Pith stamped one hoof against the undergrowth. "He'll come back down in a minute, Tails," he said, staring upward. "He wouldn't just run off on us."
Slowly, the pegasus lowered herself, but her worried expression remained. "He just looked so panicked," she said. "How do you know he isn't just going to leave?"
"'Cause I've got his key in my saddlebags," he answered shortly. "Calm down."
"Why are you so worried about him flying off, anyway?" Compass asked. She wasn't looking at either of them; she had the map hovering in front of her and was studying it by the light from the windows of the house. "He's a dragon. I'm sure he can take care of himself."
Tailspin gave one quick flap, still frowning. "He just woke up, he's alone, he's confused, and he's scared," she said, her voice a bit sharper now. "Even if he can take care of himself, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to help him." She glanced towards Pith. "I don't think he should just be left alone out here."
Pith nodded. "We'll stick with him," he said. "He'll need help finding what he's looking for, probably."
Compass shrugged, rolled up the map, and floated it back into her saddlebag. "Fine," she said. "Any sign of him up there?"
Even as she asked it, they heard the sound of Spike's scales against the thorns, followed by the rhythmic thump-thump of his wings. A moment later, the dragon came into view, illuminated by Pith's helmet lamp. He was looking somber.
"Sorry about that," he said, as he touched down. "I just... had to see that for myself." He glanced upward again. "Things are worse than I thought."
"I'm guessing things weren't like that before," said Pith. Spike shook his head.
"Nope. Last time it happened, things were bad. Really bad." He sighed and lowered his gaze to the three of them again. "We need to get moving."
Compass nodded. "Do you know the way, then, or do you need the map?"
Spike shrugged. "I used to know the way," he said wryly. "I don't think the vines are gonna make finding it again easy, though."
"Right, then." Compass sighed, and a look of concentration crossed her features for a moment. Her horn flashed, and she turned to point off into the darkness with it. "That way."
Pith nodded and stepped forward. He heard the other two fall into step behind him, followed by the slightly different, more metallic sound of Spike walking at the rear. As they neared the edge of the clearing, and Pith started to shove his way between the vines again, he heard the dragon say, "I'm impressed that you can even get your magic to work in here. I thought plunder vines messed with unicorn horns."
"They do," Compass answered, as she picked her way over the treacherous footing underhoof. The ground here was littered with dead branches and half-buried stones. It would be easy to fall, if not careful. "Or anyway," she continued, "they do when you're near the edge, where it's more... awake, I guess. The vines here don't move much. The closer you get to the outside, the worse it gets. If you get too close to the edge of the Tangle outside, it's not pretty."
"Then how'd you get in?" Spike asked. Pith was only half-listening. One of his hooves had come up to retrieve his machete again, and he was busy hacking through some bracken that was blocking their path.
It was Tailspin who answered. "That'd be Pith," she said brightly. The earth pony paused for a moment when he heard his name, then sighed and went back to clearing the way for the rest. "He's one of the best we've got for stuff like this. He practically lives out here." A pause. "Well, uh, places like this. Obviously he doesn't live in the Tangle."
Pith paused again, sighed, and called over his shoulder, "You're selling yourself short again."
Tailspin laughed, and Pith turned away again. At least she seemed to be loosening up around the dragon. She was always nervous when things started up. He preferred her like this, chatty and casual. "Right," she was saying. "And me. We're partners, most of the time. He knows pretty much everything you'd ever want to know about plants and things. Most animals, too. Between the two of us, we can usually get through the outside without too much trouble. The vines are tough, but you can-"
Pith tuned them out. For the next ten minutes, he was content to let the other three chatter as they pleased while he made sure that the path was clear. The extent of his conversation with the rest was an occasional check-in with Compass to make sure they were still on the right track.
Around them, the vines seemed to be getting thicker, and the darkness was pressing in on every side. If they got lost in this, there would be almost no chance of finding their way out again. And in the shadows, it was almost impossible to see if anything was watching them.
There were dangerous creatures in the Tangle. Cockatrices, manticores, timberwolves...
Something crunched underfoot.
...and worse.
He looked down. The light of his helmet lamp glistened off something black that had caked over the ground. It looked like some sort of tar that had solidified. It had an almost resin-y quality. The crunching sound had been it cracking slightly under the weight of his hoof.
He spun on the spot and hissed at the others to be quiet, then motioned for Tailspin to come forward. She wormed her way through the vines toward him, then scowled when she spotted the black substance.
They looked at each other, then nodded once each. Pith turned and jerked his head towards the other two. "Stay quiet," he whispered.
Spike and Compass were frowning now, too. "What is it?" Compass hissed. "We're almost there. Why have we stopped?"
Pith pointed down. "Changelings."
Now the four of them were creeping through the tiny gaps in the vines in complete silence. Tailspin was acting as a rear guard, watching for any signs of pursuers. Pith had put away his machete again. The sound of his chopping through the plant life was too loud to risk. Between them, Spike and Compass Rose were doing their best to avoid making any noise whatsoever.
