II. In the Dark Backward

The sun had set. It was now fully dark. And rather stormy. The smell of rain filled the air. Cantor, Valentina, and Jon Quill had left the Castle. Colonel George Lusk made sure to lock it up after his three visitors.

They had talked for several hours, well into the evening, and George had learned some fascinating tidbits of his own from them. George had long held the belief that the Red Reaver’s blades might actually be two of the mythical Four Blades of Fear wielded centuries earlier by the Winter Queen. But this was a hypothesis for which he had never found much supporting evidence. Now though, with the information his three visitors had supplied, it sounded like he might have to take a quick vacation over to Albion to poke around in Oxherd’s Bodleian library. If they were right, George could get more corroboration for that theory from some old tomes there. Cantor had been kind enough to supply George with a list of the relevant volumes.

You’re never too old to be curious, or so George believed. It was one of the things that kept him feeling young at heart on days when his body disagreed strongly about his real age.

George had not been pleased to learn that somepony had stolen one of the Reaver’s knives from the Ashmulean, Oxherd’s museum. Cantor, Valentina, and Jon Quill had left out some of the more shocking details, such as the nature of the villains they suspected were responsible.

That the theft had turned bloody and destructive, leaving eight ponies dead, came as no surprise to him. George sighed at the thought that it was time to pay even more attention to the papers, especially any news coming out of Shady Hollow, to see if disappearances started up again. If they did, George would have to let somepony know. Somepony young enough to intervene.

His visitors had departed with considerably more information than when they had arrived. George still wouldn’t let them have unfettered access to his own resources in the basement. A couple of those boxes he hadn’t even let them open. Less because he didn’t trust them with the knowledge and more because some of that stuff was irreplaceable. Easiest way to prevent accidents was not to bring it out for others.

The three ponies had left, but George had lingered. Something felt off about their parting. But what precisely? George ran over the events in his mind again. Cantor had gone ahead, with Valentina, to see about fetching a carriage. Jon had stayed behind with George, chatting in a most distracting fashion. George couldn’t shake the feeling that Jon’s chatter might have been designed to distract George from something going on. But from what?

In any event, George thought, Cantor, Jon Quill, and Valentina wouldn’t be back soon. Those three already had a train to catch the following morning and from what they had said, they needed to be in Canterlot sometime in the next few weeks. Jon and Valentina had been chatting about their itenerary as the carriage rattled away. George had overheard them through open front door.

They had parted on good terms, especially considering that the three researchers still had unanswered questions and no opportunity to get those answers in the foreseeable future.

Or, at least, so George thought.

Still, something about their departure had seemed … well, off ... George had no better word to describe his feelings. He frowned. He suddenly couldn’t quite recall if he had actually seen Cantor in the carriage with Jon Quill and Valentina when it drove away.

One more look around the Castle, then it was off to his own bed. Before George left he double checked the locks on all the doors. Just to be sure. He found nothing amiss. Perhaps it was just nerves. A stormy night and telling tales of Jack of Blades and the Red Reaver's Knives was enough to give anypony the heebie jeebies, after all!

“Oy, all clear. ‘e’s gone. Ollie Ollie Outsinfree!” Magpie’s nasal sing-song and thick accent echoed through the Castle's darkened basement. She had been trying to flip the light switch and get the overhead crystals glowing again. Without success, of course. The Thieving Magpie, being incorporeal, lacked the body necessary to interact with much of the tangible world. The room remained shrouded with the dim, red glow of emergency lighting.

From a dark corner near the stairs the shadows seemed to fall away, revealing Cantor Mortalis. He had remained behind, invisible, and listening to his three spectral companions. Companions which he believed were (in fact) both real and what they appeared – namely the ghostly apparitions of deceased ponies. To Cantor, this seemed the most plausible explanation for his spectral “other friends” ... the ones only he could see and hear. Admittedly, there were plenty of ponies were far more comfortable with the idea Cantor was delusional rather than accept the idea that he could see dead ponies. Regardless, Cantor generally chose to trust in his own perceptions ... even when they flew in the face of common, accepted understandings of how the world, life, and death worked.

