Death Valley

Chapters

Prologue - Run
16 - Iron Veil
22 - Shades and Memories
36 - The Shadow Beneath Midwich
1 - The Fool in the Crazy Eights
2 - Field Experience
3 - Glacial Crossroads
4 - A Scar on the Back of Beyond
5 - The Forest Will Eat You Alive
6 - Inns and Other Combat Arenas
7 - Beyond the Woods
8 - Mountain Mares
9 - Ley of the Land
10 - Cold Pursuit
11 - Arcanic Surveys
12 - The Logistics of Isolation
13 - Below
14 - Gardens of Stone
15 - If High on a Tree
17 - Keep it Together
18 - Odium
19 - Down
20 - Dark Horse, Pale Horse
21 - Wolves at the Door
23 - Round in Circles
24 - Fox in the Henhouse
25 - Midnight Demons
26 - Desecrating the Dead With Friends
27 - The Margin of a Disintegrating World
28 - The Divine and the Equine
29 - Reach Out and Touch Faith
30 - Heart of the Mountain
31 - You Can Almost Hear Our Words But You Forget
32 - Hope You Got Your Things Together
33 - The Colony
34 - Raid Cooldown
35 - In the Know
37 - Blood is Compulsory
38 - Earth Pony With a Hammer
39 - Running Out of Town on a Rail
40 - Dark Arts and Open Minds
41 - On the Nature of Daylight
Epilogue - Walk

Prologue - Run

Pyrita was too old to be running at the speeds she was running. But if she slowed down, they might catch her.

Midwich Valley narrowed as she scrambled across the rough, snow-swept rocks and the vertiginous cliffs above felt even taller than usual, looming high enough to block out the moon. She wasn’t young enough to fly up and over them, not in one go, but she could speed herself up along the ground with small flaps of her leathery wings. So she did, fighting arthritis and the temperature alike to stay alive.

Her breath misted before her as she forced frigid air into her lungs, out of her lungs, in, out, in, out, even though her very diaphragm felt stiff. Her muscles screamed from overwork and her heart was ready to give out. But they’d seen her, she knew they had, so she had to keep moving. Adrenaline didn’t ease the pain, it just made it too easy to ignore. But she didn’t need to keep this up for long. She just needed to reach-

As the opposite walls of the valley met each other in a curve, she saw it: the entrance to the mine, yawning darker than midnight black at Midwich’s apex. Pyrita wanted to take a rest, to ease off for just a few moments, but she couldn’t afford that. She ran into the drift, giving a quick chirrup of echolocation.

Yet what came back was muddled, messy. Her hearing was beginning to go on the best of days, and now exertion had turned her heart into a drum pounding directly in her ears. Pyrita couldn’t make out enough of the return sounds to get a clear image and she didn’t trust her memory of the mine’s layout. She risked coming to a halt and chirruped again. Her ragged breathing made the sound too fuzzy for anything and what she heard back was even worse.

She couldn’t go into the mine. It was too dangerous. She couldn’t leave the mine. It was too dangerous. Panting like a dog, she looked over her shoulder. She couldn’t see them yet, but it was only a matter of time. It had to be. Her lips twitched as she instinctively mouthed out a prayer, a wish, for anything that could help-

Then she saw it. Right at the entrance, glinting in what little starlight there was. A discarded lamp. Which miner had lost it, Pyrita didn’t know. Maybe she had someone looking after her. As usual. She dove, grabbed it, gave it a rattle. Still had some oil (pity it wasn’t a gemmed version). She patted the ground around it, hoping for- Matches. She struck one — in spite of her shakes, she did it on the first try — and tried to light the lamp. And, stars above, the cusséd thing caught immediately. It’d give away her position, but that was a risk she had to take; this was the only way she could move forward.

Holding the lamp aloft and murmuring out a prayer of thanks, Pyrita plunged into the mine.

16 - Iron Veil

Why didn’t it work? Why had she said that? Why didn’t it work? Why had she said that?

The crowd was still silent, but when her mind slowed down enough to think, Amanita could feel the tension in it getting wound up, tighter and tighter. The only thing holding them back was leftover bewilderment from her first announcement. They’d turn on her the second they knew what was going on.

Arrastra was catching on faster than most. She looked at Amanita, at Pyrita, at Amanita, at Pyrita, her mouth moving soundlessly. She slowly lowered her ears.

“Look, look, look,” Amanita said, unsure whether she was waving her hooves placatingly or condescendingly, “I, I’m sorry, I, I didn’t know-”

“You… cusséd. Moon calf,” growled Arrastra, her wings flaring, her eye glinting.

Crosscut stepped forward, a leg up. “Ma…” she warned.

“You smotch-eyed polecat!” Arrastra lunged, fangs bared.

Amanita screamed, stumbled back and down, curled up. It was one of the best positions to survive a beating. But Crosscut jumped between them and somehow managed to hold Arrastra back. “Ma!”

“What manner o’ frost-taked game are ye playin’?” shrieked Arrastra. Her wings beat, pushing her forward even with Crosscut’s earth pony strength holding her back. Her hooves swiped the air like she was trying to rip Amanita’s face off with claws. “Dae ye devil ponies fer fun? Dae ye want tae down me?”

Still curled up, Amanita’s mind was running too fast to let her think. She blinked; her eyes were watering. Was she crying? The crowd was getting louder; it submerged her own voice, barely above a whisper. “No, please, I didn’t-”

At some point, Code and Whippletree had joined Crosscut; Arrastra was still moving forward like she was being pushed by Discord himself. “Or dae ye like feelin’ big? That it?” Her wings pumped and her hooves gouged the earth, but they had nothing in the fury in her voice or the murder in her eye. “Makin’ yer brag ’bout how yer the masterest unicorn, then alibiyin’ yer failures? That it, ye necromancin’ blatherskite?”

“Arrastra,” Whippletree said. “She-” He glanced at Amanita; she could almost feel the shame coming from him. “She did her best, it ain’t her fault,” he said weakly.

But Arrastra’s efforts suddenly stopped. She stumbled back, nearly collapsing into the snow. Her entire body heaved with the force of her breaths. For one moment, Amanita thought she’d calmed down.

Then:

“That unlicked foal promised me my family back!”

And Arrastra buried her face in her hooves, weeping.

Amanita risked uncurling, but the look Crosscut gave her almost made her stop. Crosscut’s mouth was thin, like she was clamping it shut to avoid saying what she desperately wanted to say. Whippletree stepped up to her, put his hoof next to hers. He began, “Crosscut, dona-”

But she just grabbed him and pulled him to a hug. She wasn’t even crying; all she could give was a whimper.

The crowd was getting louder, some yelling insults. Her joints unnaturally tight, Amanita stood. She tried to say something to Code — what, she wasn’t sure — when a small rock hit her on the head. Someone had done that in Grayvale, once. A day later, the town was destroyed, thanks to Circe. The two events were unrelated, but killing them all and resurrecting them later would solve this.

Assuming she could resurrect them. With her emotions in turmoil, a tiny giggle inched its way out.

“Come on,” Code hissed in her ear. She roughly shoved Amanita away from Arrastra and her family. “Let’s get out of here.”

Amanita stumbled. Her hooves seemed to be on the wrong legs. “W-where’re we going?” she mumbled.

“Away.”

The crowd tried to draw up on them and unconsciously block them off. In spite of her small size, Code easily pushed ponies aside with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary. Amanita staggered after her before the gap could close again. Insults and invectives, some loud, some not, flew through the air in flocks, battering her ears. Killing them would get it to stop.

Then they were out, Bitterroot and Charcoal in unmoving shock. “What happened?” Bitterroot asked.

“Nothing,” said Amanita breathlessly. Her bones were cold, both from her mind and her damp furs. “Nothing happened and something should’ve happened and I don’t know why nothing happened.” She tried to block out the yells from behind her. It didn’t work.

Code began speaking. “We’re going back-” A snow-covered rock hit her on the neck; she barely flinched and just brushed the snow away. “-back to the inn. Back to the inn,” she repeated preemptively. She raised a hoof to move.

“You’uns stay right there,” growled Arrastra with force Amanita had rarely heard from anypony before. The crowd parted and she walked out, her head and ears both low. Her expression had technically softened, but only because she was bottling up her fury.

Amanita instinctively froze and bowed her head, remembering how Circe could get in those moods. She examined the ground; the snow had been trod on so often it was being compressed back down to water.

“Look at me. Look at me, ye slack-twist.”

Somehow, Amanita managed to go against her conditioning and raise her head. Arrastra was mere feet from her, dangerously expressionless. She opened her mouth.

Code stepped in between them, shoving them apart as only an earth pony could. She still seemed unperturbed, even as Amanita felt magic twist in the earth below. “Ma’am,” she said, “if there-”

“I ain’t talkin’ tae youn,” snapped Arrastra, jabbing Code in the chest.

Or tried to. Code whipped her hoof up, caught Arrastra’s hoof, and redirected it back to the ground, all without blinking or looking away. “I am the leader of our group,” she said calmly. “You talk to me.”

“Ye’re upholdin’ her?” Arrastra pointed at Amanita. “After she-”

“Code,” Amanita said quietly.

“I’ve seen her work,” Code said. “I don’t know why it didn’t work now-”

“Code.” Somehow, Amanita couldn’t raise her voice.

Arrastra snorted and pawed the ground. “’Course ye dinnae. All you’uns ken nothin’! How long’ve you’uns been ’ere? Three day? An’ ye dinnae have ary-”

“We’re doing our best!” Charcoal cut in. She didn’t sound like her, yelling like that. “This ley line is weird! It doesn’t bake sense-”

“Sae y’ain’t the master hooves ye claimed ye were,” said Arrastra, whirling on her. “Y’ain’t even a pony! I dinnae ken-”

Charcoal’s ears immediately went back. And was it Amanita’s imagination or were her eyes glowing? “That doesn’t natter! I can ghast magic just-”

Arrastra burst into bitter laughter. “Lissen tae yerself! Ye cannae even speak pro-”

And then Charcoal was on fire.

The coat of her body had darkened and flames were springing from her mane and tail. Heat washed out from her like a building fire. Everyone jumped away from her in shock; some ponies in the crowd screamed. In a voice that wasn’t quite hers, laced with venomous hate, Charcoal screamed, “That’s not my fault, you stupid sunblasted-”

Then, just as soon as they’d started, the flames died down. Charcoal, clad in scorched furs, was standing in the middle of a melted puddle, unharmed but shocked into a thousand-yard stare. She blinked. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and bolted for the Watering Cave.

“Inn,” Code declared. She marched toward it with the resolution of somepony who’d seen worse. Amanita quickly fell into line behind her, her head down. In the aftermath of Charcoal’s flare, silence reigned through the valley.

Arrastra’s screams destroyed it, hanging in the air behind them. “Go tae grass, ye carrion crows!”

Amanita only dimly remembered stumbling up the inn’s stairs or collapsing onto her bed. But Bitterroot throwing the locks on the door woke her from her fugue enough to look up. Everyone was in the room; Code was wiping snow from her neck, Bitterroot was pacing, and Charcoal was curled up on her bed, trembling. Before anyone else could speak, Charcoal raised her head. “I-I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Not your fault,” Code said. She gave herself a little shake to get the rest of the snow off her. “Yes, I’m talking about the flare. People get angry sometimes. It’s not your fault you happen to burst into flames when that happens to you.”

“But-”

“Not your fault,” Code repeated.

“I-”

“It’s not your fault,” Amanita said. “You were- You were just on fire for a second.”

Charcoal snorted.

“No, no, really,” Amanita said, sitting up more. “You, you got angry, and then suddenly you were on fire and no one was expecting it so it was a shock, but no one got hurt, did they? It’s, you barely did anything.”

Charcoal blinked at Amanita. Her tail flicked. And she didn’t say anything, but she uncurled from her ball.

“It’s not your fault,” Amanita repeated. “It’s mine. I- I should’ve-”

She hung her head. What should she have done? She hadn’t made any mistakes in the ritual, no matter how critically she looked at her actions. The circle was ready to accept her magic. She just couldn’t find the soul. The soul of the pony who’d died just minutes before. The simplest sunblasted SORT of resurrection that she couldn’t do. Who did she think she was?

She knew it was unhealthy, but she let her train of thought run away. It’d only be a matter of time before someone spoke and derailed it.

Right?

She looked up. Everyone seemed to be trying to look at each other without any two people looking at each other. There was a lot of shifting of weight and no words. Amanita forced herself to break the silence. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why I couldn’t resurrect her.”

Words welled up inside her, pushed up by emotion. Excuses, apologies, explanations, panic, more. She forced them back down. If she started talking, no one else would get a word in.

Code cleared her throat and started talking with the automaticity of someone running down a checklist. “You skewed the circle-”

“-to account for the ley energies, yes.” Amanita wanted to scream that that was the first thing she’d checked.

“The runes-”

“The sentence was right, I felt the harmonics.” Amanita wanted to scream that the runes were the thing she knew best.

“Are you sure?” Code asked, her voice strained and desperate. “Did you remember-”

“I did everything right!” shrieked Amanita.

Silence fell like a cinder block, except for Amanita’s heaving breaths. She blinked rapidly. “I-” she gasped. “I did everything right. I, I know I did. Right up to the katabasic dive. And then it just- stopped. That, that’s it, that’s all there is to it. It stopped. No liminality, no trance state, nothing. It’s like there wasn’t anyone at the other end to bring back.”

Code briefly looked away to mouth something uncouth. “You’re sure? You didn’t feel any- other energies that could’ve disrupted-”

“I know my own ritual,” Amanita said in a shaky voice. She was absolutely sure of that, but she couldn’t convince herself that she was sure of that. “There w-wasn’t anything like that, I c-could’ve adjusted…” She collapsed onto her rump and stared out at nothing. “I did everything right…”

“Mother duck…” grunted Code, rubbing her forehead.

Amanita’s vision seemed to swim. It focused only briefly when she blinked. Forget the resurrection; with one clean action, she’d scuttled any chance they had with the ley line. Once the story spread, the entire town would hate her — and the rest of the team, by extension. Tratonmane wouldn’t so much as speak to them. They couldn’t do any work. Three days. Just three days, and she’d destroyed the entire operation. Such an excellent worker.

“Okay,” said Code. Her hooves twitched, like she was ready to start pacing. “It’s… probably for the best if we lie low for the rest of the day. Think things over, let everyone’s emotions die down. We… don’t need to worry about it just yet.” (The lie convinced no one.) “We still might be able to do our job.”

The disbelief was so strong you could almost hear it.

“I know,” Code said. “But we need some sort of a plan. This will get us through the next few hours.” She folded her ears back and pawed at the ground. “Then we can work on getting through the next few hours after that. We need to do our best to stay on top of things.”

“Do you really think we can?” Amanita asked quietly.

Code looked her square in the eyes and said, “We won’t know until we try.”

She said it with the conviction of someone who had years — decades — of skill and experience. Skill and experience that Amanita would never have, because what she did have apparently counted for nothing. So, in spite of her doubts, Amanita managed to nod. Trying had led her down… many paths in her life.

“If you ever have a better idea, feel free to tell me,” Code said. She sounded too tired for it to be snarky. “Any one of you,” she added to the rest of the room. “And Amanita? You should probably wash up.”

Amanita blinked and touched her face. Right; she was still grimy from the tailings. From the earth’s perspective, she was covered in manure. Apt.

She headed for the shower. It’d get the dust off, but it wouldn’t clean her. She hadn’t been clean ever since she’d run away with Circe.

Amanita had been in a funk over potentially being a bad necromancer. Bitterroot had come here to offer pick-me-ups. And now that Amanita was in a funk over being a bad necromancer, Bitterroot didn’t know where to start.

Life was funny like that.

She let Amanita and Code and Charcoal talk with each other, mostly because she didn’t have the slightest clue of what to say. She’d never been quite so crushed as Amanita had been. And she would’ve tried to talk to Amanita, except that Amanita went straight to the shower. Fair, she was covered in wet coal dust, but still.

She opened her mouth to ask Code if she could go flying to clear her head, remembered she wasn’t working for the Crown, and just said, “I’ll be back.” Without waiting for a response, she pushed open one of the windows, climbed out, and spread her wings.

After spending a few moments climbing, Bitterroot flew through Midwich. She didn’t know where. Here and there and every which way that wasn’t over the forest. She just flew. It kept her blood moving, which helped her think. And she needed to think because she didn’t know what else to do.

She’d experienced disapproval before, of course. Intense disapproval. It was part of being a bounty hunter; sometimes you had to break up a chill get-together between friends to slap an escaped murderer in fetters and bodily haul them away. But she wasn’t trying to help those people, not like Amanita had done. She walked in, caught the bad pony, walked out. Amanita had promised Tratonmane something and then failed to deliver. So what now?

As flapping her wings took up too much brainpower, Bitterroot angled into a shallow spiral and started curling down to the ground.

What could she offer Amanita that wouldn’t sound trite? Just some vague mentions that Amanita obviously knew her stuff, or Bitterroot wouldn’t be alive, maybe? The seminar that had gotten Amanita so worked up in the first place, where she’d taught Celestia? Nothing that would change the fact that necromancy had failed her. The important thing would brand itself in her memory. And the memory of the entire sunblasted town.

The ground came up to meet her and Bitterroot landed forcefully. She picked a direction and started walking into the dark.

One way or another, if there was ever a time when Amanita needed help, it was now, even if that help was just someone to scream with. For once since her arrival, Bitterroot really really wanted to leave, but now she couldn’t, not in good conscience. She didn’t feel irritated or begrudge Amanita anything; this was just how things turned out. Even if it did mean she was stuck in the kind of situation she’d normally just walk away from.

If she’d left just an hour earlier and heard about this from Amanita later, would she feel guilty? …Probably.

When the dark became darker and her hoofsteps began echoing, Bitterroot realized she’d somehow wound up walking into the train tunnel. With a sigh, she turned around and followed the rails back out. The sky above was moving towards night and Midwich Valley doing its best to capture the final light of day.

It was by that last light that Bitterroot spotted the sign next to the train tracks that had said “Welcome to Tratonmane” on their way in. The wood was bright and the letters were dark, so even in this light, it was still somewhat readable. Bitterroot spared it a glance out of the habit that led to her reading all signs and kept walki-

She did a double-take.

The sign didn’t say, “Welcome to Tratonmane”.

It said, “Welcome to Trat🜨nmane”.

Bitterroot stared at the crossed circle that had replaced the “o”. That hadn’t been there before, had it? Or maybe she’d just missed it. Right? Or maybe it was the dark messing with her vision. She walked up to get a closer look. No, it wasn’t the dark. The cross seemed painted on like all the other letters. She poked at the paint. Not fresh, either. But was it a different color than the other letters? Put down later? Or was she just grasping at straws for a solid explanation for something strange in a stressful time?

As she looked at the sign, she didn’t realize she was rubbing her neck.

A cold wind blew up Midwich. Bitterroot shivered. The idea of a room felt good right then; she took off for the Watering Cave.

Amanita was in the shower. The water was warm and plentiful. The comfort was cold and scant.

Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale.

It should’ve worked. It should’ve worked. It should’ve worked. It’d worked before. Every time. Always. Amanita knew she was doing it right. Right? Right. She had it memorized. She’d looked over every facet personally. The smaller amount of ingredients didn’t matter because of her changes. It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work?

Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale.

Pyrita was dead. Three days plus. Had to be. That was the only explanation. But she’d been up. She’d been walking. She’d been talking. How could that be dead? Bitterroot had been walking and talking when she’d been dead. But her soul was in her. The limit was because the soul didn’t want to leave the afterlife. Bitterroot had never been in the afterlife. Not then. But Pyrita had been walking. Her soul was in her. It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work?

Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale.

Amanita turned the shower off. She didn’t leave the stall. She hung her head and watched as coal-black water and the remains of the day spiraled down into the darkness of the drain. Nothing clogged. Hallelujah. It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work?

Count. To. Four. Inhale. Count. To. Four. Exhale.

They knew. She was a necromancer. They knew. All of Tratonmane. She’d told them. Yet she hadn’t done any necromancy. Somehow. So they shouldn’t hold that against her. Not a necromancer. Ha ha. Funny. Not a necromancer. Because she’d just done what any chump could’ve done. Just like all the other times. The times that had worked. It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work?

Count to… Count to four, count to four. Inhale. Exhale.

She slumped with her head against the wall, making gasps of not-quite crying. If she was a good necromancer, she’d know why it didn’t work. But she didn’t know. She just had a dead body and an angry town. Like a rank amateur. All those years, all those ponies she’d killed, all the things she’d done… Nothing. Pbbt. Worthless. Because if they weren’t, she’d know. But she knew just as much as Code. As anyone. So anyone could replace her. It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work?

Four. Count to it. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale.

The water dripping from her stole her warmth away. Amanita didn’t move. Why bother?

Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale.

…Tartarus. She’d run from a sunblasted lich, once. Was she really going to just sit there and mope?

Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale.

The idea was far nicer than she wanted to admit. But she couldn’t.

Count to four. Inhale. Count to four. Exhale.

Amanita raised her head and stepped out of the shower. The cold air bit at her even more as she toweled off. Her body decided the cold was more important than her other feelings and let it bully away her panic. Once that was gone, she pulled on her furs to push away the cold. It was successful enough.

She looked in the mirror. A clueless moron looked back. She decided to ignore what she saw. Maybe it wasn’t reflecting properly and she could change it. Hopefully.

In their room, Charcoal was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Code was pacing, staring at the floor. And Bitterroot was gone. Hearing Amanita’s approaching hoofsteps, Code looked up. “Amanita,” she said. “I need to talk to you.” Weariness had woven itself into her voice quite thoroughly.

Her throat went dry, but Amanita nodded. They took a seat in a set of chairs. One of Code’s rear legs was twitching and her hoof tapped out a beat on the floorboards that she didn’t seem to notice. “You said it wasn’t Pyrita that died, correct? That she was already dead,” she said dispassionately.

The memory lanced through Amanita’s mind like a lightning bolt. “Right, yeah.”

“Hmm. Do you have any reason to think so besides the time limit?”

Her stomach curling into an impressively tight knot, Amanita said, “She was- She was moving but she wasn’t resurrected when she should’ve been. What else do I need?” The words came out more accusative than she intended; she was too tired to wince.

“Something to convince Arrastra,” murmured Code. She took off her glasses and set them on the desk. Her eyes seemed dull without them. As she rubbed the area around her ears, she said, “She probably wouldn’t listen to us even if we had proof. Grief. But without it, no one will. I was hoping you had something.”

Amanita forced out a grin. “Heh. Sorry.”

“Forgiven.” Code’s hoof started tapping the floor again. “I’ve been thinking about the healing ritual I performed on her yesterday. It seemed to work quickly, remember?”

“But the Rite of Brave Spear needs you to focus on the pony being healed,” said Amanita. It was part of how it could work with so few ingredients. “If something was- using her body or whatever, then the pony you were focusing on wasn’t the person you were healing, so… what then?”

“I don’t know,” said Code — a terrifying notion from the High Ritualist. “Maybe…” She waved a hoof vaguely. “Maybe the healing wasn’t spaced out properly and didn’t take. But I’m thinking about it. And if you ever need something to do, maybe think on that.”

Amanita nodded. It’d do something to divert her attention from what it was doing now, at least.

Code nodded back and looked off into the distance. “That’ll be all,” she mumbled. She didn’t exactly say it to Amanita so much as say it to the world, which included Amanita, if only by proximity.

Still, that meant there was nothing left to do now but tell her. “Then I’m going to go for a walk,” Amanita said as she stood up. “I-” Swallow. “I’ve got some apologies I need to make.”

“I can go with you,” Code said quickly. She snatched her glasses back and stood up as well. “You don’t need to do it alone.”

“I think I do,” Amanita said. One of her rear legs twitched, bumping against the floor. “I was the one who did it. Or- didn’t do it.” Her attempted laugh came out as a wheeze. “I should be the one to- to talk to her.”

Code tilted her head, not remotely convinced. Then she said, “If you think that’s best.” And back to pacing.

But, Amanita reflected as she closed the door, she’d also thought attempting the resurrection was best.

22 - Shades and Memories

“Where’s the blood?” Charcoal muttered. “There should be blood. Where’s the blood?”

Midwich Forest was dark around them, trees gnarled and creaking and doing their best to shield even the light of the narrow slit of the sky. The air was cold and the wind howled. Muffled sounds drifted and cracked from all directions. Yet the search party’s spirit seemed indefatigable to Bitterroot. They marched on, always alert, always ready, even as some of them chatted among themselves.

Charcoal had wound up taking the lead, if only because she was the closest thing to a person with actual tracking experience as she followed what everyone suspected was the tracks of the wolf that had taken Whippletree. The militia were the only Tratonmanians who went more than few yards into Midwich, Amanita and Code had never needed to track anypony, and Bitterroot’s skills were more pony-based and in-city-based, with a few exceptions.

Not that she would’ve been much help otherwise. Images of crossed circles were still running through her head, and they rattled her every time they passed. There was something about their ominous simplicity; distinctive and unmistakable, yet easy to make by accident. It was hard to tell whether seeing one and freaking out meant she was hallucinating or she was being paranoid. The team already figured something was going on in Midwich. So if… Pyrita’s brand had worked and she was caught up in it-

She blinked and shook her head. She was getting distracted. Don’t think about that. Do not think about that. She wasn’t even sure she could ask the others about it right now; they were still on shaky ground with Tratonmane, and the last thing they needed was some question about the grain mother shattering it all to pieces when it turned out the mother was secretly important. (If only they’d come out here alone, ha ha…) She pivoted her ears, trying to focus on what others were saying. Code and Arrastra were walking behind her.

“…come that far in?” Code asked.

“Sometimes, but it ain’t common,” Arrastra. “The ballistae make sure o’ that.”

“You have ballistae? For wild animals?”

“Ye might’ve seen the towers. We used tae have a plumb bad problem wi’ bears.”

“Bears. Of course. So…”

…But the grain mother had been meant for healing, right? So why put it on with third-degree burns, even ones that healed immediately? Why had she seen it in the first place? What- Another headshake, another ear pivot. Amanita was just ahead of her, talking with one of the militiaponies.

“…afore three days pass,” the militiamare said.

“Yeah,” said Amanita. “Otherwise it just won’t work. We still don’t know why yet. Probably because the soul doesn’t want to leave the afterlife.”

“An’… ye think that’s what happened tae Pyrita?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. She was up and talking right before-”

Right before she’d branded Bitterroot. Which… could mean something? If any of the team knew what that symbol meant. So they just had to go over the past few days and find out where Pyrita had-

“Code?” Bitterroot found herself saying. “Mind if I go for a flight?” It might clear her head. Might.

“-crafting the bolts must be- Hmm?” said Code, looking away from Arrastra. “Oh, ah… I suppose not, although I doubt it’ll be much use in this light.”

“Timberwolves’ eyes glow,” said Bitterroot. “Maybe I can spot them.” As good an excuse as any.

“Worth a shot. But…” Code dug into her pockets and held out that teleaudio earpiece. “Keep in touch. In case we need you.”

“Sure.” Bitterroot looped it around her ear. The slight bit of weight was reassuring, somehow. Maybe it focused her attention. “I’ll be back.” And she was away.

She climbed straight up, up and up and up, until the sunlight was blasting in her face. It’d destroy her night vision, but she didn’t care. She hovered there in the light, breathing deeply. No matter what you faced, it was easier to handle in the light than the dark.

She didn’t need to worry about seeing things, not yet. She needed to focus on Whippletree and Midwich Forest and the search and all of that. This wasn’t that bad. This wasn’t harmful. Just visual.

Bitterroot breathed in, breathed out. Okay. She could do this. Time for some hunting.

She folded her wings to plunge back into the valley, then flared them at the right time to soar just below the rim. The lights of the search party were clearly visible, even after filtering up through the branches. Bitterroot circled around them for a bit in a holding pattern to let her night vision come back.

Once she could make out more than outlines of the trees, she started swooping, back and forth, back and forth. Basic search pattern. Annoyingly, even as her vision sharpened, she had to go slow enough to actually see things; darkness blurred far too easily. She looped around and around, always making sure she knew where the search party was.

But she didn’t see the glow of timberwolf eyes. She saw other things — clearings, the stream, a cave on the east side, a shadowy shape on the west side that turned out to be a bear — but never what she was looking for. She started dropping lower and lower in the hopes of finding something. She never did.

Bitterroot didn’t keep track of time, but she did notice that the light on the side of the valley was creeping downwards as the sun crept up. Might as well check in. “Code?” she said for the earpiece.

“Yes?” It was genuinely impressive how clear the sound was, nothing like a gramophone.

“I’m fine, but I haven’t seen anything yet. I’ll keep looking.”

“Alright. Keep us posted.”

Bitterroot didn’t know much about forests, so between that and the dark, she was sure she was missing a lot. Maybe this wasn’t even helping at all. But it was something to do that kept her thoughts away from her visions; even the thought of going back to them gave her a headache. She swept her wings back and continued her zigzagging flight across the valley.

The wolves came when they’d been in the forest for about an hour.

They didn’t attack. Amanita had trouble even seeing them. But everyone could hear them. Prowling around just outside their range of vision, twigs snapping and snow crunching beneath their footfalls, eyes briefly flashing in the darkness. They kept pace with the team, never getting too close, never falling too far behind. Amanita got the feeling she was being sized up for a meal.

“They ain’t goin’ tae attack,” Arrastra said casually. “Our crowd’s too big.”

Amanita’s feelings weren’t always right, granted.

She took a quick look around. Some of the Tratonmanians were glancing around nervously and keeping their weapons close. Some of them were walking along as normal and just glancing around every minute or so. The unconcerned ones, to a pony, were the militia. Amanita swallowed. “But if they attack Tratonmane, where there’s more ponies, then-”

Arrastra gave a chirrup of echolocation, then said, “There’re two on that side-” She pointed. “-an’ two on that side.” And again. “That ain’t enough tae attack a group this size. They’re jes’ watchin’.”

“And you have experience with that?”

“I was in the militia fer nigh on fifty year, aye. I’ve seen this afore.”

“Oh.”

“Odd, though, bein’ this far in an’ havin’ that be all,” Arrastra mumbled. She chirruped again, then gave a dirty look to a particularly aggressive patch of darkness. “We’d usually be seein’ more an’ they’d’ve tried jumpin’ us already.”

“Did you need to come into Midwich often?”

Arrastra was silent for a while. “…Often enough.”

They kept walking. Charcoal’s route swerved and curved and took them all over. Amanita wasn’t exactly sure if the trail was going anywhere, but none of the ponies seemed to question it. Amanita kept glancing from side to side. The wolves were always there. Their number didn’t seem to drop, but it didn’t seem to grow, either. Or maybe she was just being hopeful.

At some point, Charcoal coughed and raised her head. “Um… compression- Confession time. I… think I’ve lost the trail.” She raised her head and grinned nervously.

A few sighs rippled their way up the line, but less than Amanita would’ve expected, and they sounded more frustrated than upset. Arrastra, for her part, just shrugged. “ ’Twas a reach, aryway. We’ll start headin’ back in a zigzag an’ see what we can find! A wolf carryin’ him couldnae’ve gone far.” She glared out into the darkness, at a set of glinting eyes. “An’ we’re still watchin’ you’uns, so dinnae get ary ideas!”

Charcoal blinked and her ears twitched slightly in relief. Code tapped her earpiece. “Bitterroot, you still up there? … Why don’t you come back down? We’re shifting our search pattern a bit. Watch out for the wolves. … Yes, wolves, but-”

Where Charcoal’s path was jagged, Arrastra’s was straight as an arrow, or at least as straight as you could get in the forest. She led them back and forth across the floor of Midwich Valley, between the valley wall and the river. They still didn’t find much, but it didn’t bring down any of the search party (except for Bitterroot, but that was literal, so it didn’t count). The time they spent in the forest felt like ages, but Amanita knew it couldn’t have been that long, because the sun hadn’t even started shining down into Midwich yet.

When it finally came, the light swept in like a flood. No gradual lightening; the darkness of the cliffs simply moved away and the only shadows were those of the trees. Amanita blinked and rubbed her eyes. These lighting changes were insane; how did Tratonmane handle them every day? She swore she could already feel herself warming up. At least now-

One of the wolves snarled; Arrastra barked something and someone tackled Amanita to the ground. She yelped and curled into a ball, shielding her face from flying snow. She heard yells, thuds, barks, cracks. The crowd sounded a lot larger than just four wolves. Something bumped against her and was gone before she could check. She wasn’t sure which way to move, she didn’t know what to-

And suddenly all the furor died off. Wolves were yelping and those yelps were getting further and further away. The air was still again. Ponies were panting, but none of them were groaning or making sounds of pain. Amanita tentatively sniffed; she couldn’t smell blood. She raised her head. The wolves were gone and the ponies were regaining their breath. Some were obviously raring at the bit to follow, pawing at the ground and heads down and ears folded back, but when Amanita counted, everyone was still there.

Arrastra rubbed at her face, where blood was trickling from a small cut. “E’eryone alright?” she called out. A chorus of assent called back, causing her to frown. “Hmm. They’re usually worser’n that…”

Code helped Amanita to her hooves. “Maybe they fled after seeing one of their own die,” she said. (Amanita looked around; someone had smashed a wolf hard enough against a tree to break its spine and finished it off with a quick spear jab.) “But I don’t know much about animals.”

“Hrrng.” From the way Arrastra flicked her tail, she wasn’t particularly convinced. Then she glanced up at the sun and yelled out, “Anyone else feelin’ peckish?”

Lunch was about as basic as you could get; everyone had packed some form of simple, hardy vegetables such as leeks or turnips and they were being eaten raw. The cool taste was interesting, Amanita supposed; she might try it with some seasonings back in Canterlot. The Tratonmanians drew straws to see who’d patrol around the group when, even though Amanita hadn’t heard any more wolves. Even the air seemed more still.

Amanita was about halfway through her leek when she realized Arrastra was sitting next to her, her chainsaw at her side. “Dae ye mind if’n I… ask ye some questions?” she asked.

“Sure. I, I mean, go ahead, I don’t mind.” About what didn’t really matter to Amanita, not if Arrastra had decided she was worth speaking to again.

“…So. Yer a… necromancer. A death doctor.” It wasn’t an accusation, more a request for clarification.

“I’ve… never been called that second one, but yeah.”

“Hmm.” Other ponies started looking over. Arrastra’s eye seemed to glint, even in the daylight. “Can ye enthrall the dead?” she inquisited. “Make ’em yer slaves?” She leaned forward slightly and even turned her ears towards Amanita.

Amanita squirmed. Not beneath Arrastra’s gaze, that was… easier. She squirmed at the memories of what she’d done and who she’d enthralled. “Well… technically, yes, but A, I really really don’t want to, and B, it’s incredibly illegal.”

“If she did that, there’s a fair chance she’d never see the outside of a jail cell again,” said Code calmly. “And yes, that is with her being the Guard’s only necromancer.”

Arrastra said nothing, but from the way her wings slackened a little, that was the right answer. Some of the other Tratonmanians started talking in hushed tones. None of them sounded too terrified, though.

“There’s a… bit of leeway on animals,” Amanita added, wiggling a hoof. “But that depends a lot on context.” She glanced at Code.

“I’d let you get away with it now,” Code said in answer to the unspoken question.

Arrastra looked over her shoulder, at the dead wolf. Her ear twitched and she tilted her head. But when she turned back to Amanita, she didn’t say anything about the wolf. “Can ye… talk wi’ the dead?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah. And there’s no limit on when the person died.”

Arrastra blinked and looked at her food, still resting untouched on the ground. Her ears trembled as she blinked, then took a listless bite of beet.

“I told Whippletree about this,” Amanita said. “Did he get a chance to tell you?”

“Nay.”

“That’s fine. He was probably waiting for the right moment.”

“Aye. Back then, ’tweren’t the greatest o’ times.” Then Arrastra forced a smile onto her face and joked, “I dinnae reckon ye ken ary dead wilderness rangers ye can call up?”

Amanita blinked and smacked herself on the forehead. “Sun blast it, why didn’t I think of that? Hang on a sec!” And she was digging through her bags.

“…I beg yer pardon?” Arrastra gasped.

“Dead wilderness ranger,” Amanita said. Gems, reflection, check. Carved with the proper runes, check. “She saved my life once. I tried to save hers.” Candles, welcome, check. “It… didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Long story.” Yew stick, scratching stuff in the dirt, check. “Now, let me work.”

She stepped out a little ways to find some decent ground. She paid no mind to the people following her. With a quick flourish, she swiped out a circle. Fortunately, this one wasn’t as strict as the resurrection circle. She laid out the gems in a downward equilateral triangle, the better to reflect on the memories of the underworld. She laid out the candles in an upward equilateral triangle, the better to show a welcoming light to a visitor. She lit the side two, but left the last one untouched. It would be lit only if the visitor decided to answer the welcome.

Amanita sat down and closed her eyes. She ignored the rustle of the people behind her and focused on the ritual. For a stranger, she’d need a focus item of emotional weight, but for someone she knew, her own memories were enough. “I would listen if you would speak,” she intoned. Astrality briefly engulfed her, leaving her dancing on urges and calling. She strummed her pleas toward her target, dropped back into herself, and waited.

Soon enough, she felt the thrum of magic that usually accompanied the last candle igniting itself. Then the ponies around her gasped and she heard someone new say, “Amanita.”

Amanita opened her eyes to greet the shade standing before her. “Catskill. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

Catskill shrugged. “I’ve got the time.” The words reverberated like they were echoing down a long pipe, yet they remained perfectly clear, almost like Amanita’s ears heard the echo and her brain heard the meaning.

Catskill was on the small side of big for an earth pony, more sleek than strong. She seemed younger than she’d been when Amanita had seen her last, but more weathered at the same time, somehow. She’d certainly acquired another scar. (How did that work in the afterlife?) She still had on her furs and even carried her blunderbuss. Her coat color was… the right color. Amanita wasn’t sure what that color was, but it was definitely the right one.

“We’re trying to find a pony who was taken from his town by a timberwolf,” Amanita said. “He was a son, a father, a… husband.” Catskill’s eyes seemed to flash. “Could you help us track him?”

Catskill sighed and settled onto her haunches. “I don’t want anyone to be forced to continue on prematurely,” she said, “but I have my limits. And one of them is that perimeter.” She pointed at the arc of the circle. “I’m not supposed to be here. Going further to look for tracks would be… distressing.”

The first thing that sprang to mind was, Distressing how? She’d known that the circumference would be some form of barrier to shades, but she couldn’t start guessing how. But Arrastra would probably object if her son-in-law’s rescue party was disrupted by academic discussions on necromancy, so Amanita just said, “Okay. I understand. Sorry for disturbing you.” She bowed her head. “You can go.”

But Catskill didn’t go. She flicked her tail and asked, “You’re sure it was a timberwolf? They’re more opportunistic than aggressive. I can’t imagine one entering a town to kill somepony, even if it was desperate.”

Amanita glanced at Arrastra, who looked about like you’d expect someone who’d seen a ghost to look. “Ah. It… may’ve… not been,” Arrastra said in a dumbstruck voice that was only half paying attention.

“Hnng. Maybe it was a kikimora,” mused Catskill. “They can be really nasty pieces of work if you get on their bad side. Drown travelers, kidnap foals… Luckily, they’re rare these days.” She stood up and bowed slightly to Amanita. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you more.”

“That’s okay. Thanks for coming.”

Catskill nodded again and slipped away between inches. The candles all went out and silence reigned over the area.

Gathering up the gems, Amanita sighed. “Dagnabbit,” she muttered.

“Da- Dagnabbit?” spluttered one of the militiamares. “Ye summon a spirit o’ the dead, an’ all ye can say is… ‘dagnabbit’?” Ravens and crows took flight around them at the force of her yells, cawing.

“Well… yeah,” said Amanita. “She couldn’t help us, so we’re no further along and I disturbed her for nothing. So, yeah.” She gestured towards the circle. “Dagnabbit.”

The mare blinked and shook her head, muttering, “‘Dagnabbit’, she says.”

Amanita snorted and stuffed the candles into her bag. “C’mon. Let’s-”

“She died,” Arrastra said, pointing at the circle. It was half statement, half question.

“She did.”

“…How long ago?”

“Something like two and a half years ago.”

Arrastra mouthed those words and swallowed. Her wings twitched as she thought.

“I told you time didn’t matter,” said Amanita.

“Hang on,” spoke up Charcoal. Her ears were twitching a little as ponies looked at her but her voice was strong. “Maybe we can use this.”

“How?” asked Amanita. “No one who’s died knows where Whippletree is.”

“Well, I was… just thinking,” said Charcoal. “Let’s, let’s… say Whiffletree- Whippletree, sorry, that he’s dead already. Couldn’t you try summoning his spirit so… maybe he can tell us where he died?” She grinned nervously.

Everyone turned to Amanita. She flinched at all the attention and hid it by looking up and tapping her chin. She gave it a once-over, and, “That’s not a bad idea,” she said. “It’s not perfect, but… Hmm. The deceased can only come if they want to come-” Changing the spell to work like that was one of her first major accomplishments under the Guard. “-but if he wants to contact his family-”

“He would,” Arrastra said.

“-then he’d probably come,” Amanita continued. “And if he doesn’t come, there’s a pretty good chance he’s still alive.” She tapped her hoof on the ground a few times and nodded. “Yeah, that- That could work. But I’d need a, a focus item or something, something emotionally connected to him.”

“There’s a spear o’ his back at his home,” said Arrastra. “It’s his favorite. He allays used- uses it-”

“Perfect,” said Amanita. “We can work with that when we get back to Tratonmane.”

“Actually-” Bitterroot wiggled her way through the crowd. “I can get it if you want. Be there and back in a few minutes. Just tell me where his house is.”

“It’s the one with the huge blood splotches in front of it,” Amanita said. “Can’t miss it.”

“Look for the blood, got it,” said Bitterroot, nodding. She took off and was away in seconds.

Everyone looked at Amanita and she shrugged. “Well, she should.”

Bitterroot’s head was spinning. She just needed to keep busy.

She’d been fine in the air, when she had to focus on keeping herself up, but once Code had asked her back down, her mind had started slowly spiraling away again. The wolf attack had been a brief, adrenaline-fuelled respite, but dwindled during lunch. Hence the volunteering. The rushing wind pushed those thoughts out of her head, at least for a little while. Part of her wanted to dawdle and stay airborne for a little longer, but for all she knew, this would be important to finding Whippletree.

Tratonmane was a different beast in the noonlight. Dark roofs, flickering lamps, and glowing windows were replaced with snow-swathed streets and bright buildings that were almost cheerful. Bitterroot oriented herself above the Great Ash, with the road around it and the streets intersecting it.

In a crossed circle.

Bitterroot blinked, flinched. She needed to ignore that. She needed to ignore that. That one was just chance, anyway. Absolutely. Definitely.

She drifted over Tratonmane, looking for- Yeesh. That was a lot of blood. Bitterroot folded her wings, landed, and headed in. It looked a lot like Arrastra’s house had, maybe a bit homier. Bitterroot trotted upstairs and peeked under the bed. Now that was a spear. She didn’t know her weapons very well and even she could see that it was weathered and well-used. She snatched it up and trotted back down. She took to the sky the second she was back outside, aiming for the party she’d left behind.

But she couldn’t help twisting to look over her shoulder.

At the crossed circle around the Great Ash.

Her head started throbbing. She grit her teeth and flew north.

Amanita had never tried channeling someone who’d been alive before, but there was a first time for everything. By the time Bitterroot came back with the spear, Amanita had set up the ritual so the spear was all she needed to complete it. Everyone was staring at her as she turned the spear over in her hooves. It shouldn’t have any nasty side effects if Whippletree wasn’t there. Shouldn’t.

Amanita laid the spear across the circle, then lit the first two candles. Deep breath. “I would listen if you would speak,” she intoned.

Then the magic was… jerky. She’d twisted the knob of an unlocked door, only for it to bump into something just as she started opening it. She couldn’t put out any call; liminality never opened. But she’d done everything else right, so…

“Let’s try something else,” she said, partly to the crowd, partly to herself. She moved the spear out of the circle, then blew out and relit the candles. She said the incantation again, focusing on the memory of a different pony.

Specifically, Code. Someone alive.

The magic felt exactly the same. She couldn’t put out a call because there wasn’t anyone to put out a call to.

“Whippletree’s alive,” she said. “I don’t know what state he’s in, but he’s definitely alive.”

Sighs of relief rippled throughout the party and Arrastra grinned. Then her wings twitched and her expression slipped a little. But as soon as Amanita noticed it, the smile was back. “I dinnae ken about aryone else,” she said, “but I ain’t a-stoppin’! I’ll tear-”

“Um. Actually…” Bitterroot tentatively raised a hoof. “I’ve… got a really bad headache coming on, and… I don’t think I’d be much help like that.”

“Ach, dinnae hurt yerself,” said Arrastra, waving a hoof at her. “Get on back tae town an’ improve up. Aryone else feelin’ out o’ fix?”

No one was. Bitterroot spread her wings and started hovering just above the ground. “I’m really sorry, it’s just- I’ve got a lot on my mind-”

“Head on back tae Tratonmane an’ unload it frae yer mind!” barked Arrastra. “Thankee fer comin’, but we need tae get a movin’!”

Bitterroot quickly threw a salute and took off into the sky. As the ground team set off walking again, Amanita wound her way over to a certain pony. “Hey, Code?”

“Hmm?”

“When I cast the spell the second time, did you feel anything?”

“…Not that I noticed. Why?”

“Well…”

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t hunt in this state.

The circle around the Great Ash had tipped Bitterroot just barely over the edge. Every time she saw something remotely round, she double-checked it to be sure she wasn’t looking at a circle, triple-checked it to be sure there weren’t any lines across it. And of course, once she started looking for round objects, she started finding them. Pebbles, trees, the arc of the land… No circles or crosses, but that had to be just a matter of time.

The fact that the circles she’d seen — her plate, around the Ash — were so obviously coincidental arguably made it worse. Because what else had she walked past day after day that would suddenly jump out at her? She was afraid that if she glanced up at the sun, a flock of birds would fly in front of it in just the right way so that…

Flying fixed that. As long as she kept flying, things would blur and she couldn’t make out circles. Definitely no crosses in them. She’d be fine. And she’d be telling Code and the others about those circles the second they got back and a missing pony wasn’t the most important thing on their minds.

Tratonmane was slipping back into shadow when she reached it. The circle of the Ash was concealed by the dots of lamps. Bitterroot drifted down until she felt the snow crunch beneath her hooves. She stomped as randomly as she could. No crossed circles there.

When she walked inside, her throat was burning. The only pony in the common room was Cabin, slowly nibbling up a stalk of oats. She looked up as Bitterroot entered, flicked an ear, then went back to staring at the ceiling. When Bitterroot sat down at the bar, Cabin sighed and got to her position. “What dae ye want?” she grunted.

“Water,” said Bitterroot. She studied the whorls in the bartop. Plenty of curves, no circles or straight lines. “Just water.”

Cabin grunted and soon there was a cup of water sitting in front of Bitterroot. She quaffed a swallow. The water was cold, but it soothed her throat and helped clear her mind. Thoughts of circles blurred into something less relevant. Another drink and it happened again.

Bitterroot sat on her stool, doing her best to shift her mind. She could use a nice, straightforward hunt after this. Bum over to the west side of the country for a bit. Someplace warm. San Franpinto or Los Ambeles. Or go poking around the Badlands. They were beginning to post bounties that Equestrians could take. Hay, maybe even Griffonstone or Mt. Aris. Just not the North.

At some point, more ponies began filtering in. Bitterroot recognized some of them as lumberjacks. They gave their drink orders to Cabin and spread out into comfortable groups, talking and laughing.

Except for Crosscut. She took a seat right next to Bitterroot. She didn’t order anything, didn’t even look at her, just sat down. She took a deep breath. “I thought ye went a-searchin’ fer Whippletree.”

“I did,” Bitterroot said, ignoring her tone.The talk gave her something to focus on. “I got a bad headache and had to come back. We’re pretty sure he’s still alive, though.”

Crosscut snorted. “Well, if’n a headache-” Bitterroot could almost hear her train of thought crashing. “I… beg yer pardon, what?”

“Amanita performed a spell,” Bitterroot said, “that would’ve called up his spirit if he’d been dead. He didn’t show. So Amanita thinks he’s still alive.” She side-eyed Crosscut. “Necromancer.”

Crosscut opened her mouth. A small sound of overwhelmed bafflement came out.

Desperate to keep the conversation going, Bitterroot seized the first line of thought. “It needed an emotional connection to him and Arrastra said he had this spear, so, just FYI, I went and grabbed it.”

Crosscut froze halfway through a nod. Her brow furrowed. Slamming her hooves against the bartop, she demanded, “Ye broke intae my home?”

…Whoops. “Yeah, sorry,” admitted Bitterroot. “But I just went in, got the spear, came back out. It didn’t even take thirty seconds, honest.”

“Ye broke intae my home.”

“To try to help look for Whippletree! I promise! I didn’t even touch anything except the spear! I’m- having kind of a rough day and- You want to hit me? Seriously. If you think I deserve it, I deserve it.”

“…Nay. I’m- Nay.” Crosscut still looked miffed, but she was somewhat mollified. Somehow. She opened her mouth to say something, but then her expression shifted, like she was realizing something. She tapped her hoof on the bartop a few times, mouthing something. Then she asked, in a low voice, “Thirty seconds, ye say?”

“If that,” Bitterroot said. “I just went right upstairs to grab it from under the bed.” She took a drink of water.

“How’d ye ken where tae find it?”

Bitterroot became acutely aware of the chill of the water trickling down her throat.

No one had told her.

The door to the inn banged open; shock, dread, and drinking left Bitterroot spluttering and coughing. She hacked her way back to clear air only to find Midwinter staring at her. And not just staring, but staring, like she was the centerpiece of some grand science experiment. From the way her necklace was swinging, she’d arrived quickly. For a moment, Bitterroot thought about taking another drink to avoid conversation, but her shaking throat convinced her not to risk it.

“I heard Amanita resurrected Crosscut after a wolf attack last night,” Midwinter said. She spoke in a voice normally reserved for particularly spicy rumors or political secrets.

“Eeyup,” said Bitterroot. She already knew where conversation was going to go, and that provided some sort of comfort from predictability.

Midwinter blinked twice. “Is that all you can say?” she hissed. “‘Eeyup’?”

“Eeyup.”

“She- She is resurrecting. The dead. Why are you not surprised?”

“ ’Cause she’s a necromancer. I’ve known that for two and a half years.”

“Two and- Then pray tell me, why was Pyrita not resurrected as well?”

Bitterroot shrugged. “Dunno. I’m not a necromancer.”

Midwinter dropped back onto her stool, muttering. “A resurrection…”

“Normally, Amanita’s pretty good at them,” Bitterroot said. “She’s already resurrected me twice.”

And Midwinter was staring at her again, her tail flicking. “She has?”

“Had my throat slit. Both times.” Bitterroot raised her head to reveal the scar on her neck. “Long stories. You could probably get a book or two out of them. So, yeah. Died twice.”

An ear twitch. Midwinter’s eyes dilated enormously, catlike. “…Huh.” She gave Bitterroot one last look, then got off her seat and was out the door.

Bitterroot turned to her other side. “Sorry about-” But Crosscut was gone, probably assuming Midwinter would hijack the conversation. Which was… kind of what happened.

And Bitterroot was alone with her thoughts.

She looked down into her cup. There was still a bit of water in there. She swirled it around, watching the patterns it made. Light from the lamps dappled off the water, tracing lines in its surface. No crossed lines, though. The light wasn’t positioned right for that. No crossed circles.

Bitterroot stared into her cup and kept swirling. They weren’t crossed, right? She swirled. She tilted the cup this way and that, moved it around, looked into it from different angles. Ponies were staring at her, but she needed to be sure. Just. In. Case. And after several minutes, she was sure. No matter how she looked around, she couldn’t see any crossed circles. Not even close. She was safe.

But her mind wouldn’t shut up. She started looking at the bartop, the stools, the tables-

Bitterroot drank the rest of the water, shivered at its chill in her stomach, and turned the empty cup upside-down on the bartop. “Cabin?” she asked. “I need some whiskey.”

36 - The Shadow Beneath Midwich

It took a long time for Bitterroot to choke out, “A… A vampire?”

Amanita nodded. “She- She said she’d- been out there for sixty years. And- And when she got caught into the sunlight, she…” She gestured at the pile of ash. “Yeah.”

Bitterroot blinked at Amanita. She blinked at the ash. She flicked her tail and rustled her wings. Then she threw up her hooves. “Sure,” she mumbled in a voice that couldn’t have been more clearly done with it all. “A vampire. Why not? We already had eldritch gods and mearhwolves and mad scientists. A vampire. A sunblasted vampire.”

“Mad scientists?” asked Charcoal. “Is this about-”

Whippletree coughed. “Ah, beggin’ yer pardon, but… what’s a… vampire?”

“Undead pony in literature,” Code said. She hadn’t looked away from the ash pile. “Drink the blood of sapients-”

“Drink blood?”

“Nearly immortal and can’t go into the sunlight,” Code continued. “They supposedly don’t exist, but-” She blinked and pulled her head back. “Can they exist?” she asked Amanita.

Amanita lowered her ears and pawed at the ground. “Hypothetically, maybe?” she said. She found herself already theorizing. “I don’t know of any ways to become immortal besides lichdom, and I’m not sure how sunlight would enter into that… It’d have to be a very finicky spell…”

“Hmm.” Code looked back to the ash pile and flicked her tail.

But Amanita’s mind was working. Vampires were undead, right? Technically making them corpses. So if they “died” before they became vampires… She inched forward towards the ashes, still a bit unnerved. Saying “vampire” out loud didn’t make it any less weird just yet. Slowly, almost delicately, she wiggled her hoof into the pile. Amanita swallowed, wove her magic, and muttered, “Meminerim mortem.”

Something wiggled in her spell, but that was it. Like she wasn’t touching a body.

“Meminerim mortem.”

Nothing.

“Tempus Mortis isn’t working,” Amanita said to nobody in particular. “The fire changed the body too much.”

Code mumbled something.

“Um. Hey,” said Bitterroot. “While we’re… on the subject, I… have something I need to say. And… you’re gonna want to sit down.”

She was right.

Amanita felt drained as she listened to Bitterroot talk. To have that happen to you… If she’d remembered it, Bitterroot probably would’ve broken down before turning into a timberwolf. Maybe even made like a pegasus and just winged away to get some help. Right then, Bitterroot seemed more rattled and disturbed than traumatized, but maybe she was hiding it. There was just so much going on…

“…and, and then I came here,” Bitterroot said, her voice flat. “And… And I just don’t know what to do.” She flexed her wings.

Amanita opened her mouth; nothing came out. She closed it again. When she looked around the room, no one else seemed to have much of an idea, either. Arrastra and Whippletree appeared to be taking it the worst; Whippletree was visibly shaking while Arrastra had taken to walking a short circuit with uneven paces while staring at the ground.

Then Code stood up. “I need to talk to the Deormont,” she said. “Through Tallbush. Alone.”

“Why?” asked Bitterroot. “I can-”

Code shook her head. “Not for this, you can’t. You had trouble decoding the Deormont telling us to follow the river. Tallbush has far more experience than you.”

“…Yeah…”

“What’re ye plannin’ on doin’?” asked Arrastra. “Jes’ askin’ it who Arc Fault is?”

“Exactly that, yes,” said Code, stepping towards the door. “Among other things.”

Arrastra blinked, then darted forward, stomping on Code’s tail. “If it kenned, it’d tell us,” she snapped. “The Deormont watches o’er us, an’-”

“Tutelaries work differently from us,” said Code. She yanked her tail out, but didn’t start moving again. “It might not be able to tell you anything unless you ask it properly. I know how to ask it properly. It’s- It promised health for you, but you need a grain mother to invoke its healing, yes?”

Arrastra squinted at Code. “Aye.”

“The grain mother’s how you let it know someone needs healing and ask for help,” Code said. “Otherwise, it can’t do anything. It can’t- create ideas like we can, it can’t do anything not related to the land unless you ask it-” She groaned and ran a hoof through her mane. “See, all these questions are why I’m going alone. I don’t need to clarify anything. Stay here and just- don’t do anything stupid. Not until we know more about what’s going on, at any rate.” And she was gone.

Silence. The scent of ash was fading from the room, but it lingered in Amanita’s memory. Arrastra spun around, wings wide, and asked everyone, “We’re jes’ waitin’ on her?”

“It’s… a good idea,” Amanita admitted. “If she wants to be alone, it’s best that she’s alone.”

“We’ve- some- madpony doin’ hateful things in our town,” growled Arrastra, “an’ ye wish tae wait?”

“I don’t want to wait,” said Amanita, standing up. “But that’s about all we can do right now: wait until Code comes back out of the mine with more information. And even if it’s not, she’s gone, and wouldn’t you rather face Arc with her than without?”

Arrastra grit her teeth, then slouched forward and let her wings slacken. “Aye,” she mumbled. “But…”

Whippletree reached over and laid a hoof on hers. “We’ll get him, Arrastra,” he said. “Dinnae fret.”

Easier said than done. Tension was high in the room and no one wanted to stay, much less sit still. Arrastra started doing circuits. As Amanita sat back down, she found herself wondering what Arc Fault looked like, since Bitterroot hadn’t really described him beyond “unicorn”. She went through a great many styles, from scrawny to buff, short to tall, silky-smooth-maned to unkempt, a multitude of different colorations.

But it was always a pony with a face she wanted to buck. Her hooves were twitching.

Bitterroot was sitting, holding her head in her hooves. From the way her body was moving, her breathing was long and low. Amanita crept over to her side. “Are you… doing okay?”

“I think so.” Her voice was a bit shaky, but when Bitterroot raised her head, she wasn’t crying. “I’m just… working through my memories,” she mumbled, waving a hoof around. “Trying to see if there’s anything else I missed.”

‘Ah.”

“What’s the best way tae kill a vampire dead?” Arrastra said darkly. She gestured at the ashes. “The sun, even if it ain’t much good in Tratonmane. Ary else?”

By now, the situation had gotten strange enough for Amanita that she didn’t question it. “Well, if they’re anything like their fiction, uh, a wooden stake through the heart.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, it’s fiction…” Amanita tilted her head. “Although… if it works like I think it would, then that much symbolic life could break apart whatever spell is keeping them from dying, since-”

Bitterroot suddenly sucked in a breath and pulled her wings tight, drawing everyone’s attention. “Arrastra,” she said quietly. “After your dad died, you said you cried in the bathroom, right?”

Arrastra flinched, as if embarrassed, but said, “Aye. I was young, a-”

“The bathroom. Not a privy or anything, a bathroom with a sink and a toilet and plumbing. Is that right?”

“…Aye, but… what does that matter?”

Bitterroot stood up, her wings shaking. “…Who built that bathroom?”

Arrastra was looking at Bitterroot with more and more concern. Amanita wasn’t sure what was going on, either. “Midwinter. She an’ her family built all of ’em in Tratonmane. Ain’t ye heard?”

“…How old is Midwinter?”

“Eh.” Arrastra shrugged. “I nair asked her.”

“Bitterroot, what’re ye gettin’ tae?” asked Whippletree.

“That was sixty years ago,” Bitterroot said quietly. “It’s-” She flapped her wings once and started pointing. “Amanita, Charcoal, don’t, don’t you see the issue here?”

Amanita and Charcoal looked at each other and shrugged. “Some people just age really well,” Charcoal said. “There’s one earth pony I work with, she’s in her later fifties, but looks like-”

“Sixty. Years.” Bitterroot looked at everyone in the room. “And none of you see it?”

“Could you slow down?” Amanita asked, sitting up straighter. “I really don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

Bitterroot gave a sort of forced laugh and collapsed back onto her haunches. “I’m not crazy,” she muttered. “I thought I might be crazy then, but I wasn’t, so I’m not now.” She scrunched her eyes shut and tapped her temples. “But why, but why, but-”

Her eyes shot open. She tapped her temple again.

“I’m gonna get more foal’s breath,” she said quickly, and she was out the door.

“What’s goin’ on with her?” Whippletree asked.

“I don’t know,” Charcoal said, “but she’s had a rough week. Maybe she just needs to get some energy out.”

Amanita nodded. For once, Bitterroot’s worry seemed to be overblown.

Restricted Code managed to not slam the door as she left. This whole operation was supposed to have been about a flipping ley line, and now she was about to talk to a god. Which, granted, was something she’d always wanted to do, but in a more controlled setting. Not about vampires. She took a bite of dirt. By now, it was somehow comfort food.

First: Tallbush. Thank goodness she knew how to track him, now. Code closed her eyes and let her sensation wander into the dirt. Power swirled around her; there was the ley line, which meant that was Tallbush, probably. It was too weak to properly place, but Code followed the hems of it anyway.

Onto the shelf, right near the coal breaker. Tallbush was working the locomotive and pushing the carriages back so another hopper could get filled up. He gave Code a wave as she approached. “Hidy. Heard ye got Whippletree back?”

“As High Ritualist of the Royal Guard, I need you to be a link to the Deormont for me,” Code said. “This is not a request.”

Tallbush blinked as if slapped and the power radiating out from him stirred. “…Pardon?” he asked.

“There is something going on in Midwich that I don’t think you’re aware of. Have you ever heard of an ‘Arc Fault’?”

“Nay, but-”

“I need you to be a link to the Deormont for me right now.” Code’s voice was growing steel.

“Wish tae make demands of a god?” snorted Tallbush. “Already a-pushin’ yer luck wi’ Bitterroot, an’-”

“If you want Tratonmane to stay safe, then yes, I will absolutely make demands of a god and they will be answered.”

Tallbush flinched and stiffly clambered down from the train without even turning it off. “Heard that tone afore, an’ if’n ye’re determined…” He reluctantly trotted up towards the mine, Code following in his wake. “What’s goin’ on?”

“When we came back from Midwich Forest…”

Bitterroot came rushing back to the house, a bag full of foal’s breath pills in her grasp. For all the nothing she was talking about, she looked pretty frazzled. She tossed the bag into the center of the room. “Each of you, take one,” she said, pawing at the ground. “There’s, there’s something wrong here, and- I think that snapped me out of it. Please.”

Amanita pulled out one of the pills and rolled it around on her frog. Bitterroot still wasn’t explaining herself… But the last time she hadn’t been thinking straight, she’d led them to the Deormont. Given the way the week was turning out, just taking some foal’s breath was downright sane.

“Uh, just so you all know,” Charcoal said, “foal’s breath doesn’t have any negative effects, so we’re really risking nothing by taking these.” She levitated pills out for herself, Arrastra, and Whippletree. “And I’d just like to be sure that there’s nothing else wrong with this day, so…” She popped the pill into her mouth and swallowed.

Amanita looked at her own pill again. Ah, what the hay. Down the hatch. Arrastra and Whippletree exchanged looks, then took their own. Amanita sat there and waited for-

Then she realized.

And she knew everyone else was also realizing it because silence fell, and it fell hard.

“Told you,” Bitterroot whispered.

Midwinter.

That young.

Sixty years.

And her family-

“They was old when they came here,” Arrastra said quietly. “Varnish an’ Carnelian. None o’ you’uns saw it, but they’ve allays been old. Frae the very firs’ day. They’re all vampires, the lot of ’em.”

The words bored into Amanita’s head and left it aching. A dozen little inconsistencies and casual comments, just forcibly mentally shoved aside by some spell, now brought to the forefront. They’d always been asking her about necromancy. They must’ve-

“Let’s kill ’em,” Whippletree said.

Everyone looked at him. His voice was so matter-of-fact that Amanita found it startling. “Uh… kill them?” she asked. “A-already?”

“Aye. Let’s kill ’em.” Whippletree’s level tone of voice reminded Amanita of Code. “They’ve violatin' our minds doin’ land-kens-what fer o’er half a century. They’ve bein’ lyin’ to us all that time. They’re o’ the same ageless sort as Lixivia, who made me kill my wife dead. They’re o’ the same memory-wipin’ sort as Arc Fault, who used yer friend’s body fer some mad experiment. They prolly dinnae see us as people.”

“Well-” Amanita knew she was fighting a losing battle, but some reflex made her try anyway. “Don’t you think-” Her voice was getting smaller. “-maybe we should- wait for Code and-”

Whippletree looked Amanita dead in the eyes with an intensity she hadn’t seen before, one that brought her speech to a halt and made her back up a step. “Home ain’t safe wi’ them around,” he said. “I’ll nair feel safe long as they’re about. I want tae kill ’em. Now.”

“Or leastways, Arc Fault,” growled Arrastra. She flexed her wings. “Whipple, if ye’re goin’, I’m goin’. Those- shiftless- polecats.”

To Amanita’s not-quite surprise, Bitterroot stood up as well. “I’m going with you,” she said. “If Arc did to Tratonmanians what he did to me, then yeah, he needs to go down.”

Amanita opened her mouth, closed it again. She couldn’t fault Bitterroot, not after what Arc had done to her. That didn’t mean she thought it was a good idea. But if they were so set on doing this, then- “A-alright,” she said. “If, if you’re all going, then, then I’m in, too. You could- use the help.” And maybe she could keep them from going too overboard. Maybe.

Arrastra grinned. “Alright, then,” she said. “Let’s go vampire huntin’.”

“That lily-livered ashcake,” Tallbush growled. “ ’Neath our town, all this time…”

“And there’s possibly more,” said Code. “He was just the one Bitterroot saw. So-”

“Aye. A-helpin’ ye. Arythin’ tae be rid o’ that woodfoal. Even questionin’ God.”

Tallbush had been ambivalent at first, but the more Code told him, the faster he walked until they were galloping through the mine, lit only by his horn. The miners they passed didn’t look twice. Stone walls and wooden supports rushed past and Code felt the Deormont’s power more with every foot; soon it’d drown out even Tallbush.

Almost before she knew it, they were trotting down into the pit. Darkness seemed to be pushed back around Tallbush, like there was more light on him than just his horn. Power roiled in the ground beneath Code, a mere millimeter of reality providing enough solidity for them to walk on. It was the kind of place she’d dreamed of.

Tallbush faltered right at the channel, froze. He eyed the water, still anxious at making demands of divinity. But it was only a second; he took a drink from the channel and shuddered. Unlike Bitterroot, he didn’t collapse or undergo anything like a seizure. He turned around to face Code and sat down. His pupils were dilating and contracting oddly, like each eye was being focused manually and separately. “Speak,” he said. He wasn’t talking very loudly, but his voice echoed where Code’s didn’t.

The Deormont had seemed fine with plain-ish Ponish, so Code started with that. “Is the pony Arc Fault known to the Deormont?” You sometimes needed strange phrasings for spirits of this nature, to make sure they got all the information or to clarify things. They sometimes had a hard time distinguishing one pony from another without prompting.

A brief pause, then Tallbush nodded. “He is.”

“For how long has Arc Fault been here up until now?”

Tallbush flicked an ear, then twitched in surprise. “Sixty-four year,” he said, his voice somewhere between recitation and shock. “Arc’s been here fer sixty-four year.”

Hmm. The same type of immortality as Lixivia? “Is the pony Lixivia known to the Deormont?”

“…She was. Geld it all, how did we-”

“Was the nature of Arc and Lixivia’s relationship collaborative?”

“Aye.”

“What was the nature of that collaboration?”

Tallbush waited. One of his ears drooped and he frowned. “Ah…” He shook his head. “Beggin’ yer pardon, but… I ain’t nair heard it speak like this afore… It ain’t makin’ a lick o’ sense…”

“I’ve worked with this sort of thing,” Code said. When working with otherworldly beings, making sure both sides could communicate at all was more than half the battle. “Tell it to me, as verbatim as possible.”

Tallbush nodded, then half-closed his eyes. “They consume the lines of others tae extend their own an’ they breed mongrel worms o’ many lines,” he intoned. Then he fully opened his eyes again and shrugged. “It calls our lives ‘lines’ an’ calls us ‘worms’, but I cannae guess what the rest means.”

It was enough for Code to start thinking, at least. She started pacing and muttering. “Consume lines of others to extend their own… Consume lives of others… Drink their blood? They really are vampires…” Aware of Tallbush staring at her oddly, she pushed her monologue to inner. “I’m making a stab at it. Is this relationship shared with anyone else?”

It took a moment for Tallbush to gasp in shock. “Aye,” he said quietly. “His family.”

“You get some,” muttered Charcoal, “and you get some, and you get some…”

A little bit of foal’s breath for everyone. Preemptive protection against memory wipes. Bitterroot approved.

“Oh! And if you think you’re going to get a whammy put on you, bite your tongue. Hard,” said Charcoal. “The pain will stick around through the wipe and you’ll know something’s up.”

“How long were you thinking of that?” asked Bitterroot.

“Honestly? It came to me just now,” said Charcoal. “But it’s a clever idea, don’t you think?”

“It is, yeah.”

“Keep a-movin’,” growled Arrastra. “I wish tae get these glanders-ridden jayhawkers out o’ my town.” She had her chainsaw slung over her back like a sword and was almost walking in place to get her energy out.

Bitterroot glanced at Whippletree, waiting for him to tell her to exercise caution or something along those lines. He did no such thing, but stood at her side, spear at the ready, wings fidgeting restlessly.

“I think we’re good, actually,” said Charcoal, “so if you want to leave-”

And Arrastra was out the door, Whippletree on her heels. Bitterroot and the others had to break into a gallop to follow them.

As they approached the Watering Cave, Charcoal nudged her in the ribs. “I’m not going with you I need to check something else just so you know,” she said, and she ducked into the Cave. Bitterroot gave her a quick wave that she didn’t see.

Bitterroot and Amanita stumbled down the stairs into the bunker, already illuminated by Arrastra and Whippletree. They were doing circuits in opposite directions, tapping the walls carefully and keeping their ears to the stones. “Where’d it happen?” Arrastra asked. “I’ve been in here times aplenty an’ I ain’t nair seen arythin’ like a door.”

“It was in the back,” Bitterroot said. She led them to the far wall of the room, its darkest and most distant corners. A perfect place to hide a secret door. But the wall was smooth and unblemished. Bitterroot ran a hoof across a section of the wall, wondering if there was a lever to-

She flinched as knowledge entered into her mind unbidden. She reared, bracing herself against the wall with a front hoof, and held the other against a patch of stone just below the ceiling that looked the same as any other. She pressed it there for one second, two, three, four-

At five seconds, something made her wings buzz and a section of wall simply peeled inward like burning bark, utterly silent. Behind it, a tunnel bored into the earth, orbs of cold, dim light stuck in the ceiling leading them on. There was nothing but rock and stone, as far as Bitterroot could see.

Amanita pointed at the tunnel. “How did you…?”

“Deormont,” Bitterroot said quietly.

“All this time,” said Arrastra, her eye narrowed. “That anticor had it here all this time…” She dove onward, chirruping in echolocation. Whippletree was close behind.

Bitterroot and Amanita looked at each other, then galloped after them. “Some ponies,” Bitterroot muttered. She might as well have been getting yanked along by a ring in her nose.

“Hey, you threw away the element of surprise when facing down a necromancer based on a hunch,” said Amanita.

“A hypothermic necromancer who was in no condition to fight me! I didn’t run into a tunnel that’d be a perfect place for a trap!”

“…No. You didn’t.”

They ran. Sounds echoed up and down the tunnel. Bitterroot was wondering just how quickly Arc could transport her up and down the tunnel when it ended, opening up into-

-the lab. Bitterroot’s stomach heaved.

The phrase “his family” told Code two things. One: the Deormont almost certainly understood plain Ponish better than she’d anticipated. Two: son of a dog, Arc had a family. “Who’s in his family?” she asked.

“…No,” muttered Tallbush. “Nay, cannae be right… Midwinter, Carnelian, an’ Varnish? They…” He shook his head. “They… ain’t that… but…” He turned around and prostrated himself before the stalactite. “Oh, land o’ my foredams an’ foresires, my salvation an’ my sustenance, our eyes are right clouded an’ our minds turned ’round. Look o’er our impertinence, an’ I beg o’ ye, plead o’ ye, clear our sight, that we may ken.”

He immediately spasmed once, all his joints contracting to yank him into a fetal position. But he was getting back to his feet in moments and Code felt something stir in her mind. He stared out at nothing, nearly dumbstruck. “They… They were all of ’em here since afore I’s born,” he said dully. “Why didnae I notice?”

Code wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but she was sure it was time to leave. “That’s good for now,” she said. “Let’s get out of here before-”

“Too late.”

Varnish’s voice bounded through the pit; Code immediately spun around and placed herself between Tallbush and… anything. She didn’t say a word and only self-control kept her from pawing at the ground.

Above them, a cold light shone from the passage through which they’d entered. Varnish walked up to the ledge, looking down on them. Grinning, he said, “Howdy doo.” Then he leaped. And although he dropped four or five stories, he landed lightly.

Code shrugged as her gaze darted around the room and she attempted to strategize. “I’ve been worse.”

“Really.” Carnelian swooped down from the ledge and landed next to Varnish, a touch too gracefully for the speed at which she was moving. “You must have a plethora of tales to tell.”

“Nah,” said Varnish. “She’s making them up. I know she is.”

Code heard Tallbush gulp behind her. “W-what dae ye want?” he asked. “We’ve d-done ye nae hurt.”

“No, but you will if you leave here.” Varnish pawed at the ground and lowered his head. “Some come with us and you won’t get hurt.” He glanced at Code. “Can’t say the same for you, though.”

Code’s mind was racing. She had no idea of what she was up against. Varnish’s jump already told her he was different from a normal unicorn — in endurance, if absolutely nothing else. Her gut was saying that this was a fight she’d be on the back foot on the whole way through. But they were associated with Arc and Lixivia, so. Well. She felt her ears lower as she shifted to a combat posture-

“Hold!” Fuligin came galloping down the slope, looking almost awkward in comparison to Varnish and Carnelian. “Hold, hold!” he yelled as he darted between them. “This doesnae have tae be violent!”

“If you run, I think I can hold them off,” Code muttered to Tallbush. “Get ready to move.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing,” said Varnish.

“An’ what about you’un?” Tallbush whispered.

“If’n she’s more’n you’uns can handle-”

“Doesn’t matter. Just go.” Code would’ve said that even if she didn’t have a necromancer on the team.

“There’s three of us and two of them,” said Carnelian. “Be thankful, I’m counting you! We can handle them.”

“Lissen,” said Fuligin, “we dinnae need tae-”

“Fuligin,” Code said loudly. If Fuligin was already ambivalent towards this, maybe that could be leveraged.

Fuligin twitched at the sound of his name. He made “settle down” movements to Varnish and Carnelian, then turned to Code. “Ye dinnae need tae get hurt,” he said in a tired voice. “Jes’- Jes’ come quietly, an’-”

Code looked him in the eye. There was a lot going on in his head, but right then, she only cared about one thing. “Are you all hurting Tratonmane?” she said.

Fuligin winced back a step. “We- Aye, but-”

Code charged.

Charcoal had suspicions.

So maybe Midwinter was a vampire, casting some sort of spell to keep ponies from noticing she wasn’t aging. That raised the question of how that spell was being applied to everyone, including the newcomers. Well, how about the thing she was known for working on? And very very much didn’t want other creatures looking at?

Technically speaking, Charcoal hadn’t examined all of the purification spells for the plumbing. But if you wanted to manipulate an entire community, that would be the perfect place for it. Dump the right potions into the water supply or apply the right spell, and you could be dosing people with most any magical effect anytime they drank a sip of water. They’d let you into their house so you could tinker with it! Utilities were weird.

So as the group headed into the bunker, Charcoal slipped away into the Watering Cave. She’d seen its setup. She’d had all of its parts pointed out to her. She had an idea of how it worked. She could analyze it. She didn’t want to go back underground, anyway.

“There’s something I need to check,” she said to Cabin, and went into the back without waiting for a response. Confidence could work wonders. Down the staircase, through the labyrinth of supplies — there they were. The heater and the purifier. The runic blocks were still there, just like she remembered them. She wiped down one of them to get a closer look at the rune-

Then her tongue was screaming with pain.

It didn’t look much better rightside-up. Everything was as Bitterroot remembered it: vats, cauldrons, gems, manacled table, dissected changelings, cold walls and floor. The air was as cold as Midwich outside, which felt wrong when the place was inside. The aisles were wide enough to get through easily, almost like the place was meant for multiple ponies. It was nearly silent except for the bubbling of cauldrons, the whirring and clicking of machines. The place stank; Bitterroot felt like her brain was getting vacuumed out her nose.

She was breathing heavily, but Amanita sniffed, her nostrils flaring. “Formaldehyde,” she said. Bitterroot wondered how she could stand that smell.

“Hey!” hissed Arrastra. She and Whippletree were standing next to the other exit from the room, clearly waiting for them. “Ain’t you’uns comin’?”

“Can you slow down for a second?” Amanita snapped back. “You’re just- rushing from one place to another without any thought and I don’t have wings! Can I have a second to rest?”

“That’s prolly a good idea, Arrastra,” Whippletree muttered. He was jumping from hoof to hoof, ready to go, but held his ground. “We dinnae want tae leave her ahind.”

Arrastra huffed and pawed at the ground. “I ain’t waitin’ long,” she grumbled. “But if’n y’insist.”

“Thank you.” Amanita leaned against one of the desks, gulping deep breaths. She idly glanced over at one of the books on the table and started rifling through it.

Of course, Amanita staying still meant Bitterroot had to stand around in the lab in which she’d had an arcane device forced into her throat. She shuddered and, needing a distraction, looked down. She didn’t like the stains she saw on the floor. She looked to the side. She didn’t like the equine shape she saw drifting in the vat. She looked to the other side. A cauldron, sitting at a potions station. She peeked inside-

-and pulled back, sucking in a breath. The same dark purple liquid Arc had said would wipe her memory. There was plenty of it, enough for dozens of single-pony doses. Or worse. She couldn’t help but back away from it.

Something clinked on the ground. A small drain cover, to catch liquid waste. Bitterroot quickly decided that that potion qualified and started dumping it in. No amnestics for Arc. She tried not to breathe in the fumes as they went down, but she bit her tongue, just in case. Fortunately, she still knew where she was when the last drop was gone.

So… “Hey.” She waved at Arrastra and Whippletree. “Arc’s making potions. Want to destroy them?”

And so, they started dumping potions out, ensuring every single cauldron, beaker, and flask got emptied out and disposed of. It wasn’t much, but it was something to eat up the time. And as more and more of Arc’s work literally went down the drain, Bitterroot felt Arrastra and Whippletree getting more and more satisfied.

“Heh.” Arrastra was grinning with sadistic satisfaction. “How long dae ye think it taked him tae brew those?”

“Long enough tae make a difference,” said Whippletree. He picked up a jar of ingredients and bounced it on his hoof. “He ain’t goin’ tae be happy.” He hurled the jar against the far wall, shattering it and sending its contents flying. “But, heh, that’s the idea.”

“Hey!” Bitterroot nudged Arrastra’s hoof aside as she reached for another jar. “Keep quiet. We don’t want to make too much noise. Amanita, are you ready to go?”

Amanita was hunched over the desk, piles of papers scattered before her and a book lying open. Her eyes were closed, her ears were folded back, and she wasn’t moving much.

“Amanita?” Bitterroot asked, cautiously walking closer.

Amanita’s breathing was labored and far too even, the intake of a locomotive barely held in check. She opened her eyes and growled, “Arc needs to die. Arc needs to die.”

The space between them wasn’t large and Code crossed it before Fuligin was able to react. She managed to snatch his mane in her teeth and, keeping on the move, swung him around and tossed him bodily at Carnelian. Code didn’t see the impact before she turned to Varnish, and although it would’ve taken down most any other two ponies, right then, she wasn’t sure.

But she didn’t have time to think about it before Varnish’s horn was glowing. The spell he slung was quick, throwing some dirt in her face to keep her away. Code twisted her head aside and kept her eyes shut, ignoring the worst of the debris. She wasn’t even looking at Varnish as she kept moving, closing the distance any way she could. By the time she turned back around, they were muzzle-to-muzzle.

They reared and caught each other in a grappling stance. And although Code was an earth pony, Varnish was taller. He lifted her clean off the ground, then twisted her away from her hooves and fell on top of her.

Varnish was strong. But he wasn’t used to fighting earth ponies and hadn’t braced himself. As she slammed into the ground, Code gave a yank. Varnish stumbled slightly, just off-balance enough for Code to pull harder and turn it into a roll. His momentum pulled her back up, and she threw out a hoof to brace herself. When Varnish tried to copy her rollover move, he had no leverage. Code raised a hoof over Varnish’s ribs and swung it down as hard as she could.

Varnish dissolved, rippling into smoke before Code’s hoof made contact. The smoke reformed behind her and she was smashed into the ground by his hoof. “High Ritualist, huh?” he breathed in her ear. His breath was cold and dry. “Fat lot of good that did you, earth pony.” He placed a hoof on her neck and pressed. Code wriggled; she couldn’t get the slightest breath. Still she wriggled.

Then he grabbed her in his magic and smashed her one, two, three times against the rock. Her entire body jolted with pain and her vision swam. She tried to take a breath. No luck. She wriggled.

“Stars above, ye’ve already got her,” growled Fuligin, “ye dinnae need tae-”

“Ho, you don’t know her,” Varnish snapped. “Yeah, I need to.”

Code heard some grunting; Tallbush and Carnelian grappling tumbled into view. But when they stood up, Carnelian had him under control in some sort of hold. Tallbush stopped struggling and hung his head.

“She’s an interesting one,” Carnelian said. “What’re you planning? Draining her?” She sniffed. “She smells rather good.”

“Are you kidding?” Varnish snorted. “With her blood, I might turn into a self-unaware egotist!”

Carnelian’s eyes narrowed. “And that would be quite the shame,” she said.

Varnish didn’t notice. “No. I’m not going to drain you. Much too quick.” He gave Code a hard buck, harder than any unicorn could have managed. Code went tumbling head over hooves, bouncing across the floor, moving too fast to get any real purchase with her hooves. Her body picked up scrapes and gashes and aches.

The instant she was able to stop herself. Code scrambled to her hooves. She was in one of the tunnels in the walls of the pit, and pretty far in, too. She was so desperate for breath that the coal dust in the air somehow didn’t irritate her. She looked in one direction: darkness. She looked in the other: Varnish at the entrance to the tunnel, some distance away. He held something up, something orange and glowing.

A lamp.

A burning lamp.

“Run, rabbit, run!” Varnish yelled. And he tossed the lamp.

Code turned and ran. She drew all the magic she could from the land, pumped her legs as hard as she could, ignored her pain, didn’t even care that she was running blindly into a cave, just ran-

She heard the lamp shatter behind her.

The coal dust ignited and an explosion rocked the mine.

Charcoal blinked. She remembered looking into the piping and the purification routine. She remembered finding nothing out of the ordinary. What she didn’t remember was biting her tongue.

Uh-oh.

Immediately, she dug into her furs, looking for- Foal’s breath. She downed it and waited.

Down the staircase, through the labyrinth of supplies — there they were. The heater and the purifier. The runic blocks were still there, just like she remembered them. She wiped down one of them to get a closer look at the rune.

Same as before. Nothing out of place. She went to the next one-

Wait. She’d given this a quick look-over already and found nothing. She remembered finding nothing, even after taking foal’s breath. Had she missed something? Or was it really well hidden? Where could it have been hidden?

…Inside the pipes themselves. Use runes to make them last, tell Tratonmane that they needed replacement pipes whenever the runes wore down. She’d been so close, and she’d never even considered looking at magic in the pipes. Or was that part of the thought-suppression spell, too? Charcoal nudged her magic in to get a feel for the pipes. After a brief spark that made her twitch, she found-

…Oh, dear.

It was complicated. Stupid complicated. More complicated than she could hope to analyze. Definitely more complicated than was needed for water purification. Complicated enough for mental manipulation? Maybe.

She thought she heard something rustle behind her; she raised her head and looked. Nothing. She turned her ears and listened. Nothing.

Back to the pipes. Charcoal started picking at one of the simpler spells. What she found had nothing to do with water or even physical stuff. She knew enough about theory to make a stab that it was probably mental, but-

Another rustle, closer. Charcoal whipped around, only for Midwinter to blitz out of the darkness, moving faster than any pony had a right to, and slam her into the wall. She whipped out a needle filled with a dark purple liquid, injected it into Charcoal’s neck, and said, with only the slightest hint of a growl in her voice, “You found nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was as expected.”

She yanked the needle out and vanished back into the storage — literally vanished, melting out of visibility. Charcoal toppled forward and tried to yell, but a mist was rolling through her thoughts and smothering her actions. Simply moving her head became a sudden chore.

But in the last seconds before the fog overtook her, she bit into her tongue hard enough to draw blood.

Charcoal shuddered and licked the roof of her mouth. Something warm and slick and coppery was between it and her tongue.

Okay. So… they knew about her knowing. Midwinter did, at least. Maybe that spark was an alarm, triggered whenever someone looked at the spells. No more looking at that for her, then. What to do now?

Get into the bunker and stick with the others. Safety in numbers. She didn’t feel safe hiding in Tratonmane, and the bunker was right there.

With shaking legs, Charcoal climbed back up the stairs and waved as cheerfully as she could to Cabin. “Got everything I needed, thanks!” She left the inn before Cabin could reply, turned the corner, and headed around to the back. The bunker was right over there. The door was open. She took a step towards it.

“Ah, hello, Charcoal.”

Charcoal nearly bit her tongue off in shock at the sound of Midwinter’s voice. She was in the opposite direction as the bunker, leaning against the back wall of the inn and smiling just a bit too broadly.

“Hey,” Charcoal said, nodding.

“I heard you were checking on the purification system again. Did you find what you were looking for?”

Charcoal managed to not say anything, but her heart rate spiked. She could feel it, sending shakes through her body. Somehow, she shook her head. “No. I was wring. Wrong.” If she could just get away from here, maybe get into the bunker and find the others-

“Hmm. You say you found nothing at all?”

“Nope.” Charcoal popped the last P to hide her quavering voice. “I guess my hunch was wrong.”

“Really? That’s not what your heartbeat’s saying,” Midwinter said, not dropping her grin. “Fortunately, I always did want to know what you tasted like.”

And before Charcoal could even blink, Midwinter had crossed the distance between them and smashed her into the ground. Something cracked loudly. She didn’t feel any pain, though.

In fact, she didn’t feel anything below her neck.

Bitterroot flinched back. She’d never heard Amanita this angry before. She sounded like she was ready, willing, and able to cut someone’s heart out. Arrastra and Whippletree seemed to have noticed, too, watching her the same way they would a hungry bear.

Before anyone could say anything, Amanita was talking. “This is a journal of his notes. What he’s working on. And this is the sort of work my master was doing before I came to my senses. I know this magic. It’s another form of lichdom, with him consuming ponies’ lives to extend his own. I’d bet money it’s why they came here. Tratonmane is isolated, and this sort of magic, you can’t derive it from passive, unobtrusive observation. If, if you want to learn something like this, find how souls react to certain spells-” She pulled out a certain sheaf of paper and tapped it. “-you need to murder ponies. One for each data point. Look at how many data points there are.”

Bitterroot did. The room felt even colder.

“And, and, and this?” Amanita flipped forward several pages and pointed at a few paragraphs of notes filled with dense terminology. “This is- He’s basically vivisecting a pony without anesthetic just to see what a living heart does when he pokes it. And there’s more.” She ruffled the pages. “Sweet Celestia, is there more.”

She stepped away from the book. “That’s- That’s unforgivable, plain and simple. Princess Twilight says that we need to give ponies a chance. Right now, I don’t care. Evil exists and Arc is it. And anyone associated with him. They need to be six feet under. I’ll bury them alive myself if I have to.”

She turned to Arrastra. “I’m finished. Let’s go.”

“Heh.” Arrastra smirked. “Ain’t ne’er seen ye like that afore.” She clicked her tongue and turned towards the exit-

-as Arc walked in, whistling off-key.

They froze when they saw each other.

“Hey,” protested Arc.

And suddenly Arrastra was charging, her roar inaudible beneath the chainsaw’s.

She was fast, but Arc was faster. He actually blurred as he jinked to one side, dodging Arrastra’s swing more easily than he should’ve been able to manage. As she swung herself around to face him again, he yelled, “In!”

And something else came running in.

It was technically a pony, but the sight of it made Bitterroot nauseous. It looked more like a poorly-kitbashed model of a pony than anything natural, limbs out of proportion with the body, body out of proportion with the neck. The colors didn’t match between the legs, the wings, the body, and the head, with bulging, corded scars standing out at the lines like poor stitching. And it had wings; it had a horn, too. It might as well have been cobbled together from-

…oh dear Celestia.

The- thing charged right at Arrastra; she swept her wings and managed to get out of its way, but it still sideswiped her enough to spin her around. It tried to change direction and Whippletree bolted forward. He thrust his spear forward with impeccable aim and impaled it right in the chest.

It didn’t stop moving or even slow down. It ran at Arrastra with the spear embedded in its body.

“Hey!” yelled Amanita. She snatched up the discarded cauldron and pitched it at the ogre’s head, hitting it dead-on. The thing didn’t react as the metal mass bounced off, it just swung a hoof at Arrastra, but the impact unbalanced it enough that she was able to duck under it.

Bitterroot found herself running forward. The brute was big, but if they all jumped in-

And suddenly Arc was in front of her. She flared her wings to stop, only for her bad wing to twinge; she instinctively pulled it back inward. Without the air resistance, she slid beyond what she’d planned, within range of Arc. He grabbed her head in his hooves and the force of the impacts and his grip made her see stars.

“Hello, muffin!” chirped Arc. He swung her around. Bitterroot took a table in the flank and awkwardly tumbled over it, knocking aside papers and flasks. Arc jumped up after her and gave her a shove to push her over the far edge. The ground rushed up to meet her and she saw stars when she smashed her head.

Suddenly, Arc was straddling her, holding an empty beaker over her head. “Did you dump all these? Rude, booger bear,” he tutted. “I was working.” He smashed the beaker into Bitterroot’s face, shattering it, embedding glass shards in her flesh. She screamed, doubling over. Blood dribbled down her face, into her nose.

“Sleep tight,” Arc said. “Ha!” He raised his hoof over her head and brought it down.

Code’s head was still spinning when everything settled. She tried to take a breath; the dust in the air gave her a mild coughing fit. When she opened her eyes, nothing changed. She tried to stand up and bumped her head. She moved forward and quickly hit a jagged sloping wall. She moved backward and quickly hit a jagged sloping wall. Side to side, walls. Her tunnel had caved in from the explosion and this pocket was all she had left.

She had nothing but herself, the clothes on her back, the glasses on her face, the magic in her soul, less than fifty square feet of floor space, barely five feet of height, some sharp rocks, air, and time. Literally nothing more, not even light or orientation.

Better get to work on that.

She tested some of the loose rocks for sharpness, laying the best ones aside and throwing the others into the corners as best she could. Then Code closed her eyes and, after a few mental chords to get in the right thoughtspace, began singing her mnemonics as she traced a circle around her. “I see a vision rising dreary… Fading in as children play twilight games…”

She crouched down and ate a chunk of dirt.

Midwinter leaned down to look Charcoal in the eye, her paralyzed prey. “I thought kirins and unicorns were close enough for the potion to work,” she mused, “but I guess not. Shame; we’ll need to come up with a good story for you.” She casually pulled a rag out from a pocket, wadded it into a ball, and stuffed it into Charcoal’s mouth to gag her. Then she took Charcoal’s tail in her mouth and, with the nonchalant ease of an earth pony, started dragging her towards the bunker.

Charcoal tried screaming. It would’ve been weak without the gag in her mouth. She tried thrashing. The body she couldn’t feel refused to move. She tried banging her head against the ground. She barely made a sound. She tried breathing through her mouth. The gag was too thick to let air through.

Midwinter strode down the bunker’s steps, letting Charcoal bang her head on the steps one at a time; Charcoal’s screams could barely be heard. Once they were in the bunker proper, Midwinter released Charcoal’s tail and, lowering her head so they were eye-to-eye, she said, “When there isn’t a wolf attack, no one comes down here. Can you imagine that?”

Charcoal made a pitiful sound around her gag.

“There’s so much space and it all goes unused,” Midwinter continued. “But it’s cold and lightless, even for Midwich, and properly ventilating the underground is a nuisance. It can be quite difficult to use this space.” She grinned. “But that means we shall remain, ah, unmolested.”

Midwinter bit at Charcoal’s exposed neck. Her teeth sliced through the flesh far too easily. And she started sucking.

Charcoal tried to move her head away, but Midwinter just pinned it to the floor with a hoof. The pressure was like a vise and Charcoal saw stars. It was all she could do to keep breathing around her gag. Midwinter sucked greedily, even as blood dribbled around her lips and pooled on the floor and filled Charcoal’s nose with its coppery scent.

Charcoal tried to struggle. Tried to do anything. She couldn’t, not even scream. But it wouldn’t have mattered. Amanita and Bitterroot and the others weren’t around. Even if they were, she couldn’t do anything to make them know. She was alone, trapped inside what was supposed to be a place of shelter. She was alone and she was paralyzed and she was being eaten alive.

Her breathing grew weaker and tears dripped down her face.

Midwinter grinned at her, eyeshine flashing. “Mmmm.” She ran her tongue across her bloodstained fangs and smacked her lips. “Spicy.”

Lap lap lap.

1 - The Fool in the Crazy Eights

Necromancy had a PR problem.

Not without reason, of course. It was hard for it to not have a PR problem when its most prominent adherents took to evil more thoroughly than a duck did to water and had a nasty recurring issue with enslaving the souls of the dead. It was enough to give most ponies knee-jerk anxiety on hearing a word that began with necro-.

Unfortunately, that anxiety meant necromancy’s less harmful uses were often neglected. Many arcanists avoided working with death at all, even for something as harmless as talking to the spirits of the deceased. That wasn’t even getting into more complex uses, such as resurrecting the recently dead. There were applications of necromancy that could do nothing but help ponies, enough applications to fill a spellbook or ten. Yet countless ponies refused to even think about them, simply because they involved the word “necromancy”.

But if Celestia could abdicate, anything seemed possible. Three moons ago, Princess Twilight had started the Necromancy Corps, an initiative to study necromancy in-depth in contexts that wouldn’t make the average pony balk in fear, to rework necromancy’s image into something more palatable than four simultaneous zero-anesthesia root canals. Not only would its benefits be found, but such knowledge would make hostile necromancy easier to counter. And the unicorn heading the Corps, Amanita, was experienced, unrivaled, easily the most powerful necromancer in the history of the Royal Guard.

The only necromancer in the history of the Royal Guard had stage fright. Her clothes were too tight even though they’d been fine when she’d put them on and she was going to break out into a sweat at any moment and she was short of breath and her mane was probably definitely absolutely so frizzy it looked so terrible and she still wasn’t that great with the memory-display spell and had she really memorized the path of her speech maybe she ought to skip the presentation today to go back home and-

The short, slim, spectacled earth pony next to her jabbed her in the ribs. “Breathe, Amanita,” murmured Restricted Code.

Easy for you to say, Amanita panic-grumbled to herself. Code had more years of experience in ritualism than Amanita had years of life. Code was Equestria’s High Ritualist, the top pony in the Royal Ritualist Commissioned Division. Code had had the ear of Celestia herself for over a decade and a half (a period that had ended when Celestia, not Code, had stepped down). Code was here in a fancy-schmancy dress uniform with a chest full of medals that wasn’t even all of them. Amanita, on the other hoof, had been with the Guard for barely three moons and didn’t have much experience with presenting like this. Her last actual job had been nearly half a decade ago and in retail, for Celestia’s sake! Small-town retail! Four moons ago, she’d been in jail! For necromancy! The very thing she was-

Another, sharper jab. “Seriously, breathe,” said Code, almost disapprovingly. “You nearly destroyed a lich. You helped capture a spree killer.”

“And this is totally different,” hissed Amanita. “I can’t just murder the audience when things go wrong and bring them back later!” (She wasn’t being facetious. That technique had served her well in the past. Multiple times.)

“No, but I can help cover for you,” said Code. “And my help is more useful than murder.” She glanced at the clock. “And I believe that’s my cue.” Without further ado, she walked onstage, leaving Amanita with nopony to talk to and pawing at the ground.

Both too slowly and too quickly, Code reached the lectern. She cleared her throat and spoke with well-worn confidence and no notes. “I’d like to thank you all for coming to this talk. I know necromancy is still feared, but…”

As Code talked, Amanita peeped around the curtain and took another look at her audience. It was sparse, thanks to necromancy’s reputation, yet, with one exception, the few ponies present were some of the brightest minds in Equestria, the cutting edge of arcanics, the sorts of ponies laws of metaphysics were named after. That wasn’t even getting into Princess Frigging Twilight Sparkle, Starswirl the Frigging Bearded, and Celestia Frigging Herself What on Frigging Equus. Under normal circumstances, the only way any single one of these ponies wouldn’t be the smartest person in the room was if one of the others was also in the room.

And they’d come to this conference so that she could teach them.

Holy…

On the cusp of adulthood, Amanita had lost somepony close to her. A lich had taken advantage of her grief and carefully, gleefully pointed her along the path of necromancy. Yet Amanita had eventually had an attack of conscience and backed out, turning herself in to the authorities. After a stint in prison (only two years — she was lucky), Amanita was the only pony in Equestria who knew necromancy in-depth and wouldn’t get thrown in jail for it the second a guard laid eyes on her.

Technically speaking, Amanita wasn’t in the Necromancy Corps, she was the Necromancy Corps. Oh, sure, there were other ponies involved, but if Amanita decided to leave, the Corps simply couldn’t function. Which both made her incredibly important and the place where all the weight was laid.

Everything about necromancy, the Guard came to her for. Counterspells, mostly. The worst part about it was the way most of Amanita’s work was so trivial. Yes, of course fresh eye jelly worked best, why did they even need to ask? Because they didn’t know where to start, mostly. When she was able, Amanita distracted herself by properly cataloging the necromantic artifacts the Crown had collected over the centuries. And since a surprisingly large chunk of her work had involved rewriting CONOP 8888, Equestria’s own anti-zombie-apocalypse plan, the Necromancy Corps had been temporarily dubbed the “Crazy Eights”. It had taken a little bit of doing to reassure her that it was affectionate rather than derogatory. After all, given the antics of Princess Twilight and her friends, crazy was the new hip.

Once Amanita had straightened out existing data, she started poking her nose in what was uncharted territory, even for her. Between Code’s watchful eye and her own conscience, she stayed away from anything resembling zombie creation or enthrallment. Thanks to body donations, she even had a decent amount of cadavers to test with, once she’d needed to move up to actual ponies from rat corpses. She threw herself into her studies with the same fervor she’d once devoted to the sort of magic that gave you a bounty of six hundred thousand bits.

Now, here she was, with a spell only she could have created, one that was undoubtedly necromantic yet also benign, sharing it with the world. It was just the sort of thing she wanted.

Sadly, necromancers were not known for their speech-giving skills.

Amanita took a step back, letting the curtain fall, and started pacing, forcing herself to not hyperventilate. She couldn’t do this. She could do this. She couldn’t do this. She could do this. She’d never done it before. There was a time when she’d never done necromancy before. And back and forth and back and forth, like her brain was playing tennis with her thoughts. It was probably just nerves, but her mind was very good at coming up with plausible-sounding reasons for why she ought to just go home and never leave again. Even though she was the whole reason this seminar was being held in the first place.

Panic took up enough of her attention that she almost missed it when Code said, “…so without further ado, please welcome Amanita.”

With a gulp, Amanita walked onstage, barely managing to hide her shakes. She was pale green all over, but that was just her normal coloration. The crowd stomped out slightly-more-than-polite applause as she reached the lectern, thanked Code for the introduction, and arranged her notes. She waved a hoof for them to quiet down, and they did (holy cannoli Celestia and Princess Twilight did what she said).

She glanced up at the back corner. Bitterroot was up there, for whatever reason. She gave Amanita a reassuring smile and a small wave, which at least made her panic slightly less. She made sure her stance was right, looked at the audience in general, failed to ignore how small she felt, and cleared her throat.

“Psychometry,” Amanita said. Almost immediately, her mind blanked and she had to take a quick look at her notecards. Her tail twitched in embarrassment (thankfully, her cheeks weren’t burning — yet) and she looked back up. “Seeing the past of an object and… noteworthy events in its history. Hypothetically, one of- a very… versatile branch of magic. However, most attempts at spells for- at psychometric spells have been impractical at best, assuming they even work to begin with. The data- Information received from them is- hazy, very hazy, and the power requirements are steep, and the spells themselves are too complicated to justify their use.”

No response from the audience except forward-turned ears. Good sign. Amanita swallowed and held her head higher. “The- main issue with psychometry,” she continued, remembering not to glance at her notecards too often, “is that objects can’t really remember things, and when they do, it’s, it’s in ways that render psychometry redundant, such as physical notches in a sword. But bodies can remember things, and in non-physical ways. The more- impactful the event, the stronger the memory. If you get burned, you’ll automatically flinch away from fire.” (A few ponies in the audience nodded.) “And death is one of the most impactful events possible in life. After all, you can only die once.” She grinned, hoping it didn’t look too nervous. “U-usually.”

The crowd giggled. Emboldened, Amanita found herself speaking slightly louder. “With that in mind, we have created a spell that can, when properly applied, show the moment of a person’s death, so long as we have the body. Unlike many aspects of necromancy, it does not interact with the person’s soul in any way. It’s no different from looking at a photograph. We call it Tempus Mortis. If you’ll open up your packets, there are spell instructions inside.”

The room echoed with the rustling of paper as a dozen pages were turned at once. Before she launched into her explanations, Amanita allowed herself a grin and risked a thought of, This is going well.

Astonishingly, fate withstood the temptation and this continued to go well. Amanita didn’t stumble over her words or forget anything as she spoke. The crowd seemed to be following along as she laid out each step of Tempus Mortis. She didn’t miss the lost looks or disgusted cringes when she got to the parts related to necromancy, but that was to be expected. After all, she was the Guard’s first necromancer; foal’s play to her was brand-new and/or alien to everypony else. When she reached the end, her heart was almost beating at a normal rate.

“…giving you the sensation of being there at the instant the individual dies,” Amanita finished. The audience had shuffled a little as she’d spoken, ponies that had been sitting apart now close together so they could point at their papers and whisper to each other. She couldn’t make out the words, but at least the tones were invested. “Now, showing you’s better than telling you-”

Surprise rippled through the audience; Amanita was sure she felt the wind as Celestia’s wings twitched slightly open. She raised her hoof for silence. “Showing you’s better than telling you,” she said with a slightly raised voice, “and we have the body of a guard here, Sergeant Major Chainmail. With the permission of his descendants, we can show you just how he died. So if you’re, uh, not interested in seeing a dead body, move over there.” Amanita pointed to the right side of the room. “We’ll be putting up a sheet to block the view for anyone who doesn’t want to see it.”

Someone stuck a hoof up. “Will it also block the view of the casting?”

“Yes.”

Everypony in the audience went over to the left side of the room.

Amanita and Code glanced at each other. “No sheet it is, then,” said Code. She trotted offstage and quickly returned, wheeling up a gurney with the body of a ten-years-plus-dead pony on it, a unicorn stallion who wasn’t much more than bones and teeth and skin anymore. Some members of the audience grimaced slightly, but not much else. Code placed the gurney in the middle of the stage and stepped aside. As Amanita approached the desiccated corpse, her guts loosened. Finally, something she was used to.

First, she placed a hoof on the body. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be necessary in later versions of the spell, but for now, she needed a connection to the body, and a physical one would have to do.

Next, she gathered and shaped her magic. It wasn’t too complex, but the edges of it, the parts related to death, would make most ponies flinch away, by reflex if nothing else, the same way one flinches away from plunging their hoof into a corpse’s intestines. Most of the spell’s difficulty came from the caster needing a strong enough will to perform it while still keeping their lunch down, rather than any technical complexity or power requirements. But Amanita was a necromancer, capable of playing with rotting intestines with one hoof while eating spaghetti with the other; those energies were like old acquaintances to her and she worked them with thoughtless ease.

And, finally, the incantation. As she let the magic flow, Amanita intoned, “Meminerim mortem.” Technically, the words didn’t actually do anything, but the focus required for them gave Amanita that last little psychosomatic kick for the spell to work.

And what a kick it was.

Right where Amanita’s hoof was touching the body, chronology and physicality unraveled. Her existence was gone in what would’ve been an instant if time meant anything. Space ceased, leaving behind only ideas, concepts, and moments. Thanks to the spell, the most potent of those moments was the last thing Chainmail ever did. Amanita immersed herself.

Even before she saw anything, words and sounds rippled from the void, slightly echoic. A stallion’s voice, the scratching of claws, screams. “Don’t you touch them, you overgrown housecat! Get over here!” A bellow of rage, a wet slice, a crunch-

History slammed into being around her, a moment locked in time. Nothing was moving; Tempus Mortis captured the second the pony died, not an instant before or after. Everything was slightly musty, like experienced through a thin film, and limited in color, like an old photograph. Amanita was in a bar that was old even in its own time. A hole had been smashed through one of the walls, the bloodthirsty manticore responsible in the middle of the room. Glass shards, broken tables, shattered chairs, and jagged splinters coated the floor and hung in the air.

And there was Chainmail, a unicorn in the prime of life, thrusting forward with a spear, stabbing the manticore right in the eye. His face was frozen in a roar even as the manticore’s stinger caved in his chest. Even without the blunt force trauma, he wouldn’t have survived the poison, but he went down swinging. Or stabbing.

Amanita didn’t have much in the way of a body, but she could move. She “walked” around to the other side of the manticore and saw the spear exiting the back of the manticore’s head, something Chainmail couldn’t have seen. She looked over the bartop; a unicorn and an earth pony were huddled beneath it, the unicorn desperately putting up a flimsy shield to protect the two of them. Maybe Chainmail knew they were there, maybe he didn’t. Either way, time knew.

Amanita spent another few minutes wandering around the building, making sure to get a good look at the details. She saw regular ponies fleeing the scene and guards running in to attack the manticore, portraits on the walls, even the threading of screws if she looked hard enough. But she couldn’t go far from Chainmail; space vanished if she tried and she simply couldn’t move any further. The bar was where Chainmail had died, not whatever stores lay outside (although Amanita could see the trail of destruction the manticore had wrought in getting to the bar — its presence was an important part of his death, after all). Once she’d seen enough, Amanita removed herself from the past.

The last syllable of the original incantation was still hanging in the air when she fell back into being. Her head was spinning like she’d stood up too fast, but a few blinks put that to rest. She turned to the audience. “And that’s it,” she said. “The spell still follows the Law of Liminality, so no outside time will have passed. However, since you still experienced it, it can be shown with the right spells. If you’ll just give me a moment, I can do exactly that.”

And now came the tricky part.

Amanita was a necromancer, not an illusionist. And this spell, able to play back what she’d seen and heard, was an illusion spell. She’d done her best to learn it, but the finer details always escaped her — details that were necessary for the spell to function. Most of the time, it simply didn’t work for her, and when it did, it was more of an “I guess?” sort of working rather than a “Got it!” sort. But it was necessary to properly display the spell for others, and she only had to make it work once.

Amanita lowered her head and pushed magic through her horn, but when she tried shaping it, she only got sparks. Tried again, more sparks. The design kept wiggling from her grasp, like a wet, water-filled balloon. She tried one more time; still more sparks. And absolutely everypony in the room was waiting on her.

“Um, sorry,” mumbled Amanita. Then she remembered where she was and raised her voice. “Sorry,” she said more clearly, “but, um, nobody’s dead, so I, I’m having trouble with this.” She blinked and quickly turned away as the assembled archmages chuckled softly at her ineptitude and her face turned beet red. She clenched her teeth and scrunched her eyes shut and focused and-

She heard Chainmail’s voice again as the spell thankfully bubbled out of her. She breathed deeply, keeping the magic flowing, and risked a glance upward. The image, a record of what she’d experienced, was a bit fuzzy, but still perfectly “legible”. The scratching of nearly a dozen pens and pencils rippled through the room, nearly disrupting Amanita’s control. But she held on and the memory played out fairly clearly.

Once she dropped the spell, Amanita breathed a few times to stop her head from spinning, then returned her attention to the audience. Thankfully, the worst was over. “If you check the records of the Guard, you’ll see that Chainmail died in Stirrup Gap in 991, when…”

From there, it was smooth sailing, even if her mind kept glancing back. Amanita explained Chainmail’s death, went through possible applications, and was wrapping up her talk before she knew it. “…thereby providing a safe, simple, and non-invasive way to investigate death.” And that was it. Her speech was over. All that was left was the Q&A, where at least it wouldn’t be surprising if she screwed up. Her heart actually went a-flutter. “Now, are there any questions that don’t come from the princess?” (Princess Twilight’s hoof was already up on pure reflex.)

Most hooves in the audience went up as Princess Twilight pouted (and kept her hoof up). And Amanita suddenly felt ready to panic. What did she do here? Just pick a pony and let the others sit? Which one was the best one to pick? Starswirl’s hoof was up; did she go for the famous pony and risk alienating the others? Or should she-

Before she could overthink anything, she forced herself to point out at random. Then she moved her hoof so she was actually pointing at a pony. “Um, you, in the corner.”

An older pegasus stood up. “I’ve been looking through all your write-ups,” he said, “but I don’t see any ritual instructions for the spell. Doesn’t it follow the Holstein equivalence principle?”

“We, we’re pretty sure it does, yes,” said Amanita. “It’s just, we’re, uh, still trying to figure out what does what-” Her blanch was hidden by her already-pale coloration. That was a terrible way to explain it to any scientist, much less one who was probably one of the foremost ritualistic minds in Equestria; yet, put on the spot like that, she couldn’t come up with any better way to put it. She tried thinking, but her mouth locked up.

Code glanced at her for half an instant and was immediately talking to head off the silence. “You have to understand,” she said, “given the lack of research into necromancy before now, we’re still learning which ingredients have any meaning in this context and what that meaning is. We have no reason to assume this spell cannot be adapted into a tribe-independent ritual, but the setup of that ritual, and most necromantic rituals in general, is still very much uncharted territory.”

That seemed to satisfy the pegasus; he nodded and went back to taking notes. Amanita mouthed, Thank you, at Code, who gave a small nod back. Could’ve gone better. Could’ve gone worse. And the extent to which it could’ve gone better was smaller than the extent to which it could’ve gone worse. Which was… something. And something was better than nothing, so Amanita continued. “You, with the bow tie.”

Thankfully, her phrasing improved as she answered more and more questions and Code barely needed to intervene again. The questions were all easy, to boot, even if the sound of everypony taking notes was surprisingly loud. By the time Amanita picked Starswirl (!) for the next question, she was practically confident.

“I was looking at line…” Starswirl traced a hoof down his paper. “…9-” (Amanita quickly pulled up that line in her memory.) “-where you draw out the impression of death using Rachis’s Recall Rigmarole, only to cut out all but the beginning and end by setting the memory factor to infinity and sending its related fractions to zero-”

“It has to do with the nature of death,” said Amanita. “As I mentioned before, death is one of the most impactful events in a person’s life, so naturally-”

Starswirl interrupted her with a huff. “Well, yes, I understand that, but I’m speaking of measurements. There’s no proofs, no lemmas… How did you derive that?”

Amanita’s blood ran cold. She swallowed and forced herself to say, “E-experience.”

“…Ah.”

Silence fell on the room like a wet blanket as Starswirl slowly sat back down, looking every which way but Amanita. Even the scratches of pens had stopped. Amanita glanced at Code, who still wore a neutral expression but had folded her ears back and was pawing at the ground, apparently unconsciously. Amanita felt like her hooves were still stained with blood and her horn was still stained with worse.

Necromancer.

Amanita wasn’t sure whether Princess Twilight put her hoof up again to break the silence or whether she was just clueless, but she was grateful either way. “Erm, yes, P-Princess?”

“This spell was made to analyze death-” (She was talking fast. Definitely to break the silence.) “-but could it be used to analyze other physical events? Not as-is, obviously, you’d need to make a lot of changes…”

In spite of that bump in the road making everypony just a little bit quieter, the rest of the session managed to go off relatively hitch-free and Amanita soon realized she was walking offstage and ponies in the audience were milling about and the seminar was over. Her heart wasn’t even pumping that hard.

Well, there it was. Equestria’s first seminar on necromancy. If you ignored Amanita’s screwup with the memory-projection spell (which she had a hard time doing, admittedly), it had actually gone pretty well. But of course it would, everything else she’d done was so basic. Necromantically speaking, anyway.

…Huh. Basic. That was… not that far from the truth, really. So if they all learned-

“Good job, Amanita,” said Code. “You did excellently.”

Amanita nodded. “Thanks.”

“You don’t need to hang around if you don’t want to. I’ll see to it that Chainmail-” Code jerked her head back a little. “-gets reinterred myself.”

“Thanks. Again. So, uh, see you in the lab tomorrow?”

“In the lab tomorrow.” Code nodded to Amanita and trotted off.

Code leaving was almost like a signal to Amanita: the boss left, so you can, too. Irrational, she knew, but that was the way it felt. Some of her stuff was spread out across a front-row seat in a bad corner nopony would want, in case she’d needed it quickly, and soon she was packing it up piece by piece. For the moment, all she wanted was to get home.

Then her ears pricked up as she heard somepony approaching her.

“…more complicated than that,” Celestia was saying.

“I know, but that’s all I can think of!” protested Princess Twilight. “Nothing else fits!”

Amanita’s joints locked up, all the way up and down her spine. The Princess and the Prime Mover. Separately, she could probably handle either one, but both? Being in a conversation with the two most important ponies in Equestria was… It was genuinely uncomp-

“Excuse us. Amanita?” asked Celestia. “Do you have a moment?”

“Um.” Amanita swallowed and lifted her head. “Yeah.” She turned around to look Celestia in the eye, only remembering at the last second she needed to also look up for that. Celestia was big. “What, what do you need?” Please don’t be too complicated, please don’t be too complicated…

Princess Twilight began, “In all the…” She made a vague circular gesture. “…ritual foods you eat, it’s always rye bread. How come? The only thing I could come up with is that a lot of rye breads are black, and…” She nickered in a sort of disgusted amusement.

Not too complicated. Although you’d think Princess Twilight Sparkle would know better. “Well… yeah, that’s the reason. Rye bread is black. That’s it.”

Princess Twilight and Celestia exchanged looks. “That’s really it?” Princess Twilight asked. “The… color.” She sounded more disappointed than if Starswirl’s greatest written works were rendered illegible by water damage.

“Pretty much.”

“That seems a bit simplistic,” said Celestia.

“Tell that to funeral mourners,” Amanita said. For a moment, she managed to not feel mortified talking back to somepony who moved the sun itself holy crow that was a terrible idea dangit dangit dangit what on Equus was she DOING.

Talking sense, evidently, since Celestia’s response was to frown, then nod and say, “I see.” (Although based on her tone, that might’ve been a lie.)

Trying to ignore her stomach’s trapeze act, Amanita continued, “Symbols are usually symbols because they’re simplistic. It’s this… big idea packaged into a small space. And when something as simple as color can put you closer to your goal, you’ll tweak the color.”

“Huh,” said Princess Twilight. Her frown was far less regal than Celestia’s. “I was expecting something… more.”

Amanita shrugged. “That’s, that’s the way it is.” She dropped a half-eaten granola bar into her bag, clipped it shut, and slung it over her shoulder.

“Actually, wait another minute,” Princess Twilight said quickly. “I saw your resurrection and enthrallment rituals — and no offense, but they’re really creepy — and once I… actually worked the numbers out, I found that the enthrallment ritual actually uses more energy than resurrecting somepony.”

Celestia looked down at Princess Twilight and flicked her tail. “It does?”

“I know!” said Princess Twilight. “And resurrection even took less and less energy the longer it went on, where enthrallment took more! It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Yes, it does,” said Amanita, tilting her head. Did the two alicorns not get this? “Compared to enthrallment, all resurrection is is healing the body. By the time you put the soul back in, the last bit of magic that restarts the heart is so trivial the universe practically wants it to happen already.”

Judging by the looks on their faces, no, the two alicorns didn’t get this. Amanita took a quick breath. “Okay, so… it’s like this. In both enthrallment and resurrection, you start by doing a katabasis, right? Going to the underworld to retrieve a pony’s soul.”

“Is it really the underworld?” Princess Twilight muttered. “Elysium and Tartarus aren’t really-” She stopped when Celestia nudged her with a wing and motioned for Amanita to continue.

“And it’s the same thing in both, so they take the same amount of power. But, but in resurrection, you’re healing the body, and bodies heal themselves anyway. Holding healing spells together takes a lot of… dexterity, but not a lot of energy. The universe wants to do what you’re doing, you’re just making it easier.” Amanita’s words were picking up speed as she talked and she started gesturing. “Enthrallment, though, it’s subverting a pony’s will to follow your own, and… Well, wills don’t want to be controlled, that’s kinda the whole point of a will. So even though the enthrallment spell is simpler than healing on a… structural level, you need to fight the universe every step of the way and dump in thaum after thaum to get the pony’s mind secured. And you need to make it last so your thrall doesn’t get their mind back and… do something you don’t want them to do. It’s like… healing is playing an instrument, enthrallment is pulling a train car. The first one doesn’t need you to be as strong, but that doesn’t mean it’s easier.” Her ears twitched. “Does… that help?” she asked quietly, looking between Princess Twilight and Celestia.

Princess Twilight’s brow furrowed for a moment, then she smiled. “Actually, yes! Quite a lot!”

“Indeed,” said Celestia. She flicked her tail and lowered her head in a bow. “We apologize for taking up your time, and thank you for your service.”

Out of some crossed wire of reflex, Amanita said, “You, too.” Yet before she could feel silly about that, Princess Twilight and Celestia were already leaving, deep in conversation. Come to think of it, from what she knew of them, they probably did consider ruling Equestria a ser-

“Oh! You’re still here.” An auburn pegasus sidestepped in front of her, interest written all over her face. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“Well… not really, n-no,” Amanita heard herself say. “I was- just leaving.”

“Well, I can walk and talk,” said the pegasus brightly. “I was wondering why exactly fire destroys thralls so thoroughly, and you’re sort of the only pony who knows that sort of thing.”

Amanita swallowed. She wanted to go home, but this was such a simple question. She hitched her bag over her shoulders and made for the door. “Fire burns,” she said to the following pegasus. Honestly, that was, like, Metaphysics 101. “Enthrallment needs the body and soul to match up, and fire changes things on a metaphysical level.” She pushed open the door and kept walking. “If you burn wood, it’s not wood anymore, it’s ash. So, with-”

“But what about rot?” somepony asked. Amanita twitched and spun around; she’d blundered into the crowd of scientists gathered outside the room in their own conversations with each other. And once they’d heard her, they’d all started gathering around her. “Rot changes things as well, why doesn’t it have as much of an effect on thralls?”

Grinning nervously, Amanita reluctantly continued her explanation. “Well…”

Bitterroot leaned against the outside wall of Canterlot University, crisp air turning her breath into steam. The cold bit at her exposed neck with shark teeth, but she ignored it (and the fact that she still needed to buy a scarf). Amanita had seemed a bit nervous during the seminar, which, okay, she was an adult, but she could probably use a friendly face as a pick-me-up. Otherwise, Bitterroot would be homeward bound by now.

And she was half-considering doing it anyway. The seminar had ended like thirty minutes ago; what was taking Amanita so long?

Something that’d leave her really wanting to get away from it, probably. So Bitterroot waited. She was a bounty hunter, she was used to waiting.

She heard some voices ripple through the doorway and stood up, flexing her wings. It wasn’t long before Amanita stumbled out the door, thronged by a gaggle of scientists so tightly Bitterroot was surprised she was able to stand up. Yeah, that would explain things.

“-it’s, it’s more complicated than that!” Amanita was protesting. “Ponies don’t just end at death, there’s more- Look, can you let me-”

“But for all practical purposes, that’s true, isn’t it?”

“I mean, most of the time, yeah, but in some cases- I really just want to get-”

“What sorts of cases?”

Bitterroot waited for a moment, but the crowd wasn’t leaving Amanita alone. Whenever she pressed forward to escape the crush, it simply relocated so she remained at its center. As her voice grew louder and angrier, the crowd just got louder and more persistent. No way she was getting out of that on her own. She’d practically need divine intervention. But with no gods around, Bitterroot was the next best thing, so she raked her mind for the best course of action. After a moment, she settled on sounding loud and acting official. She half-roughly shoved one of the outside professors aside, yelling, “Amanita! Amanita, we need you!”

Success! The crowd immediately parted like a shoal of fish, finally giving Amanita some breathing room. Before anypony could say a thing, Bitterroot marched up to her and yelled, “We’ve been waiting for you! You’re gonna be late!”

Amanita blinked, saw what Bitterroot was doing, and smacked herself on the forehead. “Yes, of course! The- thing!”

“I’ll carry you! We’ll get there faster!” And within seconds, the pair were soaring over Canterlot, with Bitterroot’s forelegs wrapped around Amanita’s trunk. The second they were a block away from the university, Bitterroot lowered them both to the ground and lightly deposited Amanita on the street.

“Sorry about that,” muttered Amanita. “It was… I just couldn’t get away from them. It was like they were a wolfpack.”

“Scream at them and get aggressive,” said Bitterroot, folding her wings. “It works on the wolves I’ve seen.”

Amanita grinned weakly as the pair started walking home. “So, uh, you were in the audience?”

“You sounded nervous a few nights ago and I thought I’d support you.” Bitterroot shrugged. It was the least she could do.

“It helped a little. Thanks. But did you understand anything I said?”

“No. But I had fun not understanding it. How did it go for you?”

“Ehm.” Amanita coughed. “Alright. Better than I expected.”

“…So why do you sound disappointed?”

“Well- Nothing to do with the seminar, really. It’s…” Amanita bit her lip. “Look, I’m making history just by existing. I at least want it to be good history. I mean, most of it went fine, but how is it supposed to sound when I screw up the memory-projection spell in front of Princess Twilight, of all ponies, and try to pass it off as it not being about death?”

Bitterroot blinked. “Wait, you mean that wasn’t supposed to be a joke?”

“…What do you mean, ‘supposed to be’?”

“It sounded like a joke! You said something totally off-the-wall like it was nothing! It was funny!”

“It was?”

“Not super funny, but when I wasn’t expecting any jokes at all, yeah, it was funny. Why did you think they laughed?”

“Because I’m supposed to be a skilled necromancer but I was botching something simple outside that?”

“Look, this isn’t high school. These ponies are professionals. They get that you’re a necromancer and not an illusionist. Or at least they should.”

“…Huh. I never…” Amanita stared off at nothing for a moment, then shook her head. “I, I never had that… happen to me. Circe was…”

“Yeah. I know.”

“But… still…” Amanita folded her ears back. “Mages should be… well-rounded, shouldn’t they? I mean, once everypony in the Crazy Eights catches up with me-”

“You think they will?”

“Eventually, yeah! I don’t have a master anymore, it’s just me, and- I’m just a necromancer, so once somepony else who’s a necromancer and also a decent illusionist comes along-”

“How long have you been worried about this?”

“Just since the seminar. Everypony was asking me questions that I could answer in five seconds, and if they catch up quickly and suddenly I’m not enough of a necroma-”

“Amanita, they’re so far behind you that they’re still learning the basics. They’re impressed by you looking at somepony’s past when you’ve already resurrected ponies like it was nothing. If you’re worried about job security, you’ve got it for a looooong time. And there can be two necromancers in the Necromancy Corps, you know! Just… I don’t know, it’s not worth worrying over.”

“Yeah. I’m…” Amanita kicked at a loose cobblestone. “…still getting used to having a status quo that isn’t awful. Paranoia.”

“I get it.” Some of Bitterroot’s family had gone through bad times. It was the kind of thing that stuck with you. “But remember, status quo or not, I’m here for you.”

“I know.” Amanita smiled slightly. “Thanks.”

They walked in silence for a little longer. Bitterroot raised her head, spread her wings, and breathed deeply through her nose. She could feel the crisp winter air travel through her nostrils, down her windpipe, all the way to her lungs. She let it out slow, letting her breath mist up. “Nice weather, isn’t it?”

“I guess. The cold stinks,” Amanita mumbled. She shivered. “Anyone who says they like winter is lying.”

Bitterroot snorted. “I know plenty of ponies who’ll say otherwise.”

But Amanita shook her head. “They like surviving winter. They don’t like winter itself. It’s like… It’s practically spite. You can be outside for ages in spring, summer, even fall. Not winter. The cold drains the life from you.” She pulled her coat tighter and rubbed her hooves together. “Besides, they always like early winter, when you’re still in the honeymoon phase of snow, or late winter, when you have the hope of spring. Never midwinter. Everyone hates midwinter. Midwinter is the worst.”

Bitterroot opened her mouth, immediately closed it again. She tilted her head in thought. “Okay, that actually makes sense.”

“Spend a season without modern heating or air conditioning and then tell me you like it.”

“…Spring’s still nice.”

“It is! It’s warm, the sky’s blue again, you don’t need to worry about shoveling…”

2 - Field Experience

Amanita walked into work the next morning without much thought. She’d been fretting about the seminar for so long, and now that it was over, she could just unwind a little and research different ways to magically poke corpses. (And since she was the only one who really knew what she was doing, there were so many ways to fudge that if she wanted to.) The talk about thralls and fire yesterday had even got her thinking; if most necromancers used the same methods for enthrallment, maybe she could design a spell for quick liberation. Based on Circe’s methods, it wouldn’t be too-

But she came to halt as she approached the door to her lab, for who was hovering outside her door but Princess Twilight’s messenger, Spike. (She still wasn’t sure what his actual title was. Majordomo? Chancellor? Aide? Princess Twilight just said “assistant”, he seemed proud of that, and Amanita couldn’t muster up the courage to ask otherwise.) For a moment, Amanita panicked about something to do with the seminar before giving herself a mental slap. Still, the idea of talking to the princess wasn’t exactly an endearing one. She swallowed in anticipation and gave a tentative wave. “Hey, Spike.”

“Morning, Amanita!” Spike said brightly. (They’d seen each other twice in the past three moons and he still recognized her immediately without the crutch of her being the only unicorn in the castle.) “Twilight’s got an assignment for you!” And he was away, fluttering on those tiny little wings that really shouldn’t’ve been able to support that pudgy little body.

“Wait, what?” Amanita trotted to catch up with him. “What, what do you mean, ‘assignment’? …Okay, who died where? Because if-”

“Nopony’s dead. …I think. Twilight just told me to go and fetch you.” Spike twisted around in the air to look at Amanita. “And you need to resurrect somepony within three days, right? I bet if it was important, Twi would’ve already teleported you halfway across the country.”

“Or something,” Amanita said vaguely. That… kinda sounded like Princess Twilight, to be honest. She- “Wait, how did you know about the time limit?”

Spike just shrugged. “That was one of the only facts about necromancy Twilight knew for a while. She likes to talk about magic and I listen.” He fluttered closer to Amanita and stage-whispered, “I bet if I was a unicorn, I’d be one of the best mages out there. Did you know that…”

And based on the facts he spouted off, Amanita wasn’t sure that was braggadocio. She tried drinking it in as best she could as they walked, but much of the terminology flew right over her head. She couldn’t be sure whether Spike actually understood it, of course (or even if he was just pulling her leg), but that was another matter entirely.

“…which is why even creatures that aren’t mammals can get mustaches! I’ve tried to convince Twilight to give me another one, but…” Spike rubbed at his unmustached upper lip and sighed.

Amanita decided not to ask about “another one”, so she just gave a sort of, “Hmm.”

“Yeah,” said Spike. “It’s really- Oh, here we are-” And he was pulling a door open. Just how far had they walked? Amanita poked her head inside.

Princess Twilight’s study was like a library in relative miniature, and an imposing one at that. Literally every spare square inch of wall was lined with shelves and Amanita wasn’t convinced there weren’t more shelves behind them. All of the shelves were stuffed with books, ninety percent of which were older than any of the people in the room. The newer ones, books that could actually withstand some abuse (not that Twilight would abuse them) were scattered about along with spare parchment on tables, chairs, desks, basically anywhere there was room that wasn’t the floor (and sometimes yes on the floor). The only exception was a large table in the center on which was spread out a map of Equestria. Standing around that table were Code and Princess Twilight, in idle conversation about something.

“Hey, Twi?” said Spike. “I’ve got Amanita.” Amanita nervously waved.

Princess Twilight looked up from the map and smiled. “Thanks, Spike. You’re dismissed.”

Spike saluted, nudged Amanita into the room, and shut the door behind her, leaving Amanita alone with two of the most influential ponies in Equestria.

Amanita swallowed and walked up to the table. It was bigger than it’d seemed from the door. “What’s this about?” she asked.

“Nothing bad,” said Code. “Just an opportunity.”

“What sort of opportunity?”

“You’ll see.”

“You don’t need to be mysterious, you know.”

“Yes, I do. I’m the High Ritualist, I have a mysteriousness quota to keep up. Also, I don’t want to sit through Her Highness’s explanation two more times.”

“Charcoal should be along any minute,” said Princess Twilight. “We can start the-”

At that moment, the door opened on… someone who looked like a unicorn but definitely wasn’t. Her horn was oddly shaped, her hooves were cloven, she had scales on her back, and that was just the start. After a second of staring, Amanita’s brain clicked: that person was a kirin. They’d been… suffering from some ailment or something and Twilight and her friends had helped cure them. (Celestia, Amanita thought, I really need to catch up on current events…) She was a bulky sort of lean, a little bit taller than Bitterroot but not by much. Her coat was a not-quite-pale khaki that made Amanita think of wood of an unknown tree, although her mane (which was so incredibly floofy it went all the way down to her chest, like holy crow) was definitely the color of mahogany. Her red horn was just plain enormous, even bigger than Twilight’s, and it split and twisted until it looked more like a branch than anything. Her stance was… not exactly loose, not exactly tight. It was like this was a place she wanted to be, but wasn’t comfortable in just yet.

“Hello,” said the kirin. “Is this the, uh, the wight pla- the right place, sorry.” Her eyes locked on Princess Twilight. “Yes, it is.” Her gait was exaggerated as she walked to the table and took a place opposite Amanita, like she was posing for a dressage competition. “Have we done the… introductions yet?”

Princess Twilight cleared her throat. “Code, Amanita, this is Charcoal, an expert in environmental magic. She’s spent much of her life studying how magic moves through the land.”

The kirin — Charcoal — shrugged. “Well, it’s not like there was a whole lot else to do in the Grove will Silenced. While Silenced, while.” (Magically-induced muteness, Amanita remembered. That was the ailment.)

“Charcoal, this is Restricted Code, the High Ritualist-” The two shook. “-and this is Amanita, head of the Necromancy Corps.”

“Ooo.” Charcoal’s ears swiveled forward and she leaned across the table. “You’re the pony who can resurrect the dead?”

“Yeah.” Amanita certainly wasn’t complaining if that was the part of being a necromancer that Charcoal locked on to.

“Huh. Neat.”

“…It’s pretty neat, yeah.” Amanita realized she was grinning.

Code cleared her throat and tapped the table. “Princess Twilight, if you would.”

“Right.” Princess Twilight laid a sheet of paper on the map and started skimming it. “Three days ago, an arcanometeorological station in the North started recording strange readings. Nothing major and they thought it’d die down in a few hours. That happens from time to time, sometimes pegasus magic doesn’t disperse properly. But by the evening, the readings were still there, so they decided to take a closer look at it. Short version: a nearby ley line somehow got corrupted.”

That didn’t mean much to Amanita, but Charcoal blinked and raised her head by a few inches. “And it was just overnight?” Charcoal asked. “No slow shift or anything?”

“That’s actually why it took them so long to find out it was the ley line,” said Princess Twilight. She looked at the paper again. “According to this, the scientists thought it couldn’t’ve been that because the energy of a line changing that much that quickly is impossible.”

“I mean, it is.”

“And yet it happened. They literally woke up to it.” Princess Twilight looked at each person in turn. “Ley lines are important parts of their ecosystems, and if this is left unchecked, it could damage the land beyond repair. Plants would simply refuse to grow, no matter how much earth ponies tried to convince them. Monsters would start spawning, like chimeras and hydras. It might even cause the land itself to shift with the new energies.”

Well, there was an image. Amanita gulped. And apparently, Princess Twilight noticed, because she continued, “Of course, we wouldn’t see anything for another five years, but we might as well nip it in the bud now. Code is going to take you two on an expedition to get to the source of the ley line, figure out what’s wrong with it, and purify it.”

Charcoal actually broke out into a huge grin before deciding it was unbecoming and suppressing it into a smaller grin. Amanita, though, started shifting her weight from side to side. She managed to say, “Your Highness, with… with all due respect, I… I don’t think I’m the best pony for this job, I don’t know why you picked me-”

But Princess Twilight interrupted her. “Actually, Code suggested you.”

Amanita glanced at Code. “Me? Code- M-ma’am, I’m- I don’t know much about… fixing ley lines.” Drawing power from ley lines, sure. It was a decent power boost for any unicorn who could pull it off, and her old necromancy master had been an earth pony, a tribe who could drink magic from them almost as easily as they could drink water from a lake. Fixing them? Nuh-uh.

“That’s actually why I think you should come with me,” said Code. “Ley sanitation isn’t nearly as complex as it sounds. It’s merely big. The rituals involved are relatively simple-”

“It was actually a hobby of Princess Celestia back in the 400’s and 500’s!” said Princess Twilight brightly. “She was worried that a malign ley line could damage Equestria and took it upon herself to learn what she could about cleaning them up-”

“-are relatively simple,” Code said loudly, “so even an amateur could perform them. A ley cleansing ritual is often the first field task a newly-minted ritualist undertakes. It makes for excellent field experience: it involves shifting larger amounts of power than normal, but it’s slow and methodical enough that it’s hard to make mistakes and any mistakes you do make can be rectified before much damage is done. Even with the complete unknown of the line’s precise problem, it shouldn’t take long to pinpoint.”

She cleared her throat. “Amanita, as necessary as you are to the Necromancy Corps, your skills outside necromancy are a bit… lackluster.”

Amanita half-folded her ears back. “Yeah…”

“I thought that some real-world experience would benefit you. I’ll be there with you every step of the way and can answer whatever questions you may have. However, I realize you’re still new here, so if you don’t feel comfortable-”

“No,” she said quickly. “I- I was just thinking about this yesterday, that I need to be more than just a necromancer, and-” She nodded. “I, I’ll do it.”

“Excellent,” said Code. She turned to Princess Twilight. “So where is the source of the ley line?”

“Way out here.” Princess Twilight tapped a region in a corner of the map, deep in the northeast of Equestria.

Emphasis on deep north.

“That’s nearly off the, um, map,” said Charcoal, leaning forward. “How cold is it?”

“Cold,” said Amanita. “I’ve been that far north.” It wasn’t an experience she really wanted to remember, and not because it was where she’d learned most of her necromancy. It was just… cold. Just about everything ponies took for granted in the heartlands of Equestria was missing up there. Warmth? Controllable weather? Easily-accessible grass? Clear skies? Roads that stayed clear? Roads that were paved? Gone. It was a hardscrabble life, and most ponies didn’t like hardscrabble. To make matters worse, it was in the middle of a mountain range. Now the terrain itself was out to get you, on top of everything else. But ley lines being what they were, the source existing in a mountain was to be expected. Unfortunately.

To Amanita’s surprise, even Code seemed a bit put-off; her ears were back slightly and her voice was just a little bit tighter. “Your Highness,” Code said, “when you told me to pick a few ponies, I… was under the impression that… that we wouldn’t be in the middle of the… wilderness. If we’re that far out-”

“Actually, you’ll be staying in town.”

“…There’s a town there?” squawked Amanita. “Who- Who would live in a place like that?”

“It’s called Tratonmane,” Princess Twilight said. “There isn’t much information on it, but from what I can find, it’s an old mining town, founded about three hundred years ago. It sits less than half a mile from the ley line’s source in, um…” She bit her lip. “…Midwich, it’s Midwich Valley. What it’s like there, I don’t know.”

“Probably thin,” said Charcoal absently. “Deep, real deep. Very fertile for the region. Or is it ‘lush’? Lots of plants, either way. Dead straight. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a river.” When she realized everyone was looking at her, she said, “It’s… a… ley valley? What else, what else were you expecting?”

“Well,” said Code, “I… Hmm.” She gave Charcoal a brief look, nodded, and turned back to Princess Twilight. “If there’s a town, I retract my complaint. What sort of transportation can we expect?”

“You can take the train. There’s a branch line-”

“How does the Equestrian railway retch- reach absolutely everywhere?” asked Charcoal. “We kirins, we’re in our grove for who-knows-how-long away from everything else, then we come out and there’s stationery already sitting four miles away.” She frowned. “Or is it meters?” she mumbled. “No, it’s miles, definitely miles…”

“While Equestrian rail construction is certainly something,” said Code, “that’s not what we’re here for.”

One of Charcoal’s ears twitched and she pulled her head down slightly. “Sorry. I was, um, mute for, it was ages, you know, and I’m still, uh, re-learning conversation- stuff. I’ll… leave it for later?”

“I know a friend who loves railroads,” said Amanita. “I’ll see if I can get an answer from-”

Code cleared her throat loudly and rapped the table. Amanita quickly said, “Sorry.” She turned to Princess Twilight and said, “Uh, you can keep going.”

Princess Twilight had been looking between Charcoal and Amanita with some interest and actually seemed disappointed at the conversation getting derailed (har har). But she quickly covered it up. “There’s a spur along the line to Griffonstone. From what I can gather, trains only travel along it once a week, but it’ll take you there. Even if you’re probably the only passengers.”

“Good,” said Code. “What sort of equipment will we bring?”

From there, the meeting turned into a checklist of necessities and itineraries. Princess Twilight liked her checklists. They needed to bring this, do this this way, bring those, maybe stop by here, be here at this time tomorrow to leave… Important stuff, to be sure, but not stuff Amanita wanted to spend much time on. It was a relief when Princess Twilight finally said, “…And I think that covers it.”

“Mmhmm,” said Code. She rolled up her notes and stuck them in her pocket. “They know we’ll be coming, right?”

“Of course. I had a courier sent out yesterday.”

“Perfect.” Code bowed, even though it wasn’t strictly necessary. “We won’t let you down, Your Highness.”

Amanita groveled that that was easy for her to say as they left the room. Code had probably already done it several dozen times. Although Charcoal didn’t seem too put out as she walked away (she was whistling), and how much work could she have done on ley lines if Equestria hadn’t even known she existed a year ago? And so Amanita started feeling not just anxious about her job, but anxious for feeling anxious about her job.

As if reading her mind, Code said, “You will do fine. More than fine. I genuinely don’t know if anyone has screwed up ley sanitation beyond a few minor mistakes, and I’ve done research.”

First time for everything, Amanita said to herself. She was already pretty good at firsts.

But just as the two split to go to their respective jobs, Amanita realized something. “Hey, Code?”

Code stopped walking to look at Amanita. “Hmm?”

“If ley sanitation is so easy, why’re you coming? Couldn’t you send another ritualist to teach me? This seems a bit below your pay grade.”

“Technically, it is. I just want to get out of the city for a little while,” Code said. “Canterlot’s… lack of spontaneity can be smothering. It’s been too long since I’ve danced in starlit fields. And if I can do it on the Crown’s bit, well, all the better. So I assigned myself to it.”

“…Being a colonel must be nice.”

Code threw back her head, sweeping what little of her close-cut mane she could through the air, and grinned. “It is quite nice, yes.” With that, she turned and strutted away.

Amanita snorted and headed for her lab. Maybe that’d be her goal in the future.

“Ever thought about getting your own place?” Bitterroot asked Amanita that night at dinner. She picked up another sprig of cilantro in her teeth and started chewing it down, centimeter by centimeter.

“A little. I have no idea what to look for.” Amanita twisted her own cilantro around a fork. “Why? You looking to get rid of me?”

“Nah, just curious.” Chew chew. “If you ever need help, though, I’m available.”

“Thanks.”

Several moons after her release from prison, and Amanita still hadn’t moved out of Bitterroot’s house. She hadn’t even moved from the couch, even though Bitterroot had offered to clean up one of the spare rooms enough for a bed. Amanita said it was “breaking her habits” (although her sleep schedule was still rather rigid). Still, Bitterroot wasn’t complaining, especially since she had somepony else to go grocery shopping every once in a while.

They ate in silence for a while, but Bitterroot could tell Amanita was trying to build herself up for something. It was in the way her shoulders were a bit tighter than usual and her ears kept twitching. It probably wasn’t bad, though; Amanita’s “conversation” wouldn’t be much more than terse grunts in that case.

It wasn’t long before Amanita said, “I’m gonna be away for a while. I’ve… sort of got an assignment.”

There it was. “Really? Like, with the Guard?”

“Yeah. It’s- Have you heard of ley sanitation?”

“…Nope.”

“Short version: ley line’s dirty, we’re gonna clean it. Code says it’ll help me get some actual experience. It’s really far north. There’s this town called Tratonmane, and- Anyway, I’ll be leaving tomorrow. It came up fast.”

“Hey, stuff happens. Congrats on the job.”

“Yeah.”

There was the terseness. Amanita was probably still brooding about yesterday and not being enough of a necromancer. Even though she’d just been selected to make her more of a necromancer.

So maybe- “Mind if I come?”

Amanita looked up. “Why?”

“Well-” Bitterroot flexed her wings a little. “I was thinking of getting out of Canterlot for a bit. There haven’t been a lot of bounties here recently, but wilderness towns always have some. Not worth a whole lot, but it’ll give me something to do.” Which was actually completely true. Bounties had been light on the ground (or in the sky) recently. “So depending on where you’re headed, maybe I could tag along for a bit.”

One of Amanita’s ears drooped. “Again: why?”

“For starters, you’re the greatest necromancer in the history of the Royal Guard-”

“Until the next one,” Amanita mumbled.

“-and I’ve never seen you do any big magic.”

“…Bitterroot, I’ve resurrected you twice.”

“And I was dead when that happened. By the time I was back, it was already over. Yeah, I know it’s not necromancy and I never learned much about ley lines, but I’d like to see it anyway. And… Well, it might be nice to have somepony to confide in if it all goes sideways. Just in case, you know?”

“That’d be nice,” said Amanita quietly. She raised her voice. “I’ll talk to Code tomorrow. You’ll need to be at the train station early in the morning with me, buy your own ticket and everything, and… y’know, Code might not want you coming with us.”

Bitterroot just shrugged. “Like I said, I was leaving Canterlot anyway. If she says no, I’ll just get off at a different station. Not a big deal.”

“Alright. And if it ever comes down to it, thanks for being there for me.”

“Sure.”

They ate.

Amanita spoke up again. “You know, maybe you should charge me rent.”

Canterlot Station was still chilly just after 7 AM in the middle of winter. Amanita pulled her coat closer around herself as the mist of her breath mingled with the mist of the train’s breath. Oil lamps hung along the platform to drive away the predawn dark. The hissing of pistons echoed in the cavernous space, especially with so few ponies to break up the sound. Her bags were slung across her barrel, tightly packed with clothes and gear. Code and Charcoal weren’t there yet, but the train wasn’t due to leave for another ten minutes or so.

Bitterroot trotted back from the ticket window. Pegasus magic probably meant she was feeling just fine in the chill. “You know,” she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever been out near Griffonstone. I always go more northwest than northeast.”

