The Castle of Dreams

Chapter 13

“What?!” Shining Armor gaped at Midnight in the shield. “You know I can’t see with you there…”

Take a look for yourself then, Midnight’s image shimmered away and Shining Armor gasped to see his helmet had been replaced with the Helm of Light!

Composed of a gleaming silvery metal, a hole for his horn, the plume matched the colors of Midnight’s mane, black at the roots, the ends a dark blue, and upon the piece that came down between his eyes was a pale blue jewel shaped like the star of Midnight’s cutie-mark.

“I don’t understand,” Shining Armor wondered as he took off the Helm and looked at it. “Why did the Helm appear on me?”

I have a theory or two, said Midnight’s voice in his head. Perhaps our choice to forgive and forget, as well as re-making our pledge, was able to summon the Helm to me but it appeared on your head because I’m inside you.

“I wonder if there’s more to it than that,” Shining Armor debated.

…Go find Twilight and ask her to give you Star Swirl’s diary, Midnight instructed, I have another theory that I’d like to test.

“Something tells me we’re thinking the same thing…!” Shining Armor grinned and galloped off back to the castle.

“Shiny!” gasped Twilight as she gaped at the Helm he was wearing.

Shining Armor had found Twilight back in the library where she’d been looking through Star Swirl’s diary.

“Why do you have the Helm of Light?! How’d you get it, where’d it come from, why-”

Shining Armor held up his hooves in a “timeout” gesture, prompting his little sister to stop talking.

“Twily! I need you to give the diary, I think we have an idea!”

“We?” echoed Twilight, then gasped as Shining Armor pointed to Midnight’s cutie-mark on his left flank, and then his head.

“Can… you talk to him?”

“Midnight says, ‘Yes, Twilight, I can talk to your brother, and quit gaping at us like your brother’s grown a second head’,” Shining Armor laughed at the look on Twilight’s face.

“After all, I just have a second pony in my head, Twily!”

“This is too weird…” Twilight muttered, rubbing her head.

“You’re telling me!”

“Anyway, why do you want the diary?” Twilight asked as she levitated it to him, and Shining Armor set it on a nearby table.

“Just an idea…” Shining Armor answered as he concentrated.

Twilight felt it almost at once! Her brother’s power, the light rose aura enveloping his horn, but then Twilight saw it! Shining’s aura became mixed with another aura of a different color, a light cyanish-white aura she’d seen before, and she felt two great powers at work before her!

Midnight…?! Twilight wondered and just for a moment, she could see him, standing in Shining’s place, the same expression of determined concentration upon his face. But the mixing auras radiated so intensely, that Twilight averted her eyes before looking again and saw Shining Armor again.

All of a sudden, the library around them seemed to change a little, and Shining Armor gasped in delight.

“It worked…!” he whispered, as they saw the illusion begin.

The Canterlot Library looked different, bookcases and furniture in different places, the floor now hardwood instead of carpeted, some furnishings Twilight was long familiar with, gone.

“I can’t believe it…!” she said in awe, Shining Armor next to her. “You really did it! You cast Midnight’s Spell of Retrospection!”

“No, Midnight and I both cast the spell,” Shining Armor corrected her, holding his hoof over his heart. “Because friends work together.”

Twilight beamed at him but then they noticed somepony coming towards them. Twilight had to remind herself it was only an illusion of the past as she felt the inclination to make herself scarce and hide, as she and Shining watched to see a stallion approach. He was a unicorn with a golden coat while his hooves, mane, tail, and muzzle were all black. His eyes were turquoise, and his cutie-mark was hidden by armor he wore that made him look like a member of the Royal Guard. He walked right past them as he approached a bookcase. He looked around to make sure he wasn’t being seen (at least, by somepony then when the actual event took place), and then his horn glowed a white aura, as the books on the top shelf moved out of the way, revealing the back. The brother and sister heard what sounded like the springing of a mechanism and watched as the back of the bookcase revealed a compartment, and Star Swirl’s journal!

“Do you think he’s the one who took the page?” Twilight asked.

“We’ll soon see,” Shining Armor replied, “but… there’s something familiar about him.”

“That’s good! If you can figure out who he is, it’ll help us find the page!” Twilight beamed at him before they looked back to the unicorn.

Levitating the book, the unicorn skimmed the pages, and then…

“So Clover didn’t destroy that accursed thing… even after all the harm it caused. I wonder if she’s even deserving of the name ‘Clever’.”

Then they watched as the unicorn’s aura ripped the page out of the book and he folded it before putting it in his armor.

“If I have anything to say about it, that wretched mirror will never again see the light of day! …But Star Swirl, if you thought the mirror would have such a role to play… I only hope it will one day save my father from himself.”

Finally, Shining Armor gasped, Twilight asking, “BBBFF, what is it?”

