Thicker Than Water

“My apologies,” repeated Cranberry, gesturing at the empty table. “If I’d had more warning I’d have cooked something.”

“It’s no trouble,” said the stallion, calmly taking his seat. “I know this was on short notice. Unfortunately, outside forces dictate my haste.” As the gentle rain pattered on the windows, Cranberry sat across the table from him, and cast an evaluating glance over her guest.

Tybalt Vallen, the Count of Silverglen and Lord of the Rose Valley, was a striking pegasus. His coat and feathers were a deep, dark gray, almost black, and his dark gray mane was curled and tightly cropped. Sharp, golden eyes gazed across the table at Cranberry, calm and analytical. He wore a short summer robe, whose hem only came down to his knees. It was pale white with a blush of pink, and embroidered with curling, thorned stems that ended in a large rose near his shoulder. Around his neck hung a small copper locket, the latch worn with use.

Opening the bag he’d brought, he lifted out a dark bottle and set it on the table. “A gift, for the inconvenience. A bottle of Silverglen’s finest Pinot Noir. 253 was a good year.”

“Oh,” said Cranberry, astonished. The vineyards of the Rose Valley were legendary even in northern Equestria. “I’m sorry, I don’t drink.”

“Ah. Well, keep it anyway. A gift for a friend, perhaps.” He smiled, though it didn’t manage to warm the intensity of his gaze.

Cranberry had felt him taking her measure since the moment she’d opened the door, but she wasn’t yet sure why. “What brings you to the capital from the sunny south, Lord Vallen?”

“Academic pursuits,” he said, steepling his hooves. “I understand you work closely with Professor Pad Locke on elken archeology.”

“Yes,” she said, brushing a curl of golden hair out of her eyes. “Locke and I have published several papers together since I joined the university. He was my graduate advisor, in fact.” Her lips thinned as she restrained her annoyance. They had been working closely… until Pad had up and left on some hush-hush expedition seven months ago without telling her much of anything.

“I read your paper on the tablets from those ruins near the Antlerwood last year. Fascinating.” Tybalt blinked. “Please, if you don’t mind; I’m curious about your current project.”

Brightening at the chance to talk about her work, Cranberry nodded. “Perhaps you’ve heard of the Platinum Codes—”

“Of course,” said Tybalt, tapping his forehead and spreading his hoof in acknowledgment. “Lady Platinum’s set of laws. The one that kickstarted your career, if I’m not mistaken. You’re the one who found that famous translation of them in Sleipnord, after all.”

“Ah. You’ve read my CV.”

“And heard the songs,” he said, with a slight smile. “The Mountain, the Mare, and the Dragonslayer has a whole verse about your discovery of Tyorj.”

Cranberry smiled in return, but it was sour. “I’ve never much liked that song.”

“No?”

Frowning, she folded her forelegs. “The only reason we got out of Sleipnord alive was my friend Rye Strudel. If not for him, Inger and I would never have made it back south, and Canterlot would be a smoking ruin. But the song doesn’t even mention him. None of them do.”

“Rye Strudel? Celestia’s pegacorn?” Tybalt raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. “Interesting. But back to your work—you were saying?”

“I found a translation of the Platinum Codes that let us decode hundreds of texts, both at the Sleipnord site and in the university archives.” Cranberry sat back, staring fondly past Tybalt as she remembered those thrilling months of discovery. “One subject came up in the Tyorjan books, time and again: the Elken Dominion.”

“The world’s first civilization,” mused Tybalt, resting his snout behind his steepled hooves.

“Unless you count the dragons, and few do,” said Cranberry, grinning. “The ancient elk were a fascinating people. As widespread as they were diverse—we call them elk, but their empire had deer and caribou citizens as well. Not to mention all the lands they conquered—ponies, antelopes, even griffons were all subservient to them for a time. At its height, the Dominion spread all the way from the arctic circle to the Bay of Winds in modern Antellucía.”