“You go north a lot?” Amanita asked. Words could fill the time.

“Mmm. Not a lot a lot. Semi-often, maybe. If bounties ever try to leave Equestria, they usually head north. A lot of ponies don’t like the North, so they think it’s easier to hide out there, and I’m like, ‘I can get ten thousand bits for capturing you, I think I can handle the cold for that much’.”

Amanita chuckled.

“Amanita!”

She looked; Code and Charcoal were trotting onto the platform, both with their own coats and luggage: Charcoal with some overstuffed bags, Code casually hauling two carts carrying twice her weight in boxes. “Good. You’re here,” said Code. She glanced at Bitterroot. “Is she coming with us?”

“If I can,” said Bitterroot. “If you don’t want me to-”

But Code waved her off. “I can’t say where you can and can’t go. Buy your own ticket and stay out of our way and we won’t have a problem. You all get on board and I’ll get these to baggage.” Without another word, she walked towards the front of the train.

“Is she always like that?” Charcoal asked as she watched her go.

“More or less,” Amanita said. “Not exactly one for small talk, is she? Let’s get inside.”

Thankfully, the inside of the train wasn’t just warmer than the outside, but actually warm, if a bit dim. Amanita breathed deeply as she settled into her seat. Charcoal sat down across from her, took off her bags, and started rooting through them, muttering.

“Worried you might’ve forgotten something?” Amanita asked.

“Hmm?” Charcoal’s ear twitched as she looked up. “Uh, no, just…” She looked back inside. “Tetruple-checking my stuff. Just to, y’know, be sure. Again. Again.” Her ears moved back a little. “Again.”

The movements were familiar to Amanita. “What kind of stuff?”

Charcoal’s ears moved forward again and she started grinning. “Natural remedies! It’s, see, there’s a funny… thing about stuff like ley lines. If you get afflicted by magic like that, it’s, it’s natural magic, see? And it’s supposed to… stick around. So when it affects kirins- um, any sort of… animal, it’s, it’s kinda hard to get out. Unless you do it in the right way. Natural pills for natural ills!” She laughed, only to keep talking before Amanita could respond. “It’s for the magic to get in, but, but it’s probably best to be prepared. And I am prepared!”

Charcoal’s horn began glowing oddly as she whipped objects past Amanita’s face, almost too fast to see. “Willow, that’s good for pain, but you probably knew that… Wilderweed, that’s a good commune- immune booster… Noonflower, that can help mana flow better… Foal’s breath, great all-arounder…”

“Wait. Foal’s breath?” Amanita asked.

Charcoal came to a stop, holding a bag of some sort of blue pills. “Uh, yes?” she said tentatively.

“I thought that was just for your- silence- curse.”

“It’s actually good against a rot- a lot of mental magics,” said Charcoal. “It’s… I actually don’t know how it works. But Princess Twilight’s done some work and these-” She wiggled the pills. “-have effervescence of foal’s breath. Good for more mental ills than you’d think. Like ley lines making you go loopy! We probably won’t need them, but if we do need them, I’d rather have them, right?”

“Heh. I’ve been without ingredients enough to know that’s true.” Amanita blinked and shook her head. “Anyway, um…” She extended her hoof. “Amanita.”

Charcoal looked blankly at her hoof for a moment, then extended her own. “Um. Charcoal.” As they shook, she said, a bit quietly, “Is this a… pony thing, introducing yourself twice? We already knew each othen. Other.”

“It’s more… We’d been introduced professionally, not personally.”

“Huh.”

“So, uh…” What to ask, what to- “How’d you get into environmental magic?”

Charcoal’s face lit up. “Well, I’m- You know the- thing with the kirin, right? How we were silenced?”

“I-”

“It’s, there’s a lot of things you just can’t do if you can’t talk. But you can study stuff. And environmental magic, there’s a whole lot we didn’t know about it, so once we were silenced, I just- started studying it. It’s everywhere, you know. In all the plants and rocks and water and even animals. It’s where things like timberwolves come from, you know.”

“That’s-”

“And then Applejack and Fluttershy came by, and they de-silenced us and that was great. When we started going out into Equestria more, I, it turned out I knew a, um, a lot more about environmental magic than most ponies just because I’d been studying it on my own for so long, like out in the wild. Princess Twilight herself contacted me…”

As they talked, the whistle blew and the train started moving.

Bitterroot hung out on the observation car as the train left. Somehow, in all the different times she’d left Canterlot, she’d never done it in the hour before dawn. Clouds were just beginning to orange up on their bottoms and a tinge of gold was creeping into the sky. Yes, it was quite beautiful.

But as the train wound its way down the mountain, the sunrise was blocked by walls of rock and Bitterroot traipsed back up the cars. She had a long, long trip ahead.

Amanita was deep in conversation with the kirin — Charcoal, right? — so Bitterroot didn’t want to disrupt her. On the other side of the aisle, Code had her muzzle in a book. Not buried; judging from the title, it was more a train station novel than anything. Well, if she didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want to talk. Bitterroot had some books of her own. She sat down across from Code and cleared her throat. “Hey!”

Code looked up. “Hello.”

“Colonel Restricted Code, right? The High Ritualist.”

“Just Code is fine.” Code closed her book and set it aside. “And I remember you. Bitterroot. Bounty hunter. You committed suicide in front of me.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Bitterroot. “Does it really count as ‘suicide’ if you’re planning on being resurrected later? I mean, you can kill someone in self-defense, but that’s a bit different from a murder, right?”

Code frowned and flicked an ear. “That’s a good point, actually… Anyway, I remember you.”

“Clearly.” For a moment, Bitterroot searched for a topic. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, she asked, “So, uh, Amanita says you sometimes work with demons?”

Code blinked. For a moment, Bitterroot wondered if she’d accidentally broached some aspect of national security she didn’t know existed. Then Code shrugged and said, “At times. Getting to know them is fascinating. Many demons are unfairly demonized.”

One of Bitterroot’s ears dropped and she cocked her head.

“Yes, I hear myself,” said Code. “What I hear is a stereotype so thoroughly entrenched in the popular consciousness that it’s turned into etymology.”

“…Did you write that out beforehoof?”

“Eh…” Code wiggled a hoof. “Technically. I’ve had this sort of conversation many times before. Many of the demons we remember are the ones who took it upon themselves to come here and torment the less fortunate. If they were foals, they’d be the ones who torture ants with magnifying glasses. It’s the others I’m making contact with.”

“Huh.” Bitterroot imagined that if she kept asking, most of the ideas would fly right over her head with an audible whoosh, yet she kept asking anyway. “Do they… want anything?”

“Heh.” Code actually grinned a little. “Let’s just start by saying that, even for the ‘nice’ demons, they have a hard time getting the idea of just giving something away, even a few words. But if we focus on one demon at a time, we can make it work. Why, just last week, one of them actually remembered my name…”

The train chugged on through the predawn.

3 - Glacial Crossroads

The world chilled even more as the train blazed north. Over the next day and a half, the group slowly left the heartlands of Equestria behind. Hazy horizons of snowy forests and rolling grasslands were sharpened into the jagged sawteeth of icy mountain ridges. Early on the second day, they had to switch from their train, an express headed northeastward for Griffonstone, to a mixed-goods train on a due-north branch line: a few mostly-empty passenger cars and plenty of freight.

Amanita checked her itinerary for the fifth time that hour. Their stop, Waypoint, was a few minutes and less than a mile away — even as she read, she felt the decelerative twitch of the brakes — but she was in that last restless leg of a long journey, where you can’t stop fidgeting and being ready to be done. She sighed and looked out the window. The train was traveling next to a fast-moving river; beyond that lay a thick forest, and beyond that loomed a mountain range. Not stood; loomed.

If you wanted to hide, you could do it easily there. She and Circe had spent a lot of time in mountain ranges, back when her attitude towards necromancy was a lot more… carefree.

She pulled her coat tighter and took deep breaths.

Code tapped her on the shoulder. “Amanita?”

“Yeah?” Amanita asked, turning away from the towering shadows.

“I can’t believe I forgot to ask you this before,” said Code, “but I assume you want to keep your status as a necromancer a secret, correct? At least for now.”

Amanita barely held back a snort. Talking about necromancy to scientists in Canterlot was one thing. Talking about it to ordinary ponies, particularly ones way out here? She might get lynched. “Yeah. For now. If it comes out, things are… not going well.”

“I’ll follow your lead,” said Code. She glanced over to Bitterroot and Charcoal as they stood up and stretched, ready to disembark at the station. “You two heard that, right?”

Without looking at Code, Bitterroot nodded. “Don’t let ponies know Amanita can raise the dead.”

“I fought we’d be- Thought we’d be doing that.” Charcoal adjusted her bag’s straps. “I’m ignorant, not stupid.”

“Good.”

The train slid into Waypoint Station and its whistle screeched. Before the conductor had finished hollering, the crew was off — the only people leaving. Little ribbons of snow chased each other across the empty platform in the wind. The depot building itself looked actually neatly built, with carefully chopped logs and surfaces carved to be flush with each other and an oddly large door, but was clearly more interested in function than in form, especially with the way the roof could use a new coat of paint. It would keep the worst of the cold out, and if that wasn’t enough for you, well, why were you up here to begin with?

Bizarrely, Charcoal didn’t seem too put out by the cold, even with the way midwinter in the North was undoubtedly biting her. She breathed in deeply through her nose and grinned through the steam of her exhale. “Chilly!” she chirped.

“Yep,” muttered Amanita. Her memories of Northern chill had never gone away, but she still held her legs close together.

“It’ll probably get worse in Midwich,” Charcoal said. “Warm air rises out of slot canyons like that and isn’t easily replaced! Super cold.”

Amanita wasn’t sure whether she loathed that bit of information or loved that warning.

Once they retrieved their baggage, they entered the depot, not much more than a few benches and a ticket window. A pegasus mare, apparently in her late fifties and well-bundled in spite of the shelter, was whistling out a light and bouncy tune as she used a broom to clean cobwebs from the corners. When she heard the door open, she twitched and Amanita barely noticed her shoulders sinking. “Hello, Royds,” she said in a long-suffering voice.

One of Code’s ears twitched. “Who?”

The mare whipped around to look at them, then blinked in surprise. “Oh! I, uh… thought you’uns were… someone else.” Her words twanged with a mountain accent. She looked at each of them in turn, almost suspiciously. “Did y’all get off at the wrong stop? Nothin’ here but woods and…” Her voice trailed off.

“The Tratonmane branch line ends here, right?”

“…I reckon so.” One of the mare’s ears drooped; the other folded back. “You’re the ritualists, right? From Canterlot? For the ley line hootenanny.” She looked at each person in turn, lingering twice as long on Charcoal (who grinned, but took a step back).

“We are. Except for her.” Code nodded at Bitterroot. “She’s a hanger-on.”

“Shoulda known. Nobody’s never did gone up through that way since I been workin’ here.”

“And how long have you been working here?” Amanita asked before anyone else could.

“Forty years.” The mare trotted into the ticket booth, muttering nothings to herself. She opened up the ticket window, dropped a name plaque on the desk — Travel Stamp, it said — and pulled out a rubber stamp and ink pad that somehow managed to be dusty. Once she licked down the stamp to get it wet (why would she do it like that), Travel said, “You’re sure you need to go thataways? ’Cause them jaspers’re odd folk.”

“Unless there’s a town closer to the ley line, yes.” Code fished out a coin purse and dropped it on the counter. “How much for four-”

“What makes them odd?” asked Charcoal, poking her head around Code. When Code shot her a Look, Charcoal protested, “I’m just asking!”

“Four tickets,” Code said quickly.

Travel gave Charcoal a Look of her own as she rang up Code. “They jus’… keep to themselves,” she said. “Which don’t sound like much, ’cept they don’t leave that gulch noways. Only pony who comes out ’ere drives the train. Once a week, coal an’ lumber out, supplies in, an’ that’s that. Friendly enough fellow, when ’e says anythin’. And nopony else ever comes out. Not ever?” She shook her head. “You’d swear they’re a-worshipin’ the mountains up there.”

Amanita frowned. She’d been in enough small Northern lumber or mining towns to know what came off to other ponies as weird. An oddly strong connection to home, stolidity, living out here to begin with… Plenty of ways. But because of those similarities, a lot of those towns formed close bonds with each other. So for Tratonmane to be weird compared to another mining town…

“Anyway…” Travel stamped out several tickets. “Y’got lucky. Train’s comin’ in about half an hour. Give it another half-hour to switch goods, an’ you’uns’ll be off.”

“Thank you,” said Code. “How much for-”

Amanita’s ear twitched as she heard something heavy step outside. She didn’t think much of it, but Travel’s eyes immediately grew huge. “Y’need to stay there for a little while longer,” she said quickly. She snatched the tickets back and tore them up.

Code remained unreadable as the steps grew closer and closer. “Why?”

“I want to avoid yak hugs,” whispered Travel.

The entrance door banged open and the frame was immediately filled with the blinged-out mountain of shaggy fur that was a yak. “GREETINGS, TRAIN PONY!” he bellowed in a voice that literally shook the foundation of the building. His misting breath was so dense it was practically steam.

Amanita couldn’t hear Travel’s long-suffering sigh, thanks to the yak’s echoes, but she didn’t need to; she could feel it in her bones. “Hello, Royds.”

Royds marched up to the ticket window, hanging out just behind Code. “Yakyakistan sends many thanks to ponies!” he roared (Code actually stumbled forward a bit). “Waypoint and Tratonmane trees still perfect for Puunmurskausmas!”

“Once again, I sell tickets, you furry bullhorn. Thank the head lumberjack.”

“Train pony is station master! Train pony responsible for making sure trees loaded onto trains quickly! Train pony good at that! But yak will talk to lumberjack too, yes.”

“Well, you’re welcome,” said Travel, “but as you can see, I’m busy-” She gestured at Code and grinned nervously. “-so darnit, you’ll have to keep moving.”

“Apologies at time not being perfect! Yak hopes next time will be perfect! Yak see you later!” (Travel’s wheeze was probably some form of strained laughter.) Royds turned to the door-

“Why do you chalk- talk like that?” asked Charcoal. “Without articles or conjugations or grammar.”

Amanita immediately cringed and she didn’t need to look to know similar reactions were coming from each of the other ponies. Yet Royds himself seemed unconcerned with the faux pas, assuming he noticed it at all. “Yaks smash pleonasms,” he declared sagely. “Yak speech simple, yet clear and obvious. Yaks need no more words; why use more words?”

Bitterroot glanced at Amanita. “Pleonasms?” she whispered.

“I think that’s ‘using too many words’,” Amanita replied.

Charcoal raised a hoof declaratively, saying, “…” She stroked her chin. “Huh. I might have to try that.”

“Indeed!” Royds gave Charcoal a light, friendly slap on the back that probably risked breaking her legs. “Yak speech very effective. Yak speech perfect! FAREWELL, PONIES! FAREWELL, NOT-PONY!” And he departed, leaving behind only wet yak footprints and little earthquakes.

After a moment of silence, Travel breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thankee,” she muttered. “He can get rather…”

“Wood pony!” Royds bellowed from outside.

“Diplomat yak!” a pony bellowed back.

“…excitable, an’ I’m old. One o’ these days, he’ll just sqush me right flat in a hug.”

“Yaks do be like that,” said Code.

Travel quickly stamped out another set of tickets and exchanged them with Code’s bits. “Tratonmane’s thataway, if’n y’wanna watch for the train.” Travel pointed out a window, opposite the side they’d come in. “Beyond the woods, on the other side o’ the mountains.”

Amanita took that as an opportunity to leave, exiting the station to take a look at the town and the mountains. Waypoint was a decent size for its isolation, with plenty of buildings, including at least one sawmill. Maybe it wasn’t thriving, but it was doing alright for itself. Amanita had enjoyed worse in her travels. It was practically familiar.

The mountains, though…

Amanita wasn’t scared of mountains. She knew them. Ish. She’d spent years in mountains. But looking at this range, at these giant slabs of stone and snow, she was looking into the wilderness in more ways than one. She knew virtually nothing about ley lines, and the closer she got to the mountains, the more acutely she felt that and the more likely botching everything seemed. The sight of the mountains almost repulsed her with fear.

But she held. She looked up at the mountains and fruitlessly told her beating heart to slow down. She’d botched things before, after all. Her life, for one, throwing it away to chase after a dead marefriend under a lich’s tutelage, and that had worked out well. Ish. She could do this.

She had to do this. She’d be a one-trick pony otherwise.

That was why she couldn’t stop her skin crawling.

The locomotive didn’t produce any smoke or steam.

That was what Bitterroot noticed when she first saw the Tratonmane train approach. It was a narrow-gauge one, with several flatcars loaded with lumber, several gondola cars loaded with coal, two boxcars, and a single passenger car at the very back. (She wouldn’t be surprised if that one was more out of obligation than anything.) The actual engine was a bit short and squat, resembling the K-36’s out west with some strange doodads bolted on. And yet it didn’t have any smoke. She’d have to ask the engineer about that.

Travel was lying next to her, sucking on a twig, watching the train approach with an air of familiarity. Bitterroot gave her a little nudge to get her attention. “Pretty big train for something that only comes once a week,” Bitterroot said.

“In course it is. That there’s all o’ the town’s goods for the week,” said Travel.

“Really?”

“Train’s the only way in or outta Midwich.” Travel worked the twig around in her mouth. “Less you wanna walk the long way ’round. Or fly, since you’re a pegasus an’ all. It’s the lifeblood o’ the place. Cut it off and the town’d die.”

Bitterroot looked back at the mountains, really looked at them. Now, it was easy to see just how impassible they were, with no easy passes or gaps that she could make out. There weren’t even many foothills; the mountains just jutted straight from the ground. It was more like a natural wall than anything she’d seen before. And they were going right into the middle of it.

“Ley ranges are like that,” said Charcoal absently. She started making jerky upward gestures. “You get all this energy, and it just kinda pushes the mountains up and keeps them together as it rises from the earth… We’re real lucky there’s a train to there, or else there’d be… I don’t know. Not a very good path. Why do ponies build train tracks everywhere? It’s weird.”

“Don’t ask me,” Travel said. “I just live here.”

Charcoal glanced at Bitterroot. “You live in Canterlot. Do you have a compulsion to build things?”

“Nope. It’s because of wing envy!” Bitterroot said brightly, flaring hers.

Charcoal tilted her head.

“I’m serious. Pegasi can get to places easily. But transporting supplies there, that takes more effort. And railroads are pretty much the best high-volume freight system there is that isn’t rivers. So sometimes, pegasi assemble in a fertile or resource-rich area pretty quickly, other ponies get there faster than usual so they don’t miss out, railroads are built to bring in supplies for the booming population, and then everyone realizes we’ve laid another hundred miles of track through the middle of nowhere.”

“Hmm. That… makes sense. But it’s-”

“It’s really oversimplified. That’s the gist of it, but there are- You live in Canterlot, right? I’ve got a book I can lend you when we get back. Wake of Steel, by Wood Tie. It’s about nothing but this.”

“Hmm. Sure, I’d like that.” Charcoal looked at the mountains again. “I wonder why Tratonmane was pounded- founded there, though. It’s so far from everything. I guess Waypoint was already a place where-”

Travel snorted. “Other way ’round. Waypoint started for Tratonmane. Why d’you think we’re called ‘Waypoint’? That’s what we are. Nopony cares enough to name us anythin’ else. ’Specially not us. Our history ain’t much, afore you ask. Y’ever heard o’ the… Fuel Vassalage Commission?” She said the last two words slowly, like they were another language. The name was vaguely familiar, but Bitterroot shook her head.

“So.” Travel bit off part of the branch, swallowed it, and stuck the rest behind her ear. She sat up straight and continued, “Two, three hundred year ago, we get steam engines. And those engines, they’re mighty useful for gettin’ around, but they need coal, and lots of it. So Her Highness, she wants a head start on fuel, so she goes an’ sets up this big scheme where she pays for towns in faraway places across the country to mine coal.”

Charcoal’s ears went up. “Ooo! Like Tratonmane!”

“Yes, indeedy. Celestya pays — well, paid, now — she pays for vittles an’ medicine t’ go up there, so long as coal keeps comin’ down. An’ it still is. There’s such towns all up an’ down these mountains. Waypoint, we’re just where Tratonmane hits the branch. Otherwise, we ain’t nothin’. Which is nice when y’don’t want much.”

There it was. Bitterroot knew her rail history, but logistics were a bit less interesting. She’d probably read about the FVC a dozen times, only to forget it each time. Knowing where a particular hunk of coal came from was definitely a less interesting part of trains. “I see lumber, too,” Bitterroot said, pointing. “Is that also part of the commission?”

Travel just shrugged. “Lotta trees out ’ere. Get some real good earthers ’oo know how to grow plants, and you can grow trees faster’n you can cut ’em down. Neat way to bring in more bits. Waypoint makes money that way, too. My ma said Tratonmane also sold charged gems or summat, but that stopped a few years afore I’s born.”

“Mmhmm.” Bitterroot went back to watching the train; by now, it was already pulling up to the platform. The engine slid smoothly past the depot and came to a stop with the passenger car right in front of the station doors. Immediately, a grayish unicorn stallion hopped out of the engine and trotted back down the train, whistling something. He came to a stop at where the passenger car connected to the hopper ahead of it and ducked in between the cars.

Curiosity pulled her forward like a magnet and Bitterroot was next to the stallion when he clambered back onto the platform. “Hey,” she said.

The stallion actually flinched and looked at her with sky-blue eyes that probably should’ve been sparkling but seemed dull at the moment. “…Hidy,” he said. His ears were twitching in anxiety. About foreigners, maybe? Bitterroot couldn’t blame him. They were intruding. His coat was as gray as the mountains around them, his mane coal-black, but he also looked a touch too slender for his own good, like he wanted to be the physical sort but had trouble committing. He still had time left in his life; he hadn’t yet hit forty.

She nodded towards the locomotive. “There’s no steam,” she said. Not from the engine, anyway. The stallion’s breath was steaming up plenty hard. (Then Bitterroot abruptly realized that he was wearing thick furs. Not unusual this far north, but if there was a firebox, the heat ought to have kept him warm. If. The furs were clean, too.)

He blinked and twitched back maybe half an inch. “I… guess nae.” His voice could’ve had a lot of rumbling gravel, but he needed to put it in himself and didn’t feel like it at the moment, so it was rather unmemorable at the moment.

“How come? If you don’t mind me asking, I mean. I like trains, and-”

“Missis, can ye walk an’ talk?” the stallion asked, his voice tense. “Got a schedule tae keep-” He nodded towards the engine. “-and ye’re a-holdin’ me up.” His accent was even thicker than Travel’s.

“Yes I can,” Bitterroot said quickly. She started walking for the engine; the stallion was at her side almost immediately. “So, train. No smoke.”

“Havenae had a fire burnin’ in…” The stallion clicked his tongue and looked up. “…dinnae ken. Long as I been a-drivin’. Dinnae need one, aryhow. Replaced the firebox wi’ some magic hootenanny. Drives the engine jes’ fine.”

Bitterroot had heard of those. Arcane dynamos of some kind. You were supposed to be able to drive locomotives with them, saving money and weight on fuel, since you were using thaumaturgical batteries rather than coal. At least, that was the idea. As was its wont, reality felt the need to intrude, and most such dynamos were still disappointingly inefficient, utterly impractical for trains. Unless the route wasn’t long and the train wasn’t big and you only needed to make a single round trip every week. And if you didn’t need a firemare… Bitterroot looked back down the train to be sure. No conductor. “And you’re the only pony who drives the train?”

The stallion looked at Bitterroot, squinting. It was an expression Bitterroot had seen plenty of times before; he was trying to get a read on her for some reason. Then he glanced at the ponies she was traveling companion to, loading their baggage into the passenger car, and she got it.

“I’m not really with them, I’ll keep mum on any… rules violations,” Bitterroot said quickly. Too quickly? “One of them’s my friend and I’m giving her moral support. I’m a bounty hunter, not a ritualist.” When the stallion still looked doubtful, she dug into her furs and pulled out her bounty hunting license. “See? Independent, not working for the Crown.”

The stallion glanced only briefly at the license, but Bitterroot could still see the tension leave his body. “Yep,” he said. “Jes’ me. Been that way fer more’n ten year, bringin’ everythin’ in an’ out. ’Tis tough, bein’ responsible fer everythin’, but eh. Somepony’s got tae do it.” He twitched, as if realizing something, and actually laughed a little.

By now, they’d reached the engine. Bitterroot leaned into the cab. Many of the gauges were missing and where the firebox normally was, now there was a large panel protecting… something. The battery, probably. But the controls still looked like those of a normal steam locomotive, just simplified to account for the lack of steam management. Brakes, regulator, sander. Easy. Bitterroot could probably drive it herself if-

“Ahem,” enunciated the stallion. “Got me a job that needs doin’. Ye can marvel at it everwhen we get back tae Tratonmane. Really, ye can.”

“Right,” said Bitterroot. One last look and she pulled out. She headed back towards the passenger car; her own baggage needed packing. “Name’s Bitterroot, by the way,” she hollered out.

“Tallbush!” the stallion yelled back. “Pleased tae meet ye!”

A bit of shunting juggling left the full freight cars behind in Waypoint and the passenger car coupled to the front of a new set of empty cars. (Bitterroot found the juggling fascinating, but she knew she was the only one who did.) The process was quick, and soon the train was away with the crew from Canterlot.

Up close, the mountains weren’t quite as unassailable as they had appeared, even if that wasn’t saying much. There were sideways canyons in the range, almost like slots, that weren’t easily visible from Waypoint. But the route through them was winding and the train had to take it slow as it climbed across wooded slopes and through ravines, hanging onto the mountainside for dear life. Tallbush had said it’d take nearly an hour to reach Tratonmane from Waypoint. And from the snailish way the mountain was crawling by, Bitterroot was sure that wasn’t an exaggeration. At least the car wasn’t drafty.

Charcoal was leaning out the windows, marveling at the mountains for reasons Bitterroot couldn’t tell. (“Pretty mountains” counted, she supposed. They were quite pretty.) Amanita was sitting in a loose, worn-down seat, reading something and waiting for the trip to be over. And Code…

Code was sitting in the middle of the car, eyes closed, taking long, deep breaths. In through the nose, hold for two seconds, out through the mouth, hold for two seconds, repeat. Her breathing was easy and steady, borderline mechanical in its regularity. She didn’t move much except to pivot as the train rounded curves. Somehow, even though her eyes were closed, she always ended up pointing north-ish.

Eventually, Bitterroot couldn’t help herself. “What’re you doing?”

Code didn’t twitch. “Trying to feel the ebb and flow of the area,” she said without opening her eyes. “Getting a head start on the primary form for the ritual. It needs to be tuned to work for the particular… region it’s performed in. Cacti don’t grow in apple orchards.”

“Can you feel anything?”

“Not really. Moving makes it harder to keep the connection to the earth.” Code shrugged. “It passes the time.”

She’d lived with a necromancer for moons, she’d been resurrected twice, and Bitterroot still didn’t get rituals. Code didn’t seem to be doing anything, just sitting there. At least when Amanita did magic, you could watch the pretty sparkles. Maybe it was an earth pony thing. “That it does. Wish it could for me.”

Finally, Code opened her eyes to stare at Bitterroot in confusion. “What? What do you mean?”

The fact that Code sounded so surprised surprised Bitterroot. It was a simple thing. “Well, you’re feeling the earth, right?”

“And you would feel the air.” Code squinted at Bitterroot with the air of a teacher disapproving of a homework-neglecting pupil; the glasses didn’t help. “You’ve never done a lick of magic besides flight and cloudwalking, have you?”

“I can do other things besides that?”

“Quite a bit more. There’s more to weather-wrangling than just trying to kick clouds, after all.” Code looked like she was going to continue, only to glance out the window at the passing mountains. When she turned back, she said, “I can try to teach you, if you want. How to feel the energies in the land. I can’t say how good I’ll be, since we’re different tribes, but I can give it a shot.”

Eh, what the hay. Maybe she’d learn something. Anypony could do ritual magic; this might be the first step towards that. And if not, it’d pass the time. Bitterroot plonked herself down across from Code. “Sure. Hit me.”

“That quick?” Code asked, raising an eyebrow. “Alright.” She looked at her own hooves for a moment, turning one of them over like it was an archaeological artifact (of the kind that didn’t risk melting your face off). “First things first,” she said. “Try to clear your head. You’re new to this, so we’ll need to do everything we can to help you focus on the magic.”

Heh. Empty your mind. Something Bitterroot was either very good at or very bad at, depending on the situation. Stakeouts, where she could be waiting for hours on end? Blanker than a whiteboard, where anything put in it would vanish in moments. Otherwise? Yeah, no. Closing her eyes, she tried to shift into stakeout mode. No big movements while not forcing herself to stay completely still, deep breaths, steady.

“There’s magic all around us, all throughout reality,” said Code, “and we barely scratch the surface of it. You’re a pegasus, so you’re attuned to the air. Reach out. Feel it in your feathers.”

Bitterroot decided against talking back to her teacher, decided educating somepony on anatomy was more important, and spoke up. “You know that, technically speaking, feathers are dead, right? They’ve got no blood vessels in them, no nerves…”

“Yes. That’s why feeling anything with them is noteworthy.”

Point to the expert. Bitterroot extended her wings to make them more… there. Feelable. There was just enough wind in the car for her to notice. Normally, she tried to ignore those winds, but if she was trying to feel magic in them… She breathed in. She breathed out. She’d had a teenage job as a weather wrangler, and she still remembered the unruly nature of storms, the static zing around clouds. She’d just assumed that was built-up lightning, but maybe that was unfocused magic? She reached for the memory, tried to recognize it in the winds around her-

And suddenly her wings seemed to expand.

It was a hazy feeling, like an incredibly minor buzz from an electric jolt, but it was absolutely there. In fact, it wasn’t so much a feeling as awareness. She knew all the ways the air was gently ruffling her feathers without actually feeling anything. More like… proprioception. Sort of. Not really. In spite of her shock, she tried to stay calm. She managed to hold it for another moment as miniscule winds flitted about her before she just had to look at her wings.

The feeling vanished the instant she opened her eyes. Her wings didn’t look any different.

“Yeah. You felt it.” Code was grinning. “It’s always a punch when you first break through to the aether. I still remember my first time. Just the life in everything.”

Bitterroot hadn’t felt life, but that was probably just because she was a pegasus and not an earth pony. What she had felt was an atmosphere that was slowly gaining energy. What was normally cold and dry — how did she know what those felt like? — was getting charged bit by bit as they approached the ley line. It was the electric thrum of a thundercloud, but turned down to one percent and everywhere. “It’s… Wow,” she said quietly. She was already closing her eyes again. “I didn’t realize what was all there.”

Code laughed. “Most unicorns don’t realize it’s there, and they can sense magic more easily than either of us. They just rip away the magic they need and never let themselves get immersed.”

The buzz was almost coming back. Bitterroot could feel it. “And this… kind of magic is how rituals work, right? Why any tribe can use them.”

“Indeed. It all comes from the same source. Different tribes just use it in different ways.”

“Does that include restraint rituals?” Worth a shot.

“…Technically, yes. If you can draw the circle, write out the runes, and donate the blood.”

And almost immediately, Bitterroot put the kibosh on that idea. The buzz slipped away from her as she shivered.

“It’s not much blood,” Code said, far too casually, “just a few drops. You need to give some of your own life to restrain another’s. But blood is blood, and it can usually only hold for a few minutes, anyway. Rope would serve you better.”

“Uh-huh,” said Bitterroot. But a blood sacrifice was a blood sacrifice, and that thought rolling around in her head made it hard for her to find the buzz again.

“And as for the magic itself, I wish I could help you more, but I wouldn’t know how. Different access mechanisms. Just keep examining it and you’ll learn what everything means. Oh, and if you suddenly get the urge to burst into song, that’s normal. Doing so will let you draw in even more magic, although you’ll want to stay vigilant if it’s in a minor key…”

It was amazing how much you could notice when noticing was all you were able to do.

The train, for example. Everypony knew trains rattled and rumbled. Rails weren’t perfect, after all. But the more Amanita paid attention to it, the more she thought she could take a stab at the tracks. They were well-worn, smoothed out by frequent use, but still sturdy. The route wound enough that there wasn’t much of an attempt to keep the tracks straight. Fair enough; given an environment like this, it might’ve been too much hassle. For most of the trip, the train had been crawling upward, but it’d crested a hill and started shuffling downward a while back. It actually wasn’t the worst train ride Amanita had been on.

She’d tried reading, but anxiety made her mind skip like a record as she read the same sentence over and over and the same thoughts kept flitting through her head. Now, she was just keeping her head down. It was always the same; the build-up to the doing was worse than the actual doing. It’d been true for necromancy, it’d been true for running from her master, it’d been true for prison, it’d been true for offering her services to the Guard, it was going to be true for ley sanitation. Right? Right.

The carriage twitched as it went over a slight dip in the track where some of the wood would probably need replacing in the next year or so. It wasn’t the kind to just disintegrate beneath you, at the very least. Wood was stronger than most Canterlotians gave it credit for.

Knowing that didn’t make the build-up any easier. It was still there, and she was in the middle of it. Tratonmane inched closer with every turn of the wheels, potential disaster along with it. She kept getting an image of a lynch mob forming after it was found out she was a necromancer. And what would she do about that? Murder somepony and resurrect them to show that she meant well? Ponies didn’t take well to people getting murdered to prove a point.

She was slipping slightly forward as the train went over bumps; the downward slope was just steep enough for that. She wiggled her way into a proper position.

She just wanted a bit of status quo. Whether or not to keep her status as a necromancer secret kept penduluming; good idea, bad idea, for the best, for the worst… She’d almost gotten it back in Canterlot, where everypony knew her, but coming here felt like she was being uprooted. Even though it was only, what, a week? Two? Not long. Probably not even a full moon. It wasn’t like-

“Hey!” chirped Charcoal, making Amanita twitch and shattering her thoughts to pieces. “Didya see the tree line? We’re getting close!”

“No, Charcoal,” Amanita said, remaining hunched over her book like a vulture over a corpse, “I did not see the tree line.”

She hadn’t snapped, but the silence was oddly tense.

“Areyoubusy?” Charcoal asked quietly. “Um, wow, I am so sorry. I’ll just, um, be… over-”

“No!” Amanita said quickly. She raised her head; Charcoal was already shuffling away, ears down. “You’re, you’re fine. I’m just- stressed. I…” She rubbed the back of her neck; she didn’t look away. “I want this to go well. And I’m… worried of what’ll happen if it doesn’t.”

“Yeah,” said Charcoal quietly. “Me, too.”

Silence.

“Tree line?” blurted Amanita.

“Oh, yeah!” (Amanita wondered if all kirins could switch moods on a dime or if it was just Charcoal.) “Come, come take a luck! Look!” Charcoal pulled Amanita to a window and pointed. “You see how the tree line keeps getting higher?”

It only took Amanita a moment or two to find it. The effect was surprisingly strong. “Yeah.”

“The trees get more energy from the ley line, so they’re hardier, so it takes worse conditions for them to be able to not grow! It’s really neat, if you-”

Darkness suddenly overtook them and a thunderous din battered their ears. Amanita tensed up and was ready to duck under a seat to hide from the specter of danger when she realized: tunnel. They’d just entered a tunnel. And hadn’t Tallbush said the tunnel was the last thing before Tratonmane?

Either he had or everyone thought he had, since everybody began scrambling to get their baggage together. Besides her clothes, Amanita had a large bag stuffed with notes and ritual paraphernalia, necromantic and non-necromantic alike for both. (Anyone looking inside would probably be very confused.) And if anypony happened to die while they were out here, well. That wasn’t worth keeping her secrets for. She’d be ready.

Hopefully.

The carriage jolted slightly as the brakes were applied. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the train emerged from the tunnel into an evening gloom as it entered Midwich Valley.

4 - A Scar on the Back of Beyond

The cliffs were the first thing Amanita noticed. And the second. And the third. The sixth, too. Mainly because they made it too dark to quickly see much else.

Charcoal had said Midwich Valley would be deep. She hadn’t said it would be deep. Amanita craned her head to look, even leaning out the window, but the walls just went up and up and up and up and up. They must’ve been half a mile high, minimum, and they were sheer, with barely any foothills. Amanita was getting vertigo just looking at them and she wasn’t even afraid of heights.

And then there was the width of the valley, or to be more precise, the lack thereof. “Valley” was a misnomer, probably chosen to make the place sound less menacing. Midwich was only half a mile wide and it looked like it’d take less than ten minutes to walk from one wall to another, assuming you took your time. It wasn’t a valley; it was a canyon, a cleft, a rift, a wound hacked out of the earth by some immense force. With the mountains towering on either side, it felt like they were trapped between the jaws of the earth.

Combine the two, and Midwich Valley was swathed in shadow. It wasn’t even five and yet the immense walls blocked out the sun, leaving most of the canyon floor cloaked in gray. It was hardly pitch-black, more like just after sunset, but that didn’t make it feel cozy. The sky was far too blue for the dimness and one of the walls was still gleaming with sunlight that didn’t reach ponies. The color hadn’t yet bled out from the valley floor, but it was about to.

Amanita glanced out the window just in time to spot a passing sign: “Welcome to Tratonmane”. The words were clear, but it was old and battered and in need of repainting. It’d probably been up since the town was founded. Who was it welcoming, anyway?

“Holy cannoli. Now that’s a mother-ducking ley line.”

Somehow, Charcoal had been the one to say that; she was gawking out one side of the train, and once Amanita looked, she knew why. Midwich Valley was straight. Dead straight. So straight she had trouble believing it. Even with the forest hiding some of the strongest right angles, it just didn’t look natural, more like a drainage ditch than anything. She could practically see to the horizon, miles away.

Code was looking out the window, too. “Well,” she said, “at least we won’t have trouble telling which way’s north.”

“That’s north?” asked Bitterroot. “Actual north north, not north-northeast?”

“Powerful ley lines often align themselves to north or south if they’re close enough,” said Charcoal. She’d pressed her muzzle to the train window. “It’s an earth thing. That’s totally north north. I’ve never heard of a ley valley this defined before, sweet Shine…”

“And now,” said Code, “you get to study it.”

Charcoal was actually wagging her tail like a dog and her voice was downright dreamy. “Yeah…”

The valley was even narrower at the tunnel than at the rest of it, so the train had to curve as it approached the opposite wall until it was facing directly north. Midwich was on a slight downward slope, but the track stopped on a flat stony ridge; Amanita wouldn’t have been surprised if it’d been built up with magic. There was a platform next to the passenger car once it slid to a stop, but no station building. Two ponies were waiting for them in wavering lamplight, a pegasus stallion and a chiropterus mare, both well-bundled-up. Their postures were loose and they seemed to be chatting warmly.

With her baggage in her aura, Amanita stepped outside and immediately started shivering. Even through her furs, it wasn’t just cold, it was downright glacial, thanks to the shadows. If there was any opportunity for cold air to worm its way into her clothes, it was found and exploited as thoroughly as possible. She’d never felt it this cold, not even when she’d been a necromancer on the lam and had to trek through blizzards to avoid detection. (Well, there was once. But that was when she’d fallen into a nearly-frozen river, so that didn’t count.) It was cold. It was cold cold cold cold COLD.

The pegasus noticed her shakes and laughed, steamed breath enveloping his head. “Bit nippy, ain’t it?” he said. His voice was higher-pitched than expected, with no grit or gravel anywhere to be heard in it. His words sounded more joking than mocking, although he and the other pony were both taking the cold like champs.

“Come, Whipple,” said the chiropterus, “they’re outsiders. They merely need time to acclimate, nothing more.” She eyed Amanita, grinning impishly. “Although perhaps I ought to give you my coat. You seem to need it more than I do.”

“This, a-comin’ frae the bat named Midwinter,” said Whipple, giving the bat in question a playful shove. “Ye could get away wi’ wearin’ nothin’ in a cold-as-blixen blizzard.”

“That I could,” Midwinter said, smiling. “That I could.”

“Ach, but where are our manners?” Whippletree stepped forward, flared his wings, and bowed. “Whippletree, militiapony o’Tratonmane,” he said with probably more grandeur than his position deserved. “Afteren I heard the call frae Canterlot, I’s a-thinkin’ you’uns deserved a welcome.” He was just past middle age and seemed to be a big pony in a regular-sized body, with his exaggerated movements and his thick neck. His coat, unusually floofy thanks to the cold, was a downright verdant green that would’ve been out-of-place if not for being mostly covered up by his armor. In spite of the situation, he was fully decked out, a battered iron peytral over what looked like a full-body gambeson. But battered or not, Amanita noted that it’d been fitted for him.

“Militia,” said Code. Her gaze flitted across the scars of Whippletree’s armor and his lack of a hard helmet. “Hmm.” Her voice was mostly uninflected, but Amanita caught a few slight downward hitches of skepticism, the sort of thing you only recognized after working a long time with her.

“Well, it ain’t like we can lick it tae Canterlot fer what you'un’d call ‘proper’ trainin’,” Whippletree said. His voice was as light as his wings were suddenly tense. “Midwich gives gooder trainin’, aryway.” With an air of not wanting to look at Code, he started to glance over the rest of the group, only to twitch like he’d been given an electric shock when he saw Charcoal. “Ah…” He wobbled forward and back as if he wasn’t sure which way to go. “What… are ye? …I mean no offense!” he yelped.

“I’m a kirin!” Charcoal chirped as the faux pas whistled away, missing her by a mile. “I’m new. We’re new. We only entered Equestria like two seasons ago. Half a year ago. It’s complicated.”

“I can imagine,” Midwinter whispered, staring at Charcoal. She coughed, licked her lips (probably chapped; Amanita was already wishing she’d brought some lip balm), and pulled herself up. “Midwinter Fire,” she said. “I have no association with the militia and was merely here to see the arrival of those sent to help us.” She looked at least a decade younger than Whippletree. Even beneath her thick clothes, she was the sort of lean that just looked swift, even though chiropteri were generally slower than regular pegasi. Her coat was a gleaming black, not unlike coal, that nearly hid her in the darkness. Her mane shone white and her eyes gleamed copper. A red gem was affixed in a pendant hanging from her neck. “Can we commence with the introductions?”

“Ahem. Yes.” Code stood tall, which still meant she was at least half a head shorter than everyone else. She slapped a leg across her chest. “Restricted Code. Ritualist.” She pointed at each equine in turn. “Amanita. Ritualist in training. Charcoal. Environmental magic specialist. And Bitterroot. Tagalong bounty hunter who’s not working with us.”

Amanita risked clearing her throat. “She’s a friend of mine.” Once she couldn’t take it back, her mind immediately began spinning elaborate theories on how that would lead back to her being outed as a necromancer.

“Well, pleasure tae learn y’all,” said Whippletree. “Speakin’ of, did…” He glanced toward the front of the train.

Tallbush was leaning against the engine. “Aye, they already learned me, and I them,” he said, standing up. “Do you'uns need ary help?” he asked Code. “With… arythin’?”

“Unlikely,” said Code. “We just need to drop off our luggage at the inn, and then we can get to work.”

“Mmhmm. Where’ll you'uns be a-workin’?”

“Until we get a better view of the situation, that’s hard to say,” said Code. “Down near where Tratonmane meets the forest, to begin with.”

“Right,” said Whippletree. He turned his attention to Tallbush. “I reckon we ain’t a-doin’ the, uh…” He glanced at Code. “The meetin’?” he half-whispered.

“Nah,” said Tallbush at normal volume. “Dinnae got nae reason tae hold an assembly.”

Whippletree blinked twice, then nodded.

“Hopefully, we won’t impose ourselves on you too long,” said Code. “We could be out of here when the train leaves in a week. But that all depends on what the land says.”

As Code checked their cargo for damage and loaded it onto sledges, Amanita looked out over Midwich to the north and, for the first time, examined Tratonmane itself as best she could. Thanks to the dearth of land, the town was packed together more closely than similar villages, the outlines of buildings only discernible by the chiaroscuric contrast of lamps in the streets; there was even a tower or two, from what she could tell. It was maybe four hundred feet across, but quite a bit longer, almost like a snake. Amanita guessed the population at somewhere between three and five hundred. A slim but swift river wove its way down through the valley and split Tratonmane in two. The sides of Midwich Valley outside Tratonmane, right up to the walls, were free of regular wooden buildings and instead had… greenhouses, it seemed? That was one way to grow food up here. The entire valley floor seemed to sag, the edges higher than middle, as if the mountains were holding everything up.

There was a line not too far in the distance, where gray transitioned sharply to black. Amanita squinted at it and realized that that was where Tratonmane stopped. There weren’t any more buildings, there was a gap of land, and then Midwich Forest just… started. There was nothing gradual, nothing hazy, not even the slightest bit. Just a line so sharp and straight you could probably trace it with a ruler.

Amanita knew forests could be like that. She’d seen it plenty of times. But something about that got to her in ways the cold didn’t.

“Excuse me.” Next to her, Midwinter grinned. “I know it’s something, but remember to breathe.”

“Yeah,” said Amanita. “It’s just so… straight.” The forest line or the actual valley? Both, really.

“Truly, there is no other place like it in the world,” said Midwinter. “It is part of the reason I moved here.”

“Really?” asked Charcoal. “How did you hear about-”

“All set, we’re going,” Code said loudly. “Whippletree’s leading.”

With the station on the ledge, the crew had to head south to reach a downward slope before going north into Tratonmane proper. To the south, Midwich narrowed more and more until the walls finally met in a mild V shape. Several small waterfalls plummeted over the rim and down into the canyon to feed into the river, their roars oddly muted. Not too far from the station, with tracks leading to it, Amanita could make out the hulking, angular mass of a coal breaker. Well, Tratonmane was a mining town; it’d be more surprising if it didn’t have one. There didn’t seem to be many other buildings on that side of the station, just a few houses.

They reached where the rising valley floor met the ledge, then swung around to start downhill on the riverbank. Midwinter, however, came to a halt. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you four,” she said, “but I must be off. I have projects that need attending to.” Her piece said, she continued on upriver.

“Dinnae mind that,” Whippletree said casually. “She’s a throng sort, all the time a-goin’ forwards and backwards.”

Bitterroot surreptitiously glanced at Amanita. “Throng?” she whispered.

“Throng?” Charcoal didn’t whisper.

Amanita caught Tallbush rolling his eyes, but Whippletree remained as unfazed as Charcoal had been. “Oh, y’ken. Busy. A-bustlin’. Occupied. Y’ken.”

“No, I don’t ken,” said Charcoal. A pause. “Well, I didn’t. I do now!”

“I take it the mine’s that way?” asked Code, squinting upriver.

“Southmost point o’ Midwich,” Tallbush said quickly, still giving Charcoal a look that wasn’t a glare just yet.

“We might need to take a closer look at it eventually,” Code thought aloud. “Ley lines and mines have a rich history. Oh, and…”

She bent down and ate a chunk of dirt.

As she straightened up and swallowed, Code gave the shocked ponies a look like they were the weird ones. “What?” she asked, wiping her mouth down. “Earth pony, ley lines in the earth. I’m attuning myself to the ley lines. Obviously.”

“You’re… here to investigate the ley lines being bad,” said Bitterroot, her voice wavering between surprise and amusement. “Is that even safe?”

“On these timescales? Absolutely. I’m the High Ritualist, I’ve taken backlash far worse than this.”

“But-”

Amanita raised a hoof. “Bitterroot, if Code says it’s safe, then it’s safe. Trust me.”

Tallbush coughed and shuffled his hooves. “You’re, eh… a-feelin’ the magic, are ye?”

“I’m getting there,” said Code. “It’ll take a while to really get it moving around my hooves.”

“Eh-heh. Well, I, eh, I need tae go. I got… jobs that need doin’. Money. Freight.” And Tallbush was immediately trotting back to the station while trying to look like he wasn’t running away from anything, no sir.

Whippletree’s ears twitched, then he glanced at the rest of the ponies and shrugged. “Nae idea what’s gotten intae him. Let’s keep a-movin’.”

The houses started quickly once they reached the bottom of the ridge. The central road was nearly flat from constant usage and surprisingly wide; it wouldn’t have been that out-of-place in Canterlot, actually. Oil lamps and light gems lined the buildings and the scene would’ve been a cozy just-after-sunset one if not for the glare of the wall above reminding them of the light they were missing. Plenty of ponies walked the streets; mostly earth ponies and pegasi, with unicorns being relatively rare. In fact, chiropteri seemed to be more common than unicorns. Although that might’ve just been their eyes occasionally flashing in the gloom and infrequent, high-pitched chirps of echolocation.

On a whim, Amanita took as close a look at the nearest pony as she could, but although she searched, she couldn’t see any signs of malnourishment. She looked at the buildings; wooden, thick, sturdy, no gaps in the walls, even intact glass in the windows. Tratonmane was doing surprisingly well, considering its isolation.

Then she noticed the looks they were getting. The quick ones, with set jaws and lowered ears that saw them, then turned away. From just about every pony on the street. Some even ambled to the other side of the road once they were finished with their quick glare. They were familiar to her. The Tratonmanians were holding them in contempt.

It was almost certainly just them being foreigners — Tratonmane probably had a well-oiled routine that didn’t react well to Crown agents being tossed into the works — but that wasn’t the only place she’d seen them. They’d also been present years ago, after Northern townsponies learned she and Circe were necromancers but before Circe killed someone to use as a thrall and that turned to fear. Amanita had only seen them a few times, but it wasn’t a look you easily forgot.

She glanced behind her. Bitterroot seemed to have noticed, from the way her eyes were flicking back and forth. Code was supremely unconcerned. And Charcoal was losing a quarter-inch with every twenty steps she took as her ears grew more and more limp. Amanita slowed her pace until she was side-by-side with Charcoal. “Don’t take it personally,” she whispered. “We’re-”

“I know. Foreigners. I, I once did it myself,” mumbled Charcoal. “But it’s hard not to.”

“Remember, we’re here for each other,” said Amanita. “Feel free to talk to me about… anything.”

“Mmhmm,” Charcoal hummed vaguely. “But-” Her ears and head snapped further up at the same time; she looked straight ahead like a pointer dog. “What’s that?” she asked.

“We’re a-comin’ up on the square,” said Whippletree. “If’n y’ever-”

“No, the tree.” Charcoal picked up speed until she practically galloped past Whippletree to the silhouette of a tree.

And what a tree it was.

It was easily the largest tree Amanita had ever seen, several dozen feet thick at the ground and several stories tall. Thick, gnarled branches, free of leaves, reached upwards as they twisted around each other; they weren’t clawing for ponies but holding up the sky. It was too big to move much in the wind, but the movements Amanita could see were slow, portentous, like a ship of the line or a siege engine. Amanita had never seen its like before and she knew she’d never see its like again. As if to emphasize its grandeur, a thick road ringed it, lined with more lamps than anywhere else in Tratonmane. It was clearly the center of town.

Charcoal was almost touching the trunk, staring straight up. “Wow wow wow,” she gasped. “Wow. Ley lines and a ley tree like this? I’m in Elysium. Karma’s gonna have to kill me to balance everything out.”

“Karma doesn’t work like that,” said Code.

“Oh.” From Charcoal’s voice, she literally could not care less. Assuming the sentence had registered at all.

“That there’s the Great Ash,” said Whippletree. “Somethin’, ain’t it? Tratonmane grew up ’round it. ’Tis how we kenned this was someplace special.”

“Heh. Yeah…”

“Ash trees don’t normally get this big, do they?” asked Bitterroot. “You could practically fit a house in there.”

“It’s… You know how earth pony magic helps plants grow? But ley lines are nothing but earth magic. If the line’s strong enough, plants can use that instead. This…” Charcoal rapped the tree trunk. “…is basically what you would get if you had a dozen earth ponies pouring their magic into one tree nonstop for ages. Look at how pig it is. Erm, big.”

“If it’s been feeding on the ley line all this time,” said Bitterroot, “I’m not sure ‘pig’ is wrong.”

“It’s probably older than most other ash trees, too,” said Charcoal. “Ley trees often survive things that would kill other trees. You, you know Princess Twilight? How she used to live in a library?” She pawed at the ground and her tail whipped through the air. “Uh, uh, Golden Oaks! Yeah, that. I’ve seen pictures. It was a library, you know? They hollowed the entire inside, but the tree, it still had green leaves. You know how that’s possible?” She stomped on the ground. “Ley lines. Enough magic to keep it live even though they removed its heart.”

“There are an unusual number of ley lines around Ponyville,” said Code. “They come from the Tree of Harmony. Or,” she said, her voice dropping like an earth pony thrown from a hot-air balloon, “what used to be the Tree.”

“What used to be the Tree?” asked Bitterroot. “What happened to it?”

Code’s ears immediately folded back. “Let’s. Not. Talk about it,” she said in a voice that was a bit too level. She took a bite of dirt the same way a stressed pony would take a swig of any sort of alcohol.

“Hang on…” muttered Charcoal. Her horn pulsed and she delicately ran a hoof over the Ash’s bark. “Is it… dead?”

“Aye,” Whippletree said, nodding sadly. “Musta been… ten, twenty year ago. The Ash jes’ stopped makin’ leaves. Shame. I loved it in the summer.”

“Well, it had to happen eventually,” said Charcoal, her own voice a bit downbeat. She did a circle around the tree, keeping her hoof on the bark all the while. “Ley lines don’t make things immortal, although they do live longer. It must’ve been, I dunno, six or seven hundred years old. That’s old for an ash. And they don’t do well in shaded areas, to poot. It’s a miracle it lasted as long as it did.” The look she gave Whippletree was pleading to the point that Amanita was disconcertingly reminded of a puppy. “You’re keeping it up, right?”

“ ’Course we are!” Whippletree sounded offended at the very thought and his wings were fidgeting aggressively. “Its roots are ’neath all the town. It’s part o’ Tratonmane an’ we ain’t a-choppin’ it down arytime soon. It’ll take a big shift in town fer us tae be rid o’ the Ash.”

“Great!” Charcoal smiled up at the Ash and tapped its trunk. “Hang in there,” she whispered. (A passing pony gave her an odd stare.)

“Aryhoo,” said Whippletree, “you'uns’ll be a-stayin’ right o’er there.” He pointed at a large, stocky building, probably an inn or tavern (or both), deep in shadow on the western side of the square. The sign over the door called it the Watering Cave. “Cannae say what the rooms’re like. Drink’s good, though.”

“Mmhmm.” Code glanced northward, then at the sledge she was still dragging, and sighed. “I’m itching to get to the forest and get to work, but we need to get our cargo out of the open.” She took a step towards the Cave.

“Hey, wait a sec,” said Bitterroot. “Why don’t I do this? I’ll get us a room, get this all taken up, everything. You can get started.”

“You’re sure?” Code asked.

“Hey,” Bitterroot said with a casual shrug, “it’s not like I’ll be doing anything down there. Might as well make myself useful.”

“Then thank you.” Code was out of her harness almost immediately.

“If you came here just to see what it was like,” Amanita asked as she set her bags down, “why are you offering to do busywork for us first thing?”

Bitterroot looked at Amanita and grinned. “C’mon, we just got here. I’m sure it’ll be more interesting later.”

“If’n y’wanna see the forest — cannae imagine why — jes’ follow the road.” Whippletree pointed down the road. “Hard tae get lost.” He glanced back south down the valley. “If’n ye dinnae mind, I think I’ve some other things that require doin’. But I’ll be here in the future, if ye need me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for your help,” Code said, giving Whippletree a nod. She didn’t give him any time for a response, instead immediately turning and trotting north, Charcoal right at her tail. Amanita gave Bitterroot and Whippletree a quick wave, then took off after the others.

The houses of Tratonmane thinned quickly as the trio headed northward. One moment, they were in what was nearly downtown, then the buildings vanished and lamps were thin on the ground, replaced by open fields and chicken runs; tall grain on one side, and untilled earth on the other. Flashing lights flitted through the dark in the open field. If she squinted, Amanita could make out the shapes of foals with light-gem necklaces, playing some kind of game. After a moment, she heard their voices.

“Gotcha, Wythe!”

“Nuh-uh, nah ye didnae!”

“Did too!”

“Did not, Plumb, ye school butter!”

“Oh, that’s-”

“Foals!” a matron said firmly. “Keep it civil! Wythe, dinnae say things like that!”

Imagine trying to raise a foal in an environment like this. But they seemed to be doing alright.

Charcoal had galloped ahead of Amanita and Code and was taking the time to examine the grain. A nearby earth pony farmer was eyeing her, but although the grain was ripening, Charcoal didn’t seem interested in trying any straight from the stalk (which placed her willpower a little bit higher than Amanita’s, honestly). “Rye,” she said. “Good rye. Out of season, too.”

Amanita felt a centipede slithering down her spine. Lots of rye. For lots of rye bread. As she’d told Princess Twilight and Celestia, necromancers liked rye bread. Necromancers also liked the cold, the isolated, the remote-

No. No, this was… coincidence. Rye didn’t mean necromancers were here. Right?

“Makes sense,” Charcoal continued. She broke away and followed after Amanita and Code. “Rye glows- grows well in the cold, did you know that? It does. And, hey! Ley line! That’ll make up for a lot.”

…Huh. Very much coincidence, apparently.

Apparently.

“So, wow, we really gotta fix this,” Charcoal rambled. “If we don’t, they could… starve next year. Yeah.” She rubbed her stomach. “Bad ley line means bad plants.”

“Consider it your motivation,” said Code.

The river found its way next to the street and meandered back and forth as they walked. Lamps were less frequent; Amanita lit her horn to provide them some extra light. Further ahead, just off the road and near the edge of the river, more lights clustered together, some shining everywhere, some focused in beams. Soon, Amanita heard the unmistakable whack whack whack of wood being chopped.

“What dae y’think?” a stallion said. “Ought we dae some grubbin’?”

“Nah.” The mare’s voice was panted, like she was keeping herself from breathing hard. “We’ll get ’em-” Whack. “-on the morrow.” Whack. “We still need-” Whack. “-tae get these logs-” Whack. “-up the skid road-” Whack. “-and I ain’t doin’ it while we’re all done fer.”

“Alright. Thankee.”

The darkness sharpened into about a dozen and a half equine silhouettes crowded around fallen trees and stumps, chopping, cutting, sawing, whatever it took to make those logs easier to manage. The trees, both standing and downed, were bigger than most other trees Amanita had seen, although nowhere near the mass of the Great Ash. Code called out, “Hello, there!”

Almost immediately, the axes stopped chopping as all the ponies looked their way. Most of them were earth ponies, but Amanita caught the wings of pegasi, the eyeflash of chiropteri, or the horns of unicorns from a few of them. The cold radiating from the crowd was unconnected to the snow. About two seconds before the silence shifted from tense to awkward, an earth pony with an ax draped across her back stepped forward. “Keep on a-workin’, woodhicks!” she hollered. She was the same mare who’d been speaking before. “Them bein’ new ain’t nae reason fer you'uns tae footercooter!”

As the lumberjacks hesitantly resumed their work, the mare leaned against the nearest fallen tree, one with a trunk almost as thick as she was tall. It was hard to say whether she was large for her small size or small for her large size; she was well-muscled and had disproportionately large hooves, at any rate. She’d been working so hard that her furs were actually slightly open so she could cool off. Her coat was a shining amber, her flowing mane bandsaw gray. “So,” she said, her voice as flat as a frozen-over pond, “what brings you'uns here?”

Code cleared her throat. “You may have heard that there’s a ley line in the region that went bad for some reason. We’re the ritualist team sent to heal it.” She pointed at each team member in turn. “Restricted Code. Amanita. Charcoal.”

Amanita almost raised a hoof to wave. But that was dorky; she didn’t want to look dorky, did she? Or would it seem endearing? Did it matter? They might only be here a week and she didn’t think she’d be talking to the townsponies that much. But if she was wrong and they seemed aloof-

The mare looked at Code for a long moment before saying, “I heard.” She clapped a leg across her chest. “Crosscut. I’m the teamster fer these loggers, the finest ponies in Tratonmane.”

“Don’t let the militia hear you say that,” said Amanita. The joke sounded forced the second it escaped her control.

Yet Crosscut laughed anyway, although the laugh was bitter. “They hold wi’ that view! They ain’t a-workin’ on the edge o’ Midwich every day.” She fixed Amanita with a glare that wasn’t exactly enraged but so disapproving that Amanita still took a step back. “If ye kenned a single cusséd thing about our valley, ye’d ken we’re less’n twenty feet frae the nastiest wood in all Equestria.”

Amanita took another look at Midwich Forest and, while the darkness might’ve played a part, thought that assessment had a pretty good chance of being accurate. Code, however, seemed unfazed. “Forests do have a habit of being nasty places,” she said blandly. It wasn’t a refutation of Crosscut’s words, but it wasn’t not a refutation, either. “The Everfree, for example. Between the strange magic running through it and the monsters living in it, the Everfree’ll kill you if you look at it funny.”

“That right?” Crosscut snorted. “Midwich ain’t a-waitin’ fer an excuse. Ferget the wolves, lowlander, the trees theirselves are what’ll get ye. This dark, this long, they’re-”

“Oh, Shine,” gasped Charcoal, clapping a hoof to her mouth. “These are all night trees?”

“And they’re encroachin’ on our town more every year. Movin’ an’ all.” Crosscut spat on the ground as Charcoal leaned back from the forest. “Let ’em come. More wood fer the kiln.”

Amanita felt like she’d missed something and was flailing as if she’d gone too far up a staircase in the dark. Coughing loudly, she said, “Um, excuse me, but, uh… what’s a night tree?”

Every woodcutter and Charcoal stared at her like she’d made the sort of mistake that put you on the cover of tabloids for the next few weeks. “It’s a tree,” Crosscut said, somehow managing to not sound too insulting by explaining the obvious. “At night.”

Amanita was absolutely sure she’d missed something, and now she was suspecting she’d missed it years ago. It was only a mild assurance that Code looked the same way. “And… that’s… important?”

“Well, yeah,” said Charcoal. “Day trees and night trees aren’t the same thing.”

A blank stare from Amanita, mulled confusion from Code, nods from the Tratonmanians.

“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you don’t notice it!” protested Charcoal. “When a branch taps your widow- window, window in the day, it’s just the wind, right? But, but, but, but when that happens in the night, suddenly it’s real scary. Even though nothing changes. Except-” She waggled a hoof Importantly at Code. “-the tree’s now a night tree, not a day tree.”

“Day trees leave houses alone,” added Crosscut. “Night trees can crowd all ’round a house they dinnae like, pound the shingles off the roof, bust in the window glass an’ the door panels… That’s the sort o’ night ye dinnae wanna head out intae. Even y’all city folk ken that.”

“It doesn’t always happen that bad,” said Charcoal. “If they’re well-tended or given enough magic, night trees are pretty much the same as day trees. They just stay-” She whipped to look at Crosscut like there was a rope through her nose. “We’re so close to a ley line you’ve got a ley tree glowing- growing in the town square. How can you have this many bad night trees?”

Crosscut just shrugged. “I dinnae ken. And my ma says it weren’t this bad when she were a filly. This forest was jes’ a forest fifty year ago.”

“And nothing happened?” Charcoal said. “It just started?” It was like every part of her body had been turned towards interest; her ears were pointed straight at Crosscut, she was leaning forward, and she was practically bouncing on her hooves.

“Sure enough, bit by bit,” said Crosscut. “Nothin’ you notice right then, Ma says, but when yer a-lookin’ back, ye can see all the signs an’ omens an’ whatnot. It’s-”

One of the pegasi tapped Crosscut on the back. “Hate tae butt in, but can ye borrow me some strength? Ax got stuck.” She wrapped her hooves around the ax in question and gave it a hard yank to demonstrate. It didn’t budge.

Crosscut tapped the ground with a hoof, flicking towards the pegasus, and Amanita felt a strange buzz in the ground. Next to her, Code’s eyes snapped wide open and she started massaging the dirt with her hooves. The pegasus blinked like she’d been flicked on the ear, flexed her wings, and casually yanked the ax out with a fraction of the effort that hadn’t made it twitch before. “Thankee,” she said, and went right back to chopping.

The buzzing stopped; Crosscut didn’t seem to have noticed. “It was little thing after little thing,” she said. “Took more’n-”

“What was that?” asked Code.

Crosscut blinked. “What was what?”

“That.” Code pointed at the lumberjack. “She couldn’t pull the ax out, so you… let her borrow your strength?”

“Aye. And?”

“Earth pony strength. Magic.”

“…Aye. And?”

The look on Code’s face was one Amanita recognized well; she was anticipating a paradigm shift. “…How?”

“By… lettin’ her… use it?”

Code dropped onto her haunches and rubbed the bridge of her muzzle as her mouth worked soundlessly in what was probably a mantra of self-control. Then she calmly took a breath, calmly stood up, calmly adjusted her glasses, and calmly shrieked, “You can give your magic to other ponies?”

“Dear land, how’s that a surprise? It’s jes’ magic, ain’t it? I shape it, she uses it.”

And Amanita’s mind took off so fast it’d probably be rainbooming if it were physical.

Magic was magic. That was fact. Any ritual could be worked by a pony of any tribe; the magic was molded by the acts and the symbolism and the paraphernalia of the ritual before the pony picked it up. This had been proven time and again, and was now such a basic fundamental part of ritualism that most ritual students were already taking it for granted before their first year.

But then, who said the magic had to be shaped by the ritual?

Each of the pony tribes controlled magic and cast their spells in their own way. There was absolutely nothing saying that the pony who controlled the magic and the pony who cast the spell had to be the same pony, or even the same tribe; everypony just assumed there was. But the magic wrought by a ritual could technically be done by any unicorn of sufficient power, since they shaped the magic directly. On a fundamental level, there wasn’t much difference between “ritual” and “unicorn” as a source of prebuilt magic. And from there, just the very notion of ponies mixing magic sent ideas spinning through Amanita’s mind, threatening to block out everything else.

She immediately took the deepest breath she could, forcing herself to feel the cold air stab its way down her throat all the way to her lungs. That was for later. They’d just opened up a new field of study, but now, they needed to work on the ley line.

“…because of liminality,” muttered Code as she sketched metaphysics diagrams in the snow. “But alicorns can use all three, so why not other tribes?… If tribal differences are mostly biological-”

“Why’re you'uns a-lookin’ that way?” Crosscut asked, looking back and forth between Amanita and Code like she couldn’t decide which disaster to watch. “It’s jes’ borrowin’.”

“-then perhaps-” Code blinked, forced out a cough, and adjusted her glasses. “This… borrowing,” she said. “It’s… unknown in Equestria.”

“Unkno-” Crosscut whipped around and yelled to the lumberjacks, “Ay! Woodhicks! The Crown dinnae ken borrowin’!” The work didn’t let up, but laughter rippled through the group. Amanita felt her cheeks grow warm.

But either Code’s red coat was hiding her own reaction or (more likely) she was just unflappable. “Regrettably, we don’t,” she confirmed. “Forgotten dogmas in arcane study.” Her voice dropped. “By Celestia, how did we miss that…”

“An’ you'uns came here tryin’ tae help us wi’ magic?” Crosscut snorted. “Forget me, but it’s hard tae confidence you'uns if’n y’dinnae ken borrowin’.”

“Good thing we’re not here to borrow magic, then,” said Code. She ate some more dirt.

Crosscut didn’t look particularly reassured.

“Is that working?” Amanita asked Code.

“It’s hard to say,” said Code. She looked down and massaged the ground beneath her hooves. “I’ve never felt a ley line quite like this before.”

“How?” Crosscut’s ears twitched back slightly, and Amanita noticed the nearby pegasus pivoting an ear towards them.

“It’s still too early to say for certain, but lines are rarely this… focused,” said Code. She closed her eyes, slowly swaying back and forth; Amanita felt magic thrum around her. “You can see it from how defined the valley is. I think it’s contained entirely within Midwich. That’s quite unusual for healthy ley lines, let alone sour ones.”

“Worth payin’ it ary mind?” Crosscut asked.

“Not sure,” Code said. “We’re still in the preliminaries. We’ll need to do some actual readings before we can say for certain.”

“So we should follow the river.”

Amanita twitched; somehow, she’d forgotten about Charcoal. The kirin was staring off downriver into Midwich Forest, making little hmm, hah, heh grunts of thought as she rocked her head back and forth.

“Nay,” said Crosscut, almost reflexively.

“Yay,” responded Charcoal. “If you’re near a ley line, the course a river takes can tell you a lot about the line. It’s all, y’know, shaped by the energies of the line, the ebb and flow and strength and character and I’ve read several books about this, it’s really neat. It’s like a… glass through the earth into the line itself. If you really want to study ley lines, you look at two things: mountains and rivers.”

“Ye didnae listen at me when I told you'uns Midwich is dangerous, aye?” said Crosscut. “An’ now ye want that you'uns jes’…” She flicked a hoof towards the forest. “…head straight in. Belly o’ the beast an’ all.”

“Of course I listened and of course I don’t want to!” said Charcoal. “What kind of idiot do you take me for? But we’re not here to be safe. We came to take a look at the ley line. The river can help us study the ley line. That’s all there is to it. We want to help.” She glanced at the forest and scooted away from it by an inch. “Even if I really don’t want to go into the forest made entirely of night trees.”

Crosscut looked between each of the ritualists, then at Midwich Forest, in turn. “Ye’d do that?” she asked, somewhere between ashamed and surprised. “Danger an’ all?”

“Reluctantly,” said Amanita. “But yeah.”

For a long moment, the only sound was the continued thwack of axes and buzzing of saws. She shook her head and wiped her forehead down. “If’n it needs a-doin’, it needs a-doin’,” she muttered. “If it comes tae that, keep yer minds out an’ yer swords close, aye? We dinnae want ary more outsiders comin’ ’round ’ere.”

“Of course. We could use some help,” said Code. “A militia detachment, maybe, for protection. But following the river is a good idea, as long as we watch out for-”

The howl of a wolf cut through the darkness.

The lumberjacks all snapped to look at the forest; herd instinct (they called it “peer pressure”, now) made Amanita tense up. She’d heard wolves before. Didn’t mean she liked them. The echo rumbled and rolled up and down the valley, seeming to flatten out other sounds as it passed. There was something violent in that howl, ominous and threatening. And based on Tratonmane’s reaction, perhaps something worse.

Another howl. Closer.

“Leaf, git tae the hall, ring the bell, now,” Crosscut hissed. She wasn’t looking at anypony in particular, but a pegasus promptly took off for Tratonmane, wings pumping hard.

Before Amanita could ask what that was about, the lumberjacks pulled back from the forest; some brandished their axes and saws, some unsheathed swords or took up spears. They all immediately assembled into a defensive line, facing Midwich.

“You say yer ritualists.” Crosscut twirled her ax and didn’t look away from the forest. “I hope ye also ken how tae fight.”

5 - The Forest Will Eat You Alive

Earth pony magic being mostly focused on strength didn’t seem that impressive until you had to do what they did without magic. Code was borderline shrimpy compared to Bitterroot, yet Bitterroot was struggling with just one crate where Code had easily pulled two. Flight was nice and all, but sometimes, she really wanted to be an earth pony.

“Ye ken fer certain y’ain’t needin’ my help?” asked Whippletree.

“I’m sure,” wheezed Bitterroot as she pumped her wings and pounded snow into water until she was digging at the ground below and panted until her breath made her resemble a locomotive and the sledge budged forward another single inch.

“Right,’ said Whippletree. He glanced south, towards the station. “Then I’d best be off. Got some…”

Bitterroot stopped listening after that and continued with what she somehow managed to convince herself was pulling. After she didn’t know how long, she was able to hook her hooves around the doorframe to the Watering Cave and pull on something that wasn’t incredibly slippery. She could actually when she was inside because the air was something resembling warm. Yeah, she was going to have to work to get the crates to whatever room they were staying in.

“How do.”

Once the exertion stars left her eyes, Bitterroot took a look around the Cave’s common room. Nothing special, although the room stretched back for longer than she’d expected. Packed dirt floor, tables and chairs, she’d seen it before. A few of those chairs were occupied by ponies who were occupied with either their drinks or staring at Bitterroot. There was a stove in the center, with a roaring fire that kept the room relatively toasty and a chimney funneling smoke up and out. Across one wall, right near the door, was a bar, with oodles of barrels and a surprising amount of vegetables and a thoroughly grumpy unicorn mare who was no longer crunching numbers.

“Fine,” said Bitterroot. She gave the sledge another tug, managing to get it slightly into the room. “You?”

The unicorn glanced at Bitterroot’s crates. “Dunno. Need ’elp?”

“Only if you’re the innkeep and I wouldn’t be intruding.”

It took several moments for the unicorn to admit, “Aye.”

“Then yes.”

Bitterroot didn’t hear anything, but the unicorn’s chest moved in a way that indicated a sigh. Still, she came out from behind the bar and walked up to Bitterroot. “Cabin Still,” she grunted. “Innkeep.”

“Bitterroot,” Bitterroot replied. “Bounty hunter.”

Cabin eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then poked her head out of the door. “Ritual doodads?” she asked when she saw the sledge. “Fer the ley line?”

“Yep,” said Bitterroot. “I need help getting it up to our rooms.”

Cabin grunted again. “Log crib’d be gooder.” With a few deep breaths of exertion, she took a hold of the first crate in her magic and, with Bitterroot’s help, finegaled it into the Cave. Cabin slowly led the two of them to a door in the far corner.

“You, uh, doing alright?” Bitterroot asked. It seemed the right thing to ask.

Grunt.

“…So you are?”

Grunt.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”

Grunt.

The door led to a small storage area, dark and cold and low-ceilinged but with plenty of space for the crates. Once they moved the crates in, Bitterroot started slinging their bags around her flanks. When Cabin sullenly followed suit, Bitterroot said, “Oh, no, I got this, you don’t need-”

“Showin’ which room’s yers,” grunted Cabin. (She didn’t seem to breathe normally, only grunt.) “Goin’ up aryway.”

“Alright, thanks.”

Grunt.

Only one step creaked as they went up. Bitterroot ignored it just as she ignored Cabin’s attitude. She was an outsider, it was to be expected in a town this… closed. Best to just go with the flow and act like she didn’t care. (Which she didn’t. Experience.)

The second floor didn’t have a lot of doors for rooms, but more than Bitterroot would have expected. As Cabin led her down a narrow hall, Bitterroot asked, “How come you have… these rooms? Ponies never come here, right?”

“Buildin’s old,” Cabin said, digging in a pocket for the key. “Cheaper tae keep it’n tear it all down.”

A notion hardly exclusive to Tratonmane, or even Equestria, or probably even Equus. Bitterroot nodded. “And it comes in handy in the once-in-a-lifetime moments when ponies come to visit, right?”

“Aye.” Not even the slightest quirk of a grin.

The room Cabin gave them was incredibly bare-bones, to the point that Bitterroot had stayed in more luxurious hostels — four beds with thick blankets, something that might’ve been a desk, a few chairs — but it was accommodation and it was decently warm and it had a window with an acceptable view of the Great Ash. There wasn’t even any howling from the wind. Bitterroot let her bags drop to the floor and rolled her shoulders. Maybe she’d go for a quick flight, just to stretch her wings out a little. She didn’t use them as much as some pegasi, but they could still ache.

“Key an’ spare,” Cabin suddenly said. She tossed a ring with two keys at Bitterroot. “Privy’s at the end o’ the hall.” She left without any more ceremony.

Privy, up here? Maybe it was just a garderobe. Bitterroot glanced through the door and did a double-take when she saw a full bathroom. A cramped, somewhat rundown bathroom that was about a hundred years out of date, but an actual bathroom, with a sink and mirror and flush toilet and shower. Bitterroot tried the last; the shower took a while to get warm, but they had hot water. Naturally, the first thing she did when she was back downstairs was ask Cabin, “You have plumbing?”

“Aye,” said Cabin. She didn’t look up as she continued working through her finances. “Inventor works in town.”

“Huh.” Bitterroot had known a few inventor-ish ponies, once upon a time. Interesting people, although they weren’t the mad science types. Maybe she’d find out who and talk with them a little. Maybe she’d become the hero of the town before she left. Ah, well. She turned to step away from the desk, only to quickly step back. “Say, uh, don’t I owe you anything? Money, I mean, to pay for the room.”

“Nay. Crown Housin’ Act o’ 529,” said Cabin gruffly. Now, even her ears were angled back.

“Ah, right,” said Bitterroot, pretending that meant something rather than being one of a stupidly huge number of old laws she’d never needed to learn. She’d ask Code about it later. “Thanks.”

An even surlier grunt than usual. Somehow.

The other ponies were giving her looks bordering on dirty and it made her coat crawl, so Bitterroot headed outside. At least she’d get less dirty looks out there. Yeah, she definitely wouldn’t want to visit here. It was gloomy, sure, but that just made it interesting. It was the ponies that killed the vibe. In these sorts of towns, everything settled into a sort of comfortable status quo, and foreigners like herself disrupted that status quo. A status so quo, in fact, that ponies in other foreigner-disliking towns thought them weird, if Waypoint was anything to go by. Even absent any other factors, it wasn’t that surprising that Tratonmane’s dislike of them was nearly palpable. At the moment, Bitterroot wanted nothing more than to wing it southeast.

Which, of course, meant that everyone else probably wanted to leave, too. Amanita included. And what sort of moral support would Bitterroot be if she left the moment the going got tough? The sort that would be remembered forever, the same way crystal ponies remembered Sombra or Celestia remembered Nightmare Moon. No, she’d be staying. Maybe she could get friendly with the locals, or at least to a level less hostile than “please die in a fire”. She knew a few methods for that.

Deep breath in, deep breath out, and Bitterroot looked up at the eastern wall of Midwich. She’d never seen anything quite like it, something that bright while everything around it was so dim. The shadow of the western peaks had visibly crept upwards a little since their arrival, enough so that Bitterroot wondered if she could see it move if she sat and watched.

A light on the tip of a unicorn’s horn bobbed towards her across the street. Unicorns seemed to have an advantage when it came to visibility in a place like this, which made it surprising that there were so few. (Although the prevalence of chiropteri wasn’t surprising.) As the unicorn approached, he resolved into Tallbush. “Hidy,” he said, nodding at her.

“Hidy,” said Bitterroot. The word rolled off the tongue nicely.

“Arypony else in yer herd around?”

“Not at the moment. They headed down towards the forest.” Bitterroot pointed. It was a bit strange, thinking of north as “down”, but she’d adjust.

Tallbush’s ear twitched. “Right, right,” he muttered. He glanced towards the forest for a moment. “So, eh, y’ain’t with ’em? A-workin’ fer the Crown, I mean,” he added quickly.

“Not officially, no. Like I said, just with a friend.”

“Mmhmm. What, what dae ye ken about ’em?”

Bitterroot blinked. Some interest in the people working to fix the ley line was expected, but Tallbush was sounding inquisitive even for that. Almost… nervous, like he needed to know the answer. She wasn’t sure he noticed his tone himself, so she kept her frown on the inside. “Mostly, I just know Amanita. The unicorn,” she said. “She’s a… junior ritualist. She-”

“I recomember o’ that frae the knock-down- The introduction.” Tallbush’s voice was fast and he didn’t seem to realize he was pawing at the ground. “What manner o’ rituals?”

“Er-” Bitterroot flinched backward and her tail twitched. “Just- kinda- in general, I guess. She needs to be able to do… a lot of different things. She’s here to learn.”

“And the others? Restricted Code an’… Charcoal.”

“Nothing you wouldn’t know from what Code told you earlier. I barely know them. You’d be better off asking them.”

“Eh… Dinnae wish tae go near the forest. ’Tis right savagerous.”

Bitterroot didn’t know the exact meaning of the word, but she got the gist. How could she not, when it sounded like that? “When they come back up, then.”

“If’n I got the time. It’s… We’ll see.”

Bitterroot just shrugged. Schedules were more rigid in Canterlot than out in the country, but they were often more full out in the country. It was entirely possible that he wouldn’t be free for Celestia knew how long. She’d see.

She looked south, up the hills Tratonmane seemed to spill down. Even in the lamplight, you could sort of make out where space began to get tighter in the town’s history based on the orientation of the buildings. There were places where the outlines of the buildings were more naturalistically placed, probably following the contours of the land, but as you went out from them, buildings and roads seemed to snap into place along a grid to make more efficient use of the space they had. If the buildings were lucky, they had some extra space around them (maybe fenced off) to keep the snapping from looking too abrupt or out-of-place. How many of those older buildings, once placed for beauty and now taking up space, were ones that wouldn’t be rebuilt along more modern lines because Tratonmane liked them too much to knock them down? How many such buildings had been knocked down anyway? There was a history of the town sitting there for all to see in its street layout alone.

Which… Hmm. “You wouldn’t happen to have any sort of… history of the town, would you?” Bitterroot said casually. “Specifically of the ley lines. That’d be nice.”

“Aye, got ’em in the town hall,” Tallbush said. “Farmers’ records.”

“Really?” Bitterroot quickly stood up straight and Tallbush twitched. “That’d be great! Can you show me?”

Tallbush blinked, chewed his lip for a moment. A surprisingly long moment. Three seconds before Bitterroot was about to speak, he said, “Sure. Town library.” He clicked his tongue, nodded in another direction, and crunched off through the dark snow, Bitterroot following him.

Their destination was right across the square from the Watering Cave, on the other side of the Ash. It was an unadorned building with a tall roof and a crosshaired window right above the door. Many of the other windows, though, were tightly boarded up from top to bottom. It was also clearly one of the older buildings in Tratonmane, maybe the oldest. That might explain the extra space on each side compared to other buildings, including a snow-covered graveyard; it’d been built when space wasn’t quite at such a premium. The building was topped off by a bell tower, four or five stories tall.

“As declared, Tratonmane’s town hall,” Tallbush said, throwing open the door. “Dinnae mind the damage; powerful bad storm recently. Broke all the glass in the place, if’n ye can believe that!”

Bitterroot stepped inside, stomping grime and snow off from her coat in the mudroom; the air was warmish, at least. The peaked, high-ceilinged room before her stretched for a surprisingly long ways, filled with row after row of benches and leading to an open space for an off-center lectern at the back. Still-glowing oil lamps hung on the walls, casting shadows every which way but providing enough light to see by. The windows on either side had been boarded up on the inside as well as the outside, apparently victims of the storm. “Lotta space,” Bitterroot commented. “You could probably fit the whole town in here.”

“Well-” Tallbush coughed. “We’d hardly be a-holdin’ our assemblies out in the snow, aye? Built more’n we really had need of.”

Better too much space than not enough space. Bitterroot nodded.

Tallbush pointed towards a door in one of the back corners. “Got a library back thataways,” he said as he led her up the center aisle. “Prolly ain’t what yer used tae, but got a lavish o’ hist’ry on ley lines in-”

He froze, head high, ears pricking up, one of his rear legs nervously twitching at the ground. Bitterroot held her breath and listened. She could barely make out the fading echoes of a wolf’s distant howl. But it was so far away, it couldn’t possibly be-

Another howl, slightly closer, still far. Bitterroot was ready to ignore it when Tallbush turned right around and walked up to her. “Gotta hike ’em,” he said quickly. He didn’t sound particularly worried, but he did sound anxious. Whatever this situation was, he’d been through it plenty of times before, but he hadn’t stopped taking it seriously.

“Why?” asked Bitterroot. “The wolves?”

“Lissen, it ain’t-”

BONG.

The sudden ringing of the bell, so loud and so close, sent Bitterroot’s teeth rattling, all the way down to their roots. The entire building shook with the force of the bell’s clangs, to the point that dust was swirling down from the ceiling.

Before she could say anything, Tallbush had grabbed her tail in his magic and was awkwardly dragging her along. Most of what he said next was cut off by another BONG, but Bitterroot picked up, “-ain’t safe tae be out-” BONG.

She still didn’t know what was up, but it was probably best to follow somepony who knew what they were talking about. She pulled her tail from his magic and trotted after him. “What’s going on? Are the wolves dangerous?”

Tallbush snorted. “Worser’n that. ’Tis like they hate us.”

In Tratonmane, Bitterroot heard yelling, the rumble of hooves, and the high-pitched chirps of echolocation. Ponies were flowing in from all over, heading towards a slope behind the Watering Cave. Unicorns had their horns lit and non-unicorns were holding lanterns high, waving others on. It was quick, but it was surprisingly orderly, with little panic. Like they’d drilled for it.

“Happens e’ery moon ’r so,” continued Tallbush, falling into line at the tail end. “Them wolves, they try tae get intae Tratonmane an’ take our ponies away. Cannae say why. Jes’ went meaner’n striped snakes afore I’s born. Got tae be ready.”

Before he was born. In Bitterroot’s inexperienced mind, this was the sort of thing that would be easily explained by the ley line, but that option was already shut. Probably. She’d keep it in mind, even though the people whose job it actually was to manage this almost certainly already knew.

With the crowd still moving, they rounded a corner of the Cave. Before them, Bitterroot saw a yawning hole in the hill, thick doors standing open. It looked like nothing more than a bunker. Ponies were quickly filing in, and soon Bitterroot was stumbling down the staircase. It wasn’t long, maybe half a story, but she had to do some awkward wing-flails to keep from tumbling onto the ponies below. The room beyond was as basic as could be: walls, floor, ceiling, support columns, benches, dim lamps, two or three doorways. It wasn’t large, either, maybe half the size of the room at the town hall, and enough ponies were in it that it felt packed. Each and every hard stone surface reflected sound around, mixing it all into a sonic slurry of hoofsteps, under-the-breath mutters, and echolocation. But just like the entry had been painless, the slurry was unworried.

Behind her, a last few stragglers came in and the bunker door was slammed shut. Bitterroot looked back up the stairs and saw a locking mechanism that banks would envy. “Is this overkill?” she risked asking Tallbush.

“Me pa didnae believe so,” Tallbush said flatly. “Neither did the crowd that built it. Mebbe is now. Prolly weren’t back then. Ain’t never lost a pony so long as they make it in ’ere.”

Bitterroot didn’t miss the implications of that last phrase. Tallbush seemed to notice, because he quickly said, “Why dinnae ye sit yerself down. Got things that need sayin’.” Without another word, he moved to a more central part of the room and stomped several times. “Alright, everpony, lissen up!” he said in the sudden silence.

Bitterroot listened for a few moments, but it was just a speech on assurances and “don’t worry”s. A good speech, to be fair, but she’d heard it before. She picked her way around the ponies, towards a dark corner where there wasn’t anypony. If she was going to be in here with a crowd of strangers, she could at least stay out of their way.

The second she sat down, Bitterroot was thinking. How long would the wolves be around? If it was too long, Tallbush would say something, right? Unless he had more pressing matters on his mind, like his speech. …The one that was already concluded and hadn’t sent him back over to Bitterroot. Still, Bitterroot could sit. It was like a stakeout, something she knew well as a bounty hunter, except she didn’t even need to keep her attention focused on anything, which was a plus. She’d give it what she thought was half an hour, then she’d find Tallbush and see what questions he could answer. Surely he could tell her something as simple as-

“Well. Fresh blood.”

Bitterroot twitched and spun around. A chiropterus nearly old enough to be Bitterroot’s mother was standing next to her, just there, like she’d materialized from the darkness. Her coloration — night-black mane, late-late-evening-purple coat — didn’t help. And then there were her furs (thinner than usual): black, seemingly from coal dust. She was even slightly smaller than most other ponies, her eye level about an inch below Bitterroot’s. She practically looked made to skulk. She wasn’t quite smirking at Bitterroot, her piercing eyes half-lidded.

“Hmm?” Bitterroot asked. She pretended to be not surprised, even though she’d convince nopony.

“Oh, you know,” the chiropterus replied, waving a hoof casually. “I’ve lived here for some time and we don’t get visitors much.” Her voice flowed, almost teasing. “Carnelian Orchard.”

“Bitterroot. You know the ley line? I’m with the ponies here to-”

“Of course you are,” said Orchard. “That’s the sole reason the Crown has sent ponies up in all the time I’ve been here. I’m merely curious as to why this is worthy of intervention.”

“Dunno,” Bitterroot said with a shrug. “Technically, I don’t work with them.” How many times was she going to have to say something along those lines? A lot.

“You don’t?” Orchard raised her head, which still meant she was slightly shorter than Bitterroot. “You don’t work for the Crown?”

“I guess I do if you consider bounty hunting working for it. I don’t. They’d need to salary me.”

“Huh.” Orchard smiled again. “I suppose in that case, I shouldn’t be asking you about their reasoning.” She threw a mock salute. “Take care of yourself. The princess isn’t looking after you.” She turned away and walked into the bunker.

Of course Bitterroot knew the princess wasn’t looking after her. That wasn’t even a bad thing. The last time the princess wasn’t looking after her, she’d snagged the largest bounty of her entire life and made a friend. Tratonmane didn’t seem quite so lucky, though.

Bitterroot glanced at the door. No one was moving toward it. Well, it’d open when it opened. She settled in to wait.

The last time Amanita had faced down animals in the North, she’d been chased by a rabid bear and only saved by a passing ranger who’d died in the process. (She’d brought the ranger back, but still.) She still remembered it well; the deep roars that rattled your bones and curdled your blood, the heavy thud of the bear’s weight, the dull sheen of claws that seemed far too long for their own good. Tartarus, she could still remember the rancid, sickly flat stench of the bear’s breath. She wanted to bolt back to Tratonmane and lock herself in her room until the danger was past. (Which room was her room? The one with the thickest walls, the biggest door, and the strongest lock, obviously.)

But she had a job to do. She had to look strong. She had to look professional. It was why she was here. And of all the positive and negative qualities alike she could ascribe to professionals, “runs to the hills at the first sign of trouble” wasn’t one of them.

So the skilled Canterlot necromancer shied away, on the verge of bolting, as the backwoods lumberjacks formed up into something like a defensive line. It seemed strong; Amanita didn’t know enough to say. Code had taken up a position on one of the flanks. Charcoal was rocking back and forth on her hooves, unsure of whether to be scared or interested in whatever was coming their way. Crosscut was in the center of the line, glancing up and down it and barking out warnings.

The deep boom of a bell rang out across the valley, once, twice, thrice. Its echoes were heard countless times more. It was clearly a warning, but Amanita wasn’t sure whether it was to the town or the forest. Maybe both.

Yet another howl, even closer than before. This one was joined by several others.

Then, behind her, Amanita heard the whisk of wings and a rumble of hooves. Before she could turn around, five ponies, all wearing the battered armor of a militia, galloped around or flew over her. Armed with a spear, Whippletree was leading the charge; as the other guards ran around the lumberjacks formed up between them and the forest, Whippletree landed next to Crosscut and somehow gave her a peck on the cheek without looking away from Midwich. “Hidy, dona,” he said.

“Hidy, jusem,” she said back, not looking at him. “Where’s Wythe?”

“In the southern shelter. Got ’er in meself.”

“Thankee.”

Whippletree flap-hopped over the line and strode in front of even the other militiaponies. They were a motley crew, ranging from the stereotypical strong pegasus of Whippletree to a scrawny young earth pony who probably wouldn’t have been old enough to drink in Canterlot to an old unicorn who held himself like a veteran. Their armor was all battered, but they all held themselves strong.

In the gloom, just outside the edge of the lights, twigs started snapping and leaves started rustling. The black rippled in that strange way where you can’t make out any shape in the dark but you can still see it moving. Whippletree’s ears pivoted this way and that; he kept jinking in different directions with his wings, keeping himself between the woods and everyone else, as the noise moved about.

“Excuse me.” Code had moved down the line and was talking to Crosscut. “Is this normal? For Tratonmane, I mean.”

“Wish it weren’t,” Crosscut said around her ax. “But they keep comin’ up ’ere, an’ we keep prickin’ ’em. Mebbe one day, they’ll get the hint. Animals o’ this sort only ken pain.”

“How often do they come?”

“Once ’r twice a-”

“Varnish!” Whippletree yelled, pointing with his spear. “Dinnae stray tae far afield! Yer leavin’ yer charges bare!”

Amanita glanced to look. On one of the flanks, the old unicorn was slowly inching towards Midwich, the glow of his levitated sword sending light cascading across the ground. “I’m watching!” he growled in a voice of boulders. “You don’t need to tell me-”

Two wolves burst from the darkened brush. Eyes glowing, jaws slavering, breath following them like fog, they were big, bigger than any wolf Amanita had seen before. They charged for Varnish, eerily silent, crossing the space between him and the forest in a second. Everypony reeled towards them, weapons up if they were armed.

Yet even distracted, Varnish outpaced them. As the wolves leapt, his sword whipped through the air, so fast the air crackled, and he almost casually stepped aside. One wolf hit the ground with blood already staining its pelt from a gash running the length of its entire body. The other landed on its paws but barely had time to turn before Varnish ran it through.

And as everypony was watching him, the next two wolves descended on the other flank.

They were smaller than the first two, but faster, and bowled over the nearest guard before he knew what hit him. Then they ignored him, pouncing on a vulnerable earth pony, each biting into one of his front legs. By the time Varnish had pulled his sword out, the victim was already being dragged towards the edges of Midwich Forest.

At the first sound of his screams, the guards pivoted. As the stallion began to disappear towards the river, Whippletree’s wings snapped open and he rocketed down the line. A cloud of snow was kicked up as Code in his wake.

Just before the view of the earth pony was blocked by trees, Whippletree slammed spear-first into one of the wolves. The force of the impact ripped its jaws off the pony. Whippletree flared his wings to come to a near-instant stop, letting the impaled wolf tumble away into the river.

Almost immediately after, Code impacted the other wolf, wrapping her legs around it and yanking it away with pure inertia. They rolled tail over teakettle across tree roots, but somehow Code ended up on top as she pinned the wolf to the ground by a hoof on its throat. In the space of a second, she hooked her other hoof around her sword hilt, drew it, and forced it so deep into the wolf’s chest that only the tip of the pommel was sticking out.

The instant Code’s wolf had let go, Whippletree bit down on the wounded pony’s mane and dragged him away from the forest. Several lumberjacks surged forward to help him. In the thicket, Amanita could make out several dark shapes rustling around, the occasional glinting eye. But with a few angry growls, the shapes dispersed.

“Ha!” bellowed Whippletree. “Y’ain’t gettin’ one today, mongrels!” Where once the treeline had been a line demarcating danger, now he ambled over it and into the river to rip his spear from the dead wolf. He took a few deep but quick swigs from the river, then said, “Midwich Militia, on me! We’re goin’ in an’ houndin’ ’em about in case they’re a-stickin’ ’round!”

As the militia galloped off into the forest, Amanita’s legs suddenly started shaking as her adrenaline bled out. It was all so fast, less than half a minute; she hadn’t even fully psyched herself up yet. And, of course, it wouldn’t surprise her if she had to go out and encounter more of them in the forest. Thoughts immediately started racing through her head of being separated from her group, getting lost in the woods, and winding up food for wolves or worse. Because, existence of Tratonmane aside, the North was like that; it was where animals that didn’t like pony tutelage went. The nastier ones, the more vicious ones, the ones that would probably be on wanted posters if they were ponies. Creatures up here were bloodthirsty.

But at the same time: Heh. The great necromancer and protégé of the High Ritualist, scared of a few animals.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

“Did you see that?” Charcoal muttered to Amanita. Without waiting for an answer, she gestured towards the forest. “The wolves. They flanned that. Planned that.”

“Mmhmm.” It had certainly seemed that way, but Amanita couldn’t muster the focus to think about it.

“I mean, that was really…” Charcoal made some vague whooshing sounds as she pointed at each exit location. “…timed. No more wolves than necessary. And quick, they didn’t go after that one guard… Did that guard have greaves? Maybe he did… It’d be harder for wolves to get a hold on those…”

Charcoal went on rambling. Still in the dark of Midwich, Amanita could see Code hacking at a tree root with her sword, and when she turned her ears in that direction, she could just barely make out Code’s growled invectives. She raised a hoof to walk over, but that was when Code stood up, resheathed her sword, and strode out, panting. She adjusted her glasses and said, a touch too calmly, “If we ever go into Midwich, watch the trees. They will try to catch you.”

“See? Night trees,” said Charcoal, grinning.

“I was out there just a few seconds,” Code said, “and I already felt one of the roots moving beneath me. I could make out enough of its intent in my magic that a preemptive thwacking seemed… expedient. I might’ve let my spite get the better of me, though.” She pulled out her sword again and examined the blade in Amanita’s hornlight. It was still in decent shape, although it was clearly chipped here and there. “Hmm… I wonder if they have enough silver for me to re-plate it…”

“How… worried should we be about… ambulatory trees?” Amanita asked. Part of her couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth; the rest of her reminded the first part that she’d brought back the dead multiple times, so what was so weird about trees moving?

“That depends on a lot of things,” said Charcoal. “Ley line, water, light, nutrients in the dirt, magic, how old they are…”

“Get us a list later, we could need it,” said Code. She stowed her sword with a twirl. “How’s the other pony holding up?”

Right. The almost-foalnapped stallion. The lumberjacks were gathered around him, but they didn’t sound panicked. Amanita wiggled her way into the ring to get a better look.

The wolves had bitten clean through the sleeves on his front legs and torn them open, almost ripping them off entirely. Gashes ran down his legs, thin but long, ragged. The blood they were leaking was dark in the horn- and lamplight. Crosscut and another pony were already over halfway done bandaging him up. He’d also picked up smaller, much less severe wounds on his face and his chest from being dragged like a toy across the rough ground. His teeth were gritted and his breathing labored, but his eyes were bright and clear. He’d more than live.

Pretty soon, Crosscut was tying off the end of the last bandage. “There… we… go.” She waved the lumberjack away and they all pulled back to give the stallion space. “ ’Bout as good as we can get it right now. Can ye walk?”

The stallion gathered his legs under him and slowly, slowly pushed up, groaning all the while. One of his front legs twitched painfully as the knees of his rear legs shook and banged together. His head heaved with the force of his breaths. Through clenched teeth, he said, “Aye.”

Crosscut gave him a long, long Look.

“Aye,” the stallion repeated. “I dinnae- need- nae help.” He turned towards Tratonmane, took a step, and let out a pained gasp, nearly collapsing forward.

Amanita blinked, then lurched forward. What was she thinking, letting this happen in front of her? “Wait!” she yelped. “Wait, I, I can help you. It’ll only-”

“Didnae- ye hear me?” grunted the stallion. “I-”

“Stop trying to be tough, you’re only hurting yourself.” Amanita scrambled in front of him and raised her head to look him in the eye. “Do you really think you can make it to Tratonmane by yourself?”

The stallion opened his mouth to answer, then shook his head, as if not saying it aloud would keep it from being true.

“Alright. So just lie down.”

The stallion winced, moaning softly, as he lowered himself back down to the ground. Amanita swallowed and began weaving her magic. It was ages since she’d cast this particular spell, but she still knew it even better than necromancy. Delicately, she prodded with her magic at the body that wanted to be, that it would heal into, and then nudged the wounds closer towards that body. At the same time, she telekinetically pulled the gashes together, like she was going to suture them. Gently, not too fast, to avoid too much scarring, she carefully knit the worst of the cuts back together. Over several minutes, the stallion’s whimpers died down to occasional gasps of pain petered out to long, deep breaths. He watched Amanita intently, like he was surprised she was doing this.

When she finished, Amanita unwound his bandages to reveal that all of the stallion’s wounds were closed. He had some scars, but those would fade in the next few days. Probably. “Do you feel okay?” she asked, stepping away.

“Eh…” The stallion flexed his legs, rolled onto his belly, stood up. He quizzically pawed at the ground. “I reckon so.”

“Good. Then you should be all set.”

“If he works, he ain’t gonna reopen ’is wounds, is he?” Crosscut asked. “I dinnae want ’im all stove up.”

“That shouldn’t happen,” said Amanita. “…I think. I’ve… never done it with this sort of physical work before, but I don’t see why that would affect anything.”

As she eyed one of the downed trees, Crosscut chewed her lip, then said to the stallion, “Ach, jes’ get yerself home. We got this.”

“Positive?” he asked. “I can-”

“Deed an’ double,” Crosscut said resolutely. “Stay safe an’ heal up. I ain’t gonna risk it.”

“Thankee,” said the stallion. He bowed to Crosscut and slow-trotted back to Tratonmane, moseying from lamplight to lamplight.

Crosscut watched him go, apparently to make sure he was moving fine, then said to the crowd, “We’re down a skidder. Arypony comin’ back an’ takin’ up ’is gear? Or are we leavin’ the tree fer the morrow?”

“All you need to do is drag the tree to Tratonmane, correct?” asked Code. “I could probably do it.”

Crosscut looked Code up and down, kneading the ground beneath her. Then she nodded. “I reckon so. Yer magic’s stout. Somepony help ’er intae some gears!”

The “gears” were a harness, hooked up to the tree to drag it down the road. It was a bit oversized on Code’s small frame and the tree it was hooked up to was just plain huge, but once she dug her hooves in and Amanita felt the ground beneath her buzzing, Code was pulling the tree up the road with the best of them. And from the way she was humming, she was enjoying herself. All of the earth ponies were dragging their own trees, with the five non-earth ponies all harnessed to a single tree and using large staves to help dig themselves in and pull the tree along. Amanita actually felt a little guilty, just plain walking.

The bell rang again, but it seemed less urgent now and it took longer to ring again. Amanita started to make out equine silhouettes in Tratonmane’s shadows, filtering out from whatever shelter they’d moved into. Just how often did the wolves attack?

Crosscut angled her path so she could get closer to Amanita as they walked. “So yer a blood doctor?”

“A what?” Amanita asked.

“A blood doctor.”

“What, like a hematologist? No.”

Crosscut stared at Amanita like she’d suddenly switched to Draconic.

“I’m- not a- doctor doctor,” Amanita said. “I just- I know some healing magic. It’s my special talent.” One she probably should’ve fostered instead of turning to necromancy.

“Ye stopped his bleedin’,” Crosscut said, nodding up the path. “That makes you’un a blood doctor. And thankee.”

“Okay, then,” said Amanita. “I just- I wasn’t sure what- that phrase meant, and- youknowwhatI’llshutupnow.”

Crosscut snorted. “Are you’un always like this? Performin’ great magic an’ a-bein’ all shy ’bout it?”

Amanita blinked twice and one of her rear hooves twitched. How remarkably vague and remarkably specific at the same time. “I- suppose. Kinda. Maybe.”

“I wonder if we could capture a wolf,” Charcoal suddenly said. She was walking backwards, still watching Midwich.

Several trees, Crosscut’s among them, came to a halt as the ponies turned to stare at her. “I… beg yer pardon?” Crosscut nearly gasped.

“Wolf. Capture.” Charcoal raised her front hooves, paused, and smashed them together. “Like a clap. Trap.” She looked around and seemed shocked to be confronted with shock. “We need to study them!” she protested. “They’re animals! They’re more affected by the ley line than ponies! Or kirins!”

“The-” Crosscut grunted and started dragging her log again, her frustrations redirected from her mouth down to her legs. It was quite effective. “The wolves bein’ tetched in the head,” she grunted, “ain’t got nothin’ tae do wi’ the line.”

“Do we know that?” asked Charcoal. “Maybe the line’s been going bad for a lot longer and we just saw it right-”

“It ain’t,” Crosscut grunted. “Tratonmane’s been eatin’ food frae it since afore I’s born and nopony’s gone bad yet. The line ain’t the problem.”

“Oh,” Charcoal said. Her ears drooped as she turned forwards. “I… I was just…” Her voice and her head dropped with every word. “I was just thinking…”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Code said loudly. “Just not one that applies in this circumstance. Keep thinking. Not every idea’s going to be a good one.”

Charcoal made some affirmative sound, but she didn’t lift her head all the way back up. Almost without thinking, Amanita got close to her. “Don’t worry about it,” she whispered. “Seriously.”

“But it was a stupid idea!” Charcoal whispered back. “I should’ve remembered-”

“Hey, hey.” Amanita lightly elbowed her. “We all forget things. Just ignore it and move on.”

“Okay, but…” Charcoal sucked a breath in through her nose and raised her head up. “Okay,” she mumbled. “Okay. But, but what if I keep thinking like that? What if I can’t stop coming up with- those sorts of bad ideas?”

“I hope you don’t,” said Amanita. She looked back at Midwich. At the black branches clawing for the sky. At the forest that apparently wasn’t affected by the ley line, but was seemingly one of the most dangerous places in Equestria. At the place that held normal animals who nonetheless hated ponies. At the land that was deadly despite supposedly feeding on a clean ley line. “Because you might be right about not detecting any changes in the ley line until now. If this mission isn’t as easy as Code thinks it is, we’ll need all the ideas we can get.”

6 - Inns and Other Combat Arenas

In a way, Code was one of the least earth-pony earth ponies Amanita had ever known. In a tribe known for being big and bulky, she was small and slim. But size played absolutely no role in magical strength, as evidenced by the fact that Code was able to haul her mammoth log all the way to Tratonmane without pause, keeping up with the rest of the lumberjacks all the while. The grass beneath her hooves seemed to perk up out of the snow as she passed and Amanita swore the dirt was buzzing. And Code wasn’t even straining that hard, although her mouth looked like a smokestack.

Finally, the group reached a lumber mill just outside the edge of Tratonmane, between the farms and the houses. When Code unhooked her harness, she… There wasn’t another word for it. Her movements were catlike. “I should use my magic more often,” she said as she stretched. “I forgot how satisfying it can feel.”

“Start a-livin’ ’ere an’ that’ll happen most every day,” said Crosscut. “Thankee fer the help.”

“Of course.” Code threw back her head and nickered. “It’s what we’re here for.” And she ate still some more dirt.

Amanita thought she heard a snort from Crosscut, but Code was already leading them away. The snow crunched beneath their feet and their silhouettes shimmered whenever they left the lamplight. Tratonmane’s layout was simple enough that even after the one trip, Amanita knew the way back to the inn: due south, keeping the darkening but still illuminated eastern wall on her left.

…Or was it right?

No, it was left, it was on her right when she was going north. Right? Amanita hurriedly sketched out a compass rose in her mind. On her left. (Imagine getting turned around in a town this small.)

“Do you really not use your magic that often?” Charcoal said. “You’re the High Ritualist!”

“I don’t use my magic that often,” said Code. “Rituals are different magic, not mine. It’s different.”

“If using your own magic is like walking from A to B,” Amanita piped up, “using a ritual is like riding in a carriage from A to B. It’s the same result, but it feels different. And neither one is better than the other, since they do different things.”

“And sometimes you just want to walk, even though it’s harder,” Charcoal mused. She looked down and pawed briefly at the cobblestones. “Like growing a tree from scratch versus just buying and planting one.”

“That’s… not a bad analogy,” said Amanita. It didn’t make much sense to her, granted, but she could see where Charcoal was coming from: investment and your own magic weighed against convenience and rituals. And if it made sense to Charcoal, that was all that really mattered.

Bitterroot was lounging against the wall of the Watering Cave when they arrived. “Hey,” she said, pushing herself up. “I went looking for you, but it’s hard to search in the dark. Figured I’d wait here for you.”

“You don’t need to make any concessions for us,” said Code.

“Yeah, but I thought you should know that the innkeep — her name’s Cabin Still — waived the fee. Something called the, uh…” Bitterroot looked down, biting her lip and rustling her wings. “The Housing Act of, uh…”

“529?” Code asked.

“Yeah, 529.”

“You’re sure?”

“Unless there’s some other reason for her to give us free room and board, yeah.”

“But why…?” Code shook her head and walked inside, her hooves falling heavily. Bitterroot shrugged at Amanita and Charcoal and followed.

Code was standing at the front desk, drumming her hoof as her ears constantly flicked and ignoring the looks the few patrons were giving her. A unicorn, probably Cabin Still, was standing off to one side behind the desk, polishing a glass and ignoring Code in equal measure. Already, the atmosphere was getting wound tighter, bit by bit. Amanita felt she had to be elsewhere but couldn’t bring herself to move, like she was awkwardly sitting in on two friends shouting at each other but one of them was blocking the only door out.

“Our… beds’re upstairs,” Bitterroot said quietly to Amanita and Charcoal. She was moving slowly, like Code and Cabin’s standoff had hypnotized her. “They’re… I don’t think they’re that bad, but-”

“You ought to know,” Code said loudly, “that I was once involved in a ritual that lasted for nearly thirty-seven hours. No eating. No drinking. No sleep. No rest. No breaks of any sort. So if you think you can ignore me until I go away for whatever reason, you are sorely mistaken.”

Cabin heaved with a silent sigh and stomped up to Code, saying nothing.

“I heard you’re giving us the rooms for free,” said Code.

The grunt Cabin let out sounded something like an, “Aye.”

“I’d like to pay for them.”

Cabin raised her head, tilted it. “ ’Tis the duty o’-”

“I don’t care.” Code dug into a pocket and dropped six coins on the desk — high-value, based on their size. “I’d like to pay for them.”

“Ye dinnae have tae. Yer givin' a service.”

“And so are you. I’d like to pay for them.”

“It’s money!” said Charcoal. “Why are you saying no to money? Is this some weird pony thing?” She glanced sidelong at Amanita and whispered, “Is it?” Amanita shook her head.

“I dinnae need paid nor pitied,” snapped Cabin, not even glancing at Charcoal. “Act says I’m a-housin’ ye, so I’m a-housin’ ye.” Her eyes were boring into Code like drills.

Code’s eyes hammered Cabin right back. “Pity’s got nothing to do with it. Your money supports me through taxes. It’s only fair that my money supports you through paying your fees.”

Cabin grinned. “What if’n we’re real good at evadin’ taxes ’cause we’re so isolated?”

Code grinned back. “Then that’s the Royal Revenue Service’s problem, not mine. This money here’s my problem, not yours. But if you want to go by the old ways…” Still keeping her eyes locked on Cabin, she reached out a leg, as if to swipe the bits back into her purse.

For a moment, Amanita thought Code would actually go through with it. Then: “Well, money’s money,” said Cabin. She levitated the coins away and began rooting through the cashbox.

“Stick it all on our tab,” said Code. “Everything we buy, take from that. If we run out of money, let me know.” She moved to take a step away, only to turn back. “Wait. You… do know that the Act was repealed in 891, right?”

“…’Twas?” Cabin asked with a blink.

“Indeed. There was a monster outbreak out west, near… Snoweave. Small town, easily overrun. Celestia sent a Guard detachment there to take care of it, but since there were more guardsponies than civilians in the town, all being supported without compensation, the economy was devastated. Once she heard, Celestia promptly struck down the Act and paid back Snoweave’s expenses twice over.”

“…Nay. Didnae ken that.”

But as Cabin looked in the cashbox, at the money she was owed, Amanita noticed her jaw clench.

“It was a stupid law, anyway,” said Code. “Quite easy to abuse.”

Cabin slammed the cashbox shut and made some vaguely affirmative grunt. Code didn’t seem to notice. “Beds’re upstairs,” Cabin said. “Pegasus can show ye.” A long pause as if she were struggling to speak. “Lemme ken if’n you’uns need somethin’.”

“Mmhmm.”

After tearing her eyes away from Cabin, Bitterroot led them upstairs. “The rooms are… Well, they’re basic, but they’re not too bad, actually. Warm enough and I didn’t feel any drafts. Haven’t had a chance to try the bed yet, though. Oh, and there’s a bathroom. An actual bathroom, with plumbing and everything.”

“Really?” asked Amanita. Back when she was learning under Circe, plumbing was among the things she missed the most. You always took for granted how convenient faucets were until you didn’t have access to them anymore.

“Yeah, and it even works better than some metro hotels I’ve stayed at. Oh, and Code, there’s a storage room in the back, that’s where I put our equipment…”

Getting settled in, including double-checking their equipment, took a surprisingly long time, after which they all agreed to have dinner. The food they had access to was simple, hardy. Bread, some simple fruits and vegetables like tomato and lettuce, some cheeses, and not much else, although Cabin said broth for soup was available. If they wanted anything heated up, they had to do it themselves on the central stove. Amanita preferred it that way; it let her get her food exactly how she wanted it. It was a good stove, too.

As the crew gathered to eat, more ponies started trickling into the Watering Cave, mostly to drink. It wasn’t crowded yet, but it soon would be.

Amanita chewed on her stack of foodstuffs pretending to be a sandwich and watched Charcoal, who was holding a lettuce leaf in her magic and examining it for the secrets of the universe. She turned it over, stretched it as much as she could, licked it. For some reason, Amanita couldn’t work up the courage to ask what the hay she was doing.

But eventually, Charcoal just stuffed the entire leaf into her mouth and chewed. “Thif if goo’ le’ufe,” she declared.

“Mmhmm,” said Amanita.

Charcoal swallowed. “I mean it was blown we- grown well. These ponies really know how to use the ley line.” She picked up another leaf and peered at it. “You need to know what to look for, but once you do…” She waved the leaf in Code’s face like a flag and tugged at it. You’d’ve thought she’d found a treasure that would make Daring Do jealous. “In these conditions, the leaves should not be this big. But they are!”

Code nudged the leaf away. “I’ll look at them later.”

“You should. They’re really neat.” Charcoal looked at the still-growing crowd around them, then threw back her head and yelled, “WHOEVER GREW THE LETTUCE, IT’S REALLY GREAT!”

Amanita had never seen an entire bar go silent before. It was quick, maybe for only one or two seconds, but you’d have to be comatose to miss it. For an instant, the whole world turned its attention on Charcoal. She promptly reddened, pulled her hood up as far as it could go before it bumped into her horn, and hunched over her food. “Ishouldn’thavesaidthat,” she mumbled.

“Well, you did make her day.” Bitterroot pointed off to one side, at a mare with the smile of a lottery winner.

Charcoal briefly glanced in that direction and managed a small grin. “Good,” she whispered. She managed to raise her head a little, but she kept her hood up.

Code scraped a tomato seed from her chin with a knife and licked it down. “So, does anypony have any suggestions for our course of action tomorrow?”

Amanita took a big bite of a sandwich to block her face. She was just a ritualist, and a newbie at that. Why was she being asked? Just to be included? It felt like-

But Amanita’s train of thought was promptly derailed as Charcoal’s steamed on through. “The ley line only soured in Tratonmane recently,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d’ve felt it in the lettuce. How long can lettuce last once it’s been grown? Five, six weeks with magic? So, accounting for growing time, that’s… At least in and around Tramontane- Tratonmane, the line was good up until around seven weeks ago, I think, maximum.”

“But we didn’t even see anything wrong with the line until less than a week ago,” said Code.

“Yes, but only at that monitoring station,” said Charcoal. “And that’s, what, fifty miles north of here? Something like that. And based on the valley, the line starts there and froze- flows down that way.” She pointed at random walls on opposite sides of her that Amanita assumed were south and north respectively. (How good was her internal compass?) “So if something bad’s going down in Midwich Forest, it might not ever reach Tratonmane. Not unless there’s some weirdo trying to push it this way, and that’s the kind of magic we’d definitely notice.”

“…True,” Code said, drumming her hoof on the table, eyes distant. “But why are you even thinking about that in the first place?”

Charcoal opened her mouth, closed it again. She glanced at Amanita and said, “The wolves. Tratonmane’s so worried about them that they’d built shelters, but regular wolves don’t behave like that. If the Tratonmane militia keeps attacking them like we saw, trying to get into town for food just isn’t worth it and they’ll go someplace else. Unless a ley line was messing with their heads or something. But they started going mutts- going nuts like fifty years ago, right? Or maybe even more. If the line somehow got…” She wrapped her hooves around each other. “…twisted in Midwich, then got untwisted further down, then that untwist got either retwisted or ununtwisted… Yeah, I know there’s pretty much no chance that could happen, but not a whole lot else makes sense.”

“And there isn’t a chance it could be… some smaller changes that we’re only seeing now?” Amanita asked. Just in case.

Charcoal shook her head. “Ley lines are nature. And on things this big, nature doesn’t do subtle. It’s like… an avalanche or a tidal wave. It’s big and ponderous and it takes a long time to happen and you know it’s happening when it does.” She stuck her snout in her cup to gulp down some water. “What I really need is some kind of history of the ley line, where… I dunno.”

“I actually talked to, uh, Tallbush earlier today,” Bitterroot spoke up. “He said they’ve got records in the library.”

“Ooo, they do? Nice,” said Charcoal. “I’ll need to take a look at those.”

“I’ll pick them up,” said Bitterroot.

“You’re sure?” asked Code. “You don’t need to.”

“I like to keep busy,” said Bitterroot. “And it won’t take that long, anyway.”

“Go ahead if you want to,” Code said with a shrug. “Just remember: just like Twilight and her friends, you’re not getting paid for this.”

“Which means immortality’s just around the corner!” Bitterroot laughed. She grinned at Amanita. “Thanks to my friends.”

“Not quite yet, though,” Amanita said, not holding back her own grin.

“Also, we might need to go into Midwich Forest,” Charcoal said casually. She chewed her lettuce as everyone else stared at her.

Amanita was the first to speak up. “Already? I thought- It sounded like it was a… last-resort thing. You saw the wolves.”

“Which makes me more certain that there’s something up in the woods,” said Charcoal, fixing Amanita with an oddly intense stare. “So I say we look at it now, when we’re all still ready to go, rather than in a week when we’re tired and angry and more likely to become wolf chow. It won’t be that… that… intense or involved. We just follow the river, head in, see what twitches when we poke the magic, come back out. In and out before lunch.”

“Have you really thought this through?” asked Code. “Or is this an idea that just flung itself from your head?”

Charcoal blinked and her ears folded back, but she still said, “I’ve thought about it. And I think it needs to be done. We stepped into this village locking- looking for information on a bad ley line and what’s the first thing we see? Something that’s usually caused by a bad ley line. That’s a sign.”

“And a gut feeling, right?” Bitterroot asked. “Those are usually worth following.”

Code hmmed and hahed as she nudged a tiny little grape tomato around her plate. Then she took a breath and said, “Let’s sleep on it. What you’re saying makes sense; I just want to be sure it isn’t also hasty.”

With so little actual study done on the ley line just yet, there wasn’t much else to talk about. Conversation gave way to eating; the meal’s taste was nothing spectacular, but it sure was filling. By the time she was wiping down her plate, Amanita knew she’d want nothing more than to lie down in a few hours.

Charcoal immediately stood up. “I’m going to our room,” she said. “I’ve got some books I need to catch up on.” She swiped everyone’s empty plates, deposited them on the bar where Cabin had said to deposit them, and was up the stairs, ignoring every stare thrown her way.

“There’s something I’d like to discuss with you, Amanita,” Code said. “In private. Experimental.”

Necromantic, in other words. Code had been quite hooves-off while Amanita had crafted Tempus Mortis, probably because she, like Princess Twilight, was the type where one question would turn into two would turn into five until she was asking thesis-level questions. But unlike with Princess Twilight, Equestria wouldn’t patiently wait while Code asked those questions, and she wasn’t one to track down Amanita for a personal chat outside of working hours. So now, when the two of them would be sharing a room for a week (why did that sound dirty?), would be the best time to ask about some of the finer details of necromancy. Amanita nodded.

Once the two were upstairs, Amanita double-checked to be sure the hallway was empty and locked the door. Code had pulled up two chairs next to the writing desk, laid out a scroll, and was wetting a quill for writing. Once Amanita sat down, Code said, “I hope you don’t mind discussing necromancy now-”

“Of course not,” said Amanita. “It’s my job.” Maybe not for long, if she did her job too well and inadvertently taught a pony how to replace her. But she’d try to worry about that later. (She failed and worried about it now. But she tried.)

Code nodded. “Then, I was wondering: why does removing their soul render someone immortal? Liches have been rather mum on the mechanics, naturally.”

“It’s not just removing the soul, or else they’d just die,” said Amanita. “It’s… The soul is the metaphysical catalyst for change, so if you remove it properly, you prevent that change from happening.”

“Thereby keeping them from dying or aging,” Code muttered. Her quill darted across the scroll, writing nigh-illegible shorthoof.

“Basically tricking the universe into thinking that they should stay the same as they were when they first became a lich,” Amanita said, nodding. “Whenever they get damaged, that damage refuses to stick on a metaphysical level, and they fall back to their undamaged state. That’s the point of a phylactery: its static nature helps provide an… anchor for the lack of change. But you need to allow some change, for various reasons. Just not too much and not too little. Too much, and the body starts becoming emaciated while you still can’t die. Too little, and you can’t form new memories. Anterograde amnesia.”

“Heh. That’s a contrast. I haven’t seen many things sillier than a lich with memory problems…”

Bitterroot had an idea of what the others vanished off to do. But herself? Oh, she had no responsibilities whatsoever. As Amanita slipped upstairs, Bitterroot slipped over to the bar. If she wanted to feel at home in this distant village, she had some sampling to do.

Cabin gave her a cursory, obligatory look as she chose a chair at the bar. Bitterroot ignored that and asked, “So, what sorts of drinks do you have?”

Cabin just pointed at the menu board behind her. Bitterroot started reading, her disbelief increasing with every name. “Mountain dynamite… Knock-em-stiff… Tanglehoof… Forty-rod… Conversation fluid… Draconequus’s eye-water… Squirrel liquor…” And she wasn’t even halfway down the list. She looked Cabin in the eye and pointed at the menu of absurdities. “Are those supposed to be… real names?”

“Brewed right ’ere in Tratonmane.” Cabin’s face was as straight as could be. “Whiskeys.”

“All of it? What, does everypony in this valley make moonshine?”

“Aye.”

Bitterroot blinked. “Seriously?”

Cabin shrugged. “Three out o’ four families dae it. Nary a drop o’ outside liquor’s come intae Tratonmane.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“Huh.” Bitterroot was used to the idea, of course. The more isolated a town was, the more self-sufficient they were — by necessity, if nothing else. But more and more, it was like Tratonmane was the pinnacle of that ideal, where the land itself provided nearly everything the ponies needed. Liquor wasn’t the easiest to make in the North, so some towns broke down and brought theirs in from outside. Tratonmane was poo-pooing the very idea.

Her eyes roved across the board as Cabin eyed her and she couldn’t stop the names from blending together. Whiskey was appealing right then, but she knew nothing about which whiskey tasted like what. She might as well be guessing.

Which… There was an idea. Bitterroot stuck three bits on the counter. “Three shots. Your favorite, your least favorite, and one in the middle, but don’t tell me which is which. I wanna be surprised.”

“Risky,” said Cabin.

“That’s the idea.”

“Yer funeral.” Cabin snatched up the money in her magic, turned around, snatched up three shot glasses in her magic, and walked up and down the line of kegs. Bitterroot looked at the ceiling and whistled as she did so. Somehow, it didn’t sound out of place.

“Here,” said Cabin. She plonked the now-full glasses in front of Bitterroot. “Splo, high life, blockade.”

Bitterroot picked up a glass. “High life’s the best, followed by blockade, then splo, isn’t it?”

“Mebbe,” said Cabin. “Mebbe not.”

“Eh, c’mon,” said a stallion who’d sat down on one side of Bitterroot. “She got ’em, firs’ try. Let ’er ken that.” That drew a slow, seemingly reluctant nod from Cabin, and the unnamed stallion grinned at Bitterroot. “Ye’re a bold one, ain’tcha?”

“Or stupid. I could be that, too.” And Bitterroot downed the first shot.

From the way it burned, it was less a drink and more a barrel of army ants clawing at her esophagus. The sensation went straight to her sinuses and made her want to cough her nostrils out. She took deep breaths, managing to not break down as she waited for the alcohol to leave and the flavor to arrive. “Splo,” she said when neither happened. “Definitely splo.” Her voice was a bit scratchier than usual and simply saying the words finally got her coughing.

Cabin’s mouth twitched upward slightly. “Aye.”

The stallion next to her chuckled. “Ye’re a-takin’ it better’n I did.”

“That’s ’cause ye dinnae drink!” said Cabin.

“Sure, but she werenae supposed tae ken that.” The stallion winked at Bitterroot.

“Next one…” Bitterroot drank the next shot. And compared to the first one, it was downright pleasant. Partly because it had some semblance of flavor, but that flavor was also pretty solid. It was a bit bitter in parts, but spicy in others, almost lemony. An unusual taste, but a good one. But was it a good whiskey or a great whiskey? Bitterroot smacked her lips. She settled on “good”; she’d order it if it was available, but it wasn’t something she’d go out of her way to look for. “Blockade, right?” she asked Cabin.

“…Aye.” Was that some grudging respect in Cabin’s voice?

The old stallion next to her was laughing, the new group behind her were chattering, and the filled glass in front of her was calling. Ready for some high life, Bitterroot prepared to snatch up the glass-

The door to the Cave banged open; Bitterroot reflexively nudged the glass to one side so she could look in its reflection, realized what she was doing, and glanced over her shoulder out of curiosity. Whippletree was standing in the doorway, his wings at his sides, his hooves spread in aggression, his nostrils flaring as he breathed. It was such a change from his earlier character that it actually gave Bitterroot pause. Rough day? Maybe. He’d had to go into Midwich Forest, although he seemed none the worse for wear.

Well, it wasn’t her concern. She took up the glass in her hoof, raised it to her mouth-

-and spilled it all over herself as she was clouted from behind. “Ye’re in my spot,” Whippletree growled. “I like this spot.”

“Sorry,” Bitterroot said. What was with bars and Special Spots? She didn’t begrudge Whippletree his, far from it. She had her own Spots at bars back in Canterlot. But ponies were attracted to spots at places they frequented for whatever reason and staked out their claim like they were colonizing some distant land. It was everywhere — and, also like distant lands, generally not worth fighting over, not when you could just move over a little and get some new territory. “I’ll move.” She immediately hopped off the chair and made for the next one over.

But Whippletree quickly put a hoof on her shoulder and shoved her away from the chair. “Ye really think that’s it?” he snarled at her. “That you’un can jes’ walk away after that?”

“Erm… yes?” One of Bitterroot’s ears was drooping. She’d met ponies protective of their Spots before, but coming from Whippletree, it was… very, very strange. “I didn’t know. Look, there’s your spot back, I’m moving.”

But when she tried to move away again, Whippletree yanked her right back. “That ain’t civil, no siree. Ye dinnae take a pony’s seat like that.”

“Look, Whippletree, what do you want from me?” Bitterroot protested. She was halfway through the sentence when an intrusive idea worked its way into her mind. When she followed it through to the end, that result was… not great, but probably better than what it’d be otherwise, defusing the situation without too much violence. She seized it. “A fight?”

Bitterroot had been in plenty of bar fights. Even in Equestria, if you spent as much time in bars as she did, pure large-number statistics ensured you got dragged into a fight at some point. So as she spoke, she prepared. Spread your legs, lower your body. It’d be bracing and lower her center of gravity, making it harder to knock her over. Wings tight. The tension the muscles required meant it got her heart pumping. Tail down. It’d be harder to take a hold of. And look your opponent in the eye. It was a minor intimidation factor that could mean the difference.

The two ponies looked at each other. Then Whippletree’s mouth grew wide in such a manner that its corners turned upward. It was probably supposed to be a smile. “Y’ken what?” He spread his hooves and his wings tightened. “Aye.” He swung.

And Bitterroot took it full in the jaw.

Or appeared to. She’d actually started moving right before Whippletree had hit her, absorbing the worst of the blow. It’d sting a little in the morning, but it wouldn’t ache. A few quick, subtle wing twitches added to her momentum, sending her spinning theatrically, making it look worse than it was. She carefully timed her stumble to take her closer to the door and even managed to fall dramatically right between two tables. Perfect.

It was simple. If a stranger strode into town and beat up a guard, that’d be memorable, wouldn’t it? She’d immediately be pegged as a Tough Gal and ponies would be cautious around her. But if that same stranger was beaten up by a guard, that was normal. Of course the guards were tougher than her. She’d been having shots; she was probably a bit drunk. All she needed to do was get beaten up and thrown out, and she’d be considered beneath notice for a lot of things. Ponies would underestimate her, at least to some degree. It was always a tossup as to what that degree was, but it was also always there.

And if she couldn’t beat up the guard in the first place (which happened more often than not), at least she could control how badly she got beaten down. That was a lesson she’d learned quickly.

As Whippletree approached, Bitterroot wondered: punchable grin or not? It depended on the crowd. …Not. Tratonmane didn’t need another excuse to dislike her. A punchable grin would make it look like she was some smug idiot getting what she deserved. “Whoa, hey,” she said, raising her voice and a hoof, “we don’t need-”

Whippletree kicked at her; Bitterroot rolled over before it could fully hit and moaned convincingly. He bit down on her mane and hoisted her onto a table against the protests of the patrons already there. “My spot’s mine,” he growled, “an’ by the Deormont, I ain’t a-lettin’ some hollow-hooved moldwarp like you’un take it.”

“Lithen,” Bitterroot gasped, affecting a lisp to sound more broken, “I’m thorry, I’m thure we can work-”

“Quiet!” Whippletree roared in her ear.

“Whipple, what’s gotten intae ye?” asked the mare whose whiskey Bitterroot’s mane was nearly in.

“She was in my spot!” And Whippletree shoved Bitterroot roughly off the table.

She tumbled as best she could, towards the door, but her head still banged a chair a bit too hard for comfort. Best to cut it short. Holding one leg across her chest like she was having trouble breathing, Bitterroot raised a hoof. “I’m going!” she wheezed. “I’m going.” Without another word, she staggered for the door, ears back.

And because her ears were back, she heard the patter of Whippletree’s hooves a second early. She lunged forward in time to absorb the worst of the buck, but still lost control and rolled out of the Watering Cave in ways she didn’t want to. Nothing broke, but she wound up face first in the frigid powder of outside snow.

Bitterroot had thought Midwich in the day was dark. At night, they didn’t even have the glow of sunlight bouncing off the valley walls and darkness had fallen like a blanket on top of another blanket. The wind was channeled to whistle up and down through Tratonmane, sounding more like ghosts than anything Bitterroot had heard before. Even the lamps seemed withdrawn in the light they gave. Her head was spinning when she stood up and the oppressive black made it worse.

Bitterroot stood up and tried to blink away the spots from her vision. It didn’t work; the world was bendable before her as the ground slowly waved below. Something was warm on the inside of her mouth. When she probed it with her tongue, she tasted copper. (Why did everyone agree that blood tasted coppery?) Must’ve bitten the inside of her cheek. Ah, well. Still not as bad as the first time she’d faked a beatdown. That one was practically the real thing.

She took a few steps and managed to stay upright. Promising. Another few, turn. Still up. Good. She was able to walk in a small circle to keep blood flowing, and although she wavered dangerously, she didn’t fall. She kept one ear angled towards the Cave; the sounds from inside were angry ones, shouty, and not all from Whippletree. Definitely not something she wanted to be a part of.

At first she thought the high-pitched ringing she heard was tinnitus, but by the time she’d completed four laps, she realized it was rapid, constant echolocation, closer than she’d heard it before. Another lap, then she squinted into the darkness.

“Heh. Was a-wond’rin’ when ye’d notice.”

It was easy once she had the sound of a voice to track. Some of the gloom resolved into the silhouette of a pony sitting just beyond the edge of the lamplight. Beyond her quite ordinary shape, all Bitterroot could make out was that only one of her eyes was glinting.

“Eh. It’s dark and I got beat up,” Bitterroot said with a shrug. She ran a tongue across her teeth; she hadn’t thought any got knocked out, but it didn’t hurt to check. Everything was there and tight. “And that’s about the extent of my excuses.”

“I’ve heard o’ worser ’uns.” And she stepped into the light.

The chiropterus before Bitterroot was an equine sword: hard and narrow. Even her lips were thin and the eye that wasn’t patched had the dull but well-used smoothness of a whetstone. But not her wings; even folded, Bitterroot could see that her wings were wide and supple. Her coat was unpolished gray and her mane was messy and unkempt enough to look messy and unkempt when only a few inches were poking out of her hood. She had a few scars on her face, visible only by the way they were slightly darker than the rest of her coat. They were even harder to pick out from the general weathering of age; the mare must’ve been over 65. Although, standing out from the rest of her was-

“You’ve got green on you,” Bitterroot said, pointing.

“Hmm?” The mare looked down and quickly spotted the splotch of green on her chest. “Ach, I’ve been a-paintin’.” She squinted at Bitterroot. “Got banged up plumb good, did ye, lowlander?”

“Eh, I’ll be fine. I’ve been through worse.” Of course she had. She’d died twice, after all. (Buuuuut it probably wasn’t a good idea to mention that just yet.)

The mare snorted. “So which shagnasty threw the hissy? Pine Bark? Bet ’twas ’er. She cannae keep…”

Hissy. Funny how some parts of language changed so much while others changed so little. “Whippletree,” Bitterroot said. “I took his spot.”

She was rolling one of her legs when she realized the silence had stretched on for too long. The mare was staring at her as if she’d made some grievous faux pas. “No, ye didnae,” the mare said.

“Yes, I did.”

“Mebbe it were somepony else. But it ain’t Whippletree,” growled the mare. “He dinnae dae that. I ken yer meant tae treat yer in-laws like poison, but he’s the nicest cusséd pony ye’ll e’er meet. He’ll hurt himself afore he hurts aryone else.”

And a few hours ago, Bitterroot probably would’ve agreed. But eh. Maybe he was just having an off night. So she shrugged. “I’m Bitterroot, by the way,” she said as a means of changing the subject.

The mare’s eye glinted, but if she noticed the diversion, she must’ve been glad for it. “Arrastra,” she said.

“And before you say anything, I’m technically not with the Crown. One of the ritualists is a friend, so I’m tagging along.” Maybe she could hone that into a reflex, be able to just say it without thinking about it.

“So I’m a-guessin’ ye cannae tell me why this be the problem that finally brought Canterlot tae interfere out ’ere?”

“Sorry, no. I just heard that the ley line could affect plants and animals in the region. I never even heard of Tratonmane a few days ago.”

Arrastra snorted and rolled her eyes. “O’ course,” she muttered. “Cent’ries wi’out ary…” Another snort. “Well, best o’ luck tae you’uns, at ary rate, even if’n ye ferget about all of’ us the second it’s done. Better’n nothin’.” Her voice was halfway between sincere and a petulant foal being forced to apologize. Without another word, Arrastra nodded to Bitterroot and strode off into the night, chirping to find her way.

A surprisingly reasonable attitude, given some of the looks Bitterroot had seen. The conversation had distracted her enough for the worst of her aches to die down, so she risked poking her head back into the Cave. Off near the bar, where she’d first run into Whippletree, a herd of ponies had assembled. There was shouting. A lot of shouting. It was hard to tell what anyone was saying, as a matter of fact. But it was a distraction. She slipped in, edged along the walls, and started up the stairs without anyone caring about her enough to stop her. One of the steps creaked and she reflexively winced, but she was the only one close enough to hear it.

The sound tapered off on the second floor, reaching a point where her next-door neighbors were sometimes louder. Amanita and Code were deep in conversation about something — probably necromancy, from the way the door had been locked and how often Bitterroot heard “death” — and Charcoal had claimed one of the beds for reading, although she kept an ear turned in Amanita’s and Code’s direction.

Bitterroot rolled her shoulders. Maybe it was the fight, maybe it was the darkness, but bed was sounding pretty good, even if she didn’t sleep just yet. She’d wake up sore, but that’d soon pass. The rest of tomorrow… She’d see.

7 - Beyond the Woods

Even under all her blankets, Bitterroot woke up to a familiar Northern chill, one that crept down her feathers and clawed its way beneath her skin. But it hadn’t reached her bones, so she was warmer than she’d expected to be. It was still dark, so she wiggled under her covers and prepared to sleep in.

It took about ten minutes before she remembered where she was and that it’d be dark for quite a long time. Bitterroot briefly panicked, remembered what she was doing here, and reluctantly crawled out of bed. The cold of the room woke her up better than coffee could ever hope to and soon she was pulling on some furs. Nopony else was in bed, so Bitterroot headed downstairs. The creak of one of the steps was somehow calming, like it was something tangible in what might’ve been a dream.

The common room was mostly empty; besides Amanita, Code, and Charcoal, there were only a few people down there, all eating something and clearly not interested in conversation. Except for Code, of all ponies, who was sitting at the bar (was it a bar this early in the day?) talking to Cabin. When Code spotted her, she waved Bitterroot over. “Morning,” Code said. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah.” Taking a seat next to Code, Bitterroot spread her wings slightly; the stove in the center of the room was lit and the warm air felt wonderful when it slipped between her feathers. “The bed was nice and I’ve slept in hotel rooms in Manehattan that were colder than that.” Not much colder. But still.

Code turned to Cabin. “Like we all said, it was good.”

Cabin flicked an ear and grunted reluctantly. (Bitterroot wasn’t sure how she knew it was reluctant.) She pointed a hoof behind her. “Breakfastes,” she grunted.

In some ways, the breakfast menu seemed more like an ingredient list than an actual menu. Before Bitterroot could mention this, Code said, “Cabin here treats you like family, so you need to make it yourself. I had pancakes, but I would recommend the eggs; they’re fresh.”

Bitterroot’s wings twitched in surprise. “Fresh eggs? Here? At this time of year?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Huh. More ley line stuff?”

“Probably not,” Amanita piped up from a nearby table. “It’s rarer for chickens to lay in this sort of environment, but hardly impossible. And if it’s already cold for them, then winter won’t make that much of a difference, will it?”

Shrug. “I guess.” Bitterroot decided to just take Amanita’s word for it. She didn’t know chickens. She did know scrambling eggs, though, and was tucking into a good-sized plate in minutes. It was delicious; these eggs were definitely fresh.

As she ate, Code said to her, “After sleeping on it, we’ve decided that Charcoal was right last night.” (At her table, Charcoal grinned to herself.) “We’ll make a quick incursion into Midwich to get a feel for it and come back. If something’s wrong out there, we’ll know, and we can send for help in clearing the forest.”

“That’s a right glaiket notion,” muttered Cabin in a voice that made the meaning of that word clear.

“It’s hardly ideal,” Code said. “But now’s the best time to do it, while the wolves are licking the wounds the militia gave them. And speaking of the militia, we’re hoping they’ll be able to provide some ”

“Need me for anything?” Bitterroot said around a mouthful of egg.

Code blinked. “I… Technically, no. But if you insist on working for no pay, you’re free to follow.”

“Hey, I’m available if you need me. There’s a reason I became a bounty hunter.”

“If you want to follow, eat fast. The three of us are leaving in five minutes.”

Scrambled eggs were practically made for eating fast, so Bitterroot finished hers in less than one. In that time, Code had retrieved something from the storage room, something small enough to fit in a bag the size of a coinpurse. “Everybody set?” she asked. “Then let’s get going.”

Bitterroot didn’t need to be told twice. She hopped off her stool and immediately was walking out the door.

At the same time Whippletree was walking in the door.

Almost on reflex, Bitterroot took a step back, memories of last night snapping back to the front of her mind. But Whippletree’s ears were down, his legs were close together, and he was hanging his head a little, like a scolded foal. He blinked at Bitterroot and opened his mouth; nothing came out.

“Um.” Bitterroot cautiously waved. “Hello.”

“Hidy!” Whippletree’s voice hadn’t changed in pitch, but somehow he still squeaked. “I… Eh… I jes’… want tae… apologize. Fer… las’ night.” He kept alternating between looking Bitterroot in the eyes and looking off to her side. “When I… assaulted. You. Yeh.” He licked his lips and grinned nervously. “I’m real sorry. I dinnae ken what came o’er me.”

“I beg pardon?” It was amazing how much Code’s voice brought to mind a fuse about to be lit.

“We had some differences last night and an unfriendly chat,” Bitterroot said quickly. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m a-worryin’ about it!” protested Whippletree. “That- That ain’t me! I dinnae care one lick about my spot in the Cave an’ I dinnae ken why I did las’ night.”

Bitterroot got the acute feeling she was standing under a spotlight; her wings squirmed, in spite of her best efforts. “You were probably drunk.”

“A, no I weren’t, and B, that ain’t no excuse.”

“Rough day?”

“Nay. Bitterroot, ma’am-” (Bitterroot flinched; Whippletree kept talking before she could protest.) “-somethin’ were wrong wi’ me. An’-”

“If it doesn’t happen again, we don’t need to worry about it,” Bitterroot said. “Besides, do I look hurt to you?” She grinned; indeed, she felt no bruises except for the little one on her left shoulder.

Whippletree opened his mouth, raised a hoof declaratively, closed his mouth, and lowered a hoof. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“Apology accepted.”

Swallow, weak half-grin. “W-well, then, I’ll-”

“Excuse me,” said Code. “Whippletree. Sir. I was wondering if you and your militia would be willing to provide protection for an expedition into Midwich Forest.” (Bitterroot stepped to one side to let them talk.)

It was like a jolt to Whippletree’s system, his demeanor changed so quickly. His ears snapped up and his hooves shifted slightly apart. “Intae Midwich?” he asked flatly. “The forest that kills ye. As you’uns saw yesterday.”

“That’s the one,” Code said in the vein of someone proposing an afternoon stroll. “Unfortunately.”

“Part o’ the… ley line job?”

Code opened her mouth, only to get lightly muscled aside by Charcoal. “Look, look,” Charcoal said, “I know it doesn’t sound the greatest, but it’s probably necessary to bet- get a good look at the ley line-”

“Ma’am-” protested Whippletree.

“It won’t be that long. Something like an hour, tops. The wolves’ll be licking their wounds from yesterday.”

“Ma’am-”

“Just this once. Promise. Then you’ll never need to go in for us again. Pleeeaaase?”

A pause, then Whippletree’s entire body heaved as he sighed. “If needs must,” he said. “But lissen.” He looked Code in the eye and stepped forward so he was practically looming over her. “If’n I’m a-tellin’ you’uns tae do somethin’, you’un do it. Midwich ain’t an evenin’ stroll. I dinnae want tae be responsible if ye die.”

Code didn’t bat an eye. “Of course. Say the word and we’ll run back to Tratonmane like our tails were on fire.”

Whippletree blinked, as if he hadn’t expected Code to agree so quickly. “Ah. …W-wait fer us by the forest’s edge. I need tae get the others.” He looked at Code, rustled his wings, and flew off.

“That was painless,” said Code. She flicked her tail and strode off, the others following. “I was expecting to spend half an hour arguing back and forth with them.”

“I guess Ramrod’s spoiled us, huh?” Amanita said, grinning. “After dealing with her, anything seems like smooth sailing.”

Bitterroot knew she was missing some context, but her mind latched onto only one thing. “Ramrod,” she said in disbelief. “Her parents named her Ramrod?”

“Dowsing Rod, actually, but she’s such a…”

Making a light wasn’t hard. It was often among the first spells a young unicorn consciously cast, and by the time they reached adulthood, bordered on effortless, even thoughtless. At least, that was what Amanita had thought; keeping that light up was giving her a headache. The thought that she might have to keep it up was making her very sympathetic to Tratonmane.

She crunched back and forth through the snow near the river, some distance away from the forest’s edge. Her last experience with dark snowy forests hadn’t been the greatest, and although she tried to say she wasn’t superstitious, she still got a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach. Memories kept sliding unbidden through her head, tainting her perception of now. At least now she didn’t have a psychotic lich dogging her steps.

Bitterroot was pacing restlessly near her while Code was fiddling with some tiny artifice. Charcoal, though, was sitting on her haunches, eyes closed, horn ringing. (Her magic sounded like low bells. Huh.) She irregularly swayed back and forth like a reed in the wind and made occasional “hmm” and “hah” noises. When Amanita extended her own magic, she could feel a haze around Charcoal, probing for any sort of magic or mana. Amanita couldn’t tell what it was finding, but based on Charcoal’s expression, she was satisfied.

What the hay. Might as well learn something. Amanita sat down next to her. “What’re you doing?”