“Rising Hope…!” he uttered, Twilight gasping, “You mean Sombra’s son?!”

“We have to talk to the General,” Shining stated, as the spell stopped, and the illusion faded, leaving the siblings back in the library they knew.

“But Shining, how do we tell General Knighthoof about this?” Twilight wasn’t trying to dissuade her brother, not really.

“I mean, he’ll ask how we got this information! We can’t just show up out of the blue, saying we’re following a hunch!”

“It’s alright, that’s exactly what we can say,” Shining replied, his brow furrowed. Shining had always held his mentor in high regard, but lately he’d begun to question the sort of pony Knighthoof was.

“Midnight says, his father doesn’t know about the Spell of Retrospection, so we can just say we found something during our research. “

“It’s still hard to wrap my mind around Midnight communicating through you,” Twilight looked at Shining’s left eye, which had turned the same turquoise as Midnight’s own eyes.

“What’s it like? You said before it was like feeling Midnight in the back of your mind! Is there ever some physiological sensation? Is he like another voice in your head? Oh! I could write a thesis on this!”

“Twily, you know I love you…” Shining glowered at her in an amused yet irritated kind of way. “But Midnight says, ‘shut up and let’s get back to the matter at hoof’. I did not!”

Shining held his hoof to his mouth, gasping, as did Twilight. That outburst wasn’t his voice.

“Uh, Shining? I think…”

“Midnight spoke through my mouth? Yes, I think he-” Shining suddenly looked like he was pondering, and said, “Ok, so I was shifting the blame on you, sue me! …Hey you thought so too, I can hear everything you think in my head… We are as close as two ponies can possibly be right now, and you’re the one complaining about invasion of privacy?!”

Twilight giggled, she couldn’t help it. Although logically, she realized Shining and Midnight were having a discussion, but it still looked like Shining was talking to himself.

“Rising Hope?” The Sparkle Siblings had just explained to Knighthoof what they’d learned (albeit an edited version of how it happened). The general puzzled their words, Shining and Twilight watching him closely as he paced back and forth in the hall.

“…Perhaps… Maybe… Yes! There is something that could possibly lead to the missing clue!”

“What is it?” Shining Armor asked.

“A family heirloom that’s been in our family for centuries,” explained Knighthoof, “passed down from father to son. I meant to do the same with Midnight but…”

The way the red unicorn looked away and his manner said it all.

“He chose to do what he wanted instead of what you wanted,” Shining Armor gathered, his tone making Knighthoof feel ashamed.

“Yes… I realized long ago that was my mistake,” Knighthoof admitted, “but I was too full of pride to say so to my son.”

“General, what exactly is this heirloom you speak of?” Twilight asked.

“It’s a shield,” Knighthoof explained, “forged by master craftsponies with a blacksmithing art that has long been lost. It was originally wielded by my ancestor, Rising Hope, after he joined Princess Celestia’s Royal Guard. Although it looks like a mere shield, it possesses fascinating power.”

“Where is it?” Shining Armor urged.

“I’ll run home and get it,” Knighthoof promised, “alert the Knights of Adventure, and I’ll meet you in the counsel room.”

The siblings watched him leave when they heard someone behind them. They looked and saw it was a crystal pony colt, looking sad. His coat was white like a diamond, his mane purple like quartz crystal, and his eyes, dampened by sadness, were blue like the sky.

“Oh, hello there.” Twilight greeted the little one who immediately ran to her, whimpering. Twilight and Shining both smiled understandably as Twilight nuzzled the colt.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?”

“…I miss my mommy,” the colt whimpered, “you… kinda look like her.”

Twilight comforted the whimpering colt, then said to her brother, “Why don’t we bring him along to meet with the general? I think he needs some comfort.”

“I don’t mind,” Shining replied.

But as they made their way to the counsel room, the colt narrowed his eyes, which turned from their crystal blue color to a hateful red.

The colt shuddered as he felt that familiar presence inside.

That’s right, my little pony… Spy on them for me, and when you have carried out my will, you’ll be reunited with your dear mother…

Shining Armor, Twilight, the colt, and the other Knights met up in the counsel room. Twilight had sent her friends, the other bearers of the Elements, to help out wherever in the castle. Forester recognized the colt whom he’d protected when they’d had to leave the empire but said nothing.

“Gentlecolts,” Shining Armor declared, getting their attention as he paced alongside the table, “Twilight and I are relieved to tell you, we’ve found a possible lead to the missing clue Star Swirl left about the mirror of Fantasia.”

“You’re kidding!” Thunderlane gaped at the captain with a positive grin.

“I say, good show ol’ boy,” Bravissimo clapped his hooves.

“Eeyup!” Big Mac agreed.

“So what exactly did you find?” Forester asked.

“General Knighthoof will arrive momentarily with what might be the lead we’ve been looking for,” Twilight answered, and no sooner did she did the doors open and in walked Knighthoof, a shield strapped to his back.

