Chapter 3: A Crack in the Wall
The Spire...
Odom’s Spire was one of the most mysterious, and unknown places in the entire Abarat. Even Samuel Hastrim Klepp, writer of the famous work Klepp’s Almenak; an encyclopedic guide to all things Abaratian; had little to say about the bizarre island at the 25th hour. The only words Klepp had for his illustrious almenak was that the Spire seemed to have a glamour about itself, the light off the clouds playing a trick on the eyes, such that no two sailors would ever see quite the same sight…and those souls who travel through the mists, almost always exit happily mad…with the exception of one Righteous Bandy, a criminal who ended up on the shores by mistake and left a poet.
Carrion knew he could not spend too long inside the seemingly sentient cloud or the Spire, nor look directly at the Spire itself for too long, lest he go as mad as those sailors before him, his nightmares and magics would keep him sane for a short while, 3-4 hours at best, but after that he would need to be gone, or fail, and never see Gorgossium again…
“There is no way I’ll be able to get inside from the front entrance,” he said knowing he would be found by the Fantomaya “and even if I did manage to slip past them there is still Abraham who would catch me and then it would be over...”
The Fantomaya were the ladies of the Spire who judged the past, present, and future. Though they were down one, the other two Josephi and Mespa, were still as sharp as women of their position would be. Abraham Hallow; along with his two assistants Tempus and Julius also known as the Fugit Brothers, was the keeper of the Spire and punished anyone who entered without his permission, whether they were invited by the Fantomaya or not. No one knew what his punishments were like as he looked like a frail, white-haired old man in robes of scarlet and carmine, yet the Fantomaya were afraid of his wrath, an Christopher was not willing to risk finding out.
“I’ll head around the back of the Spire and find a crack in one of the towers, through which I’ll be able to enter.” he thought to himself as he contemplated his plan. “To the best of my knowledge, none of the Fantomaya, nor Abraham or his minions, have a method of monitoring the entire Spire, as Mater Motley does with the Iniquisit, so they shouldn’t be able to find me so long as I do not make my presence known through excessive actions”
As he breached the fog surrounding the Spire, he was able to see for this first time, Odom’s Spire in all it’s majesty, there were dozens of spires all leaning in to each other, with the tallest spire in the center. There were windows and holes for viewing the rest of the Abarat all over each of the spires, more than any number of people could ever use. The spires themselves were a mix of yellows and greens melding together into some sort of hazy illusion. Noticing he had already looked too long and was starting to succumb to the madness of the Spire, he quickly averted his eyes and began to focus on the nightmares in his skull, as well as those in the wispy cloud surrounding him, which brought him back to his senses. He began to make his way around the Spire careful not to look at it, and focus only on the task at hand. Eventually he made it to a smaller than average spire in the lower-left corner of the structure, and then he went to work searching for the crack that would grant him his stealthy entry.
After several minutes he found a crack though it was not large enough for a person to move through. He thought for a moment, and then with a solution in hand he issued a mental command to the nightmares that swirled around him
“Come…” he uttered inside his mind, and in the moments that followed, the wisps of smoke around him formed into more defined snakelike tendrils of green, hazy vapor, awaiting their master’s command.
“Go, my nightmares, venture through this crevice and show me what lies beyond…” As he finished mentally communicating these instructions to his nightmares he grabbed the tubes; which had been hanging limp against the back of his scalp since the liquid collar they connected to had been destroyed; by their ends and placed them against the crevice in the Spire’s walls, allowing the nightmares currently residing in his skull to enter the crevice with the same orders as those that had been surrounding him since he awoke.
Once all of his nightmares had traversed the gap, Carrion began to concentrate to use their ‘vision’ as his own. Now that he had a complete view of the inside of the Spire he began to search around for something that may be able to aid him in his search for soldiers…
After hours of fruitless searching, Carrion’s nightmares eventually came upon the fabled stream of memories that the ladies of the Fantomaya used to judge all of the Abarat, past, present or future. It’s guardians were conspicuously absent at the moment, though he was pleased as now he could examine the memories of the entire universe for a solution to his problem.
“Chances are, I do not have long until those ladies return to their work, and then who knows how long it will be until my next chance to find what I need.”
“Quick my nightmares, search the stream’s memories for anything that we could bend to our will, outside of the Abarat and the Hereafter.” he instructed his shades, and as he did they quickly slinked over to the stream and began to disperse as the green smoke started intermingling with the currents of the stream.
