The Tome of Exalted Ponies

The White Reaper stylist orders a dozen bowls of soup, and chugs them down one after another with a terrifying ferocity, chugging harder and faster with each bowl consumed.

…

Leaving Admiral Sand and his jackals in a far better state than when they had arrived, the duo flew north at the next sunset. This meant crossing through the territories of the Varang city states, an ally to the realm, so care had to be taken – especially at night – for Sand had warned them: “The pandit priests who rule Varang scry the stars to predict the future at night. No army has ever managed to surprise them, and all foes who enter their lands have a strange habit of being caught…”

This of course didn’t explain how Sand’s own raids against Varang worked – but since the duo was simply passing through Varang, and wasn’t seeking conflict, they figured that any prophecies the pandits made shouldn’t reveal them too much.

Thankfully this turned out to be true: Flying at night and hiding away from the city states during the day, the duo made it to the fertile coastlands in less than week, the lands there more than cool enough to permit travel during daytime as well.

Consulting their maps, the duo sought out the buoys that the Denzik had left behind over the scuttled barges containing their forbidden goods in the middle of the inland sea. It took a bit of searching, but up on the flying cloud Shimmer’s keen eyes were able to quickly spot even the smallest objects floating in the water.

At the lone glass buoy the duo dove into depths. Here Shimmer’s western animal forms made things easy: As a giant squid she could see clearly in even the darkest depths due to its massive eyes, while Speaker had to rely on his essence sight to simply track her and follow her deeper down. As a giant squid Shimmer also had many strong tentacles to pry apart the scuttled barge and access its cargo hold. Several chests filled with everything from bars of orichalcum – something that immaculates and more religiously inclined realm houses would likely have executed its owner for having – to quite a lot of silver, jade and other riches were recovered. A few chests were very clearly lined and wrought in such a way as to remain airtight even in the deep, so they weren’t opened.

Back on the surface, Speaker sent a magical message to Cash, calling for pickup and instructing him to bring roughly three miles of very strong rope or chains.

“Where is your friend going to find that much chain or rope Lord Bright?” Shimmer wondered, as she floated in the waves.

“Oh, he likes that kind of challenges – plus we have a really good metalworking industry in Sunhill. I trained the smiths there myself”

By nightfall Shimmer flew high into the air and scouted the seas around them to check for realm fleet patrols. Seeing none, she signalled Speaker by flaring her anima. The silver-blue light of her soul also acted as a beacon to Cash Charmer as he came flying on a… seriously?

“Is that a flying yeddim Lord Bright?” Shimmer asked incredulously, as she landed on the water next to Speaker.

Turning about a bit, because he couldn’t see Cash approaching in the darkness, Speaker nodded: “Probably. His charms let any creature he rides and commands fly and move at amazing speeds. He zips all over Creation like that, usually comes back with stranger things yet he can sell for a fortune”

“So… is he from the Denzik Lord Bright?” Shimmer wondered.

With a chuckle, Speaker replied: “No, but they really like him – envy him even”

True to Speaker’s estimate, Cash showed up on a flying yeddim laden with three miles worth of… blue jade-steel chains? Really?

“Where did you get this?” Speaker simply had to ask, the incredibly strong but near weightless chains rolling off the sturdy wooden drum they were attached to, the crank spinning around furiously.

Cash shrugged: “You’ve been talking about setting up an aviary for skyremes for a while – and I have contacts up north. The Haslanti forge these because they’re lighter than ropes but much stronger, and wont snap when frozen – so I’ve been buying them every time I go north”

“You… of course you would. You know, just before you arrived, I was telling Shimmer about how you kept buying strange things whenever you flew off” Speaker mused while drying off his clothes with essence.

With a smile most smarmy, the master merchant leaned back into the pilot/rider seat on the howdah of the swimming yeddim: “I hope you haven’t been telling her too many tall tales – I prefer to toot my own horn”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Now, she should be near the barge right around now… watch for the signal, and make sure to ascend slowly or you’ll probably rip the scuttled barge in half and scatter all the chests across the sea floor” Speaker pointed out, paying careful attention to the chain going into the water.

