The good weather held steady. The wind worked its way around the compass rose until it blew from the southeast. This brought some minor showers as the warm, wet southerlies competed with the fading north winds. Other than that, the weather stayed fair, sunny, and hot.

It was days like this that Cold Snap was grateful for the ventilation aboard the Yellow Rose. Thanks to that, the captain’s cabin was warm and a little stuffy rather than stifling as it must be in the engine room.

Perhaps the sweat rolling down his brow was due to his fear and guilt surrounding Captain Gideon’s journal rather than the heat. He did not want to be here. He wanted to be some place where the captain would forget about him rather than where he could be analyzed at the captain’s leisure.

No doubt the journal was interesting reading from a variety of perspectives, and it was shedding light on some of the ship’s peculiarities, but he was eager for when he could surreptitiously slip it back into its corner.

Nevertheless, Snap knew that refusal would only pique the captain’s suspicious nature if it wasn’t acting already. Add to the fact that he was perhaps the one on this ship the captain found most interesting and had help him on his various researches upon the box and it was obvious that Cold Snap could not avoid Captain Gideon.

At the moment, Snap sat in one of the captain’s chairs. He paged through the Man journal. After his dreams, he could pick out which pages, descriptions, and claims were somewhat close to the truth and which ones were ridiculous yarns.

As was probably the case in the majority of studies, the majority were in the latter category.

Snap tore his attention away from the compiled writings and rubbed his eyes. He’d been at this for nearly two hours now, and at this point, wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to be looking for. Instead, he lazily watched the scenery outside.

For once, it wasn’t monotonous sea. Islets filled the horizon. There might have been thousands of them. Were they finally at the zebra land’s coast? As the minutes ticked by, the forms grew closer and closer.

Snap felt an uneasy tingle creep up his tail. There were so many rocks. And some of those had to be under the surface. Now that the thought occurred to him, he could see bits of timbers and bleached rigging swept onto the rocky shoals. The Yellow Rose may have an iron hull, but he had a hunch the rock would prevail in a duel.

“Are we there yet?” Snap asked the age-old question.

“Not yet,” replied the captain.

Captain Gideon rose from his chair and looked out the window. He turned back to Cold Snap. “What you see here is nothing more than the Zebra Empire’s southern archipelago. You will notice they consist of basalt?”

Snap reached for the captain’s binoculars and joined him at the window. Sure enough, he could see waves crashing against the black pillars.

“This chain is the terminus of the Imperial Spine, the mountain range running from the lower center of the continent to and past the coast. Many places along it are volcanic. If you were to veer north by northwest, you would be dining in Roam with all the entertainment the Caesar’s city could provide.”

Blinking, Snap looked at the captain. “And you intend to make port there?”

With a shake of his feathered head, Captain Gideon pointed northeast. “We bear to the other side of the Spine. It is a very different land, very different than the veldt spreading west of Roam to Bandari.”

The names meant little to nothing to Snap, but he dutifully listened. As he did, he peered through the binoculars and watched the birds wheel around the larger of the craggy black pillars.

“It is a remote land. Being bordered on the north and west by severe mountains, the rains rise from the southeastern seas and pour a deluge on the jungle. It is wild and unpopulated, but I believe I found a spot of the coast that matches Grimlock’s description.”

Snap lowered the optics. “I had a feeling.”

The griffon raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“I mean that I’ve had this feeling of where we’re going for some time now. Nothing accurate or map-like. Just an instinct. A direction.”

Captain Gideon examined him until Snap wished he could disappear through the deck and into the sea below. Satisfied with his study, the captain returned his gaze to the approaching monoliths. “Primal instincts are nothing to be made light of. They are what preserve us on a daily basis if we but give them the room to speak. This ship has come through more scrapes because of those instincts than any other ten on these waters. No doubt they guide you to this garden.”

Suddenly, the engines slowed. Snap’s experienced hooves could feel the ship decelerate beneath him. The engines soon fell silent. Gradually, the vessel slowed, and began drifting in the relatively open waters before the islets.

“Gunnery, send out one shot, half charge,” Captain Gideon said into his device.

“Aye, sir.”

Two minutes later, the Number One turret let out a crack that echoed throughout the rock field. It reverberated and clattered until it sounded like a distant thunderstorm before finally fading.

“What now?” Snap asked.

Captain Gideon returned to his desk. He picked up the ship’s log and a quill. With a quick trim of the quill, he set to writing. “Now? We wait.”