Magpie had been shadowing George, to make sure that Cantor didn’t start poking around until after the old Colonel was no longer on the premises.

While some strange magic from back in his college days meant Cantor could see in the dark, he was hardly a paragon of grace and stealth ... nor a born infiltrator. True, his newly developed talent with invisibility helped tremendously in such cloak-and-dagger affairs, but it only worked when there were shadows around and when he was standing still. As for sneaking, well, should there be a fall (with much crashing and banging, as always seemed to be the case in such matters) best if nopony else was in the building to possibly overhear and investigate.

Even before an angry (and frightened) mob had broken his leg and necessitated the life-long use of a brace, Cantor was more agile with words, emotions, thoughts, and feelings that he ever had been with his body. There were days he suspected he’d do ever so much better if he could just leave the distracting thing behind! Not that he planned to. At least not any time soon.

The ghosts still needed him among living.

“He seemed a nice chap. I hope we’ve not brought trouble to his doorstep with our enquiries.” This ghost was a unicorn named Morari the Maneless. His voice had a low, pleasant burr running through it. Morari had been quite flattered to find his work on the Reaver’s wardings was remembered by those interested in her fell history. Not that Morari had actually ever seen or fought the Reaver back when he was still alive, but Morari had done the arcane work of improving Trotwine’s old binding-magic for use in keeping her contained after others had defeated her in battle.

Morari fell into step beside Cantor, eager to continue their researches. Like Cantor himself, Morari felt quite at home in a room filled with books and boxes, surrounded by the smell of dust and paper. While once an enchanter of some note, Morari – being dead now – usually couldn’t make use of magic himself. And the occasions when he could tended to be exceptionally dangerous and unpleasant for all concerned. Morari pushed his spectral spectacles up his muzzle so they rested right on his star-like blaze. True to his name, he had no mane whatsoever.

”Sir is a gentlecolt. Gentlecolts are prepared for trouble, and handle it appropriately. The Colonel will be fine.” Admiral Fairweather spoke up from his position atop the stairs. His was voice deeper, gravelier, and more authoritative than Morari's. One time leader of the Wonderbolts, this pegasus haunt still wore his be-medaled officer's jacket and bicorn Admiralty hat. Of the three haunts, Fairweather had been dead the longest – and, as one of the undead, he had been restored to his right mind (courtesy of Cantor's enchantments) the most recently.

Cantor nodded. He also used his silvery magic to turn on the light crystals.

“Thought ya didn’t need tha light, wot?” Magpie started wandering around, walking on the walls and cielings. Cantor wondered at that a bit. As a haunt, up and down were somewhat relative. In theory she should be able to fly. Admiral Fairweather flew more often than not. But in life Magpie had been an earth pony. Perhaps it didn’t occur to her that she didn’t technically need to be standing on anything to float there.

Or perhaps she just liked standing upside down on the ceiling and making faces at the other spooks.

“Well, I don’t need it,” Cantor’s eyes still shone black – all pupil, his blue iris’ nowhere to be seen – “but we’ve already established that you three can’t see in the dark, and I’ll want all of your help poring over these files.” There was an unhappy edge to Cantor’s voice.

“Still feeling guilty about the whole smash-and-grab plan, Cantor?” Morari tried to poke his ghostly head through the vault door. He rebounded from it with a musical sound, like a gong. Only the haunts (and Cantor, of course) could hear it. Morari rubbed his horn in consternation. Somepony had warded the thing quite well indeed!

Cantor was carefully opening boxes and digging through them to get at the papers that George hadn’t been willing to let them see.

“Damn straight I’m feeling guilty about it! George was nicer than he needed to be. I like the old coot. But with Furlong and the Mares of S.M.I.L.E. against our continuing researches into the rise of the Trotting Dead, ‘feeling bad about it’ isn’t enough reason to abandon this rare chance to make up lost resources in the information gathering department.”

