said something about how if the board wasn’t going to listen to her, she’d have to show them herself.”
“Did she mention what exactly she was looking for in the church?” Daring asked.
Twilight ran a hoof through her mane with a pensive frown. “She didn’t say much about what she wanted to find there, or why it was so important, but…Spike!” she called.
A rolling ladder slid out of one of the aisles with a squeaking. Perched near the top of the ladder was a small purple dragon with green scales and folded wings, balancing a small stack of books on his tail. “What’s up, Twilight?” he asked.
“Could you bring us Truth from Fiction: the Sunken Church, please?” Twilight asked.
“You got it!” Spike declared, sliding down the ladder. He deposited the books balanced on his tail on a nearby cart, spread his wings, and dashed off down another aisle.
Daring turned to note that Phil was staring after Spike, his eyebrows hovering a good two inches above his wide eyes.
“Crikey,” he said. “That’s a dragon.”
“Yup,” Daring replied. “He came in with her.”
“I hatched him as part of my entrance exam into the Royal Academy of Magic,” Twilight explained. “By accident,” she added in response to Phil turning his surprised, questioning stare onto her. “The Princesses helped me take care of him, and he’s been by my side ever since.”
Spike returned with a large book in his claws, passing by a few students that hailed him cheerfully. “Thank you, Spike,” Twilight said, telekinetically lifting the book from his grasp and placing it on a table.
The cover featured an old sepia photograph of a small chapel set on a patch of marshland, the clouds behind it faintly lit by the setting sun casting the structure in an eerie, half-shadowed glow. The steeple was decorated with an upside-down ankh in gold, with an eye set in the loop, the unnervingly detailed pupil set so that it gazed down upon any who passed in and out of the doors. Splashed over the cover in bright green was the title Truth from Fiction: the Sunken Church by Campfire Tales.
Twilight flipped open the book and began to peruse through it, turning it so that her two guests could see the old photographs within. “The church that supposedly contained the Sunken Church was originally the Temple of Precious Enlightenment, founded in 1857 by a unicorn named Eastern Cartographer,” she narrated, pointing to a portrait of a bespectacled unicorn with a coat the color of old parchment, his mane neatly pulled back into a long braid that ran over one shoulder. He wore a metal circlet about his head, embossed with a diadem in the same shape as the upside-down ankh that decorated his church; he stared up out of the pages with a haughty expression, mouth twisted in a slight smirk as if declaring that he knew something that the readers didn’t.
Daring frowned. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
“He proclaimed that he had access to great secrets and started making prophecies and predictions to the locals, passing along messages from dead ponies, telling his followers of other worlds,” Twilight continued. “Pretty soon, the church was one of the most popular churches in Ponyville; at its height, the Temple had over two hundred members.”
“And that’s when the sacrifices started!” Spike cut in.
“Sacrifices?” Daring asked.
“Spike, those are just rumors,” Twilight chided. “There is no evidence that the Temple practiced pony sacrifices or any other ‘dark rituals,’ or anything else like that.”
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” Spike protested.
“That’s not what it…” Twilight puffed out a breath and turned back to the two ponies. “Anyway, the Temple of Precious Enlightenment was known for being secretive: you had to take a vow of secrecy to become a member of the higher-ranking circle. And of course, there were plenty of rumors: that they performed pony sacrifices, or they worshiped the Abominations, et cetera.
“The most popular was the Sunken Church,” Twilight continued. “Supposedly, there was a secret chapel under the main sanctuary where the higher-ranking members of the church would do secret rituals–”
“Like pony sacrifice!” Spike cut in.
“Spike, please,” Twilight scowled and sighed. “And a set of catacombs where they would bury dead members of the church. Naturally, there’s never been any proof of it, and all these years later, no one’s found any sign of it. This book specifically debunks all of those rumors,” she added, patting the book.
“So what happened to it?” Daring asked.
“Eastern Cartography died in 1895. The next year, a fire burned down most of the church when a candelabra was knocked over,” Twilight explained. “It remained abandoned for several years until 1925 when most of the ruins were cleared away. The Church of the Seven Pillars was built on top of the foundation; the basement of the Church is the original from the Temple.”
Daring hummed in thoughtfulness, flipping through the book and running a wing down the text, eyes sweeping over the lines. “So what was so important to her?” she mused, almost to herself. “And why did she take this out with books on Saddle Arabia?”
“Professor Do?” a familiar voice asked.
Daring looked up to see Luster Dawn behind her, the unicorn holding a stack of books on magical history in her magic. The junior’s amber-colored eyes flickered to the book on the table. “Oh, hey, you’re researching the Sunken Church, too?”
“Luster Dawn,” Daring said. “Good, I was going to go looking for you. This is Phillip Finder, he’s a private detective looking into Professor Tree’s disappearance. Phil, this is Luster Dawn. She–”
“Wrote that paper that Professor Tree read last spring,” Phillip nodded.
Luster Dawn sighed and shook her head. “I’ve been trying to erase that paper from my head since freshmare year,” she admitted. “It made sense at the time, but looking back, Dean Paper was right; I was stringing together tangents and coincidences and presenting it as proof.”
“What did you write about?” Daring pressed, aware that Spike and Twilight were both listening as well. “This could be important.”
“It was two years ago, Professor Daring.” Luster Dawn cocked her head to one side. “Why…? Does this have to do with why she’s missing?”
“It could be,” Phillip said. “What was the paper about?”
“The Sunken Church,” Luster said, setting her stack of books on a nearby table. “You know, that might explain why Professor Tree brought it up during my meeting with her at the start of the year…” An unreadable expression crossed her face, doubt and a bit of guilt flickering in her golden irides. “Did I–?”
“It’s not your fault, Luster,” Daring cut in, placing her hoof on the junior’s shoulder. “Just tell us what your theory was.”
Luster sighed, her mouth twisting as she recalled her amateurish work. “Okay, so. The founder of the Temple, Cartographer? He was a member of the Bowsprit expedition of 1855.”
“Of course,” Daring gasped, lightly slapping herself on the forehead. “I knew that name sounded familiar, I just didn’t recognize him with that crown.”
“He was there when Bowsprit found that unmarked tomb in the deserts south of Somnambula,” Luster continued. “Bowsprit mentioned in his journal that they found it buried underneath mounds of sand, as though it had been deliberately covered.”
“Yes, I remember reading this,” Daring cut in. “He said that the walls were covered in chisel marks, like someone had tried to remove any evidence of whose tomb it was. The local help that they hired was all spooked off by the place. The only symbol that was left intact was a sign on the door: a huge black snake with wings.”
“And younger me thought that that meant that there was only one pony who could’ve been in there,” Luster said.
“The Nameless Pharaoh,” she and Daring Do spoke in unison.
Twilight was listening rapturously, scribbling away in a notepad; Spike was staring with wide eyes, leaning in despite the visible fear and awe on his face, unable to look away.
“Of course, they didn’t know it at the time,” Daring mused. “What little documentation we have on the Nameless Pharaoh wasn’t found until 1936…”
Phillip made a noise of impatience. “Is this relevant?”
“I’m getting there,” Luster Dawn answered curtly. “From what little is known, the Nameless Pharaoh’s ascension started when he found this strange rock that they called the Dark Prism. With it, they said, he could see the future, other worlds, even talk to the dead. They say that his reign was so terrible that after he died, his name was erased from history; they scratched out his name from every letter, every fresco, everything. They buried him and the stone in his tomb after scratching out every mark on it, save a warning on the door, then buried it beneath the sand. At least, until Bowsprit found it.”
“And you thought that Cartographer took the Prism with him to Ponyville?” Daring asked.
Luster nodded, rolling her eyes. “That was what my paper was all about. I thought that Cartographer took the Dark Prism himself. After Bowsprit and his friends died–I was even dumb enough to suggest that Cartographer killed them and made it look like they all got bit by cobras–the tomb was sealed back up and reburied. Cartographer came home and founded the Temple, using the Dark Prism for his ‘visions’ and stuff.” Luster shook her head again. “Of course, it was really convenient that no one has found that tomb, or Cartographer’s photographs of the tomb, or the Dark Prism itself–”
“I’ve heard enough,” Phillip cut in. He turned and headed out of the library at a brisk trot.
“Hmm,” Twilight mused. “Your theory is interesting, but there’s still a lot of conjecture…”
“Yeah, that’s what Dean Paper told me,” Luster groaned. “Put a bit of a damper on freshmare year, I’ll tell you that.”
“It apparently convinced Professor Tree,” Daring mused. “Thanks for the help, Luster.”
She followed Phillip out of the library and back out onto the streets. “Hey, wait up!” she called, hustling after the detective.
Phillip slowed briefly to allow her to catch up. “Should check the church,” he said. “Might find more clues there.”
The clocktower in the distance chimed to announce that it was now 1:30. Daring paused and looked back towards the quad, chewing her lower lip.
“What?” Phillip asked, pausing.
“I…” Daring hesitated, considering the students that were probably lining up outside her office at this moment. She looked back and forth between Phil and the quad a few times, then sighed.
“Nothing,” she said. “Let’s try to get this over with quickly.”
“I’m parked in the lot over there,” Phillip said, heading for the nearest parking lot.
“You know, it’s only a few miles. I could just carry–”
“No,” Phillip cut her off.
Daring pouted. “Fine.”
They reached the lot and Phillip made his way over to a burnished red and brown motorcycle parked near the edge of the lot.
Daring let out an admiring whistle. “That a 1920 Bull Scout?”
“Solved an embezzling case for a local auto shop owner,” Phillip replied, swinging onto the bike. “He insisted that the bike be part of my payment.”
He tucked his trilby into the enchanted saddlebags and pulled out a helmet, buckling it on. He stamped the kickstand and the bike roared to life, like a great cat announcing its presence. “Following you,” he declared.
Daring grinned and spread her wings, lifting off the ground. She turned and zipped out of the lot, with the Bull Scout following behind her. They crossed onto Neighbraham Road and headed north, the waving branches of the trees alongside the road waving to hail their progress.
The Scout 101’s engine purred beneath Daring Do as they took a right around the Ponyville Theater, smoothly gliding through the thick traffic of Ponyville’s uptown. She glided through the air on sun-kissed zephyrs, smiling as the wind ran through her mane, undoing the bun that she had forced it into and freeing it to wave out behind her. Her bow tie undid itself and began to flap around; she pulled it off with a grunt of irritation and shoved it into her pocket.
“So what did the Order of the Sphinx tell you when they hired you?” she asked, having to raise her voice over the background bustle of overlapping vehicles as the residents of the uptown apartments tried to make their way home from work.
“One of their members showed up at my home this morning; recognized their lapel,” Phillip answered, pausing at a stop sign. “Told me that Family Tree was supposed to meet them yesterday for a project. Evasive on details. Said they tried to get in touch with her and couldn’t find her. Hired me to find her.”
Doubt needled at the back of Daring’s mind, like a splinter in her skull. “You trust them?” she asked.
“Not sure yet,” Phillip answered, continuing through the intersection. “You think that she was right about the catacombs and the Prism?”
“I don’t know,” Daring admitted. “There’s no real proof…but it’s pretty clear that Family Tree believed it.”
Phil let out a quiet grunt in reply.
They crossed the stone bridge over the azure of the Great Valley River, the uptown windmill giving them a lackadaisical salute with its creaking blades as they continued east. Concrete and steel were replaced with wood and stone; the office buildings and businesses of downtown were overtaken by cottages and small family-owned stores that stood on their own blocks, surrounded by well-tended lawns and flowerbeds. The constant chatter of traffic and overlapping voices faded away, allowing the music of rustling leaves and singing birds to filter through.
“There it is,” Daring said, pointing at an upcoming sign that marked a side street that cleaved through a set of thick woods. Church of the Seven Pillars read the sign, accompanied by an icon of a star with a pair of wings.
Phillip slowed and turned onto the road, the trees and bushes that bordered the well-trod dirt pathway whispering to hail their entrance. The brown and red leaves that were scattered across the road crunched beneath his tires as they proceeded toward their target. In a clearing up ahead was a white church, its steeple reaching just above the trees that surrounded it. Over the doors was a circular stained glass window depicting Faust, her wings outspread in welcome.
As Phillip neared the unpaved lot, he abruptly parked and turned to his left with a frown. “Hang on,” he said, dropping the kickstand and dismounting.
“What is it?” Daring asked, pausing in midair as Phillip crouched at the edge of the road, studying the ground.
“Tire tracks here,” Phillip said, pointing to two faint tracks running off the road and into the woods. “And branches are broken here,” he added, pointing out several small branches and brushes that had been flattened or broken.
Phil took out a measuring tape and measured the width of the tracks and the length between them. “Right size for a Chevroneigh sedan,” he mused, carefully proceeding into the woods. He paused next to a tree, crouching to study the trunk. “Paint scrape here,” he reported, pointing at a faint mark of color on the tree.
Daring squinted at the little scraping. It was only a couple of centimeters long, but her eyes quickly picked out the deep blue with a tinge of green against the light brown of the trunk.
Casting her gaze about, she spotted something snagged in a nearby bush. “Over here,” she called, floating over and picking at the clump of long, graying brown hair.
“She was here,” Daring said, a tumult of hope and despair churning in her gut. A clue, a tangible clue as to the fate of her colleague was now in her grasp; and yet, it provided no real answers. Why had Family Tree come here, and why did she feel the need to hide her vehicle? Where had she gone? Why had she not come home?
Phillip studied the hair, then pulled out a small plastic bag and put the hair into it. “Good eye,” he complimented her.
A couple of pale lights, light pink and heliotrope, danced through the woods a few yards to their right, briefly catching Daring’s attention. “Breezies,” she commented. “Maybe they saw something.”
Phillip considered this for a moment, then whistled softly through his teeth. The lights paused, then floated over to him. As they came closer, the two breezies came into focus: tiny, furry little beings with long antennae and gossamer wings, blinking up at Phil in polite confusion.
“A bheil…thu..às an set–no, sorry–an set seo?” Phillip asked haltingly, stumbling over a few syllables. The breezies both nodded.
The two breezies glanced at each other, then the heliotrope one squeaked out a reply, shaking their head.
“No,” Phillip answered, having clearly expected that reply. “They don’t like going out at night, and they didn’t see anything weird during the day.” He shrugged and thanked the breezies, who returned to collecting pollen and twigs. “Worth a shot.”
He then scanned the dirt floor, frowning and shaking his head. “Ground’s too trampled. No good prints.” He scanned the trail of broken stems that led to the clearing, marking the intruder’s path toward their target, then let out an irritated grunt. “Nothing helpful. Should check the church.”
He returned to his bike and drove it the last few yards into the empty patch of flattened, barren dirt that served as the church’s parking lot, switching off the engine and dismounting. He and Daring looked about the clearing as he traded his helmet for his trilby.
The church was built of blocks of solid gray stone and topped with red shingles; though time and weather had done their work on the structure, it appeared to be well-maintained nonetheless, with fresh paint adorning the doors and the shutters and the rooftop. Next to the church was a humble cottage built of the same stone, apparently serving as the sexton’s quarters. Smoke rose from the battered chimney and lights shone in the small windows. A pair of cars were parked next to the cottage.
Daring and Phillip proceeded to the front doors of the church and pushed them open, entering a carpeted welcoming lobby. A rack of pamphlets offered information on the church, its membership and activities, and the Alicorn’s Witnesses; one pamphlet announced that the church held services every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday night at seven PM. A box invited donations, while stairs on either side led up to the second floor, which, according to a sign, housed balcony seating and classrooms for Sunday school. Adorning the wall in between the two doors that led to the sanctuary was a large wooden seal depicting the symbol of the Alicorn’s Witnesses: a four-pointed star with a pair of wings arcing from it, topped by a crown.
The duo passed into the sanctuary proper and paused to admire the architecture. Wooden pews lined the huge nave, all facing the raised chancel at the front. The altar was covered with a rainbow-colored cloth and held three golden candlesticks, each adorned with a plaque with a cutie mark on it: a sun on the left, an inkpot and quill in the center, and a crescent moon on the right. On the wall behind the altar was a tapestry of the three alicorns: Faust in the center, with Celestia on the left and Luna on the right. On the balcony above the altar was a huge old pipe organ of brass, so large that Daring was briefly amazed that the balcony wasn’t straining to bear its weight.
The main draw of the sanctuary, however, was the stained glass windows on either side that depicted the Seven Pillars. On the left were four windows displaying Rockhoof, Flash Magnus, Stygian, and Starswirl; on the right were Mage Meadowbrook, Somnambula, and Mistmane.
“Crikey,” Phillip breathed in admiration.
“Yeah, it’s beautiful,” Daring acknowledged, studying the window of Mage Meadowbrook. “This looks like Gerwhin craftponyship…judging by the style, I’d say it was made around 1890. Maybe they bought it from–”
Phillip cleared his throat, derailing Daring’s train of thought. “Right, sorry,” she said, shaking her head.
They proceeded through a door at the other end of the sanctuary and entered a hallway with doors on either side, leading to a kitchen and playroom for the children. Voices filtered up from an open door at the end of the hallway that revealed a set of stairs leading down. Phil and Daring headed down the stairs, the wood creaking beneath their steps.
As they descended, Daring observed a distinct line where the stone walls changed from carefully spaced gray stones to haphazardly placed stones of irregular size, shape, and color. Scorch marks ran across the walls and the low ceiling.
“These are the original foundations,” Daring observed as they reached the bottom of the stairs. The cellar was made of the same stone. The open space before them carried old furniture, racks of robes, and boxes of holiday decorations.
The voices were coming from farther down the basement, accompanied by the sound of hammering. As the duo proceeded forward, Daring paused to examine a faint etching of a beetle on the wall. “Looks like ancient Saddle Arabian style,” she mused, gently brushing some dirt away from the carving in the stone. “A scarab: symbol of transformation and rebirth. Probably been here since the Temple was founded.” She cast her gaze over the stones. “Yeah, there are more carvings scattered along the walls. Interesting…I wonder what their thinking was when they added those symbols. Was there a pattern to it or–?”
Phil coughed sharply as he moved on into another room. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” Daring groused, following him.
They entered another chamber that served as a boiler room, with an old boiler and a water heater thrumming away in one corner. Pipes and other devices ran along the walls and the ceiling in an intricate pattern. A set of stone stairs led up to a back door.
Two ponies were currently hard at work replacing the door which, like the frame, was freshly painted and stained brown. One was a tall green unicorn with flaxen hair and a thin beard, wearing the black shirt and stiff collar of an Alicorn’s Witness reverend. His cutie mark was an open book with a sun and a moon on the pages.
“Are you…nearly done, Driver?” he panted, his reddened face twisted in strain. Sweat was running down his high, slanted forehead as his horn glowed a pale gold. An aura of the same color surrounded the door held in the doorframe.
The second pony was a short and thin earth pony with long, pointed ears, his coat a burnished orange and his hair a coal black. His cutie mark was a screwdriver and a collection of nuts and bolts and he wore a well-used utility belt laden with tools around his waist.
“Jesh a lil lunger, ‘everen,” the short pony was saying through the screwdriver clenched in his mouth as he screwed the bottom hinge into the doorframe. “Almosh…dere!” He pulled back with a grin.
The reverend sighed in relief as he doused his horn. The door creaked slightly as gravity took hold, but held onto the frame.
“Danks, ‘everen,” the sexton said, pulling another screw from a pocket on his toolbelt and inserting it into the top hinge. “I’ll finis dis up ‘ere.”
“Thank you, Driver,” the reverend said, turning to face his guests. “Sorry about that. I am Reverend Good Word, the current reverend of the Church of the Seven Pillars. This is Screw Driver, the current sexton.”
“Hi,” Screw Driver said through his namesake still clutched in his teeth.
“Phillip Finder, private detective,” Phillip introduced himself. “And this is Professor Dar–” He turned and frowned to see that Daring had crossed to the other side of the room and was studying some more hieroglyphs etched into the wall.
“That’s the eye of Ra,” she mused, studying a stylized eye partially hidden by the dust and spiderwebs of years. “And this one…” She paused over a hieroglyph that resembled an upside-down bowl with two strands, one shorter than the other, dangling from it. “That’s Amenta, which represents the land of the dead…”
She turned around to spot the others staring at her. “Oh, right,” she said with a sheepish smile. “Daring Do, professor of archaeology and ancient history at Golden Oaks University. Sorry, I was just admiring the hieroglyphs here.”
“Those have been here since the foundation was first set,” Reverend Word explained. “When the church was being reconstructed, the builders discussed sanding them away, but decided it wasn’t worth the time and effort.” He gave a small smile. “If nothing else, it’s an interesting talking point.”
“We came here looking for Family Tree,” Daring Do asked.
Reverend Word sighed, rubbing his forehead. “I might have guessed. I’ve seen far too much of her over the past months.”
“When was she last here?” Phillip said.
“Monday evening,” Reverend Word replied. “She’d been coming here for many weeks now to talk about the church’s…former history, like so many before her. I quickly became tired of going over the same questions over and over again, like so many other ‘theorists’ after the alleged catacombs. She asked to review records dating back to the church’s…former history, but I told her that we didn’t have any here; they were sold long ago to a group of historians, I believe.”
“What happened on Monday?” Daring asked.
“She was babbling even more than normal, claiming that she’d finally figured out the entrance to the catacombs: something about cuneiforms and knocking,” the reverend replied. “I told her I wasn’t interested in listening to her and sent her away. She became angry, almost violent, and I had to tell her that I would call the police if she continued like this to get her to leave.”
“You don’t believe in the catacombs?” Daring asked.
“Professor,” Reverend Word said with a heavy weariness in his voice. “I’ve tended to this church for the past twenty years. At times, I feel as though half of my job is dealing with conspiracy theorists who are convinced that they can find the Temple’s catacombs. Every stone has been pressed, every corner knocked for secret passageways. Some of them have even gone so far as to perform profane rituals in this basement.” His face twisted in disgust, his silver eyes glittering darkly as he lifted the bangles on his left hoof and kissed the dangling icons.
“Of course, most of them don’t break in,” Screw Driver added, rising up onto his hind legs so he could reach the top hinge on the doorframe.
Phillip raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”
“Somepony broke into the church Monday night,” Reverend Word sighed. “They pried open the back door with a crowbar. We filed a police report, but they didn’t take anything, so the police weren’t too concerned.”
“And I had to install a whole new door and frame,” Screw Driver grumbled as he finished screwing in the hinges. He tested opening and closing the door a few times and hopped back down to all fours.
“Naturally, we…suspect Professor Tree, but we can’t prove it,” Reverend Word stated. “It seems that she came here looking for the catacombs herself, but like everyone else, she didn’t find it.”
“And good thing, too,” Screw Driver said, replacing his tool on his left hip and making his way over to the boiler. “Some things shouldn’t be sought. Or found.”
“It won’t be found because it doesn’t exist,” Reverend Word chastised the sexton.
“Well, she was sure interested in it,” Screw Driver replied. “Her and her two friends.”
Daring Do’s ears perked up. “What friends?”
“On Tuesday afternoon, two ponies came here asking if we’d seen Professor Tree,” Reverend Word explained. “I told them the same as I have told you: she was here on Monday and I told her to leave.”
“Who were they?” Daring asked.
“I do not know,” Reverend Word replied. “They did not introduce themselves and simply left when I told them what I knew.”
While they were talking, Phillip had made a circuit of the boiler room. He glanced over the doorway, made a circle of the area, bent down to study the floor, and studied the wall with the hieroglyphs on it. “Hmm,” he mused.
“Can I ‘elp oo?” Screw Driver asked around the screwdriver in his mouth, frowning up at the detective that was getting in the way of his work.
“Sorry, mate,” Phillip said. “Seen what I need to see. Get out of your way now.”
“Uh…you sure?” Daring asked.
“Yes,” Phillip nodded.
“I hope that you find Professor Tree,” the reverend said as they exited the basement.
“And tell her to drop looking for the catacombs already,” Screw Driver added.
Daring and Phillip climbed back up the stairs and exited the church. “What did you find?” Daring asked as soon as they were outside.
“Wait,” Phillip said, walking over to the cottage where the sexton and reverend lived. He bent down to study two sets of boots resting on a mud tray, lifting each boot up to study the soles, then scraping off samples of the soil into plastic bags that he extracted from his vest.
“The floor of the basement had been cleaned,” Phillip finally said with a frown. “A pathway from the back door to the wall with the hieroglyphs. Could smell the cleaner.”
“Just a path on the floor?” Daring asked.
“Yes,” Phillip nodded. “Sand on boots looks like from the reservoir. Not sure which one is which; both sets same size.”
He let out a long breath, walking over and leaning against his Scout 101. He pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket and extracted a single fag. “Mind?”
“Nah,” Daring replied.
“Bonzer,” Phillip said, placing the fag in his mouth. He lit the end and closed his eyes as he took a long draw on it, then turned and exhaled a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke away from her. The flowery scent of mintdust tickled Daring’s nose.
“Okay, so let’s go over what we know,” Daring said, pacing in a small circle in front of Phillip. “We know that Family Tree came here on Monday afternoon. She said that she had figured out a way into the catacombs, but got sent off. Later that night, she came back here and broke in.”
“Evidence suggests that,” Phillip said.
“Apparently, she left in her car and just disappeared,” Daring continued. “And I’m guessing that she was supposed to meet up with the Sacred Order, since they showed up looking for her the day after.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Whatever happened in the church, somepony there cleaned up the floor between the door and the wall,” Daring said. “So what did they clean up and why did they just clean that part? And why would they go to the reservoir…?”
Phillip took another puff of the cigarette and stared at her. Daring continued to pace for a few moments as the gears turned in her head.
“Maybe…maybe she found the door,” she mused. “Opened it somehow…but that doesn’t explain how, or why the floor was cleaned.”
Except that she did know why. The possibility burned in her mind, the caustic question burning on her tongue. She swallowed and took a breath as she tried to order the thoughts.
“You…you don’t think that she’s still alive, do you?” she asked, barely speaking above a whisper, as if afraid that voicing it aloud might make it true.
Phillip was silent for a long moment before sighing and shaking his head. “Doesn’t seem likely. I’m sorry.”
Grief ran down Daring’s body like ice water down her spine. Family Tree, who had mentored her during her first years at the university when she was still trying to pick up the pieces of her life. Family Tree, whose mane she had watched turn gray and her face leathery with time, though her spirit never dimmed. Family Tree, who would sit in the teacher’s lounge for hours, discussing the history of Ponyville. Family Tree, whose eyes would sparkle as she giggled over tales of her student’s antics. Family Tree, always with a kind word for anyone, student or faculty, who came through her door.
Gone.
Daring took in a slow inhalation, damming off the sorrow and burying it, simmering it in her gut until it turned into anger. “Let’s just find whoever did this,” she hissed.
Phillip grunted.
“Should we go to the police?” Daring suggested.
Phillip sighed. “Don’t have enough evidence. Would just file a missing pony report. Need more evidence.”
Daring grunted. “Well, whatever happened to her, it probably happened in the catacombs. We should find a way to open it. But how…” She thought for a moment before an idea sparked in her head. “One thing’s for sure: the Sacred Order helped her out, and they know more than they let you on. We should ask them about it.”
A genuine smile spread across Phillip’s face for the first time. “Aces. Your blood’s worth bottling, Daring,” he said, dropping the cigarette onto the ground and grinding it out beneath his hoof.
Daring raised an eyebrow. “So…that something Aushaylians do? Collect creatures’ blood like vintage wine?” she asked.
Phillip paused in the act of strapping his helmet on. “Means you’re useful.”
“Oh, like I’m a tool or something?” she asked.
“No, it’s…” Phillip paused when he noticed a smile spreading across Daring’s face.
“Ah, you’re too easy,” Daring smirked, taking flight. “So, where we headed?”
“The Sacred Order of the Golden Dawn’s Ponyville lodge,” Phillip said, kicking the bike to life.
He turned and drove the bike back up the pathway, with Daring following behind him. Once they reached the road, he turned to the right and headed back into the city proper, with the golden pegasus right on his tail.
Secret of the Sunken Church Part Four: The Sacred Order of the Golden Sphinx
“There it is,” Phillip said as he pulled his bike to the side of the road, nodding at the building across the street.
Daring Do landed to catch her breath, studying the great marble building with a slight head shake. “Give the Sacred Order this,” she commented, gesturing at the pale gold edifice. “They know how to make a statement.”
The lodge was a five-story-tall ashlar edifice built like a temple, the stones the color of desert sand. A set of stairs led up to a set of four two-story-high columns that supported an architrave with Sacred Order of the Golden Sphinx written across it in lapis lazuli. Two statues of a sphinx flanked the staircase, and another was perched on each corner of the roof, looming over the city beneath with imperious scowls. The stairs led to a glass doorway decorated with the Order’s seal: a pyramid topped with an eye, flanked on either side by a sphinx with their wings outspread. The scroll beneath the seal declared the Order’s motto: Scientia Sit Potentia.
Knowledge is power.
Phillip swapped his helmet for his trilby. “Let’s go,” he said, crossing the street.
As they ascended the stairs together, Daring turned to examine the sphinx statues on either side. Each as tall as a pony was long, they stood facing the stairs so that they stared down at any who passed in and out of the building. Whereas the statue of Faust outside the Golden Oaks library was intended to be welcoming, with a warm smile and kind eyes, the far-too-realistic eyes of the sphinxes were narrowed in disdain, their mouths drawn into harsh lines, as though they were judging those who passed by them. Her gaze went down to the beasts’ paws; each had their claws extended and one paw raised as though in preparation to strike.
“Welcoming,” she mused as they proceeded to the door and proceeded inside.
The lobby was, thankfully, a little more welcoming than the exterior. The center of the room was occupied by a six-foot black obelisk, water running down all four of its sides to the pool that it stood in, providing comforting background noise. Comfortable chairs surrounded tables scattered about the room, many of the tables bearing pamphlets about the Order, explaining their history and mission and how to become a member. Well-tended potted plants stood guard in every corner.
At the head of the room was a long, low desk of gold-trimmed oak, behind which a light green unicorn receptionist sat. On the wall behind him, carved into the stone wall, was a mantra, repeated in multiple languages:
We dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of Knowledge.
From Knowledge comes Understanding.
From Understanding comes Freedom.
From Freedom comes Action.
From Action comes Power.
From Power comes Betterment.
From Betterment comes Enlightenment.
The Sphinx is our Apotheosis. Through it shall All Truths Be Revealed.
The duo’s hoofsteps echoed off the black-and-white checkerboard floor as they approached the receptionist’s desk.
“Detective Finder,” the unicorn behind the desk said, standing up as they approached. “We have been expecting you. And…” he turned to face Daring.
“Professor Daring Do,” Daring introduced herself.
The receptionist nodded. “Ah, yes. One moment.”
He grabbed a telephone from behind the desk and held it up to his ear with his magic while dialing a number. The line clicked after a moment.
“Madame?” the receptionist said. “Le détective est ici, et il a amené le Professeur Daring Do avec lui.”
A muffled mare’s voice replied over the line. The unicorn’s eyebrows raised in surprise, then he nodded. “Bien sûr, je vais les envoyer tout de suite.” He hung up and pressed a buzzer on the desktop. “Wait here for a moment, please.”
A few moments later, a light gold hippogriff mare with her mane done up in a bun wearing a blouse appeared through the door behind the desk. The sphinx pin on her lapel glimmered beneath the lobby lights.
“Please bring our guests up to the Revelation Chamber,” the receptionist said. “The Lodge Mistress wishes to receive them.”
“I see,” the hippogriff nodded. “Please follow me.”
She guided the two guests back through the doors into the interior of the Lodge. The doors opened to a long hallway with a carpeted floor. Windows formed a wall on either side: to their left was a sizeable library that a few creatures were perusing through, while to the right was a small museum that appeared to be dedicated to the history of the Order, showcasing photographs of the lodge under construction and portraits of severe-looking creatures in hooded cloaks. A security guard in a white uniform with a walkie-talkie on his shoulder stood post at the end of the hall, his head turning to track the visitors with a steely gaze.
At the end of the hallway was a set of stairs and an elevator. Daring glanced over a directory next to the elevator.
First Floor Public Library Museum Second Floor Alchemical Laboratories Meditation Chamber Public Forum Third Floor (BY INVITATION ONLY) Revelation Chamber Fourth Floor (MEMBERS ONLY) Members Lounge Meeting Room Fifth Floor (THIRD TIER MEMBERS ONLY) Offices Chapel Lodge Master’s Chambers “Our first and second floors are open to those who have need of them,” the hippogriff guiding them explained. “We hold classes on meditation, alchemy, and magic, as well as public debates and scholarly lectures. The Lodge Mistress will be waiting for you in the Revelation Chambers. I must caution you, the fourth and fifth floors are strictly prohibited to non-members and you will be asked to leave if you are found trespassing upon them.”
“Then we won’t be found trespassing in them,” Daring replied.
Their guide started to reach for the elevator button. “Stairs,” Phillip grunted, starting to climb up the steps.
The hippogriff faltered for a moment but shrugged. “As you wish.”
Daring looked up the long carpeted stairway that stretched to the floor above them and considered walking up every flight.
“Nah, screw that,” she declared and grabbed Phillip beneath the shoulders.
“Wha-HEEEEYYY!” Phillip cried as he was carried up the stairs, winding around the landings on each floor in a greyscale rainbow.
They halted on the third floor and Daring dropped her passenger off, smirking in response to his piercing scowl. “What? I got us up here fast, didn’t I?”
Phillip grumbled and adjusted his trilby, taking in the scene around them. The third-floor landing opened to a short hallway that led to a simple oak door. No decoration adorned the plain white walls, no windows opened to the outside.
The hippogriff flapped up after them, scowling as she landed. “Yes. The Lodge Mistress is waiting for you there. I suggest you not keep her waiting.” She gestured at the door.
“Thank you,” Phillip said, striding forward. He opened the door and ushered Daring and himself inside, closing the door behind them.
The room inside was simply furnished: a low coffee table with a set of winged chairs surrounding it, a red box with a four-digit padlock sitting atop the table’s surface. On each of the four walls was a painting, each of which was a different subject: a ship in a lightning storm, a forest with several birds perched on the branches, a tractor in a field of wheat, and an observatory atop a hill beneath a night sky. The room was lit by four lamps in the corner, each shade a different color: blue, green, red, and yellow. The sole decoration was a statue of a sphinx against the right wall. It sat on a four-sided pedestal that was decorated with a crescent moon on the front and stars around the perimeter. Nopony was inside the room.
“Wait, what the hell–?” Daring started to ask, but the door had closed behind her.
Phillip stared around the room. “This room is too small,” he mused. “Room should be several times larger than this. What is the point of this?”
Daring looked above the door and spotted a sign over the threshold. “‘Revelation Through Trial,’” she read aloud. “I wonder…”
She looked over at the table and picked up the box. A faint rattling sounded from within. The top of the box had four paintings on it: a bluebird, an apple, a butterfly, and a lightning bolt. “Hmm…” she mused, looking up at the paintings. “There are butterflies in this one,” she said, looking at the painting of the wheat field. “And some of the trees in this one are apple trees,” she added, turning to study the observatory painting.
“It’s a puzzle,” Phillip grumbled. “Bloody waste of time.”
“If we want answers, guess we’ll have to play along,” Daring commented. “Okay, there are two lightning bolts in the ship painting…two, four, six, seven bluebirds in the bird painting…three apple trees…and six, seven, eight, nine butterflies.”
She turned the combination to seven-three-nine-two and pulled. The lock opened and she pulled the box open to reveal what appeared to be a curved lens of multicolored crystal and a note.
“‘Blue is before green. The first and last are opposite colors. Yellow is not third,’” she read out loud. She picked up the crystal and tilted it, observing how the color shifted.
Daring held the lens up to the yellow lampshade and looked through it. Words appeared on the lampshade, visible through the filtering of the lens.
“‘Lift sinister paw,’” she read. “What the heck does…?”
She turned to the statue of the sphinx, which was smirking back at her from the side of the room, perched atop its pedestal. Out of curiosity, she strode forward and gently pulled on the sphinx’s right paw. The foreleg moved upwards on a hinge, securing into place with a click.
“Ah, I see,” she declared, resetting the arm.
Phillip looked over the note, then at the lamps, murmuring to himself as he puzzled out the order. “Red, yellow, blue, green,” he stated.
Daring took up the lens again and read the instructions in order. “‘Turn head to east, ‘Lift sinister paw,’ ‘Salute Luna,’ ‘With lucky wing.’”
The duo examined the sphinx statue, looking up and down the pedestal. “So which way is east?” Daring asked.
Phillip studied the constellations on the right side of the pedestal. “Cassiopeia on this side, pointing towards the front of the pedestal,” he reported. “If the front is north, then left side is east.”
Daring turned the sphinx’s head to the left with a click. “Okay, sinister paw…” She frowned at the two paws. “But they’re both the same. Which one is sinister?”
Phillip thought for a moment, then nodded. “Left.”
Daring considered briefly, then slapped herself on the forehead. “Right. ‘Sinister’ comes from ‘sin,’ Old Ponish for ‘left.’” She lifted the sphinx’s left paw until it clicked.
“Now ‘Salute Luna with lucky wing.’ That one’s obvious.” She slid the sphinx’s right wing towards the front of the pedestal so that it was pointing at the crescent moon.
There was a great clicking and grinding of gears, then a shifting of stone as a doorway in the wall opened up, revealing a huge library and sitting room that occupied the entire floor. Shelves bore thick tomes and grimoires secured behind heavy glass. Cabinets displayed strange curios: small idols, mannequins bearing ancient robes and tribal clothing, intricately carved masks, and trinkets made of glass beads. Luxurious chairs in mushroom leather surrounded small reading tables. The room was lit by a chandelier overhead and a crackling fire in a huge hearth at the far end of the room, the flames casting dancing shadows over the walls and the floor. A doorway next to the hearth revealed a set of stairs leading up and down.
The sound of clapping filled the room. Sitting in one larger chair next to the fireplace was a light pink unicorn mare with a long crimson mane adorned with raven highlights. She wore a light gold robe with black trim around the sleeves and the collar; a gold-leaf cigarette in a cigarette holder rested in an ashtray set on the table next to her.
“Bravo, bravo,” the mare said in a voice tinged with a Prench accent, her light brown eyes sparkling as she ceased her applause. She lit her horn with a scarlet aura and held up a stopwatch. “Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. You beat the previous record by almost four whole minutes.”
The mare stood up and bowed slightly. “Bienvenue, Professor Do, Monsieur Finder. I am Scarlet Letter, the Lodge Mistress of the Ponyville chapter of the Sacred Order of the Golden Sphinx.”
A bell rang in the back of Daring’s head. “Hold on, Scarlet Letter? As in the romance author?”
