Doctor Whooves and the Time of Dragons

**2

BEHIND THE BLUE DOOR**

“I believe these ponies are known to you, Roseluck.”

“They’re my friends. Lovelace has been working at the shop with me, to get ready for Hearts and Hooves Day—”

The elderly pony scoffed. “Sentimental stuff and nonsense.”

“—and Star Hunter’s with the Astronomers Guild.”

“Oh, really? How very interesting.”

The words penetrated the muddying cloud of shock that had fallen over the two intruders. Having charged through the door, they expected to be in a dark, tight space, choked with dust and with only scant evening light through holes in the brickwork. Instead, the locale in which they found themselves was more than big enough to accommodate them and probably a dozen others. It was well lit, and pristine to boot. Roseluck and the elderly teal pony stood to either side of a large, six-sided machine littered with strange instruments and mounted atop a column. A transparent cylinder rose out of the middle, containing thick filaments like a lightbulb. The walls were pitted with wide, shimmering circles. Above their heads, the ceiling was covered by a network of snaking cables, and hanging down from the mass was a flat, reflective panel. It put Lovelace in mind of the tinted windows some celebrity ponies in Manehatten used to block the prying eyes of the public.

“Where are we?” she croaked.

“They followed you back here,” the elderly pony said, ignoring the question. “That ridiculous shop. I knew something like this would happen eventually if we stayed in one place too long. We argued about this just this morning, didn’t we?”

“But why should they follow me, Grandfather?” Roseluck replied.

“Probably because of the state you left here in,” said the elder. “They’re primitive, these ponies, but not oblivious.”

Lovelace spoke louder, which seemed to catch their attention. “This is your grandfather, Rose?” She turned to the older pony. “Why didn’t you just tell us that?”

“Hmmph! I don’t discuss my private life with strangers,” he snorted.

“And this is where you both live?” Lovelace asked.

“Yes. That’s right,” said Roseluck.

“And what’s wrong with it?” the elderly pony demanded.

“This…this room’s gigantic, but outside it was just a tiny little shack,” said Star Hunter, astounded. “I…I walked all around it before we hid ourselves! Lacy, you saw me do it!”

“You don’t deserve explanations,” said the elderly pony in a clipped tone of voice. “You pushed your way in here, uninvited and unwelcome. Besides, any explanation I did give you would only confuse you further.”

“It must be unicorn magic,” said Star Hunter. “An illusion of some kind.”

“Ha!” the elderly pony snapped. “Magic, he says! Let me tell you what I think of magic, my boy! It’s chaotic, clumsy, imprecise, and I don’t believe in it!”

“Hey, that’s enough!” Lovelace protested. Being a unicorn, magic was an intrinsic part of her life.

The old pony went on regardless. “What you are standing in is one of the finest feats of engineering ever accomplished by a higher species! You don’t understand, so you find excuses. Magic, indeed. You say you can’t fit an enormous building into one of your smaller sitting rooms?”

“No,” said Star Hunter. “At least I don’t think so.” He cast a slightly helpless glance towards Lovelace. He needed her expertise as a unicorn on this one. Unfortunately, no spell came to mind that could fit an enormous building inside a smaller room, sitting or not.

“But you’ve discovered art, and writing, haven’t you?” said the old pony.

“Well, yeah, but I don’t see what that has to do with—”

“Then by showing an enormous building in a painting or writing about one in a book, you could do what once seemed impossible, couldn’t you?”

Neither Lovelace nor Star could think of an argument. It sounded utterly ridiculous to them, yet their reluctant host posed the query with a strange and absolute certainty. He was talking down to them in his patronising, alien way. They stood there, mouths agape, searching for a reply, and they must have been doing so for a while because the old pony chuckled humourlessly and started walking towards the far side of the central column.

“Not quite clear, is it?” he asked them. “Yes, I can see by your faces that you don’t understand, and I knew you wouldn’t. Never mind. Now then—” He started inspecting his instruments. “—the point is not whether you understand, but rather what is going to happen to you.”

“Grandfather, please,” Roseluck protested.

“They’ll tell everypony about the ship now,” the old pony insisted.

“Ship?” asked Star Hunter.

“Yes, ship!” the old pony snorted. “This doesn’t roll along on wheels, you know!”

“The T.A.R.D.I.S. can move anywhere and anywhen,” Roseluck offered helpfully.