Cold Snap stowed the binoculars and approached, picking up the Man book again more out of habit than interest in reading the silly thing. “Waiting for what?”

The captain scribbled more details in the log before blowing the ink dry. “Waiting for our guide. These islands are fickle. The currents clash with each other, and it is extremely difficult to know exactly where you are, and more importantly, where the rocks are. Neither myself nor my navigator are foolhardy enough to try negotiating these waters on our own merit. Hence, why we are waiting for our native friend to guide us. He should be along shortly.”

Not knowing what else to say, Cold Snap sat and stared at the Man journal without making much pretense of reading it.

Of course, Captain Gideon noticed.

“Something is preoccupying you?”

Snap looked up from the page he had been on for fifteen minutes. “Maybe.”

He thought about his question before putting it to the captain. “Even if half of the things in this collection are nonsense, then there’s still many things that Man accomplished. So what happened to him? I mean, Mr. Horn hasn’t heard of them and he’s traveled a lot.”

“Mr. Horn hasn’t traveled as much as he thinks he has.”

Slowly, the griffon lowered his quill and what looked suspiciously like a second journal. He stared into the distance as he formulated his thoughts. Snap flipped his way though the book and its assorted sketches of Man’s fantastical, and in other cases not so fantastical, devices.

“I think,” Captain Gideon’s voice cut through his aimless studying, “No. I know Man was an integral part to our past. You however, have asked perhaps the most confounding question.”

He spread his claws. “No one knows.”

Snap opened his mouth to speak, but the captain stayed him. “It is a seemingly incongruous claim after all you have seen. I know. Yet much of our past is lost to errors, time, and malice. History is a casualty of entropy. Where did he live? How did he live? Above all, where did he go?”

Captain Gideon spread his claws wider. “Unknown. All of it.”

“Hold on. What about all the legends?” Snap interjected.

“Shouldn’t the term ‘legend’ answer that question?”

Snap snorted. “If I’ve learned something from you, it’s that legends are always based on truth.”

The captain smiled. “So you have learned. You’ve learned to think, a sight better than when we first dragged you aboard, but have you learned to stand on your own hooves?”

He lifted a claw again to stall another one of Snap’s impatient outbursts. “I know which legends you refer to. And I do believe they possess truth.”

At this point, Cold Snap wasn’t quite sure what to think. He knew only what the captain’s notes referred to on such legends, that at unpredictable intervals, an unknown creature would appear and radically alter history in some fashion. All in all, they were an occurrence far too random and small to signify any sort of population.

At the same time, he felt that the captain had a theory around all of that.

“Do you remember my stance upon magic?” Captain Gideon asked suddenly.

“It is a crutch.”

“Precisely. I did not say it was useless or that it was inferior to physical ingenuity. Hardly. What I said is that it is often easier to use magic as a bandage on a problem it is not suited to solving,” the griffon said as he withdrew his revolver and ejected the cartridges.

“Take this. A finely crafted weapon. It is better than any musket you may find. You will find no magic in it. It is a thing of metallurgy and chemistry. A battle-mage may kill with a thought, be it ten or a hundred foes; but this will kill as long as you have ammunition and strength to pull the trigger.

“I believe in a very concrete, scientific approach of analyzing a situation. Examine the known data and insert theories until the data lines up. Theories must change if the facts don’t fit. I think you will find that is the failing amongst the learned everywhere. They get so married to their idea that they divorce the facts.

“My idea? Man was around in our early history. He made the first breakthroughs with explosions of knowledge in the agricultural and architectural areas. He built a framework for others to build upon.”

“Why?” Snap asked.

“Why? Because I believe man truly had no magic. You and I may draw on innate magics gifted to our kind. Man, in every instance I find of him, neglects magic to the point I can only conclude that he had none whatsoever. His accomplishments were based solely upon his own cleverness.”

That was a revolutionary thought. Not have magic? That was impossible! Everything out there had magic, even if it was just a tiny bit! It was how they controlled the weather, brought in the crops, everything!

“I can see you have a hard time grasping it, perfectly understandable. It is unlike anything we may grow up thinking.”

Cold Snap certainly had a hard time understanding it. Everything had to have magic. It had to! Even if it was the slightest-

“Blood magic,” he said.

Darkness crossed the captain’s face. A twisted glower suffused his pleasant demeanor. “I hardly call that an accomplishment. Blood magics and the even-worse sin of necromancy are not inherently based upon the capacities of the user, but the life of the victim. It is safe to say that of all magics available, that would be the only one Man could tap. Damn any who could find reason to do so.”

