IV — In Death's Lea
Perhaps sensing impending events, the windigos howled long and hard throughout the night, their screams pulsating gales which spoke directly to my hindbrain. The fire ruby fence made me very glad in the long, dark hours before the dawn. When dawn did come, we were overrun by beating snows. Snows came and went in the Uncharted North, but this storm attacked with a particular savagery. It came down from the north upon overgrown clouds which boiled in the sky. The Watcher sub-expedition's safety came to mind at once. Our camp provided a robust shield against even the harshest of nature's furies, but the sub-expedition had less hardened defences.
Upon the completion of breakfast, I sought out Spike and had him send a message north. The dragon fire bottles could receive messages as easily as send, and the sub-expedition was meant to keep a careful watch for any such communications. How Spike knew which bottle to send to, I cannot say, but he did. Some facet of dragon magic perhaps.
The message I sent wasn't overly complicated or alarmist — merely enquiring as to the sub-expedition's health, their experiences in the recent storm and requesting a response. When no reply came by 10am I grew worried. When the storm broke at 12 noon with still no word, my unease grew worse. When 1pm passed with no contact, either in reference to my letter or general information, I called a meeting.
Doctor Rodinia, Bingo, Steelheart, Captain Longarrow of the Aeolipyle, a Svalbarding pegasus by the name of Storm Chaser, Spike and I met in the main hall, at a none too sturdy table off to one side. I set out my position, and this time my concerns were given greater weight. Longarrow especially respected my apprehension, knowing well the power of storms from plying the skies outside weather tamed Equestria. Rodinia thought we should wait, perhaps to after the day's end message would normally arrive. During the earlier parts of the expedition, the teams did indeed report in only once a day, but Rock Watcher carried sufficient dragon fire bottles to make frequent contact both desirable and practical. Part of me wanted to agree with her — mostly so I could maintain my perilous grip on nothing being wrong — but I shook my head. Waiting for late evening would push back the arrival of any rescue party, possibly by as much as a day if conditions made a night take off too hazardous to attempt.
Nods came from around the table, including the fallow Bingo. His was the only vote which truly mattered besides my own, and I breathed a little easier to see it. I had other options available to me, but I didn't want to use them if I could avoid it. I had Spike send one final message (warning of dire consequences if a reply was not immediately forthcoming) and began planning my departure.
There was no doubt that I would lead the rescue attempt. It was why Princess Celestia had assigned me this mission, and the expedition knew I'd planned for just such an eventuality, almost excessively so. I proposed to use a single flying kart, rather than the two we had available. This would give me maximum speed, by allowing me to concentrate flight teams. There'd be just enough room to lift everypony back in a worst case scenario, though it would involve leaving all equipment behind and squeezing tight. To further maximise speed, I planned to take eleven of the twelve remaining Svalbarding pegasi. This would give me almost two full crews and allow for constant high-speed travel, day and night. Barring catastrophe, we needn't slow once the entire trip. The odd pony out would stay at the main camp, to lead the Aeolipyle south should some unthinkable catastrophe occur.
The assembled council agreed the plan with a nodding of heads, and I moved onto whom to bring. Spike was a must, forming the linchpin to our communication web as he did, as was Doctor Steelheart. Bingo put his own name forward, citing his previous experience with the Mountains of Discord and the route to get there. Strangest of all, Doctor Steelheart agreed. "If I'm going, and I surely must, then Bingo needs to go with me. This never would have happened if he'd gone south like I ordered, but as is, he needs my care." Finally I co-opted one of the Aeolipyle's navigation unicorns. He'd be essential in locating the beacon deployed at Rock Watcher's camp.
In Bingo and my absence, I left Captain Longarrow in charge. "If you think you need to leave," I told him, "do so. Tie everypony else up if you need too."
The final member of the rescue party came in the form of Derpy Hooves, expedition mailmare. In the panic over lost contact, I'd quite forgotten to report yesterday's discoveries to the wider world, and recent events made caution advisable.
