Villainy Abroad

by Impossible Numbers

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Thriller, Drama, Original Character, Adventure
Length: 19958

Two henchmares-for-hire, Carmine and Vanilla, are out on yet another assignment for some artefact or other. It was supposed to be just another routine "pick-up", but then henchmares don't have the best job security in the world.

Collecting artefacts of power is only slightly less safe than tightrope-walking over a snake pit, but it's a fantastic excuse to go places for the likes of Carmine and Vanilla, henchmares-for-hire.

This time, they're hunting for a pegasus crystal on a hot, sunny island, somewhere beyond Equestrian borders. It's got a lovely little legend attached to it, too. Vanilla likes legends.

Ancient secrets, evil deeds, death waiting for the merest slip-up... it's just another Monday, really. At least the scenery's nice.

Rating: General reading, but some scenes contain a level of threat and violence beyond the TV show's standard.

Published 2016-09-16 20:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-09-16 20:50:01 UTC

A Diabolical Service

The two ponies on the corner lowered their sunglasses briefly, and then drew up the collars of their trench coats before returning to their books.

From their table on the café veranda, they got a good view of the marketplace. They saw a maze of flaking white stalls, tarpaulin covers, and creatures of all species packed so tightly that the sandy ground might as well have not been there. What wasn’t scorched white under the midday sun – exposed planks, bleached turbans, coats and robes that seemed coated with cracking layers of salt – looked blackened and charred, so that their black, wide-brimmed hats were as shrivelled and tight as rotten figs. Even their own mugs under the shadows seemed to shimmer, and the hot chocolate they’d ordered was evaporating millimetre by millimetre.

The unicorn lowered her sunglasses and glared at the lines before her.

“Stupid index,” she growled. “How many versions of ‘crystal’ can you not put in a book about ancient artefacts, for Pete’s sake?”

Despite the heat, her companion shivered. The thatched chair and one of her knees rattled against a table leg. When the shivering earth pony reached for her mug, her hoof drew back sharply.

“Still hot!” She stuck the offended hoof into her mouth and sucked until it popped out again. “I don’t believe it. I’ve never felt anything like it. The sheer heat of this place…”

“I don’t want a weather report, Vanilla. Found anything in your copy?”

Vanilla flapped her hoof until the red spot died back. “Oh? Oh, yes. Yes! Just spotted something. And I was just seconds from giving up too. I mean, what are the odds? Fate moves in mysterious ways, you know?”

The unicorn lowered her copy and, under her dagger-of-a-horn and plough-like forehead, almost gave her companion a long burst of flame from her eyes. With a quick lick of her hoof, she flicked the book back to its front page.

“They don’t tell us anything these days,” she murmured. “You’d swear they didn’t want us to do our freaking duty at all. So if it’s not clear yet, I’m not in the mood to sit through any of your ‘profound corner’ drivel. Again. Just get to the point.”

Vanilla nodded so hard she almost sent her sunglasses flying. They ducked behind the tome’s dusty cover, which was raised like a shield. At the same moment, a waiter ambled over to their table.

“I hope your drinks are satisfactory, madam and mademoiselle?” The notepad hovered beside his drooping eyelids, quill raised.

The unicorn flashed a smile stolen from a shark. Behind the sunglasses, two burning eyes narrowed into a sniper scope.

“Simply delicious,” she cooed. “Now, I think we’ll have the bill, please.”

A page from the notepad was slapped down onto the table. Vanilla lowered her tome and leaned forwards. A frown creased her brow.

“You’re charging us for the hay baguette?” she shrieked.

The drooping eyelids didn’t even flicker; evidently, he had been expecting this. “All orders on the bill are final, mademoiselle.”

“But it had mould on it! It was moving!”

“No, mademoiselle. It was the finest bread this side of the city. Finest quality local produce. All ingredients organic.”

“Finest quality my croup! There were civilizations springing up on that crust!”

“And we sent it back,” said the unicorn as though commenting on the sunny sky today. “You took it back when we asked politely. Surely, you don’t want us to take this all the way up to the manager, my young friend?”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot help you,” he said as though by rote. “I checked with my supervisor. We accept no refunds.”

Vanilla put her head in her hooves and groaned before rounding on him again. “Then we would like a replacement to go! I’m not paying for nothing!”

A wan smile oozed over the waiter’s granite face. “I’m sorry, mademoiselle. There is nothing I can do.”

“A pity,” said the unicorn with a sigh. For a moment, her horn flickered with sparks and a shimmering aura zipped along its length.

He bowed with a stiff neck and ambled away from them. A few seconds passed. The unicorn counted under her breath.

At once, the waiter yelped and leaped into the air. Several ponies spun round, knocking a couple of chairs down. A smirk played across the unicorn’s face, widening still when someone the next table over dropped their glass. Seconds later, the waiter had scurried back through the gaping hole of a front entrance and vanished with a second yelp.

The unicorn levitated her mug and took a sip without looking away from the entrance.

“Carmine!” whispered Vanilla across the table, drawing her companion’s gaze back. “What did you – Weapons? He had weapons? Secret gadgets? Was he a spy?”

Carmine eased back in her thatched chair and swivelled her head from left to right. “Clean,” she murmured, and then added, “at first. Anyway, what were you saying?”

The hubbub of haggling shouts and hurried disputes and giggly gossip washed over them once more. Vanilla cocked her head at a jaunty angle and snorted in her effort to suppress a chuckle. Under her hooves, the pages of the tome spread out flat. Opposite her, Carmine eased herself forwards; they were almost touching horn to fringe.

“How much…” whispered Vanilla, but she bit her lip and her gaze darted to the nearest table before she started again. “How much do you know about the Discovery of Loyalty?”

Carmine cocked her ears forwards. “Go on.”

After glancing at an outburst of cheers from inside the café, Vanilla licked her upper lip. With her dry skin under her sweaty fur and impenetrable sunglasses, she looked like a gecko trying to moisten its staring eyes.

“Well,” she hissed, “the book goes on about the Ancient Pegasus Empire – you know, the history behind the story – but here’s the gist of it. The commander of the empire back then, Commander Strykem, was supposed to have mastered lightning power. And not just mastered it: he was so skilled with it, he could strike a pond of dead slime and mud, and living creatures would be born from it fresh.”

Carmine’s brow creased. “You sure you’re reading that right? I heard that ‘did-you-know’ titbit umpteen times. I could’ve sworn blind his power was to bring the dead back to life. That scared the other pegasi, he had a ‘spat’ with ‘em, they cast him into Tartarus. It’s just another preachy fable. You know, the usual stuff: ‘don’t do this thing everyone wants to do but no one can really do anyway, and would probably screw up in real life’.”

A passing donkey knocked their table and brayed in shock. Vanilla’s hoof darted out and scooped up her mug before it was knocked off the surface. Neither of them dropped their stares until the offending jack had vanished into the crowd.

“I dunno,” continued Vanilla. “All I can say is what’s in the book. It says here” – she tapped the footnotes on the page – “Commander Strykem went further than that. Much further.”

With a rubbing of her hooves, Carmine leaned back until the backrest creaked. Her mug rose up and hovered beside her grin. “I see.”

“When he created the animals from the swamp, he found that they simply dissolved back into mud and lightning. For seven weeks and seven hours, he gathered as much lightning and as much mud as he could, and he struck again and again, all kinds of mud and all kinds of lightning, trying to make his creatures last. In the end, he found that a vital ingredient was missing, something that would commit the elements to stay together no matter what happened to them after they were created.”

A low chuckle met these words. Carmine splayed her forelegs wide. “Let me guess: that vital ingredient was… wait for it… Loyalty. With a capital L.”

From within the café, shouts and arguments broke through the babble and tramping of hooves and feet. Sighing, Vanilla snapped the tome shut and ran a hoof through her fringe, almost knocking her wide-brimmed hat over an ear and off her head.

“We’re getting somewhere,” Carmine breathed. “It’s treating abstractions like they’re building materials. That’s the sort of reliable schlock you can navigate a ship by. What’s it say next?”

Vanilla waved a hoof until Carmine leaned forwards again. They nearly head-butted each other, and their forelocks briefly became entangled before they drew back slightly.

“He didn’t just discover Loyalty.” Vanilla fidgeted where she sat, while across the table Carmine was as mobile as a painting. “He captured it. And then he hid it.”

“You’re talking about the crystal.”

The nod was barely a tremble in the wind. Carmine’s grinning face almost bowed to it.

“Across the ocean itself. He stashed it in a secret cave on a golden island in a sea of blood. He travelled so far that even the map-makers of the age had no idea where he went. He only told one soul – a secret keeper – so if he ever died before his time, his successor could be told the secret. Then, in a more enlightened time, his masterwork could be completed.”

“Hm. And when was this, did you say?”

Only a few inches from her, Vanilla shrugged and flashed a smile. “Centuries before Equestria was even founded. Good old Equestria, eh?”

“Good old Equestria. Well, I think we’ve long since run into the territory of said enlightened time, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’d say we passed the border a few centuries back, yes.”

They leaned away from each other. Both of them exchanged winks, and smirked into their respective mugs. Even their gulps were unerringly in step. Someone deep in the market crowd burst into screeching sobs.

Vanilla slammed her mug – and the hoof bearing it – onto the table. Opposite, Carmine lowered her own mug with a slight tap. Chairs scraped against the blanched planks, scattering flakes of papery bark under their legs.

“Golden island…” Vanilla reached down and dumped her saddlebag onto the table. “Bet that’d be a great resort. Take your kids to uncharted country! Adventure and terror for all the family! Exotic diseases come free!”

“What are you going to do with your bonus this year?” Carmine levitated her satchel, and her copy of the tome sank beneath the raised flap, which snapped into place. “I could do with a trip to Manehattan.”

Vanilla opened her mouth to reply, but jumped forwards. Her tome slipped and slammed onto the floorboards, knocking the cover off. The true cover flashed before it landed against her leg. A golden face, embossed on the thick card of the true cover, grinned up at them.

“You idiot!” Carmine hissed at her. “Quick!”

With a squeal, she shot down and slammed the false cover over the golden face. A few stares picked them out; Carmine stepped in their way at once and glanced down, sunglasses askew. Within seconds, Vanilla held the tome aloft, false cover now slotted into place, and her head darted back and forth, picking out stares from the veranda around her.

The tome glowed and was snatched out of her grip. She stumbled and found herself eye-to-eye with Carmine’s fiery pupils. The sunglasses had been lifted up to frame her arrow-like eyebrows. Saddlebag and tome floated beneath their chins, the former sheathing the latter before it was dumped – with a grunt – onto Vanilla’s sweat-sodden back. Both of their shoulders rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and fell.

Both glanced around the market crowd. Figures drifted to and fro in tunics and blindingly white cloth, but they could see shadows. There: a silhouette standing still behind a stall. There: some hulking biped shifting under the tarpaulin. There: a hay-chewing zebra, leaning against one of the veranda posts and giving them a sidelong stare.

When Carmine spoke, her lips barely moved and her teeth remained clenched.

“Take the back ah-wey,” was what Vanilla heard. “Do’ shtop uh-til I shay sho.”

While the spices stung their nostrils and the jabber numbed their ears, they slipped into the crowd. Bodies crushed them. Not once did their eyes stop swivelling in their sockets, checking each face as they passed by.

Behind them, the zebra threw her hay to the sand and slunk along the queues nearby.

“You stupid foal,” hissed Carmine under her breath. “Why didn’t you just wave it about while you were at it?”

“I only dropped it,” Vanilla hissed back. “Heaven forbid a mare could ever drop a book!”

“Well, you sure picked the right book to drop!”

“Look, it’s not my fault! It’s not my fault! You were supposed to glue the fake cover on, remember?”

“Don’t you start pinning this on me!”

“I’m not pinning this on you, Carmine. I’m pointing out it wasn’t just my fault.”

“It would have been fine if you hadn’t dropped it.”

They carried on like this up the steps and past the columns. Up ahead, the library loomed with the stately ornamentation of a temple. Carvings of ancient wise mares crowded around the swirls and concentric rings of the tympanum. Yet, behind them the river of real ponies, minotaurs, griffons, diamond dogs, donkeys, zebras, cattle, and sheep barely lapped the shore of the limestone steps, and from the marble columns to the granite portal there were no other creatures besides the two.

“You always pick on me,” hissed Vanilla. “No no, seriously; not one job has gone past without you having a go at me at some point.”

“I’m trying, Vanilla,” Carmine spat. “Strike me down dead if I’m not trying.”

“I mean, it’s not like this kind of work is a trip to the apple stall for a couple of braeburns, you know. I bet you stumbled a lot when you were starting out.”

They both stopped before the portal, the towering granite blocks carved with two guardian griffons glaring down at them. Carmine placed one hoof on a curved beak.

“Maybe,” she said with a slight nod. “Maybe I did.”

“Well then.”

