The Old Empire: Twilight

by D101 Reviews

Chapter One

The rabbit had been run over mere moments before. Its pink eyes were glaze over and blood stained its clean white fur. Unnaturally clean fur, for it had clearly just escaped from a fresh bath. It still smelt faintly of lavender water.

A tall, curiously pale young woman stood over the rabbit. Her indigo hair had an electric pink stripe just to the left side of her hairline, and it fell in straight curtains past her face, framing the pale skin and matching her violet eyes. She wore no make up or jewellery, save for the enamelled school badge, pinned to the lapel of her regulation navy blue blazer. That coupled with her long skirt, stockings and sensible shoes, identified her as a schoolgirl, though she appeared to be of about legal leaving age. A small nameplate under the badge read 'Twilight', and the Roman numeral 'VI' and gilt crown beside it proclaimed her to both a member of the sixth firm and a prefect.

The rabbit before her was unquestionably dead, which brought a small frown of sorrow to Twilight's mouth. Twilight looked up from the body of the tiny creature and back along the bricked drive that left the road and curved up to a pair of imposing, black wrought iron gates. A sign above the gate, in gilt letters of mock Gothic, announced that they were the gates to 'Celestia's Academy for Gifted Youth'. Smaller letters added that the school was: 'Established in 1652 for Young Ladies of Quality.'

A small figure was busy climbing over the gate, nimbly avoiding the spikes that were supposed to stop such activities. She dropped the last few feet, falling to her knees before, her green glasses nearly falling off of the tip her nose, curly red hair bouncing as she pushed them back up to her eyes. Once her glasses were secure she began to run at Twilight and the rabbit, hair flying, shoes clacking on the bricks. As she achieved cruising speed, she looked up, saw Twilight and the rabbit and gave a scream.

"Bunny!"

Twilight flinched as the girl scream, and hesitated for only a moment before she bent down by the rabbit's side and reached with one pale hand, two slender fingers uncurling to touch it between its long ears. Her eyes slid closed and her face set. It was almost as if Twilight had been turned to stone. A faint whistling sound passed between her parted lips, like some kind of wind that could be heard from a far away storm. Frost formed on her fingertips, creeping along the skin like a growing vine and ice rimmed the asphalt around her feet and knees.

The other girl saw Twilight begin to teeter forwards, before tipping suddenly, falling over the rabbit and towards the road, but at the last minute her other hand shot out and she caught herself. A second later, once she had regained her balance, she was using both hands to restrain the rabbit - a rabbit that was now inexplicably lively again, its eyes bright and shiny, as eager to be off as when it had escaped from its bath. The girl saw the rabbit wrestling in twilight's grasp and her terrified expression was replaced by one of relief.

"Bunny!" the younger shrieked once more. Twilight smiled and stood up, holding the rabbit by the scruff of the neck as the young girl neared. "Oh thank you Twilight! When I heard the car skidding, I thought... I thought..." She gave a meek gulp of fear as she left her sentence to hang in the air. It may have had something to do with the fact that when Twilight handed the rabbit over to her, blood stained her expectant hands.

"He'll be fine Twist," Twilight replied wearily. "A scratch really. Its already closed up. Nothing to worry about."

Twist didn't seem to hear Twilight, or perhaps didn't quite believe her, as she started to examine the rabbit thoroughly. After a few moments, she looked up slowly at Twilight, the beginnings of a wriggling fear at work at the back of her eyes.

"There... there isn't anything under the blood," Twist stammered. "What did you...?"

"I didn't," snapped Twilight, cutting her off. "But perhaps you can explain to me what you're doing being out of bounds?"

"Chasing Bunny!" Twist protested, expression clearing as life returned to a more normal situations; the fear in her eyes of what Twilight may have done to her rabbit being replaced with what punishment she might deliver for rule-breaking. "You see..."

"No excuses," Twilight recited, cutting Twist off for the second time in as many minutes. "You heard what Mrs. Cherilee said during assembly on Monday didn't you?"

"It isn't an excuse!" Twist cried, "It's a reason!"

"Well if that's the case then I suppose you won't mind explaining this to Mrs Cherilee then?"

"Oh Twilight you wouldn't would you? You know I was only chasing Bunny! You know I'd never have come out it-"

Twilight held up her hands in mock defeat and gestured back to the gates.

"If you're back inside within three minutes, I won't have seen you," Twilight said, winking slyly at Twist.

"Thank you Twilight!" Twist cried, beaming with relief, before whirling around and running back up the drive, Bunny clutched tightly to her neck.

