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Agatha was halfway through kicking Tweedle when she found she was a pony. The kick landed rather harder than it would have had she been kicking backward as a human, and Tweedle’s grip on her vanished. When she looked back she discovered this had less to do with the kick than with the fact that Tweedle was now a unicorn. Agatha decided bewilderment could wait until she was safe and galloped — relieved to find her body worked instinctively — towards the front of the Cathedral.
She hadn’t got very far when she heard Tarvek yell, ‘Agatha!’
‘I’m here,’ she called back.
A moment later a frantic unicorn, light cream coloured with a very familiar red mane and tail, trotted in being ridden by about a dozen weasels. ‘Oh, thank goodness,’ he said, ears flopping with relief before standing right back up. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m a pony,’ said Agatha.
‘We’re all ponies, but at least you don’t appear to be an injured one,’ said Tarvek, walking over. Agatha found herself thinking that he looked adorable. Not entirely like a real pony. Smaller, more rounded, blunter nose, much bigger eyes (with glasses still perched in front of them). For some reason he had a chess queen the colour of his hair painted on his flank.
Agatha turned to see if she had a picture there and discovered that she had wings. ‘I have wings?’ she asked.
‘And a horn,’ said Tarvek. ‘Come on, we’d better get back to the others.’
‘Right,’ said Agatha. She shifted a wing quickly and found a dot inside a circle, the alchemical symbol for the sun, glowing golden. Well, that told her nothing. ‘What happened?’
‘No one has any idea. The Baron arrived and was fighting General Gkika so he may have done this but…’
‘But that would be a really odd thing for him to decide to do,’ Agatha concluded. ‘I’d better go and find her.’
Outside, the square was nearly eclipsed by rioting Jägerponies, kicking and biting at one another or clumsily manouvering weapons. Agatha galloped along the front of the Cathedral until she found a unicorn with Gkika’s turquoise hair and wicked (and still sharp toothed) grin. The mark on her flank seemed to be three black bottles — whether alcohol or medicine Agatha couldn’t guess.
‘Why are they fighting each other?’ Agatha demanded, waving a hoof at the crowd of scuffling Jägers.
‘Jest getting used to der new bodies,’ said Gkika. ‘Dun vorry.’
A fluffy golden brown pegasus — with a single horn on one side of his head — flew past erratically. ‘Oggie?’ Agatha called, realising she was too late to be heard. A moment later a distinctly purple unicorn — with one mechanical hoof — galloped past in pursuit.
‘How come hyu got der vings?’ he yelled upwards.
‘Hyu gots a horn,’ Oggie called back.
‘Hyu already gots a horn!’
‘Now I haz both!’ Oggie performed a very strange loop-the-loop. ‘Ken’t effer win against me now.’
Maxim reared, kicking out at the air. ‘Hy ken! Get down here!’
Oggie managed another loop-the-loop with more finesse and then suddenly broke off in the middle of the a third one and slammed towards the ground, wings folded back and all hooves out. Agatha winced. I know they’re almost indestructible,’ she thought, but —
Just as Oggie’s hooves were about to strike, and with clearly no time to dodge, Maxim vanished. Only to reappear a few feet away and promptly fall over. Agatha galloped over and put her nose down — he smelled of singed hair. ‘What did you do?’ she demanded.
Maxim grinned up at her proudly. ‘Magic! Und not der Sparky kind.’
‘So I see. But how?’
‘Dunno.’ He scrambled back to his hooves just as Oggie trotted over looking worried. ‘Mebbe Hy could do it again.’
‘Don’t,’ said Agatha sharply, thinking of the scorched smell. ‘We have enough going on without you setting fire to yourself.’
He gave in, but he and Oggie were soon lost in the throng again and Agatha suspected he’d started trying it out again the moment she lost sight of him. Right now, though, she needed to see what the Baron had done.
*
The armour in the middle of the square looked quite remarkably like a giant tin can. Standing next to it was a…less a pony than a horse, deep chested as a war horse and towering over everyone. But the Baron had done that even as a human. There were seams all over him, plainly visible, and the patches of hide between them were three subtly different shades of grey. His mane and tail were silver, actually shining slightly, and a silver alchemical symbol for the moon was stamped on each flank. Like her he had both a horn and wings, but his horn was almost as long as her foreleg and, unlike the stubby little ones most unicorns had, looked like he could use it as a weapon. His wings were bigger too, she thought, wondering how Oggie’s little wings had been carrying him.
The Baron turned to look at her and Agatha thought she’d never seen any equine look quite so disgruntled. ‘Did you do this?’ he asked.
‘No!’ said Agatha. ‘Did you?’
He looked startled and then tapped a ball of metal on the ground with a hoof. ‘Possibly, but this certainly isn’t what it was meant to do.’
‘I should hope not.’ Agatha looked at him warily, feeling her ears twist back. ‘Are you going to attack me?’
He sighed. ‘Under the circumstances I can’t imagine what good it would do. I propose a truce. Despite…a great many things…we are probably the people best suited to resolving this situation.’
‘We’re also the only ones with both wings and horns,’ Agatha remarked. ‘Not that I’ve tried either flying or magic yet.’
‘Magic?’ He asked sharply, wings spreading slightly in surprise.
Agatha paused, but he was right. Whatever had just happened she didn’t think she could sort this out on her own. ‘I’ll accept your truce,’ she said. ‘But you’d better keep it.’ She punctuated this with a glare at him and then continued. ‘Maxim, one of the Jägers, teleported. It probably has something to do with being a unicorn but I haven’t tested it yet.’
‘Hmm.’ Klaus looked around. ‘Asking the Jägers what they’ve discovered might be a good start. They’re probably finding the limits and abilities of their new bodies rather quickly, although that doesn’t mean those limits will be the same as everyone else’s.’
Agatha looked at him incredulously. For a neutral statement that had sounded rather wistful.
‘Agatha!’
Agatha looked up to see Tarvek trotting over to her again, accompanied by a coffee coloured pony with a two tone mane who had to be Vanamonde. He even had a white coffee cup with steam rising from it on his flank.
‘What did you do with Tweedle?’ Tarvek asked.
‘I kicked him,’ Agatha answered.
‘But you didn’t tie him…er…’ Tarvek trailed off. ‘He’s somewhere around then. He’s dangerous.’
‘Tweedle?’ asked the Baron.
‘Martellus von Blitzengaard,’ Tarvek answered, before it apparently sank in just who he was talking to. He whipped around to stare at Agatha. ‘Why are you talking to him?’
‘Because this situation really does need to be dealt with and he offered a truce,’ said Agatha. ‘Besides, if the problem is that he was Wasped, then this is probably the one situation he has absolutely no orders about.’
The Baron stared at her and then his head drooped with what appeared to be relief. ‘I certainly hope so,’ he said. ‘You know about that?’
‘We heard your story,’ said Tarvek. ‘And it certainly wasn’t based on any known history of the Storm King.’
‘No. Your sister wasn’t very impressed by it, either,’ said the Baron. ‘Thank you for telling people, though. I needed to get the word out.’
Agatha looked between them. Tarvek’s tail was twisting nervously at the mention of his sister. Then she looked at Vanamonde. ‘I need you to spread the word that we have a truce with the Baron,’ she told him. ‘Also, I want you to send the Jägergenerals and the town council to your coffee shop. I’ll meet you all there in…about an hour.’ She considered this. ‘Send Moloch’s group and any refugee Sparks that seem likely to be helpful too. And Violetta and Krosp if you find them. And Zeetha.’