“Getting a general compre- impression of the ley line,” Charcoal said, her voice unusually dreamy. “Its, y’know, vibes.”

Amanita pretended she knew what that meant as she nodded.

Charcoal blinked and refocused her eyes. “Ley lines are currents in the land, right? So when you get down to it, they’re just magic. And you can sense- Wait, can you sense magic? Kirins can, but I don’t know if… unicorns…”

“We can sense it,” said Amanita, “although-”

Several swinging lights from Tratonmane caught her eye. A quick glance sharpened them into lanterns, carried by Whippletree and several other militiaponies and misted up by their breath, and a unicorn’s hornlight. Five ponies in total: Whippletree (a pegasus), a unicorn, and three earth ponies. The same ones from yesterday, with the same well-worn (perhaps overly-worn) armor and a few weapons between them. None of them seemed particularly happy and Amanita couldn’t help feeling a little guilty.

Code glanced up at their approach. Her expression didn’t change, but her nostrils flared. “Is this everyone?”

“They’re some o’ the best blamed ponies in Equestria an’ I willnae hear ye say elseways,” Whippletree said firmly. “I’m wishin’ you’uns the best in yer business, but…” He paused and cringed, like he really didn’t want to say what came next.

“You think we’re off our rockers,” said Code.

Whippletree opened his mouth, closed it again, nodded. With a sigh, he said, “We ain’t about tae satisfy each other. Let’s get it done.”

“Actually, before we do…” Code held up something like a set of strange, thick wires, halfway between headphones and earrings. “It would be best if we don’t split up, but if that proves to be unavoidable-”

“We ain’t splittin’ up,” Whippletree said flatly.

Code was unperturbed. “-we can still remain in contact. These are audio transmitters that can be used by distant parties to talk to one another. Canterlot was hoping we could give them a field test.”

Bitterroot had grown steadily more interested as Code talked and quickly turned to Whippletree. “How safe are the skies?”

“In Midwich? They… ain’t bad, I reckon.” Whippletree seemed surprised that anything to do with Midwich Forest might not be dangerous. “Safe enough. Why?”

“I can help test those,” Bitterroot said to Code. “Just let me fly above. I’ll see your lights through the trees and can be down in a flash if you need help.”

“You really should’ve agreed on payment before coming here,” Code said. She passed one of the earring things over. “Just fit this around your ear and speak. The magic will do the rest.”

“My payment is a set of these once they’re completed,” Bitterroot said. “If they work, they’ll really come in handy when I’m on the hunt.” She grinned, flared her wings, and rocketed into the too-bright sky.

Whippletree looked up after her. “She can weed ’er own road, right?” he asked. “Take care o’ herself?”

Amanita recalled the time Bitterroot had fought off a furious lich and her thralls in the middle of a thicket set aflame. “Yeah. She can.”

“Hmm.” Whippletree continued looking up for another second. “Ye can lead the way when ye’re ready. I dinnae ken where’n all ye want tae go.”

“Alright.” Code rolled her shoulders and turned her attention towards Amanita and Charcoal. “We’ll follow the river. It’ll be easier to keep track of where we’ve been. If they tell you to do something-” She nodded to the militia. “-you do it. Don’t stay too close to the trees for too long. And if it all goes to Tartarus, run south like a madmare.”

Heh. Great. Amanita swallowed as she followed Code into the forest.

Midwich Valley had looked strange from the ground. It bordered on surreal from the sky.

As she climbed towards the clouds, Bitterroot kept her eyes towards the ground. The forest, well, it was a dark spooky forest. She’d seen them more than a few times, usually chasing perps through them. The trees were gnarled and clawed for the sky, as usual. They clumped close enough that the ground resembled a bed of nails that you’d have to fight your way through to reach the forest floor. Not something she’d want to stay in, but it didn’t look as threatening as it was supposed to be.

But the valley itself… The moment she was above the rim, the world seemed to zipper shut around it. That place was narrow, surprisingly easy to miss if you flew over it, even filled in with all that shadow. Canterlot was easily too wide to fit inside. Maybe even Canterlot Castle. And the valley’s straightness was accentuated this high up. There was straight, and then there was straightedge straight. It looked more like some lazy cartographer half-assing a border than anything natural, but the scale of it, the sheer size of something that straight, made something stir in Bitterroot’s gut. But it was just the ley line, right? The energies in the ground. They didn’t need to flow “around” anything. They could just go straight, right?

Uh-huh. Sure.

Bitterroot ended her existential crisis by looking down. The branches were filtering the group’s light, but it was still clearly visible and easy to follow. Even if they weren’t, she could pick out the winding of the river they were following. Perfect. She swooped down a little so the mountains blocked the sun again — it seemed right — and tapped her not-earring. “Uh, hey, Code. You there?”

Forests in the dark were uncanny. Beyond the lanterns and hornlight, the gloom rippled and twisted with the barely-there silhouettes of trees in parallax. Distance meant little with no details to give perspective; trees always seemed to be closer or further away than they looked. And that was when the land behaved. Frequently, treading across uneven ground meant focusing on your hooves more than what you were seeing, and once you covered that craggy three feet and looked back up, the entire landscape around you seemed to have changed. Trees were trees and were rarely unique enough to provide landmarks for orientation. There was a reason forests always seemed to be haunted.

The group tread northward, staying close to the river. No shortcuts; when it turned left then right, they turned left then right with it. Better to spend the time not losing track of it. The water’s pace was fairly sedate, but the chill it undoubtedly had meant you still wouldn’t want to fall in. Even with that danger, though, Amanita felt somewhat secure next to the river. It gave her something tangible next to the gray haze of the forest.

The three Canterlotians led the way through the snow. Actually, Charcoal led the way, her eyes lidded and her horn glowing, murmuring vague nothings. Code wasn’t far behind, talking to Bitterroot through their enchanted earrings, leaving behind footprints that purred with magic, occasionally eating more clods of dirt. And then there was Amanita, just sort of following them and hoping for the best. Was she supposed to be looking for something? Casting some spell? She hadn’t been told anything. She half-trotted to get closer to Code, only to fall back. Code was busy and she’d’ve said if Amanita needed to do something. Right? (Second-guessing herself. What a necromancer she was.)

As she walked, the unicorn guard moved closer to the trio. He was big for a unicorn, built like a boulder and likely harder to budge, although it was hard to make out his coloring in the dark. “Stay close to me,” he muttered. “It’s easier for me to protect you than any-”

“Ay, stub yerself up, Varnish!” one of the other guards suddenly snapped. Her voice was sharp enough to make Amanita jump. “They dinnae need tae hear ye talkin’ yer tribalist jularkey!”

“I’m merely stating the facts,” the unicorn — Varnish — said loudly, swinging around to glare at the other guard. “Unless you can project a shield, you can’t protect them the way I can.”

“That dinnae keep the wolves away good an’ always. I can buck ’em clean o’er the horizon!”

“Ah, yes,” Varnish snorted derisively. “Physical strength. For as we all know, the most dangerous thing in the world is an earth pony with a hammer.”

“It’s a right sight more-”

“Ay!” Whippletree blurred between the ponies, giving them both solid thwacks across the head with a spear. “Dinnae fuss in Midwich!” he nearly roared. “We’ve got ponies that need shieldin’, and I will not have you’uns turned frae it on account o’ somethin’ as foolish as this! Varnish, yer a grand soldier, but dinnae spend yer view here. Poplar, curb yer temper.”

Both Varnish and Poplar made irate noises like the beginnings of an argument, but they both fell silent when Whippletree banged his spear on the ground. “Dinnae. Fuss. In. Midwich.” With each word, Whippletree looked either Varnish or Poplar in the eye. “Both o’ ye, let it drop. Now.”

There was only the briefest of pauses before Varnish and Poplar looked at each other, nodded in silence, and returned to looking forward. Whippletree’s smile was slightly less forced than a square peg’s transit through a round hole. “We got our… disagreements,” he said.

Code hadn’t reacted at all to the argument, but now she shrugged. “It happens,” she said. “At least you don’t let it get in the way of your work. …No, I’m not talking to you, Bitterroot, it’s- We’re having a little disagreement…”

To the militia’s credit, the silence that followed wasn’t tense and brittle, just there. Two ponies working together and simply not speaking to each other because they had nothing to say. But the quiet nagged at her, if only because the sound of talking suddenly going away made the sound of everything else seem much louder. The creaking of trees, the wind, the ripple of water, the crunch of dirt… No animals. Even though forests always had animals. Amanita coughed and said, “S-so, uh, the wolves just… attack? That’s about all I’ve heard.”

A brief pause as everyone tried to work out who she was talking to before Whippletree volunteered, “That’s all that we ken. They come out o’ the woods an’ do their plumb best tae eat us.”

“And you’ve never-” Amanita figured she knew the answer but found herself asking the question anyway. “-never… come out here to find-”

The militiaponies all made some degree of snort. Whippletree managed to keep his suppressed, but Amanita could still see him twitch. “Beg yer pardon, but ye’re daft. Midwich ain’t welcomin’. Ye saw what it were like at Tratonmane? ’Tis worser out ’ere.” He flared his wings in a sweeping gesture. “Get too far out an’ it’s like the forest’s got a mind o’ its own. And hates us.” He glanced upwards, at the sky inching towards blue as the sun rose outside the gorge. “We’re a-leavin’ at noon.”

“Noted,” Code said, “although we ought to be out by then. …No, Bitterroot, I’m not talking to you. …Yes, they last for a long time…”

Downriver. Amanita decided to try extending her magic and feel the ley line. It wasn’t hard to find, of course, being as packed with magic as it was. And it was definitely flowing. But beyond that? She didn’t know how it was supposed to feel or if it was even bad here. …Assume it was. Why? How? …Yeah, she wasn’t managing that. She kept her mind extended anyway, hoping to have some brainwave. She had to start somewhere.

Ahead, the river turned sharply eastward, more sharply than it had before. Amanita was ready following, but Charcoal abruptly came to a halt, saying, “Wait a minute, waitaminute.” Sitting on the bank, frowning, she pointed at the river. “This, this isn’t fright. Right. The river shouldn’t curve like this, I don’t think.” She started leaning back and forth, making angles with her legs in some mental calculation. “Yeah, this is not right.”

The group stopped. As Charcoal rubbed her chin, Code sat down, took another bite of dirt, and closed her eyes. Amanita felt a small but deep power from both of them, a magnet on a bar that took more strength to move than it looked. She tentatively continued her probe; the overall flow of the line continued straight down Midwich Valley, with no difference that she could see. Yet somehow, she still felt like something was off. Not overall; just right here.

The guards remained silent, slouching on their weapons or looking off into the trees. Varnish, however, had his jaw set as he watched them. Eventually, he said, “So what’s wrong with the river, here? It looks okay to me.”

“It turns way too sharply,” Charcoal said. “When a ley line is this powerful, rivers don’t do turpen- serpentines like they might in other places. This is wrong whether the line’s okay or not.”

“And which way ought it be going?” Varnish’s ears were trembling.

Charcoal pointed off into the dark, along the same general line of the river before the turn. “That way, look-” With a grunt, the light from her horn swelled. “You can see the dip in the shores where it used to be.” Indeed, although it was hard to make out, Amanita could just barely glimpse the shadows of a broad ditch winding below the trees, with the trees themselves spread out to let it pass. After she’d been following the magical signature of the ley line, even for just a minute, that ditch felt… It felt right. Why did it feel right? Why did Amanita immediately know that Charcoal was correct?

Varnish shrugged. “You’re probably seeing things. The stream’s always taken this route.”

“How often do you come back here to know?” asked Amanita. “I’ll bet you don’t think about the river down here all that much.”

“I’ve lived here,” bristled Varnish, “for longer than-”

“No, you haven’t,” said Amanita. “You’ve lived in Tratonmane. Not here.”

“And if the stream’s always taken this route,” said Charcoal, “then that just raises the question of why. Because no matter which way you dice it, it shouldn’t turn like this.”

Whatever Varnish was going to say next, it was cut off by Whippletree preemptively landing in front of him. Whippletree violently pointed away and roughly tugged Varnish in that direction, where they started talking in hushed tones. Amanita couldn’t help angling an ear towards them, although she couldn’t make anything out.

One of the other guards cleared her throat and spoke up. “I’m a-thinkin’ yer right,” she said tentatively. “The… turn o’ the land ain’t good ’ere.”

“Aye,” said Poplar. “Aryone else got their bones set intae tremblin’?”

“I feel more like it’s grating or grinding,” Code said, “but everypony feels it differently…”

Charcoal didn’t seem to notice the growing conversation. She was sitting down, still looking at the stream. “Follow the streambed, follow the stream,” she muttered. “Follow the streambed, follow the stream…”

Amanita glanced at Whippletree and Varnish again. Their gestures were quick, jabby, and angry. She could barely hear their voices, and when she did, they kept talking over each other, their words blurring into angry incoherence.

“We need to keep following the stream,” Charcoal said, to no one in particular. “The old streambed won’t show any-” She froze, blinked, and scurried away, shooting a weak bolt at the snow. “The ground’s moving!” she squeaked.

“No, just the roots,” Code said casually. “Don’t stay in one place for too long.” She took a bite of dirt.

Amanita quickly brushed some of the snow at her hooves away. She wasn’t sure the root near her hadn’t been there when she stopped walking, but she wasn’t sure it had, either. She scooched closer to the river, away from the trees. (“Flipping night trees,” growled Charcoal.)

“And I agree,” Code said. “There’s nothing to study that way.” Another meal of dirt. “Or not in these circumstances. Maybe if- Oh, for Celestia’s sake, Bitterroot, get down here. …I know you can see us, you’ve been hovering right over us this whole time. …I can hit you with a rock from here. I’m an earth pony, I have good aim.”

Within seconds, a dark shape dropped through the trees, landing right next to Amanita and making her jump. Bitterroot looked none the worse for wear as she pulled out her earpiece and passed it back to Code. “Like I said. Really nifty.”

“If a bit intrusive at times,” said Code, a touch surlier than usual. “We’ll need to find a way to turn them off.”

“We’re not going further in,” Varnish said. He was suddenly on the edges of their group, like he’d just teleported there. “Perhaps the river did change course. But it’s much too dangerous to go-”

“C’mon, we won’t need to go far,” wheedled Charcoal. “Just a view- few more minutes. We haven’t even seen anything dangerous yet!” Although she glanced down at her hooves.

“We will if we keep going further in. This is not something we can take lightly. What would you know, you can’t even speak properly!”

“Listen,” Code said, stepping forward.“This isn’t. I know how the peaceful can turn dangerous in-”

“Do you? Because it seems-”

“You do not interrupt me,” Code said, jabbing Varnish in the chest. She hadn’t raised her voice and her ears were still up, yet she felt a lot less small. “We are not tourists. We are not adventurers. We are not thrillseekers. We are specialists. We have a job to do. We are here to help you. We are not taking your job lightly, so you should not take our job lightly. And if you think we’re not worth it…” She pointed south, upriver. “Tratonmane’s that way.”

Varnish opened his mouth as if a retort would automatically spring from it. Nothing did. Whippletree looked ready to pull rank before Varnish stepped away, scowling and making sure to flick his tail in Code’s face.

Charcoal immediately said, “So anyway since we’re still going let’s keep going and we can fish up and get back out as soon as possible okay great.” Her turn downriver was stuffed full of very chalant nonchalance; Code followed her without a word, while Amanita and Bitterroot briefly exchanged looks. This time, the silence of the militia behind them was tense and brittle.

Still, they were off again, into the same darkness as before. But they didn’t have long to go before they found the bear.

Bitterroot hadn’t seen a dead animal this big in person before. (Well, okay, she’d seen a dead bear once. But it’d been trying to kill her, so she didn’t think that counted.) It was at least three times her size: big enough to feel big, not big enough to turn bigness over and stop feeling like a real thing, not like dragons. It was big and furry and far too still. The unicorns’ hornlights were throwing weird shadows through the fur. At first, Bitterroot didn’t know what had killed it.

Then she walked around a little and flinched at the ripped-open throat and pooling blood.

“Bad omen,” muttered Varnish. “We shouldn’t be here.”

He was ignored. “Dear land,” breathed another guard. She walked forward, just out of poking range. “What coulda done this?”

Amanita immediately scurried to the bear’s neck and peered at its wound. After a moment, she said, “Timberwolves, I’ll bet. These wounds weren’t made by regular claws or teeth.” She ran a hoof along the bear’s fur. “They’re too ragged, more like they were torn than sliced. And…” She plucked something from the neck, holding it up for all to see: the ragged tip of a branch. “This was lodged in too deeply. Timberwolves. …You, uh, do have timberwolves up here, right?”

“Aye,” said Whippletree. He rustled his wings and pawed at the ground. “I dinnae ken the number, bein’ they’re timberwolves-”

One of the guards groaned and planted her face in her hoof. “Three cords, Whipple,” she said. “Midwich has three cords o’ wolves.”

“Three cords?” asked Charcoal. “Oh, that’s not bad at all! As long as the line hasn’t done anything to them.”

“Hang on,” said Bitterroot, raising a hoof. “Cords? Of wolves?”

“It’s hard to count timberwolves as individuals,” said Charcoal. She was looking as closely at the bear as she could while still being six feet away. “They can split apart and recombine, you know, with two smaller ones turning into one big one or vise versa. The general rule is that if each wolf is the size of a wolf, one cord is three or four wolves.”

“Aye,” said the guard. “They dinnae cause nae trouble fer Tratonmane. Ne’er seen ary closer’n a mile tae the town.”

Charcoal’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? But that would mean the ley line doesn’t have anything to do with the wolves. The, the regular wolves, I mean.” Her voice dropped into audible thoughts and she started pacing back and forth. “Timberwolves are technically plants, ley lines affect them faster… But wolves don’t keep coming back like that… Unless-”

“Whoa, hold up,” said Amanita. She was peering at the bear’s wound more intently than Bitterroot would’ve felt comfortable doing and dragging a hoof along the edges. Blood still stuck to it when she pulled away, and whatever she saw made her very interested. “Hey, uh, does…” She extended the stained hoof behind her. “Does anyone have a knife?”

“Here.” Code pulled a knife from her bags and passed it over.

“Thanks.” Crouching down, Amanita began shaving the bear’s fur from its body. Bitterroot found herself hovering (not literally) just behind her, curious. She’d worked with certain bounty hunters to know what Amanita was looking for: livor mortis. And as the fur came away, more and more livor mortis revealed itself: a mottled gray broken up by reddish and brownish bruising from the blood settling as arteries and veins relaxed. Nothing unusual.

“Uh-huh,” muttered Amanita. She nudged one of the bear’s legs; it flexed, with some effort. “Which means we’re on the downslope of rigor mortis…” She looked over her shoulder at the rest of the group. “This bear was killed around the same time as the wolf attack yesterday. Within an hour or so.”

Silence. Code said, “Does that mean anything?”

“No idea,” Amanita said, turning back to the bear. She sniffed at the neck wound. “But something’s up here.” After a moment’s thought, she stabbed into the bear’s stomach and carefully sliced it open. Bitterroot grimaced and waved a hoof in front of her nose to ward off-

Then Amanita plunged her leg into the gash, all the way up to her withers, and the smell was instantly forgotten. She rummaged through it like it was just an overfull knapsack and not a corpse. Blood and other fluids trickled from the gash and onto the ground.

Bitterroot swallowed. “A-Amanita?” she asked.

“Yeah?” Amanita didn’t look at her.

The bear lurched. So did Bitteroot’s stomach. “…Never mind, it’s, it’s nothing.”

Amanita grunted. “Sun blast it,” she murmured. “Where is…”

She pulled open the gash and crawled inside past her withers.

Whippletree looked at Code with a supreme blend of disgust and confusion, Code was regretting something but only slightly, Charcoal seemed to be in genuine medical shock, Varnish was too surprised to have much of a reaction at all besides wide-eyed, slightly-slack-jawed gawking, and the other guards were very resolutely trying to look away from Amanita yet failing.

The body jiggled from side to side as Amanita rooted around. Somehow, Bitterroot’s revulsion was occasionally looping back around into fascination. Occasionally.

When Amanita pulled back out, her head was dripping with blood and don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it. Sitting on one hoof was holy Celestia that was a HEART. Wiping her face down like she was just flicking off water, keeping her eyes on the heart, Amanita said, “It’s weird, its insides are kinda hard… Not like they’re frozen, either, more like they’re… syrup or something… I mean, look at this-” She squeezed the heart oh sisters oh sisters a few times and several large globules of blood dribbled out. “-that really isn’t the viscosity of blood… It smells funny, too-”

“What in the nation are ye doin’?” screamed Whippletree.

“Hmm?” Amanita looked up. She didn’t make the slightest indication that everyone was flinging looks her way like she was a castle and they were siege engines. “What’s it look like? I’m doing an animal autopsy.”

“Ye’re- covered in-” Whippletree gestured up and down as he took a step back.

“It’s just blood! Everyone’s got it!” Amanita snorted and tossed the heart over her shoulder. “Sheesh…” She plucked the knife from the ground, wiped the blade down on the chest of her coat, and held it out to Code. Code hesitated for a fraction of a second before grabbing and sheathing it. Still dripping bodily fluids, Amanita looked down at the bear and murmured, “What killed you?”

“Could, could, could you please wipe yourself down?” whispered Charcoal. “I know it’s just blood and I know everyone’s got it but it’s supposed to be on the inside I mean that’s why it’s called your insides and nowit’sonyouroutsideandcallmecrazybutIdon’tthinkyougetafreepassjustbecauseyou’reanec-”

Bitterroot and Code both snapped to look at her, but Charcoal had cut herself off before the full syllable could come out, although she looked like she’d just been sentenced to death. Fortunately, no one else seemed to notice, not even Amanita; she’d just pulled some bandages from their pack and was dabbing herself down while the guards were putting all of their attention into not leaving the area immediately.

“Strange,” said Amanita. She forced the bear’s mouth open and sniffed the inside. “Very strange.”

“Can you… tell me the next time you’re going to be strange?” asked Bitterroot. “I’d like to be ready.”

Amanita didn’t respond, but she did smirk.

“D’ye- need- tae do- arythin’ else?” Whippletree asked. You could almost hear his stomach attempting to squirm its way up his throat. “I’d rather not- stay here long.”

“Just one thing,” Amanita said. “I’m going to take a look at its death.”

Amanita didn’t know why she’d suggested it. Curiosity had gotten the better of her, evidently. It hadn’t even crept up on her, it’d just jumped out, seized her, and run off like a bandit, leading to the words coming out before she realized what she was saying.

For maybe a second, she locked up. She’d said the wrong thing. She’d be found out immediately. The second day, not even a full twenty-four hours, and she’d already screwed up. Maybe Code could save this. She was a colonel, the High Ritualist; she had to have experience with saving dire situations, right? Right? Maybe she could-

And as those thoughts stampeded their way through Amanita’s conscious mind, muscle memory led to her putting a hoof on the body and muttering, “Meminerim mortem.” She’d already decided she’d do it, after all.

She left physicality behind, skating away on the structure of Tempus Mortis. Within an idea, she found herself in the bear’s death. Animal roars, snarls, and whimpers hung in the sensation around her. And before her, the bear. It was falling to the ground, a single timberwolf clinging to its neck, digging in, tearing.

Amanita moved closer, expecting something more. Was there something special about this timberwolf? Was it infected with magic in some way? Did it have some special signature? There had to be something to explain the bear’s changes, right?

But if there was, she couldn’t find it, not through Tempus Mortis. Just the wolf. There weren’t any strange symbols on its branches or smoke coming from it. It wasn’t glowing, didn’t seem to be changing. It was just a timberwolf. She turned her attention around the area, the same clearing she had just left; nothing. Not even any other timberwolves. The region Tempus Mortis was drawing up was oddly small, like it was the only spot that mattered in the bear’s death. Even though something was going on with the bear’s insides that this glimpse couldn’t explain.

After a quick mental note to expand the senses Tempus Mortis allowed, Amanita let the spell collapse. She stepped away from the bear, trying to remember the memory-projection spell.

“That ain’t gonna take long, is it?” Whippletree asked.

“Already done,” Amanita said, closing her eyes. “Gimme a sec.”

“A- Already done?” asked Whippletree. “Ye didnae do arything!”

“Yes I did,” said Amanita through gritted teeth. The projection spell was being a pain again. “Keep quiet.”

“What do you even mean by ‘take a look at its death’?” demanded Varnish. “You can hardly-”

Difficulty slipped and Amanita’s memories sprang from her horn. The image of the timberwolf attacking the bear was woven into the air before everyone. Amanita briefly spared herself a grin before she said, “There. The bear’s death. Let me know if you spot anything.” And she dropped onto her haunches.

The guards were all dumbstruck at what they were seeing, unless they were whispering to each other. Amanita couldn’t blame them; Tempus Mortis had been surprising enough in Canterlot, where ponies invented new spells every Tuesday. Bitterroot and Code were both considerably less impressed, having already seen it or (in Code’s case) worked on it, and set to examining it. Yet Charcoal, who had never seen it before, simply frowned, squinting at the wolf and the bear. “Huh.”

Amanita followed her gaze. Whatever she was looking at was lost in the forest. “Huh what?”

“Aspens.” Charcoal blinked and shook her head. “The timberwolf, it’s, it’s aspen. Usually they’re something like moat- like oak or ash or maybe pine. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an aspen timberwolf before.” She leaned forward, stroking her chin. “Sometimes, timberwolves, they take qualities of whatever timber they’re a wolf of. Stronger, faster, more agile, larger, that sort of thing. And you know what’s special about aspens?” She whipped around, grinning at the group. “Clonal colonies! A lot of nearby aspens, they often grew from the same loot syst- the same root system and they’re technically the same plant. It’s not a grove of aspenssss, it’s a grove of an aspen, as in one.”

“What’s that mean fer timberwolves?” asked Whippletree. He was still gawking at the image.

“I have no idea!” Charcoal said cheerily. “Maybe they all share a mind and it’s just one wolf with many bodies. That’s actually not too far from-”

“How on Equus did you do that?” Varnish asked. “You just… looked at its death. With one spell! What sort of magic is that?”

Everypony looked at Amanita. Which, luckily, meant nopony was watching Bitterroot (who raised her head too much to look at ease and tightened her wings), Code (who set her jaw and kneaded the ground), or Charcoal (who widened her eyes and folded her ears back). Amanita managed to keep her tail still and waved a hoof vaguely. “Oh, it’s. Y’know. New type of spell. Experimental magic. I developed it. We’re still working on it, but I think it’s coming along nicely, don’t you?”

Varnish mouthed, You… He rattled his head like he was shaking off water and said ponderously, “Intriguing.”

Amanita managed not to fidget beneath his gaze, although the image of the bear’s death vanished. “I guess.”

“Is it-”

The howl of a wolf cut through the forest. Everybody snapped their heads to look in its direction as it echoed down the valley from further north.

Charcoal nickered quietly and pawed at the ground. “That’s pretty far away,” she said, failing to be reassuring even to herself.

“In a place like this, hearing it at all means it’s too close,” Code said, placing a hoof on her sword.

“Aye,” said Whippletree grimly. “We’re a-gettin’ back tae Tratonmane.”

“Y’know, that’s fine, I learned everything I could out here, anyway,” Charcoal said.

The group galloped upstream, taking with them more questions than answers.

8 - Mountain Mares

When they reached the forest line, sunlight was about four-fifths of the way down Midwich’s western wall, which put the time at… 10ish, Amanita guessed. Maybe 11. Why hadn’t she thought to bring a watch? Varnish stalked away about halfway between Tratonmane and Midwich, vanishing as if he’d become part of the darkness. Whippletree shook his head, muttering nothings under his breath.

When they actually reached the limits of Tratonmane, Whippletree dismissed the rest of the militia, although he himself stayed behind. “I’d like tae beg yer pardon o’er Resin Varnish,” he said. “He can be… hard.” He glanced back up the road Varnish had disappeared down. “Might could jes’ be the forest. It sets the best o’ ponies on edge an’ he’s liked us goin’ in less’n most. But that ain’t no excuse. I’ll have a word with ’im later.”

“Thank you,” said Code. “A proper amount of discipline is important.” (Amanita knew from experience that Code meant proper. No more than a stern talking-to would probably be proper at this stage.)

“’Tis,” Whippletree replied. He shuffled his hooves and flexed his wing. “So, ah, if’n ye… dinnae mind me askin’, what’d ye find?”

Code sucked in a breath through her nose and looked up. The blue of the sky seemed to be straining to reach the valley floor. “Not much,” she said. “Which at least means we won’t need to go out there again. Not unless the situation changes dramatically.”

“Good,” said Whippletree. Indeed, just the thought of not going into Midwich again seemed to be making him perk up a little.

“It’s weird,” said Charcoal, pacing a ring into the snow. “The wolves are acting funny, but it’s not because of the ley line, because otherwise the timberwolves would be acting even worse, but they stay back in the furriest- forest and don’t bother you. Except the timberwolves are acting worse, because they don’t just leave their prey to rot like that. And it was an aspen wolf, but only one aspen wolf, and not a big one at that. And then there’s the river…”

Code coughed and Charcoal yanked herself back to the present. “There’s a lot of weird stuff in the forest,” Charcoal said, “but done- none of that’s got to do with the ley line. All of our study can be done here in Tratonmane. We are not going back in. …I hope. There better not be a spriggan out there…”

“Have you seen anything else strange happening around here?” Code asked. “In the past…” She pawed at the ground for a moment. “…seven days? That was when the ley line first turned. Maybe among the miners.”

And Whippletree immediately folded his ears back. “It… ain’t really my place tae say, but… Pyrita’s been havin’… problems. Fer some reason, she went intae the mine in the middle o’ the night seven night back, came back out in the morn, and jes’… collapsed. Her sister took ’er home and she ain’t hardly moved since.”

Ah. Finally, something tangible. They could dig into that. But Amanita tried not to get too excited; it sounded like this Pyrita was comatose and, well, it was cruel to get excited about that. Still, something to study was something to study. Maybe they could help her along the way.

“You sound nervous,” Code said casually.

“It’s her sister,” Whippletree said. “Arrastra’s… touchy ’bout ’er family. She dinnae want us gosspin' like hens about ’em. I dinnae blame ’er, but gabbin’ about this doesnae feel proper.”

“Can you point us in her direction?” Code said. “Then we can discuss it face-to-face and she can buck me in the head if she so desires.”

Whippletree snorted and his wings relaxed. “Aye, I can show ye.”

“I think I’ll stay here.” Charcoal was looking out over the river. “I’ll just run a few cans- scans of the river. I wonder if there’s anything in the water to make it twist like that. Probably not.”

“I heard there’s an inventor in town,” piped up Bitterroot. “They helped with the plumbing. You could ask them if they’re doing anything with the water.”

“Oh, aye, Midwinter.” Whippletree nodded. “Sure, she an’ her family worked on that. I can take ye tae her.”

“Sure. Might as well,” Charcoal said, shrugging.

“Arrastra’s house is along the way,” Whippletree said to Code. “I’ll show ye. Come on.”

They were a ways into Tratonmane, not far from the Great Ash, before Whippletree pointed out a house. “Arrastra’s,” he said. “She’s mindin’ out fer Pyrita there. She’s a mite prickly, so be ready.”

Which wasn’t the worst recommendation of someone, but hardly the best, either. After a quick swing by the inn to wash her head and change out of the clothes she’d worn while inside the bear, Amanita did her best to keep her head up as Code knocked on the door. She could do this. She was just going to look at a comatose pony with her possibly-overprotective sister still around. Nothing wrong with that, right?

It took a little longer than Amanita had expected for the knock to be answered. The elderly, eyepatched chiropterus who opened the door looked like someone who was physically strong but whose fights hadn’t been physical for a long time. The second she saw who was at the door, she jerked her back so suddenly Amanita half-expected to hear a hiss. “Canterlot ritualists?” she asked.

Code nodded. “I’m Restricted Code and this is Amanita. We-”

“Cannae talk wi’ ye,” said Arrastra. “I’m busy.” She stepped back, ready to slam the door.

“About Pyrita!” Amanita said hastily. Sibling overprotectiveness be torn, they needed this.

It worked. Arrastra halted, her jaw set. “Ye’re a-goin’ tae help ’er?” she asked.

“Any way we can,” Code said, nodding.

There was a lengthy moment of silence before Arrastra wordlessly waved them in. Chiropteri being chiropteri, the inside wasn’t lit. Arrastra simply walked forward, chirping; Amanita lit her horn after scraping past a table in the cramped space. They were led upstairs.

Upstairs was lit; in the main room, a flickering light gem hung above an easel with a not-bad landscape painting in one corner and a lantern dangled from the ceiling above one of the two beds. On that bed, beneath the sheets, lay another chiropterus, eyes slightly open but too still to be awake. She looked even older than Arrastra, maybe 70-ish. She didn’t look hurt, but for some comas, that didn’t mean much.

“Here,” said Arrastra. “She- She’s my sister.” Her voice tried to stay strong, but Amanita could tell its foundation was brittle.

“Could you tell us what happened?” Code asked.

“Aye. We live togethern, here.” Arrastra lightly stomped the floor with a rear hoof. “An’- Six day ago, she went out tae speak wi’ Midwinter abouten the water pressure — ’tis always been high here — an’ she werenae back when I bedded. Alright, mebbe they’re a-talkin’. She dinnae like it when ponies get nex’ tae her that late, but Pyrita’s got a way o’ speakin’. But she still werenae here yet when I woke up an’ Midwinter said she ne’er saw her. I went a-lookin’ fer her an’- fer s-some tarnal reason, she c-comes a-stumblin’ out o’ the drift o’ the mine up south. She dinnae look ’urt, but she’s a-ramblin’ somethin’ fierce, r-right up ’til the moment she d-drops. I got ’er b-back home, an’… An’ she ain’t hardly done nothin’ since.”

“I’m sorry,” Amanita said.

“I’ve been up here fer most o’ the past week,” Arrastra said. She pawed at the floorboards, seemingly unconsciously. “Fer everwhen she needs… arythin’. Took up paintin’ tae pass the time.” She gestured at the easel with a wing. “As I say. Busy.”

“And what do you take care of for her?” asked Code.

“Everythin’,” snapped Arrastra. “She’s family. Movin’ ’er so she dinnae get sore, feedin’ ’er mush, cleanin’ ’er when-”

“Yes, everything,” Code said tensely. “You said she was speaking before she collapsed?”

“Aye, she w-were handlin’. Cannae recall much. …S-somethin’ ’bout… severed b-beasts, a walker, an’ a t-trisect.” Arrastra took a shaky breath and raised a leg to wipe at her eye and patch.

Code opened her mouth, but Amanita quickly elbowed her. When Code looked at her, Amanita simply shot her a glare and shook her head. Code pursed her lips slightly, but nodded.

“Sorry,” Arrastra muttered. She raised her eyepatch to wipe at the fur beneath; her eye was gone but her tear ducts weren’t. “I… I jes’-”

“Remembering seeing a family member like that is hard,” Amanita said simply. She still hated some of her last moments with Zinnia, simply because of how small and weak Zinnia had looked.

“Aye.” Arrastra drew herself up and continued, “She spoke tae me, an’ jes’ me. I cannae remember much. I’ve been a-takin’ care o’ her e’er since.” She said these words to Amanita, not to Code.

“It’s possible she was affected when the ley line turned,” said Code. “The timeline is right and the mine might be close to the line’s source. Is there anything strange or unusual down there?”

“…Nay,” Arrastra said. “Jes’ coal an’ rocks.”

“At least you’re safe,” Amanita said. She gazed at Pyrita and her hooves twitched sympathetically. “Mind if I take a closer look at her physicals? It won’t be anything major.” When she’d first gotten her cutie mark, she’d gone digging through all sorts of medical texts looking for ways to apply it. A lot of the tests she’d read had stuck with her.

“…Ye’re Amanita, right? The blood doctor?” Arrastra said.

“I am, and it’s more healing magic in general. But,” Amanita added quickly, “but I wouldn’t be able to fix her. I just want to get a general idea of her health.”

A long pause before Arrastra said, “If’n it can help ’er, go ahead.”

“Great. Thanks.” Amanita moved in close to Pyrita, peered at one of her pupils. In the dim light of Tratonmane, it was fairly dilated. Amanita brightened her horn a little and the pupil smoothly contracted. Good start.

“Let’s get you up,” Amanita muttered. She pulled off the sheets and delicately raised Pyrita into a sitting position, making sure to keep her head from flopping around. She heard some rustling behind her, like Code and Arrastra were surprised, but when they didn’t say anything, she ignored them. She looked Pyrita in the eyes. They quite didn’t have the brightness of life in them, but they didn’t have the flatness of death, either. She knew both of those quite well. Placing a hoof on both sides of Pyrita’s head, Amanita turned it carefully to one side. Pyrita’s eyes at first kept looking in her direction, then slowly moved back to the head’s midline. As expected. She repeated the action in the other direction and got similar results. Very good. Head up, same results. Head down, same results.

“Very good,” Amanita not-quite-whispered to herself as she laid Pyrita back down. “Just one more test.” She pulled Pyrita’s blankets back over her and turned to Arrastra. “Where’s your bathroom?” Arrastra blinked and simply pointed. Amanita retrieved a cup of cold water from there (the sink sprayed like mad, though), sat down next to Pyrita, looked her in the eyes again, and poured a trickle of water into her ear.

“What in the nation d’ye think ye’re doin’?” Arrastra growled, her wings rustling threateningly.

Amanita didn’t look at her. “Testing the caloric reflex,” she said. “If you pour cold water into an unconscious pony’s ear, their eyes ought to look towards that ear.” Which happened even as she explained it. She stopped pouring and used a tiny bit of magic to carefully levitate the water back out.

Setting the cup on a side table, Amanita said, “The good news is she’s probably not brain-damaged. Her reflexes are still there. Now…” She placed a hoof on Pyrita’s neck. Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub… “Heartbeat’s good…” Another hoof on her chest. As Pyrita breathed, it rose and fell smoothly.

Very smoothly. Amanita waited for several moments longer than was necessary just to be sure. “Huh. Her breathing’s pretty clear.”

“An’… that’s bad?” asked Arrastra.

“Oh, no, not at all. It’s just, you said she’d been a miner, I thought she might’ve developed black lung.”

“What?”

“You know, black lung. Uh, miner’s asthma? Coughing, shortness of breath, chest pains…”

“That’s a thing?”

Amanita looked behind her. Arrastra was staring at her like she’d said something bizarre. “Yeah,” Amanita said slowly. “You’re… breathing in coal dust for most of your life… Don’t you have any old miners who have trouble breathing?”

“Nay.”

“…None. None at all?”

Arrastra shook her head. “It’s jes’ dust, ain’t it?”

“It’s coal dust, and it’s collecting in your body. It scars your lungs and just… builds up. It turns them black.” Amanita stood up. “And you’re telling me nopony in Tratonmane has it?”

“Ye need tae be tough out ’ere,” snorted Arrastra. “Seems tae me we jes’ ignore it.”

Which was a load of absolute night fertilizer. Ignoring black lung was like ignoring starvation: you didn’t. Nature didn’t care how tough you were. If coal dust was collecting in your lungs, you felt it, one way or another. Maybe your chest would ache. Maybe you wheezed. Maybe you never seemed to get enough air, no matter how deeply you breathed. Maybe you couldn’t stop coughing. You knew. Except here they were, in a town based around coal mining, and by some act of divine providence, black lung was completely absent.

Only one explanation came to Amanita right then. “Or maybe it’s the ley line.” But it didn’t seem right. It was too vague, too hoof-wavey. Rituals could be nebulous, but there was still a clear line of reasoning, if abstract reasoning, in how they worked. Not the anti-explanation of “it’s magic” that she’d heard griffons and zebras hated. Saying it’s the ley line explained nothing and satisfied no one. At least Charcoal would be happy for the work.

Arrastra just shrugged.

“Beg pardon,” Code spoke up, “but do you usually have those near beds?”

Amanita followed her hoof. All this time, she’d been looking at Pyrita, not above her. But on the wall above Pyrita, a little grain wreath was hanging on a nail. A tiny bit smaller across than a hoof, it was just a circle with two perpendicular lines across it, but it was impeccably crafted. And now that she had noticed it, Amanita had a hard time looking away. There was something special about that, she knew, something she couldn’t quite put her hoof on.

Arrastra blinked her attention back to Code and shook her head. “I… Nay. Not lessun they take sick.”

“I see,” Code said. “Interesting.”

“Um. Code?” Amanita coughed. “We haven’t discussed those yet, have we?”

“Not in our work, no. This-” Code stabbed a hoof at the ring. “-is called a grain mother. It’s a primitive but fairly straightforward ritual item. They’re not used much anymore, but only because of advancements in medicine outclassing them; in the right circumstances, they’re still quite useful. And one of those circumstances is preserving resources in long-populated settlements.” She made a sweeping gesture around them, grinning and nodding. “See, grain mothers only work because of the connection the weaver has to the land. Not magical, like earth ponies-” Amanita felt the wooden boards purr beneath Code’s hooves. “-but emotional. The land needs to be a home, an old home, a constant home. You need to have worked it — magic or plow or your own four hooves, it doesn’t matter, as long as it was you. Because if you give to the land, the land can give something back.”

Code started pacing back and forth as best she could, making quick, slashing motions with one of her hooves. “Grain is… It has an idea behind it. You see fields of grain, and you think whoever’s growing it has plenty of food, yes? It’s vitality, it’s health, it’s prosperity. So when you weave something like this, you’re calling back that idea. But that idea only truly works if you’ve been taking care of grain for a while, or else you’re just taking. If you have been working with grain, it’s more like you’re calling in a favor for the work you put in. You scratched its back, so now it’s scratching yours. Simply put, that-” Code pointed at the wreath again. “-could not have been made by anyone other than a Tratonmanian and still work.”

Switches flicked back and forth in Amanita’s mind. Code was speaking fast again, and it was sometimes hard to follow her when she fell into that pattern. “So it’s… essentially working along the sympathetic emotional connection, but with no one on the other side?”

“More or less. You create it yourself, by putting so much of yourself into it. And because it’s made from grain from the last harvest, it can still-”

“-still invoke the gestalt ideal, which heals them.” That Amanita knew. When you healed someone, you had to work towards what the body wanted; the grain mother must’ve been working the same way, but much slower. Yet even slow, that was quite impressive for something that could be made by somepony who was technically an unskilled laborer.

“It’s a charm that ’eals ponies,” Arrastra grumbled. “Ye dinnae need tae get all a-technical, fer land’s sakes.”

“In our line of work, it helps,” said Code. “We need to know how the charm works. …May I have it?”

Arrastra narrowed her eyes and half-opened her wings, but Code quickly said, “Let me rephrase. I would like to replace the charm with one of my own, just as effective, so I can study this one.”

“Why?” asked Arrastra, surprisingly aggressively.

“Because the mother was made with grain grown here, it’ll be imbued with magic from the ley line. That will give us more data to study and figure out what’s wrong with the line.”

Arrastra looked at Charcoal, at the mother, at Pyrita. With a heavy sigh, she said, “She’s my sister, an’ I ken this works. If- ye take it away an’ she gets worser-”

“If my circle doesn’t work,” said Code, “we’ll give you the mother back, no questions asked. Your safety is more important than our study.”

Amanita could tell Arrastra was thinking hard from the way her ears flicked back and forth. “Alright. Jes’… make it quick.”

“Thank you. First of all, can I borrow a few drops of black paint?”

Arrastra looked at her easel, looked back at Code. Amanita could tell the exact moment she gave up on trying to make sense of it all. “Sure. Help yerself.”

“Excellent.” Without further ado, Code grabbed the cup from where Amanita had left it and trotted downstairs and out the door.

The Look Arrastra gave Amanita was even harsher in the dim light.

“She needs paint and water to make ink,” explained Amanita. “River water’s better than tap water because it’s closer to nature and Midwich. She’s just trying to make the replacement as good as possible.”

“Ain’t much fer reasons, is she?” Arrastra said with a snort.

Amanita grinned weakly. “Not really, no. She has a bad habit of not explaining herself if she doesn’t need to explain herself.”

Her eyes fell on Pyrita. Seven days comatose. At this age. And Arrastra had been taking care of her, here, for all that time. Maybe alone. Family was important to her. More important than Amanita’s had ever been to-

Wait. Seven days… Amanita ran the numbers in her head. “Pyrita was in the mine when the ley line turned,” she said. Not just close to the date, on the date. “Maybe there’s something in the mine connected to the line.”

“There ain’t,” Arrastra said quickly. “It’s a happen-so. Coincidence. I dinnae ken why she went in tae begin with, but it weren’t the line. Elseways, others’d follow ’er.”

“But once she was in-” Amanita cut herself off. Pyrita going into the mine for whatever reason was important, but too external to the mine to have happened because of the ley line without others doing the same. Probably. Yet she’d been in the mine… “Can I feel some of the magic inside her, then? Maybe there’s something left over from the ley-”

“There ain’t,” Arrastra said. Again, quickly. “I’ve done had a charm doctor give ’er a look-see. There ain’t ary magic o’ that sort in her. Ye willnae find nothin’.”

“Right,” Amanita said, nodding. All of this had probably been done before, if she was being honest. Right down to her own tests. It wasn’t like Arrastra was on her own, not in this sort of community. They’d give her what help they could. And even if they didn’t know what the specific sort of magic was in somepony, a unicorn could still sense it and know something was wrong.

Still, Amanita couldn’t throw that thought away.

Below them, the front door creaked open and Code came trotting back up the stairs, holding a cupful of water in her mouth. She set it on the floor and pulled out a few items: a tiny bowl, a slim brush, a sheet of paper. She mixed the water and some of Arrastra’s black paint together in the bowl until it was closer to ink. Taking the brush in her mouth, she murmured, “This won’t take long.” She closed her eyes, tightened the muscles in her neck, and started jerking the brush semi-randomly across the paper, occasionally leaving behind a thin line.

“She’s feeling the rhythm of the magic around here,” Amanita preemptively whispered to Arrastra. “Those sorts of motions let the world pull the brush in a… way that’s good for magic. Like letting a compass show you north.”

Arrastra flicked her tail. “I ken north.”

“Outside of Midwich. It’ll make a good shape for the charm.”

Code’s jerks stopped and she opened her eyes to see what she’d drawn. “Hmm. Interesting.”

Amanita craned her neck to look. Acting completely on random instinct, Code had redrawn the crossed circle from the mother. Surprisingly sharply, too.

“I need a rhyme,” Code muttered, tapping her hoof on the floor. “I need a rhyme to give me time to let this art enact its part… A-ha, perfect.” She crumpled the paper up, stuffed it in a pocket, and walked over to Pyrita. With one hoof on the bedframe for balance, she extended her neck until she could almost touch the wall on Pyrita’s other side.

“We start at the top, with the head and the mind,” incanted Code. She set the brush to the wall. “The circle goes clockwise, for healing takes time.” She drew the circle in one impossibly smooth swoop. “The top to the bottom, the ears to the nails.” A line straight down through the middle. “The front to the back, from the nose to the tail.” A line straight across, perpendicular to the first. Code set the brush back in the bucket, placed a hoof on the wall right next to the circle, and closed her eyes. “It is by these actions we may hold her all and drive out the fugue that doth hold her in thrall. This pony’s mind healed; this I humbly implore. May she speak to us as she did once before.”

The roots of Amanita’s teeth twitched once. In her sleep, Pyrita made some vague murmur. Arrastra had slowly backpedaled and was standing against the far wall. Swallowing, she asked, “Who, who’re youn a-talkin’ tae?”

Code stepped away from the bed. “Whoever’s listening, even if that’s just the magic. Sometimes, ritualists need to be theologically flexible.”

“Ah.” Arrastra’s ears stopped being plastered against the top of her head. “I… see.”

“I don’t think I have any further questions,” Code said. “Amanita, do you-”

Pyrita coughed.

Everyone froze for an instant. Then Arrastra was crouched at the bedside. “Pyrita?” She lightly batted at Pyrita’s cheeks as her eyes fluttered. “Are ye there?”

Another cough. Pyrita’s legs twitched; so did Arrastra’s wings. She grinned as she said, “C’mon, I’m here fer ye, I-”

“Arrastra?” Pyrita wheezed.

Arrastra collapsed onto her haunches, laughing quietly. “I’m here fer ye.”

Code opened her mouth, only for Amanita to get her attention with a shoulder nudge and jerk her head back towards the stairs. Code paused, nodded, and took a step forward to whisper in Arrastra’s ear. “Make sure she sleeps there,” she said quickly. “If there’s any more work to be done, the circle will help. If you need to talk to us, we’ll be at the inn.”

Arrastra nodded, waving them vaguely away. “Pyrita, d’ye need arythin’? Ye’re home, ye got…”

Amanita tread lightly down the stairs, Code close behind. Without much of any other place to go, she went back outside. Glancing up at the second-floor window, she said, “The Rite of Brave Spear doesn’t usually work that fast, does it?”

“No,” Code said. She raised the grain mother to her eye level; the wreath twisted subtly in the wind. “Perhaps this helped. It’s a very well-made mother… Hmm. Let’s take it back to our room. I’d rather not lose it.” She squinted up; the sun had crawled its way over the valley rim. “It’s getting close to noon. Should we find Charcoal and Bitterroot first so we can have lunch?”

“Nah. Bitterroot’ll head there, anyway, and drag Charcoal with her. Let’s get something to eat.”

Bitterroot had come here in case Amanita had needed moral support. She’d done a lot of lackey work for free and had spent very little time with Amanita. Funny how that turned out. (Why was she even sticking with Charcoal at the moment? Curiosity, apparently.)

Whippletree was leading them south. Very south. South past the train station and coal breaker and one of Tratonmane’s towers. So south that the sides of Midwich Valley were narrowing. When she looked up, Bitterroot began feeling claustrophobic. And with the end of the valley approaching, they were in the coldest part of the valley, a place where no sunlight ever reached.

Yet plants still grew. Charcoal picked a few flowers from near the stream and held them up for Bitterroot to see. “Grass-of-Parneighssus!” she chirped. “It’s pretty common in these sorts of climes, but take a look at the hem! Stem! It’s not green at all! In fact, it looks sick, which you’d expect from living without sunlight. Buuuuuut…” She flexed the stem; when she let go, it straightened out again. “…it’s perfectly healthy! Because it’s close enough to the ley line that it doesn’t need sunlight for photosynf- photosynthesis and produces less chlorophyll. Other than that, it’s just like any other grass-of-Parneighssus.” She popped one of the flowers into her mouth. “Right down to tasting good. A lot of the time, it doesn’t matter where you get your energy as long as you get it.”

It did taste good, Bitterroot decided as she chewed. Once she swallowed, she asked Whippletree, “So what’s the deal with Midwinter and her family?”

“Ach, they work on… I dinnae ken,” said Whippletree. “Inventions. Ne’er seen ’em aside frae the plumbin’.” Shrug. “But they’ve kept the water a-runnin’ ’round ’ere fer years, an’ that’s good enough fer me. They’re nice enough.”

“Hmm.”

Although deep in the dark, Midwinter’s house was still some ways from the very end of the valley; miners occasionally passed it on their way to and from work. It was larger than most Tratonmane houses, sprawling across its open land like a tired dog. Bitterroot was reminded of some of the smaller manor houses she’d seen. Shortly after Whippletree knocked on the door, it was opened by a glum-looking, middle-aged earth pony who would’ve looked like he’d been standing in a downpour for the last twenty-four hours if he hadn’t been dry. “Mornin’,” he said. (Bitterroot glanced up; it was still morning, technically.)

“Mornin’, Fuligin,” Whippletree said, giving him a nod. “Is Midwinter around? The Guard wants tae talk to ’er.”

Fuligin’s eyes flicked back and forth between Bitterroot and Charcoal. “Aye, she’s ’ere. Come in.”

“Or, wait, this won’t take long,” Charcoal said, raising a hoof. “It’s just about the plumbing-”

But Fuligin shook his head. “I dinnae work with ’er,” he said, “jes’ for her. I cannae answer yer questions.” He waved Bitterroot and Charcoal in, leaving Whippletree to fly back to Tratonmane.

The interior would’ve been grand if it hadn’t been dark. Fuligin lit a match and soon had an array of oil lamps blazing away. He led them to a sitting room — the house was large enough to have a sitting room, with sofas and chairs and something that probably qualified as a coffee table — and said, “Wait here.” He quickly vanished through a door that looked like a stairway to a basement.

Bitterroot squinted at one of the sofas. A bit dusty and the style was old, but perfectly fine. She and Charcoal settled down onto it; comfy enough. When she took another look around the sitting room, she wondered how long it’d been since it’d really been used; everything could use at least a brushdown to get rid of the dust.

It wasn’t long before Fuligin returned from the basement. Coming up right behind him was Midwinter, wiping what looked like grease off her necklace with a cloth. Close behind her was Carnelian.

The second she was out of the stairs, Carnelian was staring intensely at Charcoal. “You… were not kidding in the slightest,” she said softly. Charcoal flinched and wiggled back on the sofa as she struggled to smile and Carnelian looked her up and down.

“It’s impolite to stare at guests,” Midwinter said, giving Carnelian a light nudge. “Even if those guests are of a people we’ve never seen before. I believe you said you were a kirin?” she said to Charcoal.

“Right, kirin, yeah,” Charcoal said. Shifting her attention from Carnelian to Midwinter made her less likely to wrap into herself. “We recently made context- contact with Equestria. It’s complicated.”

“Maybe you can tell us about it later.” As Midwinter sat down across from Bitterroot, he said, “Fuligin, could you get a light snack for our guests?” Fuligin gave a shallow bow and trotted off to the kitchen.

“Anyway, um.” Charcoal swallowed and managed a grin at Carnelian. “I’m- Charcoal and I’m- the- environmental magic specialist.”

“Carnelian Orchard,” came the reply. “And I apologize for my behavior. You are certainly… striking.”

“I’m actually pretty normal for a kirin. Except for my name- mane, that’s pretty thick, and people keep asking how I-”

“Are you two family?” Bitterroot couldn’t help asking. “I always heard it as ‘Midwinter’s family’, but you’re older, so…”

“Indeed. We’re mother and daughter.” Smiling, Midwinter gestured between herself and Carnelian. “See the resemblance?” They did look quite similar in build and facial structure; it helped that they were both chiropteri.

“It’s her family because she’s responsible for most of what we do,” said Carnelian. “I don’t mind.”

Fuligin returned, dropping a bowl of various vegetables on the coffee table. It wasn’t much — cabbage, carrots, some nuts — but it was fine for a snack. “So,” Midwinter said, “to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” She leaned forward, plucked away a leaf of cabbage with her teeth, and started chewing.

“It’s, it’s about the ley line and the river,” Charcoal said. She levitated a carrot out, but didn’t seem interested in eating it just yet. (Bitterroot got her own cabbage leaf and began eating. Good cabbage.) “You might’ve heard, but we vent- went into Midwich Forest with some of your militiaponies and the river, it behaved weirdly in there. Like…” She wiggled the carrot. “At one point, it just- curves off to the east when it really shouldn’t, and I kinda wanted to follow it-”

Midwinter swallowed her cabbage and coughed. “I, I beg your pardon,” she said, her ears quivering, “but are you… going anywhere with this?”

“Right, sorry,” said Charcoal. She took a bite of carrot, swallowed it without chewing, continued. “Anyway, you all do plumbing work, right? And I don’t think it’s the case, but I just want to be sure you’re not- polluting the writer- river or anything and affecting the ley line. So, uh… what do you do, exactly?”

“It’s quite simple, really,” Midwinter said with a shrug. “Besides the actual laying of pipes, we make sure what’s in the water is only what we want in there. We collect it from the river, groundwater, precipitation, we maintain purifying spells to filter out pathogens, we fortify it with-”

“I mean exactly exactly,” said Charcoal. “The, the actual procedure. And what do you do with the vase water? Waste water. Do you just dump it back in the river? I don’t want to… be offensive or anything, but maybe you… missed something and-” She evidently decided she was being offensive, because she quickly stuffed the rest of the carrot in her mouth to stop talking.

Midwinter and Carnelian looked at each other. Behind them, Fuligin, still silent, was shifting his weight around and not-quite looking at, not-quite ignoring the group; one of his ears twitched. “I’m not sure we can show you,” Carnelian said eventually. “We’ve worked on it for years and it… has its foibles. You probably wouldn’t understand it.”

Charcoal actually seemed to take offense to that; she swallowed her carrot and leaned forward. “And I sill need to look at it. This is important, and we can’t just assume that-”

“It’s complicated,” said Carnelian, standing up slightly. “It has been built upon for over a decade and it hasn’t affected the line yet.”

“And I’d need to see the numbers to be sure.”

“There’s nothing to worry about! This is our work, something we know, and I won’t have a jumped-up Canterlotian proclaiming she knows better after a minute of examination! You can’t even say words right!”

“I need to look at it.” Charcoal cut in, leaning forward. Her voice was growing a bit tight, and Bitterroot swore she could feel some mild heat radiating off her. “Maybe you made some change recently, forgot about it, and it is affecting the ley line. Maybe it didn’t matter before but now that the ley line’s shifted, it does. You’ve know it for so long, you could be overlooking-”

“We can show you the setup of the Watering Cave tomorrow morning,” said Midwinter quickly. “It’s the same as for every other building in the valley. But trust us, you won’t find anything.”

“That’s all I’m asking,” Charcoal said. “Just a little bit of openness.” Then she blinked and nearly shrank into herself. “I nearly lost my temper that was bad I’m sorry,” she muttered.

Carnelian opened her mouth, only for Midwinter to shoot her a look. When Midwinter didn’t say anything, an awkward silence swooped in to fill the void. “Cabbage’s good,” Bitterroot said, destroying the silence and accentuating the awkwardness.

“It really is,” said Charcoal. She raised her head back up and cleared her throat. “That was- um- That was all I wanted to ask about, so, uh-” She turned for the door, happening to glance out the window. As a miner passed by, heading upriver, Charcoal immediately turned back to Midwinter. “Actually, quick question.” (Carnelian rolled her eyes.) “If we wanted to bet- get into the mine, what would be the best way to do that? It’s, y’know, ley line and all, it probably starts in the mine, and, yeah.” Swallow. “How could we get into the mine if we needed to? Just in case.”

“You’d have to talk to Duke Tallbush,” said Midwinter. “He-”

“Wait. Duke Tallbush?” Bitterroot repeated, sitting up straight. “He’s a noble?”

“Duke of Midwich,” said Midwinter. “And more than a noble, he owns Midwich Mine and the associated buildings.”

Right. Tratonmane had started because of the Fuel Vassalage Commission, hadn’t it? But that would require somepony to run the place, and Celestia might’ve been able to entice ponies with a noble title, even if one in a distant corner of Equestria. But that meant almost the entire town was dependent on Tallbush, so- “I guess it’s good he seems a decent stallion.”

“If he ever tried to exert too much control over the ponies here?” snorted Carnelian. “He may be powerful, but that means little if large enough of an angry mob is beating down the door, ready and willing to eat him raw.”

“And I hear horror stories, from time to time, of some of your covetous corporate heads down south,” said Midwinter. “None of those apply to him. Believe me, Tallbush is not a bloodsucking parasite in the slightest.”

“But we’ll need to talk to him to let us into the mine, since he owns it,” Charcoal said. Her tone was more completing Midwinter’s interrupted statement than a question of confirmation. “Got it. …Erm… That’s- all I have for today, and…” She gave a small bow to Midwinter and Carnelian. “Thank you for- your- meeting. Tomorrow. I’m sorry I nearly lost my temper.”

“Think nothing of it,” Midwinter said, waving a hoof. “It happens.”

Farewells were bade, and Bitterroot and Charcoal were soon walking back to Tratonmane. Charcoal’s pace was a bit fast, leaving Bitterroot to flap every few steps to keep up. “You alright?” she asked.

“…Sorta,” said Charcoal in a voice that indicated it was a very sorta sort of “sorta”.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. Look, I was getting angry, and that, that would’ve been-” Charcoal sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. “-baaaaaaaaad.”

“Really?” asked Bitterroot. “C’mon, people lose their temper. There would’ve been bad blood between you and Carnelian for like a day, and then you’d both move on like adults. It wouldn’t be that bad.”

“I’m a kirin, remember?” Charcoal said flatly. “I burst into flame when I get angry.”

Right. Bitterroot’s memory was jogged hard enough to give her a headache. “…I take that back, it would be that bad.”

“Thanks,” Charcoal mumbled, hanging her head.

Bitterroot recognized that sort of expression. Time to shift Charcoal’s thoughts. “Well, they’re unburnt,” she said, “and you even set up a meeting. And it’s not even noon! The day could be going a lot worse.”

“Yeah. It could.” Charcoal didn’t sound enthusiastic, but she didn’t sound quite so morose, either.

“So do you know… that sort of magic? Water purification?”

Immediately, Charcoal raised her head again. “Oh, of course! Water purification’s one of the mean- main parts of my job. Every environmental mage needs to know at least the basics and I’m just a few potions short of being an alchemist. I’ll at least get the jib. Gist.”

“You’re sure?”

“Definitely. I wouldn’t be surprised if-” She glanced back at Midwinter’s house. “-if it’s just- kludgework they’ve all slapped on over the years. Or maybe it really is something new and I’ll need to stay up at night to study it! That’d be neat, too.”

“I think you and I have different definitions of ‘neat’.”

Charcoal quickly looked around, saw no one, and lowered her voice. “Yours is so dangerous you’ve already died twice.”

“Heh. Yeah.”

“It’s almost noon and I’m hungry. Think we should vined- find Amanita and Code for lunch?”

“Nah. Amanita knows I’ll be headed back for the inn, anyway. C’mon. Let’s get something to eat.”

9 - Ley of the Land

The pairs of pairs of Canterlotians found each other at the Watering Cave almost as soon as they arrived and, in the borderline-telepathic shared thoughts of hungry people everywhere, decided to get something to eat before talking any further. It wasn’t much, but it was food.

Lunch was the same sort of “fix it yourself” affair that breakfast had been, and Amanita’s resulting sandwich was acceptable. Once she had some grains and some greens in her guts, she asked the rest, “So… just to be clear, where do we stand?”

“This place is weird,” Charcoal said immediately. She took a small enough bite of her sandwich that she could still speak fairly clearly. “The wolves being nuts should be the result of the ley line going bad but isn’t. The timberwolves should be even wilder but aren’t. The trees shouldn’t be night trees because of the strength of the ley line but are. The river shouldn’t turn but does.” Swallow. “And I’m not even sure the ley line’s wrong in the same way as the original report.”

“Really?” asked Code. “It felt quite similar to me.”

“Yes,” said Charcoal. “Which is the problem.” She looked Code in the eye expectantly. “If we’re this close to the line’s surge- line’s source, it should feel different. Stronger, sharper, brighter. But it’s almost exactly the same. It’s like- Imagine if sound didn’t get any quieter as you got further from it.”

Code looked off into the distance and started tapping her hoof on the table. No magic; she was just thinking. And as her thoughts sped up, so too did her taps. “You’re right,” she said. “The readings in the report are from the station, not estimates of what we’d find at the source.”

“They probably didn’t have pills- skills for that,” said Charcoal. “They were, what, a meteorology station? What do those even do?”

“They monitor the last bits of magic spillover from weather teams all across Equestria, make sure it’s safe before it leaves Equestria,” said Bitterroot. “Badly-handled weather magic nearly caused war with Tarandusia a few centuries ago.” When everyone looked at her, she grinned. “You learn the neatest things with a good weather manager!”

“So they monitor the weather,” Charcoal said, still looking at Bitterroot. “And ley lines are in the ground. It’s kinda the wrong equipment, y’know? Wrong wrong. It’s amazing they picked it up at all.” Then she frowned and started pointing up and down with one of her hooves.

“Oh, and also,” said Amanita, “Pyrita was in the mine the very same day the ley line went bad. Maybe even the same hour. The line turned in the night, right?”

Code’s ears flicked forward. “…I don’t doubt you, but count it out.”

“Okay.” Amanita took a slice of her bread in her magic and ripped it to chunks. “Pyrita was in the mine seven days ago, right?” She lay down seven of those chunks. “Princess Twilight had said the station first noticed it three days ago at our meeting.” Three chunks next to the seven. “Plus the day we had the meeting.” Another. “Two more traveling here. And today.” Two rows of seven chunks. “What’s more, according to the report, the station also first saw the readings in the morning, when Pyrita vanished in the night. Arrastra thinks it’s a coincidence, but…”

“If that’s a coincidence, I’ll eat my glasses,” said Code. She stared at the bread with the intensity of a grandmaster at a chessboard. “Which might even explain why the Rite of Brave Spear worked so quickly when a well-made grain mother didn’t: the grain mother was working with the energy of the land, but the energy of the land was what rendered her comatose in the first place. So once we applied a different type of magic…”

“But why was she even in the mine?” asked Amanita. “It’s-”

“Amanita, we’re not here to puzzle out every little secret Tratonmane has. We can keep watch on Pyrita and assist her recovery, but ultimately, we’re trying to fix the ley line first.” Code shrugged. “Priorities.”

Priorities sucked. Pyrita in bed like that had looked an awful lot like Zinnia, probably with the same sort of pony who’d take her death badly. Part of Amanita, a large part, wanted to break off from the mission and figure out exactly what was wrong with Pyrita so they could heal her. But there were more ponies involved than Pyrita alone, so Amanita just nodded and swiped up her bread again.

Bitterroot coughed, and when she spoke, her voice was low, furtive. “Hey, uh…” She lowered it even further. “Cabin’s listening to us.” She jerked her head towards the bar, where Cabin was dicing carrots and angling both her ears their way.

“Which she can do,” said Code. “This is about her home and it won’t hurt anyone. Keeping it a secret would be more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Oh.”

“And believe me: if this was classified, you would most certainly not be here.”

“Are there any stations or outposts or whatever specifically monitoring ley lines?” Charcoal asked. “This one especially.”

“There are a few, mostly in the heartland, but they’re rare,” said Code. “Why?”

“Because I would really like to know how that meteor station sensed the ley line shift.”

“There are instruments-”

“I know that,” said Charcoal. “But it’s looking for stuff in the air and it found stuff in the ground. And that says a lot about the ley line, doesn’t it? About how strong the change is. But what if-” She waggled a hoof at Amanita and Code. “What if this is just the first time we’ve noticed it? If it was changing for a while and that station just didn’t notice it before? It was too small a change for anything to pick up?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Code, “although not to any great degree. It seems that-”

“Wait, no,” said Charcoal, frowning. “The food here’s too good. …Yes, that’s important, don’t look at me like that! If the ley line was bad, the crops here wouldn’t grow merely- nearly as well. …What if it’d gone bad before, gotten fixed, and the wolves are the… leftovers? They’re several years old, but the plants are technically new…”

“No offense, but that kinda sounds like a long shot,” said Amanita.

“Oh, it is, totally,” Charcoal replied, nodding. “I’m just slimeballing here. …No, spitballing. Spitballing. I wonder if we could test it at al- Deaths! We could look through Tratonmane’s death certificates. If there’s a lot of violent deaths from wolves at a certain point, well, there we go.”

“It’s something to look into if we have no other options,” said Code.

“But for now, we ought to do some surveys down near the treeline, get a good feel for the ley line. Not in the trees, of course. A forest of night trees is not where I want to do some research.”

Amanita felt her stomach knot up a little. She still hadn’t learned much on actually feeling the ley line. Maybe she’d learn more during the work (finally), but… Imagine if she couldn’t. She’d just be standing there gormlessly as other people did her work. And since learning how to work with ley lines was the whole reason she’d come out here…

“If we still can’t find out much, we’ll tune the geothaumometers and leave them running overnight. No need to dig any of those out yet, those’re big.”

Which was unfortunate; Amanita had a decent handle on geothaumometers. Simply put and oversimplified, they were tools that recorded the general magic of the land in an area. Circe had taught her how to make simple ones in case she wasn’t sure if she was in the right flow for certain rituals. She could set up a geothaumometer.

But her job’s needs were her job’s needs, and her job didn’t need a geothaumometer yet.

The group polished off the rest of their food over idle chatter. Bitterroot was the first to speak up. “Say, uh, land magic isn’t really my thing-” (You and me both, thought Amanita.) “-so do you want me to look through them and see what I can find?”

Code looked at Bitterroot, then turned to Amanita. “Can you come with me on every future field mission? I like having an unpaid lackey who continually shows initiative.”

“Careful. Slavery’s illegal,” Bitterroot said, grinning.

“You’re doing this of your own free will,” said Code. “And what happens in Midwich stays in Midwich. If you want to do so, go ahead. We’ll be heading down to the treeline.”

The second they were outside the Cave, though, Bitterroot pulled Amanita to one side. “Have you tried that communication device thing yet?” she asked.

“Uh…” Amanita half-glanced after Code and Charcoal. “No.”

“They’re really neat, you should give them a try,” Bitterroot said. She held out an earpiece. “We can talk to each other if we get bored. Or if more wolves come out and you need me to call in the cavalry.”

“Eh…” Code and Charcoal were getting further away every second. “Yeah sure I’ll do that but I need to go sorry bye.” Amanita snatched up the earpiece and put it on as she galloped after the other two.

Tratonmane looked different in the light. Happier, safer, more welcoming. Midwich Forest didn’t. It was still a grim, dark thicket of upward-facing thorns that looked ready to swallow you up. But Charcoal came to a stop still plenty a decent ways away from the trees. “I don’t think we’ll need to go any closer than this,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “We’re far enough away from Tratonmane.”

“Great,” said Code. “Amanita, have you worked with ley lines before?”

“Uh…” Amanita thought back. There was the time that Circe-

Code realized something and added, “In a way that wasn’t ripping power from them?”

“…No.”

“Square one, then. Don’t worry, it’s simple enough,” said Code. She planted her hooves; Amanita felt the ground ripple around her. “Reach out with your magic. Let it burrow into the ground like roots. You’ll feel the ley current in the space between the dirt. From there, just let your magic breathe. Take in the ley energies, but don’t hold on too tightly, or you could disrupt the fabric.”

Amanita blinked. Roots? Code was good at explaining rituals, but this was something else. “…Uh-huh.”

“Does that make sense, or…?”

“Yeah, I, I think I got it.” Maybe.

Before Code could say anything, Charcoal was on her other side. “Hey. Code. You’ve felt the eddies, right?” she asked. “Tiny little vortexes. Vortices? Like, whirlpools.” She held her hooves about an inch apart.

“I have,” Code said, wheeling around. “Aren’t they common in ley lines?”

“Yes, but did you notice their patterns? They’re not quite as regular as they should be. It’s more like-”

Amanita cleared her throat. The conversation was getting away from her, so she might as well get away from it. “I’ll- I’ll be over there,” she said, pointing eastward. Code and Charcoal only spared her a quick nod, so off she went.

As the sun set, the east side was going to stay in sunlight longer, so Bitterroot was going to take what sunlight she could get. It’d help with morale.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Burrow. Burrow. Like roots. Like roots. Gradually, over years? What in Tartarus did that mean? And what about “burrow”? Stabbing? Let it trickle down? Actually dig in the dirt? Given the way ritual magic worked, that last one wasn’t totally a joke…

Okay. She’d try stabbing. Stabbing into the dirt. Not physically. Magically. She gathered her magic and tried just jabbing her awareness into the earth. Like… so.

…Now what?

Amanita waited. Nothing happened, including brainstorms. She didn’t feel anything very different. The ley line was there, but she could feel so little of it… She pulled back into herself and looked off down Midwich Valley. The sun was moving and the westernmost parts of the gorge were already in shadow. Better get a move on.

Suddenly, she heard Bitterroot’s voice in her ears. “Amanita?”

Amanita yelped and looked behind her. Bitterroot was nowhere to be seen. But she had that earpiece. “…How do I get this to work?” she asked no one in particular.

“Just talk,” said Bitterroot. “I can hear you just fine.”

“Okay.” Swallow. “Um, are you… doing okay?”

“Fine. Just fine. I was just checking in with you. How’s the job going?”

Amanita’s cheeks burned. “It’s… going alright.”

“…You sure?”

“Yeah. It’s… It’s going.”

“Are you doing alright?”

“…It’s complicated. The, the magic I’m working on, not-” Amanita cringed at herself. “I’m dealing with magic I’ve never dealt with before.”

“Think you might need to get something from the inn to help?”

“Maybe. Look, it’s- I don’t need any distractions, okay?”

“…Alright. Shutting up.”

And Bitterroot didn’t say anything more. At least the brief conversation had let Amanita re-orient herself. She sat back down and closed her eyes again.

But whatever she was looking for, it didn’t come. And it didn’t come for long enough for the sun to move and whisk away her light, leaving her sitting in shadow. Lumberjacks passed her by on the road, even dragging a giant stump. And when some foals started playing a game just out of sight, Amanita stopped trying to focus.

Just what was she doing wrong? Was she misunderstanding Code’s directions? She hadn’t before, not in the moons she’d worked with Code. Code was the High Ritualist for a reason, after all. Was it her own fault? Was she just doomed to not know anything other than necromancy? Or was it something else? Was this train of thought overly pessimistic? (Yes. Did knowing that do anything to stop it? No.)

Amanita paced, staring at the ground, struggling to clear her head. This was okay. She’d been brought up here to learn. But if it was her own teacher she wasn’t learning from-

Some of the foals yelled more loudly than usual. A moment later, a ball came bouncing out of the darkness. Amanita idly snatched it up with her magic and waited for the inevitable. A few more moments later, high-pitched squeaking came out of the darkness to batter Amanita’s eardrums, quickly followed by the filly making that squeaking. She was a chiropterus, maybe ten or eleven years old, although her hooves were chunky, like an earth pony’s. Eyeshine glinted through her misty breath as she looked up at Amanita. “Who’re you?” she asked in the innocent curiosity of foals everywhere. “I’m Wythe.”

Amanita cringed inside; you could mess up in front of a crowd, but at least the adults would learn to read the room and ignore you. Foals behaved like they didn’t know a thing about social etiquette. At least, that was what she imagined; she hadn’t interacted with foals enough to really say. So she just said, “I’m Amanita.” A pause, a wave. “Hello.”

“Ye’re not from here,” said Wythe, cocking her head.

“I’m not. I’m visiting from Canterlot. I’m fixing a ley line.” Or would that just confuse Wythe? Too late now.

“My ma says yer a Canterlout.”

Amanita shrugged. Hardly the worst thing she’d been called, even in the past year alone. “Does she.”

“Dae ye ken whit that means?”

“…It means your mother respects me a lot, even if she doesn’t show it.”

Wythe flicked an ear. She didn’t look particularly convinced, even by Amanita’s limited experience. “What’re ye doin’?”

Celestia. Imagine failing being quizzed by a foal. “I’m- trying to feel out the ley line,” Amanita said. “But I’m having a hard time with it.”

“Then why’re ye doin’ it?”

Amanita opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

“Wythe!” a foal squeaked. “Didye get the ball?” And before Amanita could respond, Wythe had darted forward, snatched the ball away from her, and gone flapping back into the night, leaving Amanita wondering.

It was… Well, it was simple why she was doing it this way. Code had said so and Code had decades of experience in deep magic like this. She knew how it worked. Her instructions were right. She was a good teacher. If something was going wrong, it was Amanita’s problem, not Code’s. Right?

Right?

But Amanita was a unicorn. Code was an earth pony. Her instructions had sounded very earth-pony-focused: roots, breathing, soil. Instructions from her experience, which was all well and good until she tried to teach somepony who didn’t have her experience at all. And Code’s teaching experience was in rituals, a species-irrelevant discipline, not shaped magic.

Amanita had had a teacher of shaped magic once before. An earth pony teacher. A good teacher, one who could start her from nothing and whip her into an elite in just a few years.

Circe. For necromancy.

Circe had been a lich. When she still existed, she’d been a terrible person: selfish, sociopathic, egomaniacal, abusive. She’d also been a rather effective teacher when she wasn’t screaming invectives. She’d laid out the goal, which methods she used, why, and the ways Amanita might apply herself. She hadn’t known enough about unicorn magic to say anything definite. Yet her instructions, vague as they were, had still worked.

“See, to make a thrall, you gotta make it do what you want; otherwise, it’s just meat. I’m an earth pony, I can make plants grow. I just coax the thralls same way I do flowers. You gotta do somethin’ else… ’Ow d’you make gravity ignore your levitation?”

The cold had nothing to do with the way Amanita shivered. All the lessons she could’ve remembered, and it had to be one of the ones she’d most hoped to forget… Her heart pounded in her chest as she took deep breaths. But it’d been an effective lesson, if you ignored morality. It’d only taken a few moons for Amanita to start binding the souls of the dead to be her slaves.

Maybe that was because Amanita was a necromancer, nothing more. Or maybe it was just because Code was a crappy teacher with regards to ley lines. Amanita needed something closer to home. A unicorn well-learned in environmental magic, preferably.

A kirin was probably close enough, though.

Amanita found Charcoal much more quickly than she thought she would. She hadn’t moved from the road and was simply sitting on the cobblestones, eyes closed and horn alit, humming a light and bouncy tune. It was almost a shame to disturb her, but disturb her Amanita did. “Uh, Charcoal?”

Whatever trance Charcoal was in wasn’t deep enough to divorce her from reality. Without a twitch, Charcoal turned to face Amanita. “Yeah? Did you find something?”

“No,” admitted Amanita. “I- I’m- I don’t know what I’m looking for. I’m- I don’t know anything about this.”

“But…” One of Charcoal’s rear legs twitched, bumping the ground with the front of her hooves. “Didn’t Code give instructions on this? I saw you two together.”

“Code is-” Amanita glanced guiltily over her shoulder and dropped her voice. “When it comes to this, her teaching sucks. She’s a ritualist and an earth pony. She doesn’t work with earth magic enough to simplify it, and she was born with a connection to the earth, so she doesn’t know what I’m missing. But, but you, you’re our environmental mage and not an earth pony. You’re good at this, even if I haven’t seen it yet. And- And maybe you can teach it to me.”

Charcoal blinked owlishly at Amanita. Amanita felt her face burning. What had she done? Had she made some kirin faux pas? Had she-

“You think I’m good at this?” asked Charcoal quietly.

Amanita’s thought processes stumbled, maybe sprained an idea on the way down. “W-well… yeah,” she said. “You’ve- You were the one assigned here, after all, you… have to be good.” Right?

“…Thanks, but…” Charcoal shook her head. “Should you be contil- complimenting me like that? All the stuff I’ve done is easy. Anyone could do it.”

“Only if they know how. Do you-” A quick glance around; they were alone. “Do you know how to resurrect the dead?”

“No.”

“View their past?”

“No.”

“Banish any zombies we come across?”

“No. And now that I think about it, this is a good place for zombies-”

“Of course you don’t. Because all those? My job.” Amanita tapped herself on the chest. “They’re easy for me. But environmental magic is your job, so of course that’s easy for you. And, look, most of what we’ve done here has been based on your decisions. You know what to look for. So…” Swallow. “Maybe you can help me?”

Charcoal’s ears wiggled. She looked down and pawed at the ground. Her tail twisted around itself. Then she raised her head and said, “Have you ever been in a shower with a broken head? Or a broken hot tub?”

Amanita’s thoughts twisted another idea. “Uh… y-yeah.”

“You know how it just felt wrong, even if you didn’t know why? You just knew there was something wrong with the… with the flow.”

Dots began to be connected. “…Yeah.”

“Ley lines are kinda like that when you start. You just kinda spread your magic like a night- like a net and…” Charcoal held her hooves far apart and wiggled them. “…feel them. Don’t worry about the specifics of the energies in them yet, just feel the flow. The… the vibe. And once you’ve got that, start feeling how plants are taking it in because they know the right way to do it. And once you’ve got that… I dunno, come back to me and we’ll figure it out.”

“That sounds… really hazy.”

“Oh, it is,” Charcoal said. “And don’t expect to get it right away. But, really, you just need to try it. Then you’ll know what you can talk about.”

Amanita kept turning the instructions over and over in her head as she walked back to her assigned location. As much as they were hazy, they were better than Code’s instructions. Looser to account for changes, a more definite goal to direct her efforts to.

So. Amanita sat down on a rock and let her magic spread. She kept her awareness on it as she probed downward. The main magic of the ley line came easily, but as moments stretched into minutes and she wiggled down through the dirt, she became aware of a… shift. Where she ought to be sensing something one way but instead sensed it another. Like bass she felt rather than heard. More than magic, the line was a sense of place. This wasn’t just an easy font of energy; this was Tratonmane. Yet it was off slightly, like that Tratonmane that was wasn’t the Tratonmane that should be. The parts that were wrong.

A good start, but not quite enough to start poking at plants. She needed to get familiar with it. Not drawing her magic in at all, Amanita took deep breaths. In, out, in, out, in, o-

She was slouching to one side. She flinched and sat up straight again. Drifting off would b-

…Which way was she leaning?

She opened her eyes and looked. North. Away from the line’s probable source. In the direction of the flow.

Huh.

Amanita almost grinned. “Almost” because it could be coincidental. Maybe she was on a slope.

But the direction was accurate enough to make her suspicious. And if this worked, then one of her roadblocks had just been demolished. She closed her eyes again. More deep breaths. In, out, in, out…

Bitterroot’s confidence at saying she’d look for death certificates had hid one very important fact: she didn’t know where the death certificates were, assuming they even existed. But being a bounty hunter was all about tracking people down, and people moved, while stationery remained stationary. She could do this. Besides, she had a pretty good idea: town hall. So once the ritualists headed north, Bitterroot crossed the square to the town hall in question, quill, ink, and parchment in hoof.

Small-town town halls always made her feel a bit weird. Those halls were so… small. (Har har.) Small enough that they occasionally straddled the line between a small office building and a large house, which made Bitterroot think knocking and being let in was the correct way to enter out of politeness, even though they were public buildings and she shouldn’t have to be let in like that. It was a stupid habit that cost her more time than it was worth, one she really needed to get out of.

Bitterroot knocked on the front door three times. “Helloooooo?” she called out. “Anyone in there?” No answer.

Ten seconds later, still no answer.

Bitterroot flared her wings and ascended to the circular window above the door. Peering through the quadranted frame, she couldn’t see… much of anything. Noon meant it was light in Tratonmane, but with the boarded-up windows and unlit lamps, it was still dark as pitch in the town hall. Nobody was home. She dropped back to the ground and nudged the door open. It didn’t creak, which made going into the lightless building only slightly less of a spooky idea.

“Hello? Anyone?”

Only her echoes responded, and they didn’t sound particularly confident.

But in the incoming sunlight, Bitterroot spotted the long, thin shape of a lamplighting pole. She lit the candle at the end and did a circuit of the main room, lighting the oil lamps on the wall. They were soon burning… not quite merrily, but they were burning, and that meant she had light. On a final whim, she yelled, “No one?” No one answered. Which probably said something about her: she asked if anyone was there, there wasn’t a response from anyone, so she asked the same question. And then she did it again. Smart.

This was a public building; maybe she could go looking through other rooms for death certificates. Come to think of it, Tallbush had said the town library was in here, right? For the farmers’ records. And he’d said she could just go in, so- No, these were official documents. It’d be rude to go around rooting them without clearer permission. And rudeness carried a lot more weight here than it did in someplace like Canterlot, Manehattan, or San Franpinto.

Bitterroot decided she’d wait a little, see if anyone came who she could talk to. At least the building was reasonably not-cold. She arched her back like a cat and stretched her wings. Simply not having a wind to chill her did a lot to let her warm up, and there was the way the air inside was warmer anyway. Yeah, she could stay here for a while. Maybe even-

“What’re ye doin’, pokin’ ’round here?”

With a yelp, Bitterroot spun around. Tallbush was standing in the entryway, door open behind him, glaring at her. “Town property’s in ’ere,” he said, taking a step forward. “Ye didnae damify arythin’, did ye?”

Assuming “damify” meant “damage”, Bitterroot raised her hooves. “Whoa, hey, I was just looking for you. I didn’t touch anything.”

Tallbush glanced at the lanterns and his eyebrow went up like an elevator.

“Okay, aside from those. But I wasn’t going to touch anything. I was just looking for you and it was out of the cold and… Yeah.”

There was a long moment as the two looked at each other. Then Tallbush huffed, “Fine.” From the way his ears were moving, he wasn’t quite as tense. “What’re ye a-lookin’ fer?”

“Death certificates.”

Whatever Tallbush had been expecting, it clearly wasn’t that. His jaw briefly sagged. “Death certificates?” Confusion had bulled out any tension.

“If you’ve got them,” said Bitterroot. “We were hoping to trace any violent deaths in the past, just to see what the wolves have been like. Just in case.”

“Doubt ye’ll find arythin’,” Tallbush said with a shrug, “but I’ll show ye. Library’s right back ’ere.”

It was one of the doorways leading off from the back of the room, to be precise. The plaque above the door marked it as Library and Public Documents. As Tallbush lit the lamps in the room beyond, it was revealed as a long, somewhat cramped one, not nearly the grand display of books that “library” conjured up. Still, shelves and drawers lined the walls and more were freestanding in the empty floor space, all with their own labels telling what they held. Several tables had books on them that had yet to be properly put away. A small town’s haphazard library was still a library.

When Bitterroot took a step forward, she felt something beneath her. She looked down; the floor had infrequent bits and pieces of dirt and other outdoor debris, tracked in and left uncleaned.

“Beggin’ yer pardon,” said Tallbush as he came back around, “but, eh… ’tis a bit hard tae get in here an’ clean.”

“And you keep putting it off?” Bitterroot asked.

“…Aye. C’mon in.”

It was just wide enough that Bitterroot didn’t need to squeeze in to follow, but it was close. More books were scattered around that she needed to avoid, all of them in surprisingly good condition. After seeing that, the library seemed to be dirty mostly because keeping it clean would be an exercise in futility. (And cramped work, admittedly.)

Bitterroot and Tallbush emerged near the back of the room near a set of small tables, each piled with more books, and at the very back of the room was a large wooden… assembly that looked like a filing cabinet’s… Not quite father. First cousin once removed. A relative, at any rate.

“Right in here,” Tallbush said, unlocking the cabinet. “How many d’ye need?”

“…All of them?”

Tallbush gave Bitterroot a Look, but levitated a number of thick folders out. “Jes’ leave ’em out when ye’re done an’ I’ll get ’em later.” Then he blinked and looked back inside. “Oh, cuss it all…” he muttered, his ears back. “Hawthorn must’ve…”

“Something wrong?” Bitterroot asked.

Tallbush hastily relocked the cabinet. “Well-” His eyes darted back and forth, like he was think about something very quickly. “There’s a- book,” he said, digging through one of the piles of literature on the table. “An’ it’s- important tae the town, but ain’t where it ought tae be. Must needs findin’.” He wasn’t looking at her and his digging was growing frantic.

In a combination of might-as-well generosity and need-to-work-in-peace greed, Bitterroot asked, “What’s it look like? I can help.”

Tallbush’s digging faltered for a moment. Then he said, “Old. Real old. Brown cover, got a crossed circle on it.”

“Got it. I’ll be over there.” Bitterroot moved towards the door, poking her muzzle into each pile she saw. Maybe the book had just fallen off a pile while being moved. She knew how easy it was to misplace one.

She was entering the narrow aisles when something caught her eye. It wasn’t physical, more of a nagging feeling, gut instinct. Bitterroot looked in the gap between two bookcases; a book seemed to have slipped in. When she pulled it out, the first thing she knew was that it was old. There was no one thing she could put her hoof on, just an overall feeling of age, from the pages to the smell to the cover. Speaking of the cover, Bitterroot took a look at it. A crossed circle was embossed on there, just like Tallbush had said.

“Hey,” Bitterroot said. “This it?” She held the book up carefully, just in case it was easily damaged.

Tallbush looked ready to kiss her when he saw the book. “Aye, that’s it,” he said. He levitated the book from her with even more delicacy than she’d treated it. “Thankee.”

“You weren’t kidding when you said the book was old,” said Bitterroot. “What’s in it?”

“ ’Tis, ’tis the- founder’s journal,” Tallbush replied as he closely examined the book. “Back frae when Tratonmane firs’ got its start. Mighty important piece o’ Tratonmane’s hist’ry, it is. Mighty important.”

“So…” Bitterroot recalled what she’d heard over the past few days. “That’s two or three hundred years old, right? From the Fuel Vassalage Commission?”

And the second Bitterroot mentioned the Commission, Tallbush’s ears flattened. “Aye,” he grumbled. “Two hunnert sixty-eight year old.”

Already, Bitterroot could feel the tension growing like a spool was winding up the atmosphere. Trying to change the subject, she quickly asked, “How do you lose something like that?” She tried to keep it casual rather than anything approaching derisive.

“Eh. Dinnae ken,” Tallbush said, shrugging. His voice hadn’t changed much. “There are moments when ye ferget what’s important and the li’l things jus’… slip through the cracks.” A pause. “Ye’d best get to it.” And he stalked out of the room. Bitterroot craned her neck to watch him cross the main room and enter the door on the other side. His office?

None of her business. What was her business was the death certificates. All of them, as she’d told Tallbush. Taking a look at the deaths for an entire town might’ve seemed intimidating for most ponies, but Bitterroot knew a thing or two about death rates. She didn’t know Tratonmane’s population, so she guessed it was between five hundred and a thousand ponies. Assuming it shared Equestria’s death rates, that put it at three to six deaths per year. Still a large number, given Tratonmane’s multi-century history, but not overwhelming.

She moved the folders to a certain table and took a seat, laying out her quill and scroll. In front of her, a nice big window gave her a clear view of the square, the Great Ash, even the window into their own room at the Watering Cave. With the sun directly overhead, Tratonmane looked like a perfectly normal small town in the light, as long as you ignored the sheer rock wall behind it. It would make for a nice view, if only for half an hour. But by then, Bitterroot would be zoning out on work and not notice the view.

She leafed through the certificates. Fortunately, the design hadn’t changed much over the centuries. She looked over the top one, locating the pony’s name, age, year of death, cause of death. From just this year, in fact.

Nimble Wind — 72 — died 1005 — old age

“Old age” might not fly in Canterlot, where they wanted things like “heart failure” or “pneumonia”, but it was clearly not violent, and that was good enough for Bitterroot. On her paper, she scratched out “1005” and scrawled an N (nonviolent) right next to it.

Mattydale — 34 — died 1005 — wolf attack

Bitterroot’s heart twinged in sympathy and a V went next to 1005. And soon she was rattling away, ticking off year after year. She didn’t pay any attention to patterns yet; there wasn’t much point until she got all the data.

Halifax — 71 — died 989 — died in his sleep

Minty Fresh — 56 — died 989 — killed by bear

Shining Comet — 64 — died 989 — old age

After a little while, she figured she’d check in on Amanita, just to be sure. It was why she’d had Amanita wear the earpiece, after all. She slipped hers on and said, “Amanita?”

There was a yelp on the other end. Right. Amanita hadn’t heard it before. The sound quality was a bit of a shock. After a moment, Amanita asked, “…How do I get this to work?”

Bitterroot grinned to herself. “Just talk. I can hear you just fine.”

“Okay. Um, are you… doing okay?”

“Fine. Just fine.” She marked off another row. “I was just checking in with you. How’s the job going?”

“It’s… going alright.”

Bitterroot hesitated. That wasn’t an “alright” tone of voice. “You sure?”

“Yeah. It’s… It’s going.”

Another try, then. “Are you doing alright?”

“…It’s complicated. The, the magic I’m working on, not- I’m dealing with magic I’ve never dealt with before.”

“Think you might need to get something from the inn to help?” Maybe she could meet Amanita there, talk things out face-to-face.

“Maybe. Look, it’s- I don’t need any distractions, okay?”

Amanita was having trouble with something, and she was having trouble admitting she was having trouble with something. It was obvious from her voice. But if Bitterroot pressed, Amanita would only clam up more. So instead, she said, “Alright. Shutting up.”

She waited another few moments, in case Amanita said anything. No words came. Sighing, Bitterroot put her quill back to the scroll and continued working.

Northern Gale — 39 — died 963 — bears

Long Distance — 92 — died 963 — old age

Wicklow — 73 — died 963 — old age

Scribble, scribble, scribble. The day dragged on. The valley floor slipped into darkness as the sun set and soon one hour was much the same as the next. Or was it just minutes? Hard to say. Tratonmane dimmed slightly as less light bounced down to it from the canyon walls, but it was practically nothing.

Windrow — 23 — died 946 — attacked by wolf while on patrol

Granite Whetstone — 44 — died 946 — wolf attack

Equinox — 37 — died 946 — bear attack

And Bitterroot didn’t mind. She’d slipped into a sort of trance as she worked; it would’ve been called mind-numbing, but she was still fully aware, simply running on automatic. It was a state that had been honed through plenty of stakeouts. Death after death passed her by and she recorded all the relevant details.

Springroot — 68 — died 901 — passed in her sleep

Pressure Front — 71 — died 901 — old age

Glendale — 76 — died 901 — old age

She heard Amanita’s voice at several points, talking to someone who seemed to be a foal and later to Charcoal. Amanita seemed unaware that she was still wearing the earpiece; she sounded a bit better than before, and seemed to actually be making headway with Charcoal. Good for her.

Pyronimbus — 71 — died 842 — passed in her sleep

Glissanda — 48 — died 842 — bear

Dewdrop — 79 — died 842 — old age

A light flickered in her vision and she looked up. Across the square, on the other side of the Ash, the light in their room at the Watering Cave had come on. A unicorn was digging through their luggage, levitating this and that out of the way as they looked for whatever. Apparently, Amanita hadn’t cracked whatever problem she’d been facing. And forgotten where the ritual instruments had been stored. “Hey, Amanita?”

It took Amanita a few moments to respond. “Yeah?”

“Most of our gear’s in that storage room on the ground floor, not our quarters.”

For some reason, she sounded baffled. “I… I know that. Why’re you telling me this?”

“Well, I’m watching you dig through our luggage, and-”

“What do you mean? I’m still down near the treeline.”

Time seemed to crawl and the bottom fell out of Bitterroot’s stomach as she stared, slack-jawed, at the unicorn across the street, sifting through their bags.

“…Bitterroot?”

“Oh, Celestia, THERE’S SOMEONE IN OUR ROOM.”

10 - Cold Pursuit

Bitterroot bolted from the library, sending papers everywhere in her wake, beating her wings to get her faster. She didn’t know why somepony would be in their room at the inn, but that didn’t matter. It couldn’t be anything good, anyway.

She blew out the front door of the town hall and sped across the square to the Watering Cave, reckless in the dark. Amanita was saying something in her ear, so she plucked the earpiece out and pocketed it. Concentration. When she reached the door, she spread her wings wide to let them yank her to a halt, then carefully nudged the door open.

The common room was empty. Not even Cabin was behind the bar. With no crowd din to cover her sounds up, Bitterroot nearly said something uncouth. She delicately trod across the floor, keeping her steps as light as possible. Her ears were pricked for any sounds of movement. Nothing except vague rustles upstairs. Paper?

They could be looking through the teams’ notes. Bitterroot would bet money that Amanita had brought along notes on some necromantic spell or another. If she was found out… Bitterroot sped up as much as she dared. She reached the stairs with no problem and carefully moved on up. Thankfully, her furs blunted the worst of the hoof-on-wood impact muffling the clip-clop that could’ve been there otherwi-

One of the steps creaked.

Bitterroot froze, mentally cursing herself. She’d known about that step, she’d heard it several times as she went up and down, why did she need to forget about it right then? But maybe the robber hadn’t heard it. It wasn’t a loud sound. Bitterroot craned her ears, listening for any activity that might be panic on the robber’s part, but she heard nothing.

Even the sounds of paper had stopped.

Discarding all attempts at stealth, Bitterroot scrambled up the steps just in time to hear something crash on the other side of the door. She slammed into it hard, but it didn’t budge. Again; nothing, blocked. There were frenzied hooffalls and the high-pitched hum of cast magic as the thief sped up their-

Window. She’d seen them through the window. She could get through the window. Bitterroot shoved off the door and very nearly flew back down to the common room and out the entrance. Still no one, at least that she could see. The window up above was open; a quick flap took her up. The lights were on, but nopony was home. Bitterroot swore; they must’ve gotten the same idea just before her and she missed them in the dark, maybe by just a few seconds.

But how far could a unicorn get in those few seconds? She dropped back down. Hoofprints? No dice; the area was heavily trafficked and the prints of the crowd blended together. Bitterroot turned around, squinting in the dark, wishing she’d protected her night vision. No obvious dark shapes, nobody in the lamps. Maybe they’d gone behind. Bitterroot jinked around the corner, into the narrow roads behind the inn-

Jackpot. A cloaked pony with a tall hood was walking away from the building, not too far away. Bitterroot sped up to reach them- and quickly slowed down. Up close, she could see they had wings, dark red ones. Pegasus.

Although… Bitterroot quickly sped up again and tapped them on the shoulder. “Hey!” she said. “Hey, can I talk to you?”

The pony turned around. Stallion. He was big up close, almost a head taller than Bitterroot, appearing even taller by his pointy hood. It was hard to make his face out in the dim light, but his fur was gray. He looked down at Bitterroot, wordless.

“Have you seen anypony in the last few seconds?” she asked quickly. “Unicorn, came running around here, maybe carrying something-”

The pegasus shook his head and turned back around, continuing on his way. Bitterroot cursed and looked around him. No one. She spun, looked back around-

A-ha. Not far away, Bitterroot espied another pony, trotting down the road away from the Cave. A pony with a horn. Praying it was the right pony, Bitterroot flap-trotted after them, using her wings to land softly and her hooves to push herself forward. It was slower than she’d’ve liked, but it kept the noise down.

But before she could catch up, the pony jinked to one side, ducking into the animal attack bunker in the hill. Bitterroot quit the quiet to propel herself right up to the doorway, where she looked down the steps. The light gems inside were glowing fitfully and the pony was nowhere to be seen.

Into the dim, unground bunker. Great. If only she’d explored more when she’d been inside yesterday; she’d stayed in the first room, not looking for any sort of layout or alternate exit. But if somepony was trying to sabotage them, she needed to find out who. Stilling her wings and keeping her hoofsteps light, Bitterroot entered the bunker.

“Oh, Celestia, THERE’S SOMEONE IN OUR ROOM.”

Those words made Amanita’s blood run cold. She had notes on necromancy in there and if they got out- It was only for a moment, but it felt like her body locked up for ages. Canterlot hadn’t been the greatest once she’d revealed herself to be a necromancer, and she had Princess Twilight’s approval there. Out here, on her own, being forced out…

But at some point, she decided she’d worry about it later, because she was galloping for Charcoal. “I’m getting Code and Charcoal,” she said. “Stay safe.” Stay safe? What kind of a reassurance was that? Once she was just spitting out and hoping it was true.

Charcoal still hadn’t moved. She looked up as Amanita approached; Amanita cut her off with, “Bitterroot says there’s someone in our room.”

Charcoal was slow to reorient. Blinking at Amanita, she asked, “What do you-”

“Someone’s breaking into our room and looking through our stuff!” hissed Amanita. “I don’t know if they want to steal anything or- Do you know where Code is?”

“No.” Charcoal promptly threw back her head and yelled, “Code! Get over here!” The sound bounced up and down the valley, magnified by its own echoes. Down in Midwich Forest, birds were startled from their branches.

Okay. Maybe… that would work. Charcoal was up, pacing a circle in the snow. Amanita nearly joined her; she didn’t know what to do, and if-

Code came galloping from the dark and kicked up a wave of snow as she slid to a stop. “What happened?” she asked quickly.

“Bitterroot said she saw somepony in our room and-”

“Follow me,” Code said, and began sprinting back towards town. Amanita and Charcoal followed her immediately, somehow only barely managing to keep up in spite of Code’s short height. “Amanita, you still have that earpiece, right?”

“…Yeah!” Amanita said breathlessly. “Bitterroot! Bitterroot, are you there?”

Silence on the other.

“Bitterroot! What’s going on?”

Nothing.

“She’s not responding,” Amanita said.

“She could’ve just taken the earpiece off,” said Code. “Don’t worry too much yet.”

By the time they reached the Watering Cave, Amanita’s heart was protesting and Charcoal was breathing heavily. Code seemed to notice, because she said, “Wait here. I’ll see if they’re still inside.” And in she went.

Amanita’s heart wasn’t protesting so much that she couldn’t still be alert. Even just not running anymore made her aches start to subside. Amanita looked up at the window. Somepony might come out that way to escape Code. A hasty glance around showed nopony near. Not Bitterroot, not anyone suspicious.

Code came trotting back out. “Door’s locked, didn’t see Bitterroot,” she said quickly. She fixed her eyes on the window above. She crouched, wiggled her rump like a cat, and propelled herself straight up, where she hooked her hooves around the sill. A look inside, a curse, and she dropped back down. “Nopony’s in there and somepony moved a bed to block the door,” she said. She nudged up her glasses to wipe down her face. “Okay. Possible thief, pony MIA. But she was a bounty hunter, maybe she’s chasing the perp. Amanita, can you think of a reason why Bitterroot would remove her earpiece?”

“Focus,” Amanita said. “If she ever gets it in her head to do something, she tries to avoid all distractions.”

“Hmm.” Code tapped her chin. “Plausible. Did she only mention one pony?”

“It sounded like that, but I can’t be sure.”

“Alright. Do the two of you feel up to searching the town?”

Did she? Amanita flexed her legs as Code added, “You don’t need to be hasty about it. Simply ask if anyone’s seen Bitterroot.”

“I think I can do that, yeah,” said Amanita. Walking, she could handle just fine.

“Me, too,” said Charcoal, a touch breathlessly. “Even though-” She stretched her back and groaned. “I need to hit the treadmill more. I’m an environmental mage, why can’t I sprint?”

“Hmm.” Code looked up at the window again and frowned. “No way to see if anybody comes back while we’re gone, though-”

“Hang on.” Amanita rooted through the snow and found a small, slim branch. “You said the door was blocked, right? Close the window and put this on the top. If someone opens the window again, the branch will get knocked off.” Circe had used similar methods of easily-disturbed details as a magic-free way to see if her bags had been disturbed by bandits. Or Amanita.

“Good enough for now.” Code jumped back up to close the window and place the branch. “You two, see what you can find on the south side of town. I’ll look in the north. Sound good?”

“I’m fine with that,” said Amanita. Charcoal nodded her assent.

“Check back here in… whatever you think is half an hour,” said Code. “This isn’t a large town, Bitterroot couldn’t’ve gone far.” She galloped southward, into the dark.

“So, uh…” Charcoal said to Amanita, “how, how do we look for her?”

“No idea,” said Amanita. “Bitterroot’s the bounty hunter, she’s usually the one finding ponies.” And she could fly, to boot. What if she’d taken off and was chasing someone to the northern exit of the valley?

“Ramble around and ask any pony we run into?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“…By Rain, I wish I was kidding.”

“So do I.”

It didn’t matter how small a town was, you could get lost in it if you made enough of an effort to turn at every intersection. Tratonmane wasn’t large, but after a few turns, Amanita suspected she would’ve been completely lost in its dim streets if not for the walls to orient herself. It was like Tratonmane was larger than it appeared. Not that the small size helped much. Every pony she and Charcoal passed had the same answer for her.

“I ain’t seen ’er,” said the earth pony. The response came quick and sharp, just like all the others.

“Are you sure?” Amanita asked, more out of desperation than anything else. “We could really-”

“Certain sure,” the other snapped. “Y’ken, I dinnae faith you’uns can solve our problems if’n ye cannae solve yer own. Up-headed Canterlouts, every last one o’ ye.” Taking one last glance at Charcoal, she turned around, flicked her tail in Amanita’s face, and stomped off.

“A simple ‘no’ would’ve been just vine!” Charcoal yelled after her. “I mean, really, why?” she whispered to Amanita.

“I mean, it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence,” Amanita said. “One of our ponies just disappearing like that. We’re supposed to be the ones fixing the problem, not making more.”

“But still…”

“Do you know how long it’s been?” Amanita asked, quickly changing the subject.

“Twenty minutes, give or take,” Charcoal mumbled. “Ten more minutes of this…”

Yeah. Great.

A cliff loomed before them; they’d gone south enough to reach the slab that the railroad ended on. The houses were a bit sparser, a few of them even sporting chicken runs, and ponies were less common. Amanita wondered if it was worth finding the road to head on up. Bitterroot wouldn’t have needed it, so-

“Amanita?” Bitterroot’s voice suddenly sounded. “You still wearing this?”

Amanita twitched and felt her legs tense up. “Bitterroot?” she asked hopefully. “Where’ve you been?” Charcoal immediately snapped to look at her, ears forward.

“I’m fine,” Bitterroot said. “I just-” A cough. “I followed the thief into that bunker I told you about, and… I don’t know how, but I lost them. They just vanished.”

The bunker? What were they doing in the bunker? Whatever. Bitterroot was safe. “Can you meet us back at the inn?” Amanita asked. “We’ve been looking for you.” Looking at Charcoal, she pointed at her earpiece, grinned, and nodded. Charcoal grinned back.

“Sure. See you soon. Out.”

Bitterroot paced around the Cave’s common room, her wings twitching restlessly. She lost ponies she was tracking, every now and then. It was part of being a bounty hunter. She’d learned to live with her mistakes. But there was usually some sort of factor. Her quarry had slipped into a crowd. They’d been faster than her. They knew the streets better. She’d misjudged the footprints. Something. This? She’d seen the thief head into the bunker — the empty bunker with just a few rooms — and, somehow, hadn’t been able to track them. They might as well have teleported out.

It left her feeling mighty peeved.

The common room was still empty. She didn’t know if Cabin was in the back and she didn’t feel like looking. She didn’t need to know who was here. She just needed to see Amanita and Code and Charcoal and all of them again so that-

She looked up as the door opened. Amanita and Charcoal walked in; Amanita let out a sigh as she saw Bitterroot. “Oh, thank Celestia,” she breathed. “I called you on the- communication thing and when you didn’t respond-”

“I took it off,” admitted Bitterroot. “I didn’t want any distractions.”

“Eh.” Amanita shrugged. “Fair enough. Code should be back in…” Her voice trailed off and she looked up.

“Five to ten minutes, probably,” said Charcoal. She flicked her tail in annoyance. “I’m gonna deck- check on our gear. Maybe it got damaged.” She ducked inside the storage area.

Bitterroot stalked over to a table, took a seat, and started examining the wood grain ferociously. Amanita sat down across from her. “Are you… feeling alright?” Amanita asked.

“I’m-” Bitterroot coughed. “I’m fine. Just got a bit of a sore throat.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I just feel stupid for somehow missing the thief,” Bitterroot said. “It’s my job to catch runaways, so if I can’t do my job, what am I?” She blew a quick raspberry. “It’ll pass. Don’t worry about me. …What about you?”

“What do you mean, ‘what about me’?”

“When you were down by the trees, it sounded like-”

Amanita’s face drooped back, but she managed a grin. “Heh. You noticed?”

“You don’t exactly have the best poker face.”

“Heh. Short version: I was struggling with magic and Charcoal’s a better teacher than Code for this. It’s… I think I’m better now.”

“You think?”

“Somepony broke into my room before I could be sure.”

Charcoal exited the storage area and groaned, stretching her neck. “I don’t think that room was built with kirins in mind,” she said. “The ceiling got in the way of my horn. But all the crates’re there and it didn’t loose- look like any of them had been opened. That’s something.”

The front door opened again, letting Code in. “I swear,” she huffed to herself, kicking snow from her hooves, “the nerve of some-”

“Bitterroot’s back,” said Amanita.

Code’s head snapped up to see Bitterroot. “Well,” she said. “Good. What happened? Start from the beginning.”

Bitterroot laid out what there was to lay out. It didn’t take very long. By the time she was done, Code was pawing at the ground. “Very strange,” she muttered. “Well, you’re here, so let’s see the damage.”

“I can get in through the window to unlock the door for you,” Bitterroot said, standing up. “Shouldn’t take a second.”

“Check to see if there’s a branch on top of the window,” said Amanita. “We left it there so it’d fall if the thief came back and opened the window to get back in.”

“Sure.”

Out, around, through, and soon Bitterroot had pushed aside a bed blocking the entrance and unlocked the door. “The branch was still there and the glass wasn’t broken,” she said as the others filed in. “I don’t think the window was touched.”

Not much else in the room was touched, either. Some papers had been placed on another bed and were scattered around the room, but other than some bags thrown about, the place was surprisingly neat. Everyone started checking their bags in case they were missing something.

It was funny. She hadn’t been harmed and it wasn’t even her home that had been broken into, but Bitterroot still felt violated. It was like, this was the place she was supposed to feel safe, but someone had come into it and rooted through her possessions anyway. It wasn’t even the possible danger; she’d slept in more dangerous places while on the hunt. But if you settled down in a Northern forest, you expected things to be dangerous. Not here. Not this one place. And the fact that nothing was missing from her bags did little to help her feelings.

“Hey, uh, Bitterroot?” asked Amanita. “You said it was a unicorn, right?”

“They had to be, they had a horn. I saw it glow,” said Bitterroot. “Why?”

“Well… Because…” And Amanita held up several large dark red feathers.

Bitterroot blinked. Those weren’t- “Let me see,” she said, darting up for a closer look, hoping it wasn’t true. But there was no mistaking it. A knot formed in her stomach as she said, “These are from that pegasus I mentioned.”

She’d assumed the thief was solo. Why had she assumed that? Because she’d only seen the one. And yet, that one pegasus, just happening to be right there, right then? Uninvolved. Sure. She’d been talking to one of the perps right then, and just let him slip away, unimpeded. Stupid.

Yet Code seemed pleased. “Dark red wings, gray head, you said?” she asked. “Not exactly an easy coloration to hide. Pegasi with wings colored differently from their body are few and far between… Did you catch anything of the unicorn’s appearance?”

“Just that they were a unicorn,” Bitterroot replied. But, really, why should she have just assumed they were partners? She’d had no proof, then, not even a gut instinct. And when she was chasing down a perp, she usually had done some research to track them down, not suddenly jumping into action based on seeing something.

“So we have a place to start once we’re done here,” said Code. “I’m not missing anything. Anybody else?”

“Nope,” said Bitterroot. She could’ve handled the situation better. But not with the information she’d had then.

“Not me,” Charcoal said. She still had her head buried in one of her bags.

“Sort of,” said Amanita. “These papers-” She’d gathered up the sheets that had been lying around. “They were looking through some of my spell notes- not the necromantic ones!” she added quickly. “Not those. But other than that, I’m not missing anything. Not even any other notes.”

She looked at the papers again and frowned. “Okay, I guess they’re sort of necromantic, but not really… Dispelling zombies and freeing thralls… Anyway, I did bring some necromantic notes, but they’re in a journal, still locked. We’re okay.”

“So…” Code began pacing. “They didn’t ransack the place… Didn’t even steal anything… Just looked at Amanita’s notes. Notes that are more anti-necromancy than necromancy. I know they probably ran before they could get anything, but… what did they want? …Pfeh. Pegasus, dark red wings, gray head. Let’s spread the word.”

“If anyone knows someone like that in Tratonmane,” said Charcoal, “it’ll be Tallbush. We should see if we can find him first.”

“Tallbush? Why him?”

“Well, y’know, since he’s the Duke of Midwich.”

Silence. Amanita and Code stared at her. “He’s… the duke?” asked Code.

Charcoal’s ears twitched and she shied back. “We… didn’t tell them, did we?” she asked Bitterroot in a quiet voice.

“…Huh. No, we didn’t.”

“A duke,” muttered Code. “Out here. Celestia must’ve been desperate.” She shook her head. “Okay. We find Tallbush, ask if he knows anypony. After that… we’ll figure it out.”

“Since he’s the duke, he might be at the town hall,” said Bitterroot. “It’s right across the square, come on.”

When they reached the common room, it had one pony in it: Cabin, chopping some carrots. Bitterroot was halfway across, ignoring her, before wheeling about to face her. “Someone broke into your inn,” she said.

Cabin’s knife froze and she raised her head. “Pardon?” she asked.

“I saw a pony in our room,” said Bitterroot. “And I think they had an accomplice. A gray pegasus with red wings.”

Cabin flicked an ear. “I dinnae ken arypony like that,” she grunted. “Sure enough didnae see arypony out o’ the usual.”

Bitterroot leaned forward a little. “You’re sure?”

“I’m tellin’ you’uns, I didn’t see nopony.”

“Right.” Bitterroot glanced at Cabin’s horn. “Yeah. But keep an eye out.”

Cabin grunted in affirmation. After giving her one last look, Bitterroot led the others out of the inn.

When they reached the hall, Code had absolutely none of the restraint Bitterroot had had, nearly kicking down the doors to enter. “Tallbush!” she hollered authoritatively. “Are you there?”

No response. Code muttered something uncouth. “And we’ll go traipsing across this town again… And if he comes back and we miss him-”

“I could wait here,” Bitterroot volunteered. “I haven’t finished all the death certificates yet and it’s too dark for flight to be much of a help in looking for him.” And that wasn’t an excuse. She really wanted to polish off that pile. “I’ll take a look around once I’m done.”

“Sounds good,” grunted Code. “You two, same deal. You look in the north-”

“I’d be fine with spitting- splitting up,” Charcoal said. “If, if Amanita’s okay with.”

“Sure. No one’s missing and we’ll cover more ground.”

Code rattled off her words like a machine. “Fine. Me, north. Charcoal, southeast. Amanita, southwest. Good? Good. Let’s go. The sooner we find Tallbush, the sooner we can get this done.” And she stomped northward.

Once Amanita and Charcoal were gone, Bitterroot pulled herself back to the library. Her sudden exit had scattered death certificates everywhere, but thankfully, the ones she’d already covered were still in their folders. Still, she spent a good five minutes rooting around the room, making sure she didn’t miss any certificates.

And once she was done with that, right back to it. With an ear angled towards the main hall. The size made it echoic, she’d hear if Tallbush entered.

Fletch — 71 — died 839 — passed in his sleep

Arenac — 67 — died 839 — old age

So what was up with that burglary? It was a pretty lousy one, now that Bitterroot thought about it. Bright lights in the dark… The unicorn just needed to throw a sheet over the window and they’d’ve been nearly invisible. Or, hey, plain old hornlight would be easy to miss. Bitterroot knew that from experience, sadly.

Copper Sprocket — 80 — died 805 — passed in his sleep

Black Bard — 39 — died 805 — wolves

Bitterroot still felt powerless, but it was dripping away as she worked. This job just needed more vigilance. Eyes open, ears up. It’d be, well, interesting. Hopefully not like her last two interesting jobs, or else she’d die again again. At least she knew someone who could do someth-

“Hello.”

Bitterroot flinched and snapped her head up. Carnelian was standing just in front of her, examining her inquisitively. Flexing her wings to work out some of her adrenaline rush, Bitterroot said, “You’re quiet.”

“Oh, I can’t really help it,” Carnelian said, smiling. “But it does alarm some ponies. Scares them to death. What’re you doing here?”

“Data analysis. What’re you doing here?” Bitterroot kept an ear towards the main hall. No sound.

“I just wanted to check something. Maybe my local library had the book I wanted,” Carnelian replied. She slid a book in front of Bitterroot: Primrose Path. “They did. It’s a way to pass the time.” She pulled the book back. “I thought you said you weren’t a ritualist.”

“I’m not.”

“So why are you doing their work for them?”

Bitterroot shrugged. “I need something to do, I guess.”

“Well, what do you want to do? Surely you should do something for yourself.”

“Right now? It doesn’t really matter. Helping others is something for myself.”

Carnelian flicked an ear. “Truly? Doing unpaid work makes you happy?”

“I’m normally a bounty hunter. Either I catch the perp or all my work is unpaid.”

“…But these ritualists-”

“I volunteered,” Bitterroot said bluntly. “I’m fine with where I am now, thank you. If I’m not, I’ll bow out.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure you can do that. I’ve heard Canterlot bureaucracy likes to get its hooks in you.”

“Bounty hunters need to navigate a lot of bureaucracy to stay legal. I know how to work these hooks.”

Carnelian looked at Bitterroot for a long moment, then said, “Well, best of luck.” She nodded at Bitterroot and made for the exit, book under her wing.

On a whim, Bitterroot said, “Hey, quick question. Do you know any pegasus with a gray head and dark red wings?”

Carnelian stumbled on some books as she came to a stop. Giving Bitterroot a look, she said, “I can’t say I’ve ever seen a soul like that in Tratonmane.”

“Alright,” Bitterroot said, sighing internally. “Thanks, anyway.”

With Carnelian gone, Bitterroot looked back at her certificates. Where had she been, again? Ah, yes. Getting near the end.

Microburst — 71 — died 803 — old age

Abraxas — 79 — died 803 — old age

Walking randomly through Tratonmane. Again. Hooray. Alone, this time. Even better. And was the town even darker?

Amanita stalked the streets of Tratonmane, looking for Tallbush as she headed south. There were few ponies out and none of them seemed to know where he was. Or so they claimed. When she asked about the pegasus, they didn’t know about him, either. Or so they claimed. These sorts of communities were always close-knit, for better or worse.

Was she being paranoid?

These ponies didn’t like her. Okay, fine. In their position, she probably wouldn’t like her, either. Did that extend to covering theft for each other? Or worse? Or maybe she’d just been reading too many horror novels. (Which was saying something, since she hadn’t read a lot.) Why do that, anyway? It’d just bring more attention down on them.

Well, if the entire town was in on it (whatever “it” was), it wasn’t like asking ponies about the attempted robbery would make things worse; they’d know about it anyway.

It was surprising how much the railroad slab loomed, even if you weren’t close to it. Amanita stopped to gather her surroundings. She still wasn’t that far from the hall yet, so-

Her ears pricked up at a voice. Its words were indistinct, but it sounded familiar. Tallbush? Maybe. She began tracing it through the streets, the words getting sharper. Soon, she turned a corner, and there they were: Tallbush and Varnish, heading south, towards the station. Tallbush was saying something in a low, urgent voice to the other. “-came ’ere tae help, I cannae keep-”

Amanita’s ears twitched forward and she raised a hoof to follow them. But the second she moved, Varnish’s head whipped around and he was looking her in the eyes. He quickly nudged Tallbush to cut him off and pointed. When Tallbush saw her, his ears twitched, then he threw up a smile. “Hidy, Amanita.”

“There you are!” Amanita said, as if she hadn’t heard anything. She trotted up to the two of them. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“How- are you doing?” asked Varnish.

“Not great. Our room at the Cave was broken into,” said Amanita.

“Ach, cuss it,” said Tallbush, wincing. Amanita didn’t think that was suspicious. “That’s a right shame. Ye lose arythin’?”

“No. But Bitterroot says she saw a unicorn in our room and there were feathers matching a pegasus with dark red wings and a gray head.”

Tallbush frowned, pawing at the ground. Varnish’s ears flicked. “What’re you saying?” he asked.

Potentially suspicious. But a bi-colored pegasus was unusual. “Shortly after the break-in, Bitterroot ran into a pegasus with dark red wings and a gray head.” Already, that phrase was sounding unusual to Amanita, a word repeated too often. “When we searched our room, we found feathers that Bitterroot says matched their wings.”

“But she only saw him in the dark?”

“You’d have to talk to her, but she seemed pretty convinced. Does anypony like that live in Tratonmane?”

“Nay,” said Tallbush slowly. “Ne’er heard o’ arypony like that.”

He seemed genuine. Befuddled. Surprised. Caught by something unexpected. But if there was a pony like that, Tallbush could just tell him to lay low for the rest of the week until those stupid Canterlouts solved the ley line and left. They weren’t in a law enforcement role, after all, and couldn’t go kicking down doors. (Where would they even get a warrant? And was Charcoal in the Guard or a civilian?) Assuming Tallbush and the pony were even in cahoots.

Assuming he was lying rather than telling the truth…

“I’ll get the word out,” he said. “Tell all Tratonmane tae keep an eye open.” His voice grew hard. “If’n we’ve a scoundrel lurkin’ in our town, we best root ’im out right quick.”

He was the duke, but he’d said “our town”, not “my town”. And he drove the train that carried Tratonmane’s freight, and he did it alone. Amanita had once met a pony who’d said that the nobility was more, well, noble if you got further away from Canterlot and brownnosing the princess was impossible. Maybe he was on the level.

But on the level for everyone, or just on the level for Tratonmane?

“I’ll let Whippletree know, too,” said Varnish, holding his head high. “That pony won’t dare to show his face around here again.”

“I’d rather he does dare and then you catch him when he dares,” Amanita said flatly. Varnish didn’t budge; Tallbush twitched and looked away, grinning. “But thanks anyway.” She nodded at them. “See you around.” And she set off down a street, going nowhere in particular.

She’d told Tallbush. That was about all she could do. Some things were just out of her control and she had to let others handle it. This was the best she could manage.

But before she was too far away, on a whim, Amanita looked back over her shoulder.

Tallbush and Varnish were both unicorns.

11 - Arcanic Surveys

“Everyone here is staring at me,” muttered Charcoal. The air around her horn shimmered like a mirage. “I’m just a kirin.”

“Well,” said Bitterroot, “they’ve- never seen a kirin-”

“Canterlot wasn’t like this. Applejack and Fluttershy weren’t like this. And have you met those two?”

“Sorry,” said Amanita.

The four had reassembled back at the Cave. Everyone had the same result: nopony in Tratonmane had seen anyone like the pegasus. And Code was suspicious enough that she’d taken them up to their room for privacy.

“They’re either clueless or lying,” Code said as she paced around the room, half to herself, half to everyone else. “And I can’t tell which of those I dislike less.”

“But if they’re covering for somepony,” said Amanita, “why break in now? We were gone this morning, and Whippletree could’ve told anypony while he was gathering the rest of the militia-”

“Maybe they’re just stupid,” said Bitterroot. Aware of how that sounded a second too late, she quickly added, “Or not thinking things through. After High Gloss and the Maerhwolf, we really shouldn’t put it past them.”

“True, true,” muttered Code. “Although-”

“Um. Hey.” Charcoal raised a hoof. “Is this… really relevant? Nothing’s… really happened yet, technically, and I’m… I’m not a detector- detective, but I feel like we’ll just be talking in circles and forgetting the whole ‘ley line’ thing. The- thing I know about.”

“You’re right,” Code said, heaving a sigh. “Maybe someone was just looking for money. Until we know more… Keep your eyes peeled, but remember that we’re here for the ley line first.”

It was an annoying proposition to Bitterroot, but also the one that made the one that… made the least nonsense. They knew too little to split off from their actual jobs and go running off on what might be an opportunistic burglary. And technically, Bitterroot herself wasn’t part of their group, but she normally knew who she was looking for as a bounty hunter. If she broke into random ponies’ houses, she wouldn’t be a bounty hunter for long.

So instead, she said, “And on that note…” She whipped out her scroll. “I got all the deaths for the town.”

Code immediately brightened. “All of them?”

“All of them.” Bitterroot laid the scroll out on the floor so everyone could see it. “Going all the way back to 780.”

“Thorough,” murmured Code.

“There,” Amanita suddenly said. She pointed at the entry for 946. “Look at that. Nearly three times as many deaths for any other year. And… wow, they’re all violent?”

“Must’ve been a lot of animal attacks that year,” Bitterroot said.

Charcoal had grabbed a quill and was scribbling stuff in the margins. “And the attacks dropped off after that year… Slow drop- Look at it, it’s a smooth curve…”

“Let’s not be too hasty,” said Amanita. “They might not all be attacks. How many of those were mining accidents?”

Bitterroot ran back through her memories. “None.”

Amanita moved her head up such that you could almost hear her neck creaking. She blinked. “Someone’s lying,” she said flatly. “Mining is one of the most dangerous professions in Equestria. People die in collapses all the time. It’s- You didn’t see any? Not even any of these nonviolent ones?”

“…No,” said Bitterroot, trying to ignore the feeling of the uncanny slithering in her gut. “I never saw anything like that. Just attacks and old age.”

“Weird,” Charcoal said too casually as she scribbled numbers down in the margins. “Mountains don’t usually like being bored into.”

Amanita seemed distracted, frowning at Bitterroot’s marks, as she absently asked, “The mountain’s alive?”

“Metaphorically. Mountains are, they’re complex ecosystems, and a mountain with a ley line in it, even more so.” Charcoal began making little swooping gestures with her quill. “All the rocks have settled, but you start drilling into them, and gravity wants them to fall this way but the ley line nudges them that way… There’s a lot going on. There’s even an entire set of secondary guidelines for mines built near ley lines just to make sure nothing gets poisoned. …Metaphorically. A mine this close to a ley line with no accidents is amazing. Although… the trees draw from the line, so if they shore up the line with the trees, then the wood could reabsorb the ley energies…”

“On a similar subject,” said Code, “when we were visiting Pyrita, her sister said nobody in Tratonmane ever had black lung. Could that be a benefit of the line?”

“Not passively,” Charcoal said. “It’s, the line might make you healthier, but poison’ll still kill you. It’s like… It’s like watching- washing in a river. Just standing in it will get some dirt off, but you need to scrub if you want to get clean. Actually, for towns near ley lines, there are rarely any effects on the inhabitants, but the plants are a lot healthier because they’re actively pulling energy from the lean- the line… It’s really neat, once you start digging.”

“Very strange,” muttered Code. “No mining accidents, no black lung… Whatever techniques they use, they’d change the industry, yet it’s just another small mining town in the North.”

“Anyway, getting back to, the, uh, spike in 946,” said Charcoal. “If we assume that that was the result of a ley shift, then any animals might’ve passed going nuts down to their offspring. Maybe. We’re still studying that. Which normally would’ve kept the same amount of attacks in the next year, but if Tratonmane got those bunkers built or taken other anti-wolf measures, you see this slow drop in attacks over the next few years. Like so.” She traced the years to 949. “It’s really smooth, too. And something maybe confirming that is…”

She swept her hoof down the line of years before 946. “Did you notice that there’s barely any attacks before then? Like the animals were calmed because of the ley line and just didn’t feel like it was worth tangling with those weirdos who could fly or throw energy bolts or kick down trees. That’s kinda common around ley lines, actually.”

“I did notice that, but I wasn’t sure it was relevant,” said Code. Looking down the scroll, she stroked her chin. “Ley lines, a perfect mining safety record, grain mothers, peaceful beasts suddenly turning hostile one year… How does one of the most interesting places in Equestria just… drop off the map like Tratonmane did?”

“Maybe it wasn’t interesting before it dropped off the map,” said Bitterroot.

“I wonder what all this does for the ritual environment,” murmured Code. She grunted and straightened up. “But since we shouldn’t be doing that, back to the ley line it is. And before we were interrupted-” (Bitterroot’s wings twitched reflexively, even though it wasn’t her fault.) “-I’m afraid I couldn’t feel anything specific about what was wrong.”

“Me neither,” said Charcoal. “It’s really weird, the currents aren’t behaving properly, but only once you look close at it… Not to mention the energy itself, it’s all-”

Amanita coughed. “Um… I… don’t mean to… intrude or anything, but I… kinda…” She pawed at the floor. “…don’t really know what I’m looking for in the ley line. I, I can feel it, but I don’t know what I’m feeling for.”

Code raised a hoof, ready to say something, only to pause and frown. Charcoal promptly leapt in with, “Have you ever cooked pasta?”

“…Once or twice,” Amanita said, one of her ears drooping.

“You know how, before it’s done, it’s kinda floppy, but you know just from looking at it that it’s not floppy enough, even before you bite into it or throw it against the ceiling?”

“Yeah…” The ear went back up.

“It’s just… something you learn. Just feel the ley line, get to know what it does, and soon you’ll know what to look for.”

“Uh-huh,” Amanita said, nodding.

“Which… isn’t good advice right about now, because I don’t know what to look for. And this is, y’know, my job and all.” Charcoal grinned nervously. “But that’s what the geothaumometers are for, right?”

Amanita grimaced. “Are we really going to have to set them up?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Code. “Normally, we’d have a clearer picture of the problem by now instead of continuing to flounder. So if that’s what it takes…” She heaved a large sigh.

“What’s a geothaumometer?” asked Bitterroot.

Big, bulky, and a pain to move. That’s what a geothaumometer was.

More descriptively, geothaumometers were a combination of a surveying tripod, a planisphere, a windmill, a crystalline lattice framework mounted on the bottom, and a pendulum. Looking at one, Bitterroot couldn’t make head or tail of it, so she decided to leave that to the ritualists. The things were tall, around a foot taller than most ponies once fully assembled, and had a rather involved setup process. In spite of the crystals, Amanita insisted they weren’t fragile, just a pain to build.

A brief talk with Cabin had yielded several simple maps of Midwich Valley in the space between the mine and the forest, and Charcoal quickly picked twelve locations across the valley to place geothaumometers. A bit of work, and the ritualists had wrestled the large crates in storage onto a few sledges to transport north. The treeline was beginning to loom when the three split up, each one going to set up their own geothaumometers. Bitterroot found herself walking with Code to provide an extra set of limbs, as Code lacked a horn to give herself the equivalent of an extra set of limbs, and was very glad that she didn’t need to remember the steps for assembly.

Once it was up, though, it looked simple enough: a tall frame for the pendulum to swing in, with the windmill spinning on the top. The pendulum itself was almost ludicrously simple, nothing more than a small chunk of smoky quartz hanging from a chain. The pendulum swung over the planisphere, oriented by Bitterroot didn’t know what. All of this was mounted on the tripod and able to be adjusted separately so it was level. Finally, the crystals were stowed on the legs of the tripod.

Code had a pole out and was making some final adjustments to the windmill with it. Bitterroot looked up and down at the… device. It was a confusing mishmash of stuff she had no comprehension of. It was almost scary, how odd it looked. But it was helping them do their job, so she might as well find out. Once Code set the pendulum to swinging, Bitterroot cleared her throat. “So, uh… what does all of this do? What’s involved in geothaumometing?”

“Quartz is an excellent receptacle for magic, as you may know,” Code said. “Smoky quartz even more so, thanks to its creation. As the pendulum swings, it collects magic from the air and deposits it through the planisphere, down here.” She patted one of the crystals. “Once we have it stored, we can analyze it more precisely. Additionally, over the course of this process, it gets drawn into a parallel course with the ley line. Like a weather vane turning to face the wind. Once we have all of them swinging in the proper orientation, we can triangulate them for the line’s source.”

Once Bitterroot knew what it was meant to do, she could see it. Kinda. Sorta. Granted, the actual mechanics of it all probably required a doctorate in some field she hadn’t heard of, but it didn’t look quite so overwhelming anymore. Just a bit weird. “And magic keeps the pendulum swinging instead of slowing down, right?”

“The windmill on top gathers energy for just that, as well as preventing the wind from pushing it off-course.” Code closed her eyes, ate a mouthful of dirt, and breathed in deeply. After a moment, she budged the inner disk of the planisphere a degree clockwise.

“Does a change that small really matter?” Bitterroot asked.

“Almost certainly not,” said Code. “But I like to be thorough. Now…” Taking the pole in her mouth, Code traced out a circle around the geothaumometer with an easy smoothness. Returning to the box, she pulled out, of all things, a small tangle of thorns. She placed the thorns in the center of the circle right underneath the geothaumometer and took up the pole again to sketch out a rune, one that looked like a capital Y with another vertical line between the tines. (It was on the eastern side of the circle. Did that matter? Maybe.) Taking a seat on the south side, Code closed her eyes and started muttering rhythmically. Around them, snow stirred as grass started leaning towards her.

Something snapped minutely in the air, like the pop of the world’s tiniest firecracker, and the very tips of Bitterroot’s feathers buzzed. How did she know it was just the tips? Code nodded. “We’re done here. Let’s move on.” She began working herself back into the sledge’s yoke.

“Uh, what was that?” Bitterroot asked, pointing at the circle. Something magical had happened, and you always wanted to be careful when magical things happened around circles. (Heh. Around.)

“Try it out,” Code said a bit too cheerfully. “It’ll be a learning experience.” She adjusted the yoke on her withers.

A “learning experience”. From a ritualist. The High Ritualist. Great. After suppressing a gulp, Bitterroot carefully edged her hoof over the circle-

Out of nowhere, she suddenly felt the sharp tingle of a light electric shock zip up her leg; she yanked her hoof back on reflex.

“Shock circles,” Code said preemptively. “Basic ritual. Any living thing that goes over it gets a nice, small jolt of lightning. Quick and easy animal deterrent.” She dug her hooves into the ground and started tugging the sledge to the next setup point.

“That doesn’t seem like it’d stop a pony if they really wanted to get in,” Bitterroot said, looking back over her shoulder. Really wanted to get in, though.

“It won’t, not if they set their mind to it,” said Code. “But animals will do anything to avoid pain. The capacity for self-destruction is one of the gifts of sapience. …And that sounds far more morbid than I intended.”

“You think?”

It was supposed to be simple. Set up a geothaumometer, draw a shock circle around it, repeat until all the spots were accounted for. That was probably the first warning sign.

Amanita’s first geothaumometer had the misfortune of being on an incline just slight enough to throw off the balance a little. It could stand, certainly, but Amanita felt like a strong enough wind could tip it over — the wind being of the sort that Midwich’s walls magnified. Extending the leg anchors to drill in was easy enough, as long as the ground wasn’t too cold. Oh, wait. It took Amanita several minutes to get an anchor in deep enough that was comfortable with it. One anchor. And because the effort she put in was mostly the effort of turning a screw, it was unnecessarily fiddly when doing it physically and she didn’t even get the satisfaction of a workout when doing it physically.

“Everypony-” she grunted to herself with each painful turn, “always- forgets- what- goes on- in- the North.”

Which was why she and Circe had spent so much time there.

Thankfully, the rest of the tasks were much simpler. Get the planisphere level, get it properly oriented, scrub the osmotic crystals, get the pendulum swinging, draw the shock circle. Easy-peasy.

Except for the last one.

Unlike the mental projection spell, Amanita knew shock circles. They were simple ritual magic, something she had a very solid grasp of. Draw the circle to contain the magic (you didn’t even need any special media!), lay the thorns inside to stand for the deterrent, sketch a properly-oriented algiz for protection, and use a little bit of her own magic to draw out the deterrence for the protection.

But somehow, the deterrence didn’t want to come out. Amanita pulled and needled, but the reality within the circle just wasn’t schlorpy enough, and everything stayed right where it was. She growled at the thing that’d worked plenty of times before, then started pacing.

Her missing things seemed to be the theme of the week, didn’t it? Ley lines, grain mothers, this ritual she knew ought to be working… The second she stepped out of necromancy- No, that wasn’t fair. She’d made shock circles. They’d worked before. This circle was good enough to work. Which meant there was a problem with the environment, maybe? The ley line might-

The current of the ley line necessitated a slightly misshapen circle. Right. Grauss’s flux law. How could she have forgotten that? (By it being a specific edge case, applicable in only certain types of scenarios for certain types of rituals? The irrational part of her mind looked at that and decided it didn’t matter.) Nothing quite like letting simple laws of metaphysics like that get in the way of you doing your job, genius.

Shock circles being a simple ritual, the circle didn’t need to be perfect, which was good, because the precise nature of how it needed to be adjusted kept escaping Amanita. But there were only so many ways you could smoosh a circle, and she soon had a shape for which the deterrence semi-begrudgingly left the thorns. (If you touched the thorns now, they’d seem oddly blunt and flimsy.) The circle hummed satisfyingly, so she poked her hoof over the circumference-

Bzzt. -and yanked it back. The zap wasn’t large, but it was sharp and sudden and unhindered by her furs. It was also working, and ought to work for another twenty-two-ish hours. Fortunately, shock circles were metaphysical once running. Throwing away the thorns or breaking the physical circle wouldn’t do anything; you had to draw out the actual magic. Either no animal would be able to break the circle or the animals were smart enough to use focused magic, in which case the cavalry could be called. Hopefully.

Test again, because she was paranoid and wanted to be sure it was still wor- Bzzt. Still working. Ah, science.

Once that was done, she went to the next location, further up the hill but thankfully flatter. Set up the geothaumometer, make the circle, test the circle, get shocked. The location after that, though, she was busy adjusting the level of the planisphere when a chiropterus chirped their way over through the dark. Midwinter. She settled onto her haunches, watching Amanita with interest as she traced out the shock circle. “Evening,” Amanita said as she tossed the thorns in the middle.

“Evening,” Midwinter returned.

“Flipping rigatack!” Amanita returned back as she got shocked again.

Midwinter chuckled. “Don’t like the pain, do you?”

“Not really.” Amanita looped the harness back over her neck. “But I’d rather me get hurt than other ponies.”

“Hmm.”

Amanita pulled. Not being an earth pony, she was getting tired, but that was more than balanced out by carrying only a quarter of what she’d started with; only one geothaumometer to go. Midwinter followed along, watching her carefully. “Your… team has quite the project in the works,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going,” Amanita grunted.

“I believe I’ve never mentioned how grateful I am to have you here,” Midwinter said. “Having skilled ponies working tirelessly for them is a boon anypony should be thankful of.”

“I expect you get that feeling sometimes,” said Amanita. “You and your family work on the plumbing, don’t you?”

“Oh, not as much as you may think. Varnish is rather close to a brute, no matter how much he reckons himself a knight with his sword,” Midwinter said shamelessly, “and although she has her ideas, Carnelian couldn’t weave a genuine spell to save her life, I know that much. But you… I heard of that spell you cast on the bear. A form of psychometry, was it?”

“‘Thanatometry’ might be a better name,” said Amanita. Necrometry would scare ponies off, with its prefix of necro-, plus it didn’t roll off the tongue nearly as easily. And had she heard right? Varnish was also part of Midwinter’s family? Huh.

“Still. Seeing its death for yourself — and without any focus item, if I heard correctly. You must be an excellent mage.”

“I’ve certainly pushed boundaries,” said Amanita. Just- not all of those boundaries were ones that ought to be pushed. (Her breath nearly hitched. Had she said too much?)

“What form of magic do you study?” Midwinter’s ears were forward.

Amanita’s thoughts rushed for an excuse and quickly grabbed, “Well… it’s complicated. Let’s just say they haven’t figured out what to call it yet.” Which was true; there was still some debate over renaming the Necromancy Corps to the Thanaturgy Corps for better PR. “Mostly, it… involves different ways of experiencing the past.” There she went again, saying too much, potentially sounding interesting.

But Midwinter seemed satisfied. She nodded and started whistling.

They reached the position of the final geothaumometer. With a combination of hoof and horn, Amanita rolled it off the sledge and set about setting it up. “So what’re you doing down here?”

A shrug. “Curiosity, I suppose. I merely wanted to see how this was going, get a feel for its progress. Although if it’s merely ‘going’…”

“Eh.” Amanita adjusted the dials to get the planisphere lying flat. After three previous setups, she was developing a bit of a feel for it. “Still inconclusive. We’re running further tests to find out more. We’ve still got options.”

“Well, I wish to you the best of luck. I’m much too familiar with large projects for my liking. Particularly long-term ones where constant issues necessitate the scrapping of the project after moons of work.”

“Plumbing can take that long? I wouldn’t know.” Test. Last one. Bzzt. Mrglfrgl…

“It can when you’re upgrading. When it comes to… purifying liquids like water, there are a great many moving parts. Altering a single thing can have ripple effects, ah… downstream, so to speak.”

“Wah wah wah,” snorted Amanita.

Midwinter’s calm expression suddenly dropped. “...I beg your pardon?”

“Bduh…” Amanita quickly looked down, pretending to fiddle with the circle. “It’s a- Canterlot- thing. Because of your… pun, it’s-”

“Um, hey! Amanita!”

Charcoal came trotting up through the dark, her horn glowing and ringing. “Um.” She swallowed. “Amanita, can you help me?” she asked, slightly quiet. “I… can’t really get the circle-”

“Did you remember to account for Grauss’s flux law?” Amanita asked, standing up.

“…No, because I’ve never hearth- heard of it.”

Fair enough. Few non-ritualists had. “Alright. Let’s go teach you.”

Charcoal led Amanita, and Midwinter tagged behind; Amanita got the feeling that Midwinter was bordering on gawking at Charcoal, but in a dignified manner. Charcoal’s geothaumometers had been set up perfectly, so Amanita just needed to draw the circle a bit lopsidedly.

“That was it?” Charcoal asked, her ears quivering. “Code… never said-”

“She might’ve forgotten it,” Amanita said. She was already drawing the deterrence out from the thorns; might as well quickly finish up. “I know I forgot it until I tried the circle myself.”

Once the circle was closed, Charcoal prodded the air above the perimeter. Amanita actually saw the blue glow of the sparks this time, now that she wasn’t tensing up for the shock. But Charcoal was giggling as she shook her hoof. “Wow that’s weird,” she muttered. Bzzt.

“Is it the working sort of weird?” Amanita asked.

“Yeah.” Bzzt.

“What would possess you to… do that?” asked Midwinter, her ears back and her wings rustling.

“I dunno, I just like the felling.” Bzzt. “Feeling.”

“I hope it’s not interfering with your speech. You’re rather malapropist.”

Charcoal didn’t look at Midwinter, but she folded her ears back. “That’s not my fault, I was silenced for a long time,” she muttered. Bzzt.

“Can you do that at the next circle?” asked Amanita. “We still need to draw two more before we’re done.”

“Right.” Bzzt.

As they set off, Midwinter gave Amanita a look like she was about to say something, only for Charcoal to start talking. “Anyway, I was thinking that, if these don’t yield anything, we might want to run tests on the river, since-”

Midwinter sucked in a sharp breath. “As- I- said-” she half-growled, “our purification processes do not-”

“And I’m planning on that!” Charcoal said, not caring one lick for Midwinter’s reaction. “I hope you’re right! Because if you are, then the river’s pretty close to pure, and that makes it great for analysis.” She looked off into the dark, towards (what Amanita presumed was) the river. “Rivers are… They’re kinda the… blood of a place. Everything glows- grows around the river. They follow ley lines easily. And we didn’t find much in Midwich Forest, but we could still find something in Tratonmane. And you can work the water to get even more data on the ley line, if it comes to that. Nothing, nothing to do with plumbing.”

“Ah.” Midwinter’s voice was back to normal, although she was still looking at Charcoal oddly.

“Not until tomorrow, though,” Charcoal said, peering up. “It’s getting late.” Indeed, the sky was darkening from orange to blue as the sun passed below the horizon outside the gorge. Not that you could tell unless you looked straight up. Amanita wondered just how strange a wide blue sky would feel to her once they left Tratonmane.

“In any case, your specific niche has slipped my mind. You’re the, ah… environmentalist?” Midwinter asked.

“I am!” Charcoal said, a spring working its way into her step. “I studied environmental magical systems for ages. You know, used properly, they can sustain life where it really shouldn’t be. Like in here! Midwich’s agriculture is nuts. You guys have grain! This far north!”

“Yes, we’ve certainly made the valley work for us. It’s quite impressive.”

“So we’d better fix the line quick, or else…” Charcoal shuddered, all the way to the tip of her tail. “Can you imagine? Being up here without a ley line to draw from for food? That’d be awful. You wouldn’t get much food and the food you would get would be malnourished. Any village probably wouldn’t last the season.”

“Hmm. And you do not know how long you shall be here?”

“Not yet,” said Charcoal. “This line’s a doozy for some reason. We might need to get extra help from Canterlot, but I’d really not have that happen.” She laughed the laugh of someone just anxious enough to fret.

“Indeed,” Midwinter muttered. She gave the two a bow. “It was a pleasure speaking to you, even if you fumbled the words, but I’m afraid I have business to attend to.” And she winged into the dark.