The mare’s eyes sparkled. “Ah, a fan?”
“No,” Daring replied bluntly.
Scarlet laughed lightly. “Ah, well. Different creatures have different tastes.”
“So what was the point of the escape room?” Daring scowled.
“Forgive us for the game,” Scarlet smiled, gesturing to two opposite chairs. “It is something we test all of our special guests with. The Order has little interest in creatures who lack craftiness or drive.”
“We know Family Tree was working with you,” Phillip said, refusing to sit. “We know she was looking for the Sunken Church. Thought she could find the Prism of Darkness.”
Scarlet’s eyes shone in pleasure. “Excellent. You’ve found out a lot.”
“Enough. Not here to fuck spiders, Scarlet,” Phillip grunted.
“You what?” Daring asked, barely able to hold back surprised laughter.
Scarlet’s eyebrows rose into her mane, an amused smile creasing her face. “Such a colorful vocabulary you Aushaylians have, Monsieur Finder,” she tittered.
Phillip leaned forward, his scowl increasing. “You’re leading us around. It ends. You need to tell us what you told her.”
Scarlet studied Phillip and Daring for a few moments, then nodded. “But of course.”
She straightened out her robes before continuing. “When Family Tree came to us with her theories a mere three months ago, she said that she needed research that we had: records that we had acquired decades ago when the temple was remade into the church it is today.”
“Why do you have those?” Daring asked.
“We acquired them through a group of…historians that we support. Professor Tree was able to track those records from them to us,” Scarlet explained. “Anyway, we tested her the same as you were tested. She passed, of course, and we allowed her access to this room, where we kept the documents in question.”
“What is this place anyway?” Daring asked.
Scarlet gestured around her. “This room is where we keep some of our most…sensitive information and research. While any who have need of them can access the library, laboratories, and the forum on the floor below, this room is only accessible to members of the Order and outsiders who have proven themselves smart and ambitious enough to truly appreciate them. Tell me, Professor, does anything strike your fancy?”
Daring gazed about her, drinking up every sight, every exhibit. “Are those fertility idols from pre-Equestria?” she asked, pointing to some small statuettes depicting long-legged quadrupeds with branch-like antlers.
“Recovered from a section of the Everfree Forest that was cleared for a reservoir expansion,” Scarlet replied. “But this one here is particularly fascinating.” She gestured to a huge horned ponyquin wearing a heavy coat of cotton, thick as a quilt, dyed various warm colors. “What do you make of it?”
“That’s quilted armor worn by a buffalo tribe,” Daring said, approaching and circling it. “Looks new, but buffalo and zebras use enchantments on their clothes to keep them from wearing out. Hmm…someone sewed large portions of the back together.”
“That was us,” Scarlet answered. “That was discovered in the Galloping Gorge many years ago; the surveyor who found it was about to throw it out when we bought it from him. It was badly torn, but we spent a long time putting it back together.”
“That was all that he found?” Daring asked. “Migratory buffalo tribes did use to travel around the gorge ages ago…this might have been worn by a young warrior on his rite of passage through the gorge. Guess he didn’t make it.”
“Oui, that’s our theory,” Scarlet nodded. “The study of the enchantments in the armor has been most enlightening, but we’ve–”
Phil cleared his throat sharply. “The Temple.”
“All work and no play makes Monsieur Finder a dull pony,” Scarlet tutted, but nonetheless stood up and made her way over to the bookshelf, extracting a set of keys from her belt in a light crimson aura. She unlocked the glass case and pulled the cover back. “Où est-ce que je l'ai mis... ?” she mused, running a hoof over the spines. “Ah, ici!” She pulled a thick portfolio folder labeled Temple of Precious Enlightenment out of the shelf and carried them over to a reading desk close to the fireplace, beckoning her guests closer.
As they passed, Daring was unable to resist casting her eyes over the books on the shelves once more. The books ranged from tattered incunabula with titles in Old Ponish to more modern texts on the history and culture of Ponyville and the surrounding area, with an entire section devoted to the Everfree Forest.
But towards the back of the room was a small display case. Inside, resting on a velvet sheet, was a single book, a massive tome with a worn cover that displayed a series of swirling comets streaking over an arid landscape. The book was secured by a padlocked chain wrapped stoutly around its body.
Daring paused as she recognized the cover. “Is that…?”
“The Unásecgendee Tācnu,” Scarlet confirmed. “The Unspeakable Signs, written in 1057 by Comet Watcher, the Mad Prophet himself. This is an abridged translated version, I’m afraid; the only known complete, original version is kept in the Royal Archives in Canterlot.”
“You know that they say that anycreature who reads it either dies or goes nuts?” Daring asked, unable to tear her eyes from the book.
“They do say that, don’t they?” Scarlet said with an enigmatic smile as she placed the binder on the reading table. “Now, this portfolio contains documents and photographs from the Temple. Some were recovered from the fire, and other researchers added other documents over time.”
Daring raised an eyebrow. “You seem pretty interested in the temple.”
“We have an interest in the Temple’s history,” Scarlet replied. “Just as we are interested in anything involving secrets and esoteric knowledge. After all, scientia sit potentia.”
“Right. Which is why you keep it all locked up behind a puzzle room,” Daring said with a frown.
“Not locked up; certainly not from deserving ponies such as yourself, Professor Do,” Scarlet said in a placating manner, raising a hoof. “We see it as keeping them safe from those who would misuse them for their own ends…or are too foolish to wield that power wisely. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, after all,” she added, giving Daring a smirk.
A chill ran up and down Daring’s spine, but she returned Scarlet’s gaze evenly.
“Anyway, our interest in the Temple of Precious Enlightenment was more of an idle curiosity initially; it was only when Family Tree showed us her theories that we finally put the pieces together,” Scarlet continued.
“Why was she interested in it?” Phillip asked.
“She was confident that she could find the Prism of Darkness,” Scarlet explained. “I…believe that she hoped that it would allow her to connect with her deceased husband.” Scarlet shook her head. “In retrospect, perhaps we should not have been so eager to trust her thus.”
“When did you last see her?” Phillip pressed.
“On Monday morning,” Scarlet answered. “She came in to do additional research before her classes started. When I came in, she declared joyously, ‘I have found it! I have found it!’ and ran off before I could ask her what she meant. Annoyingly, she took something with her: a photograph of Eastern Cartographer, the preacher of the Temple, performing a service.”
“Hmm,” Phillip mused, flipping through the portfolio.
Checking over his shoulder, Daring observed that the documents and photographs within were contained in plastic sleeves. They were sorted into different sections, separated by tags: Finances, Letters, Sermons, Photographs, and so on. One section towards the end was marked “Catacombs.” A lot of the documents were damaged, scorched by the fire that had destroyed the original Temple and carefully restored.
“Was there anything she was particularly interested in?” Daring asked.
“Family Tree reviewed every document in that portfolio a dozen times,” Scarlet replied. “As have we.”
Daring Do sighed. “Come on, Family. What did you see here?” she whispered to herself.
Phillip looked through the photographs, pausing at a curled photograph depicting Eastern Cartographer standing at a pulpit, clearly in the middle of delivering a sermon. Aside from the circlet with the upside-down ankh, he was wearing a dark green hooded robe and a white stole around his neck. Down the left side were cuneiform icons, sharp lines and interconnected dots not unlike constellation maps. Down the right was a series of hieroglyphs, stitched in gold.
“She took a photo like this?” Phillip asked.
“Oui, another depicting the preacher at work,” Scarlet said.
“Let me see this,” Daring said, taking the portfolio. She flipped to the back, to the section on the Catacombs, and began to flip through it. In contrast to the rest of the collection, many of the items in this section were hoofwritten notes detailing searches of the basement and experiments to try to find and open the catacomb doors, as well as typewritten transcripts of interviews.
“Who did these interviews?” Daring asked, pausing at a page towards the end. This one was fresh and recent, judging by the bright color of the sheet, and was headed by a photograph of a light yellow earth pony stallion with a graying blue mane, standing in front of a mantelpiece and frowning at the camera with his long, tufted ears pulled back slightly. The document was titled Measuring Tape, Twenty-second of the Moon of Leaves, 1953.
“Some we did ourselves, but many were done by Family herself,” Scarlet said. “We attempted to find former members of the Temple ourselves, but few of the ones we could find were willing to talk. Family, however…” She smiled fondly. “We should have come to her first. She had a genius for finding these creatures and getting them to open up.”
“Part of being an expert in Ponyville’s history,” Daring said with a faint smile. “She could find the fifth-generation descendant of an immigrant that came over on a train…”
She trailed off slightly. Her hoof had lowered down to a section of the transcript that was underlined in pen.
Q: So how did you become a higher-tier member?
MT: There was a riddle that you had to solve. If Cartographer thought that they had…promise, he’d give them a parchment with the riddle on it.
Q: Did you ever get one?
MT: No, but one of my friends in the congregation did get one. Obviously, he wasn’t supposed to show anyone who wasn’t initiated, but I did catch a part of it once when he set it down. I don’t remember the details, but I do remember there was something about knocking.
Q: What else about the riddle?
Mt: I think that if you solved the riddle, that would allow access to the catacombs. I think Cartographer mentioned once that you had to find the stone inside it and you were in.
Q: Did your friend get in?
(Long silence)
MT: That day I saw part of the riddle…that was the last time I saw him. I left the church soon after. Should have done it sooner.
“Knocking…” Daring mused.
She began to flip back through the documents, her eyes sweeping over the contents with a practiced gaze. She went back through the notes on the catacombs, through lists of members, and finally found what she sought in a collection of collated sermons.
The parchment was burnt and curled, colored a rusty brown, but the words printed upon it were still just legible.
I am the key to the underworld. Knock once, knock thrice, knock twice, and again, then five raps at the door to wisdom. The doors shall open and once you descend, the skulls will unlock the truth. Do this, and you shall see as I do at last.
A cry of triumph started to rush up Daring’s throat, but she forced it down, glancing at Scarlet. The Lodge Mistress was hovering nearby, looking curiously over at them; the look in her eyes reminded Daring of a mountain lioness lounging in a tree, watching a nearby flock of deer, body relaxed but gaze intense and unblinking.
Trust your gut, Daring Do, her uncle’s voice whispered in her ear.
Daring memorized the page’s contents in a heartbeat and turned it without lingering. She continued flipping through the portfolio, shaking her head.
“Did you find anything?” Scarlet asked. Her voice was even, but she was unable to completely keep the eagerness out of the edges.
“I’m not sure,” Daring shook her head, her heart trembling in her chest. “Can we take one of these photos of Cartographer?”
“There is a copier over there,” Scarlet said, gesturing at a large machine set up in the corner, utterly incongruous in the sumptuous room.
“Thanks,” Daring said, plucking out a picture of Cartographer at the pulpit. She placed the picture down on the glass screen and started the machine, which whirred and groaned for a few moments, then spat out a paper copy of the picture. Daring scanned it, nodding in satisfaction as she found that the images on the stole were still detailed.
She glanced over at Phillip, who nodded. “Well, thanks for the help,” Daring said, replacing the original photograph in the portfolio.
“I do hope that you can find what happened to Family Tree,” Scarlet said with a fittingly solemn nod. “She was, after all, a very valuable friend.”
Daring frowned and followed Phillip out the door. As they exited, she turned and looked over her shoulder. Scarlet was watching them leave, waving goodbye, backlit by the fire in the hearth. Her smile looked about as sincere as a crocodile’s, and her eyes were just as hungry.
And then the door shut behind them and the sight was gone. Daring breathed a sigh in relief, a weight that she hadn’t noticed finally lifting from her shoulders.
“Let’s get out of here,” she urged her partner, heading for the stairs. They trotted down the steps down to the ground floor and exited the front doors, back into the bustle and fall-scented air of the city.
“You have an idea,” Phillip said as they descended the steps to the sidewalk.
“It’s the best clue I’ve got,” Daring said, patting her pocket to make sure that the copy of the photograph was still safe inside. “Only one way to see if it works.” She glanced back at the lodge, her eyes going up to the statues of the sphinxes up at the top. Was it her imagination, or had some of them turned to stare after her…?
She shook the feeling off as they crossed the street. “We should make a plan,” she commented as Phillip swapped out his hat for his helmet once more. “Far away from here.”
“Agreed,” Phillip said, straddling the bike. He kicked it to life and pulled it away from the curb.
“So,” Daring said with a small smirk. “You’re not here to…fuck. Spiders.”
“Oy. Equestrian slang sounds weird to me,” Phillip groused.
“Yeah, but who says that?” Daring said as they started back up the street.
“Ponies who grew up in a land like Aushaylia,” Phillip answered. “Where there really are spiders big enough to stick willie–”
“Aaaaand we’re changing the subject,” Daring cut him off.
They reached a small park overhung with maple trees, brown leaves scattered across the grass and paths. A few children were playing on the swings and jungle gym, watched by their parents and sitters. Phillip parked the bike and turned the engine off as Daring landed next to him.
“You sure that you can get in there?” Phillip asked.
“If my theory is right,” Daring said, taking out the photograph of Eastern Cartographer. “That riddle said that he was the key and mentioned a pattern of knocking. You see the hieroglyphs on his stole? They’re similar to the ones that are carved on the walls.”
Phillip considered for a moment, then grunted. “Best lead we’ve got.”
“Anyway, we can both agree that we don’t trust the Order, right?” Daring asked.
“Agreed,” Phillip nodded. “Scarlet Letter knows more than she’s letting on.”
“I think they’re after the Prism,” Daring said. “They thought that Family Tree could get it for them.”
“Most likely.”
The bells of a nearby clocktower chimed out the hour: quarter to three. Daring grimaced. “Damn, I’ve got other classes to attend to…”
“Need to follow up on other leads. We can meet up after classes. Head in during the service tonight,” Phillip suggested.
“Yeah, that works,” Daring nodded. “I’d need to get some things from my place anyway.”
A thought suddenly occurred to her. “The Order might try to sneak in ahead of us,” Daring pointed out.
“Can get a friend to watch the church,” Phillip said.
He rummaged in the saddlebags of his bike for a few moments, then pulled out some strange items: a bottle of honey, a small cup, and a long, flat wooden disc with a long rope looped through a hole drilled into one end, decorated with a painting of a kangaroo.
“A bullroarer,” Daring named the device.
“Mm-hmm,” he confirmed, walking over to a bench with his items. He filled the small cup with the honey and placed it on the table, then stepped back and unspooled some of the rope on the bullroarer. He closed his eyes and took a breath, began to spin the device through the air, producing a constant buzzing groan that thrummed through the air, a vibration that Daring felt in her bones.
“Gossamer, apetyeyel…Gossamer, apetyeyel…Gossamer, apetyeyel…” Phillip began to half-whisper, half-sing in time with the rise and fall of the eerie music. A pale gray light the color of an overcast midday sky flickered across his hooves and down the rope to the bullroarer, which cast little motes of energy as it spun. A shiver like static electricity danced across Daring’s wings as the summoning spell passed over her.
A light blue glow appeared in the distance, zipping toward Phillip, who ceased spinning the bullroarer. After a few moments, the glow coalesced into a breezy, pale blue with a puffy golden mane.
“G’day, Gossamer,” Phillip smiled, holding out his left forelimb and allowing the breezy to land upon it.
“Hi, ceannard!” the breezy chirped, buzzing his little wings in greeting.
“Daring Do, meet Gossamer Dance,” Phillip said. “I saved him from a band of smugglers that he ran into. Been helping me out since.”
Gossamer floated over to Daring and booped her on the snout. “Hi, caraid ùr!”
“Er, hi,” Daring said.
Gossamer cocked his head as if studying her for a moment, then beamed. “Yes. I like your girlfriend, ceannard!”
Both ponies sputtered in shock, heat rushing to their faces. Phillip cleared his throat as he recollected himself. “She’s not my girlfriend, Gossamer.”
The breezy tilted his head and gave Phillip a superior smile. “Seadh, of course she is not,” he giggled.
Gossamer sniffed the air and spotted the cup of honey. With a little cry of delight, he flew over and snatched up the cup, sipping up the honey. “You need help, ceannard?”
“You know the Church of the Seven Pillars?” Phillip asked, the blush fading from his ears. “Church in the woods to the northwest?”
“That’s the one,” Phillip confirmed. “Need you and some of your friends to keep an eye on the place. Let me know if anyone tries to sneak in before the service at seven. Can you do that?”
Gossamer nodded eagerly as he finished off the proffered drink. “Seadh, I can do that! Gun dragh sam bith!”
“Ripper,” Phillip smiled. “Off to it, then.”
Gossamer saluted and flew off, fading into a faint blue glow that disappeared into the trees.
“A breezy,” Daring commented with a raised eyebrow.
“Dead useful,” Phillip replied, packing up his equipment. “They can go anywhere and see and hear everything without being noticed. And Gossamer’s smarter than you’d think.”
“And when they migrate home during the winter?” Daring asked.
“There are other means,” Phillip said, carefully packing his equipment back into the enchanted saddlebags.
“Who taught you how to do a summoning spell?” Daring asked.
“My mother,” Phillip answered. “She’s a ngangkari: a medicine mare. Got some of the talent from her.”
He climbed back onto the bike. “So. Meet at church at seven?”
Daring smirked. “Normally, I’d ask you to buy me dinner before taking me to sneak into hidden temples,” she purred, batting her eyelashes a bit. “But for you, I’ll make an exception.”
Phillip’s ears turned a violent crimson and he swallowed. “Daring…not that I don’t like you, or that I don’t like mares, but…” he stammered. “Just because Gossamer said that we…”
He paused as realization struck him, then glared at Daring, who threw her head back and cackled. “Oh, you are way too fun,” she snickered. She held out a hoof. “See you at seven.”
“Ripper,” Phillip sighed with a small but genuine smile, bumping his hoof against hers.
Daring gave him a salute and spread her wings, flying back towards Golden Oaks University in a greyscale rainbow.
The school day passed in a blur for Daring Do. She rushed into Ancient Technology and Magic five minutes late, just as some of her students were debating whether or not they should leave, but managed to stumble through it and Origins of Griffons and Hippogriffs from her notes before retreating to her office to go over her Intro to Archaeology quizzes.
But as much as she tried to focus on grading her students’ work, her mind kept floating back to the hieroglyphs on the stone walls. Visions of a door opening in the wall danced before her eyes.
She saw Family Tree standing there, her eyes twinkling with wonder as they often did when she found something fascinating. She saw the professor descending into the darkness beyond.
She saw her being dragged out by shapeless forms, blood painting a trail across the stones.
Heat spread across her veins at the thought. Who? Who had killed her? And why?
A horrible thought seized her. What if it was the Order? What if they had gotten into the catacombs and found the Prism?
But then why would they bother to hire a private detective? Daring groaned and buried her head in her hooves.
“Daring?”
Daring Do gasped and looked up to see Doctor Caballeron standing at the open door of her office.
“You look like a mare with something on her mind,” Caballeron commented.
Daring sighed and glanced down at the report on her desk, frowning as she noticed that her notes on Ifaa’s quiz had turned into random doodles. “Yeah, sorry, Caballeron.”
“Where did you go earlier?” Caballeron asked. “Blotting Paper was about to throw a fit.”
“I…”
Something stopped the words before they could escape Daring’s throat. Even forgetting what the Dean would say if she found out that she’d spent an afternoon chasing rumors, a lurking paranoia hung over her. A mare had already died over this. What else might be caused by her indiscretion?
“A PI came looking for Family Tree,” she explained. “He asked me to help him out.”
Caballeron’s eyebrows rose. “Oh? And did you find anything?”
“We didn’t find her,” Daring admitted. “He left to go pursue some other leads.”
There. Not technically a lie.
Caballeron sighed. “Pobre Family. Do you have any idea what happened to her?”
“We’re not sure,” Daring admitted, again reminding herself that that technically wasn’t a lie.
Caballeron frowned. “I heard through the grapevine that she was researching the Sunken Church.”
“Yeah, we did find that out,” Daring commented, feeling as though she were making her way across a minefield blindfolded. “I’m not sure how relevant that is, though.”
Caballeron stared in silence for a beat, a pensive frown on his face, then sighed. “I see. Ojalá, she’ll turn up soon.”
“Yes, the gods willing, indeed,” Daring nodded as her colleague exited. She waited until the sound of his hoofsteps faded away and his office door closed to sigh and return to her work, trying to swallow back her bile.
Sundown crept up upon the campus, shadows spreading across the quad, street lamps and lights in the windows penetrating the darkness. Daring Do added her final notes to the last quiz and put it in the out basket as she glanced at the clock. Twenty-past six. Plenty of time for her to get home and grab her gear before her meeting with Phillip.
She switched off the lights, exited her office, and locked it behind her, checking once more to ensure that the photograph was still in her pocket as she pocketed her keys. She headed out of the History Wing, nodding good night to the janitor on her way out.
No sooner had she pushed out of the building than she took flight, streaking eastward towards her apartments. Her heart thumped in her chest as she breathed in the cool evening air, filling her lungs.
It’s like a dream, Uncle Ad. Or something out of one of my own books. We’ve found a lot of missing treasures together–like that disc in the palace in Neighros–but a rare treasure in my own backyard? And if it is the Prism of Darkness–if it actually can do what they say it can…
Her excited smile flickered as more images danced before her eyes: a stallion with a coat the color of milk chocolate adorned in a gray jacket, his flaxen mane sticking out in straw-like strands beneath a thick winter hat. His blue eyes shone as he stared at the black idol set far back in the antechamber of that lifeless grotto amidst the taigas of southern Yakyakistan. That idol of the dog-like being with an extra paw at the end of its long tail, smirking out at the world.
His hooves, carefully lifting the idol from the pedestal.
The carved eyes lighting up as though in delight. Biting wind rising out of nowhere, biting against her spine with a sound like a snarl…or a laugh.
Movement in the layers of ice that covered the walls; shadows of shapes that she couldn’t identify, glowing in colors that she could not name. Tearing out of the walls and the floor. Lunging at the older stallion like rats on decaying meat, faster than she could react.
Screams. The idol spinning through the air and skittering across the ice, back into the darkness.
The shadows retreating back into the ice, so fast that she wasn’t sure that they were ever there. A body shivering on the ground, skin withered down to his bones.
Ragged breath. Blue eyes, once glowing with wonder at the world, sunken into a shriveled face. Blue coloration creeping across his body.
A thready pulse.
A final breath turning into vapor.
Daring Do shivered and wiped at her teary eyes.
I need to understand, Uncle Ad. I need to know what’s out there. So it can’t happen again. And I can’t let the Order or creatures like them get their hooves on that Prism.
And with that heavy thought, she hurried on toward home.
Daring Do’s abode was located on the second floor of an apartment building a little down the street from a humble bookstore where she’d spent many a happy afternoon. The warm glow in the window revealed a trio of plush chairs set around a table set with an antique coffee pot and cups, a cheese and cracker plate, and a small bowl of chocolate.
Tempting, but she had other things on her mind. Daring landed at the front door of the apartment and made her way into the lobby, undecorated save for a token potted plant in the corner next to the bulletin board and the door to the laundry room.
She made her way up to the doorway marked 16 in brass letters and inserted her key. The door opened with a creak and she snapped on the light.
Her apartment could be called modest if one was being kind. It was the same apartment that she’d lived in since she’d moved to mainland Equestria twelve years ago. The living room was occupied by some beat-up couches, a desk, and a coffee table, most of them covered in books and loose papers; the one area that was always clear was the desk that housed her trusty typewriter, and the tray where she kept her current manuscripts for the next Compass Rose book. The bookshelf against one wall groaned beneath the weight of its contents. A passageway led to a combination kitchen and dining room with a battered table that she’d found in a thrift store in the center. A collection of takeout menus was scattered across the table. A few photographs and maps were posted on the walls. Right next to the door was a framed photograph depicting a younger Daring Do standing next to the stallion with the gray jacket, both of them beaming up at the camera as Daring held up the rusty hipposandal.
Daring Do undid her bow tie with a sigh as she tossed her keys and wallet onto a side table. She made her way over to the icebox and yanked it open, rummaging around for a few moments before extracting an apple, a takeout box of Chineighse, and a carton of milk, which she wolfed down.
With some food in her stomach, she made her way into the bedroom. She undid the buttons of her shirt and tossed it and her bow tie onto a chair next to the bed.
“That’s better,” she sighed, stretching out her wings. She opened up the closet door and snapped on the light to behold her goal.
Hanging on the rack, slightly separated from the rest of her coats and formal shirts, was a simple green cargo shirt, slightly battered and stained, but still clean and holding together; hanging on another rack next to it was a small weatherbeaten canvas tote bag, inscribed with the wards that made it larger on the inside. On the shelf above was a matching pith helmet, patches covering old holes and scars. On the floor of the closet was a fireproof lockbox, and coiled up on a hook on the wall was a stockwhip.
Daring took it off the rack and donned the shirt, sighing as she took on the familiar weight of the old shirt. She tucked the photograph of Eastern Cartographer into the breast pocket, right next to the notebook and pens. A quick pat-down confirmed that the other pockets had the rest of her more important gear: a headlamp and extra batteries, a pocket multitool, a magnifying glass, miniature binoculars, and a small first aid kit. The tote bag’s interior contained the rest of her equipment: a trowel, a set of small picks and brushes, a tape measure, a sketchbook and pencils, sample bags, a small camera, and a more extensive first aid kit.
Daring secured the bag around her shoulder, then took the stockwhip down from the hook and secured it through a loop on the right side of her shirt.
Then she knelt down and unlocked the lockbox. Inside was a .357 Forge and Eastson revolver, the metal body well-polished and ready, and a cartridge belt with a holster. She slid her left foreleg through the sleeve of the pistol; the weight of the metal body rested atop her foreleg as she raised it up and adjusted for the fit, checking the weight of the stirrup trigger against her wrist. Nodding in satisfaction, she snapped the chamber open and used her wing to load it, then snapped the chamber closed and slid the pistol’s barrel through the holster on her left hip. Better safe than sorry.
Finally, she reached up and took down the pith helmet. She settled it on her head, smiling at the familiar weight and the comforting smell of canvas, dust, and jungle air that the hat carried. With everything secure, she made her way to the door.
Daring paused at the photograph next to the door, staring at her younger self beaming back at her through the years next to her uncle, the famous explorer.
Sometimes I wish that life could just stay like that, Uncle Ad: just the two of us, heading out to the sites, digging up old pots and arrowheads, occasionally stumbling into an old temple or tomb and having to fight off a bear or some tomb robbers or something. Laughing and smiling and learning whatever we could.
She sighed deeply. But this is what I’ve got now. Besides, like you wouldn’t go digging around in there, either.
She kissed her hoof and pressed it against Gallant’s smiling face, then stepped out of the apartment, snapping off the light and locking the door behind her.
Daring Do slid the hallway window open and climbed out, taking a deep breath of the cool night air. Securing her gear close to her body, she closed the window behind her and spread her wings, taking to the sky and heading towards her target.
Secret of the Sunken Church Part Six: The Bones Beneath
Daring Do glided through the night sky, gliding above the buildings of Ponyville, catching the warm zephyrs floating from the street in between flaps. Clouds streaked overhead in the indigo sky, smothering the glow from the stars and the crescent moon.
The sounds of the resting city faded as she flew towards the northeast, gliding across the river and over the trees. Spotting the side street that led to the Church of the Seven Pillars, she folded her wings and did a loop, swooping down to the ground below.
She spotted the Scout resting against a tree by the side of the road, partially hidden by the bushes. The peppery scent of scarlet mint led her to the detective, who was leaning against another tree, smoking a cigarette.
“G’day,” Phillip nodded, casting an eye over Daring’s outfit. His gaze lingered on the whip.
“I had an interesting education,” Daring answered his unspoken question. “Learned how to fight with a whip in Northern Zebrica.” She shrugged. “It just stuck with me.”
Phillip nodded and took another brief draw on his cigarette. “You ready?” he asked.
Daring took a breath and pushed the memories back, making room for the present. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”
“Ripper.” Phillip stubbed his cigarette out and tossed it aside and the duo proceeded up the path toward the church.
As they proceeded down the dusk-coated road, little colored lights could be seen around them, flitting through the trees. One approached and landed on Phil’s extended foreleg. “Anything, Gossamer?”
“Tha, ceannard: we saw a family of squirrels and a nest of baby sparrows!” Gossamer said cheerfully.
Phillip had to make a visible effort to not roll his eyes. “Did you see anycreature sneaking into the church before the service?” he clarified.
“Oh! Chan e, ceannard,” Gossamer reported. “But more ponies started showing up for the service about twenty minutes ago.”
Peering through the trees, Daring saw the lights of the church glowing in the darkness. A few cars were parked in the lot, with some parishioners milling about the open doorway.
“Right,” Phillip nodded. “We’ll go in at the back of the group and sneak down to the basement. Watch our backs, mate.”
Gossamer saluted, then whistled to his fellow breezies, chirping out a series of orders in Breezespeak. The other breezies clustered behind Daring and Phillip, staring intently at their backs.
“Uh…Gossamer? What are they doing?” Daring asked.
“Watching your backs, Miss Do. Like ceannard asked!” Gossamer chirped.
Phillip’s mouth twitched into a genuine smile. “No, Gossamer, it’s a metaphor.”
The little breezy cocked his head in puzzlement. “What is it for, ceannard?”
Daring Do snorted sharply and had to stuff a hoof into her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud. Phillip lowered his head, letting out several sharp exhalations through his nostrils as he tried to hide his own amusement.
“Just stay close and watch for anything odd,” he clarified.
“Ohhhh, that makes more sense,” Gossamer nodded. “Right! I can do that!” He landed on Phillip’s shoulder and started to peer around like a hawk looking for a mouse.
Daring snickered. “Awww, that’s precious.”
“You be quiet,” Phillip grumbled, his ears turning red as the other breezies dispersed into the woods.
As the last of the parishioners headed into the church, the two ponies emerged from the trees and trotted up the steps through the doorway, with Gossamer Dance still riding on Phillip’s shoulder.
They entered just as the last of the parishioners were slipping into the sanctuary. Phillip and Daring headed up the stairs to the second floor, which was largely abandoned. They stole down the tile floor, their soft hoofsteps muffled by the sound of the organ a floor beneath them.
They reached the other side of the building and descended another set of stairs, finding themselves back in the hallway with the kitchen and playroom. On tiphoof, they proceeded to the stairs that led down the basement, with the sound of Reverend Word’s sermon following them down.
The basement of the church was still and cold, the sound of the service above strangely drowned out. The hieroglyphs stared out from the walls; an eye of Horus seemed to glare at them as they passed by.
Gossamer Dance shivered on Phillip’s shoulder. “This place is no good, ceannard. Droch dhraoidheachd here. Bad magic,” he whispered.
“We shouldn’t be here long,” Phillip whispered reassuringly. “Daring?”
Daring Do took out the photograph of Eastern Cartographer and studied the stole. The first hieroglyph was a djed, which resembled a pillar with several crossbeams on the top.
“Let’s see, that was…” Daring walked around a shelf and found the hieroglyph etched into the wall in the corner. She rapped against the stone once sharply.
“And next…akhet,” Daring said to herself, locating another glyph that resembled a sun held between two slopes. She rapped sharply at this one three times.
Glyph by glyph, she made her way through the basement. Two knocks, then one, then three, then two again. Finally, she stopped at the wall with amenta.
She hesitated for a moment, doubt scratching at the back of her skull. What if she was wrong? What if she had missed something, or misinterpreted a clue? She’d have to start all over again!
And what about Family Tree’s killer? Would the time wasted give them more time to escape or to cover up more evidence? She sniffed the air: was it her imagination, or did she detect the faint odor of bleach and cleaner at the back of her nostrils? Her blood boiled at the idea; how could anyone just wipe away a pony’s life like that?
She shook those thoughts from her head. She couldn’t afford to let doubt, worry, or anger get in her way. Not now.
She raised a hoof and rapped five times at the hieroglyph that represented the entrance to the underworld.
The wall next to her glowed with a faint blue light and with a soft grinding noise, the hidden doorway slid down to reveal a dark passageway. The duo shone their torches into the tunnel, revealing a set of stairs descending into the darkness. Gossamer let out a little squeak of alarm and hid beneath Phillip’s trilby.
Phillip bent down and scowled, tilting his light to get a better angle. The glow revealed a pattern of distinct dark scarlet marks running up the stairs, like drops of crimson paint. Daring Do shuddered at the sight, her stomach twisting.
“Gossamer, wait here,” Phillip instructed, taking off his hat to expose the breezy hiding in his mane. “You see someone coming, give us a heads-up.”
Gossamer Dance yelped and started tugging on Phillip’s ear, trying to pull him away from the door. “Ow, ow! Gossamer!” Phillip protested.
“Droch dhraoidheachd! Droch dhraoidheachd! Don’t go down there, ceannard!” Gossamer cried.
“Get him off!” Phillip hissed to Daring.
Daring gently pried the breezy from Phillip’s ear, handling the little creature like he was made of china. The veil-thin wings beat frantically against her hooves.
“Gossamer, it’s gonna be okay,” Phillip reassured the breezy, bending down to Gossamer’s level. “I’ll just go down, find what I need, and come back up. Easy as pie.”
Gossamer swallowed and blinked. “You sure, ceannard?” he whispered.
“No wuckas, anklebiter,” Phillip smiled as he pulled out a flashlight and mounted it to his shoulder. “Just give us a heads-up if you see somecreature coming.”
“Okay,” Gossamer nodded. “Okay. Gur math a thèid leat, friends. Be careful!”
“We will,” Daring reassured Gossamer as he flitted over to a bookshelf to hide.
Daring strapped on her headlamp and paused at the threshold of the secret entrance, gathering herself. It really is just like something out of my books, Uncle Ad. I’m almost convinced that this is all just a dream…or a nightmare. Things like this aren’t supposed to happen outside of books…but neither is what happened to you. What’s down there, Uncle Ad? Will it answer my questions or just raise more of them?
“Daring? We doing this or not?”
“Sorry,” Daring shook her head and switched on the headlamp. She proceeded onto the first step, which took her weight easily enough. She proceeded down the narrow stairway, carefully skirting the bloodstains. Behind her, Phillip paused at every bloodstain for a brief moment, studying the drag marks as though they were some hidden cipher that only he could understand.
The spiraling staircase descended deeper and deeper into the darkness; the only sound was the quiet crunching of their hoofsteps on the stairs and their breaths echoing off the uncomfortably close walls.
“It can’t be that far down,” Daring commented out loud, studying the chisel marks hacked into the stone. “I wonder how long it took Cartographer to make this place…weaving the spell to unlock the door would have taken a lot of preparation work alone…”
The stairs ended at a stone threshold leading into a shadowed cavern.
“Blood here,” Phillip reported, scanning his flashlight over the carven entrance.
There was indeed a conical spatter pattern spread across the right side of the doorway. Looking up, Daring spotted more blood spread across the low roof, pointing towards her left.
Phillip Finder looked back down at the ground, grunting quietly as he studied the scuff marks and dark drag lines leading back up the steps hacked into the stone behind them, reading the painted blood like it was a fresco of hieroglyphs.
“One blow from behind,” Phillip stated clinically, though she heard a faint trace of anger behind his cold tone as he nodded at the major bloodstains on the doorway. “At least three more hits while she lay on the ground,” he added, nodding at the streaks running across the roof. “Dragged back up the stairs.”
Daring Do’s stomach twisted and churned within her. Some dried bloodstains against the stone of an underground tomb populated with blasphemous icons: was that all that was left of Family Tree?
She shook her head and refocused. “Family Tree came down here looking for the Prism,” she stated. “I’m going in there to find it.”
Daring Do stepped through the doorway and paused, slowly casting her eyes about the underground tomb. Everywhere she looked, empty eye sockets stared back at her in silent reproach, judging her for intruding upon their resting place. Twelve skulls were set into the slick, damp stone walls, each one set every few feet at regular intervals. Carefully etched into the skulls’ foreheads were cuneiform symbols, sharp lines and dots arranged into bizarre constellations.
Littered across the floor of the tomb were stone sarcophagi, placed with no apparent sense of order or pattern, every one of them inscribed with swirling calligraphy. In the center of the catacombs stood a statue, twice as tall as a pony, and terribly familiar to Daring Do's eyes. Carved out of a strange silvery metallic stone, the statue depicted a great feline creature with an elongated head, huge pointed ears, and a long tail with an anomalous paw on the end. A pair of yellow jewels set on the end of its snout represented eyes: the way they glittered in the darkness, combined with the cruel, hungry smile on its face, made Daring feel as though the loathsome beast was watching her, sizing her up like a cat studying a cornered mouse.
A blend of emotions ran through her mind at the sight: fear, anger, grief, guilt. Uncle Adventure’s scream echoed once more in her mind as she realized that she recognized the monsters, but she swallowed down her emotion and continued looking around.
“None of the lids have been moved for decades,” she observed, running a hoof over the lid of a coffin and observing the thick layer of dust that came with it. “Whoever killed Family Tree didn’t open them…so hopefully whatever she wanted is still here,” she reported.
Phillip let out a low grunt. “Not here for that.”
“Well, I am,” Daring replied. “Besides, we both know the Order wants it. You really want to risk them getting it?”
Phillip was silent for a moment of contemplation, then let out a grunt that Daring interpreted as acquiescence. “Good, now help me open these,” she said, beckoning to the closest sarcophagus.
Phillip nodded and stepped forward. The duo grunted as they heaved the heavy stone lid to one side with a great scraping of stone and shone their flashlights within.
A pair of grinning skulls leered back up at them. A pair of skeletons, a pegasus and a unicorn, lay intertwined within the coffin, the rotted, pitted bones jumbled together in a great mess, making it nearly impossible to determine whose bones were whose. These were the only contents of the coffin.
“Nope,” Daring shook her head and moved on to the next one.
Something scuttled in the darkness behind her and she whirled about, her headlamp penetrating the shadows as one hoof went to the stockwhip at her hip.
“What is it?” Phillip asked, also looking back into the shadows.
Daring was silent for several seconds, her breath held as her ears twisted back and forth, straining for any sign of an intruder. “You hear anything?” she asked.
Phillip was silent for a few moments as well but shook his head. “Should hurry up.”
“Right,” Daring agreed, proceeding to the second coffin.
Once more, their grunts and strains mixed with the slow scraping of stone as they shoved the lid aside. Three skeletons lay within in a jumbled mess, empty skulls staring up at them, but the yellowed bones were all the coffin contained.
