Urania

“The next morning at dawn, the weather was way fairer; only a few cumuli, meek and scattered, were visible as small blotches on the bright cerulean of the sky; towards the East, a lazy Sun dabbled its first crimson rays. In the distance, but this time sharply cut against the turquoise background, in the clear and somewhat chilly air, the easily recognizable trapezoidal and blunt shape of Tombhill was towering well over the plain. Barring Doc, who had not been able to sleep a wink, and had spent most of the night apart from the others reading books, we were all feeling fresh and ready for the big dive.

“Our breakfast, poorly enhanced by scanty oat flakes hastily cooked, was quickly swallowed. We then proceeded to ready our carts, and, once everything was in order, gathered on the bank of the pond, which was none other that the brink of the known world. There, we paused for a while; as I was looking at the other side, no more than a score of meters away, a twinge of anxiety wrenched my stomach: these few steps meant so more than a mundane ford crossing. The truth was that we were, like bold – or foolish? – funambulists, about to tiptoe on a thin rope stretched over a bottomless pit. What was lurking beyond this quiet pool? What would we find? Would we ever earn a return ticket? All these questions were niggling  me, and, I believe, all of us, even if nopony dared to speak them aloud, lest it would blot their escutcheon.

“After a while, I decided it was about time to put an end to that introspection, which otherwise threatened to last for a pretty long moment. ‘So, whatever reluctant we may be, when you’ve got to do something, just do it, as my granny said,’ I joked, in a endeavor to slack the strain. ‘It’s no use staying here poised between our hopes and our fears: we won’t find the answers just mulling over; they are to be sought beyond the border. I’ll go first! Wait until I reach the other bank, and then follow me one by one!’

“I reached my left front hoof and dunked it cautiously in the water, which was icy, but harmless; besides, I hardly felt any flow. Encouraged, I then did the same with the right front one, then all fours. I carried on forwards very carefully: the bottom of the pond was both rocky and weedy, thus very slippery, and I didn’t want to begin our real exploration hobbled by a sour, sprained or broken leg. As I inched ahead in the shallow waters, I heard the wheels of my cart splashing into the pond. Had I expected a strange feeling at the crossing of the frontier, I would have been disappointed: nothing uncanny happened, and, with a sigh, I set hoof, unscathed, on the other bank. I kept on going until I was sure the cart had also reached firm ground, and then made a U-turn to beckon the rest of the group.

“But in front of me, right in middle of the pool, stood a gray, opaque wall, whose limit was not clearly defined, but shifting and curling, as of solid mist. My fellows, as well as everything else beyond this strange barrier, were no more to be seen. I gazed left and right, raised my head: the smoky area was spreading all along the brook, as far as the eye could see; only very far above did it somehow merge with the blue of the sky, that was bright no more, but tarnished.

“‘Hey! Hey! Are you still there?’ I shouted once, twice, thrice, without receiving any answer. I put my harness off, picked up a stone that I threw to the wall. It disappeared silently in the cloudy matter. I pricked up my ears, but could not hear any splashing sound. Obviously some kind of spell was cutting off Urania from the rest of the world: while it was possible to observe the mysterious land from outside, the opposite was forbidden.

“Suddenly, a bulge appeared in the wall, almost precisely where I should have crossed it, that soon swelled into a wide protuberance, as if someone was jabbing a spearhead beyond a dull curtain. All of a sudden it broke silently, and the shape of Sandy Dune materialized in the middle of the pond; behind her, the wall had instantly resumed its former shape. ‘Hey! Have you gone nuts?’ she said, squinting at me as if I had turned mad. ‘What were you looking at? You did not hear our answer?’

“‘No, and now you can’t too,’ I answered, and pointed at the wall behind Sandy with my hoof; she turned her head somewhat and became aware of the misty separation. ‘Uh!’ she exclaimed. ‘What’s that?’ ‘It seems no light nor sound may enter Urania, except from very far above,’ I replied. ‘I could neither see nor hear you, while, evidently, you were able to see and hear me.’ I broke off, took a deep breath and yelled as loud as I could: ‘COME ON! THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR, IT’S TOTALLY SAFE! GO AHEAD!’

“Sandy joined me on the bank, and one by one the others appeared out of the gray; soon everypony had caught up with us on the other side of the pool. They were all more or less dumbfounded by the mirky fence, that was totally unnoticeable from the other side. ‘So,’ I said, ‘everypony’s all right? No dizziness? No palpitations? No cramps? If you feel queasy or ill, please report any symptom to me or Bones immediately.

