Albert crossed the grand hallway with deliberate slowness. He took small, shuffling footsteps with each swing of the scythe-bladed pendulum, in time with each onerous tick of that giant, one-handed clock. His hands shook slightly, rattling the tea on the tray, its clinking providing a percussion to the noise of his feet on the deep pile carpet.
He approached the door of Death’s study, and gulped.
He extended an arm to push open the door, but before his hand touched the wood, it swung back with a creak that could not possibly have come from the hinges, partially because the hinges weren’t metal. Albert decided to distract himself from the inevitable by pondering this for a moment longer.
When Death constructed his home, he built it from the position of an eternal observer. His scope was limited to what he had seen in the houses of others. He copied objects and details without any clue to their true purpose. The dresser that stood against one of the walls of the hallway had no drawers, merely outlines that looked like them. The floorboards were not wood, but would convince a casual onlooker that they were. What gave them away, as it gave the door away, was the sound. The floorboards creaked, but only when you weren’t stepping on them.
It was the same problem with the doors. Death knew, on some level, that doors and floorboards should creak and groan. He had heard them do so whilst performing The Duty. The problem was that he didn’t know why they did it. So the hinges creaked not because they were rusty (for, indeed, they were incapable of rusting), or because they were ill-fitting (they were so well-fitting it would make an interior designer blush), but because they were meant to. It’s just that they did it at the wrong time.
That always seemed to be the root cause of the Master’s... or Mistress’ problems, Albert mused. He, or she, were always trying to pretend they were something else.
I know you're there.
The voice would boom, if it were at all audible. Albert steeled himself, tightened his grip on the tea tray, and strode forward as boldly as his age-stiffened limbs and ossified knees would allow.
This was something that always amused Death, if indeed he/she was capable of humour beyond a strong grasp of irony and a tenuous understanding of sarcasm. It was part of the reason zhe kept Albert around.
The long-suffering manservant approached the desk, noting that Death was facing away from the door, with the high back of the chair towards him. The moment he placed the tea-tray on the ‘wooden’ surface of the desk, the chair spun around, revealing a rather more skeletal visage than he was expecting.
Albert. The voice was more chilling than usual. There was an edge to it, one that Albert rarely heard. It was an edge to rival that of the Scythe of Office.
We have work to do. Fetch me the Charts, I must tend to the Nodes.
Albert nodded, and headed towards the door to the library. Death took up her cup of tea and sipped at it. She frowned.
And Albert, after that, bring me the sugar.
He froze, his hand on the knob of the door. “Sugar?”
Does this trouble you?
“N-no, it’s just that... You never have sugar in your tea.”
No, he never had sugar in his tea. I do.
Albert nodded, a little unsure of himself. He couldn’t handle change. He’d lived the same way for his entire life, and then some. Everything was to be as it always had been. If it wasn’t bad enough that Death had shrunk from a somewhere-between-seven-and-nine-foot-tall-depending-on-the-observer human skeleton to a four-foot-maybe-slightly-less pony skeleton on what appeared to be a permanent basis, now she wanted sugar in her tea.
It was the thin end of the wedge, that’s what it was. Sugar in your tea one day, and the next, who knows?
Pinkie Pie found herself in a dark, cramped space. She wasn’t sure where she was, she hadn’t been ‘aiming’ as she jumped out of the way of Death’s scythe. The only clue was the faint smell of vanilla and the fact that she appeared to be lying on a mop.
Trying to get up from off her back, she tumbled forward into the door, which burst open, allowing her to fall flat on her nose. Dragging herself up from the dusty stone floor, she looked around at her surroundings, blinking in the sudden light.
This place seemed... Familiar. She turned around and examined the cupboard she had fallen out of. Her scanning gaze took in the contents of the shelves, the decor, the sequins littering the floor-
Sequins?
“... Oh,” she uttered, deflated, as the realization dawned on her.
This was the Third Temple of the Pink Pony of Death.
And this was the cupboard where she had watched Terrak Keksy die.
She fought back tears. She hadn’t been able to intervene in time to save him. She hadn’t been able to save Aminata, either, although she had tried with all her heart. That... thing that she had fled from... It was her, but it wasn’t. It was everything she felt as she did THE DUTY, all the impotent rage and sorrow, the crushing loneliness and anger, given form as a new Death. But this Death had no heart, because she was that heart.
The building was quiet, empty. Cobwebs stretched between rafters. Since the Cathedral had opened, no one had used the much smaller building for anything. The emptiness seemed fitting for how Pinkie felt, because in some way, Death had taken a part of her.
But yet, she felt so alive. More than ever. She felt as if she could bring Terrak Keksy and Aminata Odham back from the dead this very instant...
… And somewhere in the back of her mind was a little voice that told her that she wouldn’t.
Often, when a mortal receives great power, they are overwhelmed by it, and if they do not go mad they attempt to find a use for their new powers that profits them most. It is not so with the gods, who are imbued with power from the moment of their creation, and instinctively know how to deal with it.
There are many things they can do. Perhaps many things they should do. But there’s a little voice, a little voice that they all share, that tells them whether or not they will do it. Some things are beyond the control of even the gods. There must be order. Life must end.
That voice is the universal truth. A little shard of Azrael that exists in the mind of all living things. It speaks to them endlessly.
“All things must come to an End.”
Pinkie sighed, forcing herself to accept it. Terrak and Aminata were beyond her reach now, but perhaps someone else wasn’t.