Charcoal didn’t seem to notice Midwinter’s departure. “It kinda makes you wonder,” she said. “Just what does Tratonmane get from the VFC? I mean, FVC. The mine’s mostly coal, right? How is coal so valuable that keeping a village up here is profitable?”

“Who knows?” Amanita said with a shrug. “Maybe it’s not and inertia keeps it moving. Come on. I’m hungry, and the sooner we get those circles drawn, the sooner we can get dinner.”

“We still need to talk about sharing magic,” said Code.

“Hmm?” Amanita said through a mouthful of oddly delicious clover.

“Maybe ‘need’ is too strong. But I cannot believe we’ve barely looked at it since yesterday.”

Upon finishing up the geothaumometers and shock circles, it was collectively decided to turn in for the day, and now the team was having dinner in the Cave’s common room again. Amanita was having an excessively simple (but quite tasty) salad of arugula and clover. Bitterroot and Charcoal were deep in conversation about the Elements of Harmony. And Code was playing with her meal in the fidgety way of someone who’s hungry but thinking of something still more interesting than food.

“Well, you know.” Amanita swallowed. “Work. And after dinner, you and I had that- one conversation.”

“But we left it at that,” muttered Code. “We didn’t go further once we had the time. In Canterlot, I would’ve…” She picked up a leaf of arugula in her mouth and slowly chewed, drawing it into her mouth like a spaghetti noodle as she stared at her thoughts. Then, almost like a rope had snapped, her head whipped around until she was looking at the bar, mostly empty. One of her ears twitched. “Would you like to find out?”

“Wha- Sharing?”

“Yes. Cabin seems unoccupied at the moment. We could talk to her.”

“Er-” Amanita glanced over. Cabin seemed concerned mostly with wiping down glasses at the moment. But knowing Cabin, she’d probably have an excuse ready to avoid talking to them. Still, worth a shot. “Sure.”

“Excellent.” Without another word, Code set off for the bar. Amanita quickly scurried after her.

Cabin looked up as they took seats in front of her, then went back to cleaning glasses. “Need arythin’?” she grunted.

“Do you know how to share magic?” Code asked. “Between individuals.”

“Aye. Most everypone does.”

“Can you teach us?”

Cabin raised her head, looking like Code had asked her the best way to barbeque foals. Amanita squirmed beneath her gaze; Code didn’t blink. “Ye dinnae ken?” Cabin huffed out something that might’ve been a laugh. “There’re foals that outclass ye.”

“Correct,” Code said shamelessly. “And I, for one, feel it is never too late to learn. Can you teach us?”

“Lissen,” grunted Cabin, “I’ve got importanter things tae do then teach somethin’ that ought tae be foal’s play tae a buncha-”

Code slapped a high-value coin on the bartop. “Would this speed things up?”

“Pff. Ye reckon ye can buy yer way up?” Cabin tried to look incensed, but it seemed more performative to Amanita than anything. She was looking at the shiny too often. “I dinnae ken ’ow it works in Canterlot, but ’ere, busy’s busy.”

Code shrugged. “Well, if you’re busy, you’re busy. But then I’ll be taking this back.” She pulled the coin back an inch.

Cabin managed a full second before she gave the coin a telekinetic yank from beneath Code’s hoof. “Ain’t that busy,” she grunted reluctantly. She made a show of examining it, then tucked it away. After a moment’s thought, she pointed at Amanita. “You. Unicorn.”

“Amanita,” the unicorn in question said.

“Unicorn. Ye ken how, when ye’re magickin’ somethin’ up, ye’re… pushin’ it with yer thoughts and magic?”

Amanita assumed that meant levitating something. It was… not the greatest description, but not inaccurate. She nodded hesitantly.

“Push yer magic at somepony else. Nae thoughts, let ’em find those theirselves.”

And Amanita nearly clamped her jaw shut in horror.

That was very close to enthrallment.

When you made a thrall, you pushed your own magic and will on them, smothering the identity of the original pony as you bent your soul to your own. Amanita knew how to make thralls. She’d done it plenty of times before. Now, though, the thought made her guts churn. The realization of what enthrallment actually was had made her finally decide to abandon her lich master and run. She almost cut off any thoughts of sharing magic on pure reflex.

But.

But the important part, making sure their thoughts were yours, Cabin had specifically shot down. Let them find their own thoughts. Because that was how they shaped the magic, right? Otherwise, you were just using them as a complicated conduit and might as well cast the spell directly, since-

“Ye feelin’ alright?”

Amanita blinked her way back to reality. Cabin was squinting at her, not particularly worried. “Ye’re lookin’ woolgathered,” Cabin said. “Do ye-”

“I’m fine,” Amanita said quickly. “Just- thinking.” Technically true.

Okay. Okay, she could- She could do this. Nothing to do with enthrallment. She could do this. She could. She could. She could. (It was around this time it stopped sounding like self-denial and started sounding something resembling genuine.) She took a deep breath, paying close attention to the way the chill wormed down her throat. Keep her thoughts on that, and she wouldn’t go forcing them on Code. “I, I think I get it.”

One of Cabin’s ears twitched at some certain sound or voice. “Got work that needs doin’,” she said, pushing away. “Back in a few.” And she was depositing drinks on a tray for some pony in the common room.

Code leaned close to Amanita, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper. “I recognize that look,” she murmured. “Something wrong?”

“Just-” Amanita took another breath. “Just bad memories.”

“If you’d rather not, I-”

“I, I’m fine, they’re already gone. I just wasn’t expecting them. I can, uh, try to lend you magic.”

Code gave Amanita another Look, but settled back on her stool. “Very well. Hit me.”

Amanita nodded and reached inside herself.

When she normally used her magic, Amanita had an idea behind it. That idea shaped any spells she cast, any enchantments she wove, any rituals she invoked. This wasn’t out of any intent, but like the eyes focusing on an object: it was just how things happened. But now, she tried to unspool her magic like letting a limb go limp. No thoughts, just sort of wafting it in Code’s direction.

Something twitched.

Amanita felt a sort of metaphysical jerk on her… She didn’t know what. It wasn’t exactly her magic. It was something more… She didn’t know what. The feeling was so strange that she jolted in surprise, instinctively pulling her magic back in. At the same time, Code shuddered like an ice cube was rolling down her spine. “That was you, right?” asked Amanita.

“Yes,” Code said. But she said it absently; only a small portion of her attention was on Amanita. One of her hooves was drumming on the bartop as she muttered to herself. “…difference in kind… If you adapt the right ritual-”

“So-” Amanita cleared her throat. “So now what?”

“I’d like to try it the other direction, if you don’t mind.” Code still wasn’t exactly talking to Amanita, more at her. “If Cabin’s advice was sound, I think I can do it myself. Then… we’ll figure it out.”

Amanita’s track record with “figure it out” was… mixed. But she always accomplished something, at least. “Okay, try it. Whenever you’re ready.” She began taking deep breaths. Being calm and steady seemed like the best way to prepare for this.

After a moment, something curled around awareness and batted at her sensation. It was… not exactly the liminality of a ritual, but something bordering on it. It was… It was magic. Not her magic, but someone else’s, being pushed at her. Amanita tentatively reached out with her own magic and tugged it.

Code sucked in a breath like she’d been stabbed in the gut and the feeling was gone. She put a hoof on her chest, breathing deeply, gasping, “Mother of… That is… something.”

“You okay?”

“Absolutely. Merely shocked. I’ve never felt… my own magic moved like that.”

The phrasing made Amanita hyperfocus on Code. If they were wrong about this, if sharing magic felt bad- But Code didn’t look disturbed, just thoughtful. She was muttering something about rituals and sympathetic attunement. Which was certainly a route to follow, but a bit beyond the scope of what they could study in Midwich.

“I wonder how pegasus magic feels,” Code said. “Or kirin magic.”

“Everything Charcoal’s told me says kirin magic and unicorn magic are functionally identical.”

Code’s grin wasn’t a mad-scientist one just yet, but it was in the right neighborhood. “But we don’t know. And now, we can see for certain.” She looked across the common room, to Bitterroot and Charcoal. “Think they’ll be interested?”

Amanita knew that Code would proceed no matter what her answer was, so she just said, “Might as well ask them.”

Bitterroot and Charcoal were still talking about the Elements as Amanita and Code approached. “-bigger than she sounds,” Charcoal was saying. “Her mane’s kinda ratty and she’s… I can’t remember the word. Lean? Wiry? Something like that. I guess it comes from working outside so much. She’s definitely not what you’d expect someone named ‘Fluttershy’ to be like.”

“I thought-”

“Charcoal. Bitterroot,” declared Code.

Charcoal’s tail flicked in surprise. “Ehm. Code. Amanita.”

“Cabin,” declared Bitterroot, pointing across the room. “Wait, she’s not there anymore.”

“So, uh,” said Amanita, shuffling from hoof to hoof, “we… kinda figured out how to share magic-”

“Really?” Bitterroot’s wings twitched. “Neat.”

“Not all the way,” Amanita said quickly. “It’s not, Code can’t levitate anything with my magic yet. But between the four of us, we’ve got four different magic-using species, so we were thinking-”

Code’s grin was deeper into the neighborhood and now knocking on the door of mad-scientist-dom. “Before we turn in for the night, how would you two like to make history?”

“I’m a member of a long-forgotten species coming back to knowledge,” said Charcoal. “I’m already history.”

“And I’ve-” Bitterroot blinked and looked around. “I’ve… y’know… and I’ve done that twice. I’m also history.”

“Would you like to make history again?”

Bitterroot and Charcoal looked at each other. After a moment, they grinned.

12 - The Logistics of Isolation

Amanita was stirred from her slumber by the sound of someone coughing. Sharing magic last night had been tiring in a way she’d never felt before, so she wasn’t surprised that other ponies also weren’t feeling a hundred percent. But they’d managed to learn a lot, even if no one could do much yet. Foal steps.

Her head was swimming with a stroke that meant she wouldn’t be getting any further rest. She half-stumbled out of bed, pulled on her furs, and squinted out the window and up. The sky was red, turning to blue, as the sun rose outside Midwich. Licking her lips to get them wet, she meandered down the staircase to the common room. There were still a few ponies there, including a pair at the bar; once Amanita took a seat on the opposite end as them, they got up and went to a far corner.

Cabin was standing at the middle of the bar, watching her intently. “Mornin’,” she grunted.

“Morning,” Amanita mumbled back.

Silence. Amanita blinked a few times and managed to focus on Cabin’s horn. Somehow, after their search, the thief and their room being broken into had completely slipped her mind. Better or worse than the alternative, being hyper-aware that the place she was sleeping in had been robbed? Her brain couldn’t muster up an argument in either direction.

“Ye’ll need tae tell me if’n ye want arythin’,” grunted Cabin.

“I don’t,” said Amanita. “Not yet.” She rubbed at her eyes. The throbbing in her head was going down, but that meant her tiredness was coming to bear, and it was too late for her to go back up and get any rest. “Unless you’ve got coffee.” She didn’t drink it much herself, but it seemed to wake other ponies up. Even if there was a caffeine addiction running rampant through the country that no one seemed willing to admit.

“Got what?”

“Never mind.” She didn’t like the smell, anyway, so the taste probably wouldn’t be much better.

Cabin grunted.

Amanita raised her head and looked at the menu. The menu that seemed to be ninety percent whiskey. Would Cabin serve her whiskey right now if she asked? Probably. But it was a terrible idea for a multitude of reasons. She was about to slouch forward again when she noticed something else: the prices. And that got her thinking just enough to push away some of her tiredness. “Um. Cabin?”

Grunt.

“You don’t use scrip here?”

One of Cabin’s ears twitched as she looked up. “What?”

“You’ve been taking our money. Our actual coins. You use bits and not some company token?”

“Sure,” she grunted. “Why wouldnae we?”

Amanita shrugged, making some vague mumble. “Don’t need to keep cash on hoof. Not much to spend money on. Overcharging at the company store.” Wait, why had she said that last one?

Cabin’s ears went down, and they went down fast. Her subsequent inhale and exhale sounded like the cycling of a blast furnace, and when she spoke again, her enunciation was sharp. “Ye’re new here,” she said, “so I’ll let it slide. But ken this: His Grace Tallbush is honest. Everypony he pays, he pays fairly. Everypony he charges, he charges fairly. If he were a king, he’d be a right fine one. And if’n ye say elsewise, yer sleepin’ in the streets tonight.”

Where she probably wouldn’t survive until morning. For a duke and company oligarch this far from Canterlot law, Tallbush must’ve been the epitome of a stand-up guy. Or maybe Cabin was in cahoots with him. Either way, Amanita just said, “Sorry, didn’t know.”

“And now ye dae,” grunted Cabin. “Dinnae disremember it.”

Someone coughed and Bitterroot came ambling down the stairs. She loped across the room and plonked on the seat next to Amanita. “Morning,” she said. Cough.

“You feeling alright?” Amanita asked.

“Fine, fine,” croaked Bitterroot. “Morning throat. It’ll go away in an hour.” Cough. “So what’s for breakfast?”

It wasn’t long before Code and Charcoal were down as well. Breakfast was quick and uneventful, and the moment they were done, Code stood up. “Refresh my memory. Charcoal, you were having a meeting here with Midwinter and Carnelian today, yes?”

“Yeah,” Charcoal said with a nod. “About the plumbing. Whether they use spells or potions or something else. I’ve actually got a list of questions I was planning on asking them.”

“Good. That sounds like something I ought to sit in on. Amanita, would you mind checking up on the geothaumometers?”

“No, I can do that.” Of course, why wouldn’t she be able to? Just walk up to one, take all the relevant measurements, repeat. Easy. (…She really hoped she hadn’t just jinxed herself.) “Should I go through the whole procedure on them? Triangulation, measuring, all that?”

“Yes, thank you. I can’t say if they’ll be done just yet, but they should finish before noon.”

“Mind if I tag along? I need something to take up the day,” Bitterroot said.

“Don’t,” Amanita said flatly. “It’ll be boring.” Even more than you’d expect. When you were taking measurements from a geothaumometer, there wasn’t much to do besides look at gauges and write numbers.

“C’mon, examining some magic machinery? Can’t be that dull. You can explain it to me.”

“Do you have a bachelor’s in arcane theory?”

“…No.”

“Then no, I can’t explain it to you. You’d just be sitting around watching me write things on a scroll.”

“As opposed to talking about plumbing?”

“There’s actually quite a lot of pegasus magic in plumbing,” Charcoal piped up. “Working with water and cleanness… The same sort of stuff that goes into making cloudstone. If you didn’t clean it beforehoof, you’d be picking up a tiny little bit of dirt every time you touched something. And you’ve gotta keep it clean of the dust it picks up…”

“Pegasus magic?” asked Bitterroot. “In… plumbing.”

Charcoal cocked her head. “That’s what I said, isn’t it? It depends on how it’s used, and it’s not always the most-used form of magic, but sure, you can use it for that.”

“…What degree do I need to sit in on plumbing?”

“None, I think. I understood it, and I don’t even know what pegasus magic feels like!”

Bitterroot glanced at Code. “Do you mind?”

“You can sit in if you wish,” said Code. “I can’t imagine why, but I don’t think you’ll get in the way.”

“Then I’ll stick around.”

Amanita pushed herself to her hooves. “I’ll get the map, and then I’ll be going,” she said. Although right before she headed up, she noticed that Bitterroot gave her an extra look. Probably nothing. Right now, she had geothaumometers to analyze. And a new frame of mind to get into.

Bitterroot started kicking herself almost the moment Amanita was out of the inn. It’d been a perfect opportunity to get some time alone with Amanita, with little chance of being interrupted and a nice long time before any of that changed. They could talk things out, see how Amanita was doing. It was the reason Bitterroot had decided to come here, after all. And then Amanita had gotten intense with saying “no”. Bitterroot knew that tone, where Amanita wouldn’t let go of an idea. Not wanting to talk about her past with Circe. Thinking she’d be useless to the Guard once another necromancer came around. And now, treating taking measurements as boring. Unless she was hiding something.

Of course, Amanita was the sort of mare who, once she’d decided that she needed to get away from a lich, had dropped a mine on that lich’s head and bolted across the Frozen North with minimal supplies. Sometimes, she did things… bigly. It was possible that analyzing geothaumometers really was that incredibly boring.

Maybe Bitterroot should’ve pushed. Maybe she shouldn’t’ve. Ah, well, too late now. There was a chance she could squeeze out an excuse later and get involved anyway.

For the moment, though, she was lounging around in the common room of the Watering Hole, wondering if she really wanted to take a look at plumbing. It sounded kinda interesting, admittedly, but not necessarily that interesting. “What time did Midwinter and Carnelian say they’d arrive, again?” she asked Charcoal.

“They, uh, didn’t,” Charcoal said. “Just in the morning. I don’t think I’ve even seen a clock around here… They probably don’t need them. I know the Grove didn’t. It’s like, what’s the point? There’s not a lot of people around, and you don’t even need to worry about trains, since there’s only one train that runs on that track… Yeah. Not worth it, really.”

“It can make waiting a bit of a pain, though.”

“…Yeah.”

Luckily, right then, the door banged open, letting the frigid winds of Midwich curl their way in. Midwinter the season entered the building, followed by Midwinter the pony and Carnelian the sullen pony. Midwinter shook some snow from her mane and said, “I do hope we weren’t keeping you waiting.”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” said Code.

Midwinter and Carnelian looked at Bitterroot for a moment before Midwinter said, “Come along. The setup’s downstairs.”

Cabin let them into the back; down a narrow staircase below ground was a large, low room. Sputtering light gems that probably needed to have an arcanist look at them illuminated a messy mishmash of whiskey barrels, food, various miscellaneous supplies for the Watering Cave, and whiskey barrels. Down here was everything the inn needed, kept out of the way of company. Midwinter and Carnelian wound their way through like they were used to labyrinthine rooms; Bitterroot and the others took quite a bit longer. Bitterroot could tell when Charcoal because of the way her hornlight reddened slightly and she let out another low string of words that technically weren’t curses but foals oughtn’t hear anyway.

Eventually, they pulled their way out and into what felt like a cubby: a small area right in the corner of the room clear of most other barrels and junk. Something that looked like a water heater was standing along one of the walls, while the other hosted an array of piping and rune-carved wooden blocks that Bitterroot was sure would make her feathers curl if she looked at them too long.

The second she saw the pipes, Charcoal’s ears went up. “Ooo,” she said, darting up to the wall to squint at one of the blocks. “That’s neat, that’s… Yeah, that’s good.”

Carnelian smirked. “You see?” she said. “I told you. You didn’t need to worry about our spells working.”

“That’s not what you said,” Charcoal replied disinterestedly, “you said-”

Before either one could get a snipe in, Code cleared her throat, making a pre-avalanche sound. “Midwinter,” she said, rather loudly. “What, in general, does this do?”

“These form the purifying systems for the Watering Cave,” Midwinter said quickly, gesturing at the pipes with a wing. “We’ve charms and spells running through the whole arrangement.”

Charcoal ran a hoof along the pipes and very resolutely didn’t look at Carnelian. “You’re very thorough,” she said idly.

“Of course,” said Midwinter. “Water’s the only thing everypony needs, young or old or anything else. It’d be quite a shame if it got contaminated.”

“Do you use the same bezel- design in every building?”

“Indeed. It helps with keeping everything running properly.”

“Right, right.”

“We’re, uh, awfully far from the river,” Bitterroot said. “How does-”

Carnelian let out a snort. “You’re not very bright, are you?” she muttered.

“Not when it comes to plumbing, no.”

“We do not get the water,” Midwinter said tightly, “from the river.” She fired a quick glare at Carnelian, who twitched her ears and took a step back. “There are wells beneath the town that we pump water up from, and we can melt snow quickly if it comes tae that.”

Charcoal was still inspecting the pipework. “There’s something like a reservation, right? …Reservoir, reservoir.”

“Could you speak properly, please?” asked Carnelian. “It’s aggravating when you-”

Charcoal snapped to look at her so quickly Bitterroot half-expected to hear the crack of a sonic boom and the air around her grew hazy, but Midwinter stepped in and quickly diverted her attention. “Yes, there’s a reservoir. In fact, we…”

The talk trailed on, mostly led by Charcoal. Bitterroot hung around in the back. Why had she decided this would be more interesting than geothaumometers, again? Something about pegasus magic. Every now and then, she heard something interesting, although she never had anything to connect it to.

Eventually, she just gave up and slunk her way back upstairs. Maybe whatever she heard about pegasus magic would be engaging, but she couldn’t bring herself to wait that long. The plumbing was just boring. Thank Celestia she didn’t need to force herself to stick with it.

She sat back down at the bar, earning a look from Cabin. “Turns out, infrastructure can be boring,” Bitterroot said. She grinned crookedly. “Who knew?”

Cabin grunted.

“You can ignore me. I’m not ordering anything.”

Cabin grunted.

Bitterroot looked down at the bartop, tracing the whorls and swirls with her eyes. What was she doing here, really? Waiting around just to see if a friend fell to pieces. When that friend wasn’t even aware of why she was here. Why hadn’t she told Amanita? She was an adult, she deserved to know. Bitterroot slipped into stakeout mode as she thought and time slipped away like water in a river. She rolled her thoughts back and forth, forth and back, around and around, doing her best to consider every angle.

…Okay. Next time she had a decent moment to talk with Amanita, she’d tell her. And then… Well. She didn’t know. But it’d be something.

She was rattled from her fugue by Carnelian coming back up. “Four waters,” she promptly said to Cabin. “We’re mighty busy.” Cabin nodded and set to it.

Carnelian glanced over at Bitterroot and smirked. “Too much for you, hmm?”

Shrug. “Guess so. Didn’t understand much.”

Carnelian snorted. “You know little pegasus magic, do you?”

“I helped manage the weather when I was younger,” Bitterroot said. “Several decades ago. As a teenager. Over the summer. Twice.”

“That kirin down there?” Carnelian pointed at the floor. “She knows more than you. What kind of pegasus do you think you are?”

Bitterroot’s voice had been sanded down to near-total flatness. “Oh no, people know more than me, aaaaaaaa.” She wiggled her hooves in mock anxiety. “Remember, I’m not really with them officially. Just a hanger-on. I’ve got no specialties they need.”

Carnelian frowned, like she’d expected some other response. She opened her mouth, closed it. Said nothing. Cabin put a tray of cups filled with water in front of her. No response.

“Look,” Bitterroot continued, flaring her wings slightly, “I don’t use a lot of magic in my life, forgive me if your knowledge set is different than mine.”

Carnelian continued to say nothing. Then, without another word, she picked up the tray of cups and trotted back downstairs. Cabin gave her a Look as she departed, then looked at Bitterroot and shrugged. Bitterroot shrugged back. Whatever Carnelian was thinking, that was none of her business.

Although… Her throat was still a bit scratchy. “Could I get some water, too?”

She was on her third cup when Code came back up from the basement, looking slightly rattled. Bitterroot sat up straight and asked, “Something wrong?”

“Yes,” Code said. “They’ve switched to graywater and waste management.”

She wasn’t even in the same room and Bitterroot’s wings were already curling. “I would’ve thought you could’ve handled it,” she said. “High Ritualist and all.”

“I can handle anything I need to, but if I don’t need to, I don’t see why I should have to,” Code said shamelessly. “I like most of my work, but by no means all of it.”

“Heh. Yeah.”

“In the meantime, I need to find Tallbush. I’d to get access to the mines so we can look at the ley line in there. I don’t suppose I could convince you to come with me? I could use the extra set of eyes.”

Bitterroot thought about Amanita, down by the geothaumometers, and telling her the truth. She couldn’t have done that much work yet, right? They hadn’t been downstairs long. Interrupting her at this point would be like interrupting her just as she got started. “Eh, sure. I don’t have much else going on.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Code clicked her tongue and jerked her head towards the door. “Come. Tallbush might be at the town hall.”

It was dark, making it hard to see. Amanita’s breath was misting in front of her, making it hard to see. And every now and then, a frigid wind would blow up through Midwich from the north, causing her to squint to protect her eyes and making it hard to see.

Amanita would be very happy once she was out of Midwich. The blue sky above seemed to be taunting her.

She walked down the road towards the treeline. It was quieter than it’d been any of the other days — no foals playing nearby, no lumberjacks working the trees. Just the crunch of snow beneath her hooves, the wind howling through the forest, and the creaking of branches. Lovely. She pulled her furs tighter around her.

Fortunately, the geothaumometers were far enough away from Midwich Forest that Amanita didn’t need to constantly stay on the alert. The first one was close to the road, even. It stood out from the dark as Amanita approached it, its crystalline reservoirs glowing slightly. Still up. Promising. When she got closer, she could feel the hum of the shock circle. More promising. She tried poking it. Bzzt. Just as strong as it’d been yesterday. Animals hadn’t interfered with it, at least.

Amanita crouched down to inspect the reservoirs. None of them were full just yet, but getting there. Another hour or two ought to do it, at least for this one. The pendulum was still swinging steadily, in defiance of the wind and gravity.

Checking the other geothaumometers: start by heading east or heading west? …East. It felt right for some reason. As she headed east, all the other geothaumometers Amanita checked showed similar results: intact, undisturbed, still a little ways from completion. She didn’t bother turning around once she hit the eastern valley wall; she’d probably see the same results on the western side. She had some time to kill. (Sadly, time was one of the things she couldn’t resurrect.)

Settling in for a wait, Amanita boosted the light from her horn to get a better look at her surroundings. She was near one of Tratonmane’s farms, where the villagers were growing… some sort of grain. She took a closer look. Oats. Mmm, oats. Still, it was strange, sitting there in the dark with snow beneath her hooves and the cold biting at her neck while also looking at something as delicious as oats growing just fine. More evidence of the ley line. She was tempted to take a nibble, just to see if they still tasted good, but that wouldn’t be nice. (Did it count as stealing? Probably.)

…And while she was thinking of the ley line…

She took a seat not too far from the geothaumometer and closed her eyes. What had Charcoal said again? Deep breath in, deep breath out. She let her control over her awareness slacken and spread as she stopped paying attention to time. Her sensation, suspended in her magic, began trickling into the dirt, bit by bit and thought by thought.

There it was. The ley line. All the power Circe had told her about, and yet so much more, all that Circe had told her to ignore. It was tiring, eking out little more than subsistence living, day by day. It was satisfying, constantly spitting in the face of hardship, day by day. It was the chill of a focused wind that had had every last ember of warmth rise out of it long ago. It was the warmth of a stove when you stepped into home after a long day. It was dark, Midwich’s cliffs suppressing the sun almost interminably. It was bright, the illuminated walls shining ethereally down on the valley floor as the sun slowly inched towards its zenith. It was nowhere else in the world. It was Tratonmane.

And it was overwhelming. Amanita was able to surf the flow at first, but its waves tried to both pull her in and cast her out. The nape of her neck itched like someone was aware of her. Something roiled in the dirt, and before she knew it, she was picking herself off the ground and wiping snow off her face.

Still, it was something. Sensation, memory… Valuable things to get from a ley line. She was learning! She’d need to do something about the time, though, see if she could speed it up.

It was a shame she was only getting a sense of what Tratonmane felt like after the line had already shifted. Poking into it more would require guesswork. But, hey, she had time to guess. She wiggled her haunches into a slightly more comfortable position and closed her eyes again.

Her magic spread her awareness again, back into the soil and frost. There was clearly a sense of place, so maybe she just had to look for the things that didn’t make sense with the place she knew? She let the line run beneath her senses and waited, like dipping a hoof in the water as you floated down a lazy river. If something felt odd, she’d notice it.

She didn’t know how long she was waiting, but something stirred through her. Prickly, sharp, the thorns of a rose concealed in a fern. Promising. But where did it come from? Amanita sat and kept wai-

“Ehm. Ma’am?”

Amanita opened her eyes. An earth pony with a chlorophyllic palette, hooves thicker around than her neck, and breath like a chimney was looking at her with some cross of mild worry and supreme unconcern. From the way the bottoms of her legs were soaked, she’d been outside a while. Farmer, maybe? “You’un alright?” asked the pony.

“Uh, yeah, just feeling the ley line,” Amanita said quickly. “Part of the study. I, I’m not in your way, am I? I can move.”

One of the pony’s ears flicked. “Nay, ye’re fine.” She didn’t stop staring, though.

Once she was no longer meditating, Amanita was aware of a crick in her back and stiffness in her joints (probably signs she’d been doing it wrong). With a groan, she stretched, her back bending like a reverse arch as she kneaded the snow beneath her hooves. She could almost hear her cartilage popping. How long had she been sitting there? Long enough that sunlight was hitting the ground on the opposite side of the valley, at least. Hours. “Are these plants yours?” she asked, mostly to break the silence.

“Ech.” The pony shrugged. “In and about. I’s the pony who takes care of ’em, aryways.”

“And they only get sunlight for a few hours a day, right?”

The farmer looked at Amanita. She looked at the walls of Midwich. She looked at Amanita again, and it was a miracle she wasn’t looking at Amanita with a “you cannot seriously be asking me this” expression painted all across her face. “Aye,” she said not quite flatly.

“I’ve heard even-” Amanita groaned as she straightened one of her rear legs. “I’ve heard even earth pony magic struggles in these environments. You’ve harnessed the power of the ley line really well, to be growing this many oats.” She’d seen it while traveling with Circe; villages trying to be self-sufficient could struggle to grow half as many crops as Tratonmane.

“…Aye,” said the farmer. “Our foremothers were right fine teachers.”

By now, Amanita had worked most of the soreness from her limbs. After giving her leg one last roll, she offered her hoof. “I’m Amanita.”

For maybe a fraction of an instant, the farmer looked suspicious. Then the instant passed and she shook. “Rutabaga.”

“Pleased to meet you.” On a whim, she added, “You probably know the ley line better than any of the ritualists. Have you felt any changes in it in the past… moon?”

And the silence lasted just long enough for Amanita to notice it.

She immediately zeroed in on Rutabaga’s body language. She was still, her ears were stiff, and her tail was flicking. And were her eyes a bit wide? But before Amanita could make any guesses, Rutabaga shrugged and either looked up the valley or away from Amanita. “I reckon so. ’Tis… I canne say what is the problem.”

“It just feels off?” supplied Amanita.

“Aye. But I’m nae help tae ye.” One of Rutabaga’s ears twitched. “Pleasure tae strike up wi’ ye, but I must needs tae be at the greenhouses.” And she was trotting off into the dark.

Amanita watched her depart. Convenient excuse to leave or genuine reason to leave? Or genuine reason that provided convenient excuse? She’d seemed surprised at the question… but why? Or was she considering her answer to hide some skeleton in her closet? (And why had Amanita just given her a reason like “it feels off”? Stupid.)

She could bring it up with Code later. Right now, the geothaumometer needed rechecking. Especially since, as the reservoirs showed, it had finally gone completely through its cycle. Amanita applied a slight amount of magic to disperse the shock circle, then leaned in close to check the gauges on each reservoir. Nothing seemed abnormal. She jotted down the readings. Meanwhile, the pendulum was still swinging and its edges were now glowing. Pulling out the map of where they’d placed each geothaumometer, Amanita found the first one. Which direction was the pendulum swinging in? She inspected the planisphere. Compass, protractor, straightedge, and the reading was marked on the map.

The next geothaumometer went in much the same way. So did the next one and the next one. Amanita was halfway across the valley floor when another shape came out of the darkness from Tratonmane. “Amanita,” said Varnish, nodding to her.

She gave him a quick token nod in return as she took readings from the planisphere. “Varnish. Do you need me for something?”

“No,” he said. For once, he didn’t sound surly. “Just making sure you’re safe. We don’t want some wolf eating you.”

Amanita didn’t think she was that defenseless, but she still said, “Thanks.”

Jot jot, angle angle, sketch sketch. She tried to avoid looking at where the pendulum lines were converging, but it was hard to miss that they were coming together near the mine. That could mean a lot of things; Amanita tried to keep all those things out of her head. She could make assumptions when she had all the data.

They were about halfway to the next geothaumometer when Varnish cleared his throat and began, “That, ah, charm you cast. On the bear.”

Amanita set her jaw as her heart rate jumped slightly. This again? Were they going to just keep pestering her? Maybe it'd have been better if she’d never touched the bear.

“Did you make it?” Varnish asked. “I’ve never seen a spell quite like that before.”

After the instant of back-and-forth that was all she could spare, Amanita said, “Yeah.” Being the idiot she was, she’d already talked about developing it with Midwinter. There was no better way to attract attention than to change your story.

“How’d you do it? It’d warm my blood to be able to cast magic like that.”

“I-it’s, y’know, advanced magical research,” Amanita said. She tried to say it casually, nonchalantly, but her own roiling emotions meant her tongue tripped over itself and some of her words came out as a stutter. “Very, very academic. A, a lot of the magic’s only been developed in the last few years, s-so it’s, y’know, probably not known here.”

Varnish’s ears folded backward so fast it felt like the tips ought to make whipcrack sounds. “Listen,” he snarled, “if you’re saying-”

“I’m saying your magic and mine’s probably developed in different directions,” Amanita said quickly. “Y-you’ve been separate from the colleges in Canterlot for, what, three hundred years? And your magic’s developed in a different direction. We, Canterlot doesn’t even know sharing magic. It’s, your advanced and my advanced are two different advances.”

“Hmph.”

They headed further west. Amanita ticked off another geothaumometer. The lines on her map were converging, and-

“So how’d you start?”

It took Amanita a few moments to shift back into the mode Varnish wanted. “The- The bear spell?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.

“Yes. Your ideas, your principles, your-”

“It’s complicated,” Amanita said bluntly. “I don’t think I could explain it to you out here.” Which, in spite of her secret, was absolutely true; it was a complicated work of magic.

“Can you explain your… your foundation?” Varnish didn’t quite growl. “I’m just asking about your-”

“Okay,” said Amanita sharply. “The key is, in Rachis’s Recall Rigmarole, you set the memory factor to infinity, because death is one of the most noteworthy parts of a body’s existence. Does that make sense?”

One of Varnish’s ears went down and he blinked. Twice. “…No.”

“Then I can’t begin to explain it to you,” said Amanita. “That’s the foundation of it. And before you complain, no amount of complaining can change the facts: you don’t know enough for me to explain this to you. Look, I’m busy, find me later if you want to talk about it.”

Varnish might’ve said something. Amanita ignored him. With every step she took westward, she got a little bit closer to daylight. At the very least, she could handle unreasonable requests better when she wasn’t squinting through the gloom.

Finally, she reached the edge of the valley’s shadow. As she walked into the sunlight, Amanita blinked. After spending so long in the dark, the light practically hurt and she wanted to shy away from it. But it was better for her, literally and metaphorically. She breathed deeply as she let her hornlight go. She’d felt sore in the past, when she’d tried to use more magic than she was able to, but she’d never felt anything like this ache.

But the light meant it was easier to take readings from the geothaumometers, and the last few blazed past. The reservoir readings didn’t mean much to Amanita at the moment, but the triangulating…

It was actually kind of astounding how closely the lines converged on each other. Amanita had assumed the intersections would be spread over a wide range, but this region was relatively tight — the size of a small house, maybe. Once Amanita had oriented herself and placed the node in real space, there was only one clear conclusion: as expected, the source of the ley line was in the mine. Code would be happy with the simplicity, at least. Maybe Charcoal, too.

But mines were mines, some of the most dangerous places in Equestria. The Tratonmanians might not let the crew in, for their own safety.

Or maybe that’d be their excuse for keeping them out.

Shaking her head, Amanita crumpled up her maps and strolled past the farm in the light, whistling a light and bouncy tune.

13 - Below

“Hellooooooo?” Bitterroot hollered into the town hall. “Tallbush? Anypony?”

As typical, the darkened building gave no response.

“I swear,” Code muttered, adjusting her glasses, “I’ve never seen somepony so hard to get a hold of. It’s like he’s avoiding me.”

“Just you? Not us?” Bitterroot asked.

“You and Amanita run into him from time to time. I haven’t seen him since we left the train on the first day.”

“Hnng.”

“Maybe he’s at the mine,” Code said with a sigh. “Come on. If you want.”

“What the hay. Lead on.”

At least with the mine, you knew exactly where it was: where Midwich Valley was getting zippered up. As Bitterroot and Code crunched southward, following the river, Bitterroot looked up. The sky was clear and the sun was just about ready to poke its rim over the edge. She’d savor the moment. And who knew how big of an impact it had on the ponies who’d been living here their whole lives?

But as the valley narrowed, what little light bounced down from the cliffs was snuffed out and the temperature dropped. Bitterroot shivered slightly. And with the entrance to the mine lying in the deepest black of the darkest part of the valley, that got her thinking. “Code? Sorry if this is obvious to you, but… could mining have soured the ley line?”

“No,” Code said promptly. “At least, not this one. It’s…” She paused for a moment to massage her temples. “Mining is almost purely physical and so rarely causes any sort of damage to ley lines. When it does, it’s not this fast. And it’s always accompanied by some kind of catastrophe that closes the mine down.”

“…Have you… seen that a lot?”

“Not personally, thankfully. But it pops up from time to time in records. Ley sanitation is very well-documented.”

They passed the coal breaker and Midwinter’s house, following a set of cart rails, eventually coming to the mine’s entrance. There was nopony there, but Bitterroot could hear faint sounds of work coming from the uphill tunnel that led inside. She headed into the mine-

-only to immediately get yanked back out on her tail. “Don’t,” Code snapped with a voice that made Bitterroot want to sit down and never move again. “Mines can be some of the most dangerous places in Equestria. If you waltz in without knowing what you’re doing, you could bring all it down on a lot of ponies. There’s a reason we’re asking Tallbush’s permission first.”

“Yes’m,” Bitterroot said reflexively. Part of her suspected Code was exaggerating. But that was a voice in which exaggeration sounded reasonable.

“Stay.” Code turned to the mine and hollered, “OI! Anypony in there? I’d like to talk to somepony!”

The words bounced down the tunnel like a ball down a pipe, the echoes back growing fainter and fainter. Code took a bite of dirt and settled onto her haunches to wait, staring at the shaft.

After a moment, Bitterroot broke the silence. “So what’ll you do if no one comes out?”

“Be enraged,” Code said casually. “Yell again. Bemoan my lack of authority. Lose some self-control. Hopefully not stomp about impotently.”

“Was that last one a problem?”

“When I was younger, it was.”

But a creaking sound prevented Bitterroot from learning more; a set of a few mine carts loaded with coal came rolling out from the tunnel, a small earth pony hanging off the front with a hoof on the brake lever. Smeared with coal dust, she was hard to make out in the combined darkness of the valley and the mine, except for when Bitterroot could see the whites of her eyes and the glare of her helmet’s lamp. As the carts rattled past them, the mare yanked hard on the brake, bringing the array to a halt. “Ye rang?” she asked in a voice that sounded awfully young for this sort of work. And up close, she looked rather skinny in her overalls.

“We’re looking for Tallbush,” Code said. (The mare’s ears flicked upwards.) “We were hoping we could get permission to enter the mine so-”

“I dinnae ken where he is,” the mare said quickly. “An’ he ain’t gonna let ye intae the mine.”

Code grunted and kneaded her forehead. “I’d like to hear it from him. Do you-”

“He- ain’t gonna let ye intae the mine,” the mare said. “No use a-lookin’ fer him.” She released the brake and the carts started rolling away.

Before Bitterroot could respond, Code had hooked a hoof around the rim of the last cart. The train jolted to a halt, the mare nearly slipping off, as Code seemingly exerted no more effort than flipping a pancake to hold how many hundreds of pounds of coal back. “In my experience,” she said, “assuming you know what someone else has to say can only lead to disappointment. I might as well assume Tallbush will simply let us into the mine because we’re working on royal business. But I’d rather know. So I’d very much appreciate it if you could tell me where Tallbush is.”

The mare’s eyes and ears were twitching as she looked Code up and down, like she was thinking quickly. Her tail flicked. Puff after puff of breath wafted from her mouth. But she wasn’t shaking.

“One of you two is wrong about Tallbush will say,” Bitterroot piped up. “Don’t you want to prove that it’s her?”

Smirking, Code twitched in a suppressed snort. The mare looked at Bitterroot like she’d forgotten she was there (she probably had). Then the mare said, in a steady voice, “I dinnae ken where His Grace be. Mebbe he’s in the breaker.” She pointed to the hulking building down by the railyard, a dull gray mass.

“Thank you.” Code released the carts; they trundled down the tracks towards the very building the mare had pointed out.

Bitterroot looked back over her shoulder at the mouth of the mine yawning before her. Was the mare just trying to keep them safe? Or something else? The latter, almost definitely. What, though… That was always the hard part. Too bad she wasn’t in a position where she could poke. Strangers drifting into town could poke easily. Strangers drifting into town as part of a government team could… not. “Going to the breaker, then, Code?”

No response. Code was sitting down, rubbing at her temples again, muttering something as she examined the mine entrance.

Bitterroot cleared her throat. “Hey. Code?”

Code blinked. “Hmm? Oh. I’m sorry, I…” She looked at the entrance to the mine, her ears down. “It’s in there,” she growled. “I can feel it.”

“In your gut or in your hooves?”

“Yes.” Code stood up and flicked her snow from her hooves. “Unfortunately, my gut is also telling me that this is going to be a wild goose chase. It’s a shame some wild geese need to be chased.”

The pair turned around and started walking back down the slope they’d just come up. The concept of traipsing back and forth over familiar ground looking for somepony who always seemed to have just left was familiar to Bitterroot, but it was also the worst part of bounty hunting. Ugh. Hay, at least when her quarry took off into the wilderness, she had some pretty sights to see.

“Wait.” Code suddenly turned aside, walking towards Midwinter’s house. “We might as well get as many viewpoints as possible. I’d hate for the one pony I didn’t ask be the one who knows where he is.”

Fuligin probably didn’t know, but framed like that, Bitterroot didn’t want to make that assumption, either. She trotted after Code.

Code knocked on the door and had barely set her hoof back on the ground when Fuligin cracked open the door just enough to stick his head out. “Hidy, Bitterroot,” he said, “and, uh…” His eyes flicked up and down Code’s body.

“Restricted Code,” she replied. “I-”

“This ain’t gonna be long, is it? I…” Fuligin looked over his shoulder for a second. “I’m mighty busy at the moment.”

“No, it won’t,” Code said, frowning. Her leg twitched as she pawed slightly at the ground. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Tallbush is, would you?”

“Nay, sorry,” Fuligin said. (Bitterroot found herself wondering if his response was too fast, but quickly decided it wasn’t.) “I ain’t seen him taeday an’ couldnae say where he is.” Another over-the-shoulder glance. “Lissen, I, I’m busy, and Midwinter needs my help. Ye really oughta be a-goin’, ye ain’t goin’ tae find him here.”

The muscles in Code’s legs tightened and her ears went straight up. For an instant, Bitterroot thought she was going to claim some sort of authority and push her way in. But the instant passed and Code slackened imperceptibly. “Very well,” she said with a sigh. “Thanks anyway.”

Fuligin nodded and nudged the door an inch closer to shut. “Will ye be needin’ arythin’ else?”

“I don’t believe-”

Gears engaged in Bitterroot’s head and she stepped forward. “Actually, uh, just one more thing. Pyrita was in the mine a few nights ago-”

Fuligin promptly went still.

Statue still.

Bitterroot had seen shock before, but this was something else. It was like Fuligin had been petrified. About a second before she started wondering if he was still breathing, he coughed. “Uh, w-who?” he asked, his voice hitched up a notch.

“Pyrita,” said Bitterroot. She quickly started scanning Fuligin, watching for any more blatant tells. What did he know? “You know, Arrastra’s sister?”

“Right,” Fuligin said in a way that didn’t match his body language. “I ken her. What happened?”

Wait, he didn’t know? “A few mornings ago, Pyrita was found at the entrance to the mine. Maybe she was sleepwalking or something. I was wondering if you’d seen her go up.”

Fuligin blinked twice, did nothing for a moment, then shook his head. His ears were quivering. “Beggin’ yer pardon, but nay, I didnae see her. I, I ain’t seen her in a long time.”

Uh-huh. Sure. “Alright,” Bitterroot said with a shrug. “Thanks, anyway.”

“Mmhmm.” Fuligin nudged the door a little more closed. “They really belong tae do more tae keep mares that age outta the mines.” And then the door was shut, the conversation over.

Bitterroot looked to Code, who clicked her tongue and nodded down the path. Bitterroot managed to keep quiet until they were back in the sunlight, when she hissed to Code, “He didn’t know.”

“About Pyrita? No, he didn’t,” Code whispered back. “Or so he claims.”

“Did you see the way he reacted? He was surprised when I just mentioned her name. He doesn’t know at all.”

“Hmm. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean much.”

“In a town this small?”

“Yes. It’s entirely possible he simply doesn’t get out much and didn’t hear the news.”

“…Do you really believe that?”

“No. But unless it’s relevant to the ley line, it’s best to leave well enough alone. You know how towns like this can get when Canterlot pokes its muzzle in.”

She did, unfortunately. Poke Tratonmane too hard and it’d clam up, possibly denying any further information about the ley line along the way. Bitterroot was a bounty hunter; she wanted to follow threads, but unless any given thread had a clear price tag attached, following it was pointless in the context of her job. (Her curious part tried to point out that she wasn’t on the job at the moment. Her rational part shut it down with a reminder that Amanita, Code, and Charcoal were, and she didn’t want to hinder them.)

There was a steady rumble coming from the coal breaker when they arrived. It was a surprisingly tall building, looming over Bitterroot and Code in a way not unlike the cliffs of Midwich, sprawling up and down the slope like a cat. When Code nudged open a door, a cacophony of work smacked Bitterroot in the face: rumbling conveyor belts, rushing water, rocks shattering in crushers, debris tumbling down metal shafts, the occasional pony yelling at another. When she peeked in, she was confronted with a confusing maze of machinery, conveyors, and pipes twisting about, making it nearly impossible to get light everywhere. Contrary to what Bitterroot had expected, the air was surprisingly clean.

Somehow, Code managed to get the attention of a nearby pony, and they headed outside to talk without the din of coal breaking. At Code’s query on Tallbush, the worker shook his head. “Nay, he ain’t here,” he said. “Ye’d best check the mine.” He pointed.

“He’s not in the mine,” Code said tightly. “That was the second place we checked.”

“Then he’s prolly in the town ha-”

“The town hall was the first place we checked.” Code’s teeth weren’t clenched, technically.

“Have ye checked the forest?” the worker asked quickly. “Tallbush likes tae be certain his ponies are healthful, ’specially the lumberjacks.” He pointed northwards with the force of an arrow from a bow.

“No, we haven’t checked there yet,” Code said. Her voice was more resigned than relieved, mirroring Bitterroot’s own feelings. “Thank you.” The worker nodded and ducked back inside the breaker.

Away they went, north to the forest. Bitterroot was wondering how many times she’d walk over all of Midwich’s streets looking for Tallbuhs when Code sighed. “You know…” She grinned at Bitterroot with a sort of tired exasperation. “I’m a colonel. I miss being able to send out a dozen ponies to find whoever I’m looking for. Having to track down ponies myself was something I got promoted out of.”

“Wimp,” Bitterroot said, smirking. “It happens to me all the time.”

“And that’s why we pay bounty hunters.”

When Amanita had stopped by the Watering Cave, Cabin had said that Charcoal was busy while Bitterroot and Code were up at the mine. Amanita wouldn’t want to be disturbed in the middle of her work, so she left without disturbing Charcoal, whatever she was doing. South to the mine it was. Hopefully she wouldn’t need to go traipsing across all of Midwich to find Code and Bitterroot.

She did not, running into them at the trainyard cliff near the shadow of one of the towers. Bitterroot was looking at her funny, while Code was looking impotent-against-insubordination pouty. It was an excessively rare expression, given how little she experienced insubordination in the first place. “Amanita,” Code said, nodding.

“I’m pretty sure the ley line’s source is in the mine,” Amanita said first thing. Code straightened up and Amanita continued, “I took all the readings and this is the direction the pendulums were swinging in.” She pulled out the map and spread it out before them.

Code didn’t need five seconds of looking it over before she snorted. “Of course,” she muttered. Seeing the look on Amanita’s face, she added, “Not you. It’s… Feh.”

“Tallbush is the only one who can let us into the mine and we don’t know where he is,” said Bitterroot. “Everyone’s giving us different directions.”

“You’d think somepony responsible for a duchy would be easier to find when you want to talk about matters concerning that duchy,” Code growled.

Bitterroot began counting out her items by pawing at the ground. “We looked at the town hall, we looked at the mine, we looked at Midwinter’s house, we looked at the breaker, we’re going to look at the treeline-”

Breaker. That stirred something in Amanita’s head. The metaphysics of mining. She could work with that, maybe. But the mine itself would be a better place to start. If they could get in.

“-we really don’t know where he is,” Bitterroot finished.

“I wonder if I could pull rank to get us in,” Code muttered. “We know the line’s source is in the mine, we’re here to fix the line…” She snorted and shook her head. “But that’s the Elemental option when all else fails. Maybe, maybe we can find him. Amanita, you and I need to comb the town. Find out just where Tallbush is hiding.”

Bitterroot looked closely at Code, then said, “I can help. Just, you know, a basic search pattern.” She flicked a hoof through the air and made whistling noises. “I kinda have a history of looking for ponies.”

Amanita didn’t think much of it, but Code boggled. Code boggled. “What is up with you?” she asked. “You’re not getting paid for any of this.”

Bitterroot just shrugged. “I’ve gone on plenty of hunts where my quarry slipped away and I didn’t get the reward. I’m used to this.”

“Then, thanks. Do whatever you think is best.” Bitterroot saluted and took off. Code turned to Amanita. “How do you want to do this?”

Splitting up searching? How was she supposed to know that? Amanita floundered for a second, then said, “Uh… I’ll take the north half of town, you take the south half?”

Code nodded. “Sounds good. And if…” She squinted up at the sun. “If the sun hits the western cliffs before you find him, you can return to the inn. We still need to know what Charcoal learned.”

At least “sun hits western cliffs” was something she could work with and not a specific hour. “Okay,” Amanita replied. “I’ll… see you later, then.”

“See you later. Oh, and thanks for checking the geothaumometers. You also checked the reservoirs, right?”

“Of course.”

“Great. If we can get Tallbush to let us in, we may finally make some decent headway on this.”

But they’d gone hunting for Tallbush before. As Amanita walked north, she noted that that was a surprisingly big “if”.

After lunch, Bitterroot decided. She’d talk to Amanita after lunch. Within the hour after lunch, not any other sort of after lunch. She’d’ve done it right then, but Code was getting a Look on her face. A “this really really needs to be done NOW” look that wouldn’t brook any deviation from that getting done. Not that Bitterroot could blame her, faced with the hassle of hunting down somepony who ought to be readily available. (Still, part of the reason Bitterroot liked being a bounty hunter was the ability to be her own boss.) If all went according to plan, finding Tallbush quicker would let her talk to Amanita quicker. Which, naturally, meant she wouldn’t be the one to find Tallbush, but it was the principle of the thing.

Soaring through the air, Bitterroot started with a basic grid search pattern. Not something she did a lot, but only because it was an obvious search method and criminals on the run would be on the lookout for pegasi flying like that. But when you wanted the pony to notice you… Good thing the pattern was simple enough that Bitterroot could recall it in her sleep.

Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It sure was lucky that she was doing this at around noon, with sunlight reaching the valley floor. But although she could pick out pony after pony in the streets, none of those was the pony she needed. It didn’t seem fair; bounties were trying to hide and often good at it — that was the whole reason she got paid when she brought them in — but Tallbush was a pony you were supposed to find and talk to, and… yeesh. Imagine if he acted like this with his actual citizens, disappearing into the aether whenever somepony had a question.

Back and forth and back and forth and suddenly she wasn’t above Tratonmane anymore; the buildings had given way to fields and open space that technically qualified as farmland. Seen in the full light of day, it was surprisingly expanse, even close to pleasant. Of course, the open space also provided less places to hide. Bitterroot began making long, quick swoops over the valley, scanning it for Tallbush. Farmers, lumberjacks, some foals playing in the fields… No sign of Tallbush. Hrrng.

Midwich Forest crept in like a rattlesnake, suddenly there in a way that made Bitterroot hiss and backpedal as she could. The line between Tratonmane’s lands and the forest was as strong as it’d been in the dark, sharp enough to look more like the work of a reality-warping cartographer than anything natural. The trees didn’t look any more friendly in the daylight, either; it was like something was off about their color, but Bitterroot couldn’t say what.

“ ’Scuse me.”

Bitterroot pivoted around in the air. Whippletree was hovering not too far from her, a look of concern on his face. “Ye’re… feelin’ alright, right?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure,” said Bitterroot. She briefly looked down again. “I wasn’t going into Midwich. I was looking for Tallbush and lost track of where I was.”

“Right.” Whippletree coughed. “Well, beggin’ yer pardon, but ye’re a-makin’ me mighty nervous. Ye can disappear intae Midwich an’ leave narythin’ behind if’n y’ain’t careful.”

“I thought being above-”

“Ye ought tae be safe,” Whippletree admitted. “It’s jes’ me.” He looked off, down the valley. “Years ago, when I was a new stallion, one o’ my friends an’ me joined the militia. An’ us tyros, we were doin’ a sweep o’ the treeline.” His voice dropped a little and the breeze started taking the quieter parts away. “We made bad trash o’ procedure, split up tae cover more ground, an’… an’ a minute later, she was gone. Never found what taked her.”

Bitterroot shivered and angled her flapping to take her southward. Just a little. “Dang. I’m sorry.”

“It’s… It’s a terrible awful feelin’, kennin’ ye’re the last pony tae see someone alive. So jes’- Jes’ dinnae be a moldwarp, alright? Utilize yer brain matter an’ dinnae be sumphish.”

“…That means ‘don’t be stupid’, right?”

Whippletree cracked a grin for a second, then broke out in a deep laugh. “Ha! Aye, that’s what it means. Forgot our words ain’t yer words. But if’n ye can put all that taegether, ye ain’t the type tae be sumphish.”

“Could you make me less sumphish and tell me where Tallbush is?”

“Ach, sorry, but I dinnae ken where he is.” (Bitterroot clamped her jaw shut on a sigh.) “Arythin’ else?”

“No, thanks.”

“Alrighty. Stay safe.” Whippletree saluted and wheeled back towards Tratonmane with more grace than Bitterroot could ever hope for, particularly when he pivoted back to face her. “And, eh, I beg yer pardon fer that… firs’ night. Again.”

Bitterroot raised an eyebrow. “You’re still thinking about that?”

“It’s- I was a real tin-hoof an’… an’ I shouldnae have done it an’ I dinnae ken why I did it!” Whippletree protested. “What if-” Gulp. “What if somethin’s wrong wi’ me?” he asked quietly.

“Then something’s wrong with me, too, because I don’t care,” Bitterroot said. “Have you experienced anything like it before?”

One of Whippletree’s ears twitched. After a second, he shook his head.

“What about since?”

Headshake.

“Then don’t worry about it! One bad night, that’s all it was.”

“Mebbe,” Whippletree said doubtfully. “But, eh… thankee.” He gave a small smile, then flew off towards Tratonmane.

Whippletree’s denial of knowing where Tallbush was weighed on Bitterroot just as heavily as the first night had weighed on him. At what point did the repeated assertions of not knowing where your duke was turn suspicious? Bitterroot was suspecting both that she’d passed that point recently and that she was being a wee bit paranoid. But there was nothing she could do about it.

She rotated in the air again, looking back over Midwich Forest and the valley zooming northward. The trees blanketed the ground with a sea of gnarled, leafless branches swaying in the wind, almost monotone; without the cliffs hemming you in, it’d be easy to get lost. There weren’t even many landmarks, from what she could see: small rolling hills, some slight gaps where the river ran, a clearing at the bottom of one of the walls, a spot where the trees climbed further up than-

An unusually cold gust of air (cold even for Midwich) stabbed the inside of Bitterroot’s windpipe and she coughed. The rapid influx of cold air made it worse and Bitterroot quickly dropped down to the ground, in the empty space outside the forest. She banged her chest to get it out of her system. It was amazing, the way a sudden cough could mess with your flapping enough to potentially let you fall from the sky and kill you if you weren’t careful. Flying was dangerous.

A familiar buzz rattled her eardrums: a… chainsaw? …Definitely a chainsaw. Huh. Following the sound led her to Crosscut’s lumberjack crew, further west than they’d been earlier, hacking away at trees. Or at least a portion of her crew; there seemed to be about half as many as there’d been before. Maybe they were working at a sawmill. Crosscut was the pony with the chainsaw, cutting thick branches off a fallen tree while the other lumberjacks worked on felling more.

As Bitterroot approached, Crosscut turned off the chainsaw. She pushed a set of protective goggles up onto her forehead and waved away the sawdust. “What dae ye need?” she asked.

“Well, I-” A fleck of dust flew into Bitterroot’s throat and her words were cut off by a coughing fit. “How,” she wheezed once she got her breathing back under control, “how do you get chainsaws out here?” She realized that was poorly phrased a second after she said it.

Fortunately, Crosscut didn’t seem to care. “Tallbush asks us if’n we need arythin’,” she said casually. “Vittles, gear, everwhat. Next time he licks it tae Waypoint, he sees if’n he can find what we want or somethin’ that fits. If he does, he buys it fer us an’ we pay him back.” Shrug. “Easy.”

Well. Easily-abused was Bitterroot’s first thought. Her second one, too. “And Tallbush is the one to tell you how much you owe?”

Crosscut’s eyes narrowed slightly. “His Grace ain’t the type tae stiff us, if’n that’s what ye’re askin’, flatlander,” she said. “Shows us the receipts an’ all.”

“Speaking of Tallbush,” Bitterroot said quickly, “you wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you? We’re trying to get into the mine so we can study the source of the ley line.”

“He ain’t gonna let you’uns in,” Crosscut said like she was explaining that water was wet. “Too dangerous.”

“I’d like to hear it from him,” Bitterroot replied.

Crosscut gave Bitterroot a Look, then looked up at the sun. After a moment, she said, “He’s usually out an’ about right now, cannae say where ye might find him, but he ought tae be at the hall in… an hour. Give or take.”

“You’re sure? Everypony says he’ll be at such-and-such, but he never is.”

“He’s ever at the town hall at that time,” Crosscut replied, a bit darkly. “Ever.” She pulled down her goggles and started the chainsaw up again.

To be fair, this was the first time Bitterroot had heard anything like “definitely” rather than “eh, maybe?”, so maybe it would actually be true this time. Maybe. “Thanks. I’ll let Code know.”

The saw came to a stop just above the bark. Crosscut turned to Bitterroot and said, “Ye dae that.” Then she pressed the saw to the log, sending up a scream of wood being shredded.

But maybe Bitterroot wouldn’t have to do that. There was time for another swing over Tratonmane. Maybe Tallbush would pop up. And maybe she’d win the lottery when she got back to Canterlot. Nevertheless, Bitterroot flared her wings and took to the sky again.

Amanita was many things. A skilled ponyfinder was not one of them.

Once she split from Bitterroot and Code, she was left traipsing up and down Tratonmane’s streets, looking for Tallbush. There weren’t many ponies around, even when she risked knocking on doors; everypony seemed to have gone to work. The few townsponies she met gave her brusque looks and brusquer responses. None of them claimed to know where Tallbush was.

“Look, this is urgent, we need-”

“An’ that ain’t goin’ tae change what I dinnae ken.”

Amanita began categorizing them: the ones who just grunted “no” at her, the ones who said the same thing with more words again, and the ones who really felt the need to rub in that they weren’t going to help her and were probably picking the right insult for her before the conversation ended and she walked away. She could’ve forgiven it all if one of them, just one, pointed her at Tallbush.

“C’mon, I can’t-”

“Ain’t my problem if’n he ain’t here. Scram, Canterlout.”

Amanita slipped into automatic as she gathered responses and began examining their colors in the noonlight. They still didn’t know who the thief from yesterday was. Not a single lick of info. At least she slept well. (Or was that a bad thing?) If she knew what a pony was going to respond a certain way, she might as well check their colors. And yet, pegasi whose wing colors didn’t match the rest of them were rare enough that she never ran into one, let alone one with the colors she was looking for.

“Are you sure you don’t-”

“Eeyup.”

And so, even though she was grid-patterning the town, Amanita’s search took less time than she expected. She soon reached the town square with the Great Ash for the second time that search. In the light, the Ash nearly looked beautiful even dead, with its branches twisting towards the sky in complex patterns. It would’ve been downright gorgeous if it still had leaves.

Amanita shook her head and looked around the square. No ponies, but she was drawn to the town hall. Where Tallbush was supposed to be but never was. …Eh, she was already here. Worth a shot.

Tratonmane was bright for once, but with the windows boarded up, the town hall was still as black as a pit when she peeked in. The contrast changed the darkness, turning it to a physical thing she’d have to struggle through as it pushed in around her. It was certainly doing a fine job of keeping her out. Amanita swallowed and reached for her magic.

The second she lit her horn, the feeling flipped. Far from being too claustrophobic, too tight, the empty space and looming shadows now were ready to swallow her up, like there was something lurking in them. She took a few steps forward; her hooves were muffled by her furs, yet the sound still echoed in the artificial cavern. She swallowed again and yelled, “Hello?”

A multitude of voices echoed back, all of them and none of them belonging to her. This sort of place was meant to hold the entire town and her, an outsider, being there alone felt wrong. None of the voices belonged to Tallbush; Amanita waited a moment more, and when he didn’t turn up, decided it was okay if she just left. So she did.

What time was it? Amanita squinted up. The sun seemed to be just touching the western cliffs, but it was still shining full-bore down into Midwich; the contrast between it and the darkness of the town hall was astounding. But it seemed to be… 1-ish? (Seriously, why hadn’t she brought a watch?) Maybe a little later. Code had said she could stop now. She could go back to the Watering Cave, meet up with the rest of the team. And get lunch. Lunch was nice.

As she approached the Cave, Midwinter came sauntering out, whistling. Her coat shimmered mesmerizingly in the sunlight, her mane practically sparkled, and the gem in her necklace gleamed. Seeing Amanita, she approached and nodded back towards the Cave. “Your friend, Charcoal? She’s… a rather interesting mare.”

Amanita nodded. “She is.”

“I do wish I could get to know her better, truly,” Midwinter mused. “But you shall be gone from here in a few days. Ah, well.” She threw Amanita a sort of friendly salute. “Best of luck to all of you, and may you leave us well enough alone!” She immediately walked off, whistling again.

Amanita decided to take that as a friendly jibe. She took a step for the Cave, only to turn back. “Hey, uh, Midwinter?”

Midwinter stopped walking and looked over her shoulder with mild interest.

“Have you ever been in the mine?”

Midwinter blinked and her ears twitched forward. “Why?”

“I was just wondering if you’d seen anything weird in there. We might be going in to examine the ley line.”

Another blink, then Midwinter shook her head. “No. I have never seen such a thing.”

“Alright. Thanks, anyway.”

Assuming Midwinter was telling the truth.

Amanita stepped into the Cave’s common room. Even if the place hadn’t been empty except for Carnelian pouting in the darkest corner, Charcoal would’ve been obvious, sitting at a table in the middle of the room with what looked like a dozen sheets of parchment and paper before her, as well as a bottle of ink. She was deeply invested in one of the scrolls, carefully examining it as she treated the quill in her mouth like it was a tree and she was a beaver. As Amanita slid into the chair across from her, she waved without saying anything or looking away.

“That’s the plumbing stuff, right?” Amanita asked.

Charcoal’s only response was a nod and a look at the next line down.

“Good info?”

Charcoal moved the scroll aside so she could grin. “Hoo yeah. Very good info. Them being so angry at me wanting to take a look at it makes sense now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. This actually is really good. Imagine-” Charcoal’s ears twitched and she looked around. The room was empty, but she lowered her voice anyway. “Imagine if someone walked up to you,” she whispered, “and asked if you really knew necromancy. And they even told you they didn’t know necromancy, but they weren’t so sure you did, either.”

Amanita had a sudden, intense vision of stabbing Princess Twilight to death, then resurrecting her, purely to spite some minor know-it-all noble. It was shockingly satisfying. “…Yeah. I can see that.”

“Sure, they could’ve been nicer about it, but I don’t blame them. The complicated stuff is the right sort of complicated. Like, right down here…” Charcoal shuffled towards the end of the scroll. “…they’re talking about waste and graywater treatment-”

Amanita’s stomach wobbled. Funny how she could deal with blood and guts just fine, but something as simple as poop made her queasy. “Is it really a good idea to talk about it now?”

Charcoal blinked and examined the scroll for a moment. “You’re right, bad idea,” she said. “Let’s wait for Code and Bitterroot so we can get lunch first.”

This was vengeance for the bear. Amanita was sure of it.

14 - Gardens of Stone

“It’s weird,” Charcoal said for the fifth time. “I’ve never seen any line triangulation this strong.”

“We know,” said Amanita.

“There’s practically no spread,” Charcoal continued. She held the map closer to her face. “If we take this at-”

“-at face value, it means the source of the ley line is less than five meters across.” Amanita tore off another hunk of her sandwich. “We know.”

Charcoal flinched and her ears dropped. “Sorry,” she said quickly.

Amanita decided not to add that they knew that, too. Fortunately, no one else said anything.

Lunch was late and Tallbush-less. From the way her ears were twitching, Amanita got the feeling Code was mentally writing a Shakespintoan soliloquy about her frustration in finding him. If she was, though, she kept it to herself.

Mostly. “It would be very, very nice,” Code mumbled, “if we could investigate the source of the thing we came to investigate.”

“We know,” said Amanita. (Code chuckled, just a little.) “And, I mean…” She bobbed her head around in uncertainty. “When you get down to it, it’s probably a good thing we don’t just rush in. Mines, dangerous, we all know this.”

Code raised an eyebrow. “So dangerous nobody gets black lung?”

“Weeellllll…”

“Eh, there’s different kinds of danger,” Code said with a shrug. “Having a condition slowly intensify into chronic lung disease is a bit different from having a mountain fall on your head.” She took a drink from a cup, one of the weaker whiskeys available. “Maybe we can persuade the miners to set up our equipment for us, if we get lucky.”

“That’s a ‘no’ on the miners helping, then?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Although,” Charcoal said, “they don’t get back l- black lung, and it could be related to the ley line somehow… Maybe we can ask them? Or study them or get readings off them?”

Everyone looked at Charcoal.

“…Oooh, right, yeah, that’d be bad.”

“You’re probably on the right track, though,” said Code. “I’d be very surprised if the lack of black lung is wholly unrelated to the line.” Another sip of weak whiskey. “What we could really use is MOTHER!” And she was off like a shot, running up the stairs without another word.

Everyone stared up the stairs. “Is she… like that a lot?” asked Charcoal. “All the time she’s been here, she’s been kinda…”

“I think it’s stress,” said Amanita. “With all the work-”

“It’s probably more frustration,” said Bitterroot. “You just need to talk to Tallbush to get closer to the ley line than before, but he seems to have vanished off the face of the earth.”

“…That makes more sense.”

Charcoal turned to Amanita. “Is she better when you’re working with her? Every day. Because… I don’t know.”

“She’s a lot better,” Amanita replied. “She’s calm and collected and-”

Code rocketed back downstairs and slid to a stop at the table. “Amanita, did you do anything with the grain mother after we brought it back to the inn yesterday?” she asked breathlessly.

Amanita blinked and twitched in her chair. “The- What-” Then her memory was jogged. “Oh, that. No, I didn’t put it anywhere.”

“You’re sure?” Code leaned closer. “You didn’t put it aside anywhere, or put it in some-”

Amanita gave Code a light poke in the chest, prompting her to draw back a little. “I know I didn’t. I just set it aside on one of the tables.”

With a sigh, Code slouched over the table hanging her head. “Well, I think I know what was stolen yesterday,” she muttered.

It took Amanita a moment to couple one train of thought to another and come up with- “They stole the grain mother?”

“Maybe. I might’ve missed it. Did anyone put it away yesterday when we were cleaning up?”

No one had, prompting Code to mutter, “Why, in Celestia’s name…” She shook her head and pushed up her glasses to rub her face. “Give me a moment. I’m going to go look some more.” She snatched her cup and trotted back up the steps. After a moment, Amanita followed her. Behind her, she heard Bitterroot and Charcoal get up as well.

Their room was small enough that the four of them covered it, top to bottom and wall to wall, then did it again, in mere minutes. They rooted through their bags, scoured the areas below the beds, pulled aside furniture, even had Bitterroot poke her muzzle through the ceiling slats. The mother did not turn up.

Sitting on her newly-disheveled bed, Code was taking drinks like she wished her whiskey was stronger. She grumbled something that sounded like, “Just when we have a clear path…” She massaged her head and said, more clearly, “The grain mother was tied to the valley, and therefore the line. We know they worked. So by studying that, we could get a connection to…” Another semi-alcohol-bereft drink. “Feh. Why steal that?”

“Well…” Charcoal pressed the tip of one of her hooves against the floor and twisted around. “I… I don’t wanna sound… mean or anything, but…” She briefly poked her head out the door; when she pulled back in, she locked it. “What if they don’t want us to study the ley line?” she asked.

Amanita’s first impulse was to object. Amanita’s second impulse was to agree. Amanita’s third impulse was to be glad that she wasn’t the one to bring it up.

“It’s, it’s not just me, right?” Charcoal said. “They don’t really want us here to begin with, the ley line’s stranger than any I’ve ever seen before, the guy in charge of the place has just disappeared-” She blinked and tried to make herself small. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she mumbled.

Bitterroot spoke up for what felt like the first time that hour. “No, I, I agree. The longer we’ve spent here, the worse it smells. I’ve tracked down actual bounties that were easier to find than this guy.”

“How much for you to foalnap him and bring him to us?” grunted Code.

“You tell me. The government’s the one who sets the bounty. Oh, and you need to go to the nearest bounty office, get it registered…”

“And there probably isn’t a bounty office for two hundred miles.” More whiskey. “Amanita, what do you think?”

“I’m with them,” Amanita said. “Something just… I don’t know, it doesn’t feel right about this.” If you’d asked her why, she couldn’t say. It was like knowing rotten food was rotten just by looking at it, a feeling in her gut that wouldn’t go away. “If they had no secrets and just wanted us gone, don’t you think they’d help us so we’d be gone faster?”

“Mmhmm.” Code stood back up and looked around the room. “Now. I personally think they’re hiding something. Not necessarily bad, but something they don’t want coming out. It could be related to the ley line. It could be related to the mine. It could be both.”

Amanita waited on the upcoming “but”.

Code pulled in and let out a long psych-up breath. “But as to what we’ll do about it, we know too little about anything. A lot of suspicious events, yes, but legally speaking, we only have the authority to purify the line unless something major happens. We can’t run roughshod and start interrogating ponies for no reason.”

“Wait,” said Charcoal. She pointed out the window. “This down’s hiding something and we’re just ignoring it?”

“What should we do about it?” Code asked calmly.

“We-” Charcoal blinked. “We should-” She pawed at the floor; Amanita wondered if the points on her hooves ever carved little furrows in floorboards. “I… I’m not…” Her ears fell. “But it’s getting in the way,” she mumbled, although she kept her head up.

Bitterroot twitched her wings to get everyone’s attention. “I’m a bounty hunter,” she said, a hoof on her chest, “but that’s not a license to break into people’s houses. Sometimes, there’s just… nothing we can do.”

“But-!” Charcoal cut herself off and started running her hooves through her mane as she stared at the floor. “That doesn’t feel right,” she said.

Code chuckled mirthlessly. “Believe me, it doesn’t. We can keep an eye out for more information, but that’s it.” Shrug. “So it goes.”

Collapsing onto the bed behind her, Charcoal muttered something that would’ve been obscene if it’d been a word and the air around her seemed to flicker. Amanita sympathized; as a necromancer under Circe, it was distressingly easy to just go out and murder some thorn in a community’s side when you needed a body to experiment on. But she was in the Guard, now, and those sorts of ponies tended to frown on murder for the sake of Science. She always knew she was on the straight and narrow, but it was still harder to work with.

Charcoal snapped her head up, a “let’s change the subject” smile forced onto her face. “A-anyway!” she half-squeaked. “The, uh, the magic we bot- got from the, uh, geothaumomometers, that’s, that’s- as expected. Normal. Which is… kinda odd, since nothing else we’ve had here is normal. But, but I was thinking, maybe it’s not in the earth but in the water. The, the river.”

Amanita turned her ears forward. “I thought you said we had nothing to worry about with… waste,” she said delicately. (Bitterroot’s wings twitched.)

“We don’t, we don’t,” Charcoal said, shaking her hooves. “They’ve got that all under control. It doesn’t even go into the river! But rivers carry ley energies, and sometimes they can affect ley lines in ways the land doesn’t.” A pause. “Sometimes,” she added quietly.

“Sometimes isn’t never,” Code mused. She started pacing a tight circle. “The report didn’t say anything about the river, but they could’ve missed that… And that could explain the river in Midwich Forest, yes?”

“If…” Charcoal made small, vague gestures in front of her. “…everything comes together right… maybe?”

“After the last few days, that’s good enough for me,” said Code, bringing her pacing to a stop. “I assume you have some aspects of the river you want to study? I know some simple rituals to shape them further. Inspired by beavers, of all things.”

“Oh, yeah, that’d be great. And of course it’d be beavers, there aren’t many other living things that shape rivers nearly as much as them.”

Code blinked and one of her ears drooped. Then she shook her head. “Amanita, if you don’t have anything to do-”

“Actually, I was thinking of going up to the coal breaker,” Amanita said. “I want to see what they’re doing with the tailings.”

She knew from the blank looks she was getting that those words meant nothing to the others. “Tailings are coal refuse,” she said. “Uh, rocks and other debris that gets separated out from the coal and thrown out. Kinda like the stuff you have to dig up to get at the coal. And the tailings need to go somewhere, or else they’d overwhelm everything else.”

Code blinked cluelessly, but nodded. “If you think that’s the best course of action, follow it. I don’t know anything that can help you, unfortunately.”

“That’s fine. I’ve talked with Charcoal about earth magic and she’s been a big help.” (Charcoal actually grinned at that.)

“Good.”

Bitterroot’s wings suddenly twitched and she cleared her throat. “Hey, uh, Amanita? If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to you on the way up. It’s… kinda personal.”

Really? Huh. Why hadn’t she said anything before? “That’s fine. You’re probably just looking for something to do, right?” Amanita chuckled.

“Something like that,” said Bitterroot.

Silence, but only for a moment. Code snatched up her cup from the side table and downed the rest of it in a single swallow. “Let’s finish lunch,” she said. “And I need something stronger to drink.”

Okay. Finally. Midwich Valley was dark again, but lunch was over. Bitterroot had Amanita alone for a moment as they headed towards the coal breaker. She wasn’t in the middle of anything, not yet. No one was waiting on her. It was just the two of them, walking south. Nothing in the way between the two of them. No time crunch. No problem. Nothing to stop the two of them from having a conversation.

…And repeating how this was the perfect time to talk did nothing to actually get her talking. Bitterroot felt her stomach prepare to knot itself up as she- “Uh, hey, Amanita?”

“Yeah?” The response was casual.

“How’re you doing?”

Amanita shrugged. “I’ve been through worse.”

“That bar’s so low you could be in Tartarus and still clear it. How are you doing?”

One of Amanita’s ears drooped as she looked at Bitterroot. “…Fine. Really. Why?”

“Be- cause- Okay. After your talk in Canterlot, you seemed depressed and ready to go into a spiral.”

“You’re still worried about that?”

“Well, I- Look, no offense, but you turned to necromancy on a whim a moon after your marefriend died. Once you got out of jail, you were content to just live the rest of your life in a hotel room. You gave a presentation on a spell nopony else could’ve made and you somehow immediately started worrying about being replaced. I…” Deep breath in. “…don’t think you’re the best at handling your feelings.”

Amanita’s laugh was a bit high-pitched, but otherwise normal. “I, I could be better, yeah.”

“So, I just… I thought I’d… come along and see if you needed help after…” Bitterroot waved a hoof around vaguely as her voice trailed off. There. Done. Out in the wild.

The look Amanita gave her was about a quarter askance, three-quarters amused. “You know I’m an adult, right?”

“You know your adulting skills leave something to be desired, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“I really should’ve said something, but letting you come all the way out here-” Bitterroot gestured around the dim, frigid valley. “-without any friends was… I dunno, it just seemed wrong. Especially when you were so down after that symposium.”

“Seminar. Symposiums are larger.”

“But I messed up by not telling you why I was really coming out here, and I’m sorry. If you want me to scram, I will. I… Yeah, this was just stupid.”

Silence fell, but not like an anvil. Amanita’s ears weren’t folded back in anger, but up and twitching back and forth, complete with little tail flicks. She was thinking, and thinking deeply. Bitterroot held her breath.

After a few moments that felt a lot longer, Amanita said, “You know, for a bounty hunter, you’re… You’re really… I dunno, empathetic. How many of your targets got away because they had an amazing sob story?”

Bitterroot grinned, half in relief. “None. Sob stories usually aren’t a good legal defense. I tried to let one get away, but she insisted on going to jail.”

“Sounds like a weirdo.”

“Eh, she turned out alright.”

Amanita chuckled. “Okay. For real, I’m doing fine and you can leave if you want. But if you want to stay, I won’t say no to having somepony to scream at if something goes wrong and I get too stressed.”

“Scream at or scream with?”

“…Scream with. The second one.”

“Screaming with, I can handle. I think I’ll give it a day or two, and then if nothing changes, I’m gone.”

“Alright.”

They walked along in silence for a few moments more. When Amanita didn’t continue, Bitterroot asked, “You’re not mad or anything?”

“I feel like I should be,” Amanita said, “but you’re the only pony who’s cared about me that much in years, so it feels nice.”

Bitterroot’s skin crawled at how casually Amanita said that.

Amanita was growing used to the cold. Not enough to like it (Celestia, no), but now it was closer to a low ache than anything biting or gnawing. Could’ve been better. Could’ve been worse.

Weird to think Bitterroot had come all the way out here, just for her. Then again, Bitterroot had died for her, once. That mare could be very protective.

They passed by a chicken run with one of the hens clucking out her egg song and climbed the slope to the train station. It wasn’t a steep slope, but it made Amanita wonder about the miners climbing it every day to get to work. They were probably used to it, just like… well, just like she was already getting used to the cold.

They crested the hill. Between the time and the narrowness of the southern portion of Midwich, the hulking mass of the coal breaker was already covered in shadow, illuminated only by the light piercing out of its windows. Those small bits of light were just enough to trace the outlines of the breaker and throw it into starker relief against the valley wall. The train had moved as well, shuffled about the small railyard; Amanita could hear the clanks and creaks of the metal as the locomotive pushed the hopper cars into position next to the-

Bitterroot suddenly came to a stop. “Son of a dog,” she said, almost in surprise. “He’s the engineer.” And she was off like a shot, although she wasn’t flying.

Amanita was taken aback by her speed and tried galloping after her. Bitterroot was still faster. “Who is?” she yelped out.

“Tallbush!”

Ah.

Bitterroot slid to a stop next to the train when Amanita was still over twenty feet away. She looked into the cab and her wings twitched. “Where’ve you been?” she didn’t quite demand.

Amanita could hear the response. “What dae ye mean?” She recognized the voice.

“We’ve been looking everywhere for you since- since breakfast!”

Amanita stumbled to a halt alongside the locomotive just in time for Tallbush (thank Celestia) to lean out. His ears were twitching. “I’m the Duke,” he said, looking Bitterroot in the eye. “Must needs be all ’round the place.”

“Nopony knew where you were!”

Tallbush shrugged. “That happens. I’m here. What dae ye need?”

Bitterroot’s wings flexed and she blinked. She took a breath a bit too loudly and said, “We need to get into Midwich Mine.”

“Beg yer pardon, but nay. Too dangerous,” Tallbush replied. He ducked back into the cab.

Before Bitterroot could say anything more, Amanita lightly nudged her aside. “Listen, it’s really important,” she said. “The source of the ley line is in the mine, and if we can get close-”

“Too dangerous.”

“-it’ll be a lot easier for us to study the line and we can fix this-”

“Too dangerous.”

“-and we’ll be out of your hair that much quicker.”

Tallbush turned back around and fixed his gaze on her. It felt unusually intense. “Ye ken how dangerous mines are?”

Amanita blinked and pretended her eyes weren’t ready to water. “Yes. I’ve nearly died in them. I’ve heard stories of entire towns ruined because of mine collapses. I’ve been in one of those towns.”

That actually got a pause from Tallbush; he blinked and his jaw dropped oh-so-slightly. Amanita seized that pause and continued, “We all know how dangerous mines are. That’s why we’re asking you for permission. If we didn’t, don’t you think we’d’ve just gone straight in?” (Bitterroot hiccupped for some reason.)

“I’m- sorry,” Tallbush said after another pause, “but I cannae risk it.” He was still looking Amanita in the eye, although he didn’t seem quite so intense. “If’n ye were tae die, I couldnae live wi’ myself. ’Tis jes’- There’s too many- things that can gae wrong.”

“Then can your miners set up our instruments?” Bitterroot suddenly asked. “Well, their instruments.” She nudged Amanita. “But you know where to go, where’s the safest, what to do-”

“Have tae think about it,” Tallbush cut in. “But I dinnae want ary of ye goin’ intae the mine. At all. Ye dinnae ken the kinds o’ things ye’ll run intae.”

Amanita looked at Tallbush. Tallbush looked at Amanita. And were his ears trembling? Was he nervous about something? Part of her wanted to stay, their eyes drilling into each other until one of them broke down, but she had a job to do. Reluctantly, she stepped away from the cab. “Please,” she said. “It’s very important that we get this all sorted out.”

Tallbush just said, “Aye.” Then he ducked back into the cab.

Feeling like she was wading neck-deep through molasses, Amanita pulled herself away from the train. “Code and Charcoal are looking for you,” she called out. “They’ll be either down by the town hall or somewhere along the river. You should talk to them.”

“Thankee fer lettin’ me ken,” Tallbush hollered back. “Be keepin’ that in mind.”

And that was that. So unsatisfying. Amanita nearly shook her head as she walked. That was the best he could do? The Crown had sent a team for one reason, and he couldn’t even-

Then Bitterroot froze and looked back at the train, frowning. “He should be there already,” she muttered.

“Hmm?”

“It’s- Crosscut said he’s always at the town hall at this time of day. Always always. Except for when we’re looking for him.”

“…Huh.”

Amanita and Bitterroot looked at each other. And Amanita knew that thoughts of suspicion were doing the same jig in her head as they were Bitterroot’s.

“We’ll tell Code next time we see her,” Bitterroot said.

“Yeah.”

Silence.

Bitterroot coughed. “So, uh, tailings?”

Amanita could nearly hear the screech as her train of thought was forcibly rerouted. Not that she was complaining. “Um. Coal trash, basically,” she said. “When you dig up something like coal, it’s… It’s got stuff on it. Dirt, muck, ore you don’t want on it, that sort of thing.”

“Gems?”

“Sometimes. And you need to get rid of it all somehow, so it usually ends up in tailings piles. They’re also called spoils tips. And, uh, they really build up over time, so you need to get rid of them, but in a place like this, it’s hard to do.”

“Huh.” Amanita could tell from Bitterroot’s expression that the words weren’t really sticking in her head. But she was trying to listen. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve- been around,” Amanita said. No one was near them, but she couldn’t help it; she glanced around shiftily. “When I was, you know, in the North.” As a necromancer. “I just, passed through a lot of towns and picked up some terminology.”

From the way Bitterroot’s wings tightened, she got it. “Ah.”

Thankfully, before the silence got too tight, they turned the corner around the breaker. And there before them were the tailings. There were several piles, all of them similar: wet heaps of mixed dirt and rock and Celestia knew what else, not unlike chunky mud. They reflected light from the breaker, but it was too dull to gleam or shine. A pipeline chute ran from the breaker, dumping wet muck on the tallest pile, with a gantry that allowed it to be pushed to one of the others. None of the piles was very high, as Amanita had suspected — the tallest was only slightly taller than her if she held her head as high as she could. Tratonmane was definitely doing something with the tailings, or else they were getting their coal from someplace else. But this far north, Tratonmane was the “someplace else”. How could you get someplace elser out here? Unlike most tailings piles Amanita had seen, these were surrounded by low walls, maybe a foot tall, that kept the water from running off into the rest of the valley.

Amanita kept walking, but Bitterroot came to a sudden stop. “Those-” Her swallow was audible. “Those are tailings?”

“Yeah,” Amanita said, looking over her shoulder. Was it her imagination, or did Bitterroot look slightly green in the dim light? “Why?”

“It looks like earthen diarrhea,” Bitterroot said flatly.

“It- kinda is?” Amanita admitted. “To get the stuff off, miners usually wash the coal. Like, literally wash it with water. So… there’s water in there. Lots of it. And other gunk. It’s earthen waste.”

The pipe shuddered as slurry ran through it and was dumped out.

“Pleasant. So what’re you gonna do?”

Amanita looked at the tailings and grinned. “I’m going to be strange again.”

“What?”

Amanita glanced over at Bitterroot, one ear down. “I’m… going to be strange again?”

“…Should I know what you mean by that?”

“W-well, uh…” Amanita felt her cheeks redden. “Back in, back in the- forest, at the bear, you said-”

“Ooooooh. Right, that.” Bitterroot’s wings twitched outward slightly. “What kind of strange?” She grinned. “Are you gonna climb into those piles, too?”

“Actually, yeah.”

Amanita swore she could hear something break in Bitterroot’s mind as her wings sagged slightly. She coughed. “…Yeah, I already know this is over my head,” Bitterroot said. “I’ll… just go, then.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Amanita said, grinning. “Be seeing you.”

“You, too.” Bitterroot flared her wings and hovered just above the ground. “And thanks for the talk.” She wheeled north towards Tratonmane. Amanita watched her go, then turned to the tailings.

Necromancers liked mines for more than just their isolation and security. The earth was both alive and dead, the two intermixing until it was hard to say where one ended and the other began, assuming they were even separable at all. The ground was inert, yet all life sprang from it, one way or another — plants grew in it and animals ate either plants or animals that ate plants. As you went further underground, death became more prevalent; for every vein of coal you found, you had to carve your way through massive swathes of nonreactive rock. Yet although it did nothing but sit there, that mere rock, with all of its weight pushing down on you from above, could be death to you if handled poorly.

Or properly. Amid all that death, necromantic rituals frequently became easier to work. Even ordinary ponies could feel it; why else would the afterlife be called the underworld? Circe had spoken rhapsodically about death and caves. As an earth pony, she’d said, she could feel all the history around them when they went underground — history of the land, of the flora and fauna that lived there, of its sophontic inhabitants, of the earth itself. And as the future became history, things died. It was inevitable. Circe had always seemed happy when they went below.

Tailings and spoils didn’t quite have the same properties as caves, but they were still regular rocks specifically separated from valuable gems and lumps of energetic coal. The miners were imbuing them with death simply by discarding them. It wasn’t to any great degree, and since it wasn’t biological, Amanita couldn’t work with them the same way she could a corpse. But death was death, and Amanita knew death.

Amanita hopped the wall surrounding one of the piles and landed fetlock-deep in water. Walking up to the pile, she kneaded the soaked rubbish beneath her and sent out a pulse of magic. Memories of something that wasn’t not death lingered in its wake. If you looked at it the right way, the tailing was a pile of corpses, sitting there, rotting, waiting to be burned.

Amanita collapsed into it, let herself get immersed in it. She wiggled her legs; rubble and slurry dribbled down them, half-burying them. Keeping her muzzle above the rock, she breathed deeply and let her awareness simmer out. Her sensation danced around things just barely removed from physicality, things Ponish had no word for. Not dangerous things; they were merely things most ponies never experienced, things Ponish never needed a word for. Cells had existed long before anypony peered at one through a microscope, much less dubbed them “cells”. Just because it was Other and unnameable didn’t mean you were at risk from it.

You needed death to study necromancy. Circe had kept her well-supplied. The Guard, while certainly the more preferable situation overall, didn’t exactly take kindly to having piles of bodies on lab tables (that made even Code a bit anxious). The death around Amanita felt more like an old friend than she really wanted to admit.

And the thing about old friends was that you knew how they changed.

Charcoal had told Amanita how to examine the living earth. Maybe Amanita could use that to examine the dead earth.

She breathed deeply and let her soul wander.

Sometimes, Bitterroot wondered if she’d ever really get Amanita. Not because of the quick forgiveness, but because… she was the kind of pony who would casually cut open a bear and climb inside or jump into a pile of wet coal sludge. She just worked a bit differently from… just about everyone Bitterroot had ever met. That wasn’t even getting into necromancy.

Getting her didn’t matter, not really. It was just something Bitterroot turned over in her head.

At first, Bitterroot had headed north because that was the only direction to go. But the meeting with Tallbush was still in her head, so she soon figured she might as well tell Code as long as the memory was still fresh. Following the river it was.

She’d never paid much attention to the river while coming in. A waterfall was slowly carving a slit down one of Midwich’s walls, at about the halfway point of the southern shelf. It collected in a small pool before overflowing and running north, turning a waterwheel as it tumbled over the smaller cliff. From there, it wound down Midwich outside of Tratonmane’s borders, occasionally turning more wheels before it disappeared into the forest. Even in the dark, it glinted with whatever light it caught, so following it was simple.

Bitterroot stayed low and slow as she flew. It’d be easy to miss someone in the dark. Or so she thought; as she curled around, she caught a glimpse of two fires close to each other along the shore, indistinct shadowy figures standing near them. She flew a bit closer and landed. One of them had a curly horn that meant she could only be Charcoal, hunched over some arcane device or another. The other fire had some blankets and… clothes?… folded near it. Just outside the flickering light of the fire, Whippletree was standing watch over several small foals who were looking out eagerly over the river, where…

Code was dancing on a rock in the middle of the river, unclothed. The rock was uneven, rather small, and obviously slippery, yet although she performed twirls and wild gesticulations with a nearly reckless abandon, she never once looked like she was even an inch out of place. Something about her motions was captivating the same way a catchy song was; Bitterroot found herself bobbing her head to the beat Code set. And was the river curling around the rock to the rhythm as well? Perhaps throwing a soft glow over the scene as well. Then Bitterroot heard what Code was singing.

“Give me moo-oore… / Razzle dazzle… / Glitter eyes, big surprise / Lights and cameras / Whooaa-ooaa-oa-oa-oa…”

…Okay.

Code’s voice wasn’t even that bad, so Bitterroot couldn’t object by pretending she was butchering Countess Coloratura. She finished the song and struck a pose that… wouldn’t have been that out-of-place at a Coloratura concert, but definitely needed more practice. Her chest was heaving and her breathing was ragged. But when she dropped back onto all fours, she was grinning.

The foals on the shore started stamping in tiny applause. “Dae it again! Dae it again!” one of them yelled.

“Wythe, she’s real busy nowabouts, dinnae distract her,” Whippletree said.

“But Pa-”

“Nae buts!”

Code jumped into the river, swam-waded to shore, and walked over to the fire with the blankets. “Give me a moment to rest, first,” she said. “I don’t mind.” She shook the worst of the water off, wrapped one of the blankets around her, and took a seat by the fire. She was shaking semi-badly; Bitterroot couldn’t imagine being in water that cold, even for just a few seconds.

Bitterroot took a seat opposite Code. “You’d kill it at karaoke night.”

“I do,” Code said, smirking. “Most Thursday nights at the Bars Bar.” Her voice was quite firm, given where she’d just been.

“Hmm. I’ve heard of that place. So what’s up with ‘The Spectacle’?”

“A song’s a song. Sometimes they connect you to the heartsong, sometimes they just help you focus. When you’re shaping magic to your will in a ritual, anything that can make your will more focused on shaping that magic helps, no matter how inane it may seem.”

“So, in the right circumstances, I could turn back a hurricane by singing a catchy folk song?”

“There’s actually evidence that the various Winter Wrap-Up songs started life as ritual incantations,” Code said with a straight face. “Developed by earth ponies during the Three Tribes Era in an attempt to loosen the pegasus stranglehold on the weather, especially snow. Based on the instructions we’ve found, the rituals wouldn’t have worked, but the oldest evidence is from the beginning of the windigo invasion, so it’s possible that they simply still needed refining and were abandoned when Equestria was formed and they were no longer needed.”

“…Have you ever tried putting together a metal band for rituals?”

“Several times. Sadly, the intersection between genuine ritualists and metal musicians borders on nonexistent, no matter how low your standards go for either. We’re left with me singing modern glam pop.”

“And it’s been working great!” Charcoal said brightly. She didn’t look up from her machine. “You’re amazing with shaping magic, Code, I’ve never seen anything this smooth before-”

“I’m not the High Ritualist for nothing,” Code replied airily. “I-”

“Did ye write that song?” one of the foals asked. Bitterroot flinched; the little cadre had somehow snuck up on them in the dark. “It was a plumb good ’un!”

To Bitterroot’s surprise, Code chuckled. “I wish I could write songs that good, but-”

“I wish I had a mane like yours!” the one Whippletree had addressed as “Wythe” said to Charcoal. “It’s so fluffy!”

“W-well, uh…” Charcoal grinned nervously and half-leaned away from the foals. “It’s, I was just- corn- born with it-”

“Why cannae ye speak right?”

“Okay, listen, you little-”

“Why’s yer horn sae headin’?”

“Wythe, her horn ain’t headin’!” said Whippletree. “It’s jes’ her horn. I beg yer pardon, ma’am,” he quickly said to Charcoal, “but she’s-”

Charcoal flinched as one of the foals pounced on her tail. “Yer tail’s neat!” the colt squeaked.

“They’re all young,” Whippletree said. “Tuckpoint, dinnae touch her-”

“I’m fine!” Charcoal said, yanking her tail out from under the colt. “I’m, I’m fine.”

“Are you fine?” Code yelled out. “I can help keep them away!”

“I’m fine!” Charcoal half-yelped. “They just need to get their energy out! I’m vine!”

“Do you think she’s fine?” Bitterroot whispered.

“Heh.” Code pulled the blanket more tightly around her. “For the moment? Yes. In a minute? That remains to be seen. I think she will be, though.”

Bitterroot glanced over. On a second look, Charcoal’s smile was less “nervous” and more “surprised”. Maybe. “So, what’re you two doing, again?”

“An exquisite combination of modern arcane analysis and ritualism,” Code said with a grin. “There are ley energies running through the river. Charcoal, as the environmental expert, tells me how she wants me to shape them. I perform the proper ritual to do so-”

“A ritual powered by pop diva chart-toppers.”

“Stupidity that works is far better than cleverness that doesn’t. I perform the ritual. And she takes the measurements on that device.” Code pointed at the box Charcoal had been fiddling with, a small thing with some glowing dials and meters and Bitterroot didn’t know what.

“How’s it going?”

“It’s tiring.” Bitterroot blinked, and Code confirmed, “Yes, even as an earth pony. I’m moving the magic rather than letting it move me. But I expected nothing less, and it’s going well, if Charcoal’s reactions are to be trusted.” Code twisted her neck and groaned before eating some dirt. “Now, I presume you came down here with news?” she said with her mouth full.

Bitterroot privately wondered if that was achieving anything; shouldn’t they have seen an effect by now? “Well, Amanita and I finally found Tallbush, but he said he wasn’t letting us into the mine under any circumstances.”

Code’s ears went up and her eyes narrowed as she swallowed. She opened her mouth, glanced at the foals, closed it again. “That is a bummer,” she said, pouring enough invective into the last word to make it a profanity. (Whippletree even looked her way, like he’d caught the tone.)

“Yep. He said it was too dangerous.”

“And Amanita. Is she…?” Frowning, Code tapped her chin. “Actually, what is she doing?”

Bitterroot shrugged. “No idea. But she seemed pretty confident in it, whatever it was. And you probably know Amanita.”

“Her being confident is a good sign.”

“Yeah. Oh, and another thing: we found Tallbush moving train cars around in the railyard. Except before lunch, that one lumberjack mare, uh, Crosscut, she said he’s always in the town hall at that time.”

“Did she.” Code’s words fell like hammers on an anvil.

“She did. We also told Tallbush where you were and that you’d prefer to hear the news from him, so if he doesn’t turn up-”

“Right.” Code took a breath that sounded like the first inhale of a forge’s bellows, making Bitterroot tighten her wings. “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll keep an eye out for him,” she said in a voice normally reserved for soldiers anticipating an ambush.

“Need me for anything else?”

Code snorted. “You’re going to work yourself to death. Again,” she added under her breath. “No, we’ve nothing you could help us with. Not unless Charcoal needs a diversion of the juveniles. We’ll do another analysis once I’m warmed up a bit, and I think you know a little less about arcane analysis than us.”

“Heh. Yeah, no argument there.” Bitterroot glanced over at Charcoal.

Still surrounded by foals, Charcoal had taken one of her legs out of her furs to display her cloven hoof; the foals were openly gawking at it while Whippletree was doing his darndest to not look like he was gawking at it. “I can even move them a little!” Charcoal said cheerfully. As Bitterroot watched, the hooftips moved slightly in relation to each other. The foals oooooooed while Whippletree flicked his tail and rustled his wings.

“It looks like you’ve got this under control,” Bitterroot said.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Charcoal said calmly. “I just needed to-”

“How dae ye ken which ’un’s which?” chirped one of the foals.

“It’s sae weird!” said another.

“Plumb! Jig! Must I tell yer parents about-”

“Don’t!” said Charcoal, shaking her head. “It’s, they’re learning! Learning’s always good! I’m fine! I’ve been through worst! Uh, worse, not worst.”

Whippletree didn’t seem reassured from the way he pawed at the ground. His wings rustled as he took a seat next to Charcoal. “Lissen,” he said sternly to the foals. And the foals actually did listen. “All o’ ye. I ken Charcoal here’s bein’ nice, but you’uns must needs bein’ civil. I dinnae want-”

Yeah, Charcoal was doing fine. Which meant Bitterroot had nothing to do.

In a small Northern town where the train came once a week.

Joy.

Suppressing a shudder, she bade Code farewell and winged her way back towards the Cave. She’d brought some books, just in case, but she was already thinking of leaving. The place just needed to stay quiet.

15 - If High on a Tree

Things got weird when you left physicality. The world existed on being, on things you could move and handle and poke and get bonked on the head by. Leave that behind, and the world was incomprehensible. Places that were right next to each other in the real world could be distant in the space of ideas simply because those two places weren’t much alike. Thoughtspace changed based on how you decided you perceived it, on what culture said was good or wasn’t, on your mood. It was a maelstrom of chaos, impossible to navigate.

But, Amanita had learned, that was just what ponies thought. They were physical creatures and it took a great deal of effort to think of things in terms of vibes instead of atoms. Not vibrations; vibes. Ponies could navigate their own headspace easily enough; if you dropped out of the physical world, you just needed to remember that those thoughts were the universe’s, not yours. That was the way Amanita thought of it, at least, and it’d worked pretty well so far.

Meditation wasn’t something normally associated with necromancers — too much calm introspection, not enough guttural chanting and blood sacrifices — but Circe had said that it was an indispensable skill when starting out. Bringing back the dead went against the logical progression of life and entropy, so you needed to know how the universe worked around it, or else your first poke would result in the universe bucking you back into your body as it recoiled. The easiest way to do that? Meditation. Meditate, dissociate, enervate, animate.

Amanita hadn’t truly meditated in years, but she fell back into it like it’d been waiting for her. The tailings were wet, so no dust tickled her nostrils. She could just breathe, the bare minimum for survival. She stopped paying attention to time; time was a physical thing and therefore irrelevant. With her magic spreading and her senses pushed aside, she slipped out.

With Circe, she normally had a dead thing to examine at this point so she could feel what needed to change. Now, all she had was dirt. Dirt that Charcoal had shown her had its own life, once upon a time. And just as Amanita had once adjusted to paradigm space, she now tried adjusting to earth life.

It took work. It took unlearning certain assumptions about what “life” was. But with biological death as a starting point, Amanita began pulling her way to geological death and uncoiling it. After some transient skimming, she realized she had to scale down time. Most ponies lived less than a hundred years, but even the Sisters were younger than Midwich. On those timescales, removing and cleaning coal would take but an eyeblink. Closely followed by that was scaling down space as well. All the space that Tratonmane took up was just a fraction of Midwich. She had to rethink what “here, now” was. She’d done it when starting as a necromancer. She did it again.

Then, just as pony life had impressions to bring back, Amanita found those of earthen life, one by one. They were just different enough that she couldn’t work them, but similar enough to recognize. Blood didn’t flow, but water did. Cells didn’t grow, but crops did. Bones didn’t hold it all together, but rock did. The heart didn’t beat, but-

Something rattled and wet rubble poured over Amanita’s head. Meditative or not, she still needed to breathe, and she sat bolt upright, painfully sneezing out the sopping coal mud that had trickled into her nostrils.

“Dear land!” squawked someone. “What in the pit’s waters are ye daein’, y’afflicted moldwarp?”

Amanita tried wiping debris from her eyes. Her furs being coated in more debris meant her success was arguably negative. She managed to blink enough to focus on somepony who looked like a coal-dusted pegasus miner was standing nearby, having pushed the breaker’s refuse pipe to pour onto her pile. The miner was glaring at her like she’d done something incredibly, incredibly stupid. And to be fair…

“Sorry,” Amanita said. She sneezed again; her throat ached, but fortunately nothing had gotten into her mouth. “I should’ve-” Sneeze. “I should’ve told someone.”

At the sound of her heartlands-accented voice, one of the officials’ voices, the miner’s eyes went wide and his ears went down. “I-” he said quietly. He took a step back on shaking legs. “Ma’am, I- beg yer pardon-”

“You have my pardon,” Amanita said. “This is my fault.” She curled forward and managed to heave herself from the pile and the still-flowing tailings. Black mud clung to every exposed part of her except the very tip of her muzzle. Already, Midwich’s chill was working its way in through the damp. Super. “I shouldn’t sleep in a trash pile and then complain when someone throws trash in, right?” She grinned. How much did her teeth stand out now?

The miner’s wings flexed. His mouth narrowed in anxious uncertainty. “Ah… well…” His gaze ping-ponged between her and the pile. “Then, beg yer pardon again, but… What in-” Cough. “What were ye doin’?”

Amanita nearly shook to clean herself before deciding splattering her conversation partner with mine residue wasn’t the best idea. “Testing some of the energies,” she said. Just correct enough. “Ley lines can sometimes leave residue in the rocks and tailings, and I was just feeling it.” Was that correct? It sounded correct. “But you’re right, I should’ve told someone. Sorry.”

Blinks were the miner’s only response. Amanita couldn’t blame him.

“So what do you do with the tailings?” She waved a hoof at the pile she’d come out of. “Those obviously aren’t all the ones in the history of Tratonmane, but you’re collecting the water, so you’re not just tossing them in the river.”

The miner was silent. Maybe he was just still shocked by a pony crawling out of a tailings pile. As expected. “Or do you not know?” Amanita hedged. “I… I get it if you don’t.”

After a moment, the miner flicked an ear and, to her surprise, started talking. “I dinnae ken the presact method, but we use ’em fer rock fertilizer-”

Amanita gasped. “You’ve actually got rock fertilizer working? And you can use it to make more coal?”

“Aye. Gems, too.”

“Holy moly.” Lithogenic materials certainly existed, but were hard to come by, and darn near impossible to synthesize. She’d heard whispers about them while traveling with Circe; if you could get that working, mining (at least for stone) would be significantly easier. It’d be almost like farming: mine a vein of coal, spread some fertilizer, wait a year (or however long) to let the coal grow back, repeat. No going deeper and deeper into the earth to get out just a few more chunks. And here it was, just being casually used in the middle of frozen nowhere. “How, how does it work?” she asked, leaning forward. “Is it alchemy?” The implications were becoming avalanchous.

“I- I presume sae,” the miner said, taking a step back, “but I said I-”

“You said you don’t know, right, sorry,” Amanita said hastily. “Do you know who does know?”

“A- Nay, nay, pardon.” The miner shook his head. “An’, an’ I’ve a job that needs done-”

“Don’t let me keep you,” Amanita said. The miner nodded to her and was gone before she’d finished speaking. She barely noticed.

Rock fertilizer. Wow. Charcoal would certainly be interested in that. Amanita almost wanted to dive into the breaker and start asking how it all worked, but when she glanced up at the sky, it was getting towards evening. (Probably.) How long had she been under? Long enough to check in with Code and Charcoal.

The coal mud was beginning to crust. She gave herself a shake to get the worst of it off. Her furs were still damp, and being damp in the cold was generally a Bad Thing, but she couldn’t bring herself to worry. Perhaps she hadn’t learned as much from the tailings as she’d’ve liked, but she definitely had a route to learn more in the future. She just needed to ask first.

She rounded the breaker to head into Tratonmane proper, then glanced up the slope. She noticed Midwinter’s house. They were the Smart Ponies in Tratonmane, right? Might as well ask them.

When she knocked, the door was answered by a sooty-colored earth pony. “Hey,” said Amanita. “I’m Amanita.”

The earth pony paused before saying, “Fuligin.”

“Fuligin. Hey. Is Midwinter here? Just for a quick question. Or someone working with her.”

“Eh…” Fuligin glanced over his shoulder. “Is Carnelian alright?”

“Who?”

Carnelian was a regal-ish chiropterus, one Amanita felt like she’d seen around town. “What do you want?” she huffed. “I’m quite busy, you know.”

“Do either of you know how the rock fertilizer gets made?”

Amanita’s only answer was silence.

“Seriously?” Amanita asked. “That, that’s it? No response? Rock fertilizer. Over there?” She pointed at the breaker.

“How are you supposed to fertilize rock?” Carnelian said, incredulity dripping from every word.

“If it works, the magic in the fertilizer causes rocks in the mine to behave a certain way and… change to… You don’t know, do you?”

“No. I’ve never heard of… something like that,” huffed Carnelian.

“I cannae say I have, neither,” Fuligin said.

Bummer. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know.” Amanita almost stepped away before turning back. “Also, uh, did either of you see Pyrita before she entered the mine? Arrastra said she went to talk to Midwinter, and Midwinter said she hadn’t seen Pyrita, but maybe one of you did?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t see her,” said Carnelian. “After all, I don’t keep track of every single pony that traipses by here.” She brushed off back downstairs.

Fuligin remained silent for a moment before shaking his head. “…Nay. ’Tis a while since I seen her last. I’ve been working wi’ Midwinter fer… a while, an’ that’s kept me busy.”

“Well, don’t stay too busy. Maybe you need to get out more.”

“Aye. I ken I do.” And Fuligin closed the door.

That could’ve gone better. Ah, well. Amanita hadn’t been expecting much, anyway. Back to Code and Charcoal it was. She headed northward, whistling.

Bitterroot almost felt ready to gnaw her wings off. She’d read her book, done it for hours. But it just didn’t feel right. She was wide awake, yet looking out now gave her the same darkness as when she’d started, making it feel like the middle of the night, which threw off her internal clock. And that would’ve been fine, except not one place in Midwich had a clock for her to reset by. She was left feeling listless and hyper at the same time. If she couldn’t do something soon, she’d lose her mind.

She set her book on a side table rather than chucking it across the room (it was a close thing), and kept herself from stomping as she left the inn. She immediately looked up. Thankfully, the sky was still visible, and right then, it was bluing. Approaching dusk. Fine.

Bitterroot flexed her wings and trotted in place. No way was she going back to her room. Not with this energy. That left Tratonmane. What to do in Tratonmane? …She needed to get to know the ponies who lived here. Remind herself that they were fixing the line for ponies who lived up here, not Just Because. It’d keep her centered.

A name flitted through her head: Arrastra. The old eyepatched mare she’d met that first night. Amanita and Code had helped with her sick sister Pyrita. (The name was Pyrita, right? …Yes, right.) She could use someone checking in on her, just in case. Now, which house had Amanita and Code said was Arrastra’s?

It took some knocking and a few more poking-into-houses than Bitterroot should’ve been comfortable doing, but soon one door-knocking was answered by a tired chiropterus with an eyepatch. “Aye?” Arrastra asked, somewhat gruffly.

“You’re Arrastra, right?” It was polite.

“Aye. Bitterroot?”

“Right.” Bitterroot pointed at a splotch on Arrastra’s chest. “And you’ve still got green on you.”

“Ach, I ken.” Arrastra waved a hoof dismissively and didn’t even bother looking down. “What dae ye want?”

“How’s Pyrita doing?”

Arrastra blinked. Her wings tightened, a gesture that was both familiar and not on a chiropterus. She opened her mouth, closed it. “Why’re ye pokin’ ’round?”

“I just want to check in, see how she’s doing.”

“Didnae ye say ye werenae workin’ fer the Crown?”

“I’m not. But it’d be nice to know she’s doing okay. I want to see what we’re fighting for.”

“…If’n ye wish,” said Arrastra. “C’mon.”

The inside was brightly lit, thanks to a warm fire roaring in the hearth. An old chiropterus was sitting in front of the fire, stoking it with a poker. A side table next to her had a plate with untouched food. A rough easel and painting stood in the corner. When Bitterroot and Arrastra entered, the pony raised her head and immediately fixed her eyes on Bitterroot in a way that made her spine crawl.

“Pyrita, this here’s Bitterroot,” said Arrastra, her voice significantly softer. Bitterroot raised a hoof just enough to wave.

Pyrita nodded once and went back to the fire.

“Y’ain’t touched yer vittles. Ain’t ye peckish?”

A silent head-shake. Nothing more.

Bitterroot swallowed. Maybe this was a mistake. “Is she okay?”

Arrastra sighed and collapsed into an empty chair. “I dinnae ken,” she muttered. “She’s been actin’ a touch addled since she waked up. But she still waked up when she didnae afore, an’…”

“And you don’t know if she’ll get any better from this?” guessed Bitterroot.

“Aye.”

Bitterroot glanced at Pyrita, still silent, still stoking the fire, still not eating. If she was like this all the time… “I can let the others know and we’ll figure out where to go from there,” she offered.

“Thankee,” Arrastra said dully. She groaned and ruffled her mane. “An’ thankee fer stoppin’ by. I… I…”

“Yeah.” Bitterroot dropped onto her haunches. “Not knowing if a family member’s going to get better is always tough.”

“More’n that. Pyrita- Ach, but ye dinnae want tae hear of an ole mare ramble.”

“I do if it’ll make you feel better.”

Arrastra smirked, but it looked fake. “Right helpful little bugger, ain’t ye?”

“I’ve been getting that a lot lately,” Bitterroot said with a shrug.

Arrastra’s grin faltered as the reference flew over her head with a whistle. She looked into the fire. “Pyrita plumb near raised me,” she said quietly. “Our parents died when we were but foals. Ye ken the wolves an’ bears?” Snort. “’Course ye do. They werenae bad sixty year ago. Not a blasted thing came out o’ the forest. ’Til they did. Packs an’ packs of ’em, all to once.”

Something pinged in Bitterroot’s memory. “The shelters weren’t built yet, were they?”

Arrastra’s voice was growing dull. “This is what got us thinkin’ about ’em. Somethin’ like ten ponies died in one night. Ma got her throat ripped out an’ Pa didnae take it sae well. I cannae recollect o’ much, but he jes’ werenae Pa nae more. An’ a few days later, he was gone.”

“What happened?”

“Dinnae ken. He-” Arrastra’s breath hitched and she wiped at her eye. “He jes’ didnae come home that night. An’ he werenae there in the morn, neither. Nor the nex’ night. An’ when he werenae home the morn after that, I locked myself in the bathroom an’ was a-cryin’ and a-rarin’ fer hours.” She didn’t look away from the fire, but Bitterroot somehow felt her turn. “I was eight.”

Brrr.

“An’ Pyrita was jes’ thirteen, but she stepped up. Heh. Tougher’n nails an’ right long-headed, she was. She prolly could’ve minded out fer the both o’ us even if Tratonmane hadn’t helped. Pyrita’s plumb near the reason I raised at all.”

“And you didn’t turn out half bad.”

Arrastra snorted. “She were better. She helped dig out the shelters, build up the ballista towers, an’ more. One o’ the best, most rimptious messes ye’d ever ken. An’ now she’s…” She gestured vaguely at Pyrita.

“Yeah.”

“I’d do arythin’ fer family. But it can be hard.” With a sigh, Arrastra got out of her chair and walked over to Pyrita. “Sis, are ye certain ye dinnae wish tae eat?”

Nothing but a nod. Arrastra closed her eye and hung her head. Then, stroking one of Pyrita’s forelegs, she began singing.

“Oh, go tae sleep, oh my dear little devil
Fer yer night shall be filled wi’ yer dreams and yer revels.
Though the Midwich wind may blow, an’ it may shake,
Swathed within yer bed, nay, ye shall not wake.”

The last note hung in the air, filled with a history Bitterroot didn’t know. “It’s a nice song,” shhe said.

“’Twas beautiful when Pa sang it. Or when she sang it fer me.”

Silence. The fire crackled and popped as Pyrita stoked.

“I dinnae ken how I’m a-doin’, but thankee fer swingin’ ’round,” said Arrastra. She didn’t look at Bitterroot.

“Right,” Bitterroot said, standing up. “I’ll let the others know about-”

“Trisect.”

The word was raspy, like the speaker was about to have a coughing fit. And it hadn’t come from Arrastra, so-

Pyrita was gazing at Bitterroot with no expression, oddly stiff ears, and uncomfortably wide eyes. Bitterroot found herself shuffling back. “A-are you, uh, talking, talking to me?” she asked. Her brain was void of any other ideas.

The head-tilt Pyrita gave in response was so stiff it bordered on freakish. “You are the only trisect here, worm,” she monotoned. “Your line has already been severed twice.” She didn’t take her hoof off the poker.

Something touched the primal part of Bitterroot’s brain. Pyrita’s words wormed their way into her mind like nothing and wrenched her thoughts toward them. She opened her mouth; no words came out.

“Pyra…” With a shaking hoof, Arrastra reached out and turned Pyrita’s head towards her; Pyrita’s eyes stayed locked on Bitterroot. “Pyrita, w-what’re ye sayin’?”

“You are letting the sewists know. You are letting the sewists hear.”

“I, I dinnae ken what she’s a-sayin’,” whispered Arrastra, horrorstruck. “I, she- Pyrita, please.”

Bitterroot’s thoughts were running faster than she ever had. “Who?” she asked. “Who- Who are the sewists? What’s so bad about that? What are you talking about?”

Pyrita delicately nudged away Arrastra’s hooves; Arrastra was too shocked to stop her. “Your third eye is seeing things it oughtn’t. We’d best close it. You will be led on.”

And she whipped the poker from the fire and jammed the red-hot tip against Bitterroot’s neck.

Bitterroot shrieked and was driven back by the pressure and pain, shuffling until her back hit the edge of a table and she was bent over it. Pyrita moved with her, keeping the poker pressed against her neck, utterly expressionless all the while. “Flow,” she intoned.

Then Arrastra wrenched Pyrita off her with a mighty yank, very nearly throwing her across the floor. Almost hyperventilating, Bitterroot pushed herself up. She could barely even think; her thoughts were blotted out by the searing pain in her neck. The world seemed to be reeling around her, reorienting itself to that burn.

“Whoa, careful,” whispered Arrastra. She quickly but carefully wormed her hooves under Bitterroot’s body and moved her to the floor. “Dinnae move. Right back.” Before Bitterroot was aware Arrastra had gone outside, she was back and pressing a lump of snow to the burn. “Breathe. Jes’ breathe,” she said as she applied pressure. “It’s how ye ken ye’re alive.” Somehow, her voice was almost soothing.

Bitterroot did so. She clamped her eyes shut and breathed. The pain didn’t exactly lessen, but it became familiar. Agonized gasps through clenched teeth became labored, but measured, inhales and exhales. The cold snowmelt trickling down her neck gave her something to concentrate on.

“I beg yer pardon, a thousand times over,” gasped Arrastra. “I dinnae ken what-”

“S’alright,” Bitterroot wheezed. The vibration of her voice box behind the seared skin made even the words painful. “It happens.”

Warm, damp air washed over Bitterroot’s face as Arrastra exhaled raspily. It was probably supposed to be a laugh. “How’re you’n a-feelin’?”

How did she feel? Bitterroot actually paused for a moment to think. “It hurts- but that’s- it,” she managed to say. “I’ve- been through- a lot worse.” She’d died twice, after all.

“Alright,” whispered Arrastra. She carefully brushed some of the snow away, so tenderly it didn’t make the pain any worse. “Let’s take a gander at-”

She didn’t continue.

“What- what is it?” grunted Bitterroot. “Is it bad?” It felt bad. When Arrastra didn’t respond, Bitterroot cracked open an eye.

Arrastra had blanched. She was taking swift, unsteady breaths and her pupil had shrunk in surprise or terror.

“What’s wrong?” Bitterroot asked.

“It’s…” Arrastra blinked and shook her head. “I… No, it- Pyrita!” She whipped her head around, searching the room. But Pyrita was gone. Arrastra scrambled up the steps to the second floor, yelling. “Pyrita, where are ye?”

Wincing, Bitterroot scooped the snow from the floor and pressed it back to her neck, taking deep, measured breaths. The burning seemed to be pulsing, crawling like vines up and down her veins, biting its way across her neck. Arrastra ran back down the stairs, her eye wild; before Bitterroot could say anything, she was gone, out the door, calling out Pyrita’s name.

Just what had she seen in that burn? Bitterroot stumbled to the bathroom, to a mirror. She pulled the snow away and tried to raise her head, only to flinch back as the stretching skin made her nerves scream even louder. She wrenched her eyes shut, clenched her teeth, and took several deep breaths. In, out, in, out, in-

She flung her eyes open and forced her head up. Fighting through the agony, she took a look at her burn.

It was a crossed circle.

Bitterroot gasped in pain as she let her head fall and slapped the snow back on her burn. Or- a brand? It was… very precise. Deliberate? But the pain kept pushing out actual thoughts and focusing quickly turned into a fool’s errand. And the snow was melting, to boot.

She needed a drink.

Water was available. Bitterroot tried the faucet and cursed when water blasted out at the slightest touch. But she was able to fill a cup and get some liquid in her stomach. That done, she limped three-leggedly to the outside, scooped up another pile of snow, and applied pressure. She couldn’t see Pyrita or Arrastra. They must’ve gone into Tratonmane, maybe to-

Then Arrastra’s scream of terror echoed through the valley.

“Cut her down! Land’s sakes, cut her down!”

Amanita had reached the bottom of the slope when she heard the keening. It cut through her soul like nothing else. There was only one thing that made someone make a sound like that. Amanita was galloping before she could react, all sense of chill vanishing in an instant.

A crowd was forming in the square, clustering around the Great Ash and exchanging frightened whispers.. The few unicorns there had lit their horns, throwing an unusual amount of light around. Everyone was breathing so much that all the mist made it look like the ground was steaming beneath them. Outside the crowd, Code and Charcoal were in their own knot, whispering something Amanita couldn’t make out. She didn’t see Bitterroot

Amanita got a bit closer to the crowd. In spite of the light, she had a hard time seeing what was going on. She reared and awkwardly balanced. Something was dangling from the Ash on a rope, something large. A pony was desperately hacking at the rope with a knife; the rope snapped seconds after Amanita started looking, but she recognized the shape before it fell.

Pyrita, hanging limply from a noose.

A scant moment after the rope snapped, Amanita heard voices. Mostly Arrastra, babbling. Others she didn’t recognize from Tratonmane.

“Pyrita, Pyrita- C-come on, I’m a-beggin’ ye-”

“Arrastra-”

“Her heart ain’t beatin’. Pyrita-”

“Jes’ set her down. Lemme take a gander-”

“She weren’t up there a minute. How’d she pass already?”

“…She’s cold. That ain’t right…”

“Pyrita, ye were a-gettin’ better… Why’d ye-”

“Code, go get my ingredients,” Amanita heard herself say.

Whatever conversation there was between Code and Charcoal came to an immediate halt. Code looked at Amanita. She looked at Arrastra and Pyrita. She looked at the way Amanita was looking at them. And she got it. Blinking, she pushed her glasses up her muzzle. “Are- Amanita, are you sure about this?”

“Yes.” Amanita looked Code dead in the eyes. “We came here to help them. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t associated with the ley line.”

Code looked at Amanita.

Amanita looked at Code.

And Code nodded. “If that’s what you want. Be right back.” And she was gone into the dark.

Her heart battering her ribcage, Amanita tried stepping forward; Charcoal telekinetically grabbed her tail to keep her from moving. “You- You’re gonna dell them?” asked Charcoal in a scared voice that was somehow low and high at the same time. “About- you?” She was pawing at the ground and her tail was flicking around restlessly.

“Yes.” Amanita pulled her tail from Charcoal’s grip, but nothing more than that. “I’m the only one who can help them.”

Charcoal’s eyes darted from the crowd to Amanita and back again. “They- They’ll-” She drew a hoof across her neck.

“I don’t care.”

“A-Amanita, this is a mistake.”

“It’s my mistake to make.”

Charcoal opened her mouth. Bit her lip. Looked away. Didn’t say anything more. When she didn’t grab the tail again, Amanita stepped forward. Once she reached the outside edge of the crowd, she hollered out, “Hey! Hey, let me through! I can help!”

The Tratonmanians looked at her and quickly stepped aside. Amanita both had trouble walking forward and felt like she was being pushed. At the center, right next to the Ash, lay Pyrita’s body. She still had the frayed noose around her neck and her eyes were glassy. Arrastra was sitting next to her, hugging Crosscut and crying softly into her shoulder. “It’s alright, Ma,” Crosscut was saying, “I’m here fer ye.” But she had her own tears trickling down her muzzle.

Amanita swallowed, intensifying the pit in her stomach, and cleared her throat. “E-excuse me,” she said.

Crosscut opened her mouth, but Arrastra cut her off, glaring at Amanita through her wet eye. “What dae ye want, flatlander?” she growled, her ears back.

“I can help,” Amanita said. “I’m-”

“We dinnae need yer help,” Arrastra said, stepping forward and jabbing Amanita in the chest. “We ken what tae do fer her. What were ye plannin’? Diggin’ her grave? Preachin’ funeral fer somepony ye never kenned?” She spat on the ground between them. “Why dae ye think we have need o’ ye, ye up-headed moldwarp?”

“Because I’m a necromancer.”

What few whispers there were died down quickly as the wind whispered through the valley. After a moment, Crosscut took a step back, making little head shakes; Arrastra stared at her and opened her mouth to speak.

“I’m a necromancer,” Amanita repeated. It felt right to say that, somehow. “Yes, the rest of my team knows. I’m working officially with the Guard. And I can bring Pyrita back.”

“She’s telling the truth!” Bitterroot’s voice rang out. Snow gusted about as she hop-flew from the edge of the crowd to land at Amanita’s side. Breathlessly, she said, “She’s a necromancer and she can bring back the dead. I’ve had my throat slit and she saved me.” She pulled her neck up to expose the thick scar across her throat. “See?”

Confusion chiseled onto her face, Arrastra slowly leaned forward to inspect Bitterroot’s scar, even reaching up as if to touch it. Frantic murmurs were spreading through the crowd. Arrastra looked at Pyrita’s body again.

“Excuse me. Excuse me!” Ponies stepped aside as Code strode forward, Amanita’s saddlebags and a staff over her back. She casually slung them at Amanita’s hooves. “Everything you need,” Code said.

Crosscut cleared her throat. “S-she’s a necromancer?” she asked Code, pointing at Amanita. “A real ’un.”

“And a fine one at that,” Code said immediately. “She can bring back Pyrita.”

Arrastra and Crosscut stared at each other, rooted to the ground, a few emotions removed from utter shock; Arrastra was blinking rapidly, but she was almost smiling. “W-what dae ye require?” she asked.

“Everyone!” Code roared authoritatively. “Amanita needs room to work. Yes, it’s necromancy, but she’s safe. So if you could please-”

The rumble of the crowd stepping back actually had a slight echo. Amanita almost missed it from the way her heart was rumbling in her ears. She looked through her bag and carefully pulled out everything she needed. Then she took a breath and got to work.

Working with the Guard had meant Amanita could refine her rituals, and the more she researched, the more she realized that Circe had been working with designs that were decades old at best and kludging them together without thought until they worked. Amanita had started in the Crazy Eights as a near-complete novice in ritualism, yet after just a few moons, had started refining her ritual down to make it easier. But although some of the specifics changed, the broad strokes remained the same.

She carefully moved Pyrita’s body to a flatter part of ground. The body didn’t need to be facing north, but Amanita left it that way out of habit. Chalk wouldn’t work well out here, so Amanita traced the circle in the snow with the staff. Still nine feet, three threes, still counterclockwise. She even remembered to skew it to account for the power of the ley line. And once she closed it, she could feel the hum.

She hid a grin. Whether she’d be easily replaced in the future or not, this was satisfying.

She needed fewer runes than before, so sketching them out took less time. Yet the circle’s power grew all the same. Ponies in the crowd were feeling it and shifting around, and someone was talking to someone else. Amanita didn’t look up. No distractions. The candles were utterly the same, although their light seemed too bright for the darkness. Amanita briefly worried about the wind, but when the time came to light them, the air conveniently turned oddly still. Her actions flowed, like the ritual was a well-trodden path the universe knew by memory.

Final step. Amanita still needed a toadstone for the ritual to work, but three tufts of phoenix down had been pared down to one. Handy. She sat down, laying one hoof on the stone and another on the feather. Closing her eyes, she muttered mnemonic nothings under her breath, waiting for the symbolism to open up.

She waited.

And waited.

And-

…

…Nothing happened. It wasn’t working.

It wasn’t working.

Stress made her heart rate spike like a piston. Her breathing grew faster, shallower. This… What was wrong? What was wrong? She’d done it right. She felt the magic of the circle. She’d drawn the runes right. She’d felt the buzz of magic in the circle. WHAT WAS WRONG?

“Is it workin’?”

Amanita’s neck burned and was sore. The entire sunblasted town was looking at her. Her head was heavy. She wanted to curl into a ball. Arrastra had stepped from the crowd and her voice was just so hopeful… “I, I don’t know,” Amanita said. Cold wind scratched at her dry throat. “It’s, let me… check.” She wouldn’t find anything. But she could stall.

She looked at the circle. She could still feel it humming. Humming in the proper way. Humming in the way it did only when every other step had been properly accomplished. Amanita even probed it with her magic. It was good. It was right. With the circle complete, there were only so many things that could be wrong. She started flipping through them, discarding them.

“Amanita?” asked Arrastra. “P-please…”

The tone broke her and Amanita floundered. She needed to say something. Anything. She seized what she assumed was the truth without thinking. “It’s, it’s… There’s a…” Her voice was small. She wiped her forehead down. Was it wet from the tailings or sweat? “There’s a limit to- to who I can bring back. It’s, it needs to be done within three days or, or else it won’t work.”

“But…” Arrastra looked down at Pyrita’s still body in confusion. Her voice was still steady with tentative hope. “She died jes’ now. It ain’t even been an hour. What’re ye sayin’?”

Amanita kept talking even as the truth became the worst possible thing to say.

“Your sister died in the mine a week ago. Whatever came out, it wasn’t her.”

17 - Keep it Together

Tratonmane was cold. Frost and frigid air clawed Amanita, worming their way through all the hairs of her coat to bite at her neck and steal the warmth from her very blood. She felt like if she didn’t keep blinking, her eyes would freeze over. When she breathed, daggers poked at the inside of her mouth. A little bit more of the chill managed to get through her furs to her hooves with every step.

Tratonmane was cold. Word must have spread, because whenever Amanita passed someone, they glared daggers at her and moved to the other side of the street. At best. Sometimes, she heard mutters in a thick mountain accent she didn’t bother deciphering because she already got the gist. One pony marched into the nearest building and slammed the door. Amanita could almost hear the conversations that were undoubtedly going on behind other closed doors. It made her stomach churn.

She walked. Somehow, she didn’t turn around. Fortunately, she remembered where Arrastra’s house was. It was as unassuming as any other, but the weight of anticipation made it loom large. She heard voices inside, ponies talking heatedly with each other. No yelling, though.

Amanita raised a hoof to knock on the door. The cold finally reached her heart and she froze. What would she say that she hadn’t already? Why would Arrastra or Crosscut or anyone listen to her now? How could she fix this? What could she possibly do?

She could try.

Knock knock.

The second before the door opened was stretched into an eternity. Amanita felt tired by the time she heard footsteps approaching. Finally, the door was opened by Arrastra.

Amanita opened her mouth.

Arrastra slammed the door in her face.

No curses or invectives. Better than she’d expected. Amanita took a deep breath and knocked again.

No answer. Ponies were talking on the other side of the door. Amanita waited. And waited. And waited.

When she thought she’d waited long enough, she knocked again. More talking. Still no answer. She waited.

At some point, Arrastra pulled the door open. She was breathing heavily and her eye was bloodshot. “S-say yer piece an’ leave,” she snarled.

“I’m sorry,” Amanita said immediately.

Arrastra glared at her. But she didn’t push her away.

“I, I swear,” Amanita said. “It’s- I know the feeling. How, how you’d do anything to get them back, if only for a little while. And- It’s- I am just so, so sorry that I- that I couldn’t give you what I promised. I- I don’t blame you for… feeling what you’re feeling.” Now that she was talking, the words came easily. So easily she sometimes tripped over them. That didn’t matter.

Arrastra’s anger didn’t lessen, but it started feeling forced.

Part of Amanita wanted to take that little scrap as a win and leave. Maybe it’d even be the right idea, let Arrastra cool off for a while. But there were more things she needed. She kept talking before she could think about it. “But I- My ritual should’ve worked. I-”

Arrastra’s anger snapped back into full force. “Dinnae make excuses,” she said. “That-”

“No, listen, Pyrita went into the mine eight days ago,” said Amanita hastily. “And, and there’s always the possibility that something in the mine interfered with-”

“Dear land, ye’re still thinkin’ ’bout that? I already named ye-”

“We triangulated it and that’s where the ley line starts, she was there when it turned-”

“Stop whinnelin’ an’ dinnae say another word, ’cause there ain’t a thing in the mine, ye caitiff scapegrace!” screamed Arrastra, her wings flaring. “Not! One! Thing!”

Amanita flinched back from her intensity and tried not to think about how bashing Arrastra’s head against the doorframe until her skull cracked open would make her quiet.

“Ye failed. Ye lost yer taffy,” spat Arrastra. “But ye deny it. It’s allas somethin’ else wi’ ye. It’s the mount, it’s the ley line, it’s somethin’ in the mine. Ain’t never yer fault. Nay. Ye’d rather break an ageable mare than admit y’ain’t a necromancer. Pfeh.”

Amanita realized her head was twitching up and down. After the last week, it was easy to believe, especially in a tone she’d often heard from Circe. If she’d believed it a few hours ago, she wouldn’t be in this mess. She’d’ve been able to offer some kind words and get right back to work without needing to play hero. Doing necromancer things.

Yet, grasping at straws, she asked one more question. “Can I at least see the body?”

Arrastra’s ear twitched.

And then Amanita was sprawled in the snow in front of the house, blood dripping from her throbbing nose and making impossible-to-miss stains in the snow. She sneezed; crimson mucus splattered down her muzzle. She raised her head only to see that the door was already closed.

Then it was yanked open and Crosscut scrambled down into the snow. “Y’alright?” she asked Amanita. She nudged a hoof under her body to start lifting her up. “She hit ye right hard.”

“I’ve had worse.” Her speech was clear. Huh. Leaning against Crosscut to minimize the way the world was spinning, Amanita managed to get back on her hooves. She blinked a few times, thought of something to say, decided it was calloused, and waited for Crosscut to speak.

Thankfully, she didn’t need to wait long. Unthankfully, she didn’t like what she heard. “I dinnae ken what ye’re a-thinkin’,” Crosscut mumbled, “comin’ here after what ye pulled-”

“I was just trying to explain myself,” Amanita said.

“So ye were, ye blatherskite,” said Crosscut darkly. “But then ye kept a-talkin’.”

“There’s more-”

“Ma ain’t right tae hit ye like that. But-” Crosscut’s speech came to a halt. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Ye ought tae leave,” she said quietly.

Amanita almost protested on reflex. If she could just explain herself- But this was why she’d kept being a necromancer a secret, right? Ponies not understanding and rejecting her out of hoof, even if she understood their reasons. Just from the opposite direction.

“You’un an’- that other pony-”

“Restricted Code.”

“Right. Her. The two o’ you’uns- Ye said ye’d heal my aunt. An’ a day after, she’s killed herself. Then ye-” Crosscut bit her lip and looked away. Her tail flicked as she pawed at the ground.

Social awareness hit Amanita like a club. “I, I’m gone,” she said quietly. “Sorry.” She immediately turned around and started walking away. Crosscut didn’t say anything; Amanita heard a door close behind her.

She kept walking. Her muzzle kept bleeding. She’d done what she could, said what she’d could. Maybe she’d asked for too much. But it was done, and although it was a small fraction of the weight on her shoulders, it was now gone. Code ought to-

“Ai! Amanita!”

Amanita couldn’t keep herself from tensing up as she turned around. The pony who came galloping out of the darkness was Whippletree. He looked strange out of his armor. He flared his wings to come to a stop quickly. “I believe ye,” he said. “Fer what that’s worth.”

Amanita’s eyes went wide and her shoulders grew a little lighter again. That was worth more than he thought. “Why?” she found herself asking. She quickly wiped her muzzle as clean of blood as she could.

“I dinnae ken much about ye,” Whippletree replied, “but that firs’ night, ye said ye were a blood doctor an’ healed Timberjack.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“Persactly. Somepony ’oo daes somethin’ like that ain’t one tae… dae what ye did wi’ Pyrita fer fun. Sae I believe ye. An’ what my family’s daein’ ain’t right.”

“They’re people. They’re grieving. Death can…” Amanita shivered as a particularly cold gust of wind caught her. “…make people do weird things.”

Whippletree nodded. “Aye. That it can.”

The wind howled and snow curled around them.

“Are ye purely a… necromancer?” he asked quietly.

Debatable. “Yeah. That spell I performed in the forest? That was necromancy.”

Whippletree’s tail flicked. “An’ Bitterroot said she’d died twice. And ye had…”

“She did and I did.” Amanita didn’t add that she’d killed Bitterroot one of those times.

“Huh.” Another tail-flick.

A jolt of lightning suddenly struck Amanita. How had she forgotten this? “And I can call up her spirit,” she said quickly. Whippletree pulled his head back and nickered; Amanita kept talking. “Pyrita’s, I mean. It’s, that doesn’t have a limit. It’ll at least- let them- say goodbye.”

Whippletree’s ears and wings began twitching. He looked back the way he’d come, one of his hooves tapping at the ground. “D’ye swear it?” he asked.

“I swear it,” said Amanita. “I-” She raised a hoof, ready to start walking back. But she quickly put it back down. The last thing Arrastra and Crosscut needed was to see her again. “Would you- Can you- mention it to them? So they at least know.”

“I’ll find the time tae let ’em ken,” Whippletree said. “But… it might be some time afore it comes up.” He laughed nervously.

“Good thing time doesn’t matter for this spell, then, right?”

Whippletree laughed again, more warmly. “I reckon so.” Another look back. “Ah, beg yer pardon, my family has need o’ me, an’-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Be seeing you,” Amanita said. “And thank you for-”

Her eyes suddenly grew wet. She clenched her jaw as she wiped them. “Thanks for believing me,” she gasped quietly.

Whippletree nodded, watching her intently. Then he bowed loosely and winged away.

Once the darkness had swallowed him up, Amanita continued heading for the inn. She was in that state of tired where her thoughts just sort of drained out of her. She would be just fine lying in bed for a while. At least, once she cleared her nose of her clotted blo-

“You said you were a necromancer?”

Amanita flinched and spun around. Carnelian had melted out of the dark and was looking at her like she wanted to eat her throat out. Taking a step back, Amanita babbled, “I, I am.” Probably.

Carnelian’s eyes narrowed. They were the only part of her that seemed to be moving. “Are you,” she muttered.

“I don’t know why I couldn’t bring Pyrita back,” said Amanita. How many times would she be saying that in the next few days? A lot. “I just- The ritual’s worked before. I don’t know why it didn’t now. What more do you want me to say? Do you want a step-by-step demonstration of it? Maybe one for calling up spirits of the dead. Or how about seeing the moment of someone’s death? The militia knows what I’m talking about, even if they didn’t know it was necromancy.”

Carnelian tilted her head. She licked her lips in the chilly wind. Her gaze was oddly intent. She didn’t say anything.

Somehow, that lack of response pushed Amanita closer to the edge. “What more do you want?” she snapped. “That’s the truth. All of it. I don’t know what’s going on here. I probably wouldn’t know if it introduced itself by name. So if you want to talk to me, say something, because otherwise, I’d like to go back home, please.”

Home.

She’d meant her room at the inn. “Home” had just slipped out. But after the cold, the dark, the hostility, the clueless running around, the utter failure of what ought to be her greatest skill? Yeah. She wanted to go home. It was only, what, a few hundred miles of frozen mountains between here and the greener pastures of easy travel? She could manage that, sure. She’d done it before, and with a lich on her tail. She just needed to leave Code and Charcoal in the lurch.

She tried telling herself she’d never abandon her team like that. It was mostly convincing. Mostly.

At her slip, one of Carnelian’s ears twitched and she suppressed a smirk. She shook her head, flared her wings, and took off.

Amanita muttered something uncouth and kept walking, perhaps stomping a little more than usual. But her brief spout of anger had bubbled away by the time she reached the Watering Cave and she kept her head low as she pushed open the door. The quiet creak of the hinges felt like a cannon blast. She swallowed and forced her feelings down. Just for the moment.

It was crowded in the common room. Was it dinner time already? Apparently. Sound had blurred into that indistinct muck of overlapping conversation, but Amanita somehow picked out a few words here and there. Pyrita. Necromancer. Liar. Fraud. Her hooves trembled as she kept walking through the crowd and the flickering lamplight. Occasionally, ponies noticed her. Sometimes they made sure she saw them turning their backs to her. Sometimes they hissed insults as she passed, so she wouldn’t know who said what. Once she was hit in the head with a turnip. Whatever the case, conversation died around her.

Up the stairs. Amanita took a quick stop at the bathroom to clear her nose and wipe her eyes. Her reflection wasn’t withering yet, but it looked like it was about to. Into her room. Bitterroot was back. Code was pacing. Charcoal was writing something on a scroll. They all looked up as she entered. Bitterroot immediately asked, “How’d it go?”

“Fine,” Amanita said. “It was- fine.”

“Define ‘fine’.”

“Fine enough to make me hungry,” Amanita said. Indeed, her stomach was rumbling. “I’m already up. You all tell me what you want and I’ll bring it back up.”

Bitterroot nearly glared at her, but the group compiled a list and wrote it down on a scroll. Amanita almost stumbled down the stairs as the day threatened to catch up with her. She reached the bar, where ponies left their stools to get away from her, and walked up to Cabin. “Could I get some food to take up to my room?” she asked.

“I thought necromancers ate hearts,” Cabin grunted. She looked Amanita in the eye. “An’ ye’re a necromancer, ain’t ye?”

“Eating hearts is impractical,” Amanita said, almost without thinking. “They’re hard to get at. Protecting them’s what the ribcage is for. So you need to either hack through all the cartilage holding it together or break all the ribs individually. And besides, it’s a very tough muscle. Barely chewable at all.”

Cabin tried to remain stonefaced, but Amanita saw a minor twitch.

“If life force is what you’re after, blood’s much easier to get,” Amanita continued. “It’s probably cleaner in the aggregate, too.” She squinted at Cabin’s neck. If you knew where to look, you could almost spot a pony’s pulse. “I could use a butter knife. I’d need to get less than an inch deep. Right there, right on your carotid.” She pointed. “You’d be dead in moments.”

Not only did Cabin twitch, but her pupils contracted.

“And yes, I’m a necromancer, but I’d much prefer whiskey and vegetables,” Amanita said. “So if you can please just give me some stupid sunblasted whiskey and vegetables so we can get away from each other, that’d be nice.”

Amanita and Cabin looked at each other. Then Cabin pulled a tray and some plates out and set them on the bartop. “What farm stuff dae ye want?” she grunted.

Something nagged at the back of Amanita’s head and she asked, “We still have money on our tab, right?”

Cabin tilted her head, just a little. “…Aye,” she grunted. “What farm stuff dae ye want?”

Good. Amanita pulled out her list and started reading from it. Cabin immediately yanked it away and read it herself, skimming the items with ease. She nodded, set it on the bartop, and started gathering food. Slowly. Amanita sat and waited.

The light behind her darkened as someone, probably an earth pony, loomed over her. “Ye say ye’re a necromancer,” the pony said. Stallion.

Amanita pulled into herself and started examining the wood grain of the bar. She’d revealed a risky part of herself to do the right thing; all this felt like some kind of messed-up reversed justice.

“Guess I’m supposed tae be scarified o’ ye, eh? Heh. Didnae work out the way ye planned it.”

Her gaze wandered to the tray, to one of the plates. She could break it into shards-

“I’m tellin’ ye, I ain’t seen a more pathetic lie in my life. Mebbe it works in Canterlot.”

-take the largest one-

“Ach, but y’ain’t in Canterlot, are ye? Naw, it’s dangerous out ’ere.”

-and stab that loudmouth right in his jugular. Deep.

“Bet ye’ve never had arythin’ worser’n a scraped knee in yer life.”

He’d never see it coming. He’d be quiet. And she’d feel good.

“…Say somethin’, ye loathly muff!”

Stabby stab stab.

“Yer vittles,” grunted Cabin.

Amanita flinched and refocused. Her plates had been filled with her list, cups of whiskey had been placed, and Cabin was looking at her like she was some kind of disease. “Thank you,” Amanita said. She grabbed the tray in her magic and slid it across the bartop so that if the stallion behind her hit her, she wouldn’t drop anything.

She wasn’t hit. She didn’t look behind her for any suspicious ponies. She climbed the stairs unopposed. By the time she reached their room, the desk in the corner had been dragged into the center of the room as a makeshift table. Amanita wordlessly dropped the tray on the desk and grabbed a cup and plate.

After relocking the door, Bitterroot took a sip of her whiskey and coughed. “Splo,” she muttered. “Definitely splo.”

Amanita tried it and immediately knew what Bitterroot meant by that. She took a long drink of the alcohol anyway. No one else objected.

There were several long minutes where no one so much as looked at each other. The only sounds were chewing, drinking, and the wind outside. But, eventually, Code set her plate aside and stood up. “Amanita. Charcoal. What do you think we should do?” she asked. She sounded strong in a way that could weather the harshest storms, but a single poke in exactly the wrong place would get her tumbling down.

Amanita opened her mouth, but before she could get any sound out, Charcoal stood up and said with an odd confidence, “We should leave the next time Tallbush takes the drain to- takes the train to Waypoint.”

Everyone turned to look at her. Charcoal had her legs pulled tightly together, but her head was high and her ears were up. And she stayed that way as everyone kept looking. Code coughed and flatly said, “Leave.”

“Yeah.” Charcoal gave little, jerky nods. “If, if nothing changes. Leave.”

“Even if we can’t figure out what’s wrong with the ley line?”

More nods. “Yeah. Absolutely.”

Code breathed in. Code breathed out. Code enunciated, “Expand.”

Charcoal blinked and started shuffling her hooves. “Well, i-it’s…” She twisted a particularly curly lock of her mane around a hoof. Then she took a deep breath and said, “You know the big, uh, problem that the kirins had?”