"And open the gate this time!" Twilight called after her. "They won't be locked until I go back inside."

"Yes Twilight!"

Twilight watched until she was well and truly through the gate before she let the tremors take her. After a few moments she collapsed to her knees, one hand on her chest, breathing heavily, cold racing up and down her body as she shook uncontrollably. After a few moments, Twilight pushed herself to her feet. The shaking had stopped and Twilight felt she was presentable enough to return to school.

As she did so she cursed herself for being so stupid. It had been a moment of weakness, nothing more, but in that moment she had broken the promise she had made to both herself and to her father. She tired to rationalize her actions, trying to justify them to herself. It was only a rabbit, she told herself and besides Twist loved it so much... but if then what would thinking like that lead to? It was no great step from bringing back a rabbit, to bringing back a person.

Worse still was that Twilight had found it so easy. She had caught the rabbit right at the wellspring of the river and had returned it to life with the smallest gesture, he barest hint of power and patched the body with a few simple Charter Marks as they had stepped back from Death to life. Twilight shuddered as she realised she hadn't even needed bells, or any other of the usual tools that a necromancer used. Only a slight whistle and the faint exertion of her will.

Death, and what came after were no great mysterious to Twilight. She just wished that they were.

---

It was Twilight's last term at the Academy - the last three weeks in fact. She had already graduated, having placed first in her year in sciences and English, joint first in mathematics, seventh in music, fourth in etiquette and second in fighting arts. She had also been a runaway first in magic, but that was never printed on her graduation certificate. Magic only worked in those regions of Equestria near to the Wall which marked the border with the Old Empire. Farther away from the the Wall, Magic was considered quite beyond the pale, if it existed at all, and persons of repute tried at all times not to mention the strange land beyond the Wall. Celestia's academy was only forty miles from the wall, had a good-all round reputation and taught Magic to those students who could obtain special permission from their parents, and who had parents who could afford the lofty price for this extra education.

Twilight's father had chosen the Academy for that reason when he had emerged from the Old Empire thirteen years ago with a five-year-old girl in tow to seek a boarding school. He had paid in advance for that first year, with Old Empire golden Drachma that stood up to surreptitious touches with cold iron. Thereafter, he had come to visit his daughter twice a year, at Midsummer and Midwinter, staying for several days and nights on each occasion and always brining more gold each time.

Understandably, the Headmistress was very fond of Twilight. Particularly since she never seemed troubled by her father's rare visitations, as most other girls might well have been by their father's constant absences. Once upon a time, Mrs Cherilee had asked Twilight if she minded this apparent absence of a constant father figure and she had been trouble by Twilight's response; that Twilight apparently saw her father far more often than when he actually came to visit the Academy. Mrs Cherilee didn't teach the girls of her school magic, and didn't particularly want to know anything about it, other than the simple fact that there were some more, eccentric parents would pay considerable sums of money to her their daughters schooled in the basics of sorcery and enchantment.

Mrs Cherilee most certainly did not want to know how Twilight saw her father. The man called Abhorsen frightened her. Twilight however, lover her father, and always looked forwards to his unofficial visits and watched the moon each night, tracing the movements of the celestial silver body in the night's sky from the leather-bound almanac which listed the phases of the moon in both Equestria and the Old Empire and gave some very valuable insights into the seasons, the tides and other ephemera that were never the same at any one time on both sides of the Wall, except in the very exceptional of circumstances. Abhorsen's sending of himself always appeared on the dark of the Equestrian moon.

On those nights, Twilight would lock herself into her own study (a privilege of the Sixth Form - previously she had had to sneak into the library), put the kettle on the fire, drink a cup of her favourite tea and read any one of her numerous books. She would read and drink her tea until a characteristic wind would rise up, rattling the shutters as it passed into the room, put out the electric lighting and extinguish the flames. All of this was necessary, or so it seemed necessary to Twilight, in preparation for the arrival of the phosphorescent sending that would appear in the spare armchair, in the shape of her father, Abhorsen.

Twilight was particularly looking forward to her father's visit that November. It was to be his last, because Twilight' school days were about to end, and Abhorsen's visit tonight would be the perfect and last chance for the two of them to discuss Twilight's future. Mrs Cherilee wanted her to go on with her education and pursue a degree at university. But for Twilight to pursue that path, she would have to move further south, away from the Wall and the Old Empire. This in turn would cause her magic to wane, almost to the point of non-existence and her parental visitations would have to be limited to actual physical appearances, and even those rare occasions might also become less frequent.

