Thicker Than Water

It was no surprise that the company got off to a late start. Everyone was still bone-tired after the previous night’s ordeal, many with minor burns and bruises from fighting the wildfire. The final tally of losses merely confirmed what they already knew—they no longer had enough food to supply themselves for more than a week, let alone Locke’s expedition as well. The rescue mission’s timetable had now shortened dramatically.

The first order of business was reaching the river to restock their water supplies. With space now at a premium, half the blackpowder was unloaded to make room for the empty water barrels. The three pegasi and Virgil dispersed the surplus aerially behind them, in the hopes of avoiding a future concentrated explosion.

The northward march through the dead forest was the stuff of nightmares. Cranberry was grateful for Apricot’s new cutie mark; he was too busy admiring it to look around at the skeletal trees and think about how close they’d all come to dying. She wished that she could be so easily distracted. When she gazed up at those necrotic branches, she could still feel that blistering heat on her skin, the smoke-clogged air burning her lungs…

Still. Despite all the danger and horror, no one had died. A smile kept creeping onto her face as she watched her son trotting in the caravan’s wake. The loss of all her beloved excavation tools was a hefty price, but she’d pay it gladly in exchange for the way Apricot had blossomed. The last time she’d seen him this over the moon was after his first successful levitation at the bakery.

Inger was looking better, too. Cranberry glanced up as he and the other fliers passed overhead. Even a few hours’ uninterrupted sleep had done them all a world of good. She wasn’t entirely sure where the two of them stood now, but they’d shared a kiss before he took to the skies this morning.

Slowly, as they neared the river, the caravan began to see signs of life once again. Green shoots were already springing up from the ashes, and the closer they drew to the water the more Cranberry began to spy living aspens dotting the ranks of the blackened husks. As forest fires went, it had been a small one, incredulous as the thought might be. The white trunks of the surviving trees were scorched and scarred, but still intact. As they passed further north, the surviving trees soon began to carry crowns of leaves once more. By the time they reached the river’s edge, it was impossible to tell there had been a fire at all, surrounded by green and the whispering trees.

Fording the river with the surviving carts required all hooves, including hers. It was a wet, cold, and exhausting endeavor, taking half the afternoon for just the half-dozen surviving carriages, but at least it gave them all a chance to bathe the soot and ash away. By the time they finished, everyone was sopping wet and hungry. Thanks to their reduced supplies, lunch was a grisly affair. With all the fresh vegetables lost, they were left with little besides barrels of hardtack.

“I never thought I’d miss carrot stew so much,” mumbled Cranberry, worrying away a chunk of unleavened bread.

Inger had somehow managed to scarf his ration down in minutes. She gave him an appalled look, but he just grinned. “Could be worse,” he offered. “At least there’s no bugs in it.”

Apricot had been eyeing his own wafer dubiously. Emboldened by his father, he took a bite and winced as the unyielding bread held firm. Cranberry blinked. “Careful you don’t crack a tooth, honey.”

Massaging his jaw, Apricot regarded the undamaged biscuit warily. “Do you think Beatriz would get mad if I told her how to make bread?”

“She knows how, Junior,” said Inger, still grinning. “It’s like that on purpose. This stuff keeps for ages. If you store it right, it can stay edible for years.” He gave a nostalgic sigh. “Sometimes we weren’t even sure what decade ours came out of the oven. During the war we used to use them for seasail chips. And doorstops.”

Apricot gingerly clacked his teeth around the biscuit’s edge again before pulling it away with a grimace. “Want mine?”

Inger laughed. “Try holding it in your mouth for a bit. They soften once you get some moisture in them.” He started to stretch before suddenly going very still.

Looking up to see what had frozen him, Cranberry saw Tybalt approaching them. Her father-in-law’s pace was uncharacteristically hesitant, and his shoulders slumped. As he walked up to the fallen tree where the family was having lunch, his eyes darted across each of the Sugars. If he’d had a hat, Cranberry suspected it would have been in hoof. She glanced curiously between him and her husband, but stayed silent.

“Inger,” began Tybalt, but Inger held up a hoof.

“Look,” he said, “I shouldn’t have—”

“I was out of line,” Tybalt interjected, rubbing a fetlock. “I’m sorry. You were right to be angry.”

“But I shouldn’t have—”

“No, no,” Tybalt held up his own hoof, shaking his head. “Inger, it’s me. I’m the one who needs to apologize.”

They were quiet for a few moments. Inger rubbed the back of his neck. “So… is this the apology?”

“Uh… yes,” said Tybalt with an awkward tug of his collar.

Inger nodded, scratching an ear. “Okay, um… Accepted. I’m sorry, too.”

“Thank you,” said Tybalt, nodding soberly. The two shared an uncomfortable, contrite silence.

Cranberry couldn’t hold it in, and snorted. When both of them gave her a confused look, she just rolled her eyes and went back to her nibbling on her biscuit. Stallions, she thought.

Sheepishly, Tybalt pawed the ground with a hoof. “Pwyll thinks we’ll reach the Black Gorge this evening.”

Cranberry’s ears perked up. That was where Locke’s expedition had set up their first base camp. There had to be something left, even after all these months. Perhaps they’d find some evidence of whatever had cut off communications. “I think we ought to send a team ahead,” she offered.

“Hmm.” Tybalt tapped his chin. “I assume you mean yourself.”

“And no more than three or four others. I’d like to get a look at Locke’s camp before our full group tramples all over it.”

“A sound plan. I’ll speak to Castor.” Tybalt gave them a short bow and departed.

Cranberry waited until he was out of earshot before giving Inger a wry, lifted eyebrow. He shrugged defensively. “What?”

Rolling her eyes again, she shook her head and smiled, deciding not to press him on whatever that had been about. “You should come ahead with me to check things out.”

“Sure.” Inger looked ahead down the forest trail. “You think we’ll find anyone alive at the site?”

“I don’t know. If they had access to the surface, then surely they’d have tried to make it back to town…” Cranberry glanced up at the trees, reflecting warily on how threatening a bunch of inanimate plants could seem. “But maybe some disaster like the fire trapped them, and they couldn’t leave.”

“Did they have any mages with them?”

“They did. A small team of four antelopes, under a mage named Hobb.” Cranberry had read through the expedition logs so many times that she could summon them to mind at will. “Locke didn’t say much about them in his journals—apparently they kept to themselves on the trip out. I don’t know if they were good enough to protect against something like what we went through last night.”

Inger shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Mm,” she assented. She smiled. “Come to think of it, I don’t believe you’ve ever been on a dig with me before, have you?”

“Not unless you count Tyorj,” he said, with a wink. “I’m looking forward to seeing you in action, Professor.”

A sigh interrupted them as Apricot set his hardtack down. “Are they going to have food there?”

Cranberry rubbed a hooftip against her biscuit. “I hope so.” For their sake.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon was spent at a hearty trot. Pwyll had assured them that they could reach the gorge before sundown, and though no one said it aloud, none of them wanted to spend another night in the open forest beneath the whispering trees. To Cranberry, the lush greenery no longer felt peaceful—merely patient. Each stick snapping underhoof or branch creaking in the wind sounded like a stalking threat, each change in the wind a declaration of intent. She wasn’t the only one on edge. More than once she caught Inger scanning the trees like he was on guard duty, surveying their surroundings for danger. The camels all looked similarly twitchy, especially Kaduat, who was carrying one of the surviving spears slung over her shoulder.

Despite the general mood of anxiety, the caravan arrived at the entrance to the gorge without incident. The faintest hints of pink and orange were just beginning to creep into the sky as they rounded a corner in the path and found themselves facing a narrow gap in the trees. Ahead, a great crack in the earth wound back and forth, widening as it went, open to the sky. Between the trees, the trail sloped down sharply into the crack as two rocky walls rose to either side. It turned a ways down and vanished behind the left wall, as the gorge stretched on. The trees clustering at the edges of the canyon blocked any view of the path ahead, but the gap seemed to continue on for a considerable length.

