Loose Pages

Luna wrinkled her nose as she sipped the tea.

“You dislike it,” said Celestia.

Luna shook her head. “I do not dislike it, sister. But neither do I appreciate it the way thou dost.” She sipped the tea again. “Perhaps I shall like it more in time.”

An attendant announced, “Wizened Beard to see Your Majesties.”

A smooth, baby-faced unicorn in the rich robes of an arcanist hurried in and bowed. “Your Majesties.”

Celestia smiled. “Our promising young arcanist! We recommend once again that you attempt to live up to your name.”

“My apologies, but I am trying, Ma’am. I even bought a hair tonic, ‘Flim and Flam’s—’”

Celestia clucked her tongue. “And of course, it didn’t work. Anyway! What brings you here today?”

Wizened Beard continued to bow. “Yesterday, you gave Senior Arcanist New Spark a magical book to study. It is with great regret that I inform you the book has been stolen.”

Luna snorted tea out of her nose and had a fit of coughing. Chill foreboding crept through Celestia. She said, “Tell us everything you know.”

The Senior Arcanist had taken the book to the Royal Laboratory yesterday afternoon. Following the protocol for dangerous artifacts, he had locked it in a magic-canceling vault for safekeeping overnight. But when he did not arrive for work this morning, Wizened Beard went to his house to check on him. The door was unlocked and the house empty. Wizened Beard returned to the Laboratory, opened the vault, and found an empty box. He concluded, “There were no signs the vault had been tampered with. Everypony with access has been accounted for except New Spark.”

Luna murmured, “But why would he take it?”

Wizened Beard shook his head. “Nopony even half as experienced as him would simply walk away with an unstudied artifact like that. It’s too risky. Either he’s been forced, or it’s not him.”

“But then who?”

“I have no answer, Ma’am.”

Celestia asked, “You are absolutely certain that nopony examined the book before it was put into the vault?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Then you are dismissed.” Celestia touched her wing to Luna’s. “Sister, I am afraid.”

Luna said, “As am I. But I have an idea.”

At dusk, the alicorns stood on the balcony of Luna’s private chambers while Celestia lowered the sun below the horizon. She said, “It will be dangerous, sister.”

As Luna lifted the moon, she touched her forehead to her sister’s. “I am certain I have this power within me, and with thou, I am certain I will be safe.”

Luna closed her eyes and launched a shimmering blue stream of magic from her horn. It sizzled as it thrust upward, through air and clouds, beyond the confines of the atmosphere, driving toward the moon. When it struck the moon, it percolated across the surface, filling in the craters and valleys and submerging the mountains, until the moon was an orb of sparkling cobalt. The aura of magic around Luna’s horn grew, encompassing her and suffusing the air around her with a glow. Luna grimaced, tense from the exertion of projecting her magic so far. Despite the acrid smell, Celestia stayed within the aura, next to her sister.

For untold thousands of years, the moon had witnessed Equestrian magic. The emanations from Equestria had slowly imbued the moon with magic until it had become an immense and dangerously potent magical artifact itself, one which, because of its distance, only Luna and Celestia knew the full truth of. The strength of that artifact had sustained the Nightmare’s thousand-year prison. And, just as with Celestia and the sun, only Luna had the strength and skill to wield the moon on her own.

The book had described an alternate reality where Nightmare Moon had not only conquered Equestria and its neighbors but had enchanted the moonlight. Luna had reasoned that if the Nightmare could do it, why couldn’t she? Celestia had warned her that the Nightmare must have been insane to attempt such a feat. But, she had agreed, it was their best hope to recover the book.

Luna reached into the moon’s store of magic. Sparks flashed along the stream of magical energy flowing from her. She reached further, and as she took hold of the moon’s power, lightning danced over the moon. She raised the magic to the surface, and the moonlight changed into a sapphire wall of force. Sweat beaded on Luna’s brow. Celestia put a comforting wing over her sister. The spell was almost complete, but this final stage, when Luna needed to control so much magic at once, was the most taxing.