She dried her eyes on the back of her hoof and walked out to the front room of the temple. She stopped in front of the window and gazed out at the bustling streets of Ankh-Morpork, where life, in all its colours and flavours* was continuing, oblivious to the cosmic events that were transpiring around them.
The sight lifted her spirits, at least a little. Reaching for the doorknob with her mouth, she opened the door and stepped out onto the cobbles.
Citizens of Ankh-Morpork are well adjusted to the weird and the unusual. Tenants of houses near the Unseen University understand that they will not be compensated for loss of property or limb when their bedpan manifests sentience and a desire for flesh. In comparison, a four-foot tall-or-maybe-less pony of bright pink colouration with blue and yellow highlights was nothing to be alarmed about.
Pinkie’s gaze drifted along the street, taking in all the activity, until she saw something that caught her eye. It was a towering structure, and one that said very impolite things about physics behind its back.
Her divine power manifested itself as a lightbulb hovering above her forehead.
“The Wizards! If anyone can get me back to Ponyville, they can!” she said aloud, and rushed up the street, deftly weaving in and out of the crowd, her hooves sparking on the cobblestone.
A drunk looked at the empty bottle lying beside him. He couldn’t have just heard a horse talk. And he certainly didn’t see a floating glass orb above her head.
A merchant looked at the disappearing figure. He just heard a horse talk.
A priest blinked. He had just seen the Pink Pony of Death.
The citizens of Ankh-Morpork paused, and looked at one another.
As one, they ran after her.
* And, according to the brightest minds of the Unseen University**, several million scents***.
** Not that that's saying much.
*** The greatest and most pungent of these is that of Ankh-Morpork itself. Merchants have been known to bottle it and sell it to assassins.
It should have become clear by this point that the flow of time between universes is not equal. It can be, when it wants to, but the law of narrative causality often shoves its metaphorical oar in and ensures that one universe moves faster than the other, for the sake of drama and intrigue, (or occasionally the ability to rule a fantasy kingdom for fifty years after stumbling into a mothball-filled wardrobe, return the same day you left, and subsequently be labelled insane for the rest of your mortal days).
Bill Door was unaccustomed to sticking to just a single timeframe. Normally he leapt back and forth, allowing himself to be present at the deathbeds of two or more people dying simultaneously at either rim of the Disc.
As a result, the past week in Ponyville had passed excruciatingly slowly for him, not to mention somewhat awkwardly. He wasn’t sure whether it had become more or less awkward by the infrequent visits of the attractive yellow pegasus. At least, he had... gathered that she was considered attractive. Perhaps it was something about the tail...
By this point, the whole town was aware that Pinkie Pie was missing (it first became noted when the Mayor realised it had been three days since someone threw a party), but no one seemed to have any idea of where she’d gone. At the same time, the majority of the town was now aware that there was a new stallion in town who had appeared at the same time as Pinkie left, and had drawn their own conclusions.
It was fortunate for Bill Door that he enjoyed reading, because he wasn’t leaving the Golden Oak Library any time soon.
Twilight had been spending her time wisely, and to its fullest extent. There was little she enjoyed more than unravelling the secrets of a new discovery, and the notion that Bill Door was from another universe entirely was one that had piqued both her personal and scientific interest. Moreover, his story appeared to check out, as a chance discovery in the library’s stacks had shown.
Even though Twilight had been living in Ponyville for well over a year by this point, she still found it a difficult task to take a full inventory of the Golden Oak Library. Every time she completed a list of the books, some titles would go missing and others would appear in their place. Despite her best efforts, she had been unable to discover a reason for this, and strongly suspected that this was how the Neighcronomnicon had ended up in her care. However, for once, this strange phenomenon had worked in her favour.
She had come across a journal that she had not seen before. It was ancient, and by all rights ought to have disintegrated long ago, but something had kept it intact. Perhaps it was the effect of the library, or perhaps an effect of the author, for this journal had once belonged to the famed Starswirl the Bearded.
Starswirl was responsible for the majority of magical and esoterical theory that was still taught in Equestria’s schools to this day, but even his most dedicated followers agreed that he had some... strange ideas. Up until now, Twilight had been forced to agree. Starswirl’s advanced theorems on multiverse theory were patently ridiculous.
Or at least, so Twilight had thought. Now she was beginning to entertain the idea. The journal’s descriptions of a flat world that sailed through the inky void on the back of a turtle was remarkably similar to Bill Door’s own claims. And after all, Twilight thought, how many worlds can there be that lie on the back of a turtle?*
Bill Door flicked over the page with his hoof, something he was rapidly getting used to. He was half way through Volume XVII of the Authoritative Biography of Princess Celestia. He enjoyed biographies, although he always found the ends a bit predictable.
“Ah-ha!” Twilight exclaimed suddenly, causing Bill to drop his book. “I think I’ve found it! It’s only a rudimentary spell, but I think it might work, with a few experiments!”
“... What might work?” Bill asked. He’d become accustomed to Twilight’s company and resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to get back to reading for a while.
“This spell in Starswirl’s notes! It looks untested, but judging by the rune patterns and the basic components, this is a modified form of teleporting. It may allow us to transport ourselves to your world and find Pinkie!”
“I think it may... be more difficult than that,” he replied.
* Astrozoophysicists have attempted to count them, but they kept moving.
One said, Death has become separate from the goddess.
One said, She is vulnerable.
One said, We cannot halt the goddess.
One said, But we can guide her.