CHAPTER THREE: DEALING WITH DARKNESS

Nights in the city of Canterlot had been transformed in recent years. The city’s main thoroughfares, which had been lit for more than a thousand years by flickering, winking torches—then by gas lanterns—were now bathed in the plain, even, yellow light of electricity. Fancy restaurants would leave the electric bulbs undisguised, just to prove they had them. It wasn’t like Manehattan, where in parts of its downtown, it was said, you couldn’t tell the difference between day and night, but Canterlot had definitely emerged from a scene out of Windigo times into the kernel of a modern city.

But the castle that rose up above the city was still lit, by royal decree, with torches, just as it had always been. With the changing of the Evening Guard, the Night Guard walked out along the parapets, and at the chime of seven o’clock, the unicorns in the guard cast a well-practiced spell, setting every torch on the castle exterior alight within seconds.

For Graphite, watching from a nearby rooftop, the spectacle more than rivaled any display of earth pony electricity. He watched as light blossomed across Canterlot Castle, spreading out in a beautiful cascade, like ripples in a pond. But the torchlight also served another purpose for Graphite. He stuck to one of the newly created shadows beneath a parapet, casting a low-powered spell that merged his naturally black coat even more seamlessly with his surroundings.

Above him, he heard the commotion of the changing of the guard coming to a close, and he prepared to move. Jump. Left turn, crouch immediately to avoid detection. Crawl forward twenty meters. Unlock door, open inward, then immediately lock again. Shouldn’t take more than twenty, maybe twenty-three, seconds. The sequence was simple enough, and he’d run through it in his head enough over the past two days. Simple, however, didn’t always mean smart.

Graphite normally liked to have time to scope out his target, figure out his own ingress and egress, practice the timing more than a half-dozen times, all of the little things that separated good agents from former agents. But the note from his contact had stated, rather unapologetically, that the mission window was only open for another two nights. If he’d given me a week, I could have damn well gotten myself invited to the castle! As it was, Graphite would have to trust in his contact. However, considering the fact that he had never even met the pony, trusting him wasn’t that easy for Graphite to do.

All that remained to be seen was if the key he had been given would work. Graphite sincerely hoped that it did; his contingency plan if it didn’t work involved rolling over the wall again, but this time with a ten meter drop down to a cobblestone alley waiting for him on the other side. Assuming, of course, that I make it back over the wall in the first place.

He heard the click and scrape of armored hooves that meant that the nearest guard had turned away. Well, they say that he who hesitates is lost. Jump!

Without a second thought, Graphite sprang up and threw himself sideways, gaining exactly enough height to clear the crenulations, rolling onto the wall and rising to his cloth-covered hooves with hardly a sound. Indeed, the professors at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns would have been surprised at the agility of their newest assistant. A great many things about Graphite would have surprised them.

Left turn, crouch immediately. As he crawled along the battlement, his ears strained for any sounds in the night. The galloping of hooves on stone, a shout from a guard pony, any sign that he had been spotted. As he crawled, he chanted in his mind to match the rhythm of his hooves: this is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid... Graphite briefly considered a prayer to The Sisters as well, then thought better of it. After all, he thought wryly, what kind of goddess would bless a burglary in her own castle?

He soon came to a plain wooden door sunk into an alcove in the walls, barely body-deep. Now came the moment of truth: would the key work? From a small satchel tied around his body, he produced a plaster key, rough and imperfect, a product of the crude wax mold it had been copied from. It had been lifted from a servant, and thus couldn’t hope to open anything more secure than a linen closet. Leaning against the alcove to shield the light from his magical grip, Graphite put the key in the lock and gingerly twisted it. Don’t snap, he prayed. Don’t snap, don’t snap, don’t sn—

The key made a small crunch as it snapped halfway through the turn.

—ap. He looked at the broken end of the key hanging limply in his grasp. Horseapples. Horse-bucking-apples. A particularly helpful corner of Graphite’s mind started snarkily pointing out his mistakes, that he should have been holding the whole key in his magic, that he should have tested the key before his life was on the line.

And this meant he was done, of course. Because in fourteen seconds, the guard at the end of the wall would turn around, spot him, and sound the alarm. And then Graphite would have to choose between crippling injury on the cobblestone below and a wonderful stay enjoying Celestia’s... hospitality.