Daring turned to the third sarcophagus but stopped. “Wait a minute…” she mused, sweeping her gaze over the skulls embedded into the catacomb walls. She took the photograph out of her pocket and studied it, casting her eye down the cuneiform symbols on the left side of the priest’s white stole. “Cartographer said that the skulls were the key…”
She stepped up to the closest skull, frowning at the setting. “Yeah, looks like this can be pushed back into the wall,” she commented, observing the scrape marks around the edge of the hole that the skull was set into.
“Daring,” Phillip said, looking down at the floor at her hooves.
Daring looked down and noted the circle of scorch marks marring the stones beneath her. The dust that covered the ground was particularly thick around her hooves.
Then she noticed that the ordinary dust was mixed with pale white ash that crunched beneath her steps, releasing a pungent burnt odor. She winced.
Something hard and shiny like glass glimmered behind the skull’s eyes, pale blue beneath her headlamp’s glow. “What’s that?” she asked.
Phillip looked from the cremated bones to the strange glass material and hissed. “Shockcast glass,” he reported. “Booby trap. Set it off, fires a bolt of plasma that incinerates anyone in front of it.” He walked around the perimeter of the catacombs, looking into each of the skulls’ eyes. “Each of them is rigged with one,” he stated, noting more burn marks and piles of cremated bones scattered across the floor.
“This really is like a Compass Rose book,” Daring Do sighed through an ironic chuckle. She lifted up the photograph once more, carefully comparing the symbols on the skulls to the picture.
“Don’t,” Phillip warned, his eyes widening. “Too dangerous.”
“Hey, my name’s Daring Do,” Daring grinned, trying to hide the nervousness bubbling in her gut. “You know I’ve got to.”
After a moment more of consideration, she made her decision. She stepped forward and raised her hoof over the chosen skull, hesitating for a moment. Her heart pounded against her chest; her throat was as dry and coarse as sandpaper.
“I’m telling you, don’t,” Phillip repeated, his voice hardened with fear as he stepped back behind one of the sarcophagi. “We can come back for it later.”
But the archaeologist didn’t seem to hear him. Daring Do took a deep breath, stepped to one side until her foreleg was stretched out as far as it would go, and pressed the skull.
She immediately jumped back, expecting a crackle of lightning that would turn her to ash in an instant…but nothing happened. The skull remained pressed into the wall.
“Ha,” Daring grinned at Phillip. “See? It pays to listen to the professor!”
Phillip just frowned at her.
“Okay, next one…” Daring checked the photograph of Cartographer once more and carefully studied it, then swept her gaze over the skulls again. “That one,” she declared, striding forward.
“Daring…” Phillip hissed.
“Relax, I know what I’m doing,” Daring said, stepping to one side and reaching out to press the skull.
Cocksure, Daring…
She double-checked the inscription, then pressed the skull and leaped aside. Once more, nothing happened.
Confidence blazed like a fire in Daring’s chest. One by one, she identified and pressed the correct skulls, with Phillip watching in silent trepidation all the while. After the sixth skull was pressed, there was a clicking and grinding noise from the base of one of the pedestals that bore the monsters.
Both ponies watched as a small compartment slid forward to reveal a velvet-lined interior. Within sat a multi-faceted chunk of black volcanic glass, about eight inches wide, the smooth sides reflecting the light to cast strange, dancing reflections within the material.
Daring Do slowly approached and lifted the rock. “The Dark Prism,” she whispered aloud.
She tilted the prism, studying her reflection staring back at her from the black mirror. It’s a rock, Uncle Ad. Just a rock. This is what Cartographer founded a church around? This is what Family Tree died for…?
Something moved within the stone. Daring grunted in confusion, tilting the prism. Was that just the light or…?
Her reflection blurred; something was moving behind her reflection. For a moment, she thought she saw a familiar pair of blue eyes within the black interior.
“Uncle Ad…?” she whispered.
Phillip pulled the stone from her grasp. “You’re chasing yowies, Daring,” he scowled at her.
Daring shook her head, feeling like she was clearing fog from her head. “Hey, careful with that!” she protested. “That’s an archaeological artifact!”
“It’s a rock,” Phillip stated, putting the prism back down. “We both got what we needed. Now–”
He paused, then whipped around, pushing Daring behind him with one foreleg as he drew the wooden club from his holster.
“I know you’re there,” he growled, his voice taking on an edge like thunder as he glared at a seemingly empty space between two sarcophagi.
An empty space that suddenly shimmered like a mirage. Before the two ponies’ eyes, a figure revealed itself as the invisibility spell faded. The pony was wearing a charcoal suit with a matching fedora, accentuated with a tie and hatband of pale gold. Their mane and tail were both an inky black; their bone-white flank was devoid of a cutie mark. Despite the direct glow of two flashlights, their face remained hidden behind a shadow that seemed to swallow their light. At their left hip was a curved sword with a stylized hook-shaped handle carved to look like a falcon’s head; a silver bangle with several small charms was secured to their left fetlock, which they extended in an expectant gesture.
“Give me the Prism,” the intruder declared in a distorted voice like a dozen echoes overlapping one another.
Daring stepped back, pocketing the Prism and pulling her whip from the holster. “The Order of the Sphinx sent you, didn’t they?” she asked.
“Give me the Prism,” came the reply, in the exact same tone.
Daring snapped her whip out and slid her hoof into the strap of her pistol, tugging it from the holster. “You forgot to say ‘please,’” Daring frowned.
In response, the intruder drew the sword from its scabbard, the movement unhurried and bringing with it a stench of the grave. The silver blade of the falcata gleamed wickedly beneath the glow of their flashlights. Inscribed into the metal was a long string of glyphs, chief among them a pair of black suns surrounding an icon that was of no script that Daring could identify. Black ooze seemed to seep from the metal itself, running down the curved length and dripping from the tip.
Daring Do’s eyes widened. “The Sword of Asocrac,” she breathed.
The faceless intruder seemed to nod as though in satisfaction and pointed the blade at her. “You needn’t die tonight,” they stated coldly. “Give me the–”
Phillip Finder’s left hoof blurred, snapping to his pocket and then to his foe. A sharp whistling noise pierced the air and the swordspony ducked, narrowly avoiding his boomerang as it spun past them.
“Go!” Phillip ordered, rushing forward while the intruder was distracted.
The blade thrust to meet his advance. Phillip sidestepped, smashing his club down at the exposed foreleg, but his attack merely wooshed through empty air.
The falcata sliced at Phillip’s head and he ducked, his counterpunch to the chest parried with a foreleg. The boomerang flew past Phillip's head and struck one of the sarcophagi, clattering to the stone floor as Phillip somersaulted back out of reach.
“Back off!” Daring shouted, pulling her whip back. The leather cord swooped as it passed over her head and she snapped her wrist down. The earsplitting crack struck the stone walls, painfully slamming against the ponies’ ears.
The cord struck the faceless pony on the neck, drawing a grunt of pain and causing them to stumble, a follow-up thrust missing Phillip by a foot. Phillip dove out of range, vaulting over another sarcophagus; even before he had fully come out of his tumble, he threw another boomerang, the wooden weapon whistling towards its target.
The sword flicked up into the spinning weapon’s path.
Two pieces of wood, cleanly separated by a single slice, tumbled to the floor. In moments, fungus was crawling up the wooden fragments, hungrily devouring the boomerang and leaving behind nothing but crumbling flakes.
The figure flicked the blade at Phillip, who barely ducked in time to avoid the spray of slime that was ejected at him. The ooze spattered against the opposite wall and began to eat into the stone like acid, acrid smoke emanating from the destruction.
So the legends are true, Daring thought, cringing at the smell.
The suited pony leaped over a sarcophagus, slashing once more at Phillip as he rolled out of the way. Their left foreleg thrust out at Daring.
Daring saw the faint red glow beneath the sleeve and the small trigger beneath her enemy’s hoof almost too late to dive aside. A trio of sharp pops like fireworks followed her as she dove behind the base of one of the statues; the tomb was briefly lit up red by the castfire rounds as they whistled through the air where she had been standing. They struck the wall, leaving scorch marks that wafted foul-smelling smoke.
Phillip popped out from behind the coffin that he’d ducked behind, his .38 secured to his foreleg. He pressed down on the stirrup, the sights centering on the swordspony’s head. Daring pivoted around, raising her own left foreleg and snapping the sights on her target.
The attacker raised their left foreleg, the charms on their bangles jingling with the motion. They spat out a word in a strange language, the incantation distorted into unrecognizable gibberish.
A blue smoke-like aura burst from a shield-shaped charm. The spell clung to Phillip and Daring’s pistols just as they depressed the triggers.
Click. Click.
“What the–?” Daring gasped, staring at her glowing weapon.
“Hex,” Phillip snarled.
Another shot from the castfire pistol streaked past Phillip’s ear as he dodged around the sarcophagus. The sword cleaved down towards his head–and missed by inches.
His club did not, cracking against his foe’s jaw and drawing an irritated grunt.
It was followed by a wheeze as Phillip’s elbow slammed into their side, then a growl as another slice missed the somersaulting pony. “Stand still!” the assassin snarled in their echoing voice, drawing the sword back.
Crack!
The whip coiled around the offending limb. “Gotcha!” Daring shouted, pulling them in like a fish on a line.
A fish that suddenly turned and rushed at her, whipping its sword at her face. “Yipe!” Daring gasped, instinctively dropping the whip and leaping into the air, flapping her wings as the fetid wind from the strike struck her face.
Another whistling noise pierced the air. The swordspony ducked. Daring didn’t have time. Pain suddenly flared like fire across her wing, sending her tumbling to the ground with a cry.
“Sorry!” Phillip cried, catching the weapon on the return trip as he closed in with a swing.
The assassin lifted their left foreleg and Phillip's attack bounced off a shield of pale purple energy that blossomed from their charms. Phillip stumbled, then dove out of the way of another trio of castfire shots, tucking and rolling behind the cover of another sarcophagus.
Daring scrambled for her hooves only for a sledgehammer blow to the chest to knock her back down. She sucked in air, fractured ribs burning like a fire in her lungs; through her swimming vision, she saw the pony in the trench coat stalking towards her, raising the cursed blade.
And then, with a strident shriek that was half battle cry and half scream of desperate fixed terror, a little blue light slammed into the shadow-covered face, causing them to stumble.
“Gossamer, no!” Phillip shouted as the little breezy grabbed his foe’s fedora and yanked the brim down over where their eyes should have been.
“Get off!” the swordspony snarled, slapping the breezy away. Gossamer Dance tumbled helplessly until he crashed into a stone coffin with a squeal of pain. He fell to the ground, unmoving, one wing bent at an awkward angle.
Crack!
The suited attacker had just enough time to register the whip encircling their hind legs before Daring heaved and felled her foe like a tree. Closing the distance, Daring seized the whip by the middle of the cord and swung the other end around like a flail. A second crack like a bat striking a baseball for the winning run sounded as the lead weight concealed in the handle slammed into her target’s foreleg, drawing a snarl of pain and sending the Sword of Asocrac skittering across the ground.
Phillip pounced on his enemy like a leopard, snarling in rage as he kicked aside their left foreleg and pinned it beneath a hoof. His face twisted in a mask of fury, he slammed his carved wooden club again and again, gripping it with both hooves like a baseball bat, punctuating each heavy thwack with an equally heavy grunt.
Thwack went the assassin's right foreleg as they futilely tried to block the rain of blows, the warped limb flopping to the ground like a dead fish.
Thwack, thwack went their face and then their jaw, black blood exploding from the anomalous shadows and staining the ground.
Phillip froze at her touch, breathing heavily through gritted teeth; sweat ran down his face, which was still fixed in that frightful red mask of anger. But slowly, he began to calm down, lowering his weapon as his breathing slowed.
“Gossamer,” he gasped, rushing over to the breezy. “Gossamer, can you hear me?”
The little blue breezy groaned feebly and raised his head. “Oww, dè thachair?” Gossamer moaned. He tried to sit up, then gasped in pain. “Mo sgiath!” he cried, clutching the fractured wing.
“It’s okay, mate,” Phillip soothed, gently picking Gossamer up and placing him inside his hat. “I’ll get you to Doctor Fluttershy. She and Dr. Hugger will get you patched up pronto.”
The suited pony groaned and shifted their head. “You stay down,” Daring growled, aiming her no-longer-hexed pistol down at their head.
In response, the intruder began to whisper, a circuitous litany of strange speech. A high-pitched ringing noise, like a tuning fork, began to fill the air.
The feeling of ice spread across Daring’s side, emanating from where the Prism of Darkness was pocketed, and she gasped in shock, flinching from the unnatural touch. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Cartographer believed it was a window,” the thief hissed in between their chanting. “He was wrong. It’s a door.”
Daring pulled the Prism of Darkness from her pocket and the tomb was instantly filled with a light that glowed an impossible color, somewhere between blue and yellow and green and black, and yet none of them. The piercing tone grew louder and louder, blending with the intruder’s continuing chant. Shadows danced along the walls, twisting shapes.
Daring looked into the Prism, watching the interplay of light and shadows within.
Something twisted and writhed within the stone.
Something turned to look back at her.
She dropped the stone with a gasp and it clattered to the ground. Brighter and brighter the light shone, faster and faster the shadows danced, louder and louder the whistling came, and louder and louder did Daring’s heart sound in her ears. She gaped at the impossible display, torn between dread fascination and numbing horror.
She felt the approach in the back of her head, like distant hoofsteps.
Something was knocking at the door.
She looked over at Phillip, who was clutching Gossamer Dance protectively to his rapidly heaving chest as he crouched near a sarcophagus, gray eyes staring numbly at the unnatural shapes that were crawling along the stone walls, floor, and ceiling. The breezy’s voice was faintly audible beneath the cacophony, squeaking out what sounded like a prayer.
DO SOMETHING!
Uncle Ad’s voice shrieked in Daring’s ears, terrified and desperate, and spurred her hooves to move. Casting her eyes about the room, she spotted the Sword of Asocrac still laying where it had fallen, some of the caustic black slime still seeping from the metal.
She lunged and grabbed the handle of the falcata, whipping around and raising it over her head. “No!” the faceless pony cried, trying to rise back up on their hooves.
With a cry, Daring swung the cursed sword with everything she had. The corroding blade cleaved into the Prism of Darkness and cut the stone in half.
The glow flared into a blinding light, the whining tone rising into a scream. Daring cried out and stumbled, raising a hoof to shield her dazzled eyes.
Something crashed into her, knocking the sword from her grasp. Gunshots clapped in her ears, muted by the echoes of the screaming stone; through blurred vision, she caught a glimpse of the faceless thief running back up the stairs, their outline shimmering and fading away into transparency.
It took a few moments more for the light and sound to fade away, leaving a silence behind. Daring groaned as she rose back to her hooves, wincing as every inhalation sent fiery flashes of pain through her broken ribs.
“You all right?” Phillip asked, helping her up.
“Be better if you didn’t hit me with your stick,” Daring replied, testing her right wing; the muscle still ached, but nothing seemed broken.
“Sorry about that,” Phillip sheepishly replied.
Daring looked over at the broken fragments of stone on the ground, the shattered remnants of the Prism of Darkness. She picked up one of the pieces and crumbled into dust; the black surfaces no longer reflected the light.
“You worked hard to get that,” Phillip observed. “Would’ve been a big find. Made you famous.”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Daring said, trying to convince herself. “You saw what was happening.”
“Droch dhraoidheachd, ceannard. I told you,” Gossamer whimpered from inside Phil’s hat.
“All I saw were lights and shadows,” Phillip said.
“You heard what he said,” Daring protested, indignation flashing in her gut at the skeptical tone in his voice. “It was a door. Something was going to come through if I didn’t do something!”
“Forgive me if I don’t take his word for it,” Phillip said.
Daring glared at him, but couldn’t find the words to describe the fear that she’d felt…which was fading like how a foal’s terror of the dark disappears when the lights are turned on. What had she seen, really? Some strange shadows and lights, odd reflections in a multi-faceted stone? How could she be sure that it wasn’t her imagination playing tricks on her? Shame and doubt crushed her thoughts, and her past horror withered beneath the light of rationality.
Hoofsteps rumbled down the steps from above and Reverend Word appeared, followed by Screw Driver, his toolbelt rattling as he ran down the steps; when he reached the bottom, his jaw dropped, causing the flashlight in his mouth to tumble onto the floor. The reverend gaped at the tomb in disbelief. “What…what is this?” he gasped, gripping his bangles in horror. He gasped at Phillip and Daring. “How did you–? You found–?!”
“We did,” Phillip said. “And we’re not the first ones down here. Family Tree died down here.” He turned and glared at Screw Driver. “And I know who killed her.”
The sexton stepped back as though Phillip’s anger was a physical blow, his eyes widening. “Wha–you don’t–how can you–?”
“You’re left-hooved,” Phillip snarled, stepping forward and pointing at the blood painting the threshold. “And those blows were made by a left-hooved pony. Family Tree came down here on Monday night; you followed her down here and hit her with a wrench from behind. Then you hit her again and again while she lay on the ground. You dragged her outside, dropped her in her car, drove her down to the reservoir, and dumped her and the car inside the water. And then you came back and cleaned the blood on the floor, thinking that that would be enough to hide your guilt.”
“What? That’s crazy! He’s crazy, Reverend!” Screw Driver protested, but the lie was painted across his reddening, desperate face.
“I visited the reservoir. I saw the tracks you left, and the sand on your boots,” Phillip hissed. “How easy would it be for them to drag the reservoir and find the car with her inside it? Along with the wrench that you used?” he added, nodding to a conspicuously empty loop on the left side of his tool belt.
Reverend Word looked down at the empty loop, suspicion flickering in his eyes. “I did hear you getting up late last night…”
“But how would I know about the Sunken Church?” Screw Driver protested, his knees quivering. The sweat on his brow shone beneath Phillip and Daring’s flashlights.
“Measuring Tape,” Phillip said.
Screw Driver blinked and flinched a bit. “W-what about him?”
“He’s your father, isn’t he?” Daring said, the photograph from Family Tree’s notes swimming before her gaze. “Your ears are the same shape. This whole time, you knew the Sunken Church was real, and you knew that Family Tree might have found a way in. And that you had to stop her.”
Screw Driver cowered, his eyes darting back and forth between Phillip, Daring, and Reverend Word. Desperation and fear shone in his eyes…then they hardened into frustration.
“You saw what that thing can do,” he said to Daring. “You’ve seen how terrible it is down here. My father told me what the Temple was capable of, the things that they saw. What he did. Family Tree was going to dig all that up. I couldn’t let that happen!”
“So you killed her?” Daring snarled, anger flaring in her like oil on a grease fire, snuffing even the pain of her cracked ribs. “You bashed her head in and dumped her in the reservoir?!”
“I had no choice!” Screw Driver snapped back.
“By the Pillars,” Reverend Word breathed. “This is true?”
“It is, Reverend,” Screw Driver answered, lowering his head. “I said that I would work to preserve this church’s history, to remove it from what it used to be. And I’ve done that.”
“This isn’t what I meant!” Reverend Word cried.
“You’re going to answer for what you did,” Phillip growled, stepping forward, one hoof on his club.
"If I hadn't stopped her, we would all be answering for it," Screw Driver protested, his tone solemn despite the defiance in his eyes. He glanced behind them at the ruined temple, sadly staring at the empty drawer where the Prism of Darkness had once lain. "Maybe we still will," he added in a quiet, frightened tone.
Phillip seized his foreleg and carried him up the stairs; the murderer did not resist, though he still held his head high. Good Word stared in disbelief as his loyal sexton was dragged off.
“We should call the police,” Daring said, gently placing a hoof on the holy pony’s shoulder.
Good Word swallowed and nodded, numbly following the duo up out the hacked-out steps, up out of this underworld of blood and death and back into the warmth and light of holiness.
Secret of the Sunken Church Part Seven: Anomalous Investigations
The morning edition of the Ponyville Chronicle was slapped down onto Daring Do’s desk. She blinked politely up at the vandal.
“Explain,” Dean Blotting Paper simply stated, looking very much like a mother with a young child who just came home to find the living room in tatters.
Daring looked back down at the newspaper. The headline was splashed across the front in bold print: Sunken Church Discovered! Secret Tombs Revealed by Archaeology Professor and Private Detective!Beneath was a photo of the Church of the Seven Pillars, two police cruisers and an ambulance parked out front, with officers, paramedics, and congregants milling outside. Beneath was an inset of two ponies, a golden pegasus and a brown earth pony, walking away down the street with their hats pulled low over their faces.
She didn’t bother to read the article. She’d already perused it that morning over breakfast. Most of the article was a review of the history of the Temple of Precious Enlightenment and speculation on what bizarre rituals went on inside the catacombs, and the reasons behind a daredevil professor of archaeology teaming up with a local snoop to uncover a mythical tomb.
“Well, it’s not my fault they didn’t get my good side,” Daring commented with what she hoped was a winning smile, tapping the smaller photo of herself. She winced slightly and clutched her chest as pain radiated through her still-healing ribs.
“Are you–?” Dean Paper started to ask.
“I’ll live,” Daring interrupted her, raising a hoof. “I’ve had worse.”
Blotting Paper closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, taking in a deep breath. “I told Family Tree that she was wasting her time chasing after a rumor, and then you go and–”
“Find the bastard who killed her,” Daring interrupted, turning the paper around and slapping it back down. There was a second, smaller headline underneath the first, crammed into the bottom of the page.
Body of Missing Professor Found in Reservoir.
“Family Tree died because of this,” Daring said. “She put her life into this, and you pushed her aside and ignored her. She died because she wanted one last chance to see her husband again.”
“How dare you?” the Dean sputtered. “I will–”
“Señora Paper, if I may?” Doctor Caballeron cut in, entering. “With all due respect, you focus too much on the negative. There is a great positive to this situation.”
“Do tell, Doctor,” the jenny scowled.
“Think of it this way, Dean Paper,” Doctor Caballeron said. “A fresh, upcoming professor discovers a true legend right in our own backyard and also helps solve a murder. It’ll be good publicity for us. And once the police are done with their investigation, we’ll have the tombs open for us to explore. Just think of what could be waiting for us down there! The secrets of an entire cult, waiting for us!”
Blotting Paper bit her lip, scowling in thought for several seconds, then sighed.
“Fine. But don’t think that I won’t be keeping an eye on you, Daring Do,” she said, pointing to Daring.
“I’d be surprised if you weren’t,” Daring beamed, batting her eyelashes at the Dean. The older jenny just rolled her eyes as she exited.
Once her hoofsteps had faded down the hall, Caballeron turned to face Daring. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, hurt clearly showing in his frown.
Daring Do sighed, thinking through her limited options. “It…it was an ongoing investigation,” she finally said. “And if I had been wrong, I wouldn’t want that to reflect on you.”
Caballeron frowned at her for several long seconds, suspicion and hurt and a bit of envy flickering through his chartreuse eyes. Daring lowered her eyes, trying not to squirm in her seat like a first-year student who had turned in a late paper. “I’m really sorry, Dorado. I shouldn’t have lied to you like that,” she admitted.
Finally, her colleague let out a small sigh. “I see. I…will not pretend that I am not hurt, but I understand why.”
“How about this? Next time I start digging into a living legend, I’ll tell you about it beforehoof,” Daring offered with a small smile.
Caballeron let out a small laugh and smiled back. “Entiendo,” he said, offering his hoof to bump.
“Bien,” Daring smiled back, sighing in relief as she bumped Caballeron’s hoof.
A rapping at the door caught both of their attention. “Professor Daring Do?” the unicorn mare at the door asked.
Daring shaped up her visitor. The snow-white unicorn was a few years older than her, dressed in a charcoal gray trench coat that did not completely hide the bulge of her shoulder harness. Her left eye was curtained by her long, deep blue mane; the right eye was the same shade as her mane, staring at her with a frosty detachment. The coat did not cover her cutie mark: a manila folder with a snowflake embossed on it.
“Can I help you?” Daring asked.
The mare pulled a wallet out of her pocket and flipped it open to reveal a golden badge crowned with a phoenix, its wings spread. Embossed on the badge were three letters: RBI.
“Supervisory Special Agent Cold Case,” the mare introduced herself, prompting Caballeron’s eyebrows to shoot up into his mane. “I’m with the RBI’s Anomalous Investigations Unit. We’d like to bring you down to the station to ask you some questions.”
“Am I under arrest, agent?” Daring asked calmly, trying to ignore her heart suddenly pattering against the walls of her throat.
“No,” Cold Case answered. “We’re looking into Family Tree’s murder and the Temple of Precious Enlightenment and we wished to hear your story yourself. Detective Finder is already at the office.”
Daring considered for a few moments. “I do have some classes this afternoon…”
“I can cover them, amiga,” Caballeron offered.
“Well, if you’re sure,” Daring shrugged, standing.
“Thank you, Professor. I’m parked out front,” Cold Case nodded, turning and heading crisply out the door.
With a grateful nod to Caballeron, Daring got up with a small wince as her ribs and wings flared again and followed her outside. As they headed down the hall, Daring paused at another door, staring at the name etched onto the window.
Professor Family Tree.
Daring sighed and ran a hoof against the frosted glass, shaking her head. Dammit, Family, why didn’t you just ask for help? Did you think that no one else would believe you? I know you loved Cumulus, but was it really worth doing all this?
“Professor?”
“Yeah, I’m coming,” Daring said, pulling away from the door and wiping at her face with a foreleg. She followed the RBI agent towards the exit, trying to ignore the stares and silence that was following in her wake.
As she turned a corner, Luster Dawn appeared before her like magic, her eyes wide. “Professor…” the junior stammered, then swallowed, looking down at the floor. “I, um, was looking through that book you got…the one with Professor Tree’s notes and interviews…and it had these in them.”
She passed over a small collection of black and white photographs, which Daring examined. Some of the photographs depicted a large stone square in the desert. The walls were marred with chisel marks, erasing any symbols that had once been carved into the tomb’s walls. And on the wall was a coiled black serpent with wings, glaring down at the camera lens.
“Cartographer’s pictures of the Nameless Pharaoh's tomb,” Daring said quietly, a flicker of excitement dancing in her chest.
“Where did you get that book, anyway?” Luster asked, raising her eyes.
“I borrowed it from…a friend of Tree’s that she was working with,” Daring Do replied. “It helped us find the tomb.”
In actuality, she’d found it sitting wrapped in brown paper outside her door when she stepped out that morning, with a note in red flowing cursive written on the wrapping: I have a feeling you’ll be quite interested in this. Love, Scarlet Letter. Bile burned her throat at the lie, but she tamped down the taste by reminding herself that she didn’t want to risk her student getting ensnared in the Order’s nets.
“Okay,” Luster nodded, lowering her gaze to the floor. “I’m still working through it; Twilight’s helping me transcribe it.” She swayed in place like a tree in a breeze.
“Luster, what’s wrong?” Daring asked.
Luster sniffled. “I was right,” she whimpered quietly, tears starting to fall from her eyes and staining the carpet. “I was right..and it got Professor Tree killed…”
“Luster, no, no,” Daring soothed, pulling the unicorn into a hug, wrapping a wing around her shivering body. “This isn’t your fault, okay? Professor Tree made her own decisions; she just couldn’t deal with her grief after Silver died.”
“Why did that guy have to kill her?” Luster asked, looking up with tearful eyes.
Daring sighed. “I don’t know. It must have made sense to him.” She shook her head sadly, plucking a hoofkerchief from her pocket and passing it to Luster. She wiped her eyes and face before handing it back with a grateful nod.
“Look, I appreciate you volunteering, but if you don’t want to go through that book–” Daring started to say.
“No, no, it’s okay,” Luster shook her head. “It’s…kinda hard, but it’s also fascinating.” She smiled softly. “A little piece of Professor Tree she left behind for us. A bit of history herself.”
“Okay. Let me know if you want to talk or anything.” Daring patted her student on the back with a rather forced smile before turning back to her escort
Cold Case, who’d been watching silently from the door to the History Department, gave her a look of quiet sympathy before continuing on, winding through the halls of the building before exiting out front. The agent led Daring over to a light blue Chevroneigh and gestured her into the passenger seat before climbing into the driver’s seat.
“It’s not far,” Cold said as she turned the ignition. “We won’t take any more of your time than we need.”
“Considerate of you,” Daring said as the engine turned over. The car pulled out of the lot and into the street, heading west into the city proper.
The local RBI field office was located in the center of the city, not far from City Hall. The utilitarian concrete and glass edifice was crunched in between two other buildings of a similar shape. The glass door had the circular RBI logo embossed on it: a set of balance scales set atop seven stone doric pillars: orange for strength, red for loyalty, blue for kindness, white for generosity, green for hope, yellow for empathy, and purple for magic.
Cold Case parked at an adjacent lot and led Daring through the front door of the offices, where a Netitus security gate and a set of security guards in suits were waiting.
“Agent,” one of the guards nodded in greeting, allowing Cold through the gate. The gate turned red and buzzed loudly, but no one paid any mind.
Daring Do deposited her keys, bag of bits, and watch into a box and stepped through the Netitus gate, wincing at the tingling through her wings as the gate’s matrix of detecting spells passed over her, but the gate’s lights remained green and the buzzer silent.
One of the guards had her sign in on a visitor’s log and passed her a blue visitor’s badge. “Come. Our offices are in the basement,” Cold said.
As Daring followed Cold down a hallway, she heard one of the guards behind her snickering and whispering something about “Bighoof” to a comrade. Cold Case took a deep breath through her nostrils and let it out in a brief, irritated snort, nodding towards a set of stairs.
They proceeded down a set of stairs and ended in a narrow, white brick hallway. A few feet to the left was a door with a sign declaring Anomalous Investigations Unit crookedly placed upon it. Cold Case opened up the door and nodded Daring inside.
The offices were small and tight; Daring suspected that these rooms were actually originally intended for storage. A few desks and filing cabinets had been shoved into the main floor space; bulletin boards lined the walls, with posters overlapping one another. The smell of fresh tea hung in the room, instantly soothing.
Phillip was standing comfortably in the center of the room, nursing a cup of tea; he looked up and nodded as the two mares entered. There were a few other creatures in the office, most of them gathered around one table, all of them wearing white dress shirts and ties. An orange pegasus with electric blue hair and eyes looked up as they approached, snapping up to attention.
“How many times, Sentry?” Cold Case rolled her eyes. “You’re not in the Army anymore.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” Sentry sheepishly said, relaxing.
“Welcome to the unit, Professor,” Cold Case said, taking off her coat and placing it on a coat rack. “You’ve met Agent Flash Sentry.”
“Professor,” Flash Sentry said, striding forward with a hoof to shake. Daring accepted the gesture, taking stock of the kid.
“This is Senior Special Agent Prowl–” A gray thestral with wavy blond hair and yellow eyes nodded. “Special Agent Bumblebee–” A bright yellow changeling with black setae and green eyes smiled and waved enthusiastically. “Special Agent Wheellock–” A yellow hippogriff mare with aquamarine hair wearing a revolver at each hip waved shyly from near the back of the room. “Senior Special Agent Trace Evidence–” A gray unicorn leaning against the back wall gave her a salute, blinking tiredly between his blond bangs. “Special Agent Red Herring–” A bright red griffon with brown eyes grunted sourly. “And Special Agent Tealove.”
“Top o’ the morning to ya,” a green unicorn mare with a flowing blue mane greeted Daring in a Hockney accent, approaching with a warm cup of tea. “Assam with lemon, mate?”
Daring blinked, instinctively accepting the cup. “That’s what my mother always gave me,” she admitted.
“Had ye pegged as an upper-class Griffish type soon as ye came in,” Tealove smiled, tending to a steaming teapot on the counter of a small kitchenette near the back. “‘Course, the cutie mark probably had something to do with it,” she added, glancing at the teacup decorated with a heart on her flanks. “Yer friend prefers black tea with a bit o’honey. Probably not as good as from down under, but I try.”
“Appreciated,” Phillip said, sipping his tea.
Daring took a small draught of her own tea, the taste bringing an involuntary smile to her face at the memory of racing around the grounds of her parents’ chateau, days whiled away in their massive library, stargazing with her father, exploring the moors with Uncle Ad–
Her throat clenched at the memory and her smile vanished in a moment.
“What’s wrong? Ye don’t like it?” Tealove asked, looking a little put-out.
“No, no, it’s great,” Daring reassured her, taking another sip. “Just…my mind went somewhere else.”
Red Herring coughed. “As much as I love tea parties, we do have a job to do,” he grunted, his Fillydelphia accent biting into every syllable.
“Right,” Cold Case said, gesturing Daring and Phillip to a pair of chairs. She sat down opposite them, with the other agents gathering around them.
“I want to hear the full story of how you found the Sunken Church,” Cold Case said, levitating over a notepad and a pen. “From the beginning.”
Phillip took a breath. “Started with a call at my office…”
“Seems like a lot of our cases around here start that way,” Trace Evidence commented quietly, drawing snickers from a few of the surrounding agents.
“Trace,” Cold cut him off. “Go on.”
For the next half hour, Phillip and Daring narrated the full events of their investigation. Cold and the other RBI agents listened intently, occasionally interjecting with a question.
“You actually met the lodge mistress?” Bumblebee asked when they reached the meeting at the Sacred Order’s headquarters.
“Hey, I like her books,” Bumblebee protested. “They’re good for a quick, cheap snack; they’re like literary junk food.”
“That’s a very glowing recommendation, Bee,” Prowl snickered.
“And she actually agreed to meet you herself?” Trace Evidence asked, writing Scarlet Letter on an index card and placing it on a bulletin board covered with photographs, index cards, and string.
“Too right,” Phillip nodded. “Helped a lot.”
Trace Evidence let out an admiring whistle. “She must like you. Lodge masters aren’t easy to get to.”
Cold Case blinked impassively, but Daring Do could see the gears turning behind her blue eyes as she scribbled away at her notepad. “Continue.”
They proceeded through the story, describing Daring’s method for uncovering the secret door. Daring’s narration of the catacombs and finding the Prism of Darkness cast a silence over the room, the agents surrounding them craning closer like foals around a campfire listening to a good ghost story. When Daring got to describing the pony in the suit with the shadowed face, Cold leaned in closer, her brow furrowing. She glanced over at Trace and Prowl, who both nodded.
“The Emissary,” Prowl said.
“Guessing you know him?” Daring asked.
Cold lit up her horn and levitated over a manila folder, which she opened on the table before Daring and Phillip. “These are security crystal stills taken from a museum robbery in Baltimare last year,” she stated, passing over some black and white security stills.
None of the four images showed the burglar in full; the most that could be seen was a blurry glimpse through an exterior window, but there was no mistaking the pristine gray suit and fedora. The shadows obscured the figure’s face.
“What did he steal?” Daring asked.
“Paintings by a Prench impressionist known as Le Artiste Fou,” Prowl stated.
Cold Case flipped back in the file a few more pages. “This is the last-known photograph of a famous historian named Dark Chronicle, taken in Vanhoover before he disappeared in 1876,” she said, tapping a sepia photograph.
Frowning in puzzlement, Daring examined the photo of the mustachioed stallion in the waistcoat and monocle standing in the street outside a library, his face impassive but his posture tall and proud, surrounded by a few other creatures.
It took her a couple of seconds to spot the anomaly: a pony lurking in the background, half-hidden in the shadow of the library, dressed in a lightly colored frock coat, bow tie, and top hat, one hoof resting on the hook-shaped handle of the sword. Despite the fact that they were looking directly at the camera, shadows completely masked their features. “The hell…?”
“And this,” Cold continued, flipping to another photograph. “Is an etching based on witness testimony from a fire that destroyed the New Horseleans library in 1733.”
This time, it took Daring no time to spot the figure in the distance, fleeing from the blazing building in the background. They wore a pleated formal waistcoat and had a stack of books strapped against their side next to the sword. Beneath the tricorne hat, their face was once again obscured in shadow even as they looked back towards the fire.
“There are records of an individual in formal gray attire with a sword and shadows covering their face going back centuries,” Trace Evidence says. “Wherever they go, occult books, art, and artifacts disappear. Sometimes creatures. Some notes and legends here, a strange picture there. Some call them the Pony in the Gray Suit or the Shadow, but the most popular name is what Dark Chronicle called him in a note to a friend before he disappeared.”
He pulled a note from the file and read it aloud. “‘The Emissary comes for his due and I cannot pay what he is owed. Think fondly of me, my friend.’”
“So what are you saying?” Daring asked. “That he’s immortal or something?”
“No,” Cold answered. “We think that it’s an inherited position passed from pony to pony. And we think that whoever they are, they’re an enforcer for some unknown organization.” She frowned at the duo. “And I think you can guess what organization that is.”
“The Sacred Order of the Golden Sphinx,” Daring spat.
“We’ve had our eye on them for years,” Cold said. “They’re connected to a lot of disappearances, robberies, and strange deaths, but we can’t pin anything on them definitively.”
“You two are lucky, you know,” Trace said. “Not a lot of ponies have fought an Emissary and lived to tell the tale.”
“We might not have made it without Gossamer,” Phillip admitted.
“How’s he doing?” Daring asked.
“He’ll be apples,” Phillip said.
“Er…”
“Fine,” Phillip translated. “Fluttershy and Tree Hugger will take good care of him, it’s just a twisted wing and a minor concussion.”
“Good,” Daring said, feeling a small weight lifting off her at the reassurance.
“So then what happened?” Flash asked, eyes wide with excitement.
“After we got the…Emissary pinned down, he started chanting,” Daring narrated. “I took the Prism out of my pocket and it was glowing and casting these…weird shadows all over the walls.” She paused at the memory, a chill running down her spine. “He said…’It’s not a window, it’s a door,’ and kept chanting. There were more and more shadows all over the walls and they were going faster and faster and…”
She realized that she was gripping the cup of tea like a lifeline. She paused and gulped down a long draught of the black liquid, but her stomach still felt like it was filled with ice.
“I grabbed the Sword of Asocrac that he’d dropped and slashed the Prism in half. There was a huge light and a rush of wind that knocked us all over. The Emissary grabbed the sword and ran out before we could stop him.”
“Why’d you destroy the Prism?” Tealove asked. “Both you and ‘im went to a lot of Barney Rubble to get it.”
“I…” Daring rubbed the back of her head, trying to find a way to articulate the twisting dread that she had felt that night in the tombs into words, wincing as rational thought tittered and shook its head at her childish fears. “It was just…wrong. I felt like if I didn’t do anything to stop it, something really bad was going to happen.”
“Like something would come through the door?” Red grunted, his voice as dry as the Saddle Arabian desert.
“Maybe,” Daring cut back, turning to glare at him even as doubt naggingly whispered that she didn’t know that for sure.
“Don’t know that,” Phillip cut in. “All I saw were shadows and lights. For all we know, that’s all it could do.”
“You didn’t feel like it was all wrong?” Daring asked, turning back to him. “Like something was going to happen?”