‘Yes, Mistress,’ said Vanamonde, then he turned and trotted off purposefully, weaving among the brawling Jägers with occasional cringing but a fair amount of alacrity.
‘And in the meantime?’ asked the Baron.
‘I’m going to see if this has affected the Castle,’ said Agatha, grimacing. ‘You’d better stay with me until news of the truce gets around. Tarvek, are you coming?’
‘Yes,’ said Tarvek quickly.
‘Good. We don’t really need to go to the Castle itself, but we’d better find somewhere quiet if we’re going to talk. Come on.’
They trotted on and, recognising the square they were entering, Agatha turned to glance over at the statue of Bill and Barry there, only to stop and stare. The statue was…of two ponies, one pegasus, one shorter earth pony wearing goggles, both with a hoof raised in friendly salute.
‘Those…what…’ Agatha sputtered, too indignant to even get words out. She looked around to find the Baron staring in similar dismay. ‘Castle!’ She yelled. ‘Who did that to this statue?’
‘Did what?’ the Castle asked.
‘I do not have the patience for your jokes,’ Agatha snapped. ‘My Father and Uncle were not ponies! Someone has —’
‘Of course they were, what else…Error. Systems anomaly.’ Agatha cringed and found her wings spreading automatically for a quick takeoff. The Castle had control of the whole town now and she’d seen its system errors before. ‘Forgive me, Mistress, I do not know who defaced the statue,’ it continued a moment later as if nothing had happened.
Agatha snorted. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked.
‘Yes. No. I-I think I am not as recovered as I believed.’
‘Not that you were usually a bastion of sanity, but it may not be you,’ said the Baron. ‘Have you noticed we don’t have any clothes?’
‘I was trying not to think about it,’ Agatha hissed.
He snorted. ‘I mean, if we’d turned into ponies we would have had them on. Instead all our clothes have vanished, but you still have your spectacles and the Jägers still have their hats.’
‘Ah,’ said Tarvek, ears standing straight up. ‘We need a bookshop.’
This lead to a rumbling grinding sound and a bookshop heading up the street towards them. Agatha sighed. ‘We could just as easily have walked to it,’ she said.
The inside of the bookshop looked much as she would have expected it to. The ladder for reaching higher shelves was perhaps a bit broader, a bit more like a stepladder.
‘Ah,’ said Tarvek, going over to look at the books nearest the door. ‘A fine selection of Heterodyne Colts novels.’
‘What?’ Agatha thought about grabbing a book off the shelf and the next minute one was floating over to her wrapped in a golden sparkly aura. ‘Woah,’ she said, stepping backwards as the book hovered before her eyes. The Heterodyne Colts and the Race to the West Pole it read. On the front were the same ponies she’d seen in the statue. She wondered what the pictures in her locket looked like now.
The Baron observed her and then floated his own book over in a cloud of silvery sparkles. His horn was glowing to match, probably hers was doing the same. It took no effort, which was something of a relief, apparently being a unicorn was going to be the easy way around a lack of hands. Although she’d liked getting hands on with engineering projects. If the Heterodyne Boys hadn’t been unicorns presumably you didn’t have to be to use tools, maybe she could still get…hooves on? She shook her head. The Heterodyne Boys hadn’t been ponies, they could hardly be her role models for life as a pony.
The Baron chuckled, and Agatha shot him a sharp look. ‘What are you finding funny?’ she asked.
‘I’m in this one,’ he said. ‘I appear not to be very good at using magic.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘I also don’t appear to have wings.’
Tarvek had wandered off a bit, and suddenly spoke up from the gloom in the back of the shop. ‘Andronicus Valois was the first known European alicorn. Despite his taming of the Thinkomancers, later known as Sparks, his ascension is at least partly to blame for the later loss of power among the unicorns of the fifty families.’
‘So this, what? Changed history?’ Agatha asked, as Tarvek walked over with the history book he’d found floating in front of him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Everything has been altered to the way it would have been if things had always been this way. But no one’s memories are of life as a pony.’
‘Except for the Castle,’ said Agatha.
‘Because I am both an object and a person,’ the Castle said unexpectedly. ‘I believe I am able to retrieve both, but it is rather…tangled.’
‘Is this going to affect Otilia too?’ Agatha asked. ‘She’s been a lot saner since returning to a mechanical body, I’d rather like her to stay that way.’
The book Tarvek had been reading suddenly hit the floor and Agatha looked at him. ‘It…oh dear. It might affect anyone with a human level consciousness in a mechanical body.’
‘The Castle doesn’t seem about to lose it, so there’s probably nothing worse that could happen,’ Agatha said.
The Baron floated his book over to land on the desk, lowered his head and spread his wings. He suddenly seemed to fill the bookshop. ‘Erratic behaviour from two sets of memories aside, anyone whose memories match the current state of affairs in this world has, at present, a great advantage. Both in knowing how things work, and in knowing what has changed. They need to be known so they can be countered.’
‘Fine,’ said Tarvek. His glasses floated off and a cloth appeared from somewhere to clean them. ‘I was going to tell Agatha anyway. Although possibly not with the Castle listening.’
‘Tell me what?’ Agatha asked.
Tarvek floated his glasses back on and looked at her pleadingly. ‘There’s a copy of Lucrezia in Anevka’s old body. I-I didn’t know what else to do. I needed to stay close to her to have a chance of getting you back, and it was better than putting someone else in that machine. Anevka’s not even dead, not really, I could wake her up.’
‘You. You knew there was another Lucrezia out there and didn’t tell me?’ Agatha shouted.
‘There could be any number of them!’ Tarvek snapped back, even as he took a step backwards and nearly fell over his rear hooves. ‘I told you she got the summoning beacon working. Until now it didn’t make any difference that one was a clank!’
‘It makes a difference you knew who one of them was and I didn’t!’
‘And how likely would you have been to trust Anevka or let her get close to you?’
Agatha stopped, because she couldn’t really answer that. She was fizzing with anger, a feeling that seemed oddly concentrated in her horn, and logically Anevka being Lucrezia probably wouldn’t have made a difference. It wasn’t as if she’d been disguised as a friend. ‘What else have you not told me?’ she snapped.
She could see Tarvek hesitate. ‘Nothing important,’ he said. ‘I don’t have time to tell you the details of everything, I’m not hiding anything you need to know. Agatha, I stopped hiding this once you needed to know it.’
‘Once you thought I needed to know it,’ Agatha retorted, stomping her hoof. ‘I — argh.’ And then the fizzy feeling suddenly spread and she found herself lying panting on Castle Heterodyne’s roof.
‘Consorts,’ said the Castle sympathetically.
‘Don’t,’ Agatha snapped. ‘Or I will take a pickaxe to your facing.’
She slumped down, resting her chin on the cool tiles, while the Castle was blessedly silent.
*
Klaus looked at the despondent unicorn he was suddenly alone with. ‘She might not have needed a warning until now, but all of Europe would have been better off if you’d thought to send a message to me,’ he said.
Tarvek drooped a little further. ‘I had no idea she’d used the Wasp on you.’
‘But you knew she had it.’ Klaus walked past Tarvek and started browsing the history section. It wasn’t very big, but there were a few books about ancient Heterodynes with rather macabre covers suggesting the publishers had hoped buyers would get them out of morbid curiosity. ‘When you had control of my armies you didn’t attempt to help the Knights of Jove.’
‘…What? I’m not stupid, there were twenty-three people pointing weapons at me.’
