It was well after midnight. Celestia, finding sleep eluded her, was pacing the halls of the royal quarters, brooding over the day's events still stirring about in her mind as she glided with false serenity through the now-moonlit halls.

Whom should she meet coming the other way but Luna. The Princess of the Night was not so much walking as sauntering, all but swaggering up the hall, singing a wordless, cheerful tune under her breath. She met her sister halfway and halted with a feigned look of surprise. "Why sister!" Luna said. "What has thee up and about at this hour?"

"I might ask the same thing, Luna," Celestia said. "I haven't seen you all night...nor your Night Guard..." She regarded her sister's slightly tipsy appearance, pondered her own words and had a sudden sinking feeling in her gut. "Luna... what have you been up to?"

Luna smirked at her. "Why, my royal duty," she said mockingly. "A princess must take care of her faithful little ponies, must she not?"

Celestia caught a whiff of a familiar coppery tang on Luna's breath. "Oh, Luna, you didn't---!"

"Did!" Luna said cheerfully. "Oh yes, twas a grand hunt. A nearby village did lament the depredations of a family of wild boars, so we did render aid.  Oh, fie thee and thy horror-struck looks," she huffed, scowling at Celestia's dismay. "Thou didst want my loyal Guards to feed on blood, didst thou not? So thy addle-heads and leeches could observe what ghoulish monsters they became? AH booga booga booga..." she sat down and waved her forehooves mockingly at Celestia.

"Under controlled circumstances," Celestia said. "Not... howling through the night in full view of all the world. Do you have any idea what the press will be saying in the morning if even one pony saw your Guards eating wild boar--"

"Pork, the other white meat?" Luna suggested in barely restrained glee.

"Luna!"

"Fie on them and on thee! I care not! My Guards nourished themselves on meat and blood, and yes-- I partook as well, as is my place and duty!"  She got to her feet and sauntered to the door of her suite. "My beloved thestrals sleep tonight with full bellies, and the memory that their Princess supped with them unashamed." She turned around and leaned in till her nose was almost touching Celestia's. The smell of blood on her breath made the Sun Princess' eyes water. "And now," Luna said triumphantly, a wide, smug smile on her face, "I am going to go into my bathroom, lock the door, and throw up." With that she slammed the door in Celestia's face.

Celestia stood staring at the door in disbelief. After a minute or so she could hear a muffled voice coming from the other side.

"HYuerlgph."

Celestia shuddered. "I'm going to have to give the chambermaids another raise, aren't I," she lamented.

"Transcribe."

The tattered book floated up in front of me, surrounded by a cloud of glitter. Next to it a blank-paged journal hovered. The pages on both fluttered and began turning with supernatural speed, threads of light streaming from the old to the new, magically copying the text on the original as fast as the pages turned. With a thump they fell back to the table in front of me. I picked up my new copy of "Clever Cantrips for Quick Casting" and leafed through it. Every word and drawing, copied perfectly.

This spell was darned handy. It could make multiple copies of a single page (I had used it to make bulletins to pass out to the horde) or compile a pile of loose pages into a single volume. With work you could make a permanent version, cast it on a journal, and use it to copy down notes, drawings, or writing you found elsewhere. Material didn't matter either; Daring Do used such a notebook to record hieroglyphs she found on temple walls, or so I'd heard.  Once I'd learned the spell I'd set to sprucing up my library, making copies of the older, more faded and tattered books. I'd spent most of the morning, testing the spell, and was pleased with the results.

Black Fang stepped into the room. "Your Lordship, I bring a report."

Well, crap, there went the day down the drain. "Proceed," I growled through my mask, setting the book down.

"Dread Master... they have completed another mile of fencing today."

I growled and drummed my fingers on the arm of my throne. This was going to complicate things.

Things were starting to go South again. The frost had been barely off the ground before Celestia's work crews had moved in and begun girdling the Everfree with miles of towers and chain link fence. It was laughable; enchanted or not (a few of my spies had come back with bad facial tics and mane or fur standing on end), it wouldn't even slow me down if I decided to leave. But it did make leaving the forest surreptitiously almost impossible.

This was not going over well with the Thundering Horde. Promises of access to some would-be Port Royale to splurge their ill-gotten gains had been made, and this fence was making it obvious that those promises might be curtailed. Tempers were boiling over, and mutterings were rising. I'd found a few locales--- harbor towns, a couple of skeazier griffon cities--- but getting to them was about as likely as reaching the far side of the Moon.