“No,” Phillip replied flatly, but Daring saw his hoof twitch slightly. She frowned at him, accusing him silently with her eyes, but he turned away, face expressionless.
“What’s done is done,” Cold Case cut off the discussion. “What matters is that the Emissary wanted the Prism and now they don’t have it.”
“After that, I accused Screw Driver of the murder,” Phillip continued. “He confessed. Rest is history. Saw that the police dragged the reservoir for the car and found her body and the wrench in it in the paper,” Phillip said, leaning back in the chair. “Order sent me the check for my work this morning.”
“And a happy ending for all,” Red said.
Cold Case nodded and looked down at her notepad, pulling off the three pages of notes that she had completely filled. “Thank you, Professor, Detective.”
“So what happens now?” Daring asked.
“Now we stay in touch,” Cold Case said, rising and passing over a business card. “Scarlet Letter has taken an interest in you. If she contacts you again, I hope that you will let us know.”
“Definitely,” Daring nodded.
“Hey, Phil,” Flash asked as the stallion rose, the younger pegasus rubbing the back of his mane sheepishly. “Do you think–?”
“Will be busking at Sweetcream’s tomorrow night. Can talk about the case more then,” Phillip smiled, ruffling the pegasus’ mane.
“Oh, okay, great!” Flash beamed, trying to suppress his happiness despite the fact that he was practically glowing.
“Thanks for the tea,” Daring said, finishing off her drink.
“No problem, love,” Tealove beamed. “Drop by anytime. Always up for a Rosy Lee.”
“Yeah, call us if you see Bighoof or something,” Red grumbled as Phillip and Daring exited.
“Your friends are interesting,” Daring said to Phillip as they headed up the hallway.
“Used to work in the AIU,” Phillip said.
“Really?” Daring asked.
“Joined RBI in ‘41,” Phillip said. “Transferred to AIU in ‘46 with Cold; we wore out our welcome in our old unit. Worked with them until ‘51 when I became a PI.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“Work better on my own: fewer feathers to ruffle, fewer rules to follow,” Phillip explained. “Being a private investigator means I can look into cases that are beneath the police and RBI’s attention. It’s how I get a lot of my work.”
Daring glanced at him. “So you get a lot of calls from ponies who think that they’ve seen UFOs and things like that?”
He snorted. “I’ve always preferred cases that are a bit out in the bush. AIU gets lots of those.”
“I see,” Daring commented as they proceeded past the security station, Phil pausing to retrieve his pistol from a security guard. “You know, we work well together, too.”
This time, a small but genuine smile actually stretched across his face. “Too right,” he agreed.
“Next time you get a case that involves some ancient legend or treasure, you’d better keep me in mind,” Daring said as they exited the RBI office, breathing deep the late morning air. “So long as you don’t hit me with your boomerang again.”
He let out a grunt that approximated a laugh. “Wilco.”
Daring extended her hoof. Phillip turned and shook it, smiling at her. “Til next time, Professor Do.”
“Til next time, Detective Finder.”
Daring spread her wings and took off, heading back to the university with a grin on her face. Beneath her, she heard the rumbling of a Scout’s engine purring to life.
But as she flapped her wings to catch a zephyr, a shadow passed over her face. Her smile vanished as she recalled the ringing noise echoing through the bone-decorated walls. The specter of the thing in the stone looked back at her in mind’s eye.
Maybe it was just my imagination…and maybe it wasn’t.
She flew on, trying to force her mind back to mundane thoughts of her classes and papers that needed grading, forcing herself to listen to the rational voice that lectured her for being foolish, but the shadows still followed her, hissing in her ears.
I need to know, Uncle Ad. I need to know.
Whispers in the Whitetail Woods Part One: The Secret in the Monastery
The biting wind of a late fall afternoon shuddered through the trees of the Whitetail Woods, tugging some more of the reddish-brown leaves from the barren branches. A murder of crows milled about the decaying leaves, picking at any morsels that they could find amongst the debris.
The roaring of an engine sent the birds into the air in a blur of black wings, screeching out their clarion alarm. A dark green Jeep rumbled down the uneven dirt road, headlights cutting through the ever-present shadows beneath the thick trees.
“¡La historia, mi amiga, la historia!” the driver declared as he wove the vehicle around the potholes that marred the road. “That monastery has played a small but dramatic role in local history. Whatever Las Hijas found in there could be the key to solving a mystery that has been left unanswered for centuries!”
“I’m not gonna pretend that I’m not interested, too,” his passenger remarked as she reclined in her seat, tilting her pith helmet back to roll her eyes at the driver. “But that’s what you said when you dragged me along to look for the Lost Village of the Aneighsazis in the Badlands.” She paused with a brief shudder. “All we found were some bronze tools, some bleached buffalo bones, and a bigass camel spider that chased me across half the desert.”
“Ay, por el amor de Luna…you know that camel spiders are not actually spiders, nor are they venomous,” the driver sighed. “And it wasn’t after you, it wanted to rest in your shadow.”
“They’re big and hairy and have eight legs and I don’t like them,” the pegasus groused. She paused for a beat, then forced a smirk on her face. “So what do you think we’re gonna find in there? Some kinda camel spider cult?”
Caballeron shot his colleague a brief scowl. “Mock me if you will, Daring Do,” he said, turning off onto a narrower road littered with years of potholes, overgrown grass and rotting leaves, the Jeep rattling from side to side as it maneuvered through the craters and tread marks dug into the road. “But tell me, what do you know of the Whitetail Monastery?”
“Not much; I only really did some reading on this place after we got that letter from the Subprioress yesterday,” Daring admitted, sitting up and bracing herself slightly against the shaking. “This monastery was set up by the Verdant Sisterhood of Deeds in 1715 as a charitable retreat; they made wooden goods and grew fruits and vegetables for donations, and sheltered creatures with mental illnesses. The only notable thing that happened to it was in the summer of 1743. No one saw anyone from the monastery for three days and when they finally checked the place, everyone was gone. Just poof, gone. No sign of anyone even leaving the premises, food rotting in the pantry. The place was abandoned until about a year ago when a small group of the Sisters of Clover started fixing the place up.”
“It makes no sense,” Caballeron declared. “What reason would these nuns, these ladies of Harmony, have to simply flee their place of worship? It occurs to me that the Temple of Precious Enlightenment cannot be the only hidden cult in Ponyville’s history. And what especially bothers me is that the Sisterhood’s Liber Bonorum Operum was never found.”
“And there we go,” Daring sighed with a weary smile. “You’re after the Sisterhood’s book.”
“Every Sisterhood of Deeds keeps a record of their actions and the revelations that they have learned doing them in a Book of Good Deeds,” Caballeron exposited. “A precious and lavishly decorated tome that is meant to be passed down to later followers of the Path of Harmony for them to learn from. The sisters would be hard-pressed to leave that behind, and yet it has not turned up in centuries. Where could it be, I ask? Perhaps there is a clue left in the monastery for us to find!”
“Cabbie, you know it’s unlikely for us to find anything after almost two hundred seventy years, right?” Daring Do asked.
“It is still worth a look, ¿sí?” Caballeron commented as he navigated a sweeping turn.
A gate appeared before them, incongruous with the natural setting of the woods. The chain-link barrier stretched across the path and into the trees on both sides, the gate secured by a chain and padlock and adorned with a rusty No Trespassing sign.
A pale blue unicorn with a close-cropped sunshine mane wearing a simple brown cloak with an icon of a three-leafed clover was waiting on the other side of the gate, magically unlocking the gate as they approached. “Doctor Caballeron and Doctor Do?” she asked as she approached the driver’s window.
“That’s us,” Caballeron nodded and smiled.
The nun bowed in greeting. “I am Subprioress Morning Creek, the acting head of this convent. Thank you for responding to my letter.”
“Not at all,” Caballeron said, reaching back and opening up the back door. “Your letter said that you’d discovered something you couldn’t explain in the monastery.”
“Yes,” Morning Creek replied, climbing into the backseat for the ride back. “We were resetting the flooring in the rooms that had once been the asylum and discovered a box beneath the floorboard. The iconography upon it was…” The holy sister shivered slightly. “Disturbing.”
“Sί, the photograph that you sent us was most informative,” Caballeron nodded. “Daring?”
Daring Do pulled a polaroid snapshot from one of the pockets of her cargo shirt and examined it. The picture displayed a sizable wooden box, about the size of a construction worker’s lunch pail. On the front of the box was a combination dial with notches numbered one through twenty. Elaborately carved upon the top were five symbols, seemingly innocuous to a common observer, but Daring recognized what they were with an involuntary chill.
A rainbow composed of varying shades of black. A curved silver bell. A hoofprint, paw print, and an eagle’s talon all in a circle. A crescent moon with an eye in the center. A lightning bolt striking the surface of the water.
Tirac. Grogar. Discord. Tantabus. The Storm King.
The five Abominations.
“I assume that you recognize those symbols,” Morning Creek stated, distaste and fear blending in her voice. She clasped her front hooves together, then touched her lips, forehead, and heart with her right hoof, performing the ritual sign of harmony. “When we discovered it, we decided to ask for outside analysis. We hope that you can explain why the Sisters would have such a…blasphemous object hidden in their monastery.”
“We shall do what we can to resolve this mystery,” Caballeron declared as they approached the crumbling ruins of the monastery reaching up towards the overcast sky, dusty stone and shattered windows looking down upon them as Caballeron steered the Jeep into a weed-strewn lot in front of the door.
A section of the lawn had been mowed down and was now housing several humble tents and mounted tarps where the Sisters of Clover were set up with their tools and equipment; more mares with close-cropped manes and hooded cloaks were milling about the area, many of them looking up expectantly as the vehicle parked.
Caballeron shut off his Jeep and exited, tightening his scarf as he did so. Daring Do stepped out as well, zipping up her jacket to ward off the chill of the aptly-named Moon of Cold. She studied the overgrown, dilapidated structure, wearied by years of disuse, vandalism, and erosion. There was no door in the leaning doorway, though Daring did note a small carving of an upside-down triangle in the lintel. Monastery of the Verdant Sisterhood of Revelation declared the barely legible words on the sign next to the entrance, the white paint long faded.
“Not where I’d want to stay,” she commented to the subprioress as she and Caballeron pulled their saddlebags filled with gear out of the back of the Jeep.
“This place was once a holy place, and it can be again,” Morning Creek replied placidly, looking up at the ruins with a fond expression. “It is the duty of the Brothers and Sisters of the Founders to restore and respect our history and seek knowledge wherever the Path of Harmony guides us.”
“All due respect, Subprioress, I have a hard time believing that the Path would lead us to whatever is behind that door,” another cloaked Sister replied dryly as she approached from the battered, doorless entry. The kirin was the color of cafe au lait, her scales a mossy green, and her frowning eyes a rusty reddish-brown.
Morning Creek let out a quiet sigh. “Doctors, this is Sister Fertile Ground. She is the one who discovered the box.”
“I found it beneath the floorboards in the asylum wing,” Fertile Ground commented as she led her guests inside, the floor creaking beneath their hooves. They passed through an entrance hallway and into what had once been a foyer, though all that remained was a long table with several missing legs, a few broken-down chairs, a shattered picture window, and a varnished icon nailed to one wall: three interlocking circles, painted purple, green, and blue, with a bright pink heart-shaped flame in the center. More doorways and a rot-eaten staircase led to other sections of the monastery.
“Have you tried opening it?” Daring asked, noting an etching of a circle in the doorway that they were passing through.
“We’ve tried everything we can think of, short of just smashing the thing,” Fertile Ground admitted, guiding them through what Daring guessed had once been a visiting area for the families of inmates; the long, narrow room had the remnant of tables and chairs on both sides, the walls lined with faded paintings of calming nature landscapes. “We can’t figure out the combination, and unlocking spells aren’t working.” Fertile Ground frowned as they reached the solid, five-inch thick oak door at the end of the room. “If you ask me, we should just smash it. Some things shouldn’t be dug up.”
Caballeron raised an eyebrow. “You do know whom you are speaking to, ¿sí?” he asked, drawing a snicker from Daring.
Fertile Ground closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. “Well, do what you gotta do,” she said, pushing open the door with a heavy groan of rusty hinges.
Daring Do’s eyes widened as she examined the room that they were looking into. The long chamber, built of heavy stone with a darkly varnished wooden floor that had been partially torn up, was only dimly lit by the light that filtered in through the high, barred windows. Rusty beds lined the walls, the mattresses upon them eaten away by mold. Crude paintings, many of them at the level of hoof-painted stick figures, covered the wall, many of them overlapping each other. Higher up on the walls were faded, larger-than-life busts of the three Founders of Equestria, looking benevolently down upon the room. In the center of the room, a compass rose was etched into the stone.
“It was worse when we got in here,” Fertile Ground commented. “There was debris all over the floor: plates, food trays, utensils, chamber pots. Used ones, at that.” She grimaced. “We found the box over here and left it there.”
The box in question was sitting on the floor near the sections that had been removed. His chartreuse eyes shining, Caballeron eagerly picked it up and placed it on a table that had survived the ruin of the asylum. “Hmm, the making of the box is exquisite, clearly hoofmade,” he remarked, carefully studying the woodwork. “Is there a woodworking shop in the monastery?”
“There is,” Morning Creek confirmed. “Upstairs in the wing.”
“This wood is from the area,” Caballeron said, stepping back so that Daring could take photographs of the artifact. “I would suspect that the Sisterhood of Deeds made this here…but what for? And why did they hide it?”
Daring pulled out a piece of paper and a charcoal pencil and did a rubbing of the blasphemous symbols on the top of the box. “Was the box hidden by a door, or were the boards over it solid?” she asked.
“There was a door,” Fertile Ground responded. “But the hinges were well-hidden; I didn’t even notice that it was a door until I was prying it up.”
“And has this room always been an asylum?” Daring questioned.
“As far as we can tell, yes,” Morning Creek responded.
Daring pondered for a moment. “Do you still have the door?”
“Uh, hang on…” Fertile Ground dashed out of the room and returned a minute later holding a section of varnished wood with two small hinges on one side. “I threw it in the scrap pile,” she admitted, passing it over to Daring.
Daring and Caballeron both studied the false section of flooring. “The door is made from different wood than the rest of the floor,” Caballeron observed. “Notice the different thickness and width: similar enough to fool a casual observer, especially as they had painted it the same varnish as the rest of the floor. Let me test a theory…”
He pulled a small chisel out of his pack of tools and scraped a sample of varnish from the false door then took another scraping from a piece of the floor. Using a set of tweezers, he placed the samples on the table and examined them through a magnifying glass.
“Yes, I was right,” he declared, passing the lens to Daring. “Observe, the sample from the normal floor has multiple layers of paint and varnish. But the door…”
“Has only one,” Daring nodded, observing both of the paint samples through the lens. “That must mean that the door was placed a long time after the flooring and covered in the same varnish.”
“Precisely,” Caballeron noted. “Which leads to further questions.”
“They wouldn’t have put that in while there were patients here,” Daring said. “Too risky that they would’ve seen it and opened it. They must have put it in before they disappeared.”
“But were they planning on coming back for it, or did they leave it behind for others to find?” Caballeron pondered.
“They left behind food, which argues against them coming back,” Daring commented.
“But they wouldn’t have left behind the patients,” Morning Creek protested. “Surely they would have taken them with them when they left.”
“But on the other hoof, no one ever saw or heard from any of the patients again,” Daring pointed out. She turned back to the box, turning it over carefully; whatever was inside rattled tantalizingly.
“Hang on…there’s something carved on the bottom here.” She took up the magnifying glass again and squinted at the little icons etched into the bottom of the mysterious box.
“A square, a triangle, and a circle…” she mused. Her head turned back towards the lintel of the door, her eyes going to a square and a circle carved into the doorway.
“Aha!” she declared, her face brightening. “The combination must be related to the number of shapes hidden around the monastery! I’ll be right back!”
She shot off in a greyscale rainbow, leaving a rush of wind in her wake that knocked the other three ponies off-balance. Caballeron chuckled, adjusting his ascot. “Yes, she’s like that,” he commented to the two gaping mares.
Daring Do returned a couple of minutes later, a grin on her face. “Six, seventeen, twelve!” she declared, grabbing the box. She pressed her ear to the dial and turned the dial clockwise to six. A soft click inside the box announced that she was on the right track. She twisted the dial to seventeen, then twelve. A sharp click brought a gasp to both the archaeologists.
“Now, let us see,” Caballeron said as Daring readied her camera. Meadow Creek and Fertile Ground glanced at each other and slowly backed up a few steps.
The box creaked as Caballeron opened the lid. Both ponies peered inside, and the excitement on their faces suddenly vanished.
There were only two objects inside the box. One was a small metal cylinder with a cap on one end meant for holding scrolls.
The other object was an idol of a quadrupedal beast with a dog-like head and a long tail wrapped around its paws. It leered up at its discoverers with beady eyes at the end of its long snout, sneering at them with intricately carved teeth.
Daring and Caballeron stared at the idol, then glanced at each other, the same expression on their faces.
“What…is that?” a pale Morning Creek breathed as she and Fertile Ground both performed the sign of harmony, their eyes wide.
“An ahuizotl,” Daring Do answered quietly, her stomach twisting inside her guts as the word fell from her tongue like venom. “So what the hell is it doing here?”
“Subprioress! Subprioress!” a unicorn Sister cried as she sprinted into the room, her eyes bulging.
“What is it, Sister?” Morning Creek asked, gripping her charge’s shoulders to try to calm her.
“Someone was watching us from one of the trees at the edge of the clearing!” the Sister explained in between pants. “I was gathering sticks for the tinder pile when I saw a gleam of light over my head. When I looked closer, I realized that it was a creature with wings wearing a camouflage outfit and a ski mask, watching the monastery through binoculars. I screamed and they flew away in a rush, but they dropped this.”
She held out a small clear plastic zipper-lock packet filled with a gritty bluish-purple powder. Daring plucked the packet with a pair of tweezers and held it up for examination.
“Did you see if it was a pegasus?” she asked the alarmed Sister. “A thestral? Griffon? Hippogriff?”
“I-I didn’t get a good look,” the Sister admitted. “But I’m almost certain it wasn’t a griffon. They didn’t have a lion-like tail and their wings were too small.”
“We should get the police,” Fertile Ground declared.
“I agree,” Morning Creek nodded. “Come, sisters.” She and the other two Sisters quickly and gladly departed the room.
Daring frowned at the mysterious packet for a few moments, then glanced around to make sure that she and Caballeron were alone. Holding the bag with a wing, she rummaged around in her saddlebags for a moment, then pulled out a small glass test tube.
“What are you doing?” Caballeron hissed as Daring Do unstoppered the tube and poured a few grains of the blue-purple powder into it.
Daring zipped the bag back up and placed it on the table, then replaced the tube in her saddlebag. “We should head back to the University,” she said. “I think that I know some ponies who might be interested in this.”
Whispers in the Whitetail Woods Part Two: The Beast
A flash of light filled the examination room of the Golden Oaks University History Department, briefly illuminating the carved wooden idol perched on the table.
“This idol is…certainly fascinating,” Dean Blotting Paper mused, looking trepidatiously at the strange little statuette on the table. “And it was in a box in a hidden compartment in the monastery floor?”
“Sí, señora,” Caballeron answered, adjusting the camera in between shots. “With this blank parchment with it.”
The snow-maned jenny frowned at the unfurled yellowed parchment laying on the table, its blank surface taunting them all. Her eyes then flickered to the box, her frown deepening into creases of worry at the sight of the blasphemous carvings on the surface. “An…unusual set of artifacts, to be sure.”
“I think I see why the Sisters were so eager to get it out of there,” Daring admitted from the desk behind Caballeron, pen scratching away at the paperwork before her. Despite trying to focus on the documents, she kept glancing up at the statuette every few seconds; the tiny, smirking eyes seemed to be staring at her.
“There are similar statues in the Sunken Church,” Blotting Paper frowned, giving the pith helmet on the desk a small disapproving glance before returning her focus to the artifact. “I understand that you’ve been researching this…thing.”
“Indeed,” Caballeron replied. “With the gracious help of Señorita Dawn.” He nodded towards the pink unicorn that was currently holding a measuring stick next to the idol with her magic.
“Oh, I’ve mostly just helped with chasing down citations and sorting notes,” Luster Dawn admitted sheepishly, blushing at the compliment. “Professor Do and Professor Caballeron did most of the work.”
“It started with discovering the creature’s name,” Caballeron stated, taking another photograph of the statuette. “It is called an ahuizotl.”
A gust of wind buffeted against the laboratory window; the temperature in the room seemed to plunge for a moment, sending shivers down the spines of the four ponies.
“Ahuizotl,” Blotting Paper repeated quietly, taking a step back from the tiny idol.
“We learned it from translating the inscriptions on the walls of the Sunken Temple,” Daring explained. “The writing was in ancient Mareabic, but it didn’t translate into anything meaningful until we realized that it was being used to phonetically write another language: Neighuatl, which was spoken by ancient cultures in the Southern Jungles. There was one phrase that was said over and over again: ‘Micca Ahuizotl chixtoc temiqui.’”
“Which means?” Dean Paper asked, taking another seemingly involuntary step back.
“‘Dead Ahuizotl waits dreaming,’” Daring Do translated.
“There aren’t a lot of extant legends about the ahuizotl race,” Luster said, carefully turning the statuette around so that it was facing out the window, looking out into the gray-clouded quad. “Most of the legends come from the Southern Jungle tribes, and there are a lot of gaps; it’s like some ponies put a lot of work into repressing and erasing those stories. It was thought for a while that they were gods, but some later evidence suggests that the ahuizotl were actually priests of greater gods.
“And they probably weren’t good ones,” she added, moving out of the frame so Caballeron could take another snap. “The Southern Jungle tribesponies were, by and large, absolutely terrified of the ahuizotl, but they seemed to depend on them for their magic. Their writing mentions a lot of ‘profane rituals,’ but doesn’t go into detail beyond mentioning pony sacrifices.”
“Interesting,” Blotting Paper noted. She remained silent while Caballeron took the final photograph. “What do you intend to do now?”
“Look more into this parchment,” Daring said, nodding at the blank scrap.
“Why would they bother to hide a blank piece of paper?” Luster wondered aloud.
“Most likely because it is not blank,” Caballeron posited. “Perhaps the message is written with invisible ink. We will ask for Doctor Suunkii’s help analyzing it.”
“And I’ll grab any references to the monastery I can find,” Luster added. “Might be useful later.”
“Very well. Carry on, then,” Blotting Paper nodded. She took one last look at the idol, then turned and made a hasty departure down the hall.
“Luster, please place the idol on its side so I can photograph the bottom,” Caballeron asked.
“Yes, Doctor,” Luster said, tilting the idol over to reveal the bottom.
“Ay, what is this?” Caballeron remarked upon studying the bottom of the statue.
Daring Do turned to look and quickly spotted what had grabbed her comrade’s attention. Carefully embossed into the bottom of the idol’s perch was a small but distinct swirling hieroglyph in silver, looking rather like a crescent moon turned to face down with a teardrop falling from it.
“It appears to have been carved into the wood and filled with silver,” Caballeron commented, inspecting the inset with a magnifying glass. “But for what purpose? Perhaps it is hollow?” He shook and twisted the base of the effigy for a few minutes, then sighed and gave up.
Daring shook her head. “It might be worth trying to figure out if that symbol means anything,” she suggested.
“Muy bien,” an abashed Caballeron admitted, returning to the camera. He took the last photograph and nodded. “Excelente, that’s all we needed. Luster, would you be so good as–?”
“I’ll take care of developing the negatives and finish the sketches before I head to the library,” Luster answered, already hard at work completing a detailed sketch of the ahuizotl effigy, marking down measurements and scrawling notes in the margins.
“Excelente. Just don’t overwork yourself, amiga; you need time to sleep!” Caballeron cautioned with a grin.
“I know what my limits are, Doctor Caballeron. I’m fine,” Luster Dawn assured him with a smile of her own.
“Luster, really, you’re a junior,” Daring put in. “We appreciate you volunteering to help out, but we’re worried you might be stretching yourself too thin. You’ve got your own classes and your own life to deal with, too.”
“I know, I can handle it,” Luster replied, putting the final touches on her sketch. “Besides, it’s exciting, being allowed to help you two; part of my studies into the history of magic is on how mythologies and religions have affected magical abilities, and I’m thinking I want to do my senior thesis on that.”
“Really?” Daring asked.
“I’ve always wanted to study magical history, ever since I started reading the Compass Rose series!” Luster exclaimed. “I’ve been reading those books since I was eight years old!”
“That long, really?” Daring asked, turning away to hide an expression that was somewhere between a smile and a grimace. Holy shit, I am old.
She caught a glimpse of Caballeron sniggering and shot him a brief “shut up” glare before turning back to Luster. “Okay, if you’re sure.”
“I’ll let you know how I get on,” Luster said, exiting with her sketch and the film from the camera.
Caballeron glanced over at Daring as she finished up the paperwork on the new artifacts. “I notice that you didn’t mention the intruder, nor the sample of the powder that you took,” he commented quietly.
“You know how Blotting Paper is,” Daring said, noting the lack of disapproval in Caballeron’s tone. “She’d freak out and pull the plug on this and get the police even more involved and shit. What she doesn’t know can’t hurt us, right?”
“Es verdad,” Caballeron admitted, placing the ahuizotl effigy into a fireproof box and locking it tightly, then scrawling a label on it. “Well, we are not gaining anything by waiting here. Shall we visit Doctor Suunkii?”
“We shall,” Daring replied, placing her pith helmet back on her head, rolling the vellum up, and replacing it in its holder. She patted her pocket to make sure that the packet with the strange drug was still inside, then led the way out of the examination room, Caballeron turning out the lights and locking the door behind them.
Daring and Caballeron exited onto the darkening quad, an evening breeze rustling the wreaths that were hung from the lampposts, reminding all that Hearth’s Warming Eve and the end of 1955 were mere weeks away. They proceeded through the grounds, winding past the small clusters of students and staff that were making their way to dormitories or the dining hall for an early supper.
As Daring passed down the path, she could see heads turning at her approach. Gazes burned into the back of her head and whispers followed in her wake.
“That’s Professor Do–”
“–found the Sunken Church–”
“Maybe I should take her class–”
“–like something out of a Compass Rose novel!”
“They were gone all afternoon today. You think they found something–?”
Caballeron grinned at Daring. “Seems you’re making a bit of a reputation.”
Daring shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t go out looking for some hidden underground tomb,” she said. “I just wanted to find out what happened to Family Tree.”
“And finding the legendary underground tomb was a bonus, of course,” Caballeron replied, his grin becoming rather fixed. “We’ll be excavating those catacombs for a year at least.”
“It didn’t bring Family Tree back,” Daring muttered.
Or give me any answers, Uncle Ad. Just more questions.
Caballeron sighed. “Yes…if only she had been more open about what she was doing and asked us for help.”
“If only.”
Caballeron sighed as they reached the Science Building, a utilitarian red brick three-story cube-shaped structure with arches over the glass doors. The stones forming the arches were inscribed with the names of prominent scientists throughout history; Daring had walked beneath these arches so many times that she could name them without looking.
Archineghdes, da Whinny, Neighton, Pascalt, Neighbel, she mentally recited as she followed Caballeron through the center arch, up the steps, and through the doors.
A few janitors, teachers’ assistants, and students were still meandering through the hallways, finishing up last-minute experiments or cleaning up after classes. The duo headed past the entrance and up the stairs to the second floor.
The hallway stretched out the length of the building, the polished white tile floor reflecting the glow of the ceiling lamps. Doors on either side of the hall led into large laboratories. One of them, marked Chemistry Laboratory A, had a light on inside.
As they approached, Daring heard a familiar voice inside. “No, that’s not it, Suun,” the low Aushaylian-accented voice said. “Let’s try with the iodine.”
Caballeron turned to her, eyebrows rising into his salt-and-pepper mane. “Is that…?”
“It is,” Daring said, opening the door and striding inside.
The chemistry laboratory featured several long tables with sinks and organized racks of beakers, flasks, burners, and other equipment. Microscopes were lined up against one wall counter, underneath cupboards of chemicals and materials secured with padlocks.
Two ponies were standing over one of the worktables, examining a petri dish, bottles and test tubes scattered around them. One was Phillip Finder, his gray trilby pushed back on his head. The other was a tall, husky zebra with a frizzy black mane and the cutie mark of a cauldron, wearing a wrinkled, stained lab coat and a set of goggles over his midnight blue eyes.
The two stallions turned around at the archaeologists’ entrance. “G’day, Daring,” Phillip nodded before turning his gaze to Caballeron. “And…”
“Doctor Dorado Caballeron,” Caballeron introduced himself, striding forward with an extended hoof. “Mucho gusto, Señor Finder.”
“El gusto es mio,” Finder nodded, shaking the hoof.
“So what are you doing here?” Daring asked, giving Doctor Suunkii a curious look as the zebra lifted the goggles from his eyes.
“Phillip Finder requested my assistance with a case that he is currently working on,” Doctor Suunkii replied in his mellifluously baritone voice.
“You know each other?” Daring asked.
“We were roomies in college,” Phillip explained. “Studied chemistry together.” A fond smile formed on his face. “Good times.”
“Indeed,” Suunkii replied with a similar smile, gently nudging Phillip’s flank with his own. “A strong connection forms between two stallions when they spend their Saturday afternoon collecting and studying soil samples from around Fillydelphia and Saturday night sharing the same bed.”
Phillip’s ears turned slightly red, though his smile did not fade. “Bloody oath.”
“Ha, sounds like a beautiful friendship for sure,” Daring smirked. But the rest of her commentary was cut short when she spotted the contents of the petri dish: a gritty blue-purple powder that seemed to glow faintly. Her eyes widened and she pulled the sample that she’d taken from the monastery out of her pocket.
Phillip’s eyebrows shot up into his bangs. “Where did you get that?” he and Daring said in unison.
They stared at one another for a beat, then a small chuckle escaped both of their grinning mouths. “You first,” Phillip said.
Daring narrated their expedition to the Whitetail Monastery, detailing the call that had brought them there, their discovery of the contents of the box, and the Sister warning them of the intruder watching them.
“And you took a sample without their knowing?” Suunkii said with a disapproving shake of his head.
“I’m insatiably curious,” Daring shrugged. “Besides, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have an excuse to work with you again,” she added, wiggling her eyebrows at Phillip. He coughed and turned his focus back to the bag that she was holding out, his ears coloring a bit.
“We were hoping that you could examine this mysterious powder,” Caballeron cut in. “And this blank parchment that we found.”
“Right,” Daring said, pulling out the container and carefully extracting its contents. Suunkii cocked his head to one side and studied the parchment with a curious frown.
“Clearly this was written on with invisible ink,” he stated. “Phillip, can you continue your examination from here?”
“No wuckas,” Phillip said, taking the bag from Daring. “Will see if these are the same while I’m at it.” He took Daring’s bag and turned back to the racks of equipment.
Suunkii grasped the vellum in gloved hooves and placed it down on another workstation with great care, pulling over a lamp. He carefully studied the parchment under the light, using tweezers to tilt it from side to side.
“We shall begin with attempting to date the paper to determine it is authentic. I shall study it under alternative light sources,” he stated, pulling a lamp out of a drawer. He flicked the crystal bulb inside on, casting a dark purple glow over the vellum. Nothing appeared, even after he adjusted the lamp to cast a wide rainbow of colors upon it.
“Well, that wasn’t much help,” Caballeron grumbled.
“On the contrary, that was most informative,” Suunkii replied. “The lack of reaction is indicative of a lack of modern papermaking techniques, which is suggestive of the authenticity of this sample. Of course, we will need further proof…”
He pulled out a set of scissors and snipped off a small section from the end of the paper, drawing a cry of distress from Caballeron. “Hey, let him work, amigo,” Daring chided her companion.
Suunkii washed the section in distilled water, then cut it into smaller pieces. Half of these he stained with chemicals, then placed them upon a glass side; the other half he placed in boiling water until they started to defiber, then after a vigorous shake, he placed them under a microscope to examine.
“Let us see…” he mused, pressing his eye to one slide, then another. “Yes. Softwood not dissimilar to the types of trees found in the Whitetail Woods blended with pulp made from zea mays and triticum sativum. This paper was made with materials that could be found at the Monastery when it was active, and the apparent dating suggests that it is from the correct time period. There is certainly no evidence that this document is false.”
“Splendid,” Caballeron scoffed. “I am so glad that we wasted time we could have used to discover the writing upon this so you could inform us of the obvious.”
“Dorado!” Daring scolded. “This is important work. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to follow a treasure map and then realize at the end it was fake?”
Caballeron grumbled, but acquiesced. “Fine. Now let us try to reveal this parchment’s secrets.”
“Ah, here we are,” Suunkii declared, holding the parchment up to a heat lamp. Already, writing was appearing on it, a dark brown cursive.
Caballeron and Daring Do crowded close and watched as the hidden message finally revealed itself.
“‘If you are reading this, you must be a follower of the hidden truth, like we have become,’” Daring read aloud. “‘Long have we toiled to learn and decrypt the messages of the sleeping priest, listening to his messages through the dreams of the mad. He has called us to prepare for a great sermon, where he shall reveal his greatest secret: where he sleeps and waits for the call of the faithful. As I write this, we are about to undertake a final pilgrimage, to our last revelation: we will take our charges with us, as we will need their guidance. In case we do not return, I leave you with one of the four idols of our prophet. The other three idols have been hidden throughout the Whitetail Woods; look for the symbol to guide you to where we buried them. Bring all four idols back to the monastery to follow us on our final journey.
“‘Find us, friend. Find us and go where we could not.’”
Beneath the message was a small sketch of a bell tower with three small arcane symbols placed around it at seemingly random positions: half a circle with two crosses extending from the long side, three jagged lines like lightning bolts with a horizontal line bisecting them, and an uneven four-pointed star, the points all different lengths and none of the angles the same.
“So that’s probably the monastery,” Daring mused. “The symbols probably mark where the other idols are…but what’s the scale or orientation of the map? It’s no help without those.”
“Daring,” Caballeron pointed out, looking at the back of the parchment. “There is a pattern of dots on the other side of the parchment.”
Daring turned the parchment around and studied the pattern of dots. The pattern was strangely familiar.
“Hmm…” Daring Do carefully held the parchment up to the light. The pattern of dots bled through onto the front of the sheet.
“Aha!” Daring declared. “Ursa Major and Cassiopeia! That’ll show where north is!”
Caballeron grinned and rubbed his hooves in glee. “Yes, yes, ¡excelente! It’s better than I hoped; not just their Liber Bonorum Operum, but also information on the ahuizotl! We shall soon be remembered around the world, mi amiga!”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Cabbie,” Daring chided. “We don’t even know if the other three idols even exist anymore.”
“Well, we’re not going to find out playing with chemistry sets, are we?” Caballeron replied, turning on his heels. “I’ll be off performing reconnaissance. Buenas noches, Daring.”
“Dorado–” Daring started to call, but her colleague was already disappearing out the door. Daring sighed and shook her head.
“Chemistry sets?!” a red-faced Suunkii cried. “I am no child playing with toys!”
“Easy, doc, he didn’t mean it,” Daring reassured him.
With a sigh, Daring turned back to Phillip, who was frowning at the two samples of the strangely colored powder. “How are you getting along?”
“I have no bloody idea what this stuff is,” Phillip remarked. “But I do know a few things. One, your friend at the monastery was carrying the same powder I had.”
Daring’s eyebrows narrowed. “Something tells me that that’s not a coincidence,” she said. “What does it do?”
“Don’t have the foggiest; not about to inject myself with it if I don’t know what it is,” Phillip admitted, passing his notes to Suunkii.
The zebra’s anger evaporated as he examined the notes. “Interesting…this appears to be some sort of designer drug made of a mixture of organic and chemical compounds. None of these individual components are illegal, though the amphetamines are dancing on the line. The main ingredient appears to be…hmm…a pulp made of an organic compound. Perhaps a cactus?” he mused.
“And watch this,” Phillip said, holding up a device that looked like a small hoofheld metal detector with a faintly glowing disc-shaped device on the end and a gauge on the top. Phillip held the device over the sample of the drug; instantly, the gauge went all the way to the end as the disc started flashing green light, buzzing loudly.
“Full of magic,” Phil said, placing the thaumaturgic detector aside.
“Most unusual,” Doctor Suunkii frowned. “None of these identifiable components possess that level of magic in them.”
“So where did you get this?” Daring asked.
“New case,” Phillip explained. “Mare came in this morning, said that her friend had up and vanished…”
“His name is Joshua Knoll,” the young unicorn mare across from Phillip stated, passing over a photograph.
Phillip sat back on the beaten couch and studied the photograph. His client was on the left side of the picture, the turquoise unicorn beaming up at the camera lens; judging by the milky white glow of her horn, she was the one holding the camera up.
The donkey that she had a foreleg around was a study in contrast. Compared to his friend, the light tan donkey was smiling demurely at the camera, his head turned away at a shy angle so that his pale blonde bangs were partially shielding his blue eyes. He wore a scarlet silk smoking jacket with gold cufflinks at the end and held a briarwood pipe in his hoof. Phil took note of the silver band that had been used to repair the stem with a hum.
He looked back up at his visitor. The mare’s emerald eyes were roaming around the sitting room of 221 Honeybee Bakery Street, her gaze going to the collection of books along one wall to the record player in the corner next to the lovingly polished saxophone and didgeridoo on their mounts next to the piano.
“This would be the son of the Knoll family?” Phillip asked, bringing the mare’s attention back to him. “The country club owners?”
“That’s them,” Lagoon Mist nodded. “My mother used to work for them since before they set up that club, so I grew up with Joseph. We’ve been friends since foalhood.” She smiled faintly. “He never once held his wealth over me; he always treated me and my mother with respect. That’s what I loved about him the most.”
“Tell me the whole story,” Phillip said, leaning back.
Lagoon Mist sighed and sat back in the chair, licking her lips. “He’d been acting off for a while; he started spending more time with me and less time with his folks, which was weird; he loved his mom and dad. I think the last time he had a serious fight with them was when we were 16, and it blew over in a week. I tried to ask what was going on, but he never gave me a straight answer. He would say things like ‘You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,’ and ‘My parents got into something weird and I’m not sure what to do.’ He asked me for advice a couple of times: what would I do if someone I loved was doing something wrong but I didn’t want them to get in trouble and you were scared of the people that they were involved with? I tried pressing him for more details, but he would always clam up whenever I started getting somewhere.
“The last time I saw him was two days ago,” Lagoon continued, her shoulders shrugging as she sighed. “I met up with him that evening at our usual hangout, Sweetcream’s Lounge. Come to think of it, don’t you busk there sometimes?”