Carrion could not examine everything personally, as these were all the memories of the entire universe, and if he tried the limitless supply of information was like to drive him mad as a hatter, and turn what was left of his brains to incoherent slop… instead he let his nightmares examine the data as there were several of them and they had no brains to begin with, they were merely searching for something that was not of the Abarat nor the Hereafter which they could direct to their master. After what seemed like an indeterminable lifetime, which was a given considering he was searching through an index of everything that had ever happened anywhere at anytime, one of his nightmares seemed to have picked up a match.
“Finally!” he groaned, tired of all the waiting he’d had to endure; Carrion was not the type to wait when he could get something done immediately; “Quick, show me what you have found!” he ordered to the nightmare who had found the data, which it promptly conveyed to him via mental link.
Now by nature the Abarat had always been a chaotic place, not in a bad sense mind you, but in the sense that such a place would never come about by normal circumstances, with it’s islands that were perpetually stuck in one of the the day never moving a minute from that time, and it’s magical beasts and both feral and those that populated the cities of the more civilized isles. What Carrion saw in this memory his nightmare found, was that this inherent chaotic nature that was present in the very core of the world had linked it to another world that had a massive entity of chaotic energy, as if the planet was trying to pull more chaotic energies from other places to improve the chaotic nature of it’s landscape. With a bit of searching he discovered that this link led to a more sunny, colorful realm of existence, where everything looked as if it had been rounded off in a cartoonish fashion… the sight disgusted Carrion to no end, causing him to almost wretch at the sight, though given the circumstances this was his best chance at recovering Gorgossium from his grandmother. He searched through the realm trying to find the point of connection between this new world and his own. He eventually found the point in a clearing, where a broken, blood red horn lay in the middle of a clearing emanating with poisonous, chaotic energy. It was surrounded by plants of all types colored with darker blues, greens and purples, indicating that this must be some sort of forest.
He knew he did not have much time left before he would have to leave the Spire to keep himself sane and whole, so he would have to make this brief and return at a later date.
“Go my minions! Travel to this new realm and bring the eternal darkness of midnight unto them. Use your nightmare to bend the inhabitants of this world to my will. Then my army may rise against that vile witch to destroy her once and for all! I will return later when you have gathered my forces, though for now I must leave, for this Spire’s magic is beginning to affect me…”
As Carrion all but severed his mental link to the nightmares, leaving only their orders, and the ability to setup a visual link. He unhinged his boat for the small spire he had docked at, while his nightmares began slithering through this memory using the power of the stream to enter this universe. Seeing this Carrion made his departure and began the boat ride back to Vesper’s Rock where he would await the news of his nightmare completing their assigned duty. He was very pleased that things were beginning to go his way.
Several days later, Zecora the zebra, sole resident of the Everfree Forest was traveling to Ponyville, dressed in her regular robes and cloak on one of her monthly visits to stock up on the ingredients necessary for her magical brews. While she was traveling down her normal path, she noticed something was not right in the forest, and a malevolent force had begun to invade and corrupt the forest. She went to inspect the source of the strange malign energy. When she found the clearing that was exuding the waves she noticed nearly all the soil clearing was a black purer than she had ever seen. Leaving the clearing she saw something she had never seen before, several wispy shades traveling out in different directions, and she noticed that where they went, the black ‘abyss’ seemed to stretch further in that direction
“These creatures unchecked cannot be good, for soon this abyss will cover the entire wood!” exclaimed Zecora in her usual rhyming voice.
She decided to follow one of the creature and see what they were doing to cover the Everfree in this darkness. Upon catching up to one of the wisps, she noticed it hovering over a group of sleeping timberwolves, extending a bubble of dark force over the usually docile beasts, after which the wolves began to thrash wildly with pained looks on their faces until a few moments later, the thrashing stopped and the timberwolves rose from their slumber, though the usual light in their eyes was gone, replaced by the same inky gloom as the clearing, and they began to walk off to wait back where the wisps had came from. Zecora concluded that these shades were corrupting the flora and fauna of the Everfree, in some mad attempt to convert the entire forest in the one gargantuan mass of stygian gloom, and she hardly believed they would stop there.
“These evil creatures are not a joke, I must go and warn the ponyfolk!” Zecora shouted as she turned tail and bolted towards the town. The only ponies she knew that could help her with these creatures were Twilight Sparkle and her friends, along with aid from the Princesses...