//------------------------------// // 9 - Ley of the Land // Story: Death Valley // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// The pairs of pairs of Canterlotians found each other at the Watering Cave almost as soon as they arrived and, in the borderline-telepathic shared thoughts of hungry people everywhere, decided to get something to eat before talking any further. It wasn’t much, but it was food. Lunch was the same sort of “fix it yourself” affair that breakfast had been, and Amanita’s resulting sandwich was acceptable. Once she had some grains and some greens in her guts, she asked the rest, “So… just to be clear, where do we stand?” “This place is weird,” Charcoal said immediately. She took a small enough bite of her sandwich that she could still speak fairly clearly. “The wolves being nuts should be the result of the ley line going bad but isn’t. The timberwolves should be even wilder but aren’t. The trees shouldn’t be night trees because of the strength of the ley line but are. The river shouldn’t turn but does.” Swallow. “And I’m not even sure the ley line’s wrong in the same way as the original report.” “Really?” asked Code. “It felt quite similar to me.” “Yes,” said Charcoal. “Which is the problem.” She looked Code in the eye expectantly. “If we’re this close to the line’s surge- line’s source, it should feel different. Stronger, sharper, brighter. But it’s almost exactly the same. It’s like- Imagine if sound didn’t get any quieter as you got further from it.” Code looked off into the distance and started tapping her hoof on the table. No magic; she was just thinking. And as her thoughts sped up, so too did her taps. “You’re right,” she said. “The readings in the report are from the station, not estimates of what we’d find at the source.” “They probably didn’t have pills- skills for that,” said Charcoal. “They were, what, a meteorology station? What do those even do?” “They monitor the last bits of magic spillover from weather teams all across Equestria, make sure it’s safe before it leaves Equestria,” said Bitterroot. “Badly-handled weather magic nearly caused war with Tarandusia a few centuries ago.” When everyone looked at her, she grinned. “You learn the neatest things with a good weather manager!” “So they monitor the weather,” Charcoal said, still looking at Bitterroot. “And ley lines are in the ground. It’s kinda the wrong equipment, y’know? Wrong wrong. It’s amazing they picked it up at all.” Then she frowned and started pointing up and down with one of her hooves. “Oh, and also,” said Amanita, “Pyrita was in the mine the very same day the ley line went bad. Maybe even the same hour. The line turned in the night, right?” Code’s ears flicked forward. “…I don’t doubt you, but count it out.” “Okay.” Amanita took a slice of her bread in her magic and ripped it to chunks. “Pyrita was in the mine seven days ago, right?” She lay down seven of those chunks. “Princess Twilight had said the station first noticed it three days ago at our meeting.” Three chunks next to the seven. “Plus the day we had the meeting.” Another. “Two more traveling here. And today.” Two rows of seven chunks. “What’s more, according to the report, the station also first saw the readings in the morning, when Pyrita vanished in the night. Arrastra thinks it’s a coincidence, but…” “If that’s a coincidence, I’ll eat my glasses,” said Code. She stared at the bread with the intensity of a grandmaster at a chessboard. “Which might even explain why the Rite of Brave Spear worked so quickly when a well-made grain mother didn’t: the grain mother was working with the energy of the land, but the energy of the land was what rendered her comatose in the first place. So once we applied a different type of magic…” “But why was she even in the mine?” asked Amanita. “It’s-” “Amanita, we’re not here to puzzle out every little secret Tratonmane has. We can keep watch on Pyrita and assist her recovery, but ultimately, we’re trying to fix the ley line first.” Code shrugged. “Priorities.” Priorities sucked. Pyrita in bed like that had looked an awful lot like Zinnia, probably with the same sort of pony who’d take her death badly. Part of Amanita, a large part, wanted to break off from the mission and figure out exactly what was wrong with Pyrita so they could heal her. But there were more ponies involved than Pyrita alone, so Amanita just nodded and swiped up her bread again. Bitterroot coughed, and when she spoke, her voice was low, furtive. “Hey, uh…” She lowered it even further. “Cabin’s listening to us.” She jerked her head towards the bar, where Cabin was dicing carrots and angling both her ears