Without the Elements, that is.

Worse, the Guard were getting more savvy. They still had miles of fence yet to lay, so the raiding parties and the spies (like the pony in front of me) were still getting in and out. But the Guards were responding faster than before-- too fast. A couple of parties of Diamond Dogs had just avoided capture, and two of my spies had escaped by the skin of their teeth. Too close, too close to be coincidence. Chrysalis, bless her paranoid little swiss-cheese heart, insisted this was proof we had a traitor in our midst... and it was looking like she was right.

If it was one of my spies, I was probably screwed, I thought. "Anything else to report?"

Black Fang nodded. "Your agent in Manehattan has discovered a few things," he said.

I straightened up in interest. This had been a field test for the Broken Birds; I'd send them out in disguises to one city or another to do a little scouting around. Nothing intensive or important; it was a test of their initiative and loyalty as much as anything. Thus far the information had been fairly banal.  Welter Weight had been sent to Manehattan; a bit of mane dye and a couple of saddlebags to hide his undersized wings and he easily passed for an earth pony day worker.  "Oh? And what did he learn?"

"He took a job at the harbor, loading and unloading freight," Black Fang said. "He happened to help with a load of fencing meant for the Everfree border... among other things, he learned the name of the supplier and contractor." Black Fang paused. "It seems it is our would-be partner, Boss Hoss."

I had a sinking feeling. "I think I know where this is going," I said.

"I suspected you would," Black Fang said. "It seems Boss Hoss has a great deal of political clout, both above and below the board. When the plan for the fence was announced, he threw his considerable weight behind it immediately-- even offering to provide the building materials at or below cost." He paused. "He was apparently influential in getting the project underway..."

"I bet he was." It seems Boss Hoss didn't take my rejection of his offer of partnership-- or his obnoxious spokespony being roughed up for being rude and stupid-- with good grace. The two-bit gangland wannabe was going to show the dread Darth Vulcan who the real crime boss was.

I just silently added him to the mental list. When I had a spare moment I was going to demonstrate to this big fish what a teeny, tiny pond he lived in. "Anything else?" I said.

"Flim and Flam report that construction proceeds apace. For a given value of apace, they said."

I let my helmet do the staring. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"They say they'll run short of certain metals and other materials soon. Not immediately, and they are supplementing with what they find from the tunnelers. But...." he left that unfinished.

Crap. Quick mental review: Celestia was closing off the border around me. It would take about a year to completely fence in the Everfree at best, but it was slowly cutting us off from easy coming and going. I'd managed to bungle and turn a potential ally into an enemy-- bruised his ego hard enough that he was cutting his own nose off to spite his face, if that wasn't a mixed metaphor. I'd also bungled the opportunity to infiltrate Luna's Guard; they'd caught on to my 'blood bargain' almost immediately. Even the batponies that stayed loyal would be under suspicion.

To top it off, now we were running out of supplies. "What do they need?" Black Fang slapped a sheet of paper down in front of me. I picked it up and grumbled as I read over the list. A lot of it was common bulk stuff--- iron by the ton, copper by the same--- but I spotted several items that I was sure I'd sent out teams to buy, borrow, beg or steal. Very particular items. Items I recognized from another list I'd made. I got a nasty chill. "I know I sent out ponies and 'dogs to fetch these," I said. I pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of my pocket and unfolded it. It was a list of names; the names of the ones sent, and what they'd been sent for.

Black Fang looked over the lists and clicked his tongue. "Those are the supply parties the Guard captured," he said. "Every one." He blinked in surprise. "How did you know, Sire?"

I felt the ice in my veins start to boil. "Because I made a point of it," I said. I wasn't stupid; I knew Chrysalis was probably right about there being a traitor. Heck, she was on the suspect list.

So I'd set up a little test, a little trap.

I'd picked out several groups of diamond dogs, ponies, changelings and minotaurs, and sent them out to retrieve the more exotic supplies that the Flim Flam brothers needed. Or rather, I'd had each of my not-so-trusted lieutenants each send some of them out. And only I had the master list of all the groups, what they were fetching, where they were to go, whether they were to buy, barter, bargain, or pilfer what they were getting...  It wasn't a particularly clever trap, it was just something I'd done half on "evil overlord list" autopilot. "Never let any one person know everything you do."

