Seeing the land was a peculiar sight after such a long time at sea. Months ago, Cold Snap had a hard time imagining the vastness of the ocean. Now he was looking on what appeared to be a very small swatch of green.

Appearances were deceiving. Behind that rapidly rising expanse of greenery and stone stretched a massive continent. It dwarfed his homelands and even encompassed greater areas than his ancestral home of the Equestrian princess. From the map hanging in the captain’s cabin, it was a land dominated by towering ranges, impenetrable jungles, and vast expanses of arid steppes.

From the words of the crew, it was sparsely inhabited, filled with dangerous beasts, and known for treacherous landscape. They whispered of strange magics cast by the zebra shamans and even the land itself.

The coast itself was well-known. The interior was poorly understood, its maps not always accurate, a land with a dark heart. Some of the crew claimed that even the natives did not know all there was to know of their own lands.

The Yellow Rose steamed her way on a frothy ribbon. The surf pounded the shoreline, tearing away sand and breaking apart stone with irresistible force. It was a beautiful, if forbidding picture on this winding highway alongside the dark continent.

However, the going was slow. Forward travel was stymied not so much by shifting currents. The coast was dotted with multiple islands as part of a long chain of barrier islands. There was no competing current here. Rather the depths were all unknown, and the crew had to take repeated soundings to find the depth or watch for hazards jammed just under the water’s surface.

In light of the difficulties with the ever-shifting channel, the pilot kept her close to the steeper bank of the waterway. True to his duty, Captain Gideon stayed close to the site of the soundings, standing atop the Number One turret to spy the hazards unique to intercoastal travel. He called his orders to the boatswain who relayed the command to the wheelhouse via the ship’s intercom system.

Cold Snap hung close to the ship’s bow and watched the murky water slap the hull. Such a strange sight! An old logjam bobbed up and down in the rolling waves from its anchorage in the muddy bank of an island. No doubt a fresh storm would wash it to sea only to replace it with another.

“Mark seven!” the sailor operating the sounding line droned, dragging out each syllable.

Seven fathoms. The Rose had a draft of nearly three. They were safe enough in these waters, but that was only in the relatively narrow channel. Outside of it, the water quickly grew shallow, and the ship would stand a terrible risk of running aground on the submerged shoals.

The zebras did not map this area. They had no economic or navigation reason to do so in this remote territory. Even if they had, each new flood would make the map nearly useless as the underwater landscape shifted each time. No. They had to make their way forward through trial, and hopefully no error.

“Deep six!”

Six fathoms. Still safe, but Snap couldn't help but feel a little prickle of fear. They had a long way of uncharted waters to traverse. A mile might as well be a hundred. One missed rock could do them in.

Oh no. He shouldn’t have thought of that. Now there was sure to be rocks in their path.

“Hey, relax.”

He looked over at Midshipmare Blue. “I don’t think I could do that now.”

She rolled her eyes and adjusted her jacket for the heat. “Skipper has been in worse, and Gill knows how to sound water like no one’s business. We will be fine.”

“MARK FOUR!”

Midshipmare Blue hesitated at those words, and Snap felt all his nightmares about to come true! He could only imagine the rocky bottom beneath them waiting to rip them apart and scuttle them on this foreign shore. If he just looked over the side, he could see the silty churn behind their screws.

Captain Gideon held firm. The pegasus sailor Gill tipped back his white cap as he leaned down to read a device. “Mark seven!”

The ship shifted slightly. A minute later, eight fathoms. Two minutes later, nine. “We’re back in the channel,” a much-relaxed Midshipmare Blue said.

She was right. The shore and barrier islands had changed though. They held much more definition than previously. The sand was scoured from them. Only worn rocks remained. These were rounded and smooth like river pebbles.

Pebbles were small though. Even though these looked as if they were no bigger than pebbles, that was only a trick of their distance. The smallest were as big as the Yellow Rose’s gun shells. Those were trapped against their larger brethren. Were the Yellow Rose beside one of those giants, it would be a fourth the size of the ship. Yet here they lay, strewn about as if they were creek stones he could find at home.

The amount of water required to heave such a stone…

Cold Snap blinked. That amount would have to be enormous.

As the ship steamed on, Cold Snap saw the water grow darker. He didn’t need to listen to the soundings to know they were getting deeper. Fifteen fathoms. Fifty. Seventy-five. Fifty-seven.

The barrier islands broke up. No longer were they sandbars thrown up by endless surf. Now they were rocky crags, their landward sides polished to smooth curves and their seaward sides chipped away like a bad tooth.