“But I don’t anymore. That’s the point. Vermilion straightened my haunches out sharpish, I can tell you. Still got the scars to prove it.”

Vanilla’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Then buck up and straighten your act out.” Carmine made to push the door aside, but then raised the other hoof and let the portal slam back. “Don’t think I enjoy doing this, Vanilla, ‘cause I don’t. But it’s my job, and I will if I have to. Got it?”

The unicorn entered. Vanilla mouthed her words back at her with a sneer, and then followed.

“Got it,” she spat under her breath.

Their hoofsteps echoed around the four slab-like walls of smooth marble. Behind them, the portal slammed shut, and its echo slammed over and over. The smell of formaldehyde stung and burned their nostrils, but the air was so still and stuffy that each breath soon became a long, straining gasp. There was no one about.

Fireflies buzzed about in jars along the central table, casting dots across the surface, aglow like drifting embers. Throne-like seats lined the long table as guards of ebony honour. Wave after wave of bookcases towered almost to the rooftop on either side, their pigeonholes crammed and overflowing with scrolls, tomes, and booklets.

Carmine glanced to her right, but the reception desk was empty. She was nudged, and when she turned back, Vanilla was pointing ahead.

On the far side, behind the largest and blackest of the thrones, was a wall of pigeonholes. A ladder wheeled into view and slowed to a squeaky stop. The pegasus atop it was balancing scrolls on one hoof and stuffing a copy into a pigeonhole with the other. Both her wings were bandaged to her midriff.

With a smirk, Carmine swept a hoof over to her and raised her sunglasses.

“I’m feeling generous,” she whispered to Vanilla. “Now’s your chance to redeem yourself. Until it’s complete, I give you full reign of this particular task.”

Vanilla sighed and hung her head, not daring to look up. Carmine’s hoof, initially pointing at the pegasus, then lowered itself and swept up and pointed again. This time, it was more emphatic.

A moment later, the pegasus was about to kick herself along the shelf when the ladder swung out from under her. Scrolls rained down; the ladder clattered to the floor. Her forelimbs became a blur as she flapped them hard to stay up, and then gravity snatched her and threw her onto the rungs with a bounce that landed her face-first on the hard tiles.

“Hey!” she yelled, pushing herself up. “What’s the big i… dea…”

“Hey there, Folio. Remember us?” Vanilla removed her hoof from the ladder and sauntered over.

Squeaking, the pegasus shot to her feet and began backing away. Carmine waited until the mare bumped into her chest, and then flashed a smile when the pegasus rounded on her.

“Ah!” Folio twitched and snapped her whole body around from face to face, trying to keep them both ahead of her at once. “What are you doing? What do you want? What’s wrong now?”

“Where’s the cave, Folio?”

Folio spun round one last time to focus on Vanilla, who was now almost nose-to-nose. The chest of the pegasus heaved with the strain of each breath.

“Cave? What cave? I don’t know anything about no cave. Why are you going on about caves? You said you just wanted that book. I’m a librarian, you know, not a closet cave… exploring… guy.”

“Caver,” supplied Carmine. At Vanilla’s glare, she added, “Sorry, sorry. It’s your show. Ignore me.”

“You wanna know about caves? Ask one of the explorers! Local guides. Uh, carto… thingy.”

Carmine opened her mouth to correct her, but at Vanilla’s glance shut it again.

“Ask anyone but me! I only fill in pigeonholes! That’s as close as I get to any caves!”

Vanilla raised the book in front of the quivering librarian’s face. With a flick of her wrist, the false cover slid off and smacked against the foreleg of the pegasus, who drew back and whimpered.

“Commander Strykem only told one pony where the secret cave was.” Vanilla flapped the book as she spoke, batting the pegasus on the nose. “The secret keeper. Don’t act like you weren’t expecting us to come back. You gave us the book, for crying out loud.”

At this, the book was drawn back and Vanilla carefully crafted a knowing smirk onto her features. The wind vanished from Folio’s body. She slumped, staring at the floor with pain crushing her face.

“Don’t do this to me,” she said. “I didn’t ask to get mixed up in this. I’m just a librarian, for Pete’s sake. I only wanted some work experience.”

“On the golden island?”

“There was a foreign exchange program. I liked this place. I thought it’d make a nice getaway.”

Vanilla chuckled softly. “You mean a more exciting getaway? It’s got to be a lot more exciting than a cloud cauliflower farm, eh?”

Carmine spun round and stared at the doorway far behind them. Whether alerted by some minor disturbance or whether a suspicious thought had just struck her, she crouched and narrowed her eyes to slits.

“Trust me,” Vanilla continued, “I’ve been there, done that, and written the memoir. Why do you think I’m stuck in this job right now?”

When Carmine looked back, Vanilla was patting the quivering pegasus on the shoulder. Irritably, Carmine rubbed her own face with both hooves.

“For the love of Celestia,” Carmine groaned. “What are you doing?”

To her shock, Vanilla shot another laser glare in her direction. She almost took a step back.

“Make yourself useful, Carmine, and check around for any eavesdroppers, would you? Thattagirl.”

The unicorn’s horn glowed, and she lowered her sunglasses and peered over the rim. “What?”

“Now now, no questions. This is my show, remember?”

At the broad grin this was accompanied by, Carmine returned a withering smirk that didn’t extend to her flaming eyes. Nevertheless, she slouched away from the pair and trudged to the next row of shelves, beginning her trek back to the portal. There would be words about this later, and her mouth worked silently to find the right ones.

Under Vanilla’s patting hoof, the quivering pegasus tried to break away, but a firm press held her down and her head darted to and fro, looking for any kind of escape.

“Look, it’s not like I don’t want to help,” she lied. “Goodness knows I’d love to. But I don’t know what cave you’re on about, and I don’t know where the heck you got that idea from.”

“The secret keeper, Folio,” Vanilla whispered. “There’s always only one secret keeper. Trust me; I’ve been around the block a few times. I know how a legend works. Even you could guess what I’m driving at.”

“Ridiculous! Preposterous! Absolutely absurd! This is real life! That was thousands and thousands of years ago. The secret keeper’s dead. If he ever existed, I mean.”

“The secret keeper wasn’t one pony. It was a role. Roles can be passed on. Instructions written down. Hidden in plain sight.”

“Listen, it sounds good, but think about it! It’d be like a game of Whispers. The secret would warp beyond recognition after a few centuries. Someone in the chain would betray it. The secret, the cave, the crystal inside it, all of it would be lost!”

Beyond them, Carmine was leaping from aisle to aisle, trying to catch out any hidden spies. Vanilla sat down and reached across to the scattered scrolls, scooping them up. The librarian began pacing back and forth, chewing her lip and occasionally a hoof.

“It’s a good story, though.” Vanilla did not look up from her handiwork. “Isn’t it?”

“Myths are great stories! I love myths. I was brought up on myths. I remember my old mother – may she rest in peace, the heavens bless her soul – read me all kinds of bedtime stories when I was a foal. You know, I got full marks in my Literature Studies at Skyclad University before coming here. Full marks! Why, I could quote The Chronicles of Commander Hurricane in my sleep. Oh yeah, good stories. Great stories. I love ‘em. Love ‘em all.”

Carmine’s hoofsteps echoed around the library as she approached the portal, horn aglow. Behind her, Vanilla tutted under her breath and patted the pile of scrolls into a pyramid.

“Some would say,” she said, “that they are more than just stories. You can see something in that, right? You know what I mean; hidden messages, literary realism, allegory… Makes them more valuable than boring old fiction, eh?”

The librarian scoffed. “Ooh, don’t get me started on that philistine claptrap. That’s not literature studies; that’s conspiracy theory nutjobs, that’s sad little babies who never grow up, that’s quack philosophical types who couldn’t tell prattle from profundity if you labelled them. Literature” – and here, she spun round and stamped a hoof, her quivering vanishing in a flash – “is transcendent. You can’t reduce it to some join-the-dots cipher. You can’t reduce it to a grubby alter ego of grubby real life. You don’t need to believe language makes reality, or nonsense like that.”

“Yes, but –”

“No one knows what makes great literature great. That’s part of what makes it great to begin with. You don’t try and get meaning out of sunlight. The sun isn’t there to code for something else. You bask in it. You live for it.”

One portal door swung forwards, clanking against the other where they caught for a moment. Both Vanilla and Folio glanced over; Carmine was glaring down at a foal coming up the steps. They heard her shout something like “Library closed for lunch,” and then the slam echoed around them.

Vanilla beamed at the librarian and licked her lips. “You ever studied Crosswinds the Chatterbox? You must’ve done. That sun stuff sounded like the Celestial Soliloquy –”

“The Celestial Soliloquy?” Folio peered at her, a twitch catching at her nostrils. “You’ve read the classics?”

“‘Dabbled’ is more like it.” A weak chuckle escaped her lips. “I give it a go from time to time. When I’m not out on a job, I mean.”

The librarian giggled as though being strangled. “Ah. I, uh, didn’t think your type were into, er…”

“Oh come on! Ponies are more complicated than ‘types’. You should know that. It’s what you literature types love to go on about.”

Folio shuddered, her eyes darting in a vain attempt to snatch a glance at a possible escape. When she spotted Carmine checking the aisles on her trek back to them, she whimpered. Her hooves drummed against the floor.

“What is this leading to?” she said in a rush. “You’re not going to butter me up, you know. I can’t tell you where that cave is. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is, and I don’t like it any more than you do. So whatever you’re going to do to me, just get it over with.”

Vanilla winced. The mare stank of fear and confusion. She was bluffing. Her entire body vibrated like an elastic band stretched taut. It would be all too easy to break someone that fragile.

With her head down, Vanilla ignored the chill under her skin and lifted the pyramid of scrolls up with her front hooves. A sigh made her slump her shoulders.

“Don’t think I don’t understand.” She offered the scrolls, which the librarian snatched back. “In fact, if I knew a way to satisfy both of us, I’d gladly spare you the pain.”

And with that, she marched over to the shelf next to them and stood to attention.

“Carmine!” she yelled. “Over here!”

“Hope you two had a nice chat?” Carmine stomped over to her side and stood to attention. With a nudge of hindquarters, Vanilla got her to step aside a smidgen. There was a conspicuous pony-wide gap between the two.

“On three,” said Vanilla, “kick back with your left. One.”

“Wait!” Folio staggered in her haste to stop the scrolls collapsing. “What are you doing?”

“Two.”

“No! Don’t! Stop!” The librarian struggled to shift scrolls to just one foreleg, and jerked forwards to stop the pile collapsing.

“Three.”

Their legs shuddered with the impact. Carmine actually stumbled forwards with the force.

Behind them, the entire shelf had jumped backwards, deep into the wall and slightly into the darkness beyond it. While the librarian gasped, Vanilla rotated on the spot and reached forwards. She was barely suppressing a grin when she slid the shelf aside.

It clicked into place. Both of them stared down into the gaping darkness. Just within the firefly lighting of the library, the grey creases and cracks of the cave wall stopped short of the block of granite. They could see the grazed and scraped sides of the shelves on either side of the entrance.

Knees and cannons hit the ground behind them. Carmine caught Vanilla’s frown and shook her head warningly.

“How…” Folio’s voice was barely a whisper. “How did you… How could you possibly have…”

“Look at it this way.” Vanilla’s voice came back to her from the depths of the cave. “You didn’t tell us where the cave was, and we found what we were looking for. Both of us get what we want.”

Carmine levitated a jar of fireflies from the table and placed it on Vanilla's back. They both nodded to each other.

As they left the librarian sobbing behind them, Carmine lit her horn up to expose a ring of green-tinged rock face ahead of them. She glanced sideways at her companion, who was smirking to herself.

“So,” she whispered, and even her whisper echoed back at her, “exactly how did you figure it out?”

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know?” Vanilla began humming a jaunty tune to herself.

Carmine growled at her. “All right, you’ve had your fun. Now I’m in charge again. So how did you figure out where the cave was?”

The smirk never left Vanilla’s face. Instead, she stopped, reached up, and tapped both her eyes with one hoof before continuing to walk.

“Poor girl wouldn’t stop fretting over it,” she said. “You’d be amazed what a pony’s body language can tell you.”

Carmine watched her in stony silence. Then, a slight guffaw escaped her mouth and she shook her head at the cave walls around her. Both removed their sun-dried hats and stashed them into their trench coats. Red and pale hair flowed down their collars.

“Shopping time,” said Carmine. “Let me know if you see anything you like.”

The Local Scenery

Their hoofsteps echoed. Behind the green glow of unicorn magic, the light of the library faded away and the brown rock gave way to interminable blackness. Before it did so, Carmine squinted along the dark wall and thought she could make out the slight slit of an alcove to her left. Beside her, Vanilla gaped as she ambled along.

“Now just be careful where you place your hooves,” said Carmine. “Places like this usually have plenty of tripwires, plenty of pitfalls, all kinds of traps and torture devices.”

