Bombay Sable’s mandolin plucking left Dim feeling wistful, or maybe sorrowful. For reasons unknown, he thought of a home that didn’t exist, a place he had never known. How did one long for something they had never truly known in the first place? Dim imagined some cosy place, a proper tower perhaps, but the location really didn’t matter. Turning his head, he glanced at what did matter, and it was Blackbird. One day, when all of this was over, when it was time to settle down, when wanderlust expired, Dim reckoned that whatever came next would involve Blackbird.

But that was something in the distant future.

Dim’s thoughts might have had something to do with the pink hue in his vision. Nothing had been said, no thoughts had been projected, but it was there, and Dim was comforted by it. Blackbird, Munro, Motte, and Bailey were gathered around the table, breaking down every weapon among them, removing all traces of moisture from every nook, every cranny, every crevice, and the smell of machine oil was heavy in the air. From the looks of things, Munro was learning from the veterans of war and hung on every word said by Motte and Bailey.

Wet gear hung from the walls and the smell of sodden wool was heavy in Dim’s nose. Faint dripping could be heard as water fell to the floor. This, along with the mechanical sounds from the remorseless implements of war and the soothing strains of the mandolin almost lulled Dim to sleep. Well, the whiskey might have also had something to do with it. Something about the air was just right for breathing and the aching tickle in Dim’s lungs was hardly even noticeable.

Was this a happy time?

Dim supposed it was.

The Bard dozed on a pile of cushions, his breathing shallow and almost nonexistent. Life on the road was hard on him, and no doubt, returning home had taken some toll that Dim could hardly comprehend. Turning his head, Dim glanced over at the slumbering earth pony and felt the curious sting of envy. Dim wanted a place to be disappointed with, to have feelings about, strong opinions, a place of belonging, a place that inspired him to have strong emotions of love and hate.

Yet another swig of whiskey soothed the prick of envy.

Just as Dim’s eyelids grew unbearably heavy, there was a knock upon the heavy wooden door…

In the doorway stood a zebra wearing a wooden mask. Behind him, beyond the doorway, night was falling, the day fading, and a crowd of zebras could be seen as well as heard, gathered around Death’s statue, saying prayers. When the zebra stepped aside, a griffon ambled through the door on three legs, carrying a cast iron cookpot in his right talons. This was placed on the floor and then the griffon vanished, as he no doubt had others to feed.

“I am Weaver Indigo,” the zebra said, introducing himself in a heavy accent. His voice was somewhat muffled by the mask and he moved with a pronounced limp. One hind leg was crooked and it was obvious that, at some point in his life, he had been hobbled to keep him from running. “The Shadow has arrived, and Death is sure to follow.”

“Huh?” Motte, who was assembling Bailey’s dainty carbine, turned and looked in the direction of the zebra.

“Nevermind. It doesn’t matter. At this point in time, nothing matters, and time is short. You should be eating, you’ll need it. I have much to tell you, and time, like a candle left to burn, grows ever-shorter. Get your food and gather round. Hurry, hurry, do not dawdle.”

Munro had brought in wooden bowls from the wagon and was now serving up a chunky eggplant stew that reeked of garlic. Meanwhile, Indigo paced near the door, limping back and forth, his face invisible behind his carved, wooden mask. Scars spiderwebbed his body, some appeared to be lash marks, while others appeared to be intricate lines that formed geometric shapes that stood out against his stripes. Some kind of strange blue pigment had gone into the wounds and now, his scars stood out in a ghastly purple-blue.

“The Kivuli cha Mbuzi, he casts a long shadow across this land, but like all shadows, he is more dread than substance.” Indigo whirled about and turned to face Dim, who was just handed a bowl of stew by Munro. “He is not the real worry at the moment. A web of intrigue is being spun, by whom, I do not know. But this web worries Aunt Nancy, and has the foul stink of spiderkind. You are now in this web and its weaver, still unknown, can feel you in their web.”

“You mean, like actual spiders?” Munro asked while dipping his ladle into the stew.