“‘It’s going to be difficult to locate us precisely with this opaque barrier,’ remarked Rocky. He seized a map and unfolded it. ‘We’re here,’ he explained. ‘Look at the small pond; Tombhill is over here. Now, by a simple triangulation, done yesterday at dusk, I could locate one peak in the hills we’re heading for.’ He grasped a sheet of paper. ‘I’ve reported the position of my two landmarks here. As the distance between them is about seventy-five kilometers, don’t hope to reach the piedmont before tomorrow’s night, at best. Last thing: Tombhill tops at two hundreds seventy-four meters; given that the distance to this unnamed peak is seventy-five kilometers, and the theodolite gave me a point seventeen declination angle, we get an altitude of about six hundreds meters.

“‘Fortunately, I’ve pinned down this mountain, but I’ll miss my second landmark. Thus, I will have to be very careful with the compass and estimate our bearing the best I can. And even then, it’s not going to be very precise…’ He grabbed his compass in his pouch. ‘Darn!’ he shouted.

“‘What is it?’ I asked.

“‘The pointer is dead. Look!’ He showed me the instrument, then spun it. The arrow had shifted to a completely different direction. ‘This – he waved at the wall – barrier, whatever it is, seems to also block the magnetic field.’

“‘How is that even possible?’

“‘I am no physicist, but I understand that electricity can create magnetic fields. Maybe this “curtain” is populated by, or even made up of, carefully crafted currents that negate the external field?’

“‘In any case, this implies we’ll have to rely on basic means to find our position…’ I said.

“‘How are we supposed to proceed?’ Sandy inquired.

“‘Simple! We’ll do as the first explorers did: we’ll drive a vertical stake in the ground, then look at the shadow it casts. When this shadow reaches its maximum length, we’ll both know how west or east we are from Canterlot by comparing this “true” noon with what our watches indicate, and we’ll know our latitude by measuring the extension of the shadow. Not very precise, but should be satisfactory. Now let’s see what time it is at the Canterlot royal observatory…’ I drew my watch from my pocket. ‘Blazes!’ I exclaimed. ‘It is dead too.’

“Everypony checked his own: all had stopped. ‘No compass, no watch. It looks as if the screening set around Urania is indeed very efficient. As if…’  As if we had regressed in time, into an era where none of these devices existed. Maybe the ultimate goal was to freeze this land in the state it was in when this fence was first brought up? I thought for myself. ‘…I guess we’ll have to do without longitude,’ I concluded.

“‘In any case, this is a wonderful system of observation,’ noted Chromatin. ‘If an enemy comes from within, you can see him approaching, while he cannot even suspect you’re spying on him. At close range, you may safely hurl missiles to any opponent without fearing his retaliation. Nopony would dare prepare any attack under such unbalanced conditions…’

“Listening to the words of Chromatin, something sprung to my mind. I cocked my head towards Sandy: ‘Did you notice the stone I threw before you begun crossing the pond?’ I asked her. ‘Nope, what stone are you talking about? I saw you make a gesture with your leg, but I thought it was empty.’ That’s it, I realized. Light and sound may pass the border from Urania to the rest of Equestria, but no material body can. There is no need to put those who trespass to death: they simply cannot return. It’s a single ticket. What an ideal place to banish opponents, criminals or other dregs of ponyty forever. Like a clink, but the size of a country…

“‘Why are you so thoughtful?’ inquired Sandy.

“‘What? Uh, never mind!’ I replied. ‘Okay,’ I carried on louder, ‘now it’s done. There is no coming back but together: you can say goodbye to Canterlot’s tinsel and spangles for a while. Let’s refill our water tanks, and start our bold journey!’

“‘What do you mean by “there is no coming back but together”?’ asked Rocky.

“‘I mean nopony can cross this wall without prior knowledge of the proper counter spell that Celestia herself gave me, and that I dinned into my head. This counter spell will be effective only once in a limited area and for a very short period of time, typically ten minutes at maximum.’

“‘That’s stupid!’ blurted Chromatin. ‘I don’t want to sound pessimistic or what, but if a fatality strikes you, we are stranded here forever!’

“’Hmmm…’ I reflected. ‘You’re right, one never knows what can happen. I will write the formula at the end of my personal log, so you can use it should the expedition run awry.’