“That’s not a gorge,” murmured Castor, gazing at the entrance with a frown. “It’s a slot.”

“It widens further in,” said Pwyll, scratching his antlers. “At least, that’s what Locke said.”

Tybalt adjusted his locket. “No turning back now. Will the carts fit through there?”

“Locke’s did,” shrugged Castor. “Let’s get down there while we still have daylight. Pwyll, keep those horns tuned for any more bad feelings, hm?” His frown deepened. “Let me know when we’re safe to make camp.”

Cranberry made a little ahem. “About what I requested…”

“Oh. Yes.” Castor glanced at her. “Take an advance team to check the campsite out. Just be careful, Professor.”

“Inger will be with me,” she said, smiling. “We’ll be safe.”

“Take Beatriz with you, too. She can help you detect any magical traces Locke’s team might have left.” Castor rubbed his chin. “And bring Virgil. Put those sharp griffon eyes to work.”

“I—I’d like to go too,” said Pwyll, raising a cautious hoof, “if that’s all right.”

“Mm.” After a moment’s thought, Castor acquiesced with a nod. “As you will. Stay alert, all of you. And come back to us if Pwyll senses anything wrong. Otherwise, we’ll catch up with you at the campsite.” With Tybalt at his side, he turned back to speak with Kaduat and the camels pulling the carts.

Cranberry waved a hoof as her little party gathered by the entrance to the gorge. “All right, everyone. We’ll be looking for any signs of the last expedition. If you see something, speak up.”

“Understood,” said Virgil, waving her an informal two-taloned salute.

They set off down the trail. To either side, the rock walls quickly rose, and by the time they turned the first corner the sheer cliffs towered high above their heads. Cranberry could see horizontal striations in the rock, layers upon layers of ancient volcanic sediment deposited by lava flows from long before ponies had walked the earth. The narrow crevice was deep and tight, offering no room to maneuver. They could only retreat… or forge ahead into the unknown.

As they took another turn, the place’s namesake became clear. Ahead of them, the dirt path vanished beneath a layer of black sand. The group paused, cautious. “Coal dust…?” offered Beatriz.

Virgil was the first to step forward, scooping a clawful of the stuff up and sniffing it. “No. Not blackpowder, either, but it sure looks like it. I’ve never seen sand like this in the deserts back home…”

Cranberry traced a hoof through the substance. It was coarse and warm to the touch, even though little direct sunlight penetrated down through the narrow slot. “It’s obsidian,” she said, fascinated. “Volcanic glass. Black as night.”

Pwyll radiated excitement. “A natural magic reservoir. Our ancestors used glass in all its forms, but obsidian was special. They say it lets you draw on the power of the earth that formed it. Lady Ciaran has an obsidian broach that she uses as a catalyst for the most difficult spells. I’ve never seen so much of the stuff in one place…” He lifted a few grains and gently blew them from his hoof.

“That might explain this hollow,” mused Inger, running a hoof along the smooth canyon walls. “I don’t think it’s a natural rock formation. I’ll bet we’re standing in an old obsidian quarry. That’s why the trench is so narrow and twisty—they were digging, following veins of glass.”

A gust of wind shrieked through the gorge, setting Cranberry’s teeth on edge. The sand swirled around their hooves in tiny eddies. “Come on,” she said, steeling herself. “Let’s keep moving.”

As the others followed behind, looking around at the smooth stone and black sand, Pwyll joined her at the head of the party. "I can’t wait to see what’s down here,” he said, eyes bright.

“You’ve never been deeper in?”

Pwyll shook his head. “The place where we left Castor and the others is as far as I’ve ever been. Lady Ciaran always forbade me from coming down here myself, even after I led Professor Locke’s company into the forest.” He looked around at the narrow cliffs with breathless awe. “It’s incredible. They must have stood here. Right here!”

“Locke’s team?”

“My ancestors,” he said reverently. “Thousands of years ago… some other elk stood right where we are now. A worker, maybe; digging for glass. Or an engineer, using the obsidian to design a flying city, or an artist crafting marvelous sculptures from the shards…”

“You’re not like most elk I’ve met,” said Cranberry, quirking an eyebrow in curiosity. “Even my colleagues in Cariboulla treat their history with more dread than wonder.”

“I know,” said Pwyll, his enthusiasm damping. He exhaled. “I love Lady Ciaran, but when it comes to our ancestors, she’s just as you say. Growing up, what little I was told about the ancient elk was all about their crimes. How they enslaved whole nations, sacrificed tens of thousands in dark rituals to power their magical wonders. As fawns we’re taught to curse their names. It feels like we’re still trying to repent for the sins of our foredeer.”

Cranberry tilted her head. “You don’t feel the same?”

“I’m not saying we ought to forget what they did. But should we be held responsible for things done before we were born?” A righteous anger she’d never seen in him suddenly smoldered in his eyes. “Our people were strong, once. Should we shut ourselves away in shame because some of them used that strength for ill?”

He looked around at the canyon walls, shaking his antlers. “Many were monsters, yes. Slavers, blood mages, tyrants—but that wasn’t the whole picture. They gave the world so much good, too: writing, money, spellsong, civilization! If it wasn’t for them, no mortals would have even survived the long winter after the gods disappeared. They saved the world! I think that legacy deserves more than fear and hate.”

“I guess it’s easier for me,” Cranberry mused, looking ahead down the trench. “I’m an outsider. When I study the ancient elk, I can be… dispassionate. Admire the good, and catalog the evil without guilt.”

He shook his head. “Ciaran always says some things deserve to be forgotten. It feels like everyone in the Commonwealth wants to strike our ancestors from history. Damnatio Memoriae, as if not speaking about something means it didn’t happen.But the more I learn about our past, the more I find things worth preserving. We were the greatest mages alive; travelers who saw the breadth of the world and spoke the tongues of half a hundred species. Now, our horizons end in Port Faeloch. We’re afraid of even the forests on our own doorstep.”

“You want the elk to rise again?” asked Cranberry cautiously. “A second Dominion?”

“No,” admitted Pwyll. He sighed, and all his anger fell away. He seemed suddenly tired. “The elk never deserved to rule the world, Professor. I just want us to be part of it again.” Wistfully, he looked ahead at the winding canyon. “If we keep on like we have been, we’re going to wither away until there’s nothing left of us besides relics. For the elk to have a future, we have to accept our past. Truth is worth knowing, even when it’s terrible.”

Cranberry nodded slowly. “So… Have you given any more thought to the university?”

“In Cariboulla?” Pwyll’s antlers dipped meditatively. “I haven’t decided yet. It would be a big change.”

“It sounds like you want big changes.”

“I do…” He smiled. “To be honest, it still doesn’t seem real that I’m leaving Port Faeloch after this. I’ve never even left Ellánon’s shores before.”

“They’d be thrilled to have you. Someone with your experience in navigating the Elderwood would be quite a catch for the archeology department. A few years and some papers and you might be leading digs like me and Locke. And if the College of Cariboulla can’t get you a scholarship, I’m sure Canterlot’s foreign exchange program can.”

A warm chuckle interrupted them. “You can’t resist, can you?” Inger walked up on her other side. “Careful, Pwyll. She’ll have you signed up for a semester before you know it.”

Cranberry laughed. “You know how hard it is to find good graduate students these days? Sometimes you have to make your own.”

Pwyll grinned. “I can think of worse fates.” His eyes wandered ahead and he dipped his antlers, deep in thought.

With a wry smile, Cranberry sighed. “If I were that good at inspiring someone to love history, it ought to have worked on Strawberry or Apricot by now.”

