Gathering Shadows: Part 1
His golden armor and white cape clashed horribly with his dark gray coat and black mane, but he got used to it months ago. Among the Solar Knights that was still a running joke, what with all others having white or off-white coats. A small smile crept onto Somber’s muzzle hidden beneath the white hood. They could poke fun at him, but his revenge pranks were legendary by now and nopony truly could put forth evidence that it was him.
When he thought about it, he did fit in with the rest of the Knights quite well. The first two weeks were the toughest, because as she promised Princess Celestia acquired for him a place to call his own. It turned out to be a small and cozy house in the inner city right by the wall. Such treatment garnered much unwanted attention and snide remarks from his fellow recruits.
Somber sighed. The Grand Master, Count Stronghoof of House Blueblood, was only a bit better than them. Back then it would seem he made it his life’s goal to be cold and uncaring when it came to anything concerning him. Lately when he began doing something more than patrolling the Everfree City their talks became more civil.
“Hey… Captain. We are close, if you want to know.” It was the sarcastic, female voice of one of his traveling companions. A white coated pegasus with violet striped, neon-blue mane and tail named Lightning Flash. The third pony in their group was a pegasus stallion with white coat and a fiery orange-red mane, Blaze.
Lightning has just landed near Somber as she returned from her patrol over the quite dense canopy of trees. The road they were traveling was well kept but the trees around them were large enough to cast shadow on the road as they blocked some of the late afternoon sunlight.
“Well… finally. I got enough of this slow travel…” Blaze’s gruff voice was filled with annoyance. However, he had the right to be annoyed… or so he thought. The travel to their destination took the group the better part of two weeks. And the fire maned pagasus blamed it on their earth bound unicorn captain. When he tried to argue with the gray coated unicorn that he should be doing teleportation jumps, Somber refused citing the need to conserve his strength.
“I personally liked the countryside and wilderness Blaze.” Somber smirked while he responded to the hidden slight. “Besides you have to admit, the Barrier Mountains do look impressive when you slowly walk towards them.”
Their destination as it turned out pretty quickly after their debriefing was a small village at the far north western border of Equestria. The Barrier Mountains, at the base of which the village was built, separated the Ice Plains from the rest of the country.
“To think that we are so close yet so far from our ancient ancestors land...” Lighting Flash said quietly with a thoughtful look on her muzzle.
“If the legends are true you mean. There are only precious few items left from that era and none of them indicates a place of their origin.” Somber added in a thoughtful mood himself. During his six months of training he was invited more than a couple of times for tea with the Princess. It was always in the evening so that everypony would think he was just going home. While in truth a few times in a month he spent an hour or two talking with Celestia. On a few occasions he was given the chance to look at some of the most fascinating items in the Celestial Vault, the storing place for some of the rarest items to which only the Princesses had the key. One of such things was the crown of Princess Platinum, or at least the platinum frame as nine of the crown’s jewels were lost to time and probably thieves before it was found by some adventures historian and then given as a gift to Celestia.
Sadly very few expeditions have been sent to the Ice Plains as they were risky at best. The ground was covered by thick ice and some blizzards were said to last weeks.
“Focus, we’re here.” Blaze interrupted the thoughts of his companions. Suddenly the two of them realized that it was much brighter.
Three pairs of eyes landed on about three dozen randomly arranged run down buildings. All of them were made from wood seeing as the town was build in a large forest clearing. The only unicorn in the group looked up, only to see the mountaintops covered by thick clouds. To his left he saw and heard a stream. There was a great water wheel build that propelled something in what was probably a newly build sawmill.
Some ponies were moving around the town and the newly constructed sawmill, all of them were burly earth ponies.
“So that’s Silent Woods. I don’t know what’s the great deal about it is… Beside that brand new watermill that probably some noble invested into.” Lightning said as she decided to hoover a bit off the ground to get a better view.
“Well, if it’s important to that noble pony that’s not my concern. We had a report about some disturbing happenings around here so we will focus on that and not what’s important to who.” Somber said in a strict voice.
