You can imagine how relieved I was to find the title page and the Dewey Decimal information was written on the inside. I put several literate minions to work putting the titles and numbers on the OUTside of the covers, and left for the day.

Despite that little snag I was really pleased with the results. The grimoires from the exhibit were easy to find: the transcription spell worked on "first in, first out," and since they had been the nearest books to Wolftooth when he'd triggered the spell, they were all together on the very first shelf. Books that were longer than 200 pages carried on over to the next journal; it made for many volumes with several blank pages at the end, but what the heck, that made room for notes. Pictures and images were copied as well, shrunk to one-page size--- but only to a size that was still legible, otherwise it divided the image between pages. Font size, kerning, page numbering, indicators when the book carried on to the next journal... It was a very sophisticated spell. Heck, it was practically Adobe Acrobat in magic form.

I kept the chip, and used the spell to copy it to one or two of the others. Always have backups.

Meanwhile.... It was sunset, and I decided to take a nap. There was a door someone had opened, and they needed it slammed in their face.

"Considering how you refuse to bed me, this is awfully intimate a request," Chrysalis snarked next to me in bed.

"Oh quit wisecracking and finish already," I said. "You can do it, can't you?"

"What do you take me for?" Chrysalis said. "I have centuries' worth of experience at this sort of thing." She brandished the magic marker and sealed the cap with a snap.

I was lying face down in my luxurious bed, stripped to the waist. Chrysalis was seated next to me. She had just finished drawing a copy of the rune pattern on me that had been on Artful Dodger's neck. It was a lot larger than the one he'd had; it trailed down my neck and between my shoulder blades. But since we weren't concerned with concealing it, it hardly mattered. Plus, drawing it larger had made it much easier to put in the little changes and additions that branched and swirled off over my shoulders.

I rolled over on my back, picking up the bottle of pain pills I'd dug out of my pockets and a glass of water. "Well," I said. "Moon is up. Nighty Night..." I popped two tablets and washed them down. The throbbing in my face faded to nothing, but that wasn't what the pain pills were for. I had an unscheduled meeting and I didn't want it interrupted.

My eyes closed. Almost instantly I found myself drifting through a funhouse rendition of my home town, the streets rising and falling like waves around me, people with blurred faces walking past on either side. I tried to focus on them but the more I focused, the further they drifted away. I focused my will as best I could, pushing and half-running, half-swimming through the landscape, pushing for it to become what I wanted.

Soon I was standing alone in the middle of an open field, nowhere to run, the horizon bent around me like a fishbowl lens. It didn't take long after that. A portal opened in the air in front of me, swinging open like a gate, and Luna floated through. The instant the tip of her tail was past the threshold it slammed shut, with an iron clang loud enough to make her jump. "Hello, Luna," I said. "Having a nice night?"

She wheeled around, gawping in surprise. "You!" She lowered her horn and pawed the fuschia grass with a hoof. "How are you here? I should have known you would be versed in forbidden dream-magic--"

"Oh me? NEVER," I sneered. "After all, violating other people's minds is for Princesses only." I moulded a copy of my old staff out of dreamstuff and leaned on it.

She actually reacted to that jab. "The dream realm is my domain, and my duty," she said. "I patrol these dreams protecting my ponies from nightmares, from dream creatures that would prey on them-- and from lawless vandals and invaders such as you." Ah, that made sense. If she could dreamwalk, other unicorns could probably manage it too, and there was probably more than one dreamwalker out there who wasn't exactly an upright moral law-abiding pony to begin with. She probably saw herself as the local sheriff, keeping the streets of Dodge safe from people like me.

"Even a cop walking the beat doesn't get the right to break into people's houses without a warrant," I said. I walked in a slow circle around her. She turned in place, keeping her horn leveled at me. "But like I said-- I guess your laws are just for OTHER people." I sat down on a park bench.

"A princess must needs do what is necessary," she said smoothly, her voice cold as an ice sculpture. "I would never do what I did, save your presence made it so. It was the only way I could devise to place a spy in your midst without imperiling his life. So long as he was unknowing, he would be safe from your Changeling minions' gift for sniffing out fear and guilt."

"And did you think about what would happen if I figured it out anyway?" I snapped, feeling my blood pressure rise. "You dumb cluck, Even a toddler could figure out he had a spy in the ranks-- and who it was-- when every mission I told your double agent about was thwarted out of the blue by you."

She stifled a groan as she realized her mistake.

"Well, I found the spy, I found your little back door into his head. And I'm here to let you know that little gate is permanently and officially closed. And if you even TRY to find a way into any of our heads, I'll make you regret it."

She snorted in anger and swelled to double her size. "You would dare try to threaten the Princess of Dreams in her own domain??"

I got to my feet and walked up to her, sticking my helmeted face right in hers. "That's not a threat, Princess Flunky, that's a promise," I said. I held up a gift wrapped box.