“They’ve got their own passions,” said Inger, with a reassuring nudge.

Lost in his thoughts, Pwyll didn’t seem to notice as the couple’s pace slowed. He pulled ahead of them, his mind clearly miles away. The two ponies fell behind as their hooves sank softly into the warm, dark sand.

“This place is strange,” said Inger, looking up at the narrow slot of sky above. “Usually by this point, a quarry would open into a wide pit. This just keeps going, deeper and deeper.”

“I’m no geologist… maybe it’s like you said, they were following veins of obsidian. Or maybe this was something else. A road to the city Locke was hunting for?” The wind whistled through the canyon past them, setting their manes aflutter. “It might not even have any significance beyond appearance. The elk liked to show off, even when no one else was meant to see the things they were making.” She laughed. “Especially then.”

Inger snorted. “They’ll have to show off a lot more than a sandy trench if they want to impress. I’ve seen Tyorj. I still remember those enormous pillars like it was yesterday. You could fit half of Canterlot in that great hall.”

“They might impress you yet,” she said, eyes glinting. “The greatest cities of the elk were like living sculptures. Wood and glass blending together to create beautiful, magical architecture that defied the laws of physics. The Tyorjans were very jealous.” She snickered. “I don’t think mages can resist trying to one-up each other. It’s hard to be humble when you’re wielding the forces of creation.”

“Let’s hope Apricot doesn’t pick that up…”

“I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s as shy as you are.”

“I’m not shy—” he protested, sounding so much like Apricot that both of them laughed.

“No,” she agreed, giving him a swift kiss on the cheek. “Just very reserved. I’ve always liked that about you.” A smile crept onto his face, and the two walked on.

As the hour grew late and the angled sunlight withdrew further up the walls, Cranberry could feel Inger growing agitated. Above, the sides of the trench stretched higher and higher, and the sky narrowed to a thin strip edged by the boughs of quaking aspens. Pegasi as a rule weren’t fond of tight spaces, and the ominous black sand and eerie whistling wind weren’t helping matters.

Virgil, of course, was the first one to spot it. His sharp whistle rang out through the gorge, instantly drawing the entire party’s attention. “Up there.” He pointed with a steady talon at a low, thick arch of rock that crossed the narrow trench above.

Cranberry squinted in the fading light, inhaling sharply as she spied a mark drawn onto the rock with white chalk. It was a familiar sigil: the tip of a fountainhead pen, with the central cavity stylized in the shape of a keyhole. “Locke’s cutie mark,” she exclaimed.

“We must be close to their camp,” said Inger.

“All right, everyone,” she said, assembling them in a huddled circle. “Go slowly. Keep your eyes out for any signs of what happened here, but don’t touch anything before telling me. This is a dig site, now.”

Beatriz, Virgil, and Pwyll nodded. Inger just smiled. Cranberry waved them forward, and they passed under the overhang.

“It’s not often I get to see you be Professor Sugar,” murmured her husband. “Makes me proud, watching you order those mercenaries around.”

“I learned the hard way that bumbling around ancient places taking what you please has consequences.” Cranberry lifted a wry eyebrow. “And you wouldn’t believe how clumsy students can be on a dig…”

As the party turned another corner, they paused. They’d found themselves in a large open space, a roughly elliptical pit between the stone walls. It was nearly fifteen meters wide and at least twice that in length. At several places around the clearing, other entrances led to more narrow corridors that twisted away into the shadows. It felt as though they’d reached the center of a vast, spoked wheel. Scattered about the pit were the remains of carts much like the ones Katabasis had brought, all in various states of wreckage or disrepair.

The remnants of a few scattered tent poles and fabric poked out of the sand near the center of the clearing. Obsidian grains skittered across the sand as a breeze drifted through the clearing. On the left side, the rock wall yielded to a wide cavern entrance. The darkness inside was impenetrable, but in contrast to the smooth sides of the trench, its rough contours looked naturally formed. More chalk signs, weathered beyond legibility by the sand and wind, were scrawled on surfaces around the camp.

“Abandoned,” came Beatriz’s nervous voice from behind. “A long time ago, by the look of things.”

“We don’t have much light left,” said Cranberry, already partitioning the site in her head. “We’ll have to be quick and methodical. Look for any evidence of what happened. Virgil, check the carts by the eastern corridor first. They look the most intact. Inger, can you fly up top and see if there’s anything around the edges of the gorge?” He nodded, stretching his wings.

Cranberry glanced up at the trees poking over the lip of the canyon. “Pwyll, see if you can pick up any traces of magic. Beatriz, you’re with me. We’ll investigate the central campsite, first.” The antelope looked grateful not to be sent off on her own. “If any of you find something, give a whistle. And don’t touch anything yet,”she repeated. “Let’s get to it.”

As the group split away, she instinctively reached back to grab her digging toolkit and straightened in surprise as her hoof bumped bare skin. Inger caught the gesture, and grinned. Cranberry tried not to blush as she set her hoof down. So easily, she’d slipped into the familiar role of excavation director… Primly straightening her back, she rolled her eyes at him, and then headed toward the tents with Beatriz in tow as the others split off to see to their assignments.

The cracked wood of the tent poles rose from the sand like half-buried bones. Sun-bleached brown fabric stretched up over them, unsettlingly reminiscent of decaying skin on an old carcass. Cranberry leaned in to examine the cloth. The exposed hem was rotted away, the shredded fabric fluttering softly in the wind. She puffed a breath onto it, and a few grains of sand shook loose.

“I recognize the pattern,” she said, talking more to herself than Beatriz. “See the black smudges? That’s the Canterlot University seal. Locke must have brought our usual expeditionary supplies. Judging from how faded it is, I’d say this has been here for at least three months. Maybe longer.”

Beatriz looked around the abandoned campsite, eyes flicking between the entrances to the narrow trenches. “Some of those carts look like they were wedged into the passages like barricades. This isn’t a very defensible position, if anything got inside…”

“What would they need to defend against?” Cranberry wondered in bafflement. “None of the reports mentioned anything about enemies…” She spied a few lumps beneath the sand, where the contents of the tent would lie. “Damn it, and all my tools lost in the fire… see those?”

“Mhm.” Beatriz leaned over her shoulder, peering at the buried mound. “Can we touch things now?”

“I think we’ll have to,” Cranberry admitted grudgingly. “I’d like nothing more than a good two weeks and a dozen graduate students to dig this place out and catalog everything properly, but we’re pressed for time.”

Carefully, she began brushing away sand with her hoof. Beatriz moved to assist, her horns glowing a gentle blue. The coarse, black grains shifted, yielding items: a wooden cup, a half-folded sleeping pallet, a roll of bandages… and, glinting in the faint dusky sunlight, the gleaming steel of a sword.

Cranberry traced her hoof along the metal surface. “Hmm. Ponies don’t use blades this lengthy.” Not unless her old friend Eberhardt had been here, at least. “It must belong to one of the griffons.”

Beatriz turned the wooden cup over in her hooves. “So where are they?” She looked around. “There’s no one here. Not even bodies. You think something scared them all off?”

“I don’t think anything, yet,” said Cranberry. “Let’s keep looking.”

They checked several of the other tents, turning up more supplies and personal belongings: rock-hard bread, cracked spectacles, tattered books, weathered clothes, dishware, tools… Every sign said the expedition had abandoned the campsite in a hurry. It looked as though they’d left in the middle of the night, with no time to pack. As Cranberry stood from the sixth tent, ready to shift their search, she heard approaching steps padding through the sand.

