That voice echoed through the stone hall. It cut through every throbbing pulse of his bloodied nose. More than that, it hacked and slashed at Cold Snap’s confidence until he had no other choice but to lay motionless on the chiseled stone floor.

His eyes ran across the magically sealed doorway. With so many seconds passed after his unexpected stop, the barrier had settled to near-placid. Its surface held only the faintest shimmer of purples and silver. His dark-adjusted eyes could see the faintly glowing gems set into the stone frame. Above that, faint lines lay above the keystone.

In the dark, they looked like writing, though none that he was ever familiar with. He wasn’t familiar with anything about this. His dreams had lied to him, or had not told him the whole truth. What was the difference? Cold Snap lay still and listened to the clop of hooves echo in the dark.

“I really thought you were not going to show up at all. You really know how to keep a woman waiting, Gideon.”

Lilith. Snap had only heard that voice once when they eavesdropped on her and the captain. Somehow, that one moment had ingrained itself into his mind and he could not mistake it for another.

Claws tapped and the captain entered the hallway. Snap turned to look. The captain’s colors, already shades of gray, were even more muted in the not-light of the night-vision charm. He stopped. His demeanor suggested calm, but Snap had known the griffon long enough to see that not all was as it seemed.

He was tense. Uncertainty, an emotion never seen before on the captain, flickered across his face. He walked to his own crisis and knew not how it would play out.

Cold Snap rolled to his hooves. His nose no longer dripped but throbbed horribly. Now that he was standing, he could see Lilith.

Or where Lilith was. For instead of seeing the unicorn, all he could make out in the not-light of the charm was a bright wash of light. That light only grew until it reflected across all the pillars and walls of this subterranean gallery. Finally, he could not stand it anymore, and he yanked off the charm.

Instantly, the brightness faded to more tolerable levels. While not as bright as daytime, it was more than adequate to see by. Lilith stood at the center of it all, her horn glowing like a torch. The light multiplied, then split. Then again. Soon four mage lights danced around the room, and Lilith’s horn was dark.

She wasn’t as he expected. When she spoke once to Captain Gideon, he and Nebula had only seen a representation of her in monochromatic dust. Now she stood before them in the flesh.

Her height remained unchanged, but now he could see the faint amber in her coat, the darkness of her mane traced with silver. Her mane, kept long and well-groomed, caught the light in its soft waves and made it shimmer like a precious metal. Her long horn gleamed even without magic like a polished spear.

She looked the captain over and smiled. “Gideon, I see the years have treated you well. Far better than the young griffon cub I took under my wing. I knew we would meet again before the end.”

Captain Gideon said nothing at first. He approached the mare, but still kept a cautious distance. “And you will find that I am not so naïve as I once was.”

“My dear Gideon, when it comes to the wonders of Man, you can’t assume you know everything. That is naïveté. I have studied it for years and I am yet to truly understand everything there is to know. When you think you know something, then something else happens to open a whole new world.”

“Captain Gideon,” he clarified.

Lilith looked unimpressed by his title and began studying the room, slowly working her way to the blocked portal.

“And you will find that picking and choosing your desired evidence is a step beyond gullibility and firmly entrenched in self-delusion.”

Lilith stopped, her pleasant smile faltering. “Is that how you describe your work?”

She did not wait for a response as she approached the portal, all her focus on the magical barrier. She studied it for a long moment, then realized that she was not alone. “And you would be the one tied to the garden.”

It was not a question. She looked Cold Snap over as he unconsciously backed towards the doorway. Captain Gideon and his marines filed into the now-illuminated hallway as Lilith’s escort of armored unicorns did likewise.

Snap felt cornered. Lilith focused on him with the intensity of a cat on a mouse. There was nowhere for him to run even had the thought occurred to him.

Her eyes ran over his. An excited gleam grew wilder with each passing second until she was practically panting with eagerness. “Oh, you certainly are. You have the magical spark for it.”

“Uhh…spark?” he managed to work past his dry tongue.

“Yes. Your magic isn’t just ordinary earth magic. No. There is another element there that is incredibly rare. You’ve touched that primal fire of Man’s origin,” she knelt slightly to look him in the eye. “You are spirit-touched.”

