Chapter 2

The Great Mandate

“So then I thought, ‘What if I can use my Unknotty Spell to help Moon Dancer?’” Twilight said.

“But I do not understand,” the King said. “You mentioned earlier that you have no acquaintance whatsoever with this Moon Dancer filly, did you not?”

“Um… yes?”

“In that case, why help her?” he asked, giving her a mildly curious look. “Might I posit you were merely seizing your chance to practice your magic?”

“I, um...” Twilight blushed and smiled sheepishly. “I guess I thought it was a little exciting, getting to try out the Unknotty Spell on somepony other than me.”

It wasn’t the first embarrassing confession she’d entrusted the Umbrum monarch with. King Sombra was just such a wonderful conversation partner! He listened so patiently to anything and everything Twilight had to say, never once interrupting, never seeming distracted or annoyed, never sounding like he wanted to talk about something else now. He barely even spared an occasional bored glance at the ancient relics all around them, like talking to her was the only interesting thing there was to do.

With such a dedicated listener giving her his full attention, Twilight felt like she had talked more this morning than she had in all the rest of her life put together. Once or twice, she’d even caught herself hoping Miss Memoir and everypony else were still far, far away.

“Of course,” he said, nodding a little. “And then, what?”

“Well — that wasn’t the only reason, Your Majesty!” Twilight said quickly.  She didn’t want him to think she was just selfishly testing her spells on other ponies! “I mean — I wanted to practice so that my Unknotty Spell would get better, but I guess I also wanted to — um...”  

She frowned at the checkered floor, struggling to put her thoughts into words. It was frustrating how she could discuss the mechanics of gravitational magic with any grown-up, remembering to avoid all the big words so that they could understand — but talking about her own feelings was just so hard.

“Yes?” he gently prompted.

He regarded her with a serene, inquisitive look. Looking up at him, Twilight wished he had been there on the bus to keep things from turning out as badly as they had.

She sighed. “Neon Lights is such a huge jerk.”  

“I believe you made that quite clear before,” King Sombra said.

“So maybe that was part of it too,” she went on. “I guess I thought, if I could just get it right this one time, I could fix everything. Neon Lights didn’t have to always win. He didn’t have to get away with being a jerk this time.”

“I see.”

Surprisingly, in his scary crimson gaze, Twilight thought she saw that he really did understand. Normally, she never, ever mentioned the awful h-word around other ponies, but around him it seemed safe to say it.

“I hate bullies,” she muttered.

“As do I.”

Twilight glanced up at him. Just the idea that somepony as powerful as him had ever even thought about bullies was a little strange.

“Did that ever happen to you, Lord Sombra?” she asked. “Wanting to protect somepony from a bully?”

“Yes,” he said. “When I was a foal, like yourself. Long ago.”

Twilight blinked. The Umbrum King had been a colt too, once upon a time. There was another odd realization.

“And what happened?” she asked. “Did you win?”

“No. I did not.”

Twilight waited. But he didn’t say anything else.

That left her quietly brooding a little while. She suddenly felt tired as she trotted along to keep up with his stride.

“It’s not true that all stories have a happy ending, is it?” she asked somberly. “It’s only the ones in books that make you think that way.”

“Happy endings are relative, my darling,” King Sombra said. “History itself is a story told by those who are victorious.”

His voice carried a strange tone. Like he was speaking with a smile that didn’t have any joy in it. Twilight thought there must be some important meaning behind his words — a big meaning. But she couldn’t grasp it.

“I’m sorry, sir, but… I don’t understand,” she admitted.  

“Not now, perhaps. But you will.”

She sighed once more. “Or maybe I won't. Maybe I never will get it.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well — it’s just — maybe I’m not such a smart pony after all,” she said. “Maybe I’ll try to understand what you mean, but I won’t understand anything, just like I tried to help Moon Dancer, but I just ended up helping Neon Lights instead.”

He didn't say anything; he simply kept on walking, turning his gaze to the hallway ahead of them. With nopony to stop her, Twilight sank deeper and deeper into this sulky mood she was in all of a sudden. She breathed in deeply — she meant to heave a sigh yet again, this one loaded with all the weight of her failure. But the air in the Solar Wing smelled dusty, so all she could do was sneeze.

Lord Sombra conjured up a silk kerchief out of thin air and passed it to her.

