The Eyes of Discord

“True in a general sense?” Anderson stared at Scriptorium as if he had just revealed that he kept a great white shark as a pet.  His amusement with the eccentric man had quickly turned to annoyance, and anger. “Captain Scriptorium, I am the President of the United States of America.  Your president, to be more exact.  I need to know exactly what happens, when it happens, and how it happens.  I do not need to be lied to.  Do I make myself clear?”

“Of course, Mr. President.” Scriptorium sounded serious enough, although his rather unique personality made it difficult to know whether or not he was actually sincere. “Won’t happen again.” He stopped leaning up against the door frame, throwing a salute.

“Good.” Anderson took two steps closer to the man. “Now, you said that at some point, it was doing some at least somewhat active.  What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Enter the year 1923.” Scriptorium began rather rapidly, taking a seat on the stone floor of the cavern. “It is the time between the great depression and the micro depression that preceded it.  The country is in a wonderful state… no pun intended.” Scriptorium smiled. “We’ve just won the First World War five years previously, the automobile is becoming available to more and more Americans, flight is just starting to become more than an unhealthy hobby, and the economy is booming.”

“Now, in the midst of all this, a young scientist decides to set up a laboratory, just a few hundred yards above and to the west of us.  His initial hypothesis?  That radio waves may have a detrimental effect on the populations of river dwelling fish.  Despite this obviously…” Scriptorium took a second to yawn. “Ah, terribly sorry about that.  Where was I?  Oh yes…  Despite this obviously compelling purpose, the man, who was named Clint Garson, actually managed to go about his business very efficiently and practically.”

“He set up multiple receivers, that would monitor the level of various radio waves in the area, and then he would periodically take samples of the fish population, more science stuff, blah blah blah, science, science, science, the end.”

The way Scriptorium said ‘the end’, for a moment, Anderson thought that his entire narrative had been pointless.  He was about to object to the waste of time, when the mysterious man continued.

“However, he kept having some problems with a couple of his receiving radios.  Strange stuff.  There was so much electronic noise coming up in two of the areas he placed them, which he was sure they were malfunctioning.  To make sure he was correct, he swapped out the two receivers with two new ones.  Interestingly enough, they had the same problem.  At first Clint assumed that there was some magnetic foolery going on, but after closer examination, he realized that didn’t make any sense at all.”

Scriptorium stopped, taking a look at Anderson.

“Now Mr. President, out of curiosity, do you remember anything in particular about the other portal?”

Anderson thought for a few moments.

“There are several things that I remember about the portal.  It isn’t something that I’ll soon be forgetting.”

“Yes… but can you remember anything about the portal that was a particular inconvenience?”

“The fact that it existed?” Anderson snorted. “That was rather upsetting, as you might imagine.”

“I suppose.” Scriptorium sighed. “Do you remember having to run a direct wire through the portal?  I believe that the setup was one antenna on each side, connected by a wire.  Correct?”

The president recalled the incident.

“Yes, that was the case.  Our communications seemed to be affected by the portal.  Once you got

within a few hundred yards of it, calls started to have a bit of static in them.  Of course, it was impossible to actually send a signal through the portal itself.  If I recall correctly, it was much worse for the first hour or two after it was open.  You couldn’t get a transmission through if you were within five miles of the darn thing.”

Scriptorium smiled, showing off a row of gleaming white clackers.

“The portals are rather fickle creatures.  They seem to do as they please, within a certain extent.  However, yes, that was what I was looking for.  The portals seem to cast off energy when active, and that in turn messes with our communications.  Direct wires seem to overcome the problem, but you need an awfully large antenna to punch through wirelessly.”

Scriptorium held up an Iphone 9S.

“As you can see, this portal is completely idle right now.”

Anderson stared at the small device, which was boldly displaying NO SIGNAL at the top of the screen.

“Mr. Scriptorium… we’re more than a hundred feet below ground.”