Yesterday had not been a good day. It had been a crushing realization: arriving in Gnuark airfield in Manehatten, only to discover that all the information and leads they had so painstakingly gathered over the past few weeks in Albion – an ancient tablet, its covering cloth, and (most importantly) their extensive notes on the location of the Vale of Dreams – had been intercepted by the Mares in Black, agents of S.M.I.L.E.

Furlong himself had emerged from the shadows to meet them. Furlong had made it quite clear that his secretive intelligence agency (an agency that operated so far behind the scenes most ponies didn’t believe it actually existed outside the pages of some popular comic books) considered Cantor’s continuing research into the rise of the Trotting Dead to be far too dangerous. Given that Cantor was apparently the only pony around whose magic could actually put an end to some of the more spectacular and dangerous displays of dark power involved, they were stepping in to put a stop to his investigations. They had other ponies better suited to look into such things, or so Furlong said.

But Cantor had no intention of staying stopped. This matter concerned the unquiet spirits of the dead, and so it concerned him personally. If he had to start again from scratch, so be it. If Cantor’s suspicions were correct, if the ancient demon Grogar and his lost city of Tambelon were returning to Dream Valley from the Shadow Lands where, legend had it, they had been banished in the ancient days of myth and legend ... then Cantor had to know. In times long past Grogar’s magic, or a stolen scrap of it, had been forged into the Blades of Fear – and that was the likeliest power Cantor had found thus far to explain why the dead had begun rising in new, and disturbing, ways.

Morari, Magpie, and Fairweather were not like the ghostly haunts Cantor had dealt with most of his life. And there were other unusual haunts like them still trapped out there in the dark corners of Equestria.

Furlong, it seemed, just wanted Cantor to deal with those other hauntings ... even going so far as to feed Cantor tidbits of information about the appearance of evil vortexes of shadow-power and their captive, fear-maddened ghosts. But Cantor believed that it would be far better to find the true source of the problem and deal with that. Even if those researches wound up being dangerous.

Right now, those researches were only being quite illegal. And more than a little rude. Cantor found the rudeness bothered him more than the legality, which probably said something about his character.

“Indeed. While hardly the behavior of a gentlecolt, in times of need, genteel behavior must sometimes be set aside. Kindly note, my friend, that I make no censure of your activities this night. I encourage them … albeit with a heavy heart.” Admiral Fairweather was hunting among boxes, crates, and shelves as he spoke.

Magpie snorted. “Yer heart’s gone to dust and ashes centuries back, same as mine! Nuthin’ heavy ‘bout us no more.” She grinned at Cantor, “I guess ‘is nibs has to make that up fer all of us!”

Cantor, who was now carefully reading old clippings, chuckled, although there was a slight hint of something more painful than humorous in the sound. “Hey now, I’m in shape!”

There was a brief (and incredulous) pause from the three haunts.

Cantor looked up at them all. His smile was wry and held just a tinge of self mockery. “What? Round is a shape.”

“Technically correct,” Morari was amused.

“Hey, Cantor” Magpie suddenly sounded much more serious than usual. Most of the time her tone was either annoyed or smug. “I seen that look you wear before. It don’t suit ya. Speakin’ as the only filly here, there’s nuthin’ wrong with round ’n’ soft in a stallion. C’n be extra comfy fer nappin’ with!”

Cantor blinked at Magpie in surprise. “Uh … thanks. That’s … well, that’s totally irrelevant to our work tonight, but still nice to hear. Especially since our modern social sensibilities would beg to differ.”

“P’raps Valentina would like summat’ soft ‘n’ sweet ta nap on!” Magpie grinned.

Now that sounded more like her.

Magpie’s grin grew wider, “’r’ Quill!” And that sounded even more like her. Cantor couldn’t help but smile a bit as he shook his head.