“Yes. Wasn’t there that night,” Phillip replied, waving the question idly away.
“Anyway, we got to chatting over a root beer float…just going over our childhood, random stuff, things like that,” Lagoon stated, her gaze falling towards the floor. “Towards the end, he said…he said that I’d been a good friend and he was gonna miss me. Before I could ask what he was talking about, he left, got into his car, and drove off.
“I went to the Knoll home the next morning and…” She took a deep breath and wiped at her face with a hoof. “He wasn’t there. I checked his room and he wasn’t there; he’d taken some of his stuff and gone. I talked to his parents and they…” Her mouth twisted in a frown. “They told me that they were taking care of it and shooed me out of the house.”
Lagoon choked back a sob. “It’s just all so confusing,” she admitted. “Why did he run? Why didn’t he tell me what’s going on? Where did he go?” She looked up at Phillip, her green eyes shimmering. “I just want to know if he’s safe.”
“I’ll do what I can to find him,” Phillip reassured her. “Think back to when you searched his room. What did he take with him?”
Lagoon wiped her face off again and rubbed her mane with a hoof. “Well…he’d taken his pipe, obviously.” A weak smile touched her lips briefly. “Don’t remember him ever going anywhere without that thing…it was a gift from his father after he graduated college.” She took a breath. “Um…he also took that smoking jacket of his, a gold pocket watch, and I think he took some money.” A thought made her face twist. “Actually, I do remember something weird. In the sink in his bathroom, he left some clipped hair from his mane around the drain. And I found some paper towels with red mane dye on them in the trash can…and this.”
She passed over a small plastic baggie filled with a strange bluish-purple powder. Phillip frowned and examined the contents carefully, then opened the bag, dabbed a bit on the tip of his hoof, and took a brief sniff. The odor confirmed what his sight already told him: this was no brand of drug that he knew.
“I never had any sign that Joseph was doing drugs!” Lagoon cried. “When I saw that in there, I just grabbed it and hid it in my pocket; if his parents saw it, they could freak and I…I just didn’t want to get him in trouble.”
“I understand,” Phillip assured her, pocketing the evidence. “Did he take any of his clothing?”
“No, just the smoking jacket,” Lagoon shook her head. “At least, as far as I could tell.”
“Can you describe the pocketwatch?”
“It was gold-plated and had a sun and moon inscribed on the front. He got that for himself a couple of years ago.”
“What brand of mintdust did he smoke?”
Lagoon sucked on her lower lip. “Um…Trumpeter.”
“Anything else weird you noticed?”
Lagoon took a few seconds to think, then shook her head again. “No, sorry.”
“Did he take his car?”
“Yes,” Lagoon nodded. “It was a Buck Nine convertible, dark green, license plate…uh…three-B-R…something. I’m sorry, I never paid much attention to it.”
“That’s okay. Anything else?”
Lagoon sighed. “I…I’m sorry, nothing else comes to mind.”
Phillip leaned forward and plucked one of the business cards stacked inside a small box on the coffee table. “You’ve been a bonzer help,” he assured Lagoon, passing over the card. “You think of anything else, give me a call.”
Lagoon took the card and stood, her eyes still pleading. “Please find Joseph, Mr. Finder. I just want to know what happened to him.”
“Will do what I can,” Phillip promised, offering his hoof for a shake. As Lagoon departed, he looked down at the photograph of the missing donkey, frowning as he turned the evidence over in his head.
“Tried talking to the parents after that, but they all but closed the door in my face. Told me that they’d take care of it themselves,” Phillip said. “Did some hoofwork and dropped by here a couple of hours ago to identify the drug.”
“Wasn’t there something about that in the evening edition of the Ponyville Chronicle?” Daring asked. “Someone left a copy on a desk in the History Department and there was a headline…’Missing Heir’s Car Found’ or something like that?”
“Yes,” Phillip nodded. “Parents filed a missing creature report and police found the car abandoned on the side of the highway headed to Canterlot.”
“That means he’s in Canterlot, right?” Daring suggested.
Phillip shook his head. “This is a pony who clearly planned this out, took the time to change their manestyle and disguise themselves. They’re not gonna do something as obvious as park their car by the side of the road for anyone to find. Obvious blind.”
“Well, where do you think he is?” Daring asked.
“Not sure yet, but I’m working on it,” Phillip answered. “Working on a few other leads.”
“Like what?” Daring asked.
“Ask yourself,” Phillip said. “Why would someone who’s going on the run bring their distinctive smoking jacket and pocketwatch?”
Daring thought for a moment. “Er…because he didn’t want to get mintdust on his coat?”
Suunkii chuckled. “A fair guess, Professor Do, but not likely. It is more likely he was planning on pawning it for money.”
“Probably afraid to access his bank account; if he’s running from his parents, they might know if he tries it, or he could get recognized,” Phillip said.
“Okay, but you can’t search every pawn shop in Equestria,” Daring pointed out. “You gonna ask the breezies to check them again?”
“Can’t; the breezies are already migrating home for the winter,” Phillip answered. “But that’s alright. I keep contacts among the homeless population in Ponyville and nearby cities. Already put the word out; if they find Joseph or his items, they’ll let me know.”
“Wow. You’ve got all bases covered,” Daring commented.
“Part of the job,” Phillip admitted. “What’s your plan for these idols?”
“Tomorrow after classes, Caballeron and I are going to head out and find the other three,” Daring declared. “And hopefully, once we get all three, we can bring them back to the monastery and figure out what the big deal is.”
“Sounds aces,” Phillip nodded. He glanced at the blue-purple powder on the table.
“Be careful,” he advised. “If these ponies are watching the monastery, they might be interested in the idols too.”
“Don’t worry; I’m a tough girl. You know that,” Daring smirked at him. “But thanks for the warning. Good luck finding Joseph.”
“Same to you,” Phillip said as Daring took the parchment and rolled it back into the tube.
“Thanks for the help, doc,” Daring said as she pocketed the tube.
“I look forward to hearing of your discoveries, Professor Do,” Doctor Suunkii smiled as Daring exited.
“Phillip, this would appear to require additional investigation,” she heard Suunkii saying as she exited. “Could I interest you in having dinner with us tonight after a few more hours of work? Muziqaa has been looking forward to another one of your visits.”
Phillip chuckled. “You had me at Sirba’s cooking. Will always be glad she taught me to cook properly.”
“Not before you almost burned down her apartment,” Suunkii replied, the smirk audible in his voice.
Daring headed back down the stairs, her face falling as she considered the empty apartment waiting for her. With a sigh, she exited the laboratory and flew off home.
Whispers in the Whitetail Woods Part Three: On the Trail
“Thus, since Schliemare couldn’t just leave with the grave goods, he decided to settle with publicity,” Daring Do stated to her class the next morning, nodding to the enlarged photograph of the bespectacled and mustachioed stallion posing with a pith helmet, which looked ludicrous contrasted against his expensive suit jacket and umbrella. “He declared that he’d found the tombs of the heroes of Trot, naturally, which brought him a lot of attention and publicity to the area. The debate as to whether or not the city he discovered was actually Trot is still undergoing.”
She paused and turned back to her class. “So knowing all of that, would you say that Heinrich Schliemare was an archaeologist?” She cast a critical eye over the students. “How about you, Greatwing?”
“Huh?” the steel-gray griffon in the second row jumped in his seat, trying to pretend that he hadn’t been sleeping. He blinked his pale orange eyes and looked up at the blackboard.
“Well…I mean, he kind of was an archaeologist,” Greatwing said, rubbing the back of his head. “He went looking for the city of Trot and found a lot of neat stuff that other scientists could study and learn from, right?”
“A valid point,” Daring conceded. “The site he uncovered was rich in material about a culture that was, at the time, largely unknown and sparked a lot of interest in archaeology afterward.”
“But he barely even knew what he was digging up,” Ifaa pointed out. The lanky zebra with the long ponytail was sitting upright in his seat, sapphire eyes sparking with indignation. “He claimed that he’d found Trot based on the remnants of a wall, plus he stole from the site and lied to authorities. He was just a rich idiot who wanted to be famous.”
“That’s a fair argument, too,” Daring pointed out. “As scientists, we are expected to hold ourselves up to a standard of ethics. And obviously, that precludes stealing or lying or glorifying ourselves. The latter primarily because nocreature likes eating crow after it turns out that they were wrong.”
A brief bout of chuckling rippled through the classroom.
“However, motivation is sometimes secondary to results,” Daring continued. “There’s no doubt that a lot of important scientific, magical, and historical discoveries were made by creatures who were more concerned with their own reputations than with what they might find…but that’s not always a bad thing. If it hadn’t been for Lord Carneighvaron, Cart Driver might never have found Trotankhamun’s tomb. And if it hadn’t been for Schliemare, we wouldn’t still be excavating what might just be the real city of Trot.”
“So what separates an archaeologist from a treasure hunter or a grave robber?” Luster Dawn asked, looking up from scratching down her notes.
“That can be tricky to define sometimes,” Daring Do admitted. “But my take on it is this: treasure hunters and grave robbers care nothing for the history of what they find. They just want some shiny trinkets that they can sell. A treasure hunter’s first thought is ‘How much can I sell this for?’ Archaeologists are scientists that are trying to uncover the facts of the past: how our ancestors lived, how they worked, how they ate, how they worshiped and played, and all the other facets of their lives. Their first thought is ‘What can we learn from this?’ Most archaeologists will find more value in a garbage pile or a kitchen than golden idols in some forgotten tomb.”
“Even the Sunken Church?” Greatwing asked. His question prompted a hush over the class, students leaning forward intently.
Daring sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. “There are, of course, exceptions…but for those of you thinking that you can go dig something up and uncover a secret tomb dedicated to the worship of eldritch gods, I’m going to hit you with a reality check. It’s probably not gonna happen. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid, and most of my expeditions were normal and quiet and involved a lot of digging with a trowel and carefully brushing dust off things. We don’t follow maps to buried treasure, and X never marks the spot.”
The bell rang to signal the end of class. “All right, class, homework: an essay on the difference between an archaeologist and a treasure hunter, with examples. Three pages, due in two weeks!” Daring announced, eliciting groans from her students as they filed out.
Once the classroom was clear, Daring sat down at her desk and adjusted her bow tie as she opened up a drawer and extracted the carrying tube. We don’t follow treasure maps, Daring? Sure we don’t, she commented ironically to herself as she extracted the strange parchment with its plea and map. She frowned at the image of the monastery with the three symbols surrounding it like planets circling a star.
“That was your last class for today, ¿sí?”
Daring looked up to greet Caballeron as he entered the classroom, the senior professor grinning with anticipation. “Yeah, I’m free for the rest of the day,” she grinned at him. “Guess it’s going to be a date, Cabbie. A romantic walk through the woods.”
Caballeron’s grin momentarily flickered before resuming. “Indeed, I expect we shall have a grand time on our scavenger hunt. It reminds me of playing pirates as a child with my parents, following maps and riddles through the mansion grounds to the treasures that they’d buried the previous night: boxes of candy, little trinkets and toys.”
Daring chuckled. “Sounds like me with Uncle Ad. He’d hide a picnic basket out in the moor and make up a map for us to follow. Spend all morning running around, having pretend adventures, and eventually we’d find the basket and have lunch out there. Just the two of us.” She smiled fondly. “Good times.”
“Well, let us see what this map will lead us to,” Caballeron declared, taking the parchment. “Come, mi amiga, I have the shovels waiting in the jeep.”
“And I’ve got my gear waiting in my office,” Daring Do declared, rising from her desk and zipping off in a gray and gold blur.
Phillip studied the crimson smoking jacket hung up on the rack, the fancy silk cloth completely out of place amidst the shabbier coats and jackets. He then glanced at the fancy golden pocket watch on the nearby table, a sterling gem amidst the humbler timepieces with their cheap construction and faded bands.
“Yes,” he nodded. “These are them.”
“Saw ‘em in here when I came in ter find me a new jacket,” the black griffon with the weatherbeaten face and tattered bucket hat with several well-tended lures dangling from the brim commented. His thick Trottish accent made it seem like he was chewing every word before spitting them out. “Thought aboot the notice ye poot owt and I thought I’d better get ye over here to take a butcher’s, like.”
“Bonzer job, Greyling,” Phillip praised his contact, passing him a couple of gold coins, a small box of instant coffee mix, and a pair of cigars.
Greyling beamed as he accepted his payment. “Always happy ter be of service to ye, Detective. Bonailie, laddie.” He stuck a cigar in his mouth and put the other into his coat before exiting the pawnshop.
Phillip then turned to the mildly bemused pawnshop owner. “What can you tell me about who sold these items?”
“He came in right as I was closing, two nights ago,” the unicorn with the white mustache replied, adjusting his spectacles. “A donkey, and a study in contrast if I ever saw one. Mane was clumsily dyed red and from the look of his coat, he hadn’t worked a day of his life, but he was wearing sunglasses and a cloth cap; kind of guy that was trying not to be recognized and had no idea how. See some guys like that in here. Suspect you do, too. He passed over the jacket and the watch and I gave him 400 bits for ‘em. He bought a couple of tins of Trumpeter brand pipe tobacco, an old coat, and a knit cap and left.”
“He say anything to you about where he was going?” Phillip asked.
The clerk thought for a moment. “No…wait. He asked me where he could find someplace to stay for cheap. I recommended Ma Sunbright’s Boarding House over in the Everfree District. Quiet, cheap, and Ma doesn’t ask too many questions.”
“Thank you,” Phillip nodded and exited the pawnshop, the bell over the door ringing to mark his exit. Grumbling against the growing cold that was whistling down the streets, he headed for the motorcycle parked on the curb. He was familiar with Ma Sunbright’s: a common place for the disreputable or creatures who had few other options.
And Joseph Knoll certainly had few options. He buckled his helmet and kicked the bike to life.
“Estamos aquí,” Caballeron declared as he pulled the Jeep up to the old gate with the rusty No Trespassing sign, still secured with the chain and padlock. The Subprioress was waiting for them at the gate. Once again, she unlocked the chain and opened the gate.
“Thank you, Sister,” Caballeron said, pausing to allow the Subprioress to climb into the backseat.
“I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to get your call this morning,” Morning Creek said, smoothing out her cloak as Caballeron drove on.
“You have any more intruders lately?” Daring asked, turning to face the nun.
Morning Creek shook her head. “No, praise the Founders. Just that one. But now, to you. What did you find?”
“We think that the Sisterhood left behind a map,” Daring explained, pulling out the carefully traced copy of the map that she’d made that morning and showing it to her. “Do any of these symbols seem familiar?”
Morning Creek frowned in distaste as she examined the archaic glyphs on the map. “No…wait. We discovered some similar glyphs have been carved into trees in the woods around us.”
“Any idea what they are or what they mean?” Daring asked.
Morning Creek shook her head. “I’ve never seen them before,” she answered, passing the map back. “But I will tell you this, I don’t like this whole business. Whatever the Sisterhood of Deeds was doing here, I have grown to suspect that it was blasphemous work. That idol has been haunting my visions since you found it, and several of my sisters have had unsettling dreams since we uncovered that box.”
Daring frowned as she folded up the map and repocketed it. This ahuizotl thing…weird dreams…what’s the connection, Uncle Ad? Is there even one?
“Well, no scientist can leave a mystery unsolved,” Caballeron declared cheerfully as he parked the Jeep in front of the monastery and climbed out.
Daring Do climbed out as well with the Subprioress, looking around at the other Sisters. Most of the ones that she could see were still at work, hauling out garbage and scrap from the interior, sawing and hammering boards and furniture, bolstering the battered brickwork, or tilling the burgeoning garden. But their work was slow and sluggish, the Sisters’ faces weary from a lack of sleep. As Caballeron extracted a collection of tools and saddlebags from the back of the vehicle, Daring noticed that several of the Sisters gave them wary glances, glancing over at them like they were bearing rifles instead of shovels.
Daring shook her head. Caballeron has a point. I can’t just leave this mystery unanswered, even if it scares them. Not knowing is always worse than knowing.
She pulled on her saddlebags and tightened the straps, then hefted a shovel over her shoulder.
“So how shall we start?” Caballeron asked.
“Well, I copied down the stars’ locations on the copy,” Daring stated, unfolding the map and pulling out her trusty compass, the highly polished brass emblazoned with her cutie mark. “That’ll mark out north. There’s no scale to this map, but…” She studied the map for a moment, then checked the compass. “Looks like the closest one is southwest from here. Let’s head down there; Morning Creek said that there were symbols carved in the trees, so when we find those, we might find another clue.”
“Bien, vamonos,” Caballeron declared, heading off southwest, maneuvering around the gardens and favoring the Sisters working them with a broad smile and a cheery whistle as he proceeded.
Daring Do followed him at a brisk pace, feeling the suspicious eyes of the Sisters on her back the entire time.
“Yeah, he was here,” Ma Sunbright nodded at Phillip’s description. The elderly mare formerly had a sunshine yellow coat and a vivid sky-blue mane, but both had faded with the dust and grays of age. She leaned against the doorway of the two-story verdant boarding house that bore itself proudly despite bearing well over a century’s worth of years; the smell of home cooking and old books wafted from inside the house, an instantly soothing aroma.
“Came in two nights ago looking for a place to stay. Had an odd feeling about him–rich fella from the looks of his coat and the way he walked, even with those old clothes he was wearing and that clumsy dye job–but he offered twice my going fee for a week and I can’t exactly turn that down,” Ma shrugged.
“Where is he now?” Phillip asked.
Ma Sunbright frowned. “That’s the darndest thing,” she groused. “Yesterday afternoon, he was sitting in the sitting room, smoking a pipe and keeping to himself when he jumped up like a snake bit him and ran upstairs.”
“He see something out the window?” Phillip asked.
Ma Sunbright shrugged. “All I saw when I looked out was a gold Neighsoto parked across the street. He came down about half an hour later and used the phone on the wall there; I guess he was calling the train station because I heard him asking for the times of trains and mentioned Fillydelphia. When he was done, he went up to his room. I didn’t see him again for a long while after, so I went up to check on him and he was gone! Just opened up the window, jumped out, and ran for it!” She puffed. “Taught me a lesson about things being too good to be true.”
Phillip frowned. “Can you tell me more about the car?”
Ma Sunbright frowned in thought. “Well…it was a pale gold four-door, I can tell you that much. Now that I think about it, I did see a bit of the driver.” Her mouth twisted as she thought. “Tall unicorn…might have been blue or black. Wearing a gray and blue overcoat and a derby. Didn’t really see his face; he was reading a newspaper. Actually, a little before I went up to check on the fella, I heard a thump from the intersection on Willow and caught a glimpse of the car heading down the street; looked like he’d jumped the curb and sideswiped a lamppost.” She shook her head. “Guess he needed to head off in a big damn hurry.”
Phillip frowned as he pondered this new information. “Did the donkey have anything with him?”
“Far as I could tell, just the clothes, a pipe and some tobacco, and a jingling moneybag,” Ma Sunbright admitted.
“Thank you,” Phillip nodded and proceeded across the street as the boarder closed the door behind him.
He headed left to the intersection of Willow and Sycamore, where only a short lawn separated the boarding house from the street. A skid mark was scored on the sidewalk, the sharp coloring indicating that it was quite fresh. Though only half of the tire was visible, a few seconds was enough for him to identify it as a Neighsoto brand.
A few feet away was a lamppost. Phillip examined this more closely, his eyes quickly marking out a small streak of pale gold paint scarred onto the patina-covered surface. On the ground beneath was a small collection of shattered plastic from a headlight.
Phillip nodded grimly. That should be enough.
Willow heads for the train station, he thought, glancing up. Bloke must have spotted Joseph jumping out the back and heading down the street and followed him. Assuming Joseph didn’t get overtaken at some point…
Internally hoping that Joseph had made it to his destination, Phillip headed back to the Scout, doffing his hat as he jogged.
“Daring, ¡aquí! ¡Mira esto!”
Caballeron’s cry brought Daring hurrying over to him through the woods. “What is it?”
His face alight with delight, Caballeron pointed at a tree. Carved high upon the bark was a familiar symbol: half a circle with two crosses.
“Yup, that’s the symbol,” Daring confirmed with a grin, her wings fluttering with excitement.
“And there’s another one!” Caballeron declared, pointing at another tree with the same symbol etched into the bark.
“They must have carved these close to the ground,” Daring observed. “They had to have anticipated that it would be a long time before anypony came looking…it’s lucky that these trees are still here…”
“What are you waiting for, mi amiga? Come!” Caballeron called from up ahead.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Daring sighed, hefting the weight of the shovel.
She proceeded after Caballeron at a brisk trot through the Whitetail Woods, the cool wind stinging at her face. Around her, birds sang out from the trees and she could hear and catch glimpses of woodland animals scurrying through the branches, roots, and rocks; above the mostly bare branches, the sky was a comforting blue, with fluffy cumulus clouds lazily drifting past. A perfect day for a hike through the woods; Daring found herself smiling as she pulled out the compass and checked her direction, her mind drifting back…
“There it is!” Anna Kaus Yearling chirped, pointing at the picnic basket sitting in the middle of the old checkered blanket, waiting for them to grab it. A pathway of stones led up to the safety of the blanket.
“Well done, my little Daring Do!” Uncle Ad cried as he caught up. “But watch out! The basket is blocked by a river of lava!”
“Lava?” Anna gasped, staring at the green grass before them. “And I still can’t fly because of the Pharoah’s curse!”
“You’ll have to jump across on those stones,” Uncle Ad said, pointing. “Once you’re across, you can find a lever to lower a bridge for me to cross!”
Anna tilted the miniature pith helmet down over her brow. “Right. I can do it!”
“Be careful, Daring!” Uncle Ad called as Anna hopped up onto the first stone. She paused for a moment to adjust for the balance, then hopped to the next platform. One after another, she jumped her way across the hazardous pathway.
The next stone was a particularly small one. Anna crouched down, sticking out her tongue in concentration, then jumped.
She landed hard on her front hooves and overbalanced, nearly toppling into the river of lava masquerading as a patch of grass. “Whoa!” she cried, instinctively flapping her wings to try to recover. Uncle Ad let out a squeak of alarm and covered his eyes with his hooves.
Anna’s face came within inches of the deadly river, so close that she could feel the imaginary heat scalding her face, but she managed to stop herself from falling any farther. Shifting her weight to her front hooves, she went into a brief hoofstand, then slowly lowered herself back down. Both adventurers sighed in relief.
Anna hopped over to the picnic basket. “I made it, Uncle Ad!” she called, pulling a lever made of solid air with a “K-chunk!”
“Great work! I knew you could do it!” Uncle Ad said, trotting safely across the invisible bridge to the blanket. “And now, esteemed archaeologist, we feast! But first…”
He opened up the picnic basket with his aquamarine magic and extracted a small gift-wrapped box, which he passed to his favorite niece. Anna squealed in delight and tore open the packaging, opening up the box.
Inside was a small brass compass, engraved with her cutie mark on the cover.
“Happy birthday, my little hero,” Uncle Ad beamed, tussling Anna’s mane.
Anna glomped Uncle Ad around the middle. “Thank you, Uncle Ad! I’m gonna keep this forever!”
“Daring, look at this.”
Caballeron’s call brought Daring Do back to the present. “What is it?” she called to Caballeron, hustling over to where he stood.
Caballeron pointed to three different trees. “These trees are all carved with the same symbol and they are all facing inwards,” he explained.
Daring looked around at the three trees. Each one did indeed have the half-circle with crosses etched onto their barks.
“There aren’t any other marked trees in sight,” Caballeron observed.
“Hmm,” Daring mused as she took a couple of photographs of the trees with their symbols. “Well, guessing this might be where the idol is buried.”
“Perhaps it is buried in the center of the triangle,” Caballeron suggested.
Daring sighed. “Great. I swore I wouldn’t do any more geometry after high school.”
Caballeron pulled out a long ball of string from his saddlebag and, with Daring’s help, formed a triangle around the three marked trees. Then, after several calculations, measuring angles, and more calculations, they formed three intersecting lines within.
“There it is,” Caballeron declared, eyes shining as he examined the center of the triangle. Seizing a shovel, he started digging enthusiastically, forcing Daring to duck beneath a stream of dirt.
“Slow down, Cabbie!” Daring chided, grabbing her own shovel. “You don’t want to accidentally crush the thing.”
Caballeron gave her a brief scowl but begrudgingly slowed down his enthusiastic excavating. Daring joined him, and they carefully dug an ever-widening hole in the forest floor.
A few minutes of digging later, Daring’s shovel thumped on something hard. “Quick, quick!” Caballeron gasped, falling to his knees and flinging dirt aside with his hooves.
He quickly uncovered a wooden box, also carved with the symbols of the Abominations. With a cry of delight, he pulled it out of the ground and, after briefly fumbling with the latch, he tossed it open.
Inside was another Ahuizotl statuette, smiling that imperious smile up at its discoverers. “There you are,” Caballeron grinned, waiting just long enough for Daring to take a couple of photographs of the hole and the prize within before snatching it out. Both archaeologists noted that the half-circle symbol was formed on the base in silver.
“One down!” Caballeron declared, holding up their trophy so Daring could take more pictures of it.
“Yeah, and two more to…” Daring’s voice trailed off as her ears wiggled. “Dorado…do you hear something?”
Both of them stood still in the woods and listened intently, mouths closed. Their ears picked up the same thing.
Absolute silence. There were no birds singing in the branches, no scurrying forest fauna. Even the wind had gone still, the trees as unmoving as stone.
Daring’s eyes went down to the ahuizotl statue and tried not to imagine that it was grinning maliciously. “Uh, let’s fill the hole back in and go back to the monastery,” she said.
“Idea excelente,” Caballeron nodded nervously, putting the statuette back in the box and closing it before setting it aside. They filled in the hole at breakneck speed, snatched up their prize, and hurried northeast, trying to ignore the stifling silence that surrounded them like the crumbling walls of a cave.
“Oh, I definitely remember him,” the bespectacled stationmaster scowled at the photograph, the spotted burro’s straw-like mane sticking out in bristles beneath his red cap. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my forty years working here, but that’s the first time I’ve seen a passenger who paid a first-class ticket just to jump out of the train and run off as it was pulling out of the station.”
Phillip blinked in mild surprise. “What happened?” he asked.
“He was here yesterday evening: bought a ticket for the nonstop to Fillydelphia and waited on the platform until it pulled in. I saw him climb on: he was one of the first ones on the train. As the train was heading out, I looked down to do some paperwork and then I hear some yelling. I look up and that damned fool was running across the platform! He’d pried open a door, climbed out onto the coupling, and jumped out!” The stationmaster shook his head. “Can’t understand why anyone would call ahead, spend that much money on a ticket, and then change their mind right as the train is pulling out. I’d think that he’d gotten on the wrong train if he hadn’t just charged out the station.”
“Did you see which way he went?” Phillip asked.
The stationmaster shook his head. “Was too busy dealing with the chaos on the platform.” He scoffed. “Damned fool stirred up a lot of panic amongst the passengers; they all thought he was some kind of fugitive.”
Not wrong, Phillip commented to himself.
“And what’s worse: I heard from the conductor of that train later that when that jackass was running off, some other fool got up and tried to run out of the train!” the stationmaster exclaimed. “They had to push him back onto his seat.”
“Was he a blue unicorn with a derby?” Phillip asked.
“I dunno, he didn’t describe him,” the stationmaster shrugged. He paused, frowning. “Now that you mention it, though…I did see a unicorn with a blue coat wearing a gray derby sitting on the platform, too. Had his face buried in a newspaper, but I do remember him buying a ticket to the same train.” He scratched the back of his head. “He…might’ve had green eyes, I think,” he mused. “Didn’t get a good look at his cutie mark. Mainly I just remember that he was chewing dip. Kept spitting on the bench next to him.” He snorted. “Like this place isn’t messy enough as it is.”
“When’s the train back from Fillydelphia due?” Phillip asked.
“It rolled in two hours ago,” the stationmaster replied.
Damn. “Which bench was he sitting at?”
“Um…” the stationmaster looked about, then pointed out a lone bench in the middle of the platform with a patina-coated pillar on one side and an old trash can on the other.
“Thank you,” Phillip nodded, turning and heading towards the indicated bench.
As he approached the bench, he noticed amongst the detritus and stains that marred the wooden surface was a cluster of brown stains, clearly fresh. He briefly dug through the trash can and discovered a two-day-old Ponyville Chronicle, also stained with brown. He extracted the newspaper and compared it to the stains on the bench under a magnifying glass, gently scraping at them with a hoof.
Same color…same texture…Phillip leaned in, closed his eyes, and took a deep sniff. For a moment, the powerful potpourri of scents—a noxious blend of steam, metal, rust, garbage, and body odor—nearly overwhelmed his senses, but he blocked out everything except the wet, heavy, smokey scent of the dip.
Hmm…kind of a rosey scent…hints of apples…smells like Sirius’ Red Delicious. Filing away this clue, Phillip replaced the newspaper in the trash can and exited the train station, ignoring the stares that he was receiving from the few passengers and staff on the platform.
The wanker has to be back by now and back on Joseph’s trail…and I have no idea how to track him from here. Phillip considered the small plastic baggie in his pocket.
Maybe it’s time to call in help.
“You forgot water,” Daring deadpanned as she proceeded through the woods, compass in a wing and the remnants of her daisy and roast beef sandwich in her hoof. “An expedition that might take all day and you forgot to bring water.”
“I had other things on my mind!” Caballeron protested through a mouthful of his own sandwich, following her.
“More important than surviving?” Daring rolled her eyes back at him. “You’re lucky I packed water and lunch for both of us.”
Caballeron grumbled as he finished off his lunch. “Yes, yes, gracias.”
A moment later, his eyes brightened. “Aha! The next marker!” He pointed at an etching of horizontal line bisecting three lightning bolts on a nearby tree.
He rushed on ahead, but Daring paused, staring at the symbol as her hooves fumbled with the camera. Her ears swiveled around and realized that the wind was still whistling through the creaking branches, but the chirping and scurrying of the birds and other fauna were muted, distant. Like the animals were watching closely in nervous anticipation.
She recalled how the forest had gone silent, as though the world was holding its breath, when they uncovered the first effigy, and a chill ran down her spine. The echo of Uncle Ad’s screams as the shadows from the ice tore at him echoed in her ears and Daring Do flinched.
The more I learn, the more questions I have. But…
The cold of the Thrussian taiga bit into her and she took a slow, determined breath. I can’t just sit and not know. If there’s a chance to learn more, I have to try.
“Daring, come! Over here!” Caballeron shouted from up ahead.
“Coming,” Daring called back after taking her photographs, taking flight and gliding in between the great, old trees, more of them marked with the strange symbol. What stories could they tell if they could talk?
Caballeron was already marking the perimeter of a triangle of trees, chartreuse eyes beaming. “Come, help me with the calculations!” he ordered.
A few minutes of measuring and remeasuring and tying string later, their shovels were churning the earth, seeking their buried treasure.
“Ha!” Caballeron cried as his shovel rapped against something hard. He eagerly flung himself down to uncover the chest within.
Daring paused to listen and ice formed in her stomach. Once more, the forest had fallen silent. No chirps or chitters or scurrying or cries. No wind or groaning branches. The silence was as heavy as a lead blanket over her and for a moment, she forgot how to breathe.
Caballeron paused as well, looking around as he uncovered the box. His eyes, once shining with delight, were now dark with confusion and concern.
“What is happening?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Daring swallowed.
Caballeron considered the small box with its blasphemous markings before him as if considering, then scoffed and picked it up. “No scientist should let fear stop them from discovering, ¿sí?”
“Right,” Daring nodded, watching with camera in hoof as Caballeron pulled the box out of the ground.
Still, it was with a hurried pace that they took their pictures, filled the hole back in, retrieved their string, and retreated back towards the monastery.
Whispers in the Whitetail Woods Part Four: The Club
Daring placed the second box with its strange idol in the back of Caballeron’s jeep and slammed the door shut. As Caballeron secured the door, Daring glanced up at the monastery. The nuns that were working at the walls and windows or tilling the gardens all instantly looked away and focused their attention on their tasks, pretending that they hadn’t been apprehensively watching the archaeologists at work.
“Dorado?” she asked quietly.
“¿Sí?” Caballeros asked, locking the back of the Jeep.
“Do you really think we should be doing this?” she asked, almost in disbelief at the words coming out of her mouth.
Caballeron turned, his eyes wide. “How could you say such a thing?” he cried, sounding as though she had made some sort of heretical statement.
“You don’t get a weird feeling from any of this?” Daring asked. “These statues, or how the forest goes silent when we dig them up?”
Caballeron hesitated, his face falling into grave lines and the specter of nervousness flickering in his chartreuse irides, then he shook his head with a sound of frustration. “Daring, we are scientists,” he declared. “It does not fall to us to let superstitions get in the way of discovery! Those days are long past us!” He sighed. “You’re being muy tonto, mi amiga. Why are you scared?”
“I…” Daring looked down at the ground, shame squirming in her gut.
I am being silly, aren’t I? It’s…weird, sure. But the Abominations and the Ahuizotl are just legends. And these are just wooden idols. They can’t hurt anybody…
Except that they could. Once more Uncle Ad’s dying scream echoed in her ears, as loud and sharp as in the frosty cave, and she flinched.
Okay, maybe I’m not being silly…but Caballeron’s right. I can’t let superstition or fear get in the way of understanding. Especially not for something as important as figuring out what happened to you, Uncle Ad. You’d be the same…
“No one’s ever scared for no reason,” Fertile Ground declared as she approached. The kirin focused her scowling eyes upon the jeep, as though she could see through the body and into the boxes within.
Caballeron drew himself up. “Who says that we are scared?”
“We see your faces when you come back with those,” Fertile replied, frowning. “We see your pale faces and the way you handle those accursed boxes. Like there’s an angry live snake in there.” She glanced at the other nuns, who had abandoned any pretense of not spying upon the archaeologists. “And we’re scared, too. I’m sure you ‘scientists’ don’t believe in such things as intuition,” she continued, putting a caustic emphasis on the word. “But we can feel something evil coming from those idols. That’s what you feel.”
Caballeron briefly hesitated, then scoffed. “Your timidity and superstitions are merely influencing us. That’s all it is. Children fear the dark and imaginary monsters but grow out of it soon. This is little different.”
“There are reasons we once feared the dark and the monsters that lurked in them,” Fertile Ground gravely countered. “And not all of them were imaginary.”
“Regardless,” Caballeron waved her off. “We must continue our quest, regardless of whatever you think. Come, Daring Do: let us find the last idol!”
Grabbing his saddlebags, he proceeded west, heading into the woods.
Daring hesitated, glancing back at the other nuns. Their wide eyes met hers, silently pleading for her not to go.
“I told you when you first came here,” Fertile Ground whispered. “Some things are best left hidden.”
Daring glanced down at the map and swallowed, forcing down the fear with the logic that she was merely being foolish for believing in superstitions.
“I need to do this,” she answered firmly.
Fertile Ground sighed deeply and clasped her hooves together. “I still say you’re a fool…but if you must, may Clover grant you her wisdom,” she intoned, performing the sign of harmony.
“Thanks,” Daring said, a small bit of relief flickering within her like the guttering light of a candle.
“Come on, Daring!” Caballeron called.
“I’m coming,” she called back, though it was with a certain reluctance that she lifted her wings and flew after her companions, feeling the eyes of the Sisters boring into her all the way until she vanished into the trees.
As the sun fell towards the eastern horizon, the sky over the groaning branches turned a pale orange, then a gray as clouds began to slowly trawl overhead like massive ships. A chill wind blew down through the trees, prompting Daring to shiver and tighten her jacket about her body.
She glanced down to check her compass, then looked up to reorient herself and spotted the last carving into the tree: a warped four-pointed star.
“There it is!” she declared, pausing to look around. She spotted the next symbol etched onto a tree a few yards away to her left.
With a cry of delight, Caballeron turned about and rushed over, picking up the trail with all the nervous eagerness of a bloodhound trailing an animal. Daring followed after him, the thrill of being on discovery in her veins like a fire that burned away doubt and fear; she even felt an excited grin cross her face, as though Caballeron’s excitement was infectious.
But only a few yards ahead, both archaeologists came to a halt, their excitement deflating like popped balloons.
The Whitetail Woods were cut off abruptly, the trees and root-covered ground ceasing at a line of plowed grass. Within the perimeter of perfectly trimmed grass was a square of rolling hills, with a grand white mansion in the center of the artificial clearing. Only a few trees that had once formed this patch of the woods were remaining, all of them forced into trim symmetry. Flapping flags marked out golf holes and tennis nets swayed in the breeze, though only a few creatures were braving the evening chill, most of them groundskeepers tending to work for the day. A well-paved circular driveway led through a set of iron gates and onto Whitetail Road.
“Shit,” Daring grimaced. “The country club. I forgot…”
Caballeron pondered for a moment, then his gaze went over to the smaller but no less fancy house that sat on the opposite end of the club grounds, its back pressed against the trees. Smoke rose from the ivy-covered chimney and the front gallery windows were glowing with light.
“Look, the owners are home,” he declared. “It is possible that they found the final box when they were making the land for the club three years ago. Come, let us ask them.”
He trotted off determinedly toward his target. Daring started to follow when a rustling behind her caused her to whirl around. Her eyes scanned the shadows of the forest behind her, but she didn’t see anything unusual.
In the back of her mind, she recalled the figure that had been watching the Sisters when this whole adventure started. She squinted into the shadows, scanning every shape for any sign of movement or eyes staring back at her.
“Daring, come on! What are you waiting for?!” Caballeron shouted impatiently.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” Daring called back. Giving the woods a final suspicious glance, she flew over to Caballeron and began to trot alongside him. It took a good five minutes to cross the entire club grounds,
The house was clearly relatively young, despite its desperate attempts to appear rustic with the rough-hewn red bricks and ivy tastefully climbing up the sides. The large gallery-type windows looked into a dining room decorated with antique furniture, where a uniformed blue-gray earth pony with the cutie mark of a stack of crystal glasses was currently laying out cutlery for dinner.
Daring Do looked at the gold plate secured to the wall next to the front door and paused. The nameplate declared Knoll.
Knoll…as in Joseph Knoll, the kid who ran away. Might be a coincidence. Might not be. Careful, Daring.
Caballeron rang the doorbell, which prompted a tingling of bells deep within the house. The butler in the window looked up and proceeded to the door, opening it up slightly to greet them.
“Good evening. How may I assist you?” the pale blue stallion asked, eyeing them suspiciously.
“Buenas noches. I am Doctor Dorado Caballeron and this is Professor Daring Do of the Golden Oaks University’s Archaeology Department,” Caballeron greeted him. “We would like to speak to the Knolls, please.”