Derpy Hooves, wall-eyed as always, spoke forcefully concerning her desire to help ponies, pointing out that she was a strong flyer and had much experience in the cold weather from her trips south. Moved by her passion, I agreed that she might accompany me. Secretly I had a second reason. With Derpy at my side, less information would leak to the outside world. Run away rumour could do great damage to our enterprise if the loss of contact yet proved benign. Even in the event of disaster, misinformation could easily eclipse the truth.
One hour after Spike sent his second message, we left in the flying kart. Although I'd been in similar karts many times, this was my first experience of the expedition's modifications. The fire rubies glowed like a field of stellar embers on the hull and formed a shimmering barrier of heat around the kart. It helped the draft pegasi stand the cold and provided a shield against the nastier inhabitants of the Uncharted North.
It took Watcher five days to reach his dig sight, along a zigzagging route. I did it in under two. We flew day and night, using a rolling shift system. Every hour, two pegasi would come off and two well rested ponies would go on. Mountain Flower volunteered to take up the slack caused by our uneven numbers, but Derpy insisted on doing her part, making it unnecessary.
In order to take my mind off my anxious nerves, I had the navigation unicorn teach me the beacon locating spell. He expressed shocked at the speed I picked it up, but magic is my special talent; it's a rare piece of spellcraft I need demonstrated more than once. The result wasn't what I expected. When I'd imagined the spell at all, I'd thought of a mental arrow or a magical pull in a specific direction. The truth was stranger. Beacons sung songs, filling the luminous aether with their harmonious music. To locate one, you listened to it, coaxed it, and made it sing true and strong so it alone filled the universe. Once you did that, you followed the music of the crystal spheres to your destination.
Over the final six hours of the journey, a pressure built within me. Apprehension formed an important part, but there were other components. The further north we travelled, the more 'off' the world seemed. Much as the letters described, the light made my eyes water. It was as if some malignant eldritch god had cut the sun's rays, leaving only a ragged edged half for me to see. As metaphors go it is rather nonsensical, but I intend this as an emotive piece, not a technical report. The Mountains of Discord were just as titanic as described, and that formed part of it too. They towered into the sky, peaks fit to stab the clouds and, Luna forbid, the moon. When the sky cleared and I looked especially hard, I could sometimes see a shape beyond even them — a cyclopean spire of incomprehensible vastness. It wavered in a reverse heat haze, born from ice not fire. Mirage or truth: neither sat well with me.
We arrived at the dig site at 9am on the 16th of July. The flying kart swooped down and landed on the snow fields outside the camp. A wall of shaped cloud surrounded it, and the sub-expedition's three karts hunkered inside like injured beasts. Electricity sparked intermittently through the wall, as whatever defence the residents had wrought wound down. The draft pegasi stood panting in the kart's heat bubble, and I motioned for them to take a rest. The remainder of the party moved towards the camp. Mountain Flower and Derpy made a hole in the cloud wall, and we carefully moved through. I have previously labelled the Uncharted North a charnel waste. Now it was that in truth.
It is only with reluctance that I relate what I found within that camp. It would be far too easy to speak in generalities and let implication take the place of fact. Perhaps it might even be more effective in my stated goal of deterring a return to those most perilous of mountains (the fear of the unknown being a powerful thing), but I shall not play with words in such a way. This work is my shield against future generations, and only truth will keep it strong.
Ponies covered the ground within the cloud barrier — dead ponies, their bodies preserved by the cold. Pegasi lay on the ground, as if struck down mid-flight. Earth ponies filled the doorways, crumpled like puppets with their strings cut. If any of the unicorns had managed a defensive spell, I saw no evidence for it.
We moved slowly through the field of dead. Nopony said a word, the weight too much. Equestria is a tame land. Nature, weather, even life-and-death are tightly controlled. Sights such as these... It was enough to give even the strongest pony pause. 1500 miles away within her glittering Canterlot palace I could picture Princess Celestia, her eyes so full of hurt and sorrow that my knees almost buckled. She didn't know yet but she would. I'd tell her personally and accept the weight of her pain.