‘But you did order them to stop attacking Mechanicsburg and start defending it. Of course, you knew Gil would back you up on that. But you had no idea how long it would be before he arrived, you knew it wasn’t the plan I’d intended and there were, indeed, twenty-three weapons trained on you.’ Klaus floated a book up to flick through and noticed that Vlad the Blesphemous was still modified to have a tentacle and that that must have made walking rather difficult.
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ Tarvek asked.
‘You risked yourself to protect her but not to further your own plan.’
‘It was not my plan!’ Tarvek snapped, apparently reflexively, and then tapped a hoof nervously. ‘Of course I wanted to protect her.’
‘Did you throw away Europa in order to do so?’ Klaus asked without looking up.
‘No! …Not deliberately. I didn’t think you’d be there for Lucrezia to use the Wasp on. I suppose she’d have reached you sooner or later, once she found someone to put in that machine who could get to you, but I couldn’t stop her fixing it and I didn’t realise it would work on anyone but Agatha when —’
‘When you gave Lucrezia the Wasp.’ Klaus turned around. Tarvek backed a few steps, horn glowing, and was suddenly encased in a red hemisphere of light. Klaus snorted. ‘I’m not going to kill you over it.’ He’d mostly wanted to know if he was right in that guess, that Tarvek was the most likely person to know about something like that and need Lucrezia’s trust enough to hand it over.
‘Um. Good?’ The shield wasn’t coming down.
‘I’m hardly going to start my truce with the Lady Heterodyne by attacking one of her allies.’ Klaus reached forward curiously to poke at the shield, finding his hoof stopped dead on the surface of it. It didn’t feel like touching a wall, more like trying to approach a strong magnet while holding a repelling one. ‘Even if she might consider smacking you herself right now she’d kill me if I tried it.’
Tarvek jumped when Klaus prodded his shield and then closed his eyes and visibly forced himself to relax, the shield coming down as he did. ‘I should probably find her.’
‘You know where she’s going to be in about half an hour,’ Klaus pointed out. ‘And it would take you at least that long to find her.’
‘I’m not even sure if she’ll want me there now.’
‘I suspect she’s going to need you.’ For all Agatha had accomplished she was still a girl with no political training dropped into the web of intrigue that made up European politics. Klaus was a fan of taking the metaphorical equivalent of a large duster to those webs, but she didn’t have that luxury. He considered, as he replaced the books he’d been flicking through and picked up Tarvek’s abandoned History of Europa, the likelihood that she’d been advised so far, and by who. ‘I may have made a miscalculation,’ he said.
Tarvek’s ears twitched. ‘When?’
‘About ten years ago.’
‘What?’ Now Tarvek just looked confused.
‘I judged that the danger you posed to Gil was greater than the benefits of keeping you close to him. Perhaps I was wrong.’
‘You thought I was going to hurt Gil?’
‘It was obvious you weren’t fooled by what you’d seen, you were too intuitive for that and you would have kept looking. I either had to tell you the truth or make sure you were in no position to find it.’ Klaus shifted his wings, settling the feathers. ‘You were spying for your family, I know exactly how acceptable they find my having an heir.’
Tarvek snorted. ‘I wouldn’t have hurt Gil. What have you done to him?’
‘Made him impossible for Lucrezia to get a hold on, I hope,’ Klaus said. He sighed, it was a large sigh with the larger chest of a pony. ‘Probably sacrificed him to keep Europa safe. But someone needs to run the Empire and he was the only one I could trust. Including myself.’
Tarvek looked at him. ‘So, your plan was a brainwash Gil and then come down to Mechanicsburg.’
‘I needed to remove myself from the picture.’
‘Where you turned everyone into cute ponies.’
‘Not on purpose.’
Tarvek sighed. ‘I hope Gil can manage. Having all his forces turn into ponies must be keeping him rather busy.’
‘I expect all the Sparks have rushed off to find out if they can use a wrench with their mouths,’ Klaus said. ‘He’ll be fine.’
They fell silent. Klaus flipping through history until he was surprised to find a brief mention of his own ascension to alicorn near the end. So apparently that was what he was and Valois becoming one had been enough to cause a major political change. Not that Valois hadn’t done that as a human without needing to suddenly grow wings, but maybe he’d had an easier time of it in this revised history. Maybe Klaus had too. He stretched his wings, careful in the confines of the shop, and looked around. His time sense was usually fairly good and he thought it was getting near the time they should be meeting up but he could have sworn the sun hadn’t moved even a millimeter where it fell through the dusty windows.
‘Time to go,’ he said, shaking off the feeling.
Tarvek nodded and carefully reshelved three books at once. Outside the streets had settled down a bit. Previously they had been full of brawling Jägers, now they were full of Jägers eating pies and drinking beer. Klaus’s stomach rumbled.
‘Just a minute,’ he said, remembering something and setting off at a brisk trot for the cathedral.
‘What is it?’ Tarvek asked, having to canter to keep up.
‘That device. I don’t know if it caused this but if I’d known I could carry things I wouldn’t have left it lying around.’
It was where he expected it to be and he scooped it up with his magic, finding it took almost no concentration to just hover it close to him. ‘Neep?’ said something nearby and Klaus looked around to see a group of weasels near the cathedral. ‘Ee!’ one said, apparently having caught sight of Tarvek, and they were all scurrying across before Klaus had time to think of what was about to happen. ‘SKREEEE!’ He was suddenly being resolutely attacked by a dozen weasels trying determinedly to gnaw through his hide in random places. He quickly scooped them off, holding them with his magic, while they hissed and spat and curled into little angry balls surrounded by silver sparkles.
‘This is ridiculous,’ he said, finding himself being orbited.
‘Would it be impolitic to agree?’ said Tarvek.
Klaus threw one at him, resulting in a happy ‘squee!’ and it clinging to his mane. Since that had worked he hastily put the rest on Tarvek too. A few less easily distracted ones tried to run at Klaus again and Tarvek quickly put his shield up again — this time to keep them in.
‘I’m going to have to bring them with me,’ said Tarvek. ‘I don’t think we have time to find Ruxala.’
Klaus sighed. ‘Fine.’
They set off at a trot again, the weasels showing every sign of enjoying the ride.
He paused on the way back past the hospital, the slower pace making it harder to avoid looking at the statue, and found himself meeting the cheerful gaze of Bill, recognisably himself even as a pony with wings flared behind him. On impulse Klaus reared and fluttered a little off the ground to tap his own hoof against Bill’s raised one. Tarvek didn’t comment, although his ears were twisted quizzically in different directions, when Klaus landed. ‘All right. Now we’d better go to the coffee house.’
*
Agatha stood up and stretched. ‘Castle? How long have I been up here?’
‘About half an hour,’ said the Castle.
‘Thanks.’ Agatha paced over the roof, looking down at Mechanicsburg beneath her. It was surprisingly tidy, the Castle having had time to clean up but not to improve the architecture. Ponies were walking around the streets with purpose and a surprising lack of panic, but this was Mechanicsburg. If there was one thing Agatha had learned about it it was that the people here prided themselves on taking the bizarre in stride. She fluttered her wings, surprised by how easily they lifted her. It wasn’t effortless, she could feel the pull of muscles in her shoulders and chest, but no more than she felt the pull of muscles in her legs while walking. ‘Something has to be either negating my weight or adding serious air resistance,’ she mused as she walked to the edge of the roof and looked down. She spread her wings wide and paused, ‘You’re not going to object?’
‘Why would I? You were fine flying up here.’
‘I didn’t…oh. Before. Why did Franz come along?’
‘To help protect you from enemy pegasi, but mostly to show off his flying machine,’ said the Castle disparagingly.
