“End of the line, mane-head. Vacate the coach.” Gruff voice of a deer ticket collector was an unpleasant change from the rhythmic tapping of the train wheels, but it carried enough authority to make Ray move. She quickly donned a heavy oversized coat, grabbed a flimsy travel bag and made her way to the exit past empty rows of seats. Carefully, so as not to slip on icy stairs, she descended on the platform.
It was night outside, and the ink-black sky was dotted with hundreds of stars, dancing around the almost full moon. Ray was in no rush, so she allowed herself a minute or two to get used to the darkness. In the meantime, her train gave away a single low horn signal and started trudging on, towards the longing depot.
After the shadows next to her condensed into mundane objects - walls, bins, benches and even a few lampposts, evidently lacking in lamps, - Ray circled around the main station building and found herself in front of a monument representing an antlered creature wielding some kind of a sword, standing atop of an engraved stone base. The inscription, legible due to its size, spelled out “Grylloblatod”, presumably, the name of the place, though it did not tell Ray anything. Behind the sculpture was a bit of empty space ending in a downward slope, and as she came closer it became clear that it was intended as an observation point: from a small hill where the station and the monument stood one could see a small town - the eponymous Grylloblatod.
There was not much to see, however. From up where Ray was standing, the town appeared deserted, with no flicker of light inside square, plain houses. The title of the front page of a newspaper Ray caught over the shoulder of her neighbor on the train, who got off on one of the many previous stops, read “ENERGY CRISIS”. “Royal Power Holdings advise Olenian citizens to stock up on sources of alternative fuel and reduce consumption of electricity”, the first line elaborated. Clearly, whoever lived down there took this to heart.
Suddenly, a structure on the edge of the town flared up. The flash was bedazzling, and even when it toned down the remaining glow matched that of the moon, and its reflections in the gloomy windows did their best to imitate the stars. Maybe it was a hotel, attracting arriving passengers, a thought came to Ray. She had never been to one before and only saw mentions of luxurious places where creatures come to rest and dine in advertisements inside old Equestrian magazines, so the idea did not seem so far-fetched. Dining also struck a chord in her mind, as a pack of moss crackers, Ray’s only food for the journey, ran out soon after the deer with the newspaper left.
She walked to this strange beacon in relative silence, occasionally interrupted by creaking of wet summer snow, a common decoration up in the north. As the distance became shorter and shorter, it became possible to make out the details of the "hotel", a well-maintained two-storey building with weird pointy protrusions around the roof, claw-like in appearance, supporting a small glass or crystal round chamber, the source of illumination. In its unsteady shining other houses came across as if they were giving this one a wide berth. It was a bit late for Ray to do the same, as she banged on the front door with a shaking hoof: there was no knocker or bell.
After a certain amount of waiting, she was ready to try her luck elsewhere, but the door slid to the side, with a loud squeak indicating badly-oiled parts. Something stood behind it, or rather someone, but it was unlike any other creature Ray had met: their face was nothing but a featureless slab of some opaque material, both limbs on the right side of their body were bulky and evidently artificial, with gears and wires noticeable under metallic casings, and their tail was massive, curled forwards and ending with a pincer. As the initial shock dissipated and her flight reflex kicked in, Ray took a couple steps back, but then stopped as the creature jerked its head back, allowing for the mask to slide up and reveal a weary, elderly deer, with a big scorch mark across the right cheek and a puzzled look in his eyes. He broke the silence first.
“What did Tuoni’s wolves bring at my doorstep at this hour?” He tried to smile to dissuade Ray’s obvious fear, but the attempt was quite pitiful, as if the skill to do that was long out of practice. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite.”
“I… I thought this was a hotel”, Ray mumbled in response. “I’m sorry, I…”
“Hotel? In this shithole? You wish, kid.” The stag scoffed and shook his antlers. “Sorry, that’s hardly hospitable. Come on in, I’ll make you something on a hob. You look like you need it.”