The butler blinked in momentary surprise, then nodded. “I see. Please wait here a moment, I will speak to the masters.”
He gently closed the door in their faces, leaving them out in the cold.
“This land was heavily tilled,” Caballeron gestured about at the club grounds. “Perhaps they uncovered the last sculpture by accident.”
“It would’ve been three years ago, at least,” Daring replied, stamping her hooves to try to ward off the cold. “I’m not sure they would even remember it.”
A rushing sound overhead made both ponies look up into the darkening sky. “What was that?” Daring asked, scanning the overcast background for any silhouettes. She found herself thinking of her .38 back home, secured in her gun locker. Her hoof went to the bullwhip at her side and she found some comfort in having at least one weapon at hoof.
“Probably just a bird or something,” Caballeron waved it off. “Ay, por joder, relax, Daring. What’s gotten into you?”
Before Daring could explain, the door reopened and the butler bowed them inside. “Mister and Missus Knoll will see you in the drawing room. Please follow me.”
Caballeron and Daring Do entered the glittering hallway, the hardwood floor polished to a sheen and the walls lined with a photograph of two young donkeys standing in front of a building marked Knoll’s Landscaping. Daring and Caballeron both shed their coats and hung them up on the baroque walnut coat rack standing next to the wall.
“May I take your hat, madam?” the butler asked Daring.
“No, thank you,” Daring replied, though she did show enough obeisance to manners to at least doff the pith helmet and tuck it under a wing.
“This way, please,” the butler gestured them down the hall.
The duo proceeded behind their guide down the cavernous hallway with its glittering lights and portraits on the walls. After turning a corner, the butler opened up a set of double doors.
“Professors Daring Do and Dorado Caballeron,” he announced, bowing his guests into a grandiose room. White and yellow walls reflected the light from the chandelier overhead. A fire crackled merrily in the marble fireplace; shelves lined the walls, holding books, various knick-knacks and trophies, and framed photographs. Daring’s eyes went to a larger picture, showing the two older donkeys standing with a young burro in bright blue graduation robes beaming between them, his diploma displayed proudly in his hooves.
She also noticed a conspicuous empty space on a shelf in between a photograph and a snowglobe from Whinnyland. A space, she noticed, that had a dark circle where something had stood for a long time there. A circle that was the same size as the ahuizotl statuettes.
Daring’s heart sped up in her chest as her gaze turned to her hosts sitting on the sofa before them. Jeremiah Knoll was balding, with merely a layer of stringy gray hair like desiccated weeds in a dusty plain, but his brown eyes were keen and his shoulders were still broad and solid as a rock, covered by a pale scarlet dinner jacket. Leah Knoll wore her gray mane in a trim wave. Her pale blue eyes were wide behind her glasses and she wore a dark purple dress with a gold brooch around her neck.
“Professors,” she greeted their guests, beckoning them to the opposite couch.
Daring sat down opposite them stiffly, her heart thudding in her chest and glancing at the patio doors behind them that opened into a back deck and the forest beyond.
“Señor y Señora Knoll,” Caballeron bowed courteously before seating himself next to Daring. “Many thanks for your hospitality. We are here to ask you about something that we believe may have been buried on these grounds.”
The donkeys both raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
“We are following a trail of artifacts that were buried in these very woods many centuries ago by the inhabitants of the Whitetail Monastery,” Caballeron continued, leaning forward with a smile as though telling a tale around the campfire. “A box containing a wooden statuette. We think the last one may have been buried on the grounds of your country club.”
“What makes you think that it’s here?” Leah asked calmly.
“The locations of the boxes are marked by specially marked trees,” Caballeron explained. “The trees for the last box lead onto this property but are then cut off. I believe that you may have cut down the trees without noticing the carvings or realizing their significance, which I can understand.”
“I see,” Jeremiah Knoll nodded slowly, his eyebrows knitting slightly. “And this…statuette. It is valuable to you?”
“Incredibly!” Caballeron cried. “This statuette may be the key to solving an ancient mystery! If there is any chance that it is here, I…er, we must follow up on it!”
The Knolls both exchanged a look. “I see,” Jeremiah said slowly, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“Well, we’d be…certainly glad to help you,” Leah added, rubbing her foreleg with a hoof. “But unfortunately, we do not recall finding anything of that nature on these grounds.”
“Please, I implore you to think,” Caballeron pressed, leaning forward. “When you cut down those trees, perhaps you found some that had a symbol carved on them? I understand it was years ago, but–”
Daring’s eyes involuntarily went once more to the empty space on the shelf, imagining the Ahuizotl idol sat on the shelf, conspicuously perched between the souvenir snowglobe and the innocent photograph of the country club under construction, staring out at guests, perhaps prompting some idle comments of curiosity that masked a chill.
Leah’s eyes darted to Daring like a hawk that had spotted a flicker of movement in the grass. Her eyes narrowed, suspicion and a bit of fear flickering in the pale blue.
“Uh, Professor Caballeron,” Daring said, rising and grasping her colleague’s arm, interrupting his entreaty. “I think this is a dry lead. We should stop bothering our hosts.”
“But–what?” Caballeron protested as Daring hauled him to his hooves. “What are you doing?!” He wrenched his foreleg from her grasp. “What’s gotten into you, Daring Do? You’re jumping at shadows and–”
A click interrupted him. Both ponies turned to find themselves staring down the barrel of a .45 Colt.
“I’m afraid that I must insist that you stay,” the butler said coolly, the pistol secured to his unwavering foreleg.
“S-Steady?!” Jeremiah Knoll cried in alarm. “Wh-what is this?!”
“They know, Jeremiah,” a dark brown pegasus declared, tugging a balaclava from his head as he entered from the opposite side of the room. The pegasus wore a camouflage jacket, brown and green and black splotches coating his body. He scowled at Daring, drawing his own pistol from a holster and aiming it at her. “Been following these two around; they visited the Monastery and found the other two idols.”
Daring glared back at him, recalling the whooshing sound from overhead as they’d been standing out in front of the mansion. “You were the one watching the monastery, weren’t you?” Daring hissed. “You dropped your bag.”
The pegasus’ eyes briefly widened in panic and he glanced at the butler, who scowled back at him. “You dropped a bag of Revelation?” the butler snarled.
“It was an accident!” the pegasus protested. “I-I-I didn’t…they couldn’t know–”
Caballeron recognized his chance and lunged at the butler, tackling him to the floor. “Run, Daring!” he shouted, seizing the butler’s gun arm and swinging at his face.
Daring drew her whip in one smooth movement and cracked it out, striking the pegasus in the face. He yowled in pain and his pistol clattered to the ground as he clutched his bloodied face.
“Get off!” the butler snapped, striking Caballeron in the throat. The sound of her colleague gagging and retching as he fell off his opponent bid Daring to turn around, instinctively taking to the air with a single flap of her wings.
The .45 came up at her. Daring banked with an adjustment of her wing, sliding her hooves down the coarse cord of the whip; the weighted handle hummed deeply as she swung it in preparation to strike–
A flash of light and a clap of thunder. A hot iron poker pierced Daring’s right wing. She screamed, dropping the whip as her wing failed her, sending her crashing to the floor, clumsily tumbling over the coffee table.
“Stop her!” the butler snapped, lifting his pistol to avoid hitting his employers. The pegasus snarled through the blood smeared across his face as he reached for his gun. The Knolls were sitting stock still on the couch, seemingly overwhelmed by the violence.
Gasping as the pain from the gunshot wound flooded her body, Daring glanced over at Caballeron, who was still lying on the floor clutching his throat. He met her gaze, his panicked gaze urging her to run.
Move, move, move! Gritting her teeth against the pain, Daring leaped over the sofa where the Knolls were cowering in shock. A quick jab to the pegasus’ nose caused him to reel away once more, giving her room to charge through the back hallway.
A patio doorway provided a way out. Daring seized the handle and yanked the door open with a crash, stumbling out onto the back deck. Blood marked out her path as she sprinted for the woods, panting heavily. A bout of dizziness struck her and she stumbled, swallowing back nausea.
Don’t go into shock. Don’t go into shock. Get to the trees...just get to the trees…
“Get back here!” a nasal voice bellowed behind her.
Daring heard another whooshing of wings behind her. She forced herself onwards even as the world turned blurry before her eyes. She broke through the treeline, leaves crunching beneath her hooves. Maybe if she could lose him in the shadows and trees–
Wind rushed at her back and she knew she had a second before he pounced on her.
Leave a mark. Something to prove that you were here.
Daring shook her uninjured wing and a couple of loose golden feathers fell from the limb. With a scuff of a hoof, Daring pushed the feathers beneath a bush, where her assailant wouldn’t notice them, but someone else might see them.
Hopefully.
No sooner had she done this than a sledgehammer crashed down onto her back, driving her to the ground and pressing the air from her lungs with a wheeze; fresh pain flared across her chest as her ribs took the blow.
Turning, she saw the pegasus grinning down at her through his bloodied face, backlit against the darkening indigo sky. He raised a hoof and brought it down hard. Daring Do’s head exploded with pain, stars dancing before her eyes.
And then everything went black.
Whispers in the Whitetail Woods Part Five: Compunction
Cold Case stared at the baggie of the strange drug as Phillip finished his story, thoughtfully rolling the meerschaum pipe held beneath her teeth from one side of her mouth to the other.
“This is all very helpful,” she finally declared, looking up at Phil from across the table with her one visible eye. “Though I wish you’d brought this to me sooner.”
“You know about this drug,” Phillip deduced.
“We’ve been looking into this drug for the past few months,” Cold Case explained, taking the unlit pipe from her mouth and tapping out the nonexistent ashes into the ashtray on her desk. She stood up and walked over to a map of Equestria and related territories that had been crammed into an empty space on the wall. Blue string linked dots on the map, with photographs and shipping manifests and crime scene reports tacked up in between them, many of them overlapping each other. Pinned to the top of the map was a sheet of paper with REVELATION scrawled on it. The other agents in the office–Flash Sentry, Prowl, Bumblebee, and Tealove–all paused in their work and looked up to follow their progress.
"Revelation, as it's known on the street, is a potent hallucinogenic that's been creeping into the drug market across Equestria," Cold explained. "It's highly addictive, which means that the gangs who sell it make quite a bit off of it. The problem is, it's also unpredictable. Some takers have no effect. Some go insane and wind up in a padded cell. And some die gruesomely." She tapped a photograph of the corpse of a young stallion spread out on a table. Phillip winced at the picture; the victim was grotesquely frozen in rigor mortis, hooves held up as though fending off an unseen assailant, hind knees drawn up close to his chest. His face was frozen in a grimace of terror, bloodstained teeth exposed for all to see.
"Bit off his tongue and choked on it, poor bastard," Cold said. "But there's a common thread; some of the victims have similar visions. They talk about a sleeping monster in a temple somewhere, one that gifts them knowledge and visions." She gave Phillip a meaningful glance. "A giant, dog-like beast with another paw on its tail. Sound familiar?"
The memory of a terrible statue illuminated by his flashlight beam danced before Phillip's eyes and his stomach twisted in instinctual revulsion. "Yes."
"And that's not even the oddest part," Cold continued. "Some of the users seem to be able to see the future."
Phillip raised an eyebrow. "Dinky di?"
"Yes," Cold nodded. "Agent Sentry. Tell him about the fire."
"Ma'am," Flash said, standing up. "I noticed this detail while reviewing testimony from some of the users. One user from Fillydelphia was taken in by the local police after he caused a disturbance at a hydroelectric dam over the Delamare River, saying that there was going to be a fire and they all needed to get out. He kept saying that there'd be a fire and 'the blonde earth pony' would die if she didn't leave.
"The next day, there actually was a fire at the dam," Flash continued. "And the only victim was a blonde earth pony who was trapped in a room with the fire."
Phillip's eyebrows lowered. "Cause of fire?"
"The Fillydelphia Police and Fire Department turned the dam upside down, but there was no evidence that it was anything but an accident: an electrical fault," Flash explained. "They questioned the Revelation user for hours, but all he said was the Beast showed him that the fire would happen and he needed to see it again to learn more."
Cold tapped a photograph of a dam pinned to the map, connected to a line tracing it to Fillydelphia. "Agent Sentry reviewed other testimony and discovered that at least five other users of Revelation claimed to have visions of future incidents: a train crash in Appleloosa, a mayor's aide dying of a heart attack in Canterlot. And he further found that many of these individuals, the ones that had had these more specific visions of the...Beast, as they called it, had another connection."
Phillip's eyes went to the top of the bulletin board, to the symbol pinned to the top. A pyramid topped with an eye, flanked by two sphinxes.
"All of them had visited a local lodge or been contacted by members either right before or soon after they started using Revelation," Flash said.
"Ripper job, Flash," Phillip nodded, causing Flash to puff up, faintly glowing with pride.
"Deflate your head before you float away, Agent Sentry," Cold stated.
"Sorry, ma'am," Flash cleared his throat, shrinking back down and shooting a glare at a snickering Bumblebee.
“And that’s when the cases got kicked down to us,” Prowl commented. “As far as most ponies are concerned, it’s just a new designer drug that’s in the hooves of some pretty dangerous gangs. What most ponies are baffled by is how it even works: by all accounts, it shouldn’t, and there’s no explaining where the magic came from.”
"And half the problem is, they keep changing the bloody formula," Tealove added. "It's like whoever's making it is experimenting with it, trying to get the best formula."
“And your take?” Phillip asked.
“The method is irrelevant,” Cold Case replied. “What matters is that there is a dangerous drug making its way through Equestria. And the Knolls are connected to it.”
She stuck her pipe back into her mouth. “Agents Prowl, Bumblebee, and Sentry. Go with Phillip to the Knoll’s estate and have a look around. Talk to the Knolls themselves and ask them about Joseph.”
“Already on it, ma’am!” Flash Sentry declared, zipping up what could have passed as a casual black vest if one ignored the golden phoenix badge on the breast and the thin layer of dragonscale armor expertly sewn beneath the cloth. He secured a vambrace of thin metal to his left foreleg.
“What about Tea?” Bumblebee asked as his body was briefly surrounded by a green flame. When it cleared, the changeling had been replaced with a slightly chubby yellow earth pony with a slicked yellow and black mane.
“Don’t worry ‘bout me, love,” Tealove waved him off. “I’ve still got some paperwork to finish up ‘ere.”
Bumblebee and Prowl both donned their own vests and secured holsters to their sides before covering them up with coats. Flash was already waiting at the door, fidgeting anxiously like a dog that was eagerly waiting for its master to take them for a walk.
“Relax, Sentry,” Prowl chided him gently. “You don’t get points for being the first out the door.”
Phillip followed his escorts back up the stairs and out the doors of the RBI field office. The security officers at the front door shot a few derisive snickers at their backs; one of them sniggered to his coworkers, “Hey, look, they forgot their tinfoil hats.”
Rolling his eyes, Phillip exited out into the chill evening, shivering and lowering his head against the cold wind. Why the bloody hell is snow a thing? Should make that my next case, he pondered to himself, looking up at the last vestiges of crimson that were painting the western sky as the sun slowly sank beneath the horizon.
As he headed to his motorcycle, something crossed his mind, something that he should have remembered long ago. The Knolls' country club was in the Whitetail Woods.
Not far from the Whitetail Monastery where Daring was working.
He hopped onto his bike and kicked it to life with a sudden sense of urgency and pulled out of the lot well ahead of his companions, pushing the speed limits as he headed to the northeastern borders of Ponyville.
A hot iron rod pierced Daring’s side and she jolted awake, her scream of pain muffled by the dirty rag that had been forced into her mouth. She writhed away from the pain across the rough stone floor, squirming in the ropes that had been secured tightly around her body and wings.
“Keep still,” Leah Knoll urged, placing a hoof on Daring’s shoulder. With her other hoof, she continued tightening a set of makeshift bandages around Daring’s wing, binding her gunshot wound.
Daring glared up at her, but fatigue from her wound and blood loss was setting in and she lay back down on her side, taking deep breaths. She looked about the room.
The basement was dimly lit by only a single bulb overhead. Most of the room was taken up by boxes and other bric-a-brac that had been placed down here for storage: along one wall was a dusty wine rack with vintage bottles resting atop them.
Caballeron was lying on the floor a few feet away from them, similarly bound and gagged, green eyes blazing with fury as he glared up at the Knolls. The donkey couple were milling over them uncertainly, shooting glances at one another.
“Good, she’s awake,” a nasal voice declared. The brown pegasus reemerged and glared down at Daring Do; his face had been hastily stitched up and balls of cotton were pressed into his nostrils. He growled, then drew back his foreleg, which still had his pistol strapped to it.
Daring had just enough time to brace before the kick landed against her gut, sending fresh pain through her body. She curled up into a ball, grimacing as more kicks rained down upon her body, each blow making her stomach turn and her head spin. Caballeron started struggling furiously, targeting her assailant with a flurry of muffled curses.
"That's for breaking my nose, you bitch!" the pegasus snapped, then gave her another kick. "And that's for meddling in things that aren't your business!"
He stalked away with a frustrated huff. Daring uncurled herself, taking deep breaths to try to force down the pain and nausea.
The butler descended the stairs. "I've cleaned up and no one appears to have heard anything," he reported. He scowled at Daring and Caballeron as though they were a particularly stubborn stain on the ground. "What should we do with them?"
"Was hoping that you'd know," the pegasus grunted. "It might've been better if you'd just let them go."
"And it might've been better, Breeze Runner, if you hadn't dropped a bag of Revelation and made them suspicious in the first place," Steady Hooves scowled.
"They were going to find the other idols anyway," Breeze Runner snapped back. "That part isn't my fault!"
“Honestly, it’s probably for the best that they found them,” Steady stated, pacing in a small circle. “We weren’t getting anywhere with just the one idol and watching the Monastery…especially not after you let your son scarper with it,” he added bitterly to Joseph.
“Now, look here, Steady Hooves!” Joseph Knoll protested, standing up straighter. “We took you in out of the goodness of our hearts and you abuse us like–”
“Oh, stuff it, you old, shallow jackass!” Steady Hooves barked. Joseph Knoll’s expression of outrage flickered as he quailed beneath his own butler’s anger.
“You barely even knew what that idol truly was–you dug it up by accident building this club and thought it was just a fun trinket to put on your wall! Have our sessions shown you nothing about what you were facing?! The majesty at the tips of your hooves?!"
Joseph Knoll backed away, his courage failing him entirely. Leah walked up and laid a hoof on her butler’s shoulder, giving him an imploring look. Steady Hooves glared at her for a moment, then sighed.
“Right,” Steady said in a calmer tone. “They have three of the idols, which means they knew where to find two, which presumably means that they know what they’re for.” He leaned down to face Caballeron. “You could just make this easier for all of us and tell us about it, you know,” he mused.
“¡Chupela!” Caballeron snarled through his gag.
Steady Hooves cocked his head to one side, then turned and looked at Daring. “You know, you seem to care por tu novia an awful lot,” he mused. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want her to get hurt. ¿Comprende, amigo?”
Caballeron’s eyes flicked to Daring Do, concern fighting with the defiance on his face. Daring shook her head firmly. There wouldn’t be any point: now that they’d seen these goons’ faces and knew their names, there was little chance they were going to let them live.
From far up above, the doorbell rang out, prompting everypony to look up. “Who would that be?” Leah asked aloud.
“At this hour? Probably the police,” Jeremiah answered nervously. “Someone might have heard that gunshot.” He gave Steady Hooves a brief glower.
“I’ll deal with them,” the butler replied. He took a moment to adjust his suit and brush himself off, then hustled up the steps, disappearing from view.
“What do you smell?” Phillip Finder asked Bumblebee as they stood at the door of the Knoll’s mansion.
Bumblebee, still in his guise as a normal earth pony, leaned his head back slightly and sniffed the air. “Lots of mixed emotions,” he said quietly. “Lots of anger and fear, though…” He sniffed, then shuddered. “Something bad’s going on here.”
“Eyes and ears, boys,” Prowl said from behind the group, her ears flicking back and forth as she scanned the growing shadows of the grounds. Flash Sentry shifted nervously beside her, just behind Phillip.
Hoofsteps sounded from within the mansion and the door squeaked open, allowing a uniformed butler to poke his head out. “Good evening. May I help you?” he asked, his face creasing into a well-crafted professional moue as he cast his critical eye over the four.
“Hi,” Bumblebee smiled at him. “Special Agent Bumblebee with the RBI. These are my colleagues, Prowl, Sentry, and Finder. We had some questions for Mister and Missus Knoll.”
The butler sniffed in distaste. “Mister and Missus Knoll are unavailable at this time,” he declared. “And they certainly would not speak to law enforcement without the presence of their attorney. Good night.”
The butler started to close the door again when Prowl stepped forward and blocked the door with a foreleg. “We heard a report that there was a gunshot here,” she stated.
The butler glared back at her. “There are no firearms in this household, Agent,” he said coldly. “What that caller may have heard was a large piece of furniture that fell over. If you’ll excuse me.” He closed the door with some force.
“What now?” Flash asked as they retreated from the door.
“Look around,” Phillip said. “Wanker’s lying.”
“Darn right: I could smell the lie coming off him,” Bumblebee frowned.
“Butler also had residue on his cuff. Using a gun with a bad seal,” Phillip added, leading the way around the building.
“Oh. Didn’t see that,” Flash admitted as they followed him.
“You saw. Didn’t observe,” Phillip chided him. “Need more practice.”
They reached the backyard of the mansion, a stretch of well-tended grass leading up to the ranks of the forest. Phillip and Prowl both took out flashlights, switched them onto a low setting, and began to sweep the area.
“Look,” Bumblebee said, pointing. “The handle on the back door has been broken recently.”
“Guys,” Prowl hissed, crouching down to the ground. Her flashlight illuminated a trail of dark red splotches marring the grass.
“Blood,” she reported, gently touching the thumb of her wing to the stain. It came away damp. “Fresh.”
Phillip backtracked the trail of blood into the edge of the woods, leaves crunching beneath his hooves as he scanned the area with his flashlight; his breath came in sharp, rapid hisses, every exhalation condensing before his face.
Flattened and crushed twigs and leaves before his face told him the story of a struggle. The teardrop-shaped red streaks painted on the leaves and grass informed him that the loser had been dragged back toward the house.
Something gold caught his eye. He crouched down and pushed aside a bush. His flashlight revealed two golden pegasus feathers, stained with red.
Phillip’s stomach clenched and a thunderous growl rumbled in his throat. He turned back towards the house, drawing his pistol from his pistol as he crunched forward.
“Hold up, Finder,” Prowl snapped, blocking his path. “We do this by the numbers.” She raised a hoof to her ear. “Prowl to Central. Blood and signs of a struggle at Twenty-Seven Knoll Street. Entering building.” She and the other agents all drew their sidearms. “Sentry, take point.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Flash Sentry nodded, taking a deep breath and raising his left foreleg with the vambrace. “Paratus,” he declared.
With a sharp clicking, a black square metal shield unfurled from the vambrace. The thick metal was inscribed with magical wards, the intricate designs flickering faintly with stored power. RBI was painted across the shield in stark white.
Raising the shield before him, Flash Sentry proceeded to the back door, the other agents behind him. He took up position at the door, gun raised as the other three stacked up on the wall to the right, Phillip at the back.
Flash and Prowl nodded to each other, then Prowl reached out and tested the fractured door, finding it to be unlocked. She pulled it open, eliciting a squeak of protest. Flash swept to the left to check the hallway. “Clear,” he declared and entered, with the others tiphoofing up behind him.
“Blood on the threshold leads that way,” Phillip said, pointing ahead.
Bumblebee sniffed the air again. “I smell a lot of fear and anger from below,” he whispered.
Prowl opened up her mouth and exhaled noiselessly, her ears wiggling. “There’s a set of stairs down the hall. Two doors down on the right.”
They proceeded ahead, with Flash and Prowl quickly and quietly sweeping the two rooms that they passed, a dining room and a sitting room.
Phillip lingered in the living room for a moment, his eyes scanning the area instinctively. The scent of fresh cleaner stung his nostrils and he spotted damp patches on the carpet and on the rumpled couch. Looking over to the trophy wall, he noticed the conspicuous blank space on the shelf, with the faint circular space.
A piece of the puzzle suddenly fell into place and he growled again as he followed the agents.
Prowl signaled a halt at the top of the basement stairs. “Voices from down there,” she reported, her ears pointed down the wide steps to where a wooden door was waiting.
The voices did indeed become louder as they slowly and cautiously descended the steps and stacked up at the door once again. Prowl pressed her ear against the door, listening intently.
“Six ponies,” she whispered. “Two on the floor…hostages. Two ponies with guns standing over them: one at 11, one at 2. Two other ponies, unarmed, farther back.”
“–should just get rid of them,” one voice was saying from within. “Take ‘em out to the reservoir–”
“Is…is that really necessary?” a tremulous voice asked, barely audible. “There’s no reason to–”
“No reason, Jeremiah?” the butler’s voice snapped back. “They’ve seen our faces! They know what we’ve done! There’s no room for soft-heartedness here. In fact, maybe I should show–”
“Shit,” Prowl hissed, trying the handle and finding that it was locked. “Sentry, the door!”
“I’m behind,” Phillip declared as Flash approached the door and pressed the shield against it.
“Ruptura!” Flash shouted.
The shield let out a hum, a high note that was held for a few heartbeats, and then the door shattered with a thunderclap, flying apart into harmless debris as Phillip and the agents burst into the room.
Time slowed for Phillip, his hoof already traveling back towards his back pocket. Daring Do and Caballeron lay on the floor, bound and gagged. A brown pegasus stood over Daring, his pistol still aimed at her, turning towards the door with an expression of shock. The butler was whirling about, moving his gun from Caballeron to the intruders. Behind them all, a pair of donkeys in rich clothing were diving for cover behind the furniture.
“Lumen!” Flash shouted.
The sun suddenly rose within the basement, a blaring white light blazing from one of the wards on the shield. The two gunponies roared in agony and reeled back, clutching their eyes.
Phillip’s hoof seized the boomerang and drew it out in an instinctual movement that he’d practiced a thousand times. A snap of his hoof sent the weapon spinning through the air with a whistling, still seemingly moving in slow motion to his eyes.
The boomerang struck the brown pegasus on the foreleg, knocking the gun away from Daring and the agents. As soon as the weapon was away, Daring drew her bound hind legs up and kicked her assailant in the chest, sending him flying back with an “Urf!”
The boomerang continued its arc around and made for the butler…and missed as, by some twist of fortune or some dark instinct, the unicorn ducked. His squinting, hate-filled eyes focused on the nearest target and the gun slowly came up, hoof already pressing down on the trigger. Phillip crouched down, hind legs ready to spring at his target.
Two deafening explosions echoed through the basement.
The butler stumbled back, slumping against the wall, his expression going from fury to mild shock in a moment. “Oh, damn,” he mumbled and slid to the floor, painting the stone bright red. His final breath rattled out of him as he fell.
Phillip was frozen for a moment, then looked around, time starting to reassert its normal flow. Flash Sentry was standing next to him, shield still held up, smoke rising from the barrel of his .44 Colt; his eyes were wide and his trembling body heaved with every breath.
Bumblebee was cuffing the brown pegasus, who was coughing and wheezing on the ground. Prowl was approaching the back of the basement. “You two! Come out with your hooves in plain sight!”
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” the jenny cried as the couple stumbled out from behind their cover and sat down, forelegs raised.
Giving the body of the butler a brief glance, Phillip bent down and cut the struggling Caballeron free, tugging his gag out of his mouth.
“I’m fine! Help her!” Caballeron snapped.
Phillip cut Daring Do loose, his eyes taking over the crude bandages on her wing and the bruises and cuts over her body. “Flash. Get an ambulance,” he ordered.
“R-right,” Flash stammered, folding his shield back up and holstering his pistol. “S-Sentry to Central. Need an ambulance and backup at my location. Two wounded, three suspects in custody, one suspect down…”
Daring gave Phillip a weary but genuine smile as he pulled her gag off. “So what’s a PI like you doing in a basement like this?” she asked as he started to redo the bandages around her wing.
“Feel like it’s a story as long as yours,” Phillip replied, a strange relief rushing through his body at her words.
Whispers in the Whitetail Woods Part Six: Revelations in the Woods
“She’ll be fine,” the unicorn doctor explained as he finished setting a cast around Daring’s right wing. “The bullet went through the wing bone, but it didn’t damage any major blood vessels or nerves. She’ll need some x-rays over the next few weeks to make sure the bone’s healing properly, but once it knits, she’ll be back to flying in no time.”
“Bloody good to hear that, doctor,” Phillip nodded from the front of the hospital room.
“Yes, glad to hear it,” Cold Case added next to him, her lone eye appraising Daring neutrally. “Things like this happen often to you, Professor Do?”
“Not as often as some of my students think,” Daring nodded through a pained smile, raising her foreleg. A plastic tube ran into her arm, allowing a gentle flow of fresh blood into her veins. “Ow!” she gasped as a shot of pain went through her wing.
“Sorry,” the doctor apologized as he applied the last of the plaster. “Once your transfusion is done and you get your blood sugar back up, you should be free to go.”
“How’s Cabbie?” Daring asked.
“Doctors have him hooked up to an oxygen mask and they want him to stay overnight to make sure there’s no bleeding in his throat,” Phillip reported. “He was asking about you.”
Daring smiled. “Good to know.”
“Doctor, if you’re finished here,” Cold Case stated.
“I am,” the doctor announced, removing the intravenous tube from Daring’s arm and cleaning and bandaging the wound. “Now stay off that wing until it fully heals, all right?”
“Yes, doc,” Daring grumbled, frowning at the injured limb.
The doctor excused himself and disappeared from the room.
“Now, please go over the whole story from the beginning,” Cold Case stated, levitating a notepad and pen out of her saddlebag.
Daring lay back on the bed and paused to take a long drink of water; the painkillers that the doctors had fed her were making her head spin slightly, like a pinwheel in a gentle breeze. “Everything started with that box in the Whitetail Monastery…”
For the next half hour, she went over her and Caballeron’s investigation, with Phillip and Cold occasionally interjecting with a comment or question. She recounted their discovery of the idol within the box, the spying pony and her meeting with Phillip (though both ponies declined to mention her stealing a sample of the strange drug), the trek through the woods and discovery of the other boxes and idols, finding that the last one was on the Knoll country club, speaking to the Knolls, the butler’s betrayal and attack, and the conversation her captors had carried on.
“Your turn. How’d you get in there?” Daring asked.
Phillip and Cold Case exchanged glances. “Might as well,” Phillip shrugged. Cold frowned but said nothing to stop him.
He narrated for Daring what he had uncovered during his investigation into Joseph Knoll’s disappearance and how he and Cold had decided to investigate the Knolls.
“Lucky you got there in time,” Daring commented with a small smile.
“Where are the other statues now?” Cold Case asked.
“Still locked in Cabbie’s Jeep, I hope,” Daring commented with a frown.
“You should secure those as soon as possible,” Cold Case answered.
“Right,” Daring said, rising from the bed. “We need to find Joseph and get the last idol before–”
“We?” Cold Case cut in. “All due respect, Professor, you’re injured and can’t fly. And it doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re a civilian. You’re not coming on this.”
“What about Phil?” Daring protested.
“He’s not coming, either.” Cold Case cut her off. “You don’t have a badge anymore, Finder, and this is beyond the scope of a private detective. Once we interrogate the Knolls, we will be following up on that lead. Thank you both for your help, but we’ll take it from here.”
She nodded to both ponies, then turned and exited.
Once the sound of her hoofsteps had faded into the distance, Daring turned to Phillip. He looked back at her neutrally, then the corner of his mouth lifted up slightly.
“We’re going after them, aren’t we?” Daring grinned.
“Bloody oath,” Phillip nodded. “You good to move?”
Daring pulled herself out of bed, all dizziness instantly evaporating as she snatched her coat and pith helmet from where they’d been left on the nearby table. “Let’s go,” she declared to her companion, leading the way out.
Flash stared at the ugly black shape on the desk in front of him. The two cracks echoed in his ears; the stench of cordite and the coppery taste of blood clung to him like a disease. He closed his eyes and watched Steady Hooves slump against the wall once more, studied in dread fascination the way the light left his eyes. He shuddered in revulsion, a wave of nausea rising up his throat. Swallowing it back was like trying to stop a rushing river with a single log.
“I shouldn’t have shot him,” he gulped down, bile burning his throat.
“I know you feel bad,” Prowl asked, approaching with a cup of coffee. “But it was a clean kill. He had a gun and was aiming it at us. You did what you were trained to do, both as a soldier and as an Agent: eliminate the threat before someone got hurt. You did…” She paused, observing the look that the junior agent was giving her. “Well, you didn’t do a good thing, not really. But you did your job and the good guys got out alive.”
Flash just managed a small sigh. Prowl sat down across from him. “That your first kill, Sentry?”
Flash swallowed and nodded, gratefully taking the cup. The coffee inside was hot and acrid, scalding at his tongue and washing away the taste of bile. “I never even fired my gun at another creature before,” he mused.
“First time’s never easy, Sentry,” Prowl said, sitting down across from him. “But the fact that it bothers you is a good sign. It means you have empathy. Don’t you ever lose that, Agent.”
“Y-yes, ma’am,” Flash nodded. He stared into the steaming, tarry liquid in the cup.
“Does…does it get easier?” he asked quietly, the crushing desire for knowledge outweighing the nausea of reluctance.
Prowl took in a deep breath and let it out through her nostrils. “It shouldn’t,” she answered grimly. “It does, sometimes. But it shouldn’t.”
Tealove appeared, holding a tray with a steaming pot of tea and three cups held in her magic. “Oi, loves, I’m about to have a chat with the mister and missus,” she declared. “You wanna take a butcher’s, see what this is about?”
“Alright,” Prowl said, rising. Flash joined her and followed the mares down the hallway to a wide window. Tealove was looking through the window, still holding the tray; Bumblebee was next to her, taking in slow, deep breaths through his nostrils.
On the other side of the one-way mirror, Jeremiah and Leah Knoll sat side by side at a blank table in a blank room beneath the cold, harsh fluorescent light. Their cuffed hooves rested on the table; Jeremiah was holding his wife’s hoof, but neither of them seemed quite able to meet each others’ eye. Flash was quick to note that the two of them were pale and trembling; Leah in particular looked like she was trying not to be ill.
“Where’s the other one? Breeze Runner?” Flash asked.
“In a holding cell,” Bumblebee replied, keeping his focus on the two suspects in the interrogation room. “Going by his scent, he’s going to be a hard one. These two would be easier to question.”
“So,” Flash said. “How are we doing this? Tealove’s the good cop, Prowl’s the bad cop?”
“There’s more than one way to get to a pony’s head, cheeky,” Tealove smiled. “Bumblebee, you ready?”
Bumblebee transformed back into his pony form in a swirl of flames. “Ready,” he nodded.
Tealove unlocked and opened the door to the interrogation room, entering with a charming smile like she was a waitress at a high-end restaurant, not an RBI Agent coming in to interrogate a suspect. Bumblebee followed behind, his expression carefully neutral.
“So how does giving them tea make them want to talk?” Flash asked Prowl.
Prowl chuckled. “You’ve never seen these two do an interrogation before, haven’t you?” she asked. “Watch and learn, rookie.”
“‘Allo, chaps,” Tealove smiled, sliding into the chair opposite the Knolls and setting the tray down in the center. “My name’s Agent Tealove. You’ve already met Agent Bumblebee.”
She gestured to Bumblebee, who had positioned himself behind the Knolls, leaning casually against the wall. He smiled and nodded respectfully to the two donkeys. They just glanced at him, then turned back to Tealove. Or rather, the pot of tea on the table that Tealove was currently levitating up into the air.
“White tea with just a dash of honey,” Tealove smiled, filling up each of the three cups with a great delicacy and grace. “I thought you’d like that. Might put some color back in your cheeks and help with the stomach.”
Both of the Knolls’ ears perked up a bit. “H-how did you know?” Leah stammered. “That’s our favorite flavor.”
“I’ve always been gifted that way,” Tealove smiled in reply, pushing the cups towards them. “You look awful pale, chaps. I’d say a cuppa would make you feel a lot better.”
The two donkeys hesitated a moment, then raised the cups and drank, their eyes widening slightly at the taste. Some color began to return to their faces and their shivering abated.
“Smashin’, innit?” Tealove smiled, taking a sip from her own cup. “I always find a good cuppa makes me feel a lot better. Makes thinkin’ a bit easier, ay?”
Leah nodded, a smile teasing at her lips.
Tealove put the cup down and leaned forward. “You’ve had a tough past few days, haven’t you? Steady Hooves…” She glanced down into her cup, lips chewing as though she were crafting the proper words. “He seems to have gotten you and your son in a right spot of trouble, ‘asn’t he?”
Jeremiah and Leah both stiffened, glancing at each other for the first time.
“Why don’t you tell us the full story from the beginning?” Tealove asked.
Jeremiah swallowed and looked down at the cup before him as if trying to divine a path forward from the steaming liquid.
“We were barely acquainted with this…cult,” he protested. “We gave them some money a few times; he told us that it was for a charitable group. That’s all there is to it.”
Bumblebee flicked his ear twice, cocking his head to one side.
“He’s lying,” Prowl commented to Flash from outside the door.
“You sure?” Flash asked.
“Hard to lie to a changeling, rookie,” Prowl stated. “Especially one that’s spent the last five minutes getting a good taste of your emotions. Just watch Bumblebee. If he doesn’t react, then they’re telling the truth.”
Tealove sighed and leaned back in her chair, folding her forelegs. “Chaps, I want to help you, I truly do. But there ain’t much I can do if you’re gonna feed me porkies.”
Jeremiah swallowed, suddenly going stock still. Leah grasped his hoof again, then slowly turned to the agent.
“It started when we were making expansions to the club grounds early this year,” she explained. “Some of the workers that were cutting down the woods and digging up the roots found a box with that…”
She and her husband both shuddered in revulsion. “That…thing inside. The idol.”
Bumblebee subtly leaned forward a bit, his eyebrows narrowed as he sniffed lightly a few times, head cocked slightly in puzzlement. Tealove glanced at him and he retreated, frowning pensively.
“We placed the box into storage and, at Steady Hooves’ insistence, placed the statuette in our sitting room.” Leah chuckled once, an entirely mirthless sound. “It made an interesting conversation starter if nothing else.
“But Steady, he, he was obsessed with the damned thing,” she continued. “Kept adjusting it, obsessively kept it clean…I swear, I heard him talking to it more than once. And we heard him at night, always muttering nonsense in his sleep...”