‘Ah.’ Agatha sprang upwards, letting herself reach the arc of her jump before flapping and trying to make the beats of her wings powerful instead of fluttery. She zoomed forward faster than she expected and found herself grinning giddily as she had to loop back towards the coffee shop, slowing herself down for a landing.
The coffee shop was packed, ponies of various sorts sitting on chairs with coffee cups balanced in their hooves. The Jägergenerals took up one side of the room, looking about as much like ponies now as they had looked like humans before. Which was to say they were equine. Gkika looked mostly like a normal pony, Goomblast was enormous and shaggy and his huge mouth full of teeth, which seemed to split his face ear to ear, looked even more disconcerting on a horse. Or maybe Agatha was having flashbacks to the Circus. Zog, the only pegasus among them, had wings which were feathered but folded like bat wings and had huge bone spurs jutting from their point. Moloch’s crew were in a corner, where Mezzasalma stood out for having his back legs replaced with six spider legs while still having his front hooves. Agatha tried to imagine him walking. The Baron and Tarvek were sitting at a table together, Tarvek inexplicably surrounded by a red glow and covered in weasels again. But at that point Agatha was thoroughly distracted by what they had in front of them.
‘Cake!’ she said and found herself flying over everyone’s heads before she had time to think about it. The cake was fortunately already sliced, because she certainly wasn’t wasting time finding a knife. She grabbed a piece in her front hooves and practically inhaled it. Sugery, sticky, she could feel herself reviving as she swallowed it. She licked her hooves and reached for another piece, only then realising both that she was still hovering and that she had bent her forelegs at an angle no equine should have been able to manage. She solved the first by fluttering her way into a chair and ignored the second in favour of carrying on eating. ‘Did you tell them I wanted cake?’ she asked after the second slice.
‘Er, yes?’ said Tarvek.
Agatha grinned at him. ‘All is forgiven.’
‘Really?’
‘At least until I get over how good this cake is.’ She looked around, realising that stacks of sandwiches had been thoughtfully provided, along with coffee, tea and jugs of water. The meeting seemed to be doubling as a buffet and Agatha had no problem with that. Partly as a way of finding out how far her magic extended and partly out of actual hunger she grabbed a selection of sandwiches, a plate and a glass of water from around the room. Then, after adding half a sandwich to the slices of cake she’d eaten, she pounded a hoof on the table.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Listen up.’ She was not going to demand a bunch of ponies tremble before her even if they’d be happy about it. Trying to imagine her ancestors as evil pony overlords was hard enough. ‘We’ve got some problems here and I’m pretty sure the main one is visible to everyone, but it’s not the first one we need to deal with. The first one we need to deal with is the fact that we’ve still got enemies and while they’re probably pretty confused right now that don’t mean they won’t attack us. So,’ she pointed a hoof at the Jägergenerals. ‘How are the Jägers doing?’
General Zog saluted her. ‘Ve iz adapting fast. Ve iz still vorking on tactics, but ve iz still strong und Hy dun think anyvun vill adapt faster. Ve haff all adapted to changed bodies vunce, ve know how it goes.’
‘Good,’ said Agatha. She moved her hoof to Vanamonde. ‘The defences around the walls. Has anyone checked to see if they still work the same way now that we’re ponies?’
‘I’ve got people working on it,’ said Vanamonde. ‘A lot of it hasn’t changed that much, but the lightning generators are gone.’
‘Ve found dem,’ said General Zog, drawing Agatha’s attention back to him. ‘On clouds.’
Agatha rubbed her forehead with the tip of one hoof. ‘Why and how would they be on clouds?’
‘Hy dunno. Dey jest are.’
‘Okay. We can send some pegasi to look at them,’ said Agatha. ‘But most of our defences are still in place?’
‘Yes, Mistress,’ came an enthusiastic chorus and Agatha smiled despite herself.
‘Okay, now Sparks…’ Agatha trailed off as she looked towards the ponies assembled at the Spark table. ‘Sleipnir? And, uh, Theo?’
‘Yep, it’s me,’ said the vivid lime green pony waving a hoof. ‘And I’ve already heard all the Norse Mythology jokes, okay?’ she added, grinning.
‘And I’m me,’ said Theo, contriving to scratch the back of his head with a hoof…wow, their legs really were flexible. He was another normal pony but for some reason he’d wound up light purple with a yellow and blue striped mane. It was one of the more fanciful colour combinations Agatha had seen. She couldn’t make out either of their marks from here. Realising she was craning her neck to, essentially, get a look at her friends’ butts she quickly drew herself up and hoped she couldn’t blush through fur.
‘Okay, good to see you both, but weren’t you in hospital?’ she said.
‘You called for all Sparks and assistants,’ said Sleipnir.
‘And I’m sitting down,’ Theo protested.
Agatha shook her head. ‘Okay. Glad to have you on board.’ She looked around. ‘This might have been caused by the device the Baron had. Did anyone pick it up?’
‘I did,’ said the Baron, floating it out onto the table in front of her. Agatha floated it to eye level and, concentrating on delicacy so hard her magic visibly split into tendrils, opened it up. The insides were melted. ‘What was it meant to do?’ she asked.
The Baron hesitated and then sighed and resettled his wings. ‘A stasis device.’
There was a babble of voices all talking at once, in which Gkika’s reproving, ‘Klaus!’ was the clearest. Agatha held up a hoof until they quieted. ‘Why?’ she asked, keeping her voice carefully level. She could feel her feathers fluffing up angrily.
‘It seemed the Empire would be safer with Gil than with me, especially if the Other would have no chance to get to him through you,’ he said. ‘I thought it would give him time to…find a solution.’
Agatha blinked. Her first, oddly sympathetic, thought was that’s a lot of faith to have in Gil. ‘I do not appreciate you trying to put my town in stasis,’ she said. ‘But, that aside, how does a stasis device have a malfunction involving cute ponies?’
The Baron gave the device a betrayed look. ‘I have no idea.’
Agatha hesitated. She had just had a reminder that the Baron was not on her side. But he presumably didn’t want to remain a pony, and he was one of the most powerful Sparks present as well as the most experienced. With, reportedly, a talent for other people’s inventions. Also a talent for herding Sparks. She floated the device over and landed it in front of him. ‘You’re in charge of the committee for figuring it out then. All Sparks are on that committee unless I assign them elsewhere. Any questions?’
The Baron shot her a rueful look. ‘Does this meet the definition of cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners?’
‘Possibly, but I think that’s a family tradition,’ said Agatha briskly. ‘Any other questions?’
‘Are you going to be on the committee?’ Tarvek asked.
‘Yes, but I’ll be called away if anything else comes up,’ said Agatha. ‘I also want to get a look at those generators and see how they’re staying on clouds. So I’ll be checking in with various groups.’ She looked around and when no one else volunteered more questions nodded. ‘Okay. You can all go about your business then. After lunch.’ She sank back into her own seat and picked up the second half of her sandwich.
*
After lunch they set off towards one of the Castle laboratories. The previously imprisoned Sparks were a bit reluctant to go back, but more reluctant to disobey either Agatha or the Baron. On the way Agatha looked around at Mechanicburg, trying to see what had changed. Not as much as she would have expected. They were…somewhat scaled down, for ponies, even the Baron was only a large horse in comparison to the rest of them, so the doors didn’t need to be bigger. The masonry skeletons had become pony skeletons, which managed to be even creepier (the eye sockets were enormous) but also caused Agatha to stop and stare, trying to see in the artistic representation exactly how her new body worked. She should try finding an actual biology book.