“I fetched a quill, my notebook and jotted down the words on the last folio. Then I flipped the pad closed, and put it back in my cart. ‘Done. Nu ska ve gå?’

“‘Darn!’ said Bones. ‘You have Northern roots? I didn’t know that.’

“‘Well, I apologize for not being of pure Canterlot extraction. My father was born in a small town not far from the border of the Crystal empire. They also speak Northern over there, and he used to talk to me using this language when I was a child. While I was bilingual during my youth, I must sheepishly confess that, since his premature death, I’ve forgotten almost everything except a few key expressions such as this one. Too bad for me. But no more gabbing: this time let’s go!

“We replenished our tanks with the crystalline water of the brook, though I had no doubt we would find other streams in this luxuriant plain. Once this chore was completed, everypony turned around and our tiny convoy set out amidst the lush grass. Strangely, I felt both lighthearted and somewhat melancholic, and began to sing an old tune that sprang back into my mind:

‘In the twilight, my wounded heart cowers,

In the twilight, your memory lingers.

I loved so much the nights we used to share!

Now that you’re gone, I grow cold and despair,

A lost shadow, endlessly wandering.

Without parent, without sibling,

What did I become? Oh I miss you so.

In the twilight, the spectral Moon shudders,

In the twilight, your memory lingers.

All the stars shine as remote drops of dew,

The shepherd has sheltered his atremble ewe –’

“‘What song is this?’ asked Chromatin, interrupting me. ‘It sounds old and moving, but I’ve never heard it before.’

“‘It was a traditional piece my mother played and sang often when I was a child,’ I explained. ‘It’s really sad, I remember crying each time she crooned it; she then had to cuddle me at length to quench my tears. The lyrics are rather long, and I have forgotten most of them, but here is the end:

‘In the twilight, I bath in gray waters,

In the twilight, your memory lingers.

At each turn I hoped to meet you again.

But found shadows that didn’t ease my pain,

They were all mirages I had to shun,

For the dark night that falls has killed the Sun.

Never will the dawn rise without you.’

“And so we trotted, merry and blithe, in the morning, singing, humming and whistling, despite the strong feeling that we had somehow trodden in a giant trap. I had decided to head directly towards what appeared to be a pass in the distant high ridge that blotted the horizon, far away. We halted around noon – with the watches out of order, I had no exact notion of the time anymore – for lunch. Using the binoculars once more, I scrutinized the remote crest, but there was little more to be seen I had not seen before.

“‘Nothing new?’ asked Rocky.

“‘No. I can’t discern any significant detail, but that’s no wonder, since we are still more than a day away. Although there does not seem to be any ruins or other artificial structures – at least none visible. The major problem will be to find a way that leads up to the pass I want us to climb. If such a path exists, it will be raw and could turn out to be perilous, too narrow or too steep for our carts…’

“‘Before going up,’ Sandy cut in, ‘I’d like to examine the underground of this plateau, if you don’t mind. I want to know why no trees except scrubs grow here. Besides, it’s pretty hot, so better do something else than lugging our carts until the air cools down a tad, don’t you agree?’

“‘I concur,’ said Rocky. ‘it can be interesting.’

“‘Okay then!’ I approved. ‘Let’s do it.’ Soon we were once again ready to shovel away the sod, as we had done the day before, but this time on a much smaller area. The first strokes were easy, the soil was soft and rich, of a dark brown hue. We had dug a hole about thirty centimeters deep when Rocky, who was handling the tool, let out a cry of pain: ‘Ouch!’

“‘What is it?’

“‘The blade has hit something hard and I bruised my hoof,’ he explained while examining his front right leg.

“‘It must be some kind of cobble. Let’s see!’ I took over and endeavored to dislodge the stone. But, as it quickly wound up, there was no stone: after scraping the bottom of the hole, all that could be seen was a layer of hard bisque material, resembling the surface of a brick. ‘What do you make of this?’ I asked Rocky, who was rubbing his hoof.

“He eyed the ground with curiosity. ‘Looks like terra cotta, clay burned in a kiln. Wait!’ He limped to his cart, avoiding to lean on his wounded hoof too heavily, took the pick out and handed it to me. ‘Try with this instead.’ I pounded forcefully this solid stratum with the sharp edge of the pick, and managed to slowly rip a small hole. That darn layer was deep: five, ten centimeters, and I had not broken through. ‘Stop!’ commanded Rocky. ‘It’s no use squandering your stamina. We’ve got our answer.’