He wished that he could turn off his helmet lamp. In the sudden, tense sharpness of the perpetual gloom in the Tangle, it seemed blindingly strong. He was certain that they could be seen for miles around. But it was the only way they would be able to move forward, and none of them had even voiced the option of turning back. Spike, he was certain, wouldn't even consider it.
The vines here were showing more and more signs of changeling habitation. The black resin that they secreted covered most of the trees, and large pools of it had collected on the forest floor itself. It hung from the vines like stalactites, and glistened, beetle-black, whenever their helmet lamps shone on it.
Pith stopped and turned to let the others catch up. As they drew up to him, Tailspin gave him a quizzical look, but he ignored it for now. He looked to Spike instead.
"This castle," he muttered. "What're the odds the changelings haven't gotten inside?"
The dragon snorted, and there was a brief flare of green flame in the darkness. "Twilight put her best spells on that castle," he answered. His voice was a low rumble. "Nopony gets in without that key."
Pith scowled, but nodded. "Fine," he said. "I'm trusting you on this. But is there anything else we should know about this place?"
Spike furrowed his brow for a moment, apparently thinking. "There's a gorge around it," he said, after a moment. "Only one way across. Twilight had a bridge built across it. Stone and magic. Strong stuff. Should still be there."
Pith cast his eyes upward, scanning the vines and resin overhead. Leaves rustled in the distance. "So you're telling me," he said slowly, "that we've got to cross a single, very obvious point to get to this place."
Spike blinked. "Uh. Yeah." He snorted again. "But, in my defense, I didn't know there were changelings here before."
Pith opened his mouth to speak again, but Tailspin cut across him. "Relax, Pith," she hissed. "We've avoided them so far. We don't even know if they're watching the bridge. If nopony can get in, maybe nopony has come out, and they've stopped paying attention to it."
Pith grunted, but gave a reluctant nod. Once again, he lifted his head to look upwards. He was certain he could hear rustling, closer now than before, but he couldn't see any signs of movement. "Right." He turned away again. "Let's get there quick, then. Hanging out here more than we've got to isn't a good idea."
More and more resin. Now the ground was entirely covered with it, and if he wasn't careful to step lightly, Pith found his hooves being greeted with a quiet crunch every time he set them down again. The vines and thorns were covered with it. The four of them walked together through a world that consisted of nothing but chitinous blackness and the pools of pale illumination from their helmet lamps.
Tailspin was the next one to speak. She had made her way up next to him now, and spoke in hushed tones too quiet for anyone else to hear.
"No changelings."
Pith nodded, then glanced back towards the other two, bathing them in yellow light again. Compass had one hoof outstretched, feeling ahead of herself for any unseen obstructions. Spike just blinked in the light, his pupils sharpening to slits again.
"Not complaining," he murmured. "Should be in back. Compass."
Tailspin nodded, and started to move back to the rear of the group just as he turned forward again. He took one step and felt his gut lurch as he pitched forward. There was no ground, just a yawning chasm - and the vines.
It was Compass who caught him. The mare had jumped forward and wrapped both of her forelegs around his waist, pulling back hard just before he went headlong into the abyss. "Careful!" she yelped. "The gorge!"
Pith fought to regain his balance on its edge, then turned to the unicorn and panted, "Thanks." He glanced back towards the cliff. For a moment, he wondered how he hadn't seen it. Then he realized that it was just as black as the rest of the forest, and the vines were still there, still covered in resin. They grew up out of the gorge in thick cables, just as pervasive there as anywhere else. Even with the helmet lamp pointed straight at it, even knowing it was there, it almost managed to be invisible.
"Keep your voices down," hissed Tailspin. She was fluttering nervously in the air again, despite the lack of room to move. Her eyes were cast upwards, scanning the darkness for signs of movement. "They'll hear."
"Actually," said Spike, also looking up, "I don't think they will." The rest of them gave him a confused look, and he shrugged. "Look," he continued, tapping one talon against the forest floor, "I don't know about you, but I've noticed that we aren't really being all that quiet to begin with. Three ponies and a dragon, moving around between vines and thorns that usually have less than three feet between them, with crunchy stuff underfoot... I mean, we'd be pretty obvious even if you didn't have the lights." He pointed at their helmet lamps. "I don't think there's anypony here to hear us."
Pith frowned. The thought had crossed his mind. "Maybe," he said slowly. He straightened up. "Whether or not they knew we were here before, they know now. We just shouted loud enough to wake up the whole Tangle. Let's get to this castle, fast. Where's this bridge?"
"Map," muttered Compass. She retrieved it from her saddlebag, then moved up to stand next to Pith to use his helmet lamp as a light. He watched her stare at the page for a moment, then scrunch her face up in concentration as she cast her spell again. Then she pointed off to the right. "That way."
It didn't take them long to find the bridge. It was still intact, at least, but it didn't look particularly sturdy. It was wide enough for two carts to cross at the same time, but it somehow managed to look delicate in spite of that, with guard rails that looked more ornamental than anything.