Inger and Virgil rejoined them, both looking dour. “The carts are a total loss,” said Virgil, shaking his head. “Broken axles, snapped wheel spokes, rotted wood… if it wasn’t so dry down here, I don’t think there’d be anything left of them. They’ve been here for a while. And the expedition left some supplies in them, too, judging from the smell. But that one…” he pointed to the cart stationed at the northernmost entrance to the pit. It was broken in the middle, splintered wood bowing out from the point where the two halves rested on the ground. “It didn’t fall apart. It looks like it was crushed. Maybe a boulder fell on it… but why would they remove the rock and leave the cart?”

“There’s more,” said Inger. “Check the walls, up near the top. See those lines?”

Cranberry squinted. Now that he was pointing them out, she could—dozens and dozens of criss-crossing scratches marred the smooth rock, stretching for meters across the stone. They were high up, ranging from a meter above their heads to nearly the lip of the canyon. “Weathering…?”

Inger shook his head. “Not like any I’ve seen. It looks almost like blade scoring. See how they start shallow and deepen, until they cut off at the end?”

“Talons might make marks like that,” said Virgil, tapping his beak.

“I’ll be damned if I know anything huge enough to leave clawmarks that big,” said Inger. “Save for a dragon. Though if one of those was living in the Elderwood, I think the Faeloch elk would know about it.”

“Something bad happened here…” said Beatriz, shifting hoof to hoof. “You all can feel it, can’t you?”

“Easy, now,” said Cranberry, trying to ignore the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. “We haven’t seen anything conclusive so far. Let’s go check on Pwyll.”

At the cavern’s entrance, they found the young deer peering into the dark with a contemplative frown. The others joined him, eyeing the opening with caution. “Anything?” asked Cranberry.

“I can sense magic inside,” he said. “But I can’t tell what kind… it’s very diffuse.”

“Hm.” Cranberry squinted. The cave was too dark to discern anything amidst the black sand. “Bea, light?”

Beatriz lit her horns, and led the way as the party ventured inside. They’d only gone a couple of meters before Virgil took a sharp breath. “I’ve got a body,” he said quietly. “Bea, bring that light over here.”

They followed him toward a large, dark lump. Beatriz’s hornlight revealed a female griffon lying half-buried in the sand, her head drooped lifelessly against her outstretched foreleg.

“Allow me, please,” said Cranberry, stepping forward to examine the body. Craning her head down, she surveyed the griffon with an experienced eye. “Ex-military.” Gently, she prodded the metal tags dangling around the griffon’s neck. “Only Grypha gives those to its troops.”

Virgil nodded in confirmation, and made a small, respectful gesture with his right claw over the body. “Find peace, sister.” He sighed. “No griffon should die underground. Looks like she almost made it out…”

“Hermia Valerium,” said Cranberry, reading the name embossed in the steel tags. “Part of Locke’s team. I’ve read her name in his notes. Sixty-two years old, according to these. Middle-aged, for a griffon. A-positive.”

“Hermia?” Inger looked at Pwyll. “Didn’t Ciaran say a griffon named Hermia was the last contact you had with the expedition?”

“Yes…” Pwyll nodded soberly. “She showed up at the ealdordeer’s hut one day, sweaty and panicked. Said that Locke was in trouble, but wouldn’t tell us what kind. She seemed scared to say much at all, to be honest. Asked if we could get a package to Canterlot University. All she had on her was a satchel… but she didn’t say what was in it. Ciaran agreed to send it for her, but a few minutes later, Hermia changed her mind. Said that she was going back for Locke, dangers be damned. She took off flying back toward the forest, and that was the last we saw of her.”

“I guess she didn’t make it,” said Cranberry sadly. The corpse looked far older than the tags claimed. The wind whistled past just outside, drawing moisture away. Hermia’s body was desiccated, just like those Dromedarian mummies that Professor Nilen was always giving talks about. Those took months of preparation and a great deal of labor to achieve, but nature had preserved this poor griffon entirely without aid. “Skin’s dried out, though intact. Eyes are in bad shape, but present…” Cranberry tipped the griffon’s beak open. “And the tongue’s still here. Means no scavengers have gotten to her.”

“Probably not enough food in the gorge for them to forage down here…” offered Virgil, gloomily.

Beatriz lifted her head. “Uh, you mentioned a satchel?” She pointed at another lump, a little ways further into the cave. A leather strap poked out of the sand.

“Hmm…” Cranberry walked over to it and gently dusted it off, revealing a thin bag. Carefully, she extracted it from the black sand, looking around for any other buried items, but seeing nothing. She unclasped the latch, opening the cover, and was met with an eerie blue glow. Curiously, she reached into the satchel and withdrew the source of the shine. It was a glass sphere about ten centimeters in diameter, surprisingly heavy in her hoof. The sphere was smooth and dark, a single mass of obsidian, with thinly engraved whorls all across its surface. Within the translucent glass, motes of cerulean light swirled in a spiraling galaxy of miniature stars.

Inger whistled. “What’s that?”

Cranberry lifted the item in wonder, feeling her heart rate rise excitedly. “It’s a tóirse.”

“A tor-shuh?” asked Inger, fumbling with the Elktic language.

“It means torch. A modern name—we don’t know what the ancients called them.The Dominion made thousands of them, though few survive. They’re solid spheres of glass, used to store magic for a light source, or a power source… See the grooves on the surface? It might fit something somewhere, like a key. I’ve seen a couple of them before, but never this intact.” With great care, Cranberry lifted the sphere between her hooves. “I recognize the color… it’s Locke’s horn aura. He must have lit this with his own magic.” The swirling stars gently illuminated the walls of the cave. Beautiful…

Blinking, she placed it back into the satchel. Her hoof bumped something else inside, and she heard the familiar crackle of creasing paper. Swiftly, she pulled the second object out, her breath vanishing with a strangled gasp. In her hooves, she held a slender book with a familiar red cover. It was the same kind of binding her own journals used, with a familiar fountain-pen cutie mark decorating the cover.

Hastily flipping it open, she spied something scrawled on the inside of the cover. The ink was smudged and barely readable in Beatriz’s hornlight.

Hermi—— to Sugar, INTACT—— all costs. Be c—ful.

K—— AWAY FR—M V—LLEN

The warning was underlined twice. Below it, in even more slapdash, harried letters, the words read:

I’m sorry, CB

She could almost hear Locke uttering the old nickname, Seebee, saying the initials like a single word. The rushed pen strokes were his familiar looping script. The air in the cave seemed suddenly very cold. She turned the page, wondering what was so important that he’d tell Hermia to leave him behind, and so dangerous that she’d turned back to help him anyway.

She was met with a blank page. Confused, she leafed further in, finding nothing but featureless white and intermittent stubs of pages that had been torn out. Almost frantically, she bent the book, flipping back and forth rapidly through the entire journal, but it was completely empty. Her stomach fell. No! What was on those missing pages? Did someone take Locke’s message? Damn it, Pad! What were you trying to tell me? No further clues emerged after a second examination. Crestfallen, she closed the book, and swallowed. “It’s completely empty.”

Her eyes fell back to the body. Carefully, she slid the empty journal backinto the satchel, and shrugged the strap over her head and foreleg so that the satchel sat at her side like a saddlebag. Returning to Hermia’s body, she frowned. “Let’s take a closer look. Bea, can you help me turn her over? I’ll get the head and forelegs. You handle the bottom end. Keep her stable, we don’t want anything snapping. She’s bound to be brittle after all this time… The rest of you, give us some room.”

The remainder of the party stepped back outside the cave, murmuring to each other. With Beatriz’s aid, Cranberry slowly rolled Hermia onto her back. Dusting her hooves, she peered through the dim light of Beatriz’s horns at the dead griffon. It was instantly apparent what had killed her. A deep, wide slice from clavicle to pelvis was gored across her chest. Dried blood matted her feathers and fur, with red streaks splattered across her abdomen. Sand, sticky with coagulated ichor, clung to the wound.

Beatriz gave Cranberry a queasy look. “You’re pretty calm about this.”