There were signs that they were now herbivores, the butchers’ shops were gone and there were flower shops advertising the flavour of their wares rather than the colour. Now Agatha looked a lot of the shops seemed to be advertising thistles. Thistle soup, thistle sandwiches, thistle pie, thistle quiche. Apparently this had replaced Mechanicsburg’s previous thing for snails, which may indicate Mechanicsburgers had a very specific reaction to invasive species (she had no idea if it was still here but that would also explain the shop selling shoggoth).
The Castle had a few new surprises too. Like the beautiful chess set carved from “100% real unicorn horn” which proved to Agatha that, yes, her family had been evil pony overlords.
Agatha stayed to look at the device for a while, discovered the innards too melted to tell much from, and left the Baron sketching what he could of it from memory while she went to examine the generators. Oggie came along with her on that, smug because he could when the other two couldn’t.
‘Look,’ he said, hovering over a cloud near the one the generator was sitting on. He sank down onto the cloud and folded his wings, grinning.
‘How?’ Agatha had avoided clouds on the way up, not wanting to fly through wet cold fog. Now she lowered herself carefully onto one. It was soft and fluffy, but perfectly firm beneath her. She stretched her wings, glad of the chance to stop hovering. She was so tired, but she could keep going for the rest of today. ‘That’s…interesting. So clouds are solid now?’ That explained how things could be built on them. ‘We could carry people up here so not just the pegasi can see.’
‘Hyu vant me to get anyvun?’
‘Yes, go and get Tarvek, please.’ She should probably leave him with the committee, he was a powerful Spark and would be more useful there. But she was feeling out of her depth and she’d just feel better for having a friend close by.
Oggie jumped off the cloud and zipped downwards, wings going like a hummingbird’s. Agatha fluttered over to the generator and started examining it. Surprisingly soon Oggie was back, Tarvek dangling from his front legs looking somewhat unimpressed and with weasels still clinging to his mane and tail. Agatha took a moment to wonder if Jäger superstrength extended to their wings and how that would even make sense — it wasn’t like stronger wings would make up for them being small, although it might increase how fast they could flap them which would generate more lift — before being snapped out of it when Oggie dropped Tarvek beside her and he went straight through the cloud.
‘Tarvek!’ she grabbed at him with her magic, instinctively, and was surprised how easy it was.
‘Huh,’ said Oggie, landing beside her. ‘Hyu iz verra magical.’
‘Uh,’ said Agatha. ‘Tarvek, are you okay? I’m really sorry, I thought that would work, I don’t know why the cloud’s solid for me but not you.’
‘It must go with having wings,’ said Tarvek, tail still swishing a bit nervously, but seeming mostly calm. ‘Maybe different types of pony have different types of magic? But you have more than one type. Is that what you meant about her being very magical?’
Oggie scratched at a wing with his back hoof. ‘Mostly dot none ov us ken lift a pony. Vit magic anyvay.’
‘It’s not taking any effort at all,’ said Agatha. ‘Flying up here tired me out more.’
‘We knew alicorns were more powerful,’ said Tarvek. ‘If it’s really no effort, does that mean I can stay up here?’
Agatha looked at him, startled. ‘You’re really okay with having me holding you up the whole time?’
‘Moving around by myself would be nice, but it’s not as if you’re going to drop me,’ said Tarvek.
They inspected the generator and determined it hadn’t changed aside from its location. Its position on a cloud was even more confusing, though, now that they knew it wasn’t the clouds that had become solid. ‘Maybe it extends to things built by pegasi?’ Agatha suggested. Did that mean Gil was a pegasus? He’d like that.
‘You’d have to get some pegasi to build something to test that,’ said Tarvek.
‘I’ll get Vanamonde to send some up, since we don’t need them to be Sparks,’ said Agatha. ‘Let’s go down and see how the committee is getting on.
On the ground they found the Baron, examining a shop front with deep concentration.
‘Shouldn’t you be with the committee?’ Agatha said.
‘Everyone is productively occupied,’ said the Baron. ‘And examining the device was telling me nothing. I thought I’d see if I could spot any pattern in what’s changed and what hasn’t. Beyond the fact that the things that have changed are those necessary to be consistent with us always having been ponies.’
‘Here’s one thing that’s changed. Ponies with wings can stand on clouds,’ said Agatha. ‘They’re very comfortable.’ They’d be nice to sleep on. Although right now she’d sleep on bricks.
‘Hmm,’ said the Baron. Whatever he’d been about to add was interrupted by a very deep, very loud, ‘HOOONK.’ A giant weasel, mouth full of very sharp teeth, emerged suddenly from an alley and charged at the Baron. Who calmly picked it up in his silver, sparkly aura and set it next to Tarvek. Tarvek’s ears went up in alarm and then the weasel said, clearly, ‘Eee!’ and hugged him. His ears flopped and he gave Agatha a long suffering look while she tried not to giggle.
‘It’s a lot friendlier than it was after the airship crash,’ Tarvek said, muffled and resigned.
They looked up at the sound of arrhythmic trotting to find Ruxala arriving from the end of the street. It had to be her, she was blue with darker blue hair and tail, both curly, with a slate grey wasp eater mark on her flank. She was also wearing her Vespiary Squad badge on a green ribbon around her neck. There were bandages wound tightly around her middle.
‘Hello,’ she said, apparently addressing the weasel rather than them. ‘Come on, I can get you some food if you come with me.’
‘Honk,’ said the weasel.
‘I know, I’m sure he’d love to be friends with you, but why don’t you come and eat first?’ She walked over and patted the weasel’s side with a hoof.
‘Sure,’ muttered Tarvek. ‘Just love to.’
‘Meep.’ The weasel turned a baleful look on the Baron. ‘HISSSSSS.’
‘Um.’ Ruxala gave the Baron a look that was a bit wary herself. ‘Yeah. But we know about that, it’s being dealt with. You don’t have to worry.’
‘Honk.’ The weasel unwound itself from Tarvek and nuzzled Ruxala, who winced but smiled anyway.
‘Were you talking to that weasel?’ Agatha asked. Then, ‘I mean, of course you were, but was it talking back?’
‘I —’ Ruxala’s face lit up. ‘Yes! I’ve always spoken to them, and felt like I understood them, but now it’s like I really do. It’s not like I hear them speaking words, but I really understand them. I’m not imagining it. And they understand me too.’
‘Another type of magic,’ said Agatha, glancing at the mark on Ruxala’s flank. The little weasels that had been sitting on Tarvek had gone to join Ruxala now, too, perhaps at the promise of food. ‘Do you have everything you need for your weasels?’
‘Yes, we’re fine,’ said Ruxala. She trotted off, followed by weasels.
‘I think we should investigate,’ said Agatha. ‘What type of magic people have seems to be related to what type of pony they are, but there’s also something about these marks.’
*
Books didn’t help a great deal. The marks were a normal part of the pony history, but apparently such a normal part no one had bothered to explain them. Agatha discovered they were called cutie marks — something she was never going to be able to say with a straight face — and also found some sketches of the cutie marks of historical figures, often included alongside their sigil and coat of arms.
Outside, on the way to do some personal research, Agatha found her ears pricking up at a rather jaunty tune. A red pony — not a unicorn, she believed the technical term was earth pony — was sitting on his haunches playing a violin. One hoof held the bow as easily as if it was magnetic, another was…wait, the violin was not Agatha’s instrument, but she was sure you couldn’t do fingering with a hoof. A pair of joined quavers was visible on his flank.
‘How are you doing that?’ she asked.