their way. “Which she can do,” said Code. “This is about her home and it won’t hurt anyone. Keeping it a secret would be more trouble than it’s worth.” “Oh.” “And believe me: if this was classified, you would most certainly not be here.” “Are there any stations or outposts or whatever specifically monitoring ley lines?” Charcoal asked. “This one especially.” “There are a few, mostly in the heartland, but they’re rare,” said Code. “Why?” “Because I would really like to know how that meteor station sensed the ley line shift.” “There are instruments-” “I know that,” said Charcoal. “But it’s looking for stuff in the air and it found stuff in the ground. And that says a lot about the ley line, doesn’t it? About how strong the change is. But what if-” She waggled a hoof at Amanita and Code. “What if this is just the first time we’ve noticed it? If it was changing for a while and that station just didn’t notice it before? It was too small a change for anything to pick up?” “I’ve been thinking about that,” said Code, “although not to any great degree. It seems that-” “Wait, no,” said Charcoal, frowning. “The food here’s too good. …Yes, that’s important, don’t look at me like that! If the ley line was bad, the crops here wouldn’t grow merely- nearly as well. …What if it’d gone bad before, gotten fixed, and the wolves are the… leftovers? They’re several years old, but the plants are technically new…” “No offense, but that kinda sounds like a long shot,” said Amanita. “Oh, it is, totally,” Charcoal replied, nodding. “I’m just slimeballing here. …No, spitballing. Spitballing. I wonder if we could test it at al- Deaths! We could look through Tratonmane’s death certificates. If there’s a lot of violent deaths from wolves at a certain point, well, there we go.” “It’s something to look into if we have no other options,” said Code. “But for now, we ought to do some surveys down near the treeline, get a good feel for the ley line. Not in the trees, of course. A forest of night trees is not where I want to do some research.” Amanita felt her stomach knot up a little. She still hadn’t learned much on actually feeling the ley line. Maybe she’d learn more during the work (finally), but… Imagine if she couldn’t. She’d just be standing there gormlessly as other people did her work. And since learning how to work with ley lines was the whole reason she’d come out here… “If we still can’t find out much, we’ll tune the geothaumometers and leave them running overnight. No need to dig any of those out yet, those’re big.” Which was unfortunate; Amanita had a decent handle on geothaumometers. Simply put and oversimplified, they were tools that recorded the general magic of the land in an area. Circe had taught her how to make simple ones in case she wasn’t sure if she was in the right flow for certain rituals. She could set up a geothaumometer. But her job’s needs were her job’s needs, and her job didn’t need a geothaumometer yet. The group polished off the rest of their food over idle chatter. Bitterroot was the first to speak up. “Say, uh, land magic isn’t really my thing-” (You and me both, thought Amanita.) “-so do you want me to look through them and see what I can find?” Code looked at Bitterroot, then turned to Amanita. “Can you come with me on every future field mission? I like having an unpaid lackey who continually shows initiative.” “Careful. Slavery’s illegal,” Bitterroot said, grinning. “You’re doing this of your own free will,” said Code. “And what happens in Midwich stays in Midwich. If you want to do so, go ahead. We’ll be heading down to the treeline.” The second they were outside the Cave, though, Bitterroot pulled Amanita to one side. “Have you tried that communication device thing yet?” she asked. “Uh…” Amanita half-glanced after Code and Charcoal. “No.” “They’re really neat, you should give them a try,” Bitterroot said. She held out an earpiece. “We can talk to each other if we get bored. Or if more wolves come out and you need me to call in the cavalry.” “Eh…” Code and Charcoal were getting further away every second. “Yeah sure I’ll do that but I need to go sorry bye.” Amanita snatched up the earpiece and put it on as she galloped after the other two. Tratonmane looked different in the light. Happier, safer, more welcoming. Midwich Forest didn’t. It was still a grim, dark thicket of upward-facing thorns that looked ready to swallow you up. But Charcoal came to a stop still plenty a decent ways away from the trees. “I don’t think we’ll need to go any closer than this,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “We’re far enough away from Tratonmane.” “Great,” said