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The palace as a whole moaned briefly, then all was still. Nightmare Moon dropped her bubble.

The woman's eyes snapped open. A moment later, she had leapt to her feet, towering over us both. "Who has woken me?"

Nightmare Moon replied haughtily, "I am Nightmare Moon, princess of Eque-"

The sorceress continued, addressing me directly, pointing with a commanding finger, "Who are you? Speak!" Her voice carried force like Nightmare Moon's had at the peak of her rage.

I swallowed. "Omar."

Nightmare Moon indignantly burst forth, "Ingrate! Your manners make Omar seem princely."

The sorceress spared a mere glance for Nightmare Moon before instructing me, "Quiet your steed."

The brazenness of this dismissal shocked Nightmare Moon beyond coherent words or action. I replied, "Her royal highness, Nightmare Moon, princess of Equestria. It appears you have difficulty understanding her, but she can understand you. She would appreciate an introduction in return."

She looked at Nightmare Moon intently for several seconds, raising a half-contemptuous eyebrow. "I am Jadis, queen of Charn, city of the king of kings, the greatest wonder of the world." Then to me, "Does your princess rule any city greater?"

Nightmare Moon replied coolly, "Equestria has many cities and towns and villages with hundreds of times as many ponies as Charn - and in better repair, too."

An even snarkier response had occurred to me ('She currently leads an exploratory force greater'), but gathering the courage to say this was difficult. I attempted to repeat it faithfully. I say 'attempted' since when I reached 'villages', Jadis swooped in as if to clock me. She was faster than the raptors, and the only thing that saved me was her changing her mind most of the way through. "Impudence! I will not be insulted by animals and commoners!" She grabbed the bell and crushed it.

Nightmare Moon went on, "Ask what happened."

I maneuvered alongside her for protection before translating: "Please explain what happened here, then."

Jadis snarled and backed off, ranting and wandering. "You must have seen the greatness of the city. My mother" - she gestured to the woman who had been seated next to her - "ruled it well, with my help. I kept the order among the slaves, directed the armies to consolidate her rule, offered the sacrifices, fended off the killers in the night, and slew or tamed great monsters.

"When she died, my sister dared raise a revolt. She, who knew nothing of managing an empire. Simply with her words she undid decades of work bringing the houses in line, even riling up the slaves. Her easy promises lured so many. And yet, even with the mess she created, I would have allowed peace with her - and left her her life, and those of her leaders too! - if only she relinquished her claim. But in her pride - her delusion! - she doomed the world. Even through the war, we had promised - and I held to it! - not to use Magic. But she thought she could use just a little. I tolerated a little divination here and there - worse than her regular scouts! - but when she dissolved the garrison at Felinda, she foreswore any protection of that promise. So when her scum had slain the last of my loyal soldiers... nothing held me back. As she came to face me, I said the deplorable word."

I prompted, "So, you'd say there was an essential difference between you and the common folk you obliterated?"

Jadis was slightly disconcerted by the question. "Why, of course!"

I looked to Nightmare Moon, while keeping an eye on Jadis. "Sound familiar?"

Nightmare Moon hadn't been expecting that. "What? Not at all. No pony would ever do a thing like that."

"Just what do you think the consequences of completely unbroken night are?"

A moment passed. "I didn't mean it literally!"

"Uh-huh." Ladies and Gentlemen, we have achieved cognitive dissonance.

Jadis wore (what I hoped Nightmare saw was) the fakest smile in the history of Charn as she approached Nightmare Moon. "I can see the power in you, dear princess. If you would be so kind as to show me to some land full of your enemies, I could rise to rule them, and we would be... friends." She had elegance, of a sort - that of a taut spiderweb. (spiders, please forgive the insult)

Nightmare Moon said, "I know of such a land."

"Princess, this is a terrible idea."

"Silence, fool." Jadis waved at me and my lips slammed shut, and turned back to Nightmare Moon. "What does he know about matters of state? So very, very common. We know the true burden of leadership."

It took me a moment to realized I really couldn't open my mouth. I tried gesturing, but Nightmare Moon ignored me, paying attention only to Jadis. Myth: Unicorn horns have curative powers... I leaned over and pressed my lips to Nightmare Moon's horn. "Princess..." Confirmed!

