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Sohndar

by CTVulpin

Chapter 11

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Moiety Sanctum: Tay

Upon materializing in the world, Twilight found herself on a stone dock across the lake from the tree-like structure. Rainbow Dash was standing nearby, and the Moiety mare Materi was at the end of the dock, waving in a long rowboat being paddled by a unicorn stallion wearing the black and red cloak of the Moiety society. The two rebel ponies traded words as the boat nosed up to the dock, and then Materi gestured for Twilight and Rainbow to get in. Twilight climbed in and settled down, but Dash elected to fly alongside as the boat cast off and the rower took up his oars to propel them toward the island.

“So, Rainbow,” Twilight asked, “How has your day been since we split up?”

“Busy and stressful,” the pegasus replied, her fatigued tone sounding at odds with how her body seemed to be reveling in the freedom of flight, “I didn’t have any trouble finding Clover on the fifth island, and she seemed almost more concerned for us than for herself.

“When I got back to the big dome, I couldn’t see anypony around, so I searched high and low until I found Whark Bait cowering in a dark corner with your saddlebags on his back. He told me you had been about to be cornered by the guards and he managed to get out of sight with your stuff before they showed up, but you couldn’t get away in time. He wasn’t confident we could rescue you, but I convinced him to at least show me where they’d be taking you. We went to the village island and tried to get to the village itself by going through that little patch of jungle, but we got jumped by the guards. I tried my best to fight them off, but there were too many to handle. But then all of a sudden, ponies started falling over as darts flew out of the jungle and struck them, and bunch of Moiety jumped out to take care of the stragglers. Poor Whark Bait was freaking out, certain that he was about to die, but once the guards were all knocked out the Moiety just took us down into their tunnel network. He and I explained ourselves the best we could and they pretty much took over the planning at that point. They snuck Whark Bait around so he could make the diagram he gave you and kept me out of sight until the time came to break you out.”

“You couldn’t have acted sooner?” Twilight asked peevishly.

“You were being kept in the cell for those sentenced to death,” Materi explained, “Aldro personally oversees and carries out executions, and so we were hoping he would be lured out of his new world.” She gave Twilight a reassuring smile and added, “Had that happened, we would have broken you out immediately. We use that secret entrance quite frequently, to the dog’s irritation.”

“I see,” Twilight said, mollified.

The rowboat docked at the island and Materi led Twilight and Rainbow to a doorway in the base of the tree. They went up a spiral staircase just inside and emerged at the top into the interior of the giant sphere, which turned out to be a veritable hive of spherical huts like those in the village on Sohndar, held up and linked together by a network of wood and rope scaffolding, ramps, and walkways. There weren’t many ponies moving about, but Rainbow thought she could make out the shape of a few in the higher levels, and most of the huts had lighted windows on one side, indicating occupancy. Materi took the pair to a door near the sphere’s equator that led into a small room with a bed, a table with a basin of water on it, and a window to the outside. “Wait in here please,” the Moeity mare said, “Somepony more qualified to speak of important things than I will be along shortly.”

“Thank you for all your help Materi,” Twilight said with a friendly nod as Materi took her leave, and then turned to her winged friend and asked, “are you going to be ok in here?”

“I’ll be fine,” Rainbow said, flopping down on the bed, “It feels homely in here, and there’s a window. If you don’t mind, I’m going to try and catch some Zs before our new friend shows up. I haven’t had a real chance to rest all day.” Her eyes were closed and her breathing became deeper before Twilight had finished nodding.

Twilight went to the table and laid out the grid diagram Whark Bait had given her, studying it until she started to drift off as well. A knock at the door a short time later snapped her back to full wakefulness and roused Rainbow to a bleary-eyed, half-awake state. They both watched as the door opened under the power of teal-tinted magic to admit a unicorn filly who looked to be not much older than Apple Bloom and her friends, her coat a dark purple that bordered on being pure black and contrasted significantly with her bright cyan mane and teal eyes. Unlike most ponies of Sohndar stock that the two Equestrians had encountered, she had forgone the typical full-body robe or cloak in favor of a simple brown vest and a satchel, leaving the partially open book with three stars swirling out of it that adorned her flank visible to all. She looked at Twilight and Rainbow in silence for several seconds, as if sizing them up, and by the look in her eyes as she did so she didn’t seem impressed.