She looked at it, baffled. "What mummery is this?"

"A warning. And a little taste of what you'll get if you cross the line into our heads again." I wiggled the box at her, indicating she should take it. She hesitated for a second, then with a snort of defiance she took it in her magic and ripped the wrapping off.

She popped open the lid, looked inside and screamed in horror. She dropped the box and stamped on it, rubbing her eyes with her wings. "Odd gods, what was THAT??" she wailed.

"A little thing from my world called a meme. This one was known as 'Goatse.cx,'" I said. "And that was the MILDEST thing I had floating around in the back of my brain. I've planted little gift-wrapped memories like that all over the place, inside Artful Dodger's head, little landmines of horrible just WAITING for you to trip them." Her jaw dropped in disbelief. "Oh they're wrapped up nice and tight. They won't even bother Dodger, and they certainly don't bother me--- but he knows where they are, and even how to set them off right in your face if he has to. There are things I've seen that would give Lovecraft the dry heaves, so I don't suggest you go trespassing where you're not wanted ever again."

"Augh. You have won this round, villain--" she turned and made a motion with her hoof, as if she were trying to push open a door. Nothing happened. The sky above turned red. "What is this? How are you holding me here inside his dream?"

"Mistake number two, sister," I said. "We're not in Dodger's head anymore. We're in MINE." The sky turned red, and began to bleed. "And I locked all the exits."

She spun and faced me, terror just starting to show in her eyes. "It avails you nothing, villain," she said. "I have but to wake you--"

"BEEP, wrong answer number three," I said. "See, right before I went to bed, I took a couple of Oxycontin. I'm not waking up for at least six more hours." My helmet melted and ran like dribbling wax, revealing my bloody, bandaged face underneath. "Oh, and funny thing; I don't take oxycontin anymore because it always gives me rip-snorting acid trip nightmares.  It's just your bad luck I had a couple of leftover pills in my pocket from my last prescription." The ground turned black and the trees began lashing in epileptic seizures. "Of course I've been on this roller coaster before... but I bet YOU haven't. Hope you enjoy the ride, sister."

Red, flayed-looking tentacles sprouted from the ground, lashing her hooves to the ground and pinning her in place. all around her the memes I'd warned her about began going off, swelling up out of the ground and in midair like pus-filled blisters before bursting and spraying her with their awful images. She screamed in horror and thrashed like a madmare.

I wasn't having much more fun. My costume had burned away in bilious green dragonfire, exposing my leprous, hole-filled flesh. the screaming of the trees filled my ears. But I wasn't about to let her see it, not for a second. I dropped to a cross-legged sitting position and focused with all my might on my breathing, working hard to maintain a tiny bubble of lucid dreaming around me.

I hated Oxycontin. I was going to wake up feeling stressed out, unrested and exhausted. But Luna was going to wake up feeling like Satan himself had crapped directly into her brain.

It was a shattered Luna who woke at noon the next day. Despite her screaming in her sleep awaking half the castle, nopony had been able to awaken her till dawn. Several minutes of hysterical babbling had gotten an explanation out to her frantic sister, then sobbing, the princess of the night had fallen right back into an exhausted sleep. She awoke now to find Celestia sitting at her bedside, watching over her.

When she saw Luna was awake, the creases of worry smoothed from Celestia's face. "Thank heaven, Luna," she said. "Are you all right? What in heaven's name happened?"

Luna groaned, rubbing her bloodshot eyes. "Oh sister," she moaned. "The vile churl was lying in wait for me in the dream realm. He has booby-trapped his own mind, and the mind of the agent I had planted."

"You can no longer reach the colt's dreams?" Celestia said.

Luna glared. "That path is closed to us, sister," she said. "Permanently."She shuddered and gagged. "The horrors and grotesqueries I witnessed..."

"Oh, Luna, you poor thing," Celestia said, heart wrung with sympathy. "I had a feeling you'd want some comfort food..." she turned around and took a bowl off the breakfast tray. "Here you go, dear," she said with a smile. "Your favorite-- chocolate ice cream!" She took a spoonful and ate it. "Mmmmmm...."

Luna stared at the cup of ice cream and let out a strangled whimper. The next instant she vanished, a midnight blur that slammed the bathroom door before the coverlet had even fallen to the floor. Celestia sat there, spoon and ice cream hovering in midair, befuddled. "Luna, what..."

"BLEEEEEARRRRRGHH," said the bathroom door.

"My word! Luna?"

Four choked words came out. "Two... girls... one... cup--- O'ROURKE!!"

"What on earth does that..."

"BUIIICK!"

"Good Heavens--!"

"ONAMOTAPEIEA!!!"

"Oh what could possibly..."

"ALOHA 'OE ALOHA 'OE E KE ONONAHA NOHO I KA LIPO !!!!"