“Then I’m going to look around, ask some questions.” Blaze said as he eagerly stretched his wings and took off without another word.
“Somepony’s impatient…” Lightning said with an amused smirk on her muzzle.
“You know how he is. All action with required minimum of planning.” Somber commented with a sigh. Not long ago but what seemed like a lifetime to him he was the same, so he could sympathize with the brightly colored pegasus. “But he has the right idea, time to ask some questions and get us settled in the village for the time being.”
The pair in a matter of twenty minutes managed to find the local inn. It turned out that the run down exterior was quite deceptive as the interior was warm and cozy. The Woodpecker Inn was also large and packed with clients, as they found out when Somber and Lightning entered.
When the doors closed behind them, almost everypony inside looked at them. For a brief moment all talks ended and activities stopped. And just as suddenly everything resumed as ponies began to lose interest in the appearance of the Royal Guard, or so it seemed.
As Somber moved to the long counter he could see ponies trying to glare at him and look away quickly as they spotted him looking at them.
“Something’s fishy here…” Lightning whispered to him as she moved closer to the dark gray coated unicorn.
The bartender looked at the pair of Royal Guards as they approached him. He was a cream colored pegasus, with a dark brown mane that was cut short.
“How can I help you?”
Somber in turn tried to measure the character of the pony before him.
“We would like to rent rooms, one for two and one single… or a single one with three beds, if you don’t have the two rooms.” It was more of a show of courtesy towards Lightning Flash than anything. She of course just glared at the back of the unicron’s head. Somber knew she didn't like being treated like a delicate mare made of porcelain, as she became something of a tomcolt during the basic training.
“Well Mister Guard, this is more of a workers hotel than anything so we have only rooms with four beds and four chests, and nothing much else. But the food is really good as are the drinks.” The bartender said this while he was cleaning one of the many tankards used by the guests.
“We will take it. Also do tell us has something… extraordinary happened lately in the village?” Somber said while he decided to sit at one of the barstools at the right end of the counter, further from the entrance doors. His neon-blue maned companion decide to also sit down, but she turned around to keep an eye on the Inn’s patrons. The clinking of several gold bits thrown at the counter by Somber briefly caught Lightning’s attention.
The bartender grumbled at being made to move after them but he masked it quite well. he quickly counted the bits, before swiping them behind the counter with one of his wings.
“That will be enough for ten nights.” The cream coated pegasus said and handed Somber a simple iron key, then leaned a bit more forward and lowered his voice as he continued. “Now as to… extraordinary things, as you put it kind stallion. Well it started almost two weeks ago when somepony vandalized Celestia’s shrine, up the stream. After that some of the graves at our local cemetery were found… open…” Now the bartender began to look scared and lowered his voice to a whisper. “And empty!”
Somber frowned, he had two theories right now. Grave robbers or the more sinister one, necromancy.
“Anything else happened?”
“Not really. No undead ponies attacking anypony… or something of the sort. But the villagers and workers are unsettled. We had seven unicorns in our village, but the tensions got high and they moved out.”
The dark gray Royal Guard just nodded his head in understanding and wordlessly tossed a few more bits on the counter, which disappeared as soon as the touched the well worn wood. He turned his head to his right, so that he could look directly at Lightning.
“You heard everything, right?” He asked and she nodded, not even turning around to look at him. “So what do you make of this?”
“The tension is high that much I can tell after watching the crowd. They kept trying to stealthily glare at your back. Royal Guard or not they will distrust any unicorns at this point.” She said with a quiet sigh. “As the the other things… We should investigate.”
“Then we will just check out the room now and then move out.”
The room they were given truly was a simple one. Four simple beds with spacious chests at the foot of every bed. There was also a round table with four chairs and bucket full of clean water.
After they got a look at the room, they decided to split up. Lightning Flash would go to Celestia’s shrine while Somber visited the cemetery.