But our traitor had fallen right into it. Of all the parties sent out, only one Trusted Lieutenant had sent ALL of his out to be captured or routed by the Guard. The Princesses were utter rookies at this. If they'd been even a little clever they would have spaced it out-- let a few slip past. But no, they'd gone and snapped up every little fishy their double agent sent their way...

And now I knew exactly who he was.

"Black Fang, summon Chrysalis and the other Lieutenants to the War Room," I said, the papers in my grip starting to smolder. "It's time for this trap to close on a rat."

I was sure. I was 99.44% sure, anyway.  I was perfectly willing to take care of it right then.

I don't want to be right

But if I was wrong...

I don't want to be right

I crammed the thought down under a surge of anger. I'd had it. I'd played softball so far--

take some BLOOD this time

This betrayal was too much. It

hurt too much

Why would they do something so

cruel, breaking my heart

don't care WRING THEIR NECK

STUPID....

We were all gathered in the War Room. I'd layered this chamber with every anti-spying, anti-scrying spell and trick I could come up with, and then doubled them. It had taken more labor than the rest of the lair combined, but was hopefully a complete magical blind spot, even for the Celestial Sisters. If not, I'd wasted a few tons of rune-etched iron plating. (yes, I cut ventilation shafts. I'm paranoid, but not paranoid enough to risk suffocation.)

Everyone was seated around the table. I had the incriminating papers in front of me. The last to arrive was Artful Dodger, Eiderdown in tow. He swaggered jauntily into the room, swaggering, not a care in the world. The foot-thick doors boomed shut behind him. "So, your Dark Awfulness, wot's the ruckus?" he said, flopping down in his overstuffed seat and pulling Eiderdown next to him. It took him a few moments to realize that the rest of the table was staring silently at him. Some faces were cold. Others were smug. All were angry.

Oh yes, I'd taken time to clue them in. The smarter ones knew that it was their necks in the noose.

"...wot?" he said, looking around, his smile slipping to half mast. Nobody answered. I sat silently at the head of the table, glaring at him through my mask. He lost his cocky attitude, seeming to shrink in his seat. "Wha... what..." he said, uncertain, staring back at me.

I held up the papers. "Did you think you wouldn't get caught?" I said. His eyes widened; ah there it was.

He knows he's guilty just kill him

"Caught? Wh-- what are you talkin' about--" he stammered, trying to muster a laugh. The chuckle died in his throat as I got to my feet.

"It was easy enough to catch you," I said, keeping my voice even. "I mean, are you stupid? You knew that only I kept track of all the raids and sorties we ran--" I shook the papers in my hand. "That I only told each of you here a handful of what was going on. And I knew who knew what.

"Your princesses must be retarded--"

"My princesses??" he scoffed, faking scorn and shock.

"--- to think I wouldn't notice when they intercepted every single mission I assigned to you and ONLY you!!" I brought my fist down on the table; it didn't so much split down the middle as shatter, sending flinders flying. Everyone seated to either side scooted back out of the way; Eiderdown screamed. Dodger tried to shrink back into the cushions of his chair, his eyes wide with terror and fixed on me. He pushed Eiderdown out of the way when he saw me moving towards him; she went sprawling off to one side, out of the way. Not that it mattered; all I could see through my haze of purple-green-red rage was him.

I crossed the remains of the table in two strides. A wave of my hand stripped him naked, his hat, horn ring and other oddments flying. His horn sprayed fear-induced magic sparks and trickles of nightmare smoke; they bothered me no more than flies. I seized him by the throat and lifted him out of the chair, the fuse behind my eyes sputtering. "AFTER ALL THIS, YOU BETRAY ME??" I screamed, my voice cracking.

I felt hooves tugging at my arm. "Don't kill him, please, don't kill him!" Eiderdown screamed. I shoved her back one-handed.

"WHY?" I howled again.

I hadn't QUITE started squeezing yet. Dodger's eyes bulged out at me in terror. "I never-- betrayed you! I swear!" he choked out.  

"TED!! STOP!!!"

The sound of my name, my real name, cut through everything like an ice cold knife. I whipped my head around and glared at Chrysalis. "...WHAT?"

Chrysalis was standing next to her toppled chair, holding one hand out to me. "Lord Vulcan, he's telling the truth," she said. Her eyes were fixed like gunsights on mine, and her voice was as firm as... well, as firm and commanding as a queen's. "I can sense it from here. He's confused, scared mindless, but he's not lying. Believe my word as your Queen. Let. Him. Go."

