Watergush Ebb lit a fresh candle. For a few moments he squeezed his eyes shut, then looked again at the page. The day's accomplishments looked back discouragingly.
He had managed a few pages, but those were not great, even by his standards. Now continuing was hard. He had the motivation to write more. What he lacked was the ardour - at least a flicker - needed to make it shine.
The young stallion took a sip of his enjoyment-free coffee and tried to herd the story back into his mind. It took blurry form: The celebrated actor. His years of self-indulgence at the public's teat. His subsequent return, provoked by an anonymous letter, to the shabby hamlet of his origins. His contempt for himself for having betrayed his cherished home. The donation of his exorbitant fortune to charity programs. His new life as a nameless recluse, happy nevertheless because he had a friend - an estranged childhood playmate who, when the reader least expected it, was revealed as the author of that fateful letter.
Great. Brilliant.
The idea was finally there.
Implementation was the hard part. He exhaled slowly, so the paper rustled like a rainstick tilted by some meditative tribesman. The story was mired amid a description of the excess which defined the star's daily life. He stared absently at the notes stuck to the wall above his desk (and the naked moonscape in the gaps between them, where the whitewash was crumbling) and tried to think of more symbols of luxury. Pocketwatches, costly wine, satin sofas, pricey porcelain... Silken top hats! No, he had included those already.
He slammed bis bony chin onto the desk. Should he have Pecunious Wellheel sport a monocle or a pince-nez? Or were those both not subtle enough?
The willow outside tapped against the window, announcing particularly strong wind that night.
Watergush Ebb picked up his quill and continued to write.
Fifteen minutes passed. He laid down his quill. He was fatigued. The text before him had grown, but he could not crack a satisfied smile.
He stood and slowly walked across to the shelves on his wall. There lay his inspiration, several dozen books in disorderly stacks. Most were bookmarked with ripped-off scraps of paper, which were covered with notes on narrative techniques, on intricate images, on florid figures.
And it was still there too, with its thick paper spine and the spidery lettering of the title. "The Lay of the Scarpeak Spectre," it read. There was the tome that had decisively, with finality, decided his life's course; it was this that had convinced him, when laid on the scale alongside all his other reasons, to pursue writing as a way of life. Engrossing, epic, grippingly poetic, it had shown him what literature could be.
He pulled it out in a telekinetic aura. The cover bellowed the author's name at him in big black font, but he had no interest in the cover. Perhaps the contents could rekindle his flame.
The writer leafed through the worn little volume, stopping about a third of the way through. He began to read, murmuring the words to glean, perhaps, a bit of technique from them:
"In the cavern's crumbling ceiling
Moaned the weary wasteland wind;
Lonesome groans that sent me reeling
From the terror I was feeling
And as I away was stealing,
Cravenly my pledge repealing,
Solemn oaths I did rescind.
Soon I stopped my fearsome fleeing,
Frozen stood for moments long,
For I was in horror seeing
How horrendous things were being
Spawned, from stone themselves were freeing
And in merriment were spreeing
When I heard the dreaded song:
'Eyes of newt and basilisk,
Ginger root and sprig of basil.
Skyward strives the obelisk,
Him the sun will surely dazzle.
Arcane craft and crafty wits
Surely make our eyesight clearer.
We prefer the nether-pits,
Darkness makes the earth feel nearer.'"
Here Watergush Ebb broke off. He returned, in his mind, to a treasured collection of autumn evenings. He saw his mother, beautiful despite her untimely crow's feet, holding the little book and reading to him over supper. He worried that he was forgetting exactly where she had placed which inflection in the poem. He could not think of a better way to read it than she always had.
He sighed, and opened his eyes. Then he screamed. The ghost grinned toothily at him from his desk, where it lay prone.