Code. “Amanita, have you worked with ley lines before?” “Uh…” Amanita thought back. There was the time that Circe- Code realized something and added, “In a way that wasn’t ripping power from them?” “…No.” “Square one, then. Don’t worry, it’s simple enough,” said Code. She planted her hooves; Amanita felt the ground ripple around her. “Reach out with your magic. Let it burrow into the ground like roots. You’ll feel the ley current in the space between the dirt. From there, just let your magic breathe. Take in the ley energies, but don’t hold on too tightly, or you could disrupt the fabric.” Amanita blinked. Roots? Code was good at explaining rituals, but this was something else. “…Uh-huh.” “Does that make sense, or…?” “Yeah, I, I think I got it.” Maybe. Before Code could say anything, Charcoal was on her other side. “Hey. Code. You’ve felt the eddies, right?” she asked. “Tiny little vortexes. Vortices? Like, whirlpools.” She held her hooves about an inch apart. “I have,” Code said, wheeling around. “Aren’t they common in ley lines?” “Yes, but did you notice their patterns? They’re not quite as regular as they should be. It’s more like-” Amanita cleared her throat. The conversation was getting away from her, so she might as well get away from it. “I’ll- I’ll be over there,” she said, pointing eastward. Code and Charcoal only spared her a quick nod, so off she went. As the sun set, the east side was going to stay in sunlight longer, so Bitterroot was going to take what sunlight she could get. It’d help with morale. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Burrow. Burrow. Like roots. Like roots. Gradually, over years? What in Tartarus did that mean? And what about “burrow”? Stabbing? Let it trickle down? Actually dig in the dirt? Given the way ritual magic worked, that last one wasn’t totally a joke… Okay. She’d try stabbing. Stabbing into the dirt. Not physically. Magically. She gathered her magic and tried just jabbing her awareness into the earth. Like… so. …Now what? Amanita waited. Nothing happened, including brainstorms. She didn’t feel anything very different. The ley line was there, but she could feel so little of it… She pulled back into herself and looked off down Midwich Valley. The sun was moving and the westernmost parts of the gorge were already in shadow. Better get a move on. Suddenly, she heard Bitterroot’s voice in her ears. “Amanita?” Amanita yelped and looked behind her. Bitterroot was nowhere to be seen. But she had that earpiece. “…How do I get this to work?” she asked no one in particular. “Just talk,” said Bitterroot. “I can hear you just fine.” “Okay.” Swallow. “Um, are you… doing okay?” “Fine. Just fine. I was just checking in with you. How’s the job going?” Amanita’s cheeks burned. “It’s… going alright.” “…You sure?” “Yeah. It’s… It’s going.” “Are you doing alright?” “…It’s complicated. The, the magic I’m working on, not-” Amanita cringed at herself. “I’m dealing with magic I’ve never dealt with before.” “Think you might need to get something from the inn to help?” “Maybe. Look, it’s- I don’t need any distractions, okay?” “…Alright. Shutting up.” And Bitterroot didn’t say anything more. At least the brief conversation had let Amanita re-orient herself. She sat back down and closed her eyes again. But whatever she was looking for, it didn’t come. And it didn’t come for long enough for the sun to move and whisk away her light, leaving her sitting in shadow. Lumberjacks passed her by on the road, even dragging a giant stump. And when some foals started playing a game just out of sight, Amanita stopped trying to focus. Just what was she doing wrong? Was she misunderstanding Code’s directions? She hadn’t before, not in the moons she’d worked with Code. Code was the High Ritualist for a reason, after all. Was it her own fault? Was she just doomed to not know anything other than necromancy? Or was it something else? Was this train of thought overly pessimistic? (Yes. Did knowing that do anything to stop it? No.) Amanita paced, staring at the ground, struggling to clear her head. This was okay. She’d been brought up here to learn. But if it was her own teacher she wasn’t learning from- Some of the foals yelled more loudly than usual. A moment later, a ball came bouncing out of the darkness. Amanita idly snatched it up with her magic and waited for the inevitable. A few more moments later, high-pitched squeaking came out of the darkness to batter Amanita’s eardrums, quickly followed by the filly making that squeaking. She was a chiropterus, maybe ten or eleven years old, although her hooves were chunky, like an earth pony’s. Eyeshine glinted through her