The ship made a slow turn landward. Snap could see the deep blue water extend deep into the coastline. It was also quite clear. He could see sunbeams lance the water before disappearing into the depths or alighting on the great boulders laid deep beneath them.

Why was it like this? He did not know. This new development in their path stood out from the landscape like a bruised hoof. The jungle around them rolled up and down its hills before slowly rising into the clouds to the northwest. This riverbed, if it could even be called that, was something wholly unsuited to this area.

It was as if a giant had come down, saw the jungle as his lawn, and gouged a great trench to irrigate it. Birthplace of the sea indeed.

“Why do they call it the sea’s birthplace?” he asked Midshipmare Blue.

She probably shrugged, though he did not take his eyes off the gigantic cliffs and breaks lining the watery crevasse. “Your guess is as good as mine. This is a significant river. Biggest I’ve ever seen. There’s a lot of rain that gets trapped between these mountains.

But Cold Snap wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “It doesn’t look right for that. This water should be siltier. There’s no delta, and the cliffs are very sharp. There may be a lot of rain, but I doubt that much.”

“If you have a theory, I’d be happy to entertain it,” the officer said noncommittally.

Spurred by this half-hearted encouragement, the young colt took in every detail of the ravine they now steamed up. The sides were quite steep, vertical in many places, though the bases were sluffed in from years of deposition. Layer upon layer of stone laid atop each other in a massive column, each so distinct from the other that a knife’s edge separated them.

Their passageway was quite long, but surprisingly straight. Ravine indeed was more accurate than riverbed. The walls undulated only slightly and the gorge gradually grew ever narrower.

The canyon walls ahead suddenly grew shallower. Snap frowned. Something was wrong about them. A massive ramp of detritus spilled over from the eastern wall where eons of erosion had weakened a fault in the stone.

Though seemingly as small as pebbles from here, the distance did not fool him. This was a massive rockslide. Eddies and swells formed in this region, testifying to even more of those boulders lurking right beneath the surface. Water tumbled from stone to stone as the jungle highway forced its way through the choke.

Captain Gideon’s command barked out from the awed silence reigning on the ship. Immediately, the ship’s engines slowed until they were barely overcoming the current. With a wave of his claw, he and the sailor Gill flew ahead and scouted the rapids.

When they came back, they were grave. The captain summoned the officers to a conference near the turret.

“It’s unlikely to allow us passage. There are spots here and there that have enough depth for us to pass, but they are far too narrow for my own liking. We can’t go around it because the river makes a bend not far beyond it and has created a small sandbar near where we would attempt,” Gill explained the situation.

The captain, the mate, and the pilot conferred over the details. Midshipmare Blue had gone to oversee the wheelhouse, leaving Cold Snap as a spectator to the discussion.

“You are sure of the depths and spans?” Captain Gideon asked.

The pegasus nodded certainly. “Two spots exist that would almost take us. One is a junction of two large stones. Plenty deep but we’d wedge for sure. The other is closer to the shore, but it’s got the exact opposite problem.”

Captain Gideon paused in thought. His claw scratched his chin slowly as he assimilated all these facts. “Our boats would pass with ease. We are so close. We could make it by end of day or even dawn, but only a small party could go in each. They would not have any of the equipment they might need that the Rose could provide. Worse, we would be cut off from communication, and I can’t accept that.”

He looked at Gill. “This dam. How wide would you say it is? Is it like a ridge or an irregular layout?”

“Err…” the reddish pegasus bobbed his head in thought. “Not too far across. Well, I mean, the slide itself is quite large, but the obstacles are near the peak of the slide. Everywhere else it falls off rapidly, perhaps a three-to-one ratio? Certainly deeper than our own draft.”

“And on the one that has the two large stones, could we wrap a cable and use the winch to extract it?”

“Based upon the size, absolutely not. The small ones in the other path could be shifted, assuming of course that they don’t extend further than we are assuming. More likely we will pull ourselves to them,” the zebra mate said.

Captain grew silent. His sharp eyes looked away from the powwow and to the turbulent waters. They hardened, as if daring the blockage to flee and allow them passage. He nodded softly. “We have the Ammonpulver?”

The mate blinked in surprise. He recovered quickly, but there was a faint questioning note to his voice. “Plenty, my captain. But you mean”-

“I mean to blast them,” Captain Gideon interrupted.

With that declaration, he turned to the pilot. “We shall lower the boats and anchor them upstream of the cataract. The bosun will load the pump and the diving suits. I will tell the gunnery captain to prepare sealed Ammonpulver charges. Once we are off, allow yourself to drift with the current and weigh anchor no less than eight-hundred yards downstream.”

“Aye, sir.”