Vanilla yelped and hit the ground.

The unicorn sighed. “And tiny pebbles.”

“Sorry, Carmine.”

A scrabble and a dust-off later, they continued down into the blackness. Carmine focused and for a moment her horn shone with a white burst of magic. One pulse shot down the cavern like a bleached comet.

“Clean of magical traps,” she said. “One less thing to worry about.”

“It’s almost like she was dying to tell us, don’t you think?” Vanilla piped up suddenly.

Carmine pouted at the thought. “How’s that?”

“Well, she gave us the book that the agency told us to get.”

“Hah! Eventually.”

“Still, she could’ve given us a fake and run for it. So she must’ve known we’d figure it out sooner or later, however obscure it was. She knows how legends work; she’s studied them all her life. And after all,” and here, she stuck out her chest and grinned until her cheeks were scrunched up against her ears, “we are professionals.”

Carmine grunted and her horn glowed brighter, sweeping the floor for traps. “Well, that and I kidnapped her family soon after we arrived.”

The smirk vanished at once. “Carmine! What the hay?”

“Relax, Vanilla. I’ll let them go once we’re done. It’s only a bluff. Besides, this is what it means to work for the agency.” She tossed off her sunglasses and gave her companion a stare. “Sooner or later, you’ll get your hooves dirty too.”

“You told me you were going out for a hike! Getting familiar with the lay of the land, you said!”

“Oh come off it! You mean to tell me you bought that? That was sarcasm. You can tell when I’m being sarcastic. My ear twitches when I’m sarcastic. Besides, it got us the book, didn’t it?”

“That’s… That’s…”

The horn flared, exposing a burst of cave from shelves to ridge up ahead. “That’s the job! Suck it up, Vanilla. The boss’ll ask you to do this at some point.”

Vanilla gulped. “Y-Yeah, but…”

“Now come on. Enjoy it while you can.”

Their hoofsteps echoed in the darkness. After they passed what seemed like a gallery of crumbling stalactites – bits of gravel and drops of water tapped their backs and heads as they passed underneath – Carmine raised a hoof to her mouth and coughed.

“You, uh…” she said in a none-too-casual tone. She scratched her chin. “You did well back there.”

“Thanks.” Vanilla’s voice was cold.

“Never would’ve thought of that trick with the eyes.”

“Uh huh.”

Carmine looked across at the wall, away from Vanilla. “I mean, I would’ve beaten it out of her. Left to myself, I mean.”

They carried on in silence for a while.

“Not beat her hard, of course.”

“Right,” said Vanilla.

“Just enough to scare her a bit.”

“Right.”

“You know, in some respects, it would’ve been a very gentle beating.”

“If you say so.”

“Practically a massage, if you think about it.”

“Uh huh.”

“I can be very humane that way.”

“I see. It would’ve been a very humane beating-to-a-pulp-for-information.”

Carmine grinned with relief. “That’s right. And I would've bought us a round of drinks afterwards,” she added brightly.

Finally, the cave opened up, and the light flared out across the vast domed ceiling above.

The cavern was a natural hallway, vast and round like the inside of a monstrous egg, but it was an empty vastness compared with the centrepiece. A pyramid of bronze rose up from the heart of the cavern, smooth and gleaming under the glowing embers of Vanilla’s firefly jar. Only the pyramid steps interrupted the sleekness of the slope, a jagged gouge from base to peak that ran right through the centre of its triangular face.

Stretched out around it were pits, stepping stones, net-like panels, and a ring of a maze, all fashioned and hewed out of the natural rock. The effect was of a petrified moat around a castle. This “moat” was bordered by four rings of clouds, arranged so that they could box in anything up to the size of a wheeled catapult if it dared cross the first barrier. Then, the limestone rose up the bank to the ridge, from which the two squinted down upon the carvings and the shadows.

“Cripes,” murmured Vanilla.

Carmine noticed she too was gaping, and hastily closed her mouth. At this, she threw Vanilla a pitying glance and shrugged.

“First time, eh?” she said as casually as she dared. “Yeah, it’s a cute little thing all right, but it’s a manageable obstacle if you know what you’re doing, and no obstacle at all to a seasoned professional.”

Vanilla skewed her lower jaw unconcernedly. “Ah well, in that case, it should make a good learning curve for a rookie, then.”

Before she could take so much as a step, she was almost rammed backwards by Carmine, who moved so fast she came close to teleporting ahead of her earth pony companion.

“Hold it! You’re not going down there. Not if I have any say in the matter.”

Vanilla snorted. “Is that so?”

“Yes it is, and don’t you take that tone with me, Little Miss Swagger. I’ve seen one too many novices blunder into traps an idiot would spot a mile off. You can stay here and watch and learn.”

For once, there was no argument. Vanilla simply curled her lip and sat back on her haunches, pouting and glaring after her retreating back. As she waited, she cast her eye around the cavern and to the peak overhead. A white radiance flared up there, standing out even against the blackness immediately beyond the podium. If she tilted her head and squinted and used her imagination a bit, she could just make out something angular and compact within the radiance.

Below her hooves and the ridge, Carmine was sliding down sideways, dislodging gravel as she went. She was stiff and poised as though it was deliberate, but the slight wobble at the tips of her hooves stained the overall effect. Despite herself, Vanilla felt a pang of sadness for her. It was kind of pitiable, the way Carmine insisted she was a seasoned veteran. They’d only signed up six months apart.

Her gaze cast about the cavern again. Commander Strykem must have been busy to make all this finery just for his crystal. Which was odd, because if anything, the chronicles said the pegasus ponies back then were a Spartan lot. Carving traps out of the bedrock and hauling bronze for a temple wasn’t what she’d have expected of them, especially when they went in for clouds and lightning and deluges and floods.

No. This had to be a more recent addition.

Carmine stood outside the cloud barrier, seemingly waiting for something. A slight swaying of her haunches suggested she was building up to a leap, but Vanilla just assumed she was chickening out.

“Why don’t you come back up here?” Vanilla cupped her front hooves and called down to her. “This doesn’t square with what I know about pegasus defences. I think we’re missing something.”

She was rewarded for her efforts with an arrow of a glare fired from Carmine’s upturned head. Then, the unicorn lowered her front half, faced the clouds again, cracked the joints in her forelegs, pawed the ground with each hoof in turn, took a deep breath, and pounced.

And flipped in midair.

“No!” she shouted. Her four hooves hit the ground. The clouds buzzed as her tail flicked towards the cloud barrier.

Vanilla raised an eyebrow. “What now?”

The unicorn cantered up to the top of the crater, frowning and chewing her lip. “Just noticed something. Uh, check that wall.”

She pointed seemingly at random.

“Why?” said Vanilla.

“Just do it. And while you’re at it, I’ll check a few more clues over here.”

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Vanilla smirked.

“Don’t backchat, learner. Just do it!”

For a while, the two of them patted and slapped the cave wall, the slaps echoing around the chamber. Then a click, a crack opened, and Vanilla jumped forwards as a part of the wall slid back under her hoof.

“You found it at last, did you?” Carmine said. “Hold on.”

She hurried over. Heaving and growling, they both pushed and then the slab screeched into a slot and slid down into the floor. Both of them stumbled through the sudden cloud of dust, and coughed and spluttered as cobwebs and blackened, twisted roots dropped out of the crevice overhead.

“Found it,” said Vanilla, and gave a blast of a cough. “‘At last’.”

The chamber beyond was large enough for a cart and two yoked ponies, carved into the rock as a sphere through a bottleneck large enough for the two of them. Blinking and shaking the debris off them, the two looked up and saw…

“A lightning sceptre.” Carmine grinned. “Clever old son of a gun, there was a trick.”

“A what?”

“Watch.”

Carmine summoned the aura along her horn, and the sceptre rose up and floated beside her smirk. She made an about-turn and marched back out, back down the slope, and right towards the cloud barrier.

Vanilla chewed the inside of her mouth. This was not the work of one secret keeper. A secret society, then? A society that had built upon the original design?

Gasping, Vanilla lunged out the entrance and galloped down to catch her. “What are you, insane? What are you doing?”

“I said watch!”

And Carmine stepped through.

At once, Vanilla covered her eyes as a forest of yellow lightning strikes burst in on them, searing veins of afterglow through her eyelids and so deep into her pupils that she could barely see what was happening. She lowered her head and, peeking out, tried to watch it through her peripheral vision.

“Enjoying the view?” Carmine marched onwards, holding up a thicket of lightning as the cloud’s sparks lunged for the sceptre’s glowing tip.

Lightning arced and branched and searched for weaknesses. Carmine didn’t stop smirking until she reached the other side, and even then she couldn’t resist pirouetting and laughing with a twirl, landing on her rear hooves with a flourish. Instantly, the sceptre cleared the cloud barrier and the lightning flashed out of existence.

Vanilla blinked and rubbed her eyes. “What just… Huh?”

“Someone obviously wanted to come back sometime.” Carmine took a bow and slung the sceptre over her shoulder like a club. “It’s just common sense.”

She stepped forwards.

Vanilla blinked in surprise when the spikes rose up. She cocked her head at the battering rams that swung down. The screeches and yelps tickled her ears, which flicked at the sudden sounds.

“Huh,” she said as Carmine yipped at the boulders dropping down. A few joints crunched.

She turned around and, ignoring the hissing and fizzing behind her, strode back up the slope. Vanilla reached the open side chamber just as a burst of flame turned the cave orange and Carmine whooped in shock. Explosions ripping the cave floor apart behind her, she narrowed her eyes and focused on the cracks in the wall. A few seconds of screaming, yelping, crunching, booming, and cracking filled the otherwise thoughtful silence.

Finally, she jumped forwards and pressed a part of the wall. It rumbled inwards, partially drowning out the demented laughter of a pony getting bitten by some unseen creatures. As before, the slab clicked and fell down.

“Huh,” she said.

The noises ceased from outside. Vanilla hurried out to watch.

From the top of the pyramid, Carmine shouted, “Ai made i’ do de dop!”

A spit dislodged a loose tooth onto the stone. Carmine fumbled in the tattered remains of her trench coat, which promptly fell apart, and stuck a set of false teeth into her mouth.

“I made it…” She gave a yelp and landed with a thwack onto the next step down. “I made it to the top. Ah. Near the top.”

“You OK?” Vanilla shouted back.

The swaying figure raised a smoking forelimb and managed, after several false starts, something resembling a side-to-side motion. “Nothing… to it! Just a little…” She yelped at a bolt that jumped from head to tail. “Hiccup!”

Shaking herself down, Carmine turned and forced herself to climb back up the step and onto the platform.

Up ahead, shining and glowing pink with a quiet power, the crystal bobbed and pulsed in the middle of its plinth. Carmine stared until her eyes seemed to glow pink and pulse in sympathy. Her mouth began to drool, which made her wince when it ran over the burnt bits. She limped forwards, dragging one of her rear legs behind her and leaving an ashen trail like a slug. The crystal now hummed at her. She flicked her ear out of its crumpled, shrivelled state; it sounded like the noise made by a wine glass gently tapped, but never ceasing, always harmonious and shrill.

She licked her lips. One hoof reached forwards.

Vanilla closed her eyes at the boom and burst of dust that rammed into her on all sides. Even through her closed eyelids, the light burned into her pupils and she had to wait again for the afterglow to fade away. She opened her eyes, and frantically looked around. The top of the pyramid was empty, and the peak had partly collapsed into the core as though a giant’s telescope had been pressed down slightly.

The lightning sceptre clattered at her hooves. She picked it up and turned it around with interest, marvelling at the pulse of arcing light within the tip. Shrugging, she stuffed it down her trench coat. No one had asked for it, but you never knew what a random bit of treasure could fetch on the market these days.

Standing as she was in the chamber’s entrance, Vanilla didn’t notice the unicorn-shaped hole in the wall until she stepped out and almost walked past it. She reared up and peered inside.

“You, uh,” she said. “You need my help with anything?”

A smoking black mass with narrowed eyes poked out. The false teeth began to crack under the pressure of her jaw.

Vanilla smiled at her. ”Well. It’s a good thing you had on Factor 5000 Sun Cream, isn’t it?”

And from behind Vanilla’s back, the real crystal was produced.

They both stared at it for a while. Then Carmine stared up at Vanilla. Vanilla rubbed the back of her head gingerly and looked down.

“There was, um,” she said with a casual cough, “a second chamber.”

Carmine yanked herself out of the hole and splattered on the ground below. Vanilla instantly let go of the crystal, which hovered in midair. Carmine straightened up and shook the soot off herself.

“Give me that!” Her horn flared and the crystal jumped to her side. “This is my assignment. I’m the veteran. You’re the novice. And this is what I get for showing you the ropes.”

“Sorry.” Vanilla tried a weak grin which did nothing to Carmine’s diamond glare.