“You burst into flames when you’re peeved?” Bitterroot asked.

“The other one.” Charcoal pawed at the ground, her ears back. “Well, it’s, you know, we had this… whole big country outside the grove filled with other magical creatures and, and we… When we were having our… fiery anger problems, we… never went outside the grove. It’s, it’s, it’s… I don’t know what it is. We fought- thought we were the only ones who could handle our problems, but we couldn’t handle our problems, and we’d rather suppress our emotions and speech rather than handle our problems, so way to go on handling our problems, am I right?” She giggled nervously, flicking her tail. “It wasn’t even a… speciesiesist thing, we were just too fired up to think of anything else. Um, no pun intended. Other things hadn’t worked, and the Stream of Silence was easy and it was there, so… once Rain Shine proposed it, it’s… To be honest, I don’t think anyone really wanted to do it, but everyone thought everyone else wanted to do it, so we did it. So there we all were, pretending we weren’t dying inside because we thought everyone else was fine, just because we didn’t look outside the grove. It was…” She shivered and quickly changed the subject. “Then you ponies come, and you bring anger management classes, and boom: within a week, ninety percent less accidental arson than before the Stream.”

Charcoal looked between the ponies in turn. “I know we all… want to accomplish something, but… we’re not alone here. Well, it’s, I mean, we’re alone here, but- There’s a whole kingdom outside. We’re just three or four mares with some light equipment. If we need help, we need help. When did that become a bad thing?”

“But,” said Code, “the ley line-”

“-will be fixed by somepony else. It sucks. I know. I wanted to solve this. Maybe even more than any of you. But we locked the door to keep people out. Just, just, just forget about protocol for a moment. Does staying here feel right to any of you?”

“Well-” Amanita clamped her mouth shut. If she was being honest, if she was being really honest… it didn’t. Getting the ley line issue sorted out was the right thing to do, certainly, but it’d feel forced beyond belief. Even if Tratonmane treated a new group the same way, they wouldn’t have the same history, so it wouldn’t feel as biting. Just about anyone would be better than the three of them.

Before she could say anything, Code sighed and rubbed her face. “I’d rather slit my own throat than leave a job unfinished-” (Bitterroot flinched and put a hoof to her neck.) “-but you’re right. We’re not welcome here. Perhaps somebody else will be.”

“Do you really think so?” asked Charcoal glumly.

Code shrugged helplessly. “Perhaps not. But for now…” Sigh. “That still leaves us with…” She tapped the ground a few times. “…five days before the train leaves again. What until then?”

“I…” Charcoal swallowed and her tail flicked. “I don’t know. Crunch numbers? We still need to look at the data from the river…”

“And we’re running out of field operations to even do,” muttered Code. “It’s a start, if nothing else.”

Amanita coughed; Code and Charcoal both flinched. “I apologize,” Code said quickly, “but if you have any objections-”

“I don’t, actually,” Amanita said. “Charcoal was… very persuasive. I just wanted to say that. And, uh, Bitterroot? You can-” Swallow. “You can go home.”

“No,” Bitterroot said, her wings flaring. “No, no, definitely no.”

“The town hates us and you’re- You’re not doing anything. What’s the point in you staying?”

“Friendship. I came up here to provide moral support, and by gum, I’m going to provide moral support. Don’t even think about trying to talk me out of it. Oh, and you two?” She pointed at Code and Charcoal. “I’m not that good at magical theory, but I’m a good listener. You can come to me if you want to vent.”

It was stupid, pointless, self-sacrificing heroics, but Amanita found herself smiling anyway. “Thanks.”

For a moment, silence. Code took a sip of her whiskey and made a face at it. “Bitterroot, you know some of the names of the whiskey varieties, yes? This one is awful.”

“Sorry,” Amanita said.

“Not your fault,” Code said. “We just asked for whiskey, and…”

“Splo tastes pretty awful,” said Bitterroot. “And I never did try high life. Let’s see if we can get some of that.”

Once they were gone, Amanita glanced at Charcoal. She was already eating again, chewing her food with the slow deliberation of savoring it. When she noticed Amanita looking at her, she swallowed and said, “Did you know that some mages think the taste of ley fruits and vegetables is partly because of magic itself?”

…Even as a “let’s talk about something else” topic, that was out of left field. But once Amanita gave it the slightest bit of thought, she found herself naturally intrigued by it. “Really? How come?” She started chewing on a leek, paying extra attention to the taste. If only she’d known what leeks tasted like normally to compare…

“Well, it’s, you can see magic, you can hear magic, so why not the other senses, too? If the theory is right, continual growth on the ley concentrates the magic, so…”

She wasn’t hurting. She’d been given a sunblasted brand and she wasn’t hurting.

Night had come (not that it was easy to tell), everyone had turned in, and Bitterroot lay on her back in bed, looking up but not really seeing anything as her thoughts consumed her attention. She’d utterly forgotten about it after hearing of Pyrita’s death. She’d lifted her head to show her other scar to Arrastra, and yet her third-degree burn hadn’t caused her any pain. Even though it had just a few minutes earlier. No one else had even seen it. And when Code’s comment had jogged her memory, she hadn’t felt any pain when she’d rubbed her neck. Or any scar at all.

Another rub. Still nothing.

A quick glance in the mirror before bed had yielded similar results. No burns, no scarring, not so much as a discolored strand of hair. Nothing remained of that crossed circle. The one she’d also seen on the sign. The one Bitterroot couldn’t shake the feeling hadn’t been there on their way in. Was she seeing things?

Amanita’s team would need to know. Maybe it was a clue, maybe not. Either way, the only reason Bitterroot hadn’t already told them was because they had quite enough on their plate at the moment. But she couldn’t wait long. Tomorrow. Before noon, if she was lucky, ha ha.

Tartarus, even if she was unlucky, she’d at least try.

The darkness twisted before her eyes, making strange curves of black on black. Sighing, closing her eyes, she pulled the blankets tight around her. Although she tried to rest, she couldn’t get to sleep. And from the way everyone else was turning, she wasn’t the only one.

18 - Odium

Early that morning, Amanita killed a mouse.

She didn’t know the time when she woke up. Three, maybe four in the morning. When she looked outside, the moon was just beginning to sink below the western mountains, but she still didn’t know what that meant in a place this deep. All she knew was that she was awake and she wanted to kill someone. She settled for killing something.

She hadn’t heard any mice in the walls, but she figured the inn had to have them. Because… All the reasons she came up with were spiteful. The one she managed to settle on was “because inns always have mice”. Did they? She didn’t care. She rooted through her bedsheets and quickly found a leftover bread crumb from last night. It’d have to do.

With a dimly-lit horn and a tread born of not disturbing Circe, Amanita inched her way down the hall, down the stairs (she kept to the walls, where the boards had more support and were less likely to creak). The common room was empty of ponies, so she rooted around where the wall met the floor. Mousehole, mousehole, mousehole… There was one. Mousehole, technically. She wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been looking for it. It was amazing, the sorts of places mice could squeeze into. She rapped the wall a few times to wake up any mice inside, set the breadcrumb a few feet away from the hole, and scooched back to wait.

It wasn’t long before a mouse skittered out, its nose twitching. It was fast and fuzzy and so small its nails didn’t make any sound, not even the skrting you usually heard from mice. It traveled towards the crumb in spurts: scurry a few inches, come to a sudden stop, survey the area, scurry, stop, survey, scurry, stop, survey. Amanita waited patiently, holding as still as she could. If the mouse sensed her, it didn’t deem her a threat.

Eventually, the mouse reached the crumb. It put its tiny paws on the morsel, sniffed it all over with its twitchy little nose. It seemed to be edible. The mouse started nibbling.

Amanita grabbed it in her magic and twisted until its neck snapped.

It went still almost immediately, not even spasming. Amanita waited a few moments, just to be sure. No motion. She laid a hoof on its tiny little chest. Nothing. Perfect. She set the corpse on the bar and started moving the tables and chairs to the sides. Slowly, to keep quiet. Even for something as simple as a mouse, she needed a nine-foot circle, because she was an incompetent moron who hadn’t worked on that part of the ritual during refinement.

She went through the motions: circle, runes, the lot. She felt the buzzing in the same way as she had with Pyrita. She didn’t feel any sort of happiness, not like she had the last time. It still needed to work. And if it didn’t work, she might as well pack up now, because what good was she?

She had her hooves on the toadstone and the down. She didn’t bother with her mnemonics; she didn’t need them to focus. The ritual kicked in almost immediately and Amanita had jammed the mouse’s soul back in its body before she could stop herself from wasting her ingredients. Beneath her hooves, the toadstone cracked and the down was consumed. And the mouse twitched and jumped back to life.

Amanita immediately grabbed its tail in her magic and dragged it over to her. The mouse tried to run, squeaking madly, its little legs grabbing at the floor. She dangled it in front of her, turning it around. It flailed like it was alive. It was squeaking, so it was obviously breathing. It looked at her with absolute terror like it was alive. So it was alive. Right?

She tried to say that this was proof that Pyrita had died more than three days earlier, but she couldn’t make it sound convincing. She didn’t know why; something about simpler souls for animals requiring less work, even though she knew that that was a load of night fertilizer. Yet no matter how much Amanita shoved that reason aside, it shoved its way back. Her thoughts always, always, always circled back to that one fact: Pyrita was the one who’d died and she couldn’t resurrect.

She set the mouse back down, although she didn’t let it go; the mouse scrabbled at the floor, squeaking pitifully. She almost wanted to kill it again. It didn’t matter how. Snap its neck again. Crush it. Strangle it with thread. Fill up a cup and drown it. Skewer it with a needle. Find a knife to cut it open. Tear it in half. Get creative and try something else. However it happened, it’d be something she could control. Something familiar.

The mouse squeaked and squeaked and squeaked.

Amanita released its tail and it scampered back into its hole. She didn’t go looking for it.

The walls and ceiling were pressing in on her and the air felt hideously still. Amanita stood up and walked outside. About a dozen different factors combined to make it some of the coldest air she’d ever felt, something that was slowly peeling the life from her as she stayed out. But it was open and there was wind, so she barely noticed. Breathing deeply and letting icicles into her lungs, she looked up at the stars.

You were supposed to be able to see so many stars in the wilderness. Less light pollution. One of the few fond memories Amanita had of her time with Circe was the magnificence of constellations in the North. It was even one of the only pleasures Circe hadn’t denigrated. Being near everything in Canterlot was nice, but when you went out at night, many of the dimmer stars were invisible in the glare.

There were fewer stars here than in Canterlot. The cliffs of Midwich blocked them out. Rather than the stars simply being less bright, the night sky had to cut a gash through the black shadows of the looming walls. It almost looked like the starlight didn’t belong.

Didn’t stop it from shining.

Amanita looked at the light, the light that had come from so very far away to illuminate this one corner of Equestria — briefly, feebly, yet illuminate it nonetheless — and couldn’t decide whether the notion was reassuring or depressing.

It was cold. She was tired. She pulled her furs tighter and walked back inside.

Bitterroot didn’t sleep well that night. Her mind kept getting pulled in different directions and when she finally got to sleep, what little she remembered of her dreams was dim flashes of snow, caves, trees, and a northeast trek. When morning finally came, she felt drained.

But no angry mobs had tried to batter down the door, so hey. Small favors.

Everyone else was downstairs already, taking a table that the rest of the common room was avoiding. Bitterroot got eggs from a surly Cabin at the bar, scrambled them on the room’s central stove, and took a seat with the rest of the team. The eggs didn’t taste as good as the ones she’d had the other mornings.

Around the time everyone’s breakfast was beginning to run out, Code cleared her throat and said, unnaturally loudly, “I’ve been thinking. We’ve been doing all of our work in Midwich Valley, but that could skew the results if the ley line is at a different elevation. We should climb to the rim of the valley for some more data. Perhaps the waterfall is the ley line’s source.”

Movement rippled in the Tratonmanians around them and Bitterroot heard some satisfied grumbles. The second they died down, Code spoke again in a voice too low to be heard outside their group. “Because we need to get out of here for a while. We might learn something from this, but it’s mostly an excuse.”

“Good excuse,” Charcoal said quietly.

“But that means we’ll need a way out,” Code murmured. She drummed a hoof on the table as she scanned the room. “I could ask around.”

“There’s a path on the eastern cliff, near the top of the shelf,” Bitterroot said. “Tratonmanians sometimes use it to climb up and it comes out near the river. It’s narrow, but we should be able to make it, even with our equipment.”

“Hmm. Handy,” said Code. “How’d you learn about it?”

Bitterroot shrugged and shoveled the last of her eggs into her mouth. “I guess I-”

…

…How did she know that?

She’d never talked with anybody about heading up. She’d never seen that path. There was nowhere she could’ve learned it and forgotten about learning it. But somehow, she knew for a fact that there was a path like that in Midwich Valley. Just as she’d described. Used in the way she’d mentioned. She knew it like she’d been living in Tratonmane her whole life, the same way Canterlot’s streets had been etched into her memory.

Where had it come from?

“…I don’t know,” Bitterroot said quietly. She swallowed and massaged her head. “I just… I know it, but I don’t know how I know it.”

Code’s ears drooped and she frowned. “Hmm,” she said in a way that had more weight than her first one. “You don’t have any sort of headache, do you?”

“No.”

“Have you had one recently?”

“…I don’t think so, no.” Had she? Not one bad enough to remember, at least. Did that count?

“Hmm.” Code and Amanita exchanged Significant Glances. Bitterroot resolved to tell them about her meeting with Pyrita before they came back down into Midwich. “Tell us if you do get a headache,” Code said. “It might lead to something worse.”

“How worse?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Charming.

“We’d best hope your path actually exists,” said Code, “because if not… there’s a lot of wall to climb.”

It existed. The second Bitterroot was finished with breakfast, she’d flown out to check and had come back confirming it. From the way she spoke, finding the path so easily, just knowing where it was, was unnerving. Amanita couldn’t blame her.

Charcoal and Code worked out that they only needed two geothaumometers for this. They weren’t so bulky that carrying two of them on a single sledge up the path was insurmountable, or so Bitterroot said.

But as Amanita helped float one out of storage, she certainly felt everyone’s eyes on her. Carrying something like a geothaumometer suddenly felt wrong. It marked her out. She didn’t belong and it’d be better if she left. Without necromancy, she had nothing to contribute that someone else wouldn’t do more effectively. She still held her head as high as she could.

It was when they were arranging the geothaumometers on a sledge outside the inn that Amanita noticed something on the other side of the Ash. Ponies were clustered near the town hall and in a field to the side of it. The groups were larger than she’d seen in Tratonmane before and there were more of them. More ponies even than there’d been around the Ash last night. “Does anyone know what’s up with that?” she asked, pointing.

When Bitterroot looked, her ears drooped. “That field’s the graveyard,” she said. “I… think they’re getting ready for Pyrita’s funeral.”

A knot formed in Amanita’s stomach. Code didn’t say anything, but, as the one hitched to the sledge, immediately turned and started pulling it in a more roundabout route that didn’t pass near the cemetery.

Ponies were trickling towards the graveyard as they walked through Tratonmane. Every one of them gave the group some form of stinkeye. Sometimes, words drifted through the air and into her ears to settle in her mind and refuse to leave: monster, liar, arrogance, more. It ought to start getting blunted, Amanita thought, but it still stung as sharply as before. Maybe because more and more of it was directed at her than the others. Maybe she just had thin skin and couldn’t handle the heat so she ought to get out of the kitchen. Yeah. That sounded right.

At one point, Amanita was suddenly swung out of the group and found herself face-to-face with Midwinter. Before she could say anything, Midwinter was saying, “Why would you do that to Arrastra?”

“I don’t know,” said Amanita. She immediately blanched at how it sounded. “I, I mean, it should’ve worked, I don’t know why it didn’t-”

“You promised her much and spat in her face.”

“I swear, I, I don’t-”

And then Code was between them. “We’re busy,” she said to Midwinter. Without another word, she pulled Amanita away and back into the group. When they left, Midwinter looked more disappointed than anything. Somehow, that hurt the worst.

The trek through Tratonmane didn’t take long, and soon Amanita was craning her head to gaze up at the sheer wall of the cliffs. It had seemed nearly flat from a distance in the dark. Up close and in the dark… It was still pretty flat, but now Amanita could make out crags and clefts and ridges all across its face. If she really needed to, she could probably climb it.

“The… path’s right over there,” Bitterroot said. She pointed out a not-too-narrow road that had clearly been carved out of the rock by pony hooves. It looked risky, winding up the cliff face, but even in the dark, it seemed manageable for the sledge.

Code took a deep breath. “Alright. Let’s get to it.” She started walking.

Amanita glanced at Bitterroot. She hadn’t moved yet, but was staring at the path. Her wings were restless and she pawed at the ground, her head bobbing up and down. Amanita gently nudged her in the side. “How’re you doing?” she asked. “About the… path.”

“I’m… I don’t know.” Bitterroot shook her head. “It’s just weird. I… I think I’m fine. Really.” She set off in Code’s footsteps.

That was one of them, at least.

The sun was beautiful.

There were better words for what Amanita was feeling, certainly. Someone with an actual talent for words could wax poetic for hours about the sunlight and the sky in comparison to Tratonmane. Words like “glistening”, “sapphiric”, or “coruscating” would be used to compare seeing a sunrise to the grim depths of Midwich. It could be one of the most beautiful pieces of writing in Equestrian history.

But all Amanita cared about was that the sun was beautiful.

Amanita hadn’t realized how much she’d missed the light. The floor of Midwich was dark, dour. Cramped, even, with the towering cliffs. On the rim of the valley, the sky gleamed above her and stretched from horizon to horizon. The horizon existed. Sunlight reflected off the water of the nearby river before it tumbled into the rift below. It was like a vise had slowly been crushing her chest, only to suddenly spring open once she left Midwich. She could breathe. She could see. And even though the air was still cold — they were still in the North, after all — it still felt warm compared to the valley floor. Work up here was preferable to relaxation down there.

As she watched Charcoal set up one of the geothaumometers, Amanita asked, “It can tell if the ley line’s going down, right? How?”

Charcoal nudged the planisphere another degree. “Little things. Uh, when the pendulum swings, instead of going like this-” She made a broad swinging motion with her hoof. “-fwoooooo, fwoooooo, fwoooooo — it’ll go like this-” A quick back-and-forth arc, barely an inch long. “-fwit fwit fwit fwit fwit — because the ley line’s pulling it down. Uh, the res- the reser- the reservoirs will fill up differently. A lot of things.” She shrugged.

The path up had been long and a bit narrow, but not too steep and mostly uneventful. Between earth pony strength, pegasus flight, and unicorn and kirin levitation, the geothaumometers had been hauled up without too much difficulty over the course of several hours. When they’d reached the top and come into the sun, Amanita had felt like the world had opened up to her and the exhaustion from trudging up the slope was irrelevant. Code even let them rest a minute for basking.

Charcoal released the quartz and set it swinging. “We’re done here!” she called out.

Some distance away, Code called back, “Just finished this one! Meet you at camp!”

Because they did have camp, of a sort. Food. Various diversions anyone had wanted to bring up. Textbooks. Just evidence that they were planning to stay up there a while, set up next to one of the streams that fed the waterfall. Everyone reconvened there and Bitterroot quickly asked the obvious question. “So now what? We just wait?”

“We could go back down to Tratonmane,” said Code. “But everyone raise your hoof if you want to.”

No hooves went up.

“I thought not.”

Amanita looked out over Midwich. It was astonishing, just how dark the valley was when seen from above. Light was beginning to climb down as the sun climbed up, but much of it still remained black as coal. There were little specks here and there: lamps, torches, hornlight. They all only made the darkness deeper as they flashed in and out of visibility. Amanita couldn’t even make anything out on the valley floor.

Between that and the company, she really didn’t want to go back.

Her thoughts swirled, images of Pyrita dead. With her brain emptied out from work and the climb, those thoughts began piling up. A dead pony, perfect for necromancy. A dead pony she couldn’t work necromancy on. A simple promise unkept. The skills she’d thrown away her conscience for, broken. There was the mouse, true, but it kept feeling like a fluke. It should’ve worked. Why didn’t it work?

Code took a bite of dirt. Then she sighed, walked over to the edge of the cliff, and sat down on her haunches. “I ought to have prepared more for… this,” she said, gesturing at Midwich. “This was supposed to be easy and I never stopped to consider what would happen if it wasn’t. This ley line ought to have been simple.”

Amanita actually giggled at that, a choked wheeze somehow escaping her. “You think the ley line’s the problem?” she asked. “Not me?”

“Amanita,” Code began, turning around.

“Because you brought me here to learn,” Amanita continued. “And the first time I don’t do what you say, oh look, the entire town’s turned against us.” At some point, she realized she wasn’t talking so much as voicing her thoughts. She didn’t bother stopping. “And it was just the one thing I was supposed to be good at-”

“Amanita, there’s more to-”

Buried thoughts she hadn’t wanted to admit surfaced as Amanita kept babbling. She was barely even aware of her surroundings. “You might as well replace me! Get someone with an actual background in this! Because you hired me to be a necromancer and that’s clearly not working out! Everything I know is wrong! Somepony died right in front of me and I couldn’t bring her back!”

“Amanita, why do you think I’ll drop you if you’re not a necromancer?”

“Because that’s all I am!” Amanita yelled. “I’m- I’m a necromancer. And that’s it! That’s all I’m good at! Nothing else! I- The only reason I have any worth is because I was too stupid to let my very special somepony rest in peace! I ran away from home with a stranger and trashed my life on a whim, my family doesn’t know I’m alive, they wouldn’t care if they did, I spent years of my life getting abused and not caring, and the pony I would’ve given anything to stay with probably hates me down to my soul! Necromancy’s all I have! And- And now it’s not working and I don’t know why! I’M USELESS!”

Her words bounded up and down Midwich, echoes twisting and warping them. She was breathing heavily. Standing at the top and the end of Midwich, it felt like the entire valley’s attention was focused on her. And she couldn’t stop talking, thoughts and insecurities spilling from her like blood from a wound.

Bitterroot stood up, her wings fluffing out slightly. “Amanita-”

“You, you all-” Amanita pointed a shaking hoof around the group. “You’ve all got things that are, that are interesting. You’re the High Ritualist. You’re a great environmental mage. You’re a bounty hunter who fought off and captured a lich. You know what I’ve got that makes me interesting? The bounty I got from turning myself in. And I was bad enough that it was a big bounty.”

She hung her head, pulled her hooves together, folded her ears back. Her vision grew wet and hazy. “I… I’ve killed ponies. Innocents. I’ve… done a lot of bad things. Vile things. Things that would make your stomach turn. And… maybe… Maybe this is stupid, but… I don’t… I want to make up for it. But necromancy’s all I have to show for it. So if I can’t use that… I… I’m just a sunblasted black hole of karma. I… I d-don’t want to b-be ashamed of l-living.”

“But you tried.”

Amanita blinked at Charcoal’s words and looked up. Charcoal was sitting across from her, her ears turned forward in concern and her tail was flicking back and forth. “You told Arrastra that you were a necromancer so that you could help her. Even if you’re the first- the worst person in the world, you’re trying to be better. If you’re ashamed of that, then… I…” She shrugged helplessly.

“She was- Her sister just died and-”

“You told her you were a necromancer. How many people would do that in the first place?”

“Most people aren’t necromancers,” Amanita said automatically.

Charcoal tilted her head.

It actually took Amanita a moment to realize. “Most people don’t think they’re necromancers,” she amended.

But it sounded hollow.

“Amanita,” Code said. She didn’t raise her voice, but everyone had to pay attention to her all the same. “I’ve seen your work. You are a necromancer. You’re working on anti-zombie tactics. You can call up the souls of the dead-”

“Only if they want to come.”

Code almost scowled and one of her ears twitched. “Because you refined that from your old ritual. Tartarus, you’ve resurrected over half a dozen ponies!”

Charcoal’s ears went up. “Wait, half a dozen?” she yelped. “I thought it was just two!”

“You’re probably thinking of me,” Bitterroot said. “I was resurrected twice.”

“No, I thought it was just you and that one Mearhwolf victim, but…” Charcoal stared quizzically at Amanita. “Resurrected twice,” she repeated, pointing at Bitterroot.

“But,” Amanita protested weakly, “those were all-” She wanted to say “luck”. But it hadn’t been, had it? Code had analyzed the resurrection ritual herself. The High Ritualist had approved her work.

“Amanita, it’s been less than twenty-four hours,” said Code, still a bit shy of irritation. “We haven’t had the time to do any real work on it. We still don’t know what’s wrong with this ley line. No one here knows why Pyrita wasn’t resurrected. That doesn’t mean you’re a failure. That just means we don’t know. Maybe there’s some edge case we’re unaware of.”

“I know,” said Amanita, “but- I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Because you’re pretty awful at dealing with your emotions,” Bitterroot said bluntly. “You and I went over this yesterday.”

And Amanita caught herself smiling, if only a little. If nothing else, that was absolutely true.

“Also, uh…” Bitterroot coughed and shuffled her hooves. “There… might be something more going on.”

Amanita blinked and her smile vanished. That tone of voice was one you ignored at your own peril. And if it hadn’t been Pyrita who’d been moving around, that peril could very well be literal. Code seemed to have noticed as well.

Bitterroot took a deep breath. “Before Pyrita died, I’d- been visiting Arrastra. I just wanted to be sure she was okay. She said Pyrita had been… quieter than usual. Not as animated. She said…” She closed her eyes and rubbed her head. “…something about worms and my line being severed twice and… sewists watching through me, I can’t really remember.” Deep breath. “And then she branded me with a fireplace poker.”

The atmosphere shifted immediately, everyone getting to their hooves. “She branded you?” Amanita asked, aghast. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I forgot about it when Pyrita died,” said Bitterroot. “And… Look.” She raised her head up and pointed at a part of her neck. “This is where she branded me. But there’s nothing there now. After Pyrita went outside, it just stopped hurting.”

“Did it,” muttered Code. She leaned forward and brushed at Bitterroot’s neck; Bitterroot flinched but didn’t pull away. “Did you see what it looked like?”

“Yeah, it was a crossed circle. Arrastra recognized it.”

Memory jolted through Amanita like a lightning bolt; she and Code looked at each other, agape. “The mother,” whispered Code.

“The what?”

“The grain mother,” Code said, rubbing her forehead. “The- item Arrastra was using to try to heal Pyrita. That was a crossed circle as well. Duplicating the shape was part of a rite that woke Pyrita up to begin with.”

“So…” Bitterroot rubbed at her neck. From the way she moved, Amanita wasn’t sure she knew what she was doing. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” said Code. “You haven’t been feeling strange, have you?”

“Not really, no.”

“Any bad dreams? Excessively vivid ones, not just regular ones.”

“…Not even regular bad dreams, just… weird, hazy ones.”

Code’s head twitched back an inch. “Really?”

“Does that mean anything?”

“Effh.” Code wiggled a hoof. “It’s hard to say. If you’re being mentally influenced, bad dreams are often one of the symptoms of your mind fighting back. And I’d say being marked in the manner you were was a clear attempt by someone or something to claim you. Possibly…” She glanced at Amanita. “…whatever had taken Pyrita, if that’s what happened to her.”

“Like a…” Bitterroot rubbed her neck. “Like a curse mark or something?”

“Exactly. But without any dreams, I would guess you’re not being mentally influenced, particularly with the method of marking being so haphazard. Brands applied like that never work neatly.”

“I definitely don’t feel like I’m being taken over. Yet, anyway.”

“Perhaps, but that leaves the issue of the brand disappearing-”

“Um.” Charcoal coughed. “If the- mother- thing was vent- meant for healing, then… maybe it… healed itself?” Her grin was nervous and half-hearted.

“Hnng. Possibly possible, but extremely unlikely. Amanita, do you have any ideas?”

“Well…” Amanita tapped the ground as she thought. She only really had one idea, so she decided to run with it. “It has to mean something to Tratonmane. You said Arrastra recognized it and, Code, remember, you sketched it out from the flow. So, maybe it’s… some kind of sigil or crest with a greater meaning?”

“Maybe, but when Arrastra saw it, she was really scared,” said Bitterroot. “But that doesn’t make sense if she was using it to heal Pyrita.”

“Of course not,” murmured Code. “We’re missing something.”

Silence, except for the blowing wind.

“They’re hiding a lot of stuff, aren’t they?” Charcoal asked, pointing down at Tratonmane.

“Almost certainly,” said Code. “Small towns like this always have their secrets and townsfolk have their own personal secrets. Yesterday, I would’ve said it didn’t mean anything. Now…”

No one said anything. The wind continued to blow. For the first time, Amanita noticed the low tones it made as it hummed through the valley, almost like a Prench horn. She could feel her bones almost ready to rattle. Deciding to shake the feeling away, she swallowed and said, “So now what?”

“For now, we wait for the geothaumometers to finish,” said Code, nodding at one of the devices in question. “We can’t do much else. Bitterroot, let us know if you feel something unusual. As for waiting… Charcoal, remember how, at the river yesterday, you and I discussed working on sharing magic again?”

Charcoal immediately started grinning and she jumped to her hooves. “We’re doing it? Right now?”

“We’ve got nothing better to do. We might as well.”

“Woohoo!”

Amanita found her interest piqued as well. The four of them had tried sharing magic with each other… yeesh, was it really less than two days ago? It felt like forever. It’d been interesting, but they’d never had much of a real chance to follow up on it. Not one that hadn’t been overshadowed by other things, anyway. “If you two’re doing this, I’m interested,” she said.

“Count me in, too,” said Bitterroot.

“Excellent.” Code grinned and rubbed her hooves together. “Let’s all gather round. Where were we? Bitterroot, I think you were on the verge of accepting my strength…”

Conversation fell into talk of sharing magic. Methods, feelings, effects. They practiced, worked, tested. The geothaumometers swung on. The sun moved.

And Amanita never noticed that she’d stopped thinking about not being a necromancer.

19 - Down

It was amazing how much you could waste time if you really wanted to. As the group practiced sharing magic, Amanita didn’t think that much time was passing, but every time she looked at the shadows, they’d shifted. And moments before she could really get what meant, or even care, they’d moved to another aspect of sharing magic. The day was slipping away, progress was being made, and Amanita cared much more about the latter than the former.

Amanita and Bitterroot faced each other, breathing slowly. Code was sitting off to the side, eyes hooded, a pen and an open book at her side. Charcoal was sitting even further back, her tail flicking. “Are you two ready?” Code asked, her voice distant.

The two nodded.

“Very well. Three… two… one… go.”

Amanita and Bitterroot both charged and reared, smashing their front hooves together and bracing each other up. Then they began pushing, each one trying to shove the other back. Well, Amanita was trying; Bitterroot was actually doing it, even without flapping her wings. The actual running around she did in her job had given her a solid amount of muscle. As Amanita’s rear hooves began sliding across the rock, Bitterroot somehow smirked apologetically.

“Now,” Code said, “I’m reaching out…” She tapped the ground.

Suddenly, magic began swirling around Amanita, brushing against her awareness like wind trying to get in. Flexing a mental muscle she rarely used, Amanita grabbed it and pulled it in.

Without a change in posture, she immediately stopped sliding.

Bitterroot flinched at the sudden stop, like she’d run into a screen door. Amanita didn’t waver. A sudden sense of readiness was running through her body; she’d woken up from the best sleep of her life and was ready to take on the world. She was holding Bitterroot back with barely any effort. Bitterroot’s smirk turned into a self-effacing giggle as she began flapping her wings and pushing harder, to no avail.

Then Amanita pushed back and Bitterroot slid like she was on skis. Amanita’s body sang with new magic and new sensations and she wanted to try bench-pressing a house, just to see if she could do it. Moving like this, pushing like this, was using magic as easily as breathing, so easily she barely even knew she was doing it.

Earth pony magic felt really good.

She gave Bitterroot a harder push than usual, the sort she might give to a sticky door. The pony who outweighed her was sent sprawling, saving herself with a few quick flaps to land on her hooves. Grinning, Bitterroot said, “If that’s not magical strength, I don’t know what is!”

“Indeed.” Code stood up and the rush of energy immediately vanished from Amanita’s body. “And the feeling is… less grating when you expect it. Amanita, how do you feel?”

Amanita shrugged. “Like I always do.” She flexed her legs and looked at one of her rear hooves. “Like… There’s really nothing more I can say.”

“Mmhmm.” Code flexed her legs. “Charcoal, are you still interested?”

“Yep!” Charcoal bounced to her hooves and strode up. “Hit me!” Her ears twitched. “Or- maybe don’t. Or… maybe yes? We could-”

As Charcoal chattered, Amanita took the opportunity to bow out, taking a seat behind Code. Sharing magic was something she hadn’t done before, and that meant it required her attention. Which, more importantly, pushed certain dark certain thoughts away.

Amanita just didn’t have the time to mope and wallow. She was so involved in learning about sharing that whenever her mind had a moment of downtime, she naturally gravitated to that instead, thinking about its implications and possibilities and mechanics. And unlike her recent acts of necromancy, she was clearly improving, going from getting a tiny little pick-me-up from earth pony magic to nearly throwing a pegasus ten feet with her bare hooves. She was willing to admit that the possibility of her not being a necromancer was slim, but even if that was true, she had something to fall back on, if only for a little while.

The thoughts were still there. But now she had a reason to ignore them.

Even if her capability was debatable.

She blinked, shook her head, refocused on Charcoal. She and Bitterroot were in the “grapple” stage, and although Charcoal was sliding, it wasn’t quite as much as Amanita had. (Amanita darkly muttered something to herself about studying and Charcoal living outside in moderate temperatures and how she absolutely wasn’t jealous.)

Then Code tapped the ground, and even if you weren’t paying any attention to magic, the shift was remarkable. Charcoal simply stopped, without any sort of sway, no matter how much Bitterroot pushed. And Charcoal was a bit bigger than Amanita, true, but to see her throw Bitterroot by that much looked surreal. No doubt about it: Charcoal was using Code’s strength.

As Bitterroot got back to her hooves, Charcoal made a sound that was probably a kirin whinny as she trotted in place. “Ha! Wow! That felt… Wow.” She made a few small kicks with her rear hooves. “That was great! Do you feel like that all the time?”

“I don’t know, since I don’t know what that felt like,” Code replied as she rolled her shoulders. “How do you feel, compared to your usual?”

“Ehhm…” Charcoal walked a few paces. “The same. Except that I miss your magic already.”

“Which means unicorns and kirins are close enough that magic usage makes no difference, at least in this regard,” Code said, tapping her chin. “Not that surprising, but veeeery interesting.” She took up the pen in her mouth and jotted a few lines in the book.

“If it’s not that surprising, why’d you do it?” asked Bitterroot.

“Data!” chirped Charcoal. “More data is always better. Even though we guessed there wasn’t a difference between kirins and unicorns, now we know there isn’t! Imagine if we pest- guessed and we were wrong.”

“…I could never be a scientist.” Shaking her head, Bitterroot flap-trotted over to the nearby stream and took a quick swig. As she raised her head, she shuddered and coughed. “Wow that’s bracing,” she said. She blinked and took another drink.

Code raised her head and squinted at the sun. “I think,” she sighed, “that the time has come to take our geothaumometer measurements. I’ll take a look at the far one. Amanita, Charcoal, you check the other one.” She trotted off towards the device in question.

When Amanita and Charcoal reached their geothaumometer, the pendulum was still swinging, but its arc was narrow and it was moving unnaturally quickly. Amanita crouched down to survey it. There was something hypnotizing about its speed. “You said this means the ley line’s further down, right?”

“Yeah. It’s going fwit fwit fwit,” Charcoal declared seriously. She was already sketching some figures in the dirt. “And the reservoirs aren’t nearly as filled as they ought to be… Hang on a sec.” She started tapping a hoof on the ground, about once a second. Charcoal stared at the pendulum and her lips moved as she soundlessly counted out its swings. After about ten seconds, she glanced out at Midwich and made some triangulating motions with her legs, then sighed. “ ’Course it’s in the mine,” she muttered. Without another word, she got up and, hanging her head, began slouching back to camp.

Amanita blinked, then briefly galloped to catch up to her. “Is something wrong? I’ve never seen you like this before.”

“Eh…” Charcoal raised her head and cycled a breath. “You said you wanted to do some good with what happened to you. Twilight and her friends, they gave me back my voice and my emotions, and…”

Something ticked in Amanita’s head. “I thought it was just Applejack and Fluttershy.”

“Technically, yeah, but they’re the Elements of Harmony. You need to take them as a group or they won’t work. Either way, they helped me with my problems, so I vant- want to help them with theirs. Let them know that helping me wasn’t a mistake.”

“If it was, do you think they would’ve done it in the first place?”

Charcoal suddenly became very interested in a direction that wasn’t toward Amanita.

“…Charcoal…”

“Have you met them? They’re good ponies, but they’re also kinda…” Charcoal pointed at the side of her head and made a little twirling motion with her hoof. “Helping us is the sort of mistake they’d make. And ley sanitation’s important, but it’s also normally the kind of thing I can do in my sleep, so I’m feeling… guilty?” She shrugged. “Like I’m letting them down.”

Amanita nodded. Another form of her own feelings at the moment. Unfortunately, that meant that if she knew how to help Charcoal, she’d’ve known how to help herself. Definitely not the case. “At least we’re all in the same boat,” she stalled as she gathered her thoughts.

But Charcoal laughed like her problem had been solved. “Heh. Yeah. I know I’m overreacting. Bee-jerking. Or… no, knee-jerking, yeah. Don’t worry about me. …Hah, bee’s knees. …Why is that a phrase?” And as she kept walking, Amanita could see that the weight had drained out of her steps. Oh, to have such emotional stability.

They arrived back at camp at the same time as Code. Code immediately asked, “In the mine?” At Charcoal’s nod, Code sighed. “Of course.”

“There isn’t a chance you can… force a way in, is there?” asked Charcoal, her ears quivering.

“De jure? Absolutely,” said Code. “But whether Tratonmane will honor it is another matter, and it’s not a card I’d like to play to begin with. If it comes to that…” A shrug. “We’ll see.”

“…We’re screwed, aren’t we?”

“Probably, unless a miracle occurs. In the meantime…” Code craned her neck to look back at her geothaumometer. “Normally, this is when we would pack up and head back to town, but we’re on a roll with sharing magic right now…” She cracked her neck and grinned. “…and I’ve always wondered what levitation feels like. Any objections?”

No one raised a hoof. Amanita probably would’ve glued hers to the floor if she’d had any glue.

“Excellent. Now, there ought to be no difference between the two of you when it comes to sharing… Do you have a preference or should we flip a coin?”

All things had to come to an end, and as the sun inched towards the horizon, the crew had to pack the geothaumometers back up. The descent back into Midwich was uneventful, but the sudden darkness hit Bitterroot like a physical thing. One minute, they were climbing down in the sun; the next, the mountain had completely covered it up and they had to wait for their eyes to adjust. Bitterroot had to avoid looking up at the still-illuminated cliff above them. And the cold. Once they were out of the sun, the temperature dropped with every step, frost trying to work its way into her veins. It bordered on clammy, even. Bitterroot knew she’d get used to it again, but… wow.

She wasn’t used to carrying things on the wing for very long and her joints ached when they reached the bottom of the path. Amanita and Charcoal were also breathing a bit more heavily than usual, while Code was as stalwart as ever. More and more, Bitterroot was suspecting that earth ponies were lucky in all the small ways, especially after a taste of earth pony magic had left her feeling like she could bench press a locomotive.

As they walked across the railyard shelf, Code spoke up. “Bitterroot? I don’t think I’ve ever properly thanked you for everything you’ve done.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it.” Bitterroot flicked a wing dismissively. “It was nothing.”

“It was nothing you didn’t need to do, and yet you did it anyway,” said Code. “Regardless of how small it was, I’m grateful.”

Bitterroot shrugged. “We should help each other. I was here, I helped, that’s that.”

Amanita spoke up. “Code, don’t bother. This is the pony who let herself get killed to help someone she’d known for only an hour, remember.”

Everyone chuckled a little. Bitterroot grinned at Amanita. “Hey, it was the right call.”

Amanita grinned back. “Sure. But you’re weird.”

Bitterroot let out a good-natured chuff, then glanced around to reorient herself in the dark. She looked up the tracks; they were passing one of the towers and getting close the downward-

She stumbled to a halt as she remembered the sign.

Amanita was the first to notice she’d stopped. “Bitterroot? Something wrong?”

“It’s-” Bitterroot swallowed. “I- went for a… fly yesterday after… Pyrita. And I saw that…” She pointed up the line. “…that… sign that we passed on the way in, and… the ‘O’ in Tratonmane was a crossed circle.”

It took a moment for Amanita’s ears to twitch. “Like your brand,” she said.

Bitterroot nodded. “Like my brand.” She swallowed again. “And that’s even though- I- I’m pretty sure it wasn’t like that coming in, because… I, I don’t know. I think I’d remember that.”

Charcoal looked at Bitterroot for a moment, looked up the tracks for another, and galloped off into the darkness, her horn twinkling. Code’s gaze followed her, although she didn’t move. “Did you… experience anything when you looked at it?” Code asked. “Intrusive thoughts, pain, hallucinations?”

“No, nothing like that.” Bitterroot shook her head. “A-at least, not if the crossed circle was really there.” It was a possibility that left her mouth dry. What if it got worse? What if it had already gotten worse and she wasn’t aware of it? Her wings twitched restlessly.

Charcoal came bounding back. “I, uh, took a look at the sign,” she said, not quite meeting Bitterroot’s eyes, “and, uh… There’s no crossed circle there.”

Bitterroot’s wings clamped themselves tightly to her sides as her stomach froze. She tried to force herself to shrug and the thoughts out of her head. She only succeeded at the first. “I- could’ve been seeing things,” she said in a voice that didn’t sound particularly convincing, particularly not to her. “It was dark and I was stressed.”

A tense silence fell over the group. Charcoal absently kicked at the ground. After a moment, Amanita opened her mouth.

“Can we at least get back to the inn?” Bitterroot asked tightly. “So whatever we’re talking about, it’s not out here?”

“…Yeah,” said Amanita, nodding. “Let’s do that.”

A little bit quieter than before, the group headed into Tratonmane. Bitterroot couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder as icy thoughts wriggled through her mind. She meandered over to Code and asked, “S-so, um, should we… ask the townsfolk about anything? I, I mean, if it’s… showing up there-”

Code sighed. “Ideally, we would,” she said, almost apologetically. “But as things stand-”

“It’s too early, yeah,” Bitterroot mumbled.

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

They got further and further away from the sign, but it loomed larger and larger in Bitterroot’s head.

Re-entering Midwich combined with Bitterroot’s mention of the circle had jarred all the nice thoughts out of Amanita’s head, sending her morbid ideas again. They weren’t self-destructive morbid ideas, at least. But for all her work with ritualism, Amanita didn’t have any experience with the sorts of hallucinations Bitterroot was experiencing. All of her otherworldly visions were in other worlds, in a manner of speaking. Circe had actually been quite careful about ensuring that, to keep her mind clear.

Tratonmane slipped by as she walked and Amanita barely noticed. She tried thinking about Bitterroot and the crossed circle, but she kept coming back to one fact, a fact so obvious that a foal could’ve seen it: the crossed circle meant something. It had to, for Arrastra to have reacted upon seeing it on Bitterroot’s neck. Or- did Arrastra even recognize it from anything besides the grain mother? The mother’s design had come up first, so maybe she was shocked at a symbol of healing being used like that. It didn’t seem likely, but it was possible. But then that brought up the question of what the symbol meant, since Code had also sketched it out on instinct… And if Arrastra knew about that meaning at all…

They were missing something. Some tiny piece of the puzzle that’d make everything fit together. And the sofa cushions were actively resisting being turned over.

Amanita glanced over. Bitterroot seemed fine, but she always seemed at least fine. Sometimes, Amanita wondered just what it’d take to rattle her; she’d let herself get murdered by a necromancer and had later slit her own throat to escape a hostage situation because waiting would’ve taken too long. The idea that she’d hallucinated the circle on the sign had left Bitterroot more rattled than Amanita had ever known her to be. But why?

Control, maybe. Bitterroot had always had some degree of control over her situation previously. Now it was just happening, with nothing she could do about it. She just had to tuck her head in and pray. Combine that with everything else, and she was probably handling it about as well as could be expected.

Amanita moved so she was walking next to Bitterroot and cleared her throat. “Hey, uh… Are you… doing okay?”

She didn’t miss the pause before Bitterroot said, “I think so. I… Maybe I’m just seeing things.”

“That could be the problem.”

“As a one-off thing, I mean. A lot happened yesterday, and… I don’t know. The trip up top left me feeling better, though.” Bitterroot turned to look Amanita in the eye. “And I mean that. Going up there was like a headache going away. I can just fly up there again if I need to.”

Oh, to be a pegasus. Amanita was already missing the sun. “Alright. But let me know if you need to talk.”

“Of course I will.”

Well. At the very least, that door was now open.

Tratonmane was nearly deserted as they walked through the streets. Every now and then, they’d pass a pony who’d shoot them a dirty look, but it was rare. Amanita guessed Pyrita’s funeral was still going on.

It was a guess that was borne out as they approached the Watering Cave. Many ponies were still gathered in the cemetery and Amanita could hear somepony speaking, their words made indistinct by the wind. Whippletree and Varnish were at the entrance to the graveyard, apparently standing guard against someone. The rest of the crew didn’t pay the funeral any attention.

Amanita found herself walking to the entrance. She didn’t know why, and when she realized what she was doing, she didn’t care enough to stop. Maybe she’d get lucky and be able to talk and get through to Arrastra. And maybe someone else would suddenly die in the next few hours and she’d be able to resurrect them to convince Tratonmane she was a necromancer, while she was wishing for the impossible.

Just as she reached the gate, Whippletree flared a wing in her path; at the same time, Varnish threw up enough of a shield for her to bump off of. As she stumbled back, rubbing her muzzle, Whippletree sighed. “Beg pardon, but we cannae let ye in,” he said in a tired voice.

“Nor any of the rest of your group,” scowled Varnish. He was glaring at Amanita like she’d personally been the one to kill Pyrita.

Amanita swallowed. What was she doing here, again? “It’s that bad?” she asked quietly.

Varnish snorted contemptuously. “Do you know what you did?” he asked. “You lied about being a necromancer, you made yourself sound powerful and got everyone’s hopes up that- that Pyrita would be saved, and then you did nothing-”

“I thought-”

Whippletree’s face abruptly screwed up in anger and his wings flared. “Ye thought wrong,” he hissed in a dangerously level voice. “Ye hurt all these here ponies wi’ yer words, an’ ye keep stickin’ yer nose in where it doesnae belong. Y’ain’t welcome here and ye’d best be a-leavin’ afore I a-finally mellow yer head in.”

Amanita didn’t totally know what the words meant, but the tone of his voice made it frighteningly clear. “A-alright,” she said, nodding rapidly. She took a step back, her tail close to her body. “I’ll- be- gone, sorry to bother you.” On a sudden impulse, she bowed, then turned around.

“W-wait. Hold up.”

Whippletree’s voice gave Amanita pause; it’d been shaking. Hesitantly, she turned back. Whippletree was hanging his head and his stance was tense. “Beg yer pardon,” he said in a voice on the verge of splintering. “ ’Twas uncalled for. ’Tis been a… hard day.”

“I get it,” said Amanita quietly.

Whippletree sighed and raised his head up. “Pyrita’s part o’ my family, an’ e’er since she came out o’ the mine, I havenae been feelin’ right. I jes’ want fer tae roar an’ tear an’-”

“Whippletree, we’re keeping her out,” growled Varnish. “Cease talking to her.”

“-an’ I’m afeared my head’s in a bad fix,” Whippletree continued. “I dinnae ken why I’m sayin’ what I been sayin’ an’ I want fer tae te-” He bit his lip and looked away. Varnish seemed to be bristling, for some reason.

“I get it,” Amanita repeated a bit louder. “Stress and orders and- I should’ve listened to you. Shouldn’t’ve even been here anyway. I, I’ll be off. …Tell Arrastra I’m sorry.”

Whippletree didn’t look at her, but he nodded.

Amanita turned and walked away, wishing she could do more. When she was about halfway back to the Cave, she looked over her shoulder. Whippletree seemed to be in an argument with Varnish and was pointing aggressively at her. The impulsive part of Amanita wanted to walk up and ask what that was all about, but impulsivity hadn’t served her well in the past few days. Sucking in a breath, she returned to the inn.

They almost locked the door for dinner again that night. Not quite. But almost.

It wasn’t as tense as the previous night. They managed small talk as they ate, speculated about the mine, speculated more on sharing magic. But there was still a question hanging over everything.

Once the majority of the food had been eaten, Code set aside her plate and stood up. “I think tomorrow ought to be focused on number-crunching,” she said. “We have all that data and, for the most part, we’ve only glanced at it. I think we should look at it more in-depth.”

For several moments, no one said anything. Amanita spoke up to break the awkward silence. “Sounds good. It’ll get us through another day.”

“Yeah,” said Charcoal, more to help drive away the quiet than anything else.

Bitterroot raised a hoof. “I can try to look for Tallbush and ask him about the mine again. Keep drilling until he breaks.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Code said. “We’ll see tomorrow. And depending on how your…” She gestured vaguely at Bitterroot’s neck. “…condition turns out, you might need to head back to Canterlot. Need to.”

“Alright.”

“And I’ve. Um.” Charcoal bumped her hooves together. “I’ve got a bit of a theory about the wolves. Spriggans. They’re these… forest beats- beasts that can be… real mean. If something set one off, maybe it’s… trying to drive Tratonmane out. They don’t really have any sort of influence over ley lines, and this isn’t their usual schtick, and they’re almost never this far north, and they can be driven away with iron like the weapons Tratonmane is using, and they ought to be blighting the crops instead of them being delicious, and there’s been no whirlwinds, but…” Her ears twitched and she lowered her head.

“If nothing else,” said Amanita, “it’ll give us something to call the reason the wolves are going crazy.”

“Mmmff.”

Silence fell again. It lasted about a second before Charcoal suddenly raised her head and started speaking again. “You seemed to brick up- pick up levitation pretty quickly,” she said to Code. “I know levitation’s simple, but you got it almost immediately.”

Code blinked, then shrugged. “I’m the High Ritualist. All rituals could theoretically be performed by a unicorn with enough power. I know how ritual levitation works, so I know how thaumic levitation works. I simply never had a chance to apply it until a few hours ago.”

“Really?” Charcoal asked. “Is there a… system for going back and forth? It feels like it should have a system.”

“Yes and no,” said Amanita. “There aren’t any one-to-one connections or anything, but the Holstein equivalence principle says that…”

Outside, the valley darkened, but there was still light inside.

20 - Dark Horse, Pale Horse

Amanita snapped awake, her heart racing. It was dark and someone was screaming. In prison, someone screaming at night was bad. Was the cell door still locked? She rolled from her cot and scra-

She bonked into the wall. Not prison. No cell. Door wasn’t locked, didn’t need locking.

…Did it?

She tiptoed to the door and placed her ear to it. The sound was too quiet to come from below and didn’t seem to be getting any closer. But whoever was yelling, it sounded bad.

Go back to bed, she told herself. It’s not your concern. Go back to bed. Let the town handle its own.

With the same desire to fix things that had gotten her a job in the Royal Guard, Amanita nudged the door open. The sound wasn’t any louder. If anything, it was a bit quieter. Maybe something had shifted. Frowning, Amanita carefully walked to one of the windows and placed her ear to that. Louder. Outside.

Logic told her to go back to sleep. Empathy and curiosity had her pulling her furs on before logic had finished its first sentence.

She tiptoed down the stairs, through the common room, and cracked the front door open. By this point, the screaming was gone, replaced with murmurs rumbling through the streets. Worried murmurs.

“Amanita?”

She flinched and spun around. Code was standing behind her, already clad in her own furs. “Are you going out?” Code asked.

“I- I don’t know,” Amanita said. “Should we?”

“I probably should, just to be certain it doesn’t concern us. You can go back to sleep.” And Code was out the door. A second later, Amanita followed her.

They weren’t the only ones coming out. Ponies were trickling out of houses into the darkness. Lights flared up as a few unicorns ignited their horns. There seemed to be a vague current in their movement, heading down a certain street away from the Ash. Code followed them and Amanita followed Code, keeping her ears ready.

So she heard it when a pony screamed in horror.

It was like the entire herd had been stuck in the rear with a pin. In the space of a moment, everyone’s confused amble turned into a focused gallop towards the scream. Almost like a school of fish, they swerved down a side street. Amanita didn’t know what she was looking for but she followed. She lost sight of Code and didn’t bother looking. Her instincts were telling her that she needed to see this.

Then ponies were sliding to a halt, slipping across the icy road and bumping into each other. Amanita managed to catch on a rock sticking out and stumble to a less ungraceful stop. Her head spun and she had to reorient herself as she sucked in breaths. Her physical fitness still left something to be desired.

“Ma? I g-got help,” said a small voice on the verge of tears. “W-where’s Pa?”

Amanita nearly felt her heart stop. She swallowed her congealed pit, set her jaw, and turned. The crowd was just sparse enough for her to peer through it.

Crosscut, sprawled across the ground, had nearly been ripped to shreds.

She’d been attacked by something, maybe a wolf, and it had torn into her. Ragged, bloody gashes coated her body and her front legs as glistening red dribbled down her coat to stain the white snow; Amanita sniffed and some long-buried prey instinct wanted her to reflexively recoil at the coppery scent of blood, dense in the air. Other ponies were forming a circle around Crosscut, apparently too disgusted to approach or too shocked to think. Some chunks of flesh appeared to be holding on by mere strands. Blood was already pooling around her, the pool growing bigger with each moment. Wythe, that filly Amanita seen so long ago, was sitting in the puddle, pushing at Crosscut’s body.

And then Crosscut wheezed damply. Bloody phlegm dribbled from her lips and stained her teeth as she tried to turn over. The bloodflow leaking from her body intensified. Wythe started crying.

Amanita almost stepped forward. Almost started ripping up her clothes for bandages, almost ordered someone to get a torch for cauterization. Maybe, if she was absolutely incredibly lucky, she could salvage this. But memories of the town’s icy glares made her falter. She didn’t even know why; it was just a knee-jerk reaction that-

“Where is she? Where is she?” Arrastra swooped over the crowd, low enough that her hooves bumped into someone’s head. She fluttered to Crosscut and stumbled on the landing. “Wythe, baby-”

“Nana!” Soaked with blood, Wythe flapped over and seized one of Arrastra’s legs. In between sobs, she said, “Nana, I- I heard somethin’ fierce- like a wolf- an’ I found Ma like this- an’ I got Mr. Tallbush-”

“W-where’s yer Pa?” Arrastra’s head was jerking around

“I dinnae ken! I cannae find him! Nana, w-what’s goin’ on?” And Wythe collapsed into tears again.

Arrastra’s wings tensed as she realized what Tallbush missing probably meant. She looked over at Crosscut, still twitching. “Wythe, baby, y-ye must needs look away,” she stammered.

“Nana- Nana, Ma’s- She’s-”

Arrastra turned to one of the ponies in the crowd. “D-dinnae let her see,” she said quietly. “She’s- t-too young.”

Wythe was pulled from Arrastra’s leg. She didn’t scream. She didn’t struggle. She just grabbed onto another pony’s leg and kept crying. Shuddering with fear, Arrastra somehow forced herself to look at her daughter. “Crosscut,” she said, sitting down next to her in the pool of red, “C-Crosscut, I- I’m here.”

Crosscut opened her mouth to speak; blood bubbled and popped at the side of her lips. Her breath gurgled, like she was too weak to cough and clear her throat.

“No, Crosscut,” Arrastra babbled, her words tripping over themselves as what little control she still had slipped away, “ye, ye h-hold on now, Tallbush’s a-comin’, h-he’s got, he’ll have-”

Blood dripped from Crosscut’s legs like a leaky hose, yet she still managed to reach up pleadingly. Arrastra immediately pulled her into a hug; Crosscut weakly wrapped her legs around Arrastra’s body as she draped her head across her shoulder. Arrastra rocked back and forth as she stroked Crosscut’s back and stared out at nothing, eye glassy and wet. “D-dinnae be worryin’, honey,” she whimpered, “it’ll be okay, it’ll be okay, it’ll be okay…”

Crosscut’s head twitched. Blood dribbled and pooled. Her breaths were wet, weak, labored, forced.

And then they weren’t.

“…Crosscut?…”

Seconds slipped by.

“…No… Oh, no, no no no, d-dear land, n-no…”

Moments.

Shaking, Arrastra held the limp form close, and although she barely made any sound, the world was quiet enough to hear her words. “Crosscut… My bantling…”

And in the second before reality hit the crowd, something switched on in a certain unicorn’s head.

Once upon a time, Amanita had lost somepony. Lost and alone in a world that hadn’t cared for her, it’d seemed her despair was unfathomable. Grief and a lich’s silver tongue had led her to necromancy, where she’d done worse and worse things while still calling their spirit up in the name of not letting go.

But that somepony was just Zinnia, her marefriend of but a few years, dying of a moons-long battle with liver cancer. Not her own flesh and blood. Not somepony she’d known literally all their life. Not somepony who’d gone so suddenly she hadn’t had so much as a minute to prepare. Not even somepony who’d died as she held them close, pleading for a miracle, feeling their very life ebb out like the tide. Whatever she’d gone through, Amanita knew Arrastra was going through far, far worse.

So Amanita didn’t even think as she walked forward, muscling ponies aside, ignoring their protests. She’d become a necromancer to bring back a loved one. She was going to be a necromancer and bring back a loved one. Arrastra’s opinion of her, Tratonmane’s opinion of her, as a liar and glory hound and monster was so irrelevant that it didn’t even cross her mind. The crowd got denser as she approached the center; that just made her push harder.

She was nearly spat out when she reached the perimeter, stumbling into open space and nearly slipping in still-warm blood. Arrastra was right next to her, apparently unaware of her surroundings as she hugged the body tightly. Her breaths were building to a keening wail and arteries were visibly pulsing in her wings. Amanita stepped forward.

“Ai.” Somepony, a mare from the voice, stepped on Amanita’s tail to slow her. “Dinnae talk tae her, ye scapegrace. She doesnae need yer-”

Her hooves were coated in Crosscut’s blood. Amanita reached up and smeared it across her face. With her muzzle still dripping, she turned and wordlessly snarled. The mare cursed and backpedaled into the crowd, which also pulled back from Amanita. Nopony seemed intent on getting closer to her. No more attention. Glaring at them, Amanita used a quick field to wipe herself down, then turned back to Arrastra.

Over the edge, over again. Amanita steeled herself and said, “Put her down.”

Arrastra didn’t respond. Blood from Crosscut’s neck trickled down her back.

“Arrastra. Put her down.”

Arrastra’s ears twitched limply. “L-leave me be,” she said tonelessly. “Ye’ve done enough.”

“I can help. Put her down.”

“Ye cannae help. She’s dead.”

Amanita’s stomach began knotting. “I-I’m a necromancer. I can help. Put her down.”

Arrastra said nothing. Didn’t even look at Amanita.

“Arrastra, please.”

Finally, Arrastra responded. She stroked Crosscut’s mane one last time and delicately, tenderly laid the body down. Then she got to her hooves and looked at Amanita. Her eye was wet but her face was expressionless. When she spoke, her voice was breaking and broken. “W-why should I?”

“Because if you don’t, your granddaughter will grow up an orphan.”

Arrastra flinched as if struck. Her mouth worked soundlessly as she glared at Amanita, tears dripping down her cheeks. She ripped her gaze away from Amanita to look at the crowd, where Wythe was still whimpering into somepony’s leg. Her wings twitched restlessly, leaves in a storm; she blinked and buried her face in a hoof as her body shook with emotion.

Maybe it was a low blow. Maybe a low blow was what was needed.

“Please. I’m begging you, let me try,” Amanita pleaded. “What’ve you got to lose?” She needed a second chance. Arrastra needed a second chance.

The valley reverberated with dying echoes, yet the silence of the last second before an impact was woven through the crowd. Everypony wanted something to be said; nopony wanted to be the one who said it. Finally, Arrastra raised her head. Her eye burned with the hatred of betrayal, smothered by her tears. “You’un already b-broke this promise,” she growled. “Do it again, and, h-hope tae my die, I w-will eat you alive.”

And she stepped aside, stumbling into the crowd, sobbing.

Amanita’s heart was pounding in her ears. The die had been cast. Maybe she’d regret this later, but that was for later. For now, she ignored it as she turned to the crowd. First things first, she needed her equipment. “Where’s Code?”

Silence.

“Colonel Code? …Colonel Restricted Code!” she demanded. Actually demanded. Who did she think she was, making demands? “The earth pony who-”

Code shoved her way out of the crowd and dropped a bag at Amanita’s hooves. “You had a look on your face and I thought you might need them,” she said.

Amanita rifled through the bag, searching for her ingredients. Check, check, and check. She laid them out one by one. “Thank you,” she said to Code.

“Do you need me for anything?”

“Just keep the crowd back.”

Code immediately whirled on the crowd. “Alright, ponies, just like before!” she roared. “Amanita needs room, so stand back!”

It took more yells than the first time, but she soon had space. Familiarity seized Amanita’s gut in a vise. If all this happened the same way again… She blinked, shook her head, pretended not to notice the way she felt like she’d just run a marathon. She needed to do this. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Okay. Okay. Breathe. Okay.

From the top.

Circle. Her breathing strained.

Runes and sigils. Her nerves buzzed.

Candles. Her vision defocused.

Hum. Her bones chilled.

Down and stone. Her joints ached.

Wait. All of the above, and then some.

Despite her body’s protests, the process still came easily.

The main steps passed in a blur, but anxiety gleefully stretched the final moment like taffy. Amanita felt like she’d see individual light rays at a crawl if she opened her eyes. She tried to keep her mind clear, tried to wait, but one thought kept running through her head, over and over and over: Please work, please work, please work, please-

It worked.

Liminality embraced her as she slipped out. Crosscut was dead. Crosscut was recently dead. It hadn’t fully sunk in yet, so her soul was but a minor paradigm away. Finding her and pulling her back, pulling her life across timelines, bordered on reflex, over before it began. It was like the universe itself had already decided Crosscut shouldn’t have died and just needed Amanita’s help to make it so. The very waves of oughtness that pushed Amanita out of physicality roiled and twisted and pushed her back. More importantly, they also pushed Crosscut back.

As Amanita gasped and tried to stay upright, Crosscut’s body quivered and shuddered minutely. Beneath her blood and furs, visible through the tears, her wounds were vanishing. The ponies around them became silent and that silence became oppressive. Tension stretched through the air, drawn by hope and fear, ready to snap with just the right action.

Crosscut coughed.

The crowd’s collective flinch was so in sync, Amanita both felt it and heard it, a slight twitch in the earth and a low rumble. Crosscut coughed again, louder, more clearly, and propped herself up, eyes open. Murmurs broke out and rippled across the assembly, some of them profane. Amanita thought she heard some ponies running away. She ignored them. They didn’t matter. Her own actions did.

Crosscut laid a hoof on her chest, breathing deeply and cleanly. Then she blinked and looked down as her breathing picked up. She patted herself all over, taking stock of her body; though she was caked with blood, she was whole. She looked out at the crowd, too confused to have much of an expression. “What?” she asked the world. “H-how-”

“MA!” Wythe, still stained with her mother’s blood, bolted out from the crowd and torpedoed into Crosscut, driving her back to the ground. “Ma, you- Pa- He’s-” Whatever she was trying to say kept dissolving into childish gibberish and she kept restarting, sounding on the verge of tears every step of the way. Her wings beat fitfully and she clung to Crosscut like her mother was the last solid thing in the world.

Her daughter’s voice seemed to give Crosscut an anchor; all her confusion and anxiety vanished as she hugged Wythe as only a parent could. “Shh, shh,” she cooed, tousling Wythe’s mane. “I’m here, possum, I’m here.”

Amanita stepped back. Her work was done and they needed space. As she did, she looked at a certain other pony. Arrastra had the vaguely shocked expression of raw, boundless emotion on her face, too overwhelmed to feel much of anything; even her breathing was jerky and choppy. Her eye brimmed, overflowed with tears as she blinked rapidly. Her wings and knees refused to remain still. Eventually, her rear legs gave out and she collapsed onto her haunches, where she simply watched Crosscut, too overcome with feeling to manage physical movement. Amanita turned away from her and towards the crowd. Everypony was staring at her like she was a toxic balloon about to burst. To that, Amanita only had one thing to say.

“Questions tomorrow,” she announced. “I’m tired and I’m going to bed. G’night.” She pointed herself at the inn and strode forward.

The crowd pulled back tidelike as she approached. From her? For her? Amanita wouldn’t’ve cared even if she’d had the energy to care. She had a path. She took it.

The crowd thinned and the town darkened as Amanita walked. This far out in the wilds, starlight and moonlight alone were just enough to navigate by, even with less than a quarter of the full moon poking its way over the mountain ridge, and she didn’t need to light her horn. So she noticed it immediately when she reached the Ash and another hornlight came racing out from the darkness.

Tallbush slid to a stop in front of her, barely winded in spite of the saddlebags around his trunk. He looked back and forth between Amanita and the crowd around Crosscut and swallowed. “Is Crosscut still livin’?” he asked quickly.

Amanita didn’t stop walking. “She died. I resurrected her. She’s well.”

“Wha- She- She died?” yelped Tallbush. “An’ ye- That’s-” He galloped up to her and blocked her path. “Explain,” he snapped.

“Necromancy.” Amanita sidestepped, scowled when Tallbush sidestepped as well. “I’m a necromancer. I resurrected her.”

“-!” declared Tallbush. He looked between Amanita and the crowd. “But- Pyrita-”

“As I said yesterday, there are limits to my magic,” said Amanita. “Pyrita died too long ago. Crosscut didn’t. Go see her.” She pointed towards the crowd.

“But- Okay, see here, you’un need tae expl-”

“Code’s there. Talk to her.” Another sidestep.

Another block. Tallbush seemed to be shaking. “No, no, she ain’t done it, you’un did, ye need fer tae-”

“Listen,” growled Amanita, shoving her muzzle in Tallbush’s face. “It’s the middle of the night. I was woken up. I just pulled somepony from beyond the veil of death. Something no alicorn knows how to do, by the way. I’m tired. And if you don’t let me go to bed, I honestly might just kill you right now and resurrect you tomorrow.”

She wasn’t kidding. The siren song of her bed was loud.

Tallbush flinched back, stung by the venom in her voice. He seemed speechless. He looked at Amanita, at the crowd down the street, and pawed vigorously enough to gouge a furrow in the frozen ground. Then, his ears folded back, he stomped down the road. Leaving Amanita’s path back to the Cave clear.

Amanita’s steps turned into stumbles about halfway up the staircase as her adrenaline ebbed away. By the time she reached the second floor, she was nearly leaning against the wall to stay upright. Blinking to keep sleep away for just a minute more, Amanita loped into her room.

Bitterroot was still asleep, but Charcoal was up. She was pacing around the room, her long tail flicking wildly, and a stream of frantic nothings was bubbling from her throat. Her head snapped up when she heard the door open, then dropped when she saw who it was. “Thank Shine,” she mumbled.

“Code’s okay, too.” It seemed right to say.

“Great.” Charcoal smiled weakly. “I… I heard…” She trotted to the window, peered out into the night, returned her attention to Amanita. “What happened out there?”

“Crosscut was attacked by a wolf and died.”

Charcoal put a hoof to her mouth in horror, her ears folded back. “Oh, Shine,” she breathed. “That’s terrible!”

“Yeah, but I fixed her,” said Amanita. “She’s okay now. Ask Code when she gets back. I’m tired.”

The two looked at each other for another moment longer. Amanita knew Charcoal had gotten it when her ears shot up like catapults and her jaw dropped. And once she knew Charcoal knew, she felt no anxiety in turning away, stripping off her bloody furs, and climbing into bed without another word. Sleep found her in seconds.

21 - Wolves at the Door

After the last several days, the prison riot that wasn’t in prison nor a riot had rattled Amanita’s internal clock, set it back to something familiar. She knew it was 6:28 when she woke up before she even opened her eyes. Yet somehow, she knew to get out of the right side of the bed.

She couldn’t sleep. More precisely, she didn’t need to sleep. Her mind thought she’d be ordered up in two minutes, and so had forced her body to get all the rest it could during her time in bed. She was rested and restless. So she pulled her furs on and stomped downstairs. She had somewhere she needed to be.

The common room was almost empty. A few early birds. Cabin. And Bitterroot. The last waved at Amanita before returning to her cup of what smelled like coffee, even though it couldn’t have been. “Morning, Amanita,” Bitterroot muttered.

Amanita continued for the door and ignored the glares she was getting. They must not’ve known. “Morning, Bitterroot. You’re already up?”

Bitterroot grunted. “Headache. Sore throat. No bad dreams, though. You?”

“I need to see the wolf attack victim I resurrected last night.”

“Okay. Cool. …Someone died?”

“Mmhmm.”

“And your ritual actually worked this time?”

Amanita turned around and grinned at Bitterroot. Every other person in the room was looking at her considerably differently now. “Ask Crosscut yourself!”

And then she was gone.

It was easy to tell which house was Crosscut’s; you just needed to look for the blood. She’d been bleeding badly outside and the blood hadn’t been cleaned up. Amanita simply walked down the main concourse, looking up and down the side streets before spotting a puddle of red shining brightly in front of a certain house, even through the darkness. When Amanita reached that house, the snow out front was scattered and messy, trampled down and thrown about and pounded by crowds and whatever wolf had attacked Crosscut.

Amanita marched up the steps and, hoping somepony was awake, knocked on the door. When no one responded immediately, she found her lack of anxiety odd. She was just waiting for someone to open the door, because it sometimes took people a while to answer a knock. She wasn’t worried. She was fine. Nothing was wrong with her.

Huh.

A few moments before Amanita knocked again, the door was opened by Crosscut, cleaned up and with no sign she’d been dead last night. She opened her mouth for a reflexive greeting, saw who was there, and twitched in surprise. “…Hidy,” she said in a voice that sounded like she was forcing her breath out.

“Hey,” Amanita replied, nodding. “Just checking in. How do you feel?”

Crosscut blinked. She looked at one of her legs like it was a foreign object attached to her. Her hoof rolled well enough when she tried to move it. “…Fine.”

“Good. You won’t experience any… side effects.”

“Mmm.”

They looked at each other. Amanita blinked freely, but Crosscut looked like she was in a staring contest. Amanita’s ears pricked up as she heard somepony cooing softly in the room. She leaned over to look; Arrastra was sitting in front of the fire, curled up with Wythe, singing some song Amanita couldn’t make out. Her wings were loose and relaxed, at least. “How’s Wythe doing?”

“Ehh. Foals’re hardier’n we reckon they are.” Crosscut’s shrug was stiff enough to look like acting. “I’m fine, so she’s fine. …M-misses her pa, though.” She shuddered as she breathed in.

“And what about Arrastra?”

Crosscut looked over her shoulder at Arrastra. Or maybe she stopped looking Amanita in the eye. “Eh. Cannae say. Ma’s had a… tryin’ week when it comes tae family.”

Amanita nodded. “Yeah. But the week’s not over yet. Maybe we can turn it around.”

Crosscut’s nostrils flared in the ghost of a snort.

“I’d like to talk to you about last night, if that’s okay with you,” Amanita said. She raised a hoof for emphasis as she said, “Just, just last night, nothing else. Promise.”

The shadow of what other resurrection ritual they could be talking about loomed over them. But Crosscut nodded and gestured Amanita in. As Amanita entered, she could pick out words in Arrastra’s song to Wythe.

At the end of the last line, Crosscut cleared her throat. “Ma? Amanita wants fer tae talk with us.”

Arrastra’s ears twitched and she looked up. The expression on her face was blank as she gazed at Amanita. Then she said to Wythe, “Possum, Nana needs tae do adult things. Why dinnae ye go play?”

Wythe squeezed Arrastra. Then she bolted over and squeezed Crosscut. Then she was out the door with a, “Love you’ns!” hanging in the air behind her. Foals were resilient.

Everyone pushed through the air to take a seat at the table. Before they’d been sitting a moment, Amanita headed off any silence by asking, “What happened last night?”

Crosscut flinched and looked down. Amanita bit her lip; normal ponies didn’t respond well to violence, did they? Especially if the violence was directed at them. But before she could add anything, Crosscut was talking. “ ’Twas late,” she said in a detached voice. “Whippletree- said he wished tae speak tae me. He didnae say what about, but he wanted us outside. Said Midwich air an’ starlight would clear our heads. An’… An’ then…”

She glanced quickly, almost furtively, at Arrastra, who didn’t notice. Crosscut took a deep breath, raised her head, and continued, “An’ then this… timberwolf jes’ comes a-chargin’ up the street, all- by its lonesome. An’- And it attacks us an’- drags Whippletree off. An’… then you’ns found me.”

Amanita frowned. That didn’t sound right. Why just one wolf? Why was it so far into Tratonmane? Crosscut was hiding something, almost definitely. But pressing things right now would… be bad. Amanita didn’t know how, exactly, but “be bad” was enough. Instead, she said, “And you haven’t learned anything since?”

“Nay.”

“Okay. How would you feel about a search party?”

Crosscut and Arrastra both stared at her, and Amanita blinked. She’d been thinking about that in the deepest recesses of her mind, but to have it just bounce out like that… But once she actually heard it, she wouldn’t take it back. She already knew that, once you cut out her hemming and hawing, this was what she’d do. Might as well keep that band-aid off, now that it was ripped.

“A- search-” Crosscut laughed bitterly. “A wolf took ’im. Intae the forest. Y’ain’t findin’ him. He’s prolly dead already.”

“You were dead last night. Didn’t stop me.”

“Ye-” Crosscut looked Amanita in the eye. Her ears were twitched and her jaw was working, though her lips didn’t part. “Yer claimin’ this again?” she said. “Thankee fer savin’ me, but ye’re a right moldwarp if’n ye think-”

Arrastra reached over and gently laid her hoof on Crosscut’s; Crosscut immediately stopped talking to turn to her. Without raising her head, without looking at anyone, Arrastra whispered, “Crosscut, bantling… Ye died.”

Crosscut snorted, but it felt forced. “Ma, don’t ye-”

“I… I felt ye die, fall clean off the drop edge o’ yonder. Yer heart, it… It done stopped. Ye weren’t breathin’ nae more. An’…” Arrastra pointed a shaking hoof at Amanita, though she couldn’t bring herself to look. “An’ she… Then she walks up an’ does ’er ceremony, an’… Ye’re right as rain. Even though ye were deader’n four o’clock jes’ a minute past.”

Crosscut looked between Arrastra and Amanita, her ears twitching frantically. “But, Ma- Pyrita-”

“We’re only talking about last night,” Amanita said. By some miracle, the words didn’t come out harshly. “Listen. You remember what happened. Do you really think you could’ve survived that?”

Crosscut looked down at her chest, rubbed at where it’d been torn open, at where there was now no sign of damage. “…Nay.”

“Because you didn’t.”

Silence.

“I want to help,” said Amanita. “If this can save Whippletree-”

“I’ll see if’n I can get some ponies,” Arrastra said, still not meeting Amanita’s gaze. “Ponies’ll- They’ll want tae help him. An’… if’n ye can get the rest o’ yer team tae help-”

“I’m sure they’ll want to,” Amanita said. “We’ll meet at the forest’s edge.” She stood up. “That’s all I need right now. Thank you for your time.” She gave them a small bow and headed for the door.

“W-wait.” Crosscut ran a hoof through her mane. “I- Thankee fer- fer-” Her voice dropped to a whisper, like hearing it would acknowledge it as truth. “-fer bringin’ me back.”

Amanita shrugged. “I’m a necromancer. It’s my thing.”

“Aye, but… after… we…”

“It’s my thing,” Amanita repeated. “And I believe we’re not talking about last night anymore.”

“…Aye. It’s… Aye.” Crosscut swallowed. “Be well.”

“You, too.”

“You slept through it?” Charcoal said, gaping. “Someone was killed and you slept through it?”

“Yeah.” Bitterroot took another bite of eggs. Were they better than yesterday’s? Maybe. But since she’d ordered them before Amanita had proclaimed what she’d done, so Cabin wouldn’t’ve been able to give her less-bad ones, so it was probably Bitterroot’s imagination.

“You’re a bounty hunter.”

“Yeah. A bounty hunter. Which means anyone who cares about me usually tries to avoid me.” Toast. Mmm, toast. You could make it anywhere hot, if you knew what you were doing. “I try to sleep deeply whenever I can so I can stay awake when I need it.” Did Tratonmane have apples? It really wouldn’t have surprised Bitterroot if another member of the Apple family was here. “Sometimes, things go wrong and I need to stay up for like fifty hours at a time. Can’t do that if I jolt awake at the slightest noise.”

“…And I really liked Alicorn Falls. You’re delling- telling me that book was a lie?”

“It’s better than most, and it’s entertaining, but parts of it are a load of night fertilizer, sorry.”

“Aw.” Charcoal pouted.

Word about Amanita was spreading and the Tratonmanians around them were speaking in hushed whispers and occasionally sneaking glances at them. The atmosphere didn’t feel like a barbed-wire fence about to snap, at least. It was more than bearable, even. Who knew death would make things better? (Amanita. Amanita knew.)

“Speaking of sleep,” Code said, “did you have any bad dreams? About the…” She pointed at her neck, apparently not wanting to talk about the brand where other ponies could hear.

“Nope,” said Bitterroot. “No dreams at all and it doesn’t hurt a bit.”

“Hmm. Promising. You ought to be safe. Let us know if your situation changes.”

“Great.”

Still, Bitterroot stared at the table and traced out a loop around one of the knots. If you looked at it in just the right way, you could imagine it as a crossed circle. The grain went that way, there was a crack that went this way-

…A crack going against the grain? Huh. Bitterroot shook her head. “Code? What do, uh… hallucinations mean in my context?”

Code immediately snapped to look at her, ears back slightly. “What sorts of hallucinations?” she asked.

“Just seeing the crossed circle. I’m thinking of the sign.”

“Have you seen it anymore since then?”

“Once, maybe.”

Code relaxed slightly and chewed on her lip. “That depends on the precise nature of the mark, which we don’t have. If it’s just crossed circles that infrequently, then you should be fine. That was the original shape of the mark, so any magic getting dispersed would naturally take that form in your perception.”

“And I’m not in danger?”

“Hallucinations are surface-level sensations and qualia as opposed to something affecting the subconscious. At the very least, you’re not in danger yet. But tell me if you see anything, okay? The last thing we need is you keeping mum about something important because you’re literally too selfless for your own good and don’t want to be a bother.”

“Okay. Do you see that?” Bitterroot pointed at the knot.

When she leaned over to look, Code saw it immediately. “That crack’s going against the grain,” she mumbled. “Strange, but not a hallucination.”

“Not in danger?”

“No.”

But as Bitterroot kept looking at the knot, she somehow didn’t feel very assured. She’d seen the mark on the sign when Charcoal said it didn’t exist. Seeing it again, here… It wasn’t a complicated sign, true. The sort of thing you could make easily, by accident. Yet it sure didn’t feel like an accident. Against the grain. “…Code, are you sure you’re not hallucinating with me?”

“If we were undergoing magically-induced folie à deux, you’d know it, I’d know it, and I’d be lugging us both back to Canterlot.”

“Hrm.” Somehow both reassuring and not reassuring at all.

Charcoal looked back and forth between them, nibbling loudly on some very crunchy lettuce. Bitterroot didn’t mind the sound; it was a distraction from her thoughts. And if that food could be a distraction… She tucked into her eggs, wishing Tratonmane had orange jui-

“Beg pardon.”

The sudden voice made Bitterroot twitch, dropping her silverware with a clatter. She awkwardly managed to turn around; one of the Tratonmanians, a young chiropterus stallion, was staring at her with big eyes like she was a train crash in progress. “Yeah?” she asked.

“You’un said ye died?”

Well. Straight to the point. “Twice, yeah,” said Bitterroot. “Before you ask, I don’t remember what the other side is like. Some sort of…” She waved a hoof vaguely. “…metaphysical thing. Amanita says it’s the sort of experience my brain can’t remember.”

Almost immediately, the stallion’s ears drooped. That was almost always the first question ponies asked her when they knew she’d died. But then those ears went back up and he asked, “How’d ye die?”

And there was the second question. “Throat slit. Both times.”

“Once by her own hoof,” added Code.

The chiropterus flinched and pulled his head backward slightly. He opened his mouth; nothing came out.

“I was cutting short a hostage situation!” Bitterroot faux-protested. “I saved us some time!”

“Gloss had been backed into a corner. You saved me a few minutes at most.”

“Yeah, but I saved me several hours of boring waiting in the bureaucracy afterwards.”

“Hmm. To be fair, the bureaucracy does often make me want to slit my throat.”

The chiropterus flexed his wings in blank-faced shock.

Charcoal put a hoof to her mouth, pointed at Bitterroot and Code, and stage-whispered, “And that’s part of why I think ponies are crazy.”

The chiropterus blinked, nodded, and walked away like he was in a daze. He probably was. But with his attention gone, Bitterroot could get back to her food. She reached out for her silverware again-

Her knife and fork had landed on the plate almost perpendicular to each other.

Forming a crossed circle.

Bitterroot stared at it, carefully rubbed both implements to be sure they were there. Before, she might’ve been seeing things on paper. Maybe that was a hallucination. But this was actual, physical objects. It had to be a coincidence. Right?

The door opened and silence fell in a moment. Amanita was walking into the inn without a care in the world. Bitterroot glanced around at the Tratonmanians. Some of them looked curious, more of them looked afraid. None of them looked angry or disgusted. Progress.

“Was something wrong?” Code asked as Amanita sat down.

Amanita shook her head. “No. I was just checking in on Crosscut and Arrastra. They’re doing fine, although Whippletree’s missing. Apparently a wolf attacked him and Crosscut outside their house and dragged him into the forest. And then I, also, uh…” She bumped her hooves together. “…kinda said we’d help with a search party for that-”

“Let’s do that,” Code said. “We came here to help ponies. This is helping ponies.” Then she dropped her voice down to a mere whisper. “And if it can get us back on their good side, all the better.”

Amanita blinked and her ears twitched. From the look on her face, she hadn’t even thought of that. Which, Bitterroot figured, was Amanita for you. “Arrastra said she’d look for some ponies who’d be willing to join us.”

“Good.”

Charcoal cleared her throat. “Into, into Midwich Forest again?” she asked nervously.

“Yep,” Amanita replied.

“Oh. Well, the last time went alright.” Charcoal laughed nervously. Then it petered out as she became thoughtful. “It did,” she muttered.

“If we get enough ponies, I’m sure we can fend off at least one bear attack,” said Amanita. She swiped a bite of Bitterroot’s semi-forgotten breakfast. “Then I can enthrall the bear and have it protect us.”

Charcoal stared.

Amanita shrugged. “I’m a necromancer. What’d you expect?”

Bitterroot kept looking at her plate.

They waited about half an hour. During that time, Arrastra entered the inn, proclaimed to the crowd about the search party, and left. If she’d convinced anypony, it was hard to tell. Nopony stood up immediately, but they might’ve just been finishing their meal. Once they thought they’d given Arrastra enough time to go around, they packed up their supplies and headed for the forest. The hike was longer than the trip between the inn and Crosscut’s house, so Amanita had some time to think. And the first thing she thought of was that she was feeling better than ever.

It was like the universe had personally taken aim at her main anxiety of the past thirty-six hours and systematically dismembered it. She was a necromancer. She’d resurrected Crosscut with no problem whatsoever. She still had something to offer the world. And if that was the case, then maybe she could be something other than a necromancer as well. No wonder she felt great.

She’d have to deal with those last few bad thoughts eventually, true. But at least she wasn’t plagued by them in an unfamiliar town where her breath froze.

…And she still didn’t know what was up with Pyrita…

Amanita blinked and shook her head. Wrong thing to focus on right now.

There were close to a dozen supplied ponies waiting at the forest line — more than there were guards, Amanita noted. Many of them had some sort of weapon, and the ones that weren’t were earth ponies. They weren’t quite relaxed, but they weren’t tense with anxiety, either, comparing weapons or chatting amongst themselves. Someone seemed to be missing, though Amanita couldn’t say who.

“Hmm.” Code’s eyes flicked between the ponies. “That’s a decent amount. I would’ve thought less, given the forest’s reputation.”

“The wilderness is funny,” said Charcoal. “It always seems dangerous until you get a big enough group. Some of them could’ve been on the hedge- on the edge until they saw who else was joining.”

“Or maybe they figure I’ll resurrect them.”

“…Or maybe that, yeah.”

As they approached, Arrastra strode from the group, a lumpy shape slung across her back. “Ach, there y’are. All o’ ye’re comin’? Thankee.”

“We came here to help. This is helping,” Code said.

Arrastra snorted. “Wish the other royal gofers thought the same. We were jes’ makin’ ready tae leave.”

Amanita was paying only half a mind to the conversation, instead focusing on the object Arrastra was carrying. It looked so familiar, she could- Ding. “Is that a chainsaw?”

“It’s good versus wood,” growled Arrastra. “It’ll be good versus timberwolves.”

You certainly couldn’t argue with that logic.

Amanita looked around again, and then it clicked who was missing. “Where’s Varnish?”

“Dinnae ken, dinnae care,” said one of the militiaponies (Amanita recalled her name as Poplar). “He prolly thinks he’ll be takin’ o’er if’n Whipple’s gone.” Some of the other milita nodded. Small nods, but nods nonetheless.

“I tried findin’ him, but he ain’t nowheres,” said Arrastra. “It’s like he left off o’ Tratonmane. An’ I sure as judgment ain’t a-waitin’ fer him.” She skimmed the crowd, then marched to the front of it.

Arrastra cleared her throat and her wings twitched open. “I ken ye’re scared,” she announced. “So’m I. ’Tis Midwich; it’s fools that ain’t scared.” Her eyes narrowed. “But we got some o’ the best creatures in Equestria, here, an’ we ain’t goin’ tae take this lyin’ down. Sae c’mon!” She reared and spread her wings, cutting an imposing figure even in the darkness. “Let’s take back our own frae that pit-eaten forest!”

A roar of assent went up from the Tratonmanians, and Amanita found herself yelling, too. The energy was infectious. For the first time since she’d entered the valley, her goal was simple and clear: find Whippletree and bring him. No messing with data. No struggling with geothaumometers. No blundering in the dark as the experts admitted they didn’t know what was up. Just saving ponies.

Arrastra grinned at the crowd as she landed back on all four legs. “Aye,” she growled. “We’ll dae nicely.” She turned and marched northward. And following on her heel, the little force entered Midwich Forest.

23 - Round in Circles

Bitterroot had had four drinks in her attempts to drown her thoughts. It worked… except for the thoughts she actually wanted to drown. Those thoughts kept swimming around her head in circles. Crossed circles. Not even as gracefully as dancers, but like a hyperactive dog stuck on a too-short leash, unpredictably and straining every step of the way. Absent anything else to keep her mind occupied, they seemed stronger than before.

She soon found herself traipsing aimlessly around Tratonmane, up streets, down streets, across streets, wherever. Anything to keep her head silent. She spotted simple shops that had slipped her by before. She saw foals playing indoors and outdoors. She noticed that some of the oil lamps were old and needed to be replaced. She heard the way ponies’ voices shifted in tone as she walked past, even though they didn’t move away.

None of that kept her thoughts at bay.

She realized she was slouching up the ramp to the mine shelf. Where was she even going? To the sign, to see the circle again? Was she hoping to see the cross or not? Which would confirm that she was going crazy?

…Was she going crazy?

Bitterroot immediately walked over to the rock wall next to the ramp and sat down against it, ignoring the chill that seeped through her furs. This was how it was going to be, then: stuck with the same thoughts, going over them over and over and over until she wore a rut down in her mind and they turned into a permanent fixation. She had no way of distracting herself, not up here. She didn’t know what there was in Tratonmane and there probably wasn’t that much anyway. Snow and dark and maybe a few establishments that she didn’t know. You could only have so much in a place this isolated. Assuming there were diversions she could go to, they might not be all diverting. Thoughts of the circle had punched their way through alcohol, they could probably do the same for something like dancing or reading.

And at the moment, she didn’t even have anyone she trusted to talk to about the circles. Plenty of ponies in Canterlot, even a few non-ponies, but up here, there were only three people, and they were all occupied. Ostensibly, they’d be back tonight. It felt like it’d be ages. And that assumed nothing would go wrong.

Bitterroot inhaled as deeply as she could to let Tratonmane’s air jab at her lungs as much as possible.

But she couldn’t be going crazy, could she? Arrastra had seen and recognized her brand. That meant something. She knew about the path up. She knew where the spear had been. And- And she’d already trodden this path of thought, over and over. She still knew nothing about it and yet she still insisted on going back to it. Because it was all she had. Either focus on the puzzle piece she knew she was missing, or wait as she watched her mind fray. With her luck, focusing on the missing piece was what was making her mind fray.

It was like picking at scabs. You knew you shouldn’t, but once you started, you couldn’t stop. She’d just be losing her sanity instead of a little bit of blood. Yay.

“Well. You seem down.”

Bitterroot raised her head. Carnelian was standing above her, looking down with mild interest. Bitterroot grunted, “Yep.”

“How bad?”

“Why do you care?” Bitterroot heard herself say.

“Because I don’t like seeing you looking like that.”

Uh-huh. Sure. Or was that just paranoia talking? Bitterroot ran a hoof through her mane and decided to give Carnelian the benefit of the doubt. “Right. Sorry.” She let out a sigh. “I’ve just been having… a really, really bad day.”

“Really?” Carnelian asked, her eyes wide. “Why? What’s going on?”

The question almost felt performative, coming from someone Bitterroot barely knew. She latched onto it anyway. “I’ve… I’ve been seeing things.”

Immediately, Carnelian’s brow furrowed, and suddenly she did look worried. “What… manner of things are you seeing?”

“It’s a circle,” Bitterroot said. “A- A crossed circle.” She reached out a hoof and sketched it in the dirt; Carnelian stared at it intently. “I’ve been- seeing it everywhere. I-” She almost talked about the brand, but she stopped herself. Too much at one time. “I feel like it- means something. How, how long have you- lived here?”

Carnelian’s head snapped up like a whip and she gazed intently at Bitterroot. “Why?”

“Because I want to know if, if you’ve seen it anywhere,” said Bitterroot, “and if you’ve only been living here a year, then- then maybe you not seeing it doesn’t mean much.”

“…I’ve been in Tratonmane for… a while,” said Carnelian, “and I’ve never seen anything like what you’re speaking of.”

“Alright,” said Bitterroot. “S-so it’s just me.” She forced out a laugh.

“Mmhh.”

Bitterroot sat there. Carnelian looked down at her. Bitterroot wasn’t sure what she’d expected. She knew Carnelian even less than she knew somepony like Arrastra. What was she going to do, spill her guts to a random stranger and expect results?

“I wish there was something I could do to help you,” Carnelian said, “but this is… something I have no experience with. Sorry.” She shrugged and walked off.

“Thanks!” Bitterroot hollered after her. No response. So much for any hope of friendship.

She groaned and massaged her temples, trying to think about something, anything else besides those circles. (Including the circles she was rubbing into her head…) Trains. She liked trains. The locomotive looked interesting, using stored magical energy in some way. That’d simplify its operation immensely. She should’ve talked about it with Tallbush back when she could find-

Tallbush. Town hall. Library. Maybe it wouldn’t work. Maybe it would. It’d be something.

Amanita could never, ever, ever make it as a hunter of any sort.

Everyone in the search party could still focus. Everyone except her. It was stupid of her to think they’d find Whippletree on the first day, she knew, yet that was what she expected, in the back of her mind. Strolling into Midwich Forest, rescuing Whippletree immediately, stroll back into Midwich, be hailed as the rescuing hero. She struggled forcing herself out of that mindset and always fell back into it once she stepped away.

Which made this practice, she supposed, but it was still annoying.

They were still on the west side of the river as they zigzagged across the valley. It wasn’t a large river, but still one you wouldn’t want to ford in this climate. They were heading south, technically, moving closer to Tratonmane bit by bit. Amanita could only register another swath of dark forest, but everyone else seemed fine with what they saw. Wolves continued to prowl around outside the light, although they didn’t attack again. Moments blurred together for Amanita as her legs grew sore. She followed the group as they walked.

But the group also seemed to have sore legs, because at some point they stopped in a small clearing for a quick rest. No supplies were passed out except for some water. Charcoal gazed out east, where the light was creeping up the cliff face. She flicked her ears, flicked her tail. Then she said, “I think we should follow the river.”

Some of the other ponies looked up. Arrastra wiped her mouth down and asked, “Why?”

Charcoal bit her lip. “W-well, it’s- Who, who was out here with us that first day? Or- second day, I guess.” Several ponies raised their hooves, and Charcoal continued, “You all remember how we got to that one durn- turn in the stream and it made us all feel weird?”

There was a general murmur of assent and Amanita was nodding. Once Charcoal had pointed out that the river didn’t follow the ley line, she’d just somehow known it was wrong.

“It’s, okay,” said Charcoal. “See, the wolves attacking every moon isn’t because of the ley line because that happened before the line changed, but they usually don’t go as far in as that one wolf did, so maybe that wolf was affected by the ley line, so maybe the river is related to that, so wait a minute the river changed course before the ley line did so that has nothing to do with it dangit.”

“It might,” said Code. “We still haven’t a clue as to what’s up with the ley line.”

“Aye,” said Arrastra. “An’ if’n we dinnae find Whippletree taeday, we-” She flinched and glanced down at the ground, rustling beneath her haunches. Without a word, she unslung her chainsaw, gave the cord a yank to get the crystal dynamo going, and smashed it into the nearest tree. The ground stopped rustling. Arrastra flipped the chainsaw off and nonchalantly continued, “It’s somethin’ tae try. I dinnae have ary qualms at tryin’ it now.”

“Hmm.” Charcoal looked up at the sky. “It’s getting kinda late… We might not get far on the river before-”

“Hey!”

The wolves scattered at the voice echoing through the forest and Amanita’s ears pricked up. The voice wasn’t nervous or panicked, just calling out for someone. She thought she recognized it… Varnish?

“Helloooooo! Arrastra?”

“Varnish?” Arrastra yelled out. “We’re o’er here! One o’ y’all horn ponies toss a light up, will ye?”

It wasn’t long before Varnish galloped his way into camp, although he wasn’t moving urgently or breathing heavily. “Everything’s fine at Tratonmane, I merely had a flash of inspiration,” he said casually, preempting any questions. “I cast some spells on the wood the timberwolf left behind, then compared it to the ley line-”

“What spells?” Charcoal asked. She got to her hooves, frowning. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I’ve lived here a while,” Varnish said airily. “Unlike you, I know what to look for.”

“That doesn’t explain-”

“If you work it all out,” Varnish said, “I believe the signature matches the way the ley line spreads out to the west.” He pointed at the western wall, where the darkness in Midwich was the deepest. “It appears the timberwolves might have a grove or something of the sort over there.”

Arrastra seemed skeptical as she looked. “Ye’re certain? We didnae hear nor see ary-”

“Trust me, they’re out there,” said Varnish. “They simply have spent so much time around night trees-” He knocked one of them. “-that they have become nocturnal.”

“Eh…” Charcoal was making little shakes of her head. “I… I’m not sure-”

“We’ve nothing to lose but time,” said Varnish. “Come on. I thought you wanted to save Whippletree.”

Arrastra’s wings twitched, and for a moment, Amanita thought Varnish had struck a nerve. Instead, Arrastra stood up and nodded. “Aye. Might as well. We dinnae have much of a plan, aryway.”

As the group headed westward, Charcoal trotted to catch up with Varnish. “So, uh, nobody could find you this morning. What was up with that?”

“Ah, well.” Varnish waved a hoof dismissively. “I’m old, you know how old ponies get.”

“I resent that,” Code said immediately.

“Aye,” said Arrastra, narrowing her eye.

“And what sort of magic did you use?” continued Charcoal. “I’ve never heard of anything like that for timberwolves, especially not with leftover branches.”

Varnish snorted. “It’s complicated.”

“We’ve got time.”

“I’m also interested,” said Code. “This could change quite a bit of what we know about timberwolves.”

“Well…”

Given something to do, even something as stupid as looking through a small-town library, Bitterroot’s spirits were raised slightly. Or maybe that was just the alcoholic buzz dwindling. It felt good, at any rate. It wouldn’t be long before Amanita and the others were back, right? Right.

A hunch began wiggling its way into her mind: she’d find Tallbush at the town hall. Ha, imagine. Well, if her luck was good, maybe it’d be good enough to needle him into letting them into the mine. Then she could feel like she’d accomplished something today. Yeah, worth a shot.

When Bitterroot reached the town hall, she squinted through the window to see- Huh. There were lamps burning inside. Maybe he was there. Out of habit, Bitterroot knocked at the door. She didn’t yell, just in case. Didn’t want to seem rude, after all. Her consideration was swiftly rewarded with approaching hoofsteps. Maybe they were a bit louder than usual, but Bitterroot paid that no mind. It could’ve been the echoes.

Then the door opened and Bitterroot’s stomach jumped into her throat.

Tallbush was angelic.

Old-school, “fear not” angelic.

His body blazed like a washed-out photo negative, so dark it hurt to look at, yet shining that blackness all the same. Angular patterns wreathed his body, never moving, always changing whenever Bitterroot so much as blinked. Lightning crackled from his mane, his tail, his fetlocks, trailing off into writhing runes in the air and emitting tangible heat that didn’t touch the snow. Intricate magic circles rotated in place of his irises and his polycored pupils were unfathomably deep voids, so deep that the tiny specks of light glistening in them could only be stars — that is, if they weren’t galaxies. Three gleaming horns adorned his brow, six restless wings girded his flanks, and eight legs supported him. Above his head burned a crossed halo that seemed less an object and more an iridescent warping of space.

Bitterroot felt rooted to the spot, like moving would be committing a heinous sin. She tried to speak. Her mouth, her tongue, her lungs all locked up.

“Hidy,” he said. “Need arythin’?” More pale darkness shone from his mouth and beneath his voice a thousand others whispered in harmony, a multitude of phrases in a multitude of accents in a multitude of tongues: “Whaddya want?” “¿Necesitas algo?” “Je, unahitaji chochote?” “Este ceva de care ai nevoie?” The thunderous song distorted Bitterroot’s mind, bored into her head and temples like a high-pitched whine, somehow even more piercing. She winced and cringed backward, nearly covering her ears.

“…You’un alright?” Tallbush asked in that unreal voice of his. “Ye see somethin’?” He looked behind himself; Bitterroot flinched back again at the heat of his mane. She glanced down slightly as she averted her gaze from that glare, and when she did, she saw a crossed circle radiating shadows where his cutie mark ought to be.

Tallbush turned back to Bitterroot and she forced herself to look into his eyes. His eyes that were so deep she felt like she could fall into them. “Ye’re lookin’ a touch outta fix- Erm, sick,” he said. “Are ye feelin’ alright? Can I get ye arything?”

“Um, n-no,” said Bitterroot. She took a single step back. It was the only action she could manage that wasn’t flying for the horizon at top speed. “I- just- I just need to- get some rest. Bad night last night. Headache.”

“If’n ye say so,” said Tallbush. He squinted at her. Bitterroot got the feeling his eyes were boring into her soul. “Hmm. Ye look it.”

Bitterroot forced herself to smile. “I’ll- be alright.”

No. No, she absolutely wouldn’t. Her heart was pounding so loud she was sure it could be heard across the valley. This was Tallbush? This… She didn’t even have the words. She was transfixed. She was horrified. She was awed in the original, Classical sense, before it’d been diluted down to “kinda impressed”. And he was the one who drove the train?

Or maybe she was seeing things. Yeah. Yeah. This just- had to be a hallucination. Like the circles she was seeing everywhere. Stress. This wasn’t real. Couldn’t be. Nothing was wrong. She was just seeing things that weren’t there. More and more. As well as feeling them. And hearing them. Yeah. Just that. No problem.

No problem.

No problem, sun blast it.

“Hold up…” Bitterroot’s soul was scrutinized again as Tallbush squinted at her. Her claim that it was a hallucination was feeling flimsier each second. His sigh was momentous. “Werenae you’un a-goin’ out intae the forest? Tae hunt up Whippletree.”

“W-well, I… Like I said, I wasn’t feeling the greatest. I t-tried to help, but-” Bitterroot forced out another smile like she was pushing her head through a thimble. “A-Amanita and Code and Charcoal are s-still out there, though,” I want to leave, I want to leave, I want to leave- “I was- I was just- I got turned around in the dark. W-wrong building.”

“Heh. Made that mistake meself, a few time. Get yerself indoors.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll- get there. B-be seeing you.” And she was away, all thoughts of the mine forgotten.

She was barely able to fly, she was shaking so much. That- That was- Bitterroot felt sick to her stomach, like she’d just seen something primal while unprepared. The lamps swam in her vision as she blinked. When she touched a hoof to her eyes, she came away with tears. She didn’t even know what she’d seen and it’d shot through her, all the way down to her basest instincts.

She staggered over and slouched against the Great Ash. Something that big and that solid meant the world was able to stop spinning. She breathed long and deep. In, out, in, out…

Eventually, her veins stopped buzzing and with one last breath, she was able to stand up straight. Her legs required force to bend, but she bent them. Step by step, she walked back to the Watering Cave. By the time she reached it, she was almost moving like normal again.

Her thoughts, though…

She collapsed into the nearest chair, cradling her head in her hooves. A few hours. She could at least hold out for that long. The group would be back in a few hours, and then she’d tell them everything. Just a few hours, right?

The search party stayed out into the night. The actual night, stars and all, not that it made that much difference on the valley floor. All the while, they roamed up and down the valley, picked apart the foothills, scoured the bottom of the cliffs, even had some of the pegasi and chiropteri investigate the cliff face. Nothing.

“You’re positive that they should be around here?” Charcoal said.

“Reasonably sure, yes,” said Varnish.

“How?”

“It’s complicated, you wouldn’t understand it.”

“I don’t think you understand it, because there’s nothing here.” Frustration like that sounded strange coming from Charcoal.

“She has a point,” Code said. “Which is more than you have.”

Varnish opened his mouth, paused, pointed. “I shall look over there,” he said. Soon, all that could be seen of him was his hornlight bobbing through the trees.

“Coward,” snorted Code.

Amanita and Charcoal exchanged glances. With a heat haze rippling from her body, Charcoal rolled her eyes and mumbled, “We should’ve followed the stream.”

Eventually, Arrastra declared that day a wash and they headed south to Tratonmane. Code quickly cornered Varnish and Amanita found herself drawn to the conversation, walking right behind the two of them. “Tell me,” said Code. “What did bring you out here? Depending on how it works-”

“Like I said, it’s complicated.” Varnish’s voice was strange; Amanita suspected he was trying to sound casual and airy but Code was poking at his nerves.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

“It would take quite a while.

“We’ve got time.”

“You’re an earth pony. You think you know more about magic than me?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

Varnish whirled on her. “Listen here, you arrogant-”

“You listen.” Code didn’t raise her voice, yet her words held more weight than his. “We’re looking for a pony, here. Someone who is, by all accounts, an important member of the community. Something you seem to have forgotten. And when you point us in a direction that goes nowhere, keeps us out this late-”

“It was a spark of inspiration that didn’t pan out, don’t you-”

“And that’s fine. That happens. But when we’re asking how you got that spark and you just wave off our inquiries, I have questions. Maybe it was a good idea and just needed a fresh pair of eyes to spot some small mistake you made.”

“I made no mistakes.”

“Prove it. Show me.”

“You wouldn’t-”

“My friend.” Code’s voice had gained a layer of ice. “I am the High Ritualist of Equestria. I have touched the foundations of the world and cavorted amongst the pillars of reality. Demons have cursed my name in rage when I bound them. I have laws of metaphysics named after me. Plural. Whatever spell you’re working, I think I can understand it.”

Varnish said nothing. He wrenched his head forward and glared at nothing. His hoofsteps fell a little harder.

“What? You’re not gonna tell me?”

He was not.

“If you’re going to waste our time and not tell us why, don’t come back tomorrow.”

Varnish set his jaw and still said nothing.

It was late by the time they reached the town again, late enough that the moon was just beginning to nudge its way over the eastern ridge. As they broke free of the treeline and trotted up the road, Arrastra worked her ways towards Amanita and the group. “Thankee fer yer help today,” she said.

“But we didn’t find Whippletree,” Amanita said. That was the important part, right?

But Arrastra waved her down. “Ach, we ken he’s alive. There ain’t no way we coulda kenned that without ye. We’ve still a chance at findin’ him. And if’n we dinnae…” Her pause lingered a bit too long. “Ye did yer best.”

When they finally reached the buildings, Arrastra flapped to the head of the group and waved for their attention. “I’ll be headin’ back out on the morrow,” she announced. “I’d mighty appreciate it if’n you’uns came wi’ me, but I get it if’n ye dinnae. Dinnae feel obligated.”

There were a few murmurs that of course they’d be there, and Amanita suspected the main reason there weren’t any more was because ponies were filing into the Watering Cave for a late dinner. Within moments, Arrastra and the Canterlotians were the only ones on the street. Arrastra didn’t seem too concerned, chuckling as she watched them leave.

Code stepped forward. “For what it’s worth, we’ll be there as well.” (Amanita wondered if Code was being presumptuous by making decisions for them, or wise in knowing that Amanita would still be there even if the choice was hers.)

“Thankee,” said Arrastra. She made a small bow to them.

Amanita wanted to leave right then, but an idea she’d tried suppressing for the whole day came rolling into her head in such a way she knew she couldn’t ignore. She tried swallowing to wet her throat. “So, uh… about Pyrita…”

The tension came on so quickly Amanita was sure she could feel the universe ratcheting it up. She definitely saw Arrastra’s wings tighten. Already, she was regretting asking, but oh, well. Too late now. “You’re sure there’s nothing in the mine that could’ve… affected her?” Amanita asked. “It’s- You saw I can, I can resurrect ponies, and- she-” She made a vague gesture at nothing.

“Amanita,” said Code softly.

“She- went in at the same time the ley line changed,” Amanita babbled. Somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to say that Pyrita had died in front of Arrastra. “That, that’s very… coincidental and, if it- turns out it’s not, then- then maybe we can get this sorted out sooner.”

Arrastra stared at Amanita, and for a moment, Amanita wondered if she was about to get punched in the nose again. But then Arrastra just shook her head. “Aye, I’m certain,” she said. “There ain’t a thing in the mine that’d hurt her.”

“You’re sure?” Amanita failed to not make her voice sound strained. That couldn’t be right. It just couldn’t.

“Aye. Nothin’.”

“Amanita,” Code whispered in her ear.

Amanita waved her off, but she got the hint. “Alright. Thanks, anyway.”

“Mmhmm.” A small nod. “Night.”

“Good night,” Code replied.

Amanita started walking towards the inn almost before Code was done speaking. Now that she was done walking, all of her aches and pains were coming on in full force. It’d been literal years since she’d walked that much, and back then, she’d had adrenaline and the threat of death pushing her onwards, keeping her from-

“W-wait.”

Amanita turned around. Arrastra was staring intently at her. Her wings were rustling and one of her hooves kept scraping at the snow. She opened her mouth, closed it again.

“Did you want to say something?” Amanita asked.

Arrastra flexed her wings, then shook her head. “…Nay. Nothin’.” She gave them one last look, then winged off into the night.

“She’s lying, isn’t she?” Charcoal asked.

“Probably,” said Code. “But I’m too hungry to figure out why. Let’s get dinner.”

But before they could take a step, two dark shapes descended into the light: Midwinter and Carnelian. They landed between the trio and the inn and they were both looking at Amanita with borderline hunger in their eyes. “We heard you resurrected a pony,” Midwinter said unprompted before she’d even folded her wings back up.

“Yes. Crosscut.” Weariness was wiggling its way into Amanita’s muscles. “If you’re interested, talk to her.” She tried to step around.

Midwinter moved to block her. “Respectfully, she is not the one who performed the resurrection. That would be you.”

“You must be incredibly talented,” said Carnelian. She was gazing at Amanita with something uncomfortably close to awe. “And you’ve been under our noses, all this time… We should’ve known from the spell you cast on the bear…”

“How did you do it?” Midwinter asked, taking a step forward, seemingly unconsciously. “This could change everything…”

“Circle phoenix down toadstone runes,” Amanita said. “Look, can I talk to you tomorrow? I’ve been walking around Midwich Forest all day.”

“And Varnish won’t even admit he screwed up after sending us on a wild spruce chase,” said Charcoal. “…No, wait, goose. Goose chase.”

“If he does that again, I’m going to kill that incompetent fool,” said Code, pawing at the ground with her ears back. “He won’t even tell us how he came up with that route.”

“Did we chase gooses often?” muttered Charcoal. “Why is that a phrase?”

Amanita rubbed her forehead. “It’s been a long day for me. I’m tired and hungry. Don’t make me need to resurrect you. Seriously.”

Midwinter twitched. “Apologies,” she said, inclining her head. “Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow,” said Amanita. Why did people always feel the need to confirm everything?

Midwinter nodded again and soon she was gone. Carnelian stayed right where she was. “How are you so… restrained?” she asked. “If I knew necromancy that well-”

“I’m not in Canterlot, so the word ‘necromancer’ isn’t exactly a welcoming one,” Amanita said. “Tomorrow. Please.”

“…Very well,” Carnelian said, her voice clipped. “I’ll hold you to it. You are a very interesting pony, Amanita.” She turned around and marched into the darkness, flicking her tail.

“And don’t murder anyone!” Amanita called after her.

That made Carnelian stumble. She looked over her shoulder and blinked. Her wings twitched.

“Don’t murder someone so I can bring them back!” Amanita said. “We don’t murder ponies for testing!” Anymore.

“But if you keep me from my food for any longer, I’ll murder you!” Code yelled.

“Ah. Well…” Carnelian flexed her wings and smiled. “You should never let a pony get in the way of a good meal. Eat well!” She cheerfully waved at them and walked off.

“Feed me,” Code growled at no one in particular, stomping towards the inn.

Bitterroot stared at the remains of her dinner. Before, she’d been too hungry to wait for the search party to return; now, it wasn’t sitting well in her stomach. Great.

The Watering Cave’s common room was empty except for her, a few late-nighters, and Cabin. Nobody was saying anything to anyone else and the air was very still. Bitterroot sniffed; the scent of vegetables mingled with that of lamp oil.

Had something happened to the group? They had some pegasi to fly back if something went wrong, right? But Tratonmane hadn’t heard anything. Or- she hadn’t heard anything. Maybe she’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and missed-

She jumped as the door banged open and ponies began pouring in. There wasn’t any worry or concern among them. Weariness, but not- Then, after the flow seemed to have stopped, Amanita and the others entered. Amanita noticed Bitterroot and beelined over. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” said Bitterroot. “Sorry I ate before you.” That was what she said?

“You’re fine, it’s late. How’re you feeling?”

“Awful.” That was how she put it?

“Really? Worse than-”

“You, you’re probably hungry.” Bitterroot gestured vaguely at the bar. “We can talk after you have dinner.” Was she martyring herself to keep them comfortable?

Well, they got food. Even in Tratonmane, calling it “dinner” was giving what was on their plates more extravagance than it possessed. But the Canterlotians, everyone in the room, dug in with gusto. If their days had been as long as Bitterroot’s, she sympathized. Some of the ponies glanced at Amanita every now and again, but never with the vitriol they’d had before.

Bitterroot watched intently as the food vanished. She was tensing up. Why was she tensing up? Was she that eager to talk to them? Probably. She had so much she needed to get out when no one was around to listen. No one noticed and she wouldn’t have cared if she did.

When the plates were almost empty, Bitterroot stood up and mumbled, “I’ll be right back.” Her head was swimming; maybe she’d been in the musty common room for too long and the open air would do her some good.

The air was cold and getting colder, and the snow bounced light around in strange ways. Bitterroot breathed deeply, trying to center herself. Wind played across her muzzle, stealing her heat but making new sensations for her. She looked up, out of Midwich, at the clear sky, at the stars, at the moon peeking over the ridge. Amanita was back. She could do this.

But at the thought, something sizzled through her veins, making her twitch. She forcibly flexed her wings; they felt too stiff for what she’d done that day. Her head buzzed as the scents around her started spiking in intensity. Something shifted in her chest, beneath her skin.

This was new. This wasn’t stress. There was genuinely something wrong with her.

Bitterroot staggered back into the inn, wincing at all the smells. Her breath was raspy, her vision was soupy, and she had trouble staying upright. Something ground against her blood like sandpaper. Her hearing was distorting. Where was her table?

Amanita was the first to notice; she immediately scrambled over to her. “Whoa, hey,” she said soothingly as she gave Bitterroot something to lean on. “Are you feeling okay?”

“N-no,” croaked Bitterroot. She slammed into the table, jarring plates and knocking over a cup, as she slumped over it. Her breath was clammy and her mouth had too much saliva. Was she too cold or too hot?

“Okay, easy.” Code was up and rubbing Bitterroot’s back. “How long have you felt like this?”

“Just- a few- moments.” There was something in her throat. Something was growing in her throat. “B-before I s-stepped outside, I-”

A sudden migraine threatened to split her head open. As she fell back, howling in pain, branches erupted from her eyes.

24 - Fox in the Henhouse

Bitterroot’s scream lanced through the air like a physical thing as she collapsed. Her skin rippled and pulled itself tight and tore itself apart and twisted into knots of bark. She was shriveling and boiling as bloody leaves pushed their way out of her coat. Her wings beat frantically, sloughing feathers like they were diseased, and she kicked out violently. One of her legs hit the table, sending food and drink scattering as she writhed and branches overtook her.

Amanita yelped and flailed, all vestiges of weariness gone in a single jolt of shock. Her chair toppled backward; somehow, she was able to keep scurrying with her eyes on Bitterroot. Charcoal was already in a far corner of the room, plastered against the wall. But Code was already in a stance that looked like she was ready to fight. They were attracting attention, with ponies looking over, some screaming, some cursing, some running.

Bitterroot thrashed on the floor, flesh vanishing and clothes tearing as wood enveloped her. Her screams twisted, contorted, deepened. Her hooves split apart into thick splinters. Her muzzle elongated with sap flying from her mouth and her teeth roughing. Her coat vanished beneath bark. And when she opened her eyes, they were glowing green.

The timberwolf that had once been Bitterroot sprang to its feet and lunged for Amanita.

Or tried to. As soon as it was in the air, Code had bodyslammed it. The impact blew it into sticks, but her angle had ensured most of those sticks were heading in the same direction. It was already coming back together before the two of them landed. Amanita shuffled away, hyperventilating. She wanted to run. She couldn’t leave Bitterroot.

Code tumbled through tables and chairs in a haze of branches. As the timberwolf reformed, Code scooped up what was becoming its head and pressed it to the ground. “Cabin!” she yelled. She raised her own head to keep away from the worst of the swipes of the wolf’s claws. “Lend me your magic, now!”

Cabin was still behind the bar, agape. When Code yelled at her, she flinched, opened her mouth. Then her horn glowed for maybe half a second before dissipating. Code grunted, stomped on the timberwolf’s head to shatter it, and rolled away before it could reform. Taking a deep breath, she rubbed her hooves together, then slammed them into the floor. Immediately, a large dome of a shield snapped into being around the timberwolf.

Cabin flinched. “H-how can ye-”

The timberwolf lunged for Code, plowing into the shield at full speed. The shield pulsed and its hum made everyone wince, Code most of all. “Just keep the magic coming,” she growled through clenched teeth. “Unless you can keep up a shield and let me think.”

“I- I cannae do that.” Cabin shook her head.

Code made a hissed sound of frustration. Veins were standing on her legs as she settled into a ready stance and seemed to shimmer around her hooves. “Can’t keep this up forever,” she snarled, mostly to herself, as the wolf lunged again. “Think, Colonel, think…”

Amanita blinked. This… She had to be able to do something about this, right? If only to help Code. She risked a few seconds just breathing regularly, forcing her heart to slow and her mind to clear. Her panic dwindled; she was still thinking a mile a minute, but now with purpose. Okay.

Okay.

Okay. Bitterroot had become a timberwolf. What did that mean? Abstractly.

Her essence was being taken over by the forest’s. The land’s. She was being submerged. She was drowning. Why? Who knew. That was irrelevant. More important: how to get her out?

Destroy Midwich’s essence. Or draw it out. Either way. But she didn’t know enough about land magic to touch it directly. So how to get at it?

Sympathetically. She needed something inextricably tied with the land, something made by Tratonmanians in Tratonmane with Tratonmanian materials and a Tratonmanian history. And then she needed to destroy it. But which traditions allowed you to destroy them?

The timberwolf slammed its body against the shield and a high tone rang out. Code grunted like she’d been physically struck. Cabin winced and gagged.

Which, which which…

Food. Food was a major tradition and you always destroyed food. Food would work.

…Or whiskey.

Whiskey. Distilled from Tratonmane waters. Made from Tratonmane rye. Brewed by Tratonmane ponies. Whiskey was perfect.

And the Watering Cave had a lot of whiskey.

Amanita’s gaze snapped to look at the wall behind the bar. Barrels and barrels and barrels. Whiskey alone wasn’t enough, but she had a place to start.

There were still some ponies in the room, caught in train-wreck fascination. Amanita picked two at random and pointed at them; you didn’t yell for “somepony!” in an emergency. “You two. Bring me a barrel of whiskey. Any kind. Cheap and bad’s fine.”

There was a brief spark of confusion as the two looked at each other, then they bolted to the bar. They were doing something, so Amanita immediately ignored them and went back to thinking.

The timberwolf scrabbled at the inside of the dome, jaws snapping; its claws left jagged, glowing furrows behind them. Code’s breath was raspy for a moment before she stomped the ground. The earth trembled, the shield flexed, and the furrows vanished. She glanced at Amanita, but said nothing. Cabin was screwing her eyes shut and breathing heavily.

Okay. Whiskey could remove the influence of the forest. But if it damaged Bitterroot’s body or soul, poisoned them, then scars would be left behind, and- Poison. “Charcoal, look through my bags,” Amanita said. “You’ll find some small, smooth, round pebbles. Brown. Toadstones. Bring me one of them.” Toadstones were good for healing and against poison. An important part of resurrection.

“T-toadstones,” Charcoal said. Her nods were quick and terrified. “G-got it.” She stumbled up the stairs, her legs shaking enough to make climbing difficult.

Cabin was hunched over the bar. Taking long, deep breaths. The shield was still up, so her magic was still coming. The two ponies Amanita had talked to laid a nice, large barrel next to her. They were asking something she willed herself to not hear.

Okay. Okay. Whiskey to remove, toadstone to heal… It wouldn’t do everything, though. Her phoenix down wouldn’t work; it was good for full-on rebirth. …Runes. She knew some of the runes she used in necromancy, now. The ones that talked about healing… Those would work. Easy. So how to use the whiskey? How to shape the spell?

A circle, it was always a circle. Gouge a little moat around the shield, dump the whiskey in, write the runes around the outside. Destroy the whiskey? Burn it?

Charcoal came stumbling back down the stairs, a pouch in her magic. She upended it on the bar, spilling toadstones everywhere, then picked one up and shakily brought it to Amanita. She stared at the timberwolf, eyes wide.

Yeah, yeah, that could work. Fire changed things. Yes. Change the land’s icon, change the land’s influence. The toadstone would destroy anything wrong in Bitterroot. The runes would heal her. Yes. Yes! But she needed something to pull it all together. Glue.

The timberwolf had seemingly worn itself out and was now prowling around the perimeter of the shield, glaring at the ponies with flashing eyes and emanating sharp growls. Code was growling back, her teeth bared carnivorously. But the shield was beginning to waver.

Magic. Unicorn magic. Amanita herself would be the binding agent. She had a good idea of what the structure would be like. It’d hurt like Tartarus, but it’d be easy and fast.

…And that was all she needed.

Amanita pointed at one of the whiskey ponies. “Find me matches.” Then she went over to one of the tables and, with a mix of telekinesis and physical strength, ripped one of the legs off. She used it to trace around the shield, deeper than usual, in the compacted dirt of the floor, then sketch out the runes.

The timberwolf followed around the edge, barking and clawing at the shield in an attempt to get to her. Amanita tried not to look at it. She also tried not to listen to the way Code’s breathing was increasingly strained.

“I cannae hold it,” Cabin rasped. “It’s- I-”

“Use mine!” squeaked Charcoal. Her horn briefly glowed with a ringing of small bells. Without looking at her, Code stomped the ground again. The shield flickered and its color suddenly shifted from Cabin’s to Charcoal’s as it stabilized. Cabin gasped like a weight had been released from her and collapsed to the ground as Charcoal started breathing through clenched teeth.

Circle done. Amanita smashed the table leg against the whiskey barrel, busting a hole in it that started dribbling liquid. She shifted it around to where it was leaking into the little trench, and soon the moat had an adequate amount of whiskey in it. Finally, she stomped the toadstone into the dirt, just outside the border. Poison in the earth, healing in the earth. The ground was softer than it should’ve been.

Her teeth were buzzing.

The pony returned with a matchbox. Amanita took it without a word and started pulling the ritual pieces together. The weave of magic trembled with a song ready to be strummed. Amanita, as the endpoints of the weave, would be yanked. Hard. Small price to pay.

“Amanita, hurry up,” wheezed Code. The translucency of the shield was growing unstable again. Maybe the wolf noticed. Charcoal had staggered over to a table and was slouching over it, breathing heavily, eyes screwed shut.

Amanita faced the circle and threw together a quick incantation. The words bubbled out from her like someone else had written them. “She’s not your own, despite your claim,” she intoned. “Her body is not yours.” She struck a match; the air pulsed as reality tensed. “It is by us you shall be tamed-” The flame flared and curled and breathed, ready to ignite something more. “-and thus we close your doors.”

She tossed the match into the whiskey ring.

The fire raced around the moat with an unnerving swiftness, surrounding Bitterroot in less than a second. It grew unnaturally high, climbing almost to the ceiling, and flared brighter than any light in the room. Yet the heat that fell from it was soothing rather than scalding, alarming only because of the contrast with the cold it drove away. Ponies staggered back in surprise and the timberwolf let out a chilling howl.

Alcohol burned quickly and the fire was gone in moments. But through her horn, Amanita felt something buzz in the air.

The toadstone’s crack was loud enough to blot out everything else.

The branches of the timberwolf exploded outwards, leaving Bitterroot screaming on the floor. Code gasped; the shield collapsed at the same time she did. Lightning both metaphorical and literal raced up and down Amanita’s nerves. She screamed and spasmed, toppling to one side and smashing against a fallen chair. Her sense of balance told her the world was spinning in two different ways at the same time as thorns prickled throughout her mouth. When she coughed and spat, what came from her mouth was ashen.

But as the timberwolf’s bark caught fire and the leaves turned to ash and embers drifted lazily down, Bitterroot managed to silence herself. She jerked into a fetal position, her entire body heaving like she was a captured rodent. Wild eyes darted between everypony and her breathless, whimpering wheezes tripped over themselves. “I didn’t mean it I didn’t do it I don’t know what happened-”

“You’re okay!” coughed Amanita. “You’re- You’re okay!”

“-I’m sorry it wasn’t me please I didn’t mean it-”

Amanita managed to pull herself to her hooves. Her ears were ringing as she shuffled forward, but she could still hear Code coughing, as well as… Who was that? She looked off to the side. Charcoal was draped across the table and breathing like she’d just finished sprinting a marathon, but seemed to be unhurt.

The barrel was still leaking whiskey and Amanita slipped in it. The new pain managed to displace the old as she stood back up. “Bitterroot!” she said.

Bitterroot’s gaze snapped to Amanita. She didn’t say anything, but she kept taking small, quick breaths and she was blinking like crazy as her wings writhed.

“No one got hurt,” Amanita said in what she hoped was a soothing voice. “It’s okay, it’s alright. No one got hurt.”

Bitterroot’s blinking slowed slightly. “I d-didn’t hurt anyone?” she whispered.

“No one got hurt,” said Amanita. “Right, girls?” Right?

“I can taste blue,” Code said in disgust. “I can honestly taste blue. …How do I know it’s blue?” She groaned and put a hoof to her face. “…Conflab it, where’re my glasses? Pffbbt. I’ve got spares, don’t worry if you step on them, but…” She stood up and flexed her entire body, grunting.

Charcoal was already off the table and crouching on the floor, examining one of the branches that had once been part of the timberwolf. “This is aspen,” she muttered. “Why is it aspen?… Oh! Uh…” She raised her voice. “I’m… fine. Just… Just fine. Aspen…”

Cabin raised a hoof. “I’ve had worser,” she said. “Dinnae worry no mind me.”

“See?” Amanita said, risking a smile at Bitterroot. “Fine.”

Slowly, bit by bit, Bitterroot began uncurling. She went from a tight ball to lying down to sitting down. She was twitchy from her ears to her wings to her tail and her eyes refused to sit still, but she was sitting up. “I d-didn’t m-mean it,” she whispered to everyone staring at her.

“It’s not your fault,” Amanita said reflexively. “How do you feel?”

Bitterroot shook her head. “I- I don’t-” Suddenly, she clapped a hoof to her chest and started gasping. Everyone recoiled from her in fear.

Everyone except Amanita. “Bitterroot?” she asked, cautiously stepping closer.

“It hurts,” Bitterroot rasped, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’ve- Something’s in my-” She coughed, then gave a sort of tortured scream. She clapped her hooves to her mouth as her entire body convulsed.

Then her breathing was normal again, even and loud and unlabored. She wasn’t twitching. She wasn’t changing. She was just sitting there, tense and still. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at her hooves.

“Tartarus!” she shrieked. She hurled something to the ground and awkwardly shuffled away from it with her wings beating fitfully and a look of terror on her face. Holding her breath, Amanita inched over to what Bitterroot had thrown.

Sitting on the ground, flecked with blood and phlegm, was a tiny armature of twisted brass clockwork.

“Look at the match…”

Bitterroot struggled to do so, but only because most ponies would struggle to look directly at a bright source of light that close. Her pupil contracted properly.

Amanita gave the match a shake to extinguish it. Bitterroot’s pupil dilated properly.

“Her pupils are fine, so I don’t think there’s brain or mental damage,” Amanita said to Code.

Code looked up from the little clockwork gizmo. She’d managed to find her glasses before anyone had stepped on them. A blood vessel in her eye had burst, but no matter how shocking it looked, a little subconjunctival hemorrhage was nothing to be concerned about. “Good,” she said. “Charcoal, how’s it going?”

“Almost there,” Charcoal said. Cabin had lent her a mortar and pestle that she was using to grind up one of her plants — a noonflower, was it? — into some kind of medicine to help ensure that Bitterroot had been fully purged. Amanita didn’t quite understand the mechanics, but Code seemed to and was satisfied.

The moment Bitterroot had calmed down enough, Code wanted to do a checkup on her, as thorough as they could. Any leftover magics? Any mental trouble beyond trauma? Any physical harm? So as the few patrons still around awkwardly started cleaning up, Amanita, Code, and Charcoal started analyzing Bitterroot and the device she vomited up. Everyone was watching them with bated breath.

Amanita turned back to Bitterroot. “How do you feel?” she asked again. “Physically, not emotionally.”

Bitterroot shifted her weight around on the chair. “Tired,” she said. “Tense. B-but otherwise normal.” She was speaking quietly, like she didn’t want to disturb anyone by talking too loudly.

Charcoal suddenly nudged her way in, levitating a cup filled with cloudy water. “Drink this,” she said. “The ritual jarred most of the magic loose and this’ll get any magic still stuck in you throwing- flowing more freely so it’ll be less effective.”

With a certain automaticity, Bitterroot snatched the cup and took a chug. She blinked and looked at it, then took a more delicate sip. “This… tastes good,” she said in surprise. She started drinking it like she would a fine wine.

“It’s a side effect of the noonflower,” said Charcoal. “It gets mana flowing more easily, and that includes the mana in your mouth and even your tongue-”

As Charcoal talked, Amanita walked over to Code and her table. She was still examining the device like a jeweler. “Any luck?” Amanita asked.

“Not yet,” Code said. “I’m no artificer, and this is a spectacular bit of artifice. See all these gears? They have runes carved in them. Mere millimeters high. And as the gears turn, they form spells.”

“They- What?” That was mind-boggling. The runes were tiny, there were plenty of gears, the number of permutations was immense… and it all still worked? Holy crow. “What did it do?”

“I’m still trying to figure that out. I’ve never seen multiple runes used singly like this before.”

“And how did it run?”

“There was a seating for a gem right here.” Code jabbed a hoof at a miniscule frame, one more fitting for a diamond in a necklace than any sort of mana reservoir. But it was blackened as if a reservoir had overloaded. “I’d say that was the power source to drive the mechanism, but I’ve never seen one that size before.”

She nudged the device around on the table and sighed. “I can’t do this tonight,” she muttered. “Charcoal?”

“-can let your mana flow too easily,” Charcoal was saying, “so- hmm?”

“How long do we have to wait until-”

“Oh, you can ask her now,” Charcoal said, nodding. “Noonflower works very quickly.”

“Good. Amanita?”

Amanita’s special talent was healing, so she knew a thing or two about magic inside the body. If the noonflower was distributing any pent-up magic, as Code and Charcoal claimed it was, she knew what to ask about. “Bitterroot, do you feel any different? Physically.”

“Well… about the same. Maybe a little better.” Bitterroot licked her lips. “The noonflower tasted good.”

Promising. “Anything in your hooves?”

“Anything new? No.”

“Anything new in your chest?”

“…No, definitely not.”

“What about your ears?”

Bitterroot gave Amanita a Look, but she still said, “No.”

“And how about mentally?”

Bitterroot’s wings immediately tightened and her breathing hitched.

“Any… urges?” Amanita asked. “Anything you… haven’t noticed before? Anything that feels wrong?”

“Amanita, I-I just turned into-”

“I know.” Inside, Amanita winced. “I mean… besides… stress.”

“I’m terrified out of my mind,” Bitterroot said quietly. “I- I nearly-” She swallowed. “I, I feel like- how you’d expect me to feel. Nothing, nothing extra. Just fear.”

In spite of Bitterroot’s choice of words, Amanita sighed as her muscles released a tension she didn’t know they’d been holding. “Then you should be good,” she said. “No transformational magic inside.”

“As I said,” Code spoke up, “the ritual was quite thorough, particularly for its slapdash nature.” (Amanita didn’t take offense; it being slapdash was justified in the circumstances, but that didn’t make it not slapdash.)

“You’re sure?” Bitterroot asked.

“Absolutely,” said Code. “There’s nothing more we need to do for you.”

“Heh. Great.” But Bitterroot hung her head and started examining the ground.

Cabin was one of the ponies still around, watching them work as she re-organized things behind the bar. “Sorry about the mess,” Code said to her. She dropped two coins on the bartop.

Cabin looked at the coins. She looked at Code. She opened her mouth.

“I’m tired and I feel guilty even though I know it’s for no reason, take the sunblasted money,” growled Code.

Cabin took the money.

With a sigh, Code turned to the rest of the room. The patrons were all staring at her or Bitterroot and the tension was palpable. “What jes’ happened?” one of them asked.

“We don’t know yet,” said Code. (The ponies stirred uneasily.) “But I promise you, we will know eventually. Whatever the problem is here, we’re going to fix it.”

Bitterroot kneaded her seat and looked up, biting her lip. She opened her mouth, closed it again, looked back down. Her legs were shaking.

“But we’ve done all we can for tonight,” said Code. “I apologize for the inconvenience.” She groaned and rolled her shoulder. “And I’m going to bed.” Without another word, she marched up the stairs.

Amanita and Charcoal looked at each other. As her adrenaline began crashing, Amanita coughed and said to the crowd, “Um… she can… be like that, sorry.”

“G’night,” Charcoal said in a please-get-me-out-of-here voice, and then she was out of there.

For a moment, Bitterroot didn’t move. Her wings twitched weakly and she hung her head. She coughed. “A-Amanita?” she asked quietly.

Exhaustion was dripping into Amanita’s veins, but for the moment, she didn’t care. “Something you want to talk about?”

It took a bit too long for Bitterroot to say, “…N-no.”

Amanita waited. Bitterroot didn’t continue. “You’re sure?”

Bitterroot nodded, obviously reluctantly.

“Positive?”

“…I’m tired.” Without looking Amanita in the eye, Bitterroot stumbled off her chair and up the steps.

Maybe, on another night, Amanita would’ve pushed. Tonight, Amanita was ready to marry her bed. She raised a hoof to follow Bitterroot.

“This didnae happen afore you’uns showed up.”

Amanita put her hoof back down and turned. A chiropterus stallion was shooting her dirty looks. “Tratonmane was right peaceful days ago,” he said. “Then y’all Canterlouts came, an’ take a gander at it now. Crosscut attacked, Whippletree’s missin’-”

“What about Pyrita?” Amanita asked. Almost snapped, really. She was too drained to stop herself. “The pony who wandered into the mine and lost her mind when she came out?”

“That…” The stallion’s wings rustled. He looked around, as if for reassurance. None came; everyone was shuffling away from him. “That… ain’t the same.”

“You’re right. It’s not. Because you know what happened at the same time as her? The ley line turning. The entire reason we’re here to begin with.” Would they ever circle back to it, though?

“That-”

“I think the ley line’s got something to do with all of this. So, really, this is what we’re here to fix.”

“The ley line,” snapped the stallion, “didnae have a blasted thing tae do wi’ Pyrita. Tallbush says so.”

“His Grace Tallbush drives trains. How much experience with the land does he have?”

Silence. The stallion glared at her, pawing at the floor.

“And even if it’s not the ley line, we’re going to find out what’s causing it,” said Amanita. “But if you want to debate me, please wait until I’ve had a good night’s sleep. Because I’m still a necromancer and I can resurrect you.”

And then she marched up the stairs. Her bed was calling her.

25 - Midnight Demons

Bitterroot hadn’t gone to bed, not like everyone else. Once she was upstairs, she went straight to the bathroom and started looking in the mirror. Just in case. She went out if someone needed to use it, and then right back when they were done. She heard as everyone else went to bed. She herself had no such intention yet.

She stared at her reflection, unsure whether the pony looking back was really her. She tilted her head back and forth. She leaned close to the mirror, squinting at her pupils. Was there anything growing in them? No, of course not. The notion was absurd.

And yet…

Physically, Bitterroot felt fine. Was that okay? Transformed into a timberwolf, turned back again, felt fine. Shouldn’t she feel something more? Leaves in her lungs, branches poking beneath her wings, maybe bleeding tree sap if she cut herself open. But no. Fine. Like she was okay and everything was hunky-dory.

The air felt thick as she inhaled and exhaled. As long as she focused on the physical sensation, on now, she wouldn’t go back. She could stay away from it, never think about it again, never think about how she nearly-

She clenched her eyes shut as tightly as possible and dug her teeth into her lip. She focused on breathing. In, out, in, out, in, out…

She was breathing fine. Her lungs were working. Her throat was clear. Her teeth weren’t pointier than usual. And the blood from her lip had the usual copper taste. Good. Good. All of that was here and that was good. She opened her eyes. From her reflection, it sure didn’t feel very good.

She kept waiting for someone else to come into the bathroom to interrupt her, to talk to her. Even though she knew they were asleep. Lucky buggers. They didn’t have to think about what happened.

“Hey.” Bitterroot forced a grin onto her face. Her reflection looked like it was ready to eat someone’s throat. Or maybe it already had, considering the drop of blood trickling down her lip. “You can fall asleep. It’s okay. The Princess of Dreams will chase your nightmares away.”

That was the truth. She knew that. That was Moondog’s whole reason for existence. So why did it sound hollow?

Her eyes were baggy. Maybe she’d get lucky.

In the dead of night, Bitterroot remembered.

She remembered it all.

She remembered her coat splitting, branches knotting inside her muscles, the timberwolf’s body fighting and howling and yearning for meat.

Bitterroot lay in bed and all she could do was remember.

Her body hadn’t been her own. Her actions hadn’t been her own. She’d been yanked about like a puppet- worse than a puppet, because a puppet only had strings. This was so much more. For those few minutes, she’d tried to kill every single other person in the room, no matter how much she didn’t want to. A prisoner in her own body. The pain she’d felt was nothing compared to that.

The fact that no one had been hurt wasn’t much of a balm. She’d been so close. So close to eating one of them. She could see it, far too clearly: breaking through the shield, crushing Code’s head with her jaws, ripping Charcoal’s legs off, devouring Amanita’s throat as her blood sprayed everywhere. Were timberwolves strong enough to do that? It didn’t matter. That was what she saw, over and over and over. She could very nearly smell it. It’d just been one dropped shield away.

Those were Bitterroot’s nightmares, but she wasn’t asleep. She tried. She was exhausted. She couldn’t fight back her thoughts like this. But she could get to a place where she could ignore them. All she needed to do was fall asleep.

But she couldn’t, so that didn’t happen, and Bitterroot was left staring up into the darkness that hid the ceiling with her heart battering against her lungs.

Just like it’d done before she changed.

She didn’t even want to close her eyes. Code and Charcoal and Amanita all said she was clean, but what if? For all she knew, the slightest slip in consciousness, and she could find herself stalking to Amanita’s bed to feast on her body. Because when she’d changed, the ponies had smelled…

They’d smelled tasty.

Delectable. Savory. Delicious. Appetizing. She could remember it so vividly, the wonderful, bloody scent of their meat. A siren call, the best meal of your life. All you had to do was rip somepony’s throat out. And she would’ve done it; part of her mind had recoiled in disgust back then, but the reactions of her body had pulled it along, arousal at the worst time. Her thoughts wanted her to not move as her reactions had been restless.

She would’ve devoured a sapient being and loved every bite even as she hated it.

She’d barely eaten, yet Bitterroot felt nauseated. Awkwardly throwing her blankets off, she stumbled out of bed, lurched out of their room. The contents of her stomach were clawing their way for her throat. Groping and batting at the walls, she shuffled through the darkness until she reached the bathroom. She wrenched the door open, doubled over the toilet, and promptly retched. Bile and half-digested chunks of food wetly forced their way from her mouth and into the bowl. The uniquely vile stench of vomit made her stomach heave again and again; she was empty by the third time. Strands of saliva pendulumed from her lips, back and forth, back and forth.

Like her mouth was watering.

Almost immediately, she convulsed, stress and trauma and vomit triggering a physical reaction. She didn’t even want to think about it, but those thoughts were the only things in her head. She felt sick and her heart was palpitating wildly. In spite of the chill, she was coated in sweat. Curling into a ball, she struggled to keep breathing. At some point, she’d fallen onto the ground, but she barely cared.

Memories of the last few days rolled past like a fever dream, too bizarre to give any credence to, too vivid to ignore. Each new item dropped its own unique weight onto her mind, made all the worse by the shock of novelty. She’d never been branded before. Never talked to somepony only for them to hang themselves a minute later. Never hallucinated. Never seen an angel. Never had her mind bound and her body remolded. Never vomited up arcane machinery. Any one of those experiences would’ve been taxing to handle on their own, let alone all at once. Their newness made them relentless, constantly vying for her attention, exponentiating their impact.

Her thoughts were being frayed and rewoven, over and over again, until reality turned into a bad trip and then it got worse. You could only deal with so many new experiences before your mind shut down. But her mind shutting down was part of the problem; that let it get taken over. So Bitterroot’s mind kept running on overdrive, more willing to destroy itself than allow that to happen again.

And Bitterroot wanted to let that destruction happen.

She wanted to feel numb. She wanted to be able to go through all this with indifference, able to shoulder the stress rather than be this panicked, confused wreck. She wanted to close her eyes and drift away. She didn’t want to be. This much, this fast, existence itself was nauseating.

But the harsh cold of Tratonmane’s air reminded her, very strongly, that she existed, that she was. Yet with the weight of the last few days on her back, she could barely muster the will to do anything more than lie alone on the floor of that stinking room. She was an abused dog, once so hot on the trail, now cowering away from the world in fear of the lash.

(Ha. Dog. Like a wolf. Ha ha, funny.)

Crushed beneath the weight of unspeakable stress, physically and mentally sick, curled into a ball of meager protection, Bitterroot shook as she helplessly, brokenly wept.

That was when the door opened. A glow drove away the black; it was soft, but after so much dark, Bitterroot flinched away and held up a hoof to block it. “Hello?” somepony asked. “I-is someone- Oh, Celestia…”

Amanita was crouching next to Bitterroot as best she could in the cramped space. Her hooves hovered just over Bitterroot’s body, like she was unsure of whether to prop her up or let her lie there. “What, what’s the matter? What can I do? I- What’s wrong?”

“I sh-shouldn’t b-be here,” Bitterroot mumbled. Because, in a way, that was the worst part of it. All she’d needed to do, literally the one thing that could’ve avoided all this, was to stay home. Not even doing something, just not doing this. Keep her stupid nose out of somepony else’s business. Amanita was an adult, she could handle a new job alone. But no. Bitterroot just had to tag along for “moral support” and get targeted by the universe. “Y-you and Code a-and Charcoal, y-you’re all… you’re s-supposed to be h-here, and I…”

“Whoa, hey,” Amanita said weakly. She awkwardly patted Bitterroot on the shoulder. “It’s, it’s okay… You were- Yesterday, if, if you hadn’t been here-”

“Crossc-cut would’ve d-died and y-you would’ve b-brought her back. A-and…”

“Hey, hey.” Amanita delicately pulled Bitterroot up into a sitting position; she hung her head limply. Amanita sat down opposite her, her back against the wall. “It’s… Is this about the… wolf?”

Bitterroot moved her head enough to qualify as a nod. “And… other things.” She shuddered. “L-like the… brand. The path up. Tallbush.”

“Wha- Tallbush?”

Right. She hadn’t told them, had she? Ha ha. She swallowed and forced herself to talk. “Well, I… saw him while you were out, after I’d c-come back. And he’d…” Her blood chilled. “…changed. He- He looked like the k-kind of- being who’d greet you with ‘fear not’. Eight legs, six wings-” The memory made her twitch and she pulled into herself, eyes screwed shut. “All this, all this stuff, it’s… It’s been happening for days and it all keeps piling up and I c-can’t make it stop.”

“I… Bitterroot, you’ve… died twice without-”

“Those were- Those were quick, I, I didn’t get to think. Now, I- I’m just- sitting here, feeling fate pluck my feathers one by one. I, I mean, from the time I met you to when we captured Circe, it was just, what, four hours?” Bitterroot’s laugh held no mirth. “I’ve been lying alone in bed for practically that long. Feeling like… the second I’m not aware of myself, I won’t be myself. And…”

Words failed her. It was all so beyond her experiences, she couldn’t describe it. What was she supposed to say? That she was worried about transforming into a monster out of the blue? It was exactly the truth, yet it sounded insane. And though she knew, knew, that Amanita would understand, she couldn’t make herself believe that. How could you deal with something that extreme?