Ray hesitated. The first impression still lingered, but then again, she had nowhere to go and there was no guarantee anyone else would show her even outward kindness.
“Thanks.” She retraced her previous steps and went inside, following the host, who made another pass at smiling and hastily retreated when it failed. After passing a small, empty lobby, he waved to the door on the left side.
“Wait there. I’ll be back soon.”
Glancing around, Ray entered the suggested room, which turned out to be a modestly furnished lounge, with a dining table, three wooden chairs and a few bookshelves, hosting thick tomes and a number of framed photos, barely discernable in the dim moonlight coming in from the window. She placed herself in one of the chairs, hung her coat on its back and patiently waited for the return of the deer while watching the dust pecks, disturbed by her arrival, swirl and settle down. Luckily, she did not have to sit there for long: the stag came back with a small lantern dangling from his pincer-tail, the latter also being visibly mechanical, and a tray full of crockery on a small wheel cart. He offloaded everything on the table, pushing one of the plates to Ray, and lifted a lid from a large cast pot, revealing bubbling porridge.
"Help yourself. Might be a little bland, but I think I managed to not burn it", the deer shrugged and poured himself a sizable portion.
Ray repeated after him, and for some time the only sound in the lounge was that of slurping and munching: the food was indeed rather unsophisticated, but hearty and nourishing. The stag was entirely focused on the meal, as if he was even hungrier than Ray, whereas she examined the newly lit room. Naturally, she was able to confirm the dust conjecture, namely that the room was rarely used, with a layer of it visible almost everywhere, but also to have a better look at the books and the photos. Some of the spines of the former were unmarked or scribbled in unfamiliar languages, but some had names in equ-script, like “Applications of the Magic Theory to Modern Technology” or “Crystalline Science of the Eleventh Century”, or even “Proceedings of Trans-Continental Research Network”. Unlike everything else these volumes appeared to be moved somewhat frequently. As for the photos, each of them depicted a number of deer, and all were faded, worn out by time, so it took some effort to spot the creature they had in common - a much younger version of the stag sitting across the table, with all limbs intact and face unburnt. One of the shots had everyone in it wearing some kind of old military uniform - Ray was quick to notice its similarity to the police garb she was well-acquainted with, - and the picture itself was torn and re-glued together.
The deer unceremoniously licked the plate clean and gave out a content sigh.
“Good stuff”, he mused. “I mean, on an empty stomach at least.”
“It was nice!” Ray hastily remarked, turning her head towards him. “Thanks a lot. Again.”
“No trouble, kid. I might not own a hotel, but I do have oats and room aplenty.”
They shared a quiet minute, studying each other. The stag coughed and allowed his gaze to unfocus.
“So, I guess, greetings are in order. Name’s Leevi. I’m a tinker. Sort of. Lived here for a lot of years. A hermit, if you ask the locals. Loony scrap-monger, they’d say. They can shove it up their tails, I’d say.” He was ready to blabber on, but paused instead, and set eyes back on his guest.
“They call me Ray”, she answered curtly. Leevi’s introduction and the surrounding ambience did not exactly inspire confidence in her choice to stay.
“Just Ray, huh? Well, I’m not going to pry.” The deer was not too bothered by her reaction. “I’ll even skip the ‘what are you doing in Grylloblatod’ bit. Still, I am curious: why my house?”
While the surface reason seemed rather silly now, Ray was not able to come up with a better one, so she settled on a half-silly half-truth.
“Everywhere was really dark. Your place was the only one with lights.”
“Yeah, the royal morons are maintaining the power station… Wait.” A mix of disbelief, suspicion and maybe spark of something else shifted Leevi’s expression. “What kind of lights?”
“Oh, the glass dome atop the roof was glowing. Very brightly.” Ray caught the change in the stag’s tone, but was not sure what caused it.
Leevi opened his mouth, and then closed it again with an audible clank. It took him several seconds to regain speech.