“T.A.R.D.I.S.?” Lovelace was almost despairing. She did not consider herself stupid, but right then she certainly felt it. It was not a pleasant sensation at all. Ignorance was all right if you were going to learn something, but here she got the distinct impression she was being teased, with these nonsense words and extraordinary claims.

“I made up the name from the initials. Time and Relative Dimension in Space,” Roseluck explained. “It’s because the interior dimensions differ from the outside, you see. She’s a time-space capsule.”

“Hold on a second!” Star Hunter exclaimed, walking up to the column. “You’re telling me that this thing, that looks like a broken down old shack on the side of a road, can go anywhere in time and space? That’s ridiculous!”

“You see, my dear,” the elderly pony said matter-of-factly. “They’ll never believe us. They simply haven’t developed the ability to comprehend.”

“Hey, quit talking about us like we’re foals!” Star Hunter growled.

“Foals? Really?” returned the elderly pony. “The foals of our civilisation would be insulted by such an association.”

“Your civilisation?”

“Yes! Our civilisation!” the old pony snapped. “I tolerate your backward century, little pony, but I do not enjoy it! Have you ever thought what it would be like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension? Have you? To be exiles? Roseluck and I are cut off from our own planet. I dare say one day we shall go back, but for the present we are here, without allies or protection. Now…” He pushed something on the column, and the door swung shut with a soft whirr.

“You can’t keep us here!” said Star Hunter. “Open that door! Rose, please, open the door.”

“I mustn’t,” Roseluck replied timidly, then she pleaded, “Grandfather, please, you have to let them go! If we make them promise not to tell anypony, I’m sure they won’t!”

“Oh, my dear filly,” said the old pony, and draped a foreleg across her shoulders. “Of course they will. Put yourself in their place for a moment. They are bound to make some sort of a complaint to the authorities or at the very least talk to their friends. They’re all so swept up by friendship and sentiment in this time. Before long we shall become a spectacle, and that princess of theirs will poke her nose into our business sooner rather than later. If I do let them go, Roseluck, then we must go, too, and we can never come back.”

“But I want to stay!” she cried. “They’re both kind ponies. I won’t leave them or this century. I’d rather leave the T.A.R.D.I.S. and you!”

“Now you’re just being over-emotional and foalish,” he said dismissively.

“I mean it!”

Lovelace noted a change in the elderly pony’s face. It was only brief and so small as to be almost imperceptible, but that last statement had definitely hurt him. She actually felt a twinge of sympathy for him. He sighed deeply, and started fiddling with the instruments again.

“Very well,” he said. “Then you must go with them. I’ll open the door.”

“I guess we’ll be going, then,” said Lovelace. She held out a hoof towards Roseluck. “Are you coming?” This had all gotten so out of control. A million thoughts were clashing and exploding inside her skull. She had just witnessed what might have been the dissolution of a family that was already reduced to a mere two individuals, and to be involved in such a thing was a shame to the mark on her flank. It was supposed to represent joining together, not breaking apart. Before she could even begin to reconsider, perhaps try to change the old pony’s mind and find another way, the floor suddenly vibrated, as if a wave of invisible water had crested about her legs.

The bulb on the column was rising up and down in a slow rhythm, the filaments inside flashing through an assortment of brilliant colours. It rang out with a whooshing, grinding cacophony. Lights blinked and the instruments began to move as if manipulated by invisible hooves.

“GRANDFATHER! NO!” Roseluck screamed, and hurled herself at the old pony, trying to pull him away from the controls. They wrestled for but a moment.

There was a muffled roar from outside, and the whole room shook violently. Lovelace lost her balance and topped into Star Hunter, who wrapped his forelegs about her protectively as he slammed hard against the wall. His pained cry was drowned out by all the other sounds vying for dominance around them. Roseluck and her grandfather fell about the place as well. The roars gave way to explosions that seemed more distant with each emanation. Gravity pushed down at them, pinning them to the floor. They were helpless to do anything save watch the rise and fall of the bizarre machine. Up and down. Whoosh and grind. Next came inertia, the sensation of being hurled in a great, spiralling arc through the air, with no telling what was truly up or down, forward or back. Her bones felt as if they had been pressed flat by the pressure. Her stomach wanted to do flips, but was held down too tight. It was impossible to even breathe.

At last, mercifully, Lovelace blacked out.