The pony looked up at her, lowering the violin slightly. ‘I don’t know, m’lady. But if I don’t think too hard it works just as if I still had hands.’
‘That’s…that’s got to be some form of magic. Minor telekinesis? Maybe unicorns are just the only ones to have any range beyond their own bodies…related to keratin? It does only work with hooves, right? And we use our horns. Or it could be mark related, if you have a music mark you have to be able to play.’
‘Are you going to experiment on me?’ Anywhere but Mechanicsburg that would have sounded alarmed and not just mildly worried.
‘No,’ said Agatha. ‘I’m just making observations. Carry on.’
She left, Tarvek and the Baron following, and behind her the tune started up again. She found herself trotting in time to it.
People fixing machines often had tool marks. Hammers, chisels, spanners, saws. People who were not currently farming due to the whole siege situation but who told her they were farmers had fruit and vegetables quite often. Some shopkeepers had the mark of their wares, others didn’t. Sometimes people had marks for music, or for a hobby, or something harder to figure out. All groups seemed to have a scattering of people with trilobites incorporated into their marks, and Agatha wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. Especially as her own mark was one of the vague ones. It didn’t mark her as a Heterodyne, or even as a Spark unless the reference to alchemy was a hint. And it related to the Baron’s mark when she didn’t really have anything to do with him beyond having been kidnapped by him once and then chased down.
She yawned behind her wing as they headed for the Jägers. They mostly had weapon marks and were demonstrating that they had a talent for them with enthusiasm. They also had trilobites incorporated into their marks, or in some cases just trilobites, at a higher rate than the human population. The sight of Dimo balancing on three legs and using his mouth to throw knives — with remarkable accuracy — at the target made her wince.
‘Dimo,’ she called. He looked around and trotted awkwardly over. ‘I should fix you a prosthetic now I’ve got time. Let’s find a lab.’
Dimo followed with a grin. Agatha suppressed a yawn and tried not to drag her hooves. She really did owe him a prosthetic, after that maybe she’d find somewhere nice to take a nap.
*
Klaus wasn’t terribly surprised when, shortly after entering the lab, Agatha swayed on her feet and her head drooped almost to the floor. Dimo, who had been closest, attempted to prop her up and wound up stumbling off balance himself.
‘Ho, vell,’ he said philosophically. ‘Hy ken vait a leedle more.’
Agatha raised her head, eyes opening slightly, glittering and unfocussed.
‘Miss Heterodyne?’ Klaus asked.
She snored and mumbled something unintelligable, taking a step forward almost blindly. Sleepwalking. Klaus’s mind returned to Beetleburg, to a young lady dressed very inappropriately for a machine shop. Well. She stopped, head up, wings drooping, and everything in the room was suddenly enveloped in gold. Tarvek and Dimo both reacted with wide eyes and suddenly upright ears.
A table rotated in the air, came down upside down and then had two of its legs break off with a snap. These then advanced on Dimo, who backed up a few steps before the glow grabbed him and held him in place long enough to, apparently, measure the table legs against him. Then he was released and a number of tools flew into the air, circling the table legs, which were soon sawed down, filed into shape with a series of files from rough to smooth that followed each other in a spiral, and sanded. The end result was four pieces, two long and two short that were, roughly, the shape of a pony’s leg bones. They flew over to measure themselves against Dimo again and then dropped to the floor.
Bronze wire and bronze sheet flew up. A torch lit itself with a hiss of gas and a tap turned on to fill a trough for cooling. Wire pulled itself thin, gears were hammered into shape, some thick brass sheet wrapped itself into a convincing hoof shape and then had wicked serrations filed into its edge (which made Dimo’s ears perk up happily).
Klaus watched in fascination. He had always loved watching Sparks at work, and now there was this new magic to figure out too. This display of both, of a powerful Spark and a powerful alicorn perfectly in control, was something he would have paid a great deal to see. Agatha turned her head sometimes, to check all the processes she had going on at once were going as planned with a heavy lidded gaze, but otherwise remained perfectly still. She was humming, the tuneless compelling sound of Heterodyning, deeply familiar to Klaus.
The wooden parts took to the air again and were quickly wrapped in wire framework, gears slotting easily into place, hoof being hammered onto the end of the cannon bone with a few precise taps. Polish, brushes and cloths spun around it for a moment, revealing a marvel of dark wood and brass, wires trailing off from its top joint. Then a drawer slid open and three scalpels, two pairs of pliers and a dozen needles filed out and pointed themselves at Dimo.
To his credit the Jäger didn’t flinch, gritting his fangs as the scalpel delicately cut him open but not trying to get away. The golden light held him in place anyway, to be sure he couldn’t injure himself by pulling back involuntarily. The scalpels peeled scar tissue away from the wound and then the leg slotted into place, Dimo biting back a moan, and the pliers dived in to start hooking it up to nerves. Every movement was quick and efficient and, although Dimo’s coat was rough with sweat by the time it was done, it had probably been as easy on him as possible.
Then the tools fell to the floor, followed by Agatha, who simply collapsed, tucked her head under her wing, and started snoring in earnest.
‘Wow,’ said Tarvek.
‘Hehe,’ said Dimo, twisting his new leg around and admiring the sharp edges of his hoof. ‘Nize. Like haffing claws again.’
‘We should get her to bed,’ said Tarvek, sounding shaken. ‘That can’t be comfortable.’
Klaus looked at him consideringly. He’d reacted with shock to the display, but that was understandable. ‘You haven’t seen her sleepwalk before?’ he asked.
‘No!’ said Tarvek. ‘I mean, at Sturmhalten, whenever she fell asleep…but that wasn’t Lucrezia, she was still asleep the whole time she was working, and Lucrezia wouldn’t make something for a Jäger.’
Dimo snorted. ‘Hyu got dot right.’
‘I see,’ said Klaus. He wrapped Agatha in his own magic and lifted her gently, her mane and tail flopping down and trailing on the ground but the rest of her keeping its position. She looked — she was — startlingly vulnerable like this. And not just because she was an adorable pony. Less a new and untried Heterodyne, powerful and unpredictable, and more Bill’s teenage daughter, still very young to do all she had done. But, he reminded himself, no less powerful and unpredictable for that being true as well.
The Castle opened the door to the nearest bedroom as soon as he left the laboratory and Tarvek shook the dust off the old quilts and smoothed them back into place before Klaus lowered Agatha to rest on it. She muttered something and pulled a hoof over her nose. Tarvek bent down to peer at her face beneath her wing and gently lifted and folded her glasses in a glow of red magic, putting them on the bedside table.
‘I should go and check my committee is still running smoothly,’ said Klaus resignedly. ‘Castle, you’ll keep an eye on her?’
‘Of course,’ said the Castle.
‘Hy’m gonna go und haff a rematch vit a few pipple,’ said Dimo, grinning widely.
Klaus looked at Tarvek, who looked back blandly. ‘I’m sure I’ll find something to do,’ he said. Which was practically an admission he was up to something, although it might well be something benign. Klaus decided to leave him to it for now.
*
Klaus was resignedly shepherding — ponyherding? — his committee when a brown Jägerpony with red eyes, and a slightly disconcerting red eye cutie mark, entered the room. ‘Haff hyu schmott guys noticed der sun isn’t moofing?’ he asked.
Klaus glanced at the window, a wing twitching uneasily. He had thought this day was going on for rather a long time. ‘We’d better go outside and look,’ he said, although what good that was going to do he wasn’t sure. He looked at the little sphere with its melted innards. It had been a powerful stasis device, but surely not powerful enough to stop the rotation of the Earth. If Earth wasn’t rotating there would be larger effects than the sun stopping in the sky. Such as all of them being thrown into space by the momentum.