A hubbub ensued that Snap could not make heads or tails of. The two ship’s dinghies were loaded with equipment, eager volunteers, and tarred sack upon tarred sack of...something. Cold Snap moved to join the action, but he felt a yank on his tail.

Nebula gave a sharp tug and hauled him away from the work. “Nope.”

“But”-

“Nope.”

“I think.”

“Nope.”

He huffed. Nebula sat and crossed his forelegs defiantly. “You might squeeze on there, but there won’t be space for a mouse afterwards, let alone me. You are staying right here.”

“Maybe we can compromise?” Cold Snap asked.

Cold Snap wanted to go. Nebula wanted him to park his rump on the deck. So they compromised and Cold Snap parked his rump on the deck.

They watched the two boats creep their way upstream. Snap had no idea what they were doing, but he would like so much to be there and watch the magic. He had to content himself with watching from afar.

Something bumped him. It was the captain’s binoculars dangling from Midshipmare Blue’s grip. “Figured you’d like to watch.”

Cold Snap leapt for the opportunity, snatching the optics and bringing them to bear. The two boats had passed the rapids, and the crew had already anchored themselves in place. Meanwhile, some of the crew donned heavy looking suits and face masks.

One by one they leapt in, hoses trailing after them. Minutes of nothing passed. Then the divers resurfaced. They leaned close to the boats and gesticulated to the crew on board. They must have understood. The rowers began manipulating the tarred bags, tarring them even further before throwing them over to the waiting divers.

More minutes passed as the peculiar exchange continued. The divers seemed to come from everywhere along the rapids, surfacing at random only to receive another black lump and going under. Finally, there were no more to give.

Then came the longest wait of all. Snap’s eyes ached from the strain, but he refused to look away. It was just too fascinating.

The divers surfaced and were hauled aboard. The boats released their lines and drifted downstream. They carefully watched the rapids and occasionally back-paddled to give one of the crew time to do something.

Eventually, they reached the Yellow Rose and climbed aboard. Captain Gideon was handling a small wire reel with extreme care to avoid snagging. When the last of the boats was clear of crew and equipment, he gave one final look back at the rapids barring their progress.

“Nebula,” he said.

The unicorn pointed to himself in surprise. “Me, sir?”

Captain Gideon wordlessly gestured him over. He waved the wire roll at him. “Have you been studying that book?”

For a brief instance, Cold Snap thought of one book that he had no business studying and desperately did not want the captain to know about. His breathing hitched that their punishment was upon them.

“I have been,” said Nebula.

That’s when Snap remembered the magic primer the captain gifted his friend.

“Then you know the first spells? Ember and Spark?”

“Yes, Captain. I practice them on the deck away from everyone...and everything.”

The griffon laid the wire down and pulled two gleaming copper ends out. “Then you know that Spark spell inherently is two separate spell components being cast simultaneously. These differing potentials is how it creates a potentially dangerous shock. Consider this your first test. Send a spark through these wires.”

“What will that do?” Cold Snap asked in confusion.

“Watch.”

He gestured to Nebula. The unicorn focused on the two wires. A soft glow settled on his horn. It brightened, and then two matching auras settled on the bare copper. He frowned in concentration. The glow brightened.

In a sort of morbid fascination, Snap had been staring at the rapids, watching the water eddy and ripple around the stones. Even from this distance, it was a massive sight.

It vanished. The water, tons upon tons of it vanished in a white spray that filled the gorge. It was as if that angry god had emptied the whole river.

Fa-WHUMP!

The air itself hit him like a hammer, jolting him back before he regained his footing. He looked up again. Stones tumbled through the air and splashed in the murky water, raising massive white columns. Smaller ones flew like cannonballs. Some came within two-hundred yards of the ship. The spray they raised filled the gorge with a hazy mist.

The explosion reverberated off the canyon walls until it seemed louder than anything that could be made in this world. Massive waves rolled down the river and bobbed the Yellow Rose in their swells.

Stones, only tentatively holding to the canyon walls, crashed all around. One collection struck the water almost beside the ship, sending a wave that drenched the whole deck and jostling the suddenly small-feeling ship even further.

Slowly, the echoes died. The swells settled, and the rocks dislodged by the blast petered to a stop. The only thing testifying to the violent changes here was a white fog hovering over the riverbed. Even this evidence was quickly dispelled as the sun and breeze tore it apart.

The rapids were gone. The pegasus Gill flew out to sound their work, but with a force like what he just saw, there could be nothing left. He returned, and with only a few words, the ship steamed forwards.