misty breath as she looked up at Amanita. “Who’re you?” she asked in the innocent curiosity of foals everywhere. “I’m Wythe.” Amanita cringed inside; you could mess up in front of a crowd, but at least the adults would learn to read the room and ignore you. Foals behaved like they didn’t know a thing about social etiquette. At least, that was what she imagined; she hadn’t interacted with foals enough to really say. So she just said, “I’m Amanita.” A pause, a wave. “Hello.” “Ye’re not from here,” said Wythe, cocking her head. “I’m not. I’m visiting from Canterlot. I’m fixing a ley line.” Or would that just confuse Wythe? Too late now. “My ma says yer a Canterlout.” Amanita shrugged. Hardly the worst thing she’d been called, even in the past year alone. “Does she.” “Dae ye ken whit that means?” “…It means your mother respects me a lot, even if she doesn’t show it.” Wythe flicked an ear. She didn’t look particularly convinced, even by Amanita’s limited experience. “What’re ye doin’?” Celestia. Imagine failing being quizzed by a foal. “I’m- trying to feel out the ley line,” Amanita said. “But I’m having a hard time with it.” “Then why’re ye doin’ it?” Amanita opened her mouth. Nothing came out. “Wythe!” a foal squeaked. “Didye get the ball?” And before Amanita could respond, Wythe had darted forward, snatched the ball away from her, and gone flapping back into the night, leaving Amanita wondering. It was… Well, it was simple why she was doing it this way. Code had said so and Code had decades of experience in deep magic like this. She knew how it worked. Her instructions were right. She was a good teacher. If something was going wrong, it was Amanita’s problem, not Code’s. Right? Right? But Amanita was a unicorn. Code was an earth pony. Her instructions had sounded very earth-pony-focused: roots, breathing, soil. Instructions from her experience, which was all well and good until she tried to teach somepony who didn’t have her experience at all. And Code’s teaching experience was in rituals, a species-irrelevant discipline, not shaped magic. Amanita had had a teacher of shaped magic once before. An earth pony teacher. A good teacher, one who could start her from nothing and whip her into an elite in just a few years. Circe. For necromancy. Circe had been a lich. When she still existed, she’d been a terrible person: selfish, sociopathic, egomaniacal, abusive. She’d also been a rather effective teacher when she wasn’t screaming invectives. She’d laid out the goal, which methods she used, why, and the ways Amanita might apply herself. She hadn’t known enough about unicorn magic to say anything definite. Yet her instructions, vague as they were, had still worked. “See, to make a thrall, you gotta make it do what you want; otherwise, it’s just meat. I’m an earth pony, I can make plants grow. I just coax the thralls same way I do flowers. You gotta do somethin’ else… ’Ow d’you make gravity ignore your levitation?” The cold had nothing to do with the way Amanita shivered. All the lessons she could’ve remembered, and it had to be one of the ones she’d most hoped to forget… Her heart pounded in her chest as she took deep breaths. But it’d been an effective lesson, if you ignored morality. It’d only taken a few moons for Amanita to start binding the souls of the dead to be her slaves. Maybe that was because Amanita was a necromancer, nothing more. Or maybe it was just because Code was a crappy teacher with regards to ley lines. Amanita needed something closer to home. A unicorn well-learned in environmental magic, preferably. A kirin was probably close enough, though. Amanita found Charcoal much more quickly than she thought she would. She hadn’t moved from the road and was simply sitting on the cobblestones, eyes closed and horn alit, humming a light and bouncy tune. It was almost a shame to disturb her, but disturb her Amanita did. “Uh, Charcoal?” Whatever trance Charcoal was in wasn’t deep enough to divorce her from reality. Without a twitch, Charcoal turned to face Amanita. “Yeah? Did you find something?” “No,” admitted Amanita. “I- I’m- I don’t know what I’m looking for. I’m- I don’t know anything about this.” “But…” One of Charcoal’s rear legs twitched, bumping the ground with the front of her hooves. “Didn’t Code give instructions on this? I saw you two together.” “Code is-” Amanita glanced guiltily over her shoulder and dropped her voice. “When it comes to this, her teaching sucks. She’s a ritualist and an earth pony. She doesn’t work with earth magic enough to simplify it, and she was born with a connection to the earth, so she doesn’t know what I’m missing. But, but you, you’re