I could still hear the voice in my head screaming for blood anyway, even as the adrenaline crash-dropped out of my system. With an effort, I opened my hand, dropping Dodger back down into his seat. Sobbing, Eiderdown rushed in to cradle and nuzzle the shellshocked colt. I turned to face Chrysalis. "Then... what of this?" I croaked, holding up the remains of the papers.

"I don't know," she confessed. "But there's more here than meets the eye." She stared at Dodger with narrowed eyes.

More than meets the eye... that ignited a thought, a glimmering of an idea. I turned back to Dodger and Looked at him. Not just looked, LOOKED. With mage sight, or second sight, wizard sense, Octarine-o-vision, whatever you want to call it. Nothing. His aura was about the same, with various edges and ripples left behind by all his magic holdouts and doodads, but nothing out of the ordinary.... Wait. I almost missed it, it was cleverly hidden in one of the meridians, covered up by the brightness of a cluster of acupoints at the base of his neck... a slightly darker area in his aura...

I reached over and grabbed him. Eiderdown let out a little scream-- so did he, to be honest. "Hold still," I snapped. I bent his head forward, exposing the back of his neck. He whimpered, but I snapped for him to hold still. I extended one of the claws on my gauntlet, shaping it into a razor-sharp flat edge, and carefully shaved away a patch of his mane. There, right on the pink skin, was a tiny rectangular tattoo. "Look at this," I said to Chrysalis. "What does this look like?"

"What?" Dodger quavered, his head still down. "What is it??"

Chrysalis stepped carefully over and looked. Several of the others gathered and peered curiously as well. "Thats... a very tiny and very complicated rune pattern," she said. "I've never seen one so fine... interesting...."

"What does it do?" I demanded.

Chrysalis shrugged. "I can only guess. But I see what looks like--" she fetched a magnifying glass from one of the map tables and squinted. "Yes. Runes for 'sleep', 'dream,' 'key'... and 'door.'" Cue one heck of a dramatic pause.

"Princess Luna," I said, filling in the blanks. "She put a... back door into his head. A door into his dreams."

"Yes," Chrysalis said. "A keyed door, too. One that would let the Moon Princess bypass the anti-nightmare runes we wear, the dreamcatchers decking the halls, all of our defenses as if they weren't even there.... just to get in this one pony's head."

"Buh.,,?" Dodger said.

"He's been having trouble sleeping," Eiderdown said suddenly. "Bad dreams. About somepony breaking into his home, rifling through his things. "

"Three guesses which somepony that is," someone said, a hint of fear in their voice. I glanced at my other sub-bosses. Charcoal, the leader of the ex-con ponies, his eyes were round as saucers. Ironhide  just stood there flexing his fingers around the haft of his battle axe and growling. The mood had swung rapidly; where everyone had been focusing their malice on Dodger, now their hostility was focused on the Princess of the Night.

"But... when...?" Dodger stammered. He was looking more bewildered by the second. To my surprise, Charcoal grunted in understanding. "Easy enough," he said. "You were in the royal dungeon, they could get at you easy enough. My guess, they put knockout drops in your food, put you under for a couple hours, put that little mark on your neck, and then stick you back in your cage, and you none the wiser." He shrugged. "They even have spells to make your mane grow back."

"I remember bein' sick," Dodger said. "Wakin' up in my cell all groggy and nauseous and..." his eyes went wide at the realization.

"Then they set up a 'great escape', with a few undercover guards mixed in to make sure you get away... and that you end up in the hands of His Darkness," Ironhide, the minotaur commander, grunted.

"She put... a back door... into my head," Dodger said. "A door. In. my HEAD..."

I found a chair and sat down heavily, letting my cloak fall to hide my shaking hands. I'd almost... "They bugged you," I said. "It never even occurred to me."

"Bugged me? They bloody well've pissed me off!" Dodger exclaimed. "That bloody %$@$ Luna put a #$#$Y#@ BACK DOOR in my @%@@#^ HEAD! The bloodless Q@$^%^@$ five-bit @#% dockside@#%@#er 's been walkin' in and out of me bleatin' HEAD while I slept like it was a RENTAL ROOM!" He was staring at the floor, shaking with fury and stress and fear. Eiderdown tried to him a cooldown hug, but it wasn't working too well.

"Then why Moon Princess not find us yet?" Skank asked over the ruckus. A good question. I thought.