Any good operative knew to leave emotion behind. Emotion clouded your judgment and slowed you down. This mantra battled against the first few beats of real fear that coursed through his mind.

He probed out at the door with his magic, trying to find the broken end of the key. Perhaps it could still be turned in the lock. He groped at various bits and linkages in the lock, trying to turn each one, fruitlessly. He was still counting from the moment he had leapt over the parapet—ten seconds left.

At last, he found the broken stub, and, gripping it gingerly with his magic, he turned the key the last quarter-turn. He felt, rather than heard, the lock unlatch. Straining his magical strength, he lifted the heavy wooden door slightly so that its hinges would not squeal as he opened it, and he quickly slipped inside. He leaned for a moment against the door, listening one last time for any disturbance outside. He heard the sound of horseshoes approaching the door with military precision, and... the hoofsteps kept going.

Suddenly, the edges of his vision began shrinking. He had been found! It was obviously a clever unicorn he was fighting, and he had fallen right into the trap. He had no idea where his enemy was. No place to focus his magic. Graphite tried to push out with a counter-spell, but the black curse kept tightening around him, constricting his chest...

And then Graphite opened his mouth and remembered to breathe again.

He wiped away the sweat matting his brow, and took stock of his surroundings. Here was a room filled with shelves upon shelves of extremely secret and confidential... cleaning supplies.

The unicorn removed two more items from his satchel: a red peaked cap and matching jacket; the uniform of the porters here at the castle. Hopefully, nopony routinely questions the castle delivery colts, he thought as he pulled on the garment. Graphite chose a sufficiently heavy-looking box and hefted it; after all, it would be far easier if he looked like he had someplace to be. To round out his disguise, he let another spell envelop him, changing his coat and mane colors. Checking to make sure the change was complete, he stepped inside.

The corridors of the castle were far from the dark, deserted halls it seemed that spies were normally found sneaking through. Instead, though not as heavily trafficked as during the day, servants and guards were still going about their business. Graphite, with his appropriated uniform and heavy burden, tried to blend in, but every instinct was screaming at him to get out of sight, away from the prying eyes of the guards. With his senses on high alert, it seemed as if every step they took was to corner or box him in.

He was walking with confidence, moving like he had a purpose, but he needed to find the right destination. He summoned up a mental map of the castle, and as bits swam in and out of focus in his memory, he cursed to himself again. One day was not enough time to memorize the layout of a thousand year old castle, and his employers bucking well knew that!

As he neared his destination, Graphite’s mind went into overdrive. He had one last hurdle to get past before he could complete his mission. According to his contact, the target was located somewhere in the secure archives of the library, kept under guard at all times. And this is where this shoddily constructed plan is going to fall to pieces. Because I’ve got to bluff my way past this guard, and there’s no way he’s one of the new colts on the block. ‘Special orders from the princesses’ isn’t going to cut it this time.

* * *

The Canterlot Archives were located above the library, in a tower that spiraled up several stories. The entrance to that tower, a small staircase, was guarded by no less than two royal guards, dressed in full kit and armor. There was no way that he was sneaking past that. The guards stood on the stairs themselves, and the only way to ascend was if they moved out of the way.

Graphite needed to step up his disguise. He ducked behind a bookcase and stashed his uniform. Screwing up his face, he concentrated on... the librarian at the desk! He pictured her clearly in his mind, and cast his spell.

Moments later, an old mare, with her gray mane coiled tightly into a bun, stepped into view of the steps, levitating a rather large book out in front of her. The Royal Guards snapped to attention when she approached, but they both smiled at the mare. “Good evening, Miss Citation,” one of them said.

“Gentlecolts,” she responded with a strained smile. After all, it was a rather heavy book she was carrying. “Just have to replace this.”

“Of course. I’ll be quick.” The stallion on the right lit his horn.

What? Graphite sensed the guard’s magic reaching out for him through the aether.

The vision spell started like the first drops of a deluge, and Graphite scrambled to hide his magical disguise before the full brunt of the spell came to bear. The trick was not to resist it, because resistance would mean deception. Instead, he tried to... streamline his work, trying to tuck in the edges of his magic behind the telekinesis, like a pegasus tucking in her legs to slip faster through the air.

But Graphite was swiftly reaching his limits. He almost lost his grasp on the book. The tome bobbed in the air as he struggled to stabilize it.