Scriptorium tapped the upper left of the screen, holding out the device for Anderson to see.  The president could barely make out the three small bars that displayed wifi connection.  From what he could tell, all of them were filled.  Scriptorium motioned back into the room from whence they had come.

“There is a ten gigabit router in there, which means that I can download the latest patch for angry vegetable slayer as fast as this things two hundred and fifty six gig solid state drive will let me.  If that was acting up;” he motioned to the large stone ring that dominated the center of the room. “Then you can be sure that would never happen.”

Scriptorium paused, returning his electronic toy to his pocket.

“I think that you are beginning to see why Mr. Clint Garson was having trouble with his radios.  Now, concluding that it was a problem with area, and not his machinery, he began to explore what exactly was causing the problems.  After about one week of no results, he discovered that there was a cave beneath the second radio site.  It was rather small, as you had to crawl through the first ten feet, but after that, it widened out.”

“Ever the explorer, he tied a string to a rock at the mouth of the cave, and then went in, unwinding the spool behind him.  Though his safety standard was commendable, he had no need for the string.  It was only one straight line from the surface… all the way to here.”

Scriptorium paused, looking around.

“Something wrong?” Anderson questioned.

“Well, no, no.  I just felt…” The codenamed captain glanced about for a seconds more, before he returned his gaze to Anderson. “Never mind, it’s nothing.”

“Anyway, this was the only thing in the cave.  At the time, he thought that it was a great discovery.  Perhaps not as glorious as proving his fish theory, but still, a great tribute to science.  Needless to say, he dashed up to the surface a grabbed the first couple archeologists he found.  He apparently came to the same conclusion that you did.  Clint immediately assumed it was an Mayan artifact, or some other ancient civilization.”

“So it was that Clint and a team of five archeologists quickly returned to this site, and that was when we got the first hint of something supernatural.”

Scriptorium grinned.

“To be honest, this portal solves a lot of mysteries, even if it also creates some.  After all, we had no reason to give the Greeks any credibility at all.  What with their bizarre stories of the great Pegasus and Centaurs and what not.  Tales of dragon slayers…” Scriptorium shook his head, eyes sparkling.

“Anyway, back to the story.  Clint and the other men all descended to the portal, amazed at their discovery.  All were still convinced it was a human creation.  There were some odd feelings when they started to examine the carvings though.  They don’t have many unicorns and Pegasi in Mayan mythology.  Certainly not enough to justify the sheer number of them depicted on this rock.  Also, a small debate has sprung up around the kind of rock that this ring actually was.  No one could really figure it out.  They could tell enough to know it wasn’t the same rock that this cavern was made of.”

“That of course, begged the question of why anyone would ever bother hauling all this rock here anyway.  Also, how could they get it down here?  It seemed a waste when there was already so much rock in the cavern.  Indians weren’t the kind of people to waste their time, or resources on anything.  If they figured out a use for virtually every part of the deer, then it seemed odd that they wouldn’t use the preexisting rock strata.”

“Anyway, the trouble that initiated the government’s involvement in this rock ring occurred as a direct result of the rock mystery.  One of the archeologists pulled out a chisel and a hammer, determined to get a small sample of the rock in the ring.  So, as his friends all watched him, he put the chisel to stone and hammers to chisel, and disappeared in a flash of green lightning.”

“Obviously, this generated a fair amount of concern, and so the rest of the men deemed it necessary to run screaming out of the cave.  Within twelve hours, the first government agents were on scene, ensuring that no one else would find out about this rock.  Finally, Clint reported that immediately the first time he checked his radios after the disappearance of the archeologist, he found them all in working order.  The strange activity had resided.  The next time something touched the portal, it did not vanish.  It was as if it had never happened in the first place.”

Anderson was quite for a few moments.

“The archeologist who disappeared, what was his name?”

“I can’t remember for certain at the moment, but I’m fairly sure that it was Henry Heartstrings.”

Scriptorium cleared his throat.

“Thankfully, he hadn’t made much of a name for himself as an archeologist, and so his disappearance was relatively easy to explain away.”