our environmental mage and not an earth pony. You’re good at this, even if I haven’t seen it yet. And- And maybe you can teach it to me.” Charcoal blinked owlishly at Amanita. Amanita felt her face burning. What had she done? Had she made some kirin faux pas? Had she- “You think I’m good at this?” asked Charcoal quietly. Amanita’s thought processes stumbled, maybe sprained an idea on the way down. “W-well… yeah,” she said. “You’ve- You were the one assigned here, after all, you… have to be good.” Right? “…Thanks, but…” Charcoal shook her head. “Should you be contil- complimenting me like that? All the stuff I’ve done is easy. Anyone could do it.” “Only if they know how. Do you-” A quick glance around; they were alone. “Do you know how to resurrect the dead?” “No.” “View their past?” “No.” “Banish any zombies we come across?” “No. And now that I think about it, this is a good place for zombies-” “Of course you don’t. Because all those? My job.” Amanita tapped herself on the chest. “They’re easy for me. But environmental magic is your job, so of course that’s easy for you. And, look, most of what we’ve done here has been based on your decisions. You know what to look for. So…” Swallow. “Maybe you can help me?” Charcoal’s ears wiggled. She looked down and pawed at the ground. Her tail twisted around itself. Then she raised her head and said, “Have you ever been in a shower with a broken head? Or a broken hot tub?” Amanita’s thoughts twisted another idea. “Uh… y-yeah.” “You know how it just felt wrong, even if you didn’t know why? You just knew there was something wrong with the… with the flow.” Dots began to be connected. “…Yeah.” “Ley lines are kinda like that when you start. You just kinda spread your magic like a night- like a net and…” Charcoal held her hooves far apart and wiggled them. “…feel them. Don’t worry about the specifics of the energies in them yet, just feel the flow. The… the vibe. And once you’ve got that, start feeling how plants are taking it in because they know the right way to do it. And once you’ve got that… I dunno, come back to me and we’ll figure it out.” “That sounds… really hazy.” “Oh, it is,” Charcoal said. “And don’t expect to get it right away. But, really, you just need to try it. Then you’ll know what you can talk about.” Amanita kept turning the instructions over and over in her head as she walked back to her assigned location. As much as they were hazy, they were better than Code’s instructions. Looser to account for changes, a more definite goal to direct her efforts to. So. Amanita sat down on a rock and let her magic spread. She kept her awareness on it as she probed downward. The main magic of the ley line came easily, but as moments stretched into minutes and she wiggled down through the dirt, she became aware of a… shift. Where she ought to be sensing something one way but instead sensed it another. Like bass she felt rather than heard. More than magic, the line was a sense of place. This wasn’t just an easy font of energy; this was Tratonmane. Yet it was off slightly, like that Tratonmane that was wasn’t the Tratonmane that should be. The parts that were wrong. A good start, but not quite enough to start poking at plants. She needed to get familiar with it. Not drawing her magic in at all, Amanita took deep breaths. In, out, in, out, in, o- She was slouching to one side. She flinched and sat up straight again. Drifting off would b- …Which way was she leaning? She opened her eyes and looked. North. Away from the line’s probable source. In the direction of the flow. Huh. Amanita almost grinned. “Almost” because it could be coincidental. Maybe she was on a slope. But the direction was accurate enough to make her suspicious. And if this worked, then one of her roadblocks had just been demolished. She closed her eyes again. More deep breaths. In, out, in, out… Bitterroot’s confidence at saying she’d look for death certificates had hid one very important fact: she didn’t know where the death certificates were, assuming they even existed. But being a bounty hunter was all about tracking people down, and people moved, while stationery remained stationary. She could do this. Besides, she had a pretty good idea: town hall. So once the ritualists headed north, Bitterroot crossed the square to the town hall in question, quill, ink, and parchment in hoof. Small-town town halls always made her feel a bit weird. Those halls were so… small. (Har har.) Small enough that they occasionally straddled the line between a small office building and a large house, which made Bitterroot think knocking and being let in was the correct way to enter out of