“The ones you call the Ascendancy take on strange allies,” Indigo replied. The zebra sighed, a muffled huff from behind his mask, and then resumed pacing before the door. “An army has been mustered, an army of bandits. Several thousand strong they are. Someone within the filthy city awaits to open the gates for them. Even now, as we speak, plans are being made to overthrow the city. A fine cast of puppets assemble, all dangled on invisible strings that come down from an intricate web, a web you have stumbled into.”

“An army?” Bailey’s utterance was dubious and hesitant. “Of bandits? How are they being fed? Supplied? You collect rabble like that and you have trouble if you don’t keep them fed. Why, the farms would be picked clean from an army that size, and the food shortage would reveal them.”

“The obvious answer,” Dim said while he sniffed his bowl of eggplant stew, “is that somepony is supplying them. Somepony within the city.”

“The numbers swell and grow.” Indigo shuddered for a moment and them limped away from where he had paused, agitated. “There is an old bandit fort. Sometimes, the numbers grow, sometimes reaching a thousand or more, and then, they vanish. The fort goes back to having two hundred souls or so for a time, but the numbers slowly rise. Always rising and falling, like an incoming tide.”

Motte made a low grown deep within his throat and the grizzled veteran scowled. “That does not bode well. Where does one hide an army around here?”

“I do not know, and it is driving me crazy!” Indigo froze up again, standing in one spot, and then he made a few feeble stomps against the floor with his crooked, hobbled leg. “I have looked and looked! I have possessed the minds of thousands of birds and seen nothing! I have peered through the many eyes of spiders but nothing reveals itself to me! I’ve gone spirit-walking and found nothing! It is maddening!”

“Does the city have questionable sausage markets?” Munro asked.

The question was met with silence and several heads turned to look at the minotaur calf, who was dipping a spoon into his bowl of stew. One of Dim’s nostrils flared in the manner of annoyed aristocrats everywhere and he leveled a hard stare upon his valet. Bailey shrugged, snorted, and then dug into her stew. Beside her, Motte stared into his bowl, sighed, and poked at it with his spoon.

Just as the silence became unbearable, the Bard began laughing; no mere chuckle, this was a mad, barking laugh that sounded as though it would shatter his ribs. Pâté au Poulet laughed until he wheezed; then, coughing, hacking, and wheezing, he laughed even more. His eyes turned bloodshot and the fine, thin veins in his ears stood out in sharp contrast.

“Pearl Fisher asked me to help.” Dim returned his gaze to Indigo and stirred his stew with his spoon. “She mentioned that there is a conspiracy against Lord Chanson and that he is being pressured to flee the city.”

“When was this?” Motte asked.

“When she and I were alone together.” Dim’s expression soured when Motte raised an eyebrow at his reply. “Look, she came to me for help. She called me the Heebie Jeebie King and told me to cut out the infection or the city will die.”

Even though her mouth was full, Blackbird could not help snickering at what Dim had said, and the Bard seemed to find the strength to continue his wheezy chuckling. Dim took a bite of stew and gave the hearty vegetables an annoyed chew while casting a scathing glance at Blackbird. Taking advantage of the lull in the conversation, Dim forgot his manners and crammed a few more delicious spoonfuls of stew into his mouth.

“Many have placed all of their hopes on Lord Chanson. We’ve thrown our lot in with him and our fortunes rise and fall with his success and survival. It might be that he is the only lord within the city that wants us here.” Indigo let out a huff of consternation and his tail slashed from side to side. “We have been made the cause of the city’s ills. All of its troubles, all of its woes, every problem that exists, we are the cause. Many of the city’s lords use the word zebra as a curse. Colonialism has left deep wounds in this country, vast canyons of scars, uncrossable rifts, and the lords of the city whisper dreadful words that the citizenry wish to hear, words about how the former slaves have come to orchestrate the downfall of those who once oppressed them.”

“Well”—Dim felt the need to state the obvious and he stared at Indigo’s mask—“have you come to do that? Is Lord Chanson your willing dupe because of his obvious guilt and sympathy? Have you come to exploit his goodness? He chose the love of an islander over his love for his nation.”