“Um, hi,” Twilight said, smiling awkwardly, “Are you… Uh…”

“So you’re the ones Father entrusted with rescuing me and Mom, huh?” the filly asked, “I’m surprised he didn’t make Cirrus and Archeon do it.”

“I seriously doubt he would count on those two,” Rainbow drawled, “even if they were still capable.”

“Yeah, I’d expect them to try and ally themselves with Aldro or something,” the filly said darkly, “but what do you mean by ‘still capable?’ What happened to them?”

“They got themselves trapped in a couple of other books,” Twilight said, “So, I take it you’re Star Swirl’s daughter, Nyx?”

“That’s me all right,” Nyx said proudly, “Daughter and heir to the greatest of Star Swirl’s secrets. And who are you, that my father trusts so much?”

Twilight was taken aback by the filly’s smug tone, which brought to mind memories of Trixie, but managed to keep her expression and tone under control as she answered with as much modesty as possible. “I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she said, “the personal student of Princess Celestia herself. This is Rainbow Dash-”

“The greatest and fastest pegasus pony in Equestria,” the pegasus proclaimed, jumping to her hooves to pose dramatically, “and the only living being who can do a Sonic Rainboom on command.”

“Uh huh,” Nyx said, her unimpressed tone causing Rainbow to bristle with barely withheld anger. “I’ve never met Princess Celestia,” Nyx said, “but, Father has spoken highly of her, so…” She sighed and dropped her gaze with grudging acceptance. “I shouldn’t second-guess Father,” she said, “but there’s a lot he wasn’t able to tell you about how things are in Sohndar now, and if you’re going to be any kind of help you have to listen to what I have to say.”

“Tell us everything you need to Nyx,” Twilight said, “We’ll be glad of all the help we can get.”

Nyx nodded, and then levitated the satchel off her back and over to Twilight. The lavender unicorn took it and opened it up to look inside. She found it contained Star Swirl’s journal, the fake Aitran linking book that had been stolen at the very start of her and Rainbow’s adventure, and a third, narrow book with a folded piece of paper stuck in near the middle. “That is the journal my Mother kept of her impressions and activities after coming to Sohndar after me,” Nyx explained, “You can read it if you want, but I went through most of it with her, so I can summarize it all for you.” Twilight considered the book for a moment, and then put it into the satchel along with the others and gave Nyx an expectant nod.

“It all started when I discovered Cirrus and Archeon abusing Father’s books,” the filly narrated, “They physically forced me to enter Sohndar, and because of how unstable the image looked I was scared I’d get stuck somewhere between worlds, or worse. When I awoke, I was too relieved at surviving the trip and ignorant of my surroundings to realize that the booth I materialized in was a trapped cage that I was apparently too small and light to trigger.”

“Lucky you,” Rainbow said dully, recalling her and Twilight’s own experience with the cage.

“I was,” Nyx said in agreement, “by failing to spring the trap, I also avoided alerting any of Aldro’s Maintainer guards to my arrival. I wandered a short distance away and sat down to wait for somepony to show up, preferably Mother or Father linking in to rescue me, but any friendly face would’ve been welcome.

“I’m not sure how they convinced Mom to come after me without bringing a link back to Aitran, but she arrived empty-hooved a short time after I did and triggered the trap. Luckily, the Moiety showed up before the Maintainers, and after drugging both of us with their knock-out darts they secreted us away to their underground hideaway.

“A generation or two has passed here since my parents had battled Aldro and trapped him on Sohndar, but it was soon clear to us that Mother’s face had not been forgotten. Once we were declared fully recovered from the drug and allowed some freedom to explore the caverns we discovered an old mural that depicted scenes from the conflict, chiefly the final confrontation at the Star Fissure, which Father threw himself and the last linking book out of Sohndar into. The mural’s implications disturbed Mother, especially in light of the awe most of the Moiety held for her. After learning the language and asking around, I wound up confirming her concerns. It seems a few Sohndarens witnessed the final conflict at the Fissure and correctly deduced that Father had been victorious. Up until then, Aldro’s status as a god was all but unquestioned by the locals, and so those ponies decided that Father was another deity who had stripped Aldro of his power. Mom was born in Sohndar and was well known at the time for assisting Father in his efforts against Aldro, so the Moiety proclaimed that she’d been chosen to ascend to godhood as Father’s consort, or some such thing.”

“And what about you?” Rainbow Dash asked, “As their daughter, are you some sort of goddess in the making?”