“Here it is,” Knighthoof announced as he unfastened the shield and levitated it onto the table.

Everypony looked at it, it was shaped just like the shields on Shining and Knighthoof’s cutie-marks but colored gold with a white star in the middle, edged in gleaming blue.

“Through the generations of my family, this shield has been passed from father to son. Were it not for my pride and insensitive behavior to his feelings, I would’ve passed this shield onto my son. But now, I pray for the chance to do just that once we’ve rescued him just as I pray this shield may hold the key to our salvation.”

“Let me see,” Twilight requested, and Knighthoof gestured in a way that said ‘by all means’. She levitated the shield over to herself and examined it. Despite centuries it had clearly weathered, it was in a condition that could only be described as pristine.

“Amazing…! Such craftsmanship! I can feel it, this shield has very special powers.”

“The techniques used to forge it made the shield so as not to wane or break,” Knighthoof explained. “It can withstand the fury of a hundred warriors’ hooves and rebound them with the force of a storm. Whosoever holds it is all but invincible in battle.”

Starfyre gave an impressed whistle as Twilight continued to examine it.

“But if Rising Hope somehow left the clue in this shield, he hid it well because I can’t see where… Hold on!”

“What is it, Twily?” Shining’s ears perked at her words as he went over to look.

“There’s something here on the interior,” Twilight said as she looked at inside of the shield that faced the holder.

“It’s some kind of...”

Then they watched as Twilight’s horn glowed lavender and Shining noticed a vertical rectangle appear on the shield interior, and words revealed themselves as glowing sentences, brightening from left to right downward, before dulling to reveal the words to be engraved.

“Aha! A glamour spell,” Twilight declared. “Cast long ago to hide this clue!”

“Let’s see what it says,” Shining said as he looked over his sister’s shoulder. But the two siblings realized the message wasn’t words but rather numbers. A lot of them.

“What’s this? Are these… latitude-longitudes?”

“No…” Twilight squinted at the numbers, seeing them all in sets of three except for the numbers on top.

“I think… the numbers on top are a substitution cipher.”

“A what?” Starfyre and the other knights looked at a loss.

“You know,” Shining answered, “where you substitute the letters with numbers or different letters? You simply figure out how they’re substituted, and you can figure out the message.”

“Right, and if I‘m right,” Twilight mused as she conjured a piece of paper and pencil, her aura spelling something out.

“Then this message on top says… ‘A Knightly Adventure’.”

“That’s a book!” Knighthoof gasped, “It was written by Rising Hope when he became a knight under Princess Celestia’s rule!”

“Then if I’m correct,” Twilight added, “I bet all these numbers set in threes, are a Trottenford Cipher!”

“Which is…?” Shining asked.

“A simpler term is a book cipher,” Twilight explained, “each of these numbers corresponds to something in a book, based on set of threes! The first number refers to the page, the second number refers to the word on the page, and the third number corresponds to the letter in that word!”

After acquiring the book, Twilight and Shining got to work decoding the message while Knighthoof, at Shining’s request, got to work on whipping the other knights into shape and teaching them the basics of the Royal Guard. He knew that he would the knights to find the Mirror of Fantasia, and of Rising Hope went to the trouble of taking Star Swirl’s clue and making it all the harder to find and understand who knows what else they might face in this expedition?

Unbeknownst to them, the crystal colt continued to spy on them, diligently awaiting the perfect opportunity.

A couple hours later…

“Whoo!” Shining Armor wiped his brow, as he levitated the papers he and Twilight had worked on. “Finished! Now we can share this with the others.”

“How `bout I gather everything and you go get them and we’ll meet back in the counsel room,” Twilight suggested.

“Sure, see you there,” Shining said as he all but galloped off to get the others.

Glad to see things are coming along, said Midnight in his head. Shining felt relieved to hear a positive tone in Midnight’s voice.

“Well hopefully it won’t be long before you come out of me,” Shining Armor chuckled, “and move along back into your own body.”

Ten minutes later, Shining was leading the knights towards the counsel room when he heard a shout and struggle. They hurried towards the counsel room and noticed the crystal colt run past them, papers in his mouth, and Twilight running out, shouting, “Stop him! He’s stolen the clue!”

“After that colt, men!” Shining shouted, and at once it was a mad dash.

The colt ran as fast as his little legs could carry him but he would certainly not outrun six grown stallions, particularly since two of them were pegasi. He ran into a hall of doors, and went through one. Only Bravissimo saw which one and followed him in. The others stopped and looked around the hall, and then saw the colt come out of a door further down and quickly run inside the third door to his left, Big Mac going after him, braying, “Nnope!”