Anderson nodded, motioning for Scriptorium to continue.

“Several months after the incident, the portal started giving off interference again, but this time only for a few hours.  It has followed that basic cycle for as long as we’ve been studying it.  Though we’ve never had a person touch it during one of its energy cycles, we had multiple machines go through.  They were nothing more than devices designed to touch the rock surface with a significant amount of force, and we’ve never had one come back.  It’s a rather amusing thought that there may be a large pile of basic robotic devices wherever this thing lets out.”

<(^)>

Meanwhile…

“Aaawww… what’s with all this junk blocking the cave?”

Applebloom tapped the pile of rusty metal that had blocked off the cavern that she was crawling through.  She tried to push on it, but the obstacle wouldn’t even budge.

“Oh well girls, I guess that we aren’t cutie mark crusaders cave divers either!”

“Darn it!” Came the voice of a purple maned filly behind her. “Come on Sweetie belle, I guess we’ll just have to try plan B…”

“Yeah!” squeaked a high pitch voice from the back of the group, “I’ve always wanted to have a radioactive cutie mark!”

The three of the jumped out of the smaller offshoot of the cave, coming back into the main cavern, where a large supply of pick axes and buckets had been dumped.

“Cutie mark crusaders Uranium miners YAY!”

<(^)>

“Do you have any more questions about the portal – s – at this time sir?”

“No, I think that I’ve had enough for now.  Thank you.”

Anderson strode through the metal doorway, coming into the well lit room of computers and technology once again.

“Amusing, that we still have so little information, despite all this work.”

Scriptorium motioned to the lab around them.

“Yeah, well from what I know of the portal, it isn’t enough.”

Anderson replied, rather crossly.

“It would have been better if we’d never found these things at all…”

<(^)>

Dark Flare crept quietly through the sleeping castle.  Even though the night guard had been doubled, they were still pitifully unprepared.  Still, she wasn’t one to complain about the faults of her enemies.  The misguided unicorn slunk from shadow to shadow, before finally arriving in a side hallway.  Her horn glowed, and the black dye fell from her hair, disintegrating.  She smiled, glad to see it return to its natural red color.  She sighed, for even as one color returned to normal; she knew that another must change.

She produced a small jar from her saddle bags, and promptly applied several large swathes of white coloring to her legs, body, neck, and face.  Flare’s horn glowed again, and this time, the dye spread itself out, evenly covering her entire form, except her mane and tail.  She looked back, comparing the contrast of the white with the blood red color of her mane.  She would be lying to say it didn’t look intriguing.  This, of course, was the whole point.

Flare returned all of her equipment to her saddle bags, and then checked a side pocket.  She smiled.  The scrolls were still there.  Even if that blasted Colonel had managed to outwit her, she still had what she wanted.  Or, more accurately, what her employer wanted.  She would miss the bonus for the elimination of the unicorn, but at least the main prize was now hers.  She progressed down the side hall, turned down a corridor, and then stood face to face with two Pegasus guards ponies.  Their wings immediately snapped out, blocking the door that was between them.  After a few seconds, they recognized her.

One of them quickly leaned in, opening the door for her.  Graciously, Flare bowed her head, and then rushed into the room.  Behind her, the door closed.

“The princess still hasn’t complained that you use your own guards?”

The other unicorn, who was already waiting in the room, laughed lightly.

“The incident earlier this week worked perfectly.  Of course the Princesses guards reported on what I was doing, and of course I acted enraged.  She was perfectly happy when I dismissed them and started using my own.  More guards for her and more guards for me.  It was a win-win situation… for me.”

Blueblood smiled at his hired ally.

“It allows me to more easily outsource my dirty work.  Tell me, you do have the papers, correct?  I already heard that you failed to kill the important one.”

“I would have if you let me use a real weapon.”

Flare grabbed the papers out of her saddle bags, tossing them at the stallion.