“Well, like I said, I spend a lot of time digging up bodies,” she answered absently, inspecting Hermia’s injuries. “Though usually they’re just bones by the time I get to them…” Beatriz nodded, but the queasy look remained.

Cranberry examined the slash across the corpse’s chest. “Look at this,” she mused, shaking her head. “It’s such a clean cut. Almost more like a scalpel than a sword. Sliced right through her ribs, see?” She pointed to the visible nubs of bone in the wound. Thankfully, the arid gorge had dried the body out so much that there was no smell.

“Whoever did that was strong,” muttered Beatriz, covering her mouth and turning away.

“It looks like she was running, or crawling. Maybe trying to get out to the camp for bandages… or trying to flee into the cave? Either way, the poor girl must have bled out in minutes.”

“You think they started fighting each other?” Beatriz looked out toward the camp. “Maybe they dug up something valuable, and some of them decided to keep it for themselves.”

“I can’t imagine th…” Cranberry paused. She shook her head. “I mean, Dominion artifacts are priceless… archeologically. But the private market for them—collectors and the like—has never been very strong. I can’t think of anything they might have found worth killing over.”

“Well, it was either that, or…” Beatriz rubbed her shoulder. “Something else killed them.”

“We don’t know if the others are dead,” said Cranberry, a little too quickly. “If there was a fight up here, they might have retreated into the caves for safety. Maybe they got trapped inside.”

They both turned to look deeper into the darkness of the cave. A faint trail of blood, washed blue by Beatriz’s hornlight, stretched into the depths. “Come on,” said Cranberry, feeling a strange pull into the shadows.

“I… I don’t know…”

“It’s all right, Bea. Inger and Virgil can handle anything we run into.” Her friend nodded slowly, and managed a small smile. Even Beatriz’s jangled nerves had to be comforted by the presence of someone who’d slain a dragon.

Cranberry beckoned the others before setting off into the dark. The group followed, cautiously entering the shadows with her. The tunnel had a steady but shallow downhill slope. About a dozen meters in, just as the incline blocked the portal of daylight above from view, they reached the back.

There, they found the way suddenly barred by a massive wall of volcanic glass that stretched across the entire passage. It was deep black, so dark that it seemed to hungrily soak up all the hornlight that fell upon it. Its surface was covered in hundreds of curling grooves that spread across the glass like ivy. The lines curved and swirled, blooming into lotus flowers and the unmistakable curling tines of antlers.

“By the ancestors,” breathed Pwyll.

“Is… is that blood?” asked Beatriz. Splashed across the wall’s surface in bold red was a single word, painted in broad strokes with such evident strength and anger that it seemed unmistakably an accusation. Ancient, dried-out drips were still visible from the wide brush that had written it on the glass. The aged pigment was cracked and flaky.

“No,” said Cranberry. “Just paint. Very old paint.”

How long might the arid conditions in the valley have preserved this message? No member of Locke’s team had written this. Whoever held that brush might have been here anywhere from a hundred to a thousand years ago. Maybe even longer, judging from the fact that the word was in ancient elkish, rather than the modern elktic dialect spoken in the commonwealth.

“I can’t read it,” said Inger. He glanced at Pwyll and Cranberry. “Can either of you?”

“Taíonnan,” she answered, gazing up at the wall. “It means Usurper.”

Virgil cleared his throat nervously. “Sounds like someone was unhappy with whoever put this here.”

The wall towered four meters high and stretched at least six across the cave; an impossibly vast, monolithic slab of glass untouched by the sun. Something about it felt primordial, as old as the rock and sand surrounding them, though the carvings couldn’t be more than a few thousand years old. The darkness within the obsidian seemed to tug at the air around Cranberry, as gentle breaths of air from the outside brushed past her mane. Entranced, she rested a hoof against the surface. Inger jolted in alarm, but nothing happened.

Tracing the grooves, Cranberry marveled at the artistry. It felt like she could sink right into it, let the whorls twist around her and carry her away. Was the design purely ornamental? It seemed more purposeful than that. Following the curling lines, she suddenly realized that some formed highly stylized script along with the pictures. She could make out fragmentary words in elkish between the lotus flowers and lilies. Sun. Life. Abundance. And over here, nestled in the protective tines of curling antlers, Savior. King. Queen. Abstract to the point of incoherence, but beautiful nonetheless.

The longer she looked, the more she could discern that all the little flowers and antler-curls were building blocks for larger shapes in the glass. The small details came together like a pointillist masterpiece to form a grand tree wrapped in smooth, swooping arcs. Her pulse quickened as her eyes followed a branch to its end, where the tip blossomed into an unmistakable inverted triangle. A quick glance confirmed that there were six such branches, three on each side, each ending in the same pattern. Within each triangle rested a unique symbol that was no elkish letter she recognized. Yet one of them, on the middle branch to the right, felt eerily familiar…

A solid hoof rested on her shoulder, giving her a gentle shake, and she blinked. “Huh?” Turning back, she saw Inger giving her a concerned look.

“You’ve been staring at that thing for almost five minutes without a word,” he said, with a smile belied by the concern in his eyes.

“Sorry…” she murmured, turning back to look up at the black edifice. “It’s magnificent, isn’t it?”

He nodded, giving the wall a wary glance. “So, what is it?”

She looked back to the patterns, focusing on the middle. The grooves had something like symmetry; not a mundane, pedestrian reflection of each side, but an intricate balance of weight and complexity that split vertically at the center of the mass. It traveled up the center of the tree to a dim circle suspended above it. “I think it’s… a door.”

“Yes,” murmured Pwyll, gazing rapturously into the depths of the glass. “It feels like it goes somewhere, you know?”

“So how do we open it?” asked Inger.

“I believe these are bloodlines,” said Cranberry, tracing the whorls. “To open the door, we’ll have to feed them.”

“Feed them?”

Delighted, Pwyll scratched an antler. “Bloodlines! I never thought I’d see any in person…”

“Hey, uh…” Beatriz coughed. “I heard voices outside. I think the others have caught up.”

Reluctantly, Cranberry stepped back. “All right. Let’s go tell them what we’ve found.” The door and its enthralling patterns weren’t going anywhere, and her stomach was grumbling. Further study could wait until tomorrow.

As the group retreated, some more hastily than others, Inger gave her a worried look. “I don’t like this, Cranberry. Any of it. The carts, the griffon, this… door.” He chewed his lip for a moment. “When we were standing beside it, something felt off with my head-compass.”

All pegasi had a tiny deposit of magnetite in their skulls, giving them a sixth sense of perfect direction. Cranberry frowned. “You think it was magnetic?”

“The door itself? No. The sensation wasn’t focused on one path. It was like north kept jumping around.” He shook his head. “Beatriz was right. Something bad happened here.”

After a moment, she frowned. “It doesn’t bode well,” she admitted. As they passed Hermia, she gave the griffon a worried look. “But… maybe the rest of Locke’s team fared better.”

At the entrance, they stepped out into the last vestiges of daylight. To the right, she could see the caravan trundling into the pit from the southern trench. Apricot was at the front by Kaduat’s side, eagerly looking around the deserted campsite. Cranberry winced. “Ah—Apricot doesn’t need to see the body. We should—”

“Actually,” interrupted Virgil, leaning against the cliff wall beside the cavern entrance, “if we’ve learned all we need to from my kinsbird, I’d like to see to her remains.”

“Oh… of course.” Cranberry and Inger stepped aside to make way for him.

“Thank you.” Virgil sighed reluctantly. “I’m no funerary priest,” he said, lifting Hermia with gentle claws, “but I can take her up to the open sky where she belongs. May her death feed the creatures of water, land, and sky, as they feed us,” he intoned. With care, he pulled her over his back and flew away with his grim burden.