It might have been beautiful, once. Now, it was overgrown with the thick vines of the Tangle. They twisted over its surface and through the arches on the guard rails, and the whole thing was covered in the black resin that marked it as changeling territory. From a certain angle, it looked as though the vines were the tentacles of some great beast looming up from out of the chasm, frozen in the act of seizing the bridge to drag it down into the depths.
Spike scowled when he saw it. "This place used to be gorgeous," he said. "Now look at it."
"Looks just like everything else to me," said Compass, as she put one hoof onto it. She pressed down tentatively, with the air of one unsure of whether or not it would actually take their weight.
"That's my point."
"Let's just get across," said Pith flatly. He strode onto it, leading the way once again. "The castle isn't far from here, right?"
"No," said Spike. "Not far." He followed the earth pony onto the span, rumbling his disapproval as he did so. After a moment, he added, "It smells like rot here."
Pith sniffed. "Smells fine to me."
"Well, not here, exactly," said the dragon. "Down there." He strode to the edge of the bridge, snaking his way over the vines that lay across it, and pointed into the gorge. "It reeks."
Pith shrugged and kept walking forward. It was slow going, with the vines criss-crossing the bridge at all angles and the footing made uneven by the hardened resin. Behind him, he heard Compass ask, "What's down there, anyway?"
"That used to be where the Tree of Harmony was," Spike answered. There was a moment's silence, a sigh, and then, "A magic tree. It kept all these vines from growing. But I'm guessing it's not there any more." He paused again. "I guess that means this is where all these vines started growing, too."
There was the sound of a quill scratching on parchment. Pith didn't even have to turn around to know that Compass was adding another marker to her map. Then she said, "And you really think that you'll find this Twilight pony at this castle."
Another silence, longer this time. Pith clambered bodily over a particularly thick vine, slipped slightly at the top, and only just managed to keep himself from falling head-first down the other side.
"Not really," Spike said. "I wish I could say I did, but with how bad everything is, it's obvious that she isn't able to help right now. She won't be anywhere normal, or safe. But this was her castle, and she wrote everything down. There might be something there that tells us where she went."
"Will you hurry up?" Pith called over one shoulder. He stepped off the other end of the bridge and came to a halt, waiting. As he stood, he found his eye drawn to the chasm again. Something about it made it difficult to look away. Perhaps it was a trick of his eyes, but the vines in it might have been twisting and moving, the same way they did at the very edges of the Tangle. Some part of him wondered if they were still growing down there.
Spike's claws landed on the ground beside him with a series of sharp clicks. "Right," said the dragon sharply. "Not far. Stick with me - I know the way." He jerked his head, indicating that Pith should follow, and strode off into the darkness.
And now there was the castle in front of them. It was hard to make out more than the vaguest outlines in the darkness, and even they could only be guessed at. The castle itself was almost entirely buried under a mass of vines. Up above, at the very edge of his helmet lamp's area of illumination, Pith could just barely make out the shape of a statue. What it was a statue of, he couldn't tell. Parts of it had been crushed and snapped off; bits of jagged, broken stone were visible here and there through the vines that had seized it and twisted it apart.
Like they're choking it to death, he thought.
But ahead of them, the double doors were still standing. The wide staircase leading up to them was covered in resin and vines, but the doors themselves stood clear from the rest. They were massive, taller than most houses Pith had seen, and almost as wide. Painted on the surface was an image of two alicorns, one white and one black, with the sun and the moon over their heads. The images weren't even scratched.
Spike was grinning again, sitting on his back legs in front of the doors and beaming at the rest. "See?" he said. "Told you. Nobody gets in without the key. The vines can go over it all they want, but they can't get in."
Compass was gaping up at the pictures. "This is amazing," she breathed. "I can't believe this place is actually still standing. I expected to find ruins, not an actual intact castle."
Spike puffed up his chest. "Twilight Sparkle was the greatest spell-weaver in Equestria," he said proudly. "She built her spells to last. Pith, do you still have the key?"
Pith lowered his gaze from the statue, then nodded and retrieved the key from his saddlebags. He picked his way over the vines on the staircase to stand in front of the doors, then blinked.
"Uh," he said. "There's no keyhole."
Spike laughed. "Of course not," he said, still grinning. "It's magic. Just touch the door with the key."
Pith shrugged, glanced down at the key, and turned his hoof to press it against the wood.
There was a rumble like an earthquake, and the doors began to swing inward. Spike didn't even wait for them to finish swinging open. He just strode through, right past Pith, grinning like a maniac. "Come on," he said brightly as he passed. "The library's this way."
Pith waited for Compass and Tailspin to go in before he moved. He stood on the castle steps for a moment longer, looking up at the vines that choked the castle. Then he looked around, towards the chasm and the resin-covered bridge.
Some part of him thought that it heard rustling close by, but there was no sign of anything moving.
Slowly, he turned and followed the rest inside.