“No,” Nyx said with some bitterness in her voice, “I hadn’t even been born yet, and the Moiety’s… silly religion doesn’t seem to have any room for me in it. They accept that Mom calls me her daughter, but that doesn’t afford me anything special. Those who started the group devoted themselves to continuing what my parents had started, resisting Aldro’s control and fighting against him, all while looking forward to the day that ‘He of the Stars’ or Kovar would return to fully liberate Sohndar.” She paused for a second when Twilight and Rainbow gave her blank looks, and then added as a quick explanation, “Kovar is Mom’s original, Sohndaren name.”

“He of the Stars would be Star Swirl then,” Twilight said.

Nyx nodded and then launched back into her narrative. “Mom tried to dissuade the Moiety from revering her, especially because they looked to her for guidance even though they knew what was going on better than she did, but it’s never really stuck. It became obvious fairly quickly that Father wasn’t coming to our rescue any time soon, which Mom feels is for the best considering Aldro’s grip on the surface, and the fact that he was making linking books!”

“How long ago was it that he succeeded?” Twilight asked, “I found a journal of his laying around, and it seemed he was having a hard time of it.”

“I’ve been here, er, in Sohndar, for nearly a local year,” the filly answered, “Aldro was on the verge of success when I arrived, but he only managed to get a solid, consistent link established a couple months ago, and that was only through using those domes of his to sloppily mend the flaws in his materials and writing formulae. Sohndar was chosen as his prison because it was supposed to be impossible for him to find or make the books, paper, and inks to the precise specifications required to write stable Links. He managed to get close enough to convince himself of the possibility, and then cheated to make up for the gap.

“And before you ask Ms. Twilight Sparkle, there are flaws in the physical books themselves as well as Aldro’s approach to Writing. You see, Sohndar’s dying and it’s happening fast. Mom says the last time she was there the five islands were all a single landmass, and now they drift farther and farther apart by the day, accompanied by tremors and earthquakes. Mom didn’t know what Father was going to do when he discovered we were trapped in Aldro’s prison, and she wasn’t very hopeful of being saved before the islands decayed completely. So, she made use of her unwilling status among the Moiety to lead them in an attempt to acquire a rejected linking book from Aldro’s workshop. Once she got it, with no small bit of help from me, she set to work Writing a world into it which the Moiety, and as many of the ponies still loyal or subservient to Aldro as possible, could take refuge in before the end. At the end, however, she determined we’d still need the power of the domes to open the link, and doing that was even more dangerous than getting the book in the first place. There weren’t any other options though; she considered the Star Fissure for a short time, based on Father’s brief experience in it revealing that ponies can live in its space, but ultimately rejected it because Aldro had sealed it closed and reopening it might push Sohndar right to the brink of destruction and we had no idea where, if anywhere, going into it would take us. Still, Mom didn’t want to risk using the domes more than we absolutely had to, and so I suggested trying to write some kind of alternative solution into the new world.

“Once that was done, the Moiety stole another book for Mom to write a return link into and we waited until Aldro activated the dome power himself, and then Mom slipped into one and powered the first book up, linking to the world we are in now. She found the shortcut material I’d devised, a special crystal, and found that it worked perfectly. She brought a crystal sheet back with her and soon the Moiety had relocated here and named it Tay.”

Nyx’s head and tail drooped, and she faltered for a moment with tears welling in the corner of her eyes. “That was a month ago,” she said, “Shortly after, Mom began expressing concerns to me that Aldro would have noticed the theft of two of his books, rejects though they were, and she told me to stay here while she went out to spy on him. She didn’t return; Aldro caught her somehow. The Moiety can’t free her; it’s difficult enough for them to get spies out to keep her informed of what’s going on.” She looked up straight into Twilight’s eyes, her own teal orbs hard and fierce through the tears. “Father trusts you to get me and Mom home,” she said, “and Mom trusts Father’s judgment, so you had better live up to it! Do whatever it takes to eliminate Aldro and get Mom out of her prison, and then get us home, ok?”

Twilight and Rainbow both met the filly’s eyes with full solemnity, and then the pegasus went over and put a front leg around her shoulders and said. “Kid, your mom’s in good hooves. I never leave anypony hanging, and I’ve got the smartest, most magical sidekick in the entire universe.” Twilight rolled her eyes and chuckled, letting Rainbow have her moment of hamming.

Next Chapter: Chapter 12 Estimated time remaining: 52 Minutes
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