The book is titled "Applications of Sparkle-Prancer Eigenfunctions in the Dynamical Control of Kinetic Magical Fields", "#23 in the Canterlot University Series on Autokinesis" 2042 AE, 2nd Edition, by Lofty Bootstraps, MM, PhD.
It has some lose pages at the beginning, which are part of a hornwritten manuscript stuffed inside it. The writing is not with a quill and ink, but by very fine burning, probably with magic.
The Secret History of the New Princess
By White Eyes
I write this, in my exile in Oatwheel, to posterity alone, for, though I wish I could reveal it now, the cost of doing so would undoubtedly be my life. I hope that it might still be relevant and useful to whoever finds it. Perhaps you future ponies find yourselves under the rule of this alicorn. I hope that my fears about her intentions were unfounded, in which case this document will be a mere curiosity. But if they were not, I hope that you will be able to find some way to use it against her, and regain the freedom that is your right.
It is first necessary to lay out some background information about myself, and how I came to be involved in this situation. Fifty years ago, I was a young and foolish stallion of nineteen years, going by my birth name, Vorpal Pin. Born to an old and respectable family of minor nobility in the Eastern Dusts, I had been gifted with considerable and early magical aptitude, and already graduated from Radiance Magical College in my hometown with high honors. I began graduate studies at the Crooked Tower, but I was dissatisfied with the plodding pace of my work. When the lich Risen Bones passed through the area - I later learned he was following up on the progress of a centuries-old program of eugenics, of which my family and others in my hometown had unwittingly been a part - I was terribly susceptible to his promises of power and meaningful work. We traveled Equus, first as master and apprentice, and then also as friends, working on a great but obscure project involving magical technology. Occasionally, we visited Risen Bones' headquarters on Teardrop Island to resupply, and there I glimpsed the vast scope of his work, but we spent most of our time away from it.
One night, when we were camping in the upper abyss, Bones returned to me after his evening meditations terribly distraught. I asked him what the matter was, and he confided in me something which I can never tell another person. He told me that the great work in which we were engaged was not truly his own -- he had been recruited too, long ago, when he was still living. A vision in a dream, promising immortal power, had drawn him to Teardrop Island. Exploring the place, he encountered a mighty spectral being, who identified herself as the greatest unicorn archmage of her time, Dusty Tomes. The specter said that she sought to take an apprentice to aid in critically important work, and that he was being considered - but not he alone. Dusty had drawn seven other mages to the island, and stipulated that the last one surviving would take his or her place by her side. Bones said that he was at first reluctant to fight the others, but was attacked, and defended himself... and that he found his will to continued existence far surpassing his compunctions about the situation. He prevailed, of course, and began to serve Dusty and her cause.
Now, it turned out that Dusty's plans were many and complicated, and I do not recall how exactly my Master explained them at the time. But among them was a plan to enhance the magicality of ponies through selective breeding, and apparently this plan was now nearing fruition. But that was as far as his explanation got. He seemed to want to explain more to me... yet, he could not, just stammering in fear and confusion. When he composed himself, he abruptly stopped telling me of his past, and insisted that I take a geas to not disclose to anyone what I had just learned. Stung by his distrust, I nontheless agreed, and it would prove to be the first of several magical bindings he would require of me.
Not long thereafter, we returned to Teardrop Island for an extended stay. I was left in charge while the Master went to the Isle of Yore. When he returned, it was with more than the technical books and magical reagents that I had expected. He had brought with him ponies, and these were here against their will. I thought this was really unaccountable; my Master had always been a decent person, and had we not just a few years ago freed dozens of ponies from Camel slavers in the lowlands? But he said that it was necessary, for the greater good -- Dusty had commanded it. I did not think that this was something the beneficent spirit of a good archmage would command, and said as much. My master was incensed, and he said he would put me out to find my own way in the world. I packed my things with the intention of leaving the next morning, but Bones came to me that night and said that Dusty herself interceded on my behalf, and hoped I would stay. He reiterated that these ponies were essential to our work, and that work was in turn essential to the salvation of Equus. I thought I had made a grave error in judgement and apologized, humbled. But I could not forget the looks of anger and sadness in the eyes of the slaves...
With the new labor force, the work on the research facility was completed relatively quickly. We refurbished some of the old Equestrian naval facilities for housing them. We were able to sustain ourselves with agriculture using the magic of the Earth Ponies and Pegasi, though not abundantly. Much of my time was now occupied in helping my Master with his research - to what end exactly was not clear, for I was deliberately excluded from the overall planning, which purportedly took place during nightly meditation sessions in which Bones communed with Dusty. I saw the spirit manifest a few times, to help us at critical junctures in the work, but such manifestations are costly to spirits and were accordingly few. As the years dragged on, my Master made more than one trip to the Isle of Yore for slaves. I turned a blind eye, again, even when it became clear that the slaves were not there merely as workers, but as part of the eugenics scheme. Though not forced to participate per se, the rewards and privileges for doing so were so significant that few of them resisted more than a few years. The coercive nature sat very uneasily with me, but I did not have the courage to challenge what was being done - maybe out of faith that this was for the greater good, maybe out of cowardice; I still can't say.