Outside a lot of ponies were staring upwards at the sun still high in the sky. Some of them had grabbed sextants, although Klaus wasn’t sure what they intended to do with them. It wasn’t long before an elderly lavender-grey pony and a younger and more frantic coffee coloured one trotted up.
‘So, what do you make of this?’ Carson asked, stopping beside Klaus.
‘This really shouldn’t be possible, although under the circumstances I’m willing to believe in a lot of impossible things. I don’t see how the Earth stopping can be related to everyone turning into ponies, though,’ said Klaus.
‘We should wake the Heterodyne,’ said Vanamonde, pawing the ground with a hoof. ‘Physics breaking isn’t something you can just let someone sleep through.’
Klaus glanced at his committee, which was breaking up to grab various bits of equipment — including a telescope, which von Zinzer helpfully confiscated before he had to — and then turned back to Vanamonde. ‘I’m not sure what she could do that the rest of us couldn’t right now.’ Not that he was at all sure what the rest of them could do. Before he could continue a giant tiger clank charged across the square at him. He was just about to grab it and yell at the Castle to keep its fun-sized clanks somewhere more convenient when Sleipnir’s ears perked up. ‘Von Pinn! I mean, Otilia! Where have you been?’
‘I have been keeping an eye on things.’ She dropped her head and nuzzled Klaus’s shoulder to his considerable bemusement. ‘Why are you leaving the sun there?’
‘Because I don’t know how to move it,’ he said, trying not to look as confused as he felt. ‘Do you know how to move it?’
‘No,’ she straightened up. ‘But you have been moving it for years, right up until the Lady Heterodyne ascended.’
‘I —’ He wasn’t even sure which part of that to address first. ‘Do you mean literally moving the sun? I don’t see how I could make the Earth rotate either, but at least it’s smaller.’
‘The sun is much smaller than the Earth, about the size of the moon,’ she said, and then looked startled. ‘Oh…I remember now. It…’
‘No, carry on remembering the the way you were,’ Klaus said hastily. ‘We really need to know this. So the sun’s not that big and I usually move it? But Agatha took over?’
Otilia dipped her head. ‘She has the cutie mark for it. When she ascended she was able to act on her affinity for the sun.’
Klaus looked back at his own flank as if it might have changed. ‘And mine’s the…moon…’
‘Yes. She moved that too while you were in hospital.’
‘It’s nice to know we can take over for one another,’ Klaus said, a little inanely. If the solar system ground to a halt every time one of them was injured they’d really be in trouble. He’d known alicorns were powerful but not like this. He looked up at the sun and wondered how he’d even go about reaching for it. The same way he reached for an object? And what if something went wrong? What if he dropped it? Agatha was the one who was meant to have a natural affinity for it. ‘I think,’ he said cautiously, ‘that maybe we had better wake up the Lady Heterodyne.’
*
Agatha woke up feeling not nearly rested enough for having — by the light coming through the dusty windows — slept about twenty-four hours. Someone was knocking on her door. She yawned and levitated her glasses on before opening it. The Baron was outside, looking rather worried, and behind him was Otilia who promptly pushed her nose in front of him and said, ‘What are you thinking answering the door like that? You look like you just got out of bed.’
‘I did,’ said Agatha pointedly. ‘I was thinking I was needed for something.’
‘You could at least have taken the time to make yourself decent! I was beginning to think I had been mistaken about your ways.’
‘I’m a pony! I spent all of yesterday naked,’ Agatha snapped.
‘But not looking like you just got out of bed!’ Otilia turned to Klaus. ‘And you, look away.’
‘What am I missing?’ the Baron asked.
‘I — argh,’ said Agatha. ‘If this is some weird pony standard of decency you are literally the only person on the planet who still cares. But fine!’ She slammed the door with her telekinesis hard enough to make the Castle grumble and started pulling out and upending drawers until she got an old ivory-backed hairbrush. She very quickly put her mane and tail in order, ran it over the rest of her, gave her feathers a quick fluff, and opened the door again. ‘Better?’
‘Much,’ said Otilia primly.
‘Good,’ said the Baron. ‘Can I talk to her now?’
‘Yes,’ said Otilia.
Agatha gave her a baleful look but refrained from saying that they didn’t need Otilia’s permission. ‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘The sun isn’t moving,’ said the Baron. ‘According to Otilia we’ve been moving it.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Agatha craned her head back over her shoulder to look at the window again. The light really was much the same as when she’d gone to sleep. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Apparently not,’ said the Baron.
‘How long was I asleep for? I was meant to do Dimo’s arm. Leg.’
‘You did, it was a remarkable display of telekinetic control. And about four hours.’
‘Oh.’ Sleepwalking again. She wondered if the first few times had been less embarrassing as a pony and then thought of Otilia’s reaction to her being seen dishevelled. Probably not, then. And if it had only been four hours the sun was definitely not moving. ‘And we move the sun itself?’
‘Yes,’ said the Baron. ‘It’s about the size of the moon, the Earth is flat, and astronomy is very confusing.’
Agatha snorted. ‘It was fine before you broke it. So one of us needs to move the sun? And you woke me, does that mean you want me to do it?’
‘You’re the one with the affinity for it. Apparently we can take over for one another, but my affinity is for the moon.’ He spread his wing so she could see his flank. ‘As proven by cutie mark.’
Agatha gave him a look, she was sure he was saying that because he knew hearing him use the phrase “cutie mark” seriously broke her brain. ‘Okay, but…what do I do with it? Do I just…grab it?’
‘I have no idea,’ the Baron admitted. ‘But I think you’ll have to try.’
*
Agatha opted to try from the roof of the Castle. Partly because she couldn’t help feeling that it would help to be higher, although the height of a building really didn’t get her significantly closer to even a much smaller and nearer sun than usual. Partly because it left the crowd far enough away that she could ignore them. She stared up at the sun and only realised what she was doing when it didn’t start to hurt. Okay, she could look straight at the sun without blinking. She lifted a hoof and poked it forwards as if she could literally nudge the sun along the sky, then lowered it feeling silly. Right, magic. She lowered her head and tried to reach for the sun, the way she reached for objects she wanted to pick up. There was a lot of golden glow, enough that she could see it lighting up the roof around her, and not much else.
‘I don’t think I’m doing this right,’ she said.
The Baron was pacing up and down the roof, wings flaring and lifting him whenever the slope unbalanced him. Agatha tried not to think of it as flutterpacing. ‘Normal telekinesis didn’t do it?’
‘No. I don’t think I have quite that big a range.’
Pegasi were flying up to watch from nearby clouds. In some cases they brought their own. Agatha gave them an exasperated look, so much for staying away from her audience. She looked back up at the sun. ‘Did Otilia mention how we do this?’
‘No.’ The Baron stopped pacing and came to stand beside her, although looking less directly at the sun. ‘I doubt she knew. But so far we’ve had both muscle memory and the magical equivalent. We didn’t all trip over our hooves as soon as we transformed and we’ve been able to adapt to using magic quite remarkably quickly, all things considered.’
‘So, you think if I manage to try the right way I’ll…know?’ It was tempting to lean against him, just because she was feeling so confused and out of her depth, and he was reassuringly large and solid beside her…and despite the lines of stitching he was not Adam.
‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘But I think you do have the instincts for this.’
‘What about you? Weren’t you doing it for longer?’
‘I can try if you don’t want to,’ he said, sounding about as uncertain as she felt. ‘But I think I was outside of my natural talents in doing it at all…although I can’t pretend to understand how these things work.’