“You’ve got a lot to learn about navigating dangerous catacombs filled with traps, you know.” Carmine began marching towards the exit.

“I know.” Vanilla fell into line behind her.

“Don’t think because it paid off once, it’ll pay off again. You have no idea how lucky you were this time. I mean, just pressing walls and seeing what happens!? You must be crazy.”

Vanilla sighed. “Yes, Carmine.”

“Just helping yourself to whatever shiny thing you found in there? That’s a breach of professional protocol. I’ll have to report it, you know.”

“I understand.”

Carmine glared at the crystal floating beside her, and then all of a sudden turned her glare back to her partner. “I mean, you could have freaking told me.”

Vanilla shrugged. “It was just a hunch.”

At this, Carmine’s glare turned venomous.

“I know. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Carmine grunted.

As they walked along in silence, Vanilla shivered at the thrill of the game. They had actually found it! She knew she shouldn’t feel smug, especially to her partner’s face, but to have actually located one of these things was amazing! She couldn’t wait to tell the guys back at the agency.

Suddenly, Carmine stopped and held up a warning hoof. One of her ears had twitched. Vanilla walked right into the back of her, but suppressed the “oof!” that ran up her throat.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered.

Carmine didn’t answer. Instead, she swivelled both ears forwards and held them as erect as possible.

“What’s wrong?” Vanilla jumped to her side, slightly nudging her elbow-to-elbow to get her attention. Carmine shushed her and focused.

Vanilla tried to focus her ears too, but she couldn’t hear anything above her own faint gasps of breath. For a moment, she wondered if Carmine had stopped breathing, but a quick glance showed her that Carmine’s stomach was rising and falling as gently as waves on a lakeside beach. She sniffed. The air was too dry and still for any scent to penetrate it.

A shiver ran through her spine. Chills broke out through her body. She suddenly felt light and humming, as though something had come alive. Her skin crawled; whatever had come alive, she felt it shouldn’t have. Something was wrong here, no matter how empty everything seemed.

“Don’t,” whispered Carmine, “make a sound.”

“Carmine,” moaned Vanilla. “What’s going –?”

The hoof smothered her mouth so hard she almost got teeth knocked out. She was rammed into the wall. Carmine stuffed the crystal up her partner’s trench coat, adjusting her hoof over the earth mare’s mouth. Then Vanilla’s forelegs were pinned to her torso by a limb like an iron girder. Muffled and restrained as she was, she groaned and squirmed.

“Shh,” hissed Carmine into her ear.

They ducked into the alcove in the cave wall. Behind them, the firefly jar, their only lantern, fell and crashed on the ground, scattering the fireflies and causing Carmine to drag Vanilla further into the shadows as the swarm of glowing bodies passed by.

Vanilla stopped squirming, but she was burning with how close her partner’s body was, and fear had frozen her in a crushed and tight position. She felt she couldn’t breathe.

A moment later, she heard the steps. The edge of a circle of light came into view.

Vanilla tried to back into the wall, but Carmine was in the way, and her partner just tightened her grip.

Five figures entered their field of vision, each bedecked in sunglasses and the traditional grey uniforms of the island police force. All of them stopped to adjust their berets.

Two of them were pegasi. They had flashlights in their mouths and were scanning the ground ahead; their beams focused on the shards of glass and a couple of straggling fireflies. The three behind them were unicorns, suspending jars with their own luminescent insects and looking totally bored. All three unicorns struck up a hurried conversation in their local tongue, which to Vanilla sounded like clicks and blabbering.

As a united force, the three unicorns fell into a row and levitated black prods from their belts. The tips extended like black telescopes, each ending with a curved claw that sparked once the prods clicked into place. Cattle prods glinted under the firefly glow.

The two pegasus ponies flexed their wing muscles and scooped pikes from their own belts. A bead of sweat dribbled down Vanilla’s temple.

The five officers stepped carefully down the tunnel, each putting one hoof after another, testing for traps. One of the pegasus ponies brought up the rear; she turned around and backed her way after them, scanning the tunnel for any hideaways or hidden perps they might have missed. Carmine drew Vanilla further into the alcove; the pair of them only saw the light reflect off the rock, and then it disappeared.

To her surprise, Vanilla found her mouth and forelimbs suddenly freed. Her sleeve was ripped off and yanked away from her limb, throwing her back onto her rump with the sheer force of the tearing. She spun around, but Carmine was already making for the gap, and before Vanilla focused properly, the unicorn vanished into the shadows.

Vanilla peered round. Up ahead, she could still see the faint lights of the four police officers, and only yards away from her was the fifth, taking much longer than the others to clear the corridor of rock. This one was still sweeping the walls as she went.

Had the pegasus swept to the right at that moment, she might yet have seen the shadow flash by.

There was just enough time to see Carmine rise up behind the mare when her hoof jumped out and the torch went off. A muffled groan followed. Legs kicked and scuffled. Vanilla had to strain to hear that much.

Then there was silence.

Something heavy was dragged across the floor towards her, and she ducked out of the way as Carmine nudged her.

The body was dumped in the alcove. Carmine removed the makeshift gag that was until recently Vanilla’s sleeve, and then focused her magic on the uniform, unbuttoning buttons, unbuckling the belt buckle, and holding the badges up so she didn’t jingle them by accident. The beret rose off and landed on her own head. She swapped the sunglasses.

“Is…” Vanilla looked at the body. “Is she dead?”

“Just unconscious. Follow me, and for goodness sake keep quiet.”

When the torch came on, Carmine the fake police officer had it in her mouth. She cantered back down the tunnel and then turned and began sweeping the beam as though nothing had happened. Vanilla pressed her side against the wall, sliding along it just outside the beam’s circle.

Another officer – one of the unicorns with the cattle prods – had hung back, taking a station near the entrance to the catacomb itself. He turned around as Carmine approached, and then turned back, completely uninterested. It was just the silhouette of the officer, after all, with the torch as usual. Exactly what he was expecting to see.

When Carmine drew level with him, she switched off the torch.

He spun around, opened his mouth, and vanished under her leap. Vanilla dived forwards, hooves outstretched, her eyes on the falling firefly jar. Her belly hit the floor.

The jar stopped inches above her hooves. Then, it drifted towards Carmine, who was holding up the second body with both hooves. She dumped the unicorn unceremoniously and knocked her own beret back a bit to expose the horn. This time, she lowered her head and placed the now-useless torch – still switched off – at his hooves.

Then, Carmine reached through Vanilla’s neckline with both hooves – Vanilla wiggled and tried not to burst out laughing – and pulled out the crystal. This she stuffed down her own uniform’s neckline until its pink glow was no longer visible.

Both cattle prod and firefly jar floated up beside her.

“Keep close,” she whispered.

Vanilla slunk a few feet behind, feeling the ripped edge of her trench coat’s shoulder chafe against her pit. Now, they had both caught up with the three remaining officers, who had entered the catacomb and were standing and looking out over the mess. Their faces were impassive.

One of the unicorns barked an order. With a nod, the pegasus stepped forwards and swept the torch beam over the traps and smoking parts.

“We know you are two in here,” said the commanding unicorn in sudden if imperfect Equestrian. “This be the Island Police. We have your only means of escape most cut off, and we outnumber you by a much, and we are fully armed. Surrender, and we will not harm you. Resist us, and you will suffer a bit.”

They waited for a response. The beam travelled up the pyramid, right to where the smoking peak was lying empty of crystal. Framed by her own firefly jar, Carmine raised one hoof and pointed at the unicorn nearest them. Vanilla nodded and crept over to him, each hoof carefully guiding itself over the stone. She held her breath and bit her lip. Both eyes narrowed.

The commanding unicorn sighed. “This you last chance. Come out of you hiding place and turn in yourselves, or we will force to take violent action and detain you and prison you. I repeat, this you last chance.”

Vanilla was now right behind her unicorn target, whose ears swivelled back and forth for any hint of a sound. Beside the earth mare’s crouching form, Carmine levitated the cattle prod higher.

The commanding unicorn turned his head to his fellow and began to nod, and in that brief moment snapped round to look squarely at Vanilla. His mouth shot open in alarm.

Carmine swung the prod with a lightning-fast strike. It knocked the torch clean out of the pegasus officer’s mouth. Before the body even hit the ground, she dropped the prod and threw the jar at the commander. His horn glowed; the jar froze in midair. He raised his own weapon with a snarl.

Vanilla’s unicorn target turned around, prod raised, but not fast enough. With a cry, Vanilla tackled the mare and wrapped her own forelimbs around the neck, holding on tight. At once, the prod met her flesh and her entire body crackled and jolted with a sting. She yelped and let go, tumbling over the hard limestone ground.

Gritting his teeth, the commanding unicorn held up each jar, one on his left, one on his right, and lunged forwards. Both jars smashed where Carmine had been only seconds before. The prod shot for her. Her aura bloomed along her horn; the dazed body of the pegasus rose up as a shield and then gave a full spasm under the prod’s jab.

Carmine smirked at the impromptu rapid-fire dancing. The job did have its moments.

She flung the doll-like body at the commanding unicorn, knocking him back a step or two, and before he could rally for a counterattack, the crystal swung up and cracked his chin.

Vanilla flipped back onto her hooves before she gave a yelp, lost balance, and fell onto her cannons.

The last unicorn officer rammed into her, knocking her onto her spine. One hoof pinned her down by the throat.

Vanilla spluttered, her eyes bulged, she dabbed feebly at her own neck, and the prod came up to stab between her eyes. Despite the officer’s sunglasses, the gritted teeth suggested two eyes wide with fury. Vanilla grimaced and braced herself.

Carmine stabbed with the prod right in the back of the head.

Bolts shot through the officer’s skull, down the forelimb, and into Vanilla’s neck. Both ponies shuddered and jittered and spluttered and gave off a slight smoky smell. Then Carmine threw the prod aside and the crystal swung into the still-juddering skull, sending the officer tumbling with a shriek down the ridge.

“Three,” Carmine whispered, “two, one…”

She grinned at the bursts of lightning that followed. Both grin and bursts carried on for a long time.

Behind her, Vanilla rose unsteadily to her feet. Her hair stood up with all the dignity of an affronted porcupine. She tried to focus, shook her head, and smacked her lips.

“I taste pink,” she said faintly. Quickly she shook her head of the effects. “Hey! What did you do that for?”

Carmine shrugged. “I was improvising. And you have to admit it was kinda fun.”

“No it wasn't! Ow! Sparks!”

“Oh. Well, I found it fun anyway.”

And with that, she galloped back up the corridor. Vanilla gave a start and threw herself after her before ramming into the haunches and bouncing off. Carmine had suddenly skidded to a halt and rounded on her.

“And by the way, what the heck was that?” said the unicorn.

Vanilla was still shuddering at random, stumbling her way back up to her partner. “S-Sorry?”

“You don’t tackle a unicorn with close-quarters. Especially not literal tackling! Unicorns have telekinetic counterattacks, remember? Horns don’t have the same limitations that hooves and wings do.”

Vanilla shook herself down and tried to focus on Carmine. “I thought, if I just caught them by surprise –”

They both ignored a shriek and a blast from somewhere among the traps.

“I mean it was so real!” Vanilla’s voice rose to cracking levels. “They were attacking. They were actually attacking me, and she was going to – and then they just – you shocked me.” She stared at Carmine in horror.

Carmine grinned at her. “First time fighting flesh and blood opponents, huh? You have had a cushy ride so far.”

“I thought it would be like Fighting Class. But she was so fast, and and and…”

“OK, calm down. Calm down. Take deep, steadying, soothing breaths. And be quick about it!”

Vanilla sucked in and breathed out, still shuddering.

Carmine sighed. “Don’t you remember anything from Fighting 101? You must do. You passed the darn thing, or you wouldn’t even be here.”

Vanilla winced. “Um. Barely.”

Carmine rolled her eyes. “It’s not your fault. It’s the wrong attitude in the system. Testing, testing, testing: that’s the problem these days. It’s all about what’ll pass the tests, and then you forget everything as soon as the practical’s over. Look. Quick lesson, OK?”

She handed over the crystal, which Vanilla reared up to and snatched at. Carmine seized her shoulders and turned her slightly to the left.

“OK,” she said. “Now imagine we’re facing those officers again and you’re about to be attacked. Show me a blow.”

Vanilla swung, almost overbalanced, stuck out a leg to stop herself, and recovered.

Carmine shook her head. “I said show me a blow, not actually blow. Try again.”

Eyes narrowing, Vanilla threw her all into the swing and pulled her upper torso back to allow more momentum. This time, there was a satisfying whoosh as the crystal cut through the air.

Carmine nodded. “Not bad, not bad… but you realize you’re not just doing this to make swishy sounds. You need a good swing every single time, or you’re a dead mare. Now, your posture…”

She reached out with a hoof to nudge parts into place, adjusting the spread of Vanilla’s lower legs so that they were more evenly spread out, forcing her chin up, pushing each shoulder back, and raising and lowering the tip of the crystal until it was the right height relative to the chest. Vanilla held her breath as soon as she noticed this. Carmine gave her a smack across the stomach.