“And that’s…bad?” Snap ventured.

Lilith blinked, caught off-guard for the first time this encounter, perhaps the first time in years. Then she recovered and lifted her head in a pleasant laugh that Snap couldn’t help but cringe from.

“Bad? Hardly. There are those out there willing to kill for that secret. It has been declared impossible in some circles, a philosopher’s stone if you will. It is an ability that goes far beyond the physical limitations of this world. It isn’t governed by the empirical, but sees potential of things yet to be. And here you are with it given to you!”

“You are a very lucky colt,” she said as she returned her focus to the doorway.

By now, Captain Gideon has taken his place beside them. His eyes narrow as he considered everything that would remove this obstacle. “We may choose to blast it. We have the explosives to remove it.”

Lilith turned aghast. “You can’t be considering such a barbarous method! I know I taught you better than that.”

“I have a poor memory.”

For the first time, Lilith scowled. “You truly do see only the worst in me. You only see your technological obsession. Isn’t what I aim for enough to show otherwise?”

Captain Gideon straightened his coat. “And what do you aim for? If I obsess with technology, what do you obsess over?”

The unicorn’s horn glowed again. This time, the gems behind the barrier lit with a pinprick light. The light grew in size and intensity. As it did so, the portal shimmered, its surface growing more rippled and unstable. The ripples grew into clashing circles of magical power. One by one, the gems flashed and darkened. The barrier was gone.

With the obstacle gone and a smile on her face, Lilith turned to the captain. “I obsess over seeing an end to war, destruction, and wickedness. Is that too much to desire?”

She passed through the door. Captain Gideon shook his head. “But at what price?” he muttered to himself before following.

“By the way, blasting would have destabilized the roof,” Lilith called over her shoulder.

Snap hesitated. True to her word, the lines he had seen in the dark were really fractures above the archway of the door, and the roof showed sagging in too many places. He didn’t linger.

With Lilith’s mage lights guiding the way, they made quick progress through the labyrinth. Bones appeared in ever greater numbers, and the air felt ever so slightly warmer.

Up ahead, Lilith made a turn down a hall. Snap frowned. This hall was most definitely familiar. He made the turn after her. Yes. This hall was as his dreams portrayed it.

That meant that the trees lay just beyond the next hall. He swallowed nervously and bumped the captain’s shoulder. “Almost there,” he whispered.

Captain Gideon nodded wordlessly.

Once they made the turn, Cold Snap found himself surprised. There was no great archway here to the two trees of Man’s origin. Instead, there was a great stone slab.

This slab was sawn from a great granite stone and then polished to a mirror-like sheen. Someone long ago had taken a sharp chisel to the face of the stone and carved large letters of an unrecognized language into it.

No. Not unrecognized. Snap remembered the writing on the inside of the box. It was the very same language that Captain Gideon claimed no knowledge of, but secretly translated later. Large amethysts sat around the writing, and a single ruby lay in a shallow basin set into the stone.

Lilith seemed happy to see this. No. She seemed ecstatic. She slowly approached it, never taking her eyes off the writing or even blinking. With a cautious touch, she laid her hoof on the carved letters. “At long last,” she breathed.

Her moment of silent adoration ended when she turned back to the captain and the marines and her escorts which currently existed in an uneasy truce. “This is it. This is what you and I have been searching for all this time. No more mechanical toys. No more dabbling in their magicless arts. This holds what it means to be truly human.”

She stroked the stone as if it were her beloved child in slumber. Cold Snap looked past that at the writing beneath her hoof.

“And bloom life forever more. Isn’t that what it said, Captain?”

Captain Gideon said nothing.

“Isn’t that what you want? An end to this war, an end to death, an end to suffering?”

Captain Gideon clenched his jaw, but nothing came out. Lilith turned her focus to the stone. “Some may consider this a dead language. I do not. I’ve studied this incessantly and read it as well as my own.”

She touched her hoof to the first letter. “‘Banished to a world not our own, but no matter our form, we await our Lord’s glorious day. Here, the life-tree waits for the end.’”