“I didn’t know the griffons still did sky burials,” said Inger quietly.

“Officially, they don’t,” said Cranberry, watching Virgil vanish over the lip of the canyon. “But some traditions don’t die easily.”

* * *

Making camp was a more subdued process than usual. Enough tents had been salvaged after the fire that, by doubling up and cramming four mercenaries into each, they were able to put a roof over everyone’s head for the night. The Sugars were spared this inconvenience, already having three in theirs. The watchcamel on duty would account for their fourth.

Since they were camping down in the sandpit, with the trees all high above and safely out of reach, Castor authorized a fire. They repurposed one of the abandoned carts into firewood, and Apricot eagerly volunteered to light it. Cranberry watched with undeniable pride as the wood burst into flame, shimmering with a rosy hue.

Dinner was about as depressing as lunch had been. Circled around the campfire, the group nursed more hardtack biscuits and water. Kaduat had somehow rescued a bottle of rum from the wildfire, and was rationing sips between nibbling on rock-hard bread. Though Virgil and Beatriz had both lost their instruments, Pollux still had his voice; he helped pass the time with a quiet, haunting rendition of an old elktic ballad about star-crossed lovers.

As his song echoed in the canyon, Cranberry’s thoughts turned to poor Hermia. She turned over Pwyll’s description of the griffon’s actions, trying to parse out answers. What could have put such fear into a veteran soldier? And if she’d reached the ealdordeer with her package, why had she taken it back with her when she returned for Locke? Was it the tóirse she believed would save him, or the mysteriously blank journal? And then there was that warning. He’d written Keep away from Vallen, if she’d read it right; though it was hard to be certain under all the smudged ink.

She glanced across the fire at her father-in-law. If Locke didn’t trust him, then why keep all this a secret from me, too? The apology scrawled in her colleague’s shaky script burned in her mind. I’m sorry, CB.

Flipping through the journal again by the rosy firelight, she scoured the empty pages for clues, but found nothing. Even the torn-out pages were scattered intermittently throughout the book, more like removed scraps than deliberate censorship. “Damn it, Pad…” she muttered.

“Hey, come on.” Inger gave her a gentle nudge. “You’ve been looking at that all evening. How about you take a break?”

“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head and slipping the journal back into the satchel. “I just… I don’t understand why that griffon would risk her life for a book with nothing in it.”

“Nor I.” On the other side of the fire, Tybalt steepled his hooves. Cranberry could hardly have kept the book a secret from him after all the others who’d seen her find it, though she had not shared Locke’s scribbled warning with anyone. Behind his hooves, Tybalt frowned. “I was hoping we’d find some clue as to Locke’s status.”

Uneasily, Cranberry shrugged. “At least we have a way forward. So long as the bloodlines on that door still work.”

The singing abruptly stopped. Pollux lowered his head, eyes narrowing. “Bloodlines? You found bloodlines in there?”

“Yes. They’re—”

“I know what they are,” he said darkly, glancing at the cave’s yawning mouth. With the sky above black and starry, the interior was filled with impenetrable darkness. “Blood magic.”

“It’s the only way forward, Polly,” said Castor, very gently. He reached out a hoof. “We don’t—”

“So who’s getting cut open, Cas?” Pollux’s red irises shone with restrained fury. “If you think I’m volunteering—”

Castor looked wounded, withdrawing his foreleg. “You know I’d never ask that of you.”

“I can do it,” said Pwyll, suddenly lifting a hoof. He glanced nervously between the two brothers. “I don’t mind…”

“Hold on.” Inger looked pale. “Am I understanding this right? You’re saying we have to… feed that glass wall with someone’s blood?”

Cranberry cleared her throat. Better put a stop to this before it gets out of hoof. “Yes, but not much, and there’s no danger. The bloodlines should only take a few drops to activate. It’s a door, after all; having to exsanguinate someone every time you needed to pass through would be awfully inconvenient.” She raised a calming hoof. “As for who opens it, it doesn’t matter right now. We can discuss it tomorrow.”

“Agreed,” said Castor, in a tone that said the topic had been put to rest.

Pollux looked ready to say more, but his brother gave him a forestalling look. With a huff, the mage stood. “I’ll go catch some sleep, then. Good night,” he said curtly, before sweeping in a circle and striding off toward the tents.

An awkward silence settled in his wake. Pwyll looked especially subdued. The one to break the quiet was Apricot, who hesitantly raised his hoof. “Um… what are bloodlines?”

Rather than answer right away, Cranberry looked to Pwyll. With a hoof, she silently offered him the chance to explain. However, Pollux’s angry departure seemed to have put a damper on his enthusiasm.

The young deer swallowed, and gave her a nod before turning to Apricot. “Well… just like unicorns and deer need horns and antlers to direct our magic, any energy stored inside glass needs to be channeled and directed. The ancient elk carved magical lines into the glass that tell the magic within how to behave. And since the glass could store more energy than any single elk, they could pool their power to do incredible things.”

“So… why do they need blood, then?”

Pwyll looked away, and Cranberry caught the shame in his eyes. “They, uh… didn’t always use their own power.”

“Oh.” Apricot swallowed. “You mean they s-stole it, from, um… with blood magic.”

“Yes,” said Cranberry. “As their designs grew more complex, they needed more and more energy. They took it from their enemies, from slaves, from each other. In fact, that was the main driver of their expansion out of the isles. For the empire to continue growing up, it needed to grow out—the Dominion needed more bodies. More blood. More fuel.”

She saw her son shiver, but he nodded. “What did they do with it all?”

“They built wonders,” said Pwyll, with wistful melancholy. “Towers that carried messages across the skies like lightning. Ships that needed no sails to traverse the seas. Entire cities, fused with trees, hanging high above the ground like vines from the canopy. It’s said some even floated in the air as easily as fish do in the sea…” He hung his head reluctantly. “All beautiful. All terrible. All built on piles of the dead.”

“Floating cities…” Inger rubbed his chin. “Sounds like Cloudsdale. But that’s weatherforging, not magic… What happened to all these ‘wonders’?”

“Lost over the millennia,” said Cranberry. “Some were destroyed by enemies. Others ran out of power and lay dormant for centuries, before being discovered and picked apart by scavengers. As for the floating cities… the only one we know much about was the short-lived Cathaoir, the stronghold of King Caomh.”

Kaduat took a sip from her bottle. “Short-lived? Who managed to crack open a flying fortress?”

“It was Caomh himself who destroyed it.” Cranberry brushed her mane out of her eyes. “A tale of legendary cruelty, still told only in hushed voices by the time of the Tyorjans.”

The camel raised an eyebrow. “He blew up his own fort?”

Well. They had time to kill, given how long it took to gnaw through the hardtack biscuits. Worrying off a corner of her own, Cranberry scooted forward on the log and settled in to begin the tale. “It was about ten years into the Dominion’s campaign of conquest on the Equestrian continent. By then, they controlled everything between the frozen ice sheets of the north and the burning deserts in the south. Ponies, yaks, griffons, all were forced to bow to the might of the elk.”

The mercenaries and Apricot leaned forward, listening attentively. “Save the dragons, of course,” Cranberry added with a faint smile. “If even the gods couldn’t make them bend the knee, no mortals ever could.”

Apricot frowned. “An evil king conquered Equestria? Didn’t anyone fight back?”

“They did,” nodded Cranberry. “And perhaps, if they had all joined together at the start, they could have fended the invaders off. But the pony tribes were still disunited when the elk arrived on the shores of Sleipnord under Caomh’s banner. Rather than call for help, each tribe faced the elk in turn; and so each in turn were conquered. The other creatures fared even worse. The yaks lost their entire army in a disastrous avalanche caused by elken mages, and the desert tribes of the griffons had no answer to the Dominion’s magic.”