On the other hand, going on to university would mean she would get to stay in contact with some of her closest friends, girls she had known virtually all her life; since she had been no more than five! There would also be a much greater world of social interaction, particularly with young men, a commodity of which there was a distinct shortage of around the Academy, and around Ponyville in general.

Of course the disadvantages loosing her magic, could possibly be offset by the lessening of her affinity for Death and the Dead...

Twilight thought about all these things as she waited for her father to appeared, book in one hand, tea in the other as she brought it to her lips as she took another sip of tea, before balancing it precariously on its saucer on the arm of her chair. Twilight wormed her lips in worry; it was almost midnight and Abhorsen had still not appeared. Twilight had already checked the almanac twice and had even opened the shutters to peer out of the glass of her study window to look at the sky. It was definitely the dark of the moon, but there was no sign of her father. This was the first time in her life that he hadn't appeared and she suddenly felt uneasy.

Twilight rarely thought about what life was really like in the Old Empire, but now old storied came into her mind and dim, half forgotten memories of her time in the Old Empire amongst the travellers and her father. Abhorsen she knew to be a powerful sorcerer, but even so...

"Twilight! Twilight!"

A high-pitched voice interrupted her thoughts, quickly followed by a hasty knock and a rattle of the doorknob. Twilight sighed pushed herself out of her chair, caught the teacup one-handed and unlocked the door, pulling it to reveal the terrified girl beyond. She stood there, rocking backwards and forwards on the balls of her feet, twisting her nightcap from side to side in trembling hands, her face whiter than chalk with pure terror.

"Scootaloo?" Twilight exclaimed. The usually vibrant you girl looked like she'd just seen a ghost, which, given their proximity to the wall, was not entirely impossible. ""What is it? Is Sweetie Belle sick again?"

"N-no," Scootaloo whimpered, silent tears of fear sliding down her cheeks. "I... I heard noised behind the tower door. I thought Sweetie Belle and Applebloom were having a midnight feast without me, so I... I looked..."

"What?" Twilight cried out, alarmed. No one opened outside doors after dark, especially not in the middle of the night on the dark of the moon and certainly not this close to the Old Empire.

"I'm sorry!" Sctootaloo squealed. "I didn't mean to, I know I shouldn't, I don't know why I did. It wasn't Sweetie Belle and Applebloom - it was... a black shape and it... it tried to get in. I slammed the door..."

Twilight was no longer listening. She threw the teacup in the air over her shoulder and barrelled past Scootaloo. She was already halfway down the corridor before she heard the porcelain smash behind her and Scootaloo's horrified gasp at such cavalier treatment of good china. She ignored both and broke into a fully fledged sprint, slapping on the light switches as she did, noting as she drew closer to the door of the west dormitory, that the lights flickered, some not even coming on at all. As she reached the door, a cacophony of screams broke out from inside, quickly escalating to a crescendo of a hysterical chorus, There were forty girls in this dormitory - most of them of the first form, all under the age of eleven. Twilight took adeep breath and stepped into the doorway, fingers crooked in a spell-casting stance, her mind reaching out into the Charter. Even before she looked she felt the presence of Death.

The dormitory was very long and narrow, with a low roof and small windows. Beds and dressers lined each side. At the far end, a door led to the West Tower steps. It was supposed to be locked inside and out after the sun went down, but locks and doors rarely prevailed against the powers of the Old Empire.

The door was opened. An intensely dark shape stood there, as if someone had cut a man-shaped figure out of the night, carefully choosing a piece devoid of stars and moon. It had no features, at least none Twilight could make out, save for the questing head that turned from side to side, as if whatever senses it did possess worked in a narrow and confused range. Curiously, it carried a mundane sack in one four-fingered hand, the rough-woven cloth in stark contrast to its own surreal flesh. The sack itself was also curiously coated in a thin, almost invisible layer of frost.

Twilight resisted the urge to plug her ears against the screams from the girls all around her. Instead she drew on the Magic of the Charter, moving her hands in a complicated gesture, drawing symbols of Charter Magic that intimated sleep, quiet and rest. With a flourish, she indicated both sides of the dormitory and drew a master symbol, drawing all together. Instantly, every girl in the room stopped screaming and subsided back into bed, falling asleep the instant their heads touched the soft cotton of their pillows.