“…and I d-don’t know,” she whispered. She buried her face in her hooves, trying to hold it all together, but her emotions slipped from her grasp and she started weeping again. “I d-don’t know what’s w-wrong with m-me and… I just- I… I c-can’t-” Words spilled out in an incoherent jumble like the tears from her eyes and she couldn’t even control her-

Amanita yanked Bitterroot into a hug, holding her close, holding her tight. Acting on reflex, Bitterroot returned the gesture, squeezing Amanita so tightly her joints ached. She hadn’t realized just how alone she’d felt. As her body was wracked with sobs, she managed to gasp out, “I c-can’t even th-think… I-I’m just so t-tired…”

“These’re… These’re the sorts of thoughts that come to you strongest when you’re alone in the middle of the night,” Amanita said. “I’m… I’m familiar with them. And… I… Back then, I- didn’t even want to talk to anypony, just- I just wanted to be able to cry without Circe deciding I was weak and cutting my heart out. Just to express myself. And, and after feeling that…”

She tightened her hug. “I won’t let you go through this alone. I’m here. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but if you want to- talk to me, scream at me to let some emotion out, just keep the door closed so nopony can see you crying, I’ll do it. I- W-whatever happens, whatever happens, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you. I’m here.”

Bitterroot tried to say something. All that came out was another sob. She clung to Amanita like a life preserver, burying her tear-drenched face in the coat of the only source of warmth in the room, crying. And Amanita never made the slightest attempt to stop her. She seemed well-versed in the language of grief.

As they sat in each other’s arms, Bitterroot’s sobs turned to whimpers turned to uneven gasps as her emotions ebbed out. Eventually, she managed to find her voice again. “Celestia,” she muttered. “I just- I don’t know where t-to go from here.”

“I don’t think that’s stopped you before,” said Amanita. “Remember when you walked up to a necromancer with a half-million-plus bounty on her head and asked if she was nice based on a hunch?”

Bitterroot’s mouth twitched. It wasn’t quite a grin. It wasn’t quite not a grin.

“And I didn’t know where to go after getting out of prison,” Amanita continued. “But I found a path. Thanks to you. And- Look, whatever happens, I’m here for you. I know I have a job to do, but I won’t let you be alone.”

Sniff. “Promise?” It was childish, but it was the closest thing to security Bitterroot had.

“Promise. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Hope to fly? And where did the cupcakes come from? The choice of words was so strange it shoved all of Bitterroot’s anxieties aside. She pushed herself upright and frowned at Amanita. “What?”

Almost immediately, Amanita’s cheeks turned red. “It’s a, uh, Princess Twilight says it sometimes,” she half-mumbled, rubbing the back of her neck. “It’s, um, I think it’s from one of her friends in, uh, Ponyville. And when she makes that sort of promise, she takes it very seriously. I mean, very seriously. I was just, y’know, doing the same thing and I, I forgot you… don’t know…” Her voice trailed away.

Well, if Amanita and Princess Twilight could both consider that a sacred promise, so could Bitterroot. She smiled weakly. “Still. Thanks.”

Then her grin slipped. “You… The ritual that you performed, it made me… I’m safe, right? It’s not going to… h-happen again?”

Amanita nodded. “You’re fine. The ritual should’ve purged you of all hostile transformative magics. I know Code already said that, but you’re clean. Trust me.”

“Good. Great. Yeah.” Bitterroot chuckled nervously. “W-why can you and Code say the same things, but I believe you more than I do her?”

Amanita bobbed her head around, biting her lip. “Code is… I’d love her as a surgeon but hate her as a doctor, if that makes sense.”

“…I can see that.”

“If somehow we’re all wrong and you transform again, well, we already dealt with you once. We can do it again.”

Bitterroot could only nod. She sniffed and wiped down her nose. Definitely not the preferred course of action, but… accurate.

“And if worse comes to worst, I can always kill you and resurrect you. That should heal you.”

The way Amanita sounded so earnest made Bitterroot snort.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Bitterroot sat there, listening to her heart beat — beat, not pound. She was still and not shaking. She wasn’t quite calm, but she wasn’t panicking. Her hooves were almost steady when she raised them to her face. She was… about as good as she could expect at the moment. Not good, but not very bad, either.

“Thanks for that,” Bitterroot mumbled, wiping her face down. The hair on her face was already getting crusty. “I… feel like I shouldn’t need-”

“Hey. You’re here for me. I’m here for you.” Amanita reached out and patted one of Bitterroot’s hooves. “That’s that.”

A nod. “S-sorry I woke you up.”

“Well, ah…” Amanita coughed. “You, um, didn’t. I was… already up when I… heard…”

Bitterroot’s ear twitched and she looked up. Amanita was both trying to meet and trying to avert her gaze as she shifted her weight around and her ears twitched. And her voice; it was the semi-guilty voice she used whenever she got to talking about necromancy outside of the Crazy Eights. Bitterroot’s interest was piqued, just enough to start jockeying with stress for brainspace.

“It’s, it’s Pyrita,” Amanita mumbled unprompted. “I don’t care what anypony says, she died in the mine around the same time the ley line twisted. I-” She ran a hoof through her mane. “Something happened when she died. I’d bet my life on it.”

Bitterroot found herself grinning. Interest found itself pulling ahead of stress. “Sucker’s bet. You’re a necromancer.”

“That’s irrelevant. I don’t know a thing about self-resurrection yet.”

“Yet.”

Amanita rolled her eyes. “I don’t know whether Pyrita’s death caused the corruption of the line, or if she’s just collateral, or- whatever, but her death’s important somehow. So it’s time to cross a necromantic line I haven’t crossed yet.”

Bitterroot felt an odd tingle run down her spine. It was like a chill, but she liked the feeling. Anything to get her away from those thoughts. “Yeah?”

“Grave robbing.”

“I’ll get the shovels.”

26 - Desecrating the Dead With Friends

Bitterroot backflapped to push her shovel deeper into the soil. “You really never went grave robbing?”

“Nope,” Amanita said as she dumped another pile of dirt outside the grave. She tried to avoid using her horn so the physical labor would drive her tiredness away. Tempus Mortis wasn’t a dangerous spell, not remotely, but she’d rather be clearheaded than tired. Fortunately, the dirt was still somewhat loose from the funeral.

“Then where’d you get the bodies to work with as a necromancer?” Scoop, dump.

“Fresh murders. Circe said-” Scoop. “-the closer a body was to death-” Dump. “-the easier it was to work with-” Scoop. “-so I should stick with using those.” Dump.

“Huh. Is that true?” Scoop, dump.

Amanita shrugged. “Looking back, probably not.” Scoop. “I bet it was-” Dump. “-one of the ways-” Scoop. “-she controlled me.” Dump. “If I thought it was easier to work with recently-dead ponies-” Scoop. “-I wouldn’t strike out on my own and go grave robbing.” Dump.

“Not a bad idea. Look at what happened to her when you did strike out on your own.” Scoop, dump.

“Heh.” Scoop. “Yeah.” Dump.

Clouds drifted through the sky, staining the moon the orange of rust. The misty breath of the two grave robbers wafted from their mouths like smoke from a sputtering chimney. Wind whistled and howled like a ghost through Tratonmane, magnified and echoed by the cliffs; it was the only sound in the valley. The only ponies up were the ones clawing open the earth to get at the dead. It’d been a while since Amanita had been so calm.

Graves were liminal spaces, a place the living set aside for the dead in the border between the wind and the earth. Reality could grow thin in them as two worlds reached out to one another. You could talk to the dead anywhere, but there was a reason most ponies went to cemeteries to do it, even if they didn’t know why. You were closer to the dead in graveyards and they were closer to you. It was why most ponies shivered when they walked past them. It was why Amanita felt so comfortable, there in that slowly-growing pit marked with Pyrita’s headstone..

With each thrown shovelful of dirt, the barrier between life and death grew more and more hazy. She could feel it. Whispers just beyond the edge of hearing, brushing at her awareness more than her ears, and only because she knew what to be aware of. Bitterroot’s ears were still up rather than folded back, so she wasn’t feeling anything.

Related to the grave, anyway.

“Are you-” Scoop. “-feeling okay?” Amanita asked. Dump.

“Not really, but I’m feeling better,” Bitterroot said immediately. Scoop, dump. She didn’t snap it. It wasn’t something she spat out to get answering the question over with. It was just something she knew the answer to. “I can just- focus on this.” Scoop, dump. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I like having stuff to do.” Scoop, dump.

“Okay.” Scoop. “Let me know-” Dump. “-if that-” Scoop. “-changes.” Dump.

“Mmhmm.” Scoop, dump.

The hole grew deeper and deeper. Scoop, dump. Amanita wondered what she’d say if someone happened to walk outside and see them. Scoop, dump. They were… less averse to her being a necromancer now; maybe she’d just tell the truth. Scoop, dump. Tratonmane was hiding something important, and she was just getting information she needed to know. Scoop, bump, dump. It wasn’t her fault they were limit-

Bump?

Amanita nudged her shovel through the dirt again. Bump.

“You heard it, too, right?” Bitterroot asked, grinning.

“Yeah.” Amanita crouched down and wiggled her hooves into the dirt. She soon found wood and herself grinning. This was shallow for a grave, but with the ground this cold, maybe it was the best Tratonmane could easily manage. “Be careful digging. We don’t want to break the casket.” She switched to levitating her shovel for finer control.

As Bitterroot cautiously dislodged dirt and rocks from the edges of the lid, she asked, “So are you gonna call up her spirit to ask her or use that Tempus Mortis spell?”

“I’ll start with Tempus Mortis. Calling her up’s harder without any emotional connection, and besides, I’d rather not disturb anypony I don’t have to.”

“Said the grave robber.”

“I’m just messing with the body, I’m not yanking them back to the world of the living for a quick chat. Big difference.”

Bitterroot snorted.

Between some levitation from Amanita and some careful maneuvering from Bitterroot, the two were able to uncover the casket and pry the lid open in the pit. There was Pyrita, her face drawn and waxen and sunken in death. Ponies more than twelve hours dead never looked like they were sleeping. Amanita found herself grinning again. Almost there. Balancing on the rim of the coffin, she put a hoof on the body-

“Y’know, sometimes I don’t get you.”

Amanita looked up. Bitterroot was leaning on a shovel at the edge of the hole, looking down at her. “What?”

“A week ago, you were worried you weren’t enough of a necromancer to be in the Crazy Eights. Now you’re going grave robbing in the middle of the night.”

“Well… yeah, I mean… I… need to access the body for the spell.”

Bitterroot tilted her head and lowered one of her ears. “And that doesn’t strike you as necromantic?”

“Look, anypony who could cast the spell would need to do this.”

“Yet no one in the world is doing it. Can do it. Except you.”

“Bitterroot, shut up and let me cast the stupid spell on the stupid corpse.”

Bitterroot blinked owlishly but didn’t say anything.

Amanita rolled her eyes, touched the body, and gathered her magic. “Meminerim mortem,” she muttered. Physicality ripped itself apart around her.

Normally, when Amanita cast Tempus Mortis, she passed into a realm of paradigms and moments in the body’s life. The specific energies behind the spell elevated the body’s death and made it accessible. There would be little bits and bobs and a huge, impactful moment as the body’s functions ceased.

Pyrita’s body had two moments.

Amanita would’ve gasped if she’d had a body. The spell depended on the body, not the passage of the soul. If any damage done would’ve been enough to kill a body, it must’ve been enough for the spell to work with. So if Pyrita had “died” twice, then- Maybe this would be- Chronology was loose in this sort of place, but Amanita knew which one came earlier and which came later. She jumped into the later one, just to check.

She was at the Great Ash, Pyrita hanging from a noose above her. The death’s area of effect was small, not even holding the full square. Amanita looked around. Nopony within range. So… if this counted as a death to the body… She tweaked the spell just enough to jump back out to the paradigms, then dove into the earlier death.

“Stop… them…”

The sounds she heard were pained, exhausted gasps, but Amanita couldn’t help herself from getting excited. This was it. This was how Pyrita died. This was how the ley line shifted. This was the answer she’d been looking for. This was-

…This was a cave.

Pyrita’s body was lying on the rocky floor of a cave, sprawled out like she’d collapsed from exhaustion. She seemed to have been crawling for a stalagmite standing right in front of her, in a pool in the middle of the cavern. The cave itself was like a pit, round and climbing up and out of sight. Why had Tempus Mortis captured so much of it? Other tunnels branched off, but they quickly vanished in the sludge of unremarkability. This was about as uninformative as you could get; the only reason Amanita guessed the cave was in the mine was because that was where Pyrita had come out of.

She examined Pyrita’s body. Old, but unharmed. No bruises or cuts, and the scars were old. No broken bones from a fall. Had she died from exhaustion? What was she running from? Or was it the ley line? Was her death cause or effect? And what was she doing in the mine in the first place?

She did another quick examination of the cave. Given how detailed the image was, it was surprisingly featureless, with no obvious… much of anything. And if it’d been involved in Pyrita’s death, the spell would make it obvious.

There was nothing here.

…How? Was Pyrita’s death just a sad coincidence? Amanita tried to say it was, but it just didn’t fit. Decades of ponies only dying unnatural deaths in Midwich Forest, and then one of them suddenly went crazy and ran into the mine to die on the exact night the ley line soured? No. Not at all. And it still didn’t explain how Pyrita had left the mine-

…Except it couldn’t’ve been Pyrita, because if it had been, her soul still would’ve been in the living world and Amanita’s resurrection would’ve worked… So then why-

She needed to sleep on this. No matter how much she hated the idea. Maybe bounce the info off the others. Not here, not now.

Amanita let the spell collapse with a grunt and awkwardly clambered out of the hole. Upon seeing her, Bitterroot’s ears drooped. “That doesn’t sound good,” she said.

“Pyrita died of exhaustion in a cave,” Amanita muttered. She carefully levitated the lid back onto the casket. If only the casket’s inhabitant had been more helpful. “That’s it.”

“…Wait, really?” Bitterroot furrowed her brow. “That… That can’t be right…”

“It’s what I saw,” Amanita said. “Look, I can show you.” She screwed her eyes shut and focused on the memory-projection spell. Frustration made her bang it into line when it didn’t play nice and she managed to get it out quickly, but with some headache-inducing difficulty. The image of the memory snapped into being-

Bitterroot jumped back, shrieking, “TAR-!” She managed to cut herself off by clamping her hooves over her mouth, but the echo still rebounded through the quiet of Midwich Valley. She barely noticed as she stared at the image, eyes huge with shock, wings pulled tight to her sides.

Amanita flinched away at the sudden sound. Somehow, she still kept the image up. “Bitterroot?” she asked, sitting by her side. “W-what’s wrong?”

“Heh. Isn’t it obvious?” Bitterroot gave a choked sort of laugh as she gestured at an empty section of cave.

Amanita blinked and looked at it, expecting- But it was the same as it’d been before. Pyrita lying dead, the rock, the dark cave around her. The scariest thing was the body, and Bitterroot had seen bodies before. “…No, it’s not.”

Bitterroot snapped to look at Amanita like a hawk spotting prey. She set her jaw and her ears folded back. “Amanita, I- I get if you’re not scared of that, but don’t-”

“Scared of what?” The darkness didn’t yield anything on further inspection, not even hazy shapes that might’ve been monsters. “There’s nothing there.”

“You don’t- You don’t see that?” asked Bitterroot, pointing shakily at the darkness.

Amanita took one last look. There was nothing to see. “Bitterroot, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Your memory’s watching me.”

Bitterroot’s heart was pounding in her throat. If she hadn’t been forcing herself to breathe, she wouldn’t have been breathing at all. Her ears rang. Her wings wanted to writhe. She couldn’t stop squirming. All those thoughts of helplessness and being overwhelmed, pushed to the side by digging a hole, came barrelling back.

It was the only valid response to seeing the… thing gazing at her.

In some ways, it looked like a poor-yet-exquisite clay sculpture of a pony. Everything was off, but Bitterroot couldn’t say how. Legs? Face? Body? Tail? Whatever she focused on, its shape was fine when she looked at it directly, only for her to catch a mistake out of the corner of her eye, a mistake that vanished when she double-checked. It was gray, dull, flat, its mane stiff as a board, its eyes utterly blank. It stood astride the blaze of a crossed circle of fire, one hoof in each quadrant, right in front of Pyrita. And it was looking straight at her.

The air was cold. She was still sweating.

“Okay, okay, uh…” Amanita was nervously jumping from hoof to hoof. “What, what do you see? C-can you tell me?”

Bitterroot took several deep breaths, looking the thing in the eye. Then she said, “It’s a- It’s like a- Like a statue of a pony.” She flinched and looked away. The pony’s colorless, lifeless gaze was more drilling than anything she’d seen from a living being. “It’s- It’s unfinished and generic. There’s no color, no detailing, nothing. Just the- the general shape of a body and tail and mane. And it’s… standing in a… crossed circle.”

“O-okay.” Amanita nodded. She wasn’t really looking at Bitterroot as she mentally cataloged everything. “What’s their tribe?”

Bitterroot forced herself to face the pony again and examine them for wings, a horn, or lack thereof. She looked. And looked. And looked. And looked.

Nothing. She didn’t know.

She didn’t know.

She was looking right at the pony and she couldn’t say what tribe they were.

Amanita seemed to know what her silence meant, because she immediately let the image fade. Bitterroot couldn’t stop staring at where it’d been. “Um, okay, uh,” Amanita said, batting the ground. “Do you… want to… tell Code? We can… If this is too much, we can-”

Bitterroot barely heard her from the way her ears were ringing. Just when she thought she was getting it together, it started falling apart again. Even necromancy was nothing compared to this.

She took a few deep breaths, tried to calm herself. Amanita said she’d be there for her. That mattered, right? Yes, absolutely. And Bitterroot stopped feeling like she needed to fly away from Midwich ASAP. Here, now, she at the very least had a shoulder to cry on. A sympathetic ear was worth far more than anyone understood until they really needed it.

She’d been afraid of the possibility that she was losing her mind, but that appearing there was… very coincidental. And that made it… somewhat reassuring? She wasn’t going insane, an unknown something was just affecting her. And an unknown something could become a known something, if they tracked it down. As a bounty hunter, the notion of tracking something was almost soothing.

But how to track it? She didn’t know what triggered her visions. The only consistency between them all was that crossed circle that she was seeing everywhere. It was on the sign, in the streets, in the library, on her neck, in-

Library.

“The book,” she said quietly.

Whatever Amanita had been saying came to a stop. She swallowed and flicked her tail. “W-what book?” she asked.

“Back when I was researching the deaths,” Bitterroot said, still looking straight ahead, “Tallbush was looking for this old book. Really old. Centuries old. He said it was the journal of the town founder. And you know what was on the cover?” She looked Amanita in the eye. “A crossed circle.”

Amanita’s mouth made a little O of astonishment and her ears drooped. Then she cocked her head. “…So what does that mean?”

“No idea. But you know where Tallbush put the book? In his office. Right over there.” Bitterroot pointed at the near wing of the town hall. “So let’s find that book-” She stood up and rustled her wings. “-and find out what it says.”

“Break into the office of the pony who looks like an angel?”

Bitterroot flinched, but nodded. “Yeah. I’m not sure he really is an angel, anyway. I mean, he has an office.”

“…You’re not wrong… You, uh, want to talk about it?”

“Not really, but only because I think that book has better info than you or I do.”

“Yeah, probably. You feel alright?”

Did she? She did. Huh. “Yeah. Really.”

“Alright. Let’s fill the grave back in, first,” said Amanita, jerking her head towards the piles of dirt.

But now that they were filling in the hole rather than digging it up, Amanita used magic to quickly push much of the dirt in in a few passes. It barely even took a minute to fill the hole back up, and soon they were rounding the corner of the town hall. As they approached the front door, Amanita asked, “Do you know how to pick locks? Bounty hunter and all.”

Bitterroot flared her wings as she shrugged. “Kinda. I’ve picked up a thing or two on the job. Enough to know that…” She pushed at the door; it swung right open. “…in a town this small and this close, ponies rarely lock their doors,” she finished as she walked inside.

“…How many bounties have you kidnapped from their homes in the dead of night?” Amanita asked.

“Just one.” Bitterroot turned around. “Doing that sort of thing a lot kinda gets the public screaming for your head. But that pony would’ve screamed for my head if I looked at her funny, so this wasn’t really a change. I-”

As she talked, a twinkle of starlight caught her eye and she briefly glanced upward. Her words slammed to a halt as she noticed the window over the door.

A circular window with two perpendicular beams forming a cross.

Fear began worming into her veins.

“…Bitterroot?” Amanita asked. She crept forward, like she was trying to avoid spooking a skittish animal. “Is something-”

“Cross,” coughed Bitterroot. She pointed upward, flicking her hooves in directions that were supposed to be tracing out the window’s shape. “It’s the-” Swallow. “It’s the symbol.”

“The…” Amanita followed Bitterroot’s hoof; when she saw the window, her ears twitched. “There are plenty of windows like that!” she said in the voice of a used-carriage salesmare at the end of her rope. “It’s a coincidence. Yeah. Totally.”

“Amanita, you lying isn’t making me feel any better.”

“Sorry,” Amanita whispered, her ears back.

Shivering in a way that was out of place in the hall’s relative warmth, Bitterroot headed deeper in.

Assuming Tallbush’s office was the room across from the library, Bitterroot tried that door. Locked. After a quick jaunt back to her room, she retrieved a pick and tension wrench from her pack and some dusty skills from her head. Unlocked. Thank Celestia it’d been a simple one. The room beyond was small and bureaus lined the walls while a desk sat in the center. What wasn’t in the drawers was cluttered, but seemed to be organized. All the clutter, mostly books, was in neat piles, at least. As they inched around on the narrow strips of floor, Bitterroot said, “It’s not very distinctive. Brown cover, about yea big-” She demonstrated with her hooves. “-and the circle on the cover. It didn’t even have a title.”

“Got it,” said Amanita. She began picking through one of the piles.

Bitterroot reached for her own pile when she paused. It’d been important to Tallbush. It was old. And between the two, that wasn’t something you just threw in a pile with everything else. It could get damaged. So if he wanted to keep it safe, where… Desk? She began looking through drawers. Most of them just had bureaucratic-looking papers, but one of them was locked. Out came the picks, out came the drawer-

There was the book. It sat on a cushion- No, it was cradled in a specially-made cushion in the drawer so that it wouldn’t be too jostled by the openings and closings. The crossed circle winked at Bitterroot in the darkness; she didn’t know what the wink meant, but she was going to find out. “Amanita,” she said, carefully pulling the book out. “I got it.” It felt heavier than its size should’ve allowed.

“Already?” Amanita craned her head to look. “Wow, that is nothing.”

“Told you. Let’s get out of here.”

They sat in one of the benches in the main hall and Amanita lit a lamp. The book didn’t have any sort of lock on it, but Bitterroot still had to struggle with herself to open it. Maybe there weren’t any answers in here, just like Pyrita’s death hadn’t had any answers. But if there were answers, and she didn’t like them-

“Bitterroot?” Amanita asked. “Want me to do it?”

“No, I got it,” Bitterroot said. She cracked the book open. The cover flexed with the ease of one opened and closed more times than could be counted. “I just have a lot to think about right now.”

If she didn’t like the answers, she’d get help from her friends.

She started at the beginning, nearly three hundred years ago.

27 - The Margin of a Disintegrating World

Hay Moon 20, 735

I was such a fool to entertain the notion that Princess Celestia did not comprehend the potential of the locomotive. She has ruled Equestria for nigh on eight hundred and fifty years; surely she can tell when the paradigm is about to shift. Far from ignoring our exhortations for progress, she was doing more to prepare than I had ever considered.

Today was announced what she called the Fuel Vassalage Commission. Locomotives require fuel and the railroads they need cost resources. The Commission shall search out pockets of such valuable supplies in the uncharted corners of Equestria and set about obtaining them. With the railroads born from these resources, Equestria shall be linked like never before! The very notion fills my heart with joy.

And how shall the Princess ensure that these operations proceed smoothly? Why, the noble who manages it shall be granted a dukedom! Imagine! Duke Adirondack! Such status and power, granted in an instant! With Lilac Shade’s blessing, I have put my name in the running. Oh, how I hope I am selected — both to help bring ponies closer together, and (I must admit) to be catapulted swiftly from my rank of earl. Pegasus surveyors are already sweeping the country in search of likely mining regions…

Bitterroot’s eyes skimmed down the rest of the entry. “And then Adirondack goes on about… not much. I’ll skim for the important parts. Skip entries that don’t look important.” She flipped forward a few pages.

Sap Moon 3, 736

I was selected to be part of the commission. I am to be made a duke. After moons, I have received what I wanted.

And yet, I am apprehensive.

I was shown the location I am to be granted. I expected something… safer. I am to mine for coal in the distant regions of the North, deep within a place in the mountains called Midwich Valley. I can already feel its chill. Is this genuinely an ideal location for mining? Surely there must be places that do not chill you down to the quick. Is there any way to even grow food there? We cannot be expected to survive on coal.

I brought the notion up to Princess Celestia. She was aware of the difficulties, she claimed, and said that so long as we mined, our town would be supplied — food, bandages, clothes, building materials, more — at no cost to ourselves. We would be cared for, even in that far corner. I am not entirely convinced. Perhaps the ease with which the other locations can be supplied is blinding her. Nor can I recall the last time she put together a mission on this scale; perhaps, for once, her reach exceeds her grasp.

I also voiced my concerns to Lilac. She, ever my better half, said that this was merely the first day. Many of the structures required for the Commission have yet to be fully put in place and I ought to not fear that I cannot see the big picture before the very first stone has been laid. Surely Princess Celestia has this impeccably planned out.

However, she also warned me to be cautious. Unwarranted optimism and unwarranted pessimism can be equally destructive. I ought to press the Princess if my doubts continue, for possibility of improvement is not a guarantee.

While not erasing my fears entirely, her words have provided some comfort. I know that, whatever we go through, I shall always have her by my side.

Sap Moon 18, 736

The apparatus Celestia is setting up to handle the Commission is astonishing. There are officials set up to deal with every level of the operation, from sending out supplies to retrieving the fruits of our labor to things I hadn’t even considered. Perhaps my fears were indeed misplaced.

There are members of the common folk who are also coming with us to populate the duchy, for Lilac and I cannot be expected to run the entire operation ourselves! They range from miners to farmers to craftsmares… everything you could ask for. They seem a hardy, patriotic bunch. To my surprise, they had signed up for the Commission as well, merely on a different level. Many are uninterested in becoming rich and merely want to aid the future. I must get acquainted with them, that this operation may be run more smoothly with the proper pony in the proper position.

The initial supplies for starting the town are being gathered, for we depart for Midwich in a few weeks. May our journey be easy.

Flower Moon 29, 736

It has taken us nearly two moons to reach the location on the map, and we still have yet to reach Midwich Valley itself. Curse the surveyors being pegasi! They neglected the most important part of this enterprise: access for groundbound ponies. The mountain range before us provides no easy pass or route for ponies, and none at all for carts. I have sent out scouts to search for a better route. We can turn back, if need be, but I would rather not scurry back to Canterlot at the first sign of trouble. Neither would many of the ponies for which I am responsible; they see this as service for the future of Equestria. Their drive is heartening.

Yet we cannot stay long. The air is chilly and resists the attempts of pegasi to tame it. Thus far, the only way into Midwich my scouts have seen is to go for days out of our way. The idea of having to trek so far, when we are so close to our destination, is shudder-inducing. Should that be the route we must take, it shall be an ill omen indeed.

Rose Moon 7, 737

We had no other option. We headed north for four days, so far north we may have entered yak territory. We curled around the mountain range and headed south for another four days before finally reaching the site of our town.

It is… not what I expected.

Midwich Valley is narrow and shockingly deep, so deep the sun barely reaches the valley floor. Much of the floor is forest, populated by sickly-looking trees and vicious predators, bears and wolves. We had to maintain a guard at all times against any possible attacks, but, perhaps due to the efforts of our beastspeakers, we have escaped injury. At the southernmost point, the trees thin as the valley narrows, providing space for our town. Ponies are already at work clearing the trees, and I shall join them once I am done here. Providing stronger shelter than our wagons is essential; the depth of the valley means the chill here is even greater than the outside. To think that days this frigid and dark qualify as “summer”.

I am apprehensive. From the moment I first knew we would be in the North, I knew this would be no simple task, but this… It provides a great deal more risk than I anticipated. The notion of food, just to name one. The clime may prove too much even for the crops we selected for this venture, plants with a strong resistance to cold. Will the few rays of sunlight they receive a day be enough to grow and feed us? Our farmers say they can make it work. I pray they are not too optimistic.

But not all is worrying! Lilac and other earth ponies claim to feel the flow of a ley line in the earth beneath them. That can greatly aid in growing food, easing some of our farmers’ burden. It may also be indicative of high-quality coal. Moreover, during our travails, a young earth pony by the name of Chisel Plow distinguished herself. She seemed everywhere at once up and down our caravan, tirelessly providing aid where needed or defending against the beasts of the wood. Why, she was working so much that at times she was sweating! If our townsponies have a spirit half as strong as hers, we may yet thrive.

Rose Moon 15, 737

It was a scramble to get our homes built, yet built they have been! Our collection of cabins is haphazard, they lack many of the amenities of Canterlot, and my own entire house is smaller than my previous bedroom alone, but with the protection they provide from the elements, I could ask for nothing more. In every cabin, the wind is blocked and its inhabitants have a roaring fire. For now, that is sufficient.

We have room to expand. Many of the trees have been cleared for timber and farmland. But there was one tree, a colossal ash, that the townsfolk requested to not be cut down, so as to not sully its majesty. It was a simple request to grant, for it would be a shame to kill it. It provides an excellent landmark, besides.

Fields are being tilled. As it turned out, Plow was one of our farmers. She claims that the forest being that large is proof enough that farming here is possible, to have grown that much on naught but a ley line, without even the direction of earth ponies. The other farmers agreed with her, so I shall trust their judgment.

Our miners are already digging into the southern cleft. It seems to be the most likely location for coal, they say. Again, I shall trust their judgment. I can manage ponies, but I lack the knowledge of my workers. Perhaps I should change that.

Yet in spite of this progress, I am afraid. The sun is meager down here, the air frigid as can be. There is an atmosphere to it that cannot be detected at a few glances. I can already feel this place gnawing at me. I can only hope our morale holds. Our supplies are stretched thin, but we ought to receive more come the next full moon.

Rose Moon 21, 737

How did I not see it earlier? Lilac is pregnant.

She estimates that she is roughly four moons along and shall give birth during Ice Moon. In the horrid bite of midwinter. How could I have missed it? Have I been so preoccupied? Has worry consumed me that much?

I almost wish to send her back to Canterlot, that our foal may grow in warmer, more fertile climes. But she will hear none of it and intends to stay by my side. If she insists, then I must ensure this town is a place to raise a growing foal; I promised her so. There were foals in our party when we arrived, and I am ashamed to say I never considered them in our work. I have gone around to all parties involved, if they need any special accommodations for their children. While none of them did, they at least know they may ask me.

Rose Moon 29, 737

The abilities of our farmers are extraordinary! I can already see shoots sprouting. I told them not to tire themselves out, but they assured me they could keep up this pace. They said the crops ought to be edible in less than a moon. They have had less sunlight to work with in all this time than an entire day in Canterlot and yet can still provide for us!

However, mining is going less splendidly. We have found coal, true, but very little and of poor quality as of yet. Our ponies are branching out in search of further seams, but I can tell the miners are becoming anxious. We were sent here to gather coal for future railroads, so if we cannot do that, is all our work for naught? Princess Celestia claimed that we would always receive supplies, but I feel obligated.

I am working with various other ponies to gather more lumber to improve our cabins. They are sufficient, but when the outside is so cold, they can feel cramped. Lilac needs room to bear in comfort. So shall others, when their time comes.

Hay Moon 5, 737

Our expected supplies have not arrived.

They were due to arrive on the 1st, but it has been four days with no sign of them. One young pegasus flew about the area outside the mountains and found nothing. Many of them were technically nonessentials — nails, blankets, clothes, minor medical supplies — but we also expected food. Our farmers are continuing in their work, praise them to Elysium, but the amount we are now missing shall require more work for them. Remembering her fine character, I spoke with Plow about it. She was shaken, but confidently asserted that they could make up the difference. I pray she is correct.

When I announced the lack of supplies to the town, they were predictably downbeat, but seemed to take it well enough. One of the miners proposed carving a tunnel through the mountains to allow carts and carriages easier passage, just in case. The others reacted with aplomb, perhaps to forget the way coal remains elusive. For the moment, their attention shall be devoted to the tunnel rather than the mine.

Lilac had little to say, but she offered me warmth and company. In this dark rift, that is all I can hope for.

Hay Moon 14, 737

The tunnel has been dug, but the supplies have not yet arrived. The workers have returned to the mine with heavy hearts. A few ponies are carving out a path to the plains, which the pegasi assure me is possible.

The first of our homegrown food is edible. It is sufficient. Plow assures me that the farmers are not unduly strained. I decided to ask the others personally, just to be certain, but they all concurred with her. The stamina of earth ponies never ceases to amaze.

We have decided on a name for the town: Tratonmane. A fine name, in my opinion, one that rolls off the tongue quite nicely. I suppose I am Duke Tratonmane now. Or is that Duke Midwich? I, personally, prefer Duke Tratonmane, and any who disagree can come out here to debate me.

I joined the commission for this title. I am left wanting in more ways than one.

Grain Moon 6, 737

Again, no supplies have arrived. What we have is being stretched further; we are even improvising bandages for wounds. Our farmers shall be straining soon. We struggle to even mend our clothes, for our store of thread is dwindling. Canterlot’s ability to supply us is doubtful.

However, our miners have finally found a vein. The coal inside is rich and plentiful. Chunks are being extracted for cleaning as we speak. For some, this makes our struggle worth it, as we are finally producing something for Equestria.

I am not one of those some. I have no qualms about doing work, but I was promised aid. I can do backbreaking work or toil in the dark with no complaints. But if I am promised a needle and thread, I expect to receive a needle and thread. I came out here with certain expectations, none of which Celestia has met.

Perhaps there are still issues being worked out and supply chains are being sorted out. But I shall not hold my breath.

Grain Moon 14, 737

I remember tales of old Nightmare Moon from Nightmare Night. An accursed, vain princess who was banished to the moon for attempting to bring about nighttime eternal on Equestria. A foals’ tale. And how do I know this?

Because if it were true, she needed merely to come here to be content.

We never see the sun for very long. The walls of Midwich tower above us, blocking out its light. The sky might be bright and cheery, but the ground never is. The southernmost corner, where the cliffs meet and where our miners extract their coal, never sees the sun at all, even for a second.

How could the surveyors have missed this? They were pegasi, for speed; did they simply assume that townsponies would fly to the clifftops once they were finished with their work for the day? Did they mean to record the peculiarities of Midwich and forget? Were they simply lazy?

It is just after noon as I write this. The sun was directly ahead of me not long ago. But in its brilliant light, when I looked around, I only saw the walls of Midwich.

Prison would be cheerier.

Harvest Moon 7, 737

It is called the harvest moon, but our harvest leaves much to be desired.

We have food. It is sufficient. But one of our farmers collapsed, possibly from overwork. He is lucid, but Plow is seeing to him. We have little medicine that can help him, if it comes to that. Even if he makes a full recovery within the week, what of the other farmers? They may work harder to take up the slack, only to collapse themselves. Earth ponies can be stubborn like that.

As for the food itself… It will keep us alive, but not much more. It is tough and with little flavor. Even earth ponies can only do so much. Some of us brought up the idea of grazing beneath the snow to save food for others. It is still under debate; should it be approved, I myself shall also graze. Lilac needs food for her foal.

The miners are extracting common gems, now, gems charged with magic from the ley line. The few unicorns we have are using them for more powerful spells to make life a little more comfortable, such as further insulation for our cabins.

And our supplies still have not arrived.

I must take care of this. I shall fly to Canterlot myself, to personally confront Celestia and the Commission. This is unacceptable. Surely, they cannot think that we are surviving on our own here. I depart tomorrow.

Harvest Moon 22, 737

I am back in Canterlot. Ponies are bundling up as fall continues on. The weather is balmy to me.

I have been away from Canterlot for too long and the social situations have shifted; Princess Celestia is out of reach for me. I have spent days hobnobbing among the elite, trying to navigate the labyrinth of nobility, only to be stymied at every turn. I am a duke thanks to a commission from Her Celestial Majesty, yet they pay more attention to a baronetess of no notable name, simply because she lives in Canterlot.

The Commission itself has grown into this intimidating monstrosity, with staff managing staff managing staff. I know not where to begin in penetrating it. But with my usual doors closed to me, I have no other option. I must somehow divine its inner workings.

Lilac, my love. You are the only thing that gets me through this.

Harvest Moon 26, 737

The sunrise mocks me. I can feel its warmth, see its light. Luxuries I must abandon when I return to Tratonmane. I wonder if Celestia knows.

Days have passed as I have struggled to navigate the Commission. Eventually, I found myself in some dingy office with an unsympathetic mare who claimed I was exaggerating. Truly, I nearly beat her to death. She claimed to have no records of a Tratonmane that would need supplies. When I forced her to look through her records, she indeed found the location of Midwich Valley in a list of similar towns. She said the Commission was a large undertaking and we couldn’t expect perfection, to which I replied that I expected competency. She insinuated that I was being disloyal to the Crown, but I replied back that we couldn’t even give them what they wanted because they weren’t sending ponies up to collect.

When we seemed to be making some progress, she directed me towards another pony. By then, it was late enough that I could only return to bed. At least I have a place to start tomorrow.

Harvest Moon 28, 737

I found the puffed-up fromp who seems responsible for managing most of the Commission. He found several issues in our records that resulted in Tratonmane losing out on its supplies. He promised us supplies next moon.

We did not find the errors soon enough for Tratonmane to receive its supplies for Pumpkin Moon.

I have not managed to talk to Celestia.

I return tomorrow.

Pumpkin Moon 14, 737

Tratonmane has behaved as though we would receive nothing this moon. I suppose they were skeptical of my abilities. After seeing the state of the Commission, I consider them prescient.

There have been countless small changes to Tratonmane to better withstand the coming winter and work with our limited resources. A larger building to hold multiple families at once with better heating. Ponies shaving their tails and manes for thread. Ponies working multiple jobs to cover everything. I even saw a simple outpost outside the mountains on my approach, so ponies wouldn’t miss us when approaching. More, more than I can record here.

I envy their dedication. If the Commission had half their fire, we would be swamped with everything we wished. Instead, we have nothing, not even a way to give back what the Commission asked for. I await the next moon with little hope.

Frosty Moon 2, 737

Finally, our long-promised supplies arrived. We were able to exchange the coal and gems we had dug up. The couriers did naught but complain. They said it was too cold. They said it was too isolated. They said it was too downbeat. I told them they could leave. They said I was too bossy.

The supplies themselves were the absolute, barest minimum of what could be expected. Thin blankets. A smattering of potion supplies. Some small meals. A meager amount of nails. Plenty of pickaxes, though. I wrote a letter demanding an explanation for why we received so little. I do not expect an answer.

When we returned to Tratonmane, I asked something dramatic of my little ponies. I asked if they wanted to return to Canterlot, and to Tartarus with the consequences. We can barely eke out a living here. Subsistence farmers are wealthy compared to us. But to my surprise, they said they wanted to stay. They gave many different reasons, but all could be boiled down to one: they wanted to help Equestria. The country that birthed them. The country that is abandoning them. I suppose I should not be surprised, given how they joined up, but I expected them to be more… apprehensive.

I considered pressing them. Perhaps what I think is patriotism is merely a sense of obligation. The same sense that I feel. Perhaps they want to leave, but do not want to be thought of as failures. But I second-guessed myself and the moment passed. We shall stay.

As the seasons shift, I can feel our farmers struggling. Food does not like to be grown out of season and I am told the ley line is the primary reason it can be grown at all. It does not surprise me; with the temperatures dropping, most crops would die of frost quickly, particularly with little sunlight.

Many are growing thin. I fear for Lilac. Winter is coming.

Frosty Moon 12, 737

As our miners were working today, they stumbled upon a most curious cavern. While excavating a tunnel, they broke through into a shaft of impressive magnitude. It is a colossal pit that stretches up into the mountain, yet they found it close to its base. It is a strange thing, like nothing sapients could have designed — at least, no sapients I know of.

Yet it would be merely an oddity if that were all. Ponies of all tribes report feeling power thrum through the stone around it. I can hear indistinct whispers just inside the edge of hearing. Some unicorns speculate that it is the source of the ley line. I have ordered it boarded up. I doubt much good can come of such a place.

A farmer collapsed today, the strain of pulling magic in an effort to make the plants grow finally proving too much. He ought to recover within two weeks, but in that time, we shall be down a farmer, placing more strain on the others. It will only be a matter of time before another pushes themselves too hard as well.

Frosty Moon 22, 737

Just as our previous farmer recovered, two more succumbed. One is up and moving already. The other needs extensive bedrest. The others are pushing themselves. I cannot make them stop, no matter what I say.

The food they grow is abominable, good for nothing more than nutrition. Yet as it is all we have, I cannot blame them. They are miracle workers already in this climate. But this barely counts as surviving.

I am eating less at my meals that Lilac may have more. Even with this, our foal may grow up sickly if they even survive long enough to grow up. She wants to protest, but she knows I am correct. I wish I weren’t.

Frosty Moon 27, 737

Starvation hurts. It is a restless ache in your belly, emptiness grinding against itself as your flesh groans for sustenance. When you feel it, you know it is only a matter of time before your body begins devouring itself to keep you alive. I yearn for food, for a single plateful of the spreads I once took for granted.

But Lilac needs the food more than I.

Long Night’s Moon 4, 737

Again couriers arrived. Again their supplies were laughable. They complained of the weight that is their job to pull. They complained of the distance that is their job to travel. They seem to think I chose this to spite them. If we had murdered them, I wonder how long it would have taken for their absences to be noted.

We distributed to the neediest. What we had was either insufficient or irrelevant. We had another farmer pass out while another came down with rain rot. We can expect less food again. Others in town are catching colds. We are spiraling. It is only a matter of time before all of our problems cascade into one another and we all perish.

We cannot even return to the heartland. The journey took nearly two moons in summer when we were well-stocked and healthy. Now it is winter, we are ailing, and we haven’t an entire loaf of bread between us. It is a miracle we are all still alive at all. I suspect our shared adversity is all that is holding us together, and once one finally falls, never to rise again, we shall drop like flies.

Long Night’s Moon 8, 737

It has finally happened. Bronze Tiller, one of our farmers, has died. Her wife said she went to bed exhausted last night and never woke. I struggled to dig a grave. Much of the ground is frozen. I said what words I could before an assembly of Tratonmane. Cold and poor morale muted my speech. Tiller had the vitriol of a mean drunk, eloquent and clumsy in one, as she ranted against the Commission, against Canterlot, against Celestia herself. As shouts of agreement came from the crowd, I very nearly broke down. We enlisted for this, all of us. We volunteered.

My fears of the coming days make further words impossible tonight. I shudder to think of what graves must be dug.

Long Night’s Moon 9, 737

Somehow, Plow was able to give us half a bag of leeks today.

She stopped by early in the morning. She seemed tired, but unlikely to pass out like the other farmers. She offered us the bag. When Lilac and I told her to give it to others who needed it more, she said she already had, and we were the current lowest on her list. I inquired as to how she managed to grow so many, but she grew cagey and quickly left. I had no great taste for leeks in Canterlot, but here, now, any food is wonderful. I gave what I could spare to Lilac and our foal. This one meal was more food than she’d eaten in the past several days.

I asked around, and many of our neediest families had received a similar gift from Plow. I sought her out at the farms, only to be told she went to work in the mines that day. I cannot understand how she manages so much, even beyond earth ponies. I can only hope she remains safe.

Long Night’s Moon 14, 737

Again, Plow approached us with food. Arugula. We had arugula seeds, but I cannot remember us ever planting them. There has been much on my mind recently; perhaps I simply forgot. I am not about to complain, nor is Lilac. I can only hope the amounts of food Lilac receives are sufficient for her and the foal both.

Oddly, I have heard that Plow is volunteering for mining from time to time and works late. I cannot imagine why she would bother; she is working for a master who cares not how much we make. Yet in spite of this, she shows no signs of weariness. Her spirit is indomitable beyond belief.

Long Night’s Moon 21, 737

We received clover from Plow today. Lilac’s favorite.

This cannot be natural. As poor Tiller showed, even earth ponies collapse eventually. I made up my mind to investigate.

Yet none of the other farmers know how Plow does it. They struggle with their patches, yet Plow outproduces them all easily and with no hints of exhaustion. She is single-hoofedly taking up the slack of all the ailing farmers and then some, allowing them to recover. And somehow, her food is richer than the others’.

The others are aware of her sudden gifts, but they care not for the source. Why should they? They are being fed. I am responsible for all of these ponies and my current investigations seem more curiosity than concern, even to myself. Lilac would almost certainly be dead now if not for her. But if Plow were to fall, or her methods prove harmful… I must find out eventually.

And all while I wait, she shall grow more food for Tratonmane.

Long Night’s Moon 30, 737

I finally worked up the will to confront Plow about her continued gifts of food. To her credit, once she saw I was set on it, she ceased evading my questions and answered.

She is using the power within the cavern to augment her own. With it, she is able to grow crops far faster and hardier than is possible for mere ponies. She claims that it is the will of the land itself speaking to her, a creature of some sort beyond her ken. When she begs, it is able to give her some small portion of its power for her own use. She seemed apologetic when speaking, as if she’d let me down by keeping the town afloat.

I have heard tales of such things, of what happens to ponies who consort with them. Stories of deranged cults, of ponies mutilating themselves in the throes of eldritch ecstasy. It would be best to demand she stop. But when Plow and I were speaking, my belly was full. All I was able to say was, “Well, thank you.” I remain unsure as to which of us was more surprised by my response.

It is all we have. Regardless of its source, Plow’s work is all that has kept us alive this past moon. I am having a difficult time imagining even a way to condemn her, much less muster the will to do so. She is managing to grow grain. We may have bread.

Were we in Canterlot, my way forward would be clear. Were we in Canterlot, Plow’s actions would not have been necessary to begin with. I must think on this.

Ice Moon 3, 737

Our liaisons arrived. Their supplies were pathetic. Their excuses were worse. And those brazen-faced toads took our coal and gems anyway.

Ice Moon 4, 737

All in Canterlot can hang.

We have not been forgotten. If one has forgotten you, you can remind them. We have been ignored. Shipped to a frozen, diseased corner of Tartarus and then deemed unimportant. Our pleas have gone unanswered, our needs dismissed, and those loathsome, rotten foals in the heartland, those that shiver before a single snowflake can be made and whinge if a cloud crosses the sun, insist that we are making a fuss over nothing while helping themselves to the fruits of our labor.

I care not for the precise reason. It matters little. Perhaps a number was misplaced. Perhaps our name was recorded wrongly. Perhaps Celestia was, for once, overambitious. Perhaps somepony in our supply chain is fattening her own coffers at our expense. Whatever the reason, benign or malign, we are dying because Canterlot’s promises are not being kept.

But I swore to Lilac that, when she brought our foal into the world, it would be in a place of safety. I refuse to break my promise, even if Celestia has broken hers.

So I shall follow Plow’s example. I shall enter that cavern and beg for aid from whatever monstrosity dwells within. For Lilac. For all the ponies under my care. Whatever it asks, I shall give if it is within my power. I partially joined the Commission for prestige, I admit, but these ponies merely wanted to aid their land, and through no fault of their own, were condemned to this frozen hell. They deserve better than I.

I am setting my affairs in order in case I do not return. Lilac does not agree, but she understands. I have given Plow my blessing to take rulership of Tratonmane, with Lilac standing as witness.

Canterlot has failed us. I must not, whatever the cost may be.

It has felt like so long since I last saw the sun rise.

Bitterroot stared at the page. It wasn’t the last one, far from it, but she struggled to raise a hoof to turn the page. There were only so many ways this could end, none of them good.

“Bitterroot?” Amanita asked.

Bitterroot looked at the cover again. At the symbol. The one she’d been seeing everywhere. The one seemingly connected to… whatever was beneath the mountain. Was something getting into her mind? Like the wolf had done?

“Are you okay?”

Implications swirled around her. Maybe, maybe, if she didn’t turn the page, if she didn’t know- But she had to know. She’d go mad otherwise. Maybe she was already mad. In that case, she might as well just keep going, because it wasn’t like it could get that much worse, right?

“Bitterroot?”

“I’m fine,” Bitterroot grunted. “Just… give me a moment.” She took a deep breath and managed to flip to the next page.

I have seen the face of God.

I prostrated myself in the caverns. I begged and I pleaded. And I was answered.

I cannot say it spoke to me. I cannot describe how I was told. After what I experienced, I cannot even be sure I remain altogether sane. But I know what its response was: everything that Canterlot had never delivered us. Food. Shelter. Life. Aid. Strength. For all who would give. I asked what it wanted and was astonished at the price. It was next to nothing. A pittance, really. I’ve already gathered it. I plan to make the sacrifice for Lilac immediately, to lessen her pain.

It must have some connection with me. The sensations I experienced go far beyond what Plow claims. Where she spoke of hazy impressions, I know what it wants in precise detail. We have communicated and exchanged ideas. If this is to be my new role, I welcome it.

I must cut this short, but I remain enraptured. I have never known what awestruck felt like before today. I have felt this thing’s power; everything it promised, it can deliver and more. After seeing this, the sun may consume Celestia for all I care. She places herself above us, but knows not in the slightest what true divinity is. May she be forgotten.

I can save us. Tratonmane can have new life. It only asks for so little.

Bitterroot slammed the book shut, ears ringing. She’d read enough. She knew where it was going. She shuddered to think of what the sacrifice was. In that situation, there were a lot of things that could be considered a pittance. It was easy to see where it all went from there: isolated town, hostile to outsiders, devoted to one of the nameless things that gnawed on the world… Bitterroot had only heard stories. But the stories she’d heard…

Amanita was sitting next to her, staring out at nothing. “You know, I…” she mumbled, “never thought…”

“I wonder if Adirondack’s really Tallbush,” Bitterroot said dully. “Making some kind of… deal to live forever.”

“Or something else. I’ve- Circe actually warned me about these… sorts of beings…”

Amanita was babbling. Bitterroot let her. Her mind was even more swamped than it’d already been. If a god had planted visions in her head… and at least some ponies in Tratonmane were worshiping it… Maybe they were lucky. Maybe it was only Adirondack who knew. Plow hadn’t told anypony else, had she? So everyone else in Tratonmane could still be okay. Yeah. Yeah. Sweat started beading on her brow. She raised a hoof to wipe herself down-

Sweat. Stress sweat, to be certain, but… It was surprisingly warm in here…

She looked up at the windows. The windows that had supposedly been broken. The windows that had been boarded up. The windows that shouldn’t keep out the cold until new glass was put in.

The windows that were doing so anyway.

“Give me some light,” she said to Amanita. As the illumination flared, she flew up, hooked her hooves around the topmost board, and started pulling.

“What’re you doing?” Amanita asked. Her voice was small; she didn’t dare raise it.

“There’s something- behind- these boards,” grunted Bitterroot. At the last word, the board came off and clattered to the ground. Behind it, the window was intact.

It was a stained-glass window.

Fighting back her fear, Bitterroot got to work on the next board down. Amanita also started grabbing the boards in her magic, and they soon made short work of the coverings for that particular window.

It was an image — an icon — of the crossed circle, preserved in stained glass.

Bitterroot felt sick. She attacked the window next to it, ferociously ripping the boards away and hurling them to the ground. Her wings were beating so viciously she had trouble staying in place to actually get a grip. Maybe she was screaming. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe Amanita was yelling something at her. None of that mattered. She needed to know. She needed to see, to see for herself what had been hidden from them.

More stained glass. Simple iconography. Ponies on the surface, bowing down. And deep, deep below, cast in grim blues and purples, a roiling, shapeless mass of energy, coiling upwards around a spike, tentacles reaching to just below the ground.

The creature under the mountain.

And there were nearly a dozen more boarded windows around the room.

“This isn’t a town hall,” Bitterroot whispered. “This is a sunblasted chapel.”

The cultural center of Tratonmane was the temple for a cult.

Bitterroot fell back to the ground. Her blood was buzzing as she looked around the room, her imagination conjuring up fevered images of what lay behind the boards. “We, we need to get out of here.” Her throat was dry. She could barely breathe. “We need to tell Code and Charcoal and show them this book and-”

Behind her, the sound of someone opening the main door made her pulse spike. And she was about to turn and face them when she heard a voice that chilled her to the bone.

“What’re ye doin’, pokin’ ’round here?”

28 - The Divine and the Equine

Amanita twitched at the sound of Tallbush’s voice, but Bitterroot bolted and ducked behind her, shaking like he was Discord, Tirek, and Chrysalis wrapped up into one. As it stood, he looked tired and had bad bedhead and his clothes were crooked.

“ ’Tis the middle o’ the night,” he grunted. His horn lit, he started walking forward. “Seriously, what’re you’uns-”

He stumbled as his hoof bumped against one of the boards Bitterroot had pulled down. He looked at it, frowning.

“We need to leave,” Bitterroot hissed in Amanita’s ear. “We need to leave now.”

Tallbush followed the trail of boards to the wall. He spotted the windows.

“Where would we go?” Amanita asked. “Everyone in the town’s-”

Tallbush’s eyes grew huge. He looked at Amanita and Bitterroot, agape.

“Better than facing that.”

With a sigh, Tallbush hung his head. “So ye ken, dae ye? You’uns read the journal. You’uns ken about the Deormont.”

Amanita blinked. “What?” She wasn’t sure whether Bitterroot or Tallbush had prompted that reaction.

“The Deormont. The One Beneath the Mountain.” Tallbush pointed at one of the windows. “That.”

“Yeah,” Amanita said. Might as well be honest, make the whole tower collapse on her timetable rather than someone else’s. There was no way they could hide it now.

“Ah.” Tallbush’s grin was one of resignation. “Well, then.”

Amanita didn’t say anything. She realized she was planting her legs in something resembling a combat stance. She barely knew how to fight, but she could throw a punch if Tallbush came at her. Maybe he’d try to kill her. Maybe he’d run and rouse the town.

Maybe she should just kill him now. The soil in Pyrita’s grave was still loose. Kill him, hide the body in there, and-

…Why wasn’t he moving?

Amanita and Tallbush looked at each other. Neither had budged an inch. Tallbush didn’t look particularly enraged or horrified at the secret getting out. Mostly, he just looked tired.

“Go on,” he said.

Amanita pulled her legs a little closer together. “And do what?”

Tallbush shrugged in defeat. “Kill me fer bein’ a cultist?”

Cultist. But what sort of a cult called themselves a cult? Which meant, hopefully… “Are you one?”

“Aye.” The grin was back. “Our preacher. The voice o’ the Deormont. The dukes an’ duchesses o’ Tratonmane always are. Passed down frae the firs’ days o’ the town tae today. I’m the founder’s great-great- …great-great-grandson.”

…Or not.

“I-is that all?” Bitterroot asked. She poked her head around Amanita like a filly looking around her parent’s legs. “B-because you sure l-look like more than a preacher.”

“I do?” Tallbush looked at one of his legs. “What’re ye talkin’ of?”

“Right,” Bitterroot mumbled. “No one else can see…”

“See what?”

“A-are you more than a p-preacher or not?” asked Bitterroot. “Are you even- even a pony?”

“Ach, call me everwhat ye wish,” said Tallbush. “Priest, medium, prophet, vicar, hierophant, everwhat. I’m naught but a pony who’s the Deormont’s voice on Equus.”

“Eh-heh.” Bitterroot kept nervously glancing slightly upwards. “That explains the whole… archangel deal.” She gestured vaguely at the nothing above his head.

“Dear land, what in Tartarus’s TARNAL TUBA are you’un talkin’ about?!”

Bitterroot flinched away and clapped her hooves over her ears. “Please don’t scream,” she didn’t quite whimper.

Tallbush made a Face at Amanita; she swallowed and replied, “She- She sees you as otherworldly. Shining light, symbolic appearance, all that.” (Bitterroot nodded jerkily.) “Angelic. You know: a godly messenger.”

“Hmm.” Tallbush flicked an ear. “Ain’t wrong, really. Jes’ a pony, but I reckon I’m a messenger, aye.” He looked at one of his hooves and turned it over, like there was something secret just below the skin.

But once he returned his attention to her, they still didn’t move. They still didn’t move for several long moments.

“What’re ye goin’ tae dae?” Tallbush asked.

“What’re you gonna do?” Amanita asked.

Tallbush blinked and twitched backward. “What?”

“Well… we didn’t know. You were keeping this from us-” Amanita gestured at the boards. “-so you didn’t want us to know. Now we do know. Now what?”

“…Y’ain’t goin’ tae dae arythin’?”

“Not until you do something.”

“…Such as?”

“I…” Amanita was increasingly feeling like she didn’t have the whole picture. She risked pulling her hooves together so she could stand up straight. “I… don’t know. Something to keep your secret?”

Tallbush tilted his head, a look of utter confusion on his face. “What sort o’ ponies dae ye presume us tae be?”

“A cult?”

“Well- Aye, but- How much about us dae ye ken?”

“That there’s something under the mountain you worship. And that’s about it.”

“The Deormont, aye.” Tallbush snorted. “Canterlouts,” he muttered, “always stickin’ yer muzzle…”

Amanita flinched when Bitterroot nudged her; she’d almost forgotten she was there. “We need to go,” Bitterroot said urgently.

“Not yet,” hissed Amanita. She’d been on the wrong side of assumptions. Maybe there was one going on here that she could stop. She dropped onto her haunches. “Okay,” she said to Tallbush. “I think we’re talking at cross purposes. What in Tartarus is going on here?”

“Ach, why not,” Tallbush muttered. He sat down himself. “Ye read how it started?”

“The Fuel Vassalage Commission wasn’t properly paying ponies for coal or giving them supplies.”

“Canterlot still ain’t doin’ that.” Tallbush snorted. “Nastiest place in the nation, an’ jes’ gettin’ blankets’s close akin tae pullin’ teeth… Canterlot sent our foremothers out here, tae this- cold-as-blixen holler, an’ forgot about us once they got their cusséd coal,” he spat. “The Deormont did nae sich thing. An’ it dinnae ask fer much.”

Amanita’s spine crawled as she asked, “And what does ask for?”

“Crops,” Tallbush said immediately. “Rye, apples, kale, others. Ain’t picky. The Deormont’s power comes frae the earth, so’s we give it back what we grew with its gift. We’ve everly more’n plenty.”

“…No equine sacrifices?” Amanita risked.

For a second, Tallbush looked like he was going to punch her lights out. “Never,” he snapped. “We’re desperate. But we ain’t monsters. The second the Deormont starts askin’ fer us tae hurt other people, we’re leavin’. ’Tis in the town charter.”

Amanita flinched back at the venom in his voice. She was treading dangerously close to a nerve, she knew. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I- Sorry.”

“If’n that’s what comes tae mind, ye can see why we keep mum,” scowled Tallbush, pawing at the ground. “When I lick it tae Waypoint, I sometimes hear stories o’ groups an’ towns like ours. Allays cults. Nair end well. Push against the edges o’ the world, an’ that’s all ye need fer e’eryone tae hate ye. Aye, we keep tae ourselves.” He looked Amanita straight in the eye. “Guessin’ ye understand, death doctor.”

Amanita chuckled nervously. “Yeah. I get it.”

Silence. The two looked at each other. Bitterroot was still trembling silently behind Amanita. Tallbush was sitting there like he was tired in a way that a full night’s rest couldn’t cure. His tail kept twitching and his ears were droopy. For someone claiming to be the leader of a cult — in his own words — he sure looked normal and unglamorous.

“Do you really need to keep it up?” Amanita asked. “It’s been- It’s been centuries, we have a new princess-”

“Ye’ve seen Midwich, aye?” Tallbush snapped, getting to his hooves. He started taking slow steps towards Amanita. “Freezes yer insides straight out o’ ye. Got the worstest woods in the country hemmin’ us in. Can hardly raise enough plants tae live on. Dinnae e’en get Her Majesty’s precious sun! Ferget Canterlot. Even if it made o’er us, without the Deormont, there ain’t Tratonmane! This town’s my home, an’ all the reasons it ain’t my grave-” He jabbed Amanita in the chest. “-are bein’ o’ the Deormont.”

He started pacing, flicking his tail, holding his head low and his ears back. “An’ that ain’t all. Ye ken how long most ponies lived in Equestria two hunnert year ago? Fifty years. And that was wi’ most of ’em livin’ in warm places. Fifty. But when our foremothers started worshipin’ the Deormont, nopony died o’ disease, hunger, or old age here for more’n forty year. If’n ye were below seventy, all the thing that could kill ye was the forest.”

He looked back at Amanita. “We dinnae get sick. Dinnae starve. Strong right up ’til the moment we turn up our hooves. Thanks tae the Deormont, we built Elysium in Tartarus. The Deormont’s given us everything we’ve asked o’ it. An’ Celestia?” A bitter, barking laugh. “Ain’t even finished payin’ the first generation.”

That was all it was, wasn’t it? Life. Nothing more. Celestia had promised Tratonmane a life, then failed to deliver, for one reason or another. They just wanted what they were owed. And they were still delivering coal and lumber. There was something fascinating about their dedication to a once-worthy cause that had abandoned them. They were certainly taking the situation better than she would have.

So they deserved better.

Amanita took a deep breath. “Okay. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to talk to Code and we’ll figure it out from there-”

“O’ course,” Tallbush muttered.

“But I’ll also do my best to convince her to leave you alone.”

Tallbush blinked. His ears twitched. “Would ye?”

“I’ve been given the benefit of the doubt before,” Amanita said. “It’s only fair that I give it to somepony else.”

For a moment, nothing. Then Tallbush smiled the smile of someone so incredibly relieved that everything seemed funny. “Thankee. I- Thankee.”

“Can we take the journal back to show Code?”

Some of the relief left Tallbush’s face. “What? Nay.”

“She needs the full-”

“Aye, but the cusséd thing’s nigh on three hundered year old and I dinnae want ye damifyin’ our holy book. We’ve copies.”

Soon, the original journal was back in its drawer and Amanita had stuffed two copies into the pockets of her furs after checking that they matched. The three ponies left the hall. Amanita and Tallbush nodded at each other, then she and Bitterroot headed for the inn while Tallbush went deeper into Tratonmane.

Amanita looked after Tallbush’s silhouette vanishing into the dark. “You think this is a good idea?” she asked Bitterroot.

“It’s what we’re doing, so that kinda doesn’t matter anymore,” Bitterroot replied.

Amanita glanced at her. Bitterroot still looked rattled, caught in a hundred-yard stare (not quite bad enough to be a thousand-yard one) and her wings tight and her steps trembling. “Tallbush?” Amanita asked.

“Tallbush.”

“Still just as bad?”

Bitterroot nodded. “And you were just- casually chatting with him, and…”

“Did you see it on anypony else?”

“No, just him.”

“So if he’s the… voice of the Deormont or whatever and you’re only seeing him… do you think your other hallucinations are related to the Deormont?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Sigh. “I want to get to sleep.”

They walked through the snow.

“We should never go anywhere new together,” said Amanita. “The next week will be really freaky.”

“Agreed.”

“And there’s a good chance you’ll die.”

Bitterroot snorted. “If that’s what it takes to get me to sleep, slit my throat now.”

“…Is… that a request?”

“…Not yet, at least.”

When they reached their room at the inn, Code and Charcoal looked so peaceful sleeping that Amanita almost didn’t want to wake them up. But wake them up the two ponies did, and soon they were sitting on their beds, yawning and smacking their lips. “I trust,” Code said in a voice of restrained murder, “that you have a good reason for waking us up.”

“Everyone in Tratonmane’s part of a cult worshiping something in the mine,” Bitterroot said.

Silence. Charcoal’s jaw dropped, then Code nodded. “That is a good reason. Explain.”

“Also, that might not actually change anything, because I’m not sure this cult is harmful,” Amanita added.

“…Not unheard of. Expand.”

And expand Amanita and Bitterroot did. They ran over everything relevant, even the grave robbing (Charcoal was half mortified, half still in the process of waking up and unable to be mortified). They talked about the journal and their talk with Tallbush. They showed the copies of the journal Tallbush had given them. They talked about their own thoughts. They gave them everything they knew.

“…and I… feel like I should believe them,” Bitterroot said, “but… they’re worshiping some chthonian beast, but… that’s with all the baggage Tallbush pointed out, and… I don’t know what to make of it.”

Code nodded. She closed her eyes. She took a deep breath in through her mouth. She let it out through her nose.

And she smiled.

“A tutelary,” she almost laughed. “A tutelary. Celestia, I’ve wanted to see one…”

“Er…” Amanita looked at Bitterroot and Charcoal in confusion. Bitterroot looked just as confused, while Charcoal was slowly turning into the excited form of shocked.

“Small gods,” Code said preemptively. “Spirits of the earth and of places.” She opened her eyes. “They… exist differently than us. I don’t understand it well myself. We rarely get much of a chance to study them, and it’s hard to decipher the… data we get when we do. It’s hard for us to comprehend each other, our states of being are so different. But if ponies could form a bond with one…”

“From what I know of tutelaries, it’d have to be cost- caused by the land itself,” said Charcoal, “and from the sound of it, Midwich was perfect for that…”

“And Tratonmane can communicate with it!” said Code, jumping off the bed. “Or at least Tallbush.”

“Of course it’s him,” scoffed Charcoal, “he’s the duke, he’s the one ponies appointed to be responsible for Midwich, so he’s the one responsible for the Deormont, and that’s by accident-”

“Indeed. Do you think the duke can always communicate with the Deormont?”

“As long as Tramontane honors them, yeah, because if they don’t, then they’re not responsible for the land… Did we just recreate the Mandate of Elysium?”

“I think it’s the reverse, the Mandate of Equus-”

“Hey!” Bitterroot whisper-screamed. “Are we- Are we safe? This- This is-”

“Do you remember Waypoint?” Code said. “They thought Tratonmane was odd, but that was it. They didn’t have any sinister stories or traumatic tales of occult goings-on here. Just, ‘Midwich is odd’. Tutelaries aren’t the type to pay much attention to the deaths of physical individuals, anyway. Tratonmane would gain nothing from killing us.”

“And even if we were going to run, what would we do?” Charcoal said cheerily. “Hijack the train? Who would drive it?”

“I… probably could,” mumbled Bitterroot. “I know trains.”

Code did a double-take, then groaned and said, “Whatever the case, either we’re safe, or we’re going to have the entire town descending on us and we’re doomed. Either way, I’m tired, and I’d rather die on a full night’s sleep. Get back to bed.”

Code and Charcoal both climbed back into their beds. Amanita and Bitterroot looked at each other. “I hate it when big things start at night,” Bitterroot mumbled as she walked to her own bed.

Part of Amanita wanted to protest their actions and try to hammer out something now, but weariness was creeping into her body. She could’ve fought it off, but she wouldn’t be in a state for any sort of honest discussion. Going to sleep was about all she could do.

Except for reading. She looked at the copy of the journal Tallbush had given her and fanned through the pages. Curiosity just barely overtook exhaustion and she settled into her bed with a tiny ball of shimmering hornlight, just enough to read by.

Time for some theology.

I took the sheaf of grain back to the cavern and burned it, as commanded. As I did so, I communed with the land.

Things were made known to me. I cannot say how. This thing inside the mountain, it is woven throughout all of Midwich. It is not trapped here any more than I am trapped in physicality; our states of being are different. It can aid us if we aid it. I remain unsure of the exact mechanism, but we can harness its power as Plow did. It promised me a sign tomorrow as proof. It appears to not be all-knowing, since Plow’s crops were proof enough.

When I exited the mine, the air wasn’t so cold.

Ice Moon 5, 737

This morning, three colossal bears walked into Tratonmane and lay on the ground. The townsponies were terrified, as they ought to be. I walked up to the bears and slit their throats one by one. They put up no resistance. We used the furs for blankets and their fat for oil. It is a windfall compared to what we have.

I talked with Plow and we determined to tell Tratonmane as a whole. They deserved to know. If any wished to leave, we would let them. I could not condemn them for my rash actions.

Yet when we did so, the response was eager. Finally, something that kept its promises! They were flush with questions I sadly could not answer. Perhaps there was pent-up hate and anger that their pride refused to let them voice that this being now provides an outlet for. Some were apprehensive, but more in concern for my safety, not in my potentially committing dark magic.

As Duke Tratonmane, this town is my responsibility, so I shall bear the risk. I shall continue speaking with it in such ways I can. No one else shall have to, although I shall not stop them if they wish to try.

I pray these divine promises may be kept.

Ice Moon 11, 737

I have not eaten in four days. I have given all of our food to Lilac, for her strength and the foal’s.

But I do not waste. I asked for the energy of Midwich to sustain me, and it has been so. The dark seems lighter and the chill’s bite is softer. Hunger gnaws at me, but I am not ravenous. It is merely uncomfortable, not painful.

Our plants are flourishing, a year of maintenance accomplished in a week in a climate that should not support them. Sickness has been banished. Fish have swam upstream to provide us with extra food. The air in the mine is cleaner. Even our wounds seem to heal more quickly. All of Tratonmane’s spirits have been lifted. Even in the dark, this place is becoming enjoyable.

I have continued communing with Midwich. We are so different that exchanging ideas is a struggle, but I am slowly learning how to communicate with it. I know it wants things, but those things have meaning on a metaphysical level, not a physical one. My burning of grain was taking our cultivation of Midwich and releasing it, on some level. I am talking with a unicorn in an attempt to make heads or tails of it.

I know that I am tempting fate by being hopeful. But I feel fate has already had its twist, so hopeful I remain.

Ice Moon 19, 737

I am a father and Lilac is a mother. Mountain Juniper is the first foal born in Tratonmane. Even as malnourished as her mother was, she is strong enough to walk. Praise Midwich.

Lilac remains healthy and strong. I suspect she would be out collecting lumber if not for Juniper nursing. Praise Midwich.

Storm Moon 2, 737

We received our supplies. As lackluster as ever, not that that matters anymore. I also received a response to my letter. I didn’t even open it before I threw it into the fire. We are living in Midwich without their help.

Juniper is healthy and growing into quite a hoofful already. Thankfully, Lilac and I have help from some of the other parents in Tratonmane. It takes a village, after all.

Yesterday, I had a breakthrough in the cavern, and I was spoken to in plain Ponish. Tratonmane’s relationship with the entity has been not merely reaffirmed, but extended beyond even our lifetimes. I remember it clearly:

So long as you remain beneath my wings, you shall not depart before your time. The miasma of the earth shall not harm you, nor shall the beasts of the wood. The land shall be plentiful for you and you shall not want or suffer, nor shall your descendents. The ravages of illness shall not touch you. You are mine. I am yours. We are ours.

Canterlot may condemn me. Canterlot may say I am consorting with things beyond my reckoning. Canterlot may say I am throwing my life to the whims of an unknowable thing in exchange for earthly power. I cannot say they’re wrong. If they wish to capture me, I shall go quietly.

But they shall have to come get me. And if they do, they shall see what their neglect has wrought.

29 - Reach Out and Touch Faith

Considering how yesterday had been, Bitterroot felt great when she woke up. Actually, scratch that; Bitterroot would’ve felt great even without the stress of yesterday making the smallest bit of good feel better. She hadn’t slept that well in ages. Definitely not since entering Tratonmane. She actually felt calm and ready for- whatever the day was going to throw at her. Which, given the past few days, could be quite a lot.

…She’d spent the whole day paranoid, turned into a mearhwolf, had a mental breakdown, learned she was staying in a cult town, and she still felt great. Hmm.

Staying in bed didn’t feel right, so Bitterroot loped her way downstairs. It was early enough that the common room was still empty. Cabin was giving the bar one last cleaning and Code was sitting at a table, chewing on a stick and scribbling things on a scrap of parchment, one of the copies of the journal at her side. Her eye was still bloody from last night. “Morning,” Code said without looking up.

“Morning,” said Bitterroot. “Would I understand what you’re working on?”

Code shrugged. “Probably. I’m just getting my thoughts out about the Deormont.”

Cabin immediately stiffened and stopped in her work. Her ears were turned towards Code. She flicked her tail. It was like she was too shocked to move.

“We only learned about it last night and we’re pretty sure it’s not illegal,” Code said loudly. “We’re not doing anything yet. Nothing to see here.”

Cabin stared at Code. Blinked. Then she tossed her towel aside and walked up to Code, looming over her. “Dinnae say a word tae Canterlot about us,” she growled. “Not one.”

Code simply looked up at her.

Immediately, Bitterroot felt the intensity between them. Two ponies, each trying to force their will on the other. But it wasn’t even a contest. No matter how much Cabin tried to project size and intensity, Code didn’t waver. She didn’t look like she was capable of wavering. It wasn’t long before Cabin’s angry glare faltered while Code remained impassive. It only took another moment before Cabin turned and scuttled back to the bar.

Then Code said, “Okay.” And she went back to writing.

“Th-thankee,” grunted Cabin. She started stiffly cleaning the bartop again, but she kept sneaking glances at Code and her movement was jerky.

“Just diving in, aren’t you?” asked Bitterroot.

“When there’s no easy way to do something, just diving in is your best bet.”

Not the worst piece of advice Bitterroot had ever heard.

Code kept writing. On a whim, Bitterroot peeked at the parchment. Right in the corner, surrounded by technical questions about its design, was a crossed circle. Bitterroot reflexively flinched and looked away. But the image didn’t burn its way into her brain like it had before.

“How’re you doing with the sigils?” Code asked.

So they were “sigils” now, hmm? “I don’t know,” Bitterroot said. “I’m- I haven’t… really been in a position to see them since yesterday.” She sighed and shook her head. “They were everywhere. I felt like I’d see them in my whiskey if I’d looked at my cup for long enough.”

“Of course,” Code said blandly. “You might’ve been experiencing a divine revelation. They have a way of finding their way to you.”

“All those hallucinations of circles were divine revelation?” Bitterroot asked, a hint of derision creeping into her voice. “What, was a voice saying ‘talk to Tallbush about me’ too much for it?”

“Possibly. Tutelaries are… They see the world differently. They’re less physical and more conceptual. The meaning is more important than the writing in front of it. Tratonmane’s holy book has the symbol on the cover.” Code opened the book just enough to show Bitterroot. “So maybe you seeing those circles was the Deormont telling you to talk to Tallbush about it.”

“Hmph. The voice would’ve been nice.”

“Welcome to the wonderful world of paraphysical beings.”

Cabin was still staring, looking more and more confused.

More people started trickling in, including Amanita and Charcoal. Breakfast was soon ordered and made for the four of them. They were about halfway through their meal when Charcoal said, “So who thinks the Deormont is the source of the ley line?”

The entire atmosphere froze.

Conversations stopped dead. Ponies stopped eating. One by one, they all turned to look at Charcoal nervously. Some of them exchanged glances with one another. None of them moved.

“Oh, bug this,” muttered Code. She climbed onto the bartop and stomped twice to get everyone’s attention (not that she needed to). She adjusted her glasses and bellowed in a voice that belied her small size, “Alright, everypony, listen up! We know about the Deormont!” She waved her copy of the journal for emphasis. “We’ve only known since late last night! We are not going to do anything to prevent you from worshiping it! It is completely legal! Tell your friends so I don’t need to repeat my-sunblasted-self a hundred cotton-pickin’ times today! You don’t need to keep it a secret! …Thank you.”

And then she went back to her seat. The other ponies gradually went back to whatever they were doing before, if with more glances in her direction.

“Did you honestly just say cotton-pickin’?” Bitterroot asked in disbelief.

“I’m a frustrated old fogey, it’s obligatory,” Code said. To Charcoal, she said, “You’re right, though. A being of great power, part of the land… I’d eat my tail if that’s not the case. There are many different types of gods.”

“So it’s in the mine,” said Charcoal. “And Tallbush won’t let us in the mine.”

“Perhaps he didn’t want us in the mine because of the Deormont,” said Code. “And now that we know about it… I’d want to talk to him anyway. Get this whole ‘cult’ thing straightened out.”

“You don’t think Tratonmane’s a cult?” Bitterroot asked. (Ponies were turning to look at them again.) “I get that they’re okay people, but…”

“It’s not a cult,” Code said. “Mostly because the definition of ‘cult’ is an incredibly hazy one that’s almost entirely pejorative and- really… shouldn’t be used without…”

As her voice trailed off, she raised her head, eyes intense, ears twitching. She jerked her head towards the door. “Something’s coming,” she said in a low voice. She slid off her chair and casually slipped into a combat stance.

And once she mentioned it, Bitterroot could feel it, too. Her attention was being drawn in that direction, in much the same way Celestia and Luna dragged the attention towards themselves simply by being present. Metaphysical weight. She tensed her jaw and felt her wings tense up.

The door to the Watering Cave opened up and an angel walked in. “Mornin’,” thundered Tallbush.

Amanita really wished she could see what Bitterroot could see, because once regular old Tallbush walked in, Bitterroot sucked in a breath and her wings twitched like she wanted to start flying away ASAP. Amanita spared a quick look at her; even her hooves were twitching frantically.

Code blinked and raised her head as her stance eased up. “Your Grace,” she said, bowing slightly. She wasn’t sarcastic.

“Ma’am.” Tallbush returned the bow. “Beggin’ pardon, but I’m fergettin’ yer rank-”

“Colonel.”

“Colonel.” Another bow. “I presume they… told ye?”

“Absolutely.” Code gestured towards the table. “Why don’t we take a seat?” And every ear and several heads in the room turned to watch.

The table was getting cramped, but they managed. Bitterroot nudged her chair a bit further away. Tallbush shot her an odd look, prompting a sharp, quiet gasp from her. “Still seein’ me like las’ night?” he asked.

“Y-yeah,” Bitterroot said, nodding shakily.

Tallbush grunted and moved his attention back to Code. “Reckon you’un and I might as well get down to it. What dae ye want?”

Code looked at Tallbush for a long moment. Then she asked, “What does the Deormont give you?”

“I’m sure ye’ve read it,” Tallbush said, gesturing to the journal.

“I’d like to hear it in your words.”

“…Food an’ health. Survival in a place that Celestia’s light doesnae reach. We can grow food enough tae feed a family on a grain o’ dirt an’ a drop o’ water. An’ some plants, like the rye? Wouldnae e’en grow at all if’n the Deormont werenae makin’ it so. Makes up fer the food y’all Canterlotians nair send us.”

“It does,” Code said blandly. “And health?”

“We can live in Midwich,” said Tallbush. “An’ beg yer pardon, but have ye felt Midwich? ’Tis a miracle the air itself ain’t froze. Live fer longer. Heal faster after we’ve been hurted. Like tae nair get sick. Cold, fever, ague-”

“Black lung,” Amanita said, her ears going up. Code and Charcoal both looked at her in realization. “Nobody gets black lung here. Because of the Deormont.” Arrastra hadn’t even known what black lung was. Divine protection would certainly do that.

One of Tallbush’s ears drooped. “What’s a black lung?” he asked.

“Exactly.”

Tallbush gave Amanita a Look before continuing. “Without the Deormont, Tratonmane’d not exist. Since Canterlot ain’t sendin’ us a pit-eaten thing, we wouldnae have the strength nor the supplies. The sole question’s whether we’d starve out or freeze out. That’s it. That’s all there is. That’s the reason we’re devoted tae a thing frae the lightless pits ’neath the earth.”

“Mmhmm,” said Code. She briefly glanced towards the door; Amanita saw her tail flick. “I’ve heard worse reasons.”

“Aye. Sae, what shall it be? About tae slap me in irons fer consortin’ wi’ eldritch things?” Tallbush grinned in aggressive surrender. More ponies started looking their way.

Code rolled her eyes. “Hardly. Consorting with eldritch things is part of my day job. Believe it or not, this actually isn’t unprecedented. Plenty of things lurk in the dark corners of Equestria, some ponies. But ‘dark’ doesn’t mean ‘malicious’ or ‘harmful’. Sometimes, it’s not even dangerous. Just dark. Just ask Luna.”

“Or me,” Amanita said. Not quietly, either. Tallbush’s nod was subtle, but visible.

“I’ve skimmed the journal-” Code held it up. “-and I don’t think the Deormont is malicious, harmful, or dangerous, and given the situation, some desperation on Tratonmane’s part is to be expected. I… won’t call your fears of reprisal unfounded, but they’re unnecessary. We’ll leave you alone.”

Tallbush tilted his head. Just about every pony was looking in their direction. The atmosphere tightened, like the town itself was holding his breath. “Jes’ like that?” Tallbush asked.

“Yes,” said Code through gritted teeth. “Yes, yes, by Luna’s stupid sparkly mane, yes! I swear to Celestia, if one more pony asks me that-” She inhaled deeply, closed her eyes, and started rubbing her temples. “Yes,” she said in a too-level voice. “Just. Like. That.”

“She’s had to say that a lot and she’s going craaaaaazy,” Charcoal stage-whispered.

Tallbush looked around the table. The tension was released as he grinned. Then he started shaking with laughter, making Bitterroot push her chair away a little bit more. “We were, heh, we were mighty afeared when we heard y’all were a-comin’,” he said, shaking his head. “We spent abouten three hour jes’ boardin’ up the hall so ye wouldnae see the windows. Makin’ certain nopony’d say a word ’bout the Deormont. Cancelled all our meetin’s. Even kept ye out o’ Pyrita’s funeral so’s I could funeralize all proper-like fer her. An’ ye jes’… dinnae care.” He pressed his face into one of his hooves, frustration getting released as mirth.

“And, I presume, you stayed away from me because I’d sense you?” Code asked, not batting an eye.

“Ye were eatin’ dirt!” Tallbush guffawed. “Gettin’ close tae the ley line by chowin’ down on dirt! An’ if gettin’ close tae the ley line meant ye could feel the Deormont’s magic in me… Eatin’ dirt.”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” said Charcoal. She almost sounded insulted.

“Heh. Reckon so.” Tallbush chuckled and rubbed his cheeks. “Ha, ye’ve no idea what an easement this is. I’ve spent-”

The door to the inn banged open, revealing Arrastra. “Tallbush, Yer Grace,” she said breathlessly. “We need tae tell ’em.”

“About the Deormont?” asked Tallbush. “Dinnae fret, they learned last night.”

Arrastra blinked. She unfolded and refolded her wings “…H- How?”

“They- Why were ye in the town hall in the dead o’ night?” Tallbush asked Amanita.

Amanita opened her mouth, but Bitterroot was suddenly talking. “I’d been- seeing visions of crossed circles and I had some, uh, trouble sleeping and I remembered seeing it on the book. I, I convinced Amanita to come with me to check it out.” It was only then that Amanita remembered that, hey, telling someone you went grave robbing in the middle of the night probably wasn’t the best idea. “Why were you there?”

“Deormont told me tae head o’er. Arrastra, they found the journal. Started rippin’ the boards frae the windows. So I told ’em. An’ Code’s real insistent that we’ll be left alone. Ain’t ye?”

“You can give her the reasons, I am not repeating myself again,” Code growled.

“Tell ye later,” said Tallbush. “Fer now, I-”

“Is the Deormont the source of the ley line?” Charcoal asked, leaning over the table a tad. “And you wanted to keep us out of the mine because that’s where it is, right?”

“Well…” Tallbush’s head bobbed back and forth. “Aye, but-”

“So we can go in, now, right?” Charcoal was almost excited. “Because the- the thing that was keeping us out has been-”

“Ain’t that simple,” said Tallbush through gritted teeth. “The Deormont ain’t responsible fer the line’s turnin’. It’d nair hurt us like that.”

“Yer Grace-” began Arrastra, raising a hoof.

“If the Deormont is the start of the line-” said Code.

“Doesnae matter!” Tallbush said, raising his voice slightly. (Bitterroot flinched and actually left her chair.) “The Deormont didnae sour the line. It wouldnae sour the line. Y’ain’t goin’ tae learn a pit-stained scrap if’n ye go in there.”

“Then why not let us in so we can check it off our list?” asked Code.

“We’ll be quick!” chirped Charcoal.

“Mine’s sacred an’ dangerous,” said Tallbush. “If’n ary o’ you’uns get hurt-”

“Yer Grace, please-”

“STOP!” yelled Tallbush. Bitterroot dropped to the floor, her hooves over her ears, as everyone else fell silent. Tallbush slouched over the table, rubbing the bridge of his muzzle. “Beg yer pardon, but I’m whipped and drug out,” he said. “Night was busy. Day’s goin’ tae be busier. I dinnae need this headache right now. Ye’ve still tae find Whippletree. Can ye finish all that up so’s we can talk about this in the evenin’ wi’ nary distraction?”

Code’s tail flicked. “That’s acceptable,” she said in a voice that also said acceptable was the best thing she could say about it.

“Thankee,” Tallbush sighed. “Be seein’ you’uns.” He stood up, gave them an inkling of a bow, and slouched out the door.

The second that door closed, Arrastra rustled her wings and said solidly, “I’m a-takin’ y’all intae the mine.”

Amanita pointed at the door. “Even though-”

“We ain’t been gettin’ nowheres beatin’ the wolf ’round the stump,” Arrastra said. “He’s right, the Deormont wouldnae damify us, but that doesnae matter. You’uns came tae take a look at the ley line. The Deormont’s the line’s branch head. That’s all there is to it.” She whipped around to the rest of the room and roared, “An’ none o’ you’uns say nothin’ tae him!”

“Finally,” muttered Code. “When are we going?”

“As soon as ye say. Now, if’n ye want it.”

“I like you.”

Tratonmane looked subtly different. Bitterroot couldn’t say how. She wouldn’t have been surprised if it was entirely the placebo effect. But knowing it was a cult town, now… When Bitterroot looked around, the houses seemed to loom a bit more, the streets seemed to be narrower, everything seemed to be a bit more angular. It wasn’t exactly hostile, just a bit more ominous. Or maybe she was just paying attention to the buildings now.

She started paying more attention. A certain crossed circle was suddenly difficult to find. A knot came undone in her stomach.

It was that specific time of early when the stars were fading out and the horizon was orange from the sun just below it. But they couldn’t see the horizon down in Tratonmane, so the sky was just dark, dark blue. It almost looked better that way, compared to the gash of a bright blue sky at noon or starlight at midnight. Bitterroot could at least pretend they were in a cloudy, moonless night. Especially since it was early enough that there wasn’t anypony in the streets.

“Coulda done this the very firs’ day,” Arrastra growled as she stomped her way onwards. “Nae runnin’ about an’ keepin’ secrets, nae work on the chapel, nae lyin’…”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Bitterroot said, “but I’m pretty sure the best way to greet visitors to your town isn’t, ‘Would you like to learn about our lord and savior, the transdimensional eldritch beast deep within the mountain?’”

“Aye, but it’s simpler.”

“So, uh…” Charcoal sidled up next to Arrastra. “If everyone in Tratonmane worships the Deormont and you want to keep it secret… what happens if someone wants to leave?”

“We let ’em,” said Arrastra. “An’ ask ’em tae keep quiet.”

They walked.

“…That’s it?” Charcoal asked.

“Why would they wish tae gab about their wee cult in the North at all?” asked Arrastra. “They play hushmouth an’ we dinnae get ary Canterlout ponies pokin’ their muzzles intae our business.”

“Sorry,” said Amanita.

Arrastra snorted. “The Deormont dinnae have ary power outside Midwich, aryway.”

There was something comforting about that to Bitterroot. If it got to be too much, she had a simple, readymade out: just leave. No worrying about actual breakdowns. Can’t have a divine revelation if the divine isn’t around.

“So what about the other way around?” asked Charcoal. “What happens if someone moves here?”

Arrastra looked at Charcoal. She looked up at the looming cliffs of the valley, cloaking it in darkness. She looked at Charcoal and raised her eyebrow.

“…Yeah, I guess not.”

Tratonmane passed by quickly, and they soon reached the shelf. As they climbed the ramp up, Bitterroot was surprised by how much she found familiar. That particular pile of rocks on the slope, that weathered sign, the clucking chicken in that nearby run the way the incline was just a bit uneven… For a pegasus, she did a lot of traveling on hoof.

“Hey, uh, Bitterroot?” Amanita asked quietly. “How are… How’re you doing with the…” She gestured vaguely. “…wolf… thing?”

“…Honestly, I’d kinda forgotten about it until you mentioned it. Cult that isn’t a cult and all.”

“Heh. Sorry. So… now that I’ve mentioned it…”

Bitterroot was silent for a moment as she let her mind drift. When her mind didn’t drift to the mearhwolf, she said, “I’m too busy thinking about the Deormont.” She was bordering on just not reacting to anything anymore, so much had happened so quickly. Not in any depressive way, but a “yeah, whatever” way. Just go with the flow and wait until it all came out in the wash to start screaming. It was how she’d handled dying.

Amanita looked at her for a while. “So you’re okay for the moment?”

“For the moment. Thanks for checking.”

“Yeah.”

Bitterroot expected them to keep going straight up to the mine, but Arrastra swerved around the tower at the top of the ramp and headed for the coal breaker. With no one up yet, it was quiet, and Bitterroot only now realized just how much it’d been humming beforehoof. Arrastra gestured for them to wait outside and ducked in. She came back out carrying four helmets with lightgem headlamps. As she passed them out, she said, “Wear ’em. Even the two o’ ye.” She pointed at Amanita and Charcoal. “Ye can use yer horns, but ye’d best have backups. I dinnae wish that ye lose yerself jes’ ’cause ye didnae have ary light.”

The strap was old and stiff, but Bitterroot got it around her head snugly enough. “What about you?” she asked.

Arrastra gave an echolocative chirrup, and Bitterroot flinched at how well it stabbed her eardrums. “Point taken,” Bitterroot said, wiggling a hoof in her ear.

And then they went up the slope. Bitterroot privately wished she’d had the headlamp on all the time. It was heavy and its light wasn’t the greatest, but she could see so much more. She’d probably be singing a different tune once she came back out, though. Newer designs were so much lighter than this. And Tratonmane would’ve known that if Canterlot had told them.

Soon enough, the entrance of the mine was yawning before them. Arrastra looked over her shoulder. “Stay close tae me,” she said. “Dinnae lose sight o’ me. If’n ye get yerself lost, stay put. We’ll find ye eventually. If’n I’m moving too fast fer ye, say so. There’s tunnels aplenty down there.” After hearing a general murmur of assent, she stalked into the mine. Code and Charcoal followed close behind.

Bitterroot was about to set off when she realized Amanita hadn’t moved yet. She was looking up at the cliff face with wide eyes, her legs shaking and her tail between her legs. “We need to get going,” Bitterroot whispered. She glanced into the mine; everyone was still visible for the moment. “Is something wrong?”

“Mines… Um…” Amanita licked her lips and pawed at the ground. “I don’t… have a good history with… mines.”

“You first ran from Circe in a mine, right?” asked Bitterroot.

“Well, yes and… no. That’s where that happened, but…” Amanita folded her ears back and blinked rapidly. “A l-lot of bad things h-happened before then.”

“You, uh…” Bitterroot flicked her tail. “You can sit this one out, I don’t-”

“No. No, I… We need to do this.” Amanita swallowed.

“Alright. But remember, whatever happens, I’m here for you.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Of course.” Amanita forced a smile onto her face. “C’mon.”

But as they trotted to reach the others, following the light of horns and headlamps, Bitterroot looked back, at the entrance. Tratonmane had very little light, but even that small amount was enough for the entrance to be visible as a small patch in a sea of black. That patch got smaller with every step.

Well. Onward and inward.

30 - Heart of the Mountain

When they’d first arrived, Amanita had thought Midwich Valley was the jaws of the earth. Now she knew that Midwich Mine was its gullet.

They were going deeper and deeper and deeper, the miniscule scraps of light from the entrance getting swallowed up by the pitch darkness. The rays from their horns danced around the rock walls and the cart rails, occasionally glinting off a gem in the wall or a scrap of metal that was still smooth. Arrastra’s echolocative chirps and clicks started out piercing, but gradually simmered down to occasional white noise. There were occasional side drifts splitting off their shaft; Arrastra ignored these in favor of going straight. The earth itself was consuming them.

With every step, Amanita felt the air around them grow thicker and thicker, ever so slightly; she had to push herself forward, leaving her at the back of the pack. The rough, rocky walls weren’t closing in, but they were ready to. According to the death certificates, no one had died in here in centuries, but death surrounded her all the same. Sounds were magnified, echoing back many times over. The tunnel’s wooden supports didn’t seem nearly strong enough to hold up the weight of the mountain above them. If there was a cave-in, the only way to see from the outside would be a blocked entrance. There weren’t even any lights besides their own.

It looked an awful lot like the mine where Circe had attempted to rejuvenate her phylactery.

“There’s a lot of gems in here,” Charcoal whispered to Amanita.

“Hmm?” Amanita stalled, hoping the distraction would continue.

“Gems! Look at them!” Charcoal pointed at one of the gems sticking out of the tunnel wall. “That’s a lot, even for Equestria!”

Amanita couldn’t remember if she’d seen any gems in Circe’s mine. Probably not. “Related to the ley line?”

“Probably not! Ley energies don’t always align in the right ways for gems to form more than usual.” Charcoal wrenched one of the gems from the stone and examined it. “Oh, and it’s a nice gem, too. Look at all the tacits. Facets.” She turned the gem around and it glinted oddly brightly in their horns’ light. “Good for mana reservoirs.”

“Mmhmm.” Circe had told her to shun mana reservoirs most times. Said they were a crutch and she needed to rely only on herself for her pool of magic. If she ran out of reservoirs, she’d be screwed, but she’d always have a bit more magic. But then, Circe had been an earth pony, “boundless energy” was kinda their stereotype-

“This would be so useful for magic experimentation,” Charcoal mused, examining the gem closely. “Look at the faces, it could store a whole lot of energy… And I bet its internal structure is really neat under a microscope…” She shrugged, tossed it over her shoulder, and kept walking and whistling. There went the distraction.

The mine looked like Circe’s. That was pure coincidence, of course — there were only so many ways a mine could look — but that was where Amanita’s mind went. She remembered a march of thralls to the main chamber. She remembered her master doing things that would make most ponies vomit.

She remembered how she’d set off a chain of events that had led to Circe’s capture.

“You doing okay?” Bitterroot whispered.

“I…” As bad as the things she’d seen had been, if anything, the last mine had been Amanita’s finest hour. The moment she’d fully taken back control of her life and decided to face the consequences. “I think so, yeah.” So if she could manage dropping a mountain on a lich when she was all alone, imagine what she could do with friends around her. (Hopefully not kill them.)

“Are you?”

It was just a place that dredged up memories. Three moons ago, necromancy had dredged up memories, and now she was fine with it. She could do this. And if she needed help, she had it. “Yeah. Really.”

“Alright. Let me know if you’re not.”

Almost on impulse, Amanita took the deepest breath she could, trying to feel it. The air in the last mine had been ugly and musty; this air was surprisingly clear. Or not so surprisingly. Divine patronage explained a lot of things. This definitely wasn’t Circe’s mine. Hopefully, its main inhabitant was more friendly, even if that was a low bar to clear.

More and more tunnels branched off, but Arrastra’s route continued to take them straight in. The entrance wasn’t visible anymore and it was impossible to tell distance. For all Amanita knew, they could’ve been miles in, a tiny sliver of a tunnel in the vast bulk of rock that was the mountain. How far in was the Deormont? How far in had Pyrita run?

…Had Pyrita run to the Deormont?

Bits and pieces started fitting together and dominoes fell in Amanita’s mind. “Pyrita died in here,” she heard herself say. Vocalizing it helped make sure she was getting it right. “Over a week ago. The day the line shifted. She was running from something and her heart gave out.”

She could feel the attention of their little party shift. Furtive glances, ears angled towards her, walking directions angled away. Arrastra slowed her pace for a brief moment, quietly letting her catch up.

“Then she came back out, but… she wasn’t like her. She said strange things and fell into a coma. She was healed eight days later, then she hanged herself the next day. But I couldn’t resurrect her. Because that wasn’t her. She’d been in Elysium for too long. So… what if the Deormont had taken her body out for some reason?”

“Like… possessed her?” Bitterroot asked. She tilted her head and rustled her wings.

“It’s a, it’s a god, puppeting a dead body’s not that much of a stretch, probably,” Amanita said. She wasn’t sure if she was responding to Bitterroot or continuing her own thoughts. “Assuming it has a reason. Tutelaries don’t- experience- things like us, right? So if Pyrita was the Deormont doing its best… Code, I… I think the Rite of Brave Spear might’ve pushed it towards a more mortal worldview. Do, do you remember your incantation?”

Immediately, Code recited, “‘It is by these actions we may hold her all and drive out the fugue that doth hold her in thrall. This pony’s mind healed; this I humbly implore. May she speak to us as she did once before.’ Hmm. If I was focusing on Pyrita’s wellbeing, but casting the ritual on the Deormont… Tutelaries often work heavily in ideas, and the ritual may have pressed enough to push it into a physical perspective… which explains why she woke up. …Ha. I cast a healing ritual on a god.”

“And, and the Deormont did something, so it didn’t need Pyrita anymore.” Amanita knew she was rambling by now. She couldn’t care less. “But it works on ideas, and the general idea is that ponies leave the world by dying, so it did that, and then I couldn’t resurrect Pyrita, and Arrastra-”

Wait. Her light flickered.

“Arrastra…”

Amanita raised her head. Everyone was looking at her. Except for the pony at the very front of the pack.

“You knew,” Amanita said quietly.

Arrastra didn’t say anything and her pace didn’t change, but she lowered her head and her ears folded back.

“When I told you that the resurrection failed. That Pyrita had died in the mine. You knew the Deormont was down here. You had an idea of what was going on. You knew.” Amanita’s words weren’t accusatory; they were too flat to be anything but factual statements.

“…I… I didn’t fully ken in reason, but… I had me an inkling. And… I didnae like the inkling.” Arrastra swallowed. “Blamin’ youn was easier,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” said Amanita. “I know the feeling. Morals kinda fall away when it comes to somepony you love. I… didn’t become a necromancer on a lark.”

The air grew strained as they walked. Arrastra kept looking forward, but Amanita didn’t know what to add. The walls were getting smooth — not like carved rock, but like modeling clay. Charcoal took a look and tapped it. Her hoof left trails in it. “This is telling. Tailings,” she muttered. She turned her hoof around to get a better look at what was on it. “Or something like it.”

A long-ago conversation pinged Amanita’s brain. “Rock fertilizer,” she said. “One of the miners said they recycle the tailings into rock fertilizer.”

“Wait, really?” The tunnel echoed with the jump in Charcoal’s voice. “But that’s-”

“-probably done by the Deormont,” said Amanita, wiggling a hoof in her ear. “I had the same thought.”

Charcoal tilted her head, wiggled her ears. She licked the mulch on her hoof. Then she called out, “Arrastra? Does the Deormont turn tailings into rock fertilizer?” Everyone gave her a look.

Except Arrastra. “I- I presume so, aye,” she said. “I- nair worked with it.” Her voice was shaking.

“Oh, that’s neat,” whispered Charcoal. She wiped her hoof down on the ground. “That’s really-”

Arrastra suddenly stumbled to a stop and dropped onto her haunches. Hanging her head in a hoof, she gasped out, “Oh, stars above, I’m s-sorry. You’uns were such- such wheelhorses, an’ I never did nothin’ but cuss y’all out. I-”

She sucked in a breath and turned around, her eye flashing in the light. “I’d like tae apologize tae you’uns proper-like when we’re out,” Arrastra said. “You’un especially, Amanita. Not now, it ain’t the time. But it’s a-weighing me down somethin’ fierce.” She set off again, deeper into the mines.

Amanita lightly pushed past the others to trot up to Arrastra. “I get it,” she said. “Your, what you did, why, and now not being the best time. All of it. Just, just so you know.”

“Thankee,” said Arrastra. Chirp.

“I know I might not… look like knowing when something isn’t the best time, given- how I talked to you after Pyrita’s death-”

“Y’were on the right path,” said Arrastra. “I reckon ye do look like that.” Her voice was a mixture of jokey and pained guilt.

Amanita huffed out a small laugh. “Just- know that I do know, and we can talk about it when some mean things said in the past are the worst thing we have to worry about.”

Now it was Arrastra’s turn to snort. “Thankee.”

They walked on. It was getting warm; the deepest mines always were, even this far in the North. And not just warm for Tratonmane in the winter, but early-spring-day-in-Canterlot warm. If they stayed too long in here, they’d start sweating beneath their furs. There were fewer and fewer hoofprints on the ground as they passed into more unused tunnels. Arrastra’s path started to zig and zag into narrower passages with rougher walls.

And Amanita felt something in the air. Nothing major. The scent of air just before rain. The slightest breeze on a humid day. The hum of a levitation spell cast a few yards away. She knew they were getting close.

Bitterroot had been to one of the Canterlot-hosted Summer Sun Celebrations, back when those were still a thing. She hadn’t expected anything all that special: Celestia being graceful and the sun rising. The usual, really. She’d just thought she needed to go to it once in her life. But when she was actually there… She’d felt the magic that hauled up the immense mass of arcane energy that was the sun and moved it through miles across the aether, all the way to her bones. Sheer power had suffused her. It was awesome in the original, Classical sense, before it’d been diluted down to “kinda neato”. It was unforgettable, even though it had only lasted for a few seconds.

This was like that, nonstop.

The deeper they moved into the mine, the more she felt the power spreading throughout it. The mountain was practically dripping with it, to the point that licking salt from the wall was probably a potion by itself. Any gems dug up would be saturated through with magic.

Her wings twitched. Ley line. What was she expecting?

Before them, Arrastra came to a stop at the edge of a cliff. Bitterroot knew there was a cliff there before she had any evidence. As she moved forward, she began picking out the slightly echoic sounds of a cavern.

Amanita sent out a ball of light for more illumination. They were standing at the edge of a pit boring above them and below them into the mountain. It was large, just large enough to have a small house dropped down without touching the sides. Above, it vanished into darkness; below, Bitterroot knew there was a floor fifty or sixty feet down. If she squinted, she could almost see it.

Arrastra gestured down into the pit. “The Deormont’s down there. Ye dinnae have nae flames, do ye? There’s coal dust aplenty down there.”

Bitterroot’s wings reflexively tightened. Even she knew that coal dust and an open flame could have explosive results. Her coat tingled.

Arrastra set off down a path that spiraled down the pit wall. Bitterroot swallowed and followed her. Each step she took felt familiar, one she’d tread dozens of times before. She walked with the surety of descending the stairs at home as the energy around her grew more palpable. And when they were nearly at the bottom, Bitterroot realized that they were walking down an unfamiliar rough-hewn path in the dark, yet nobody else had stumbled, either.

The ground was even more familiar. Unlike the path, she’d seen it in Amanita’s memory projection. She could place crags, tunnels-

“Pyrita died down here,” Amanita said.

Arrastra stiffened and turned around. “W-what?” she asked.

“Pyrita collapsed right there when her heart gave out,” said Amanita, pointing at a nondescript patch of rock. “That’s where she died.”

Slowly, apparently unconsciously, Arrastra walked up to the patch and pawed at it. She set her muzzle to the ground and closed her eye, sniffling. “Least she was close,” she said, rubbing her eye. “Close tae that,” she added, heading off the obvious question. She pointed to the center of the room.

It was nothing special, just a stalagmite standing in a puddle of water. But as they got closer, Bitterroot could see that it was closer to a channel, filled with water. It was flat and had neither entrance nor exit, yet the water flowed, around and around and around.

“This here’s where we looked us out the Deormont.” Arrastra’s voice was quiet with reverence. “This is where we can speak with it.” She bowed deeply to the stalagmite.

“What’s with the…” Charcoal gestured at the channel. “Why’s there water here?”

“Because water always finds its way,” said Code. “And it has worlds on all sides of it, above the surface, below the surface, in the reflection.” She craned her neck to look up the pit. “There’s probably a stalactite up there, dripping down onto the stalagmite here. With each drip, it hangs a little lower and the stalagmite stands a little higher. And one day, they’ll be connected. Everything about this place is bringing two worlds together. This is absolutely where you’d contact a god.”

As if the pit wasn’t dramatic enough.

Bitterroot paced around the stalagmite. Given something to look at… the notion of the Deormont wasn’t quite so scary. It had a thing she could focus on. And all the power around her? She’d just compared it to Celestia, hadn’t she? She’d seen Celestia all the time. The idea was big, imposing, borderline ominous. But “visions from a god of the land” was more reassuring than “my mind is falling to pieces and I don’t know why”. It almost felt like she had a connection. Like she was about to peek beyond the veil.

And hey. She’d been beyond the veil twice, so she had experience.

“So here we are,” said Arrastra. “What’re ye plannin’ tae do?”

Code took a seat on her haunches, staring at the channel. “One of us needs to commune with the Deormont so we can communicate with it.”

Bitterroot’s wings twitched. That… sounded like something she could do. Maybe. She was seeing the Deormont’s sigil everywhere already, she was used to it. And if she could keep someone else from going what she’d gone through? Sure. Yeah.

“Ah.” Arrastra pawed at the ground. “If’n… ye reckon that’s needed.”

“I’m not taking this lightly. This could be dangerous. Contacting a god from another realm of existence.”

“Aye.” Arrastra bit her lip. “As fer… whoever’s steppin’ up, I-”

“I should do it,” said Code. “I have the most experience with alternate planes.”

“I should do it,” said Bitterroot. “I have the most experience with the Deormont.”

“I should do it,” said Charcoal. “I have the most experience with land magic.”

A pause. Everyone looked at Amanita expectantly.

Her ears twitched and she shrank a little. “I, I already know it shouldn’t be me,” she said in a smaller-than-usual voice. “You all have really good reasons for this and I, I’m just a necromancer. Just a necromancer. If you, uh, want me to do this, I can, it’s just… If we’re all volunteering, I’m the least qualified.”

Immediately, Code started talking. “I mean no offense to anyone,” she said, “but I have experience with these sorts of beings-”

“You said I was having a divine revelation less than an hour earlier!” said Bitterroot. “Doesn’t that mean something?”

“Perhaps, but you said it was-”

“I have, I have experime- experience with the land!” Charcoal said, waving a hoof in the air. “The Deormont’s a god of the land, so-”

“You don’t know spirits,” said Code. “There’s more to-”

“And you don’t know the land! You didn’t even know how to work the-”

“But you didn’t see the Deormont’s symbol everywhere,” said Bitterroot, “you don’t know how-”

“AI!” Arrastra’s yell practically roared through the pit and everyone jumped. Echos kept leaving and returning for nearly a minute. Once actual silence returned, she said, “Bitterroot’ll do it.”

“Why?” asked Code, nearly demanding it. “I’ve seen-”

“The Deormont chose her,” Arrastra said matter-of-factly. “Did she tell you’uns about her- brand?”

“Yeah.” Bitterroot rubbed her neck. “I told them.”

“If’n- If’n Pyrita was the Deormont, then it marked ye wi’ its own sign an’ left once it had. Ye were chosened by it. I didnae ken why. Mebbe ’twas fer this.” Arrastra gestured at the channel with a wing.

Chosen. Huh. Bitterroot hadn’t started noticing the crossed circle until after that brand, had she? She tried to remember what Pyrita- what the Deormont had said to her, but words escaped her. Yet a god had marked her, even if that marking was… troubling. Did all this make her a Chosen One? Not in the usual sense, but it was funny to think about.

Still… even if she wasn’t the best person for the job, the Deormont had picked her.

Code seemed to be coming to the same conclusions. One of her rear legs twitched. She hung her head and groaned. “I could’ve talked to a tutelary,” she mumbled. “Flippin’ rickin’…”

“I…” Arrastra shook her head. “I ought tae have told ye, the firs’ day. ’Twas plainer’n day an’…”

“A lot of stuff happened in the next ten minutes,” said Bitterroot. “I forgot to tell everyone else about it for a while.”

Arrastra’s sigh was laced with frustration and regret. “Ach, ain’t nae good frettin’ about now.” She raised her head. “So how’re ye goin’ tae dae this?”

“Just drink some of the water,” said Code.

Bitterroot flexed her wings. “Really? That’s it?” She glanced at the channel. Aside from the way it kept flowing, it didn’t seem magical.

“Well, what you’re really doing is imbibing some of the Deormont’s cross-reality border into yourself, thereby drawing yourself closer to it, but just drinking the water is sufficient, yes.”

“Alright then. Here I go.” Bitterroot swallowed. She’d died. Twice. Surely she could drink some holy water.

She walked towards the channel, acutely aware of all the eyes on her. The energy of the place thrummed around her. It didn’t seem to be coming from the channel; it didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere. It was just… there. Midwich Valley wasn’t coming from anything. There wasn’t anything special about the water besides the symbolism. Right?

She looked down into the channel. The light from her lamp reflected off it like it would any other flowing current. She could see down to the bottom, just a few inches. She could see her rippling reflection, unsure and anxious. It was just water. Muscles tense, she bent down and lapped at the channel.

It was tasty and cool, but that was it.

Bitterroot raised her head and the water trickled down her throat. Nothing more. She didn’t feel any burst of magic or any other unusual sensation. It was just water. Or was it? She waited.

Nothing. It was refreshing, though.

Bitterroot awkwardly turned around to face the others. The Canterlotians were all looking at her anxiously, while Arrastra looked like someone who was watching someone else commune with their god would look like. Bitterroot really didn’t feel like she was communing. “So, uh…” She nervously licked her lips. “What happens-”

She went limp.

31 - You Can Almost Hear Our Words But You Forget

“Bitterroot!” screamed Amanita, her voice deafening in the pit. She lunged towards Bitterroot’s collapsed form-

-only to be held back by Code jumping in front of her. “Don’t!” hissed Code. She was shaking her head vigorously and her eyes were wide. “Don’t touch her.” She almost sounded scared. Even though she never got scared. Right?

“But-” Amanita pointed a shaking hoof at Bitterroot. She was twitching, her hooves twisting back and forth, her wings undulating, her lips forming soundless gibberish. Screams of pain would’ve been less terrifying than her utter silence. “Look at her! We need to-”

“If you disturb her,” said Code, “you’ll break the connection.” Breathing heavily, she looked over her shoulder to Bitterroot. “She’s meeting the divine. Did you think it would be easy? That touching the underpinnings of reality would be painless?”

“So- so we just need to leave her?”

Code looked Amanita in the eye and said, in a voice that was equal parts terror and a refusal to brook any more conversation, “Yes.”

Amanita bit her lip and forced herself to step back. It was obvious something was wrong with Bitterroot, it was obvious they needed to do something to help her- But only to what she saw, and the visible was the least important part of a spell like this. If Code said leave her alone, they’d leave her alone.

Bitterroot’s neck and spine arced backward wildly, almost enough for her to bite her own tail. She began sucking in high-pitched gasps, more like shrieks than breaths, yet impacting with the rhythm of a slow, syncopated drumbeat.

“Do you see why I said it should’ve been me?” said Code.

Bitterroot fell as the universe fell apart around her thought was space ideas were time it was watching everything was alive it was watching she knew it mind screaming why didn’t she care she was wanted her life was laid bare kaleidoscope eyes it saw she didn’t see they were different gods were different this wasn’t right oh Celestia she wasn’t right why didn’t she want it to stop stopping don’t stop again and again unfold refold

trees skin ponies cells squirming wriggling please take care of them her bones her platelets they were healthy muscles she felt them buzzing like her blood sang the birds in the trees blue sky green eyes sun she was drooling her head pounding writhe writhe writhe away away away

ground beneath her cold mine dark where bottom shaft core land heart safe everyone symbiotic where was she everywhere nowhere gods were like that it was here it was in her she was in it body body body land land land anchor why like this pony pony pony worm one route one time so limited so detailed infinite space entire universe all contained within one idea one concept “universe” created destroyed unknowingly effortlessly always unique always the same

hit the ground again again again stop please stop don’t stop knowledge she needed to know asked for this didn’t know didn’t care back and forth alinear back and forth again again call call it called it calls it will call around around it knows for it has to for it mustn’t they know worship don’t look don’t look stop looking i’m sorry please don’t stop help me worm giggle help me need help need to help it help me help them no no don’t stop help

object head thought space power plants safe land home both power in out both god help me can’t feel where am i where i how i plan gone void space here nowhere land everywhere spread across hill vale dale water river blood ley mine mine cost support back forth everything everyone price cost spend generous lost no one help

ground ground here back it’s watching it doesn’t mind it pushes it’s gone it’s still it left no please help gone gone gone it hurts it hurts it’s sorry doesn’t mean no blood needs blood thought and mind and deed poison bite wing and claw and tooth and hound they’re there help them help him so lost please who gone please ground cold dark here now feel sense space aware get out okay bye now

tides knowledge retreating rush whirlwind storm gone and it was aware, but it wasn’t watching. Watching was a visual thing. A physical thing. It didn’t watch. It couldn’t watch. It needed ponies and other animals to watch for it.

…How did she know that?

Bitterroot lay on her back, staring up into the cloudy sky, panting. Amanita was standing above her, looking nervous as she readied the knife- Sky? She was underground.

Bitterroot lay on her stomach, resting in the blood pooling from her neck on the hardwood floor beneath her, panting. Viscountess High Gloss was staring at her, revolted beyond- Hardwood floor? She was underground.

Pyrita lay on her stomach, crawling for the channel, panting. It was watching her as her heart pounded itself to pieces, but she needed to let it know- Pyrita? She was Bitterroot.

Bitterroot lay on her back, staring up into the darkness of the mine shaft, panting. The world reeled beneath her — not merely from lack of balance, the world itself was twisting. Her essence was bleeding out into the rock, letting her feel each and every pebble, shard, fleck of dirt, tree, water droplet, more. She was tiny, miniscule, a single grain of sand in an infinite desert-

Something shoved her back into herself. She was Bitterroot, she was a pony, and she was important to herself and the people around her.

Time and possibility blossomed around her. She knew of a thousand different futures that might lead away from this moment, a thousand different pasts that might’ve led up to it, a thousand different presents that it might’ve been. Across the vast fabric of reality where each thread was a worldline all its own, she was just a single fiber of fabric, replaceable, nothing, not even capable of supporting-

Something shoved her back into herself. She was at here and now, and the great weave was made of fibers that drew strength from the others. Getting rid of her would, however slightly, weaken the whole.

The weight of insignificance would’ve crushed her if something hadn’t cared enough about her to hold it back.

Reality was gyrating, convulsing within her. She was her, she was the land around her, she was both, she was neither, she was her. Now was this instant, now was later, now was previously, now was moments before and after, now was overthen, now was somewhen that must not have happened, now was sideways, now was this instant. Her senses writhed in spasmodic tics, in and out, this and that, sideways and back, interpreting the wrong signals. She smelled the high pitch of the darkness, heard the brightness of the atmosphere, tasted the chill of the mine’s echoes. Her existence was bleeding from physicality like ink under water.

Then she smashed back into reality. She was lying on the cavern floor, limbs splayed, panting like she’d just flown a marathon, heart attempting to escape her chest. She was in her own body and that was it. There was something around her, like more of the feeling she got when walking on clouds, but it didn’t demand her attention. Even her thoughts were just shock and befuddlement, not the occult mysteries of the universe undulating through her head. Absolutely not the mad throes of insanity.

She lay there, breathing, letting herself calm down. Bit by bit, everything slowed back to normal, including her heart rate. She waited for the next- thing to slam down into her. Nothing came. She might as well have just collapsed after an ordinary run.

“Bitterroot?” Amanita asked quietly.

“Yeah?” Bitterroot was shocked at how clear and ordinary her voice was.

“How, how do you feel?”

Bitterroot rolled her limbs, one by one. No aches. “…Fine. Normal.” She rolled over and got to her hooves. “Not like the Deormont’s chosen me or-”

Something shifted in being.

And suddenly the cavern had intent.

Bitterroot knew the feeling. There were areas where you had to do something. Libraries were for reading in. Farms were for growing in. Banquet halls were for eating in. Theaters were for watching in. There was an idea, there, and going against that idea felt odd. There was no one element you could put your hoof on, just a disparate collection of things that added up to something more, a purpose.

Nothing physical had changed. But where once the cave had just been a cave, everything suddenly felt like a message was being conveyed. To her, specifically.

The Deormont had chosen her.

Bitterroot quailed at the weight of the idea and couldn’t help shying down. “Scratch that,” she whispered. “It’s here.” She swallowed and raised her voice. “H-hello?”

It was listening. The land was sharing her ideas.

It was easier to handle when she was expecting it, but it was still a whammy of a thing to experience. Bitterroot only flinched slightly. “H-how long have you been listening?” she asked, flexing her wings.

The Deormont had been partaking of her ideas only since Bitterroot had come to the place where she could make her ideas available. She had refused to do so for several days. It had been forced to give some of its ideas to her.

So if that was how it worked, then… “So you were making me see those circles over and over?”

She had known the sign of the First. The Deormont had given her its importance over and over. She had stubbornly ignored it.

“Look, I- Could you do it a little better next time? With, I don’t know, actual words?”

They were all worms. Slithering, writhing, always moving, always through the same rut, always blind, blind, blind. Could she hope to talk to a worm?

Bitterroot opened her mouth again, then closed it. Maybe the Deormont wasn’t one of those vengeful gods, but arguing with it probably still wasn’t a good idea. She took a deep breath and turned to the shocked crowd. “Okay,” she said. “The Deormont’s talking to me.”

Amanita managed to stay quiet as Bitterroot thrashed. She managed to stay (mostly) quiet as Bitterroot stilled. She managed to stay quiet as Bitterroot started talking to the air. But when Bitterroot announced that she was communicating with a god, Amanita had nothing to say.

Amanita had experience in ritualism, but she hadn’t done much beyond necromancy. Certainly never contacted any sort of otherworldly beings. She’d expected something… more obvious. An indication that something was happening. A change in her voice, something different in her appearance, magic drifting around her, something. None of that happened and Bitterroot was just Bitterroot.

Hopefully, she could handle it.

As Arrastra dropped to her knees, Code stepped forward. “What does it feel like?” she asked. “Communicating.”

“It’s…” Bitterroot glanced up and around; her wings rustled. “It’s weird. It’s like it has trouble speaking. Not just Ponish, speaking in general. I… I just…” She gestured around herself. “I see what the cave is like, and I… know what the Deormont’s saying, like I got an idea, and then my head translates that into… not even words, but loose metaphors. It’s…” She groaned and rubbed her head. “…something.”

“Fascinating,” Code said softly, examining Bitterroot like she was wishing for a microscope and making Bitterroot take a step back. “I’ve always wondered… Tutelaries sometimes work more on ideas than things, like the symbolism in rituals-”

“Does the Deormont know where Whippletree is?” asked Charcoal.

Code closed her eyes and sighed. “Charcoal, this is a watershed moment for my field and something I never expected to see in all my life and could literally be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity-”

“Yeah, but the Deormont’s been around for over two hundred and fifty years,” said Charcoal. “I’m pretty sure it can wait a few more hours while we rescue Whippletree. If it knows.”

“True, but-” began Code. She bit her lip and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Later. Later,” she mumbled. To Bitterroot, she said, “Is the pony Whippletree within the Deormont’s awareness?”

“He is,” Bitterroot said, making Arrastra’s ears go up. “It says… Huh. Uh… Listen, I’m just talking about this as it comes to me, I’m sorry if it’s obtuse…” She cleared her throat. “He can be found by… following the… false branch from the Deormont’s font.” A pause, then a shrug. “And that’s all I got.”

Code started pacing, clicking her tongue as she thought. “Its font… That’s almost certainly the ley line-”

“Whoo-hoo!” Charcoal was grinning from ear to ear as she pumped a hoof in the air. “I was right! Nailed it!”

Everypony stared at her.

“Right timing sorry,” Charcoal whispered. She dropped back down to all fours and looked at the ground.

“Nailed what?” Code asked. For one of the only times Amanita had seen her, she was confused.

“Um. Well.” Charcoal raised her head back up. “‘Font’ isn’t just the ley line, it’s also the river because, you know, water. And, yeah, I know the river doesn’t gum- come from the Deormont, but it’s symbolic, roll with it. Rivers usually follow ley lines, anyway. And if the font is the river following the line, then the false branch is where that’s happening but shouldn’t. Like…” Her grin was back. “The river splitting from the line for no reason in the forest. We just need to follow that and we’ll find Whippletree.” She nodded resolutely and dropped onto her haunches.

Code opened her mouth, closed it. She scraped the floor of the cavern in thought. “…Yes, that would do it,” she said eventually.

“Like I said,” Charcoal declared. “Nailed it.”

One of Bitterroot’s ears twitched. “Also, uh, the Deormont says…” She frowned and squinted at a point in space. “It says there’s… roots at the end of it all. I- can ask-”

“No,” said Code. “Charcoal’s right. We need to find Whippletree, and deciphering what a tutelary means can take a while. It could be a warning, but it could be something else. Although… is it insistent? Like that’s something we need to know?”

“…No.”

“Then we’ll take care of that when we get to it. Arrastra?”

“I heard.” Arrastra finally stood up from her bow and gazed at Bitterroot, who cringed and pulled her wings tight.

“Ye spoke wi’ my god,” Arrastra said softly.

“It- It was your idea,” said Bitterroot.

“Aye.” Another long look, then Arrastra shook her head. “C’mon. Let’s get out o’ here.”

The journey out was different from the journey in. Simply experiencing the Deormont had given Amanita a sense of relief and the walls didn’t feel like they were holding back the crushing weight of the mountain. Everyone else in the party seemed less on edge, almost happy.

Even Bitterroot.

“Are you doing okay?” Amanita asked her. “You keeping the world dumped on you, and-”

“Heh. Yeah.” Bitterroot actually grinned. “And, yeah, I’m fine. Knowing, knowing what’s going on with me, it’s… At least that’s something I can work with.”

“…You talked to a god.”

“And died twice, and got turned into a mearhwolf. My life’s getting weird.”

Amanita flicked her tail. “Are you sure?”

“Amanita, I can genuinely say right now that I feel better now than I’ve felt in days. Look-” Bitterroot shuddered. “You… didn’t really see what I was like yesterday. I was a paranoid mess. Turns out, it’s all some god’s fault.” She jerked her head back into the mine. “And that’s better than me going insane.”

Amanita stared.

“Trust me. It’s all relative.”

“If you say so.”

It didn’t seem to take long before they reached the exit to the mine. A few early-bird miners were already entering; the groups exchanged nods and nothing else. A quick swing by the breaker to drop off their headlamps revealed to Amanita why they didn’t just wear the lamps everywhere: once she got hers off, her neck ached. Lucky chiropteri.

“Roots,” Code was mumbling as she rubbed her neck. (Amanita felt a little better, knowing even earth ponies were aching.) “Roots, roots roots…”

“Thinkin’ we should’ve asked what it meant?” Arrastra asked.

“Wishing we had the time to ask. If it was truly important, the Deormont would’ve pressed. Although I wonder if our ‘important’ and a tutelary’s ‘important’ are the same-”

“Arrastra!”

Tallbush came galloping up the ramp, the glow of his horn bobbing like a ship on a sea as he slid around the tower. “Arrastra! Been searchin’ fer-”

He noticed Bitterroot and screamed like a little filly.

As Bitterroot flinched and covered her ears, Tallbush scrambled backwards, nearly falling onto his haunches. He was staring wide-eyed at Bitterroot and stammering out frantic curses. “Ye’re- Ye’re- Dear land, ye look-”

At some point, he bumped to a stop and sat there, slack-jawed. “That how I look?” he asked quietly.

The rest of the group exchanged glances. Amanita found her voice first. “Well… you’re a unicorn and she’s a pegasus, so… no?”

“I, I, I dinnae mean in that sort o’ manner,” Tallbush said breathlessly he slowly got back on his hooves. “I… I mean… all…” He gestured helplessly at Bitterroot.

“Seraphic?” Bitterroot asked.

Tallbush’s head bobbed up and down.

“Yeah.”

“Heh. Nae wonder ye were shyin’ away.”

Bitterroot grinned crookedly and Tallbush hiccupped. “It’s definitely something,” she said.

“Aye. I…”

Tallbush’s voice trailed off and his gaze shifted to Arrastra. “What’d ye do?” he asked in a low voice.

“I taked ’em tae talk wi’ the Deormont,” Arrastra said, holding her head high.

“Afteren I told ye not tae?” Tallbush asked as he walked up to her.

“Aye.”

Tallbush groaned and ran a hoof through his mane. “Arrastra, I’ve told ye, we cannae jes’-”

Arrastra socked him in the muzzle.

He twitched and stumbled back, the expression on his face more one of surprise than of hurt. He blinked twice.

“Yer Grace,” said Arrastra, “I ken what ye’ve been sayin’. I’ve been followin’ it fer a week. And it ain’t worked. The ceremonialists poked ’round Tratonmane fer days an’ didnae find nothin’ about the line. I take ’em tae see the Deormont, and it plumb tells us where tae find Whippletree. I ken they’re Canterlouts, but they’re mannerable. We’d best help ’em.”

Tallbush glared at Arrastra as he rubbed his nose, but there wasn’t any real emotion behind it and his expression fell once he put his hoof down. “Aye,” he admitted. “An’ what’s done is done.” He glanced over the group (flinching at Bitterroot) before returning his gaze to Arrastra. “Jes’ be particular, alright? Dinnae want arypony dyin’.”

Amanita coughed.

“ ’R worser,” he amended.

“O’ course I’ll be particular,” snorted Arrastra. “But I ain’t losin’ ary more o’ my family tae timberwolves.”

“I…” A sigh. “Ain’t keepin’ you’uns. Git goin’.”

“Yer Grace, I swear tae ye, we’ll get Whippletree back an’ we’ll all come home.”

Back to the forest’s edge again, this time with a plan. And after Bitterroot had sorted out a good chunk of her mental problems. Okay, so she may or may not be channeling a god now. No biggie. She could manage that. The way she just knew whose houses they were walking past, even if she’d never seen the ponies before, was a bit odd, though.

She was getting information now, arriving in her head just like that. She’d known the course Arrastra would take back out of the mines before she’d taken a single step. When she looked at a pony and wondered who they were, she knew their names. When she thought about Tratonmane, she suddenly knew the layout of the town like she’d lived there her whole life. It wasn’t all-encompassing — she only knew a pony’s name, she didn’t know the history of the town — but it didn’t need to be. Too much and it’d be overwhelming. It certainly explained how she knew about the path and the spear. (Hopefully. She didn’t need another curveball thrown at her.)

Was Tallbush like this all the time? Simply knowing things about Midwich? Was that how he avoided Code? Maybe he felt it more, since he’d been doing this longer than her. Bitterroot tried thinking about it; sadly, that knowledge didn’t come. Thoughts seemed to be out of the Deormont’s reach.

“I can feel you,” Code said.

Bitterroot twitched; the Deormont also didn’t tell her what she wasn’t asking about, apparently. “Because of the connection with the Deormont?”

“I assume so. You feel like Tallbush did, albeit to a much lesser degree.”

“…You’re gonna want to study me, aren’t you?”

“If you don’t mind.” Code’s voice was shameless. “Once we’re done.”

Bitterroot shrugged and made a noncommittal noise. Maybe it’d turn out that way.

The same group of ponies yesterday had gathered, maybe minus one or two. Bitterroot was just surprised they had so many still there. Varnish was missing again. The group was clustered together, muttering about something in hushed tones. When they noticed Arrastra approaching, a mare got pushed out to talk to her. With everypony else watching her, the mare nervously cleared her throat and said, “Arrastra, we… We’ve heard that-”

“If’n this’s about the Deormont, they ken,” Arrastra said flatly. “They ken an’ they dinnae care an’ they’ll leave us be.”

Silence. The mare blinked and flicked her tail. “…Huh.”

“Matter o’ fact, Bitterroot here-” Arrastra clapped her on the back. “-spoke with it. The Deormont told us where tae find Whippletree. We jes’ need tae follow the river.”

The mare’s eyes grew big. “Huh.” She blinked again and shook her head. “Okay.”

Arrastra led the bewildered group to the forest’s edge. Bitterroot kept looking over her shoulder at the group. Some of them were talking to each other, but they mostly seemed to be processing what they’d heard. “Everyone’s learning new things today,” she muttered to Amanita. “You, me, them…”

“Yeah,” said Amanita. “I wonder what we’ll learn before evening.”

Some of the lumberjacks were setting up as they approached the forest. Arrastra gave them a quick wave, only for one of them to break off and run towards the searchers. “Ma!”

Arrastra did a double-take. “Crosscut?”

“Ma,” Crosscut repeated as she stumbled to a halt. She was blinking rapidly. “Ye- Ye cannae save Whippletree. He-”

“Crosscut, bantling.” Arrastra put a hoof on her shoulder. “Dinnae say that. He’s still-”

“He’s the wolf that killed me.”

Crosscut’s voice was small, but everyone heard it and silence fell like an anvil. Arrastra twitched back in surprise, her wings drooping. Crosscut wiped at her eyes and began sniffling. “That night,” she said. “He- He took me outside tae talk an’- An’ then he started- screamin’ an’ twistin’ an’ writhin’…” Tears started trickling down her muzzle. “He- He s-split open an’ there w-was wood ins-side… A-and… An’ then h-he-”

As Crosscut started sobbing, Arrastra wrapped her arms and wings around her. “H-he’s gone, Ma,” Crosscut whimpered. “Ye- Ye c-cannae save him. P-please, I beg o’ ye-”

“Bantling, why didnae ye tell me?”

“I- I- Ye’d b-been through enough, I- I th-thought it’d b-be easier f-fer ye tae… not t-tae ken… a-an’ ye wouldnae g-go intae Midwich-”

Bitterroot felt her stomach knot up, but Crosscut needed to know this. “Um, just, just so you know,” she said, stepping forward, I…” Her wings weren’t staying still. “I… don’t know if you heard yet, but… I…” She swallowed. “…turned into a timberwolf last night.”

Crosscut and Arrastra both turned to gawk at Bitterroot. She swallowed again. “Right, right in the middle of dinner. Just like that.” She clicked her tongue.

Crosscut pushed away from Arrastra. Her “An’… ye’re alright,” she whispered.

“Y-yeah,” Bitterroot said, nodding. “Amanita and Code, they- They put together a ritual and- got me out. I’m fine.”

“I’d say it was mostly Amanita,” Code said. “I just kept Bitterroot from killing everyone.”

Bitterroot flinched, but Crosscut was looking to Amanita, who was shuffling her hooves. “Kinda, yeah,” Amanita said. “And, and if we can save Bitterroot, I bet we can save Whippletree.”

“I seened it!” one of the rescue party said, waving a hoof. “It all happened, jes’ like they says!”

Crosscut looked at Amanita and Bitterroot, making more confused nothing sounds with each new moment. “The two o’ you’ns are really makin’ this a real doozy of a week, ain’t ye?” she said with a resigned grin.

Bitterroot and Amanita glanced at each other. On a whim, Bitterroot added, “Would this be a bad time to mention that we know where to look for Whippletree because I communed with the Deormont?”

It was possible to see the exact moment Crosscut’s brain decided to take the day off; her eyes glazed over and she slouched oh-so-slightly to one side. Her face didn’t quite go slack as one of her ears twitched. “Jes’- wait ’til you’uns get him back tae tell me all that happened,” she said in a tired voice. She gave the two another glance, threw up her legs in an “I give up” sort of gesture, and when she turned around to go back to the lumberjacks, her stride was loose and a little bit clumsy.

“We’ll get him!” Arrastra called after Crosscut. “Dinnae fret!” Then she turned to give another stare to Bitterroot and Amanita. “What is with you’uns?” she muttered.

“I really don’t know,” Bitterroot said, shrugging. “And, really, you haven’t even heard all of it yet.”

Arrastra harrumphed, flicked her tail, and set off into Midwich Forest.

32 - Hope You Got Your Things Together

Into Midwich Forest again. Bitterroot reflected that, for such an ominous place, they sure were going into it a lot.

They were following the river, but it wasn’t like the first day, where they took it slow and often waited for Code and Charcoal to poke over this or that. No, they were just going about as straight as they could with the river, ignoring anything else besides that. It was more like a journey than a ramble. They had a trail. Easy.

Yet the atmosphere was uneasy as they walked. Not because of any tension or anxiety, but because the Tratonmanians were still processing what they’d heard in the past- hour? Was it really that short? No wonder. Bitterroot could feel their eyes on her. Did they consider her a prophet? Or something else? Maybe someone else talking to the Deormont was unthinkable for them, simply because that wasn’t the way it worked. Already, she was getting the feeling that was going to go looking for a crash course in Tratonmane theology once all was said and done.

One of the ponies seemed particularly focused on her. Redbud; Bitterroot flinched at the sudden knowledge of her name. She was an earth pony, not unlike most of the others. But she kept staring like Bitterroot was a serial killer. Yet, somehow, Bitterroot managed to keep her spirits up.

Eventually, Redbud’s… whatever got the better of her and she matched pace with Bitterroot. “Mind if’n I ask ye ’bout bein’ a timberwolf?” she asked.

Bitterroot flinched and her wings tightened. But she nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Did it hurt?”

…Huh. That was… Huh. Not as bad as the mind part of it, but definitely not something she wanted to think about. Still, she said she’d talk. “Like, physically?”

“Aye.”

Whoof. Bitterroot turned her eyes forward. It somehow felt wrong to look at somepony while saying this. “The… actual transformation was pretty painful,” she got out. “Especially with the- with the eyes.” She gestured at hers. “But after that, it was… I was… kind of submerged. I… was aware, but I didn’t really… feel much. Why?”

“I wish tae ken what’s happenin’ tae Whippletree.”

Ah. “It’s not painful, but it’s… not pleasant. He’s- We should find him.”

“Aye.” If Redbud had any more questions, she didn’t ask them.

They walked for a little while longer before Bitterroot said, “Okay, uh, weird question… This hasn’t happened before, has it? The transformations?”

Redbud gave Bitterroot a Look.

“If you’d asked me yesterday about any gods living in the mine,” Bitterroot said, “I’d’ve laughed it off. But as of an hour ago, I’m open to pretty much anything. …So?”

“…Nay.”

Hmm. Bummer. (Wait, bad, ponies not spontaneously turning into timberwolves wasn’t supposed to be a bummer.) But Bitterroot’s interest had been piqued and she trotted forward a bit. “Hey, Charcoal?”

“Ley lines don’t do things like this,” Charcoal said.

Bitterroot blinked. “…How’d you…”

“Because it’s the first thing anyone would think of?” Charcoal said. “There’s a ley line running through the town for centuries, then one day it burns bad- turns bad, and then two ponies turn into timberwolves within the week. Anyone could follow that. But ley lines aren’t… transformative like that. They’re more growth and… stuff.”

“Oh.” There went that theory.

“The problem with making a theory right now,” Code said from Charcoal’s other side, “is that we only have two data points to work with. Both of the ponies who turned into timberwolves were pegasi, but there are a number of ways that could go.”

“Hmm.” Bitterroot kept walking for another moment as she thought, then said, “My, uh, transformation didn’t start until I went outside in the night, and Crosscut and Whippletree were outside at night when he changed. Do you think there’s anything to that?”

“Quite possible,” said Code. “Night can be symbolic of a loss of control, given how people usually sleep then. Sleepwalking, unconsciousness, darkness making it hard to do any sort of work… sundowning. There was even a brief period where it went further and all madness was attributed to Nightmare Moon. Lunacy.” She gave a low whistle. “Our former princess was not happy when she heard that. In any case, properly applied, transformation magic can be made easier at night, while dispelling transformations can be easier during the day. Which means you were fighting against the current, Amanita.”

“Huh?” asked Amanita from up the line, looking over her shoulder. “Did you say something?”

“Furthermore,” continued Code, “if whatever changed Whippletree is precarious enough to require the night boost, there’s a distinct possibility that the daytime can dispel it. Hopefully, we won’t need to wrestle with an angry timberwolf.”

“And if we do?”

“We’ve got some winged ponies. You can fly back and get the ingredients we need.”

Bitterroot wasn’t exactly keen on serving as a being of burden, but, well, pegasus. Being able to move faster than the other tribes generally meant you were saddled with the jobs that required fast movement.

“Maybe we should’ve picked up the ingredients for the ritual,” Charcoal mused. “Just in case. Crosscut told us right before we left, and we could’ve just taken a few minutes to pick them up… But can you imagine carrying whiskey all the way through the forest? We don’t even know how much we’ll need. We practically would’ve needed to take the whole barrel…”

The trip gave Amanita plenty of time to mull over the last few days. With the knowledge of the Deormont, little bits and pieces started fitting together. The townsfolk simply keeping a secret explained a lot, often in the form of a pony suddenly being put on the spot about something and having to pull a reasonable-sounding lie out of the air. Yes, of course the ley line was responsible for the crops, why do you ask?

But there was something she still didn’t know about.

“Arrastra?”

Arrastra grunted and kept her eyes forward.

“Now that we’re… being honest with each other… you heard about the time our room got broken into, right?”

“Aye,” said Arrastra. “And I ken who did it. You’uns had the mother, an’ that’s the Deormont’s symbol. An’ Code, she talked so much about studyin’ it…”

“Which might’ve led us right to the Deormont,” Amanita finished. Imagine the panic they must’ve felt; all that secrecy, undone by someone happening to get curious and investigating backwoods charms.

Arrastra nodded. “We couldnae let you’ns have that, so I talked tae Cabin. She jes’ went in an’ taked it while you’ns were out. She has the keys.”

Quick, clean, simple. Easy. Although- “So why’d she trash the place?”

For the first time, Arrastra looked away from her path. “What?”

A small chill began forming in Amanita’s stomach. “Bitterroot said she saw a unicorn in our room and came to find it trashed. She also thinks a pegasus with a gray head and red wings might’ve been involved.” She swallowed. “Does… Does either of those sound familiar to you?”

Arrastra snorted and returned to gazing ahead.. “Mayhap somepony jes’ plumb didnae like you’ns very much. An’ a pegasus with a gray head an’ red wings? Ye’re off yer rocker. There ain’t nopony like that in Tratonmane.”

Huh. Bitterroot had seen that pony correctly, right? She’d seemed pretty convinced of it. And the second pony had to have broken in for a different reason, which maybe meant a reason no one else in Tratonmane knew. Especially if they were keeping out of sight so well they weren’t noticed. How many secrets could one town have?

Well. One thing at a time. Find Whippletree first.

Maybe their mystery pony was at the end of the line.

“Amanita?”

“Yeah, Bitterroot?”

“How will we know when we get to wherever we’re going? The Deormont just told us to follow this, not how long it’d take.”

“Asks the pony who’s actually talked with the Deormont.”

Bitterroot snorted. “But seriously.”

It was a question Amanita had mulled over during the walk; it’d been going on for long enough, and anything was harder when you didn’t know where the destination was. Fortunately, she had an answer. “We’ll know. It’ll just be… something unusual. Something distinctive. Something we can’t miss.”

“But you don’t know what that something is.”

“…No.”

Bitterroot craned her head upwards. They were maybe a few dozen yards from the eastern wall, still high enough to block out the rising sun, and the cliffs loomed above them like a skyscraper. “I think we’re getting close, though.”

“Gut feeling from the Deormont?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Hey! Everypony hold up!”

The voice from the front of the line sounded more surprised than nervous. When they approached her, she was gawking at- “The river’s gone,” she said, pointing. Indeed, the river was flowing on, but it continued beneath a layer of moss and grass, seeming to vanish right into the ground.

Amanita and Bitterroot looked at each other; both snorted.

“We dinnae have tae swim, do we?” the mare asked as she peered into the hole.

“I hope not,” said Code. “Let’s look around. Can we get some more light?”

“On it,” said Amanita. Her horn brightened and she sent a ball of light spinning forward. For a moment, it streaked past slim trees and threw long shadows in the dark.

Then the trees vanished as it sped into a clearing and soon sparked against the cliff face.

Amanita immediately sent out some more light, this time controlling it more closely. The river had led them to a clearing nestled right up against the cliff, large enough for maybe two Tratonmane houses, three if you got creative. The trees surrounding it were thinner than the others in Midwich Forest, but growing more closely together. And on the other side, burrowing deep into the rock, yawned the mouth of a cave.

“If that ain’t where we’re headin’, I’ll eat my tail,” growled Arrastra. She took a step into the clearing-

“Whoa, wait!” Charcoal lunged forward and bit down on Arrastra’s tail, keeping her from taking another step. “Duhnt, duhnt guh! Muskug!”

Arrastra quickly backflapped, tumbling as she bumped into Charcoal. “Pardon,” she said as they got back up. “But what’s wrong? Ain’t that jes’ grass?”

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s muskeg,” Charcoal said. She batted some dirt off her nose. “It’s- Actually, let me check.” She delicately walked a few steps into the clearing, like it would explode if she stepped on it wrong. She pushed at the ground-

-and across the entire clearing, it undulated ever so slightly.

“It’s, it’s this big… confection- collection of moss and peat floating on a pool of water,” Charcoal said. “There’s this bog underneath it, acidic and with a lot of decomposing stuff. Muskeg can break if you’re too heavy for it, so you’d fall in and maybe drown or freeze to death.”

“Cheery,” mumbled Arrastra, flexing her wings.

“Although…” Charcoal gave the clearing a quick lookover. “It might not be that deep, this isn’t a large clearing… But around here, just don’t step on grass if it’s not between trees. If it is close to a tree, the ground’s above the water table and can hold your weight.”

“Uh-huh.” Amanita set a hoof on some not-between-trees grass and wiggled it. The ground felt like a stiff waterbed. “I’ll do that.”

“Look, see, the river’s flowing in right here, this is just moss floating on top of it… and it’s probably flowing out somewhere to the north…”

“Right,” Arrastra said, obviously distracted. “C’mon.” She started edging around the clearing, sticking to just inside the trees.

“There’s got to be an outflow somewhere,” Charcoal mumbled, “or else… wait, wait, hold on, are we… really going in there?”

“Aye,” said Arrastra.

“I…” Charcoal folded her ears back. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea…”

“Ye came with us tae help find Whippletree! An’ now yer backin’ out?”

“Well, I… didn’t think we’d… be going in anywhere like that…” Charcoal’s tail flicked. “Caves, caves are… really dangerous…”

“Ye went intae the mine wi’ not a problem,” said Arrastra.

“Because you knew where you were going! That, that cave’s uncharted! We don’t know-”

“Whippletree’s prolly in there, we must needs-”

“I can stay out here with her,” said Bitterroot, stepping between the two of them. “Just so there’s someone else around. You go in, investigate, find what you find.”

“Mmhmm. E’eryone who’s comin’, c’mon.”

Amanita gave a quick wave to Bitterroot and Charcoal, then scooted around the clearing with the rest. They practically clung to the cliff wall as they crossed the muskeg outside the trees; no one fell in and they reached the cave without incident.

As chiropterus echolocation started bouncing through the tunnel, Amanita brightened her horn along with the other unicorns. The cave sloped upwards, soon leaving the muskeg behind. The ceiling was low but the passage was wide enough for half a dozen ponies to walk abreast with plenty of room to spare. Thick roots curled their way out from the muskeg and up the cave, up into the darkness.

“Hey!” Charcoal yelled across the clearing. “Stay safe!”

“We will!” Amanita called back. A not-insignificant part of her wanted to stay back with Charcoal, but she was one of their main sources of light. Staying back would be bad form.

Chirrup. “…Ain’t a branch in the cave as far as I can hear,” said Arrastra. Her voice was growing low, tense, and she wasn’t quite pacing in place just yet. “C’mon.” Without waiting for a response, she set off into the cave, chirping away. The rest of the group was pulled with her and Amanita was caught up, stumbling along until she managed to get her hooves under herself.

She climbed up over a bump in the passage and flinched as her horn scraped the ceiling. The feeling of the entire weight of the mountain pressing down on her was coming back.