Cold Snap stood at the railing in awe of what he had just witnessed. If he had not seen it, it would have seemed impossible. But certainly enough, as they passed the rockslide, the ship didn’t so much as scratch itself.

“What was that?” he asked in stupefied wonder.

Captain Gideon settled beside him. “Nearly one-thousand pounds of Ammonpulver. It is by far one of the best solutions for dislodging earth and stone. Each waterproofed bundle had two caps in it for redundancy. Each was linked to the singular wire that Nebula electrified. Thus, it created a simultaneous detonation that hammered the stones into pieces and heaved them aside.”

Snap’s mind was still whirling from the events that happened. “Did you expect to be doing this to bring it?” he asked humorously.

The captain chuckled. “Hardly. I desired to compare it to my existing Pyroxil for cannon propellant. It is certainly safer to produce.”

The conversation died as the ship turned a bend and the crew found themselves in a large inland lake. Captain Gideon perked and began scanning the lake with his binoculars. He lowered them slowly. “This is it,” he whispered.

“It?”

“Grimlock’s map led here. Our destination is close.”

The lake seemed to open up before them. It grew in every direction until it hit a green horizon that climbed into the skies. The bowl they found themselves in was a far thing that only rose to a distant gray rim.

The river canyon behind them was perhaps the most notable feature of the lake they found themselves on. It split the rim as if it were a great wound. Where the mountains ascended, they lay in a ripple of greens and grays. What seemed surprising was the absence of a major river. Given the size of the river they had just traveled, there had to be a matching river or sum of rivers that made it.

Yet all Cold Snap could make out was the occasional divot that indicated a streambed. With all the mountains, there were bound to be those, yet it was still missing the massive contributor to the water before them. He frowned. It was a mystery, but he couldn’t be sure what the answer was.

“This land flooded before,” Captain Gideon said.

The griffon extended a claw to the rapidly rising shoreline near them. As Snap’s eyes traveled further up the bank, he saw up near the top a much more worn area, with the stones beaten and polished by hydraulic action.

He saw the dry gullies that populate shorelines and get formed by the incessant workings of water and time. He noted the shelf that had once been the shallows of…

“This was a lake?” he asked.

“Indeed,” the captain nodded.

He gestured to the entirety of the lake. “Once it was a grand lake, held in by this ripple of land until one day its drainage was cut off. From there, it filled until it overflowed. Perhaps some earthquake opened the first crack. Where some water goes, more follows. Its action must have been the work of mere hours. It is an incredible testament to the power of disaster! Now it is only a fraction of its old glory.”

He turned to face Cold Snap. “A birthplace of the sea indeed.”

Snap smiled, feeling the infectious energy the captain held. Then he froze as a new sound reached his ears.

Fwoo...fwoo...fwoo…

It came softly, but regularly. Seconds passed between each pulse. He looked around, but saw nothing.

The sound grew louder. By now, more of the crew had stopped their duties to look for the odd noise. It sounded everywhere. It sounded right on top of them!

No matter where he looked, it never appeared. At first he thought it was some wild creature unique to these parts, but the sound came too regularly. A machine, yet the only machine around here was the Yellow Rose.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I know not,” Captain Gideon said softly.

The noise rose to even higher volumes. Snap felt his focus riveted to the rim of the ancient lake. Something came over it. It didn’t crawl or roll. It flew.

It sailed through the air without a singular effort. Its speed was incomparable. It made the Yellow Rose look like an anchored rock.Never had Snap seen anything like it.

The flying machine was a dangling assortment of ropes and fabric. A great balloon netted in thick hemp cables defied the force of gravity. Wood lined its underside as if it were the hull of a ship somehow stitched to the bag. Two massive propellers hung aside from the hull and cut through the air with regular pulses while a wavering rudder kept her course straight.

Cold Snap felt his jaw drop at the sight of the long, cigar-like contraption. He suddenly remembered the binoculars around his neck. He focused them on the gondola and saw the small figures moving about it. One remained still, and even from this distance, he could tell it was studying them just as much as he studied them.

The rest of the flying airship was kept smooth and free from unnecessary protrusions that would hinder its airflow. The one exception to it was a long tube in the middle part of the cabin, a gun of truly massive proportions.

By now, it passed over them and cast its shadow across the ship as it cut for the far shore. Everyone halted in awe. In a second, it had passed. In a few more, it was fading into the distance.

Cold Snap lowered his binoculars. “What does it mean?” he asked as the machine passed on.

Captain Gideon’s jaw clenched in contained rage. “It means we are too late.”

Author's Note

"People of the Commonwealth, do not interfere. Our intentions are peaceful. We are the Brotherhood of"-

"Will you please stop already?" the Publisher asked, nay begged.