**********
A short walk later Somber found himself at the outer edge of the clearing in which Silent Woods was built. The sun was setting casting eerie shadows around him.
He was standing before the small iron gate that was closed. Around the cemetery a low wall was raised from stones, it was topped with iron spikes forming a simple but effective fence. With his emerald magic he opened the gate and walked forward.
his first observation was that trees had to be cut down to form the clearing for cemetery. Some stumps still remained. Directly across from the gate, in the shadows was a small, round, stone building. It was decorated with black stone and dark wood.
As he walked forward Somber counted seven rows of graves on both sides of the alley, with more space unoccupied. To his right he could see a moderately sized mound of freshly dug out earth.
When he reached the stone building he realized what it was. It had no doors so he could see inside. There was a bust of a slender alicorn mare made from dark lapis.
“Luna…” The name escaped his lips unintentionally. It was sad really, that the local ponies decided to link Luna with death. A weak gust of cold wind ruffled his mane making him quickly look behind him, only to find nothing. He shook his head and decided to look around.
He only found a lot of burnt out candles for the most part and some dried Poison Joke.
Having found nothing of interest he decided to look at the graves. Quickly he spotted one of the opened ones. He carefully approached it before looking down. It really was empty, no bones or any other matter was left. But what intrigued him was how straight the walls of the hole were.
The dark gray unicorn was turning around to confirm that the others were dug out the same way, when he felt a pull on his magic. His magical sens have sharpened during his training, he was nowhere as good as Glimmer was as that was her talent… but he could feel magic, if it was sufficiently powerful. And he discovered to his dismay that he was especially sensitive when it came to…
“Dark Magic.” Somber said with a voice full of contempt.
He heard, rather than saw the beating of the wings as it was now night. He jumped into the open grave and then looked up and round. At first he saw nothing, and after ten minutes decided to get out of the hole he was in.
Then he saw it, a squad of five pegasus with bat wings and dark armour. They were hardly recognizable on the night sky but he knew that armor quite well. The Night Guard was flying low and they were in a hurry apparently.
After waiting for another hour in the opened grave and seeing no more of the bat looking ponies, he got out. The moist dirt was everywhere on his now not-so-white cloak.
It was a long fifteen minutes walk before Somber entered the Inn. Even the cozy and warm interior could not lift his mood. He quite easily spotted Lightning Flash and Blaze sitting and talking by the table in the far corner. The crowd that gathered in the Inn didn’t slow him down as everypony moved away from him. By the time he sat down, his companions had worried looks on their muzzles.
“Something happened captain?” Blaze asked with a bit of concern leaking into his voice.
“Nothing much. But now I have even more questions than I began this day with.” Somber answered reaching for a pint that a waitress brought for him. How she knew he needed a drink, he didn't truly care. The Ale was weak but quite good.
Lightning and Blaze looked at each other before the neon-maned pegasus decided to clear her throat to get the dark gray unicorn’s attention. Somber looked up.
“At the shrine I found nothing to indicated who vandalized it. But the damage is extensive and whoever did it was in a hurry. However… I found this.” She reached to one of her small traveling bags and pulled out a pendant on a chain.
It was made from dark almost black iron, it looked crude. But it’s shape stumped Somber so much, that he wrapped it in his emerald magical aura and levitated it closer to him. It looked like a unicorn’s head connected with a crescent moon.
“Have you ever seen something like that captain?” This time Blaze asked with curiosity and a bit of worry in his voice.
Somber kept looking at the small pendant as it turned around slowly in his aura. In the dim light of the Inn and the emerald glow of his magic it looked almost ominous. When it turned by the right angle he finally saw what looked like a draconic eye looking back at him from the iron.
“No…” Somber said quietly, frowning. “Nothing like that.”
The iron trinket found it’s way into one of his cloaks inner pockets. He took a long swig from his pint.
“And what about you Blaze, what did you find out?” The dark gray unicorn asked looking at him directly.