The navigation unicorn stared with horror filled eyes all his own, then dashed into a corner to be violently sick. When he returned, I said, "First we search the camp for whatever did this. If it's gone, we then check for survivors. After that, we search for other evidence. Understand?" The assembled ponies nodded their heads, and I returned the motion. Inside, though, I could only wish it was my friends beside me and not these other ponies. "Now, stay together and keep alert."
Over the following thirty minutes we swept the camp, looking into each flying kart, around every corner and delving the mysteries of all the dark, shadowy crooks. There was no sign of the attacker, only dead pony after dead pony. The effort of keeping a defensive spell always on the tip of my horn grew exhausting. Our search for attackers also proved there were no survivors hiding in forgotten corners, so I motioned for everypony to spread out. I wanted a count of all the dead and their names if possible. If anypony was missing I needed to know. Aware that whatever slaughtered the expedition might yet come back, I also assigned six of the Svalbarding pegasi to guard duty, stationed atop the cloud wall. If anything approached, they were to sound the alarm immediately.
This part of the investigation took three long hours. Decay festered within the karts, a noxious emanation born from rot and necrosis. The fire rubies had kept the cold at bay and blocked its preservative effects. The scent clawed at my nose and throat. Each breath made me want to flee, but I am a pony — a creature of logic and wisdom — and kept such base instincts in check. Mountain Flower trembled each time she looked at a body, feathery black wings making tiny nervous motions. She persevered, though. Spike took the task stoically, face locked hard. Unsurprisingly given her medical training, Doctor Steelhard examined the scene with professional detachment. She looked at each body, made a note on a paper pad and moved onto the next.
Half way through the three hours, she called me over and motioned down at the limp corpse of a peppermint coloured earth pony. It took me a moment to remember his name: Good Herb, a medical student here under Doctor Life Tree. He had two cauterised holes in his head, in one side and out the other. The wounds were common on all the casualties, only their locations shifting.
"They were all killed in the same way," said Doctor Steelhard, under her breath.
"Two attacks to the head," I said. "Some kind of magic. A very focused heat spell, perhaps. Windigos have ice magic, but if there are physical inhabitants of these wastes, they may have developed the reverse to stay warm."
"Not just the head," she said. "The entry points are different on each victim, but all the holes pass through two common points." She touched the top hole with a hoof. "Medulla Thaumus Major." She touched the bottom hole. "Medulla Thaumus Minor. They control conscious and autonomic magic respectively."
A chill passed through my bones at the thought, a psychic cold which bypassed all my protections. Whatever attacked the camp, it knew enough neuroscience to attack a specific place. That spoke of intelligence and not of the base cunning variety either. It meant intellect and learning. The October Codex described dark intelligences which slept in the void between stars and around dying charnel suns. Great Old Ones, it named them, alien gods of such incredible complexity that organic life was like bacteria to them. If the mad zebra was to be believed, the universe was a cold, uncaring place, and I desperately wished him wrong. Looking at the evidence, however, I found it a difficult fear to banish.
The sub-expedition left the main base with thirty-nine ponies aboard its three flying karts. We found thirty-seven. After comparing lists of names we identified the missing ponies: Keen Wit, a unicorn post-graduate, and Professor Rock Watcher himself. I set the rescue team on a renewed search of the base. It revealed naught and left me with only two options. Either they'd managed to escape from the camp or the attacker had taken them. Neither was a thought I wished to dwell on. Ponies wouldn't survive long alone in the Uncharted North.
At the end of the failed search, we gathered in the centre of the camp. The drilling array towered on one side, and the silver egg lurked on the other. Nopony wished to be near the flying karts and their sickly pungent odour. Peculiar colours shimmered over the egg's unbroken surface, and they held a mesmeric power which was hard to deny. The colours swirled and danced and merged and split, iridescent and full of hidden meaning. Derpy was particularly taken with the display, her eyes following the fractal patterns quite independently of each other, rendering her even more wall-eyed than normal.