The creature's head stopped moving and Twilight knew its attention was now centred entirely upon her. Slowly it moved, lifting one clumsy leg and swinging it forward, resting for a moment, then pivoting on its forward for and swinging the other leg a little past the first. A lumbering, rolling motion that made an eerie shuffling noise on the thin carpet. As it passed each bed the electric lights above them flared once and went out.

Twilight let her hands fall to her side and focussed her eyes on the centre of the creature's torso, feeling the stuff of which it was made. She had come without any of her instruments or tools, a mistake her father would never have made, but it led to only a moment's hesitation before she reached for the border of Death. She blinked once and in that moment she slipped past the border and entered into Death, her gaze still somehow locked on the intruder.

The cold shock of the river flowing past and around her legs greeted her with its chilling embrace. The light, grey and without warmth, still stretched to an entirely flat horizon. In the distance she could hear the roar of the First Gate. She could see the creature's true shape now. It was no longer cloaked in the shroud of death it had brought with it to the living world. It was an Old Empire denizen, vaguely humanoid, but more ape-like than a man, and obviously only of lesser intelligence. But there was more to this creature than that. Such a stupid and weak creature could not have come across the Wall into Equestria without some kind of help. Indeed, when Twilight looked closer, she felt a clutch of fear on her heart as she saw that a black thread ran from somewhere in the creature's back and into the river, flowing deeper into Death with the current. Somewhere, beyond the First Gate, or even further, that umbilical rested in the hands of a Free-Magic Adept. As long as this threat existed, the creature would be under the total command of whomever wielded if, who could and most likely would use the creature's sense and spirit as it saw fit.

---

Something tugged at her physical body in Life and she reluctantly pulled her sense back into the living world, a slight feeling of nausea rising in her as a wave of warmth rushed over her death-chilled body.

"What is it?" asked a calm voice, close to Twilight's ear. An old voice, tinged with the power of Charter Magic. Miss Applesmith, the Magistrix of the school.

"It is a Dead servant - a spirit form," replied Sabriel, her attention back on the creature as it took another lumbering step. It was halfway down the dorm now, still single-mindedly rolling one leg after the other. "It is without free will. Something has sent it back into the living world, and controls it even now from beyond the First Gate."

"Why is it here?" asked the Magistrix, and her voice, though it sounded calm, with laced with power. Twilight felt the Charter Marks gather on the older woman's tongue - Marks that would unleash lightning and flame, the destructive powers of the earth.

"It is not obviously malign, nor has it attempted any actual harm..." replied Twilight slowly, her mind working out the possibilities. She was by now used to explaining the purely Necromantic aspects of Magic to Miss Applesmith. The Magistrix may have taught her Charter Magic, but Necromancy was certainly not on the syllabus. Twilight had learned far more than she had wanted to know about Necromancy from her father... and sometimes the Dead themselves. "Don't do anything for a moment. If it does try to do something of vile intent delay it, do not destroy it. I will attempt to speak with it in Death."

The Magistrix nodded, but Twilight had already gone into the trance-like state that signalled she had cross the border between Life and Death, ice forming on her now chilled face.

---

The cold water rushed around her legs once more, biting into her, as the river gushed about her person, seeking to eagerly pull her under its surface and carry her away, all the way to beyond the Ninth Gate of Death and to true Death. Twilight exerted her will over the waters however, and its malign powers were swept away with the current, the cold becoming simply a sensation without any real danger, the water's rushing current a pleasing vibration about her feet.

The creature was close now, as it had been in the living world. Twilight held out both hands and clapped, the sharp sound echoing for far longer than it would anywhere in Life. Before the echo died however, Twilight whistled several notes and they echoed about this dark realm too, sweat sounds mixing with the harshness of the hand clap, creating a marching little tune that made even Twilight want to take a step closer to the First Gate.

The creature was not unaffected either, as it flinched, pressing its hands to either side of its head as it tried to blot out the sound, half turned and taking a step deeper into death. As it clapped its hands over its ears, it dropped the sack into the river, which caused Twilight to jump in surprise, nearly falling victim again to her own spell. She hadn't noticed the sack before, quite possibly because she hadn't expected it to be there. Very few inanimate things existed in both realms of Life and Death, unless specifically brought through by the holder.

She was even more surprised when she watched the creature lunge forward, plunging into the water with both hands, searching for the sack. It found it almost at once, but not without cost, as both the power of the river and the magic of Twilight's spell caused the creature to loose its footing. As the sack broke the surface, the current forced the creature under and began to drag him downstream. Twilight breathed a sigh of relief as she watched slide away. Then she gasped as the head of the creature broke the surface once more and cried out: "Twilight! My messenger! Take the sack my child!" The voice was Abhorsen's.