“Not much that you probably don't know. From the time of the vandalizing of the shrine of our Princess and emptying of the graves, nothing more happened.” Blaze leaned a bit forward. “But I found out and interesting small fact. Some ponies swear that they see almost every night the Night Guard flying north, into the mountains.” He looked from Somber to Lightning. ”Now the truly intriguing part, there are no forts or any registered outpost in this region. So what are they doing here so often?”
Somber leaned back in his chair, he took another swig from his pint now held by his magic.
“Now isn’t that the question?”
The rest of the night was spent mostly in silence as the trio pondered the many questions that they had. In the end it was decided that Lightning Flash and Somber would go into the mountains and Blaze would stay in the village just in case something happened.
**********
Somber and his mare companion were walking for a few hours now, they started at the sunrise so it was now around noon. Lightning Flash was surprisingly quiet for now.
The dark gray unicorn used the time to think about the pendant that was hidden in one of his pockets. Did they have a new cult to worry about? It would seem so. He knew that when they returned Celestia would have to be informed.
“Somber.” His name being called brought him out of his thoughts. He looked around only to see Lightning closely examining one of the bushes.
They were deep in the forest where no paths existed. The air was also getting progressively cooler as they moved even closer towards the mountains proper.
The dark gray unicorn moved to stand beside his companion and tried to see what she saw. She was pointing a hoof towards one of the leafs. He leaned forward and frowned. He took a tentative sniff and jerked his head back. It was dried blood, old one too.
“At least we are on going in the right direction.” Somber said with a deep frown.
By the time the sun was beginning to set they reached a stone wall, that was the base of the mountains. Somber and Lightning had to begin walking parallel to it until they found a canyon or anything that would lead them deeper into the mountain chain. When the moon rose over the horizon, they finally found it. It was a narrow, rocky path.
“We have to ditch the armor and cloaks.” Somber declared silently with an unhappy tone. Lightning just sighed but nodded nonetheless. Making too much noise would do them no good, as well as being spotted by moonlight reflected on their golden armor.
So lighter and quieter, they entered the mountain range after hiding their Royal Guard Armor in a hollow tree trunk. In a flash of inspiration Somber decided to put on the pendant.
His hooves were beginning to feel sore because of the sharp rocks he was walking on. Somber knew that, if they continued for a few more miles his hooves would be bleeding.
“Get down!” Lightning’s quiet warning came just in time for the dark gray unicorn to lay flat on the ground as a squad of Night Guards flown over them.
After a few minutes they both continued their walk onwards.
By the time Somber was ready to begin cursing the rocky path silently, he found himself facing an open space. He quickly crouched and waved his hoof at Lightning Flash making her move silently to crouch beside him.
They both quickly spotted what they were probably looking for. It looked like a temples facade, only chiseled in solid stone wall.
“What in Celestia’s name is that?” The pegasus mare asked with a bit of fear in her voice.
“I don’t know. But it’s old… ancient maybe.” The longer he looked at the… structure, the better he saw how the time had left it’s mark on it. Crumbled pillars, unrecognizable statues or in some cases just a pile of rocks, fragments of writing where probably whole stories were once written. “We should go in. That’s our best bet right now Lightning.”
“The way is clear, no guards or anything…” She said mostly to herself.
Their decision made they both moved as quickly and silently as they could.
The entrance chamber was quite small an undescriptive. Inside they finally found evidence of recent activity. A campfire that still had warm ashes in it. Carefully they moved into the next room which turned out to have a wide staircase leading deeper into the ground.
“I got your back.” Lightning said and he nodded before beginning the long descent.
At the end of them, the stairs opened into an enormous cave. It was deep enough that it looked to have no bottom. It’s width… Somber had no doubt that the Everfree City would fit into this cave many times over. It was a breathtaking view. In the dim light, coming from the naturally occurring crystals in the cave walls, he saw far to many to count delicate stone bridges, towers, gigantic balconies and tunnel entrances. It was like a maze, half made by… something or somepony half formed by nature.