The newly deceased have a strange necromancy to enforce a deathly quiet, as if some of the grave's dirgeful power passes into the living world with their crossing. I had observed the phenomenon before, and I observed it then. In hushed voices, we discussed what to do next. Search the surrounding area for our missing ponies? Attempt to hunt the attacker? Recover what research we could and head back? All were put forward as options. As we talked, Mountain Flower kept glancing at the silver egg, blinking and looking away. Finally, she raised a hoof. In a quavering voice she put forth an observation: hadn't Rock Watcher described opening the silver egg?
I stared in shock, and Spike cursed under his breath. The egg was closed. Looking closely, I could just see the faint lines of the door. I could also see why we'd missed that fact: the colours stole thought. The egg took the watcher deep into strange aeons, where the waking and un-waking minds were one and wholly focused on the shifting patterns. It was hard to notice even important details in such a state.
As I have previously indicated, Rock Watcher gained entrance into the egg through the use of a harmonic key devised by the unicorn Keen Wit. Unfortunately, Watcher's letter gave no details as to the frequency or amplitude of the sound waves used. I set the rescue party searching for notebooks or writings, belonging to either Rock Watcher or Keen Wit. While they did so, I reached out with my own magic. The silver egg felt like an invisible curved wall of zero resistance; my power slipped off it like water from an oilcloth or the most unnatural of plastics. It was a decidedly queer sensation; magically, I could only feel the egg by its absence.
Ten minutes later, Mountain Flower reappeared, a notebook clutched in her mouth. The cover bore the legend: "Expedition Notes — Professor Rock Watcher." It took me ten minutes more to find and decipher his notes on the harmonic key. They were complicated and written in the abbreviated short-hoof used by many earth ponies, but I persisted and broke the code. I had the key; the only remaining question was how to use it.
Something lurked within the egg, an embryonic unseen terror. I could feel its presence with the back of my teeth. It could be the as yet unmasked attacker, lying in wait for returning ponies. But it could equally well be Keen Wit and Rock Watcher, availing themselves of the egg's preternatural toughness as a shield against that very same attacker. If the latter, though, why not leave long since? I had to prepare for the worst but hope for the best; that was the pony way.
The first and most important thing was to ensure the safety of the rescue party, myself excluded of course. I sent them back to the flying kart, beyond the cloud wall. If they did not hear from me in fifteen minutes, they were to assume the worst and leave. Spike sent me a pained look, but he knew there were some things I had to do alone. My next action was to conjure a powerful barrier shield around the silver egg. It hung invisible in the air, save for where the cold wind caused it to luminesce. That luminescence shimmered in unearthly patterns almost as strange as the colours of the silver egg, but the shield was a necessary precaution. It would keep any unwanted foes contained, much as it had the Cutie Mark Crusader News Reporters those long years ago.
In the centre of a slaughter field, surrounded by wastes which were icy fields of death when the world was young, I reached out with my horn and sent the pulsing sonic key into the silver egg. Xanthous coloured light swirled, and the great enigma opened like a yonic flower. I stepped inside.
The first thing to assault my senses was the smell: urine and faeces, the latter cut with the harsh reek of diarrhoea. A sickly unicorn lay curled in the nearest chair. He looked up at my entrance, and his eyes were the colour of milk. His lips were hard and chaffed. A single hole burnt red in his head. It was Keen Wit.
Not waiting a second I grabbed him with my telekinesis and teleported us both to the rescue team's flying kart. Ponies jumped at my arrival, and several pegasi squawked as they flapped half way into the air. There was no time for that. Doctor Steelheart took one look at Keen Wit and motioned inside the kart. I moved him quickly.
An hour later the news wasn't good, and Steelheart slowly shook her head. "He's dying," she said. "Massive infection and dehydration. More than I can do. And that's only part of it." Her horn glowed, and motes of light gathered around the hole in Keen Wit's head. "This goes right through his Medulla Thaumus Major. That in itself wouldn't be fatal. He'd lose the ability to use magic but live. But the spell scored a path through much of his brainstem. He shouldn't be alive at all."
"I've read papers on ponies surviving massive cranial injuries," I said, "and he is alive. He survived for three days."