“Sorry,” mumbled Charcoal.

“For what?” asked Bitterroot.

“If Whippletree is in there, you… didn’t get to go in and save him. It’s, y’know, heroic, and you’re stuck out here with me.”

“Meh.” Bitterroot flexed her wings in something like a shrug. “I can claim to be a god’s emissary. I got us this far. They can have that bit.”

“Still…”

“In fact, you know what? I’m sorry. We’re following the river because the Deormont said to, but I heard you had the idea of doing it yesterday, before any of this happened. If we’d done it then, you’d be getting the credit. So: sorry for stealing your thunder.”

Charcoal flicked her ears. She frowned and faux-whined, “HEEEeeeey… But, really, it’s probably good that we didn’t come here yesterday. We didn’t know about Whippletree maybe being a timberwolf, and if that’s the way he is right now, at least they’re prepared.”

“That’s a funny way of avoiding disappointment.”

“Is it? Because that’s the way I feel.”

Bitterroot shrugged. “Eh. Maybe.”

Charcoal frowned and shook her head. She trotted off a slight ways into the forest to take a drink from the river. When she came back, Bitterroot said, “Didn’t you say muskeg is acidic?”

“It’s not that acidic, and I’m upstream. The water’s about as safe as anything else in this forest.”

“Right, yeah.” Out of curiosity, Bitterroot put a tiny bit of weight on the muskeg; the slight flex was surreal, like the earth itself was spongy. “Muskeg is weird,” she said.

“It’s a sort of peat,” Charcoal said. “Lots of pants- plants that are decomposing but aren’t all the way there yet. This means it’s pretty infertile as soil, so trees like this-” She patted one of the nearby ones. “They don’t get the nutrients they need, which is why they’re so ski-”

She blinked and patted the tree again. She took a closer look at it, brightening her hornlight. Not only was the tree skinny, but it was pale as well. Charcoal frowned, looking up and all around. “Huh.”

Bitterroot followed her gaze. Whatever she was looking at was lost in the forest. “Huh what?”

“Aspens.”

The cave sloped slightly upward, still moving straight. The frequent chirrups of echolocation had faded into the background for Amanita and she didn’t flinch whenever she heard them anymore. But her light could only reach so far and the cave stretched off into the darkness ahead of them. Arrastra kept nearly moving out of her light, waiting for everyone to catch up, trotting ahead again, and repeating. Amanita couldn’t shake the feeling she was being guilt-tripped, even if only by accident.

The roots were irregular and she stumbled over one of them in the semi-dark, narrowly catching herself before she smacked into the floor. They were big, especially if the bog outside was supposed to be acidic. What were they heading towards?

“Maybe we should’ve sent a pegasus to get those headlamps,” said Code as she almost tripped over her own root.

“Eh,” said Arrastra. “They wouldnae have been much use. Not yet.” To be fair, the cave hadn’t branched off yet, so there was only way they could’ve gone. “Mebbe if’n we dinnae find him soon.”

“Are- Are you sure?” Amanita asked in a quiet voice that the cave still magnified. “It won’t take long. We can-”

“I dinnae want tae lose ary more o’ my family,” snapped Arrastra. She immediately came to a stop, sucking in a breath and closing her eye. “Pardon,” she muttered, “but…”

She turned around to face Amanita. “I’m old. I’ve seen ponies pass on. But they were, most o’ them, older’n me. Whippletree’s more’n twenty year younger. I ken it’s comin’ in time, comin’ fer all o’ us — hay, I ain’t got much time left in meself — but…” She paused. Her wings rustled. “Death… It hits different when ye’re one o’ the oldest ponies ye ken. Whippletree’s still got time left. I dinnae want him tae lose that.”

Amanita opened her mouth, closed it. What Arrastra was talking about was familiar, more familiar than she really wanted to admit. Whippletree might not be dead yet, but Arrastra was still driven to get him back. So Amanita gave her what she’d received from Circe at first: a concession. “The cave might be long,” she said. “Why don’t we turn around and get the lamps at the first fork?”

Arrastra pawed at the ground once, but nodded. “Aye,” she said. And without another word, she turned around and set off into the dark again, chirping. Code gave Amanita a small nod.

They’d only been walking for ten seconds when the cave changed. Past a certain point, every surface was flat and carved, the angles turning sharp and the ceiling growing higher up. Everypony’s pace slowed, even Arrastra’s. She came to the line where natural gave way to artificial, but didn’t cross it. “What dae you’ns reckon?” she muttered. Her wings twitched, like she wanted to keep moving, and her hoof strayed to her chainsaw.

Code set her hoof right on the edge of the line and Amanita felt the magic in the earth twist. “I feel… something,” she muttered. “Something strong, but not nearby. I don’t think there are any harmful enchantments in the hallway.”

“Good.” Arrastra promptly stepped forward-

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

The entire crowd flinched at the voice slithering out from the stones. Female. The militiaponies quickly arranged themselves in an outward-facing circle and herd mentality pushed the others to follow suit. Amanita felt her legs shaking as her blood rushed faster.

“Mother said she’d keep you away while I was busy.” The voice was almost curious, but also sort of detached, like it was curious only because it’d otherwise be bored. It flowed and coiled down the cave, magnified more than echoes alone could account for.

“We’re makin’ ourselves scarce,” Arrastra hissed. “Now.” Her tone was such that nopony questioned her. The group dispersed slightly to move more efficiently, but they stayed packed. Not quite rushing but more than walking, they made their way back down the cave.

“Well, if you’re here, I’ll need to figure out what to do with you.” Beneath their hooves, the roots of the tunnel shifted, roiling, creaking. A dozen somethings snapped like the trunk of a falling tree. In the darkness ahead of them, the glowing green eyes of a timberwolf pierced through the gloom as a growl rolled up the cave.

Another pair of eyes appeared.

Two more.

Five more.

The party stopped. Growls rippled through the cave like the grinding of a massive mill.

“I didn’t plan for this, so it might get messy if you don’t hold still.”

33 - The Colony

The growls chilled Amanita to the bone. The light of the group didn’t reach far and all that she could see of the timberwolves were their glowing eyes in the dark. She almost took a step back, but she’d be running away from the cave’s exit. Maybe its only exit. How far was it? Maybe they could still-

She realized she was standing on a root when it writhed beneath her, nearly throwing her off-balance. Part of it shattered with an almighty crack, sending branch-sized splinters bouncing around the tunnel. Yet almost immediately, their paths twisted and they quickly started forming into an approximation of a foot, two feet, a leg-

“Move!” Code yelled as another root snapped. “Further in! Further in!”

The party turned and ran. Echolocative chirps hit Amanita like rain in a storm. She fought to keep her horn alight and gallop at the same time, and she wasn’t the only one. The cave was now as flat and even as a hallway, but she still stumbled, panic pushing her onwards faster than she could actually run.

“Ai!” Arrastra yelled behind them. Chirp chirp. “Get away-” Chirp. “-ye varmint!” The hum of the chainsaw’s crystal dynamos pierced through the gloom. “Avay!”

Amanita risked a glance back; Arrastra was galloping after them, her jaws holding tight to the chainsaw’s handle. A timberwolf was nipping at her tail, but she was managing to stay ahead of it thanks to quick flaps-

“Eyes forward!” yelled Code. Whether she was yelling at Amanita or not didn’t matter; Amanita quickly turned her head forward, stampeding onward as the black cave streaked past around her.

Bitterroot examined a tree closely in Charcoal’s light. She hadn’t seen aspen trees very often, but she recognized them well enough. “What do you think this means?” she asked. “It has to mean something, right?”

“It might not, aspens do grow normally in these sorts of climates,” muttered Charcoal. She was pacing back and forth, her tail flicking restlessly. “But, I mean, look, if it’s just a coincidence, I’ll eat my tail.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I, I don’t know. Can you let me think? Sweet Shine, why does it smell?”

“Shutting up.”

Charcoal kept pacing, so Bitterroot put a hoof on the tree, just to check. It felt like a normal tree, as far as she remembered. Next tree, same thing. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for and it wasn’t coming to mind; apparently, the Deormont’s knowledge didn’t extend to non-Tratonmane things, for whatever reason. Maybe that was part of the deal they’d made with it. Or they just didn’t think to ask-

“Okay,” said Charcoal. Her voice had picked up speed, enough for her to sound hoarse, and her pacing was growing frantic. “Okay. We follow the river that doesn’t follow the ley line, right? And we do it based on the advice of a god. It takes us to a muskeg bog, of all things. And there’s a cave, and it’s surrounded by these aspen trees that timberwolves are made of but we don’t see anywhere else.” She ran a hoof through her mane. “Something’s bad here. Really bad. We, we need to go in there and get them.” She pointed at the cave with a shaking hoof.

Bitterroot knew better than to ask questions of someone in that state. Charcoal could explain herself later. “Alright,” said Bitterroot. She flared her wings to take flight. “I’ll give them a holler-”

Something in the cave groaned; a few moments later, the surface of the muskeg flexed. And the light from Charcoal’s light flickered as she dropped to her knees, coughing.

“Whoa, hey.” Bitterroot zipped over to her and laid a hoof on her back. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s-” Wheezing, a hoof on her throat, Charcoal nearly collapsed onto the ground before Bitterroot caught her. “There’s something in my-” She spasmed, slipped from Bitterroot’s hooves, and started screaming. In the last half-second before her horn went out, leaves forced their way out of her gums.

Bitterroot’s pulse spiked. Scrabbling backwards, she instinctively flared her wings and nearly took off. It was going to happen to her again, she was going to-

-if she ran, what would happen to Charcoal?

She froze, paralyzed with thought as Charcoal twisted and her wails turned to snarls and her flesh was replaced with bark. Charcoal would be in the middle of the forest; she could go anywhere. Maybe be gone by the time Amanita and company got out. If they got out. And maybe Charcoal would-

The timberwolf’s sounds changed, but Bitterroot could barely make out anything in the dark. Was its transformation complete? She immediately started flapping her wings, focusing on nothing but climbing. Wooden claws swiped the air beneath her, but didn’t touch her.

Okay. Hovering. She could do that. Bitterroot flapped harder and climbed higher. The eyes of the timberwolf glared up at her; it jumped again, missed again.

Lead it on a merry chase to keep it distracted? She could do that, too. She dropped to just above the ground, still hovering; right when the wolf tensed to pounce, Bitterroot jinked away and the wolf missed by a mile. “Hey!” she yelled. “Come get me!” And she darted off, the wolf in hot pursuit.

There was just enough light for her to make out the silhouettes of trees and weave through them. She wanted to fly above them, but the wolf might lose interest if she looked impossible to catch. She didn’t fly nearly as fast as she could have; only fools did that in a dark forest. But even cautious, she was fast enough for the wolf to lose ground, especially once she left the tightness of the aspen grove. She did a broad curve; she could make it a circle and hold until Amanita came back out. Hopefully.

She swooped up, turned around. The wolf’s eyes were easy to spot. “Over here, doggy!” She gave it a few moments to catch up again, then dropped back to just above ground level and was off again. How long should she wait until Amanita left the cave? Noon, maybe? Code had said the spell might get destroyed at noon, so if she could hold out-

One of the trees moved.

It was in the dark and hard to make out, but one of the trees bent in a way trees shouldn’t bend, right into her path at exactly the wrong time. Bitterroot yelped and changed course — too much. One of her wings clipped another tree and she spun out. She tumbled head over tail, losing all sense of direction before smashing into the ground. The snow cushioned the worst of the blow, but that wasn’t saying much.

Somehow, she ended up on her belly. Adrenaline kept her going. Head? Throbbing, but intact. Legs? Ached, but worked. She stood up. Wings- She bit back a scream as the one she’d hit flared with pain. Utterly unusable? Another flap- Yes. Oh, Celestia, unusable. Bitterroot hung her head, panting with the pain.

Behind her, the wolf howled. At least she wouldn’t need to worry about losing it. She hobbled off into the dark; the more she was moving, the longer she’d stay alive.

Amanita ran. One foot of the tunnel was the same as another. Every sound was magnified and distorted until she couldn’t make out one from another. Air rushed past her like she was in a storm. She could barely see in front of herself. Still she ran.

With the other ponies galloping alongside her, she didn’t have much of a choice: move or go under the hooves. Then again, that was probably better than getting caught by the timberwolves.

“Back! Back!” Arrastra kept falling behind to swing at the wolves with the chainsaw before catching up again. It was amazing she could manage that.

The strange voice spoke again. “Stop running! It’ll make things simpler!”

Amanita didn’t respond. She was too busy breathing. If she didn’t keep moving-

The cave suddenly opened up into a large room, shrouded in darkness. The herd split blindly and carried on galloping. Amanita jinked to one side to get out of the crowd, only to smash into a table she didn’t see coming. As the air left her lungs and the table was driven forward, her horn went out. And the herd carried on without her.

She could hear the wolves behind her; the growls filled the air as their claws clicked across the rock. Wheezing in pain, she pushed herself off the table and crawled under it. It was too dark for her to see where she was going and that didn’t matter. “Away” was good enough.

Something glowing green flickered behind her. One of her hooves was clamped in a vise, and then she was being dragged out by a hind leg. She kicked blindly with the other, over and over; branches buckled beneath her force, but the timberwolf’s bite stayed strong and-

“Git!”

A crystal dynamo roared as wood and steel screamed. The wolf shuddered and collapsed into mere branches across Amanita’s leg. She scrambled forward and looked over her shoulder just in time to see green eyelights go out.

Arrastra swung the chainsaw again, cleaving the branches that had been its head into a mess of pieces. She didn’t bother looking at Amanita when she asked, “Y’alright?”

“I, I think so,” Amanita said, nodding, “but-”

With a chirp, Arrastra was away again. How could she echolocate in all this din?

“Stop! STOP!” the voice screamed. “Hold still, you little-”

Amanita dragged herself out from under the table. She put weight on her hoof; a slight twinge, but no real problem. The room was still dim enough that she could barely see anything; hornlight was flickering throughout as the flashes of cast spells swung shadows wildly around. But she could see the eyes. All the glowing green eyes of the timberwolves. They were darting around, searching for ponies to eat. But when those eyes stood out so clearly, they were easy targets for the ponies. Amanita heard blades whistling, hooves and clubs pounding, a dynamo whirring.

And right next to her, someone yelling.

She didn’t know much about fighting. That didn’t stop her. She charged, her horn lighting the way.

A chiropterus was on her back, pinned down by the mass of a wolf. She was managing to keep it off her with a spear stuck sideways in its mouth, but its claws were swiping and scoring light hits across her increasingly bloody face.

Amanita lanced off a bolt of magic at the wolf. It was weak and wouldn’t do much more than distract it, but for an animal, it was enough. It twitched in surprise and briefly stopped clawing; the mare managed to gain enough leverage to twist and throw it off. At the same time, Amanita seized one of its legs in her magic and wrenched it away, the conglomerate decohering to a mess of branches as it flew off.

“Thankee!” the chiropterus said as she rolled to her feet. She didn’t seem too badly wounded aside from her face. “That’s-” She blinked, then yanked Amanita to one side.

The timberwolf flew past Amanita, close enough that its twigs ruffled her furs. It’d used some of its body mass to regrow its leg and its mobility was back. Its claws gouged scars in the roots across the floor as it dragged itself to a halt. It growled, snapped it jaws-

Another telekinetic grab and throw, another missing leg. As the wolf stumbled, the mare jumped forward and brought the blunt end of her spear down on the wolf. Branches clattered to the ground and she started trampling on them, reducing them to chips and splinters.

Around her was chaos. The sound in the room was immense. Amanita heard yells, screams, battle cries, bouncing around and lasting longer than they should have. At the same time, she could barely see anything that wasn’t inside her little ball of light. Shadows surrounded her, brief spells cut small holes through the gloom, and she couldn’t place a sound to a thing. Maybe nopony else-

Amanita nearly smacked herself; instead, she loosed balls of light in every direction. They weren’t bright, but there were a lot of them, and soon enough light was being shed on the room for her to more than barely see by. For the first time, she took in the room’s contents. In a dimly-lit, half-moment’s glance-over, she saw large tables covered with books and papers, once stacked neatly, now scattered in the fighting. Machines of various shapes and sizes, from tiny crystalline resonators to hulking things bigger than Celestia, were scattered around the room, either lurking in corners or taking a place of honor in the center. Fetters and muzzles, some of them bloodstained, hung from hooks on the wall. Roots ran across the floor and up the walls in rows too neat to be natural. The ceiling was high above them, nearly two or three stories. Amanita’s first guess was that it was a lab of some sort.

And, then, of course, there were the people.

The group had been split up by the wolves, but nopony seemed to be down. Weapons and hooves were swinging; there was Arrastra, chainsawing away, while Code had unsheathed her sword and twirling like a dancer, with more dexterity in her mouth than some unicorns had in their horns. But the timberwolves wouldn’t stay down. The fighters did their best, but you could only do so much against something that technically didn’t have a body.

But there was something in here, something controlling the timberwolves. That voice. And the timberwolves had come from the roots, so… The entrance was there, which meant the roots were running in that direction. A direction that led to a wall made entirely of those roots. A wall that seemed to be twitching.

As she galloped for the wall, Amanita gave brief spots of help to the brawls she passed — a telekinetic nudge her, a thwack there — but she had her goal. She didn’t bother trying to stop herself, but let herself hit the wall, hard. It was moving slowly, but it was moving. And was there something behind it? On a whim, she loosed off a force blast and managed to blow off a small chunk of wood. She could see darkness behind the cords: empty space.

Then the voice screamed again. “Don’t go back there! You can’t go back there!”

Amanita decided that she very much needed to go back there. She reached deeper to pull up more of her magic, maybe make a bigger hole-

Roots burst from the wall, waving like tentacles, and before Amanita could react, they’d wrapped around her neck.

The ache in Bitterroot’s legs was going away as she ran. She tried her bad wing; no such luck.

She didn’t know where she was heading besides “east”, and that was only because of the glowing western wall at her back. Would she end up at the cave again? It didn’t matter at the moment. She kept her ears turned back. The wolf’s footsteps had stopped and she could hear it chuffing at the ground. It could smell her, it’d catch up eventually. It could track her wherever she went-

Could it climb?

Bitterroot didn’t stop to think. She darted to the nearest tree and clambered up. Her good wing gave her enough lift to reach the lowest branches and pull herself up. The bark grated against her perhaps more than it ought, but she could climb.

And that might not be enough, so Bitterroot scurried out onto one of the branches. The forest was thick and the trees were close. A quick flap gave Bitterroot enough oomph to leap from one tree to the next. At least her scent trail wouldn’t lead to this tree. Immediately.

Down below, the timberwolf had reached the tree she’d climbed. It walked around, sniffing and sniffing and sniffing. Its growl was long and low, and it spread out its search. Bitterroot scooted and jumped to another tree.

So: now what? Just keep jumping from tree to tree and try to keep an eye on the timberwolf? Well, maybe. It was the only option she had at the moment. Bitterroot giggled shrilly to herself. When you were in danger, in real danger, now was all that mattered. Not the second later, not the second before, now. Everything else might as well not exist.

Stuck there in her state of detached panic, Bitterroot wasn’t as worried about dying as most people. She’d done it more times than anyone in the world, probably. But Charcoal was still aware in the wolf. If she caught and killed Bitterroot, what would she think? Would she be able to live with herself? Even if-

Charcoal was aware.

Charcoal could get angry.

Charcoal was a kirin.

Worth a shot.

“Hey! Charcoal!” Bitterroot yelled down.

The wolf’s head snapped in her direction and it growled. Snow crackled as it stalked her way and its sniffing echoed loudly. The air began curling with the stench of its breath.

Beating down her fear, ignoring her aching skull, Bitterroot kept an easygoing tone. “I heard about you. You wanted to show Princess Twilight that you could be relied upon! And you know what? You came close!”

Green eyes threw out just enough light for Bitterroot to see the wolf’s silhouette. It circled the tree, sniffing. Then it turned its head upward and she knew it saw her. It started growling.

She almost started hyperventilating. Bitterroot scooched to the end of the branch, ready to jump if need be. “And the only thing stopping you is this! This stupid little tree, right before the end! That’s it! It’s not even your fault! All that work, just to end here! That’s-”

The wolf moved faster than she could’ve thought. It climbed up the tree in an instant and lunged along the branch like a tightrope walker. But Bitterroot was ready and she leapt for a nice, thick branch right ahead-

Right as she landed, the branch twisted in a way it shouldn’t have. She lost her footing and tumbled. An instinctive flare of the wings rewarded her with her bad wing hurting her and her good one flipping her over so she landed hard on her back. Stars danced in her eyes from the impact, and as she groaned, the wolf dropped from its branch and landed just a few yards from her. Its breath made her want to gag.

Too close. One more phrase, and that was it. Bitterroot managed to gasp out, “Doesn’t that just cheese you off?”

The wolf raised a foot. It didn’t set it down again. It twitched a little.

It burst into flame so intense Bitterroot was bowled back by the shockwave of heat. A bloodcurdling scream boomed across the valley, one laced with anger and frustration that had boiled over into something dangerous to touch. Harsh shadows were thrown through the forest by the fire’s glare and Bitterroot had to put up a hoof to shield her eyes.

Her eyes adjusted after a few moments. More importantly, nothing tried to rip her flesh from her bones. She lowered her leg, squinted, managed to peer into the blaze.

The wolf was gone. Within the inferno was Charcoal. And she was really pissed off.

The roots around Amanita’s neck tightened like a noose. She yelped, grabbing at them, but they were too strong. She tried to breathe; her throat was sealed tight. Her hooves slid against the floor as she reared and pulled back, to no avail. Her lungs started begging for air, and she couldn’t even scream for help-

A silver-plated sword dropped down between Amanita and the wall, slicing through the roots like a hot knife through butter. She toppled onto her back and wheezed with the pain of strangulation.

Code was at her side. “What’d you find?” she asked. It was amazing how clear she was when her mouth had such a tight grip on her sword.

“Room,” Amanita gasped, pointing. “Behind- wall. Might be- controller.”

Thankfully, Code seemed to get it immediately. She stabbed her sword into the wall, earth pony strength allowing her to push it all the way up to the hilt, and yanked it across. Amanita felt something buzz as some form of magic fell beneath the silver blade. Dark magic?

“Stop! STOP!” the voice screamed. This time Amanita felt it more than anything, an arcane wave of agony. The entire room flinched; the roots on the floor writhed, the ponies staggered, and every single timberwolf collapsed into a mere pile of sticks.

Just like that, the fight stopped.

The echoes of conflict petered out, but the room wasn’t silent. Ponies were breathing heavily in exertion or moaning from their wounds. Amanita noticed one pony crouched over another and went over to look.

An earth pony stallion was hunched over a pegasus mare covered in gashes, blood already pooling around her as she struggled to breathe. The stallion was futilely attempting to stem the flow. His spear lay forgotten at his side. “Stay wi’ me, Scallion,” he mumble-growled. “Y’ain’t goin’ tae die yet, I ain’t goin’ tae let ye-”

Sighing, Amanita picked up the spear and stabbed Scallion through the heart.

The stallion cursed and lurched backwards as Scallion shuddered and stopped moving. He stared up at Amanita, his mouth open in aghast confusion.

“I’ll bring her-” Amanita blinked. “I, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

The stallion stood up. “Whetstone, an’ what in the BLAZES dae ye-”

“Sorry, but I’ll bring her back when we get back to Tratonmane,” said Amanita wearily. “Necromancer. She wouldn’t have lived long, anyway.”

“Ach, an’ what if’n you’un dinnae make it back, ah?” demanded Whetstone.

Wait-

“What are you all DOING?” The voice slid through the air again. It sounded… petulant? “You could’ve had it easy, but nooooooo. Where do you think you’re going to end up?”

The ponies looked up, ears trembling in trepidation. Amanita wondered if the roots were really moving underneath her hooves or if that was just her imagination. It was a moment before Arrastra spoke up. “An’ who dae ye presume yerself tae be, beast?” she demanded.

The voice huffed. “My name is not Beast, it’s Lixivia, not that MATTERS to you idiots. What are you-”

“Whippletree’s here, ain’t he?”

“Who? That pegasus I turned two nights ago? Yeah, I’ve got him, but I NEED him, he’s-”

Arrastra’s chainsaw roared and she slammed it into the woody wall without another word.

Lixivia screamed and the roots bunched up; Arrastra was able to pull the chainsaw back out before they clamped down on it. “You do NOT hurt me!” snapped Lixivia. Whined? “You should just- Oh, forget this.”

The discarded branches around the lab stirred. They rolled of their volition towards the center of the room, clumping together into the shape of massive paws, humongous legs. The ponies started desperately smashing branches that passed them, but there was only so much they could do with so many branches. On the other side of the room, more roots closed up across the exit, cutting off escape.

Code twirled her sword. “Keep cutting,” she murmured to Arrastra. “We’re gonna need it.”

Charcoal managed to scream for a full fifteen seconds before she took a breath. Not a light scream, either; this was the sort of bellow myths were built around, full and hearty and packed with rage. She was blazing black as cinder with glowing eyes as the flames curling around her burned a strange red and blue. When she stopped screaming, her hooves were spread in an aggressive, almost primal stance, and her entire body heaved as she breathed like a locomotive.

Bitterroot had thought Charcoal’s display at Pyrita’s death had been shocking. This was something else. “Charcoal?” she asked. “A-are you okay?”

“Do I LOOK like I’m okay, you urine-blooded fecal-brained OATWAGON?” Charcoal roared. Honest-to-goodness roared, with underlying back-of-the-throat bass and everything. She had fangs. “I’m going to burn every twig in this tinder pile of a forest, turn it all to potash, and use that to grow tulips. STREAM-SILENCED TULIPS!”

Bitterroot blanched and scrambled back. “Uh…”

“I’m still me,” growled Charcoal. “I’m just mad. Really. Really. Mad.” The fire flared as she pawed the ground. Well, dug into the ground, given the furrows she was leaving. “Timberwolves don’t even work like that, by ashes! Does everything in this night fertilizer field of a valley want to spite me?!”

Okay. Charcoal was… safe. But what about- Bitterroot’s gaze snapped to the cave, then back to Charcoal, still seething, still searing. How long would that last? Maybe long enough that- “I think the others are in trouble,” she said quickly. “In the cave. We should-”

Charcoal glared at the clearing and threw her head back melodramatically. “Of course!” How could she scream so much without getting hoarse? “Right where I said to their fussocky faces it’d be dangerous to go, and now we need to go save those unmuzzled jolterheads!”

“Um, they didn’t have much of a-”

“For pyre’s sake, I need to keep myself trampling angry or I’ll go out, you moron! This rainforsaken cantrip only works when I’m peeved!”

Bitterroot briefly decided to leave well enough alone before she got a better idea. “Really? What sort of magical being are you that you can’t control your magic?”

Charcoal screamed at Bitterroot with enough vitriol that Bitterroot almost feared for her life. Then she turned and galloped around the clearing, straight for the cave. Bitterroot darted after her, nearly needing to take flight to keep up.

“I don’t know what sort of heatwarped, ricketed bonehead is doing this,” roared Charcoal, “but if you’ve got a head, you’re gonna lose it!”

Amanita seized branches in her magic, snapped them. She pulled hunks more from the growing body of the king wolf. Around her, other ponies were doing the same. If it slowed anything down, she couldn’t tell.

Code and Arrastra were hacking at the wooden wall, trying to carve a way through. Lixivia’s roots kept shifting around, throwing off their aim or blocking their way, but still they carved. She was screaming something at them, but Amanita had stopped listening long ago.

The wolf grew and grew, not yet whole but approaching the ceiling. It tried swiping at a pony, but it couldn’t aim without a head; its target, a pegasus, easily flapped right over the massive paw. But it got less and less blind with every passing second.

“How’s it coming?” Amanita hissed to Code.

“Slowly. Stall,” Code hissed back.

Enough of the head was assembled that the wolf’s eyes were glowing. Amanita gulped.

She fired a bolt at it to get its attention. “Hey!” she yelled, waving her hooves at it. “Look at me! Look at me!” As the wolf turned its attention to her, she started running around, skirting the edge of the room. Distraction.

“I heard what you said about that one pony,” Lixivia said. “You think you’re a necromancer?”

“You bet I am!” Amanita kept running, dodging around roots and clambering over tables, always staying just ahead of the wolf. She didn’t want to waste her breath on pathetic attempts at banter, but as long as it kept up the distraction…

“Oh, please,” snorted Lixivia. “I bet you couldn’t even enthrall a mouse.”

The wolf had its back turned to the search party and they sprang. An earth pony seized a table and swung it through one of the wolf’s legs, smashing a chunk out. A pegasus had a spear and was swiping bits and pieces away from its back. A unicorn started ripping branches off and snapping them one by one. More ponies, all attacking in their own way. The wolf didn’t stop its lumbering and didn’t seem hindered. But it was distracted.

Amanita was ready to say something when she spotted what was probably an opening and bolted forward, right underneath the wolf’s head. She ran and telekinetically ripped clusters of wood from the backs of its legs. They would’ve hamstrung a flesh-and-blood creature, but against an amalgamation like a timberwolf, they were just nicks. As the wolf bent over and reached out a paw to try to attack her, Amanita kept running, rolled over a table, and darted out from between its legs. The wolf kept reaching and overbalanced, but it hadn’t even fully collapsed before the branches blurred and it reformed on its feet.

“Hold STILL!” said Lixivia. “You shouldn’t be DOING this!”

“I don’t care!” Amanita said. A weak response, but keep up the distraction.

“I will DISSECT you while you’re ALIVE and you will feel EVERYTHING.” The wolf lumbered toward Amanita, ignoring all other attacks.“You will watch as I CUT YOUR HEART OUT and-”

The exit roots glowed, then were utterly incinerated in moments. A wave of heat washed into the room, sending ponies scurrying to the far corners to avoid it. Everything was illuminated in a dancing blaze of twisting red and blue. And within that blaze, breathing like she wanted to cave someone’s head in, was Charcoal.

“I’ve got a chip on my shoulder and a kicking in need of a tail!” Charcoal boomed like a subwoofer. “I don’t know who’s doing this, but whoever you are, I’m gonna shove my hoof so far up your rear it’ll turn your guts inside out and you’ll be puking your own waste for the next week, you tottering strangles-ridden clotpole!”

“You can’t be here,” hissed Lixivia. The wolf ponderously turned to face Charcoal, ignoring everyone else. “How are you here? I turned you when you were infected.”

Charcoal raised her head to look up at the wolf. Her ears twitched and the flames faltered for half a moment, then she sucked in a breath. “You are huge! That means you have a huge tail!”

“Listen to yourself! You sound like an idiot! I control this forest, and you’re not even a pony!”

“AND YOU’RE A CONSEQUENCE OF A TORN CONDOM!”

And Charcoal charged. Even Amanita could tell she had little physical strength and less martial skill, but that didn’t matter much when you were on fire.

The wolf reacted slowly to Charcoal’s sudden moves and couldn’t stop her. It hadn’t even touched her before it recoiled and Lixivia screamed. The roots writhed like they hadn’t before, making tables and machines lurch. Charcoal battered at the roof with what would’ve been the effectiveness of a filly swatting at a buffalo, except that parts of the wolf were soon ablaze. It thrashed; Charcoal darted out of the way, but a clip across her barrel sent her rolling. She was back up as soon as she had a chance, roaring with a rage Amanita hadn’t believed she could possess.

“Got it! In here!” Arrastra screamed above the din. She’d managed to carve open a gap in the roots large enough for a pony to climb through. She started waving ponies through; with the heat rising in the room, they were only too happy to comply. Amanita took the chance to drag Scallion’s body with her, just to be sure it wouldn’t be burned.

On the other side, ponies were sprawled out, panting. The wall muffled a surprising amount of the battle on the other side; it was almost peaceful. It was also almost completely dark, since no spells were being slung. But with a vastly smaller amount of things trying to kill them, that was-

“You’re- You’re not supposed to- graah! You shouldn’t be in here!”

The ponies hurriedly got to their hooves and Amanita started throwing illumination spells at the sound of Lixivia’s voice. But for the first time, it didn’t come from all around them like before. It sounded… almost muffled?

“Get out! GET OUT!”

This room was smaller than the lab, circular roughly the size of the Watering Cave’s common room. Roots covered literally every square inch of wall, floor, and ceiling so there wasn’t a flat surface in sight. The coils traced out strange shapes that Amanita knew have arcane significance, even if she couldn’t recognize them immediately. In the middle, it all gathered to form a twisted pillar wrapped around a sort of translucent pod.

“Don’t you dare come any closer!”

Lixivia’s voice was coming from the pod.

“I reckon I shall,” sneered Arrastra. Before anyone else could move, even Code, she covered the distance with a few quick flaps. Her chainsaw roared and she thrust it in.

Lixivia screamed, screamed louder than she had before, a sound of pain and rage. Arrastra sawed through the roots and surface of the pod easily; green liquid gushed forth from the gap and drenched her head to hoof. The surface of the floor twitched and writhed, but never quite managing to reach for her, like someone trying to walk with a numb foot. The other ponies scattered and circled around the pod, weapons up, ready for whatever might come out.

Nothing did. The movement of the roots died down as Arrastra tossed her chainsaw aside. “C’mere!” she yelled, reaching into the pod. She soon ripped out a shape and tossed it to the ground.

An earth mare. That was all Amanita could make out in the dark. Lixivia slipped as she tried standing up, drenched in chlorophyll as she was. Arrastra pounced. “By the mount’s pit, who dae ye think y’are?” Arrastra yelled, cuffing her across the head.

“A visionary!” screeched Lixivia. “The things I’m doing here-”

Arrastra placed a hoof on her neck and stomped. “Ye took! My family!” she yelled. “Prolly more!” She raised a hoof above Lixivia’s head.

“No!” Code darted up to push Arrastra’s hoof aside. “Don’t kill her,” she hissed. “We need to interrogate her. You just said so, she could be responsible for more than Whippletree.”

To Amanita’s surprise, Arrastra nodded almost immediately. “Aye,” she grunted. She gave Lixivia a swift kick in the ribs, though.

Lixivia tried to stand up, but Code raised her sword, nearly poking her in the muzzle. “I’d rather keep you alive, ma’am,” Code said blandly, “but if you really want to keep trying to escape, my options for keeping you secure are limited. Please don’t make me exercise them.”

“Silver, huh?” Lixivia lowered herself back down. “At least somepony knows something.”

The comment on security jogged Amanita’s memory. “I, I saw some fetters back in the first room,” she said, pointing. “Want me to go get them?” Assuming she could even go in there.

“That’d be nice, yes,” said Code, not lowering her sword.

The hole back had twisted a little and Amanita had to wriggle to get through. On the other side, the sticks of the king timberwolf were smoldering pleasantly away. Bitterroot and a very much not-on-fire Charcoal were frantically running around, trying to put the fires out before they ate up all the air in the room. The three exchanged quick waves and Amanita picked up her pace.

The sets of fetters were right where Amanita had seen them last, hanging on the wall. She gave one of them a quick probe for magic; the strengthening enchantments for holding earth ponies seemed to be holding. Good enough. She pulled them off their hook, cringed at the dried blood on it, and darted back to the second chamber.

“This isn’t how it goes,” Lixivia protested as she was chained up. “I’m-”

“That’s nice,” said Code. She gave them a few tests and seemed satisfied.

Amanita took that moment to duck back into the first room where she wordlessly joined Bitterroot and Charcoal at stamping out fires. When she had a free gap of air, she asked, “Are you two okay? What happened out there?”

“Charcoal turned into a mearhwolf and tried to kill me,” said Bitterroot casually, “so I got her angry and she burned her way out.” Stomp. “Though I sprained my wing and I’ve got a headache.” Stomp.

“I turned up my furs,” Charcoal mumbled. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. “I’m gonna be cold until we get back to Tramontane. Tratonmane.”

“I’ll needle you the whole way back,” said Bitterroot. “Then you can be just on fire enough to keep warm.”

“…I don’t know if it works that way, but let’s try it.”

Between the three of them, they soon had the fires out and the air in the cave was still breathable. The branches that had once been a timberwolf were all nicely singed at the very least. There were a lot of branches. “You really fought off a king timberwolf,” Amanita said, slightly awed.

“Sort of?” Charcoal mumbled. “I had it pinned in the corner when it sort of fell apart-”

“You had that pinned.”

“I was on fire! Anyone on fire could do it!”

Amanita and Bitterroot looked at her.

“…I-I mean, they could!”

Behind her, Amanita heard a chopping sound. Code was widening the hole between rooms with her sword. “Tell me what happened later,” she said preemptively. She wrenched away a particularly large chunk of wood and tossed it over her shoulder. “I’d rather- wrnng- hear it in a chair.” She glanced at the lab. “Any idea what was going on here?”

Most of the paper had been reduced to ash in the fires. What remained wasn’t much use to Amanita when she looked it over, fragmented equations and notes with little context. The magic involved seemed to be transformation magic, something Amanita had never looked at much. Maybe she should. That could be her next field of magic: transfigurationist.

“This is… something,” Code murmured as she looked at one of the paper scraps. “I’d be impressed if it came from someone with more dignity.”

The machines were also unfamiliar to her, with few marks and lots of dials and far too many switches. Custom-made, maybe? It was probably the best way to get them out here. Amanita moved around the room, giving them quick glances but not wasting too much time on-

She did a double-take at one of the larger machines. It wasn’t a machine at all; it was a tank. A tank for holding a pony. And the pony in question, curled up on the bottom, was-

“Arrastra!” Amanita yelled. “I found him, I found Whippletree!”

Once they had everyone in the lab, it was a quick matter of shattering the glass and carefully lifting him out. He didn’t seem to have anything wrong with him, physical or otherwise. He groaned as Arrastra cradled him in her wings. “Whipple?” she asked quietly, tenderly. “Please-”

“Arrastra?” Whippletree managed to focus on her, his eyes and wings fluttering. “Ye’re here?”

At the sound of his voice, a tension was released throughout the group and laughter spread throughout the party. Someone even whooped with joy. Arrastra smiled weakly. “We came an’ got ye,” she said. “We-”

Whippletree blinked, growing more alert, his face tightening in horror. “Where’s Crosscut? What happened tae her?”

“There’s a lot tae talk about, we cannae-”

“I k-killed her, aye?” Whippletree said quietly. “Ye c-can tell me.”

“Well, you did,” said Amanita. “But I resurrected her.”

Whippletree’s giggle was shrill. “Y-ye dinnae n-need tae-”

“No, no,” said Arrastra. “Whipple, lissen tae me. Crosscut died. And Amanita brought her back. She- She’s a necromancer, aye, jes’ like she said. Crosscut’s alive an’ kickin’. She’s alright.”

“She…” Something in Whippletree’s eyes changed and his face lifted slightly. “She’s alive?”

“Aye.”

Whippletree gave a soft exhalation of emotion before closing his eyes and lowering his head. It was hard to tell if he was crying or laughing. “She… Dear land, she…” He twisted away from Arrastra and stood, his body shaking, his legs firm.

“She misses ye,” said Arrastra. “Wythe, too. C’mon. Let’s get ye home.”

34 - Raid Cooldown

Carrying a dead body sucked, and a necromancer had even more reasons for that than a normal pony. Amanita wished she’d had enough ingredients to do something with Scallion’s corpse, if only to get it walking again. But she’d killed the mare, so she was carrying the body back. At least it wouldn’t be too far.

There was something different about the forest now. It still looked the same, but some of the menace was intangibly gone. The trees didn’t seem quite so clawlike and the darkness wasn’t as deep. There wasn’t any feeling that something was stalking them just beyond the light. Even the breeze didn’t seem to chill that much. Maybe capturing Lixivia had done something. Maybe Amanita was still riding the high of saving Whippletree. She was too busy with Scallion’s body to think much, and Whetstone was very resolutely not staying near her.

“And remember that first morning?” Bitterroot said to Charcoal. “You immediately spotted that the river was off. If we’d’ve listened to you then, we could’ve nipped this in the bud first thing!”

“I know,” muttered Charcoal. She wasn’t nearly as… infernal as she’d been before; the flames were limited to small ones flicking out from her mane and tail or between the scales on her back. But it seemed to be enough to keep her warm and snow was melting in her path.

“And maybe-”

“I’m good for now, you jerk,” Charcoal growled and the flames around her pulsed. “I’ll let you know when that changes.”

Outside and with nothing trying to kill anybody, it was easier to get a look at Lixivia. She looked strange for an earth pony, thin and stretched and a little bit pallid, with an unkempt mane. Her palette was the sort Amanita thanked Celestia she wasn’t born with, an unappealing combination of reds and browns that didn’t really work no matter which way you sliced it. She was slung across Code’s back and had kept trying to escape for the first half of the trip. But the fetters were tight and strong; she couldn’t break them and she couldn’t even walk if she ever fell off Code’s back. Eventually, she just gave up and stopped straining.

She sure kept talking, though.

“Put me down,” she growled for the umpteenth time.

“No,” Code responded for the umpteenth time.

“You have no idea what’s going on here.”

“We’re working on it.”

“I can tell if you just let me go, like you should.”

“You can also tell us now.”

Lixivia pouted. She turned to Amanita and sneered. “You. Self-proclaimed necromancer. Tell them to unhoof me.”

Amanita had a choice between two responses and, thanks to her weariness from carrying Scallion, it actually took her a moment to make a decision. “Hey, Code?”

“Hmm?”

“Unhoof Lixivia.”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“Mmm… no.”

Amanita shrugged. “Well, I tried,” she said to Lixivia.

“You call yourself a necromancer? Ponies should fear you! You should have them at your beck and call! And if they don’t, you should kill them and-”

Amanita looked over her shoulder. Whippletree was trailing behind the group, wings loose and head hanging. She fell back until she was right next to him. She gave him a nudge. “She is alive,” she said. “Crosscut.”

Whippletree raised his head, his ears quivering. “An’ what does she think o’ me?” he asked. “Even if she’s hale and hearty, I killed her.”

“No, you didn’t. It was the timberwolf, and that’s how she’ll see it. Trust me.” Amanita glanced up the line. “Bitterroot, there? She turned into a timberwolf just last night.” Whippletree raised his head and his wings tightened. “It tried to attack us, but I never once thought it was Bitterroot doing that. It- It wasn’t anything like her. Crosscut’s going to see it the same way.”

Whippletree watched Bitterroot walking ahead of them, his ears flicking. “Truly?”

“Truly. I don’t see why she wouldn’t.”

“Well.” Whippletree managed to put a smile on his face. It didn’t seem as forced as some of Amanita’s smiles. “Let’s hope.”

“Bitterroot felt something similar after we saved her. Terrified of what she could’ve done or what could’ve happened. If you’re still unsure, you could try talking to her.”

“Thankee.”

And Whippletree held his head up as he walked.

Voices were still coming on down the line. “Put. Me. Down,” growled Lixivia. Did she ever need to breathe between all her whining? “I am-”

Code immediately came to a stop and did a slight twitch of her haunches that sent Lixivia sprawling. “Does anyone have a rope?” she asked. “Not a cord, a rope, nice and thick. …Anyone? No? Bummer.” Without another word, Code ripped one of her sleeves off and wadded it to a ball.

“What do you think you’re doing?” snapped Lixivia. “You need to release me! I am-”

The second Lixivia’s mouth was open its widest, Code stuffed the ball in. Lixivia tried screaming around the gag, but it was sufficiently muffled. She settled for glaring at Code.

“You sound much better,” Code said. She hefted Lixivia onto her back again and continued on.

Then, Amanita heard Charcoal speak up. “Bitterroot? I’m cold. Get me peeved again.”

“Why should I? What kind of kirin can’t keep themselves-”

Amanita coughed. There was one topic of conversation that would get broached eventually, so- “Also, uh, while things are… quiet,” she said. “Me and Code and Charcoal and Bitterroot… We… know about the Deormont.”

Whippletree’s semi-confidence was gone, immediately replaced with mixed shock and confusion. “I beg yer pardon?” he asked in a low voice.

“We learned just last night. We also don’t think your cult’s really a cult, so we’re leaving you alone. The Deormont’s what led us to you.”

Whippletree actually giggled, clapping a hoof to his mouth. “Heh. That makes things a load easier. ’Tis what I wanted tae speak wit’ Crosscut about that night. We were chasin’ our tails, keepin’ everything secret…”

They reached the edge of the forest before sunlight had even hit the valley floor. Tratonmane’s flecks of light came sparking out of the dark, one at a time, as the trees thinned. Then they heard the sounds: saws, chatter, even someone singing off-key. Crosscut and the lumberjacks. Amanita saw that Whippletree was tensing up.

Once they finally broke out of the trees, Arrastra suddenly turned to the crowd and said, “Everyone? Thankee fer yer help. Go tae the Waterin’ Cave, get yerselves a drink or three, an’ tell Cabin I’ll pay. Ye’ve earned it.”

A ragged cheer went up from the search party and they streamed for town. Soon, the only ones left were Amanita, Arrastra, Code, and Whippletree. The first three were all watching the last, who was gazing off to the side into the dark. At the lumberjacks. At Crosscut.

Amanita’s legs burned with Scallion’s weight, but she didn’t move. Making sure Whippletree was doing okay seemed more important at the moment. But he didn’t move, either. He stood there, watching, motionless except for his twitching wings and pawing hooves.

“Crosscut!” Arrastra suddenly yelled. “We got him!”

One of the ponies jerked like she’d been stuck with a pin. So did Whippletree. As he stayed frozen, Crosscut slowly walked towards them until her face was visible in Amanita’s hornlight. She stared at Whippletree, jaw slightly open.

Whippletree actually took a step back; his wings refused to stop twitching. “Crosscut, dona,” he said quietly. “I… Please, I beg ye… I didnae wish tae hurt ye… I-”

Crosscut stepped forward and pulled Whippletree into a hug; he immediately broke into sobs as they held each other close. “I love ye,” she whispered. “I kin ye. ’Tweren’t youn that night. Ye’ve not a thing tae be sorry fer.”

“I’m sorry,” Whippletree whimpered, his wings pumping with anxiety, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-”

“Ye’re alright. That’s what matters.” Crosscut gave Whippletree a quick squeeze and a peck on the cheek. “Wythe’s goin’ tae want tae see ye.”

“Aye.” Still clinging to Crosscut, Whippletree nodded jerkily. “Aye. B-be- I’ll be seein’ ye.” Quick as a flash, he spread his wings and was flying towards Tratonmane, probably making an effort to not scream out Wythe’s name.

Crosscut watched him leave. Turning back to the group, she began, “Thankee fer-” Then her eyes went wide and she pulled back. “Ma? Ye’ve… got green on ye.”

Arrastra waved a hoof dismissively. “Ach, it’s jes’ chlorophyll.”

“…That’s a mess o’ chlorophyll. How…? Why…?”

“This is Lixivia,” Code said, stepping forward. “Arrastra chainsawed her out of a pod in a cave and she’s responsible for Whippletree and Bitterroot turning into timberwolves. Say hi, Lixivia.”

Lixivia made angry gagged-captive noises.

“She says hi.”

Crosscut blinked twice. Her ears drooped. Then her head drooped. “Tell me later,” she said, already sounding exhausted. As she walked back to the lumberjacks, Amanita heard her muttering, “This week… This cusséd week…”

And she hadn’t even said anything about the dead body Amanita was carrying. This cusséd week, indeed.

Her wing still wasn’t working, but Bitterroot could propel herself a little faster than most ponies with her good wing. And yet, she still had trouble following Charcoal as she ran back to the Watering Cave, easily outstripping everyone else. But Charcoal didn’t go to the bar; instead, she bolted up the steps to their room. By the time Bitterroot poked her head in, Charcoal was already pulling her new furs tight around her.

“Sorry about your clothes,” Bitterroot said.

“It happens.” Charcoal stretched like a cat and gave her tail a little flick. “No, really, it does. Kirins don’t really have fashion. It’s just not the sort of thing that lasts.”

“Even after therapy?”

“Habit. Thanks for, uh, being understanding about the whole… wolf thing. And the insults and…”

“Hey, I went through it, too, I know what it feels like. I’d be a huge jerk if I wasn’t understanding. And we got you out, so whatever. I can live with it.”

“Thanks.”

The rest of the search party was at the bar, yelling orders to a frazzled Cabin, but Amanita wasn’t there. Bitterroot ducked out of the building to see Amanita, Code, and Arrastra walking up the road. “Hey!” she said, waving at them. “All good?”

“All good,” said Amanita. “We were-”

Lixivia groaned.

“We were just making sure Whippletree was alright,” Amanita said. “But now, I’ve got a body that needs resurrecting.”

“And figure out what to do with this blackguard over lunch,” said Code. She gave a little hop with her rear legs, jostling Lixivia. “I’m sure we’d all love to eat, but someone needs to draw the short straw.”

“I’ll do it,” Bitterroot said immediately. “Bounty hunter. I’m used to watching captives. I just need somewhere to put her.”

“Take her tae my house,” said Arrastra darkly. “I dinnae want her anear while we’re lunchin’.” She shot a glare at Lixivia.

“Alright.” A bit of shuffling got Lixivia off Code’s back and onto Bitterroot’s. “I remember where your house is, so go and have lunch.” She walked away, whistling and with Lixivia squirming.

Some ways into town, she glanced up. It was getting brighter, thanks to more and more of the western wall being illuminated and bouncing light down, but Bitterroot still couldn’t see the sun. “Not even noon, and we’ve already caught you,” she said. “Do you think it’ll be uphill or downhill from here on out?”

Lixivia snarled as best she could.

“Eh, maybe.”

“Hey. Sorry I killed you.”

It was a stupid thing to say, Amanita knew, but what else were you supposed to say? Scallion was lying in the resurrection circle before the Watering Cave, staring at the sky and panting. She gawked at Amanita and said nothing.

“You were, uh, going to… die anyway,” Amanita said, wringing her hooves. Why did it sound so much worse when she said it aloud? “And… just… killing you off would save you the pain. So, I mean…” She shrugged. “I can… fix you easily if you’re dead. Not really if you’re alive.”

Scallion gawked at Amanita and said nothing.

“Also, um, Whetstone here-” Amanita nudged Whetstone, standing next to her. “-he, uh, read me the riot act about killing you, so, uh, you’ve got someone looking out for you.”

Scallion gawked at Amanita and said nothing.

“Um, you can, you can go. Arrastra’s buying everyone drinks.”

That seemed to do it. Scallion glanced at the door to the inn and slowly got to her hooves, like she was unsure of her own body. She nodded jerkily to Amanita. “Thankee.”

“I, I mean, it’s kinda my fault to begin with, so, yeah, sorry.”

Scallion stared at Amanita for another moment longer before she slowly went into the Cave.

Amanita turned to Whetstone, who was watching Scallion enter the inn. Once the door closed, it took him another moment or two to face Bitterroot, his ears folded back. “I… I beg yer pardon fer… fer sayin’ those things in the cave,” he said quietly.

She just shrugged. “Pardon given. I killed one of your friends in front of you. You showed incredible restraint. Look, it happened, it’s over, water under the bridge, okay?”

“…Aye. Thankee.”

“You’re welcome. Now, let’s go get drunk.”

Bitterroot had dumped Lixivia in the living room and that was where they stayed. Arrastra had been nice enough to bring her a clover sandwich. A clover sandwich. The bread was a bit tough, but holy Tartarus was this good clover. Out here! In the North! Bitterroot hadn’t even known clover grew out here. Maybe it didn’t. Deormont and all. Either way, it was enough to make her forget her headache for a little while.

Lixivia was squirming on the floor, trying to break free of her fetters with no luck. She still had the gag stuffed in her mouth and was trying to growl around it. She glared at Bitterroot and made a sound.

Bitterroot took a bite of her delicious, delicious sandwich and swallowed. “You know, I’m a bounty hunter. I don’t mind sitting here in silence, watching you,” she said. “But if you behave, I’ll take that gag out to let you breathe better.”

“Uh vuh veevuh veevh,” declared Lixivia.

“Are you going to behave?”

Lixivia kept up her glare, but nodded. Bitterroot took another clover bite, then pulled the furs from Lixivia’s mouth. Lixivia immediately grinned and said, “Drew the short straw, did you?”

Bitterroot already saw Lixivia’s goal: turn her against her allies with cold reading and loose insinuations. But any bounty hunter worth a quarter of their salt could see this technique coming a mile away and ignore it. For starters, Lixivia was coming on too hard, too fast. “Volunteered,” Bitterroot said.

Lixivia’s grin faltered enough for Bitterroot to know that’d had an impact. When it came back, it wasn’t as assured. “So, tell me,” she asked, “how did it feel being a timberwolf? I’m just dying for the data on my little experiment.”

Bitterroot’s wings buzzed and she felt her jaw clench- But this was another technique perps tried: anger their captors into making a mistake. After the trauma of last night, part of Bitterroot wanted to pound Lixivia’s face in for what she’d done, but it was a tiny part, easily ignored. Instead, she went for the much more fun route: she grinned and tapped the side of her muzzle. “That’s a secret.”

“A- a secret?” growled Lixivia. “I- That’s my data. I need that. Tell me!”

“Not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Look, I’m friends with somepony who ritualistically slit my throat. Turning me into a timberwolf? Heh. That’s nothing. Try harder.”

“So you think you’re tough? You didn’t do anything back in the valley. I saw. You came in late, you-”

Bitterroot had many, many responses to that. The one she went with was, “Oh, look, you’re misbehaving. And giving me a headache.” And, with a little bit of work, she stuffed the furs back into Lixivia’s mouth.

Ears folded back, Lixivia screamed at her and started twisting again in an attempt to break free of the fetters. She had the exact same result as she’d had earlier.

“You’re not very bright, are you?” Bitterroot said, sitting back down in her chair.

The rage and hate of Lixivia’s yell was somewhat diminished by its near-complete lack of volume.

“Maybe you’re hungry. Being hungry always makes me stupid angry. Maybe we disrupted your breakfast and that’s why you’re out for our blood. Which, if that’s the case, I get it! Really! But, y’know. You didn’t behave.”

Lixivia rolled her eyes and looked away.

It was a bit early for lunch and absolutely no one was caring. Not even Cabin. Food was being served rapid-fire in the common room, the atmosphere was warm and jovial, and Cabin wasn’t grunting.

Amanita found herself and the other Canterlotians sitting with Arrastra, who was muttering very colorful thoughts about Lixivia. “-lily-livered woods filly, preyin' on us,” she growled. “I’m goin’ tae shoot her with one o’ our ballistae.”

Amanita nearly choked in her haste to swallow. “A- A ballista? Isn’t a bolt that big overkill?”

“Probably,” said Code. “But there’s nothing quite like it for spite.”

Amanita had to admit it was healthier than her old methods of coping.

She briefly glanced around the room and couldn’t help but wonder: exactly how far had they sidestepped? Whippletree had been taken, and the search for him had chewed up nearly two and a half days. Not to mention the day technically wasted above Midwich after Pyrita. This was their… sixth day in Tratonmane, and half of it had been frittered away on stuff that was only loosely related to the ley line at best. Unless Lixivia had something to do with it. Out in Midwich Forest, working with plants? It wasn’t totally impossible, even if Amanita didn’t find it very plausible. And then, there were questions left behind.

As if reading her mind, Code set her cup down. “You know. Lixivia explains absolutely nothing about the ley line or Pyrita. Technically speaking, she’s utterly unconnected to them.”

“As far as we know,” Amanita said.

“Correct. But I trust I’m not alone when I say that them not being linked is… unsatisfying.”

“Maybe she’s been using the ley line for magic and that caused it to turn,” Charcoal said in a thinking-out-loud voice. “But she hid its magic from the outside until it got too much for her- No, wait, we’d’ve seen problems before then, never mind.”

“Nevertheless, the possibility remains.” Code breathed deeply. “So I plan on interrogating her. If any of you wish to watch, you’re welcome to.”

Arrastra snorted. “Oh, I’ll watch,” she mumbled.

“You will not rough her up,” Code said in a way that made it a statement of fact.

“…Aye.”

Amanita nudged her food around on its plate. How long had she been running around Midwich Valley? She hadn’t even gotten a full night’s sleep last night. Right now, having a nap sounded like… not the best thing in the world, but quite satisfying. But she was here to help ponies, and that meant knowing everything she could, and that meant sitting in on the interrogation of that mare. That loud, whiny, entitled mare. Gah.

How low were the chances that it’d mean anything to her? Pretty low. Anything related to transfiguration made her mind blank at best (freeing Bitterroot was a lucky break, she told herself). She wasn’t even the right type of necromancer to satisfy Lixivia. But she’d come this far. She needed to see it through to the end.

“I’ll be there,” she said.

“Yeah, I think I’ll sit this one out,” Charcoal said. “My day’s been kind of weird between the cult thing and the transformation and I really just want to get back to the ley line.”

Lucky dog.

35 - In the Know

Finally, they could see the sun, about a quarter of it already out and over the rim. The bottom of Midwich Valley was lit up, light bouncing everywhere off the snow. It was the sort of cheery you normally only saw in Hearth’s Warming cards. But the upcoming interrogation put a bit of a damper on that.

If she was being really, truly, oh-Celestia-I-hate-myself-for-this honest with herself, Amanita had never needed to interrogate ponies. She’d always imagined that if they ever got snippy with her, she could just murder them, enthrall them, and ask the obedient corpse questions. Of course, that was before she knew that enthrallment did more than just make the corpse move, but the idea… The fact that she could just make somepony answer her honestly was awfully appealing. Hopefully, Code was more skilled at it than her.

“You’re going a bit fast,” Code said to Arrastra.

Once again, Arrastra fell back, flicking her tail. “Pardon,” she said in a voice that indicated she was lying.

“I know what you’re feeling, but roughing up ponies doesn’t make them more inclined to tell you what they know. They tell you what they think you want to hear. So, please: don’t hurt or threaten her.”

Arrastra grunted something that might’ve indicated assent.

How fast did word spread in Tratonmane? How many ponies knew that Whippletree had been saved? Amanita had never been in the social circle of small towns long enough to get a real feel for the speed of gossip. Maybe it was time-dependent, with rumors spreading more quickly when ponies were out of work and could mingle-

Whippletree came swooping in, landing right in front of them. “Thankee fer savin’ me,” he said, giving them a nod. “I owe you’uns my life.” Any anxiety he’d had on the way out from the forest was gone; his hooves were close together and he was holding his head high.

“You don’t owe us anything, it was the right thing to do,” Amanita said. “Are you… doing okay?”

“I’ve got my family back. Aye, I’m fine.” Whippletree flexed his wings and grinned. It wasn’t remotely forced. “Ready tae get right back to it.”

“We’re a-goin’ tae speak wi’ the pony that had ye,” Arrastra said darkly. “Askin’ her some questions.”

“Without trying to cave her head in,” Code added.

“Ye can come if’n ye’re interested.”

Whippletree frowned, tilted his head to one side, flicked an ear. After a moment, he said, “Aye. If’n that pony’s a danger, we need tae ken. I’ll listen in.”

When they reached Arrastra’s house, light was streaming in through some of the windows to brighten the room. Lixivia, though, was in the darkest corner, still fettered, still with the furs in her mouth, sulking. Bitterroot, sitting in a chair, gave them a wave. “Hey. I’m fine. Thanks for the sandwich, Arrastra. Lixivia’s cranky.”

“We were thinking of interrogating her,” said Code. “So if-”

Bitterroot stood up and flexed her wings, wincing slightly. “Actually, if you’ll be watching her, I need to talk to Charcoal about something. Be right back.” And she was out the door.

“Okay,” Code said to no one in particular. She looked over her shoulder at Arrastra. “Please. Try to keep it together. Okay?”

Arrastra rustled her wings in what seemed an aggressive way to Amanita and pinched her mouth tightly shut, but nodded.

“Okay.” Code walked over to the corner and pulled the gag from Lixivia’s mouth. “Hello, Lixivia.”

“I’m not speaking with the likes of you,” said Lixivia, looking away.

“That’s nice. Tell me, what were you doing out there? Research? Pretty poor place to do research.”

Lixivia said nothing.

“You had quite the setup out there. Plenty of furniture, papers, gear… You were obviously in it for the long haul. And now it’s gone.”

Lixivia said nothing.

On a whim, Amanita did something that always appeased Circe. Or annoyed her. “It was almost impressive.”

Everyone looked at her in varying states of shock. Including Lixivia. “Almost?” Lixivia snarled.

Arrasta folded her ears back and took a step towards Amanita, but Whippletree raised a leg to block her and shook his head.

“Well, remote transfiguration?” Amanita said casually. “That’s quite an accomplishment. And then you use it to turn ponies into timberwolves. That’s it. It’s, like… that’s all? You could be so much more than that.”

Lixivia bristled and opened her mouth, then snapped it shut and looked away again. But her ears were back and her body was trembling. Amanita had found a nerve. Code got it; she smirked for half a second.

“Really, why’d you settle?” Amanita asked. “It’s boring. Really. You could be at the top of your game in Canterlot, but you’re stuck out here. Hay, most of your work’s probably just struggling with your mediocre equipment?”

Lixivia said nothing. The muscles in her jaw tightened.

“You probably couldn’t even manage to work out here that long. Was Whippletree your first subject?”

“I’ve been working here for six decades, you pissant,” snarled Lixivia. “Enough to change the course of the river for free ley energy. How’s that for settling?”

Amanita blinked and Code glanced at her, unsettled. Sixty years? She didn’t look that old. Was she lying? Or-

“This is just my latest project,” Lixivia snapped, “which you’d know if you had any sort of intelligence. Why do you think wolves attack this pathetic little town so regularly?”

Arrastra frowned. Then she sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and stood up, wings flaring, face contorting in anger.

“It’s not like you’re good for anything else,” Lixivia grumbled.

Bitterroot sidled on through Tratonmane, whistling. Her mood had brightened along with the valley floor. What was it about sunlight that made you feel happy and alive? Even in Tratonmane, where she felt like her spit would freeze before it hit the ground, sunlight made her feel upbeat. Maybe it was because she hadn’t gotten sunlight in so long. Bitterroot glanced up. Could she convince the Deormont to lop off the top hundred feet of the valley so the town could get more sunlight? Or would the spirit of the land object to the land being damaged like that? …Probably, yeah.

Back to the inn, up the stairs, to their room. Charcoal was sprawled out on her bed, apparently dozing. She rustled when she heard the door open. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Bitterroot replied. “Didn’t want to go to the interrogation?”

“Tired.” Charcoal yawned. “You woke me up in the middle of the night last night, remember. And then we went through the woods, and I turned into a timberwolf, and then I burned my way out, and then I burned up a huge timberwolf, and yeah.” She blew a raspberry. “What about you?”

“I’ve had a bit of a headache for a while and I’m wondering if it might be related to the Deormont. But that would make it magical, and you’ve got foal’s breath for that, right?”

“Oh, yeah, hang on.” Charcoal rolled off her bed and started rummaging through her bags. “It’s really good at that sort of thing if it really is menthol- mental magic… It won’t hurt you otherwise, though, which is nice… Ha, here we go.” She pulled out a bag of small blue pills and tossed it to Bitterroot. “Just one’s fine.”

Handy. Bitterroot worked one out of the bag and popped it into her mouth. No water; she just turned her head up and swallowed. It buzzed not unpleasantly going down her throat. Bitterroot stood and waited for-

She was remembering things she hadn’t remembered before. Back when she was chasing down the thief.

It was dark as pitch down there. Bitterroot wanted to call out, since she was looking for someone in the dark, but she also didn’t want the someone to know she was looking for them. She kept her mouth shut and her eyes peeled.

She’d gone into the bunker, found nothing, come back out.

She slunk forward, keeping her ears on a pivot. Sounds bounced weirdly in here and it was hard to tell if there really were multiple sets of hoofsteps or just hers, echoing over and over.

Something ground. Stone on stone? Maybe she was just hearing things; it stopped when she did.

Right?

Something stabbed into the back of her neck. Before she could react, numbness consumed her and she collapsed.

“I mean, really, what else is here?” Lixivia said. “A coal mine and a small god. Perfect for Mother’s work, but I’m just sending wolves at a bunch of rubes, over and over and over.”

Arrastra stepped forward, but Whippletree quickly moved in front of her. “Arrastra…” he cautioned.

“For sixty years!” Lixivia yelled. She turned on Arrastra and kept talking. “Sixty years I’ve been working you schmucks! That’s it! That first night was something, but after that-”

Arrastra lunged; Whippletree caught her, spreading his wings to try and hold her back. “Arrastra!”

“She killed my parents dead,” growled Arrastra. “She killed my little filly dead. She tried tae kill youn dead.” She kept moving from side to side, but she didn’t try to push around him.

“So? What’s the big deal?” Lixivia asked. “They’re just data points.”

Almost immediately, Code was in front of Arrastra as well. But Arrastra had enough self-control to force herself to sit down. She was snarling at Lixivia like a rabid wolf and her wings were pumping, but she herself didn’t move. Code glanced at Amanita and nodded towards Lixivia.

Great. Amanita swallowed. “Sixty years? Really?” she asked Lixivia. “You look good for your age.”

“Of course I do,” Lixivia said, smirking.

“How? What’re you doing?”

“Sitting in the middle of nowhere, keeping the wolves’ minds together! We directed the river to me so I’d have a source of energy, I’ve got aspens linking them all to me, and controlling them’s still a pain! And it’s not like the rest of the family acknowledges me!”

Amanita and Code glanced at each other. Amanita shrugged helplessly. “And why spend so long out there?”

“Oh, like you’d understand,” Lixivia said, rolling her eyes. “It took you lot decades to even figure out something was up with the wolves. Sixty years on this work! And it’s gotten so boring.”

Arrastra breathed in loudly and deeply, but she didn’t stand up. Amanita knew she needed to keep trying to interrogate Lixivia, but her next words were reflexive. “Boring? You’re killing ponies who’ve done nothing to you.”

“Yeah, and a wolf can only kill a pony in so many ways,” scoffed Lixivia. “I exhausted them all in the first five years! The very first night, though, that was…” She ran her tongue over her teeth and smiled wistfully. “That was fun.”

You could’ve heard a pin drop.

And then Arrastra had blown past Code and Whippletree to start pounding Lixivia into the dirt. “Ye think it’s FUN?!” she roared. “Ah?”

“Arrastra!” Whippletree yelled. He tried to pull her off, but she whipped around and backhoofed him across the face; he stumbled and sprawled against a chair.

“Don’t!” said Code. She bit down on Arrastra’s tail; Arrastra bucked her once, twice, until her teeth slipped off the hairs.

“She’s killin’ my family!” Arrastra screamed, stomping on Lixivia’s head. “Fer sport!” She hurled her across the room, into the sunlight streaming from the window.

Where Lixivia burst into flames.

“Why, hello there, you pretty young thing! Well, not that young overall, but next to me? Ha! Oh, yes. Yes, indeedy.”

Bitterroot’s head was throbbing. Her vision swam. Her neck stung. Something was biting into one of her fetlocks. Her wings were twisted strangely. And everything reeked in ways she couldn’t name. She groaned and blinked, trying to bring the world into focus.

A dissected changeling was pinned to the wall in front of her.

Her stomach lurched and she tried to scramble away. The jolt of adrenaline was enough to finally wake her up and make her take notice of one very important fact: she was upside down. She looked up; one of her legs was in a manacle connected to the ceiling by a chain.

The ceiling of what, though?

She let her head fall, unintentionally looking at the dissected changeling. She shuddered and looked to one side. More changelings. Black ones with holes in their legs, unreformed, cut open and pinned to keep them open and everything labeled. Bitterroot felt ready to throw up.

“Hi there!”

Bitterroot yelped and did a full-body scramble as a grinning unicorn in impeccable lab attire poked his head into her field of view. His coat was chalk-white, paler even than his teeth, and his mane, a pallid gray. He was in some sort of minimalist exoskeleton, metal bars connected to assemblies that held his joints and even neck and barrel in metal rings. Something about his coat felt off, like it’d collapse into paste if Bitterroot poked it with anything stronger than a feather.

His magic seized Bitterroot’s front hooves and roughly yanked her to a stop. She tried to say something. All that came out was a hoarse, “Uh?”

“Arc, actually!” chirped the unicorn. “Arc Fault. Ha! But, oooh, so, so close. Gold star, daisy!” He was trembling slightly, almost imperceptibly, in the exoskeleton as he patted Bitterroot on the cheek and grinned even more broadly. His breath reeked of something rotten. “Want to see my place? I’m quite proud of it!”

Whistling, he began rotating Bitterroot around on the chain. It looked every inch a mad alchemist’s lab: piping everywhere, beakers with glowing liquids of all sorts, chalkboards covered with equations, ingredients neatly preserved in jars, desks overflowing with paper, glowing gems set in all sorts of machines and doodads, even a cauldron or two. Then Arc kept pushing and more things came into view. A table with manacles, still crusted with blood from the last pony on it. Cages. An enormous glass vat filled with a murky green liquid, a pony-shaped shadow floating inside it. A wall of cutting and chopping implements. The changelings, pulled apart and pinned and labeled like they were beneath a butterfly collector’s magnifying glass.

And only two doors. No windows. Where was she? Could she hope to escape? Bitterroot looked up again. The manacle and chains were thick. Probably not. But maybe- On a tunnel-visioned impulse she curled her body in an attempt to reach up-

“Whoa, hey!” Arc jabbed a syringe into her neck and blinding pain lanced through Bitterroot’s body. “Bad, cutie-pie. Bad.”

Bitterroot screamed and went limp, but the pain was already gone. She dangled at the end of her chain, penduluming back and forth, panting.

“Potions! They’re how I got you in here, you know? You know what I like about them, shnookums? Well, a lot, but most of all: chemicals are unintimidatable!” Arc giggled and tapped the needle to his temple. “Ha! Try saying that five times fast. But nature’s like that. It doesn’t care how tough you are. Hypothermia freezes, hunger gnaws, fire burns, potions work. And if you think you’re Ms. Badass and tank right through the pain?” He waggled a hoof scoldingly at Bitterroot. “Pain exists for a reason, y’know! The more you ignore it, the worse damage you’re doing to yourself! Ha! Lovely.”

Bitterroot was fighting to keep herself from panicking, something the blood pooling in her head was making difficult. She had no idea where she was, who this pony was, or what he was planning on doing to her. Her thoughts were flailing, trying to come up with something, anything she could do. In her desperation, she decided mouthing off was the smart thing to do. “Well, then, do you think you could get behind me? ’Cause I’m feeling pain just by looking at you.” She grinned crookedly.

Immediately, Arc stopped grinning. He looked at Bitterroot with an unnerving, emotionless intensity. “I am a pony of science,” he said in a lower voice. “That means I make hypotheses, test them, and record the results. Ha! That’s it, really! Bookkeeping. So here’s my newest question, darling…”

He grabbed Bitterroot’s head tightly between his front hooves and looked at her closely, eye to jaundiced eye. “If I beat you like a piñata, will candy come out?”

Bitterroot’s smile was gone in an instant. Terror accelerated her heartbeat.

Arc tsked and was all smiles again. “Oh, c’mon, sweetie, don’t give me that look! I’ve never seen it tested! A true scientist challenges assumptions. For example…”

He gave Bitterroot a shove to send her spinning again. He stopped her by grabbing her by her mane, right next to her scalp. She was facing the changelings again. And she saw everything.

“Changelings,” Arc said dramatically. “Many ponies think there’s something special about them to enable their shapeshifting. But is there?” He gave Bitterroot a look of exaggerated skepticism. “Is there really, though? You kill them and they stay solid. They struggle if they’re strangled. And, look, look look look, they’ve even got organs!” He poked something long and brown and red and wet and squishy in the body, faux-gawking at Bitterroot. “Solid! Organs! Ha!” He collapsed into a fit of giggles.

Bitterroot was breathing through her mouth. It helped her keep her stomach down and kept her from smelling too much.

“So maybe it’s just a certain type of magic, and that means we can access it in the right way. Rituals or sharing or something else! Sharing, ha. THAT’S what they called it?” Arc snorted. “But back to shapeshifting. Oh, buttercup, I’ve got hypotheses aplenty. But they need to be tested! Ha! For testing means data points! And you, shmoopy-doo, are going to be a wonderful set of data points.” Arc grabbed Bitterroot’s head and kissed her, forcing their mouths together, pushing his tongue between her lips, running it across her teeth. It only lasted a second, but Bitterroot was already gagging in revulsion and horror when he pulled away. Sweet Celestia, she felt ready to puke. Her skin crawled and the air felt colder than it already was.

Arc either didn’t notice or, more likely, didn’t care; he’d turned to a nearby cabinet and was rummaging through it. “Really, dearie, it’s for the best,” he said. “You get to be part of the control group! You haven’t even been in Midwich a week! Ha! Very valuable data. And we need a way to record all that data, sooooo…” He turned away from the cabinet, holding three things in his magic.

A syringe filled with a dull purple liquid. A long metal rod. And at the end of the rod, a tiny armature of twisted brass clockwork.

Panic shot through Bitterroot. She didn’t need to know what those were for to know they couldn’t be good. She began pumping her wings and legs, jerking around ineffectually on the chain.

“Ho, don’t you worry,” Arc said. “Once I’ve given you a little prick, sugar-” He wiggled the syringe. “-you won’t miss me at all.” Wink. He telekinetically seized her hooves and wrenched them downward to straighten her out. She tried struggling, but Arc stepped forward, casually thrust the syringe into neck, and jammed down on the plunger. A chill flooded Bitterroot’s body and she lunged at him as best she could, snapping her jaw.

“Hey, now, pumpkin, that’s unfair!” Arc said as he danced away, leaving the needle stuck in her flesh. “I got it first try! That’s tricky, you know. Real tricky. Bet you couldn’t do it. Ha!”

Bitterroot tried to say something, but her tongue felt clotted and all that came out was a weak, animalistic moan. She reached for Arc and swung at him; she didn’t even move a foot. Red-hot needles started penetrating every cubic inch of her body, swiftly followed by numbness. Even her eyes had trouble focusing.

“Now then, honeybunny,” Arc said cheerfully. He pulled the syringe out and his magic gripped Bitterroot’s chin. “Open wide!”

And as Bitterroot’s consciousness dissolved, he inserted the rod into her mouth.

“Oh, Celestia,” Bitterroot breathed. The sudden inrush of memories was overwhelming and she felt nauseated. The world spun around her as she collapsed onto her haunches, staring out at nothing. Her lungs were too small.

Charcoal casually glanced up. “Did it wor- OhShine.” She was immediately at Bitterroot’s side. “What happened? What can I do? I didn’t think, foal’s breath doesn’t work like that, it’s not…”

There was a weird disconnect, like the memories had happened to somepony else. But Bitterroot still got goosebumps everywhere. She rubbed her throat. Somepony had just… stuck that in her as easily as she might put dinner in the oven, laughing all the way. Maybe worse, while she’d been out cold. Sickened, she pulled her wings close to her.

“Bitterroot?”

“We need to go to Amanita and Code,” Bitterroot managed to get out. “I’ve… got… something I need to say.”

Amanita gasped and stumbled back as the other ponies pulled away. Heat cascaded from the blaze in solid waves. Lixivia struggled against her fetters, screaming in a way Amanita hadn’t thought ponies could scream. She’d been completely engulfed in less than a second and the smell of charred meat filled the house.

Code had pressed herself against a wall in shock, but now she was inching forward. “Pull her out!” she yelled, trying and failing to push through the heat. “Pull her out of the light!”

Would that do anything? Who knew? But Amanita grabbed Lixivia’s tail in her magic-

It broke up before she had a chance to tug, the hairs splitting apart and crumbling into embers.

Lixivia’s scream was warping, becoming ragged, cinders flying from her mouth. Her coat was curling in on itself as it crisped. She struggled more and more against the fetters until one leg finally broke free — because the hoof had disintegrated to ash. Her flesh was turning gray, flaking away, exposing bone underneath-

Then silence. Her body broke apart like an ocean-dampened sand castle into a lopsided pile of ash and embers, leaving behind only dust drifting through the sunlight and an ungodly stench.

None of the ponies moved. Breathing was all they could muster. They remained right where they were, staring at the ashes.

Code was the one to break the silence. “What… in Tartarus?” she breathed. She slowly crept forward, inch by inch. She poked the ash pile. Nothing happened. Poke poke. Nothing.

Whippletree leaned forward, his wings spread for balance. “I… What?” He extended his neck, but he didn’t step. “How…”

Amanita blinked herself out of her fugue and stepped forward. She delicately sniffed the pile. Nothing she didn’t expect. She prodded the ashes. They were already cool off and quite fine, falling apart and staining her furs at the slightest touch. “I’m, I’m going to… try to analyze the… ashes,” she heard herself saying. “So, uh… be ready if… something happens.”

“Like what?” asked Arrastra.

“I don’t know.” And Amanita sent a pulse of magic into the ashes.

They were still energized — no real surprise there — but with what, Amanita couldn’t say. Whatever it had been, the fire had changed it, and now she was basically sifting through the dregs. Or leftover ash, ha ha. But she didn’t give up. She poked and prodded and turned the magic in the unlikeliest of ways, trying to find anything that could tell her what happened.

In the end, though, she had to admit defeat. “Nothing useful,” she said.

Silence. Still nopony moved. The tension was too tight for them to move. A tiny plume of smoke danced in the sunlight.

Sunlight. Practical immortality.

Amanita and Code got it at the same time and stared at each other, agape. Amanita swallowed, ready to say the thing neither of them wanted to say.

The front door suddenly banged open and Bitterroot fell in, rattled and breathing deeply, Charcoal right behind her. “Okay, uh, ponies,” she said, running a hoof through her mane, “I… hate to interrupt your time with Lixivia, but, but I…” She looked around the room. “Where is Lixivia?” She noticed the ash. “And what’s that?”

Amanita and Code looked at each other again. Code’s throat flexed as she tried and failed to speak. Amanita steeled herself. “That is Lixivia.”

“That…” Bitterroot flexed her wings. “What happened? That… That’s not…”

“She fell into the sunlight and… I…” Amanita took another breath. “I think Lixivia might’ve been a vampire.”

37 - Blood is Compulsory

Bitterroot woke up with her head pounding. At least she woke up.

The floor was jagged beneath her. Had she been thrown into one of the cages? …She still knew about the cages. The vampires hadn’t been wiped from her memories and her tongue was basically the only thing that didn’t hurt. Hopefully, the memory potions couldn’t be brewed quickly. She managed to open her eyes. She was indeed in one of the cages in the lab. It was basically large enough for her to stand and not much more.

With some difficulty, she uncurled. She flexed her jaw and winced at the pain. Gingerly, she poked at her face. The cuts from the beaker hadn’t been bandaged; they’d just scabbed over. How long had she been out? The worst of the ridges from the bars on the cage floor was muted by her furs. Having her clothes on was a small comfort, in more ways than one. She shuffled around into a sitting position to finally get a look outside the cage.

Something was looking at her.

Bitterroot was jolted back to full awareness immediately. It was another one of those beasts that had followed Arc into the room. It did not look any better up close. The- seams on the limbs looked less grating on this one, smoother and subtler, but the clashing colors still made Bitterroot want to hurl. It was even more obvious that all the parts had come from different ponies, with the hairs on opposite sides of any given join having different densities or textures. She clenched her jaw as her stomach-

Wait.

Finally, the actual colors on the shape registered in Bitterroot’s head.

It had dark red wings.

It had a gray head.

And it had a horn.

“Oh, come on!” said Bitterroot, standing up. “You’re the thief?! Some- flesh golem I didn’t even know existed?”

“Homunculus, actually! Ha!”

Bitterroot flinched as her heart rate jolted. Arc was on the other side of the room, whistling as he wrote something down. “Our life’s work!” he said. “The ultimate expression of art and magic. Creating life itself!”

“Or you could get laid,” Bitterroot heard herself mutter.

“Oh, I have, angel eyes. Ha! But sex is so passé. There’s so much left to chance. And besides, this is quicker, and if you do it right, you can even command the life. Ha! Foals can be real brats. You can’t even use them as servants!”

Shuddering, Bitterroot returned her attention to the… homunculus. It was probably a mistake, but it was better than looking at Arc. The homunculus stared at her expressionlessly with dull, pallid, watery eyes that got more disturbing the more she looked at it. It stood unnaturally still, not swaying the slightest bit as it stared at her. How had she missed it the first time around? Was she that tunnel-visioned?

“And, see, that one? It’s special, precious. Something resembling clever. Ha! And after hearing about your wonderful Amanita’s Tempus Mortis, I figured I’d take a look at her notes. And I really wanted to flex this guy’s capabilities, so off he went! Ha! And he worked practically flawlessly.” Arc made a chef’s-kiss gesture. “Shame he didn’t find much, but that’s not his fault.”

“Wait, hold up.” Bitterroot looked between Arc and the homunculus. “You make- something like- that… and you just sent it out into Tratonmane?” Not very far, but still. “…Why?”

“Data, sunshine! I need to see how it works in the real world, don’t I? Ha! It was going to happen eventually. And I even got some nice data out of you in the process. Lixivia did, too! Turns out, moonlight is enough to trigger the transformation if you’re not from around here! You made Lixivia verrrrrry happy in her last twelve hours. Thanks, honey mustard!”

Bitterroot certainly didn’t feel thanked.

“So how’d you beat it?”

“Beat what?”

“Ha! The memory wipe, you silly goose!” Arc darted up to her cage and grinned. Bitterroot shied back as best she could; there were metal bars between them and she still didn’t feel safe. “It’s worked for decades! And yet, here you are! Plus, oh, I’m flattered, you recognize me, cookie! Ha!”

Bitterroot managed to keep silent. When she looked at him, her skin wanted to writhe, crawl away. She felt like she was breathing too loudly.

“And not just you! You brought your friends, too! Ha! They all know about us and I really wanna know how, muffin. Because, whoof, my alchemical skills aren’t that bad.”

Still, Bitterroot stayed silent. Given what Arc had done to her, she didn’t know why. Spite, maybe. If he was going to do whatever he wished to her, she at least wouldn’t make it easy.

“Come ooooooon, sugar booger,” said Arc, bouncing up and down on his hind legs. “Tell me tell me tell me tellllllllllll meeeeee…” His smile was rancid and sweet at the same time. “Pretty please?”

Bitterroot found it in herself to grin. “Sorry. Trade secret.”

“Ha! Well. I’ll find it eventually anyway.” Arc seized Bitterroot’s head in his magic and yanked her forward, right up to the bars. He reached through and tapped her temple. The shoe of his exoskeleton was cold. “Lotta information in that head of yours! And I wanna look through it allllllll. Ha!”

Arc let her fall back to the floor and strode away, whistling off-key.

Bitterroot inched forward, engaged in a staring contest with the homunculus. It won immediately as Bitterroot couldn’t last a moment before looking away. Its eyes tracked her, but it didn’t otherwise move. She waved a hoof around. No response. What that meant, she couldn’t say.

She looked to one side. Amanita, Arrastra, and Whippletree were all there in cages of their own, stirring. Alive, then, for all the good that did. Arrastra’s chainsaw and Whippletree’s spear were resting on a desk, just out of reach. Bitterroot patted down her furs. She hadn’t been searched; the foal’s breath pills were still tucked away.

The door back to Tratonmane groaned and opened. Midwinter walked in, the gem in her necklace glinting. Behind her walked Charcoal — a Charcoal with dead eyes, her throat ripped open, dried blood covering her side. Bitterroot clapped a hoof to her mouth and doubled over, barely managing to not retch. Once they were in, Charcoal’s body turned and closed the door. Numerous clicks and gear-rattles indicated it was being very firmly locked.

“Honey!” Arc galloped over to Midwinter and swung her around in a hug. “Oh, I’ve missed you the way a blade misses a heart! Ha!”

Midwinter returned the embrace, even around his metal frame. “And I you, Arc. Varnish and Carnelian ought to return soon. It’s good to see you again.”

“Oh, you.” Arc’s smile faltered when he saw Charcoal. “Aw, you killed the twighorn? You promised I could study her, pumpkin!”

With a sigh, Midwinter gestured towards the table. Charcoal’s corpse immediately climbed on and laid itself out. “She tracked down our memory suppressants and put up quite a fight when I came to stop her. I had no choice but to put her down. I was barely able to even get a taste of her blood.”

“But you did get a taste, right?”

“It was no different from unicorn blood. You’re missing nothing.”

“Ha. Fiddlesticks.”

Midwinter turned her attention to the cages. Her eyes narrowed. “Why are they still here? Why haven’t you-”

“Oh, cupcake, if I could’ve, I would’ve!” simpered Arc. “But they dumped out all our amnestics. Ha! I’m making more now, but it’s a process. And I didn’t want to kill them just in case you wanted to do something with them.”

“Hmph.” Midwinter squinted into Bitterroot’s cage; Bitterroot found herself not reacting, like her well of emotions was spent.

By now, the others were up. Amanita and Whippletree stayed silent and downcast, but not Arrastra. When Midwinter looked at her, Arrastra looked right back without flinching and pulled her mouth apart in such a way that its corners turned upward to expose her teeth. She smiled, in other words. “I’m a-goin’ tae kill ye,” she said.

“Best of luck,” Midwinter replied. She returned her attention to Arc. “Are Varnish and Carnelian back yet? I swear, those two-”

From the other door emerged those two, dragging a terrified Tallbush between them, followed by Fuligin. “Got him,” said Carnelian. “The other one put up a nasty fight, though.”

A few cages over, Amanita’s head whipped up and she sucked in a breath. Varnish gave a low whistle. “Like you wouldn’t believe. We had to kill her to keep Tallbush alive.”

Amanita wilted, her head and ears drooping as she collapsed against the wall of the cage. Her body was wracked with small gasps as she put a hoof to her face.

Midwinter, however, wasn’t impressed. “Hmph.” She turned her back on them, which meant she didn’t notice Fuligin’s raised-head reaction or Carnelian giving him a small, ungentle buck. “If you think yourself a warrior, do better next time. Throw him into the cage. The- intruders dumped out our supply of amnestics and Arc is brewing more. And in the meantime…”

Her eyes fell on Amanita again. She crouched outside the cage and smiled. “Hello, necromancer.”

Code was dead. Charcoal was dead. And Amanita was locked in this cage.

Maybe she could resurrect Charcoal if she could get out. Somehow. But Code? Who knew where her body was. Deep underground, maybe, buried beneath thousands of tons of rubble. She was staying dead. Amanita slouched against the side of her cage, breathing dully. Part of her wanted to just give up, let Midwinter and Arc and everyone have their fun. It’d be easier.

But if that was the way she worked, she’d never have escaped Circe. She was alive. She just needed to watch for opportunities.

“Hello, necromancer.”

Amanita looked up. Midwinter was looking at her the same way a sociopathic rich foal would a new toy. Amanita just waved. “Hey.”

Midwinter smacked her lips. “You resurrected… What was her name? Crosscut?”

“Yep.”

“By the way,” Arc said, sidling up to Whippletree’s cage, “if it makes you feel any better, I had nothing to do with that. Ha! Varnish thought you’d convince the rest of Podunk to reveal the Deormont. And, to be fair, you probably would’ve.”

Whippletree stared at him levelly.

“Arc,” said Midwinter sternly.

“Lixivia asked if she could do it,” Arc continued, “but really, all she wanted to do was play with her food. I mean, so do I, but not until it’s actually food, y’know. Ha! Her magic was spreading upriver and after that timberwolf attack-”

“Arc,” snapped Midwinter.

“Hey.” Arc grinned and raised his hooves. “I’m just being nice, honey.”

Midwinter snorted and returned her gaze to Amanita. Her eyes were bright, but hollow. “Your watchdog is dead, you know. The High Ritualist.”

Amanita nodded. It was all she could manage. “I heard.”

“Tell me the truth: how do you feel about your work in necromancy?”

“It’s kinda all I’ve got going for me, so… I like it.” She really did, to be honest. It certainly wasn’t Midwinter’s work, which… yeegh.

“Even now? Even in the Guard?”

…That was a… strange question. What else was there? Amanita shrugged. “Sure.”

Midwinter eyed Amanita for a long, lingering moment. Then she stood up. “Varnish, Carnelian, take her to the library,” she said. “I’ll be waiting there. Fuligin, I’ll send you some more homunculi. Watch over the prisoners.” She flicked her tail and strode away. Arc followed after her, ambling and whistling.

“No respect,” muttered Carnelian. “We bring her Tallbush and receive not a shred of thanks.”

“Oh, quit whining,” said Varnish. “We’re doing good work.” He pressed a hoof to the cage and the door swung open. Before she could do anything, Amanita was yanked out and shoved along.

She settled into a sort of hurried stumble as Varnish kept pushing her. Carnelian led her along a hallway, wide with rough stone walls and doors leading out from the sides. When Amanita glanced into one of the doorways, she saw a small room with a bloody pile of bones lying on the table. Necromantic experiments? There were enough other doors to make her shudder.

It didn’t take long before Amanita was pushed into another, larger room. Bookshelves and lamps filled with sourceless light lined the walls. The center was taken up by a table and a set of luxurious chairs, where Midwinter was already sitting as Arc paced behind her. With smooth floors and walls, not unlike what she saw in Canterlot, it was almost a pleasant place to be.

She sniffed. The air reeked of stale blood.

Varnish shoved her forward. Amanita staggered into one of the chairs, opposite Midwinter. She forced herself to keep breathing and looking at Midwinter. She was surrounded by vampires, any of whom would probably rip open her carotid and drain her dry without a second thought. They’d been experimenting on Tratonmane for over half a century. And all their attentions were focused on her.

Midwinter smiled amicably. “Amanita. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you properly. Maybe we can have some intelligent conversation now. Stars above, I despise the backwards hicks in Tratonmane.”

Amanita jerkily nodded. “Um. Sorry about, uh, Lixivia.” Maybe being obsequious would get her on their good side.

But Midwinter waved a hoof dismissively. “Oh, you saw her, it had to happen eventually. Regrettable, but not surprising.”

“That idiot had it coming, if you ask me,” muttered Carnelian.

“And she’s not here right now, while you are. You had to learn necromancy from somewhere. Tell me, who was your master? Maybe I knew them.”

“Circe,” Amanita said, almost reflexively. Circe had very much tried impressing on her who was who in their relationship. It didn’t save her once Amanita had learned to fake it, though.

Arc’s ears went up. “Circe? Ha!”

“Circe,” mused Midwinter. “Hmm. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised she’s still alive.”

“She’s not. Her phylactery was destroyed nearly three years ago.”

“Really? How interesting. Circe destroyed, her apprentice roped into working with the Guard. I wonder why.”

Amanita shrugged. They could figure it out.

Midwinter leaned forward, staring at Amanita with an intensity that was all too familiar; it reminded her of Circe’s look whenever Amanita made something new. “That… death-viewing spell-”

“Tempus Mortis,” Amanita said reflexively.

“Yes, that. That is something Circe never could have come up with.”

“Well…” Just one word in, and Amanita’s objection was sounding hollow, even to herself. “Maybe, given time-”

“Never,” Midwinter said, shaking her head. “She was a brilliant mare, to be sure, but she was also something of a brute. Once she had her techniques, she stuck with them, and would hear no deviation from them. Even if the new techniques were better versions of her old ones. She had no refinement, no innovative spark, no curiosity. The only boundaries she wanted to push were moral ones. And Celestia knows our nation’s hidebound morality could use some pushing, but it needs more than that.”

“Talk about a one-trick pony! Ha!” said Arc. “Lichdom and enthrallment. The only things she was good at! Not that she knew about being good at other things, not if you asked her.”

That sounded like Circe, all right. Amanita kept her mouth shut about talking to the dead. Of all the ponies whose dignity she’d defend, Circe was at the very bottom of that list.

“And then there’s you,” Midwinter said. “Tempus Mortis is already a magnificent spell-”

Carnelian snorted. “It’s alright,” she muttered.

Midwinter didn’t bat an eye or even look at Carnelian. “The ability to see a person’s death is more impressive than anything you have ever come up with, Carnelian. It might not seem so to you, but the sheer number of varying fields that need to be brought to bear is merely the tip of the iceberg. I’ve never seen its like in all my life. Amanita here is smart.”

Amanita would’ve felt warm and fuzzy if the compliment had come from somepony else. Coming from Midwinter, it was almost enough to get her to curl up in a fetal position.

“And in a hundred years, all that intelligence will be gone. Because you’ll be dead.”

Amanita hid some of her shaking with a shrug. “Yeah. That happens.”

“It doesn’t need to, though.” Midwinter smiled. “Amanita, you deserve to live forever.”

Bitterroot didn’t watch Amanita as she was led away. Instead, she watched Fuligin.

He stood out like a sore hoof from the rest of Arc’s group in multiple ways. His accent. His demeanor, a mixture of downbeat and irritated. The way he was ignored or bossed around by them, like they were forced to put up with his presence. He didn’t belong there, for multiple reasons.

And more than once, Bitterroot had tracked down a bounty by speaking to someone they’d jilted who wanted revenge. She knew an opening when she saw one.

But she couldn’t plunge right into it immediately. No, that’d be coming on too hard, too fast. She needed to ease into it somehow. She cast an eye across the lab, looking for something.

She instinctively cringed back as several more homunculi entered the room and took positions in front of the cages. Where hers arguably could’ve been called refined, these ones were much more crude. Their limbs were almost connected poorly, with visible flesh ridges and gigantic metal staples over unhealed scars. Large patches of skin had also been swapped around, making them look even more patchwork. Older versions, maybe.

Then she noticed Fuligin was also cringing away from them. Oh-ho.

Working backwards from that… She soon had something like a plan. A course, at least.

She looked down the line of cages. Whippletree was sitting despondently in his, Tallbush was curled up into a ball and shaking in spite of still looking utterly terrifying, and Arrastra was staring at Fuligin intently. She probably couldn’t get any help from them. She’d live.

Bitterroot stared at the homunculus staring at her. She’d talked to the thing while trying to find the thief. And just because she wasn’t expecting alicorns… That wasn’t fair. “You’re ugly, aren’t you?” she said. She spoke loudly, hoping Fuligin would respond.

His ears twitched, but that was it. The homunculus didn’t even blink.

“You look like you’ve been knitted together from about a dozen other ponies. …Maybe you were. Necromancers and all.”

No response.

“I wouldn’t know. The only necromancer I know is… Well, to be honest, she’s a bit of a dork. She’d never do something like this. But she’s good ponies. She’s resurrected me twice.”

Fuligin looked over in her direction, frowning. Finally, something. “Is that all it takes? Tae be a good pony? Jes’ resurrect somepony.”

And not just “something”; Fuligin’s words were heavy with… something else. Memories, maybe? “Nah,” said Bitterroot. “I knew another necromancer who resurrected somepony just to use them as a beast of burden. ’Course, I didn’t know she was a necromancer at the time, but…”

Another ear-twitch from Fuligin. “Oh.” He looked back down.

Unfortunate, but expected. Still, now Bitterroot had an in, so she could start pushing. “Why?” she asked. “Did they resurrect you?”

For a moment, nothing. Fuligin flicked his tail. Then: “Aye, Midwinter. She saved me life.”

Which could lead to a sense of obligation towards her. But if Bitterroot could convince him that Midwinter hadn’t saved him for altruistic reasons… “What happened?”

Another pause. “Wolf attack, she tells me. Six moon back.”

In her cage, Arrastra’s wings rustled violently and she stood up. Bitterroot ignored her. “That’s what she tells you? You don’t remember?”

“Nay. Death’s right awful an’ ye dinnae recomember it.”

Hmm. Suspicious, between their own use of memory potions and- “Really? I remember mine. Bleeding out from a slit throat.”

Fuligin said nothing.

Bitterroot took a stab at something she hadn’t fully confirmed yet. “Good thing she didn’t use your body in a homunculus, huh?”

Fuligin cringed and nodded. “Aye.”

There it was. Homunculi were stitched-together bodies. Something Fuligin didn’t like. And yet he stuck around anyway. “So what’re you doing here? Working with someone who makes…” Bitterroot gestured at the homunculus. “…things like that.”

“She saved my life. I owe her.” The words came out automatically, like Fuligin had thought it over before. And like he didn’t want to admit that was what he thought.

“Do you think so or did she say that?”

Fuligin stood up and walked over to Bitterroot, looking for all the world like an old stallion forcing his way through arthritis. He sat on his haunches to look Bitterroot in the eye. “The work they’re doin’ here is fer the best,” he said. From his voice, Bitterroot guessed he was trying to convince himself, too. “I seen ponies die, an’… An’ Midwinter an’ her family jes’ want tae put a stop tae that.”

“By building that.” Bitterroot pointed at the homunculus, still unmoving.

“Aye.” But Fuligin flinched. “If’n we can we send ’em intae- dangerful places, ponies willnae need tae go.”

“You heard how they talked. Do you think that’s their plan?”

Fuligin began having trouble meeting her eyes. “…A-aye. ’Tis more’n-”

“Listen to yourself. This doesn’t feel right, and you know it.” Bitterroot rested her front hooves on the bars. “Just be honest.”

“I- owe her.”

“The necromancer I know, Amanita, she didn’t declare that somepony owed her for something they had no say in. Sounds like exploitation to me.”

Fuligin said nothing, pawed at the ground. One of his rear legs twitched.

“They made me a timberwolf,” Whippletree spoke up. “I killed my wife. An’ they dinnae care. But even though the town reckoned she was a fake, Amanita stepped up an’ brought my wife back.”

“Exactly that,” Bitterroot said, pointing at Whippletree. “Amanita doesn’t ask for anything when she raises someone. What do you think you’re doing?”

Fuligin looked at Bitterroot. Bitterroot looked at Fuligin. She held her breath. Had she pushed too hard? Not hard enough? Just right? What was he thinking? There was definitely a lot going on behind those eyes, she could tell, but it was impossible for her to know what that was.

Finally, Fuligin forced out, “Y’ain’t goin’ tae recomember this. Dinnae fret.” He stood up and turned around, heading back to his seat.

Bitterroot’s mouth went dry. “Whoa, hey, hey,” she said. She tried to press herself through the bars, reaching out to Fuligin. “C’mon. I’m curious.”

No response.

“Do you really believe that? You don’t sound like it.”

No response.

“Come- Hey, hey! Arc implanted me with- something! Stuffed it into my throat! You really think he’s good?”

No response.

“Sun blast it, you’re talking to a pony locked in a bloodstained cage, for Celestia’s sake! Open your eyes!”

No response.

Bitterroot opened her mouth again, then collapsed back onto the floor, cursing under her breath. There went her chance, probably her only chance. Gone. Unless Amanita could manage to escape somehow, she couldn’t expect to get out. Her cage was strong and the lock was solid.

But she was still alive. And she still had foal’s breath.

She started batting at her face, wincing in pain as she touched each scab. Were there any glass shards still embedded in them? Maybe she could use one of them to carve a message into-

A few cages over, Arrastra cleared her throat. “Fuligin?” she asked quietly.

“Aye,” said Fuligin reluctantly. “What dae ye want?”

“Pa?”

There it was. The hook. Immortality. A pretty sweet gig, all things considered.

But like most such gigs, this one came with an awfully steep price tag.

She didn’t know the full process of vampirization, but she’d seen enough of Arc’s notes (maybe they were Midwinter’s as well) to know the effects. Normal lichdom, at least according to Circe, worked by severing the soul from the body and putting it in a phylactery, thereby slowing the process of change. Vampires used their own bodies as phylacteries, twisting and cutting the metaphysical connections in just the right way that they got the same result with no messy soul jar that needed protecting. But how were those changes maintained?

Blood.

Blood had metaphysical properties that hit people hard. Smears of blood were synonyms for violence. Ponies died if they lost enough of it. Even a drop of blood outside the body could make some ponies wince. Bloodlines could hold power. Blood was life. Vampires were essentially stealing other ponies’ lives to extend their own. And that wasn’t all; by absorbing a pony’s blood, they could absorb a pony’s power, use it for themselves. Drink enough blood, and you could tweak your own metaphysical qualities, make yourself more. Get more magic, more strength, more speed, more more. Midwinter and the others were probably hiding powers Amanita had never seen before.

And how much blood was required to maintain this? Amanita wasn’t sure of the exact amount. But she knew it was too high.

She had her answer. But they didn’t need to know that just yet. She could pretend to mull it over, buy herself some time as she thought. She opened her mouth-

“You cannot be serious,” mumbled Varnish. “Her? She can’t even speak up when she’s stressed! She-”

“Quiet, Varnish,” snapped Midwinter. “I am not asking your opinion.”

“Apologies,” Varnish said quickly. He sounded… nervous?

Midwinter paid him no attention. “Amanita, I know you’re working with the Royal Guard now. You must chafe, yes? All those restrictions, limitations… Your horizon is so small.”

Amanita twitched. “W-what?” she asked, sitting up straight. Why was Midwinter talking like-

“In some ways, it’s clever, pal,” said Arc, rearing and slouching over the back of Midwinter’s chair. “Getting a deal with the Guard to stay alive, making yourself indispensable. Ha! But come on, I bet they don’t even let you make cadavers dance! You can make your own musicals that way, you know. Ha!”

…Oh, Celestia.

“You’ve so much raw talent, all going to waste there,” said Midwinter. Her ears were turned towards Amanita and she was leaning forward, her wings opening slightly. “You said so yourself, it’s all you have going for you.”

They didn’t think she’d run.

“And the freedom it would provide! Nopony comes out here. You are the first outsiders to come in over half a century. If you ever need a specimen, living or dead, fresh or rotten, we can get it for you, easily. Their ponies already disappear thanks to Lixivia. Nothing would even change for them.”

They thought she’d been press-ganged.

Amanita’s thoughts started racing. They thought she’d enjoyed her time under Circe. Or at least hadn’t been the one to give her phylactery to the Guard. They didn’t know about her turning herself in. So maybe- “W-well, I don’t know about- working here,” she said, trying to keep her voice casual. “You- might not- be working in the ways I’m good at.”

Arc grinned. Amanita swore she could see crusted blood between his teeth. “If you worked with Circe? You bet your biscuits we’re doing things you’re good at, buddy! Ha! Midwinter, could you-”

Midwinter didn’t do anything, but her necklace glowed. A few moments later, a homunculus walked in, its motions stiff and uncanny, its coat awkwardly dry. Amanita managed to keep herself from flinching as Arc pranced over to it. “This!” he said, gesturing like he was presenting a trophy. “A homunculus, ready and willing to serve! Ha! And how did we make it, you may ask? Well, funny thing, Tratonmane itself showed us. It’s kinda like sharing, as stupid as that name is. Ha! Just…” He made a twirling motion with his hoof. “…mixing all the metaphysical aspects together in just the right way to get them to work together. As for the actual moving part, methods kinda like enthrallment. And as one of Circe’s apprentices, you’ll know enthrallment. Else, you’d be dead. Or worse. Ha!”

Part of Amanita was intrigued in spite of herself. Maybe it’d make her sound more genuine. “I thought souls could only be bound-”

“-to their original bodies? Ha! That’s just Circe’s preferred method. Oh, that way may be easier, but it’s definitely not the only way. You just need to do a little bit of rejiggering, as Carnelian found out!” Arc gestured at Carnelian and bowed.

Carnelian smiled and nodded at Amanita. “It took a great many sleepless nights to finally crack that problem. It was quite a thorny one. Yet I was the only one in our family able to overcome it.”

Amanita found herself wondering. If it was possible, then- “But what’s the point? If one soul is equal to another-”

“But what if the body never had a soul to begin with?” Midwinter said. “Such as…” And she gestured towards the homunculus.

Immediately, Amanita’s throat dried up. Somepony was trapped in there, had been for Celestia knew how long, unable to even think outside the whims of their masters. But then, if she could free them-

“But wait, there’s more!” said Arc. “You don’t need much of a soul to animate it, if all you want is it serving you. Ha!” He hung a leg over the homunculus’s withers and dangled from it, grinning. The homunculus didn’t move. “So if you just slice off smaller chunks of your soul, bam! You can animate it juuuuust enough for it to follow your will while expending less effort to keep it suppressed! Ha! You can even look through its memories like they were your own, which is pretty neat.”

“Slice up your soul?” Amanita asked, sitting up straighter. “That- That sounds dangerous.” On the one hoof, at least there wasn’t anypony trapped in there, but on the other, yeesh. How could he be so cavalier about it?

“Idiot,” mumbled Varnish.

“Varnish, we are talking,” snapped Midwinter. “Say nothing unless it contributes.”

Amanita heard Varnish flinch, but Arc stroked his chin with exaggerated concern. “Mmm, I dunno, honey, he’s got a point.”

“Of course he does,” snorted Carnelian. “Our esteemed guest learned from Circe. Would you expect anything more from her?”

“Hmm.” One of Midwinter’s ears drooped and she flexed her wings. “A… fair point, admittedly. Amanita, just know-”

“Physicality doesn’t matter for the soul!” Arc said cheerfully. “Separating the soul doesn’t damage it any more than ripping pages out of a book damages the story. It’s just in a different place from the rest of it. Your heart beats even when your head’s not thinking about it, doesn’t it? Well, not ours. Ha! In fact, the process is so simple that- Hey, honey, show her the Binder.”

Carnelian sat up, her wings rustling and her jaw clenched. “Father,” she said through gritted teeth, “that’s mine-”

“True, but you are hardly the pony using it,” Midwinter said coolly. She lifted up the pendant around her neck, displaying the gem inset in it. “The gems around here are uniquely suited for holding spells thanks to the ley line. And this…” She gazed hungrily at the pendant as it twisted around. “This makes animating a body with your own soul so much easier. Everything you need — the separation of soul, the binding to the body, even linking to your will and sending commands — all contained within one simple artifact.”

“That I designed,” hissed Carnelian.

“And it’s rather sloppy compared to the full ritual,” Midwinter said to her. “The binding hardly lasts for more than twenty minutes at a time.” To Amanita, “Of course, there’s nothing stopping you from using it as many times as you wish.”

Ah. Perfect. Amanita’s eyes latched onto the Binder. She just needed to get her hooves on it, and then… how many homunculi had she seen? Enough, maybe. She’d developed some thrall-freeing spells in the Crazy Eights. Would they work on homunculi? Maybe. Subvert their wills, get the others out, rally Tratonmane. Or something. It was hazy, but her last hazy plan had gotten Circe destroyed. Her hooves twitched; it wasn’t entirely an act. “Incredible,” she breathed. (And, in a way, it was.) “May I see that?”

Midwinter smiled and pulled the necklace back. “Oh, Tartarus, no,” she tutted. “Not when you haven’t given us an answer yet. Perhaps when you join us. Consider this the carrot.”

Ah, booger. Amanita couldn’t stop staring at the Binder. There had to be a way to get it. Her mind was racing, trying to come up with an idea based on everything she knew. But they’d notice if she said nothing, so she cleared her throat. “Well, uh, thanks for the offer,” she said, “but I’m going to have to decline.”

The vampires around Amanita stirred. She heard Varnish shifting his weight around behind her while Arc and Carnelian exchanged glances. Midwinter, however, smiled. “Why, pray tell? I’m sure we can come to a compromise.”

“Well, for starters,” said Amanita, “I want to be able to see the sun again.”

After about a moment, Midwinter’s smile vanished and she groaned. “The sun,” she said. “I… cannot suppose why such a thing would affect us in that manner. It is… regrettable, admittedly, and I cannot fault you for missing it.”

Amanita kept her mouth shut. The reason behind sunlight killing them was simple: the sun was life. It was bright, it was cheery, it was how plants got their food… The phrase “the living daylights” hadn’t come from nowhere. Sunlight bathed the vampire in enough life that the spells keeping the soul and body separate were overwhelmed and the metaphysical forcibly rejoined the physical. Then the arcane energy that had once been part of the spells was released in the quickest way possible: fire. (There was a similar argument for wooden stakes to the heart, but that’d kill her, anyway.) No need to let the bloodthirsty vampires know that, though.

“But we are working on a solution,” said Midwinter. “Enchantments and rituals to suppress the sun’s effects. Spells of such immense complexity that we’ve only been able to cast them once-”

“And it was a fluke, at that,” added Carnelian.

Midwinter glared briefly at Carnelian, making her flinch and tighten her wings. Turning back to Amanita, Midwinter continued, “But you could help us. A fresh set of eyes could work wonders.”

“Intelligent eyes, anyway!” said Arc. He leaned against Midwinter’s chair. “We’ve got some unintelligent eyes in here.” He jerked his head towards the homunculus.

“Oh, you’re smart,” Amanita said. “You’ll figure it out. It’s just…” She steepled her hooves and tapped her lips, hmming and hahing. Maybe she could just rip the Binder off and run? She looked around, trying to judge her chances. “Normal lichdom doesn’t actually have those problems and I’m more familiar with it.”

“And how will you achieve it, with the Guard looking over your shoulder?” asked Midwinter. “They will never trust you. Never.”

“Hey, I’m a necromancer who was able to parley herself into the Royal Guard,” Amanita said. She found it in herself to smile amicably. “Give it a few years of acting nice and I bet I could convince them to drag me out to some sunforsaken spot in the North, kill my escort, and use their deaths to fuel the ritual. Simple.”

Varnish snickered — in amusement, not in derision. Midwinter opened her mouth.

“And a necromancer just disappearing up here would be suspicious,” Amanita continued, “so they’ll probably come looking for me. And that means they’ll find you. So: thanks, but no thanks.”

She held her breath. The key motive for every form of immortality necromancers sought was self-preservation. A fear of death. If she was lucky, the threat of the Royal Guard would be enough to convince them she wasn’t worth it, and she could buy a little more time.

“This is… unexpected,” Midwinter said softly. “I figured you would want to escape the yoke of your oppressors.”

“It’s not that bad,” Amanita said, shrugging. “I’m indispensable. They can’t do much to me.” Or, wait, maybe she should’ve asked what their process entailed and delayed that way, sun blast it-

“I’ve seen her,” said Varnish. “She’s just too meek to speak up-”

“Varnish.”

Silence.

Midwinter’s gaze bored into Amanita, pinning her to the chair. Her face was utterly still; Amanita realized she was missing all sorts of little twitches and tics people normally had. If Amanita was getting goosebumps, none of the vampires said anything.

Finally, Midwinter said, “I will give you a chance to reconsider. You will find it in your best interest to accept.”

“How come?” But Amanita could already feel her nerves chilling.

Midwinter grinned, that sign of aggression in predators. “Because if you don’t, we will gladly eat you raw.”

“What?” asked Fuligin. He looked over his shoulder, frowning. “What’re ye sayin’?”

“Pa, it’s, it’s me, it’s Arrastra,” Arrastra said, pushing against the cage bars. “I’m yer daughter.” Her voice was like nothing Bitterroot had heard from her before, soft and full of hope.

“Ye- Ye cannae be.” Fuligin said, shaking his head. “Ye’re too plumb old. My Arrastra d-dinnae even have ten year yet.”

“Pa, ’tis been sixty year.”

Fuligin froze. Shook his head again. Very unsteadily. “Nay. It- ’Tis been six moon. N-no more.”

“Pa, please.” Arrastra’s wings were beating fitfully in what little space they had. “When I turned five, Ma made me a rye cake. I-” She shuddered and wiped at her eye, but she was smiling. “I told her ’twas the most terriblest cake I’d ever tasted of. Then I took ill that night after eatin’ half of it. Remember?”

“…A-aye. I- recall Arrastra doin’ that.”

“I c-came in a little bit o’ hittin’ Ma with an ax w-when she taked me tae the forest when I was six.”

“Ye- Ye’re not her, ye cannae be her-”

“Pa-” Arrastra’s voice was getting weak, pleading. “I h-helped ye build m-me an’ Pyrita beds. I c-carved yer name intae-”

“You’un ain’t Arrastra!” Fuligin screamed, whirling on Arrastra.

She stumbled and fell backwards in shock. “Pa-”

“Y’ain’t Arrastra,” Fuligin said quietly. Tears were glistening in his eyes. “Fer- Fer if y’are, I- I dinnae ken how ye ken me. But you’un. Ain’t. My daughter. An’ I beg ye tae stop afore I-” He cut himself short, holding his face in a hoof. His voice was shaking as he said, “P-please. Cease playin’ wi’ m-me.” His entire body shaking, his ears drooping and his tucked tightly against his body, Fuligin plodded over to the opposite side of the lab, head low.

Bitterroot’s insides squirmed. She felt like she’d walked in on a private family spat. Maybe she had. What either of them was going through was far removed from anything she’d experienced, anything she could experience. The most she could offer was a shoulder to cry on. She pressed against the side of her cage and reached through to tap the bars next to her. “Um. Hey. Arrastra?”

Arrastra didn’t seem to be paying attention. She was looking at Fuligin with the unique hurt of betrayal, panting and trying to get her thoughts and her body under control. She closed her eye. For a moment, Bitterroot thought she was going to start wailing.

That wasn’t what happened.

“Oh, go tae sleep, oh my dear little devil…”

Fuligin froze.

“Fer yer night shall be filled wi’ yer dreams and yer revels…”

He turned around, looking like he’d been stabbed in the heart.

“Though the Midwich wind may blow, an’ it may shake…”

He walked with the nervous caution of one already burned.

“Swathed within yer bed, nay, ye shall not wake.”

He stood in front of the cage, looking at Arrastra, scrutinizing her, examining her up and down. She looked back, eye large. He dug at the ground. Her wings twitched. The tension between them was tighter than a drum. The silence was oppressive, preventing them from speaking, until:

“I need tae speak wi’ Midwinter,” he said quietly.

Then he turned on his heel and marched for the door.

“Pa?” said Arrastra. “Where’re ye…”

“They saved me life,” Fuligin said. “I- I need tae speak with ’em. Abouten… a great many things.” He stopped and looked over his shoulder, his stance oddly tight. “But I’ll be back. I promise ye.”

“Pa, p-please, i-it’s…”

But Fuligin was already gone.

Arrastra collapsed onto the haunches, staring out blankly. Bitterroot had never seen her so drained. “They keep takin’ my family…” Arrastra mumbled. “They… k-keep takin’ my…”

Her voice was too weak to finish.

Amanita blinked and felt her muscles tense. “W-well, uh… That’s… a bit extreme, don’t you think?” she asked, fighting to keep her breathing level. “Eating me.” Vampires. Using others’ blood to extend their own lives. She didn’t realize she was rubbing at her neck.

“You are aware of how we maintain the metaphysical separation of the soul, yes?” Midwinter asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, but, you know, I can, I can keep mum.”

“Can you? Revealing and killing another group of necromancers would be quite the feather in your cap, would it not?”

Great. Because of course their thinking she was press-ganged could swing both ways. “You can wipe my memories! Just like, just like you did before, with the- I don’t even know how you did it, it’s so clever!”

“So it did work!” squawked Arc. “And you found a way to get around it! Dadgum, I’ve been worried sick about that!” He laid a hoof on his chest and faked a swoon. “Imagine, me losing my-” Then he turned on Midwinter, frowning. “Hey, you said-”

“Amanita, even if you were to receive a memory wipe, you’ve already broken it once. You will do so again. Perhaps unintentionally.” Midwinter’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps so. And if the Guard even thinks of interrogating you-”

“She’ll cave,” snorted Varnish. “She’s a sniveling coward and-”

“Son, if you interrupt me again, I shall let you age for another year,” growled Midwinter.

Varnish pulled his hooves together and hung his head. “Yes, Mother.”

Amanita squirmed in her chair. Could she turn them against each other? Anyone against anyone. Maybe if-

“Hey, hey, look,” said Arc. He jumped into the group waving his hooves to get them to stop. “You’re going about this the wrong way, my friends! Too much stick, not enough carrot! Ha!” He spun to face Amanita and put a hoof on her shoulder, to her dismay. “Amanita. Baby. Do you know why Lixivia was out there?”

Amanita risked brushing his hoof off; he didn’t object. “Keeping Tratonmane hemmed in?”

“Well. That, too. But she was studying transformations. Like those changelings, you know. Ha! And let me tell you, pony to timberwolf is something, alright.”

Amanita nodded appeasingly.

“But we can apply transformations in other ways, too! The same way changelings do. Appearance modification as we wish. A little nip here, a tuck there-”

“Father, must you be so flamboyant?” groaned Carnelian. “Tell her.”

“See, this is why you’re boring,” tutted Arc, shaking his head. “No sense of presentation. Ha! But, Amanita, more importantly, we can smooth out these bad colts.” He elbowed the homunculus in the ribs. “Get them looking more like actual ponies. And, see, that’s more important than you think. Ha! It’s what got Pyrita.”

Amanita flinched. Part of her had completely forgotten about Pyrita’s first death. “What? H-how do you know that?”

“She came around after 6,” Carnelian growled. “We always tell ponies to never come around after 6.”

“Because that’s when this little guy does the cleaning upstairs,” Arc said. “But little Pyrita decided her water pressure just couldn’t wait. So, in the middle of the night, she opens the door to talk to us, sees this beautiful monstrosity walking around, and what do you know, she gets certain ideas about us! Ha!”

“An ordinary thrall probably would’ve done something about her,” Amanita said. If she kept talking about necromancy, maybe they wouldn’t guess.

“It was animated with the Binder, so smarts absolutely weren’t its strong suit. Anyway, Pyrita sees him, and off she goes into the mine for who knows why. But enough about her! We’re talking about these!” Arc squeezed the homunculus’s cheeks like it was something adorable. The homunculus was impassive. “Ha! Now, you might be thinking: why would we make them alicorns, anyway?”

“Scientific curiosity?” At least the thoughts of eating her seemed to be gone.

“The best kind! Nothing on here is for show, my gal! It all works! Ha! Because, see, here’s the thing. If you can put part of your soul into an alicorn’s body… what happens if you manage the whole thing?”

Amanita’s eyes went wide. It was only slightly faked. “Oh…”

Arc’s teeth gleamed as he smiled. “Imagine! Transplanting your soul and being an alicorn yourself! Ha! Building your own perfect body! Got a drop-dead gorgeous actor you want to look like? We can arrange that! Even if they need to have a sudden accident. Ha!”

Okay. Okay. They were giving her another road in. Some of her shakes calmed down. “Well…” Amanita batted at an ear. “When you put it that way… But there’s still the matter of the sun…”

“Then perhaps you wish the familiar method of lichdom to start with,” Midwinter said. “We have an entire town to work with. We are already taking ponies to work with, and it would be a trivial matter to-”

“I beg your pardon, stop the post. We’d stop taking ponies for her?” Carnelian asked, springing out of her seat. “Sacrifice them to her lichdom instead? It would take years to collect them all without killing the whole town!”

Amanita looked at the Binder around Midwinter’s neck. Maybe she ought to just snatch it now and run like a thief-

“If that’s her price,” Midwinter said, flaring her wings, “it’s one I’m willing to pay. Tempus Mortis is-”

“Tempus Mortis is one thing! Her first resurrection failed, remember! And she doesn’t know why it failed!” Carnelian shot a nasty smirk at Amanita.

“She must have figured it out, because she was able to resurrect Crosscut. Correct?” Midwinter asked Amanita.

Amanita nodded, realized her mistake at the last second. “Y- No.” If she knew so much they couldn’t let her go-

Carnelian’s smirk vanished. In the space of an instant, Midwinter was in Amanita’s face, looking down on her. “What?” she said. “You know?”

“No. No. It’s, it’s confusing and I still don’t-”

“Then tell me why you-”

The door banged open. Fuligin stood in the doorway, his legs splayed, his head down. The only reason his body wasn’t heaving with his breaths was because he wasn’t breathing. “How long’ve I been a-workin’ here?” he asked in a deathly low voice.

Silence fell too heavily for the answer to be innocuous.

“About half a year,” Midwinter said quickly. “You remember, don’t you?” She made a quick gesture to the other vampires, one that looked like she was telling them to keep quiet.

“Then why’s me daughter older’n me?” Fuligin started walking towards them, his steps high with anger.

Amanita held her breath. She didn’t know what he was talking about, but it was a distraction. Maybe, if she let it run its course, Fuligin might turn against the other vampires and help her escape. Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe… It was a long shot, but she let that hope kindle in her heart.

“If she’s older than you, how do you recognize her as your daughter?” Midwinter asked.

“A parent kens his foals,” said Fuligin. “Why’s. She. Older’n. Me?”

“Fuligin, I’m busy,” said Midwinter. Her voice was still level, but Amanita noticed her wings tightening, almost imperceptibly. “Can we discuss this later?”

“We’re a-talkin’ now,” said Fuligin, stomping on the ground. The entire room shuddered. “That mare told me things only my daughter’d ken. She kens the song I sang fer her every night!”

“C’mon, Fully-” said Arc.

“An’ I heard tell that Pyrita went intae the mine,” Fuligin said. “Pyrita. She kens better’n that! Ye nair told me!”

“I didn’t want to upset you. Fuligin-”

“Well, then, ye failed, ’cause I’m upset! I-” Fuligin started pacing and tossing his head. Magic was thrumming where he walked. “I ain’t been outside since ye saved me,” he said. “Are ye keepin’ me safe ’r penned up?”

“It’s for your protection, since-”

“Y’all lot can go outside! It’s Midwich! I’ve been livin’ here longer’n ary o’ you’uns! I ken how tae be safe!”

“But you’ve never worked with this magic before, have you?”

“Nay, but-”

“This spell works differently for everyone. We simply want to be sure-”

“Be certain o’ what?”

“Well, you tell me, if you think I’m doing you wrong, since you obviously know better.”

And just like that, Fuligin stopped talking. He stomped on the ground, bobbed his head, flicked his tail. He was frustrated, frustrated beyond belief, the kind of frustrated that usually resulted in things getting broken. Particularly bad for an earth pony. The earth was nearly quaking beneath him. “I- I dinnae remember my death,” he said. He looked over at Amanita, seemingly just to avoid looking at Midwinter.

Praying he could read lips, Amanita started mouthing, She wipes memories, she did it to me- If she could get him to turn on them without revealing her true feelings-

“You died in a wolf attack and I saved you,” said Midwinter calmly. “It’s only natural you don’t remember. Death is traumatic. I’ve told you this.”

Fuligin bit his lip and flicked an ear. Clenching his eyes shut tight, he lowered his head and pawed at the air.

“It’s only natural you’d want to go back to your old life,” said Midwinter. Her voice was measured, soothing, the kind of voice you wanted to believe. “But you can’t. Not yet. And it’s not as far away as you’re thinking right now. Does it feel like it’s been sixty years?”

“Some days it does, aye,” said Fuligin, glancing at Amanita. “This- This past week-”

“You’re stressed,” said Midwinter, “and your mind’s dredging up faint memories to make you feel better. It has been a rough week for you. Besides, if I were the sort to lie to you for as long as you say, would I have kept you alive to begin with?”

Screw it. Everything or nothing. “Yes!” yelped Amanita. “She’s using you! She’s-” But Varnish’s horn sparked and Amanita’s jaw was clamped shut.

“I saved you,” Midwinter continued, spreading her wings. “I wouldn’t do that for just anypony. And I’m sorry your feelings are so tangled. Pay her no mind.” She gestured at Amanita. “She’s in the middle of a difficult time.”

Fuligin raised his head and looked at Amanita, his gaze heavy with his thoughts. Amanita shook her head vigorously, trying to say something, anything around Varnish’s magic, even to just get Fuligin to think…

“Don’t worry.” Midwinter laid a hoof on Fuligin’s withers and smiled. It made Amanita’s skin crawl. “I’ll conclude this matter as swiftly as possible, and then we can talk.”

Then, to Amanita’s horror, Fuligin nodded. “Aye,” he said. “I…” He groaned and rubbed his head. “I dinnae ken what tae think…”

Amanita stopped struggling. Why bother? Her best chance for escape, gone. Just like that. With just a few words. And she’d thrown away the element of surprise to do so.

“Don’t worry,” Midwinter repeated. “We’ll get your mind sorted out. Now, please. Be off.”

Fuligin nodded again and turned like he was going to leave, but he spared one last look for Amanita. His tail flicked.

Varnish released Amanita’s mouth. She couldn’t find it in herself to say anything more than, “Fuligin… Please…”

Fuligin opened his mouth, closed it again. That was all he did. Why wouldn’t it be? It was Amanita’s word against Midwinter’s, and Midwinter knew all the right buttons to push. But if he couldn’t remember anything… But how was she supposed to jog his memory? She didn’t even know how the spell worked.

Amanita felt the air stir as Carnelian leaned close to her, sneering. “He’s ours,” she whispered, her breath cold in Amanita’s face.

Cold breath.

Dead.

Ding.

“You’re a corpse,” Amanita said, gaping at Fuligin.

A baffled silence fell. Fuligin’s ears twitched as he furrowed his brow. “I… reckon so,” he said. His voice had gained a slight edge after pure confusion knocked away his meekness. “In a sense. But I dinnae-”

Amanita tackled him. Before anyone could react, she was pressing her hooves against his face, her horn was weaving magic, and she bellowed, “Meminerim mortem!”

38 - Earth Pony With a Hammer

Fuligin was indeed a corpse. Or maybe just close enough to a corpse for Tempus Mortis to work. Amanita had never tested it on any living ponies, mainly because of the dearth of living ponies who’d died. (Even though she was living in one’s house, rent free…) And yet, here she was, examining the deaths of someone who was still up and moving.

For there were deaths.

Oh, there were deaths.

There were somewhere between twenty and thirty. Once every two to three years. All those times, his body was damaged enough that it should’ve killed him, even if his soul remained. What was happening to him? Rather than wonder, Amanita plunged into the very first death.

Sounds formed around her. The rustling of a forest. Panting breaths. Midwinter’s voice. Calm, cool, collected. “If I am who you say I am, you have no chance.”

Fuligin’s voice. Tight, breathless, enraged. “I… dinnae care. C’MERE!” The violent snapping of twigs, a body-on-body impact-

Midwinter was sinking her teeth into Fuligin’s neck. Fuligin was pulling her body close to him, pulling tightly. Amanita could already see her ribs splintering beneath her coat. Part of Fuligin’s fur jacket was on fire, more of it was scored by glancing hits from magic. They were somewhere in Midwich Forest, although nowhere Amanita recognized. The trees and snow around them were damaged by some sort of fight. A broken sledgehammer was lying discarded among a set of hoofprints.

Amanita examined the tableau from all angles. She had to assume it was sixty years ago, because both of them appeared to be the same age. It was impossible to know why Fuligin was attacking Midwinter from the information she had. Maybe there’d be clues nearby?

She looked at the sledgehammer. Thick. Strong. Bloody. It’d take a lot to smash that haft, yet smashed that was. She followed the trail of blood back from it. Thankfully, the area around it was still available for her to-

A body. A body with a crushed head, sprawled on the ground. She could make out a horn. Varnish? Maybe. Someone who Fuligin had “killed” before getting to Midwinter. Another piece of the puzzle, but one she couldn’t access from here.

…Or maybe… Why wouldn’t it work? The body was right there. It was worth a shot. A corpse was a corpse, right?

Of corpse it was. Fnah fnah.

Amanita didn’t have much of a body but she focused to the best of her ability on laying a hoof on the body and saying the incantation. She wove her spell-

-and fell into Varnish’s deaths, just like she would any others’. Technically, they weren’t death deaths, but the bodily trauma involved was so great that it would’ve been. She didn’t bother examining any of the others at all, just plunged into the latest one.

“My horn! Why’d you do that? We’re helping you!” Varnish. Very slightly hurt. Very angry.

“ ’Cause I felt what Lixivia was doin’. That ain’t right. An’ ye ken, aye?” Fuligin. Just as angry. Maybe more.

“Yes, I ‘ken’, you hick. And what’re you-”

A wet crunching and snapping. Maybe bone. Varnish started screaming.

“Ye’re monsters. Every single one o’ ye. An’ I’m puttin' y’all in the dirt.”

“No, NO! Please, we only meant the best-”

“LIAR!” CRUN-

Amanita had never seen somepony’s head explode before.

She’d certainly never seen that explosion frozen in time before.

Yet that was what she saw now. Fuligin bringing a sledgehammer down on Varnish’s head, crushing it like putty. The skewed vision of Tempus Mortis blurred out the worst of it, but Amanita knew what she was looking at. The first embers in Fuligin’s jacket were catching. He didn’t seem to notice. For the first time, she noticed that his hooves were bloody.

The environment was kind enough to provide the route that Fuligin had walked down while stained. Amanita followed the trail and the blood inside it to another body, twisted and crushed and lying next to the shattered remains of a mangled tree. Earth pony. Lixivia. Into her past Amanita dove.

“They’re followin’ ye.” Fuligin. Tight. Suspicious?

“What?” Lixivia. Unassuming. Clueless. As of yet.

“Ye’re sendin’ out magic intae the earth. An’ the wolves’re followin’ it.”

A laugh. Trying to sound derisive. Slightly nervous. “You’re delusional. They’re just-”

“They killed Balsam dead afteren he mouthed off tae you’un. Yer magic was full o’ hate.”

“Come on. Do you really think I’d be that petty?”

“I’ve seen ye talk. Aye.”

“…Wait, DON’T YOU-” CRUN-

Lixivia was almost flattened against the tree as Fuligin swung his hammer into her side, her ribs crumpling like rice paper. The entire ground was shaking with the force of the impact, rocks and flecks of snow motionless in the air. The tree was already shattering into wood chips from sheer blunt force as if it were made of chalk.

There weren’t any more bodies nearby, but Amanita could make a guess as to what happened. She fell out of Lixivia’s death, out of Varnish’s, out of Fuligin’s, into Fuligin’s second death.

Grunts, pounding, something falling down. Someone was groaning in the background. “-stay DOWN!” Carnelian. Practically frightened. In the middle of exertion.

“I ain’t stayin’ down, even when I’m dead!” Fuligin. Angry. Also exerting. Forced, like he could barely take in the air to talk. “You’uns’re all monsters, lyin’ tae-” CLN-

They were in the library Amanita had just left. The shelves were emptier when they weren’t knocked over and the furniture was in tatters. Carnelian was pressing Fuligin against the wall by his head, pressing until his skull shattered. He was clumsily trying to swing a hammer at her head. He’d already been at it for some time, given the awkward way a leg and a wing were hanging. Varnish was slouching on the ground behind them, just barely holding himself up on a crooked leg, mostly intact.

A unicorn was curled up on the floor behind them, face down. The body was too skinny to be Varnish, but it didn’t have the exoskeleton of present-day Arc. Amanita jumped in-

Sizzling, screaming. Amanita swore she could smell something. She couldn’t hear much in the way of words in the background, just the tones of curses and vague invectives before-

Arc — Amanita presumed it was Arc — was on the floor, clutching at his face, mouth half-open in a dying scream. Smoke was curling up from his head like a veil. Amanita took a closer look; his face was being eaten away by something splattered across it; acid, maybe?

Fuligin and Carnelian were frozen in combat, snarling at each other. Carnelian was flaring her wings to force herself under a wild hammer swing of Fuligin’s, but the head of the hammer was about to clip a wingtip. Loose papers were swirling through the air, their books smashed by other frenzied blows. There was no sign of Varnish.

But Amanita did see Midwinter’s body. And her head, a few feet away. A shelf was lying in pieces next to her. Amanita fell in-

Screams from Arc. Crashing, ripping paper. “You’re making a mistake!” Grunt. “We’re trying to help you!” Midwinter. Frantic, desperate, fast.

“After what ye did tae Spruce, it ain’t the manner o’ help I want!” Fuligin. Very, very peeved. There was a swishing of air-

Fuligin was swinging a shelf down on Midwinter’s neck like a guillotine, not so much cutting her head off as crushing it off. There were a few books scattered around, but only a few, and the furniture was intact. So was more of Arc’s face as he writhed on the ground. Pieces of a broken beaker were scattered on the ground around him. In the background, Carnelian was slouching against a wall and wrenching an iron bar from her neck as she growled at Fuligin.

There weren’t any more useful bodies around. Again, though, Amanita got the gist. Out and out and out, into Fuligin’s third death.

It continued.

“They’ll be missin’ me! Why cannae I head on out?”

On and on and on.

“Why dinnae I recomember nothin’?”

Every time.

“I dinnae want yer life! I want tae see my daughters!”

Fuligin refused to stay down.

Amanita never, ever got the full picture. But she always had enough: Fuligin realized that something didn’t add up and reacted. Violently. Sometimes, he was able to “kill” up to three of the vampires before they took him down. Then, presumably, they wiped his memory again. But the body knew.

She didn’t need to go halfway down the line. It was always the same. Fuligin nearly escaped. Nearly. Now, with a bit of assistance, maybe she could help him go further.

She’d been bounding around Fuligin’s deaths for what felt like hours, but she was still tumbling into him when she fell back into her body. He put up his hooves and shoved her away. “What in the nation,” he began, “are ye-”

“Midwinter’s the one who killed you,” Amanita said. “The first time, anyway.”

Dead silence fell. The stillness was so complete that Amanita swore she could feel the current of the ley line without even trying. Shock kept everyone frozen.

“After the attack, where your wife died,” Amanita said breathlessly. “They volunteered to help you search for her, didn’t they?”

“I-” Fuligin frowned, pawed at the ground. “Aye. How did-”

“You don’t remember much of the actual search, do you? Because while you were out there, you realized something was up. You killed Lixivia. You killed Varnish. And you and Midwinter killed each other. Or you would’ve killed them all if they hadn’t been vampires.”

She glanced to one side. Varnish was trying to furtively glance at Midwinter, which was tricky when his jaw was still agape. Midwinter was making little headshakes as she stared at Amanita and kept making a “keep calm” sort of gesture. Arc was somewhere between interested and horrified, biting his lip as he tapped at the ground. Carnelian’s wings were twitching, like she wanted to spring forward and attack Amanita.

“Fuligin, please,” snorted Midwinter. “The notion of this is… absurd.” She looked at Amanita; her expression was disinterested, but her eyes were just a shade away from shooting daggers at Amanita for any one of a number of reasons. “You’re exploiting his trauma in a cold reading. Your details are vague at best, and-”

“Oh, yeah?” asked Amanita. “What about the time he ripped your head off and threw it in a vat of acid?”

Midwinter had proven to be good at controlling her body language, but even she couldn’t keep her eyes from widening slightly.

“Or the time he beat you to death with your own leg? Or the time he impaled you on your husband’s horn? Or the time he bisected you and Lixivia with a sunblasted scythe at the same time?”

Midwinter tried to stay impassive, but her fetlocks started to curl.

“I saw them,” Amanita said, grinning. “More and more and more. Not even all of them. You can’t keep him down.” She turned to Fuligin. “I don’t know why they kept you around. Spite, maybe. Or maybe they needed a testbed for their spells. But you keep finding out and you keep killing them.”

Fuligin stared at her, his head bobbing. One of his legs was lightly tapping an irregular beat against the floor. The room seemed to thrum with each impact, sometimes twisting back as if it was answering. It was hard to register his expression; he seemed to be thinking of multiple things at once.

Wait. There was energy in the ground beneath her. And it was responding to him. Why-

Then Fuligin shook his head and Amanita’s heart sank. “I dinnae ken what ye seed, but- it cannae be true,” he said. “There- is- too much-”

One pause lasted infinitesimally longer than usual.

Fuligin tapped his hoof.

And the energy in the ground stirred back.

“-that it doesnae- answer.”

Amanita blinked. Was Fuligin… stalling?

She snuck a glance at the vampires. They seemed to be relieved with this change in course… except for Midwinter, who was looking at Fuligin very intently.

“I’m sorry that- ye-” Tap. “-cannae see that- I’m goin’ through-” Tap. “-a tough time an’ I’m-” Tap. “-mighty stressed. I-”

“So you still see the truth?” Midwinter cut in as she pinned Amanita’s tail to the ground.

“Aye.” Tap. “I see it.”

“Then can you please get back to overseeing the cages? Homunculi are not perfect and we do not want them damaging the prisoners.”

“Aye.” Fuligin stopped tapping, but the magic kept stirring as he took slow steps towards the doorway. Was it getting stronger? He stopped at the doorframe and looked back. “Dae ye want me tae take her as well?” he asked, pointing at Amanita and tapping. “She seems awful-”

“We have it under control,” said Midwinter. “We can handle one pony.”

“Sure an’ certain?” Tap. “If’n ye want, I can-”

“Fuligin. See to the prisoners.”

Fuligin gave Midwinter a long look and flicked an ear. He tapped the floor. The response was definitely getting strong, but Amanita still couldn’t tell what it was. “What you’un goin’ tae do tae her?”

“Ask her some questions,” said Midwinter. “See. To. The prisoners.”

“Aye.” Tap. “I’ll do that.” And, after a few hesitant steps, Fuligin was gone. Gone gone, or just for the moment? Amanita wanted to think-

Something blurred and suddenly Midwinter was pressing Amanita to the ground with a heavy hoof on her chest, breathing in her face. “I. Would quite like to know. What. You think. You’re doing,” Midwinter hissed. This close, her breath was rank with the stench of rot.

Somehow, Amanita managed to not flinch away from it. Pinned, hardly able to breathe, all she could do was hope that Fuligin knew what he was doing.

Arrastra had run out of despair about ten seconds after Fuligin left. Now she had rage. She was screaming obscenities and pounding against the door of her cage, harder and harder and harder, as if she could bend the metal with her bare hooves. Bitterroot wasn’t entirely sure she was wrong.

Across the way, Bitterroot saw Whippletree swallow. “Eh. Arrastra?”

Arrastra stopped screaming. She didn’t stop hitting. “Aye?” she growled.

“What’re ye… plannin’ on doin’?” Probably the best question to ask.

“Gettin’ out o’ here.”

“And then what?”

“I’ll figure that out once I’m out o’ here.”

The logic was distressingly simple. Whippletree shrugged helplessly at Bitterroot, who made a sympathetic face back.

Somehow, even in that cramped space she was able to throw her entire weight against the cage door; the entire assembly lurched, but she collapsed onto her haunches. “That- That was Pa,” she growled in between deep breaths.

Whippletree put a hoof on his cage bars. “D’ye… think ye could’ve been… mistook about him?” His voice sounded like he was walking on eggshells.

“Nay,” Arrastra panted. “I ken he’s me pa. He looks like him. He feels like him. ’Tis… I cannae explain.”

Bitterroot and Whippletree looked at each other again. Bitterroot knew the feeling of just recognizing a person, but how long of a shot was too long? She swallowed her anxiety. “Hey, uh, Tallbush? You’re a unicorn.” Easy to forget when he looked like that, though. “Can you… I dunno, get us something? Levitate it over and-”

“W-what?” asked Tallbush. He was shaking inside his cage and bordered on too scared to notice his surroundings. It didn’t look right, someone who bordered on angelic being scared. “Uh, n-nay. Tried. C-cannae reach apast the cage.”

Phooey. Bitterroot looked at the homunculi again. How smart were they? Maybe, if Arrastra could push her cage over-

Then Fuligin re-entered the room. And he immediately said, “I’m sorry, Arrastra.”

Arrastra’s wings flared open, just a little, as she jumped to her hooves like she’d been struck. “Pa…?” she asked, pulling herself against the door.

“Ye’re me daughter,” Fuligin said as he walked over, his voice getting shaky. “I- I cannae believe I didnae see it afore. Ye look- so, so much like yer nana. ’Cept yer eye. Y-ye’ve got yer m-ma’s eye.”

“Pa!” Arrastra awkwardly reached through the bars and they pulled each other into a hug. Arrastra sounded like she was on the verge of sobbing “Pa, Pa, I- I’ve missed ye-”

“Ye- Ye didnae hurt y-yer ma. Wi’ the cake. S-she reckoned ye’d say that, then eat it aryways.”

“I- nair thought o’ that. I was a right hollow-tailed filly, werenae I?”

“Um…” Bitterroot coughed and tapped her bars. “I hate to cut the reunion short, but-”

“Aye,” said Fuligin. He rolled his shoulders. “Step back.” Once the door was clear, he hooked a hoof around it and simply ripped it from its hinges.

All of the homunculi immediately turned to look at Arrastra in the open cage, but Fuligin raised a hoof. “I’m keepin’ watch o’er her. Stay at the door an’ keep her frae runnin’.” The homunculi nodded and obediently shuffled towards the exit, standing in a semicircle around it.

As Fuligin pulled Bitterroot’s door off, she nodded towards the homunculi. “Not very smart, are they?” She flexed her wings. They both ached, and the bad one still stung enough that she wouldn’t be able to fly once they were outside. Had she broken it? Maybe just sprained.

“They’ve the brains tae obey, an’ little more,” said Fuligin. “Ye must needs be presact when speakin’ tae them.”

Once Whippletree and Tallbush were also free (Tallbush needed some coaxing out), Arrastra said, “Pa, dae ye truly not recall the last sixty year?”

“Nay.” Fuligin shook his head. “Jes’ the last six moon. Yer unicorn friend-”

“Amanita,” prompted Bitterroot.

“-she said- She said I’d been- killin’ Midwinter an’ her family over an’ over, but I-” Fuligin rubbed a hoof through his mane. “I cannae remember-”

“Oh, hold up.” Bitterroot dug through her furs and pulled out a dose of foal’s breath. “Take this, it’ll bring your memories back.”

“Aye,” said Arrastra. “It clears the head right up.”

Fuligin looked apprehensive for maybe a quarter of an instant, then his eyes briefly darted to Arrastra. That seemed to steel him, and he grabbed the pill and swallowed it. For a second, nothing happened, and Bitterroot wondered if it would even work on a technical corpse.

Then Fuligin flinched as if struck and his pupils dilated.

“Oh,” he said quietly. “Oh, those lily-livered tick-ridden SWAYBACKS.”

“There’s a lot you remember now?”

“Aye,” he said in a hatefully level voice. “Enough fer me tae kill ’em. Again.”

Whippletree walked up to the group; Bitterroot hadn’t even noticed he was missing. “Door’s shut tight,” he said, nodding at the exit to the bunker. “Willnae budge.”

“I cannae open it, neither,” Fuligin said. “But, you-” He pointed at Bitterroot. “-yer friend’s in trouble. We need tae save her.”

Image flashed through Bitterroot’s head, hypotheticals she didn’t want to consider but had to. “From the clutches of vampires,” she said softly. “Heh. Great.”

Fuligin tilted his head. “What’s a vampire?”

“You consider my offer, my generous offer,” snarled Midwinter, “and then you spit in my face by trying to turn my servant against me. Why?”

“Does it matter?” Amanita coughed out. It was the most she could manage with Midwinter on her chest. “I did it. I don’t ask why you do what you do.” If Fuligin could stall, so could she.

“Oh, honey.” Arc stuck his head into Amanita’s field of view. “Science, obviously. We’re doing things that nopony’s done! Ha! And do you know how rare those are?”

“We are pushing the boundaries of magic,” snapped Midwinter. “Learning for learning’s sake. Every new thing done here is adding to archives of knowledge for-”

“Mother, just kill her already,” groaned Varnish. “Your reasons change nothing.”

Midwinter didn’t look away, her lifeless eyes boring as if she could reach Amanita’s soul. “Amanita here is a great mind, rare in these lands,” she said. “And if I’m going to destroy it, I would like to know why she’s forcing my hoof. Perhaps… Perhaps I can make her see reason.”

“You still think she has a great mind?” asked Carnelian. “I’ve already said that she doesn’t know why her first resurrection failed!”

“But she does.” Midwinter’s wings beat once, twice. “Oh, she does. Didn’t you hear her? She almost answered so when I asked her. Before we were interrupted.”

Amanita kept silent. Let them keep talking. The magic in the ground was growing stronger.

“So, please, Amanita.” Midwinter ran a hoof down the side of Amanita’s face and gave a deliberately fake grin. “Tell me. What do you mean by- by any of this?”