Lilith turned back, her eyes wide and glittering in delight. “Do you know what this means? I was right. Man came. He lived among us. He”-

“He died,” Captain Gideon interrupted, grinding a bone to chips beneath his paw. “And I will not let you taint his garden.”

Her good humor chilled slightly. It was not enough to stop her though. “Then I suppose it was a good thing that I did not need your approval for this. I may open this and redeem history!”

“How? Say ‘open sesame’?” Nebula snarked.

Lilith stared at Nebula. “Silly pony. Those magic words only open cans and minor treasure hoards. It would do nothing here. This is Man’s magic. Only a Man with his magic may open this.”

She meant blood magic. Cold Snap felt a vague uneasiness about the situation.

Nebula took an exaggerated look around. “Oh woooow. Looks like that might be a problem. We are fresh out of those.”

That only made Lilith’s smile grow wider. “Ah, Man put great stock into his royalty. Man’s royalty or a descendent of one may open it.”

“And this helps you how?” Nebula asked.

“You keep your backtalk to yourself,” Mr. Horn started, then stifled a cry as a hoof met his talons.

“It helps me, because I have studied my family’s lineage. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I am descended from their great king, Charred Mane!”

She pulled a knife from her side, nothing more than a small pen knife, but the edge gleamed terribly sharp. With a quick prick, blood welled from her hoof. She placed the bloody limb on the recessed ruby. “Man’s blood must be shed to open eternity’s door. A woman’s blood will do nicely.”

Blood magic, the only magic Man could learn. Cold Snap watched with bated breath. He knew what would come next. The gems would glow with this small sacrifice, just as that artifact had come to life with his. The door would open, and this garden’s lost keepers would return.

Nothing happened.

He waited. Lilith smeared fresh blood on the gem, and the stone around it for good measure. The door remained totally lifeless.

“It would appear that a woman’s blood is not adequate, and you are delusional,” Captain Gideon said.

Lilith remained agog at the door’s stubborn refusal to move. Captain Gideon turned and waved a claw. “We are done here. Prepare charges. See that this place is not disturbed until the end of time.”

That awoke a fire in Lilith. “NO! You can’t!” she shrieked.

“I can,” was all Captain Gideon said.

Lilith looked slapped by a wet fish. Her lips curled in shock and disgust. Her eyes narrowed in a cold humor. “Captain, how self-righteous must you be to have the answer in your grasp and still deny it to all? All of it: war, death, the endless suffering. You have the power to stop it. Use your explosives if you like. Help me! It would be a paradise regained!”

“A paradise is not one forced with chains and whips, even if they are silver and silk. Eden is not your toy.”

He turned, his word immutable, his authority unquestionable. Lilith shook herself from her disappointment. “So you will leave him to die?”

Her hoof pointed at Cold Snap.

The captain paused. “He will come with me where he has nothing to fear from you.”

“Me? Captain, you are the delusional one. One does not touch Man’s magic like he has and survive. All their magic exacts a price. The garden demands his very life.”

Somehow, Cold Snap had a feeling that was how this exchange would end. Perhaps the garden, this Eden, would be satisfied if he came back in another sixty or so years to pay this price?

As unflappable as ever, the captain considered Lilith’s demand, looking to Cold Snap as he did. Myriad thoughts crossed his face, and he calmly deciphered the situation as he would any problem aboard his ship. “You still need him. That is why?”

Surprise briefly colored Lilith’s face, but she nodded in assent. “Yes. Had the artifact remained in slumber, then he would have gone with you with my blessings. As it stands, he is effectively an extension of it. He must be here to see this through. I am sorry for that,” she said the last part to Cold Snap.

She actually sounded contrite for that misfortune.

Captain Gideon turned his head, a questioning tilt to his eyebrows. “His condition is a challenge in both of our causes. However, it may be irrelevant. Unless you have another human waiting in the wings, how do you plan to open the door?”

“I shall disintegrate this stone grain by grain if it comes to that,” Lilith said, the stone glowing briefly and leaving a slight frosted sheen on the surface.

