The Town Below

The interior of the tower was dark, as one might expect. The only light to be had came in through cracks in the wooden walls. While the exterior was nicely painted and sanded, the interior had been left in a much rougher condition. It lent the tower a dark, mysterious air. The whole place would have been ripe for exploration if I was still a youngster.

At the top of the stairs, the railing gave way to a large, open floor. It was a little brighter in here; diffuse light spilled in through the face of the clock, masking the interior in shadow. Throughout the room I could see silhouettes of various sizes adhering to the walls, or rising from the floor.

After soaking in the ambiance to my satisfaction, I gathered my concentration for a simple light spell. In a moment the room was filled with a flickering light. It danced around the room and across my cream-colored coat alike as I took a look around.

Most unicorns use the spell to create a steady, uniform light. Me though, I like to let the magic move as it will. It has a natural tendency to flow and dance if you let it. The result is not unlike the flame from a candle. Plus, it literally makes my horn look like it’s on fire.

Now that I could see clearly, the silhouettes resolved themselves into large cogs and wheels; the inner workings of a clock. Below me, through an access hole in the floor, I spied the big pendulum meant to keep this all moving. At the moment it was stopped near the very bottom of its arc.

I spent the next few minutes looking over each cog, trying to place where each one fit into the machine. Near the opening above the pendulum, I spotted a lever. I grasped it in both forehooves before pulling down. Down below me I heard the pendulum quietly come to life. As I watched, it swung slowly back and forth a few inches to either side.

Gravity continued to have its way with the now disconnected pendulum as I formulated a plan of attack. With that removed from the system, I could start toying elsewhere without causing any damage to the mechanism.

I wasn’t lying before when I said that clocks aren’t my special talent; but careful examination, or troubleshooting is. I set to work examining the remaining setup. The pendulum itself was fine, so the problem had to lie somewhere else.

After several more minutes of scrutinizing the clockwork, a noise caught my attention. Somepony was climbing the stairs. Quickly. I turned to face them, slightly peeved at the interruption. The flickering illumination from my spell fell across the pony in question as she reached the upper landing.

She was a pegasus, large and charcoal grey. Her white mane and tail looked extremely pale in the soft light. I had only a split second to react. She hefted a bucket and sloshed some of the water within out onto my head.

“HOLD IT!” I yelled “It’s just a spell.”

The newcomer relaxed and lowered her bucket. She smiled sheepishly as she apologized “Sorry about that. I saw somepony up here, and the flickering light, and…”

“You thought the tower was on fire.” I completed icily. She nodded, still looking at the floor. “So you decided to dump a bucket of VERY cold water on my head”

“I’m really sorry…” she replied quietly

The unsteady light from my illumination spell fell across the two of us. The mare in front of me scraped little circles on the floor, unable to meet my gaze.

I let out a loud sigh, pushing aside most of my anger. “I’m not an arsonist. Braeburn asked me to take a look at the clock, see if I can fix it.”

“Braeburn?” she asked

I blinked a few times. If the way he greeted me was any indication, I would have thought everypony in town knew him. “He’s that really talkative stallion…”

“Welcome to APPLEOOSA!” She imitated

“Yeah.” I chuckled “That one.” She giggled along with me.

“I feel kinda bad about dumping water on you. Do you need any help?”

I considered for a moment before I replied “Sure. I think I saw some rags and grease downstairs.  Would you mind bringing that up here?”

She nodded. Partway down the stairs, she jumped the railing and spiraled down to the ground. My attention returned to the clockwork mechanisms around me.

So far as I could tell, nothing seemed to be wrong with these cogs outwardly. The problem then, had to be inside somewhere. A simple conclusion, yeah, but a lot of ponies will just throw up their hooves and walk away rather than think a little.

I opened my saddlebags and withdrew the one tool I had with me; luckily it would be enough. Thank Celestia for adjustable wrenches.

The pegasus returned, rags and grease in-hoof. She set them down next to me. “My name’s Ashes, by the way.”

“Rocky Soil” I presented my hoof and she took it with that same incredulous look on her face. “Yeah, I get that a lot.” We both chuckled a bit.

“So.. how do you plan on fixing this?” Ashes asked

“Well, I haven’t found anything wrong yet, so I plan to remove and check each cog individually. It’s kind of a longshot, but just putting on the grease might fix it. Stranger things have happened, after all” I brought my wrench to bear on the nearest cog.

Just a little magic, and the nut popped of. I carefully removed the large gear and floated it towards the rags and the water. To my surprise, Ashes took it in her hooves and began wiping it down with a wet rag. I shrugged and turned to remove another piece of machinery, revealing some parts that had previously been obscured.

The two of us eventually fell into a rhythm. Ashes would clean and oil the pieces as I removed them, and I would either return them to their places or set them aside for the moment. As we went along, Ashes decided to break the silence. “What brings you into town?”

My current task wasn’t particularly difficult, so I decided to humor her. “Just passing through mostly. I plan to sign up for the guard when I reach Canterlot. Appleoosa just seemed like a convenient enough place to earn bits for the train ride. What about you?”