“Thank you, sir,” Twilight mumbled miserably, wiping her nose. He silently vanished the thing back into nothingness when she was done.

“But, really — I’ve been working on that Unknotty Spell for weeks!” she groaned. “And after all that time, it still doesn't work! It looked like it had worked for just one second, but it didn't. All it did was burn her hair away. It shouldn’t be this hard to come up with a silly spell to help ponies brush their manes! My cutie mark says I’m supposed to be good at magic, but… What if Princess Celestia was wrong and it actually means something else? I got my cutie mark when I was making lots of mistakes at my entrance exam, so maybe that’s my special talent. Making mistakes. Shiny says I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, but it’s just — every time I read about the things Star Swirl the Bearded did when he was a colt, it makes me think maybe magic just isn’t my —”

Abruptly, Lord Sombra halted. Twilight froze, worried she’d said something that had made him not want to talk to her anymore.

He didn’t seem at all upset by her griping, much to her relief. But, for the first time, he was interested in something other than her.

Just a few paces away, standing against the wall and surrounded by a velvet rope barrier, there was a tall mirror. Its purple frame was adorned with pink gems and gracefully curling ironwork. It stood on a base that was decorated with horseshoes.

“Ah,” he said, ambling toward it. “The Crystal Mirror.”  

“The… Crystal Mirror,” she echoed, following him. She made a face as she stared at it. Weren’t there lots and lots of mirrors that were made of crystal? What a silly name for a magical artifact that was. It was like inventing a potion and calling it “The Liquid Fluid.”

In the back of her mind, she admitted to herself that she was thinking very sour thoughts, since she was annoyed that Lord Sombra wasn’t paying attention to her anymore because of that thing. He hadn’t even let her finish her tirade of frustration with herself!

The stallion’s eyes shifted to mirror-Twilight’s face. He barked out a brief burst of laughter.

“The plainness of the name is quite deliberate, my dear,” he said. “It is intended to divert the interest of those who would abuse this device. Of course, this is only a replica, but I hear that the original is still in excellent condition. One would not believe it has more than a millennium of antiquity.” He gazed pensively at his own reflection. “It was invented — not by Star Swirl the Bearded, as many scholars would have you believe, but by his apprentice, Clover the Clever. A little-known piece of trivia. It appears Miss Clover nursed a peculiar obsession with travel to other universes — her reasons are a mystery to all her biographers. She deconstructed and reimagined the crude prototype created by her mentor, bent on crafting a more reliable version of the cross-dimensional gateway. Her portal eventually took on the form you are gazing upon at this very moment.”

Twilight stared at the mirror in awe. It was pretty, yes — but it also looked like something her parents might’ve had in their bedroom. Who would’ve guessed it had been made to take one to other worlds!

“I understand the process of creating the mirror was… complex,” King Sombra continued. “Existing records suggest Miss Clover repeatedly questioned her calling as a spellsmith during this time. She went so far as to smash her own horn to pieces, in the throes of a particularly intense bout of despair.”

Twilight recalled the one time she’d cracked her horn by accident, trying to emulate a spell she’d seen in a pamphlet from the E. U. P. Guard that Shiny had left lying around. She winced.

“Indeed,” the King said, grinning. “Not at all an effective response to her situation, as you might imagine. I believe this self-defeating reaction stemmed from her lack of tolerance to frustration. And such intolerance, in turn, stemmed from a poorly conceived assessment of her own worth. She expected her brilliance to be so great that she would be able to craft her portal in a matter of days. When she failed to meet her own expectations, she attributed her failure to a lack of talent.”

He paused — letting his analysis sink in, Twilight guessed. She frowned at the other Twilight behind the silvered glass. She found she really could relate to all of that.

“And what happened then?” she asked.

“Well, what stands before you now is her completed magnum opus, is it not?”

“But did she finish it herself?” Twilight insisted. Somehow it was important to her that the answer be yes. “Did she ever get her horn back?”

He just gave her a mysterious little smile. “That, dear girl… I leave you to discover for yourself.”

Twilight’s mouth fell open in horror. “No! I have to know how the story ends! Please, sir, you have to tell me!”

The King raised one black eyebrow.