“We do now,” Virgil interjected grimly. “The memory of elk raining fire on our forefathers is what drove my people to invent things like blackpowder.” His shoulders slumped. “Evil begets evil, I suppose.”

“You’re not evil,” said Beatriz softly, resting a hoof on his leg.

“No? Tell that to the Alastrians.” He bitterly clacked his talons. “My people turned into tyrants, just as bad as the Dominion ever were. Who will be next in the cycle, I wonder? The Zyrans? The ponies?”

“No.” Unexpectedly, it was Inger who had answered. “Princess Celestia would never allow that. She wants freedom for all of us, not just ponies.” He softened. “It’s what she cherishes above all else.”

Though he’d been looking at Virgil, something about his words sounded meant for another. Cranberry glanced over at her father-in-law. Tybalt, hooves pressed up under his chin, gazed into the roseate campfire. With mild surprise, Cranberry thought she saw doubt in his eyes as he spoke.

“If Celestia and her sister cared so much about mortal freedom, they wouldn’t have taken earthly forms. Is the princess herself not already the latest turn of the wheel?” Tybalt asked softly. “The zebras and the griffons may not bow before her throne, but the balance of global civilization has bent to her will for six hundred years. Soft power is still power.”

Inger’s words were almost pleading. “Would constant war and chaos be preferable?”

“Freedom is always worth fighting for.” Still staring into the flames, Tybalt’s eyes hardened with resolve. “Our ancestors knew that.” His gaze flicked up to Cranberry. “Didn’t they, Professor?”

“Yes…” Cranberry said hesitantly, resuming the tale. “The elk had taken their land, but not broken their spirit. Rebels from all the conquered peoples of the continent were constant thorns in the Dominion’s side. King Caomh grew weary of their harassment, wishing to consolidate his territorial gains and return to Elketh.

“He ordered the construction of Cathaoir an Láidir, which literally means ‘Chair of the Strong’, though we usually translate it as ‘Throne of the Mighty’. It was a massive, floating fortress, meant to enforce his will across the entire continent: large enough to house a force of five thousand elk soldiers; bristling with thirty-six ballistae, twenty trebuchets, and countless arrows; so vast that it contained eight whole plots of farmland, rendering it virtually immune to starvation in a siege; all resting atop a bed of magical glass that hovered twelve hundred meters above the ground. Six thousand slaves, from Sleipnord to Grypha, were gathered to build it. And when construction had finished… every one of them was sacrificed in a vast blood magic ritual to give it flight.

“This final outrage was enough for the rebels to put aside all differences. United in their fight against the tyrant, griffons stood side by side with yaks, the unicorns and pegasi flew their flags with earth ponies, and together the Army of the Free Creatures marched to meet Caomh and avenge their kin. They drew his main forces away with false reports and raids on elk cities to the west and north, and caught the king nearly undefended inside his new military stronghold, with only a tiny guard force. All those trebuchets and ballistae would do no good without elk to operate them. Surrounding the fortress both on the ground and in the air, the Free Creatures demanded his surrender and the Dominion’s retreat from their shores.

“Caomh, realizing he was outmatched and that he could not hold with his armies away, offered to meet their terms on the condition that he and his guards be spared their lives. When the army’s leaders rejected his emissary, the king himself came down to present the terms. But the sight of the monster who had murdered their friends and family, standing arrogant and proud beneath the glass bauble he’d spent those lives to build, enraged the warriors. They raced forward, breaking their lines, clamoring for his blood as he’d taken theirs. The generals lost control, and a gallows was hastily constructed. The king was beaten and hanged.

“As the frenzied soldiers screamed their victory, with bloodthirsty vindication reverberating through their ranks, the king’s corpse shimmered and warped in the bright sunlight. Those close enough to see it watched in horror as the glamour faded, revealing the body as the king’s emissary. Before anyone could react, the sunlight vanished in a sudden shade. There was scarcely time to scream as all eyes turned upward. Even those with wings could not flee fast enough to outrun the coming wave of destruction.

“The fortress fell upon the army with a cataclysmic impact. Records say the resulting earthquake could be felt all the way in Saddlestead and the western coasts, over four hundred kilometers away. Those who ventured near the site in the weeks to come reported that the force of the crash was great enough to liquefymuch of the glass; they say you can still find shards for leagues around to this day. Though many searched for more survivors, none were ever reported, from either the king’s guard or the rebel forces. Only a few Tyorjan unicorns, masters of the dangerous art of teleportation, had escaped to spread the news.

“Cathaoir an Láidir was gone, and its true purpose fulfilled. By enraging the rebels with the sacrifices, and presenting an irresistible target, Caomh had finally found a way to gather all his enemies together in one place and break their strength completely. With the resistance’s leaders slain and their forces crushed, the king—who had the whole time been safely hidden in the ranks of his army, as it marched away intact after ‘falling’ for the rebels’ diversion—could now rule the continent unopposed, turning his attention back to the courtly intrigues of the Elktic Isles.”

Kaduat let out a low whistle. Castor shook his head, muttering a quiet Sisters. Almost apologetically, Cranberry looked to Pwyll, who was staring up at the leafy boughs that stretched over the canyon edge above them. The young deer bit his lip, lowering his gaze again.

“Sometimes,” he admitted with weary resignation, “I understand Lady Ciaran better than I want to.”

“Wait… so the good guys lost?” Apricot looked aghast. “But… but what happened to the king?”

Cranberry shrugged unhappily. “We don’t know. The Tyorjans didn’t have any writings about what happened afterward.”

“You mean he just got away with it?!”

“Sorry, kiddo,” said Kaduat, patting his shoulder. “In real life, stories don’t always get happy endings.” She nodded to the other camel mercenaries, who all stood and stretched as they prepared to take their rest for the night.

“I know, but…” Apricot sagged. “If they all died, then what was the point?”

“That some things are worth fighting for,” said Tybalt, turning his eyes up to the full moon. “Even when they seem impossible. Even if you fail.”

* * *

Cranberry lingered by the fire for some time after everyone else had retired for the night. Kaduat, on first watch as usual, was her only company, but the camel didn’t prod her for conversation. When Kaduat stood to go for a walk around the perimeter, Cranberry just kept leafing through the empty journal.

I’m missing something, she thought with certainty, scanning the blank pages. Pad wanted to get this thing to her at all costs. That poor griffon, Hermia, had diedfor it. There must be something hidden in the book, and it had to be something Pad expected her to be able to find. If he’d enchanted it somehow, she wasn’t sure how he’d intended her to read it—Cranberry was no unicorn. At wit’s end, she gave the book a sniff. There was nothing but the scent of paper.

Sighing, she closed the journal and stuffed it back into the satchel. If she’d hit the point of huffing books for clues, it was time to go to bed and try again tomorrow.

“Can’t sleep?”

Blinking in surprise, she looked up to see Virgil seated a little ways to her left. His beak rested on one claw as he peered wearily into the fire. “I thought you already went to bed,” said Cranberry.

“I tried.” The griffon lifted his head and rubbed his eyes, before dragging his claw down his beak with a sigh. “You’ve been having the dreams too, haven’t you?”

A chill crept up her spine. “W… what dreams?” she asked, unconvincingly.

“They’re different for everyone,” he said quietly. “Beatriz says she keeps seeing Simone, the day he caught the infection that took his life. She tries to stop him, to pull him away before that speartip nicks his hoof and dooms him, but he never listens. She’s woken up crying almost every day since we entered this forest.”

Not waiting for a response, he tapped his talons together. “Zaeneas has never talked much about herself, but I know she left Zebrica for good reason. I heard her thrashing around in her tent last night, calling mapa, mapa. That’s the zebra word for mother, isn’t it?” His eyes darkened. “And me… my dreams are full of smoke and sulfur.”

“Alastria?” ventured Cranberry, dry-mouthed.