Nightmare Moon was shocked, but Jadis was furious. "You will see your still-beating heart drain before your eyes!" And she reached for my chest, fast enough for it to be a punch. Fast enough Jet Li would have been hard-pressed to block.

I went flying, my chest searing with pain in five little points where her fingers had struck. I tried to regain my breath as I lay on the floor, wondering what had just happened, wondering why there was a smell of burning flesh.

Nightmare Moon was laughing, and Jadis growling, wary of me. She seemed to have come off the worse - her hand, still rapidly regenerating and flaking off ashes, looked like it belonged on a centenarian. She shook her head and faced Nightmare Moon - "As I was trying to say before your slave interrupted me..."

I rolled to my knees, and the elements shifted in my breast pocket, hot through the cloth. Aha! "Princess, why are we still here? She's lying to you."

Nightmare Moon's laughter had died down. "Because it amuses us. She believes she can use and betray us, true. But we can use her, and have no need to betray her. She will get her country, yes, and stew in the knowledge that I did not need to lie."

To say all this to me, she had turned her head on Jadis. Now, she had eyes on the side of her head - that wasn't the problem. The problem was that Jadis was faster than a snake-strike, and mounted Nightmare Moon. In reflex, Nightmare Moon dissolved into mist. The mist quickly whipped off into the distance, back the way we'd come.

And I was all alone in Charn.

I went back to the entry point in the city, waiting for Nightmare Moon to return - I assumed she'd headed this way to shift back to Earth, and neutral ground where Jadis would not have an advantage.

When she persisted in not returning, I tentatively concluded that Jadis had won - but I also considered it possible that in their fight Nightmare Moon had gone to a third world and then gotten lost, or that the connection between these worlds was broken - but I did not expect that she'd be back any time soon, if she hadn't made it back yet.

Two days later, this conclusion was significantly stronger. Late on the first day, I'd found a source of water - a deep cistern's maintenance hatch had been blasted open, and it was still fed from a single inlet. Of food, I'd found none but salt. Apparently, the deplorable word had wiped out not only everything living but everything organic, too.

Though I hadn't been blasted like Jadis, my chest developed five nasty welts where she'd struck me. They hurt considerably, a constant distraction.

I searched for a week, not even sure what I was looking for. A passage out, perhaps, more like the blue valley, with what Nightmare Moon had called a 'bridge of similarity'. Nothing turned up.

Faced with the prospect of starvation, I conceived a desperate plan. I would sit in the chair. If the enchantment persisted, I might be able to wait for someone to save me. If, also, the bell still worked after Jadis had crumpled it up like it was origami. But to raise my chances, I needed to prepare.

I spent my last few days on Charn arranging stones to aim people towards the hall with the people. In the room itself, I used a very nice chalk set I'd found to convey the broad strokes of the tale in cartoon form: Jadis says something to a crowd. They all fall over. She sits in chair. A figure with a jacket and a horse show up. He rings bell. Jadis wakes up, steals horse. Man sits in chair. The bell and my best self-portrait, smiling.

The portrait wasn't accurate - I had a beard. The last thing I did was to find a straight razor and learn to use it. If I was going to sit there for a million years, I was going to do it with some dignity.

And I sat down.

And there were two kids arguing: "I told you nothing would happen!" - a boy of about eleven, wearing one of those Victorian school outfits. Something nineteenth-century, anyway. Score! "The bell's busted. And..."

The girl pointed to me. She was in a dress with a wide V-collar, and which was thoroughly soaked along the bottom edge. "He's waking up, I think."

It took me another moment before I could move. I cleared my throat. "Thank you very much. What year is it?"

"I don't suppose that'll do you very much good, seeing as you're from another world."

"Possibly. My world is called Earth, and I was born in the United States of America. You?"

The girl glanced to the boy. "Oh. That's ours, yes. We're from London."

The boy added, "It's 1867. I'm Digory. She's Polly."

"I'm Omar. How did you get here? And... do you have anything to eat? I haven't eaten in over a week, not counting the millions of years I was sitting there."

A few seconds later I was softening some toffee in my mouth. It was very rich.

Polly took Digory's hand as if to hold him back. "If you don't mind, would you finish your explanation of how you got here? You rode a horse?" She gestured to my cartoons.