She twirled a hoof. “They were masters of magic that haven’t been matched since. They had floating castles of diamond and glass, huge cities in the high branches of their forests, vast roads and towers that connected their empire…” Cranberry waved vaguely toward the city walls. “The great road that runs through Equestria was originally of elken manufacture, you know.”

“I did,” said Tybalt, with a small nod.

A little deflated, Cranberry cleared her throat. “Oh. Well, the old unicorns in Sleipnord were obsessed with them. Half the books in that library were about the Dominion. They wanted to know how the elk performed such feats, about the invention of spellsinging and how—before the princesses—the elk began to raise the sun.” Cranberry rubbed her chin. “And of course, why they disappeared.”

“We really have no idea?”

“Oh, we’ve got plenty of ideas,” she said, dryly. “Take your pick: war, disease, famine, political fragmentation. The problem is backing any of those theories up.” She shook her head. “For all their spread and influence, we still know so little about the ancient elk. Even my colleagues in the Elktic Commonwealth don’t know much about their ancestors. Six thousand years is a long time for any records to survive if not written on stone.”

Tybalt dipped his hooves toward her. “Yet, you and Locke found a way.”

“There are still a few ruins that haven’t been completely plundered over the centuries. Locke had been working on some artifacts down in a tower in Antellucía for half a decade before we met. One in particular was noteworthy. A large, inverted stone triangle… that I found described in several of the books from the library site. The books called it a gate.”

“A gate?” Tybalt’s voice was unreadable, but his eyes flashed.

“Yes. And it wasn’t the only one.” Cranberry rubbed her hooves, still remembering the adrenaline rush from decoding those words. Locke had come running into the archives in alarm to find her whooping triumphantly. “The tower was a twin to the one we call Middengard, in the mountain pass between Equestria and Sleipnord. We hoped that there would be another gate there—an intact one.”

Cranberry rapped the table. “Locke already suspected that there was more to find in Middengard—a hidden chamber of some sort. We’d just never had enough proof to get the funding to go looking for it… until now.” She leaned back with a satisfied smile. “It didn’t take long after that for Locke to find us funding. He got it from some mysterious backer—wouldn’t tell me who; they wanted to keep their privacy. Probably some noble. You wouldn’t believe how paranoid some of them are.” Belatedly, she remembered who she was speaking to. “Er…”

The count tapped his hooftips blandly. “Where do the gates lead?”

“Well… that’s what we hoped to discover.” Cranberry tapped her hoof anxiously. “After a month of digging and knocking down walls, we found what we were looking for. A room beneath Middengard, with the gate inside, incredibly well-preserved. In perfect condition—but inactive. Neither Locke nor I could figure out how to turn it on, or whether it still worked at all. It might not even have been meant for transporting living creatures—perhaps a conduit of magical energy, or a food distribution network. Or maybe a communications hub—”

Cranberry stopped herself. She could talk for hours about her work, if she wasn’t careful. But she still didn’t know why Vallen was here, and she was starting to get a bad feeling about the way those golden eyes were staring at her. “At any rate, that’s what’s been consuming all my time for the last year and a half. Locke’s, too… until last September. He left to… work on something else.”

Something he wouldn’t tell me about, she fumed internally, but her anger was laden with anxiety. It wasn’t like Pad to keep her in the dark, or to stay out this long after he was supposed to have returned. “You said this meeting was about Locke. Do you have any idea what he’s doing, Count Vallen?”

“Less than I’d like,” said Vallen, finally revealing an emotion other than bland politeness. His eyes narrowed and he glanced pensively down at his hooves. “You see, Cranberry, I funded that dig at Middengard.”

She blinked, swearing internally. Now you’ve gone and put your hoof in it, she thought, before the realization hit her. “Wait… then you were also his mysterious backer for the expedition last year, weren’t you?”

“I was.”

“What was he after, Tybalt?” She bit her lip. “He wouldn’t tell me. That’s not like him.”