“Do you need any help with that, ma’am?” the other guard asked.

The vision spell wasn’t through, and now he had another act to juggle. Graphite reached again for the mare’s voice.

“Thank you, colts, but I have this well enough in hoof.”

Finally, it seemed that the guard was satisfied, and with a rush, the probing magic was dispelled.

“Well alright, then. She’s clear,” the one guard nodded to the other.

They stepped aside and allowed her to pass. She continued up the stairs and turned a corner. Safely out of view of the guards, the mare’s form evaporated, leaving a rather winded Graphite gasping for breath as silently as he could. His vision greyed, and he almost toppled into a stack of books. He couldn’t remember a time where he’d had to hold up his doppelganger spell up for that long. Add in the need to levitate the book to give an innocuous reason for his horn to be glowing, and avoiding detection, and you had a combination of spells that could test the endurance of any unicorn.

Graphite allowed himself a few moments to catch his breath, then pressed onwards up through the archives.

* * *

The final set of stairs led up to an attic in the tower. Unlike the levels below, this room was quite plain. The floor was coarse, unrelieved wood, and the walls were plain stone brick, bare of any tapestries. Besides the stairs he had just ascended, there was only one other exit: a large, open balcony on the other side of the tower. So that must be how Celestia and Luna get up here. Through the opening, he could see another tower, one which must have housed the royal chambers.

Graphite turned his attention to the contents of the last level of the archives. The walls were lined with shelves, each filled to the bursting point with scrolls and ancient tomes. In the center were stacks of crates covered with dust. None of these had been placed here in the last week. But with a bit of climbing, Graphite came to a crate that was newly made, sitting near the balcony entrance.

He tried using his magic to remove the top, to no avail. Adding his teeth to the mix, Graphite tried pulling again. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead as he strained against the nails. Finally, he heard a creak, and then a snap as the top of the crate came violently loose. The wood fractured in his mouth, and the unicorn spat out splinters.

Setting down what remained of the lid, Graphite looked at his prize. It was a strange device, somewhat like the laboratory equipment the professors used sometimes, only a hundred times more complex. And resting against the side of the box was a sheaf of drawings and papers as thick as his hoof. This was the real prize. He couldn’t hope to drag off the thing itself, so his contact would have to make do with the blueprints. It pained Graphite to have to leave behind such a marvelous piece of work.

One last trinket weighed down his satchel. Graphite withdrew a sphere of metal and glass, with intricate cogs and gears too detailed to have been made by hoof. He swapped the sphere for the sheaf of blueprints underneath the weird, spidery device. Satisfied that he had recovered all of the material he was sent to gather, Graphite gripped the sphere in his magic just... so, and the clockwork pieces began ticking and twitching.

He replaced the lid of the crate so that a cursory inspection wouldn’t raise the alarm, then walked back down out of the attic, carefully timing each step to the count he was keeping in his head. It was hard to keep from just bolting out and running for safety as fast as he could, but Graphite knew that if he got stopped by a guard, he would never make it out in time. Oh well. Slow and steady doesn’t get tortured and thrown into the crystal mines, as they always say. So Graphite walked nonchalantly out of the archives, even nodding to the guard that had let him through. What did he have to worry about? After all, he had made his delivery, hadn’t he?

By his count, he had seven minutes to go.

* * *

Celestia was finding this letter much more difficult to write than others that she had sent to her personal student. Several crumpled drafts littered her desk, most of them getting only a few lines in before being deemed unworthy. Her quill, nib coated in fresh ink, paused above a new sheet of parchment as she cast about for the correct words. Then she began writing:

My dearest, most faithful student-

In all the years I have been your mentor I have never had any reason to doubt you. You know that I value your diligence and that I trust you completely. I know that you would never try to do anything that could harm other ponies. The work you and Austenite have done is incredible, but I’m afraid that there’s just too much of a chance for something to go wrong with your spell matrix. I’m going to keep the prototype with me here in Canterlot, where I can continue studying it, and where I can ensure that it remains safe—

This draft, too, Celestia crumpled and discarded. She needed to get the right mix of regret and command to achieve something that Twilight would both understand and accept. But she would get it right eventually. She had to. She couldn’t let such a device threaten her little ponies. She thought back to her trials with the spell matrix. Truly, it was an amazing machine, and if Twilight was right, its capabilities were limited only by the imagination of the pony using it. The problem was that the imaginations of some ponies could wander down dark paths.