Watergush let his jaw hang after the scream was out. He was petrified and stood there stupidly until a series of whumps from directly beneath him made him jump. He realised momentarily that it was the burly downstairs neighbour banging a broom handle against his ceiling. Then he jumped again as he realised he had taken his eyes off his nocturnal visitor, a mistake which every account of the otherworldly ever written advised one to avoid at all costs.
But it was still there, and had not stirred from its initial position, with its phantasmal, faintly translucent forelegs crossed in a defiant bit of body language. It had, however, arched a cynical eyebrow at his convulsions.
The phantom decided to break the ice. It gave a coquettish flick of its mane which made the quivering artist question its sex (it had seemed vaguely male at first) and wheezed: "Well hello there. I'm glad to find you appreciate my poetry."
The spindly little stallion opposite it shrank back onto himself, causing his ribs to protrude further under his thin brown coat, and swallowed emptily. "What do you mean?" he croaked.
At this, the gap-toothed ghost puffed up its body and raised itself on its front hooves with extravagancy, causing pens and other small objects across the room to spin eerily. It savoured the words that flowed from its decomposed mouth, stretching vowels in the affectation of a Canterlot accent: "Well, you seeh... I have seldom heard anypony deliver such an emotive reading of my poetreeh... But you have approximated quite impressively what I myself felt when I came up with those liiines..." It nodded to the grubby paperback.
Watergush timorously turned the book over to stare at the cover. "You're..." he breathed, as if seeing the title for the first time.
"Yes."
Gaunt as he was, this one word set the aspiring stallion of letters' heart into a boisterous drum-beat befitting of a manticore during mating season. The hollowness of his cheeks, the bags under his eyes, the squalid accomodations all around, had disappeared to him. He felt fit to tackle titans. The Scarpeak Spectre was there with him! And this time, it was not there in his mind, hovering invisibly over his shoulder to whisper stories of brave knights and the taste of their souls all through Math class, to make faces at Miss Creasepucker behind her back while she scolded him, to peer around corners behind which bullies were wont to linger. This was for real.
A chuckle came from the apparition. "I sometimes get that reaction," it remarked, "though it is not often that I still visit the realm of the living. Would you like me to recount my exploi- My, my, what have we here?" It looked at the messy loose-leaf scattered on the desk beneath it for the first time, and glowed - both literally and figuratively - : "'A Tale of Fame and Ill Fortune'? So you're a... writer?"
When most ponies asked this question, it sounded much different, and Watergush would reply defiantly, but now he waxed effervescent: "Yes. Yes, I am. I'm mainly a playwright, but I do poetry too, whenever the Muse drops in on the way to the guy who always gets commissionned instead of me..." - at this, the phantom have a bemused smile, floating and stretching in mid-air like a cat - "...Yeah, I haven't had much success come my way so far. But I'm working on it, I'm working on it. I tried submitting that a month ago, but then last week the publisher said they wouldn't buy it," he added, motioning to "A Tale of Fame and Ill Fortune," which the ghost had begun leafing through.
It settled about a third of the way through, and started reading with gusto, as if for the first time in a long while. Whenever it furrowed its brow at a detail, tiny moths woven of smoke fluttered out of nooks all around, emitting the squealing song of mosquitoes as they dissolved. Watergush was thrilled by the effect.
"I was sure it'd get accepted - it was kinda' my magnum opus," Watergush commented, his voice shrinking somewhat, "But I suppose it's always hard for a nobody to get his first contract..." He broke off, and looked keenly at his nightly visitor, who was nodding, apparently engrossed in the writing.
It wrinkled its nose in a way which, despite its wavering profile, conclusively betrayed it as male (or formerly so), and grunted. "Hm... I've read worse... You're good at descriiibing, in any case," he conceded, "But I've been dyyying to know - is the old café in Lane Cake Street still active?"
Watergush picked frowned: "Er... Yeah. Yes, it is, and it's still popular, especially among the retro crowd, but I never go there. The prices, you see..."