“Breathe normally,” she snapped. “Now, watch me. We’re in a hurry.”

Carmine reared up, levitating a nearby prod to chest height and seizing it in her forelegs. She hefted it like a baseball bat, tweaking her grip here and there, and winked at her partner.

Despite being a yard away, the swipe through the air was so fast that Vanilla cried out in surprise and fell onto her rump. She wasn’t sure she hadn’t blinked and missed it. At once, Carmine levitated her back into position, nudging the parts back into place with horn aglow.

“Overawed by my technique! Understandable, I admit, but unhelpful. Back into position. Now you give it a go.”

“Um… OK.”

Vanilla swiped, and to her own surprise felt the gale as she swung at the stale air. She swung back. The whoosh was now a zip of pink, slicing through the air so fast it didn’t even have time to make a proper sound. She nodded slowly at first, and then beat her head eagerly in agreement.

“All right!” she said, and she turned to Carmine. “How’s that?”

“Better. Not great, but it’ll have to do. They’re going to wait for us to run out, and then we’ll have just seconds. Don’t rush out until I give the jump signal. Got it?”

Vanilla nodded and stuffed the crystal down her trench coat.

“Good. Now come on. We gotta get moving. The police wouldn’t have sent those five after us without a backup plan.”

They fled up the tunnel, Carmine’s ears straining for the slightest sound, Vanilla’s eyes straining for any movement at the exit. Once they got within a few yards of it, however, Carmine’s horn flashed – a signal – and they both began to slow from a gallop via a canter to a trot, and finally they crept one carefully placed hoof after another to either side of the exit.

They both flattened their backs against the rock, Carmine with the prod levitating beside her, Vanilla hefting the crystal from the trench coat. They looked across at each other, and then at the light pouring out of the open cave mouth.

Cheeks puffing with suppressed breaths, Carmine lowered the tip of the prod and met her partner’s eye. In the dim light, Vanilla could just about read her lips: four, three, two, one. Carmine’s horn flashed for the jump signal.

They leaped out, weapons raised.

The forest of pikes all pointed at them. From all angles.

Both of them froze. Officers surrounded them, all wielding cattle prods or pikes, the unicorns covering the ground, the pegasi covering the air overhead. An inch ahead, and both of them would’ve been reduced to meat netting immediately.

“Ah, fudge,” muttered Carmine.

Vanilla glanced sidelong at Carmine, who lowered her prod to the ground, shut it off, and removed her magic from it.

“What are you doing?” she hissed. “I thought we were fightin’ ‘em out.”

“Rule 101 in combat situations,” Carmine hissed back. “Know when to fold. No one’s good enough to fight off dozens like this at once.”

“But… but that’s cowardly! Why would you –”

“Good grief, Vanilla! This is real life!” Carmine hissed. “Stop thinking in myths and legends, and start thinking in basic mathematics!”

A chuckle rose up from the back of the crowd. Carmine narrowed her eyes and tilted her head so she could see past the mass of sunglasses, suits, and gritted teeth before her.

A zebra stood at the back, grinning and leaning heavily on her left legs.

“Zodos!” Carmine snapped. “Ah, double fudge.”

The zebra reared up and spread her forelimbs in an expansive gesture. “My my, dear Redhead! How funny to see you here!”

One Heck of a Show

There were more officers, and in the sunlit library, their grey uniforms seemed thick and battered like granite beaten into shape. All of them wore sunglasses and skin-stretching snarls. At once, they began babbling in the local language.

“What are they saying?” said Vanilla, whose voice was already jumping right up. “What’s going on? Are we under arrest?”

The zebra’s front came down with a thump, and her eyes were now locked onto Carmine’s face.

“Who is that?” said Vanilla.

“An old friend I keep bumping into,” said Carmine, whose eyes had in turn locked onto the zebra’s face. “And by ‘old’, I mean ‘ever since I joined the stinking agency’, and by ‘bumping into’, I mean ‘keep finding when she’s trying to steal my work’, and by ‘friend’, I mean ‘why oh why haven’t I shot her in the head yet’?”

Two of the officers moved forwards, levitating the crystal out of Vanilla’s hooves and almost making her stumble into the points aimed at her chest. Another aimed a prod and motioned for Carmine to kick hers. This earned the officer a glare, but the weapon clattered across the floor regardless.

“You remember me telling you on the boat,” Carmine continued as though they were waiting for seats at the café, “about that time I was raiding those Amonic desert pyramids for their crystal, and I got in a three-way brawl?”

“Not really.”

Carmine snorted at her and shook her head. “No attention span…”

“Well?”

“Well, I mentioned the identity of the other two parties: the local militia and this other agency from Xenophon.”

“You saying she’s from the militia?”

Carmine shook her head without dropping eye contact. “From the other agency. And her mane looked like a lump of tar even then. Helped me fend off the Avant-garde Amonic Guard, and then I barely got my breath back when the backstabbing piece of filth pushed me right into a snake pit.”

Vanilla gasped and shivered. “Oh my word! That’s so… nasty!”

“You bet your croup it was. All those poor venomous snakes I had to kill! What a waste of a deathtrap! Took days to get all the scales out of my hair.”

The officers were apparently going through the reading of the rights, because one was now droning at them in yet another language – Carmine vaguely remembered talk of a local legal lingo used especially by the police force – and the others just stood around snarling at her. Zodos flicked a speck of lint off her jacket lapel, and in that moment Vanilla peered around, eyebrow raised.

“Ooh, I’ll get even with that oil-slicked little jackass,” she heard Carmine mutter.

“I don’t see the librarian…” she said. “Where’s she scuttled off to?”

“You were stupid to go into the cave by yourselves,” said Zodos. “Very unprofessional.”

Carmine shrugged, trying not to move her shoulders too much with all the pikes aimed at her muzzle. “I didn’t think that librarian had it in her.”

“Oh, she didn’t summon the police, Redhead.” Zodos smirked over the heads of the officers as they inched closer and encircled the pair. “I did that. Your librarian wasn’t fit to summon her own nerve. As soon as she saw us come in, she pointed out the cave entrance and then slipped out the back. A bit of a blabbermouth, to be frank. Smart pony, though. I think that one’s got a good future ahead of her. More than I can say for you two.”

The officers nudged the pair to start walking. Zodos ambled alongside at a leisurely pace, still smirking and still with her eyes locked onto Carmine’s face as they passed ranks of shelving.

“You led them to us,” said Carmine matter-of-factly. “So it definitely was you I saw at the marketplace. I thought so.”

“It was my duty as an honest citizen. You two are wanted criminals.”

Carmine growled and tried to stop, but each time she got prodded in the nether regions and shouted at.

“You fool, Zodos.” She pointed at her, hopping forwards in the path of the insistent jabbings. “You’re a crook yourself. Officers! Arrest her! Don’t you recognize her for what she is? That’s Zodos, you idiots! Zodos!”

Her voice echoed back at her mockingly. The officers made disbelieving grunts and barked at her until she walked normally again.

Zodos shook her head with the effort of not bursting out into laughter. “How public-spirited of you, my old friend! But that name means nothing out here, Redhead. I am wanted only in the Amonic Empire; here, I am Jane Public, the concerned citizen. And criminals aren’t in much of a position to point hooves at concerned citizens, now are they?”

The officers turned and barred the way before Carmine could charge through their ranks. Even then, they visibly struggled against her chest pressing hard against their pike shafts and the flats of their prods.

“You moron!” she yelled. “They’ll take the crystal away now that they’ve found it. It’ll be locked in this country’s treasury. Even you can’t get in there!”

With a grunt of surprise, she was batted back into line. One jabbed her with a prod, sending sparks up her hair and making her yelp in shock.

“My my,” said Zodos with a mocking bow of the head. “Such confidence!”

Now her eyes blazed and a snarl broke across her face.

“Don’t judge others by your own flawed character, Redhead. We’re not all as deficient as you. Your Equestrian agency is a joke, and you are walking proof of that. Types like you don’t deserve to live.”

Glancing at the white face of Vanilla, Carmine fought the urge to rush forwards again. “How dare you! You monochromatic swine! You small-timer! You backstabbing, slick-tongued, smug little piece of a horse apple!”

The front of the procession pushed the front doors open, and they descended the steps. Zodos stopped to watch Carmine be dragged away, the smirk now back on her face.

“When I get out of this, I’ll rip that crystal from your cold, dead hooves! I’ll set your legs in concrete and dump your broken, mangled corpse out at sea! And that’s after I’ve made sure your last few months on this planet are nothing but pure agony! I’ll torture the darn marrow right out of your bones!”

Zodos mimed a yawn and waved after her. “Sure. Enjoy prison, Redhead. I’ll send you a postcard before they give you the noose.”

Before they reached the last steps, Vanilla rushed up to Carmine’s side and almost knocked her into the pikes opposite. Out of the corner of her mouth, she whispered; “What do we do now?”

The unicorn said nothing. Behind the cracked remnants of the sunglasses, the glare was cutting almost down to the bridge of her equine snout. Both of her ears pointed backwards as though caught against the punches of a hurricane. Her lips and cheeks were struggling to keep her mouth shut.

“There’s a plan,” whispered Vanilla, more urgently this time. “Tell me what the plan is.”

To her surprise, the elements of Carmine’s face – once a rumbling faultline about to explode into an earthquake – slotted back into place, as though the bedrock underneath had collapsed. Even her red hair seemed to pale to a mild pink.

“There… is a plan?” Vanilla’s chest burst with panic and her eyes darted about, trying to spot the clue in the way Carmine ambled onwards, in the way her ears drooped, in anything.

“Isn’t there?” she squeaked.

Carmine slid her a sidelong look, and the sheer gravity of the expression began to weigh Vanilla down. Her legs felt leaden. Muscles in her neck and shoulders sagged, and even her gaze fell to earth with a wet thud. The unicorn beside her was a mirror of herself, and they were both bowing down to the seconds that steadily undermined them.

No… Years of promise, she thought, gone. Maybe there was a world in which she was a rising star, smiling down at her own younger partner and sipping refined punch at upmarket restaurants. It wasn’t going to be this one. Not anymore.

Shamefully, scalding drops pooled in her eyes, and she wiped them away at once. Beside her, Carmine had hardened again, trying to look as stoic as possible, and then as the travelling party merged with the ever-present Brownian motion of the square, she glanced up, and stretching across her face was a smirk.

“Ah…” she said softly.

Vanilla’s ears shot up at once. “What? What is it?”

There was the barest trace of smugness in her voice when Carmine said, “My trump card returns.”

When Vanilla halted and followed her gaze – wincing when a prodding pike forced her to carry on walking – the patchwork of blue sky and white cumulus did nothing for her. Straining to squint, however, she thought she saw a tiny dot of cloud starting to grow overhead. As it approached, two wiggling flecks of lines were suddenly visible above the cloud, and then she noticed a pegasus silhouette on the cloud – no, clutching the cloud – and growing by split seconds.

Around her, the police officers murmured. One or two pointed upwards. They’d barely raised their pikes when Folio zoomed past. The air was torn in half. The cumulus cloud she’d been holding onto now struck at their hooves, and everything was white mist.

Coughs and shouts broke out from the mist, but Vanilla had only just spun around when Carmine reached through the whiteness and yanked her by the elbow.

“While they’re distracted!” hissed the unicorn. “Grab the crystal!”

“What!?” Vanilla blinked about, and spotted a glint in the whiteout. “The crystal!?”

“GRAB IT!”

She lunged for it and the nearest officer bounced off her and vanished. Quickly, she stuffed it into her trench coat.

“You did have a plan!” she cried out with glee. Magic tingled across her skin before biting down hard.

“What plan? Now gallop when you land!”

“What do you mean gallop when I –?”

Yelping, she was thrown bodily up and over, clear of the ground, and for a brief moment she was just Vanilla, floating within a blank void. Her legs trembled at the imagined thump.

All four legs hit the sand. Grunting, Vanilla stumbled and yelped out in pain before Carmine landed with a bracing crouch beside her.

“I said gallop when you land! Up top! Gazelle Tactic! MOVE!”

At once, Vanilla’s legs kicked into gear before her brain had worked out what she’d heard. Crowding silhouettes loomed out of the mist, and she skidded. Despite the throng, Carmine if anything forced herself to gallop faster.

“UP TOP!” Carmine leaped and kicked off from the back and neck of a donkey, her tail whipped through the mist, and then she was gone.

Vanilla wailed. Seconds ago, she’d been winding down at the thought of years behind the same iron bars, and suddenly her muscles were being told to leap and dance with excitement. A bull faded into her view, and she bounced off with a yelp before the tingling seized her again and lobbed her over the back. It felt for a moment as if she’d been thrown ahead of her insides.