“Something important. Bigger than Middengard.” He met her eyes again. “Bigger than the Sleipnordic site.”

Cranberry’s mouth was suddenly dry. “The gateway destination.”

“So he suspected.” Tybalt leaned in on the table. “Locke told me he’d traced the location to the island of Elketh.”

“That’s…” Cranberry wet her lips with her tongue. “That’s not possible. The Commonwealth islands have plenty of ruins, but they were all picked over centuries ago.”

“Not this one. Locke believed it was hidden deep underground, beneath the old growth of the Elderwood. He said it was a city. The nexus of elken civilization, he called it.” Tybalt’s eyes glinted. “Last September, I sent him to find it. Forty expeditionaries: mostly ponies and antelopes, but a few griffons for security, as well. They reached the island near the end of the month, and set up supply lines between the dig site and Port Faeloch, the nearest local settlement.”

“And? What happened?” Cranberry leaned close.

“Things went as planned for several months,” said Vallen, frowning, “until sometime in late January, all communications ceased. The carts stopped coming out of the forest for resupply. There was no indication of anything going wrong before then—the whole expedition just went dark overnight.”

“So you have no idea,” she said, her heart thumping. “Are they still alive?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out,” said Tybalt, lifting his head. “And I was hoping you could help. I’m leading another expedition to the islands—better supplied and better armed. We’re leaving in two weeks. I’d like you to join us, if you’re willing.”

Fearful hope sprang in her chest. The greatest archaeological find in a thousand years—one to make even Tyorj pale. And if Pad’s in trouble, I’ve got to save him.

Before she could accept on the spot, Tybalt lifted a hoof. “I don’t expect an answer tonight. Take a day or two to think about it and make any arrangements you need.”

Cranberry nodded slowly. Hushed, she said, “Count Vallen, before you lost contact…” She leaned all the way forward, craning over the table as she stared into his golden eyes. “Did they find anything?”

Tybalt matched her stare. “Yes,” he whispered.

The door burst open so loudly that Cranberry jumped, mistaking it at first for a thunderclap. The rain poured loudly beyond the doorway as someone panted for breath. Inside stepped her husband, his feathers sodden and his mane drenched.

“Inger!” Cranberry stood, walking around the table. “Back so soon?”

He pulled wet locks of his mane away from his face, and she blinked in confusion. He looked haggard, as if he’d sprinted all the way back from the bakery. Behind him, Apricot trudged in, equally soaked, and not meeting her eyes.

Inger rested a damp hoof on her shoulder. “Cranberry…” His eyes were red and bleary.

Had something gone wrong with the magic lesson? Apricot didn’t look injured… “I didn’t expect you two back for another hour or so. I was just talking with Count Vallen…” She awkwardly waved a hoof toward the dining room table.

Vallen was staring at Inger, his face full of unconcealed amazement. “Inger of Canterlot,” he said. “The Dragonslayer. It is you.”

“Cranberry, honey, I think you should…” Inger took a deep breath. “You’d better sit down.”

Her stomach sank. “What’s wrong?”

“Uh…” He looked at Vallen.

The noble stood abruptly, approaching them. He was still staring intently at Inger, almost hungrily. “A red pegasus…” he murmured, touching a hoof to his locket. “Orange mane… about the right age… but I didn’t expect the eyes…”

Inger shifted uncomfortably. “Look, Count Vallen, I don’t mean to be blunt, but I don’t have time to play celebrity tonight. This is a… a family matter.”

A family matter? Cranberry’s blood ran ice-cold.

“Yes,” said Tybalt, holding the locket tightly. He blinked, looking back at Cranberry. “Oh—I’m sorry. I can see this… isn’t the time. I’ll take my leave. Please, Professor Sugar, consider my offer. And…”

He returned to her husband, “Inger, you and I should talk as well. As soon as possible. It’s urgent.” His eyes burned with desperate intensity. Hesitating with another long look at Inger, he took a deep breath and strode past them to leave.