The Spectre seemed pleased and left it at that, leading his host to conclude that his only reason for asking had been to show that he knew at least one of Ponyville's landmarks. Anyway, Watergush Ebb had more important fish to fry: nanoseconds earlier, his mind had added the finishing touches to the plan which it had been constructing since the moment he had understood whom he was dealing with.
It was risky, but he had to act fast. The Spectre's relish of their conversation spoke volumes. Though his reading of the incantation might have contributed to summoning it, it had obviously appeared largely because it had wanted somepony to talk to. Presumably whatever darksome place it had come from provided little opportunity for banter.
Be that as it may (Watergush never pondered death - especially his own), it meant the ghost was free to leave whenever it pleased, which could be sooner rather than later. If Watergush's experience was anything to go by, being confronted with the reality of social interaction would fast cause the Spectre to consider loneliness the preferable option. If he was going to get what he wanted, he would have to sell his guest on this idea as quickly as possible. The ghost's mischievous nature, which he knew from the book, was the one angle he could think of from which to approach the issue.
He heaved a sigh and set a hoof on the razor-blade which he had chosen as his tightrope: "I certainly wish something could be done about my streak of rejections. You know. 'Cause I really think there's a pattern here. I don't think the publishing people even read my submissions anymore. They've given up on me." The Spectre rolled onto its belly, giving him a noncommittal look. Paranormal effects in the room ceased, the last butterfly decomposing to leave only a sharp smell of incense.
Watergush coughed meekly, and bore on: "I've talked to the manager. She's of a completely prosaic mindset. Most unimaginative mare you ever saw. The inside of her skull as dry as the four haycakes she probably eats every lunch break. Also, rather fat.
"Anyway. She's obviously the kind who'd never believe in ghosts. A creature of the light."
At this, the Spectre's eyes lit up, casting two little green dots onto the wall opposite. The flame of the candle, which had almost burned down, grew and danced behind it, and flame-cobras leapt from it, singeing the wall.
"A creature blind to darkness. You and I, we know there is more in this world than living eyes can see. We know the worth of writing which rouses the nether-regions of a pony's heart. Prehistoric passions. Antedeluvian affections." He paused. He had been hoping for some emotional reaction. Nothing. "I know you love to show fools what darkness can do. So I thought maybe you could pay this bore a visit. Give her a good scare. Teach her just how real ghosts are.
"And while you're at it. As a first assignment, to show she's learned the lesson. You could get her to accept my book," he concluded, his breath running short.
A sceptical pout was the Spectre's only response for the first few moments. It was mulling the proposal over. The candle-cobras died down. Watergush gushed sweat.
At last the apparition smiled. It wore a thinking expression. "I don't see why not," it said, "Do you know where she lives?"
"Er... No," Watergush admitted, "but I could find out as early as tomorrow."
"Later today, you meeean," corrected his visitor with a nod to the clock, which showed they were well into the wee small hours, "That's somewhat of a pity. I wasn't planning to stay more than an hour." Watergush nearly jumped out of his skin at the hideous screech that accompanied this remark. An enormous translucent dragon's talon had materialised outside the window and was scratching the pane, leaving visible ridges. He guessed the sound helped the Spectre to think, as it ceased when his visitor spoke again: "But it doooes grow boring back home, so I suppose I'll use another of my vacation days... All right, just don't think I'm doing this for you."
Watergush tried to look greatful as he poured out profuse thanks. Still, a curt "I'll see you in the morning" was all he got in return. The ghost drifted up to the ceiling, where it stuck, sucking its head, tail, limbs and all other discernible feartures into itself until it hung there like a huge, pulsating outgrowth. When after a few seconds it began glowing with the brightness of a chandelier, Watergush inferred that it had fallen asleep.
Having been unable, for as long as he could remember, to sleep in anything short of total darkness, the young writer sighed, blew out the candle-stump and went to lock himself into the tiny toilet to catch the night's last few hours.