Chrysalis tossed her head. "Dreams aren't exactly like reading a book or a map," she said. "It's a mish mosh of symbolism and allegory and vague recollections shuffling around in the head.They're a product of the right half of the brain... the intuitive, artistic side. Mathematics, language-- those are on the left. that's the reason you can't read anything clearly in a dream.

"She could pick up enough from Artful Dodger's dreams to know what plunder we were after and a vague idea of when--- After all, if a mouse dreams of cheese, it's not hard to guess to watch the cheese shipment. But guessing our exact location? Not likely. Besides," she tossed her mane. "why bother tracking down our lair in the Everfree, when they're already fencing the whole Everfree in?"

I sat there, staring at Dodger while all this sank in. He wouldn't look in my direction. Every time he slipped and glanced my way I saw a look in his eyes that made my guts twist. "Check the others," I said. "All the ponies that were with Dodger when he joined us. If she was smart she would've put that little mark on at least two or three others, just to even the odds."  I saw the pony second-in-command flinch and unconsciously rub the back of his neck, eyes widening. "In fact, check everyone. Let's cover all the bases. Covertly." Black Fang nodded and went to pass the order down to his next in command outside the room. In the next 6 hours, every neck-- pony, diamond dog, minotaur-- would have a bald spot.

We sat there for a while. I stewed over what I'd just learned. They might be in charge of Candyland, but the princesses could be hella sneaky. I kept forgetting that.

Celestia had managed to erase her own sister from the history books... and even made ponies somehow forget that she herself was the elder sister and had been ruling their country for a thousand years. Not even her own star pupil had ever connected the dots between the Elements, the legend of the two sisters, the story of Nightmare Moon, and the Sun Princess, even with the Sun Princess staring her right in the face. That took either epic level subterfuge or epic level obliviousness, and even the dumbest of the unwashed masses isn't THAT obtuse.

And Luna... hell, nobody knew anything about her, which made her a bigger threat than any other backstabber in the game. And for obvious reasons she was pretty obviously very, very comfortable with doing all her work in the shadows, unseen, in the dead of night. This little dream-hijacking trick was obviously her work. And she'd been cunning enough to use her own guards to bait-and-switch Dodger through my front door. The fact that he'd ended up in a position as my right hand man was just dumb luck.

At least I hoped it was dumb luck. I'd hate to think she could read me that easily. I looked around the room; people were looking seriously intimidated. Not good. If this slipped out of control, we'd all go crazy with paranoia. We'd all spend our days staring suspiciously at the back of each other's heads till Celestia's gold-plated goons burst through the ceiling on us.

I fished for something to say to boost morale, no matter how stupid. "This.... will work to our favor." Everyone looked at me and waited for the other shoe to drop. I improvised. "Chrysalis. Can you break the enchantment on him? Close the door?"

"Easy enough," Chrysalis said. "just deface the rune. A knife scar or a little scribble with a tattoo needle and it will be done. I could do as much right now." She held up one hand, a finger extended out into a thin needle-like claw. Dodger winced but made no objection.

I held up a hand, stopping her. "Can you tell when the door is being used?"

Chrysalis hesitated. "I... think I could," she said. "When changelings cocoon a victim, they fall into a deep sleep. We can monitor their dreams from outside... change the ichor in the cocoon to keep the dreams sweet."

Ideas tumbled through my head and I started to chuckle. Creepy as heck, as always. "Now tell me," I said. Already I was pulling up spells in my memory, so I knew what the answer likely was. "Can we make the door swing the other way?"

Chrysalis actually froze, her jaw slack. "Oh, you cunning bastard," the minotaur captain chuckled.

I turned my expressionless helmet to Dodger. "Artful Dodger..."

"I'm in." he said. He was hunched up, Eiderdown clinging to him. He was rocking back and forth a little in agitation. He shot a look at me, then cast his eyes down, obviously still afraid to look me in the face. I felt stupid for how much that stung. "Whatever it is you're gonna do, I'm in. That moon bitch used my head for a flippin bird blind. " He bared his teeth. "I wanna get her back for that, I wanna make her sorry she ever even looked at me sideways!"

"I think we can manage that," I said. I already had half a dozen ideas competing with each other. "But when we're done we'll have taken a whole lot more than revenge.

"We're going to take EVERYTHING from them, right down to the little gold horseshoes on their little hoofy feet."