“I mean —” She let her gaze drop to the floor, cringing at her own rudeness. “You don’t have to… Your Majesty… but I can’t even borrow books for more than a week at the Canterlot Library yet. It’s going to take me forever to find out on my own.”

“I have faith in you,” he said casually. “You seem like quite the capable young unicorn, yourself.”

He moved to stand behind her; in the mirror, Twilight saw him grin proudly down at her. “Look at yourself, you enchanting foal,” he said. “How many of your peers have attempted to create even the simplest and most basic little spell? Star Swirl the Bearded did not accomplish his first great success until he was almost an adolescent, and you, at your tender age, have already come so close to achieving your own. When I look at you, Twilight Sparkle, what I see is a brilliant young mare who has the potential to change the very course of history. Whether that talent withers or blossoms will depend on your own ability to see that mare in yourself. Most especially, in times of bitterness, failure, and despair.”

Twilight stared at the puffy-eyed filly in the mirror. For one minute, she allowed herself to imagine her future as a grown-up. An older Twilight whom nopony ever called silly nicknames anymore. A Twilight who had learned how to walk and read at the same time without tripping, who never felt awkward talking to other ponies her age… and who had managed to put together an Unknotty Spell that actually worked. Twilight Sparkle, spellsmith extraordinaire. Sitting next to Princess Celestia in her throne room — Twilight, Her Solar Highness’ well-learned and trusted advisor. Maybe even... the Princess’ very own personal aide!

But in just an instant, the vision was gone. And the only thing she could see was… herself.

King Sombra seemed satisfied, though.

“I will have you know,” he said, “I am quite an admirer of arachnids, sweet Twilight — spiders, in particular. I shall entrust to you a little secret — an invaluable lesson I have learned from those excellent predators.”

He leaned down, until in their reflection his face was almost level with hers.

“If at first you do not succeed,” he whispered, his white fangs bared in a fierce smile, his blood-red catlike eyes locked on hers, “try, try, try again.”

A shiver crawled all the way from Twilight’s neck to her tailbone. She wondered whether it'd bother him too much if she inched away from him just a bit.

“Twilight!”

The yell echoed harshly across the hallway. She gave a start and the King’s face scrunched up into an irritated grimace as he straightened up.

Twilight turned to see Miss Memoir rushing toward them in a panicked gallop. When she was near enough, she tried to stop — but, like Twilight earlier, she skidded forward helplessly with a startled cry, propelled by her own inertia.

Before Twilight could react, Lord Sombra had tucked her behind him with an armored foreleg. Miss Memoir bumped into him instead and landed ungracefully on her rear.

“Oh!” she panted, leaping to her hooves, her cheeks flushing pink. “I am… so sorry… sir! Are you… all right?”

“In one piece,” he said curtly.

“Oh, good! That’s… that’s good!” Miss Memoir said. When she finally caught her breath, she waited a few more moments — expecting him to ask her if she was all right, Twilight suspected, but he never did. Miss Memoir’s blush went from pink to bright red and she cleared her throat.

“Er… yes,” she mumbled. “Yes, that’s good. I…”

Her eyes then shifted to Twilight — and Twilight shrank back, hiding behind the stallion’s forelegs. It was an embarrassing automatic response — now she understood why Shiny kept telling her to stop — but she couldn’t help it. She felt a tightness in her stomach as she crisply recalled the looming consequences of her actions.

“I see you found my student,” Miss Memoir said. “You have no idea how relieved I am. The moment I realized she was not with us —”

“You are very fortunate it was I who found her,” the King said sternly, “and not some other stallion of dubious intentions. I am afraid your Canterlot is not nearly as safe today as it was under the watchful eye of Princess Luna.”

Miss Memoir’s ears flattened to her head. She seemed to wilt a little under his glare. “Yes — yes, sir, you’re right. I just can’t believe — this is the first time something like this has ever happened to me —”

“And I hope, for your students’ sake, that it will also be the last,” Lord Sombra said.

Twilight’s ears drooped; a pang of guilt stabbed at her.

Plucking up her courage, she stepped out from her shelter between his steel-shod hooves.