Without another word, Captain Gideon took his chair and resumed his work. His expression seemed calm, but the bend in his quill and the clench in his jaw betrayed his true feelings.

Snap didn’t know what to do. So he figured that short of leaving, the best option was to continue reading the Man journal. Before he could start though, the captain’s speaker buzzed.

“Spout sighted, sir!”

Instantly the captain’s mood evaporated. He dried his work and cleaned his quill. “Excellent. Ready the engines and his payment.”

He rose. “Come with me. I believe you won’t want to miss this sight.”

The griffon left the cabin and left Cold Snap with no choice but to follow. The two exited the hallways to find a knot of crew already gathered around the midship rail. They moved to the bow ahead of the lead turret.

Captain Gideon leaned against the anchor capstan apparently at ease. Snap felt confused. What was he looking for? He scanned the horizon and couldn’t see sign of a boat amidst the rocks. He checked the sky and saw that there wasn’t any flier inbound.

“Who is our guide through these dangerous straits?” he asked.

When he turned, he saw a tray left and one of the cabin colts disappearing back to the main body of the crew. Two glasses of what looked convincingly like tea. The captain immediately procured one of them and gestured the second to Cold Snap.

“Perilous Jack.”

Snap looked up from his untasted tea. “Pardon?”

“Perilous Jack. He is our guide. Not a better expert on these waters could be found, not in the whole world.”

Interesting. The tea had a pleasant herbal flavor to it, not a bit of bite, and a pleasant smoothness that went well with the ice clinking in the glass.

“Ice? In these parts?” he asked.

“Latitude has no impact on our ability to make ice. Superheating ammonia in an enclosed environment, say in the copper tubes lining the ship’s exhaust, and then rapidly expanding the liquid into its gaseous state is a powerful phase change. It absorbs massive quantities of heat that may be utilized to preserve our more perishable goods, cool the ship’s crew, or simply make ice for convenience’s sake.”

Snap accepted the explanation at face value. Scattered conversations with Nebula, all dumbed down to his level, made it clear that magic was particularly well-suited to manipulating temperature. Magic at its simplest was just energy. In the captain’s case, he perhaps wished to prove the power of his creation. He would not be content with a magic ice maker.

“So where is our guide? I don’t see anyone.”

Captain Gideon sipped his drink. “You are looking too far out. He’s already here.”

Snap thought that peculiar since they were alone on the water. He approached the rail and looked around.

Then he stumbled backwards and nearly dropped his drink as water burst from the sea in front of him. Saltwater stung his eyes and he blinked furiously. Someone was laughing at him.

He shook his head and looked around for the one mocking him. It was...out in the water. It was so close it sounded like it was right beside the ship. Cautiously, he leaned over the railing.

A white-gray fish swam playfully around the ship’s bow. It chirped and chittered through its long mouth and regarded the ship and its crew as it circled. An intelligence gleamed in its eyes that made it clear it wasn’t an ordinary fish.

“Perilous Jack. He’s the best guide in these waters. After all, who knows the sea better than a dolphin?” the captain said as he approached the rail.

The captain pointed to the northeast. “Bring me that horizon, Jack!”

Perilous Jack rose halfway out of the water. His snout split into a loud chirp. Then he heeled over and shot out into the commanded direction.

Captain Gideon did not need to leave the bow before the pilot put in steam and slowly accelerated after the fleeing sea creature. Surely they would lose sight of Jack long before they got to cruising speed.

Yet they didn’t. If anything, the dolphin was waiting for them. As soon as the ship approached, he darted further ahead into the rocky trap. Rocks crowded all around. Many were nothing more than a tidally washed rock pile. Some of the larger ones supported grasses and sea birds.

Perhaps one in a hundred would be large enough to support land animals. Perhaps an enterprising group of pirates could build a hideout in these, but Snap couldn’t imagine why.

The weather stayed fine, but the place suddenly had an eerie chill to it. Fear settled in his chest as he saw the rocks crowding ever closer. Now, he could see bits of timber and rigging washed on the basaltic shores. How much would it take to add iron plates to the display?

Snap had a hard time grasping the logic of the situation. “Are you sure we can trust him?”

With a sweep of his glass, the captain pointed at a bleached wreck. “They didn’t.”

It was a small craft. It hung from the rocks like a wall ornament. Shattered boards swayed in time to the wind or the pounding surf while its scrap of sail whipped fitfully. Snap tried to not think about the fate of its crew.