***
Watergush Ebb was drinking champagne out of a glass so tall it resembled a cattail. Mixed with powdered sapphire, it was the perfect beverage to wash down a scrumptious caviar-and-white-peacock-egg canapé. Upending the glass so its foot brushed the mountainous crystal chandelier which bathed the assembled crème de la crème of Canterlot high society an otherworldly light, he was forced to slide his mask to his forehead. Today, in line with the chef's use of gems as an ingredient, he was a dragon. At last week's fancy-dress event, he had been a gryphon.
He sauntered over to a dashing mare around his age, sister to Prince Blueblood, who was lazily munching gilded celery while checking a plate-sized platinum pocket watch at the other end of the room. Her bored look evaporated as she saw him. She explained she had loved his latest play. He explained he had based Princess Prudence on her. She looked away quickly, so her diamond earrings jingled, and said it didn't show.
One thing led to another. Soon they were in the garden, listening to nightingales in a secluded bower. Her dress sparkled in the starlight. She leaned closer to whisper something into his ear. She screeched like a harpy; his ear-drums burst.
***
Watergush Ebb leaped to his hooves, slipped on the damp floor and fell back down painfully. The dragon claw stopped scratching the shard of mirror glued to the wall. It pointed to the door, where he saw the Spectre's bulging eyes and mouth growing out of the wood.
"Awake already, I seee," the mouth noted, "Good. The early bird catches the worm." Maggots oozed out of the ceiling, dropped down and wriggled into the floor. "Well, I trust you'll be leaving presently to determine the living-quarters of this dour dame." Claw, eyes and mouth vanished with a poof.
Watergush got up on shaky hooves. Too shaken for anger, he almost felt reassured. This ghost could scare the life out of King Sombra - the manager should be a piece of cake.
When he unlocked the door and came out, his ghastly gaseous guest regarded him sardonically. "I'm orff to do some sight-seeing," it said, paling into transparency as it floated out through a wall, "See you in two hours' time."
The tone having left no doubt that that meant two hours on the dot, Watergush Ebb raced off.
***
Two hours later he was back, elated. The Spectre's entrance (through a different wall this time) interrupted his excited pacing. It seemed content, and deep in nostalgia. "Well?" it asked.
"I went to the publishers. Mostly I got a bunch of dirty looks, but I also overheard there'll be a board meeting today. In half an hour's time. Behind closed doors," he gushed.
"It's a good job I got lucky like that, too," he thought, "I don't know how I was planning on getting the old prune's private address."
Met with an unimpressed look, he enthused: "You'll be able to adddress her plus all the other brass in the company. Much more effective." He beamed.
The Spectre shrugged: "A slight change of plans, I seee... But don't let it be said that age has made me inflexible. I don't particularly mind. I'll be going then." It picked up the manuscript of "A Tale of Fame and Ill Fortune" and drifted out through the wall again.
" Wait!" cried the excited playwright. "Do you even know where the building is?"
"Naturally..." came the answer, already distant, "After all..." He heard no more.
***
An hour went by. Watergush was pacing restively. The phantom was not back yet.
Another half-hour later, he had given up pacing and was sitting on his dishevelled mattress, anxiously tapping his hooves together, staring into space.
At length, the Spectre returned. "It is done," it simply said.
"How did you do it?" Watergush cried.
"Oh, it wasn't too hard... I had a bit of fun. Some disembodied voices, tray-sized tarantulas, wailing corpses crawling out under the round table. Standard stuff. Still, you should have seen that fat mare's chins wobble in fright. Anyway, they promised to print 'A Tale of Fame and Ill Fortune'. As well as all your other submissions, past, present and future."
Watergush gaped. Then he trembled, and leapt with excitement. "I - This - You don't know what this means -"
"Not much, in the grand scheme of things," the Spectre cut him off, its tone suddenly sharp.