Celestia sighed and closed her eyes. She had promised herself, just over one thousand years ago, surveying the painful results of her sister’s rebellion, that she would never permit those weapons of war to surface ever again. The rebellion had brought forth the greatest minds of the time, on both sides, engaged in the cruel task of designing death. The earth ponies’ mechanical monstrosities, unicorn spells to stop a beating heart, the cruel and deadly knives that pegasi favored. All those deadly... beautifully efficient inventions had arisen because of the war.

And when the fighting was done, she had destroyed all of them, and made sure that no trace was found in the histories. She had even ensured that the Royal Guard was outfitted with nothing more advanced than pikes, barely adequate for fending off the wild creatures of the Everfree. And for a thousand years she had kept her little ponies safe, and she would continue guarding her little ponies. No matter the cost.

Celestia dipped her quill in the inkwell and looked around for a clean piece of letterstock. She had barely put pen to parchment once again when she heard the noise. A tremendous cough came from her balcony, and as she looked out to identify its source, she saw the black cloud that poured forth from the top of the archive tower.

She exploded from her chair and made for her balcony, wingtips smacking into the archway as she hastily unfurled them and leapt into the air. She ignored the smarting pain as she covered the distance between the two towers in seconds. It looked like a small fire, but it was intense, fueled by the ancient, dry tomes. She had to angle up from the tower, the heat prickling her coat even twenty meters away.

Celestia reached out with her magic and formed a bubble about the fire, depriving it of air. She held the shield as she circled the tower, giving the fire time to die out. She released the shield, and landed in the cloud of soot, using her wings to dissipate the smoke. The stench of sulfur hung heavy in the air and bit at her nose. Pieces of charred parchment crunched underhoof as she surveyed the damage.

It was all burned. Everything was gone, hundreds of years of her accumulated knowledge reduced to so many ashes beneath her hooves. Even the books that had been spared the inferno were blackened by smoke. The least damaged would take days to restore. Some of her greatest works, her journals, her secrets... It’s not quite starting from scratch, but... Celestia felt her chest tighten and her heart begin to race as she took stock of what was lost. Wide Tartarus, it’s close.

The fire looked like it had spread from near the center of the space, perhaps closer to her than not. Almost right in front of—

Her eyes found the remains of a particular crate, one whose sides were heavily burnt and lay scattered in different directions. Inside, the once delicate, silvery armatures of Twilight’s machine lay twisted and half-melted. The gems on the ends of the arms had shattered from the pressure. Bits of the crystals had even flown through the air, like tiny daggers, and embedded themselves in the wooden pillar beside the crate. Did Twilight’s machine do this?

Celestia quickly answered her own question. No, it couldn’t have. My pupil is powerful, but not that powerful. My protection spells would have stopped any accidental fire... any accidental fire... She looked more closely at the charred remains. Lying nestled in the debris were parts that she had not seen in her close examination of the device. It was among these pieces that the odor was strongest. And in among the fragments, she could sense the echoes of some infernal spell, a type of magic she had not seen since—

Just then several of her royal guards burst into the room from below in the tower. One unicorn, magic gathered at the ready, charged forward, but skidded to a halt as he saw his Princess. “Your Highness! We heard an explosion! What happ—are you okay?”

Celestia saw the guard’s eyes shift to her mane, and remembered that she wasn’t in her regalia. Few were the ponies who even knew that this was the natural state of her hair, much less had seen it that way.

She waited to respond until she could control her breathing. “I’m fine, Ivory, thank you. Everything will be okay. We’re just lucky the fire was stopped before it could hurt anypony.”

The guards took in the destruction. “Is there, uh, is there anything we can do, Your Highness?”

“No.” Celestia closed her eyes. “Please, everypony, just go back to your duties. I’ll worry about this for now.” The guards turned to retreat back down the stairs.

“Wait!” Celestia thought for a moment. “Get to the gate as fast as you can. Don’t let anypony leave the castle until I say so. If anypony tries to leave or resists in any way, detain them. Have the Guard keep a close watch of the skies, too.”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

Once she was alone again, Celestia turned back to the wreckage. The sabotage, she corrected herself, as she was sure that sabotage it was. It would have taken a large amount of flame to overpower her protection spell, not something simple like a spilled candle. It had to be an incendiary device. It had been both magical and mechanical, too. She was sure of it.