Twilight sloshed forwards and a dark arm pushed out towards her, the neck of the sack clutched tightly in its fingers. She reached out, missed and tried again. The sack was secure in her grasp as the current took the creature completely under and sped it towards that dark opening of the First Gate. Twilight looked after it, hearing the roar of the First Gate suddenly increase as it always did when someone passed its falls. She turned and started to slog her way back into Life. The sack in her hand was heavy, yet there was a heavy, leaden feeling in her stomach. If the messenger truly had been of Abhorsen's sending, then he himself was unable to return to the realm of the living.

And that meant he was either dead, or trapped by something that should have passed beyond the Ninth, and Final Gate.

---

Once again a wave of nausea overcame her, and Twilight collapsed to her knees, shaking with the feeling of warmth that rushed inside her once again. She could feel the Magistrix' hand on her shoulder, but her attention was fastened on the sack she held so tightly in her grip. She didn't need to look to know the creature was gone. Its manifestation in the living world would have ceased as its Spirit had gone beyond the First Gate. Only a pile of grave mould would remain, to be swept aside in the morning.

"What did you do?" asked the Magistrix, as Twilight brushed her hand through her hair, crystals of ice falling from it as her hands broke them from the strands of hair the clung too. They showered over her shoulders and onto the sack in front of her knees.

"It had a message for me," replied Twilight, "So I took it."

She opened the sack and reached inside. A sword hilt was the first thing to meet her grasp, so she took it out, still in its scabbard, and put it to one side. She didn't need to draw it to see the Charter Marks etched into and along its blade - the dull emerald in the pommel and the worn bronze-plated cross-guard were as familiar to her as her own arm. It was Abhorsen's sword.

The leather bandoleer she drew out next was an old brown belt, a hands-breadth wide, which always smelled faintly of beeswax. Seven tubular leather pouches hung from it, starting off small and steadily growing largest, smallest being the size of a pill bottle, largest the size of a jar. The bandoleer was designed to be worn across the chest with the pouches hanging down. Twilight opened the smallest pouch and pulled out a tiny silver, with a dark, deeply polished mahogany handle. She held it gently, but the clapper still swung slightly and the bell made a high, sweet note that somehow lingered in the mind, even after the sound itself was gone.

"Father's instruments, Twilight whispered, more to herself than anyone else. "The tools of a Necromancer."

"But there are Charter Marks engraved on the bell and on the handle!" interjected the Magistrix, who looked down at the bell with reverent fascination. "Necromancer is Free Magic, not governed by the Charter."

"Father's were always different," replied Twilight, distantly, mechanically, still staring at the bell in her hand, think of her father's pale, lined hands holding the bells. "Binding... not raising. He was... is a faithful servant to the Charter."

"You're going to be leaving us aren't you?" the Magistrix said suddenly as Twilight stood up and replaced the bell into its pouch, before stooping to pick up her sword. Blade in one and, bandoleer in the other. "I saw it... just then, in the reflection of the bell. You were crossing the Wall..."

"Yes. Into the Old Kingdom," Twilight aid quietly, with a sudden realisation. "Something has happened to my father. So I will find him. So swear the Charter I swear I will find my father."

She touched the mark on her forehead, which glowed briefly with brilliant light before it faded so that it might never have been. The Magistrix stood too, nodding and touched a hand to her own forehead, where her own glowing Charter Mark shone true, obscuring all the patterns and traces of time on the aged face, making her appear young again for a moment. As the lights faded, rustling noises and faint whimpers began to sound along both sides of the dormitory.

"I'll shut the door and explain tot he girls," Applesmith said firmly. "You had best go and... prepare for tomorrow."

Twilight nodded and left, trying to fix her mind on the practicalities of the journey she now faced, rather than what may have happened to her father. She would take a cab as early as possible into Ponyville, the nearest town, and then a bus to the Equestria Perimeter that faced the wall. With luck she would be there by early afternoon...

Behind these plans, her thoughts kept jumping back to Abhorsen, her father. What could have happened to trap him in Death? What sort of power could even do such a thing? And what could she really hope to do about it, even if she did get into the Old Empire?

Comments

[10_watt]

This has potential. will be interested in a physical copy to go with my abhorsen set if this continues at such a high quality.

[D101 Reviews]

3013000 Thanks! Comments are always appreciated as they let me know what I'm doing right or wrong. I hope you continue to enjoy this MLP re-imagining.