“Incredible…” He said with awe in his voice. Somber began looking around searching for clues as to what this place was but was unlucky. He looked at the white coated pegasus mare, with determination shining in his emerald eyes. “We need to go deeper.”
Lightning Flash nodded and spread her wings, there was enough place to fly here. She saw Sombers concerned look when he realized what she wanted to do.
“I’ll be careful, don’t worry about me.” She said and as quietly as she could lifted off and began a slow aerial reconnaissance.
Somber approached the almost destroyed stone railing that separated the balcony he was currently on form the dark abyss of the cave. He waited for almost half an hour before he saw Lightning Flash again.
“And did you find anything?” Somber asked with barely restrained curiosity and relief.
“I will guide you downward to the lowest point I could access without getting spotted. There is a lot of activity down there.” She looked at the ark gray unicorn as he stared at her, she facehoofed. “I will hover above places you can safely teleport too.”
“I don't think this is the best idea Lightning.”
“You can do that or wander the maze of the tunnels, bridges and Celestia knows what else…” She said crossing her front forelegs in a display of stubbornness. “I checked the places, nopony will see even a tiny flash of your magic.”
The dark gray stallion sighed. He truly didn’t want to wander in this old maze, but he was concerned that the unicorn that raised the dead could be here. He could be giving away his position every time he teleported if the unicorn was a good sensor. In the end of a few minutes long inner debate he decided to risk it.
It took him all in all seven jumps to reach the lowest point they could reach in such a manner. As Somber crawled to the edge of the small ledge he was currently on, he saw below himself two Night Guards patrolling a stone bridge below him.
“This place is freaking me out…” It was muffled by the distance, but the pair of the Royal Guards could still understand what their counterparts were talking about.
“We’re not going to be stationed here for much longer. She’s getting impatient and Bones is walking on thin ice as it is.”
“Don't remind me... made quite a mess... almost compromised us too... the foal.” The venom in this dark guard’s voice was clear even from the distance. But as they were walking further away the conversation began to reach Somber and Lightning in parts.
When the two Night Guards disappeared in the far left tunnel entrance Somber decided to act. With a thought he quickly and silently teleported onto the bridge and began walking towards the tunnel on the right side. A heartbeat later his pegasus companion landed beside him.
“I’m beginning to think, that we stumbled upon something much bigger than a simple necromancer playing with his powers.” Lightning said with a bit of sarcasm in her voice.
“You don’t say.” Somber answered frowning. So deep in the cave he had to light his horn with magic to give them light. It increased the chances of being discovered but without the Mage Light, they would be walking almost blind.
The deeper they went, the air became more stall and filled with the odour of decay. Twice since they overheard the first pair of the gourds on the bridge, they had to duck into side alcoves or tunnels to avoid a run in with other patrols.
But those close encounters allowed them to piece a bit more of the puzzle that was unraveled before them. It seemed like they were dealing with the more radical faction of Night Guard, a secret one, that evolved into a new cult centered about a twisted vision of Princess Luna.
After another two close calls, Somber and Lightning Flash arrived at a second floor balcony overlooking a great rectangular hall. It looked like a temple’s interior with its slim columns, arcs and many small and large alcoves. In the alcoves they could make out elaborately decorated tombs. At the far end they could make out massive stone doors covered with runic writings and a design of circles and lines forming mostly stars. All of it was surprisingly preserved in excellent condition.
Almost immediately Somber knew why this part of the maze was almost intact by time. The feeling of magic in the air and stone around them was almost suffocating.
As the two of them moved in the shadows closer to the highly decorated doors they saw how most of the free space was converted into a temporary camp, with almost two dozen cultist ponies milling around.
What both Somber and Lightning didn’t see was two shadows trailing behind them.
When the dark gray unicorn heard the unmistakable sound of a hoof hitting Lightning’s head it was already too late. Somber’s world swirled around him and exploded with pain as he felt a cold, metal clad hoof hit him in the back of his head. He was unconscious before he hit the stone floor.