“You mean a weapon that could have been traceable to one of the VERY few arms foundries in the country?  Yes, that would have been a splendid idea.  Next time I should leave the planning up to you, shouldn’t I?”

“Just take your stupid papers.” Flare mumbled.

She began to walk through Blueblood’s chambers, heading towards his guest room.  It wouldn’t be the first time she had slept here.  Blueblood had employed her as a hidden guard and information gatherer for quite some time.  It wasn’t until recently that he had started asking her to perform bloody assignments though.

“What did you want with them anyway?”

“I don’t want much too much.” Blueblood examined the papers, smiling. “However, I know somepony who does.”

Flare sighed, and then continued to the guest room.  Ever since he had started working with the mysterious ‘somepony’ or ‘he’ Flare had been getting rather annoyed.  Especially since she couldn’t quite figure out whom exactly, ‘he’ was.  All that she could tell was that he was a jerk, and a rather bad influence on her master… employer.  She corrected herself.  For the first couple of years, she really had enjoyed working under him.  He payed wonderfully, and he had never demanded that she do anything vulgar.  To be honest, he had started to grow on her, in a weird, politically snobbish way.

Then the mysterious ‘he’ started coming up, and she suddenly found herself thrust into increasingly sketchier assignments.  Snatching a diary off a rival’s desk, or standing at his side incognito, scanning a ball room for potential dangers was one thing.  Assassination… she hadn’t done that since her first employer.  Still, she reasoned, he wasn’t really any worse than the others.  And his clean freakishness was actually somewhat nice.  Cleaning wiped away dirt, both physical and political.  To the normal observer, Blueblood was one of the cleanest Lords in the country.

Flare smiled.  Hopefully, that would never change.

<(^)>

The battalion marched slowly through the snow covered lands, weary after braving the biting cold and frozen roads.

“Company, halt!”

The moon shone high in the sky above them, and the group of weary unicorn soldiers ground to a halt.  The captain of the group, wearing a brown cloak and an eye patch, glanced around.

“We rest here tonight!  Get off the road, cook your dinners, and then conceal yourselves before daybreak!  We march again at sunset.  Understood?”

“Sir yes sir!”

The battalion dispersed, padding off to the right side of the road, climbing over the large hill that lay there.  The captain had been here before.  He knew that there was a second hill beside this one, and that the squad could hide in the small valley between.  He followed after his troops, making sure there were no stragglers.  Stragglers might prove deadly.  This battalion was no normal force.

Of the four battalions that the Northern Province employed, this one was comprised of chosen ponies from the other three, with a few platoons of mercenaries thrown in the middle.  Only those that were least likely to question orders, and most likely to obey them.  The captain stopped at the top of the hill, observing the first tents being flung up.

“Lieutenant!”

“Yes sir!”

Another unicorn quickly ran up the snowy slope, sliding and slipping several times.  When he had actually reached the captain, his normally green coat was closer to white in color.  The popsic-icorn gave a shaky salute, teeth chattering in the night.

“I want four sentries up on these hills, making sure that nopony discovers us.  They need to be switched out every three hours.  Ensure that all of them have white coats, or at least have white cloaks.  They’ll be invisible in this weather.  Make the arrangements.  Do so now.”

“Of…. Cc.. course… sss… iirr.”

The pony managed to shiver out, before hastily turning and half running, half sledding down the frozen hill.  Though the tough old stallion would never admit it, it was viciously cold out.  The captain tightened his cloak around him, wishing for the warmth of his mate.  This was no place for her though.

He carefully surveyed the surrounding countryside, eyeing each flake of snow, as if it might be a potential spy for their enemies.  Which he knew, they were soon going to have quite a lot of.  He smiled, his icy lips cracking slightly.  Though their enemies would soon number in the thousands… he couldn’t help but laugh.  Their allies would soon number in the tens of thousands.

He stared off into the distance, where a black line lay against the white contrast of the snowy terrain, barely visible in the poor weather.  The farthest northern reach of the Everfree forest.  He smiled broader.  Soon.