“‘No root would ever be strong enough to break through such a thickness of tough earth,’ explained Sandy. ‘No deep roots, no full grown trees.’

“‘What kind of fire could cause the earth to be scorched so profoundly?’ I inquired.

“‘I don’t know, but definitely not a small one. Forest fires sometimes create superficial terra cotta patches, but never more than a few millimeters deep: they are easily sundered when trampled on. In this case…’ He pondered for a while, ‘it would literally take weeks of uninterrupted exposition to intense heat to cause a seam that thick to form. The legend has it right: Urania must really have been ablaze for more than a month, if not more. But what could burn for such a long time and leave no trace?’

“‘We’re here to find out,’ I replied. ‘I am sure we’ll stumble on telltales or evidences sooner or later. By the way, age of the layer?’

“‘Thirty centimeters under the surface… Compatible with the beginning of the ice age.’

“‘Same figure than yesterday, on top of Tombhill?’

“‘Yup, more or less, with a rough error estimate of five thousands years.’

“‘Hey! Come here, look! LOOK!’ shouted Chromatin unexpectedly.

“‘What’s up?’ I asked, baffled.

“‘Check what I found in the earth you dug up!’ She seemed so excited, I quickly dropped the pick and came next to her. ‘Did you ever see something like this?’ she squealed, pointing at a small heap of earth on which wriggled a… but better see by yourself.”

Dark Wing shuffles to one of the shelves, opens a drawer, rummages inside and extracts a small cardboard box from it. Removing the lid, he hands it to Twilight, who glances inside.

“It’s just an ordinary earthworm,” shrugs Twilight.

“Oh, come on! Focus! I can give you a magnifying glass if you want.”

Twilight draws the box closer to her eyes, and suddenly cracks up. “Well done!” she exclaims after a while, still trying to stifle her chortle. “I didn’t know you were a master of tricks. That’s a nice fake! But, Dark Wing, you really thought I’d be fooled? You take me for a chump?”

“I guarantee you that’s no fraud! You can tear them if you want, you’ll see they are genuine. I have spared specimens stored in the shelves, and have given some to Celestia for her personal zoologic collection, so please go ahead.”

“What?” blurts Twilight, suddenly very serious. “Do you mean you found it that way? Come on! That’s a blatant phony. These can’t be…”

“Oh yes they are, even though they are non functional; this was confirmed by a thorough examination. Do you understand why Chromatin was so worked up?”

“How the hay can an earthworm grow wings?” Twilight wonders, nonplussed.

⁂

“That’s a big riddle, no?” says Dark Wing.

“Normally, the body, organs and nervous system of any living thing adapt to their environnement,” details Twilight. “Beneficial changes are selected and promoted, while neutral or detrimental are wiped out, because the organisms affected have a reduced lifespan, or even no lifespan at all in extreme cases.”

“Yes,” nods Dark Wing, “that’s the common accepted theory of evolution. But it does not explain everything.”

“How so?”

“Just think about us. Why are there three races of ponies, and not just one or ten? What exactly are earth ponies? Unicorns regressed? Pegasi that lost their wings? Or are unicorns and pegasi earth ponies evolved? Were we all, in the beginning, alicorns, before being somehow demoted into simpler forms, bar Celestia and Luna? As far as we know, and we know almost nothing, the three races have always existed. But our ancestors, at least those I saw in Tombhill’s cave, were earth or pegasi – I cannot discriminate by skulls alone. However, there were no unicorns, of that I’m pretty positive. So how could unicorns appear in fifty thousand years? It’s irrational. But this winged earthworm is also completely crazy. What evolutive advantage could wings give to an earthworm, that remains all its life underground?”

“I’ve no idea,” admits Twilight. “It’s just ridiculous. Maybe this worm is a doozy?”

“Oh, no way! As I said, we found plenty of them elsewhere. In fact, they appear to be more common in Urania than their so called ‘normal’ counterparts. Besides, the probability we’d have chanced upon this worm, were it to be unique, is zilch. It’s not a unicum, but rather a sample of a widely spread indigenous species. However, in a sense, you’re right: Nature alone producing such an aberration is more than unlikely; it is plainly impossible. Ergo…’ He breaks off.

“‘Ergo what?’

“‘You have the floor.’

“‘Errrr… Ergo, it is not natural. And if it is not natural, it must be artificial. But who has the might to alter or create new species? Celestia?”