A minute or so later the entire yeddim suddenly tilted to the side – so much for Shimmer gently yanking the chain as her signal – but Cash was strapped in and Speaker caught himself before he fell over: “Alright, let’s go Cash!”

With an expert touch, Cash pulled the reigns of the yeddim, and the slightly confused yet giant four-story tall beast began ‘walking’ in the water, the solar’s charms making the beast’s attempt at motion work not just horizontally, but also vertically.

The first few minutes of the ascent were the most perilous: Cash reported that he could feel the strain on the yeddim, and thus sense how much resistance there was in the chain going down: “…and there’s a lot! I think the sunk barge is lodged in the ocean floor. It feels like pulling out a stuck anchor!”

Monitoring the structural integrity of the wooden howdah, its massive alchemically cured leather straps around the yeddim, and how well the drum with the metal chain was connected to the howdah, Speaker held his breath as his eyes passed from one strained rivet to the other, occasionally slapping nails back into place as they began to worm their way out due to the intense stress.

Of course, the biggest issue was whether someone else would show up – particularly a realm patrol fleet. Dropping the barge half-way up would be disastrous, and likely result in the whole cargo being lost to the currents.

“Cash, are you keeping an eye on the horizon?” Speaker said, after slapping the same nail back in for the fifth time.

Appearing far too much at ease, the eclipse caste solar dismissed Speaker’s worries: “Don’t fret – I came in high, saw much further around than what you can – and I had daylight too. There’s nothing around here. The realm fleets don’t like poking around in waters this near Lookshy or Thorns”

“Since when does Thorns have an active fleet again?”

Apparently, that was but one of many new things that had come about since Speaker had left for the west: “They shouldn’t be an issue to us. They’re mostly crewed by the undead, and have very strict orders. They’ll engage any realm fleet they spot, and inspect any merchant ship approaching Thorns – since we’re neither they’ll just ignore us. I’ve flown by them dozens of times, dumb as rocks”

“And they don’t have any intelligent leadership with them?” Speaker said, confused at how such a fleet could even work, let alone inspect merchants.

Cash explained that at night ghost officers would emerge on the Thorns patrol fleets: “They’re calm and dumb during the day – at night they’re a bit more risky, depending on the whims of their ghost captains and officers. And they simply follow any merchant ship they spot coming in, inspecting it at night”

“That… would give smugglers up to half a day to hide things – that’s so stupid!” Speaker simply had to point out.

Nodding and laughing, Cash simply pointed out that it is exceptionally difficult to hide stuff from cargo inspectors who can move through solid walls. Speaker found that to be a rather novel but oddly effective-sounding solution.

“Plus, if they catch you smuggling, they don’t just take your ship… they take your souls – most of the smugglers I’ve talked to who used to work around Thorns say they’ve gotten the hell out”

“What would anyone want to smuggle into the city?” Speaker wondered, not really seeing what one could smuggle into a kingdom ruled by the undead that its rulers would mind.

Cash gave Speaker a disappointed look: “Salt for the most part, owning salt is completely forbidden in Thorns now. Holy water, anything else that might ward off ghosts or the undead – and they’re just as rigorous for checking ships going out of the city. The Mask of Winters is really eager to make nice, so he’s selling most of the goods they’re making dirt cheap, but every pony who can is fleeing the city, often by sneaking out on merchant ships as stowaways”

Speaker shuddered. Cash pulled the reigns once more, noting that there was barely any resistance left on whatever it was he was pulling up. Not long after the barge breached the surface, wrapped in essence-webbing, and the jade-steel chain was tied to the essence webbing.

Quickly jumping down to the barge, Speaker repaired the damage done to the ship and helped drain it. This allowed Cash to set the barge down on the water, allowing for a proper transfer of goods onto the yeddim’s massive saddle-… well, calling them saddlebags was a bit like saying that a barn was a big shed for holding grain. It was like two small warehouses, each three stories tall, strapped to each side of the yeddim, cloaked by the darkness of the night. Speaker and Shimmer quickly transferred the goods under the light of their caste marks, the walls of the strap-on warehouses having been made to slide to the side for easy access.