"Yes, those cases do exist. Most would be earth ponies, though. Their autonomic magic is the most developed of any pony breed, and their healing can be remarkable at times. But his injuries should have killed him within moments. His breathing should have failed. His heart should have stopped beating. It shouldn't be beating now."
Some power had preserved him. I looked at Keen Wit. Medical equipment clung to his body like plastic leeches, and I could feel the pulsing glow of Steelheart's healing magic at work. Despite all that, death stalked him, its ghoulish breath against his neck. Even over the last hour, he'd deteriorated. Hair fell from his coat in bloody clumps, and rheumy liquid filled his eyes.
Cold preserved but this was no mundane preservation. I thought of the October Codex. Within its time harrowed pages Abdul Alhaizum spoke of the degenerate and detestable Yeb-Ineat. He wrote that to be taken by the Flesh Spinner was to survive for all eternity, your mind subsumed into the Eternal Hive. I thought of the Eohippus Fragments. They spoke of a war between the Mi-go and the Elder Things at the dawn of time, even before the Elder Things arrived at this world in their ships of ice. Its archaic glyphs wrote blood libel against the fungoid invaders, claiming murderous mental foalnap and the use of 'brain cylinders'. Both could sustain life, but neither's hoof was at work here. Only two candidates came to mind: either the attacker had left Keen Wit as some kind of message or the silver egg had preservative properties beyond the blue fluid. I needed to know which.
Keen Wit shifted as I approached and his mouth moved. I leaned closer, and he repeated himself. His words were barely spoken, a hair's breadth above sub vocalized. Still I heard.
"I saw you come," he said, voice withered and worm-eaten. "It showed me you come."
"Keen Wit," I said, in as soft a tone as possible. "I need you to tell me what happened. What attacked you? How did you get in the egg?"
He blinked his milky eyes, and maggot-like masses shifted beneath the lids. "The Elder Things," he said finally. "They came alive. Four of them. Destroyed ETs 5 and 6, burnt them to ash. No heart, no breathing. Just moved. Didn't know what to do. They had weapons. Invisible but flickered red in the falling snow. Two shots to each pony. Dead. Some tried to run. Shot down. I made it to the egg. Tried to close the door. One shot missed. The other hit. But the door closed." He lay silent for a long minute; his breathing rasped like a clattering bone charm. "The egg showed me things. It spoke to me, in my mind. I saw it fall to earth when the ring fell. I saw it damaged and abandoned for countless years. I saw the Elder Things kill the camp. I saw them leave."
"Where?" I said, voice harsher than I intended. "Where did they go? Did they have Professor Rock Watcher with them?"
He looked at me with his sightless eyes. His lips parted, and the flesh broke. Black blood akin to ichorous magma glistened in the gaps. "North... Great spire... Beyond the mountains..."
"And Rock Watcher?"
He didn't respond; within the hour he was dead.
Upon hearing Keen Wit's revelation, I took Spike and searched out the place Professor Rock Watcher had stored the Elder Thing specimens. It was easy to find. During our earlier searches of the camp, we'd remarked upon the place but not unduly. It was something to investigate when the more important task of saving pony lives was complete. Now I looked upon it with new eyes. Ripped apart waterproof canvas lay half buried in the snow. At the bottom I found the charred remains of ETs 5 and 6. There mummified flesh was gone, as were whatever had remained of their internal organs and most of their bones. Only their mechanical augmentations remained, reduced to technological slag by the heat.
The discovery lent credence to Keen Wit's words. While I did not take him for a prevaricator, the hardships of deprivation and injury are well known to unbalance the chemicals of the mind. Such circumstances could birth speaking phantasms and delusions of such detail that only a dispassionate observer could separate them from truth.
But this theory of events did raise new questions. The Elder Things were creatures of unthinkable age. These particular specimens dated to the Hoof-Hammer Event, five hundred million years ago. How could they possibly know the locations of the Medulla Thaumus Major and Medulla Thaumus Minor? While they are among the oldest parts of the brain (with primitive versions existing even in living fossils like the horseshoe crab ) surely the Elder Things could not have targeted them across a half billion year gap.
