Death Valley

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-

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.

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.”