“Hey you two, hurry up – I can see flags on the horizon, pretty sure its realm flags!” Cash suddenly shouted.

Speaker nodded to Shimmer who quickly joined Cash up on the howdah: “Speaker will be up in a moment, needs to scuttle the barge”

Joining his fellow solar and lunar a few moments later as the barge quickly sank, Speaker finally formally introduced Shimmer to Cash and vice versa: “…and Last Shimmer, this is Cash Charmer, chosen of Celestia of the eclipse caste”

“So… he’s like Admiral Sand?” Shimmer wondered.

Cash chuckled: “Oh no, the ponies I rule actually have plenty of running water and aren’t made up of exiles and outcastes from neighbouring countries. Would love to meet him though”

As they rose into the sky, fully ladened with all of the hidden riches of the Denzik city ship, Speaker saw the realm fleet approaching from the west. Its sails were colored red, marking the fleet as part of the realm’s fire navy – not a navy he wanted to tangle with – and if he could see them, then they could see the flying yeddim in the dawning light.

Indeed, several small first age vessels that probably used magical means of moving through water raced out from the fleet a few seconds later.

“Cash, I know you can fly a lot faster than this – I have no desire to trade blows with the fire fleet, come on!” Speaker said, a creeping panic inching into his voice.

The blue-clad stallion with the carefully coifed blond mane sighed: “With this much cargo have to accelerate slowly or the satchel-houses will be ripped off. You did just load a whole barge worth of goods into them”

Shimmer might not have understood what Speaker had said to Cash as they spoke an eastern tongue together, but she had understood his worried tone – and had equally understood Cash’s confident dismissal. She wasn’t quite sure which to believe, opting to keep her eyes trained on the approaching vessels.

Now, yeddim are not known for being fast. What they are known for is being very big and very strong, able to slowly haul absolutely massive loads of cargo – while even the laziest pony can casually out-pace a yeddim with a leisurely trot. With Cash’s charms the yeddim that the three were riding on was already moving at the speed of a pony’s gallop, but the realm ships were approaching much faster still.

“Look at the closest one. That actually looks like… bloody hell. That’s a dragonfly-class patrol boat. Color me impressed that a realm fleet would have a first age relic like that still in service. Those things come with a lot of firepower!” Speaker said, peering intently at the trio of ships approaching them.

Cash really didn’t like the sound of ‘firepower’, to which end he simply asked: “What kind of range are we talking about with that firepower? I can’t dodge very quickly right now”

The first gout of lightning from the patrol boat’s lightning ballista answered that question – though the shot went wide, missing by almost half a mile. The thunderclap still sent chills down the spine of the three ponies on the yeddim, which itself was too stupid to understand the danger it was in.

“Spe- Lord Bright… what are you doing?” Shimmer asked, as she saw her solar mate climb to the back of the howdah and whip out his two orichalcum chakrams from elsewhere.

Not turning to look at Shimmer, Speaker kept a focused lookout for more incoming lightning: “I’m protecting us – though I need you ready to fly out and catch me if I have to jump”

Shimmer wanted to ask what Speaker would have to jump for, but that was when a far better aimed gout of lightning came in, aimed squarely at the flying yeddim’s giant rump. Speaker leapt out in front, chakrams ahead of him, and somehow managed to parry the lightning strike with the comparably small chakrams.

This of course also left Speaker falling towards the ocean several hundred feet underneath – but Shimmer, ever quick-witted, didn’t leap out flying towards him. She simply tagged Speaker with her essence-webbing and hauled him back up: “Please tell me that you’re going to do that next time you do that Lord Bright”

“I’ll try - and thank you for saving me” Speaker said, catching his breath as he steadied his hooves up on the howdah.