Like some of the Master's other "professional staff," I had always insisted on doing a share of the agricultural work with the slaves, and got to know some of them. My work shifts always seemed to overlap with those of one Spectacular Librarian - in retrospect, I don't doubt this was by design. I fell in love with her. How could I not? She was intelligent and beautiful, very magical, a flower blossoming in the desert... Spec was a pegasus, but with many Earth Pony ancestors. My Master had never broken her spirit, despite the curse he used to tie the slaves to the island. She reciprocated my affections, though she was many years my junior, but I could not live with myself if I took advantage of her captivity, and so I asked my Master to free her, that we might pursue romance as equals. He consented, on the condition - demanded by Dusty, he said - that Spec take a geas of confidentiality about our work on the Island. This was acceptable to her. Between ourselves, we planned to leave and begin a new life together, far from there; my geas at that time forbade me from betraying Risen Bones, but not from going my own way. Spec was freed, and we left that place. We married in the Hayminnow Islands and opened a bookstore there. We had to avoid encountering Spec’s old acquaintances, which pained her, but we knew that her return would lead to questions we could not answer. We had no trouble from the Master, though we found ourselves being scryed occasionally.
In 3311, Spec became pregnant with our first child. The idea of the child growing up without ever knowing its grandparents was too much for her, and, begrudgingly I agreed that we would return to the Weeping Mountain to seek a narrowing of the terms of the geas, so that we might discreetly meet Spec’s parents after the birth of the child. To my very great surprise, my old Master readily agreed to do this, the only condition being that Spec should foal at the research facility. We agreed. I returned for a time to Hayminnow to make arrangements for our business affairs in our absence, and rejoined Spec on the Island a few months before her due date.
I was, of course, the typical nervous new father, but the birth went smoothly, attended by Risen Bones, who, before he turned to necromancy, had been an accomplished healer in Eastern Dusts. I do not know why, but his enthusiasm for the pregnancy seemed to evaporate when he saw the new foal. He left shortly after the delivery, silent and brooding. Spec and I were too happy with our beautiful little unicorn filly to pay much notice at the time. We named her Truthful Twinkle, after an ancestor of mine. A few nights later, I was awake, trying to get our daughter to go back to sleep by walking her through the dark halls of the research facility. I... chanced to overhear a conversation between Dusty, who had actually manifested, and my erstwhile Master. Dusty was furious with him for something or other to do with the foal. Dusty commanded Bones to have Spec and I “try again,” and implied some purpose of hers for the foal. Panicking, I roused Spec and we attempted to flee in the night with our newborn daughter.
We were caught, and brought back to the mountain. Bones cursed the three of us to remain on the island, like the slaves. And that is what we were... My Master spoke to me privately one evening, saying that Dusty had forced him to treat my family this way; he apologized profusely but insisted there was nothing he could do, as in my absence he had made further deals with the ancient spirit.
Things improved a little, as I came to accept my situation. I was allowed off the island from time to time, my wife and foal being the security for my return. I am not sure why, in retrospect, but I allowed myself to fall back into the position of Risen Bones’ apprentice. Perhaps I accepted his explanation that his sharp treatment of me had not been of his own choice. He treated my daughter well, helping to educate her. Spec feigned sterility using an old herbal concoction, and we thereby avoided for a time falling into Dusty’s plans for our next foal. As my geas was for loyalty to Risen Bones and he had admitted that Dusty’s plans in that area did not represent his true will, I was able deceive him on that point. Having regained some of my Master’s trust, I was allowed to understand something of his work with Dusty. We were building a sensitive magical instrument of a scale unprecedented since the days of techno-industrial magical science before the Catastrophe. It would allow us to detect attempts to divine the future anywhere on Equus. It consisted of a central station and many far-flung sensor posts, the installation and maintenance of which increasingly fell to me. All these systems had the very curious magical dependency on carts laden with fruit. Neither I nor my Master were privy to the physical principles underlying it, but we agreed that preventing the use of such dangerous magic was at least a good end, even if the means had been highly questionable.
The intervening years did much to mend my relationship with my Master, though Spec, understandably, never trusted him. My older daughter turned out to have an early case of wanderlust, and wanted desperately to join my on my travels, going so far as to accept the geas of Risen Bones so as to be allowed to leave. I begrudgingly accepted the situation. The Master noted that she was developing into a very charismatic young mare and thought she might be able to serve some hitherto-unmentioned purpose of Dusty's -- announcing the coming of a New Princess. This was actually the first I'd heard of the concept. But later he said the time was actually not yet right for it, according to Dusty, and besides, Twinkle was not yet nearly old enough to be entrusted with her own mission.
(The manuscript ends here.)