“Oh! Most certainly. Hearken to my words: ‘Once upon a time, our beloved ruler stood up before dawn. She raised the Sun and then, in the course of the morning, became so bored that she found fun in creating a race of winged earthworms, to take care of her suspended gardens, or dig minute burrows in the clouds. She watched them all day, then, when dusk came at last, she realized these critters were all but pointless, and, since she has always deeply cared about every living thing, instead of destroying them, exiled them in Urania.’ Isn’t that a sweet story?”

“Why do you always have to scoff at what I say?”

“I would not, my sweet purple bookworm, were you not prating–”

“Please! Stop being so sanctimonious! You’re really beginning to tick me off.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry, I apologize,” acknowledges Dark Wing, bowing. “I guess it’s an old reflex acquired during all these years teaching four-legged dunces. Don’t bear me a grudge. But Celestia has nothing to do with natural evolution, that I can guarantee.”

“So, who created this freak? Uran?” puts Twilight forward.

“Good guess this time, my sweet purple candy. In a way, yes.”

“But I thought Uran was a fictional character?”

“Who told you that? I?”

“No… but you… implied it.”

“I implied nothing,” Dark Wing retorts, “I merely state facts. You interpret my words. Anyhow, you’ll know in a few moments. Meanwhile, as you can easily figure out, we were as flummoxed as you are right now. So, we had made two discoveries: first, that the underground of Urania was still scarred with the remains of what appeared to be a huge and prolonged fire; second, that this land was home for at least one strange, almost ludicrous, species; but we were somehow prepared to meet more. Many questions to add to our list, and no answers to counterbalance them yet.

“We spent the hot hours chatting and developing theories about these unexpected findings, until the Sun had sufficiently declined for the temperature to become tolerable. We then resumed our trip towards the hills. By the end of the day, I estimated we had covered another twenty kilometers; the ridge had risen somewhat. I asked Rocky, who was de facto assuming the job of geographer, to give us a more accurate figure.

“He took his theodolite and pointed at the remote peak he was using as landmark. ‘Hmmm… Angle: one degree. Let me see. Suppose the plain is almost flat, then our altitude would be fifty-six meters a.m.s.l all the way. Taking the tangent of the angle and considering the altitude of this peak is six hundreds meters…’ He scrawled some figures on a sheet of paper. ‘Well, we are about thirty kilometers away from the peak. Estimating our direction to be this one… Hmmm… That’s twenty-five kilometers to go, at first glance, so to speak.’

“‘That’s still well within range of a single day walk. Good news! I see, right over here, a copse with two or three dead saplings from which we ought to be able to borrow firewood; and look here at that field full of daffodils and daisies! Isn’t it a perfect place to rest after our first day in an unknown territory?’ I asked merrily. Everyone agreed, and so we set up our camp for the night. We picked up a bunch of flowers and prepared toothsome sandwiches using some spared brown bread slices. And we topped all that with apples.

“Dusk came, and soon the darkness deepened. We all peered at the knolls we were heading to: from this place, the faint glow surrounding them was now unmistakable; it seemed to be brighter around the pass, as if its source was located precisely beyond. We’ll soon know what this eldritch glimmer is about, I thought. A few minutes later, another halo, this time steady and silvery, rose slowly behind the crest, soon followed by the familiar face of the Moon.

“We kept on rapping for a while, enjoying this fresh but peaceful beginning of night. ‘Speaking of old poems and the Moon,’ said Chromatin, ‘here is a lay my mother often sings. She learned it from my granny, who claimed it had passed from mother to daughter for uncounted generations.’ She began to sing softly in a clear soprano voice:

“‘Hail! O thou shining Moon divine!

Maid of the nights, I still adore

The lofty candor that was thine,

In those forgotten days of yore.

Thou wast so unstained and so white,

Nopony would have ever dared

To kiss thy countenance so bright;

Of thy anger we all were scared.

Of the Moon, who yet remembers?

Who yet remembers?’

“We all applauded at this wonderful performance. I was about to congratulate Chromatin verbally when my eyes registered a sudden dip in the ambient light, as if something had briefly eclipsed the Moon. Everypony raised his head in wonder. ‘HERE!’ shouted Bones; he reached his right front leg and pointed at the sky. All of a sudden, I saw it, too: a dark, winged shape, gliding above us, was blotting out the brightly shinning stars. It circled high around us, before dashing directly towards the saddle I intended to climb and, eventually, faded into the surrounding obscurity.”