Silence. Her heart was pounding and lightning was stinging the insides of her veins, but Amanita kept herself quiet as she looked up.

“Answer me!” screamed Midwinter. She pulled Amanita up by her furs and slammed her against the ground. “Why would you throw everything you could ever want away?”

Amanita’s spine burned from the impact and it was all she could do to speak instead of groan. “Because I don’t want it,” she gasped.

The atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted; somehow — she didn’t know how — Amanita felt less like a prisoner and more the center of attention. “Don’t want it?” Arc asked, leaning over her. “‘Don’t want it’, she says. Ha!”

“You. Don’t. Want it,” Midwinter said skeptically. “You do not want immortality?”

“Then kill her!” Varnish punctuated his word with a stomp. “She’ll die eventually anyway!”

“You are a necromancer. You were apprenticed to one who knew lichdom. Why do-”

“How do you think the Guard got Circe’s phylactery?”

Silence fell, the horrified silence that normally only happened when someone admitted to drowning puppies. Amanita let it linger. The longer it lasted, the more she could stall. The magic below was getting stronger.

“…You didn’t,” gasped Midwinter.

Amanita just smiled, fully aware that she was likely inviting Midwinter to bash her face in. As long as it kept her distracted.

“She- She was your master!” Midwinter screamed. “She taught you everything you know and-”

“Honey,” Arc said, laying a hoof on Midwinter’s shoulder.

“-you betrayed her to be destroyed and-”

“Honey, I’ve got an idea.”

“To deal with her?” Midwinter spat in Amanita’s face. “I would love to hear it.”

“You know that wonderful potion I just made that streamlines the soul separation? The one that needs another spell performed to complete the process?”

Midwinter raised her head. A slow grin crept across her face. “We always did wonder what the aftereffects would be,” she said. “Yes. Go get it, would you please?”

“Ha! Of course.” Arc gave Midwinter a quick peck on the cheek and sauntered back to the lab.

“You’re going to suffer.” Midwinter’s leer was wide and mirthless. “Your very nature will consume you from the inside as-”

Amanita tuned her out. Those threats were a bit a bundle coming from Circe. As she lay there, her eyes focused on the Binder. It was right there. If she was lucky, it could be her ticket-

What the hay. She had nothing to lose now. Might as well swing for the fences. Amanita seized the Binder in her magic and yanked with all her might to one side.

The chain had been enchanted with some form of strengthening magic and didn’t break.

So between the thinness of it and the strength of Amanita’s pull, it cut through the flesh of Midwinter’s neck like cheese wire.

Before it hit her backbone with a wet, muted clink.

Midwinter stared at Amanita. “Oh, you little-”

One of the walls exploded.

“A vampire is…” Bitterroot rubbed the back of her neck. “It’s a sort of undead- Y’know what, I’ll tell you later, let’s go save Amanita.”

“Aye,” said Fuligin. “I dinnae ken-”

“Hey, step aside, will ya?”

Arc came ambling into the lab, whistling, not really looking at anything in his automaticity. He headed to one corner of the room where he started rooting through a cabinet.

Everyone froze. Arrastra inched over to the table with her chainsaw on it, moving slowly and carefully. She delicately lifted it off, somehow making no scraping sounds. Fuligin was shaking his head at her, but she wasn’t looking at him to notice. Bit by bit, she crept up behind Arc, raising the chainsaw above his head-

The entire room lurched with something and Arc blinked. He pulled his head out of the cabinet to look to the side. But then he kept turning until he was looking at Arrastra.

She immediately brought the inactive chainsaw down, but he dropped to the floor and threw up a shield. The saw bounced off it like a superball, but Arrastra just took a step back and revved up the dynamo.

“Rude,” tsked Arc. The magic around his horn wavered-

-and every single speck of light in the lab died.

The room plunged into pitch darkness, the kind it was nearly impossible to create, and that darkness fell so hard so fast Bitterroot flinched while the others around her gasped in shock. She closed her eyes, opened them. She couldn’t tell the difference. She heard shuffling around her, ponies trying to move in the dark. And echolocation.

Chirp.

“You should’ve stayed in your cages, you little cuties!” Arc said cheerfully. His voice was layered with magic and it was coming from every direction at once. “It would’ve been simpler! Ha! But if you really want to play it this way…” His voice shifted, becoming something that pierced Bitterroot’s eardrums. “Find and kill them all, if you would.”

And from the sounds of the heavy hooffalls, the homunculi were moving.

Chirp.

“We’re goin’ tae die,” Tallbush whispered. He sounded close to hyperventilating. The prophet was saying that. “We’re goin’ tae-”

Bitterroot gave him a sharp nudge and pulled them both to the floor. “Stay quiet,” she whispered. Keeping one leg over his withers, she started crawling away from the footsteps. She tried to reassemble a picture of the lab from memory. How big was it? Where was everything?

Chirp.

Her mind was distressingly blank. Normally, she could case somewhere a few times before committing it to memory.

Loud, chuffing breaths. Sniffing. The homunculi? Maybe. Bitterroot kept crawling along. The floor was sticky. She didn’t want to think about what she was crawling through.

Chirp. Chirp.

Other footsteps, lighter, suddenly shuffled around her in odd ways, almost like they were coming from multiple ponies. The air rippled with the passage of someone she couldn’t see. And was she hearing breathing, or was that something else? Next to her, Tallbush whimpered wordlessly.

Chirp chirp.

“Mareco!” Bitterroot yelled, desperate for some sense of control.

Chirpchirpchirp.

“Polo,” a cold breath whispered in her ear.

And Arrastra’s chainsaw roared.

Meat and more was ripped and torn as the chainsaw ground. Bitterroot was splattered with things she didn’t want to consider, things small and dry and cold. She flattened herself as much as she could and covered her and Tallbush’s bodies with her wings. Tallbush squeaked and tried to huddle as close to her as he could.

Something fell to the ground next to her with a thud and a metallic clang. Even if she’d been able to see if, she wouldn’t have wanted to. She twitched at a sudden hoof on her shoulder, but it was just Arrastra. “Stay here,” Arrastra whispered.

Bitterroot nodded, then remembered and whispered back, “We, we will.”

Arrastra patted her shoulder and stepped away, chirping.

She didn’t see anything, but Bitterroot still felt exposed. The stench of the lab wormed its way into her nose and down her throat. She could practically taste it. She tried closing her eyes to ignore it. In the dark, it made no difference. Next to her, Tallbush had trouble simply keeping his breathing under control.

Chirp chirp.

There was something around her. She knew there was. There had to be. She was just sitting there, out in the open, an easy target. Why hadn’t they gotten her yet? She heard the footsteps getting closer-

Chirpchirpchip. MmrrrRRRRkhlkhlkhlkRrr. Thud. Chirp chirp.

Tentatively, with the unwanted fascination of watching a train crash, Bitterroot patted at the floor near where she’d heard Arrastra’s first attack. Nothing… Nothing… Metal rod. Arc. Exoskeleton. She kept patting …Leg. Intact.

Chirp chirp.

Twitching. Bitterroot yanked her hoof back. How long would Arc stay down? Circe hadn’t stayed down for that long when they’d fought years ago, but she’d been relatively intact except for the burning. She certainly hadn’t had… What had Arrastra done to Arc?

Chirpchirpchip. MrRkhlkRr. Thud. Chirp.

But that would require feeling his body, and the thought made Bitterroot shudder.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, curled up and holding her breath, before she heard Arrastra say, “Got ’em! Tallbush, can ye light the place up?”

It required a nudge to get his attention, but Bitterroot winced at the sudden flare from Tallbush’s horn. (Horns?) Once she was able to see without squinting, she glanced around the room. Her, the other prisoners, and Fuligin were the only ones still standing. Arrastra was looking very smug, standing with her chainsaw slung over her shoulder, stained with who knew what. She risked looking down and oh dear CELESTIA that was disgusting. The homunculi looked like, well, dead bodies someone had taken a chainsaw to. All… in pieces and scattered about and… ulgh. With one exception. “Why… Why aren’t they bleeding?” she asked. It was probably better than the alternative, though. Tallbush was barely suppressing a gag.

“Blood’s coagulated,” Fuligin said. “They’ve been dead fer a while.”

“C’mon,” Arrastra said, revving the chainsaw. “We’ve got a pony tae save.” She stalked out of the room.

Bitterroot found herself forced to look down to pick her way across a floor of disgusting stuff, disgusting in multiple ways. It took at least twice as long as it should’ve, as she tried to put her hooves where there was the least amount of disgusting stuff. As she reached the door, she stepped over the one that had been watching her. The one that had robbed their inn room. Good riddance. She stepped over it-

Wait. That one wasn’t- Was it? Was it weirdly intact or was that just her? Bitterroot poked and prodded it. No response. It seemed dead, at any rate. Dead enough? Good enough for now.

Amanita needed help. Bitterroot followed Arrastra out of the lab.

Wood debris, books, and stone peppered the room. Everything shook, chairs slipping, books falling off shelves. Pinned by Midwinter, all Amanita could do was clench her eyes shut and turn her head away. Bits of dirt and splinters pelted her.

“Hello.”

No.

Amanita turned her head back towards the wall and squinted through the dust. There, standing in a crater in the wall, breathing like a marathon runner, grinning like a maniac, was Code. She’d discarded her furs and was wearing nothing but runes. Bloody runes carved across her body, some still dripping, although it was hard to tell against her coat. On her cheek, right below her eye, was the Deormont’s sigil, glistening red against the dust coating her and shedding embers.

Midwinter snapped to Varnish. “You said-”

“-that I died?” Code said. “Heh. Rumors of my death were greatly-”

Midwinter placed a hoof on Amanita’s neck, almost enough to choke her. “Take another step forward and she dies. And she’s your one and only necromancer.”

Amanita and Code looked at each other. Even after all their time working together, they still weren’t sure if Code could pull off the resurrection ritual. It required a certain… nonchalance towards death that she couldn’t quite manage. Oh, the perils of being irreplaceable.

Absent any other option, Code just shrugged. “Alright. What do you want?”

“Varnish, care to explain yourself?” Midwinter asked icily.

“She- She should be dead-” stammered Varnish. “She-”

“She was caught in a cave-in,” said Carnelian. “I saw it. She could- She had no way of escape.”

Midwinter snorted. “You think Equestria’s High Ritualist has no tools at her disposal?”

“She had no paraphernalia!” Varnish yelled at Midwinter. “No tools! Nothing!”

Code smirked. “Except for the eighteen liters of blood I always carry inside me. And with the right magic circle, the Deormont could work with that. It was nice enough to help with the digging. I just needed to…” She swept a hoof over her body, gesturing at the runes. “…tell it how to listen.”

“The Deormont,” mumbled Midwinter. “You tried to attune with it?”

“What do you mean, tried? A bounty hunter with no experience with the otherworldly was able to do it. I’ve been eating its essence for the better part of a week after decades of experience. It was a piece of cake.” Code cracked her neck. “Did you find it hard?”

Amanita normally would’ve wondered why Code was spending her time talking, but she recognized that tone. Semi-mocking, meant to unsettle. A distraction. More stalling.

“Son, did you not think of this?” snapped Midwinter.

“I only learned that they knew of it less than two hours ago!” Varnish snapped back. “Would you have thought of-”

“Did you cause the cave-in?”

Silence.

“I know of your problems with Code. Did you cause the cave-in?”

More silence.

“Carnelian. Answer me, since your brother refuses.”

“Does that matter anymore?” Carnelian asked. “It’s not like she’s-”

Midwinter was looking away and all the vampires were distracted. Amanita looked at Code and jerked her head towards Midwinter, mouthing silent pew pew sounds. After a moment, Code nodded. Praying she and Code were thinking the same thing, Amanita pulled in all the magic she could muster at a moment’s notice and released it in Midwinter’s face, point-blank.

As Midwinter recoiled, Code moved. She grabbed a book from the floor and hurled it at Carnelian — hurled with earth pony strength. Amanita was sure she heard something crack when it hit Carnelian’s skull and the impact was enough to send her sprawling.

Code was still moving before the book hit. She pounced on Varnish, slamming him to the floor. He suddenly disintegrated into black smoke that swirled behind Code, but she seemed to have known it was coming and snapped her hoof backwards. Varnish reformed to get an earth-pony-powered backhoof right in the face.

Before Midwinter could recover, Amanita renewed her grip on the Binder. She yanked harder than she had before, far harder, and was able to pull Midwinter off enough to let herself roll away. She noticed Carnelian readying for a jump and gave her tail a quick telekinetic tug to set her off-balance.

With Varnish still recoiling, Code grabbed him around the neck and twisted. She threw Varnish to the floor in just the right way that his horn hit first — and, when she stomped on his neck, snapped. Before he could even react, Code scooped him into the air, twirled, and bucked him across the room. Books were rattled from their shelves with the impact.

Midwinter was on her hooves again. She swept her wings back and lunged at Amanita, fangs bared. Amanita yelped, flailed, fired off a haphazard spell. The bolt clipped one of Midwinter’s wings, twisting it just enough to throw her off-course. She landed next to Amanita, who was already on her hooves again, running for the lab door.

Where Arrastra stepped out, chainsaw at the ready.

Amanita yelped again and tossed herself to one side, sliding across the floor. Midwinter, already charging again, flared her wings to come to a stop. Arrastra leapt forward, swinging her chainsaw at Midwinter’s neck. Midwinter jinked to one side-

Amanita seized the Binder in her magic and pulled to the other side. Again, the chain cut into her flesh before catching on a vertebra. More importantly, though, it stopped Midwinter’s dodge.

And Arrastra’s chainsaw had no qualms with bone.

Midwinter’s body and head fell to the floor in two different places and Amanita was left holding the Binder, its chain swinging limply. She quickly tucked it into her furs.

Whippletree had followed through after Arrastra and gone for Varnish, swinging his spear. With Varnish still recovering from being kicked across the room, he was easy prey for stabbings from Whippletree, over and over and over, in all parts of his body. They were quick and precise, and it wasn’t long before Varnish collapsed again.

By now, Code had caved in Carnelian’s head with a chair. She looked up and noticed the crowd forming. “Hello,” she said, getting to her hooves. “Is Charcoal with you?”

“She’s dead,” Bitterroot said.

Amanita felt a pang in her heart; Code blinked twice and her ears twitched. “Ah. Then we-”

“I beg yer pardon fer- fer assaultin’ ye,” Fuligin said, stepping forward. “Midwinter was deceivin’ me like ye wouldnae believe, an’-”

Code held up a hoof and Fuligin stopped talking. She looked at Bitterroot, who said, “Long story, but he’s with us now.”

“Apologize later,” said Code. “For now-”

A bolt of light suddenly lanced into the room from the lab, narrowly missing all the ponies before it exploded against the opposite wall. Arc staggered into the room and slouched against the frame, a rictus grin affixed on his face. A large gash on his head was getting smaller by the second, closing up as ash fell from it. His horn was glowing.

And the vampires started to get back up.

“Go!” yelled Code, shoving Amanita towards the door. “Go!”

Tallbush had been the first pony through, quickly followed by Bitterroot. Amanita ran through after them, Code close behind. The corridor on the other side was grimy, narrow, and lined with doors, not unlike the one out of the lab. She didn’t stop to look at the doors, just ran.

Just ahead of her, right as Bitterroot passed it, one of the doors was blown off its hinges as a particularly malformed homunculus smashed its way out. It roared at her, something about its voice shaking unnaturally. She never knew how, but Amanita somehow managed to jump over it and keep running. She could hear its hooves behind her as it gave chase, but she had only one direction: forward. Bitterroot’s tail was flicking in front of her, giving her something to keep up with.

By luck, the hall didn’t branch. Soon, she found herself running up a staircase narrow enough that a pegasus couldn’t spread their wings. She didn’t know where she was going, but “up” was sufficient. The homunculus remained on her heels, unable to be shaken.

The staircase spat her out in a house. It took her a moment to recognize it as Midwinter’s. The door to outside was still swinging from Bitterroot’s departure. She ran for it-

The homunculus chomped down on her tail tightly and she was jarred to a halt mid-gallop. With her front hooves in the air, she hit her chin on the ground when she fell. Then the floor started moving beneath her as she was dragged backward.

She twisted until she was on her back. The homunculus was heading back for the stairs. She kicked it in the face, once, twice, thrice; no reaction. As they entered the stairwell and started bumping down, Amanita gathered her magic-

Code dove up the stairs from behind and wrapped her hooves around the homunculus’s hind legs. She shook it like a towel, dislodging its grip on Amanita’s tail. Then, still keeping a grip on its legs, she reared.

The homunculus swung upward like an inverted pendulum, blunt hooves scrabbling at nothing in the empty stairwell. It tried flaring its wings; not enough room. It seemed to be moving in slow motion as it reached the peak of its arc.

Then inertia carried it onwards, Code with it. The two of them smashed onto the downslope of the staircase, the ridges of the stairs, and sprawled awkwardly in the tight space. Code, groaning, rolled onto her side and curled up into a ball.

“Code!” Amanita yelled. She took a step back down-

Still curled up, Code raised a hoof and made a “keep going” gesture. Amanita stumbled another step down. She couldn’t just leave- But she had to. “I’ll come back for you!” she yelled. Then she turned around and charged back up. She banged out the door, out of the house, and-

-where from here?

She was in Midwich. Utterly isolated from anything. Where was she going to run? Up through the forest? It’d take several days before she was out of the valley. Or maybe-

A whistle blew and she thought she heard Bitterroot yell something. She looked downhill- The train was moving, pulling away from the coal breaker. Bitterroot was waving desperately at her from the last hopper, trying to get her attention.

Okay. Way out. Good enough. Amanita broke into a gallop.

Sometimes, Arrastra wondered if she was a bad chiropterus. Never seriously, never in any meaningful way, but she wondered. Because she hated being underground.

She hated it. Hated the feeling of not being able to reach the sky. Hated being closed in. Hated being funneled. But she’d been in caves a lot today. A different cave each time, too.

And when Arc entered the library after she knew she’d taken a chainsaw to his head, she knew she wanted to get out of the caves.

The Canterlouts and Tallbush ran, leaving the library behind. Arrastra ran after them, but before she could follow Code through, a shield went up in the doorway and she smashed into it. She reflexively banged her hoof against it, but it held firm.

Code heard the sound and turned around, but Arrastra waved her on. “Get!” Code nodded and took off down the corridor.

Arrastra spun around, her chainsaw up for whoever was casting. Pa had already crossed the distance to Arc, faster than any earth pony should’ve moved. He raised his hooves-

And Arc released a spell that punched a hoof-sized hole straight through him like an arrow through paper.

Pa brought his hooves down on Arc’s head with an almighty crunch.

When Pa kept moving without difficulty, when he walked up to her, something switched on in Arrastra’s head. It was hard to register him as undead. Immortal, perhaps, but not undead. Maybe-

Arc was down. Was the shield down? She turned back around- No, the shield was still up.

The vampires were still getting up, but they weren’t at fighting capacity just yet. “Whipple,” she hissed, “didnae Amanita say somethin’ about killin’ ’em wi’ wood?”

“A… wooden stake tae the heart, aye,” Whippletree replied immediately. He looked down at his spear and held it out, presenting the middle of the wooden haft to her. A few quick chainsaw slashes, and there she had it: three stakes, one of them with a spearhead on the end.

Unfortunately, by the time she’d dropped the chainsaw and picked up her stake, Midwinter was on her hooves and moving, the others close behind her. Arrastra took a mouthhold on the stake and flared her wings, ready to lunge in any direction.

But then something else lumbered from the lab. One of the homunculi. Even though she thought she’d gotten them all. And its horn was glowing. Arrastra glanced between the homunculus and the shield. Maybe, if-

One of Midwinter’s rear legs twitched. It wouldn’t have meant much to most ponies, but Arrastra recognized it as her getting a grip and quickly threw herself to one side. Midwinter seemingly moved between thought and action and passed close enough to snap at her neck. Working too fast to think, Arrastra jammed the stake into the closest thing on hoof: Midwinter’s head. Midwinter continued onwards with the stake sticking out.

Then a blood-chilling scream ripped through the room.

On a reflex, Arrastra looked over her shoulder. Carnelian was grappling with Whippletree and had broken one of his legs, leaving it hanging at a sickening angle. He was fighting back as best he could, but she had strength and leverage. Then, before Arrastra’s very eyes, she sank her teeth into his neck and ripped.

Arterial blood spraying like a fountain, Whippletree screamed even louder, the sound coming from the hole in his throat. All of the vampires, including Pa, snapped to look at him. Pa flinched and looked away, biting his lip and closing his eyes. Midwinter and Varnish fell on Whippletree like vultures.

Sensation was running through Arrastra, overwhelming her. She saw the blood, the thrashing body. She heard the screams, the tearing of flesh. And she smelled it, smelled all that blood like she’d smelled nothing before in her life. That smell alone almost made her vomit. Nothing had made her feel like prey before.

And then suddenly she was on top of Carnelian, the one who’d killed her son-in-law, battering her with her hooves, screaming bloody murder. She heard things, but what they were didn’t register. She could barely register what she herself was doing. All she knew was that, when she was pulled off, Carnelian wasn’t moving and had a spearpoint sticking out of her forehead.

Pa hadn’t been able to do much. Perhaps he was overcome with the scent of blood and trying to resist it. The homunculus had taken advantage of his tunnel vision to simply rip his head off. Arrastra found herself looking right into his eyes when Midwinter tossed her aside.

Something else to get them for. On the off chance she could manage it.

“Varnish, take this homunculus and any others and get the Binder back,” spat Midwinter. “I will not have my life’s work stolen by some- child.” Although he looked angry, Varnish nodded, clicked his tongue at the homunculus, and left with it in tow.

Leaving Arrastra and Midwinter alone in the library.

The two looked at each other as Arrastra somehow pulled herself into a sitting position. She knew she ought to feel something, sitting there at the mercy of a bloodstained necromancer, but she couldn’t. She was spent, not so much tired as simply out of emotions. What a week. What a day. Her well had run dry and even the barrel had been hacked up. For a moment, she just wanted to rest.

Midwinter sighed. “This all started with your sister, did it not?” she said. She wrenched the stake from her head and dropped it. It rolled to a stop at Arrastra’s hooves. “She glimpsed a homunculus and panicked. If she had simply honored our wishes and stayed away from our house when we asked her to stay away, perhaps she might still be alive.”

And the moment was gone.

Maybe Midwinter and her family weren’t directly responsible for Pyrita’s death. But if they had never come, Pyrita would still be alive. Her parents would have lived long, full lives. And that was just within her family. They’d caused more pain, across decades.

And the ringleader of all that sorrow was right in front of her.

She laid a hoof on the stake next to her.

“I could kill you right now,” Midwinter said. “You would be able to join her and you’re the only thing linking Fuligin here-” She kicked Pa’s body like a sandbag. “-to his old life. He shall be so malleable once-”

Arrastra lunged and drove the stake right into Midwinter’s chest.

Midwinter screamed, staggering back. She grabbed at the stake; wisps of smoke were already coming from the wound. Arrastra breathed levelly, waiting for the end, almost grinning in spite of herself.

Then the screams shifted.

To laughter.

As she failed to die, as the wisps of smoke remained mere wisps, Midwinter cackled more than if she’d heard the funniest joke in the world. Arrastra could only stare blankly as hope drained from her. Had she done something wrong? Was Amanita wrong? Was there nothing she could do?

Well, no use worrying about it now.

Midwinter’s laughter died. “Ah… no.”

She ripped the stake from her chest and drove it into Arrastra’s.

There was a mutedly painful tingle, almost like she’d just been bucked. As Arrastra looked down at the stake protruding from somepony’s chest — it couldn’t be hers, right? — she felt a sudden onset of an intense heat. She tried to breathe. Something ground against her ribs.

“I’ve taken precautions against this, just for me,” Midwinter said as Arrastra collapsed. “Well, Carnelian helped, but she doesn’t remember that anymore.” A light, glistening laugh. The hole in her chest was already disappearing. “I can’t have any enemies exploiting a convenient weakness, can I?”

Arrastra tried to say something. She coughed instead. Blood came up. She felt like she was burning and her vision swam.

“On the one hoof, you put up a valiant fight, and for that I must applaud you. But on the other, it was doomed from the start. I have more experience than you, more power, immortality. You never had the slightest chance.”

The floorboards twisted in front of Arrastra as her sight faded. She took a deep breath, wet and raspy and hot and painful. What little life she still had, she clung to with her strongest grip. A grip that was slowly falling apart.

“So, truly.” Midwinter smirked. “What have you to say to that?”

Somehow, Arrastra found it in herself to speak. If she couldn’t manage murder, spite would have to do. “With- With all yer power,” she wheezed, “you’un… got me… jes’ once. I got ye thrice.” With the last of her strength, she raised her head enough to grin straight at Midwinter. “Some power, cur.”

She slipped into darkness as Midwinter’s smugness vanished, passing with a bloody laugh coursing from her lips.

39 - Running Out of Town on a Rail

For perhaps an instant after bursting out of Midwinter’s house, Bitterroot exulted. She was out! She was free! She was-

-still stuck in Midwich Valley with vampires chasing her.

But Tallbush kept running. “C’mon,” he said, pulling her along. “Train. Can ride it away.”

What the hay, might as well. Bitterroot ran after him.

The train was sitting on a spur next to the coal breaker, where one of the hopper cars was receiving coal from a chute. The passenger car was sitting next to the station platform on the main line. “Need any help starting it up?”

“Not this’un,” Tallbush panted. “Willnae take a minute.”

“Great.” Thank goodness for newer locomotives; they’d never be able to get a normal steam engine running in time. Bitterroot looked over her shoulder. To her shock, there was no one there. Had they gotten delayed somehow? “Blow the whistle as you leave!” she yelled to Tallbush. “They’re not here yet!”

“Aye!” he yelled back. He galloped to the engine as Bitterroot clambered onto the rearmost hopper. It had already been loaded, so she tumbled onto an awkward bed of coal. Her limbs were shaking from adrenaline and her heart was pounding.

Coal rolled as the train lurched. Bitterroot got to her hooves as the whistle blew and squinted up the dark slope. Had any of them-? Amanita had, at least; the pony standing gormlessly at Midwinter’s front door had a horn. Bitterroot cupped her hooves to her mouth and yelled, “Amanita! Over here!” She spread her wings wide and waved to get her attention.

Amanita noticed it immediately and started galloping down the slope. Bit by bit, the train got faster, and with every second, Amanita had a little more distance to run.

She reached the back, but the train was still picking up speed. Leaning over the rim of the hopper, Bitterroot reached out a hoof for Amanita to grab-

Amanita moved to the side, galloped a little more so she was level with the rear ladder. With a smoothness Bitterroot normally didn’t associate with her, Amanita hooked a hoof around one of the rungs and easily swung herself onto the ladder.

Bitterroot looked at her proffered hoof and pulled it back, not sure whether she ought to be embarrassed or not. “…Huh.”

“I learned how to go trainhopping with Circe,” Amanita said as she climbed up. “Done it ten, fifteen times.”

“Huh.” Bitterroot looked back and her wings opened again. “Hey!” she yelled, waving her hooves. “Hey! Code!”

Code, recognizable by her small size, was running full tilt down the hill towards the train, digging at the ground like only an earth pony could. Her entire body was heaving and her mane was flying. She was still far away, but maybe she’d be able to catch-

Then a homunculus burst out of the house behind her, swinging an immense chain; Bitterroot heard it clinking even at this distance. Running after Code and flapping to close the distance, it hurled the chain at her.

Code was yanked off her feet as the chain wrapped around her neck.

As she thrashed like a fish on a line, the homunculus started reeling her in. “Code!” Amanita yelled. For a second, Bitterroot thought she was going to jump back off the train, but she managed to restrain herself. “Can- Can you fly to her?”

“Sorry! Bad wing!”

Amanita cursed under her breath. Behind the homunculus, Varnish strode out of the house, hideously smug.

Then the train passed into the tunnel and they saw no more.

Amanita screamed and hurled a hunk of coal at the tunnel wall. “We had six people in there,” she groaned. “Maybe seven. And it’s just us two that got out?”

“Er. Tallbush is… driving the train.”

“Three, then.” Amanita hung her head in her hooves. “Mother of…”

“Hey.” Bitterroot laid a hoof on her shoulders as the train exited the tunnel, entering full sunlight, a slope of trees on one side, a steep cliff on the other. “We did all we could. And I know that sounds trite, but there wasn’t anything else we could do. Sometimes, that happens, and-”

Something nagged at her brain stem and she looked up, squinting into the sun. A large shadow swooped over the ridge of Midwich Valley as it passed overhead. Half a second after Bitterroot wondered what was so large, it’d started plunging for the train.

“Oh, no,” she gasped. She got to her hooves on the uneven surface as the train rattled. She took a deep breath and shrieked at the top of her lungs, “TALLBUSH! THERE’S A HOMUNCULUS COMING FOR YOU!”

When she finally made it out of the house, aching and bleeding all over, Code was a bit miffed with herself that she hadn’t thought of the train. They needed a way out, after all. But when real danger hit, all that really mattered was surviving to the next second. Everything else might as well not exist.

It was already moving by the time she saw it. Based on the tracks… She angled her run so that she was aiming at where the train would be. Even if it sped up, she could make it. She scrambled down the slope-

Something slammed into her neck and swung around her throat. Her head was yanked to a halt as her body continued onward and she fell on her back. She felt the thing suffocating her: chain. Who used a chain for a weapon? She quickly looped the chain around her fetlocks and pulled to give herself as much slack as she could.

Which was good, because whoever threw the chain started yanking it in. Almost on instinct, Code kept her front legs tight so they were holding her weight, not her neck, and kicked with her hind legs to help push herself along. Then she curled her entire body in as much as she could, swinging her rear hooves up and over her head in a reverse somersault.

The second her rear hooves touched the ground, she dug in, coming to a jarring halt. She yanked the chain forward and whoever was holding it tumbled off her hooves. She hastily unlooped the chain around her neck and sucked in a deep breath, then spun around to see the other end of the chain.

The homunculus she’d prevented from taking Amanita was standing outside Midwinter’s door, picking itself up from the ground. The chain was still wrapped around one of its fetlocks. Code quickly twirled the chain to one side; the twirl traveled up the chain and its inertia knocked the homunculus off its feet again at the other end.

Code glanced over her shoulder. The train was gone. Ah, well. Back to the homunculus; Varnish was standing behind it, not wanting to get too close to her. The expression on his face was one that had been smug and self-assured just a few moments ago, before reality intruded. “Stay down,” he snarled. “I already beat you once.”

“I’m an earth pony hopped up on divine ley lines.” Code wiped down some of the blood trickling from the corner of her mouth and grinned. “I can do this all week.”

“So that’s how you want to do it?” Varnish pointed at the homunculus and jerked his hoof upward. “Go to the train. Kill everyone on board.” Without any other response, the homunculus spread its wings and flew, still with the chain wrapped around its fetlock.

But once it was a good distance above the ground, Code yanked. Physics said the homunculus would win and carry Code away. Magic told physics to stuff itself and the homunculus slammed into the ground with a force a pile driver would envy. Code was moving before it could get up, galloping to close the distance. The second it was standing again, Code whirled around and bucked it right in the head.

It is rarely appreciated just how hard ponies can buck. The sheer power of that backwards kick, even without the augmentation of earth pony magic, can hit about two thousand pounds per square inch, roughly equivalent to getting hit by a carriage going twenty-five miles an hour, focused into a much smaller space. In short, what happens when you get bucked in the head by a pony is swift and simple.

Intracranial-cerebral impact, tissue disruption, rapid hemorrhage, blood pressure drop, cerebral contusion, neurological collapse, things cease, lights go out. All within a few instants.

Unfortunately, the homunculus’s lights were already out. The fact that it was still moving was irrelevant. Although Code’s buck had sent it tumbling and left a literal crater in its skull and twisted its neck beyond what a pony was capable of, the homunculus got right back up and wrenched its head around to look at her with audibly cracking bones.

Oh. So that was how it was.

“You really don’t have a chance,” Varnish said. He hadn’t moved to press his advantage or force Code to fight two opponents at once. “You can’t kill what’s already dead. So make it easy on yourself. Just lay down and-”

“Lay down? For you?” Code snorted. “I had to carve an entire alphabet into my flesh. There are two hundred and five bones in my body and I’ve got every single one of them to pick with you.” She flicked the chain like a whip. With something that heavy, she couldn’t crack it, but it got the point across. “Let’s dance.”

The train was on a slight upward slope and swaying in that way trains do, almost totally smooth but not quite. Fine for when you were walking through a passenger car. Not so much when you were squinting against the wind and crawling across a field of loose coal. Amanita struggled to stay upright; every step seemed to dislodge the ground beneath her and send her sprawling. Bitterroot had it better, somehow. She wasn’t even flapping and she could practically trot across the car with a strange, wide gait. She wasn’t waiting up and Amanita would’ve told her to keep moving if she had been.

The gap between any two hopper cars was easy enough, even in these conditions, and Amanita cleared the first one without difficulty. By the time she reached the second gap, she was getting somewhat used to the lack of steady ground beneath her. Bitterroot had already jumped from the fourth hopper onto the first boxcar by then and kept running-

The boards caved in beneath her. Amanita sucked in a breath, but Bitterroot had already evaded the hole and kept running. The sight made Amanita pick up her own pace so they could at least stick together. When she reached the spot where Bitterroot had fallen, she spared a glance at the boards. Old and rotten, especially right there. Maybe Tratonmane had built their own rolling stock.

The boxcars were much easier to handle than the hoppers simply by virtue of having flat roofs. Amanita galloped across them and clambered down the second one’s ladder to the flatcars. Currently empty, probably stocked with lumber when the time came; upright posts on the sides would hold in logs. Bitterroot had already reached the locomotive and was talking with Tallbush. As Amanita got closer, she began to make out words.

“-never saw it?” Bitterroot asked.

“Nay,” Tallbush said. “Nair saw nothin’.”

“Huh. Okay, you stay here, keep the train moving.”

“Aye.”

Bitterroot jumped back to the flatcars and trotted to Amanita. “Tallbush says he never saw the homunculus, but I know I saw it dive, and-”

The train shook and Amanita fell to the ground, bits of wood peppering her from behind. The car rattled in ways that had nothing to do with the train and, half on instinct, she rolled onto her back and raised her head. A homunculus had smashed a hole through the boxcar and was galloping towards them.

There was forest on one side of the track. Amanita reached out blindly with her magic and hurled the first thing she could grab across the train. What she got was a fallen branch, not particularly bulky, but plenty large enough to tangle hooves. The homunculus tripped in its charge but was back up in an instant, shaking itself off. Once it was still, Amanita actually recognized it; it was the homunculus that had been watching Bitterroot’s cell, with a gray head and dark red- Oh.

Bitterroot herself seemed especially shocked. “You were playing dead?” she yelled.

The homunculus grinned and nodded.

Amanita ripped another branch from the side, but the homunculus’s horn glowed and a shield blocked it easily. The thing didn’t even flinch, just spread its wings and pawed at the ground.

Amanita swallowed. She could barely fight. How was she supposed to fight an alicorn?

Code’s gaze flicked between Varnish and the homunculus as they slowly tried to flank her. The homunculus was stupid and could potentially stay down with enough punishment. Varnish was marginally less stupid but probably wouldn’t stay down without sunlight, a rare resource in Midwich.

Hmm. The homunculus was stupid enough to not respond to her. Varnish, however, could possibly be goaded. Worth consideri-

The homunculus yanked on its end of the chain. Code dug her hooves in, reached into the earth with her magic, and yanked back. As the homunculus stumbled, Code gave a harder yank, pulling it over to her. A quick twirl, and she was able to get the chain off the homunculus’s leg. Full control over it was nice.

She quickly spun wildly around, sweeping the chain wide all about her. She didn’t feel any impact from Varnish; hopefully he was distant as opposed to smoky. Her hasty swing left her stumbling slightly on the incline. Next order of business: level ground and better footing.

She looped part of the chain around the homunculus’s neck and swung it over her shoulder. Keeping the alicorn off-balance was a good idea. She shuffled down the slope, dragging the homunculus as roughly as she could manage. It pumped its wings and thrashed its legs and wildly fired off magic in every direction, but it all bordered on random, no real strategy or tactics. The sort of “fight” she’d been able to win handily decades ago.

The air behind her buzzed. She blindly whipped some of the slack of the chain around and was rewarded with an impact and a curse. She bucked backward; bones crunched. Ah, predictability.

Something tangled in her hooves and she collapsed. The homunculus bumped to a stop and started grabbing at the chain. Code quickly yanked to try to take up the slack, but the homunculus had gotten just enough of it off that she just unwound the chain and she tumbled back some more.

Varnish pounced onto her from behind and wrapped his front legs around her neck. Fighting against the instinct to breathe, Code staggered to her hooves, jumped, and bucked. She didn’t hit anything, but the motion was enough to throw Varnish off her back. She rolled away, pulling the chain with her, blindly swinging it to give herself some space. When she was back on her hooves, Varnish and the homunculus were both looking coldly at her, moving in opposite directions to strafe.

One of them needed to go down. She could only hold them both off her for so long. Her eyes locked on the homunculus. That one. Her skin still burned and bled with the runes she’d etched into it, slim connections to the Deormont’s power. Maybe, if she could just squeeze a little more out…

Code swung the chain around, focusing on the circle the end made. It was clean, it was everchanging, it contained nothing but herself and the chain, it was perfect. The air began thrumming; it sounded like the chain moving through the air until you listened closely and realized it was too melodic. The bounds of magic grew syrupy.

Electricity liked metal and the ground. The zebras used metal to channel electricity. Lightning always tried to get to the ground as soon as possible. So with a bit of circle-opened earth pony magic and some leftover help from the Deormont, Code gave the iron links a little kick in the opposite direction.

And the chain began shedding lightning.

Electricity crackled and spat around her as blinding light raced across the valley floor. Her bones buzzed and the hairs on her coat stood up. Varnish yelped and jumped back; the homunculus did not. Code whipped the chain around towards its legs. The homunculus tried to jump over it, but Code gave the chain a tiny upward flick and entangled it anyway. Immediately, the smells of crisping hair and burning meat filled the air as the homunculus spasmed.

Another flick and Code whiplashed the homunculus down into the ground. It didn’t move at the impact, but Code galloped up to it, drawing up the chain’s slack with her, still swinging it to keep Varnish back. The homunculus still hadn’t moved when she reached it. Maybe it’d finally had too much, but Code was taking no chances. She looped the chain around its neck and pulled the loop tight with all her might.

The chain was blunt, but it was strong, and Code was stronger. The homunculus’s head was crushed off with a ripping of flesh and a crunching of bone.

Up the slope, Varnish gawked down at her. In the sparks’ last glints, Code grinned and twirled the chain.

One down. One to go.

The homunculus wasn’t moving. Probably waiting for them to make the first move. But Amanita didn’t know a thing about fighting, so she didn’t know what the first move was.

The cars rattled as the train chugged on.

“Screw it,” muttered Bitterroot. And before Amanita could respond, Bitterroot was charging.

The homunculus immediately flared its wings and reared, waving its hooves to protect its face. Bitterroot stopped early, keeping her body low, and scrambled to one side. The homunculus pivoted to protect itself, exposing its side to Amanita in the process.

“Screw it,” muttered Amanita. She charged as well.

The moment the homunculus glanced at her, Bitterroot bit one of the homunculus’s spread wings and yanked. It stumbled, overbalancing completely when Amanita hit it in its midsection. She was immediately on top of it, stomping with all her might, wherever she could.

But the homunculus didn’t seem the least bit fazed. A downward sweep of its wings dislodged Bitterroot and got it into the air. A casual spell to the chest hurled Amanita to the side. She threw out her legs and somehow managed to grab one of the upright bars before flying off the train altogether. Her shoulders ached from the sudden stop.

The homunculus turned its attention to Bitterroot, loosing a bolt of magic as it spun around. Bitterroot was ready, ducking under it easily. She tried to get closer to the homunculus and land a hit, any hit, but another flare of magic forced her back. Another stab forward, another retreat back, close, far, close, far, again, again. From the way her good wing was rustling, her bad wing was limiting her movement options. She couldn’t even move to the side much without falling off the train.

Amanita grabbed the upright bar in her magic, yanked it out of its housing, and, the instant she had an opening, swung it at the homunculus’s head. It impacted with a satisfying smack, but all it got her was the homunculus’s attention. Amanita tried swinging again, but the homunculus blocked it with magic of its own, then sent the bar spinning off into the distance with a shove.

The homunculus ran towards her. Amanita reared, ready to bring her hooves down on its head, but it reared, too, grabbing her legs and pinning them against its chest. Amanita pulled backward to try and escape its grip, but when the homunculus released her with a shove, she overbalanced and tumbled onto her back. For a moment, the homunculus towered above her, hooves over her head. Amanita rolled to the side.

Over the edge and off the train.

She hit the ground running and almost immediately had to jink to one side to avoid a tree. Snow flew as she slid in her efforts to start galloping from a standstill. Next to her, she barely registered the sound of wood splintering under the homunculus’s impact. The train kept moving, began pulling away from her. She let it put some distance between her and the homunculus, then leaped back on. Empty flatcars were especially easy for trainhopping: match speed and remember to stop galloping.

When she landed, the homunculus was about as surrounded as it could be: Bitterroot in front of it, Amanita behind. It looked back and forth between the two, its face as blank as ever.

Bitterroot pawed at the ground, standing low and spreading her wings. “Any ideas, Amanita?”

Why was Bitterroot asking her? Amanita’s mind went blank. “Uh…” Was waiting for the homunculus to move again the best choice?

The homunculus glanced at her again, eyes dark and doll-like. Those eyes flicked downwards and its horn started glowing. Almost on instinct, Amanita looked down as well to see if there was anything it was picking up.

She and the homunculus were on two different cars. Wreathed in the glow of magic, the lever on the coupling between them pulled up, undoing the link.

And the two flatcars separated. As the one still connected to the locomotive continued onward, the other began slowing on the track’s upward slope. In a panic, Amanita galloped the length of her car, jumped, managed to clear the widening gap. But the homunculus hooked a leg around her neck and hurled them back over with an almighty flap of its wings. They landed awkwardly, rolling tail over teakettle, but the homunculus wound up on top. And all Amanita could do was watch as the rest of the train rolled away, Bitterroot with it.

Seeing the homunculus uncouple the cars was a bit of a shock to Bitterroot. The ones she’d seen down in the lab had been mostly stupid, but this one… This one…

She was jarred from that shock when the homunculus jumped to the rear cars, taking Amanita with her. “No!” Bitterroot yelled. She broke out in a gallop and, with a flap of her wings, just barely managed to get back to Amanita’s car. Her bad wing screamed in protest, but she shut it down.

The homunculus was raising a hoof over Amanita’s head. Without any time to plan, Bitterroot just rushed it and slammed into it, jostling it off Amanita. But the homunculus immediately turned its wrath on Bitterroot instead, wrapping its legs around her barrel and hurling her back towards the front of the train. Bitterroot tumbled, slid, rolled off the end.

And somehow managed to grab onto the coupling with her hooves. By now, the cars were rolling back down the slope, and Bitterroot bumped along, trailing after it. Rocks in the trackbed caught on her furs and ripped small gashes in it, but she clung on. She nearly bit her tongue with exertion as she tried to pull herself back-

Suddenly, the homunculus was there. It stomped on her hooves and then she was tumbling to a stop down the tracks. Debris had scored dozens of little nicks across her body, but she barely noticed them as she raised her head. The train accelerated as it continued down the slope.

“Amanita,” she wheezed. Any pain in her chest was muted by adrenaline as she somehow got to her feet. “Amanita!” She galloped after the disappearing train, knowing how fruitless it was, galloping anyway. “Amanita!”

Strictly speaking, the chain was a lousy weapon. It was bulky, hard to move, unpredictable at times, and its damage wasn’t directed the way a sword’s or even a flail’s was. But when a chain was swinging, you still wanted to get out of the way.

Code advanced on Varnish, twirling the chain around before her. The circle wasn’t good enough to get lightning, but the rattling and whistling it made was more than enough to sound threatening. Varnish, immortal as he was, still backed up nervously.

It gave Code time to think.

Varnish: unicorn. Range. Horn. Take care of the horn, and it’d be easier to take care of him, at least for a while. Could he mist without his horn? Maybe not, but Code wouldn’t have been surprised if he could. Either way, she had her target. She wasn’t accurate enough to hit his horn with the chain, unfortunately. But she had the next best thing.

As she kept spinning the chain, she began untwisting it from around her fetlock. She suddenly swung the chain wide, right at Varnish’s midsection. As she’d predicted, he misted up and the smoke began flowing behind her. She quickly released the chain and spun around with a hoof out. Varnish reformed behind her just in time to be clocked in the face.

Varnish was large and Code was short, but she knew the right moves for that situation. But Varnish was just a bit faster than she was expecting, recoiling just a bit less than he ought. She kept trying to go for his horn and he kept managing to duck out of the way. He often tried to strike back, but he was all speed and no technique, easily swatted aside, the amateur. Whenever he moved backwards to get more space, Code refused to give him that space and moved forward. They moved down the slope towards the tracks in a flurry of not-quite strikes, bobs, and weaves, wind whistling around them.

As Code deflected a blow, she shifted from offense to analysis. Varnish wasn’t entirely stupid and seemed to be trying to go for a grapple. (He haymakered out wildly; Code caught his hoof on hers and shoved back.) Not quite as stupid as it might seem against an earth pony, if you could pull them off their leverage. (Code jabbed at one of his hind legs; even without pain, a broken leg could be useless, and he awkwardly scurried to avoid any crushing impacts.) Any tenth-decent fighter would know to bring their size to bear against hers. (She threw her head back to avoid an upward swing, sidestepped over one of the rails to avoid a followup jab that neglected to come.) So if she put her legs up and made them vulnerable like this-

Varnish hooked his legs around hers, pinned them to his chest and reared. Code was hauled off the ground; Varnish kept lifting her until they were muzzle-to-muzzle. “I really don’t know what you’re thinking,” he said, leering in her face. “You’re a mortal, a small one at that, and-”

Code was in range, so she headbutted him. Again. And again. And again. Something cracked. Not in her; earth pony magic meant her bones were stronger than his even as her head throbbed. She kept headbutting; Varnish cursed and tried to pull back. In doing so, he released her.

They were both still rearing when Code landed. She planted one of her rear hooves and used the other to swipe his own out from under him. As they fell, she twisted, and she landed on top of him. “Stop talking,” she snarled. She stomped on his horn, snapping it clean off. “You’re not nearly the triple threat you think you are.”

She hit him, over and over and over. Face, neck, legs, chest, everywhere was a target. Mostly his face. It was a stupid face. Beneath her magic, bones crunched, flesh pulped. She kept hitting. Whatever it took to incapacitate a vampire, she’d do that and more.

Then she stopped, panting, ears on a swivel. Varnish’s head was getting mulched, but he still managed to make something like a grin at her. “Surprised?” he gurgled. “Idiot. I know things you can’t imagine. You can’t kill me.”

Except that wasn’t the reason she’d stopped hitting. The ground beneath her was rumbling, and that rumble was getting stronger. Particularly in the rails…

Something echoed in the tunnel behind her and she rolled over, landing in the middle of the tracks, pulling Varnish across the rail.

The oncoming train rolled right over her and right through him.

The second Bitterroot flung the homunculus off her, Amanita was standing up. The homunculus seemed to be looking for her, specifically. Maybe just because she had the Binder. Her next course of action: put as much space between it and her as she could manage. Could she jump off? She looked to the side. No, the trees were too dense at this speed. The homunculus could probably fly after her, anyway. She ran for the back end of the train.

She didn’t know where she was going. “Away” was good enough. It was always good enough when you were in danger. She scrambled up the ladder onto the top of the boxcars. The last hopper loomed large in her vision as she galloped toward it and the lack of any further ability to gallop.

But when the homunculus jumped her from behind, the car’s rotten roof couldn’t take their weight. It disintegrated, sending them both into the boxcar. Amanita had the wind knocked out of her, but the homunculus flared its wings as it fell, so at least it didn’t fall on top of her. Wheezing, unsure whether the burning in her barrel was a broken rib, Amanit hauled herself to the wall and leaned against it to stand up.

Something clicked and the door she was bracing herself against slid away, nearly sending her tumbling out. Only a front hoof hooked around the door in a panic kept her inside as she dangled, back down, out of the car. She managed to hook her other hoof around the frame itself, got ready to pull in-

The homunculus was there, pushing against her chest and pressing her head back with its hooves to try and force her out of the train. Amanita screamed as she felt her joints stretch, but she somehow kept their grip.

The mountain loomed large to one side as the train approached it and the tunnel yawned ahead. Somehow, Amanita was able to register one thing: the tunnel was very narrow. So narrow that if she couldn’t pull herself back in, she wouldn’t be able to fit.

Panicking, fighting to breathe, Amanita grabbed the homunculus’s mane in her magic and pulled back. The homunculus’s head was wrenched backward, but too strong to be overcome by a grip like that, it otherwise didn’t move. The sunblasted thing was still expressionless. Lashing blindly, she kicked out its hind legs.

For maybe half a second, nothing was bracing it, and Amanita was able to pull herself two feet in. Then it collapsed on top of her; she was slammed to the ground and had the wind knocked out of her. As the train entered the tunnel, the wall streaked by inches from her head.

The homunculus picked itself up with a flap of its wings. Before it fell on her again, Amanita was able to roll away and out from under it. She pulled her head and legs in to avoid bumping them on the doorframe. The homunculus landed hard right next to her and turned, looking oddly murderous for something so expressionless.

The train hit the curve. Centrifugal force overcame Amanita’s stance and threw her against the wall, one of her hooves trailing out the doorframe. The homunculus nearly slipped out the door entirely before it slammed its hooves into the floor to make footholds; it dangled half in, half out of the train, still glaring at Amanita.

The boxcar lurched and suddenly Amanita was being thrown around like a ragdoll as the train tumbled.

Once the train was gone, Code lay there for maybe half a second, panting, before an unearthly din shrieked through the air, a rolling thunder that shook the earth and rattled the tracks. Metal screamed and the air rumbled like there’d been an avalanche. Given the source, there practically was.

Varnish could recover from being crushed in two, but Code couldn’t do anything about that at the moment. She galloped to the end of the tracks and winced at the view before her: the train had smashed through the buffers and crashed across the valley floor. Cars were bent and broken, coal was everywhere, and it was only by pure chance that no more buildings had been damaged. Had Amanita been in there? Given her luck, probably. Dead? Maybe.

A shadow flitted overhead and Code looked up. Chiropteri, two of them. Code’s ears folded back as she recognized Midwinter and Carnelian. Fighting was a lot harder when your opponent refused to stay down. But Code had just the thing for that. She sprinted back up the tracks, toward a certain tower.

Arrastra had told her about them. Bears had been part of the invading animals in the past, and Tratonmane had decided to overkill them. Ballista towers stood at key points across the town, ready to destroy any foe who intruded. They hadn’t been used in ages, but they were still maintained. And one of them was nearby, standing right at the upwards incline to the shelf.

There wasn’t a door on the wall nearest to Code, but that wall was jagged and rough. A combination of finding the right stones to hook her hooves onto and earth pony magic let Code haul herself up in moments, and she soon had an unrestricted view across all of Tratonmane.

She hastily cranked the windlass to notch the ballista, looking for- There they were. Midwinter and Carnelian, circling something like vultures. There was a rack of bolts next to the ballista, all wooden with sharpened points. Code put one in place and, licking her lips, brought the ballista around to aim.

Amanita’s head was spinning, but the rest of the world wasn’t. That was something. She groaned and, in spite of not being quite sure which way was up, somehow managed to pop upright even though literally her entire body ached, even submerged beneath an ocean of adrenaline. Part of her head burned as well. She touched it and winced; a long, thin gash was running across her face, from the end of her muzzle to someplace below the ear. It wasn’t bleeding too badly, but she’d probably need to get it looked at. The inside of the car was even darker than the rest of Midwich, but she found it in herself to light her horn.

The boxcar was lying on its side, and sitting at an angle. There hadn’t been much inside, but it’d all been thoroughly tossed around. Parts of the boxcar itself had been ripped off entirely in the impact, leaving holes on the ceiling, on the walls, on the floor. She could probably crawl through some of those holes. A particularly large, misshapen object was lying next to her. She turned her light on it, and- Yeeg. The front half of the homunculus, smashed in two by the door closing. It wasn’t moving, so maybe that had been too much for it, thank goodness.

Her head was still swimming and the awkward, cramped-ish space wasn’t helping her at all. Amanita stood up and tried walking to one of the holes, but her left front leg was behaving strangely and she couldn’t feel it. She raised it to her face to get a better look at the damage, but she couldn’t see it because her leg was gone.

Her leg was gone.

Her leg was gone her leg was gone her leg was gone.

She was looking right at her forearm and above where her knee had been there was just a ragged stump of flesh and blood and bone and-

Blood. It was like a kick in the head, jarring her out of her shock at the fact that her leg was gone. Blood. Bleeding. Tourniquet. She needed a tourniquet because her leg was gone. Arteries shriveled and clamped down to minimize blood loss when a limb was severed, but she could still bleed out because her leg was gone. Rope. Cord. Fabric. Anything she could tie around the spot where her leg was gone.

She began rooting through the remains of the carriage, patting everything down, frequently stumbling as she repeatedly tried stepping on a hoof she didn’t have anymore because her leg was gone. By some miracle, she found it: a coil of thin rope, perhaps for securing boxes. It’d work as a tourniquet because her leg was gone. Taking one end in her mouth, she wrapped the rope around the spot where her leg was gone a few times. She wrapped the other end around the fetlock that wasn’t gone and tugged as hard as she could. As the loop tightened, her leg twinged where it wasn’t gone.

A twinge wasn’t painful enough. She twisted another coil around her fetlock and yanked.

She knew it was tight enough when she nearly bit through the ropes as she screamed.

Nearly hyperventilating, not bothering to hold back tears, Amanita fumbled with the ropes, manipulating them with a combination of hoof, horn, and mouth. Somehow, she managed to get herself tied off without losing most of the tightness. When she was done, her wound was dripping sporadically rather than gushing. It’d have to do.

Her pace was awkward because her leg was gone, but somehow she managed to get out of the boxcar. The train had flown off the tracks, off the shelf, and now its remains were strewn across the valley floor, cars mangled, coal scattered. They weren’t much more than a hulk in the dark of Midwich, but they were impossible to miss. In particular, the passenger car was very nearly destroyed entirely, smashed to bits by the rest of the train. The tracks on the shelf pointed out over the space between Tratonmane and the valley walls, but they’d smashed through at least two houses, cleaving the backs off completely. Maybe more; Amanita couldn’t tell from this angle.

She held her breath and listened. No screams of pain. No screams of anguish. Maybe she wouldn’t need to resurrect anyone. As if that mattered at this particular moment. A few worried ponies were beginning to gather around, muttering to each other. Amanita started making her way towards them for lack of anything better to do. She didn’t know how she was going to explain anything, but-

Something in her mind made her look up. The sky was bright, and against that brightness, Amanita could see two chiropteri circling.

It was like a fresh shot of adrenaline. Amanita didn’t even know if they were Midwinter and Carnelian — it could’ve been any chiropteri, especially in this town — but she refused to believe differently. She hobbled into the town proper, feeling awkward on three legs. She wanted to run, she wanted to gallop, just get as far away as possible. In her broken state, a hobble was all she could manage.

She staggered between houses, down the nearest street. The Ash loomed before her in the dark. She looked up again. The chiropteri were still circling. One of them detached from the other and lazily spiraled downward. Amanita was soon able to pick out details. Midwinter.

As fast as she could muster, Amanita made for the nearest building. It’d provide more shelter than the streets, at least. She staggered into the town hall and kicked the doors shut. Every little bit would help. She entered the sanctuary with her heart threatening to break out of her skull. The tourniquet on her bad leg seemed to be holding. Now she just needed to-

She heard glass shattering. A moment later, Carnelian strode from the library, grinning too broadly. “Hello,” she said, brushing glass shards from her mane.

There was a door to the side. Amanita took it and was confronted with a set of ascending stairs. Her gaze followed them up. Bell tower. Hardly ideal, but she’d take it. She started climbing.

Her head spun as the stairs spiraled. How tall was the tower? She couldn’t remember. Not important at the moment. Keep moving.

Wood shattered below her. “That’s a bad idea!” Midwinter called up. “There won’t be anywhere for you to go!”

There was barely anywhere for Amanita to go now. And given the choice between certain death and uncertain death, she’d take the uncertainty, thanks. She kept climbing, up and up, passing windows in the walls as the staircase coiled. The bell was getting closer and closer above her as she ascended.

Wait. Why wasn’t Midwinter coming up-

“Amanita.”

Her stumble was even more awkward with her missing leg. Carnelian was coming down from the top landing, grinning disarmingly, cutting off any chance of escape that way. “You ought to stop running,” Carnelian said. She took her time, taking each step with deliberation. Or maybe just panic-extending schadenfreude.

Her breath racing as she slowly backed down the steps, Amanita looked at the windows; too small for her to fit through. Down the tower shaft; Midwinter was casually ambling up the stairs. For a brief second, Amanita considered jumping down to the floor, past Midwinter, but it was high enough that she’d probably break her remaining legs on landing. She was sandwiched between two vampires.

She needed a miracle.

It was a simple fact of life: it was hard to shoot pegasi. Code tried following Midwinter and Carnelian across town with the ballista, but they were just a hair too fast for her to properly aim at them, even if she had perfect light. She kept following them as best she could. They only needed to slip up once.

When they dropped below the roofline, Code cursed to herself. She was ready to pack it up and sprint after them, but she gave it another few moments, just in case. And, as luck would have it, Carnelian popped up above the chapel again, winging to the bell tower standing above the roofs. Unfortunately, she descended into it before Code could get a clear shot.

The glow of magic pierced out of one of the tower’s lower windows. Then another, higher up. Another, higher still… Amanita, climbing the tower? Maybe. Code kept the ballista aimed. Gradually, the light climbed up above the roofs. Then it suddenly came to a stop as, presumably, Amanita ran into Carnelian. But it didn’t go out; she was still alive. It slowly moved downwards, bobbing around awkwardly.

A pony stepped into view in one of the windows, looking down the staircase. Wings. Carnelian. The light in the window illuminated her quite nicely.

Code angled the crosshairs, the crossed circle, breathing slowly, not letting herself rush. The ballista seemed to be pulled in the proper direction, even small adjustments coming smoothly. The distance was far, but she knew how to aim. There was Carnelian… There was her heart… There was adjusting for bolt drop…

There was the opportunity.

“Gotcha,” Code whispered.

The entire tower rattled with the force of the ballista’s TWANG.

Half an inch thick, four inches thick, it doesn’t matter. A wooden stake to the heart is a wooden stake to the heart.

“Really,” said Carnelian, “it’s best if you let us-”

The bolt smashed through the window like divine lightning, hitting her square in the side. Amanita briefly caught her exploding into flame before the bolt’s inertia carried her with it out the other side of the tower and blew a massive hole in the wall. Amanita didn’t even have time to flinch. For a long moment, the only sound was a stray rock falling and Amanita’s shocked breathing. If that wasn’t a miracle, she didn’t know what was.

Then the wall groaned and the tower started leaning.

“What’s going on up there, Carnelian?” Midwinter called up.

Down: bad. Amanita hobbled up the stairs to where Carnelian had been standing as the tower lurched around her and more rubble fell. The hole in the wall was immense, so out she went, onto the slanted roof. It was almost too steep for her to stand on, especially with only three legs, but she somehow managed.

The tower groaned again and the lean got steeper. Amanita scrambled across the roof, nearly slipping more than once as she knocked shingles loose, trying to put as much space between her and the tower before-

One of the walls finally gave way and the tower keeled over, seeming to move in slow motion. When it slammed into the roof, its impact rumbled throughout the valley, and Amanita finally lost her grip and slid. Slick tiles zipped by beneath her as she fruitlessly clawed for some sort of purchase and was battered by rubble.

She fell off the edge of the roof and flailed in the air for a fraction of a second before hitting the ground on her back. Her nerves shrieked for an instant before adrenaline suppressed them. Dazed, not able to even groan, Amanita lay there on the ground, panting, waiting for her energy to come b-

The bell tumbled over the roof edge.

Amanita yelped and rolled to one side, curling up as much as she could manage. The bell slammed into the ground behind her with an almighty BONG, shaking the very earth hard enough to send her an inch into the air. Upthrown dirt and snow splattered her all over. She was jarred from her ball as she fell back down and her neck was limp enough for her head to bounce against the ground.

Then quiet and stillness.

Wait. She wasn’t deaf, was she? No, she could hear ponies yelling and the remains of the bell’s echo cascading up and down Midwich. It really was quiet. Huh. Her legs shaking violently, Amanita got to her hooves. The world was reeling beneath her, but she somehow managed to stay upright.

“Amanita!”

Midwinter was standing on the top of the roof with her wings spread. “You, of all ponies, should know better.” The air thrummed around her and lightning blitzed through her veins as her necklace glowed sickly. “Never fight a necromancer in a graveyard.”

She swept her wings downward. Amanita felt a rotten chill run through the air. Something intimately familiar. Necromancy. Enthrallment, specifically. It slithered around her, through her, down into the ground. The whipcrack sound of something breaking. The frozen ground beneath her vibrated like a violin string. The earth all around her churned.

And the first corpse’s head broke out of the earth.

Amanita yelped and shuffled back. The body was shriveled, decayed, its eyes rotted away and its coat missing in chunks. Blackened skin clung to bones and withered muscle like shrink-wrap. Its movements were awkward, jerky, those of a machine on the verge of a breakdown. Still it moved, stumbling towards her.

Yet in the moment, it was just one. And Amanita had developed a spell for this, hadn’t she? Quick enthrallment reversal. The structure of the spell was still clear in her mind, burning like a torch underground. As the zombie shuffled forward, she shuffled backward, weaving the spell together. Once it was done, she let it fly.

The zombie collapsed unmoving immediately. Amanita couldn’t help grinning to herself. She wanted to poke at the corpse and see what, if anything, had been left behind.

But in that time, more zombies had clawed their way free of the dirt. Either they were recently dead or the chill of Midwich had preserved them, but there were dozens, far too many for her spell to handle. Amanita staggered for the exit to the graveyard. Zombies lunged for her; they were slow and clumsy with rigor mortis and incoordination, but there were so many of them. Every time their cold hooves scraped against her coat, Amanita felt another pang of terror at being dragged down by numbers. She kept pushing, shoving them aside and moving for the exit with a single-minded determination.

Then, at some point, she broke free and was out of the graveyard. Sheer exhaustion was threatening to hold her legs down and keep her from moving. How long had she been running? It couldn’t have been that long. But she struggled to even think. The rumble of zombies still sounded behind her. All she could do was move forward.

The Great Ash materialized out of the dark. Her brain churning, Amanita shambled towards it.

Code knew she’d hit Carnelian, but she didn’t spare herself a moment of satisfaction. She immediately began turning the windlass to notch the ballista again. If there was even a chance of hitting Midwinter-

She could hear the groaning all the way across town. The dim silhouette of the bell tower lurched. She could see the glow of Amanita’s light scurry out, scramble across the roof, illuminate the tower as it keeled over as if in slow motion. Then she couldn’t see the light anymore. The bell pealed across the valley like it was tolling for a funeral.

Still Code ratcheted the windlass and forced her feelings down for the moment. There was only so much she could do. The rope clicked into place, and… Oh. Midwinter was standing right there, right on the roof in plain view. Code grabbed another bolt-

A blast of magic plowed up through the tower from the inside like an avalanche, annihilating the ballista. Below, Varnish screamed various invectives and uncreative names at Code. She reflexively hurled the bolt down on the off chance she could hit him.

No dice. She was greeted with another curse and an arcane buzzing in her coat. She hurled herself over the ramparts a second before another magic missile exploded up through the tower, blasting the landing to pieces.

Shocks ran up Code’s legs when she landed; she forced them back out. Amanita probably needed her. She was close to the ledge, so she leaped down, over the cliff and onto the ramp. She turned down main street to gallop northward-

Right as she was tensing her legs, a shield cut her off as it went up. It was massive, a good fifty feet across, and completely surrounded her on all sides, even taking in some buildings. And just inside the perimeter, Varnish was stalking down the ramp towards her, head hanging, eyes wild and livid. “You. Are not. RUNNING FROM ME!” he roared.

In spite of all her aches and pains, Bitterroot galloped the whole way down the tracks. She beat her wings to gain some speed, but her bad one still kept her from flying. She ran until her muscles burned and her heart felt like it was ready to give out and she couldn’t take another breath and then she kept galloping. She yelled for Amanita all the while, yelled until her throat was hoarse, yelled even though she never got a response.

She emerged from the tunnel feeling like she was a poke with a feather away from falling apart completely, held together only by adrenaline and fear. She couldn’t see the train. She continued galloping down the tracks, screaming. By now, Amanita’s name somehow both held no meaning and was the only thing that had any meaning.

As Bitterroot continued down the tracks, she began noticing things in the dark. A spare plank of wood, a shard of metal. Bit by bit, they grew more and more frequent, larger and larger. And when she reached the end of the tracks, where sheer inertia had annihilated the buffers, she almost felt her heart stop. The remains of the train had slid what looked like halfway down the valley, land turned to mulch in their wake, buildings torn open, cars tossed around like they were toys. Bitterroot had seen pictures of train crashes before, but they didn’t capture the carnage before her. Any chance of Amanita’s survival grew slimmer the longer she looked at it.

But. If Amanita was still alive, she’d be in there. Bitterroot tensed her legs-

Behind her, a crack of magic and, “Muffin!” Something stabbed her in the back of her neck, bringing her to her knees, and a terrifying numbness spread through her.

“Well.” Arc sidled in front of her, grinning a terrifying off-white smile. “You’re quite the test tube today, aren’t you? Ha!”

Midwinter watched Amanita stagger to the Great Ash and collapse, body heaving. All she’d needed to do was accept their offer, and now… such a sunblasted waste.

The question of what she’d do after this was niggling at her. She’d never gotten around to asking Arc how much amnestic he was making. It might be better to just wipe Tratonmane out and let the princess pick up the pieces. Stay in the North, find another isolated village, offer plumbing services…

But, one way or another, she needed the Binder back. The full one, not this decade-old version that barely let corpses shamble.

Amanita still hadn’t moved from the Ash, but she was sitting upright. Midwinter shook her head. She directed the zombies around the Ash, cutting off Amanita’s escape, and dropped onto the ground, not even bothering to open her wings.

“Amanita,” Midwinter called out as she strode towards the Ash. “I must commend your efforts, truly. You have fought bravely and well and demonstrated a keen mind. But you saw for yourself: I was decapitated and I’m still here. You have been struggling ever since you lost a mere leg. You are surrounded and outnumbered. How do you hope to improvise your way out of this?”

Amanita lifted her head. Blood was still dripping from the gash across her face and she was cradling what remained of her bad leg and her every breath was labored and one of her eyes was swollen shut. Still, she grinned rakishly as she wheezed out, “The tree’s dead.” And she held up the Binder.

The ground began to rumble.

“…Oh, fuck me,” Midwinter breathed.

And the first roots burst from the loam.

40 - Dark Arts and Open Minds

Using the Binder was gratingly familiar to enthrallment. Amanita recognized the imposition of will, the oddly split focus, the feeling of expanding. But there was no overwhelming of anything involved, no force. She just flowed, taking up space in an empty building, flexing like a leg just out of a cast after a year. As her sensation of herself shrank, she could feel faint traces of will, of the Ash wanting to secure itself and its roots as it drank from the river and the ley line, but none of the thoughts and urges that came with enthrallment. Odd sensations rippled through her thoughts, but she ignored them for the moment. She dumped one idea, as much as she could, into the remains of the Ash.

Capture the zombies.

She could almost feel the roots stirring and creaking in the dirt beneath her, tendrils that hadn’t moved in decades. They were long and heavy and moved with a speed Amanita hadn’t imagined they possessed. Maybe there was magic involved. Maybe it was the hidden side of a night tree.

Dirt parted like water around the roots as they thrust upwards. With an almost unreal flexibility, they coiled around the corpses moving on Amanita. There were lots of zombies, but there were more roots. As she almost unwillingly slipped back into the mindset of enthrallment, Amanita could direct them with more sophistication, corralling zombies to do more with less. It only took seconds for the situation to come under control.

Amanita never took her eyes from Midwinter.

For the first time since Amanita had met her, Midwinter was terrified. She was nearly rooted to the spot as she looked around in disbelief, watching her army be rapidly restrained. Amanita sent a coil of roots her way, but that jolted her out of her fugue and she zipped upwards and out of range of the roots faster than any pegasus should have been able to.

Around them, more and more roots were tearing free of the dirt and ripping the ground to shreds. There were only so many zombies and she soon had them secured, struggling weakly against thick wooden bindings. Although she was airborne, Midwinter didn’t leave. She hovered overhead, staring down, agape with shock.

Amanita and Midwinter locked eyes. Amanita grinned.

Midwinter didn’t last three seconds before bolting away, leaving her tattered horde behind.

Bitterroot fell to her knees, breathing raspily. She was going numb, all over, and couldn’t shake the feeling of absolute, utter wrongness. The Deormont had merely been alien; now she felt like she was losing ineffable parts of herself.

“As far as immortality goes, we’ve got a pretty sweet gig compared to regular lichdom, gorgeous,” cooed Arc. “Just a bit of blood to maintain it. Ha! No elaborate, multi-day rituals. So, you know, other ponies are going to want it.”

Her vision began warping. She could see colors shifting, the detail before her twisting. In the space of seconds, it flitted from impossibly sharp to rendering her legally blind and back again. Her hearing was similarly jagged, letting her hear a fly’s heartbeat but not her own breathing. Was she still breathing? It was hard to feel.

“Now, the little beauty running through your veins, that expedites the process. Let me tell you, precious, it’s a complicated little soup that handles everything so we don’t have to, right down to the alterations of the soul. Ha! Probably my best work. But it’s got some kinks we still need to examine.”

Arc gave Bitterroot a shove so she rolled onto her back and fixed his gaze on her. “So either you’re going to be one of us, or you’re gonna die, sweetums,” he growled cheerfully.

As she felt her heart stop, it was like a switch flipped in Bitterroot’s head.

The stallion before her was responsible for roughly ninety percent of the stress she’d felt in the past week, one way or another. He’d been exploiting Tratonmane for over half a century, him and the other vampires. He seemed to have no empathy beyond his family and she couldn’t see him reforming anytime soon, even with help. He wasn’t even doing this for any grand ideology, just his own kicks.

He needed to be ended.

So if she was going to die anyway, possibly beyond Amanita’s ability to rescue her, she might as well go all in with attacking him.

Somehow, Bitterroot found it in herself to grin. “Fixed the sunlight issue yet?”

“I wish,” Arc groaned. “But it’s so hard to study and I don’t have any real data on it-”

Bitterroot lunged with unfamiliar speed, grabbing Arc in a chokehold. Flaring her wings, she growled, “Then maybe you should see it up close.”

And she started climbing.

“No, no!” Arc started fighting against her grip, flailing with a lack of leverage. His horn glowed; Bitterroot slapped to disrupt it before he could teleport away. “Let me go let me go!”

Bitterroot didn’t listen; she just kept ascending, the numbness suppressing the pain in her bad wing. She knew the wind was streaking by her, but she could barely feel it. If she closed her eyes, she wouldn’t have felt like she was moving at all. She could barely even feel Arc in her grip. If, by some miracle, the potion didn’t kill her and this was how she’d live the rest of her unlife, she’d rather die.

Maybe she would. But if Arc died as well, fair trade.

“You can’t do this to me!” begged Arc. “Please! I’ll do anything!”

Bitterroot didn’t look at him. “Dying would be nice,” she said.

They crested the ridge and were in the sunlight.

Immediately, the numbness was replaced by searing pain that stabbed its way into every fiber of Bitterroot’s body, exploding out at the same time the fire did. She only knew which way was up because that was the way she’d been going. She kept climbing, started screaming in a primal reaction to her agony. But she didn’t sound like that, right? Within her grasp, Arc was afire as well, twisting and pushing and howling. She kept a grip on him and kept climbing. She didn’t have a plan for stopping.

At some point, she released him. She didn’t watch him fall. It was a struggle to keep beating her wings to stay aloft as the inferno ate away at her. She gritted her teeth and clenched her eyes such in the exertion to fight off the fire consuming her, the flames boiling her blood, the-

They were gone.

Somehow, the fire was out and the pain was gone. Somehow, Bitterroot was still hovering. She panted heavily as phantom sensations danced across her coat. Her wings kept beating, almost of their own accord, and she bobbed up and down, up and down on the wind. Even her bad wing felt fine. The flames had burned away most of her furs and only sheer adrenaline and pegasus magic kept her from feeling the worst of the air’s chill.

But she felt enough.

Enough to feel alive.

Enough to feel a brand on her neck.

As Arc’s screams dwindled, she risked looking down. His body never reached the valley floor. She watched as it burned to cinders and was carried away on the wind before it hit. Good riddance.

But she also saw someone else: Midwinter, heading southward. Bitterroot recognized the pace of those wingbeats; that was panic. From Midwinter? Hmm.

Tartarus. She’d already gotten one vampire. Maybe she could go for two. Bitterroot took off after Midwinter.

Varnish had literal murder in his eyes. Code was unimpressed — she’d seen it plenty of times before — but she was stuck inside a shield with nowhere to run. And even as she thought that, the shield contracted a foot.

“I’ll make you watch as I eat your heart,” Varnish leered. “Or maybe I’ll feed it to you. See how smart you are then.”

Code’s gaze flitted around. The shield was impressively large, she had to admit, with some buildings inside it. (Another contraction.) But in terms of usable things? Not much. Houses, a farrier’s, a chicken run… Code glared at the carpenter’s just outside the shield. If ever there’d been a place to get a wooden stake-

Chicken run. With active chickens. Maybe… Code started slinking around the edge of the shield, eyeing Varnish. He mirrored her movements on the opposite side. “It’s only a matter of time,” he said. (Another contraction.) “It’s always been that way. You could fight for a thousand hours, and I’d get you on the thousand and first. You can’t stop me.” (Another contraction.) “I am-”

She was close enough. Code dove at the run, smashing through the walls of the coop. Dust and feathers flew as shocked chickens squawked and flapped around her. Nest boxes? There. Code reached inside and was elated to find-

She was pulled back out by her tail in a haze of magic and sprawled across the run’s hard-packed ground. Varnish was standing over her, sneering. “Looking through chickens, now?” he said. “What do you hope to find?”

“Egg!” yelled Code, slinging said egg at him.

Varnish didn’t dodge. Why would he? It was just an egg. It wasn’t something that could attack him on a metaphysical level, right?

The egg hit him, splattering concentrated symbolism of life all across his face. And immediately the spell keeping his metaphysical framework together began unraveling.

Varnish stumbled back, roaring in pain. Smoke rose from the edges of the yolk and albumen like they were acids burning through him. His horn glowed and he scrabbled at his face in a panic, only to flinch as his hooves started smoldering. “You-!” he spluttered. The words came out like he was choking on them. “You stupid little-!”

“Egg! Egg!” The coop had eggs aplenty; Code had snatched up two more as Varnish reacted. More egg, denser, hit him in the face, and Varnish collapsed, screaming and writhing. Flames spread across his face and slithered down his body.

Code grabbed several more eggs and skirted around the edge of the head. Most of the fire was concentrated in Varnish’s front half. Time to change that. She aimed for his hindquarters- “Egg! Egg! Egg!”

And he was fully engulfed. Heat pushed Code away like a river and she instinctively raised a leg to shield her face. As the fire ate his furs, the shield fell, Varnish’s screams grew louder and louder, his thrashing wilder and wilder-

He was gone, his ashen shape falling apart. All around them was singed grass and melted snow. Code panted, letting the frigid air in her lungs slow her racing heart, still nearly unwilling to believe it.

But as the silence stretched on, she grinned.

“Evil beware!” Code roared to the world. “For I! Have! EEEEEEEEEEGGS!”

Midwinter was fast. Faster than most pegasi Bitterroot had seen before. But there always came a time when someone fast slowed down, so Bitterroot kept on her.

Midwinter was moving south, maybe looking for any vampires left. Arc was dead, but maybe Carnelian or Varnish were still alive. Bitterroot stayed overhead, ready to dive. She just needed the right moment-

A flame suddenly sprang up near the shelf, bright and piercing in the dark, and she heard someone shriek. Varnish, definitely. Bitterroot and Midwinter both pulled up to a stop. Below, Code was yelling and hurling something at a burning equine shape, the flames engulfing it growing higher and higher.

Bitterroot smirked while Midwinter cursed. Midwinter changed her flapping to spin around, change direction. It was too fast for Bitterroot to react and Midwinter was soon looking right at her.

Screw it, might as well. Bitterroot folded her wings and dove. Midwinter saw her coming and easily juked to the right.

Exactly as Bitterroot had expected.

She was a pegasus. She flew. She was a bounty hunter. She chased ponies. Sometimes, that involved chasing ponies while flying, often with the other ponies flying. And ponies who flew tried to dodge her in flight. Bitterroot didn’t know all the tricks, but she could spot the most common ones, like the sideways jump.

Midwinter was faster than Bitterroot had expected, but the strategy was the same. The second Bitterroot saw Midwinter’s wings curl for the change in motion that would propel her sideways, Bitterroot changed her own flapping. Not to shift her course, but to rotate her body. She went zipping past Midwinter, but still reached out enough to snatch a wing with her hooves. She grabbed tightly-

The two went spinning, Midwinter’s wing clamped securely between Bitterroot’s front legs. Wing strength meant nothing without leverage, and Bitterroot had all the leverage. She flapped vigorously, pulled up. She needed to get Midwinter into the sun.

Then Midwinter changed tactics. One of her flaps pulled her closer to Bitterroot and she immediately swung a hoof at Bitterroot’s face. Bitterroot twitched her head to one side to avoid it, but her grip on the wing slipped a little. And Midwinter had far more strength to capitalize on that than most. She yanked; the wing slipped a little more.

Bitterroot hastily pulled the wing closer, but that meant Midwinter’s hooves were also closer. Bitterroot stopped flapping for a moment and, with Midwinter’s wing still trying to scoop the air, the pair dropped and spun. Centrifugal force flung Midwinter’s legs out, keeping her from attacking for a moment.

Then she lunged at Bitterroot’s face, snapping her jaws.

Bitterroot yelped and sacrificed some of her grip to swing a hoof up. Her leg caught Midwinter on the neck, right under the chin. Still snapping, Midwinter tried to push forward, but Bitterroot had just enough strength to hold her off.

With a mighty flap of her other wing, Midwinter yanked free from Bitterroot’s grasp. Bitterroot desperately dove to try to catch her again, but a few flaps took Midwinter out of her reach. She flared her wings and turned; Bitterroot could see her muscles tense as she prepared to scream off.

“Ai! Midwinter!”

Both Bitterroot and Midwinter looked down on reflex. Fuligin was standing at the entrance to Midwinter’s house in an awkward stance that could only mean he was going to throw something. His leg blurred as he whipped it around with an impossible speed; Bitterroot swore she heard a whipcrack as a rock zipped past. It zoomed right through one of Midwinter’s wings with impeccable aim, shattering one of its fingers and tearing a massive hole.

Bitterroot seized the opportunity and latched back onto Midwinter’s good wing. Midwinter tried flapping again to get free, but with a hole through her other wing keeping her from pushing too much air, she didn’t have a chance, even with her strength. Fighting off Midwinter’s blows, Bitterroot managed to pull her up over the rim of Midwich, into the sun.

Where nothing happened.

Midwinter was brightly illuminated in the sunlight, but she was not catching fire or affected in any way. Her attacks seemed muffled and weaker, suddenly, but that was just closer to an average pony, not dying. Was something supposed to be happening?

Well, at least she was captured. And if the sunlight made her weaker, Bitterroot could work with that. Still swinging herself against Midwinter’s struggles, she dragged them both towards the western clifftop.

With the Ash writhing around her and ponies trickling in to see what in Tartarus was happening, Amanita watched Midwinter’s silhouette rush southward. That was where the other vampires were, right? But she was away. Gone. Probably uncatchable. Amanita sat and rubbed what remained of her leg and grit her teeth. If only they could’ve-

A scream ripped through the air. Male. Too high up for Varnish. Arc? Amanita raised her head again and saw a fireball plummeting from the sky, piercing in the gloom, bright enough to throw flickering orange light across the cliffs. Somehow, Amanita could tell that an equine shape was inside, flailing and disintegrating even as she watched. Then the scream stopped and the fire puffed out. Gone.

Amanita’s gaze flicked up. A pegasus, feathered, was hovering above where Arc had fallen. Possibly Bitterroot; maybe her wing was better. Midwinter was below her, flying towards… something. Then Bitterroot plunged onto Midwinter in a tackle and the two were soon engaged in an airborne brawl. Amanita bit her lip as she watched the tug-of-war, the two pulling each other around through the air in all three dimensions. Somehow, Bitterroot came up on top and pulled Midwinter to the western cliffs.

She needed to get up there and help Bitterroot, somehow. Was there a path she could take? Could she make it with a missing leg? How long would it take? Was Bitterroot-

…Why the hay had she raised a zombie tree if she was never going to use it? What kind of necromancer was she?

Normally, taproots kept trees secured to the ground. But when Amanita directed the Ash to pull its taproot up, the entire tree came free easily. Roots creaked and groaned as Amanita used them to pull the Ash across the ground like some sort of dirt-covered tentacles, still with the zombies in the grip; progress was slow, but steady. Ponies, live ones, were trailing after her, agape. She’d explain later.

The cliffside was more jagged than it looked. With a bit of work, Amanita was able to hook the roots around crags and worm them into clefts and get the Ash to pull itself up, even as it turned ninety degrees to climb. Up and up and up they went, getting faster with each anchor point. It took less than four minutes to reach the top and get into the sun.

Bitterroot was pinning Midwinter to the ground without much difficulty; Midwinter didn’t seem to be struggling. They both looked up when they heard Amanita arrive; Bitterroot’s jaw dropped and Midwinter’s eyes went huge. “Holy crow,” breathed Bitterroot. “How… How…”

Amanita tapped her chest. “Necromancer.” She tapped the Ash. “Dead thing.”

Bitterroot gave a high-pitched giggle of shock. Her eyes moved to Amanita’s knee and widened, although she cut herself off before she could ask. She swallowed and nudged Midwinter. A very-in-the-sunlight, very-much-not-burning Midwinter. “I, uh… caught her.”

Midwinter didn’t run when Bitterroot got off her. She just sat up and stared at the Ash. “All that power and creativity,” she said to Amanita, “and you’re wasting it, working with the Guard.” Her voice was hovering somewhere between frightened and nervous, almost both at once.

“Mmhmm.” Amanita climbed down from the Ash and hobbled towards Midwinter. “And you’re still here. In the sunlight. That project you mentioned? The fluke?”

“It was not a fluke,” Midwinter snapped.

“And yet you’re the only vampire who can go out in the sunlight,” said Amanita.

“She’s weaker in the sunlight, for what that’s worth,” Bitterroot said.

“Hmm.” Amanita briefly glanced at Bitterroot and flicked her tail. “Well, if you’re pushing the effects of the sunlight off… That probably involves suppressing some of the other changes you’ve made to yourself, including strength and speed.”

Midwinter’s eyes briefly widened and her ears twitched; Amanita knew she’d guessed right. Then she sneered. “But it’s no matter. As soon as I leave the sunlight, my powers return. The night will always be my home.”

She looked to the sunset, smirking. “And it approaches. Do you think you can hold me when it comes?”

Amanita glanced westward. The sun was low on the horizon, with maybe half an hour left before it was gone. It painted the sky in oranges and reds and mountain silhouettes. It would’ve been beautiful under any other circumstance. Now, it just meant they were slipping towards darkness.

“The moment darkness returns, I shall kill you both,” Midwinter said breathlessly. “Violently. Messily. Deliciously.” Her tail twitched. “Perhaps the Deormont can protect against me, now that it has been asked. But it can afford you no protection out here. The others, your team, Tratonmane… Well. I’ve learned to not hold a grudge. They shall be forgotten. Your deaths shall be your infamy.”

Bitterroot was looking back and forth between Midwinter and the sunset as well, pawing at the ground, ears back. “Amanita?” she asked. “Should- Should I go get- Code or someone? Maybe-”

But Amanita wasn’t listening to her. She was staring at Midwinter. Her body was whole. She was moving and speaking. She could eat. If her body and soul were one again, her heart would probably start beating on its own.

And if the spell was so delicate that sunlight could break it…

“Amanita?”

Amanita’s mind whirred. She knew the resurrection ritual. She knew the structure it ought to make as a spell, a maddeningly complex thing she couldn’t cast if she had more control and power by another order of magnitude. But she didn’t need the whole thing, not for the person right before her, moving and talking and smirking. She stripped away the irrelevant parts, bit by bit. Ninety-five percent of the difficulty was gone immediately because she didn’t need to do any planeswalking and bring the soul back from the afterlife.

“You seem preoccupied,” said Midwinter. “Heh. I applaud your tenacity, but one must face the truth: sometimes, you just lose. Perhaps today you can lose less badly than you otherwise would have.”

There. Binding the soul to the body. That was all she needed. It was simple. Almost laughably so, like a ball falling into a rut. Right? Amanita looked it over one last time. Right. Amanita drew her magic in and, for the first time, Amanita set about resurrecting someone without a ritual.

There was no liminality, no katabasic dive. She didn’t need it, not when the soul was so clearly present. If anything, it felt closer to healing magic, only with the soul rather than the body. Amanita pulled at coils and pushed at knots, nudging the universe to undoing them. It seemed splitting the soul from the body like this was against the laws of nature; once she got started, it was like reality pushed her along to keep going.

The air purred as sparks flitted around beneath Midwinter’s skin. Bitterroot nervously kneaded the ground beneath her. Midwinter wasn’t moving, just looking at Amanita with a content smugness. Amanita kept pushing, moving the magic in the right way, tugging, pulling, weaving. Finally, the framework Midwinter had built up crumbled under natural forces re-exerting themselves. Amid a blinding glow, showers of cold sparks radiated and twirled out from her body with an elusive scent that made Amanita think of summer.

When the light faded, Midwinter was seemingly unchanged.

Moments slipped by. Nothing more happened. Bitterroot shifted her weight and bit her lip as she looked at Amanita.

Midwinter smirked. “Whatever you were hoping that spell did, it didn’t- didn’t…” She blinked and wrapped her legs and wings around herself. “I’m… c-cold,” she said quietly, her breath misting the air.

“You’re alive,” said Amanita.

Bitterroot’s jaw dropped and she flapped her wings once. Midwinter’s head snapped up. “You… What d-did you do?” she asked, horrified beyond belief. Her entire body was quavering.

“I resurrected you,” Amanita said with a shrug. “It’s kinda my thing.”

In the chill of the North, Midwinter pulled more and more into herself. She was hard to tell whether her shakes were from fear or cold. Probably both. “Ch-change me b-back. You c-can’t leave me l-like-”

“I can’t change you back, and I wouldn’t if I could,” said Amanita. “One must face the truth: sometimes, you just lose.”

Midwinter tried glaring at Amanita, but she was shivering too much for that to have any weight.

Bitterroot snorted, then gestured back into Midwich. “Should I tell them what’s going on?”

“Yeah,” Amanita said. “I got this.” Bitterroot nodded and dove back down.

Midwinter’s wings hadn’t even twitched since her resurrection. Escape seemed the last thing on her mind. She kept rocking back and forth and putting a hoof to her neck to check her heartbeat. Amanita tried imagining what she was going through: over half a century of work, destroyed in a single afternoon. It’d be enough to give anyone an existential crisis. But imagining that required Amanita to imagine treating a village as her plaything for over half a century, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t. It was better that way. All Amanita found, watching Midwinter like that, was a sort of heavy satisfaction.

“It’s cold,” Amanita said offhoofedly.

No reply. Maybe Midwinter was shaking too much to reply.

“You offered me your coat when I arrived. Here’s mine.” Amanita took off her coat and tossed it at Midwinter’s hooves. “You seem to need it more than I do.” The air was biting, especially against the nub of her leg. She didn’t care.

Midwinter glared up at Amanita, her eyes full of hate at her state of affairs. Amanita looked back. Slowly, Midwinter pulled her lips back. She bared her teeth at Amanita, making sure to show each one of them, every single inch of her fangs. She slowly ran her tongue across her teeth, clicked her jaw a few times.

Then she pulled the coat on.

For a tree, the Ash was surprisingly dextrous. Amanita curled one of its roots around Midwinter tightly enough to restrain her, not so tight that anything was broken, and directed the whole assembly back down the cliff.

Somehow, Bitterroot already knew that sunblasted zombie TREES were something she wouldn’t properly understand for at least a week. After the previous week, after the previous few hours, she just wasn’t going to try to register anything for a while. Too much.

Her heart rate spiked as a dark shape shot up from the ground, but it came to a stop a good distance away from her. “Did ye get ’er?” asked Fuligin. “Midwinter.”

“Ehm… sort of?” Bitterroot said. “She’s still alive-”

“Pit’s waters,” Fuligin muttered. “I’s hopin’-”

“Wait, let me rephrase that,” Bitterroot said, waving her hooves. “She’s alive again. Mortal, not undead. Amanita dispelled the enchantments on her.”

Fuligin blinked. “…Ah.” He looked up at the ridgeline, searching for something to say, finding nothing.

“Amanita can explain when she comes back down. In the meantime, I need to perform damage control.”

Ponies were filing into Tratonmane’s main square, confused conversations getting thrown back and forth as ponies tried to make sense of why there was suddenly a gaping hole where the Ash used to be. The few unicorns were throwing more light around so ponies could get a better look. And Bitterroot found herself in a holding pattern to avoid having to talk. What was she supposed to say? Even in Canterlot, starting with “vampires” would get her strange looks, let alone a Northern town that didn’t even know what a vampire was. And that wasn’t even-

“Oi! Bitterroot!”

The sound of Code’s voice led Bitterroot to the inn, where Code was coming out in a fresh set of furs. The runes she’d carved into her face were scabbing over, but if they still hurt, she didn’t give any indication. When Bitterroot landed next to her, Code asked, “Anything wrong with Amanita?”

“No. She rode the tree up to-”

“Rode the tree.” Code’s ear twitched as she looked at the hole, then nodded. “It was dead. Carry on.”

Bitterroot scowled and rustled her wings. “She used the tree to carry herself up to the ridge, where she resurrected Midwinter.”

“Resurrected? She’s no longer undead?”

“Yeah.”

“Heh.” Code grinned. “For Midwinter and her ilk, living’s the only thing worse than dying. Because she’s still going to die. Now, she just doesn’t know when.”

“Speaking of which, Arc’s dead. Tried to…” Bitterroot rubbed her neck. There wasn’t any soreness. “…do something to me, I think infect me with vampirism, so I pulled him into the sunlight. Do you know what happened to the other vampires?”

“I staked Carnelian and egged Varnish.”

Bitterroot blinked. “You egged him? And that worked?”

“Quite well. Eggs have potent power against death magic.”

Blink, wing-rustle. “Huh. I thought garlic was a terrible weakness for vampires, but eggs… I guess vampires are total wimps if they come from Equestria.”

“To be fair,” Code said, “Equestria’s beaten down dark gods, nigh-omnipotent demons, and more with lasers made from friendship. We should’ve seen this coming.”

“Maybe. Look, can you help me…” Bitterroot sort of wove her hooves around each other. “…explain all this? I… don’t really know-”

Code held up a hoof. “Say no more. I’m used to this sort of thing, though I might need your help to fill in the gaps.” She pushed her way through the crowd towards the hole, with Bitterroot hovering over her. Once she was at the rim, Code stamped a hoof and roared, “QUIET!”

Silence fell like an anvil and everybody turned to look at Code.

“Today’s been a very strange day,” Code said loudly. “And given the events in question, I feel it’s in our best interest that all of Tratonmane know what happened.”

And so Code explained what had happened, with far more confidence than Bitterroot would’ve managed. Every single new thing Code had to describe was wilder than the last, even if the actual events themselves could be summed up quickly. Code occasionally had to ask Bitterroot for clarification on this or that bit of information, but she never sounded anything less than assured.

“…and so, here we are,” Code said. “The necromancers have been dealt with and we’ll need to handle the fallout. Any questions so far?”

Silence. Somepony coughed. Crosscut stuck a hoof up and yelled, “What?!”

The ground began rumbling and several someones screamed. The Great Ash, still with corpses wrapped in its roots, crawled out of the darkness towards the crowd; ponies scattered, either to give it room or in fear. Amanita was sitting in one of the crooks of its branches, shivering, her furs gone. The Ash slid into something resembling its original position and stopped moving. Amanita wordlessly climbed down and began stumbling towards the Watering Cave.

Bitterroot was immediately at her side, giving her a shoulder to lean on. Amanita mumbled something that might’ve been thanks; it was hard to tell from her shakes. At least they had a clear path, given the way ponies pulled back from them.

Then someone started talking. Two someones, five- Before it got any worse, Code bellowed, “Direct your questions to me!” Sound shifted as everyone turned towards her.

When they were just outside the door, Bitterroot couldn’t wait any longer. “What happened to your leg?”

“L-lost it in a t-train crash,” Amanita said. “C-can we get my c-clothes f-first?”

“Why’d you take off your furs anyway? What happened?”

“I t-t-tried to do a b-badass one-liner. Ins-stead, I g-got hypothermia.”

“…How can you be such a powerful necromancer while still being such a… goober?”

Amanita grinned lopsidedly. “Effortl-lessly.”

Amanita had magic, but habit made her fumble physically as she pulled her furs on. Her front left sleeve trailed limply where it wasn’t stretched tight by actual bandages and dressings. She waved her stump around, wondering if she’d need to tie off the sleeve to keep it from catching.

She turned to head back outside, but Bitterroot, standing in the doorway, put up a hoof to stop her. “Whoa, wait,” she said, flaring her wings. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To find any bodies,” Amanita said. “Charcoal’s, at least.”

“You need to take a rest, you lost a sunblasted leg.”

“And they lost their lives, so I think they got the worse end of the deal.”

“They can wait a day, they’re not getting any deader.”

“There’s a three-day limit on resurrections, so yeah, they are.”

“You’ve done enough today. It can wait until tomorrow.”

“Look, I’d rather just get it done now so I don’t need to worry about it when I wake up.”

The two looked at each other. Bitterroot opened her mouth and said nothing. Flexing her wings, she slowly lowered her hoof. “Just- be careful, alright?” she said, stepping aside. “I don’t want you to fry your brain or anything.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t want me to fry my brain, either. But thanks for thinking of me.”

When she exited the inn, Fuligin was pacing in front of it. She wasn’t making much noise, but his head snapped up immediately. “Ye’re a- a necromancer,” he said quietly. “Midwinter said ye- That ye’ve brought ponies back frae the dead.”

“And I’m getting to work on everyone who’s died in the past day,” Amanita said, heading off the obvious question. “The ones I can, anyway.”

“…Aye. Th-thankee.” Pause. His voice dropped even more. “One of ’em’s my daughter.”

“I’m sorry. Do you know where the bodies are?”

Under Fuligin’s direction, Code and some other ponies retrieved the bodies — Charcoal, Whippletree, Arrastra — and laid them out as a crowd gathered around her. Part of Amanita wondered if interaction with the vampires would affect anything, but the rest of her didn’t like wondering that, so she stopped. Charcoal’s throat had been ripped open and Whippletree’s most everything had been ripped open, so Amanita started with them. Eenie-meenie-miney-mo… Charcoal.

The ritual went as expected, and suddenly Charcoal was whole again and yelping her way back to life. She yanked herself into a ball, only to be surprised that she could do so. Hesitantly, she looked up at Amanita, around at Tratonmane. She blinked. “Hi. Did we win?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Neat.” Charcoal rubbed her neck. “Um. The last time I was- up, Midwinter was brinking- drinking my blood, like, right from my neck, so, uh, I feel… really weird.”

“Take a moment. We’re still working everything out.”

Charcoal nodded and sat up like her head was spinning. She looked at the Ash and cocked her head. “Why’s the Ash in a different place?”

Amanita was already drawing the circle for the next ritual. “Long story, tell you later.”

“…Okay!”

Whippletree and Arrastra both came back as easily. (Arrastra was still missing her eye; what did that say about the ritual?) Once they reoriented themselves, Whippletree immediately asked where he could help and was directed to the train wreckage, but Arrastra nudged Amanita aside to find Fuligin.

Now that she knew what she was looking at, Amanita could see the familial resemblance as they faced each other. They might’ve been mother and son, except… Arrastra broke the ice. She swallowed and said, her voice technically not shaky, “Hidy, Pa.”

“ ’Tis been decades,” Fuligin replied. “How dae ye recognize me?”

“I nair fergot ye, Pa. Nair.”

The wind blew.

“…I’ve missed ye.”

Fuligin nodded and wiped his eyes. “Aye. Same.”

“Can I take ye home? I’d like tae talk.”

“Aye.”

As the two walked away, the crowd rippled and sound twisted with various conversations. Many of the ponies began pressing in on Amanita with questions, but Code was quickly next to Amanita and screaming at them to get back. “She needs her space! She just resurrected three ponies!”

“Hey!” protested Charcoal.

“Two ponies and a kirin!” amended Code. “I forgot that and I’m an earth pony! She has it worse!” That seemed to do the trick, and although the Tratonmanians kept shooting furtive glances her way, they gave Amanita all the space she needed.

Code grunted. “Amanita, get some rest. You’re missing a leg.”

“No. I need to-”

“Amanita.”

But Amanita dropped onto her haunches so she could point at the Ash. Zombies were still twitching in its roots and Midwinter still hung there in shock. “I need to dispel whatever’s animating those zombies,” she said. “Because the way everything’s going, if I don’t, one of them’s going to break free, bite somepony, and we’re going to have a zombie apocalypse on our hooves before the week is up.”

“I think Bitterroot’s rubbing off on you.”

“Not really. My excuses are much better.”

A dull ache was descending on Amanita, but she ignored it. She went through the zombies one by one, working her deanimation spell. Thankfully, the zombies were weaker than when they’d first been raised, so it required less effort, and the extensive praxis was welcome. Amanita found herself tweaking the spell as she worked, even refining the theory behind it. Maybe she could increase the area if she-

“Guessin’ it’s over?”

Amanita flinched. Between her soreness and tunnel vision, she hadn’t heard Tallbush come up behind her. He was looking up at Midwinter with weariness in his eyes and tension in his limbs. “We think so, yeah,” Amanita said. “Other necromancers are dead, I made Midwinter mortal again.”

“Ah. Good.” Tallbush’s voice was the “sure, whatever” one of a very overwhelmed pony. He kicked absently at the ground. “Beg yer pardon. I… didnae help you’uns on the train, an’-”

“Eh.” Amanita shrugged. “It turned out alright, don’t worry about it.”

“Thankee. Ye ken where Code is?”

“Right there.” Amanita pointed around the Ash, where Code was sketching diagrams in the dirt.

Code’s ears twitched at the sound of her name and she looked up. “You need something?”

Tallbush sighed and slouched forward, his ears drooping. “Dinnae ken,” he muttered. He seemed ready to start swaying from stress and burnout. “Where’re we headed frae here?”

“Step one, I send a message to Princess Twilight. She’ll want to know about…” Code gestured around. “…all this.”

“An’ mebbe get back tae us’uns in a moon, tell us we’re makin’ a fuss over naethin’,” muttered Tallbush.

“Actually, I know a ritual to send it directly to the Most Honorable Spike,” Code said. “Depending on how busy she is, she might be here tomorrow.”

“If’n ye say sae.” Tallbush gave Midwinter one last look and trudged off towards the train wreck.

Amanita and Code looked at each other. “You really think she’ll show up?” Amanita asked.

“Probably. Our beloved princess is familiar with the… bizarre.”

Amanita snorted and went back to dispelling. “Bizarre” was underselling it.

41 - On the Nature of Daylight

Amanita ached absolutely everywhere. Even in the leg that wasn’t there anymore. Phantom limb pain sucked.

After securing Midwinter, the rest of the day had ensured that she’d sleep like a log. Against Bitterroot’s and Code’s objections, she hadn’t just stopped at the resurrections; she’d banished and helped reinter the zombies, helped rebury the Ash’s roots as best she could, helped clean up the worst of the train wreckage and look for bodies, explained herself over and over and over and over and over… No wonder Code had reacted violently to the threat of repeated explanations. And that was without aches slowly building in her body. She’d only meant to take a nap when she went to her bed, but now she was waking up and something in her told her it was the next day.

Her dressings probably needed changing. Amanita rolled out of bed and tumbled onto her side when she missed her leg, even though she’d just thought about changing dressings that she wouldn’t have if it were still there. Grunting, Amanita managed to push herself up. She’d put a pile of medical supplies next to her bed before going to sleep and pawed through it to find what she needed. Even with magic, having one less limb to manipulate with was awkward.

But she soon had her wound cleaned and tied off again. The effort involved meant she was… not wide awake, but awake. Not that her aches would’ve let her fall asleep again, anyway. She limped to the window and peered up. She could just barely make out the transition from black to dark dark blue above, where the cliffs stopped and the sky began. The sun was going to rise somewhere out there, even if not for a while. With the weight of the ley line lifted from her withers, she wanted to see the sunrise, see some brightness in a dark world, but she was sore all over, and with her missing leg, she doubted she could-

No. Screw that. Amanita bundled up. She was going to see the sunrise.

Easier said than done. This was the first time Amanita had walked any significant distance without being hopped up on adrenaline and her three-legged gait felt awkward. She had to put more focus into staying upright, and that was less focus into her hornlight or sense of direction. The light was dimmer than usual and she kept losing track of where in Tratonmane she was. Her head spun and half the time she didn’t know which direction she was heading in.

By the time she reached the coal breaker, her front leg was throbbing worse than ever and her heart was pounding and she was practically sweating. But she was going to see the sunrise. There was a lot of debris around the breaker; Amanita rooted through it and found an adequately-shaped branch. Long enough to reach up to her chest, a crook at the right spot to rest in the join between her barrel and her shortened leg. It even extended up past her head, like a staff, but she didn’t bother shortening it.

She glanced up. The blue was a little bit brighter, but not sunrise bright.

She found the path Bitterroot had led them up… two days ago? It felt like forever. It was smooth enough that she could walk it without too much difficulty, and with her makeshift staff, Amanita made good time. Arguably better time than in Tratonmane, even, since she had only one clear way to go. Up and up and up. Even with the slope, the staff helped immensely.

Orange flecks were creeping into the sky once she finally reached the top. She crested the final ridge, panting. The mountains were spread out all around her, dim ridges poking through mist and reflecting the last of the starlight. The horizon, strange and jagged, was in a hazy relief against the increasing orange of the sky. Amanita locked her knees and stood there, enjoying the solitude.

It was funny. She had a knack for unwittingly blundering into long-laid plans and just utterly wrecking them, didn’t she? Circe and her soul jar, High Gloss, and now Midwinter… It was weird. Maybe she was drawn to conspiracies for some reason or another. Destiny. Harmony. Whatever. There were worse ways to be an instrument of fate, if that was what she was. At least she could ensure more people were walking away.

And for something that wasn’t supposed to involve necromancy… she’d done an awful lot of it the past few days. Felt good doing it, too — when it worked, anyway. She’d done things that had impressed even other necromancers in technical skill. And a week ago, she’d been worried about being replaced by regular ponies. With some perspective… she was still worried, because she was a little worrywart who’d started adulthood supremely messed up and now had some actual growing up to do.

At least the sunrise was nice.

“I can hear ye.”

Amanita flinched at the voice. Leaning on her staff, she pushed some more magic into her horn and looked down. Two ponies were further down the slope, sitting close to each other. A chiropterus and an earth pony. Arrastra and Fuligin. “Sorry,” Amanita said. “I just wanted to see the sunrise. I didn’t know you were up here.”

“You’d best find another spot.”

Amanita almost moved on reflex, but something in Fuligin’s voice made her pause. It was flat. Expressionless. Resigned.

And he was a vampire outside before the sunrise.

Scree bounced out from beneath her hooves as Amanita slid down the mountain. The staff wasn’t much of a help. She managed to skid to a stop next to Fuligin, where she dropped onto her haunches. “Why?” she asked.

Fuligin was silent. Arrastra was silent. They didn’t say anything for a long while. When Fuligin finally spoke, his words came out with the blankness of obligation. “I recomember losin’ my wife. I recomember gettin’ mighty suspicious o’ the newcomers. I recomember dyin’ tae them. An’… I recomember everythin’ I did afterward.”

His tail twitched. “They wiped parts o’ my brain clean an’… told me they wished tae keep others frae dyin’. Like my dona. And I believed ’em. Went along with ’em. Let ’em dae things tae me. ’Til what we were daein’ got worser an’ worser. ’Twas ages afore I mustered up the nerve tae be honest wi’ meself. I got some of ’em. They got me. We started over. And we did it all again.”

Fuligin shuddered and closed his eyes. His voice had gotten quieter when he spoke again. “I was where they tested e’erythin’. I helped ’em build their cusséd immortality spells up. An’ I… did things wi’… b-bodies an’ s-souls…”

Arrastra wordlessly reached out and laid a leg over his withers. Fuligin hung his head. “I helped ’em,” he almost whimpered. “I let ’em rip me apart. I cut up me neighbors an’ countrymares. I missed decades ’cause of ’em. An’ they kept bringin’ me back. Varnish thought ’twas funny. Like watchin’ a rat daein’ its best tae climb frae a bucket.”

“I’m sorry,” Amanita said.

“An’ I cannae feel nothin’,” said Fuligin. “I cannae tell cold frae hot. I cannae feel the ground ’neath my hooves. I cannae even eat nothin’. This ain’t livin’. An’ I wish tae see the sun again. Jes’ once.”

“We talked about this yesterday,” Arrastra said. “His own home’s a strange place tae him. I’m all the ponies he kens. He’s got a plumb awful past. An’ I dinnae wish him tae have the cursed life he’s been livin’.”

“Death’s comin’ fer all of us, in time,” Fuligin said. “Leastaways now, we’re-”

“I can help you,” Amanita said, almost reflexively. “I can bring you back to life. Proper life. Here, now.”

Fuligin and Arrastra both turned to look at Amanita, Fuligin vaguely surprised, Arrastra in shock. Amanita swallowed nervously, but her path was set. There were still some deaths she couldn’t fix. If she couldn’t help him… “Didn’t, didn’t you hear that I brought Midwinter back? I can do the same for you. I’m a necromancer.”

Arrastra sucked in a quiet breath, but Fuligin just looked back to the horizon. “Mighty thoughtful o’ ye,” he said halfheartedly. “But I’ve made up me mind. I ain’t the sort o’ pony ye’d wish tae save.”

“Forget about me,” Amanita said. “Do you want to live?”

Fuligin nickered in disgust. “Workin’ fer Midwinter long as I did… Like I deserve it,” he muttered.

“Deserve’s got nothing to do with it,” Amanita replied. “If everypony who deserved to die did, I wouldn’t be here.”

She watched as the sky notched another shade towards orange. “I’ve done terrible things in my life. Killed ponies without thinking about it, just because I thought they’d be useful to me. I wasn’t tricked into doing it. I wasn’t lied to. I wasn’t forced. I did it consensually and fully aware. By the time I came to my senses, I didn’t deserve to live. But I wanted to change and I was given a chance to. And now, here I am, as turned-around as I can be, Equestria’s first licensed necromancer, one of the saviors of Tratonmane. So what sort of pony would I be if I didn’t give that chance to other ponies?”

The wind whistled. Arrastra opened her mouth to say something, closed it again. Fuligin didn’t move. The sky brightened.

“And for the record,” said Amanita, “you saying you don’t deserve to live tells me you do. Because what sort of pony would you be if you were comfortable with what you did? Like Midwinter and her family. But you hate it. You’re remorseful. You won’t do it again.”

Brighter.

“You realized what you were doing was wrong faster than me, at any rate.”

Fuligin started blinking rapidly and his legs trembled. He looked at Arrastra. “W-what’re ye thinkin’?” he asked quietly.

“I-” Arrastra looked back and forth between Fuligin and the sky. “I’m behind everwhat choice ye make, Pa.” Her voice technically wasn’t shaky.

Fuligin returned his gaze to the dawn, but he wasn’t looking at it. His lips twitched as he thought.

Brighter.

Amanita wanted to say more, but she’d run out of things to say that weren’t platitudes. Everything she could pick out was just condescending truisms, the sort of thing that-

“I want tae live.”

Brighter.

“I’m- so plumb tired o’ bein’ numb,” Fuligin said. “I- want it tae end. One way or another.”

“You’re sure?”

Fuligin opened his mouth. No sound came out. He nodded.

“Alright. This won’t hurt.”

Brighter.

In a way, it wasn’t a full resurrection, not really. Most of the work had already been done for her. But as she pulled her magic in, Amanita could only think of it in terms of a resurrection. Metaphorical or physical, it didn’t matter. She was giving Fuligin his life back.

The metaphysical framework around Fuligin’s soul was different from the one that had been around Midwinter’s. It was awkward, hodgepodge, haphazard, ideas being thrown at the wall to see what stuck. Symptoms of being a prototype. It was probably causing him problems without him even realizing it. As Amanita’s spell went buzzing along those threads, they unraveled easily, discarded energy falling back into reality. Amanita grabbed that energy and pushed it away from Fuligin in a brief shower of sparks around him. As the magic dispersed, the sky grew brighter still. And finally, the first rays of the sun hit Fuligin in the face.

He flinched back, instinctively squinting and putting up a leg to block the worst of the glare. But as he adjusted, he blinked and stared at his hoof. He looked down, at the shadow it cast across his chest. He looked over his shoulder, at the shadow he was throwing across the coruscating mountaintop snow. The mists from his mouth showed that he was breathing slowly. That he was breathing at all.

He looked at the sun again. A minute chuckle escaped him and he barely grinned, as if embracing life too hard would snuff it out like a stiff breeze would a flickering match. But as the sun continued upward, the fire of his happiness caught; tentative hope blossomed into elation and tiny giggles grew into laughter as he stood up. Rearing, tears streaming down his face, he howled with joy as he watched the sun rise for the first time in over half a century.

He dropped back onto his haunches, wrapping his legs around himself. “I’m cold,” he said, smiling. “Been sae long since I’ve been cold… Aye, this… This is livin’.”

Fuligin practically collapsed on Arrastra, almost weeping. “I’m sorry,” he said as he squeezed his daughter. “I- I never shoulda left ye- Afteren yer ma- I- I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I-I’m s-sorry-”

“I love ye, Pa,” said Arrastra, squeezing back. “I ken what losin’ family’s like. I dinnae blame ye.”

“Ye’re… Ye ought tae be so young… I’ve… missed all yer life…”

“We’ve a few years left together. ’Tis more’n we had last week.”

“Aye.” Fuligin pulled out of the hug, although he nuzzled Arrastra on the neck. “I saw what… ye’ve been daein’ fer the town. Even that little bit gives me a pride. I- I wish yer ma were here tae see ye.”

“…Tell me about ’er.”

“What?”

“Ye knew ’er better’n me. Tell me about ’er an’ I can tell you’un about Pyrita. It…” Arrastra wiped at her muzzle. “It ain’t goin’ tae make up fer what we lost, but… ’tis somethin’.”

“Aye. I-I can dae that. Yer ma-”

Quiet as she could, Amanita stood up and slunk away. She’d seen the sunrise.

Amanita’s aches had subsided to dull throbs by the time she reached the Watering Cave again. Her heart was pounding with exertion and her mouth was dry. Ponies were filtering in, in that strange state of “What do I do?” that always happens after something major. Code was sitting at a table, hmming and hahing to herself as she scribbled something down on a scroll. The runes she’d etched into her skin yesterday had fully scabbed over (with the exception of the sigil beneath her eye, which was gone completely), so now she just looked beat-up rather than intimidatingly occult. She looked up as Amanita collapsed across from her. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” wheezed Amanita in between breaths.

“Please don’t put me through the same malarkey that Bitterroot did.”

“I’m fine. I just went up to the canyon rim to see the sunrise.” Amanita managed to push herself up. Her throat was burning and she wanted water.

Code’s eyebrow went up like a drawbridge. “After yesterday, you were able to go that far up?”

“I once spent an hour in a freezing river, then had to dig a bullet out of my shoulder with a knife and cauterize the wound. I can handle a little climb.”

“…Huh.” One of Code’s ears twitched. “Do you need anything?”

“Water.”

Code retrieved a jug and mug from the bar, and several full drinks later, Amanita’s throat felt normal again. She wiped her mouth and asked, “So what’re you working on?”

“The letter to Princess Twilight. I’m still… sorting things out.”

“You didn’t send it yet?”

“Trying to pare it down to a reasonable size for an official report while still having it make sense is proving… tricky. I have to filter it through about a dozen different sources, including a tutelary-”

Amanita raised her head. “The Deormont? Why?”

“It told me what happened to Pyrita when no one else knew,” said Code. “Short version: she went to Midwinter’s to talk about the water pressure. She did so late, when Midwinter had asked to not be bothered. Midwinter had asked to not be bothered because that’s when they have homunculi cleaning up the place. Pyrita saw them, made some assumptions about Midwinter being a secret dark mage, and panicked. She ran to the Deormont, begging for help, but she’d pushed herself so hard that she collapsed, perhaps because of a heart attack. In her panic, Pyrita didn’t ask the Deormont the right thing, and because it was a tutelary, it couldn’t act directly. But the ley line had drawn ponies here in the first place-”

“So the Deormont changed the ley line in the hopes of drawing attention?”

“Precisely. It’s probably already shifting it back to normal.”

Amanita blinked twice. “So… we didn’t need to do anything.”

“No. We needed to help with the vampires. Which we did.” Code inked out a few more words, then said, “If we’d been told of it on the first day, we could’ve talked to it and called in the cavalry on the second day.” Her voice was a touch too level to be casual.

“Hmm.” Amanita’s leg throbbed.

Her ears started pivoting about, picking up snatches of all the other ponies’ conversations. Yesterday, at least the part she’d been awake for, had been full of enough work that nobody really had time to think of the implications. Now, a night had passed, possibly a sleepless one, and everything was really sinking in.

“-dinnae feel safe drinkin’ water nae more-”

“-thought me an’ Carnelian were friends-”

“-out in the forest? If’n that one pony was responsible-”

“-still dinnae feel right-”

“-if’n they didnae find everypony helpin’ ’em-”

“-dinnae need tae support the bunkers-”

“-shower still ain’t hot-”

Whoever Princess Twilight was sending to Tratonmane really had their work cut out for them. Amanita considered herself lucky in comparison, even with her missing leg.

Charcoal came bouncing down the stairs and over to their table. “Hey, Code?”

“Yes?”

“I’m gonna go see if I can bully Tallbush into letting me talk to God.”

“Okay. Have fun.”

Charcoal saluted and made for the door.

“And if you can’t, come find me and we can bully him together!” Code called out. “I’d like to talk to God as well!”

“Will do!” And Charcoal was gone.

Amanita groaned and stretched. She wanted to lie down, but she didn’t feel like going upstairs. “I’m gonna sit outside,” she grunted as she pushed herself up. “Come find me if you need any help.”

“Feel free to take some painkillers,” said Code. “You look like you need them.”

“Probably, yeah.” Amanita left without looking for any painkillers.

The Great Ash was in its proper position, and aside from some oddly positioned dirt, it was hard to tell it’d even been moved. At least, for Amanita. The Tratonmanians had said it was okay, but they’d been awfully quick to get away from Amanita once they’d said so. Maybe they’d just been too freaked out to argue. She couldn’t blame them. She could ask again in a few hours.

Amanita limped over to the Ash and lay against it, closing her eyes. She let her soul drift, feeling the magic in the ground. She could feel the ley line, already different from what it’d been before. Different how, she couldn’t say, but it… felt right. Just… absolutely right, set perfectly back into place. And yet, Amanita didn’t have the slightest whiff of the Deormont. Whatever a whiff was. Was it even magic? Something like that, beyond the bounds of this world… It probably couldn’t be directly felt by magic. More things in Elysium and Equus. Code was going to have a field day.

Bitterroot came sidling out of the Watering Cave and dropped down next to Amanita. “You doing alright? Code said you went and saw the sunrise.”

“I’m fine,” said Amanita. “Achy, but fine.” Most of her aches didn’t have anything to do with her trek, anyway. She’d fallen off a roof; she’d probably ache for a week.

“Good.”

“Met Arrastra and Fuligin up there.”

One of Bitterroot’s ears twitched. “Huh. Yeah, I guess after yesterday, you’d want to-” Her voice suddenly came to a halt. She blinked and her wings tightened as she sat up straight.

“He’s alive,” said Amanita. “Alive alive. He was… feeling overwhelmed. I talked him through it. He’s good now.”

Bitterroot’s ears were stiff, but she nodded. “Good. I’d hate for… yeah.”

“He and Arrastra are making up for lost time. Talking about the family they each missed. The… ones who died. Pyrita for Fuligin, his wife for Arrastra.”

“You gonna remind them about calling their family’s spirits back?”

“Not yet. I don’t want to overwhelm them.”

“…Celestia, that’d be a lot to take in.”

“Yeah. Soon, though. Maybe after lunch.”

Code came trotting out of the Cave with a bag stuffed with stuff. With an impossible ease, she swiped out a circle, set a scroll down inside it, and went about performing a ritual. Amanita didn’t recognize it and tried to piece it together from the ingredients; translocative, but also something to do with dragons? Weird.

“Code told me about the Deormont and Pyrita,” Bitterroot said. “How it called us here. Crazy, isn’t it? This all started because somepony’s water pressure was too high.”

“That’s not even the craziest thing.” Amanita pushed herself up into a sitting position. “I was sent out here to learn something. Applied ritualism beyond necromancy. Ley sanitation.”

“Yeah? So?”

“I didn’t learn a sunblasted thing. The corruption of the ley line was caused by a god who’s already fixed it. I didn’t do a single ritual related to it. All I did was run into some mearhwolves and vampires.”

“You cured some vampires, though. How many ponies can say that?”

“And I’m sure that’s going to be a huge help when I run into one of the many, many vampires in Equestria.”

“If Midwinter could figure it out, somepony else could, too.”

“…Yeah.”

“You also threw together a ritual on the fly to cure a mearhwolf.”

“Heh. Yeah.”

As Code’s voice wavered with the last voice of the ritual, magic twisted within her circle and a sudden plume of green fire consumed the scroll. The smoke, oddly glowing and sparkling in the dark, rushed up and out of Midwich in an eyeblink in defiance of the wind. Code nodded to herself and trotted back inside the Cave. Must’ve been the message to Princess Twilight.

Bitterroot spoke up. “So… everything we did over the past week…” She made a vague, general gesture. “Does that make us divine intervention?”

“Hmm?”

“Divine intervention. Tratonmane had a problem, we came here by the actions of the Deormont, we fixed the problem. We intervened thanks to the divine. Hay, I just tagged along on a whim and I wound up talking to the Deormont.”

“The Deormont didn’t call us, specifically. It was more a message in a bottle than a calling.”

“We still came, didn’t we?”

“Eh. I guess, but it’s not that satisfying.”

Bitterroot snorted. “Oh, come on. Not even Twilight’s been divine intervention.”

“Celestia sent her to Ponyville to reform Nightmare Moon.”

“Celestia’s not divine.”

“…An immortal alicorn who moved the sun and moon for a millennium isn’t divine?”

“No. She’s not… transcendental enough. She’s just… big. Look, I was touched by the Deormont, I’ve felt the divine, I know what it’s like. And Celestia? Powerful and extraordinary, but not divine.”

“Ehh.” Amanita shrugged. “I dunno.”

“C’mon. You’re turning down the chance to be divine intervention?”

“I’m a moral necromancer. I’m already one in a billion. Probably rarer. You can be divine intervention if that makes you feel better.”

“I will be divine intervention. I was the one marked by the Deormont. So there.”

“You do that.”

They sat there for a while, not doing much of anything. Amanita definitely didn’t feel like doing much, even getting up to get out of the cold. Her aches were deep and the cold kept them down. The sky ticked towards brighter and bluer. This wasn’t too bad. If she didn’t ache so much- Screw it, who was she trying to impress. She needed painkillers. She wobbled to her hooves-

“Colonel!” Tallbush yelled from the town hall, making Bitterroot flinch. He didn’t quite stomp over to the Cave, followed by Charcoal. “I wish tae speak wi’ ye!”

“C’mon!” protested Charcoal. “Is really that bard- hard to let me-”

“The Deormont ain’t the sort o’- thing that ye can gob with!” Tallbush snapped at her.

Amanita and Bitterroot exchanged a look and a grin.

“Is it, though?” Charcoal asked, one ear down. “Bitterroot was able to talk to it real easy, and she was-”

“Ye’re messin’ wi’ sacred ground an’ I cannae jes’-”

Code strode out of the Cave, unperturbed. “What’s up?”

“Charcoal here-” Tallbush waved a hoof at the kirin in question. “-wishes tae speak wi’ the Deormont. About nothin’.”

“The nature of its being, actually,” Charcoal stage-whispered.

“Yes,” Code said. “And?”

“And- And ye dinnae have wee chats wi’ gods!” said Tallbush.

“Why not?”

“-Because-! Well, I-” Tallbush pawed at the ground, his ears back. “Listen, ye cannae-”

The air cracked and, for a quarter of an instant, lavender light brighter than the sun illuminated the entire valley. When the spots had cleared from Amanita’s vision, she saw Princess Twilight herself hovering over the scene with a dozen armed and armored guards arranged beneath her. Code and Charcoal were already bowing, while Bitterroot was blinking and scrambling to her hooves. Amanita didn’t feel like being decorous at the moment, so she just waved. “Hey, Princess,” she called out.

Princess Twilight waved back. “Hi, Amanita.” She lowered herself to the ground. “I received your message, Colonel.”

“So you did,” said Code. “And before you go any further, this is Tallbush, the Duke of Tratonmane.”

Tallbush was utterly stone faced as Code pushed him forward. “Princess,” he enunciated flatly, stiffly doing the smallest possible motion that could be remotely called a bow.

In return, Princess Twilight bowed back deeply, so deeply even Tallbush looked embarrassed. “Your Grace Duke Tratonmane,” she said. “I would like to formally apologize to you, your duchy, and all its inhabitants for the ways the Fuel Vassalage Commission has neglected you. With your help, I’d like to figure out how we can make any sort of amends.”

Tallbush coughed as he shuffled his weight around. “W-well, ah…” He glanced around at the crowd of Tratonmanians gathering. (No one was really bowing, Amanita noticed.) “Ye’re- Y’ain’t the- princess who- didnae supply us.”

“You’re right, I’m not,” Princess Twilight said. “But although it’s not my fault, it is my responsibility. Whatever caused you to slip off the map doesn’t matter. Tratonmane is still part of the Fuel Vassalage Commission and is owed a great deal of supplies while only receiving a tiny amount of them. You’ll need a new plumber and some help rebuilding houses, at the very least. Even if you think the Deormont provides things stay the way they are, it’ll be because you want it that way, not because I say so.”

Tallbush’s ears twitched and he raised his head slightly. “Well… I appreciate the offer, Princess, but ’less ye love financial tables-”

Princess Twilight’s ears went straight up and her pupils grew large.

“…Alrighty then, let’s get started. Me office is right yonder.” He turned to the assembled townsponies and yelled, “Clear out, you’uns! I’ll tell y’all ’bout it once we got it sorted!”

Bitterroot’s ears twitched and she glanced at Amanita. Then she yelled, “They need good headlamps! The ones they have now are real heavy!” A few tentative affirmations came from the crowd.

Princess Twilight looked at Tallbush, and he nodded half-reluctantly. “Aye. Some lighter ones’d be nice. But I’d rather discuss it in me office…”

Once Tallbush and Princess Twilight vanished into the town hall (should they call it “chapel”? It still felt weird to call it “chapel”), the Tratonmanians began filtering away. The guard contingent slipped from attention to at ease and idle chats started up. One of them, a unicorn with a broken horn, a quite pretty orchid coat, and a rather intimidating air in spite of those, stepped up to Code. “Vampires, huh?” she said. “Lucky.”

“You already know?” Code asked, although she didn’t sound surprised.

“Eh. You know Her Purpleness.” The unicorn pointed at the town hall. “She reads fast, and when she wants you to learn something, you’re learning it.”

“Heh. Very much.”

“And you got two of them. Right on, Colonel.”

“Indeed, Commander.” The two shared a hoofbump. “Bitterroot here got another, Amanita resurrected one-”

Charcoal coughed. “I. Uh. Kiiiiiiinda died early on.”

“Yes, but you single-hoofedly killed a king timberwolf before then.”

Charcoal’s ears went up. “I did, yeah.” She grinned.

“But where’s the necromancer Amanita resurrected?” the unicorn asked. “I really don’t want her getting away.”

“Tied up downstairs. Yes, still, I checked less than five minutes ago. If you’ll follow me…”

More than half the guards disappeared into the Watering Cave, following Code. Charcoal raised a hoof as if to follow them, then looked southward. Her ears twitched. “I shouldn’t go to the Deormont while Tallbush is indeposed,” she half-stated, half-asked. “Indisposed.”

“Not if you don’t want to get lost in the mines,” Bitterroot said.

“Aw.”

“I’ll help you bug Tallbush when he’s done. Maybe I can get this- awareness- thing-” Bitterroot gestured in front of her face. “-transferred to you.”

“And until then,” Amanita asked, “do you have any painkillers?”

Charcoal didn’t, unfortunately, but she knew how to make some with what she had. They worked… not great, but better than fine. Amanita’s screaming aches subsided down to grumbling throbs. She still relaxed under the Great Ash again, even though Bitterroot and Charcoal stayed indoors. The chill still helped with her aches, even as they grew quieter.

At some point, she realized the sun was shining into her eyes and the world around her was bright. Noon, then, and the ache she was feeling in her stomach was different from the aches she was feeling everywhere else. She still didn’t feel like getting up just yet.

Ponies began filtering up the main road and dispersing throughout Tratonmane. Lumberjacks. Lunch break. How busy was the Watering Cave? Amanita didn’t care at the moment. She heard flickers of conversation among them, mostly talk of trees in a surprised tone.

Whippletree and Crosscut hung around after the rest of the crowd was gone. They were standing over Amanita, looking curiously down at her. After several long moments, Amanita waved at them. “Hey. Need me for something?”

Whippletree and Crosscut looked at each other before Crosscut stepped forward and swallowed. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, started speaking. “The forest feels safe.” A long pause. “Ain’t nair felt like that afore.”

“Like we said, Lixivia-”

Crosscut snorted. “I ken what ye said. Dae you’un? Midwich Forest’s been the most dangerful part o’ my life, and now… it ain’t. Jes’ like that.”

She sat down next to Amanita, staring off down the road. “All my life, I’ve been wary o’ the forest. It’s killed friends, family. Me an’ my woodhicks, we kept riskin’ our lives every week tae get Tratonmane some plain ol’ wood. ’Tis one o’ the firs’ things me an’ Whipple taught Wythe: keep out o’ the forest. An’ now, o’ernight, it ain’t sae bad.”

“Most o’ the militia didnae believe ye,” said Whippletree. “Even the ones that helped save me. We’ve seen what Midwich was like. But Whetstone, he took a risk an’ tried talkin’ tae a wolf. And it let him pet it. Last week, that same wolf woulda ripped his face clean off.” He chuckled. “That changed the minds o’ the rest smartly.”

“ ’Tis a lot tae think about,” said Crosscut, “and…” Words failed her; she sighed and shook her head. “I dinnae ken.”

Amanita knew she could tunnel-vision at times, but was it really this bad, to miss all this? It was the sort of thing she should’ve seen yesterday. Apparently, she’d been just too focused on her work. Or just trying to fight through the pain of losing a leg. But now that she thought about it… yeah, how were you supposed to react to that? “Well, as far as dramatic changes go, at least this one’s a positive,” she said tentatively.

Crosscut snorted and stood back up. “Ye’re a mighty strange pony, Amanita. But ye’re a good ’un. Thankee.”

“Also, uh… sorry about Varnish. Part of the militia and all.”

“Ach, ain’t nae great loss,” said Whippletree, waving a hoof dismissively.

“Whipple!” gasped Crosscut.

“Ye didnae need tae spend time wi’ him!” Whippletree said, his wings flaring. “He was fine at defendin’ against wolves, but he were the meanest lowlife in Tratonmane. And now I’m a-guessin’ he was good wi’ wolves ’cause he was in cahoots with ’em. I ain’t goin’ tae miss him. Feh.” He didn’t spit on the ground, but Amanita suspected it was close.

Crosscut laid a hoof on Whippletree’s shoulder. “Ye’re sure ye’re doin’ alright, jusem?”

“Aye. Varnish willnae be missed.”

“What about Midwinter?”

Almost unconsciously, Whippletree pulled his hooves closer together and his wings tighter. His ears twitched as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Eh… She’s… harder tae… ignore.” He shivered. “I thought I kenned her, an’ she…” He flexed his wings. “I’m- a-workin’ on it.”

“Sorry,” Amanita said quickly, sitting up. “I- Sorry.”

“I’ll be right as rain in time, though,” Whippletree said with a cheer that didn’t sound forced. “I got my family.” He rubbed his head against Crosscut’s neck; she nickered and pushed back.

Some part of Amanita wondered if they knew about Fuligin yet. It didn't seem like it. Maybe Fuligin and Arrastra had decided to spare them the pain, after Fuligin made his decision. Well, their family was about to get a little bigger.

Across the way, the door to the town hall creaked open. (The building was still missing its bell tower. How cold was it in there?) Princess Twilight and Tallbush walked out, talking about something or other. They gave each other a bow (Princess Twilight’s was deeper, Amanita noted), then Tallbush trotted off towards the mine. Princess Twilight walked over to the Great Ash, staring inquisitively at its branches. What she was looking for, Amanita couldn’t tell, but soon she was standing next to the trio. “How’re you doing, Amanita?” Princess Twilight asked.

“Eh.” Amanita waved her stump. “I’ve been better. Princess, that’s Whippletree and that’s Crosscut.”

Crosscut rolled her eyes, but Whippletree gave a polite, semi-obligatory nod. “What’s tae happen tae Midwinter?” he asked tentatively.

“I’m not sure yet,” Princess Twilight said. “There’s a lot of different ways it could go, depending on the evidence, and I don’t think Equestria’s ever captured someone who used to be a lich but isn’t anymore.”

“Hmm.” Whippletree shuffled his hooves around, then, seemingly for something else to do, glanced towards the mine, where Tallbush had gone. “Sae ye’re finished with… assuagin’ our woes?”

“With the preliminaries, at least,” Princess Twilight said. “We’ve put together a priority list for things Tratonmane needs or is owed — liable to be added to as new information comes up, of course. If His Grace Tallbush doesn’t have anything to add after lunch, I’ll start figuring out the most efficient way to get it all accomplished. And while we’re on the subject, do you have anything you need?”

“Like better blankets?” Crosscut muttered.

“Better blankets, got it.”

“…Wait, ye’re serious?”

“Absolutely! Tallbush means well, but since he’s the duke, he has a lot on his mind. There are just so many things that he might forget about, so if you have something you need, feel free to say so.”

Whippletree flexed his wings for a moment before saying, “We’ll need a plumber. I dinnae wish tae have the heater go.”

“It was one of the first things we talked about,” Princess Twilight said. “And it’d work out nicely if the plumber was a Tratonmane native — we’d provide training, of course — so if you know of anyone who’s interested-”

“I might be.”

Crosscut twitched and looked over at him. “You’un? I didnae ken ye liked a-workin’ wi’ water.”

“ ’Tis more a-helpin’ Tratonmane, an’ if’n we dinnae need the militia nae more, I’d need something tae dae. Aye, I’m sure.”

A clipboard and quill poofed into existence in front of Princess Twilight. “Got it,” she said, jotting his name down. “Also: better blankets.” As the implements poofed away again, she said, “Let me know if there’s anyone else interested. But take your time! This is a work in progress and we don’t want to rush it.”

Whippletree nodded. “Aye. I’ll dae that.” A pause, then he lowered his head and spread his wings slightly. “Yer Highness.”

But Princess Twilight flinched, lowering her ears. “We’re miles away from Canterlot, you don’t need to call me ‘Your Highness’. Just Twilight’s fine.”

“Understood, Yer Highness,” Crosscut said, technically not grinning. (Princess Twilight snorted, but she was technically not grinning, too.)

Whippletree gave her a light shove. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get some vittles.”

As Whippletree and Crosscut headed off to home, Amanita pushed herself to her hooves with a groan and began limping towards the Watering Cave. Princess Twilight was at her side immediately. “Do you need any help?” she asked.

“Not really, but I’ll take it if you’re offering,” Amanita replied.

Once she was leaning against Princess Twilight and the two of them were walking towards the Watering Cave, Amanita said, “I’d say ‘make sure Tratonmane doesn’t slip through the cracks again’, but, well, you’re you. He won’t.”

“I’m thinking of ways to patch the cracks as we speak. You know, Code filled me in on what your team did. So did Tallbush. The four of you should be very proud.”

Amanita found herself shrugging. “It was the right thing to do.”

“It was, but I know how hard it can be to do the right thing at times, especially when you doubt yourself. Not many ponies would’ve had it in them to do what you all did. Then there was the Mearhwolf in Canterlot a few moons ago, running from Circe before that… I know you’re already known for being a necromancer, but keep this up, and someday you’ll be a legend in your own right.”

“Heh.” Amanita hung her head and massaged what was left of her leg. “Shit.”

Epilogue - Walk

“Alright,” said Dr. Firenza, “just put your leg in there…”

Two and a half moons, surgery, extensive healing spells, and more hadn’t restored Amanita’s leg, but they had changed the end from an ugly wound with exposed bone to a smoothed, rounded stump. She inserted that stump into a shallow wooden bowl designed specifically to hold it, slightly padded and rimmed with gems. The receiving end of her new prosthesis.

“Put some weight on it…”

She did so. Funny; earlier, she’d kept stumbling because habit made her want to walk normally, but now, being able to put weight on her leg was strange. Times were changing; maybe it was only right that she changed with them. (She really wished that change hadn’t been “lose a leg”, though.)

“Do you feel any pain? Anything poking you? Or are you comfortable?”

Amanita put a little more weight on. “It feels fine,” she said.

“Great! Now, if you’ll hold on for just a moment…” Firenza took a loose gem and placed it against one of the gems along the bowl. She held it there for a moment.

And suddenly Amanita’s missing leg began buzzing with pins and needles.

Firenza’s gem emitted a quiet, high-pitched tone, which made her smile. “Excellent!” she said, putting it away again (the hum stopped, the buzzing stayed). “Lift your leg up, please.”

Amanita did. The prosthesis came with her; magic kept the bowl strapped to the stump. It didn’t pop off or even shift when Firenza gave it a slight tug.

“Can you try walking for me?”

Amanita half-walked, half-limped around the room. Every time her prosthesis hit the floor, more pins and needles poked into her new leg like a wave. But whenever that wave subsided, the pins and needles that remained were fewer. After a few circuits, she didn’t feel too bad and could feel the floor beneath her. It was muted and almost unrecognizable, but she could feel it.

Firenza had her go through more exercises, nothing too strenuous. They needed to make sure her leg worked before having her do physical therapy, after all. As far as Amanita could tell, nothing was wrong, and she got more and more feeling in it as they went on.

Eventually, Firenza said, “And you should be all set! If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll be right back.” She vanished out the door.

Amanita settled back into her chair and raised the leg in front of her eyes. It was her leg, but it wasn’t her leg, but it was. The near-complete lack of proprioception made it uncanny to watch, but with a bit of effort Amanita managed to rotate her wooden hoof around. Even this early, it moved reasonably well, although it squeaked a little. She picked up a sheet of scratch paper, closed her eyes, and waved it near her leg. She twitched when she could sort-of feel the paper. It was working that much, at least. Hopefully it’d get better.

She was leafing through a physical therapy brochure when Firenza returned. “Excuse me,” Amanita asked, looking up from the pages, “but some of the legs in here are metal. Is there any significant difference between those and mine?” She raised her wooden leg up.

“Wood’s better than metal for a first prosthesis,” said Firenza. “Wood used to be alive, so your soul will bond to it more easily. Once you get full feeling in it, we can replace it with a metal one if you want. The attunement will be much faster than if it was metal first, since the soul already ‘knows’ what to do. I can give you the titles of some literature on the process if you’re interested.”

“Sure, I’d like that.”

They went through a last few checklist items and note-takings, with paperwork and other things going into Amanita’s saddlebags. When Amanita thought she was almost done, Firenza added, “…And would you like some brochures for keeping your morale up as you adjust?”

Amanita’s ears twitched. “Really? What for?”

“You literally lost a part of yourself.” Firenza tapped Amanita’s prosthesis. “And for some ponies, that sense of loss is more than physical. They think that they’re not physically whole, so they’re not metaphysically whole. It can… be stressful.”

Amanita had a good enough separation of the material and the spiritual to know that she’d never have those feelings. But she didn’t want to unnerve the good doctor, so she just said, “I don’t think I’ll need them, but I’ll take them anyway. Thanks.”

“Then let me get those for you, and you can be off.”

Bitterroot was still in the waiting room when Amanita found her. “You really didn’t need to wait,” Amanita said as she half-stomped over. Getting used to weight distribution on that leg again wouldn’t happen overnight. “I told you I’m fine.”

“Yeah, well…” Bitterroot stood up and stretched her wings. “At least this way, you’re seeing a friendly face first thing out.”

“…Yeah. Thanks.”

Bitterroot nodded and glanced down at the leg. “Everything go okay?”

“Yep. No problems so far.” Amanita raised her leg and flexed her fetlock. Was that proprioception? Maybe. “Now I just need to get used to it.”

“Need any help getting home?”

“Nah. I’ll swing by the train station and break it in a little.”

“And if you’re not home when the sun sets-”

Amanita rolled her eyes. “I’ll be fine, Mom. I’ve been fine with three legs for several moons. This isn’t going to kill me.”

“Well, it wasn’t, but now that you’ve said that…”

“Heh. Yeah.”

“I’ll meet you at home, then?”

“Yeah. Oh, and Bitterroot?”

“Hmm?”

“You didn’t need to, but… thanks for coming anyway.”

“Anytime.”

Amanita was still limping by the time she reached the station, but less awkwardly. It felt more like she had a weight tied around that one fetlock than anything else. Feeling kept bleeding in and out of… well, feeling, keeping Amanita from getting too used to it. It definitely wasn’t painful, not even close. Just a bit awkward. Maybe she’d take the leg off for a bit when she got home. It’d be more comfortable.

Canterlot was the sort of place where a pony with a wooden leg barely attracted attention. As Amanita trod around the station, no one looked twice at her. It was a strange spot in the mid-afternoon, where it wasn’t as busy as normal and the crowds were thinner. Still, trains were hissing, ready to head out on time. Crowds were filing into one train as she watched, and-

“Ai! Amanita!”

Amanita twitched at the sound of her name and turned. Fuligin had broken off from one of the queues and was trotting towards her. “Hey!” Amanita said, waving. Habit made her do a little hop so she wouldn’t fall to the ground with her good leg in the air.

“Fancy meetin’ you’un here, now,” Fuligin said. He looked happier than Amanita had ever seen him, with a coat that was almost warm in spite of its dark color. Where Canterlotians were bundling up against the last chilly dregs of winter, he wasn’t even wearing a scarf. “I cannae make a guess at the odds.”

Amanita just shrugged. “Maybe something wanted us to meet. After the Deormont, I’m a lot more open to some kind of divine intervention or mysterious ways.”

“Heh. Aye.” Fuligin’s eyes flicked downwards, towards Amanita’s leg. His ears twitched and he flicked his tail.

“Yeah, I just got this today,” Amanita said preemptively, raising it. She flexed it to show how it worked. “Still getting used to it. It’s going about as well as can be expected.”

Fuligin nodded. “Aye. Good.”

“So what’re you doing here?”

“Heh. ’Tis an odd tale. I didnae ken jes’ how cooped up I was wi’ Midwinter ’til I could leave the house. E’er since that firs’ sunrise, I’ve had a bit o’ the wanderlust itch.”

“I can imagine. Before, you couldn’t even go out during the day. Now you’ve pretty much got all the world before you.”

“Aye. An’ if the world’s open, I might as well see it, jes’ once. Arrastra and I’re makin’ a ramble around the nation tae…” He swallowed. “…make up fer lost time. We’ll be back home afore the next moon. Speakin’ o’ which, Tratonmane? The forest’s ain’t taken a single pony since ye left. Not even hurt aryone.” Fuligin nickered. “ ’Twas like that when I was a foal, afore Midwinter arrived. All up and down the valley, ’twas safe as could be.” A pause; he pulled his hooves a little closer together. “She’s still here, ain’t she?” he asked quietly.

“Still in jail,” Amanita said, nodding. “Had it confirmed just a few days ago. If Princess Twilight’s trying to talk with her about something, I haven’t heard it. But we can visit to point and laugh if you want.”

It took Fuligin a rather long moment to say, “Ach, I’d best not. I’ve been workin’ on movin’ on.”

Working on? “So are you, uh… holding up okay?” The words came out before Amanita could stop them. She was grateful they’d ripped off the bandage for her and hated herself for putting him on the spot. But she needed to know he’d made the right choice.

Fuligin’s stance immediately shifted, very slightly. His ears wavered as he swallowed. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it. “I reckon so,” he said in a voice that was stronger than Amanita had anticipated and still quiet. “I’ve… I’ve made peace wi’ all that’s happened, but…”

“But every now and then, it’ll hit you like it’s the first time.”

Fuligin’s ears stood up straight and he nodded wordlessly.

“That’s… normal,” Amanita said. Her wooden leg tingled. “Grief and regret are funny things. It’s hard to tell when they’ll come or how hard. But you get used to it. I’ve lived through it.”

“Thankee. The rest o’ Tratonmane, me family…” Fuligin sighed. “They’re… They dinnae ken in truth how I’m feelin’, but they’re daein’ their best. ’Tis a mighty balm.”

“Yeah. It’s… It’s hard. No one can be there in the way you really need it, but you’re never alone.”

“Aye.” Fuligin nodded; Amanita wasn’t sure if she was expecting a sad smile or happy tears. “Arrastra’s comin’ near tae that, though. Heh. My wee filly, all wise an’ worldly. I’d be a lot worser wi’out her. The rest o’ the family’s welcomed me as well, if’n ye can believe that. Mighty odd, but we’re workin’ it over. And… one way ’r the other… I’m better’n I was last year.”

“Easy bar to clear.”

“An’ I didnae clear it fer more’n fifty year. I still wouldnae’ve cleared it if’n not fer you’un.”

One of the locomotives blew a whistle. Fuligin glanced over his shoulder and took a step back. “Eh, I need tae go-”

“Yeah, I get it,” Amanita said. “It was good to see you again. Glad you’re doing well.”

Fuligin began a slow trot back to the train. “I cannae thank you’un enough,” he said loudly. “Afteren all the time I wasted wi’ Midwinter… I thought my hope had died long ago.”

“Hey, bringing back the dead is kinda my thing,” Amanita called back out, waving after him. “I’m the greatest necromancer in the history of the Royal Guard.”

Author's Note

Author's notes blogpost here.