The sapphire wall descended over Equestria. As the lunar magic neared, it resolved into a dense fog that engulfed the land. Luna’s experience with the book had made her familiar with its magic, and she could recognize it as one artisan recognizes the work of another. Now, by channeling the moon’s magic, she sought the book’s signature. The fog probed Equestria, touching it, palpating it. Luna made a tiny gasp. Through clenched teeth, she murmured, “I feel it. It is south of here. Outside Canterlot. Approaching the Everfree.” She hummed with pleasure. “I shall set it aglow. It shall shine as bright as thy sun, Sister.” A glittering wave of ultramarine blue rippled from the moon. It swept over Equestria, and the fog vanished. The beam from Luna’s horn faded and thinned, and the ocean of magic that enveloped the moon drained back below its surface.

Luna gasped, and her knees buckled, but Celestia caught her with a levitation spell. Celestia, adopting the old dialect in which Luna was more comfortable, asked, “Art thou safe, o sister?”

Luna took deep, rapid breaths as she nodded. She set her hooves on the floor of the balcony again, and Celestia released the levitation spell. Luna folded her wings around Celestia, and the sisters embraced.

When Luna had recovered her breath, she made to leave the embrace. Celestia held her and said, “Rest for a while. Thou art tired.”

Luna shook her head. “We must go immediately. He is already fleeing.”

Mandible had already dropped his disguise as New Spark and changed into a pegasus. He had flown over Ponyville, intending to circle around the west edge of the Everfree Forest. But when he saw Luna’s spell, he landed and stopped to watch it. It looked as though the sky was falling and was about to smother Equestria. The wave of magic worried him as it descended from the moon, but there was no purpose in running. When it reached him, he felt a slight tingle. Then a sudden flash cut through the fog of magic, and the book glowed so brightly that, despite being stored in his pack, it lit the path around him as bright as day.

Even before the magic dissipated, Mandible reverted to his natural changeling form and sprang into the air. At times, the Everfree could be risky even to fly over, but it was his only chance. He needed to reach the hive as quickly as possible.

He did not know how powerful the artifact was. All he knew for certain was what the Princesses had told him when they believed he was New Spark. The book, they said, changed for each reader. It showed the reader what they most wished to read, and somehow, what it showed was designed to keep them reading. Despite this, reading the book was not always pleasant, and Celestia had been unwilling to describe what she had read. For Luna, the book had been titled, “The Reign of Nightmare Moon,” and it had recounted the destruction of Equestria and the end of pony civilization. But whatever the book was really capable of, Mandible knew his Queen deserved its magic.

The book was so bright that Mandible supposed that, from the ground, he looked like a shooting star. He flew higher. Perhaps if he looked enough like a shooting star, he would not be noticed.

Two alicorns, followed by a squadron of Royal Guards, flew south at a frantic pace, aided by a brisk magical tailwind. Luna knew where the book had been, and her spell might keep it glowing for weeks. But if they delayed, the thief would have time to escape or to hide the book where they could not see it.

By the time they alighted on a dirt path southwest of Ponyville, the night had reached full darkness. “This is where I felt the book,” Luna said. “But even as I felt it, it seemed to move that way.” She thrust her wing toward the Everfree.

“Then that is where we shall search,” said Celestia.

The squadron took to the air, dividing into four flights that flew low over the Everfree. As Celestia prepared to join them, Luna stopped her. “If it was truly New Spark who stole the book, then he has no wings and would need to remain near the ground,” Luna said. “But if it was not New Spark, or if he has passed the book to another courier, then it might be airborne.”

The alicorns flew high, to where the air was too thin and cold for the guards to follow. Before them, beneath the starry night sky, the Everfree Forest resembled a black abyss. The thick canopy blocked the view from above, shielding the dense undergrowth, the swamps, and the rivers dammed with fallen trees. If he hid down there, Celestia thought, he might be difficult to find even with Luna’s spell.

Luna said, “Sister, I have had a disturbing thought. What would happen if one wrote in the book?”