“No, Your Highness,” she pleaded, standing protectively between him and her teacher. “Don’t be mad at Miss Memoir… It was all my fault. I’m the one who fell behind on purpose.” She then turned toward Miss Memoir, but couldn’t quite look her in the eye. Twilight let her head hang in shame. “I’m so sorry, miss. I really wanted to see what that book by Star Swirl the Bearded was about, so I stayed in his study so I could take just a quick look at it. But I lost track of time, and…” Her eyes flitted left and right as she struggled with her inner torment. “I made sure to put it back in its place when I was done! And — and I dropped it once — it didn’t get scratched or anything, but I…” She exhaled a long, heavy, mournful sigh. “I know I broke the rules. I’m sorry.”

There. The truth was out there, her atrocious crimes exposed for both Miss Memoir and King Sombra to condemn. This was probably the end of her very short academic life, but at least she’d done what was right and confessed everything of her own accord. She shut her eyes and waited for the guillotine’s blade to fall.

Instead, a slender foreleg was gently laid across her shoulders.

She could only stare up at Miss Memoir in bewilderment.

“Well,” she said, a kind smile on her pretty face, “it seems somepony has learned a lot more than I’d planned for today’s field trip.”

Twilight gasped; in an instant, her heart was flooding with delight. “So — you’re not going to kick me out of the School, after all?”

At this, Miss Memoir looked very, very puzzled. Before she could say anything, though, King Sombra burst into peals of laughter, making them both jump.

“Oh, Twilight!” he said. “Only you.”

Miss Memoir glanced at Twilight, wide-eyed. Twilight stared back, just as baffled.

The Umbrum exhaled a deep breath. “By the Fates of Tartarus, I cannot remember the last time I laughed like that. Your student is the most endearing filly I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, Miss Memoir.”

“Ah, she…” Miss Memoir looked at her with a lot of warmth in her eyes. “She is a very special little pony.”

Twilight could feel a self-conscious smile coming and she tried really hard to suppress it. She traced perfectly symmetrical hexagons with her hoof in an effort to distract herself, but her cheeks still felt roasty warm. She hoped it wasn’t too visible.

“Anyhow, er… Your Highness,” Miss Memoir said. “That’s what Twilight called you, isn’t it? It’s always encouraging to see other heads of state here in Canterlot! May I ask where you’re visiting us from?”

Then Twilight became aware of something odd. She looked away from the onyx-and-alabaster floor tiles to focus on Miss Memoir. Seeing King Sombra for the first time, Twilight had thought for a moment she was in serious danger — but, somehow, Miss Memoir wasn’t the tiniest bit impressed! It was like she was talking to the most normal and non-threatening pony there ever was.

Twilight grinned with newfound respect for her. Not only was she a breathing repository of knowledge; she also wasn’t afraid of anything. Nopony, no matter how powerful or important, could intimidate her!

“The Western Prairies, madam,” the King said simply. By now, all his previous calm-slash-boredom had been restored.

“Oh, my!” said Miss Memoir. “The Prairies? Coming all the way here must’ve been quite the journey!”

“Indeed it was. Every minute of it very much worthwhile.” The King then turned to Twilight. “And now, my little one, I desire to have a word with you in private.”

Twilight was mute with amazement for a second. She gave Miss Memoir a questioning glance.

She responded with a little thoughtful smile. “Go on. I’ll be right here.”

King Sombra silently turned and sauntered several paces away from them. Grateful and excited and nervous at the same time, Twilight trotted after him.

When they were out of earshot, he sat on the floor in a motion that was surprisingly graceful for a stallion of such a large and sturdy build. He gestured with his hoof for Twilight to sit next to him. His wavy midnight-black tail curled in a semicircle around her.

“And so,” he began, “it seems our little stroll has come to an end. Now I shall take my leave of you.”

Twilight grimly nodded. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“Before I do, however, I need to convey a message of the greatest importance to you,” he went on. “You must listen to me and pay close attention.”

At once she was listening with all her brainpower.

“A moment ago, you mentioned that you lost sight of your group because you had taken an interest in one of Star Swirl’s works. Do you recall the title of that book?”

Her brows creased in puzzlement. “The Time Traveler’s Dilemma. Why, Lord Sombra?”