He started looking for any other route. He thought he saw a clear path that would keep them out of the worst of the labyrinth, but when the Yellow Rose hit a crest and the area in question sank into a trough, a wide, black rock barely pierced the surface.

Looking down into the dark blue water, he couldn’t see anything and probably wouldn’t until it was too late. Although it grated to do it, he had to trust Perilous Jack.

For thirty nerve-racking minutes, the dolphin slipped between the rock cairns almost at random. Without missing a beat, the Rose’s pilot kept the dolphin’s course. Water geysered from the small waves. Occasionally a gray back or fin would break water, and then nothing for several horrifying minutes.

Those minutes were the worst part. Cold Snap clung to the rail in a death grip. An icy grip seized him, and all he could think of was the invisible death coming next.

“Sh-should we be here? Not go around?” he asked in a state beyond fear.

Captain Gideon only diverted a fraction of his attention to the paralyzed pony beside him. He still sipped his iced tea. “We could, but that requires a diversion that would add nearly a week to our schedule. We have the coal for that, barely. What we lack is time.”

A spout of water flashed ahead and starboard between two pillars. Finally, Snap wrenched his attention away from the world to the captain. “Time?”

Sip. “We are not alone in this chase. Our headstart has given us an incalculable edge, but it may not be enough. If we are to be assured of victory, we must take every opportunity, even if it means following a dolphin.”

“I don’t understand. We intercepted the box. We found the answers first. This is the fastest ship out there. Nothing could catch us.”

A condescending look filled the captain’s eyes. “You are arrogant in this ship’s abilities and our own. There is always a way, and the unexpected one is the most critical.”

The ship lurched sideways, caught in one of the strait’s vicious currents. That icy fear clamped down even harder. It was just an instant. By the time Snap came to his senses about the change, the pilot had corrected the course and passed the treacherous current. Snap took a few shaky breaths.

“Who is she?”

It was strange how easily the question came out this time, in the heart of the most dangerous passage possibly in the whole world.

Tea was forgotten. By the looks of it, it was thin and watery anyway. Captain Gideon sighed. “Has anyone told you you have a talent for knowing things you should not?”

The captain watched Perilous Jack leap for the joy of it. “She is the counterpart to me, just as capable and knowledgeable. Only she believes that Marechiavellian principle: ends justify the means. I believe the ends are the means.

“Whatever she has done during our separation, I know not. What I can assure you is that with her resources and intellect, she could accomplish anything I could. Perhaps some of them are things I would not anticipate. She is a unicorn after all. Perhaps she has found some alternative method to synergize magic and technology in ways a griffon like me could not. In fact, I should expect it.”

Captain Gideon looked over at Cold Snap. “She is dangerous and unprincipled, loyal to her own whims. She offers nothing that does not ultimately benefit her. I know nothing of her early life, but you might.”

Snap shook his head. “I couldn’t know anything about that.”

“I think so. You are our resident prophet, are you not?”

Embarrassment flushed Snap’s cheeks.

“Couldn’t she change? Harmony is”-

An uncharacteristic grim laugh cut him off. “She knows nothing of Harmony.”

The captain fixed him with a cold, hard glare. “Not all may be redeemed, even if it is in the Divine’s most heartfelt desires. All are free spirits and free to choose rebellion. That was the ultimate lesson of Man.”

He sighed. “I never told you Lilith’s idea, the one she gave me before I left?”

Snap stood mute. The captain continued. “Your visions never told you perhaps?”

Embarrassment morphed into annoyance. “I tell you; I swear to you. I don’t know those things.”

“Very well.”

The rocks were thinning. Those remaining were much smaller and scattered far and wide. A gap lay between two that the ship could easily pass through. Open waters lay beyond.

Water spouted as Perilous Jack surfaced, dove, and leapt near the Rose’s bow. The captain leaned over and smiled. “Excellent, Jack. If only more were as reliable as you. Mr. Snap, why don’t you give him his payment?” he commanded as he gestured to a bucket.

Looking inside the bucket, Snap found a large mackerel fish in a bucket of icy water. Gently, he worked his hooves around the slippery body. No matter what the captain said, this is one time magic would be better than hooves or...his mouth.

Finally, he got the fish out and held over the side. He debated how to get the fish to their dolphin guide. Perilous Jack made the decision for him. He leapt out of the water and snatched the fish out of his loose grip. He dove, surfaced once more, and disappeared.

“Off to help some other scoundrel, no doubt,” the captain said.

The ship rumbled as the boilers loaded up, and the ship clipped through the open waters. Captain Gideon set his glass aside for the cabin colt to collect. Snap turned to leave, collecting the dishes himself.