Watergush Ebb Fell silent. The Spectre turned away, and spoke deliberately, in a rehearsed but genuine manner. It had dropped its fake Canterlot accent.
"Your writings will be printed, but not bought. I wouldn't buy your 'magnum opus.' Neither would anyone I knew in life. Neither would you, even if you had as much money as you dream of having.
Your books will tower in stacks at the backs of musty warehouses for months, then be thrown away or burned, probably to heat the publishing company's own facilities. The name 'Watergush Ebb' will go up in flames thousandfold. Each page, each book will be transformed into light in the blink of an eye. Your work cannot sustain a flame for long, because you cannot.
Of course, you could improve. You could, over years of dedication, go from caterpillar to butterfly." At this, dozens of vile maggots once more squirmed out of the ceiling-boards, flying downwards, wrapped themselves in cocoons, then, a second before impact, burst forth as smoke-butterflies that flew back up. They darkened the room before dissolving.
The Spectre continued, "But over the years and decades, I have gained a keen eye in recognising those who will not make it. Those, like you, who never wanted to write in the first place. Who wanted success. But not to write."
Watergush stood stiffly, defiantly. He croaked: "And what would the Scarpeak Spectre know about literature?"
The apparition looked perplexed for a blink. "I don't care what the Scarpeak Spectre would know. I'm telling you what I know."
"But - You said - You're-," Watergush blubbered.
As the ghost's confusion cleared, it gave a clucking chuckle: "You thought I was the Spectre? Yes, thinking back, I can see how that mistake could have been made. Although I never claimed to be. No. I AM not. I WROTE it. I wrote "The Lay of the Scarpeak Spectre."
Watergush's stare was blank. He searched the events and their conversations since the previous night for anything, any saving shred of evidence to contradict this cruel claim, and came away empty-hoofed. If anything, everything made more sense now, like the ghost having known where the publishing house was located.
"But you said my writing was good," he objected.
The ghost shook its head in exasperation: "I said I had read worse. Which is technically true. I said you were good at describing. 'Good' is a relative concept. It means nothing. You call yourself a writer, but you are clueless when it comes to the meanings of words."
Watergush felt as though lightning had struck him. "Why did you do this, then? Why convince the publishers?" he managed to ask.
The ghost sighed. "My literary career," it intoned, "was in a genre which speaks to basic passions of ponykind. I strove for - and, if I say so myself, attained - refinement, but crude, unreasonable, romantic emotion was ever a part of my work. That was not a bad thing, but it had a downside. I have met hundreds, probably, over the years, hundreds like you, whom my work had 'inspired', who thought that since they had strong emotions, they would become famous writers.
"When I met you, I decided I had to save you." Watergush wore a visage of total confusion at this last statement, so the ghost carried on: "Now, you no longer have the excuse that the publishers are biased against you. I have given your work the chance to stand on its own legs. This way, you will soon realise that this line of work is not for you. At least, I hope you will. When I think that your cutie mark failed to make this clear to you, I have my doubts."
Watergush bashfully covered the plumber's wrench on his bony flank.
The ghostly poet sighed again, stared blankly out the tiny window into the distance, shrugged its shoulders, and vanished.
Watergush sat down hard. His world was decomposing around him. "I was right," he thought, "This ghost does know how to give a pony a fright."
He dragged himself to the mattress, collapsed on its edge and plummeted into dreamland.
***
A few weeks later, Watergush Ebb leafed through his store-bought copy of "A Tale of Fame and Ill Fortune." According to the book-shop's proprietor, he had been the first to buy one. She had smiled at him because it made him special, and he had done his best to smile back.
He noticed something that gave him pause. The main character, another famous actor, had been renamed to "Watergush." It could be a mistake by the publishers, he thought , but much more likely was that the ghost had demanded the change. He wondered what it had meant by it, and whether any other modifications had been made.
Suddenly, water gushed out of the pipe he had opened. The pressure had come back on. He laid the book aside. He would have to figure it out later.