“Hereby, my Twilight,” the King said, “I confer upon you the following task: You will acquire an accurate copy of that tome and study it diligently. Then, you must do the same with every existing scholarly critique of it — please note, Twilight: not known, but existing. When you are finished with Star Swirl, move on to the work of Teeny Lionheart; that should provide you with a reliable starting point for the rest of your research. The next time we meet, I will fully expect you to understand chronomagica as if you were about to travel across the ages yourself. Simultaneously, you will devote one daily hour of your time to learning everything you can about another race of equines: the insectoid creatures known as Changelings. And, once a week, you will also study hippogriffs, centaurs, and dragons — in addition to my own kin, the Umbrum.”

He was holding her eyes in a deadly serious stare. He intoned his orders slowly and gravely, as if he meant to sear each word into her memory. Which, Twilight was sure, he had succeeded in doing.

“Do you understand your mandate perfectly well, my darling?” he asked.

Twilight was feeling the onset of a bout of anxiety much like the one that had kept her awake until almost midnight just before her entrance exam. The fleeting thought of rebellion flashed across her mind; technically, she was free to not do what he wanted, since Princess Celestia was the one in charge here in Canterlot, not him. But, nice as he was, somehow she knew that standing up to somepony like this stallion was completely out of the question. On personal-safety grounds.

In her mind, she tried to calculate the scope of the overwhelming amount of work she was going to have to do.  

She nodded numbly. “Yes, Lord Sombra.”

“Good,” he said. “Of course, it is crucial that you do not neglect the rest of your studies. In particular, you will ensure that your competence in magic continues to increase at a steady pace.”

Twilight kept nodding. Staring off into nothingness — her head mechanically bobbing. Up and down.

“Is — is there a…?” She was terrified to ask, but she had to. “Will you give me some kind of… deadline?”

“You have a little more than a decade,” King Sombra said. “Fifteen years, four months, and eleven days, to be exact.”

Oh.

Well, that took away a big chunk of the panic. Fifteen years. That was a whole lifetime away! She’d be even older than Shiny by the time the due date even started to get close. And Shiny was seventeen! She had time.

She was still starting work on her assignment tonight.

“And then… you’ll come to see me again?” she asked.

“Yes.”

In spite of everything, she couldn’t help being just a little bit happy about that.

It was then that something clicked in her head.

“Lord Sombra, you — how…?” She squinted at the long black hairs loosely curling around her forelegs as her brain pieced things together of its own initiative. “How did you know which book I looked at in the study of Star Swirl the Bearded?”

He didn’t answer. Or maybe he had and she just hadn’t heard him. All the cogs in Twilight’s mind were suddenly turning, turning, turning.

“You found me just in time too, didn’t you, sir? Just when I really, really needed your help,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “Maybe it was just by chance, like you said, but… Actually, it’s almost like you knew everything in advance — like you knew exactly where I was going to be, and at what time…”  

It was a little bit bewildering, saying all this. A part of her already knew where her train of thought was going, and it was so mind-bogglingly amazing as to cross over into surreal territory.

She risked a glance at him to try and see what he was thinking. She waited for him to laugh at her crazy half-baked ideas and then explain everything — all the mysterious things he had said and done — from a completely normal and ordinary point of view.

King Sombra just sat there next to her, silent and poised. He gave her a calm, patient smile.

A smile of encouragement.

“And — nopony just appears out of nowhere and makes you do tons of research on a bunch of random subjects, just because!” Twilight went on — the words were coming out in a rush now. “Nopony makes you study so much about time travel for no reason, Lord Sombra! So — So…”

She hesitated. Her heart was beating so hard it almost hurt.

“So?” he said quietly, a touch of amusement in his voice. “Please, do continue.”

“So… what you want me to do doesn’t make any sense to me now, but… maybe it will someday?” she said. “I — I think it will. I think… it’ll all make sense exactly fifteen years into the future, where you… come from?”

Her sentence got tinted with a question mark at the end. The whole idea just sounded so improbable, even if her most solid logical reasoning had led her there.

“Very clever, my dearest,” he said.

Twilight blinked.

And then she blinked again.

It… it was true!

“So then — Star Swirl the Bearded really did invent his spell!” she gushed breathlessly. “And it worked! You really are from — Time travel really is —”  

The stallion gently pressed a cold, armored hoof to her mouth.

“Twilight,” he said, “I do need you to exercise discretion. No one — not even your Princess Celestia — must know that we have met today. I am nothing but a nameless foreigner on a perfunctory trip to Canterlot as far as the whole world is concerned.”