XXX

The night was cold in Draconia. Cold and damp.

The sky wept almost continually. Snow filled the world in bone white flurries, and piled up high across the vast plains, or else it rained hard and blanketed everything in a layer of sloshing, dark grey slush. Long-distance travel had been growing steadily less safe for years, but tonight was especially perilous. The long winter was reaching another of its peaks. Flicker pondered warm thoughts to shield himself from the chill. It was a purely psychological measure with only limited effectiveness, but calling up his own fire would be unwise this far from the mines when he had used so much of it already. He narrowed his eyes, searching the uniformly white landscape. He glided low, where the winds dispersed the worst of the flurries, and that was when he saw it. Poking up from the bottom of the mountain range like a many-pointed gemstone was the outpost.

Flicker pulled his wings in tight and swooped in through the gates, before landing in the cavernous entrance hall. A guard asked for his identification, and Flicker identified himself. The guard led him through a series of tunnels heading into the heart of the mountain range. Comfortable heat radiated up from the river of magma below their feet. It was a welcome change from the cold. They crossed a bridge to an antechamber hewn out of the very rock, where the guard asked Flicker to wait before returning to his post. There was a stone bowl filled with glittering gems, and he treated himself to a clawful or two, just enough to round out the flame in his belly. He hated to wait around usually, but lately he was learning to tolerate it. He could always entertain himself by doing sums in his head to pass the time. He was happy to spend as much time bathing in the primal heat as he could get before he had to make the dreaded return flight.

He was only waiting a short time before he was admitted to the adjacent chamber. A fat, green dragon with elegant spines and two black horns curling atop his skull sat behind a long table. He skewered a cooked beast spiced with tanzanite on a long claw and popped it between his jaws.

“Come in, nephew,” he said. “Pull up a seat. It’s been ages. How are things at Castle Camehot?”

“Thank you, milord,” said the younger dragon.

“Flicker!” the green dragon admonished. “I’ve known you since you came out of the egg! You don’t need to be so formal when it’s just us!”

“Yes, Uncle Phlogistaut,” said Flicker, and smiled a little. “Camehot continues to thrive as always, but the snows force closer to our borders every day. More trade routes with the other colonies have become unusable due to the constant storms, and we haven’t heard from the Spiketail expedition in weeks. My father’s subjects have long since begun to suspect something is amiss, and they can only be lied to for so long before the truth is out.”

Phlogistaut snorted acrid smoke out of his nostrils and clicked his claws against the table surface. “Not the most thrilling dinner topic, dear nephew,” he said, “but I suppose you wouldn’t be here to visit your poor old uncle just to catch up, eh?”

“I’m very sorry to disappoint you, truly I am,” said Flicker, “but no. I’ve been sent to gather updates on the situation here. I can only assume from what you’re eating that the work to cultivate new food sources is going well?”

“We’ve managed to adapt a few strains of suitable livestock to life underground, yes,” said Phlogistaut. “Our lads have already figured out how to create and maintain controlled environments to rear them in. The hardest part was replicating sufficient amounts of sunlight, but we’ve been experimenting with yellow sky-stones. Not much of a loss, thankfully. Utterly tasteless, I thought, but very close to the desired result, so I’m told.”

“That’s heartening. And how goes Netherlin’s research?”

“Oh! You know wizards, dear boy. Always filling everyone’s heads with constellations and geomancy and leaving us to decide what they’re on about,” Phlogistaut said with a dismissive wave. Flicker watched him expectantly. “Fine, fine! You don’t need to give me the eyes! Netherlin thinks that he’s pinpointed something called a ‘nexus.’ I don’t understand all the details well enough to repeat them here and now, but according to him it could be used to re-energise our fading dragon lines. Put the world back to rights.”

“May I speak with Netherlin myself?” asked Flicker. “I mean no offence to you, uncle, but my father will want as detailed a report as possible.”

“I’m afraid that he’s away on his own expedition right now, with the horde scouts,” said the green dragon. “He’s expected back tomorrow. Look, my boy, I can tell that you’re excited about what he’s promised, but I don’t want you to get your expectations up too high. You understand that all this mystical talk about nexuses and dragon lines is a very long shot. There’s nothing wrong with hoping for the best, but we must be prepared for the worst.”

