Chapter 1
…the sandy dunes of Saddle Arabia, long, long ago. Behold the great desert. Few things lived here, for the quickest pegasus could not keep clouds together long enough to let it rain here, nor the stoutest earthpony coax life from the barren sand. And yet, all was not quiet. An earth pony stumbled across the dunes, his throat parched, his lips cracked. His name was Silver Grain. He sought to cross the desert and make his way to Meadowa, but now he was lost. What water he had ran out that morning, and he could not expect to live through tomorrow if he did not find his way to an oasis.
Rambling deliriously, he stumbled as his hoofs got caught on something. Amazed to find anything so hard after days of trekking through shifty sand, Silver took a closer look at what had caused his fall. What looked like a small wooden pyramid rising out of the sand turned out to be one corner of a chest, nearly as long as Silver himself. The chest might have been locked once, but all was now rust and rotting planks. And yet Silver could see something within that looked as if brand new: a long piece of paper, only slightly lighter than the surrounding sand. With shaking hoof, Silver lifted out this pristine document. Turning it around, he found to his great surprise a map, of what looked to be exactly the desert area he now found himself in.
Guided by the detailed map and the bright stars, Silver galloped all through the night. When the sun rose on what would have been his last day, he found himself in the town founded on the oasis of Al-Mane-Ibad. He dived into the small lake around which the town was built, and drank until his belly was round.
That afternoon, he was to be found in the tavern, bartering for money for supplies. Though Silver was loath to let go of the map that had saved his life, he had nothing else to trade. So he offered the map to a pony he found there.
Now this pony was in fact Poni Baba, the leader of the forty ponies, a gang of thieves that had plagues that country for many years. He was a pony merciless in his greed, always seeking more riches to add to his hidden hoard at Sesame Seed, where he had made his lair. And Baba saw something on this map that Silver did not: a route leading to great wealth, hidden in secret places throughout the desert. It seemed incredible to Baba that Silver Grains had not seen these fortunes marked so clearly on the map, but he didn’t point that out. Rather he hoofed Silver a few bits, far less than he thought the map was worth, then had his henchponies chase Silver off.
The next day found Poni Baba and his forty ponies on the desert road, going toward the first hiding place, when they were overtaken by a silver maned and black coated unicorn who introduced himself as Starry Skies. He had followed the gang and wanted to join them, for Starry Skies had sought all his life to become ever more powerful. Baba first wanted to scare him away, afraid that Starry would steal his treasure. But in time, Starry convinced Baba to trust him, even to the point that he shared the secret of the map with him.
When Poni Baba showed Starry Skies the document, Starry did not see a map on the piece of paper. Rather, he saw what looked to be an incantation for a spell that promised to grant the caster great magical power. Starry Skies supposed that only a unicorn of formidable powers like himself would be able to see the true contents of the document.
In the deep of night, when all the gang had gone to sleep, Starry Skies silently slipped inside Baba’s tent, looking for the spell. He rummaged through chests and sacks, until at last he found it. With the document levitating before him, he galloped out of camp. The last he heard was a great roar of anger from Poni Baba as the thief found out he had himself been robbed.
Starry Skies fled all the way to the great city of Grazeah, where he rented a loft above a greengrocer’s shop. There he spent days studying the document, drawing runes and preparing. When the full moon rose over the desert, he was ready to cast his spell. He charged his horn to the brim, and poured all his concentration on the spell that would make him the most powerful unicorn of all the land.
The energies built inside the magic circle, then gathered to a point. Then, with the boom of thunder, the energy hurled itself at Starry Skies. All he saw was bright light until his consciousness was lost. When he awoke, Starry Skies found that his horn was broken, and that he would be powerless to cast the simplest spell for the rest of his life.
Overcome with anger, he tried to rip apart the document containing the spell that had cost him his magic. But he found no matter how hard he pulled, he could not part a single fiber. In the end he set the document on fire and threw it, flaming, from his window.
But though the paper burned as it floated on the breeze, it was not consumed. When at last it landed on the street and the flames died, the document was unharmed.
There it was found the next day by Humble Tune, a beggar pony who’s only possession in this world was her oud, a pear shaped string instrument similar to a lute. It was thanks to this instrument that she could afford to feed herself each day, for on it she could play beautiful music that inspired even the most haughty noblemare to drop a bit in her tin as she passed.
As Humble Tune cleaned off the document, she found written on it the notes to an intricate tune. Bemused, she sat herself down on the side of the street and, after a few tries, was able to perform the entire song. The effects were astounding. Not a pony passed by when they heard that song without stopping. Some ponies, mesmerized, hung around the whole day as they begged Humble to play the song again and again.
In time, ponies of wealth and influences heard the song, and payed Humble handsomely to perform the song at high class parties. Within weeks, Humble became famous for the beauty of the song which, though always the same, sounded different each time ponies heard it. Yet Humble Tune did not forget her time on the streets, and shared what part of her earnings that she didn’t use for herself with beggars and streetponies throughout Saddle Arabia.
One night, as she had performed the still nameless tune once again, she was approached by Sour Note, a well known pegasus musician. But what few knew was that Sour Note had little love for music, even though her cutiemark was a wobbly note. Rather, what Sour Note wanted more than anything was fame, to have her name mentioned and revered by all ponydom. To her, music was only the best way she had of achieving this goal.
Since Humble Tune had played her song often enough that she knew it by heart, she gave the paper describing the song to Sour Note without regret. Sour Note was determined to learn the song and claim it as her own so that she could replace Humble Tune as the most popular musician in Arabia. So thinking, she returned to her big mansion to study.
After a solid month of practicing, Sour Note emerged and had word spread to all corners of high society that she had completed her masterpiece, and would perform that evening to a select company. As she played her ney, a long flute whose holes she covered with her feathers, Sour Note was sure that all ponies would sing her praises. The music was glorious to her ears, and at the end of the song she stood up expecting hoofstamping applause.
What she got instead was laughter and insulting whinnies. What had sounded like beautiful music to Sour Note had to every other pony sounded like grating, discordant cat-screeching. In tears she was driven off the podium and cast out of the building. To the end of her days, Sour Note could not play another note that didn’t sound divine to her, hellish to anypony else, and she passed into obscurity unsung.
So it was that Sour Note trudged along the road out of Grazeah in the blackest of moods, when she saw a pony sitting cross-legged under a palm tree. This pony was Lotus Blossom, and she had spent years meditating under that tree, trying to free herself from all earthly attachments.
Seeing the bliss on Blossom’s face, Sour Note became resentful. She walked up and threw at Blossom the paper detailing the song that had become her undoing. “Here”, she snarled. “May this song bring to you the same misfortune it has to me.”
As Sour Note stamped off, Lotus Blossom gently opened her eyes. She picked up the piece of paper the angry mare had thrown, and folded it open, only to find that it was blank. She turned it over once more to be sure, but could find not a blot of ink on it. Shrugging, she looked around seeking a use for the paper. Finally, she placed on the ground and used it as a mat before continuing her meditations. And there it must have stayed, for the document was never heard from again by ponykind.