Inger and Cranberry ignored him as he slipped out into the rain, closing the door behind him with a soft click. Cranberry swallowed, resting a hoof on Inger’s. “What happened?”

“It’s Apricot,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “Apricot Strudel.”

“Papa…?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“The doctor…” Inger shook his head slowly, struggling with the words, “He said it was the heart. A, a… myocardial… something. Almost instantaneous. There… there wasn’t anything he could do.”

Cranberry blinked, staring numbly at the door. When she didn’t say anything, Inger swallowed and continued. “Apricot, he… he’s gone, Cranberry. I’m so sorry.”

He hugged her tight, but Cranberry couldn’t return it. Her legs weren’t working. Gone…?

“The doctor said he wouldn’t have felt much pain,” said Inger, resting his head against hers, dripping rainwater down her shoulder. “He was just there one minute, and the next…”

Words spilled from her lips. “Are they going to close the bakery?”

What a heartless thing to say. Is that all I care about? His business? Her mind was somehow racing yet empty, a mousewheel of white noise.

“I’m not sure,” said Inger, stepping back and trying to guide her toward the seat cushion. “Rye said—”

“Oh, gods,” said Cranberry, closing her eyes and dropping her head. “Rye was there? He saw it?” Sisters, how cruel…

“No, thankfully. But bad enough. He got there just afterward.” Inger touched her shoulder again. “Honey, let’s go sit down.”

Why wasn’t she crying? She ought to be bawling her eyes out, but no tears were coming. Cranberry shook her head in a daze. “No, we… we should head over. Windstreak and Rye shouldn’t be alone.”

He brushed her mane with a tender hoof. “If that’s what you want.”

“It’s raining. I’ll… go get the parasol…” Like a sleepwalker, she plodded past him and headed up the stairs toward their room.

Passing Apricot and Strawberry’s room, she could hear her son’s pillow-muted sobs. He loved Papa as much as I do. Never again would she get to see the two unicorns doing magic together, with her son wearing that beaming grin.

As if her soul had left her body, she marched on like an automaton. Cranberry pushed into her room, stepping around the bed toward the closet. She opened it, searching for the parasol buried somewhere behind the clothing.

They’d have to organize a funeral. Her older sister Inkpot would insist on taking charge of the whole thing. Inky had always been good in a crisis. When the two sisters had found their father frozen to death after that murderous blizzard, it was Inkpot who’d asked Apricot Strudel to help them melt the door lock out of the ice. Cranberry could still remember the day vividly. The frigid wind, the crust of ice coating the furniture, the brief glimpse of her father slumped over his last, unfinished coat. Crying outside in the snow until Inkpot told her they’d be living with Apricot and Rye for a while…

Her hooves passed over items in the closet, aimlessly rifling through the inventory without even looking at it. Why’d she come up here, again?

The smallest mercy was that she wouldn’t have to worry about feeding the family for a while. She and Windstreak were going to be drowning in food as all their friends and acquaintances descended to help, in the only way anyone ever knew how. They’d bring basketfuls of fruits, vegetables, and freshly baked bread…

That was what did it.

Cranberry’s knees buckled, and she slumped against the bed with a howl of grief. Her shoulders shook violently as the tears came flooding down. Clutching her forelegs around herself, she shook and wailed again.

Papa’s gone.

Gone was the silly smile he wore whenever he saw the child she’d named after him. Gone was the crinkling of a paper bag as he packed her a free muffin on her morning stop by the bakery. Gone were those mouthwatering desserts, and all the masterful skill he possessed in the kitchen. Never again would his hooves guide hers to knead a lump of dough, teaching her to make something whole and beautiful out of the simplest ingredients.

Once again, she’d lost a father, and she couldn’t even remember the last thing she’d said to him.

Cranberry wept with hacking sobs as the door burst open and Inger rushed in to hold her tight. She cried and cried, bawling into Inger’s shoulder as the grief welled endlessly out of her, until there was nothing left inside but echoes of warm summer days and the scent of baking bread.