“A nameless foreigner?” Twilight’s eyebrows skeptically furrowed. She swept her eyes from his crown to his armor to his horn and wings. “That’s not exactly what you look like, Lord Sombra.”

“To you,” he said, bestowing upon her a knowing smile. “Trust me and do as I say.”

With that, he stood up. “Now, go. If your teacher questions you, tell her I took it upon myself to chastise you for today’s incidents, to compensate for her excessive softness. Celestia and your family might also inquire about me; should this happen, do not resist their questioning, but disclose as little as possible. Project a moderate degree of interest. Avoid lying — but if you must lie, be especially careful to avoid inconsistencies.”

Twilight made a mental note of all that. Already she was feeling nervous. She had never tried to hide something from Shiny or Princess Celestia before. But an inner voice told her it was incredibly important that she obey him. Because — well, he was a time traveler! Anypony who’d read just one book about time travel knew that ponies don’t travel to the past just because; there’s always something in their present that they want to change really badly. And in this case, that something was big enough and awful enough to bring a King from a distant realm all this way back into the past!

The lives of hundreds — or even thousands of ponies might depend on her acting her part.

“Yes, sir,” Twilight said, steeling herself for fifteen years of hard work and secrecy. “I won’t let you down, Your Majesty! I promise.”

“I have complete confidence in you.”

He then dismissed her with a tilt of his chin. Twilight trotted over toward Miss Memoir, who was examining the Crystal Mirror with keen scientific interest. She turned at the sound of Twilight’s light hoofsteps with a jovial smile.

“Oh, and Twilight?”  

Twilight stopped to glance back at King Sombra. She was puzzled to find that the majestic grey alicorn was gone. Where he’d stood before, now there was a mint-green pegasus with a neatly brushed brown mane tied back in a bow, and emerald-encrusted golden shoes that weren’t warlike at all, and indolent forest-green eyes.

“You do flatter me, sweet girl, but sadly not all nobles are kings and princes where I hail from,” the pegasus said. It was the same subtle accent, the same measured cadence in his speech — the very same stallion, Twilight realized — but his voice was a lot higher in pitch now and had lost its rich, deep timbre. “I am a mere, lowly viscount. Not quite so glamorous a title, I admit — but alas, in the face of your honesty, I cannot but confess the truth in turn.”

Miss Memoir answered with a light chuckle. “I think it’s rather remarkable,” she said. “Especially considering that viscountcies are not hereditary in the Prairies. There must be quite a story to your coat of arms, milord!”

“An interesting one, yes,” King Sombra said. “Regardless, noon is fast approaching — and I must depart for my homeland this very evening.” His lips curled into scowl of distaste. “It would appear the adage ‘if you want something done, do it yourself’ holds true today as much as it did in the days of Sir Star Swirl.”

Miss Memoir smiled kindly. “All ponies do the best they can.”

“Is that so?” he said. “I see. Then perhaps the real answer to my problems is simply hiring more competent help.”

Again, Miss Memoir laughed — more out of politeness than anything else this time. “Have a safe journey, sir.”

“Thank you, madam.” He gave them a casual nod. “Miss Twilight Sparkle, I am truly glad to have made your acquaintance. Farewell, dear child.”  

Then the Umbrum King turned and sauntered away.

Miss Memoir lightly touched Twilight’s shoulder. “Come on, Twilight. Let’s meet up with the rest of the class.”

Twilight nodded and followed her, walking along a little distance behind her. A few paces down the hallway, however, she stopped to look back at Lord Sombra's disguised, retreating form. The morning sun danced across his mane and wings and flanks every time he walked by a window, little specks of dust floating in the air around him in an almost magical way, until he turned the corner and was gone.

When Twilight had woken up this morning at 5:47 am, bouncing in her bed with raw excitement about today’s field trip, she’d never thought she’d end up meeting somepony — er… someumbrum? — like him. She still thought he was just a little bit scary. Worse, he was merciless! Dumping such an incredible amount of research on her nine-year-old shoulders. As well as possibly the fate of all Equestria.

But — even though she dreaded her assignment’s deadline even more than the end of the world, at the same time she couldn’t help hoping those fifteen years would go by fast.

After all... if, strictly speaking, Shiny didn’t count because he was her brother, then this morning Lord Sombra had become Twilight’s very first friend.