The room was a powder keg. Cold Snap was caught between a rock and a hard place and the floor seemed like it was opening beneath it. He could, maybe would, die here. Here were two powers that held his life in the balance, and in the end, it may not even matter what he did. Captain Gideon certainly wanted to weigh anchor and steam from here with all haste.

The captain looked at the stone thoughtfully for nearly a minute. Lilith’s impatience was pushed to the limit. He tore his attention from the stone as if by force. This time, his expression was softer, as if he was deep in thought. “Lilith, what would you consider the more important of the two: life or knowledge?”

“What?” she asked, somewhat taken aback.

“You heard me. Given a choice of only one, which is the more important?”

She did not hesitate in her answer. “Knowledge. Remove the knowledge of evil, remove the curse, and you have a life worth living.”

The captain stood impassively in thought for a moment. “Man’s curse. Where she saw the fruit and that it was good, and was told ‘Ye shall be as God, having the knowledge of good and evil.’”

He chuckled. “All that knowledge brought was death. That is what you bring. He,” pointing to Cold Snap, “means to bring life, yet I don’t understand how.”

Lilith said nothing. Truth be told, she seemed to have no idea what to say at this extemporaneous lesson.

Cold Snap felt questions he’d entertained slowly aligning in ways that he hadn’t considered. Impossible details suddenly fit into place. His world was expanding in ways he never imagined before. He felt a question begging to be asked. “Captain, that mare in the photograph, the one with the scarred shoulder, who was she to you?”

The captain, and all eyes in that buried vault, turned to him. His eyes possessed a keen understanding. He knew what Cold Snap spoke of and all else it would reveal.

“Who cares? Will she cast aside this stone?” Mr. Horn mocked.

“Her name is Merry, and she is the finest, bravest soul one could learn from. Were I to end my days half as honorable and selfless as she, I would die proud.”

His heart pounded in his chest. Cold Snap knew the answer, yet he had to hear it. “And who was the other with her?” he asked guardedly.

Captain Gideon walked to the stone, unsheathed his saber, and pricked a talon on the sharp tip. He watched the blood well on the tawny limb. “My father.”

His blood dripped on the ruby.

Without any hesitation, the ruby and all the gems around it gleamed in a wan ruddy light as if it were the early dawn. Stone ground against stone, and the great slab slowly tilted backwards.

The dawn hues gave way to mid-day as heat poured into the cavern. Lilith’s mage lights couldn’t compete and seemed like pits of darkness compared to the fires within. Captain Gideon made for the door, but stopped as he passed something to Cold Snap.

Its familiar heft and brilliant blue light felt like a long-lost memory. Cold Snap could feel it. Every pull. Every dream. Every confused moment. They all led to this moment. It was a meeting put in motion as soon as he cut himself on this old artifact.

“How?” Lilith muttered in total shock.

She turned on the captain. “How could you open it? You lied to me. You are descended from them too.”

“I did and I am.”

“What king are you from?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Captain Gideon said.

Lilith balked. “Of course it matters! Man always spoke of royalty and their power. So only the descendent of their kings could do what you just did. So who is it?”

The griffon stared at her in confusion and started for the door. “One who never wore a crown of silver or gold.”

He traced the etching on the slab with a claw. “By the way, it is pronounced Charlemagne, not Charred Mane. He had several illegitimate children. Your bloodline to him is just a diluted trickle if not a dried stream. Besides, bloodlines mean nothing where I am from. Your cherished genealogy isn’t worth the ink used to record it.”

Lilith stumbled after him. “Impossible! This whole time…you’ve known so much this whole time. But you are…” she trailed off.

“Reality is often disappointing,” Man said as he returned to his birthplace.

“At least tell me where you come from!” Lilith demanded.

Captain Gideon halted at the doorway, the bright light illuminating the proud smile he wore. “Texas.”

Author's Note

“FOR THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS!”

The refrain echoed throughout the office as cowboy hats flew through the air, six-shooters cracked, and powder smoke filled the air. The Publisher ducked as a whiskey bottle sailed over his head to smash against his wall.

It was only Maker’s Mark. He couldn’t feel too sad about it. Then his eyes widened as he saw the full, twenty-year, double-cask aged, port-finished scotch sail through the air. With a heroic leap, he launched himself between the bottle and certain doom.