The sounds of several spoons being dropped into thick stew could be heard, and one in particular clattered down to the floor. Indigo had gone still and time, which seemed to have been frozen, moved along at a glacial pace. Dim’s hard, unyielding, unblinking stare remained locked on Indigo.

“My ancestors laboured and suffered to make this nation great. Their sweat and toil counts for something. I want what I am owed…” Indigo’s voice went low and flat. “Lord Chanson recognises that. He acknowledges that this nation owes us a debt.”

“And that makes him unpopular, I would imagine,” Dim said, again stating the obvious.

“He wishes to put the past behind us so that we might all secure our future together.” Indigo shuffled in place, uncomfortable, and after a time, he resumed his pacing before the door. “When I first met him, I wanted to hate him. Believe me, I did… I was part of a splinter group, and we… we did bad things. Things I am ashamed of now. We were willing to take our recompense by any means necessary… even with bloodshed and murder. Lord Chanson demanded that I hold myself to a higher standard… and so I did.”

Hearing this, Dim thought about reconciliation and unification. Gasconeigh would certainly be a stronger city with everyone together rather than at each other’s throats. This wasn’t about right or wrong, moral or immoral, but about survival—and Dim, after sizing up the situation, knew that a unified city would have better odds, because of how Grogar functioned. While staring at Indigo’s carved wooden mask, Dim began to see how he could affect the lives of millions. He couldn’t fix everything, no, but he could greatly improve their odds of success and survival.

“Dim, what are you thinking?” the Bard asked while stew dripped from his muzzle.

“I cannot help but notice that this compound of friendly, happy Death Cultists is the perfect place for a zebra such as yourself to hide in plain sight. No doubt, all zebras probably look the same to the disgusting primitives around here. Whereas you seem to worship this Aunt Nancy I keep hearing about, the other zebras here worship Death. I have also noticed that Lord Chanson’s wife seems to know an awful lot about what is going on that Lord Chanson does not. She told me to find you here, Indigo, and that you would have information for me. If you want my help, I’d like for you to address this gap in knowledge that I seem to have. Why is Lord Chanson ignorant of these matters?”

“You know,” the Bard muttered, his muzzle inches above his bowl of stew, “it is easy to forget sometimes that this unhinged pyromaniac is as smart as he is.” Having said his piece, he dipped his muzzle into his stew and resumed eating.

“Lord Chanson stands in a precarious place.” Indigo’s accent seemed to thicken with his reply and the bits of twine on his mask bobbed while he shuffled about. “To keep the dream alive, he intentionally remains ignorant on certain matters, in the event that he falls from power. There are those who would accuse him of conspiring with the enemy, and would make every attempt to make that appear true, if given the right opportunity.”

“So I am guessing that Prominence and Scalio, our missing dragons, they came here to do whatever it was they were supposed to do, found out about about all of this, were swept up in it, and now have some vested interest in helping—this is, after all, a worthy cause. Why a dragon would take interest in this is beyond me, but I suppose they have their reasons. They are no doubt gallivanting around the countryside trying to aid this just cause somehow.”

“Actually, Min and Thod went off to investigate the bandits.” Indigo made an abrupt stop in his pacing and sat down. “More than that, they were trying to find some missing alchemists and healers. We sent out a crew to battle disease and they went missing. The wagon was found, stripped of all supplies and everything of value. Min and Thod went looking for their friends.”

“Dragons have friends?” Dim could not hide his incredulousness.

“Oh, Thod is the friendliest of dragons,” Indigo replied. “Real big on smiling.”

“Somehow, I’ve gone to strange places.” Dim shook his head and then wolfed down his stew.

“There is much at stake and I—” Indigo was cut off by the sounds of a ringing bell, and shouting could be heard from outside. The zebra sighed, a sad sound. “Time is up. My time is up. The Shadow came, and Death was certain to follow. Farewell, King of the Heebie Jeebies.”

Outside, the shouts turned to screams and the companions scrambled to react…

Author's Notes:

Next chapter: Death on Black Wings.

Also, a clever person might be able to go back to previous chapters and piece together a much bigger picture now.