politeness, even though they were public buildings and she shouldn’t have to be let in like that. It was a stupid habit that cost her more time than it was worth, one she really needed to get out of. Bitterroot knocked on the front door three times. “Helloooooo?” she called out. “Anyone in there?” No answer. Ten seconds later, still no answer. Bitterroot flared her wings and ascended to the circular window above the door. Peering through the quadranted frame, she couldn’t see… much of anything. Noon meant it was light in Tratonmane, but with the boarded-up windows and unlit lamps, it was still dark as pitch in the town hall. Nobody was home. She dropped back to the ground and nudged the door open. It didn’t creak, which made going into the lightless building only slightly less of a spooky idea. “Hello? Anyone?” Only her echoes responded, and they didn’t sound particularly confident. But in the incoming sunlight, Bitterroot spotted the long, thin shape of a lamplighting pole. She lit the candle at the end and did a circuit of the main room, lighting the oil lamps on the wall. They were soon burning… not quite merrily, but they were burning, and that meant she had light. On a final whim, she yelled, “No one?” No one answered. Which probably said something about her: she asked if anyone was there, there wasn’t a response from anyone, so she asked the same question. And then she did it again. Smart. This was a public building; maybe she could go looking through other rooms for death certificates. Come to think of it, Tallbush had said the town library was in here, right? For the farmers’ records. And he’d said she could just go in, so- No, these were official documents. It’d be rude to go around rooting them without clearer permission. And rudeness carried a lot more weight here than it did in someplace like Canterlot, Manehattan, or San Franpinto. Bitterroot decided she’d wait a little, see if anyone came who she could talk to. At least the building was reasonably not-cold. She arched her back like a cat and stretched her wings. Simply not having a wind to chill her did a lot to let her warm up, and there was the way the air inside was warmer anyway. Yeah, she could stay here for a while. Maybe even- “What’re ye doin’, pokin’ ’round here?” With a yelp, Bitterroot spun around. Tallbush was standing in the entryway, door open behind him, glaring at her. “Town property’s in ’ere,” he said, taking a step forward. “Ye didnae damify arythin’, did ye?” Assuming “damify” meant “damage”, Bitterroot raised her hooves. “Whoa, hey, I was just looking for you. I didn’t touch anything.” Tallbush glanced at the lanterns and his eyebrow went up like an elevator. “Okay, aside from those. But I wasn’t going to touch anything. I was just looking for you and it was out of the cold and… Yeah.” There was a long moment as the two looked at each other. Then Tallbush huffed, “Fine.” From the way his ears were moving, he wasn’t quite as tense. “What’re ye a-lookin’ fer?” “Death certificates.” Whatever Tallbush had been expecting, it clearly wasn’t that. His jaw briefly sagged. “Death certificates?” Confusion had bulled out any tension. “If you’ve got them,” said Bitterroot. “We were hoping to trace any violent deaths in the past, just to see what the wolves have been like. Just in case.” “Doubt ye’ll find arythin’,” Tallbush said with a shrug, “but I’ll show ye. Library’s right back ’ere.” It was one of the doorways leading off from the back of the room, to be precise. The plaque above the door marked it as Library and Public Documents. As Tallbush lit the lamps in the room beyond, it was revealed as a long, somewhat cramped one, not nearly the grand display of books that “library” conjured up. Still, shelves and drawers lined the walls and more were freestanding in the empty floor space, all with their own labels telling what they held. Several tables had books on them that had yet to be properly put away. A small town’s haphazard library was still a library. When Bitterroot took a step forward, she felt something beneath her. She looked down; the floor had infrequent bits and pieces of dirt and other outdoor debris, tracked in and left uncleaned. “Beggin’ yer pardon,” said Tallbush as he came back around, “but, eh… ’tis a bit hard tae get in here an’ clean.” “And you keep putting it off?” Bitterroot asked. “…Aye. C’mon in.” It was just wide enough that Bitterroot didn’t need to squeeze in to follow, but it was close. More books were scattered around that she needed to avoid, all of them in surprisingly good condition. After seeing that, the library seemed to be dirty mostly because keeping it clean