“Wait, wait, wait. Say that again. The crystal interdictor - the dome - was glowing.”
“Very brightly.” Ray nodded.
In a clumsy motion which almost made his chair fall down, Leevi rose up.
“Stay here. No, come with me instead, or… Whatever. I have to check the interdictor”, he muttered nervously and hurried to the door.
After a short deliberation, Ray took the second option. The same magnetic feeling as the one which took her closer to this beacon called her upstairs, but now it was more pronounced, free to manifest without any support from Ray’s own thoughts. If someone stopped her now and asked why she was going to the dome, she would probably say something about natural curiosity, even if that quality of hers was extinguished long ago. However, there was nobody to stop her.
Ray left the lounge and climbed a flight of stairs, following Leevi. She found him fiddling with a complex-looking system of levers and buttons on a wall, still murmuring under his breath.
"Pos-particles… check. Shielding… check. Sink engagement levels… around two-kay. Here we go." He pulled a lever labeled "Access" and looked over his shoulder while a pneumatic hatch was unlocking with a hiss. "There are safety goggles on the observation platform. Use them."
Without waiting for an answer, the stag donned his dark mask back on and squeezed past the gate as soon as the gap allowed. Ray, who barely heard the advice, kept close and stepped through the opening onto the apex.
The "observation platform", as Leevi called it, was nothing more than a cylindrical cistern with an open top, few tool boxes scattered around the floor and two ladders propped against its upper edges. The true wonder was above it, the radiant contraption, the dome or the "crystal interdictor". The light which emanated through its polished facets was warm and soft, evoking a feeling similar to a cordial embrace. The deer told Ray something again, but she was completely enchanted by the vibrant splendor of the apparatus. Bit by bit its shining erased the lines and details from her sight, until nothing but the purest whiteness remained, and then it reached deeper, touching her memories, unwrapping them from the outer layers, seeking for something.
—
The escape was a result of considerable effort and long planning. Everything had to be perfect: the train schedule, the changing of the overseer's shifts on the payday, the assignment to laundry duty. There was only one attempt, and Ray took it, stealing a coat and a wallet from one of the "caretakers" of the Royal Vanhoover Shelter for War Orphans. She used a pre-set ramp to get over the walls, galopped to the station as fast as her legs allowed and bought a ticket to the north. No one would issue a hunt for a single pony, she believed.
The light pushed deeper.
Most of the overseers in the orphanage were deer veterans of the army or police, set up with this job by the government officials. A lot of them had no love for their charges to begin with, and the basically prison camp conditions and requirements for the older children easily pushed some of their ranks into casual cruelty. Ray was pushed into escape when a group of caretakers gave a beating to her friend Plum for failing to meet up with some kind of quota, and then to herself, for stepping up. After this Plum was not able to walk and could barely eat, so they offloaded him into a "medical ward", never to be seen again.
The light pushed deeper.
Plum was Ray's bunkmate from the day she was brought into the shelter. They shared most of its ups and considerably more downs: the occasional extra ration from a kinder cook, the forbidden books and magazines, the thin blankets during freezing winters, the many toils, burdens and punishments, tears, frequent illnesses and anything else their young and often miserable lives brought on. There was only one thing which they agreed not to share, a treasure tainted with pain: the reminiscence of the times before.
The light pushed deeper, only to be met with the void of loss. Yet, it pierced the smoke, the screams and the suffering.
===///===
"Hope Ray!", someone called out. "Come here, you silly foal".
Before, she knew how this dream would end. Now, though, she believed that it would not.
"Mom!" Hope Ray took a step forward, into the light.
—
The interdictor began to dim down. Leevi sat on the floor of his observation platform, quiet and alone, processing everything his visor transmitted to him from the sudden night visitor. In a few hours he would write down that the experiment of capturing the divination magic strand using the irregularities of Equus astral weave was a success.
Now, though, he climbed up a ladder and looked to the horizon, where the first rays heralded the return of the sun, breaking in the dome and his tears.