The situation quickly devolved into the classic hallway chase gag, as the stallions and the colt went to and fro different doors, going into certain doors and exiting out of doors to far away to be connected or even from the doors on the other side of the hall. Thankfully, Twilight caught up and gaped at the madness going on. She sighed and quickly cast a spell, forcing all doors open, and Everypony involved in the chase (not counting her) stepped out of a door, and it was just the colt’s bad luck he exited out the door that was right next to Twilight.

“Eep!” he yelped as Twilight cast another spell, enveloping him in her aura and levitating him off the floor while taking the decoded clue from him.

“Give that back!”

“You will tell me why you tried to steal this,” Twilight said firmly, the stallions all converging, each of them with a stern or disapproving look on his face.

The colt looked from them to Twilight, looking squirmy and uncomfortable, sweating bullets as tears welled up in his eyes. Forester stepped forward and gently said, “Little one, please tell us. Why did you try to steal the clue? We want to understand!”

Hearing the kindness in the green earth pony’s voice, the colt lost it and bawled, “I just wanted my mommy ba-ha-hack…!”

“Huh?!”

Th-th-the evil pony!” the colt sobbed, “He said i-if I spied on you for him, he-he-he’d give me my mommy back, and I thought if I gave him that clue…”

The colt said no more, whimpering, sounding upset, scared, and confused.

“Sombra, that creature…!” Shining growled. “Twily, let him down.”

“Of course,” Twilight obliged and set the colt down, the colt hiccupping as he continued to cry.

Shining placed a hoof on the colt’s back in a comforting way, and the colt looked up at him, looking scared and sorry.

“Listen, little colt, we understand. You just wanted your mom back! But you must understand this: Sombra is a bad pony. If we don’t stop him, how many other mommies do you think will be taken away from their foals? How many other ponies would be trapped in their bad dreams, unable to find comfort in their loved ones?”

The colt looked down in shame, his tears continuing to flow, but Shining lifted his face to look at him.

“We’re gonna stop him, little colt. We’ll get your mom back. But you have to have faith in us. You can’t give up hope and you can’t trust Sombra. So whaddya say?”

The colt said nothing for a few moments but then he looked up at the ponies around him, and they all gasped! The colt’s eyes had turned red, green, and his tears were now a purple miasma, as the colt levitated off the floor, an ugly sneer stretching across his face.

“Oh dear, it seems my little thrall went and got his poor little self caught!”

The voice belonged to Sombra.

“Sombra!” Shining blazed his horn with his magenta aura, the other knights and Twilight all standing ready. “Release the colt!”

“I wouldn’t be so quick with the spells, Shining Armor,” warned Sombra using the poor colt as his mouth-piece. “I just might have to order him to damage himself if you should be so foolish as to try and break my control. Now, that clue, dear Twilight Sparkle. I believe you’re going to give it to me.”

“Not even in your dreams, Sombra!” Twilight narrowed her eyes contemptuously.

“Are you certain you want to say no…?” Sombra’s wicked voice mocked and they all gasped to see the colt’s eyes start to cry tears of blood.

“Either fork over the clue or this poor colt will have to wait to be reunited with his mother… in the afterlife!”

Twilight groaned, the knights growling, until Shining said, “Alright, Sombra, have it your way…”

“Shining!” Twilight admonished as Shining Armor took the clue from his sister and levitated them towards the colt.

“Wise choice,” Sombra smiled wickedly through the colt as the poor boy floated down to take the clue, only for Shining to grab the colt and cast a spell.

“What’re you doing?!”

“By the Spirit of Light!” Shining Armor chanted, “I compel you, Pony of Darkness, leave this poor soul!”

Everypony watched, gaping as Shining then telekinetically forced the colt against the wall. They saw the colt leer hatefully at the white unicorn as Sombra spoke again.

“If I go this brat dies!”

“You did not kill Midnight,” Shining reminded him, “You will not kill this child!”

“The Empire is mine!” hissed the colt in Sombra’s voice, but his head was forced against the wall.

“Be gone…!” Shining whispered forcefully.

It was horrifying, to see this colt used like a puppet as his face was twisted by Sombra’s hate, glaring with rage at Shining. Finally, the colt raged as he lunged at Shining Armor, only for the Captain to rear up and blast his spell right into the colt’s face.

In his secret sanctum, Sombra was thrown back from the crystal he’d been looking into to see through his puppet’s eyes, the black unicorn crashing against the pedestal that held the ensconced Crystal Heart. Groaning, Sombra noticed the Heart wobbling precariously, and gasped as he bolted up and steadied the glass holding the Heart, preventing it from tipping over. But he realized too late his error, and looked to see his viewing-crystal had cracked. His control over the colt was gone, and with it his chance to take the clue to the Mirror of Fantasia!

He let out an earth-shattering roar that made many crystal throughout the empire crack under the pressure of his fury, that his many slaves all cowered when they heard the tyrant’s rage at being thwarted.