would be an exercise in futility. (And cramped work, admittedly.) Bitterroot and Tallbush emerged near the back of the room near a set of small tables, each piled with more books, and at the very back of the room was a large wooden… assembly that looked like a filing cabinet’s… Not quite father. First cousin once removed. A relative, at any rate. “Right in here,” Tallbush said, unlocking the cabinet. “How many d’ye need?” “…All of them?” Tallbush gave Bitterroot a Look, but levitated a number of thick folders out. “Jes’ leave ’em out when ye’re done an’ I’ll get ’em later.” Then he blinked and looked back inside. “Oh, cuss it all…” he muttered, his ears back. “Hawthorn must’ve…” “Something wrong?” Bitterroot asked. Tallbush hastily relocked the cabinet. “Well-” His eyes darted back and forth, like he was think about something very quickly. “There’s a- book,” he said, digging through one of the piles of literature on the table. “An’ it’s- important tae the town, but ain’t where it ought tae be. Must needs findin’.” He wasn’t looking at her and his digging was growing frantic. In a combination of might-as-well generosity and need-to-work-in-peace greed, Bitterroot asked, “What’s it look like? I can help.” Tallbush’s digging faltered for a moment. Then he said, “Old. Real old. Brown cover, got a crossed circle on it.” “Got it. I’ll be over there.” Bitterroot moved towards the door, poking her muzzle into each pile she saw. Maybe the book had just fallen off a pile while being moved. She knew how easy it was to misplace one. She was entering the narrow aisles when something caught her eye. It wasn’t physical, more of a nagging feeling, gut instinct. Bitterroot looked in the gap between two bookcases; a book seemed to have slipped in. When she pulled it out, the first thing she knew was that it was old. There was no one thing she could put her hoof on, just an overall feeling of age, from the pages to the smell to the cover. Speaking of the cover, Bitterroot took a look at it. A crossed circle was embossed on there, just like Tallbush had said. “Hey,” Bitterroot said. “This it?” She held the book up carefully, just in case it was easily damaged. Tallbush looked ready to kiss her when he saw the book. “Aye, that’s it,” he said. He levitated the book from her with even more delicacy than she’d treated it. “Thankee.” “You weren’t kidding when you said the book was old,” said Bitterroot. “What’s in it?” “ ’Tis, ’tis the- founder’s journal,” Tallbush replied as he closely examined the book. “Back frae when Tratonmane firs’ got its start. Mighty important piece o’ Tratonmane’s hist’ry, it is. Mighty important.” “So…” Bitterroot recalled what she’d heard over the past few days. “That’s two or three hundred years old, right? From the Fuel Vassalage Commission?” And the second Bitterroot mentioned the Commission, Tallbush’s ears flattened. “Aye,” he grumbled. “Two hunnert sixty-eight year old.” Already, Bitterroot could feel the tension growing like a spool was winding up the atmosphere. Trying to change the subject, she quickly asked, “How do you lose something like that?” She tried to keep it casual rather than anything approaching derisive. “Eh. Dinnae ken,” Tallbush said, shrugging. His voice hadn’t changed much. “There are moments when ye ferget what’s important and the li’l things jus’… slip through the cracks.” A pause. “Ye’d best get to it.” And he stalked out of the room. Bitterroot craned her neck to watch him cross the main room and enter the door on the other side. His office? None of her business. What was her business was the death certificates. All of them, as she’d told Tallbush. Taking a look at the deaths for an entire town might’ve seemed intimidating for most ponies, but Bitterroot knew a thing or two about death rates. She didn’t know Tratonmane’s population, so she guessed it was between five hundred and a thousand ponies. Assuming it shared Equestria’s death rates, that put it at three to six deaths per year. Still a large number, given Tratonmane’s multi-century history, but not overwhelming. She moved the folders to a certain table and took a seat, laying out her quill and scroll. In front of her, a nice big window gave her a clear view of the square, the Great Ash, even the window into their own room at the Watering Cave. With the sun directly overhead, Tratonmane looked like a perfectly normal small town in the light, as long as you ignored the sheer rock wall behind it. It would make for a nice view, if only for half an hour. But by then, Bitterroot would be zoning out on work and not notice the view. She leafed through the certificates. Fortunately, the