It was difficult to tell if their pursuers had simply remembered that they had left the kettle on back home, or whether they had judged the yeddim too far out of range, but they stopped shooting lightning after that. This allowed Cash to accelerate the yeddim up to proper speed…

Now, Shimmer was quite used to racing through the water at what she had previously considered great speeds. Some of her aquatic forms were supposedly very fast indeed. With Speaker and his magical flying cloud, she had learned a whole new meaning to speed, for it could zip past landscape like nothing she had ever heard of nor seen before. Then there had been the elemental and the glass ship, which had crossed a near endless desert so quickly she hadn’t been able to get a bearing via the stars…

What Cash was making the yeddim do, speed-wise, felt even faster.

This left the lunar utterly stunned, barely able to keep track of where they were going.

“Cash, we need to stop by Lookshy first before heading home – I promised Admiral Sand we’ve check up on something” Speaker noted.

Cash shot Speaker a raised eyebrow: “What have you gotten us tangled up in this time?”

“Nothing serious. Sand is looking for a unicorn who knows something, but he ran off north-east and was apparently picked up by a Lookshyan patrol before Sand could nab him, that’s at least what he told me” Speaker said, sounding as if he understood fully that there probably was more to the story than what Sand had told.

The solar merchant frowned, appearing absolutely sure that that there was more to it than just that – and indeed Speaker agreed, but said that all he had promised Sand was to find the pony and try to arrange for him to be sent back to him: “Apparently he ran away from his duties as some kind of keeper or watcher over something Sand wants – but we won’t have to mention Sand at all in this while in Lookshy”

Shimmer saw coastline ending on the horizon before Cash did, and commented that the terrain was rising up quite a lot: “Is this Sunhill?”

“No, it’s the city I was born in, Lookshy – now, they all talk Riverspeak there, but we’ll get your language lesson sorted out once we get to Sunhill. I just have to talk with a few ponies, then we’ll leave to go there. Oh, and don’t shapeshift while we’re there, it might scare the locals” Speaker said, gazing at the rising walls of Lookshy as the flying yeddim approached at its blazing speed.

It was difficult for the tribal Lunar to make up her mind of where to look as they slowed down for their approach over the city. It was the biggest city she had ever seen in her life, and it was so… everything. There were towers poking up, city walls everywhere, the absolute wall of smells and scents that rose up from it… and an massive hollow tiered obelisk that Cash was steering the yeddim towards at the highest point in the city. It seemed to have multiple internal levels, and elevator platforms…

That Shimmer knew what an elevator platform puzzled her briefly as Cash landed the yeddim.

“Since when do we have a ‘regular’ landing spot” Speaker wondered, seeing some of the signage next to the place they had landed.

Cash shrugged and nodded towards a trio of ponies who looked like airship hooves who were all quite obviously merely pretending to work: “I show up here often enough like this, wasn’t difficult to arrange – plus it makes it so much easier for their spies to make sure that we don’t try to smuggle anything in or out… that’s at least what they think”

It was difficult for Speaker not to chuckle: “Well, we’re not here to load anything on or off, right?”

Shimmer marvelled as the trio exited the ground level of the aviary, coming out into the ‘old city’ in very heart of Lookshy. True first age architecture, light fixtures and waterways that magically supplied the district with level of luxury and amenities that most kings wouldn’t dare dream of. This, the oldest part of Lookshy, was particularly beautiful and tranquil – it was all unnatural for sure, but it also seemed wonderfully calm and in balance, with fruit trees and plants growing in beautiful symmetry.

“You grew up here Lord Bright? Wow…” Shimmer commented, as her head kept spinning around like an owl to take in everything.

“What’s with her calling you Lord Bright all the time?” Cash commented.

Speaker shrugged: “She’s been calling me that since we met – I guess it’s my time to be the elder”

Making their way through the nearby residential district, and then into the recently rebuilt port district, the trio found the circle’s town house/consulate still there – a good sign. The staff there welcomed their masters and relayed the usual pile of mail and messages.

Cash threw himself at the paperwork, devouring invitations to social events and consultancy offers with ravenous business acumen, leaving Speaker to go do his thing.

This left Speaker with a bit of a conundrum: “I don’t actually know who to talk to about this… we need to find someone from the security directorate, and the coughers don’t exactly advertise their presence”

“So… find someone you’re sure knows of them, that’s how we do it back home Lord Bright” Shimmer suggested, intuiting the simplest but best solution.