Four hooves struck the gaggle of zebra tourists on their saddlebags. She hit them running, legs frantically shooting out at any shape that shifted into view. She didn’t dare look up.

Finally, Vanilla tap-danced out of the last wisps and found herself facing a field of walking heads and backs and sacks and backpacks and trundling carts. Carmine was a pony’s length ahead, skipping over the heads and backs with the grace of –

“NO!” the unicorn yelled back. “Not Stepping Stone! Gazelle Tactic! Gazelle Tactic! Come on! You’ve been trained!”

Mid-jump, Vanilla’s scrambling limbs snapped together. All four hooves drew back to her stomach as though frightened of the crowd, and then the heads and backs rushed for her and she kicked out with one unified quartet, and her hooves knocked the shout out of someone as she flew yet again out of gravity’s reach. Soon, she was bounding alongside Carmine, who had for a while bounced one pony’s length at a time to let her catch up.

She didn’t dare glance back. Cries and shouts were following them. After a few yards across the square, she noticed the grey flash of a pegasus officer drawing level, just beyond Carmine’s other side.

“Surrender you!” cried the pegasus in strained Equestrian. “Give it to up! All of we are armed and danger!”

Except this time, Carmine was facing a one-on-one. She leaped and blurred. The pegasus was snatched away by the crowd and instantly lost behind them. Carmine landed again and then stotted off a cow as though nothing had happened.

“Now… what?” shouted Vanilla, panting against the wind. There were more shouts coming up from behind. Silhouettes were catching up; around the pair, babbles and pike tips were drawing closer.

Carmine’s head swivelled desperately, and then thrust forwards at a stall on the edge of the plaza. “Tarpaulin! Synch Landing!”

“What!? Synch Landing now!?”

“NO! Not yet! At the TARP!”

As they whizzed past an earth stallion’s straw hat, Carmine’s horn glowed and the sack on his back shot up. Despite the shouts from the pony, she swung round and held the bulging sack up high with a grunt. Her eyelids strained to stop her eyeballs popping out.

“OK!” she yelled over the shrieking crowd, which had finally cottoned on. The tarpaulin was looming up. “ON THREE!”

“The… apple stall?” Under the sunlight, Vanilla’s mane was a painted slick on her head and neck. She was radiating and her pale flanks were reddening.

“NO! MELON ONE! AND THREE!”

They braced their shoulders and haunches, threw their hooves back with a synchronized kick, and soared in an arc, clean over a diamond dog’s ducking head. Hovering in midair for a split second, Vanilla gave Carmine’s gritted teeth a sidelong glance and, when the unicorn threw her rear two hooves forwards, did the same. The horn went out. Carmine’s front limbs shot up to catch the sack.

Unicorn, earth pony, and four hundred pounds of what the sack described as “DELISHUSH POTAYTOS” punched into the tarpaulin. For a moment, the two mares were standing upright, frozen in elastic time. Grimacing at her own bent elbows, Carmine was glaring when one pegasus officer drew closer.

“Thieves!” cried the pegasus. “Give it up!”

Carmine shrugged. “OK.”

She flung the sack at the pegasus so fast she might have teleported it.

The tarp snapped up.

Black skull-socket windows and a whitewashed taipa wall flashed past before they cleared the guttering and reached out for the bleached hump of a roof. To her shame, Vanilla let out a brief whimper. The top of the house swung at them with the force of a batter swinging at a ball.

Baked earth cracked under their hooves. Vanilla slipped and scrabbled for the peak of the roof, sending chunks whizzing backwards. Beside her, Carmine clambered onto the semi-cylindrical roof peak and turned to watch.

“Get up here!” Carmine yelled.

Some glaze was shining on the roof like a glass veneer. Vanilla’s hooves were slipping faster.

“I… can’t…” She yelped in panic and dug a hoof into the dent where she’d landed hard, snagging on the lip of the crater. Far below her, the tarpaulin wobbled with those crumpled chunks that had tumbled over the edge and missed the guttering.

Gritting her teeth, she glanced over her shoulder. Cries and screams erupted among the crowd while the unicorns, fighting to get through, rammed themselves against each body blocking their way. Overhead, a couple of pegasi hovered, eyeing Carmine’s horn warily; the fates of their two colleagues had not been lost on them. Far beyond, the white mist had spread and thinned, and now it blocked all but the silhouette of the library from view. Figures could still be seen struggling against each other, clearly unaware of what had happened. A couple more pegasi were trying to disperse it with their wing beats.

Another chunk of earth slipped, yanking her foreleg under her belly. Vanilla bit her tongue. The sliding stopped, but now she was clinging on so tightly and so awkwardly that her legs bent at every joint as though utterly broken.

“I can’t do it!” Her voice cracked. “Can’t you just levitate me up!? Please!?”

“Stop whining! Jump your way up!” Carmine shot a glare at the pegasi, which had just been joined by a couple more colleagues and which were now drifting closer. “You can do it! Trust me!”

“O-OK… I’ll try.” She crushed her eyes shut.

Her first leap bought her a second to yank her leg back up. The second threw her onto the peak, and she and Carmine leaned forwards. Vanilla only had time to snap her eyes open when gravity won out and they slid along the arc of the roof, letting their horseshoes slide over the glaze down to the guttering.

“Well, fancy that. You did do it.”

“Carmine…” Vanilla whimpered.

“JUMP!”

Their front hooves smashed through the guttering just when their back legs shot out. While Carmine’s leap went straight across and she simply dropped down, Vanilla had leaped up into the air. A second later, she realized her mistake and screamed as several extra feet opened up between her and the ground below. Still screaming, she plummeted down to the deserted side street and the wide road and the pits and the cracks.

And stopped with a yank.

There she was, breathing hard and staring wide-eyed at the ground a foot or so below her hooves. Magic tingled along her skin like bubbles popping around her. Inch by inch, she was lowered until hooves met solid road, and then the magic vanished.

Carmine leaped down from a hay bale, a dozen of which were piled up on a cart nearby. “I told you that momentum-killer spell would come in handy some day.”

This got only a weak, whimpering titter from Vanilla; she was trying to convince herself she hadn’t died. “Ahahaha…”

“Good grief, you must have been dreadful in your practical exam.”

“Ahaha-aheh. Ahem.”

Then their ears stiffened. Both of them looked up. Overhead, wing beats stepped down; five pegasi were eclipsing the sky.

Carmine’s head snapped back and forth for an exit. She crouched, ready to spring at the slightest provocation.

“Over here!”

They both turned round; Folio was peering out of a doorway, waving frantically at them. She tried to wave with a wing, winced, and gripped it in both forelimbs.

At once, the pair threw themselves at her. Pegasi zipped out of the air. Vanilla could almost imagine their hooves reaching for her flank when she entered the dark house, and the door slammed shut. Three bangs rattled the hinges, and then all they could hear was the vicious hammering.

It stopped suddenly. All was still.

“They’ll wait overhead until backup arrives,” said Folio from somewhere across the room. “They fly up over a criminal’s hideout so the other coppers can spot them, so no staying here for us. Follow me.”

“Those bandages were just for show, huh?” said Carmine in the darkness. “Very cunning way of misleading others, the good old pathetic injured baby act.”

“Um, not, no, I, uh, I had a sprained, a sprained wi – Yes, yes, you're exactly right. An act. Well-spotted! A pathetic act. Yes. An act. Yes. That's exactly what it was.”

Light stung their eyes. The back door creaked open, and Folio held it and waved them through.

“Quickly, before they fly round!” she whispered.

Carmine cantered through, blinking at the sudden sunlight. “Won’t they just follow us?”

“Trust me; these back streets are like the Labyrinth of Minotauros.”

Carmine squinted. “I have absolutely no idea what that is.”

“It's a really, really big and twisty maze.”

Carmine scratched her head. “Still not following you.”

“It means ‘no’.”

“Oh.”

“Come on!”

As one, they galloped outside and through winding, tiny streets, under skyways and through tunnels. The flaps of following pegasus wings dwindled far above, but the further they galloped, the fainter the flaps became, until eventually they died away completely.

Turning into another side street, they found the way blocked by a wall of stacked crates and a couple of abandoned carts. Old newspapers were crisping on the earth, pages fluttering from a badly tied-up stack on one of the carts. A doorway to their left was dangling on its lower hinges and splattered with dried and flaking ink.

“I liked that place,” murmured Folio dreamily. “They sold good copy until they shut it down. Philistines,” she spat.

No one else was around. Only then did Vanilla collapse, panting and heaving while Carmine stood over her and winced at a stitch.

“Nice work…” Carmine said to Vanilla. She struggled to keep the breathlessness out of her own voice. “You didn’t… mess things up… too badly.”

After several seconds of waiting for her burning throat to die back a bit, Vanilla raised her head. “Funny… I was gonna… say the same thing to you.”

Carmine chuckled and shook her head, marvelling at her.

“And I did – I did good too,” added Folio huffily. Both of them snapped their heads up to look at her. “Thanks a bunch you two! Now I’m wanted by the police. That’s just great. All I wanted was a nice, quiet life, and then you two had to come in, and now I have a criminal record, thank you very much –”

“We’re not done yet,” Carmine snapped, striding towards the crates so that Folio had to duck out of the way. “Vanilla, still got that crystal?”

A few seconds of rummaging unearthed the thing, shining and glittering from its many facets. The thing was now glowing like a piece of sunlight, and she tucked it back into her trench coat hurriedly.

“Neat trick. Emotion-sensitive magical pulse. Looks like the real deal to me. Now…” Carmine turned round to face Folio, who shrank back. “About our next step…”

“I want my family back,” insisted Folio, but she was trembling where she stood and so pale that she was almost shining. “I got you into that cave –”

“Eventually,” muttered Vanilla behind her.

“That means my end of the bargain is complete. Look, please, think about me, please! Please, please, please! I only want nothing more than my family – no, my old life – given back to me.”

“Your end of the bargain?” Carmine’s horn flashed, and the pegasus shot down to the ground, cowering behind her front hooves. “What bargain? I didn’t haggle or make a bargain. You’ll get your family back when I say you will, and no sooner.”

“But… But…”

For a moment, Vanilla was sure she saw Carmine’s gaze meet her own. Then a grin crept up the unicorn’s face, piling up the cheek muscles and nudging her sunglasses a smidgen.

“Sorry. Let me try again. Listen, I’m a reasonable pony, Folio,” she said in such a chirpy voice that even Vanilla felt her shattered nerves settle down and listen indulgently. “This is all just a sad necessity of circumstance and of getting paid, I promise you. It’s how things are, unfortunately. We need some assurance of getting off this island and getting paid without ending up in someone’s dungeon, and you’re doing well on that front, might I just say? And as soon as we’re a long way off and getting paid with no pesky plodding police after our tails, you can have the family back in good health and forget all about this unpleasantness. And we get paid. That in the parlance of business is what we call a ‘win-win’, or at least a ‘win-don’t-lose-too-badly’.”

Folio had stopped quaking, and now stared up at her. “But how? You just said –”

“I’ll give you their location, don’t you worry. And the key to get in; you’ll need that. I left plenty of good grain in some nosebags and a trough full of clean water, and it’s all sheltered, nice and cool.” Here, the grin was wiped blank. “We are trained professionals, miss, not common criminals.”

At this, Vanilla sighed with relief and stepped forwards. Beside her, Folio rose to her hooves, still with ears flattened against her head. She could hear Folio whispering over and over; “The police’ll kill me, the police’ll kill me...”

“Relax,” whispered Vanilla. “Maybe they didn’t recognize you. I didn’t at first, and you were so fast, who could really say?”

“When you’re done blowing kisses in her ear,” said Carmine, “we’ve got until sunset to find a way off this dump. Cover of night should do the trick. Now” – she turned back to Folio, glancing briefly at Vanilla before continuing – “without further ado, and if you’d be so kind as to help us out, friend –”

A shadow stepped out.

Vanilla barely registered the movement behind the crate when a black-and-white body lunged at Carmine. Both Vanilla and Folio yelped and shot back, almost falling onto their haunches. Sunglasses shattered on the ground.

Zodos was standing upright behind Carmine’s back, and forcing her to stand in the same manner. One striped hoof had tilted the unicorn’s chin up, exposing the neck. The other was bent over the hilt of a steel knife. Against the rouge bobbing of Carmine’s swallow, the blade was making a dent where it was pressing down. The whole effect was a grisly parody of a cellist preparing to play a dirge.

Vanilla took a step forwards, ears blown back with shock.

“Stay where you are!” barked the zebra. Vanilla froze, gaping with disbelief.

Flicking an idle ear flap, Zodos grinned at her and then sniffed at Carmine’s neck. “Professional, my croup,” she purred. “I could’ve heard you blabbering a mile away.”