For his part, the Author simply looked confused. The Publisher would relish the chance whenever he had the opportunity.

They came so rarely.

"Stop what exactly?"

"Do I have to spell it out?"

The Author drifted through the office. Drifted was an entirely accurate word given the balloons tethered to his body. He floated around a few feet above to floor here, bouncing off a wall there, scraping across the ceiling, and otherwise spinning uncontrollably.

He seemed absolutely oblivious to all of these facts and tapped his face in intense concentration. "It...wouldn't happen to be the way I intentionally misled the readers about Lilith's capability and allowed them to think she was following them in a submarine or some sort of E-Boat? I can see how that might get a few of them riled up."

"Actually I think"-

The Publisher had no chance. The Author bounced off the bookcase and kept yapping. "But I really had no choice. The Yellow Rose had such a head start. A submersible is so slow even when running surfaced, and even an E-Boat or PT Boat is not fast enough and is too limited on crew."

"Why."

The Author continued as if he owned the office. At this point, the Publisher was not about to discount the notion. He didn't sign the rent checks, and it was totally within the realm of possibility that the Author had wrangled the title of this Abnormally-Large Literary Skyscraper by duplicitous means, absurd levels of gambling, or by eccentric trickery. So, he could very well be his boss and not the other way around.

The Publisher zoned out and thought about that horror unfortunately well within his comprehension. Working for the Author? He shuddered.

When he returned his focus to the Author, the floating pony was still at it. "In fact, an airship was the ONLY option. It could go fast enough to beat the Rose. It could perfectly embody Lilith's synergy of magitech. Last of all, it held the crew and capabilities necessary for a titanic struggle of virtue and vice at the dawn of all things."

The Author jerked upright, which made his balloon woggle and come perilously close to the Curiously Pokey Modern Art, but a last second gust from the Convenient Air Vent spared him a crash. He looked at the Publisher.

"But perhaps I've said too much."

"..." The Publisher looked at the Author.

The Author looked back.

The Publisher looked back even more.

The Author looked back with baffled looking as he tried to look for the hidden meaning within the Publisher's looking.

"You had no idea about an airship when you first started writing, didn't you?" the Publisher stated. There was no question to it.

Bump. Bump. Scrape. Spin. "Say. You know the fastest aircraft carrier ever in military use was the USS Macon? Yup. Airship. 87 miles per hour."

"You've been writing this by the seat of your pants. Haven't you?"

"What an absurd claim," the Author said as he cleared the Fragile Tower of Fan Memorabilia.

"Answer me. Where is your outline?"

The Author finally slumped. "I hoped it wouldn't come to this."

He reached into his saddlebags. "Pocket needles!"

POPPOPPOPPOPPOP

The last thing the Publisher saw was a few shredded balloons. The last thing he heard was a high-pitched giggling.

______________________________________________________________________________________________
~~Couple~~ A lot of notes:
1. No. I don't apologize for the airship plot twist.

1. Ammonpulver is an Austrian development for smokeless powder in the 1880s and used into World War 1 and again by Germany in late World War 2. This was used widely for grenades and artillery. In essence, it is a blend of mostly ammonium nitrate (~87%) and dark charcoal (~13%) according to what we know of Austrian records. Much of what was known about this propellant was lost after 1945 and is being rediscovered by trial and error.

Unlike comparable nitrocellulose powders, which could be considered "low smoke", ammonpulver generated only nitrogen gas, carbon dioxide, and steam. The only puff was a brief steam flash and some dust from charcoal.

Modern shooters/experimenters have found that it is well suited to use in rifles and handguns and that an addition of rust flakes or salt acts as a catalyst to lower ignition requirements.

As Captain Gideon said, it is exceptionally safe, being highly impact resistant. It is also not prone to fire. If burned in open air, it smolders poorly. As such, it avoids the biggest problems of black powder and nitrocellulose powder (Pyroxil). Ammonium nitrate may be made by anyone with basic chemistry knowledge. It is a corrosive ammunition, but its ease of construction and safety make it an excellent choice for an apocalyptic gunpowder.

You worldbuilders have been informed.

Ammonium nitrate is still used in earthmoving for its blast characteristics. 1000 pounds of this stuff should have been ridiculously overkill, but I didn't feel like math.

1. You lot get this chapter Friday rather than Sunday because I will be a German paratrooper at the Commemorative Air Force's Aviation weekend in Dallas. Every pilot I know still calls them "Confederate Air Force" Who knows? I might see some of you there.

2. Whee... Japanese whiskey is tasty...and makes an interesting Author's note section. It's 1:00. Good night.