"And that's when he brought over that pegasus," Jeremiah added. "Breeze Runner. Steady explained that he was doing some research into the statuette and met up with Breeze, who knew about...it. An...ahuizotl." He swallowed, looking mildly ill at the mention of the name.
"Breeze Runner talked to us about the statuette, and what it symbolized...and said that he wanted to perform an experiment with us. We..." He rubbed his forelegs, shivering despite the warmth of the room. "We sat around the idol and he lit what he said was incense. He claimed that it would...clarify things for us."
"Steady was eager, but...we just thought it was an amusing diversion," Leah butted in. "We didn't expect anything to happen."
Bumblebee scratching his nose was entirely unnecessary. The lie was about as subtle and nuanced as a marching band of yaks parading through the room.
"Really?" Tealove cocked an eyebrow. "Make for an interestin' night, that."
Jeremiah and Leah glanced at each other and sighed. "All right, we...we also had heard the idol whispering to us," Leah admitted. "And we'd had some strange dreams about it. Steady and Breeze made it seem like we could get some genuine answers about what we were seeing."
"But it wasn't what you were hoping, was it?" Tealove asked sympathetically.
Leah closed her eyes and shook her head. "We saw...we saw that thing. Dead. Sleeping. Hungry. Waiting. And it looked at us back..." She curled in on herself, shaking. Her husband wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back.
"It was a terrible experience," he said. "But Steady was enthralled. Said we had to try again. We tried to put the kibosh on it, but what we saw, it stuck in our minds like a splinter. And truth be told…we just wanted more of that damned drug. So Steady came back again and again, and again and again, we tried that incense. And again and again, we saw those things. Sometimes more blurred, sometimes clearer and closer. It felt like were test subjects in an experiment, but we couldn't care: just wanted more and more."
"Was anyone else involved?" Tealove asked.
Jeremiah shook his head. "Just Breeze Runner." He looked up pleadingly. "A few times my wife and I tried to protest, but Steady always made it seem like if we went to the police, we'd all get in trouble and our son...our son would never be able to see us again. I shouldn't have listened, but..." He trailed off helplessly.
"Addiction can make it hard to think clearly, chappies. You'll hear no judgment from me," Tealove said kindly, taking some notes. “So why did they start snooping around the chapel?”
“Well…it wasn’t really until the Sisters moved in and started cleaning it out,” Jeremiah explained. “We had a...clearer vision than normal a while after. We saw three more idols and a book made of gold. Breeze Runner and Steady were certain that it was related to the monastery and they started spying around it. That's when those two archaeology professors became involved."
Tealove glanced at Bumblebee, who remained still and silent as he met her gaze with an affirming look.
“That clears a lot of things up,” Tealove smiled, jotting down some notes as she refilled her guests’ tea with her magic. “Feels better getting that off your chest, don’t it?”
Leah and Jeremiah both nodded faintly, gulping down more tea. The warm beverage seemed to calm them further, as their shoulder slumped and their trembling abated once more.
“There’s just one thing we gotta clear up,” she continued, placing her hooves together. “Where’s Joseph?”
Both of the donkeys glanced at each other. “We…we don’t know,” Leah protested.
Tealove raised an eyebrow, not even bothering to look at Bumblebee. “Thought I made it clear that I can’t help you if you’re gonna lie to me.”
“He hasn’t done anything!” Leah protested, rising from her chair. “There’s no reason to go after him!”
Tealove blinked, taken aback.
“What makes you think that we’re going to go after him?” Bumblebee asked, walking around in front of the Knolls.
Leah stared open-mouthed for a few moments, then sat down and curled in on herself, turning away from her interrogators.
Bumblebee sat down, his nostrils dilating. “I understand,” he said quietly, leaning forward. “You want to protect him. You know he’s made some bad choices and you think he might be in trouble." He thought for a moment. "He participated, didn't he? Is that why he stole the last idol?”
Tears started to glimmer in the Knolls’ eyes and they held hooves once more, nodding numbly. “He…he had also heard it whispering and wanted answers, but he kept it to himself," Leah admitted. "We...tried to keep him away from all this, but Breeze Runner talked him into participating in one of their…prayers to the idol once. He…” She shivered. “He wouldn’t talk about what he saw, but…he could barely sleep for days after.”
Bumblebee quietly sniffed a few times more. “He felt that this was wrong…and deep down, you knew this was wrong, too. But you felt like it was in your best interest, his best interest, to keep playing along with this. You thought that he’d get in trouble, too, right?”
Tears ran down the subjects’ faces. Leah chewed on a hoof and nodded without looking at her interrogators.
“So he stole the idol and ran away,” Bumblebee continued. “He had to stop this and didn’t want to get you in trouble anyway. But know Steady’s friends are after him.”
Leah and Jeremiah leaned against one another for support, the tears falling freely now. Tealove watched the emotions flicker across their faces: shame, guilt, fear, grief, uncertainty. Beside her, Bumblebee had to close his eyes and turn away for a few moments, taking several steady breaths as he fought to breathe beneath the turbulent storm of emotions.
“You know, when he scarpered off, he kept his pipe,” Tealove stated, leaning forward once more and lowering her voice. “That same pipe that you gave him for his birthday. Y’know what that tells me? It tells me that he still loves you.”
Jeremiah looked up. “You really think so?” he asked quietly.
Tealove nodded. “You’ve made some bad choices and that got you where you are now,” she stated. “But if Joseph still loves you, still believes in you, then that means he thinks you still can make the right choice now. And the right choice now is to tell him where he is so we can find him before the Whisper users can.”
Leah and Jeremiah looked at each other, hesitating, like they were standing at the edge of a cliff with the foaming water beneath, preparing to jump. Then Jeremiah slowly turned to face Tealove.
“We don’t know exactly,” he admitted. “But this afternoon, Steady got a call from Sapphire Seeker, the pony that was looking for him. He said that he’d tracked Joseph down to Queensport.”
“Queensport,” Bumblebee repeated. “Thank you both.”
“We’ll get your son back safe ‘n’ sound. Promise you,” Tealove smiled, patting both of the Knolls’ hooves reassuringly before she exited with her partner.
Within an hour, a pair of dark sedans pulled out of the lot of the RBI field office and pulled onto the highway towards Horseshoe Bay, red and blue lights whirling through the night.
In the flickers of the colored lights, one might have spotted a lone motorcycle with two passengers on it following the miniature convoy, its headlight switched off.
Whispers in the Whitetail Woods Part Seven: Odd Jobs at the Queensport Docks
A lone light shone from the lonely tower posted atop the craggy island, slowly panning its way across the still waters of Horseshoe Bay. Above, the waxing crescent and the stars shone dispassionately upon the jumbled maze of streets of cracked stone and gambrel-roofed houses trapped between the water and the high, rolling hills with fog clinging to their bases. Ships of every shape and size and description, from speedboats to fishing trawlers to tugboats and cargo ships, bobbed up and down along the docks; farther beyond, larger ships lay anchored offshore, their docking lights flickering as faint as candles in the night. Clouds began to roll in from the sea, blotting out the sun.
Cold Case brought her vehicle to a halt as she crested a hill overlooking the town of Queensport. She climbed out of her vehicle, placing her pipe back in her mouth as she contemplated the town where their target was waiting.
“Why are we stopping, ma’am?” Tealove asked from the passenger seat as the second car pulled up next to them. Prowl leaned out of the window, frowning in confusion.
“What’s wrong, ma’am?” she asked as Bumblebee and Flash leaned out of their windows.
“I’m just contemplating,” Cold Case stated, looking down over the coastal town. “And waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Flash asked.
Cold Case turned around and shone a beam of arctic blue light from her horn, piercing the night like a spotlight and illuminating a motorcycle several yards behind them. The two riders flinched in surprise, raising their hooves to shield their faces.
“For Detective Finder and Professor Do to catch up,” Cold Case stated dryly.
Phillip let out an amused noise in his throat as he and Daring dismounted the bike and walked it up to the impromptu meeting. “Shouldn’t have bothered sneaking up on you, Cold,” Phillip admitted.
“And I shouldn’t have bothered telling you to stay away,” Cold Case snorted in exasperation. “You’re planning on making her a partner?”
“She has an interest in this,” Phillip stated plainly.
Cold sighed. “So now I have two pains in my ass.”
“Aw, honey, I’m flattered, but you’re not my type,” Daring smiled broadly. “Bit too cold for my taste.”
Flash snickered loudly, though his laughter quickly turned to frightened coughs when an icy blue eye turned its gaze upon him.
“I’m sure you’ve been thinking hard about this since the hospital,” Cold Case stated. “I’m sure that you concluded that the best place to start would be homeless shelters or boarding homes.”
“Most likely,” Phillip replied.
“You’ve been to Queensport a couple of times before,” Cold stated. “Anything come to mind?”
“Would start at Saint Galewing’s, near the docks,” Phillip said. “Cheap. Out of the way. Quiet. I know the mare who runs the place, she keeps her ear to the ground ‘round here.”
“Then let’s not waste time,” Cold Case declared. “Finder, lead the way.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Phillip said in an ironic tone, climbing back onto his motorcycle and switching the headlight on as the agents returned to their cars. Daring swung herself onto the back of the bike, gently hugging him around the middle as he headed down the road into the waiting village.
Daring glanced behind her at Cold Case’s car, meeting the cyclopean gaze of the supervisory agent for a moment with a smirk.
“You fucked her, didn’t you?” she asked Phillip.
“Shut up,” Phillip groused, his ears turning red as Daring cackled.
Phillip led the convoy through the twisting streets, the spinning blue lights of the RBI vehicles illuminating the dark houses that sat clustered alongside the streets, as though huddling together for safety. So confounding was the maze that Phil stopped twice to think about where to go next and actually led the group around a block when he took a wrong turn.
“Hate these streets,” Phillip grumbled as he rounded a cottage that had been converted into a maritime shop. “Can’t understand how the locals navigate it.”
“I’d guess the streets evolved naturally as the shipping industry increased,” Daring replied. “Note that the architectural style transitions from the nineteenth to the eighteenth century as we get closer to the docks. More people moved into Queensport and expanded outwards from the coast.” She craned her neck up to study the shadows of the bobbing boats anchored to the docks, great warehouses standing ready to receive their cargo. “I should read up on this place, learn more about its history–”
“There it is,” Phillip declared, nodding to a converted warehouse that sat off by itself a short uphill jaunt from the docks. The white paint was peeling off the walls, but the light over the front door held a steady, comforting yellow glow that was naturally attractive in the darkness.
“‘Saint Galewing’s Shelter,’” Daring Do read aloud as Phillip parked the bike and cut the engine. “So how do you know this place?”
“Did a pro bono case for the shelter couple years ago,” Phillip explained as the two RBI cars pulled up. “Someone was molesting some of the creatures who were staying here. Vics were too ashamed or scared to talk about it.” His jaw tightened for a moment. “Found the bastard, turned him over to police. Steamed Carrot, the mare who helps run this place, has been a friend ever since.”
“Finder, with me,” Cold Case announced as she exited her car.
“Wait here,” Phillip told Daring as he followed Cold into the shelter.
What had once been a wide-open space where boxes of fish had been stored was now converted into a living space, with bunk beds lined up along the hardwood floor decorated with a motley assortment of carpets and rugs. Tables and chairs were scattered about, some with books or old, battered board games and decks of cards set atop them. The lights were dimmed so that the shapes huddled on the cots beneath the needlework blankets; a few tables were illuminated so that the homeless creatures beneath could continue to peruse their books or quietly enjoy a late-night game of checkers. A few heads turned to greet the visitors as they entered with curious gazes.
A hippogriff wearing the rosary of the Church of Aris approached them, the medallion shaped like the crest of Mount Aris bouncing against her sea-green chest. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“Where’s Steamed?” Phillip asked.
The hippogriff smiled. “Where she usually is, Detective,” she answered, gesturing towards the back of the room.
“Of course,” Phillip smiled as he and Cold passed by a shrine to Saint Galewing, patron saint of lost and shipwrecked sailors. A small statue of the vivid purple seapony sat in the center of the alcove, holding a pearl to symbolize the sea goddess Thalassa and a golden feather to represent the sky god Ziz.
A mouthwatering aroma filled their nostrils as they entered a small but well-stocked kitchen, replete with secondhoof but well-tended utensils and equipment. A plump blue pegasus mare with curly reddish-orange hair and the cutie mark of a bowl of vegetables was standing at a stove, quietly singing a Prench love songto herself as she stirred a bubbling pot of stew, from which the tempting aroma was emanating.
“Phil!” the mare chirped as they entered, her eyes lighting up with joy.
“Steamed,” Phillip greeted her with a smile. “We need–ulp!”
He was interrupted by Steamed thrusting a large spoonful of the stew into his mouth. “Ratatouille. What do you think?” she asked.
Phillip swallowed and licked his lips. “Bloody delicious,” he nodded.
Steamed squeed in delight. “Thank you! I wasn’t sure about it, but–”
“You two can catch up over dinner later,” Cold Case interrupted, flashing her badge. “Supervisory Special Agent Cold Case. We’re looking for somepony.”
Phillip pulled out the photograph of Joseph Knoll and passed it to Steamed. She barely glanced at it before nodding.
“Oh, yes, that’s Zeke,” she nodded. “He dragged himself in here late yesterday night…well, closer to this morning, actually. Said he needed a place to stay for a bit while he tried to find a ship that could take him to Canterlot. He slept all morning, had lunch, then headed out.”
She glanced out into the sleeping area, keen eyes checking each of the bunks. “Hmm…I don’t see him,” she said. Her eyes widened. “Oh, Thalassa’s eyes. Is he–?”
“Not a bad guy,” Phillip reassured her. “Which bunk was his?”
“That one,” Steamed said, pointing to an empty bunk near the side. “Hmm, looks like he took his bag with him.”
“But he left behind something,” Cold commented, striding forward and snatching a cloth cap lying on the pillow. “Is this his cap?”
“Yes,” Steamed nodded.
“Perfect,” Cold said, taking a set of tweezers out of her pocket and plucking a dyed red hair from the cap. She placed it in an envelope and pocketed it. “You’ve been a big help. Thank you.”
“Have you seen a blue unicorn with a bowler hat around recently?” Phillip asked.
Steamed thought for a moment. “Nothing comes to mind. Sorry.”
“It’s apples, Steamed,” Phillip answered, though a frown creased his face. “Might want to lock the doors and windows tonight. Could be trouble.”
“Okay,” Steamed nodded, eyes wide. “Be careful, Phil. Now that I think about it, there’s been an unusual amount of yelling from the docks earlier.”
“I will be,” Phillip nodded as he and Cold exited.
“Joseph isn’t here,” Cold announced as they exited. “But I got a hair. Tealove, Bumblebee, tracking spell.”
“Yes, ma’am!” the changeling and unicorn declared as Cold Case pulled a small coil of copper from her pocket. She unfurled it into a circle and laid it on the ground as the other two gathered close. She then extracted the envelope with the hair and placed the hair inside the copper circle.
She, Tealove, and Bumblebee drew pocketknives and gently pricked their hooves, then placed them on the circle. There was a snap of power that Daring felt in her wings as the magical circle closed, trapping their magical energies within along with the hair.
“Quearite. Sequor. Indago,” the three chanted in unison, their horns alight with frosty blue, pale green, and vivid yellow light. The same colors swirled around the hair, attaching themselves to the minuscule clue. “Quearite. Sequor. Indago…”
The light dimmed out as they chanted. Cold stepped on the copper circle, breaking the magic circle with another snap that Daring felt, along with a strange wooshing like a warm wind through her feathers.
The three agents all turned, their horns shining with a steady pulse as they faced the waterfront. “He’s at the docks,” Bumblebee reported. “And he’s close.” He sniffed the air. “I can smell him…boss, he’s freaked out about something. We better move.”
“Bumblebee, Prowl, go! We’ll follow on hoof!” Cold Case ordered.
With a buzzing of wings, Bumblebee took to the sky, with Prowl taking off after him.
Phillip hustled over to his motorcycle and dug around in the saddlebags for a moment before pulling out his bullroarer. “What do you need that for?” Daring asked.
“Might need it,” Phillip replied, coiling it around his waist. He drew his .38 revolver and secured it to his foreleg. Daring drew her own firearm and tightened the straps, then checked to make sure that her stockwhip was in place and ready to reach. She and the others all took out flashlights and secured them to their shoulders, snapping them on to penetrate the darkness.
As the group trotted down the cobblestone roads down the slopes to the water, clouds began to form across the skies, blurring the stars and the moon. A chill wind rose from the water and rain began to fall from the sky, a gentle but chilly curtain.
“Bloody terrific,” Tealove grumbled, forming a makeshift shield over her head with her magic.
“Hold it,” Phillip said, turning his attention to a car that was parked on the side of the road, a golden four-door car. “Rental,” he muttered as he walked around the car, then tested the door and found it unlocked. He took out a magnifying glass and peered around the driver’s seat.
“Blue hairs,” he said, then turned his attention to some brown stains on the interior of the car door. He pressed his nose to the stains, sniffing intently, then flicked his tongue out to taste. “Sirius’ Red Delicious,” he added with a scowl, ignoring the bemused stares that everypony except Cold was giving him.
“The pony with the derby is here,” he announced. “The one that was looking for Joseph.”
“Pick up the pace, ponies!” Cold Case ordered, her horn leading her around the corner. They hurried down the water-streaked wooden planks of the docks, following Cold and Tealove’s horns. Mere feet away, darkened boats bobbed up and down in the water with a chorus of groaning and creaking; beyond, dinghies rang out their dulled warnings.
The trail led further along the docks to the piers where larger boats delivered their cargo into the waiting hooves and talons of stevedores and stored in the waiting warehouses. A few ships were tied to the piers, their rusty hulls looming over the agents like the darkened peaks of mountains; lights from the warehouses illuminated the doorways of the warehouses that hung open like waiting mouths.
As Daring hurried alongside the group, a cold sensation spread across the back of her mind. She slowed, looking around. Listen to your gut, Daring, Uncle Ad whispered in her ear.
It was late in the evening, but dockworkers didn’t hold normal hours. Judging by the open doorway of the nearby warehouse and the carts of crates that were parked on the pier, there had been workers in the midst of unloading a nearby ship; a cargo net loaded with crates hung partially out of the cargo door, swaying back and forth slightly as the ship bobbed up and down.
The message that her subconscious was trying to tell her suddenly cut through Daring’s mind: Where is everybody?
Then Daring’s eyes went to a dropped, broken crate next to an overturned cart next to the ship, lemons spilling out of the broken crate. And there was a puddle of dark red on the planks.
Phillip slowed down, his eyes narrowing as the gears turned behind his forehead. He bent down to examine the puddle, dipping his hoof in it and sniffing it.
“Is that…?” Daring asked, already knowing the answer.
“Blood,” Phillip hissed. He turned and traced a streak that led to the edge of the water. “And drag marks.”
“And over here,” Flash said, looking at the ground. “Looks like…burn marks. Like someone dripped acid or something here.”
The other agents had slowed, sensing the danger, swiveling their heads to check every shadow. “Prowl, Bumblebee, check in,” Cold Case spoke into her radio.
“Chief, we’ve got a wounded pony here,” Prowl replied. “He’s been beaten badly and is barely conscious: looks like he managed to crawl under some boards to hide.”
“Guy’s covered in scratches and burns. He’s mumbling about the…the tongues,” Bumblebee reported.
“Tongues?” Flash repeated, cocking his head.
Movement between one of the warehouses. Flash swiveled around, bringing his weapon up. “You there! Halt!”
His flashlight illuminated a figure in a gray raincoat, the hood pulled up. A black, unmarked baseball cap concealed the face. The cloaked pony turned towards Flash, wincing from the light and raising a hoof. They murmured indistinctly, their tone one of fear and pain, flinching away from the gun.
“Who are you?” Flash called out. There was only another mumble in reply; the pony in the coat and cap shook his head. A splotch of red on his chest shone in Flash’s flashlight, vivid against the gray of his coat.
“Are you hurt?” Flash asked, lowering his gun a bit and stepping forward.
“Sentry, careful,” Cold Case ordered, keeping her gun on the figure.
But Flash proceeded forward, his gun now pointing down on the ground. “Hey, easy, buddy, we’re not gonna hurt you–”
“Flash!” Phillip yelled, lunging forward.
His shout of warning was mixed with a horrid screeching, like a hundred metal nails being dragged across a chalkboard; the pain drilled into the ponies’ ears, forcing them to flinch away, covering their ears.
The pony in the raincoat had raised his head–no, its head, for its skin was an unnatural off-white, like ancient bones. It was shrieking at them with a mouth that took up the entirety of its face, a twisted black hole lined with needle-like teeth, with a hairy, coarse bifurcated tongue twisting its way out of the orifice. Yellowish liquid dripped from the tongue, acrid smoke rising from the puddle that it formed.
More figures emerged from the darkness around them, attracted by the screech, adding their own cries to the howl. All of them were identical figures in gray raincoats and black caps, cries raising from their enormous mouths. They raised their forelegs; bone-like claws extended from their deformed hooves.
“What the hell are those?!” Daring shouted over the ringing in her ears.
The beasts lunged at the agents, blurring with unnatural speed, ichor flying from their tongues.
“Hostile! Open fire!” Cold bellowed.
Gunshots cracked across the docks, bullets striking the things as they streaked toward the ponies like a swarm of rats descending upon a carcass. The heads of the first abominations in line burst like water balloons filled with white paint and they stumbled, their bodies rapidly decaying into a thick, pus-like material, but the ones behind them merely leaped over their comrades and continued charging.
One reached Flash and struck him across the face with a claw, sending blood flying from his face. Flash yelped, then yelped as the thing tackled him to the ground, claws wrapping around his neck. “Get off! Get off! Help!” he screamed, futilely struggling beneath the song as the tongue dangled down over his head.
“GET OFF HIM!” Daring and Phillip shouted as one, their shouts mixing with a whistling noise and a sharp crack. The thing reeled back with a screech of pain as Daring’s stockwhip cracked across its face, cleaving its tongue in half; a moment later, Phillip’s boomerang struck its forelegs, forcing it to release Flash.
Flash wriggled out from the thing enough to raise his gun and emptied the rest of his .44 magazine into the monster’s head. The headless body flopped across Flash’s body, rotting away into slime that clung to Flash’s body.
Cold’s horn lit up blue and ice coated the ground in front of her, causing the last two monsters to skid clumsily, shrieking in confusion as they stumbled and fell. A round each from her and Tealove dispatched the two monsters, silencing their screams. The echoes of their gunshots died away, leaving behind a deathly quiet that hung over the pus-covered docks. The beam from the lighthouse panned overhead, casting brief shadows over the docks.
Phillip hurried over to Flash and helped him up. “You okay, jackaroo?” he asked, checking the bleeding wound on his face.
“Y-y-yeah,” Flash shuddered, cringing as he tried to shake the stinking, pus-like liquid off him. “What the hell were those things?”
“Constructs,” Cold Case replied as Bumblebee and Prowl flew over to them, sweeping the area with their pistols.
“I was right,” Phillip scowled. “Oddjob is here.”
“Who’s Oddjob?” Daring asked.
“Perhaps I should introduce myself to the lady,” an upper-class Gritish accent spoke.
Everyone turned around, their flashlights illuminating two figures standing in an alley. One was another of the faceless constructs. The other one was a blue unicorn wearing a gray derby and matching waistcoat. He smiled at the agents with twinkling green eyes, his gray mustache twitching in amusement. His cutie mark was a marionette control.
“Good evening,” the unicorn said with a mocking bow. “Oddjob, mercenary criminal at your–”
He was interrupted by a beam of vivid blue magic that sliced through the air like a blizzard wind. “Hey!” Oddjob protested as the beam struck him in the chest, ice proceeding to spread across his body until everything from the neck down was encased.
He scowled at Cold Case…then his face began to twist and melt like putty, deforming and reshaping into another construct. The thing flicked its forked tongue out at them irritably.
The other construct bubbled and twisted, reforming into a duplicate of the unicorn. “How rude,” he scoffed, dusting off his waistcoat.
Cold Case scowled. “I suppose that would be too easy,” she grumbled.
“I didn’t make it to the third-highest on the RBI’s Most Wanted list by making idiotic mistakes, agent,” Oddjob’s copy stated.
Phillip snorted disdainfully, drawing a brief glare from the unicorn.
“I see you upgraded your friends,” Bumblebee nodded at the frozen clone.
“You like them?” Oddjob smiled, patting the hatted head of his comrade. “You’ll notice the lack of eyes to blind or ears to deafen. Took me a while to get used to the new design, but I’ve found it works even better than before.”
A gunshot echoed through the air and the clone’s head was torn open by a .38 round, quickly dissolving into slime that dribbled down the ice.
“Not impressed,” Daring Do scowled, smoke rising from the barrel of her revolver.
“What do you want?” Prowl snarled.
“What I want is to do my job and be allowed to leave in peace so I can get my pay,” Oddjob stated. “So I’m asking you to be reasonable.”
“‘Reasonable?’ After you murdered innocent ponies?” Prowl spat.
Oddjob shrugged. “All I wanted was for my boys to bring the boy and his trinket to me, but those churlish boors had to get in the way.” The duplicate sighed, its body squirming and writhing again, blue and gray blending together into off-white. “I’m going to find the boy. And if you want to get in the way, what happens next is on you.”
As the transformation completed, the construct leaned its head back and spat at the agents. A huge globe of acid spun through the air at them.
It didn’t even make it halfway to them before it impacted against Tealove’s shield. A second round from Daring’s revolver finished off the construct just as the rain began to fall in earnest.
The three unicorns’ horns dimmed. “Bugger! Lost the tracking spell!” Tealove gasped.
“Same,” Bumblebee reported. “The rain is interfering with the spell.”
Cold Case growled, glaring at her dulled horn. “He was nearby! Sentry, with me!” Prowl, you take Tealove that way! Bumblebee, keep the civilians here!”
“Uh…” Bumblebee stammered. “Chief?”
Cold Case turned around in time to spot a greyscale tail leap onto the roof of a warehouse and race off. She facehoofed with a growl. “Go after them!”
“Okay, chief!” Bumblebee said, taking flight. “Hey, come back here! Wait for me!”
Phillip paused at the end of the warehouse to study the shadow-shrouded streets beneath, where warehouses and storerooms stood alongside taverns, restaurants, and licensed brothels. The dark, rain-coated streets appeared empty.
“The gunshots should’ve summoned the police,” Daring commented, looking over the alleys as Bumblebee landed next to them.
“Queensport has four full-time officers and three of them will be in bed at this time,” Phillip said, squinting through the rain. “They’re not gonna be here in time.”
“Maybe Joseph got on a boat and took off?” Bumblebee suggested.
“Oddjob would have his friends guarding the boats,” Phillip countered, hopping down to street level. “Running water disrupts most magic; if Joseph got on a boat, he wouldn’t have been able to follow him.”
“So he had to have chased him away from the bay,” Daring concluded. “So if we can find his buddies, we’ll find Joseph.”
Phillip leaned close to the ground, studying the tracks that were being washed out in the rain. “Lots of hooves went this way,” he said. “C’mon.” He took off at a rapid trot, with Daring right on his tail and Bumblebee overhead. They proceeded down the alleyway, the only sound water pattering against the rooftops and the puddles splashing beneath their hooves. Their flashlights passed through the darkness, searching for any sign of movement.
“Trails keep going this way,” Phillip said, pausing to examine a path of dry ground beneath an extended eave, pointing towards a fishing supply house with a cottage over the store.
“Hang on,” Bumblebee said, pausing in midair. He sniffed the air a few times. “I smell a lot of fear from that direction.” He pointed at a larger warehouse nearby.
“Hey, there’s a window open,” Daring said, turning her flashlight up the wall of the warehouse, following a stack of crates that led up to the open passage. She approached, looking closer. “Yeah, look at that. The window was pried open.”
She climbed up the crates and stuck her head through the window. “Looks clear,” she reported, sliding through the window.
“Daring!” Bumblebee protested. “We should wait for–hey! Phil, where are you going?!” he protested as Phillip hopped up and sidled through the window. “Ugh, dammit,” Bumblebee grumbled, pulling out his radio. “This is Bumblebee, we–”
His radio hissed and crackled loudly. “Hello? Hello?” he asked.
Another angry burst of static and then the radio went dead. “Shit,” Bumblebee cursed and flew through the window.
He clambered into a dark, cavernous space, lit only by their flashlights and the moon and streetlight filtering through the skylights and scum-smeared windows. Crates and bags were stacked everywhere, many of them stamped with the label of a sunset behind a field of spice crops. The air was heavy with the cloying odor of a potpourri of spices. Sliding wooden doors stood at either end of the warehouse.
“Radio’s out,” Bumblebee reported to Phil and Daring as they stalked through the dark warehouse, keeping their flashlights low to avoid attention. “I’m supposed to be able to hear the others from the next county if I need to.”
“Possibly a scrambler spell,” Phillip stated. “Oddjob may be a one-trick pony, but he knows his layout.”
“Joseph?” Daring called out, loud as she dared as she panned over the crates of paprika, flour, salt, garlic powder, cilantro, and other spices. “Joseph, it’s okay, we’re friends. We want to help.”
She passed over a crate marked Salt, then paused and turned back. She studied the lid of the large box, noting the missing nails in the chewed corners and the salt clinging to the brim. Then she glanced into a nearby corner and saw several white bags hastily shoved behind a tarp, all of them proudly bearing the labels of table salt.
“Joseph?” Daring called, stepping forward and prying open the lid.
With a shriek of utmost terror, a young donkey burst from the crate like a jack-in-the-box, salt tumbling from his pale blonde mane. Blue eyes alight with panic, he swung a rusty crowbar at Daring.
Daring Do ducked and backed up, raising her hooves. “Easy, easy! We’re not going to hurt you!”
Joseph Knoll stared at her in panic, blinking in their lights. He was shaking violently, constantly licking his dry lips; his eyes were bleary and carried heavy bags beneath them, as though he had not slept properly since fleeing his parents’ home. His coat and mane were greasy and spiky, his body covered with salt and other spices from his bid to hide. The hoof that wasn’t clutching the crowbar was hugging a lumpy bag to his chest.
Bumblebee used his magic to pull his RBI badge and identification from his vest and held it out to Joseph. “Agent Bumblebee from the RBI. These two are with me. It’s okay, Joseph, you’re okay now…”
The skylight suddenly shattered. Everypony looked up to see five constructs leaping down from above, hissing and baring their tongues as they landed. Rain and cold wind began to blow into the warehouse through their entry.
“No! No!” Joseph shrieked, falling out of the crate in terror. His makeshift weapon clattered out of reach as he desperately crawled away. Daring, Phillip, and Bumblebee stepped up to block Joseph from his abductors, raising their weapons.
One twisted and melted, reforming into Oddjob. “Ah, there you are,” the copy smirked at the whimpering donkey. “Odd…could’ve sworn I checked this warehouse already. My thanks to the agents for leading me to you.”
Phillip gritted his teeth and let out a frustrated exhalation.
“Now, why don’t you make it easier on yourself and give me that statue in your bag?” Oddjob’s duplicate asked Joseph, extending a hoof expectantly.
Joseph looked down at the bag as if considering it, then shook his head. “Do you have any idea what they’re doing with this?!” he asked the construct.
Oddjob shrugged indifferently. “I’m not in the habit of asking questions that I don’t want to know the answer to. Just give me the bag and this will all be over.”
“No! I’m not giving it to you!” Joseph cried, hugging the bag to his chest with both hooves. “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen! You don’t know what it means if–”
“Oh, do shut up,” Oddjob sighed as his duplicate reformed back into its monstrous normal form. With a single, deafening howl that slammed into the ponies like a solid wall, they lunged. Thumping on the roof announced the approach of more constructs, leaping down through the shattered skylight. Daring and Bumblebee both opened fire, dropping any constructs that came close, but their comrades just leaped over their rotting flesh and continued the charge. Joseph wailed in despair and terror and fled to the back of the warehouse, desperately slamming himself against the locked door in a futile bid to break free.
“Buy me some time!” Phillip called, loosening the bullroarer from around his waist.
“You’ve got maybe ten seconds!” Daring shouted as her revolver clicked on empty. She seized the whip from her waist and snapped it out in a single motion, the cord hissing and cracking as it coiled around the post of a set of metal shelves.
Bumblebee’s body flared with green flames for a moment. In his place suddenly stood a vivid yellow minotaur. “Hurry, Phil!” he roared as he started swinging his mighty fists at the constructs, sending any who dared get close flying back as he ducked and weaved around the acid that his foes launched at him.
Daring dug her hooves in and grunted as she pulled. The shelving creaked in protest, then groaned as it toppled over. With a great cacophony, the boxes and bags that had been set atop the shelving crashed atop some of the approaching constructs. “Ha!” Daring grinned, recoiling her whip.
Her grin faded as the constructs pinned beneath the shelves began to rise from beneath it, pushing the metal debris off them with only a modicum of effort; the others behind them just ran around or vaulted over the obstacle.
Phillip took a slow, focused breath and his hooves glowed with a pale gray light, the energy of his magic sliding down the rope to the instrument. He began to spin it about, producing a growling, thrumming hum that rumbled through the air; the gray glow flew from the instrument like cast-off water, dissipating after a yard. Even if the spell wasn’t aimed at her, Daring felt the energy hit her with a crackling of energy, her wings buzzing as though she were standing too close to an electric fence.
“Alpeyel!” Phillip ordered, glaring at the surrounding constructs. “Alpeyel!”
The constructs shuddered, hissing in anger as they backed up, like wild animals retreating from a flame.
“Come on!” Daring urged, pulling Joseph away from the door. She and Bumblebee, now shifted back to his normal form, hastily reloaded their guns as they headed towards the open window that they had first entered through. Phillip followed them back, continuing to spin his bullroarer. The constructs still surrounded them, hissing as acid dripped from their tongues.
“Alpeyel!” Phillip shouted louder. Daring noticed that his hind legs were shaking. “Alpeyel! Alpeyel!”
He turned and Daring saw the look on his face: his teeth gritted in desperation, wide eyes staring unfocused at their surrounding pursuers.
No. Not at them. At something else, something only he could see.
“Phil! Snap out of it!” Daring ordered, trying to lift Joseph to the window.
The donkey whimpered as he strained to reach the ledge of the window, escape tantalizingly close. “I can’t reach!” he protested.
The gray glow of the spell began to flicker like an old lightbulb, the sound subtly changing to lose the authoritative rumbling. The constructs closed in, hissing hungrily.
Daring Do’s mind raced, her eyes darting around the dark warehouse. She looked at the constructs, examining the faceless mooks, shuddering at their long tongues.
A wild thought passed through her head: How do these things see without eyes or ears?
Oddjob’s voice echoed in her ears: “Took me a while to get used to the new design, but I’ve found it works even better than before.”
Her gaze panned over to Joseph Knoll, who was pressed up against the wall, gasping rapidly as if trying to take as many breaths as he could in his final moments. His mane was still white with salt.
“Odd…could’ve sworn I checked this warehouse already.”
An idea began to spark in Daring’s mind and she looked over to a large bag on the ground next to them. She turned to the constructs as they began to close in, wolves circling a lamed deer. Phillip was no longer shouting out his incantation, breathing heavily; sweat was starting to run down the back of his mane and the bullroarer’s rumbling was quieting as the spinning of the instrument began to slow.
Daring Do sucked in a breath and prayed to whoever was listening that this would work, then lunged, drawing her pocketknife and snapping the blade open. The monsters shrieked once more as her blade dug into the heavy bag, tearing it open to reveal the brown powder within.
Daring extended her uninjured wing and began to flap it frantically, generating a great wind. The cinnamon blew out of the bag, rushing at the constructs like a miniature sandstorm. The faceless monsters reeled away, coughing and hissing in pain and confusion as the heavy taste overwhelmed their senses.
“Bee! The door!” Daring shouted.
Bumblebee paused for a beat, then charged at the door. More green flames swirled around him as he transformed into a yak with bright yellow fur, the warehouse shaking with every heavy step he made. He crashed through the door, reducing it into splinters in a moment.
“Go, go, go!” Daring shouted, grabbing the bag and blowing cinnamon at the stunned constructs. Phillip seized Joseph and rushed them both out after Bumblebee, with Daring right behind them.
Headlights lit up the street, accompanied by the roaring of an engine. Everyone turned to see a car rushing at them. With a squealing of brakes and a splashing of water, the vehicle swung around and the rear doors burst open.
“Get in, get in!” Cold Case ordered from the driver’s seat as another car rushed up. Tealove and Flash Sentry leaned out of the front windows, opening fire at the monsters recovering themselves. Prowl landed on a rooftop and opened fire as well.
Phillip practically threw Joseph into the back of the car and dived in after him as Daring leaped into the passenger’s seat. Bumblebee shifted back into his changeling form and took off.
Both cars roared back down the street, pulling onto the main road. Daring looked out the window to watch the few remaining constructs try to chase after them, rapidly falling behind. As the beam of the lighthouse passed over once more, she briefly spotted the silhouette of a stallion in a derby rushing towards them from the docks.
A moment later, both of the RBI vehicles, their blue lights whirling through the darkness, sped down the winding roads of Queensport, leaving their pursuers behind in the mist.
It wasn’t until the docks were far behind them that Joseph Knoll sagged in his chair in relief, closing his tear-streaked eyes. “Thank you,” he gasped out. “Thank you.”
“Nice thinking, Daring,” a panting Phillip said.
“I figured that if they only had tongues, they relied on taste to see,” Daring grinned in relief. “Guess Oddjob’s gonna need to redesign his friends.”
“Is everyone okay?” Cold Case asked, finally slowing down as they left the docks behind.
The others all replied in the affirmative. “Joseph Knoll, you led us on a good chase,” Cold admitted. “Do you have the statue?”
Joseph unzipped the old, battered bag and revealed the contents. Daring stared at the small, expertly carved idol of the grinning Ahuizotl. In the passing light of a lone streetlamp, its eyes seemed to glimmer at her.
Cold Case sighed. “I imagine you have a long story to tell us. Finder, which way to the police department?”
Whispers in the Whitetail Woods Part Eight: Visions of the Beast
“I didn’t mean for all this to happen,” Joseph Knoll stated, staring into the cup of tea as if trying to divine his future from the leaves.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Tealove said through a yawn. “But really, what were you thinking, running off and ducking and diving with that idol?”
Joseph took another long sip of tea and shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure what I was thinking,” he admitted. “I just knew that I had to get that damn statue away from my parents and their friends before something bad happened. I had an idea that I could get it to Canterlot eventually, maybe take it to the Royal School of Magic so they could take a look at it.”