As usual Cantor ignored Magpie’s scandalous (though good natured) jabs. As much as he could anyway. Given his own preferences, Valentina was a far more likely prospect for a dalliance than Jon Quill (even if Jon seemed the sort of colt to be up for almost anything.) And as a prospect, Cantor reflected, Valentina was still exceedingly unlikely! Why, even if he could discover a way to resolve his spectral friends’ problems and find himself at leisure to just enjoy life and pleasant company again, Cantor was almost positive that she wouldn’t be ... well ... interested; even if Cantor somehow was by then.

As for being interested himself, Cantor rather doubted that he was, really ... though he hadn’t actually given much thought to the matter. Sure, Valentina was quite attractive, and a dear friend ... but there were plenty of areas where they weren’t exactly compatible. For one: Valentina thrived on excitement and adventure while Cantor preferred a much less dangerous lifestyle than his current endeavors afforded him.

And as for Magpie’s other bit of teasing, Cantor sincerely hoped Jon wasn’t interested. That would become awkward fast ... especially since Cantor didn’t like breaking ponies’ hearts. Not that, Cantor thought, he usually was the pony in a position to do so! His voice might be musical and magical, his mind might be clever, and his nature good and kind, but Cantor didn’t see himself as the sort of stallion you'd ever find gracing the cover of some fashionable magazine. Regardless, all of this was a distraction from their work.

“Miss Magpie! Please! Are you not supposed to be assisting?” Fairweather glanced disapprovingly over his shoulder.

Magpie stuck her tongue out at him. ”Oy! Fine. A pox on all yer letters. Ne'er a break to have fun.” She did come over to peer inquiringly over one of Cantor’s shoulders.

Ten minutes of paper-shuffling later and Magpie gave a sudden start. Ghosts shouldn’t be able to go pale, but somehow she did.

“Is something the matter, Magpie?” Morari, who was looking over a different pile of papers, had noted her sudden discomfort.

“No. … Just … Did na expect … uh …” Magpie trailed off. The other haunts couldn’t recall the last time they had seen the young mare’s ghost so shaken. Meanwhile, Cantor was staring in shock at one of the papers on the table, the same one that had caused Magpie such distress.

“Sweet Celestia, look at this! You were adorable!” Cantor held the newspaper clipping in his hooves. He read it over. He looked up at Magpie and his face twisted with sorrow and sympathy. It was an old pain, one Cantor wore with great familiarity. “I’m … I’m so sorry that it ... that you … well ....”

Magpie snorted. ”T’weren’t yer fault. Jack’s the one what cut m’throat back when. Damn that red knife.” She shivered at the memory.

Cantor’s gaze returned to the clipping and its picture, one of twenty four.

“Missing – Miss Margaret Annabelle Pie.”

“Margaret?” Fairweather looked up in confusion. He had just found the box he had been hunting for, the archived welcome registries and guest logs for the time between when Jack’s Red Blade had last been seen in on display in the Castle and the day it had been discovered missing.

“Maggie. ‘r’ Mags if ya please. Nopony calls me Margaret.” Magpie had her annoyed voice on.

“Annabelle?” Morari raised an eyebrow.

“Oy! Yer not me real da’! No usin’ me middle name.” Magpie sounded even more annoyed.

“I see. Mag Pie. I wonder if you are related to … no. No matter.” Cantor sighed. The picture was of a younger filly, but it was clearly the same pony whose ghost they knew as the Thieving Magpie.

Magpie didn’t look at the article. She didn’t look at the picture. She had deliberately turned away from both before stepping back from the table. She had gone far quieter than was usual. Cantor stared at her. His soft face hardened. He knew what he had to do next, and he knew this wouldn’t be easy.

“Magpie …” Cantor began.

She interrupted, “Look, jes’ get on with it. We need …”

Cantor cut her off, “I need to tell you this. I have a calling Magpie. And while lots of ponies don’t understand it ... or even believe me, thinking you don’t really exist … that ghosts don’t really exist … I do have a job. One job. No pony seems to like it much, even the ones who believe me, and I can’t say I like it much either some days, but it’s more than what I do. It’s who I am. You know this.”