“She postulated that Man never left.”

Snap halted, his load clinking with the sudden movement.

“Man existed here, no doubt, but they could not compete with the tribes rising all around them, constantly developing their culture and more importantly, their magical prowess.”

“They went extinct?”

“No. Not in the traditional sense. Magic is a powerful force when properly harnessed, and Man could not cope. Just as heat only propagates from a hot object to a cold one, magic progressed from magical tribes like you and I into magicless Man. She believed that Man morphed from as he had been, becoming merely one of the dozens of tribes we see now.”

Cold Snap wasn’t sure what to make of the seemingly outlandish theory, but he wasn’t ready for what the captain said next.

“With your affiliation with that magical gem, who knows? Perhaps she was right. You might have some Man in your veins after all.”

Author's Note

"You are dripping on the carpet!" the Publisher squawked.

"Sorry."

The Publisher's eyes widened as fast as the red stain spread across his nice fandom rug. His eyes drifted up to the Author, favoring his left hoof. A disturbing trickle of blood running from a cut. "But you need a doctor!"

The Author balked. "A doctor, in this economy?!"

"You-you're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding."

But the Author said nothing. He was too busy pulling bundles and bottles out of an olive canvas bag. He set aside his roll of black electrical tape, antibiotic paste, paper towel, superglue, and a popsicle.

"What?" the Publisher breathed.

He could just see the ensuing infection just as surely as if he had been transportalpondered to the dark ages in the height of the plague. And he was somehow party to all this! This could not stand!

The Author folded his paper towel and packed the wound closed before taping it over. Then he sat back and calmly ate his popsicle.

"What about all the other things?"

"Not dun yert," the Author mumbled around his green popsicle.

He spat out the stick and pulled the now red bandage off. After somehow taping the stick to his hoof, he smeared the superglue along the cut and blew on it to dry.

"Sho-shouldn't you go to the hospital?"

That made the Author look at him like he had grown a second head. "Are you crazy? You know where you are most likely to find an antibiotic-resistant bug? A hospital. One of the biggest killers out there? Medical malpractice. I ain't getting offed over a paper cut!"

"That is not a paper cut!"

"Yes it is."

"You stumbled in here, bleeding on my carpet!"

"Yeah, getting over the symptoms of shock and adrenaline can be a bit tricky. But there are ways to do it."

"How did you even get that cut?!" the Publisher started shrieking.

This was far outside his normal routine. Panic seemed to be the best option.

The Author stopped his self-medication and somehow looked a bit sheepish despite the bloodless pallor in his face. "I, er, forgot one of my booby traps."

The Publisher blinked in shock. "At your place? Then why in Marvel's name did you come here?"

"First of all, no one watches Marvel anymore, not unless it's the retro ones from 2010 or something like that."

The Publisher's heart seized for a moment, and he was afraid he was finally getting that heart attack.

"Secondly, the booby trap was here. Poor Igor," the Author lamented.

At least the idiot was gone...for now. The Publisher had wondered why the employment contract on the sutured secretary included a warranty. Now he got to see if they would honor it.

Suddenly, a rage began to suffuse the Publisher's incoherent panic. His teeth grit in ways he never thought possible. "You. Bled. On. My. Ruuugggggg!"

The Author tore off strips of electrical tape and bound the bathroom paper towels around his glued and splinted hoof. "Just a flesh wound."

The Publisher wasn't having it. He reached for his office phone. He punched in the number for what he thought was the hospital. It might have been animal control.

All he got was a staticky tone.

The Author looked and shook his head. "Should know better than going against someone who can cut a cordless phone."

____________________________________________________________

IRL update: Yes. I cut my finger. Please autoforgive all typos. I was trimming a sticking door and my knife slipped. An unfortunate combination of bad luck and poor decisions.

So, please make sure you have some basic first aid stuff close by and have the wherewithal to use it. Especially in a high stress situation. A good kit doesn't do you much good if you can't remember which direction is up from the stress.

But yes. Superglue is superuseful as an emergency stitch. It should be all fixed up by next weekend. Which is good, because my old college friends and crazies are going hunting that weekend. I can pretty much guarantee the next author's notes will be based on the crazy crap we do then.

Also, Perilous Jack is a very obvious reference to Pelorus Jack, a Risso dolphin who guided ships in the New Zealand Cook Strait in the early 1910s. Crews would wait on him to guide them through the dangerous section of the strait. He was also among the first animals protected by modern animal protection laws.