Despite herself, Carmine – bereft of her sunglasses and with her pink-eyed glare now on full display – ground her teeth and growled; her forelimbs, stiff by her sides, twitched at the elbows. A newspaper fluttered past her legs in the slight breeze. She narrowed her eyes to focus.

“If I see so much as a twinkle on that horn,” murmured Zodos, “you’re a dead mare. Even Factor 5000 Sun Cream can’t save you from cold steel.”

Carmine muttered, drawing her neck back slightly; she was trying not to get cut by her own bobbing throat as she spoke. “And where do you get off lecturing us about professionalism?”

A tiny smile bloomed at the tip of Zodos’ muzzle. “Typical Equestrian riff-raff,” she purred. “Cowards and plodders, the whole lot of you. Hiding behind your code of conduct like it makes you better than anyone else.”

“At least we have standards,” spat Carmine. “We don’t kill. We don’t break client confidentiality. We don’t shirk our refund policy when someone asks for their money back. And we definitely don’t backstab.”

The zebra was shaking her head sadly. “Such a waste of good tactics.”

“And yet we ‘cowards and plodders’ have the big contracts with international clients, while you’re still dreaming of your big break. We’re not just backwater thugs-for-hire like those Xenophon scum you work for –”

Zodos yanked the head further back, and Carmine grunted as tendons began to rip. “I’m smart enough to make you do all the work, Redhead.”

“Only because you thickos couldn’t find an art museum if we locked you in one –” The blade pressed inwards and the dent appeared again, and the unicorn added in a spitting rasp, “Bloodsucker.”

Vanilla stepped forwards –

“No heroics!” The zebra’s amused smile evaporated, revealing snarling incisors like meat cleavers. “If I so much as think you’re up to something, her head will roll.”

Vanilla stared into the naked eyes of Carmine, who met hers and, despite the gritted teeth and wrinkled snout below them, pleaded silently. The irises and pupils were shaking with supplication. Vanilla couldn’t step back for a whole twelve seconds, but finally she sagged and gently guided her hoof back to its original place.

“Let me show you how to manage a hostage properly,” murmured Zodos, who licked her lips. “Now. Without any sudden moves. The crystal, if you please.”

Vanilla didn’t move. She couldn’t take her eyes off the dent that the blade was pressing into Carmine’s neck. From a long way off, she fancied a pulse throbbed there every second or so. One little blade against the whole of Carmine… her veteran partner suddenly looked much younger, much frailer.

She didn’t dare move. Her whole mind was teetering on the edge of a yawning cliff with no end in sight, and however much it screamed at itself to back up, back up, back up at once, she could imagine her mind any moment losing the fight against the cold pull of gravity. Every muscle in her body was taut with the effort.

Carmine’s lips struggled around the words, but she finally whispered in a rush, “Give-her-the-crystal, Vanilla.”

“C-Carmine…?” Vanilla forced her eyes not to burn.

“Just-do-it!”

“Slowly,” added Zodos. Partly sheathed behind two lazy eyelids, the zebra’s stare was a poised ice pick, patiently waiting to stab.

With a sigh, Vanilla reached into the folds of her trench coat and felt a hard crystalline object jab into her frog. Her fur crackled for a moment. She rummaged around and finally clamped onto the crystal itself. As though drawing a sword made of glass, she guided it out through her collar and the tip arced through the air as she slowly swung it round, the glow dimming from sunshine brightness to a lunar sheen.

Zodos’ eyes gleamed. “Very good, little pony.”

Yet Vanilla didn’t hear the words. She was staring at the thickened end of the crystal. Her other limb urged her to clasp it in both forelegs, to heft it. If she could get close enough, then perhaps…

Carmine’s head pushed back slightly, bracing her muscles.

Scarcely had Vanilla wobbled on her hind legs and thrust one forwards when Zodos barked, “Stay where you are! No close-quarters garbage! And you” – Folio yelped and stood up – “stop creeping backwards. You must think I’m stupid.”

“You're not giving her many options on that front,” said Carmine.

“Please…” whimpered Folio. “My family…”

“Shut. Up. And don’t even think of throwing that crystal at me… kid.” Zodos gave a chuckle. “Tell her, Carmine.”

“She’s too fast,” wheezed Carmine through gritted teeth. “Lightning. Trust me. Seen ‘er b’fore.”

“Good.” Zodos’ lips pulled back, showing her meat-cleaver incisors again. “On the floor. Drop it.”

Vanilla was starting to pant, and a frown flickered over her forehead. “If I give you the crystal,” she said slowly, fighting to keep her tone steady, “then what stops you from killing her anyway?”

This got nothing but a second chuckle. She held her breath and bent down to place the crystal on the ground. Not once did she look away from Carmine. Another newspaper flapped in the wind and tumbled off the cart and onto the road.

“Step back nice and slowly,” said Zodos.

Folio was sobbing but still upright, and Vanilla nudged her to get her to step backwards. While she placed each hoof delicately behind her, the earth mare stared at Zodos’ grin but, out of the corner of her eye, noticed Carmine scrabble at the edge of the crispy pages. There was no way the zebra would not hear it, but if she could just get a hoof on it…

“Spare me your pathetic ploys.” Zodos’ hoof pressed on Carmine’s chin, jerking her head back briefly; the unicorn winced at the strain that shot into her neck. “By the time you kick that up into my face, that brilliant brain of yours will be rattling around my hooves. Now… kid… kick the crystal across the ground.”

A bead of sweat dribbled down Vanilla’s temple. Her mouth trembled to get the words out. “And then… you-you’ll let her go…p-p-please?”

There was no answer. Ears drooping, her left hoof to her heart, Vanilla closed her eyes and cringed at the stab of pain inside. Her other hoof flicked at the crystal. All the glowing facets skidded and flashed over and over until the tumble became a glide, and the thing stopped an inch ahead of the newspaper’s edge.

Carmine raised her other rear hoof an inch. A page flopped over, and she transferred her hoof onto the fully open newspaper. Shaking the drop out of each eye, Vanilla glared at the steel knife. She clutched her heart, creasing the folds of her trench coat. The collar drooped past her chest.

“Very good. Don’t bother reaching for any pocketed prizes,” said Zodos, whose eyes had briefly widened. “You can’t whip it out fast enough.”

“You cold-hearted monster,” breathed Folio. She stepped forwards.

“Back off, idiot!” Vanilla snapped at her.

Shock blooming on the pegasus’ face, Folio took two steps backwards and bit her lip.

“Now,” Zodos said to her captive. “I’m going to let go of your chin, so be it on your own head if you relax too much. Bend down and pick it up with your hooves.”

“Ah. Cunning,” muttered Carmine. “Of course, that stops me doing anything fancy with my teeth. You are a crafty devil, aren’t you?”

The striped hoof shot off the chin as though scolded. Yet the knife didn’t so much as waver. Carmine waited three seconds before leaning down, slow and stiff as an old arthritic mare, to wrap her forelimbs around the crystal. Zodos had to rest on her back, the knife still at her throat. The zebra’s gaze was fixed on the other two ponies.

Vanilla waited until the crystal was clear of the ground and the two were upright again; the only way power could get through it now was if it could continue down Carmine’s body, and the newspaper was firmly under the unicorn’s rear hooves.

“Good,” began Zodos. “Now –”

Still clutching at her own heart, Vanilla pressed at her chest with a jab so slight that Zodos barely registered the act.

The lightning sceptre flared.

Her hoof had pressed through a gap between the buttons. Yellow shot cleanly out through her hanging collar. There was metal barely yards away, and Carmine was the only equine touching it who had an insulator between her and the ground.

The unending scream of Zodos stuttered and skipped with each jagged shock. Arcs zapped in and out of existence all over her.

A purple tree of lightning strikes was still burning into Vanilla’s retinas when she heard a crack, and by the time the afterimage had cleared, Carmine was rubbing the back of her own horned head while Zodos rolled away, clutching at her striped nose and twitching and yelping in spasms and crackling arcs. Folio shrieked and spread her wings; with a tackle, Vanilla pinned her to the ground and held her struggling body down.

Carmine kicked the newspaper away.

“I am of course a reasonable mare with a generous outlook and an honourable philosophy,” she said. She hefted the crystal in her hooves. “Since you have expressed a keen interest in this ancient historical artefact, I am more than willing to overlook these recent differences and let you have it.”

She swung. It was a great uppercut, and the crack was loud and clear as a gunshot.

Zodos arced over the crates, trailing sparks and blurring with spasms and screaming in electric fits, and she was still trailing and blurring and screaming when she disappeared behind the wall.

Both Vanilla and Folio flinched at the thump.

“Past differences, on the other hand,” said Carmine. “That is another kettle of fish.”

The crystal clattered on the ground. Twinkling lights smothered it, and it rose level with Carmine’s glowing horn while she, still standing upright, spat and polished her hooves against each other.

“Vanilla,” she said in a slightly shaky voice, “I am not on my honour a biased mare, but if we survive this commission, then you are getting a bucket-load of gold stars on your résumé.”

“Carmine!” Vanilla’s beam hugged her own face, and she shone with the sunlight of a sky no longer overcast with storms. “I thought… I thought I’d never –”

A warning hoof shot up, and she bounced off it chest-first before she realized she’d even taken a forward bound.

“Don’t get sappy about it,” snapped Carmine. “Professionals don’t cry. Well, not like that, anyway.”

Vanilla rubbed her nose, snorting back something damp and cold. “S-Sorry. Sorry, Carmine.”

“We’re not out of the wicked woods yet.” Instantly, the unicorn rounded on Folio and reached across; the pegasus flinched, but merely received a few pats on the shoulder. “You holding up OK?”

Folio blinked at her and stammered. “Wh-What? Oh, y-yes. F-Fine, I guess. Uh, th-thanks.”

“You doubtless have to sneak out to do a bit of partying elsewhere every now and then. You know a way out of this dump?”

“Uh, uh… y-yes, yes I happen to –”

“Good mare. Keeps her head in a crisis. Well,” said Carmine, giving her a mock bow, “lead on, maestro.”

No one moved. Sweat dribbled down Folio’s temple. To Vanilla, it felt like an hour was looming over them, daring them to break it down.

Then, abruptly, she began to laugh. It beat her lungs up and punched at her voice box before shouldering its way out of her mouth, and even as she wept apologetically for the sky, she couldn’t stop committing violence to the very air around her with each boom and blast. Instinctively, she forced a hoof into her mouth and the laughter rounded on it, puffing hot breath like fire all over the horny edge until it was softened and melting. Through the smears of water on her eyes, she could see Carmine shaking her head, and when the unicorn sighed at her, she shook herself down and hit her own cheek until the gales of laughter were weak enough to lock behind her tight lips.

“Um…” said Folio, looking as though Vanilla had turned into a sizzling bomb.

“Let’s go,” muttered Carmine. As Folio led them away from the crates, Carmine waited for Vanilla to stumble past, and then added in an undertone, “Wet behind the ears and under the eyes. Never had this sentimentalism back in my day…”

“Sorry,” wheezed Vanilla, hastily wiping her eyes. “G-Got carried away.”

“It’s the shock, that’s all.” Carmine fell into line behind her, speaking matter-of-factly. “Better agents than you have had it. You’re fine now. Just keep your mind on the job and forget about what happened. It’s over. There! That’s the ticket! Your shoulders are heaving less already. Thattagirl. Steady breaths. Concentrate on the mission.”

“Steady breaths,” whispered Vanilla. “Concentrate on the mission… I got this… I got this…”

While the sun arced towards the western rooftops, the three of them looked around and up at the clear skies, and then scurried under cover of the lengthening shadows, lost at once to the maze of streets.

Stars and Reviews

Stars winked into existence overhead, scattered across the darkening sky. The black sea washed over the crags and pebbles and briefly flared white with froth. On the horizon lurked the shadow of another island, its gulf barely an outline against the twilight.

Against the log-made jetty, the boat tugged on its mooring rope and bobbed with the waves. Four bulging saddlebags twinkled with magic while they were lowered onto the stern bench. Vanilla, now shorn of her trench coat and sunglasses, leaned over the edge and stretched a forelimb to pull the boat closer. Anything to avoid looking at the inky nothingness between it and the logs.

Behind her, Carmine levitated the jar of fireflies and shuffled towards the rising rock ridge that passed for a public trail. Folio was tapping a hoof and had folded her wings across her chest like arms. Everything from the forward lean to the unblinking gaze of the pegasus focused on the unicorn with the intensity of a cannon aimed at a castle wall.

“Here,” Carmine said, and from behind her the glowing black key drifted towards Folio’s face. “I’m a mare of my word.”

Folio’s wing blurred with the snatch. Her face was twitching with the effort of restraint.

“They’re in an abandoned warehouse. Sort District, in Uronychus town. There’s a box museum right next to it. Use any door; the key works on all the padlocks. You got all that?”

This earned her barely a nod. “I’m a postgrad. I’ve got a killer memory.”