Celestia paused, contemplating her experience with the book. “I do not know,” she said. “The book does not show us reality. It shows us what we most truly desire to read. Let us hope we do not find out if one can change truth.”

From the alicorns’ rarified height, the Everfree appeared quiet, even sleepy. While the forest was active at all hours, teeming with creatures from skittish insects to merciless hunters, the alicorns were too high to observe any movement.

Luna said, “Sister? What is that?”

It was a pinpoint of light moving beneath them. Against the blackness of the forest, it looked like a shooting star. “No natural denizen of the Everfree, whether predator or prey, would be so visible,” said Celestia. “Let us investigate.”

The alicorns glided down, silent and furtive, without flaps of their wings and without words that might betray their presence. The pinpoint grew as they approached, attaining a definite size and distance, gaining a shape that was distinct against the unlit ground. The shape glowed.

The two alicorns shared a glance and a nod. Then they dove.

Night was Mandible’s best chance to make progress. Despite the brightness of the book, he was still less visible in darkness. It helped that the book was on his back, facing the sky, with his body between it and ground observers.

He had left the hive before on other missions for his Queen. He had always been reliable, and he knew she trusted him. Yet leaving the hive always gave him an uneasy feeling. Life in the hive was regimented, and because it was regimented, it was simple. Outside the hive, creatures fended for themselves. Living without a Queen to guide your every step was a strange and complicated way to live, he thought, and he couldn’t understand how they endured it. Somehow they did. And somehow, when she sent him on missions outside the hive, he did, too. He told himself that he was unceasingly loyal to his Queen, but whenever he noticed himself surviving without her, he doubted himself.

Like now. Even in the Everfree, most creatures were asleep. He was alone. If he flew away, if he fed himself, if he tried and succeeded at being autonomous, then she would never know what had happened to him.

He should feed, he thought. He would be hungry soon, and he would travel faster if he took the time to feed. There were pony settlements on the other side of the Everfree. He would stop there.

The thought of feeding did not want to leave his mind, as if he smelled a delicious feast of love nearby. The odor was so strong that he looked to see where it was coming from. Behind him were a pair of alicorns, silhouetted against the stars and coming for him.

Mandible folded his wings and dropped. Moments later, a beam of energy ripped through the space above him. He continued dropping, letting the distance between him and the alicorns grow. When he had lost half his altitude, he flared his wings. The wind stretched them wide and converted his dive into a breakneck descent. He banked hard to his left, and another beam from the alicorns missed. He flapped to regain altitude, then spun to his right, dodging another thunderbolt, and back to his left.

The two alicorns were impossibly more powerful than him. If he ran, they would either catch up or shoot him out of the sky. If he fought, they would annihilate him.

His Queen trusted him. He would not lose the book.

Mandible folded his wings again. As he fell, he spun to his back so that his pack and the book faced the ground, shielding the book’s glow from the alicorns with his body. He craned his neck to watch the ground approach, and he waited, letting himself fall, watching the canopy come closer, judging the distance to the treetops.

He spread his wings and skimmed along the top of the canopy, weaving left and right between the trees. A beam of energy sliced through the air in front of him, and as he ducked, he crashed. He tumbled, slamming into branches and snapping them while sharp-edged leaves tore his face and legs. He landed on a decayed, mossy log, pulverizing it into dust.

Mandible tested his wings, gently moving them until he was satisfied that they still worked. He would tend to the rest of his body later. He opened his pack to check on the book. It was almost as it had been before: Old leather, worn with heavy use and stained by time, with faded gold letters on the front. But, he saw, it was not quite the same as before.

He returned the book to the pack. He positioned his pack against his front, where the book, still shining, acted like a torch. The sky was not visible from ground level, and Mandible had lost his orientation, but it didn’t matter. The alicorns would search here; if he did not move immediately, he would be caught.

He set off, flying as fast as he could through the dense undergrowth. He had thought that he would deliver the book to his Queen without looking at it, but seeing the title had changed his mind. Something about it made him want to read the book.