She blinked. “’r ya really doin’ this?”

Cantor nodded, “I am.” He sighed. When he spoke again, his voice was rich with feeling. Even without the magic of enchantment flowing through it, it was musical and sweet and captivating. He addressed the spectral filly as if they were meeting for the first time. “Magpie, I’m Cantor Mortalis. Spirtualist. Medium-in-training. Speaker for the dead. I try to help haunts and ghosts find peace, to return to their rest. Obviously you three aren’t like the other ghosts I usually deal with. Whatever has raised you is something far worse than just sorrow or guilt over something unsaid or undone. I’ll still find a way to help you … somewhere, somehow. But none of that changes this.”

“I’m an intercessor, Magpie. I convey the messages of the dead to the living.”

Cantor paused, reflecting that moments like this were one of the reasons he usually believed he actually could perceive the spirits of the departed. If Magpie had just been a figment of a sadly broken mind all this time, how is it that Cantor could find independent proofs of her living existence? How could she provide him with information – with observations – that he could not possibly have learned on his own?

But in the dark corners of Cantor’s mind he reflected that there were ways ... and those possibilities were far worse than him simply being insane. He buried those thoughts again. This was no time to become paralyzed by fear and “what-ifs.” Assuming he was saner than many ponies thought him, there were serious problems to be addressed. And here, before him, was a problem he understood. He had dealt with its like often enough ... too often, truthfully ... in the past.

Magpie spoke up during Cantor’s pause, struggling to hide the pain she clearly felt, “I don’t have nuthin’ I want ta …”

But Cantor interrupted again. “I also, when it’s needed, convey messages from the living to the dead. To help ease the grief and pain on both their sides of the veil. And while they’re not alive any more, they’d want you to hear this. Even if they didn’t, I think you need to hear this.”

Magpie said nothing. She still refused to look at the newspaper clipping.

“I don’t know much about your life. You don’t talk about it. My suspicions aren’t worth two bits. But I do know how you died. And I can tell you don’t think anypony cared.”

Cantor’s pause lasted three heartbeats.

“They cared, Margaret. They cared. When Jack …” Cantor paused to brush away the tears that were leaking from his eyes. “They missed you. They wanted you to still be alive. And to have a good and happy life. Better than what you had. They cared enough to look for you. I don’t think they ever found you. If they had, I wouldn’t have found your spirit bound where it was.”

Magpie was crying. She did so silently, ghostly tears sliding down her transparent cheeks.

Cantor stood up, and limped over to give her a hug. Most living ponies couldn’t touch the spirits of the dead. But he could.

She hugged him back.

“I’m s-“ Cantor began but Magpie cut him off.

“If’n ye say yer sorry ta me one more time, mister, I’m gonna smack ya right in the gob!” She shook one spectral hoof at him.

Cantor blinked in surprise. “Er … but …”

“Not yer fault! Right in the gob, ya big lug!” Magpie turned and began to read the newspaper clipping, she traced the names there with her fore-hoof.

When she looked up again, she had stopped crying.

“Thank ye, Cantor. I … I didn’t know I needed that.”

Cantor nodded. He hoped he didn’t look as exhausted as he felt. There was still a lot of research to be conducted before dawn. And a train to catch shortly thereafter.

Magpie’s gaze hardened as it fell on a different picture. A picture of Jack’s Red Blade. One of the Four Blades of Fear. And, they suspected, one of the reasons for the rise of such unquiet dead as Morari, Magpie, Admiral Fairweather ... not to mention whatever unknown haunt was (according to the information Agent Furlong from S.M.I.L.E. had provided them) still bound beneath Canterlot Castle.

“We’re gonna stop this, Cantor. We’re gonna make this right.” Magpie glared at the image of the knife which had taken her life.

Cantor nodded. His face was grim.

“Whatever it takes,” Cantor agreed, “we’re going to make this right.”