Celestia frowned. Having answered the ‘what’ had only opened up the ‘who’, ‘why’, and ‘how’. Who did this? How did they get past the entire guard? How did they know to look here in the first place?

Another thought rose, by some blind chance, to the front of her mind. What am I going to tell Twilight? She paused. What am I going to tell Twilight? She looked back at the total destruction lying at her hooves. It’s gone. It’s all gone...

* * *

The Royal Guard came to attention and stood stock still as he heard the door behind him open. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the ethereal mane of his ruler, and he somehow managed to stand even straighter.

“Destrier?”

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“I am not to be disturbed, unless the trespasser is found.”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

“Thank you, Destrier. As you were.”

Celestia slammed the door shut again before the guard could get in a last ‘Yes, Your Highness’. She had some things that she needed to attend to. Her magic gripped her quill and readied a fresh sheet of parchment as the sun goddess crossed back over to her desk. She finally knew what she was going to write in her letter to Twilight:

My dearest, most faithful student-

I’m afraid I must share with you some terrible news. Not twenty minutes ago, there was a fire in my personal archives here in Canterlot. The investigation is still ongoing, but I’m afraid it’s pretty clear that the fire originated with the spell matrix. Thankfully, nopony was hurt, but many records were destroyed. I’m afraid that the spell matrix was completely destroyed, along with the blueprints...

The scratching of the quill was the only sound that could be heard as Celestia wrote on into the night.

* * *

Graphite hated having to wait for anypony. Especially when he might be the new most-wanted pony in Equestria. He cursed his contact, whoever he would turn out to be. Anypony who’s had more experience than reading the latest Con Mane book knows that an alley is a stupid place to arrange a meeting! You don’t hang out in alleys in the wee hours of the morning, you meet in the middle of a crowded square in the middle of the goddess-damned day!

At least if they were jumped by the guard, Graphite thought he had a good chance of getting away. He was cloaked by his shadow spell again, and it would take eagle eyes to see him from the street.

“Good evening.” Graphite just barely managed not to jump all the way out of his skin at the sound of a gruff voice speaking directly behind him. Or Gryphon eyes, I suppose. His contact folded its wings and sat back on its haunches, folding its arms in that way Graphite had seen gryphons do.

I didn’t expect them to actually send a gryphon into the city to collect the blueprints. At least that’s reason enough for the rendezvous in the alley. He tried to school his face into a neutral expression. “Two Paragons” he said, tensing should he not receive the correct countersign. He didn’t know that much about Gryphon physiology, but he couldn’t imagine their wings being that much different from a pegasus’. Go for the Radius first. That’ll stop him from unfolding his wings. Then...

“What? Oh, the phrase. Ahem. ‘Behold the Diorama’” it... she?... said. Damn. Even the gryphon females are bigger than a pony.

“You speak Equestrian well for a gryphon.”

The gryphon snorted. “Vat? You sink ve all talk like zis?” She let out a low, derisive chuckle. “Ponies. I presume you have the papers?” she asked.

“Would I have shown up if I didn’t?”

“True, true.” They smiled thinly at each other for a moment, then the gryphon bit. “May I have them?”

“After I get the second half of my payment.” Graphite sat down and mimicked the gryphon’s pose.

“But of course. Here.” Claws rasped on her leather satchel, and she withdrew a sack of bits. She set it on the ground, the ‘clink’ of the bits inside echoing loudly off the alley walls. Graphite grit his teeth and begrudgingly withdrew the blueprints from his bag. Why does it have to be coin? It’s going to take me a day and a half to get out of here with that one-pony-band of a payment.

The gryphon gave the blueprints a swift look over. “Yes, everything appears to be in order. We have done it.”

He glared at the gryphon. “Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard yet. Canterlot’s a big city, and you’re not out yet.” Graphite turned and started walking back up the alley.

“Be sure to check your mail, Graphite,” the gryphon called softly. “We may have more work for you yet!”. With that, she took off as noiselessly as she had landed, leaving Graphite to slowly make his way back to his lodgings.

It was only after he was more than halfway there that he realized that he’d never told the Gryphons his name.

Author's Note

dun Dun DUN!