“Good,” said Carmine, and she gave a curt nod. “So now you’ll kill that memory of ever seeing us leave, because I’ve got a lot of close friends in the company who I owe money to. They’ll get very upset if I end up in a jail somewhere. Might pop round to make enquiries, if you get my drift.”

Folio’s twitching continued, and in the darkness she was turning pale enough to glow. “But, but I thought you didn’t hurt ponies? Y-You said.”

“I said I don’t kill,” said Carmine. “That still leaves me a lot of options.”

Then the grin bloomed across her face and she reared up to deliver a wide-armed bow. “A rip-roaring pleasure it has been, miss, doing business with you. From the bottom of my heart, I wish you and your family a bright and prosperous future.”

It took a few seconds to sink in, but when it did, Folio was gone. The dust settled, and Carmine fell back onto all fours to shuffle over to Vanilla, who’d been holding the boat steady and watching her. At once, the earth mare spun round and scooped up the oars. She’d gotten as far as bringing them up to her chest, but to her surprise found them tingling and suddenly stuck immobile in midair.

“No no,” said Carmine hastily. “You just get in the boat and relax. I’ll take care of the rowing.”

“But I can do it, I swear!”

“Of course you can. I never said you couldn’t. But let old Carmine have a go, eh? There’s a good mare.”

Vanilla raised her eyebrow suspiciously. She was sure her technique was just as good as Carmine’s, but the unicorn didn’t so much as smile apologetically. Still giving Carmine funny glances, Vanilla guided hoof after hoof onto the boat, stiffening once or twice when the waves threatened to tip her front half out.

The boat dipped alarmingly, and she spun round to see Carmine bouncing off the saddlebags and onto the bench, making the whole thing dip again.

“Right,” said the unicorn, suddenly all business, “that’s one crystal, one lightning sceptre, and whatever else we managed to pinch along the way. There’s enough food and drink in there to last us four days if we ration it. We might have to rough it a bit in the wild, but it’s nothing we haven’t trained long and hard for, despite our best efforts.”

“Do you always leave caches around an island when you visit?” said Vanilla.

“Rule one of the business: always have your escape plan worked out before you start. Saves a lot of embarrassment later on.” Carmine lowered the oars and snapped them into place. “Here, let me sit at the front end.”

“The bow.”

“Yeah, that bit. Excuse me…”

Vanilla grunted and whimpered as the boat rocked under Carmine’s blundering. Then they were sitting on each other’s benches, Carmine stiff-backed like an attentive dog, Vanilla cautiously lowering her body onto the saddlebags with the grace of a lady waiting to be painted.

“And why –?” she began.

“That’s it. You just sit back and enjoy the night.” Carmine opened the jar and shooed the fireflies out before pitching it overboard. “Now…”

The oars twinkled. As one, the giant paddles swept back and then dipped into the inky blackness. Groaning with the strain, Carmine clenched her jaw and tugged. They zipped away from the jetty, and then bounced back. Such was the force that Carmine almost fell off her bench.

“Would you like me,” said Vanilla coldly, cushioned as she was by the saddlebags, “to untie the mooring rope first?”

Opposite her, Carmine grinned. “Ahaha. I was just… testing the oars. Don’t get excited.”

A few seconds later, they were on their way, one strained beat of the oars after the other, the rope and the jar trailing in their wake. Vanilla turned round in her seat to watch the crags and headland drift away. On either side of them stretched a shelf of low rocky outcrop that was so bubbly and holey that it could’ve been a gigantic sponge, while further away were the shadows of mountains. Along the northern side of the coast, a nearby town glowed. Even from here, her ears flickered at the faint notes of a hundred string-based serenades, the humming chatter of a thousand voices, and the laughter that flared as a firework among the campfires of sound.

When she turned back, she realized Carmine had her back to the other island. “I… suppose I could navigate for us?”

“Relax, Vanilla.” Between each strain, Carmine flashed a grin. “You’ve done more than enough. No one’s going to spot us in the dark. Except me. I’ve got amazing night vision. It took me years to get night vision as good as this. I had to practise in a dark room once every two days.”

Vanilla shrugged and leaned back, forelimbs tucked behind her head. Each sway was a gentle rock of the wooden seat. There were no sounds besides the steady dribble and the creak of the oars. Stars filled the sky, puncturing through the void until shapes began to form, the suggestion of edges between nearby stars, the vague clouds of clusters too far away to properly focus on…

“I remember watching the night sky when I was young,” she said in what she hoped was a calming voice. When Carmine simply yanked the oars out again, she continued, “No one let me out after dark – said it was too dangerous at the witching hour, or so they called it – so I slipped out the bedroom window and ran up the hill near our house. We were in the country. The view’s always best from the open fields, they said.”

“Mmm,” said Carmine. It could have meant anything.

“I can navigate by the constellations, you know,” added Vanilla, still staring up at the sky. She recognized them now: Auriga, the chariot; Ursa Minor, the little bear; Draco, the dragon… They stood out as plainly as the faces of old friends. To her shame, she felt a tear begin to pool under her left eye.

The oars creaked and then dribbled water during their arc. Another creak, and she faintly heard them slip into the waves. Sinking under the gentle encouragement of the boat’s up-and-down rhythm, her eyelids began to clench, and half of the sky was shrouded beneath it. Everything began to feel like a minor weight pressed up against her back. She could almost fall into the sky.

“I, uh,” said Carmine, “don’t suppose you could… remind me what the constellations are, by any chance?”

Vanilla raised her head, feeling herself crystallize as she snapped back to real life. Still stiff-backed, Carmine was smirking at her, and only the wince of each yank of the oars betrayed an otherwise icy exterior.

“You know them, do you?” Vanilla said, and despite herself a smirk played on her mouth.

“Yeah, sure. Um…” Carmine tilted her head back and pouted thoughtfully. A hoof shot up. “Ooh, that one! The one shaped like a pan. Ursa Major.”

“Very good, professor.” Vanilla didn’t bother pointing out that there were kindergarten students who knew that one. “And you know Cassiopeia, the W-shaped one over there?”

“Of course, of course. That’s the name. Slipped my mind for a moment.”

Vanilla felt only the slightest twinge of guilt when she added, “And you see that one there? Crux? You see it?”

“Crux! That’s the one. I can make out the jaws now. Crux. Knew it was on the tip of my tongue.”

Vanilla leaned back and tried to relax while a part of her rolled on the deck laughing. “And you might want to make a slight course correction to your left. We’re drifting over.”

Carmine nodded. “You figure that out from the stars? You can read them to some fine detail, then. My, aren’t we clever?”

“Yeah,” said Vanilla with a sigh. Not that she’d needed to do so. Carmine could’ve come to the same conclusion just by turning around.

Idly, she twisted herself round and ferreted in one of the bags with both hooves. For a moment, the book popped out, and then she breathed out with relief and slipped it back inside.

“Stealing a library book, tsk tsk tsk,” said Carmine.

“I wanted a souvenir. Besides, I like legends. It’s a great comfort from… well, it’s just a great comfort.”

“Yeesh. And to think, if only you and that Folio foal had met under different circumstances, eh? The saddest words I ever did hear, are ‘What could have been’.”

Vanilla threw herself back onto the saddlebags. “Carmine?”

“Yeah?”

There was the barest hint of a tremble in her voice before she asked; “What are you thinking about? Right now, I mean.”

“My my, what a funny question.”

“Please?” she added.

At once, she regretted it. Carmine’s voice was a lead block dropped onto concrete when she answered; “Death.”

“Oh.” Vanilla felt the blush try to force its way out of her cheeks. She tried to look as far away from Carmine as possible, which in her current position meant trying to stare up her own scalp. “S-Sorry.”

Carmine waited until another cycle of dribbling and creaking passed.

“Don’t be,” she said matter-of-factly. “I think about my death all the time. It darn well nearly happens all the time, in this job. There’s a lot more to it than just mugging weedy clerk types for the big shiny thing.”

The oars creaked and dribbled on. Vanilla shut out the stars, trying to withdraw into her own mind.

“There’s a lot of novices,” continued Carmine with the air of one prodding a dragon to see if it’s dead, “who never make it past the first job.”

“Mmmm,” said Vanilla, torn between being polite and forcing the unicorn to stop talking.

“We have a memorial in the lobby. Back in the offices, I mean. Whole room full of names. Not just novices’ names, either.”

Vanilla screwed up her face with the effort of keeping herself at bay. Shut up, shut up, shut up…

“And we get no health insurance whatsoever. Premium’s monstrous.”

She opened her eyes to stars. “Carmine…”

“Pension’s good, though. Got that to look forward to.”

“Carmine.”

The oars splashed on their downward curve this time. “Yes, Vanilla?”

Vanilla took a deep breath. “Why are we doing this, Carmine?”

“What, talking?”

“No. The job.” Sweat trickled down her fringe to her ears, but she bit down and then continued, “All this fetching artefacts and getting killed. I mean, what is it for?”

A chuckle heralded Carmine’s response. “Wow. Most of us don’t get to that stage until we’ve got a few more jobs behind us. Trying to save time?”

“I’m serious. When I joined up last year, it all seemed so… well, exciting. I got a kick out of the thought of pulling one over on everybody. The late night work, going outdoors, seeing the sights, doing whatever I wanted, however I wanted… Ha, that’d show ‘em, I thought. Bunch of goody-goodies, bunch of dull-as-ditchwater… erm… ditchwaters…” She shook the confusion off her head. “I thought it was going to be… well, like that all the time. Exciting and everything.”

“Good grief, Vanilla! Getting chased by police isn’t exciting? I wouldn’t like to live where you come from. Hold on, I’m drifting again.”

One oar stuck right up while the other splashed feverishly against the waves. Vanilla pointed her ears for the slightest unexpected sound. Any moment, a light would burst into existence and a booming voice would shout, “Halt! Step away from the oars and put your front hooves up! You are under arrest!”

She shivered and tried to wriggle herself comfortable.

“Having second thoughts?” Carmine grunted at the strain before both oars relaxed. “Wow, you really have had all the cushy stuff so far, haven’t you? Quitting is not a good idea in this job. You don’t get to hand over your notice and waltz out the door.”

As one, the oars plunged back into the waters.

“But what if they’re right?” moaned Vanilla to the stars. “I… I was horrified at what I was doing when I joined up. I mean, most of me was pleased, of course most of me was pleased, but there was this feeling in my head like I couldn’t believe I’d stoop so low… and when I saw that… and then… well, what about all that stuff about criminals and innocent civilians? Justice? Good and evil? All that heady stuff… I mean, what if there’s an actual –”

“Vanilla!”

“An actual spark of goodness in me and I’d just turned my back on it –”

“Vanilla!”

She yanked herself up to her elbows and the nightmare shattered around her. “What? What?”

“Don’t worry so much about it, OK?” said Carmine, and Vanilla was shocked at how soothing her voice had become. “It’s just a game. You don’t have to play it. Not if you don’t want to.”

“A… A game?” she said in between each pant.

“Lots of rules, lots of standards. It’s only natural you fuss over them. It’s complicated. But that’s all they are, when you get down to it. Just keep it together, and then let it go…”

And after several breaths, Vanilla leaned back, and she sighed, and she let it go with another, final sigh.

“Thattagirl.” Carmine grunted with another heave of the oars. “Everybody gets a crisis of conscience in this job. Don’t worry. Get rid of your conscience, crisis over. That’s how I look at it.”

“OK… OK, thanks… thanks Carmine.”

This time, she was met with a snigger. “Of course, there is one way of looking at it that helps put it all into perspective. That crystal we’ve got, for example: what do you think happens when we hand it over?”

Resting on the saddlebags, Vanilla shrugged. She was finding herself drifting off again, and struggling to keep her eyes open.

“Let me put it this way, then. The agency’s been doing this job for years and years and years and years, serving probably dozens of clients. Get this for a superweapon, get that for a mind control device, oh please would you fetch those mystic doo-dahs what’ll release this ancient eldritch evil if you’d kindly just drop ‘em off at this hill on this planetary alignment blahdy blahdy blah. Dozens, remember? So have you ever wondered why we never hear of their schemes again?”

Vanilla nodded. Her dreams were brightening up the starlit sky, but the voice of Carmine droned on.

“And remember, we get paid handsomely for all this malarkey, give or take the occupational hazards. All in all, it’s a good living, right? We get a lot of bits for it, right? And we’re in league with some pretty powerful individuals, wouldn’t you say? And we’re efficient, right, so at least we can claim to proudly and shiningly hold up our end of the bargain in these megalomaniac schemes.”

Now Vanilla’s eyelids were fully closed. A smile slid across her lips. She liked this dream.

“That’s the ticket. Challenging work, romantic excitement, handsome payoffs… and an interestingly steady supply of commissions…” Carmine’s voice was dripping with a smirk that stretched from cheek to cheek. “Think of our job, Vanilla, as the greatest con game anyone ever pulled…”