Furthermore, how could they have possibly performed such a feat at all? I'd seen the photos, read Rock Watcher's letters and deciphered his expedition notebook. The Elder Things were dead. Their hearts did not beat, their brains showed no activity, and despite their remarkable preservation, their internal organs must surely be non-functional after uncounted dark aeons within their silver prison. Had some magic or technology re-animated their corpses? Such things were the stock of unicorn horror stories: forbidden necromantic spells, diabolical zebra potions and chthonic rites performed by earth ponies in the wild places of the world, such as the Everfree Forest. I looked at the burnt remains of the Elder Things and nodded my head.
I gathered the rescue team once more and set out our next step. They muttered and cast fearful glances at the silver egg as I related Keen Wit's story and the horror of the Elder Things. Above storm clouds swirled, dark and morbid. Our time ran short. We would split the team. I'd go north to track the Elder Things and recover Rock Watcher. The others would photograph each dead pony, gather all research notes, and then burn the bodies. The Svalbarding pegasi shifted their wings at this. Cremations are rare among earth ponies and pegasi, who prefer to return their dead to the ground and sky respectively. But there could be no choice, not while the threat of necromancy hung over the camp.
"Spike," I said to my number one assistant. "I need you to do this for me. You're the only one I trust to see it done right."
"Of course, Twilight," he said and made a face. "You can count on me."
The sub-expedition's flying karts would take too long to prepare for a northward journey, and I wanted to take as few ponies into the Mountains of Discord as possible. To avoid the need, I used my magic to retrieve the largest flight sledge from the sub-expedition's equipment store. It wasn't particularly heavy, and I had no problem carrying it to the hard snow field outside the base. Even fully loaded, it required only two pegasi to pull. I made a list of everything I'd need and gave it to Spike. He looked it over, crossed off half the items and passed it back. He was probably quite correct that a seismograph was unnecessary, but some of the other items could have proved useful.
Before I even had a chance to ask for volunteers, Derpy and Mountain Flower trotted forward and began examining the sledge for flight worthiness. Clearly the bond I'd developed with Mountain Flower was worth more than her cultural taboo. Bingo moved forward too, walking slowly due to his recent illness. "I will accompany you."
"I really don't think that's a good idea," I said, temporizing. "You're still injured and will slow us down." That was true but was only half the reason. His eyes glinted with a fanatical light when he looked towards the mountains, and his coat appeared sallow rather than its natural healthy gold. Something deep in my gut said bringing him would be a bad idea.
Bingo narrowed his eyes, and the fanaticism in his gaze turned decidedly feverish, like a focused furnace. "We are both members of the expedition council, Doctor Sparkle," he said. "I have as much say as you."
I met his gaze. "Spike," I said, "the documents." There was no question to what I referred, and he held them up for my magic to grasp. I levitated the topmost so Bingo could see. "This bull is signed by Princess Celestia in her role as Chancellor of Canterlot University. It allows me to assume sole command of this expedition in the event of an emergency. I have a second signed by both Princesses, granting me complete plenipotentiary authority in all matters pertaining to the Uncharted North. Don't make me use it."
The muscles in Bingo's face twitched, and he muttered under his breath. The words were strange and sounded like no language I knew or understood. After that there was nothing more to say. Over the next forty minutes, everypony loaded supplies onto the flight sledge. I helped with my magic and supervised, checking each needed item off my amended list. By the time we were done, the sky had blackened to the colour of an old bruise, and it boiled like molten tar. "Time to go," I said. "Let's make some headway on this weather."
As Derpy Hooves and Mountain Flower hitched themselves to the sledge's harness straps, I turned to Spike. "Your job's to keep everypony alive, Spike. If you can, wait two days here for me. If I'm not back, return to the main base and order the expedition home. Use the documents if you need to. You may act with my full authority in this matter and any other you deem required."
He nodded; I climbed aboard the sledge and set off into the sky.