Agatha took a deep breath. ‘I’ll try again.’ She turned towards the sun again, gathering power around her horn and tried to feel this affinity for it that she was supposed to have. It couldn’t be necessary if the Baron had been doing it but maybe it would help. She could feel it, or not feel it precisely — for which she was thankful, since she’d rather not feel like she was touching a ball of superhot plasma — but feel where it was. She tried to remember if that was how it had felt to pick things up — she’d always known that she had them and where they were but she hadn’t felt the leather cover of a book or the softness of a piece of cake. Close, then, at least. ‘I have it.’
‘Can you move it?’
She pushed, tentatively, and nothing happened. She pulled, nudged, tugged, lifted, and tried imagining every other type of motion she could think of. Finally she got exasperated with it and…gave it the sort of shove she might give a cog that should be fitting in and wasn’t, the kind of shove she suspected overrode physics slightly in favour of how she expected it to work. The sun slid down the horizon so fast she imagined she could hear a whoosh. Brilliant orange light flared out over the gathered ponies, followed by pink and purple and deep, deep red. It was a spectacular and very brief sunset.
Below them ponies started to stomp their hooves in applause. Agatha blew a strand of hair out of her face and looked sheepish. ‘I’ll take it more slowly tomorrow.’
‘We were about due for sunset today,’ said the Baron. He lowered his own head, horn sparking silver, and for a moment Agatha couldn’t think what he was trying to do. Then the first silver sliver of the full moon rose above the horizon.
‘You did that a lot quicker than I did,’ she said, ruefully.
He looked at her in evident surprise. ‘I was watching you.’
They stood there for a moment, sharing a sense of slightly shaky relief, the Baron’s horn occasionally flaring as he nudged the moon a little. It seemed to be willing to climb its path at a normal speed now he’d got it started. Agatha wondered if he was going to have to figure out how to give it phases. She yawned. She’d only had four hours sleep, maybe she could get a bit more now they’d sorted this out. It was night now. Hopefully she wouldn’t sleepwalk again, even if she was glad she’d made Dimo a leg, and at least it wasn’t as bad as Sturmhalten… ‘Ack!’ she exclaimed, ears standing up.
The Baron turned to her. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked urgently.
‘This locket.’ She touched it with a hoof to reassure herself it was still there. ‘It’s the only thing keeping Lucrezia suppressed. And I can move the sun! Can you imagine what she’d do with that? She was blowing up people’s cities! If she can throw astronomical objects around…and I can move the moon too! What about planets! Even if she didn’t want to risk eternal night she could still take out whole countries if she didn’t like them!’ Agatha was trotting on the spot, half fluttering with agitation.
The Baron reared up and pressed his front hooves to her shoulders, keeping her on the ground, his own wings flapping gently so she wasn’t supporting his weight. ‘I know. We’ll work on it. For now you’ll just have to be very careful to keep it on.’
Agatha looked up at him. ‘How?’
‘Ideally by getting her out of your head. Failing that if we can find a way to cure revenants then I’d have the power to oppose her even if she took your body.’ He sighed. ‘On a less theoretical note, we can find out about other alicorns — or beings of comparable power — and inform them of the situation so they’re prepared if she does take over. I have a hunch about one.’
‘Albia,’ said Agatha, and even through the fear she felt a little amused at how unhappy he looked about that.
‘Yes.’ He dropped back onto all four feet.
‘I’ll have to get in touch with her,’ Agatha said, vaguely, wondering about how you went about sending a letter to England when you were a pony and whether there were people who could teleport them. Now that the panic was ebbing it seemed to be taking the last of her energy. ‘I have friends in England, I’d like to know how they’re adapting to being ponies.’
‘I’m sure they’re fine,’ said the Baron. ‘You can ask them to return the airship they borrowed.’
She gave him a sharp look and then grinned. ‘I’ll be sure to mention it.’
‘And for now I think you should go back to bed.’
‘Good idea.’ The trapdoor opened before she reached it and she wasn’t terribly surprised when the bedroom she’d been using was much closer than it had been earlier.
*
The next morning Agatha woke to a hoof tapping lightly on her door and, feeling a bit silly when it was only an idea Otilia had put in her head, smoothed herself down before calling, ‘Come in.’
It was Tarvek, levitating a tray with a bowl of oatmeal with apple pieces and honey along with croissants and two flavours of jam and a small pot of tea. ‘I thought I’d better wake you with time to eat breakfast before sunrise.’
Agatha wondered sleepily why she had to be up before sunrise and then remembered that she was responsible for it. ‘Thanks,’ she said, levitating the spoon up as the tray landed in front of her. ‘Come and sit down. Where were you yesterday?’
‘Looking for Violetta. She’s better at stealth than she thinks she is,’ Tarvek said, jumping up and sitting on the bed next to her. ‘She hasn’t managed to find Tweedle yet, but she and Krosp are both looking.’
‘Oh.’ In all the excitement of yesterday Agatha hadn’t thought to wonder where Krosp was and she felt a bit guilty about it now. ‘Is he still the same?’
‘Yes. Still a bipedal cat,’ said Tarvek. ‘And quite smug now he’s the only one with opposable thumbs.’
Agatha giggled and then there was silence for a while as she finished her oatmeal. ‘And Violetta?’
‘Earth pony. A purple one, and she still has her cloak. She also still has all her pouches hidden beneath it, strung from what looks like a leather harness.’
‘Tools of the trade,’ said Agatha, adding it to her mental list of what had disappeared and what hadn’t. ‘What about her mark?’
‘Cards,’ said Tarvek. ‘Queen and joker. I’m guessing sleight of hand.’
‘I’m a bit disappointed with mine,’ said Agatha, wondering if this was silly when it meant being able to move the sun. ‘Everyone else’s are so personal to them and mine is something that wasn’t even related to me before this happened.’
‘It’s better than mine,’ said Tarvek. When Agatha looked at him his ears drooped. ‘I suppose it was inevitable my greatest talent would be manipulation, and it’s what you need me to do, so it’s okay.’
‘Chess master,’ said Agatha. ‘Maybe that’s not it. Maybe you’re the piece.’
‘A queen?’ Tarvek’s ears did a questioning twist in different directions, which Agatha managed to ignore the cuteness of with a slight effort.
‘They’re more active than the kings. They fight alongside the other pieces, instead of hiding at one end of the board, and some of them have to gain power the hard way,’ she said.
‘Oh.’ Tarvek’s ears perked up and Agatha gave into temptation and threw a wing over him. ‘That’s not so bad,’ he said, nuzzling her neck, and then pulling away looking embarrassed. ‘Maybe yours isn’t just about being able to move the sun, either. You’re…so bright when you get a chance to shine.’
‘Corny,’ said Agatha, grinning. ‘But thanks. Zeetha taught me a while ago that symbols can mean what we need them to. I’ll just have to remember that.’
After she’d washed her breakfast down with tea she brushed herself more thoroughly (she was going to have a bath once she had the sun up) and set out walking through the Castle corridors, Tarvek beside her.
‘You’re not going to the roof, this time?’ the Castle asked.
‘No, I’ll go to the main entrance. It doesn’t really make a difference.’
Outside ponies were gathered eagerly around the square, so many of them that it wasn’t only the pegasi who were on the roofs. Agatha wondered how long it would take for sunrise to become routine again. She lifted her head and reached out, this time knowing what she was reaching for and finding it below the horizon. She pushed it firmly, but gently, into place and watched it throw pink light across the square.