“What made you so sure that something bad would happen if you didn’t take it?” Cold Case asked.
Joseph shuddered. “Breeze Runner…he talked me into participating in one of those rituals with my parents. Where they, um, worshipped the idol. The Ahuizotl.”
He clutched the teacup so tightly that the observers feared that he might crack it. Tealove filled up his teacup once more and he nodded, taking another sip.
“I’d heard it whispering to me,” he continued. “Breeze said that…that I’d have answers for what I saw, what I’d heard, if I participated. So, um…we sat in a circle around it, and, and Breeze lit a bowl of incense and started chanting.”
Joseph was silent for a long time. “I…I keep telling myself it was a dream, or a hallucination, or something…but it all felt so real. The statue suddenly seemed to come to life and it…it spoke to us.” He paused, frowned, and shook his head. “No, that, that’s not right. It didn’t say anything, it…it was like visions in your head. Like music you heard in your bones…” His shivering grew more pronounced by the moment. “I…I saw things. Horrible things. I saw that thing in a tomb somewhere, dead, but not dead, only sleeping. Waiting. I felt how hungry and angry it was. And then it…it showed me the church. The monastery. In the woods. It showed us…” He swallowed. “The monastery. Laughing maniacs. The things that the nuns did to them. To each other…and then…”
The sound of the teacup clattering to the floor sent her blurry thoughts flying like birds frightened from the bush. Joseph clutched his head with both hooves, tears flowing from his clenched eyes. “I saw the things that it served! I saw what it wanted! I saw fire and blood and destruction, bodies stretched out on stones, churches on fire, stars falling! Dead Ahuizotl waits dreaming! Dead Ahuizotl waits dreaming! DEAD AHUIZOTL WAITS DREAMING–!”
“Hey, hey! Easy!” Tealove cried, rushing over and gripping Joseph’s shoulders as he rocked in his chair. “Mate, look at me, a’ight?”
Joseph clung to her like a lifeline, staring up at her through tear-streaked eyes.
Joseph’s hyperventilating slowed as Tealove guided him through steady breathing. After a few minutes, he gulped and nodded, wiping his face.
“Thank you,” he said. He turned back to the others. “Anyway, I…I can’t really explain it, but I knew that whatever my family was trapped in, we were in way over our heads. And I couldn’t let Steady and his friends keep that idol. If they found whatever they were looking for–whatever it was trying to show them–it would end horribly.
“But he had my parents under his hoof with that drug…I thought about going to the police, but…” He let out a soft, mirthless laugh. “They wouldn’t have believed me. In fact, they’d probably have me locked up. It’s not illegal to worship an idol, is it? And Breeze had talked a few times about having some powerful friends, and I figured that if I took the idol, I might get in trouble.”
“So, I just decided to steal the idol and make my way to Canterlot and figure out what the hell was going on with it…and then I’d…well, I’d think of something. I read a lot of spy and detective novels, so I figured out a way to lead a false trail and make my way up there.” He snorted. “Guess I underestimated how good these guys were.”
Cold Case finished off her notes and nodded. “Look, I know this sounds ridiculous,” Joseph petitioned, looking up at her. “But I swear, I’m telling the truth…or, at least, I’m telling what I think I saw.”
“Joseph, trust me,” Cold Case said gently, her one visible eye fixed upon him with a soft, compassionate gaze. “Everypony in this room has seen and heard stranger.”
Prowl maintained her straight-backed posture, but her muscles tensed slightly and she swallowed as a shudder passed through her blonde mane. Tealove’s smile instantly vanished and she looked down, subtly hugging herself. Flash rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, licking his lips as his eyes darted down to the floor. Phillip’s face remained stoic, but his right foreleg twitched a couple of times.
Daring swallowed, shifting uncomfortably as the echoes of dying screams sounded in her ears, accompanied by flickers in the shadows and the too-familiar biting of a Thrussian winter at the back of her neck.
Cold cleared her throat and the moment passed.
“What’s gonna happen now?” Joseph asked, looking back down at the floor.
“Now, you and your parents get to go home,” Cold Case replied. “We’ll probably want to speak to you further, but that can wait until tomorrow after we all get some sleep.”
“What about that…that unicorn?” Joseph asked hesitantly.
“Oddjob may have gotten away for now, but I doubt he’ll be back,” Cold Case reassured him. “We have the idol, which is what he was after. He has no reason to go after you or your family now, but I’ll ask the Ponyville police department to check on your house regularly.”
Joseph sighed in great relief, sagging into the chair like a deflated balloon. “I can go home?” he breathed as if in disbelief.
“Yes. And you might want to look up Lagoon after tonight,” Phillip suggested. “She’s the one who called me. Wouldn’t have started looking for you without her.” His ear flicked at the sound of hoofsteps from outside. “And there’s two other people whom you need to see.”
The door opened and Bumblebee escorted Jeremiah and Leah Knoll into the room. There was a brief pause as the three donkeys all stared at each other, guilt and grief and shame and relief playing across their faces all at once.
The next moment, the three wrapped each other up in a tight group hug, tears flowing freely.
Phillip smiled faintly. “If we’re done, Cold?”
“Go home and get some sleep, both of you,” Cold said. “You’ve done more than enough.”
“That’s a relief,” Daring sighed, standing. She and Phillip trudged out of the AIU’s field office.
“You gonna help look for Oddjob?” Daring asked Phil through a yawn as they started to ascend the stairs, which felt as steep as the Appleloosa Mountains.
“The…” Phillip had to pause to yawn. “The ‘specialized task force’ for Most Wanted fugitives can handle that,” he stated, the bitterness in his voice as obvious as dark chocolate. “Wouldn’t be wanted.”
“That’s bullshit,” Daring protested. “Bet you could find him in a week if they let you.”
Phillip smiled briefly, clearly flattered. “Is what it is. ‘Sides, I might have called the agent in charge of the task force a brownnosed wanker that couldn’t see past his superiors’ arseholes.”
Daring barked out a laugh as they finally exited the RBI building. “I think I can see why he doesn’t want you around.”
She took a deep breath of the frosty morning air as she looked around. The eastern horizon was already painted in hues of orange and gold as the sun started to rise; the grass and fallen leaves were covered in hoarfrost, and winter was already biting in the air.
“I’ll drop you off at home,” Phillip said, saddling his bike and donning his helmet.
“Thanks,” Daring mumbled, wearily climbing onto the bike behind him. “Today’s Sunday, right?”
“Yes,” Phillip confirmed.
“Good, no classes,” Daring said. “I feel like I need to sleep for the next sixteen hours, at least.”
Phillip grunted in agreement as he kicked the bike to life. Daring hugged him around the middle, leaning her head against the warmth of his shoulder, already feeling the irresistible siren call of sleep washing over her.
Breeze Runner tossed and turned on the hard cot in his holding cell, clinging to the blanket. How was it that every jail in Equestria managed to get their hooves on blankets that were too heavy in the summer and too thin in the winter? It had to be some kind of spell.
With a snarl, he tossed the blankets off and sat up on the cot, turning to look up at the barred, bulletproof glass window set high up on the cell wall. Judging by the brightening yellow of what little bit of the sky he could see, it was early morning, which meant it would be time for breakfast soon. Cheap milk with a banana and lukewarm oatmeal. Delicious.
He looked up at the sound of hoofsteps approaching the cell door, but his initial belief that it was the screw with breakfast proved wrong when the silver unicorn came into view.
Staring at him through the bars was a tall unicorn, his entire body colored in shades of sterling silver, even the flat, piercing eyes behind his glasses. The unicorn wore a pristine black suit with a shimmering golden tiepin and his cutie mark was an open suitcase with two bars of silver within.
“Breeze Runner?” the unicorn asked as a scowling security guard appeared.
“Who the hell are you?” the pegasus grunted.
“Charles August Silvertongue, your attorney. You’re free on bail, pending an arraignment to be scheduled at a later date,” the unicorn said as the screw unlocked the door and pulled it open with a squeak of hinges.
Breeze Runner stood up and stretched, eyeing the attorney. “Not that I’m not grateful, but who hired y–”
His question trailed off when he took a closer look at the golden tie pin and he suddenly felt a dreadful falling sensation in his stomach.
The tiepin was shaped like a sphinx.
“Oh,” he mumbled.
“Come, let’s get you out of here,” Silvertongue gestured with his head.
For a moment, Breeze Runner hesitated, wondering if he might be safer staying in the cell. But then he realized that he had no choice and followed the attorney out of the cell.
“Be seeing you,” the guard muttered as Silvertongue led the pegasus down the line of cells and out into the hallway.
Waiting outside was Cold Case, her sole visible eye heavily shadowed but locked on Silvertongue with an icy stare.
“Agent Cold Case. You look exhausted,” Silvertongue greeted her placidly, though his snout scrunched up slightly as though a strong smell was hovering beneath his nostrils.
Cold Case bared her teeth at him but said nothing. Silvertongue brushed his immaculate jacket off and proceeded down the hall, with Breeze Runner following.
They ascended a set of stairs to the ground floor, proceeded through the lobby, and out into the chill morning air. A silver Specter limousine was waiting in front of the doors.
Silvertongue opened up the back door and gestured for Breeze Runner to enter. Breeze hesitated for a moment, extending his wings and considering if he could get away on his wings alone.
The attorney raised an eyebrow. Breeze Runner gulped, his throat burning, and obediently entered the car. Silvertongue climbed in after him and the door slammed shut behind him. Breeze briefly saw a driver in the front seat, separated from them by a tinted soundproof window.
A beautiful mare in a sleeved scarlet dress sat in the seat across from him, smiling her serpent’s smile at him. “Bonjour, Monsieur Runner,” Scarlet Letter purred.
“Lodge Mistress,” Breeze Runner swallowed, bowing his head, his heart thumping in his chest as the vehicle pulled away from the RBI headquarters.
“What happened, mon ami?” Scarlet asked. Her tone of concern almost sounded genuine.
Breeze Runner licked his sandpaper-dry lips. “Well, I was watching the monastery, trying to figure out how I could get in to take a look around inside when I saw those two archaeology professors pull up…”
He explained what had happened since then, though he left out that he had dropped a bag of Revelation. Scarlet Letter scowled and shook her head severely when he explained how Steady Hooves had drawn a gun on Daring and Caballeron.
“Idiot,” she sighed.
“Well, he stepped in it, and I had to go along with it,” Breeze Runner shrugged. “Anyway, we got them both tied up and then the agents busted in, shot Steady, and arrested me and the Knolls. I don’t even know where they came from.”
Scarlet’s frown deepened momentarily. “Is that all?”
“Yes, Lodge Mistress,” Breeze Runner nodded, his heart in his throat.
Scarlet Letter stared at him for a long beat of silence, one eyebrow raised. Breeze Runner kept his gaze low, trying to force himself not to squirm like a fish on a hook.
“You didn’t tell them anything, did you?” Scarlet asked.
“No, Lodge Mistress!” Breeze Runner gasped, looking back up at her. “You don’t need to worry! I would never betray the Order!”
Scarlet Letter smiled and reached out to gently stroke Breeze Runner’s cheek. “We weren’t worried,” she soothed.
“You need me,” Breeze Runner protested, trembling, not daring to move away from her embrace. “There are so few that can hear the Ahuizotl’s call. That can interpret him. How else are you going to study it?”
Scarlet smiled placidly back at him.
He had half a second to register the spring-loaded blade beneath her sleeve before it snapped out and into his eye, going all the way through and into his brain. Breeze Runner’s body went stiff for a moment, then slackened in death.
“There are other ways,” Scarlet Letter smiled at the corpse as she gently lowered him back into the seat, tilting his head back so that the blood wouldn’t stain the upholstery. She wiped the blade and brain matter off her blade with a hoofkerchief, which she incinerated with a flicker of magic.
Silvertongue, who hadn’t reacted to the murder in the slightest, opened up a panel in the door and extracted a radiotelephone, which he dialed a number into. “Yes, we have a package for disposal,” he stated into the mouthpiece, accepting a cigarette from Scarlet. “Total erasure. Nothing left behind…of course, the usual payment. The package will be delivered at the drop off in an hour.”
Three days later, a dark green Jeep once more roared through the Whitetail Woods, headlights cleaving through the shadows of the trees. A murder of crows was sent into flight by the vehicle’s approach, screeching out the alarm.
“That was foolish of you,” Caballeron hoarsely scolded from the driver’s seat.
“Oh, like you wouldn’t have done the same if they weren’t forcing you to stay overnight,” Daring Do smirked, her pith helmet lowered over her eyes.
Caballeron grumbled as he turned onto the path toward the Monastery, following the rough path through the shadowed woods beneath the evening sky. “Point conceded, mi amiga, but you still could’ve been killed.”
Daring sighed and sat up, pushing her helmet back. “Look, I appreciate you looking out for me,” she said. “But I can take care of myself, and I had help. And I couldn’t let the bad guys get away with our friend.”
Caballeron grumbled. “Very well, very well,” he admitted, halting at the gate.
Subprioress Morning Creek was once again waiting for them at the gate, her eyes shadowed as she studied the vehicle. She stared at the Jeep in silence for several seconds, then, with obvious reluctance, unlatched the padlock and pulled the gate open. Caballeron pulled the vehicle next to her, but she refused to enter.
“My sisters have cleared the building so that you may work in peace,” she reported, her eyes narrowed in suspicion at the two archaeologists. “But several of them have expressed reluctance about this plan, and I have to agree with them. Anything that fiends such as this would go to such efforts to find can only be unholy.”
“With all due respect, Sister,” Doctor Caballeron said. “To a scientist, knowledge is holy.”
Morning Creek frowned, then shook her head sadly and repeated the sign of the harmony before gesturing them on. Caballeron drove on down the path, leaving Morning Creek to walk after them, head bowed in silent meditation.
The ruins of the monastery loomed before them as Caballeron parked the Jeep in the lot. Daring Do exited and turned towards the collection of tents nearby, noting that there was no sign of the construction equipment that had been laying out in the open when they first arrived and that some of the larger tents had been taken down. The Sisters were all gathered in a cluster, nervously staring at the approaching scientists like field mice staring at a coiled serpent.
“You’re leaving?” Daring asked Fertile Ground.
The kirin Sister frowned. “We all agreed to abandon this monastery,” she explained. “This place…it’s been touched by black magic. I don’t know what the Verdant Sisterhood got up to in here, but it can’t have been good.”
Her gaze burned into Daring. “For the last time, whatever’s in there should stay buried. My advice: leave this place, burn those stupid statues, and forget about all of this.”
Daring Do looked at the closed door into the monastery. Behind it, the former asylum. And the object of their quest.
It’s not going to be good, is it, Uncle Ad? They’re right: nothing that caused this much trouble can be good. Maybe I should just destroy the statues…but I’m an archaeologist. My job is to learn about and preserve history, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Not destroy it. And besides…
“I need to know,” Daring repeated to Fertile Ground.
Fertile Ground hissed and shook her head. “You’re a fool, Daring Do.”
Daring bristled a bit, but could find nothing to say in reply.
“Venga, mi amiga,” Caballeron called, proceeding through the door with a small folding cart bearing a large plastic box.
Daring took one last look at the pleading, fearful gazes of the Sisters, then turned and proceeded into the monastery, wondering if this was how the curious cat felt.
The interior of the monastery with its partially reconstructed decor was eerily silent as they entered: even their hoofsteps seemed unnaturally muffled as the duo proceeded to the long stone chamber with the high, barred windows. The red glow of the evening sky provided a hellish glow to the long, lonely room and Daring was suddenly struck with the crushing thought of living one’s life locked in this stone edifice, secured to a bed, listening to the squawks and howls and chattering and laughter and screams of the other patients, having to look up every day and see freedom so close and yet so far out of reach.
“Daring? You alright?”
Daring Do shook her head and turned to face Caballeron, who was standing at the compass rose in the center of the room. She shook her head. “Just…thinking,” she admitted.
“Sí, there is much to think about,” Caballeron admitted. “I shudder to imagine how a Sisterhood of Deeds could possibly fall so far as to worship an ahuizotl…”
He opened up the box that he’d carted in. Daring flinched as he extracted, one at a time, the four Ahuizotl statuettes. A chill ran down her spine as she recalled the howls of the faceless things with the dripping tongues.
“But hopefully, we shall find the answers,” Caballeron continued, treating the statues with great reverence as he placed them on the ground. He dug into a pocket and pulled out a notepad. Upon it were copies of the four hieroglyphs that had been inscribed into the bottom of each of the statuettes.
“Now let us see if my research into the extinct languages of the Southern Languages bore fruit…” he said. He sorted through the idols for a moment and selected the one that looked like a crescent moon with a teardrop. “Now, if the translations of these hieroglyphs are correct, then this one symbolizes ‘sunrise.’” He placed this statuette on top of the circle at the eastern arm of the compass rose.
Instantly there was a faint clicking noise and the floor beneath the idol began to faintly glow a silver color. Caballeron’s eyes lit up in delight.
“Aha! ¡Estamos en el camino correcto, mi amiga!” he cried, snatching up the next idol. He compared the hieroglyphs and then placed this one on the southern arm. Again a clicking sounded from deep below and the floor beneath the idol glowed silver.
Daring watched in silence as Caballeron placed the other two idols, each with the same result. With the final key pressed down, there was a click, and then a section of the stone floor slid backward. Caballeron gasped in amazement as the prize within was revealed, but his wide smile was replaced by a look of confusion.
Within was a great tome, a foot long and foot wide. The cover was gilded with gold, but the filigree of trees and flowers had been desecrated, replaced with crude stars arranged in strange constellations and skulls. The title was spelled out in vivid rubies: Liber Visionum Bestiae.
“‘Book of Visions of the Beast?’” Daring translated as Caballeron took a photograph of the cover.
Caballeron carefully opened the book and began to leaf through the pages with a pair of tweezers, scanning the writing within for any clues. “Here,” he said, pausing at an early entry.
Eighteenth of the Moon of Seeds, 1739
We’ve been accepting creatures from across the land into our care for many years now, but few have come as far as this one. Sister Blossom found this poor soul wandering the streets of Ponyville today, his clothes identifying him as from the migrant tribes of the Frozen North–he was sweltering beneath his tattered, filthy heavy robe, ranting to any who would stop to listen about a beast that was dead but merely sleeping, waiting for someone to find it and awaken it to bring about the ruin of this world. When we asked him his name, he could not give any answers, nor could he tell us how he had wandered so far from home, though he did mumble about remembering dancing in bloodstained clothes around a bonfire, singing praises to this beast. We’ve managed to calm him down and have him set aside on a bed. With the blessings of Harmony, we shall guide him back to the light.
Daring scribbled down a shorthand transcript of the passage, the churning in her gut telling her–or, more likely, warning her–that they were indeed onto something. She nodded to Caballeron, who proceeded to the next page. Entry by entry, the story was revealed to them.
Twenty-First of the Moon of Seeds, 1739: The stranger from the Frozen North has improved in some ways, but worsened in others. He is less aggressive in his outbursts and, with the aid of regular meals, is regaining his physical health. But he has not ceased his sermons, though he now relegates them to whispers to the other inmates. His word is starting to spread among the populace. We must do what we can to douse this unholy fire before it burns us all.
Twenty-Second of the Moon of Seeds, 1739: The madness is spreading. Two of our guests whom we were treating for anxiety and obsessive disorders have claimed that they had dreams of the same beast as the northerner, a monster entombed somewhere far from other creatures, dead but merely waiting. We’re separating the northerner from the others for his own safety and for the safety of others.
Seventh of the Moon of Leaves, 1739: Despite every effort, despite having separated the nameless northerner from the general population in a cell of his own, the dreams of the entombed beast continue…but this night was different. Virtually all of our patients agreed on the dream: a swarm of strange, round insects that descended upon the crops of this village, devouring everything that they came across, multiplying as they did so. They urged us to store as much of the crops as we could. Elder Sister Moongaze agrees that while several creatures having the same dream is unusual, there is nothing we should fear.
Nineteenth of the Moon of Leaves, 1739: The same dream of the swarm comes again and again to the patients. Some of the sisters have started gathering extra crops and storing them in the sheds or wherever they can find room. Elder Sister Moongaze has chided them for it, but the sisters believe that these dreams cannot be a coincidence.
“Wait, I think I’ve heard of this,” Daring mused. “Wasn’t Ponyville struck with a parasprite infestation in 1739?”
“Sí,” Caballeron confirmed, turning the page.
Twenty-First of the Moon of Leaves, 1739: They came with the dawn, a swarm of locust-like beings just like in the dreams of our patients. They devoured the crops, their numbers multiplying into the thousands within hours. In desperation, the villagers turned to us for aid.
The Northerner said that the beasts could be led away with music. We lacked any other ideas, so we brought out our instruments and sang and clapped to the beat of drums and the whistling of flutes. Incredibly, it worked: we were able to lead the beasts–called parasprites, we later learned–into the Everfree Forest, where they would bother us no more.
But we were still left with the devastated crops. Luckily, our own sisterhood had been storing food in preparation, and with luck, we will have enough to make it through the winter. The sisters are all calling it a miracle, that the strange Northerner came to us as guided by Harmony to save us from this disaster. Guided by the beast beneath. Elder Sister Moongaze is skeptical but has agreed that this at least deserves study.
“If this is true, it is incredible!” Caballeron gasped. “The ability to see the future is a rare talent indeed!”
“Ever notice how those stories about ponies who try to see their own destinies never go well?” Daring commented as Caballeron turned the page. The next few entries were mundane until the fifth of the Moon of Rain, 1741:
Elder Sister Moongaze called a meeting with the sisters. She looked furious, angrier than I’ve ever seen her. She pulled out a statue: an idol of the dog-like beast from the Northerner’s dreams. It was clearly carved in our style, with wood from our workshop, but none of the sisters would admit to carving it. Moongaze said that we had failed in our duties: while the prophetic dreams of our guest have been helpful in averting disaster multiple times, our focus is on treating the sick. This pony is clearly sick: all day he sits in that cell, painting the walls in his own blood and feces with hideous symbols, murmuring prayers and pleas to the prophet. Seer or not, he is clearly mad. And we have failed in our duty to treat him. She will be sending a message to a hospital in Vanhoover to take him off our hooves for proper treatment.
Sixth of the Moon of Rain, 1741: Elder Sister Moongaze is dead. She was teaching some acolytes in the garden when a venomous snake from the forest bit her on the ankle. We did our best to tend to her, but she was dead in hours.
The sisters are in silent terror. How or why one of the few venomous serpents in this forest made its way here and decided to strike Moongaze without her ever realizing it was there is beyond any of our explanation. But I looked into the Northerner’s cell.
He looked back at me. The first time he’s made eye contact with any of us.
He was smiling.
A shudder of revulsion passed down Daring’s spine and she saw a shadow pass over Caballeron’s face as he silently turned the page.
Thirty-First of the Moon of Pumpkins, 1741: under the instruction of the Northerner, we have dedicated ourselves to experimenting with these visions we have been gifted with. The Beast is harsh, but not unkind; he has planted his seeds within those who can hear his call, those fortunate souls who have come to us. It is up to us to learn to reap his harvest, to tend to the crops.
We will harvest them well. The lives of ponies depend on it and the knowledge that we will gain.
“So that explains why they started worshipping the Ahuizotl,” Daring commented as Caballeron continued through the book, discovering that several of the next pages were filled with alchemical formulas and recipes for drugs and instructions for rituals. All were accompanied by notes on their effects, transcripts of visions and their effects, all written in a tone that switched between coldly clinical when reporting failures and fatal accidents and fanatically enthusiastic when extolling successes. “But that doesn’t explain what happened to them all.”
“Hold on…here,” Caballeron said, turning to the last entry.
Twenty-Second of the Moon of Sun, 1743: We have received our last, and greatest vision: a ritual site of great power. It is there that we shall make the sacrifice. The seeds that our prophet has planted are finally ripe to be harvested. We shall travel there and wet the stones there with the blood of martyrs, those of our little blossoms, and then ourselves. We shall be the feast for what is waiting there within, awakening it from its long slumber. The keystone shall be ready to serve once more.
I wish that we would have the honor to free it, to release our Prophet to craft his new world, but that is not our role. Not the task that we have been given. That will wait for another, when the time is right.
I can hardly bear to wait, but the final preparations must be made; supplies must be acquired, the proper ritual items prepared. Some might be horrified at what we’ve done, but the blood is the proper fertilizer for our crops. Have we not paid a fair price for the lives we’ve saved, the disasters we averted or were able to respond to? Moongaze gave in to her fear and ignorance and she paid the price. We will not allow ourselves to be held back.
We will leave behind a trail for others to follow, to continue our work. Let those who would join us follow us to enlightenment. And let those who would turn away out of fear or disgust writhe in their chains.
Our path is clear.
Micca Ahuizotl chixtoc temiqui.
On the next page was a large drawing of what appeared to be a single eye with a tri-lobed iris. The rest of the manuscript pages were blank.
“A ritual site?” Caballeron mused aloud. “That must explain why they all just disappeared…but where to?”
“They all went and…sacrificed themselves,” Daring breathed, her stomach twisting in revulsion. She turned to stare at the ahuizotl idols, her stomach twisting even more at the sight of their hideous grins.
“What are you?” she asked.
“I think, mi amiga,” Caballeron said, his voice a mixture of grimness and eagerness. “That we will find out soon.”
Enigma of the Everfree Expedition Part One: The Zebra in the Library
“Come on, Uncle Ad!” Daring Do declared, pressing through the foot-deep layer of snow, weaving in between the shivering trees that stretched up towards the distant, twinkling stars across the twilight sky, peeking through small gaps in the canopy cover. The biting winter wind assailed every gap in her thick winter apparel that it could find, but the heat of adrenaline and excitement banished the cold.
“Slow down, my dear,” Gallant True called from behind her, grinning through the heavy pants that made his breath frost before them, his scarf flapping in the wind. “That cave isn’t going to be going anywhere.”
“I’m trying to get there before your bones freeze, old stallion!” Daring shot a grin back at him, using a wing to brush condensation from the goggles over her eyes.
“Oh, you whippersnapper!” Uncle Ad grinned back, picking up the pace through the snow.
Laughing, Daring galloped across the taiga, the white powder crunching beneath her boots. The wind stung at her exposed cheeks, pushing against her chest as if trying to ward her away, but she ignored it, pressing on.
She wound around a corner and the low mountain appeared before her, rocky, snow-blanketed slopes topped with coniferous trees rising up above the ground. The cave’s mouth appeared before her like a dark maw, waiting to swallow her whole. “There!” Daring declared, striding forward.
Something crunched beneath her hoof. She looked down and gasped.
Yellowed bones lay before her like a grotesque carpet, exposed by the wind. Ribs and leg bones jutted out of the frost like sticks; skulls stared up at her with their empty eye sockets. The wind screamed through the open jawbones.
An unnatural light of an unnameable color nearly blinded her. The idol of the Ahuizotl was glowing from the cave, as though a fire burned within the dark stone. The eyes shone, disturbingly lifelike, fixed directly upon her.
“Uncle Ad?” Daring asked, slowly stepping back. “Uncle Ad, we need to go—”
She turned around and nearly screamed, her stomach dropping into her gut.
Uncle Ad was standing behind her, swaying in place; his eyes glowed in his blank face, the same unnatural color as the idol, scalding her with his gaze.
Behind him stretched a huge shadow, blue fur bedecked in gold jewelry, saliva dripping from the mocking smile. The beast seemed to sleep, shifting and stirring dreamily; the long tail with the paw on the end curled possessively around her uncle.
“Micca…Ahuizotl…chixtoc…temiqui,” Gallant True rasped out, his voice sounding like wind being forced through a dry, narrow tunnel.
The wind grew to a terrible howl. Daring turned to see the shadowy things lunging out of the cave, rushing at her. She spread her wings to take off, but they were on her in a heartbeat, claws of ice digging into her.
“No! No! Help me!” Daring screamed, reaching out to her uncle.
But Uncle Ad just stared at her dispassionately, vague ghosts of sadness, angern and blame flickering briefly across his face, the still-glowing eyes burning down at her.
“It’s your fault,” he spoke in a venomous hiss. Behind her, the monster let out a low, satisfied growl, smiling in its slumber and pulling Gallant True towards him.
The snow became as viscous as quicksand as the laughing monsters pulled her down. Daring screamed and screamed, struggling for all she was worth, but it was all for naught as she was pulled down and down…
“Professor Do?”
Daring Do woke up with a gasp, slapping away the hoof shaking her shoulder and winding up to strike her attacker.
“Hey, easy, easy! It’s me!” Twilight cried, flinching away from the blow.
Daring Do froze as her mind began to catch up to her body. Heart thumping in her throat, she slowly looked around and realized that everyone else in the library’s reading room was staring at her, their expressions a blend of surprise and concern.
Daring Do sighed and slowly sat back down in the chair, mopping her sweaty face. “I’m sorry, Twilight. Bad dream.”
“It’s okay,” Twilight smiled reassuringly. She glanced down at the open books spread over the wide table before Daring. “Still looking into this Ahuizotl monster, huh?” she asked, tilting her head to study the now drool-covered notes that Daring had been using as a pillow.
Daring winced and used her undone bow tie to try to mop up the worst of the drool. “Yeah,” she admitted. “It just doesn’t make sense how two separate groups in Ponyville could worship an old deity from southern Equestria.”
She glanced over at a bound notebook she’d been studying; the typewritten label read “Liber Visionum Bestiae” Transcript, Whitetail Monastery, 11-23-1955. “Or how some lunatics can all dream about the thing and drive a group of nuns to worship it.” She flipped through the notebook, all the way to the last page with the bizarre tri-lobed eye. “Or what the hell this is and how it relates to…uh, Twilight, are you okay?”
Twilight was staring at the illustration, her mouth gaping and her eyes bulging.
“I’ve seen that symbol!” she gasped. “That’s actually part of why I came to talk to you! There’s a friend from the Everfree Forest that you need to meet!”
Daring Do blinked. “From the Everfree Forest?”
“Yes!” Twilight insisted, grabbing Daring’s foreleg in her excitement. “We found something in the Everfree Forest! An archaeological site and I think it might be connected to that!”
Daring’s heart sped up in her chest. “Sure,” she said, pushing away from the table and standing, her legs stiff from hours of sitting still.
“Great!” Twilight chirped. “She’s in the local history wing.”
Twilight led her out of the reading room, past the rows of tables where students and faculty alike were studying, scratching down notes from stacks of books, cramming for tests or hunting down citations for reports. As Daring followed Twilight out of the room, the sound of flipping pages and scratching pencils fell silent in her wake. She shrugged her shoulders against the burning barrage of stares chasing her out. She glanced at a younger student pretending he wasn’t watching her over the book on advanced calculus. He jumped as her glare focused on him and hid behind the book like it was a shield, frantically scribbling down notes.
Heat rushed up Daring’s face and she had to take a long, slow breath to settle herself. Like I’m a circus freak show…
Twilight and Daring exited the reading room and headed upstairs to the third floor, following the signs to the History and Hippology section. Daring Do spotted the new face as soon as they entered.
The tall zebra with the mohawk-like mane and cutie mark of a stylized sun was carrying a long wooden staff with a pair of painted gourds dangling from it. Golden bangles adorned her neck and one foreleg, and golden hoops hung from her ears. She was speaking to Spike, who was sitting on top of the receptionist’s desk with a stack of books nearby. The zebra turned to greet Twilight; the gourds on her staff rattled faintly as they moved, blending musically with the jingling of her bangles.
“Zecora, this is Daring Do,” Twilight introduced the archaeologist. “She’s the explorer I told you about. Professor Do, this is Zecora. She lives in the Everfree Forest.”
“I am glad to meet you, adventurer bold,” Zecora bowed in greeting. “Many tales of you Twilight has told.”
“True ones, I hope,” Daring Do smiled, bowing back. “You actually live in the Everfree Forest?”
Zecora nodded. “Five years ago, I was sent on a quest: to study all magic and learn from the best. I traveled the world, from mountains to sea, until I carved out a hut in an Everfree tree. The magic of the woods is unique and strange; the rules of the land oft’ seem to change. I’ve made the Everfree my central locus and study of the land my main focus.”
“I met Zecora when I first came to Ponyville to study the Everfree Forest,” Twilight explained. “Since she was studying the magic of the forest as well, I thought we could work together. I’ve learned so much from her since then!”
“You’ve gone into the Everfree Forest?” Daring asked, her eyes widening. “By yourself?! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?!”
“Professor, I’m surprised to hear you say that, considering what I know about your past adventures,” Twilight smirked. “Honestly, the Everfree Forest’s reputation for danger is mostly hyperbole; as long as you keep to the outer perimeter and know what to expect, it’s not too dangerous. Zecora has shown me around the area.”
“The woods may be a land of danger, but to risk and trouble I am no stranger,” Zecora smiled confidently. “After living there for a few years, I’ve learned ways to deal with fears.”
“Of course, it helps to have a dragon to watch your back,” Spike declared, puffing himself up.
Twilight rolled her eyes with an indulgent smile. “Yes, Spike, it makes me feel much safer having you with me,” she said.
Daring Do considered Twilight for a moment, then chuckled. “Twilight Sparkle, you are something else.”
“Thank you,” Twilight nodded, taking out a binder labeled Everfree Forest Research 1955-1956. “But we wanted your help for something else.”
She pulled out a hoofdrawn map of the Everfree Forest on graph paper, complete with a scale and compass. Only parts of the perimeter and the northern section of the shapeless expanse were filled in; Daring noted that large sections had been repeatedly erased and redrawn. One of the only parts that had remained constant was a red X labeled Zecora’s Hut on the northwest border of the forest.
“We’ve been exploring this area,” Twilight explained. “I’ve been comparing the topography with the maps made by past surveyors. We haven’t gone very deep into the forest, but it’s been tricky; the topography randomly changes, sometimes overnight.”
“Changes?” Daring asked.
“The trees and hills of the forest sometimes change position,” Zecora explained. “And sometimes gain a swamp or a river as an addition. Why this happens, no one knows; something about the forest’s magic, I suppose.”
“Look,” Twilight said, pulling out copies of several other maps, each one marked with a date and an author’s name, and laying them out for Daring to examine. A survey of the eastern region in 1935 for an oil pipeline, a geological survey of the northern area in 1888, an ornithological expedition in the south and west in 1841…every one further back in time. And every one of them was slightly different: a river that ran a different course, a bog or a plain that appeared to have migrated a few miles to the west between the decades, or a hill that vanished and reappeared elsewhere.
“The hell…?” Daring asked.
“There are only a few places in the world that have shifting topography like the Everfree Forest,” Twilight explained. “The Discord Wastes in the Badlands, the Archipelago of Voices near Mount Aris…it’s always due to some powerful local magic, but no one’s ever been able to demonstrate the cause of the Everfree’s magic. I hope to find it myself!”
Daring glanced at the maps and frowned. “Hmm…the center of the Forest has never been explored. None of the maps have filled it in.” She frowned at the tantalizing blank space on the charts. “It’s like on those old sea charts of unexplored seas. ‘Here there be monsters.’”
“This is Equestria. There are lots of monsters,” Spike pointed out.
“So how can you keep a consistent map if it keeps changing?” Daring asked.
“Distances and landmarks are hard to judge, but there are a few places that do not budge,” Zecora added. “By studying these locations, we hope to get information on the hows and whys of navigation.”
“And one of those landmarks is something that Zecora uncovered something to the northeast of her hut.” She pointed to a spot on the hoofdrawn map about nine miles from Zecora’s hut.
“It was a circle of stones, with vines overgrown,” Zecora explained. “One stone stood apart, and upon it some strange art. The markings upon the face, neither of us could place, save for one symbol unique. Come, friend, and take a peek.”
Twilight, who was practically quivering with anticipation, pulled out a collection of photographs and placed it on the table for Daring to examine. Daring fanned them out in her wing, her heart beating faster with every picture.
The photographs did display a circle of large granite stones, eleven of them. Six menhirs, their forms smoothed with age, formed a loose circumference, with five smaller slabs laying flat within the circle in a form that Daring couldn’t decide was in a haphazard manner or a deceptive pattern.
The anomalous stone was a roughly hewn stela of granite, a few meters away from the standing stones. Only part of it remained standing; parts of the face had fractured off like missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The piece that remained was marked with partial hieroglyphs. Though Daring did not recognize the language, there was indeed one symbol that she recognized.
A single eye, the iris formed of three circular lobes, with an x-shaped pupil.
Daring’s heart skipped a beat. “That’s…that’s from the Liber Visionum Bestiae,” she whispered.
“I told you!” Twilight cried. “This could be connected to what happened in the Whitetail Monastery!”
“You mean connected to a bunch of nuns who went insane and started worshiping a monster?” Spike asked as Daring bent over the picture with a magnifying glass.
“I don’t recognize this language,” Daring admitted. “But maybe if we find the rest of the pieces, we might be able to figure it out.” She looked over the photograph once more. “Maybe even learn who these creatures were…”
“Haven.”
Daring looked up to see Doctor Caballeron approaching, his eyes on the documents that Twilight had spread across the table.
“The Lost City of Haven, mi amiga,” Caballeron breathed again, taking one photograph of the fragmented stela and holding it up. “Long have there been rumors of a settlement hidden deep within the Everfree Forest, active to this day. This, perhaps, might be the evidence we have sought of its existence! And if the SIsters were headed there, then there may be more to find!”
“Uh…” Daring turned to Zecora, who was blinking at the newcomer in polite befuddlement. “Zecora, this is my colleague, Doctor Dorada Caballeron, Professor of Archaeology and Ancient Cultures.”
“Ah, my mistake, señora,” Dorada said, bowing politely to the zebra. “Forgive me, I was so enraptured with these images that I neglected to greet our guest.”
“Your apology, doctor, is unneeded,” she smiled, bowing back. “I can see a mind in which curiosity is seeded.”
“Didn’t they say something about curiosity and the cat?” Spike muttered. Twilight once again ignored him.
“We must mount an expedition at once!” Caballeron declared excitedly. “We shall require food, camping equipment, cameras–”
“Hold up, Cabbie,” Daring interrupted him, unable to keep the grin off her face. “We need to do the proper research first, scout out the land. And that’s if Dean Paper will let us go.”
“Have you forgotten, Daring?” Dorada cried. “Spring break is next week! We shall have plenty of time to explore to our hearts’ contentment!”
Daring’s heart leaped. “You’re right!” she gasped.
Twilight glowed with excitement. “This is gonna be great! We’ll have to do research, and re-research, and planning, and making checklists…!”
Spike looked at the photograph of the stela. The baleful eye of the Tantabus stared back at him coldly from the granite.
“Am I the only one with a bad feeling about this?” he mumbled to himself.