“I’m a messenger.” she explained as she took yet another cog from my magical grasp “Sometimes I find places I like, and I stay there a while. Then I move somewhere else as I get new jobs.”

She finished washing the gear and began to apply a fresh layer of grease. “Why do you want to join the guard?”

I took the newly greased sprocket back from her. “Despite living so far away in Canterlot, Princess Celestia still saw fit to help the little town I grew up in. It seems every story I hear about her involves hard work or sacrifice on her part to help all ponies.

“I don’t think those stories are the absolute truth, mind you. But, there has to be some grain of truth in there. I guess I just want to be a part of that.” I put the clean sprocket back in place with my wrench and handed her another one.

Silence fell upon the room at that point, though not necessarily in an uncomfortable way. We each continued with our tasks, and soon enough we had removed, cleaned, greased and returned nearly all the bits and pieces in the room. My mane even dried out.

There were about ten cogs we had not yet checked when I spotted something. Our work had revealed a large wad of fabric jammed between the gears in one corner near the floor. “I think I found something.” Ashes trotted over to take a look as I removed the offending object.

My psuedo-candlelight revealed an old, dirty and very squashed doll. From the looks of it, this doll was old enough to be mine from back on the vineyard. Its two button eyes didn’t match, its gray fur looked like it had been to Tartarus and back several times, and its striped pants had been patched more times than I could count.

“What a weird place to hide a doll.” Ashes commented, pointing in between the gears where we had found it. I laughed.

“They probably didn’t mean for it to fall in there, but yes.” I was still smiling “I don’t think they could have found it again.

“This might just be the source of our problem. Lets get the rest of these finished off and then give it a whirl.”

The two of us got right back down to work. In a few minutes I reconnected the pendulum, and we were rewarded with a rhythmic ‘Tick-Tock’. One pony out on the street even happened to have a pocket watch we used to set the proper time.

That left Ashes and I alone on the sidewalk outside the tower. It was late afternoon by this point, but there were still a fair number of ponies out and about in their broad hats. I sat on my haunches and squinted down the road in both directions. “Braeburn said he would come back to check on me. That should be anytime now.”

My stomach rumbled. “After that, I think I’ll find something to eat.” Ashes nodded absent-mindedly. She seemed to be totally lost in her own thoughts. I decided to let her brood while we waited in companionable silence. Suddenly, she broke spoke up:

“Could I come with you?”

“Uumm… okay.” I did not expect her to make that kind of remark after being lost in thought so long. Oh, well. Not really my concern anyway. “I’m sure they’ll have more than one chair.” I snarked

“No. Not that…”

“Then what are you talking about, Ashes?” I felt more than a little confused. Sure every pony out there can surprise you at one point or another, but that came way out of left field. I turned to look at her.

“To join the Guard.” she clarified

I turned to look at her, eyebrow raised.

“Of course you can. I sincerely doubt they’d turn down an extra set of hooves.” As soon as the words left my mouth Ashes immediately relaxed. Did she really think that would offend me? Weird. I might have a temper, but she gave me no reason at all to be upset.

I turned my attention to the townsfolk, hoping to let the awkwardness pass. Time passed as I studied to locals. Ponies walked up the street, ponies walked down the street, ponies talked in the street, ponies wore hats in the street. Yet somehow I could not shake the feeling that something was off.

I watched one mare in particular. She walked into the general store across the way. I saw her gather the items she needed and bring them to the clerk. The clerk wrote down the name and price of each item before drawing up a bill. The mare paid her tab, spoke with the clerk a while longer, and trotted off.

An entirely ordinary sequence of events. I decided to wash the doll we had found jammed in the clock. Anything that old would only be around if somepony really treasured it. Or couldn’t buy their foal a new doll. Either way I was doing somepony a favor. That feeling still did not go away.

It felt to me like some strange beast was trying to claw its way out of my throat. I ignored it as best I could, but the stubborn sensation just would not go away. There was something nopony was telling me. I had to know what was up. I just had to.

I turned back to Ashes. “Ashes?” I waited for her to acknowledge me. “There’s something wrong here.”

“Are you sure. I just see everypony acting normal.” she looked at me quizzically.

“They are doing the same things as every other day, true… but it’s still off.” I took a moment to compose my thoughts. “There’s no eye contact. Everypony is avoiding everypony else’s eyes. And they’re all talking quietly. Like something might break if they’re too loud.” I was on a roll now.

“It fits, too. I saw the Sheriff earlier and he looked more tired than anypony has any right to be. He must be having to deal with it.” I looked back over at her. Her face had changed. I took that to mean she believed me. “The question is what is it?”

“Maybe somepony died.” she look horrified at her own suggestion

“Maybe, but we have no way of knowing for sure. It could even be nothing.” I had to find out. If everypony really was hiding something, though, I probably couldn’t just ask.

The two of us once again fell silent, both drawing continual blanks.

Braeburn chose this time to make his appearance. I spotted him quite a ways off as he -loquacious as ever- casually greeted every pony he came across. I smirked at Ashes. “I might just have a plan”