Slowly nodding, Virgil dug his claws into the sand at his sides. “In Grypha, the time comes for every citizen to serve. When you turn twenty-five, a pair of soldiers show up at your door with the papers. They only give you an hour to pack and say goodbye to your family and home for at least the next five years. When you arrive at the capital with the other draftees, they sort you out by aptitude for assignment. Sometimes, if they find you suitable for multiple roles, you get a choice.”

Cranberry’s ear flicked. “So… what was yours?”

Virgil’s wings fluttered. “They told me I had the right build for the commandos. I could take the training and, if I was good enough, join General Shrikefeather’s elite vanguard squadrons. The most prestigious posting in the entire Gryphan military.”

Those were the forces that had taken Sel-Paloth at the start of the war, and carried out the swift capture of the Weatherforge province a month later. Inger had tangled with them on more than one occasion in the southland fighting. Cranberry had feared for him every time.

“But based on my mathematics scores, they also felt obligated to offer me a position in the engineering corps. It’s a necessary piece of the military machine, but engineers aren’t afforded much honor. Those who don’t wish to fight on the front lines tend to gravitate toward the corps. My people have little respect for four-eyed cravens, as they call them.” He mimed pushing glasses up the bridge of his beak.

“I was all prepared to follow the commando track,” he continued. “My head was filled with thoughts of honor and glory. But then, on my way to the placement center with the other draftees, we crossed this bridge over the river. It was a humble thing, built by the engineering corps like most of the city’s infrastructure. Just stone and mortar—no fancy carvings, or any decorations; just a plain, simple, honest bridge. I don’t think it even had a name. And I looked around and saw dozens and dozens of griffons striding across it in both directions, without a care, hauling carts and carrying loads that they couldn’t possibly have flown across the water. Over six hundred griffons use that bridge every single day.

“I asked myself, where would I do more good? Fighting in some distant borderland, getting my claws bloody and chasing honor in combat? Or by building things for my people, things to make a tangible difference in their lives?” Virgil blinked. “I chose the engineering corps. Despite my superiors’ scorn, I was proud. I would serve my country in ways that could benefit the whole world. I was ready to build bridges.”

His claws clenched tightly. “Instead, we built bombs.”

The flickering campfire suddenly reminded Cranberry of the flames rising in Canterlot, as the griffons poured down from the clouds and put her city to the torch. The crackle-boom! of distant, detonating firebombs echoed in her memory.

“When Shrikefeather began moving against the last protectorate, he needed engineers. I thought we’d be there to maintain equipment, keeping wheels oiled and lanterns lit, repairing siege equipment and the like. But the general had a more active role in mind for us. I wound up on the front lines after all, rationing out powder and bombs to the soldiers as they hurled them into buildings and fields. The Alastrians barely resisted. Those we encountered were those who couldn’t flee. The old. The sick. The young and abandoned.”

Sweat dripped down his beak, unheeded. “When we took the Alastrian capital, Shrikefeather ordered his troops—ordered us,” he corrected, exhaling painfully as if someone had stuck a knife in his chest, “to raze it to the ground. He wanted to send a message to Equestria that this was Gryphan territory, and that it always had been. Leave no trace that the ponies were here, he commanded.”

Cranberry tried to keep the disgust off her face, but her jaw was so tight that it ached. Virgil’s eyes stared through the fire into the past. “The survivors were herded off as slaves. When the city had been looted and the soldiers had their fill of entertainment, the engineers were called forward to burn it all to ashes. I stood there with a torch in claw as my fellows detonated charges at the base of the walls. The fortifications came crashing down, as the city buildings were consumed by fire. I can still—”

His voice caught. “I can still smell the smoke in my dreams,” he whispered. “Every time I close my eyes.”

What could be said? Cranberry’s stomach twisted. She fidgeted with her satchel. “So that’s why you left.”

“I deserted,” he said hoarsely. “That night, while the others celebrated our victory, I packed my kit and flew north. No one noticed me in all the smoke. I swore I’d find a way to use what they taught me for good, find some way to make amends.” He closed his eyes. “Working for Castor these last ten years, I’ve saved dozens of lives. Maybe even hundreds. But it only took one night to destroy a thousand and more. Those scales may never be balanced.”

He fell quiet, and the fire crackled alone in the night. Cranberry looked away and realized that Kaduat was sitting by a tent at the edge of the shadows, moonlight glinting off her bottle as she drank. The camel watched Virgil with a meditative gaze, evidently unwilling to interrupt by returning to her place beside the fire.

“So you see,” said Virgil at last, “With that in my dreams each night, I haven’t found much peace sleeping beneath these trees.” He raised a brow expectantly. “I’m sure you know what I mean.”

But Cranberry had no desire to share her own nightmares. Especially not with Kaduat listening in. “Well, we’re not under the trees tonight,” she offered, pointing up at the open sky above the gorge. “We should both give sleep another try, I think.” With a sharp nod, and without waiting to see his reaction, she abruptly stood and walked away from the fire toward her tent. She bid Kaduat a short goodnight as she passed. At the tent, she lifted the flap and ducked inside.

Apricot was sleeping at the far end in tonight’s arrangement, so she didn’t have to step over him for a change. Inger was sound asleep as well, twitching fitfully. Cranberry dumped her satchel to the floor and crawled onto the empty bedroll beside him. Her whole body thumped down onto the padding like a lead weight. She was exhausted, she realized. Her legs still ached from fording the river earlier that day, and she hadn’t quite recovered from the mad dash while fighting the wildfire.

Yet sleep did not come easily. Virgil’s verbal painting of a burning city was difficult to shake. Perhaps it was that, or the dark canyon they were lying in, or the great wall of bloodlined glass still lingering at the edges of her memory, but Cranberry tossed and turned to no avail. The sound of wind whistling through the rocks, along with Inger mumbling in his sleep, kept her ears a-twitch. Massaging her forehead with a weary hoof, she exhaled heavily.

This canyon was full of ghosts. She could see them in her mind’s eye, dozens of zebras and ponies and griffons and antelopes shifting timber and shovels from the surrounding carts, venturing into the cavern with tools of exploration and the eagerness of discovery. How many digs had she and Pad been on together through the years, five? Six? Cranberry could place herself right there by his side, forging ahead into the unknown to tease out its secrets. Deep down, a part of her wished she’d been here.

Then you’d be missing, too, she reminded herself gently. Shaking her head, she tugged the satchel toward her. Maybe another perusal of the blank book would bore her to sleep. Fishing it out of the bag, she opened it and squinted in the darkness. Frowning in irritation, she realized their tent was too far from the fire for the rosy light to penetrate. She reached back into the bag and withdrew the sparkling sphere of glass. An irreplaceable magical artifact reduced to a lamp, she mused wryly. Pad would be—

Her train of thought stopped dead. As the cold blue light fell upon the page, the paper began to glow. A thin, spidery, and familiar script began to trace out across the page, as if the letters were burning into it.

Of course! She could have slapped herself. Was she really so tired that this hadn’t occurred to her? The book is a lock, and the tóirse is the key. I’ll bet only his own magic can reveal what he wrote in here. That was why he’d filled the artifact with hornlight. The purpose of Hermia’s mission was now clear, if not the driving need behind it.Cranberry watched, transfixed, as the luminescent writing filled the empty spaces all the way to the edge of the margins. Scanning the words from the top, her lungs protested as she forgot to breathe.

Today is the fifteenth of September 328, in the year of our Lady Celestia. My name is Pad Locke, Professor of Elken Antiquity Studies at the College of History in Canterlot University. Together with a team of forty-six others, a group of academics, mages, engineers, and soldiers, we set sail this morning for the ancient island of many names: Elketh, Ellánon, the Emerald Isle.

We seek the place where the elk stole fire from the sun.