design hadn’t changed much over the centuries. She looked over the top one, locating the pony’s name, age, year of death, cause of death. From just this year, in fact. Nimble Wind — 72 — died 1005 — old age “Old age” might not fly in Canterlot, where they wanted things like “heart failure” or “pneumonia”, but it was clearly not violent, and that was good enough for Bitterroot. On her paper, she scratched out “1005” and scrawled an N (nonviolent) right next to it. Mattydale — 34 — died 1005 — wolf attack Bitterroot’s heart twinged in sympathy and a V went next to 1005. And soon she was rattling away, ticking off year after year. She didn’t pay any attention to patterns yet; there wasn’t much point until she got all the data. Halifax — 71 — died 989 — died in his sleep Minty Fresh — 56 — died 989 — killed by bear Shining Comet — 64 — died 989 — old age After a little while, she figured she’d check in on Amanita, just to be sure. It was why she’d had Amanita wear the earpiece, after all. She slipped hers on and said, “Amanita?” There was a yelp on the other end. Right. Amanita hadn’t heard it before. The sound quality was a bit of a shock. After a moment, Amanita asked, “…How do I get this to work?” Bitterroot grinned to herself. “Just talk. I can hear you just fine.” “Okay. Um, are you… doing okay?” “Fine. Just fine.” She marked off another row. “I was just checking in with you. How’s the job going?” “It’s… going alright.” Bitterroot hesitated. That wasn’t an “alright” tone of voice. “You sure?” “Yeah. It’s… It’s going.” Another try, then. “Are you doing alright?” “…It’s complicated. The, the magic I’m working on, not- I’m dealing with magic I’ve never dealt with before.” “Think you might need to get something from the inn to help?” Maybe she could meet Amanita there, talk things out face-to-face. “Maybe. Look, it’s- I don’t need any distractions, okay?” Amanita was having trouble with something, and she was having trouble admitting she was having trouble with something. It was obvious from her voice. But if Bitterroot pressed, Amanita would only clam up more. So instead, she said, “Alright. Shutting up.” She waited another few moments, in case Amanita said anything. No words came. Sighing, Bitterroot put her quill back to the scroll and continued working. Northern Gale — 39 — died 963 — bears Long Distance — 92 — died 963 — old age Wicklow — 73 — died 963 — old age Scribble, scribble, scribble. The day dragged on. The valley floor slipped into darkness as the sun set and soon one hour was much the same as the next. Or was it just minutes? Hard to say. Tratonmane dimmed slightly as less light bounced down to it from the canyon walls, but it was practically nothing. Windrow — 23 — died 946 — attacked by wolf while on patrol Granite Whetstone — 44 — died 946 — wolf attack Equinox — 37 — died 946 — bear attack And Bitterroot didn’t mind. She’d slipped into a sort of trance as she worked; it would’ve been called mind-numbing, but she was still fully aware, simply running on automatic. It was a state that had been honed through plenty of stakeouts. Death after death passed her by and she recorded all the relevant details. Springroot — 68 — died 901 — passed in her sleep Pressure Front — 71 — died 901 — old age Glendale — 76 — died 901 — old age She heard Amanita’s voice at several points, talking to someone who seemed to be a foal and later to Charcoal. Amanita seemed unaware that she was still wearing the earpiece; she sounded a bit better than before, and seemed to actually be making headway with Charcoal. Good for her. Pyronimbus — 71 — died 842 — passed in her sleep Glissanda — 48 — died 842 — bear Dewdrop — 79 — died 842 — old age A light flickered in her vision and she looked up. Across the square, on the other side of the Ash, the light in their room at the Watering Cave had come on. A unicorn was digging through their luggage, levitating this and that out of the way as they looked for whatever. Apparently, Amanita hadn’t cracked whatever problem she’d been facing. And forgotten where the ritual instruments had been stored. “Hey, Amanita?” It took Amanita a few moments to respond. “Yeah?” “Most of our gear’s in that storage room on the ground floor, not our quarters.” For some reason, she sounded baffled. “I… I know that. Why’re you telling me this?” “Well, I’m watching you dig through our luggage, and-” “What do you mean? I’m still down near the treeline.” Time seemed to crawl and the bottom fell out of Bitterroot’s stomach as she stared, slack-jawed, at the unicorn across the street, sifting through their bags. “…Bitterroot?” “Oh, Celestia, THERE’S SOMEONE IN OUR ROOM.”