It was a leap destined for hoofball history, if only hoofball were a real sport and the Publisher were a hoofball player. He caught the precious bottle, cradling it against his breast tenderly as he touched down at his office wall.

His head spun. The bottle spun. Wait. That was because it was spinning. Fortunately, the scotch wasn’t damaged. His head would heal.

After carefully laying the scotch to rest undisturbed for another twenty years, the Publisher returned his attention to the chaos unfolding in his office. The Author was on a rampage. His projects were out of control. His wine had exploded, sending alcoholic stains everywhere. A cow was running loose, and somehow, he had fit half a pine tree through the main window…ten stories up.

The Author himself was careening through the mess atop his bovine steed with endless yee-hawing and whooping. A lariat (not lasso) spun above him by incomprehensible forces and shot out into the chaos.

The Publisher quickly yanked up his hatstand and, with a quick toss, sent the cord back to the Author. With another pull, the rope cinched tight, and the Author found himself lassoed (not lariated) by his own rope.

At that moment, the cow crashed through the pine tree and jerked the Author to a halt. Once the rope tightened, it jerked the beast’s head, sending him out the door and scattering Igor into pieces before going to spread more mayhem into the building.

The Publisher made a note to get another warranty sheet prepared for Igor. He tabled that thought for later as he stared down the Author. The Author stared back.

A distant refrain of harmonica, whistles, and electric guitar echoed through the building as their Stares deepened. The Author’s hoof twitched near his pistol. The Publisher’s brushed his emergency flask.

The two were so evenly matched.

“I know what you’re thinking. ‘Did he plan all this or did he just bumble his way into it?’ Tell you the truth, I’m not so sure myself,” the Author said.

The Publisher's eyes narrowed. "You've been plannin' this fer a long time."

"Really? Now whatever gave ya that thought? Was it the obsessive details on period accurate weapons? Perhaps it was the tidbit of Merry's brand?"

"Actually, Ah think it had more to do with the fact that ye had the cap'n singing Yellow Rose of Texas and named the ship Yellow Rose. It's a bit of a giveaway."

The Author's hoof brushed the pistol. "I thought I'd tipped my hoof when I had him singin' that song. I just knew one of the reader's would catch it, but here I am. You of all ponies catch it."

The Publisher's nerves couldn't take it anymore. His hoof shot out, flipping the flask's cap as it arced to his mouth. But he wasn't fast enough. Before that blessed elixir could touch his tongue, the Author's pistol whipped out.

Crack!

A gaping hole appeared and spilled the liquor across the floor with the rim barely touching the Publisher's lips.

The worthless flask clinked to the floor.

The Publisher slumped to the floor, cradling his broken flask. The Author spun and holstered the pistol. Without a word, he turned and walked away.

"Wait. But how did Man get there?" the Publisher said.

The Author with no name stopped, his head turned barely enough to see his eye. "I still got some secrets yet to be made up."

_+_+_+__

Sometimes I think I'm running constantly on this story just to make sure my earlier references get answered. But fear not, I shall finish using Chekov's Gun before it's all over.

I'll be honest, I thought having Captain Gideon singing Yellow Rose of Texas would give it away too early. Of course Cold Snap wouldn't know the song, but I worried that some of the readers would. Thankfully, the song is niche enough that it didn't because I reallyreallyreally wanted to make use of the song. Also, there have been three variations of the song. The earliest stems from the Texas Revolution. The second version (Captain Gideon's version) was a popular camp song especially in Confederate camps. The final version which I rather despise came around in the 1950s.

Weapons referenced thus far are Winchester 1873s in .44-40. Captain Gideon's revolvers are Smith and Wesson No 3 top break revolvers also in .44-40. I realize the Colt Single Action Army is the iconic western pistol, but in my opinion, it is inferior to the Smith no3. The Gatling uses the 1883 Accles "donut" drum (104 rounds of .45-70). More guns yet to be introduced.

How does Captain Gideon get these and how did he get from Texas? Stay tuned.

Why Texas? Because Texas is best.