That wasn’t a bad idea, and Speaker knew just the pony. Thus, the two of them made their way to what might appear to be the largest fortification in the many rings of city walls within the city – but Speaker knew better: It was Valkhawsen, the academy of sorcery and magical engineering in the city.

“You know, I expected there to actually be ponies here” Shimmer commented, as they walked the empty halls and peered into empty auditoriums and laboratories.

It certainly puzzled Speaker why there weren’t anyone around. The guards at the gate recognized him and waved them through, but they hadn’t said anything about the place having been evacuated – and if it was an evacuation, then the guards shouldn’t have let them in. What was going on?

Shimmer used her charms and detected a lone pony in a nearby hallway. They quickly caught up with the pony, Speaker recognizing him: “Kraik you sneaky bastard – what’s going on?”

The old unicorn spun around, his bushy beard and shaggy mane all over the place: “Speaker! Just the pony I was hoping to meet – what brings you here?”

“Well, I need to talk to some coughers, figured you would know where to find some – but… why is the academy empty? Did something bad happen?” Speaker wondered, not sure if he should be curious or alarmed.

Shimmer, still firmly stuck behind a language barrier, carefully observed the unicorn: Parts of him didn’t quite look… right – not to the casual observer, but to her keen senses she could see that a lot of bits of the unicorn were… younger… newer… than the rest. How very strange – the unicorn also smelled of a lot very unnatural chemicals and metals.

“…but why start without having me ready to assist raising the manse?” Speaker wondered.

The unicorn stallion didn’t seem to take Speaker’s question for much, simply remarking: “You know why – we’re moving Valkhawsen to a new walled off section of the port district, in preparation for tearing this place down. We’ll contact you if you’re needed for the actual raising”

Nodding slowly, Speaker looked to Shimmer as if he had a lot more questions to ask – but also as if he had understood enough to not need any more information right at that moment. Either way the unicorn seemed to give Speaker the directions he needed, because the next thing the lunar knew she was being led away by Speaker through the city, past many a school and noisy workshop, to what looked like a huge bazaar district. There were market stalls everywhere, and Shimmer’s nose was assaulted by the scent of a thousand spices and other strange things for which she had no names.

“Come, we can get lunch over here” Speaker directed, the two sitting down at a café that turned out to serve what Speaker called southern food.

As far as Shimmer was concerned, then ‘southern food’ was apparently code word for brutally over-spiced food, to which she marvelled at how Speaker was able to eat the stuff. Not even the stuff they had been served to them at Sand was this bad.

“Alright – Kraik said that we just have to wait here, then we’ll get contacted by the coughers”

Having fought back the tears so her eyes weren’t watering from the spicy food, Shimmer eyed Speaker suspiciously: “Lord Bright, what are coughers?”

“It doesn’t translate well to sea-tongue – but it’s what we locally call the secret agents of the security directorate here. I think they’re trained to sneak up on you and then cough a bit to get your attention, or something like that” Speaker explained, making it sound like it was the simplest of things.

It was with a pained expression and ultimately tired eyes that Shimmer just looked Speaker: “This is a lot to take in… would it be ok if I take a nap? I couldn’t really sleep on the yeddim”

“I… sure dear, you have a nap” Speaker said, Shimmer already down on the table and getting comfortable before he could get another word in edgewise.

A generous tip to their waiter stopped any questions from being asked, leaving the solar to simply wait for the coughers to show up.

It was while pondering his next infrastructure project in Sunhill that Speaker suddenly found himself disturbed, as an eager pony came up and sat down next to him: “Hi there, you must be Speaker? Great to meet you, heard loads about you”

Giving the stranger a quick look-over, Speaker wondered what was going on. The brown-coated pony with a slightly darker brown mane looked about as generic as it was possible for a pony to appear, while also wearing a bright red bowtie and a fez, prompting Speaker to idly wonder: “Why the fez?”

“Because fezzes are cool” the spry and oddly cheerful pony said.