Through my chewing, I said, "No... not exactly. She's a unicorn pegasus princess. She turned into fog which enveloped me, and when it cleared, here we were. We accidentally freed the evil queen Jadis. She fought with the princess, and left the world in the process. Neither came back."

They took a moment to absorb that. Digory said, "You're not joking."

"Quite right. Now, can we get out of here? I've had enough of this place."

They silently conferred, and agreed. Digory said, "All right, how do we do this? We have two rings and three people. One of us can ferry him to the wood, then bring the other ring back... So, which job do you want? Go, or stay here?"

Polly folded her arms. "I'll stay. If you're not back in a minute... I'll figure you reappeared in the courtyard instead of here. Do hurry back if you do."

"Blimey, I didn't even think of that. All right, then. Shall we?"

Then Polly put one hand into each pocket. From one pocket, she pulled a yellow ring, and handed it to me. I held the ring, but she didn't let go right away, looking significantly to Digory.

And then she let go. Charn faded away, and I felt like I was rising through water. I couldn't quite convince myself to breathe, but I wasn't at all wet. I came to the surface and crawled out of a pool in a very neat, dim wood full of such pools.

The sheer relief of being out of Charn was amazing. And this place seemed so peaceful. I sat down under a tree. A hamster ran past with a ring tied to its back.

A few seconds later, Digory and Polly crawled out of the same pool.

Digory joked, "Slept for millions of years and you still need a nap?"

"It wasn't the least bit restful, I'm afraid. Is it okay to take off the ring? All right, here you go. What next?"

The two conferred briefly. Digory asked, "What year are you from? America isn't millions of years old, so we figure you might be from any time at all."

"2010."

Polly said, "Oh. That's not quite home."

"No, it really isn't."

"Maybe you could get back in the chair, and we'd wake you later when we're old? We could get you to, say, 1930 that way, or at least 1910."

"That... that is a very interesting proposition, perhaps the best." So we returned to the Charn pool, but in it were dark swirls, and with a mere glance we dismissed the idea of returning there. "So, Earth. Or what other worlds have you explored?"

Digory said, "That was the first. And I don't think you'd much like Earth, considering you'd have to get past my uncle."

Polly went up to another pool and said, "Well, come on then. How about this one?"

In short order, we jumped in and landed in complete blackness, on featureless flat ground. A very healthy, complete dark. Nightmare Moon would have found it very comforting, I thought. A night that was totally right. But I said, "It appears that this isn't anywhere. Try somewhere else?"

Digory said, "Sure."

Switching rings, we were back in the wood. Our explorations were quick drop-ins like that, finding worlds that certainly weren't Equestria - or if they were, in such an inconvenient spot it didn't do any good. There was a world seemingly made of balloons, a world of volcanoes, a world populated by anthropomorphic playing cards (!), and then... there it was. In broad daylight, from this high vantage point, I could see everything. "That's Canterlot on the mountain over there. And if I'm not mistaken, the entrance to the Blue Valley and thus the Land of the Elephants is over there off to the left. Which means Ponyville is practically right in front of us, though I can't see it."

I handed back the ring. "Thank you so much. I've got it covered from here."

Polly said, "Would you mind if we came with you? This seems a pleasant enough place."

I considered. I was heading back into a war zone, but of course none of those would start for another hundred and fifty years. And they seemed eager enough explorers. And they could escape at any moment. "All right."

We hiked down, and explained to each other more of how we had gotten here. I told them everything but about Discord, who didn't seem important, and of course I omitted the sexy parts. Polly seemed especially interested in the land of the Elephants.

And then we came to the ancient ruined palace. I felt it drawing me in. Or my breast pocket, anyway.

I walked confidently to the center, where, on a stand, the elements of harmony were laid out. I pulled my future instances of them out of my breast pocket and compared them. Mine were small marbles, now, and flattened some on one side, Jadis' fingerprints seared into them. Twilight Sparkle said to put them south of the big rock south of this palace.

The three of us split up, scouting for things that might be useful for digging. Then I heard a scream. Dashing through the forest to help, I tripped over an upward-protruding stone and fell into a bush. Cursing, I tried to drag myself free but came face-to-face with these terrible red eyes...

... and then I had not a mote, and not a beam, but a whole avalanche in my eyes. And my legs were pretty well immobile. What?