Flicker nodded his head, but it hung a little. He did indeed acknowledge the grim reality of things, even if he did not wish it so. It was understandable. What young dragon should want to live in such dire straits? Their skies were too dangerous to fly in, their cattle was reduced, and the once proud and free race of dragons had been left with no other choice but to stay safe inside their city walls and subterranean refuges. Words like, “the end of our age,” had been spoken in sombre, hushed voices more than once that year.

Phlogistaut noted the shift in his mood. His dark old eyes twinkled, and he rested a claw upon the youngling’s arm. “Say, why don’t you stay here at the outpost, just for a couple of days? Share in the local hospitality. I know we’re not as grandiose as Camehot, but we get by, and frankly I don’t get to see you nearly as often as I’d like.”

Flicker considered the harsh weather outside, and how far away it seemed from this room, which positively glowed with the heat of the bubbling volcanic flows. “Perhaps I’ll take you up on that,” he said with a weak smile.

“Splendid!” Phlogistaut exclaimed, and raised a chalice filled with bubbling, black ooze. Before he could put it to his scaly lips, however, the chamber began to shake, upsetting the cooked beasts and assorted savoury gems all over the floor. Chains of brilliant blue lightning danced around them and fizzled out on the floor, splitting the atmosphere with the sharp smell of Ozone.  One bolt struck the chalice, and the muck inside splashed both dragons. The lord of the mountain slammed his clawed fist on the surface. “What in Draconia was that?”

“An earthquake?” Flicker suggested.

“Bonfire ash!” Phlogistaut huffed. “I’ve never seen an earthquake do that before!”

“I’ll go check it out,” said Flicker.

“Don’t be silly, you’ve had a long trip,” his uncle protested. He leaned towards a cluster of hollow rock tubes sticking out of the wall to his left, grabbed one, and bellowed into it, “Guard! Status report!”

“We’re trying to find out right now, milord!” came the reply, which Flicker recognised as the same guard who had greeted him in the entrance hall. “Captain Burstilak thinks it came from the stores. He’s taken a couple of others with him.”

“The stores?” Phlogistaut thought aloud. “Very well. Good work, keep me posted.” He returned to his former position and rubbed his temples in exasperation. “Moons and bolides, I hope it’s got nothing to do with those rotten little vermin that keep trying to steal our gems.”

“Vermin, uncle?”

“Ugly, brutish little pests, and on top of everything else they don’t even make good eating. We’re not sure if they’re naturally subterranean or if they’ve simply been driven down here by the snows, but they’re always trying to pilfer our gemstone crop. We’ve set out traps, but they still find ways around them now and then. You don’t have them in Camehot?”

“No, uncle. At least, not the kind that can generate bolts of indoor lightning,” Flicker said, offering a cheeky but good-natured grin. Phlogistaut laughed. It was a deep, raspy whoop that reverberated off the walls of the chamber and could probably be heard by everyone inside the complex and beyond, the sort of racket that could send smaller beasts scampering for safety like the vermin they had just been discussing.

“Yes, yes! I imagine you’re right! Hopefully the little monsters are clever enough to scurry back off to their tunnels.”

Another voice emerged through the communication tubes. “Milord, forgive me for disturbing you and your guest.”

“Ah! Captain Burstilak!” cried Phlogistaut. “Have you found what’s causing that ungodly ruckus?”

“We, ah, we’re convinced we have, yes,” came the uncertain response.

The old green dragon grimaced, and impatiently puffed out a plume of silvery smoke. “Well, what’s the matter, captain? Does it look dangerous?”

There was a momentary pause before the response came back. “We, ah…that is, it doesn’t look it, milord, but we’re not exactly sure what it is. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve got it covered from all sides, but perhaps you’d like to come take a look for yourself?”

“Hmm! Well, dinner’s been ruined anyway,” said Phlogistaut. “Very well, captain. Don’t take your eyes off it. My nephew and I will be down there presently. Come along, Flicker. We might learn something today, or find something to distract us for a bit if nothing else.”

He pushed himself back from the table and rose slowly to his feet, then crossed the chamber and squeezed his broad, green girth out through the doorway into the antechamber. Each hefty footfall generated tremors that caused the scattered food to jump. Flicker snatched a red ruby as it ascended and worried at it while he kept pace a short distance behind, in order to avoid being tripped up by the great sweeps from the lord of the mountain’s tail.

Down inside the stores, four ponies stirred, wholly unaware of the danger they were in.