Suddenly a mare with a somewhat clumsy gait and a bad case of the cross-eyes stumbled into the fez-wearing stallion, saying: “Doctor, we need to go – or the muffin-men will get us!”

Speaker perked up at the pony being called doctor: “Oh you’re a doctor? Are you from Dragon’s Mercy? Do you need help with anything there?”

It honestly wouldn’t have surprised Speaker one bit if there was some poor soul at his old stomping grounds in need, and that a young and desperate doctor would hunt him down to ask for help – and indeed, Speaker would gladly have rendered such aid – but that was not what the stallion said: “No, but I have occasionally been called the Doctor of War, but that’s neither here nor there. I need to know what your current plans are, on expanding your personal library”

Doing a double take, Speaker wasn’t quite sure how to answer that: “What are you talking about?”

“Do you have any plans on retrieving any fun new interesting books in the near future?” the spry stallion inquired, his tone jovial and quizzical, with an infectious cheerfulness to him.

“What are you going on about? Who are you?” Speaker implored, getting a bit annoyed at how oddly vague the pony was.

Looking almost hurt – almost – the good stallion threw Speaker a cheerful smile: “I go by many names, but most simply call me Doctor Hooves. Now seriously, have you given any thought to getting any new fancy books?”

“We’re too early doctor, he’s not there yet – now come on, we have to go” the mare insisted, her somewhat unkempt and wild blond mane standing in muted contrast to her grey coat.

The ‘doctor’ got up and bowed apologetically: “Right, I see. It’s a touchy subject, thorny even – we’ll have to catch you later then, toodles!”

Speaker just sat there, wondering what in creation had just happened. A minute or so later four coughers in full white-painted suits of lamellar armor and armed with spears came rushing by, asking Speaker if he had seen a pair of ponies whose description matched the two oddballs. Speaker acknowledged, then added in his own polite and totally not at all essence-enhanced query about a unicorn from the south…

“Oh dragons, that weirdo? The one we found in locked in that shipping crate down in the docks sent from Chaing-Dav? Yes, wreaked havocs at the docks, but he killed himself shortly after we took himself custody, before we could interrogate or execute him – yanked his own head off as if he was pulling the cork from a bottle” one of the troopers quickly bemoaned, before a swift hoof to the side reminded the seemingly green and inexperienced security trooper not to blab about captives and whatnot in public, and especially not in the middle of the market district for all to hear!

“Easy – there’s nobody in earshot and I’m cleared for top secret information. But he killed himself? That’s unfortunate. Thank you” Speaker said, getting up from the table as the troopers went on their way, apparently hunting the two strangers from earlier.

As he got up Shimmer stirred and yawned: “Hey, we ready to go Lord Bright?”

“Yes – lets go see if Cash is still back at the town house. It turns out that the unicorn we came for killed himself rather than allow Lookshy interrogate him. I guess he really wanted to keep his secrets secret” Speaker noted, not at all trying to hide his disappointment.

Shimmer frowned: “That’s too bad Lord Bright – I hope Sand won’t be angry”

Back at the town house Cash was in good spirits, but he instantly picked up on Speaker’s lack of success.

Shimmer noted, upon hearing the description of the two strangers who had spoken to Speaker, that the mare faintly reminded her of a sidereal she had seen back during the Lookshy Games before the battle of Deep Rot, but her memories of her past life were still quite fuzzy. Speaker agreed that this ‘doctor’ fellow also reeked of sidereal, but that discussion ended when a magical message with the bad news was sent to Admiral Sand.

“Oh, by the way Speaker, there were some more letters from your family – more of the usual begging and pleading to let them come to Sunhill and work as ‘royal advisors’. I took the liberty of writing and sending some rather stern rejection letters. That should hopefully stop their writing campaign for good” Cash noted.

Speaker sighed and shook his head, thanking Cash for having been able to make the tough choice that he couldn’t get himself to do. Shimmer didn’t understand anything that exchange, but picked up enough of a vibe from their conversation that it was about something that had irked Speaker, which was now resolved.

With all that done, the trio returned to the aviary to fly off to Sunhill.