Celestia must brave the depths of her old castle to save Twilight and Luna
To save her sister and her faithful student, Celestia herself must travel into the ancient tunnels beneath the ruined castle in the Everfree Forest. She, and the guards who accompany her, must face the dark, twisting corridors. Still, what was Luna and Twilight's purpose at the old castle? Why were they unable to return of their own accord?
And what watches Celestia from beyond the light's edge?
By Pen Stroke Preread, Edited, and Reviewed By Illustrious Q, Batty Gloom, Wraithguard, Rainbowdash64, Cloudhammer, Magical Trevor, Kohta Izumi, Kirk Heller =====================================================================
Chapter 1 Beneath the Castle ====================
Princess Celestia pressed her back against the cold brick, gasping for breath as the light from her horn flickered. Her lungs burned. Her mouth was filled with the ferrous taste of blood. Her legs trembled, threatening to give out beneath her. The cut across her flank, across her cutie mark, wept her life blood. Her crown, her chest piece, her shoes... they were all gone. All of her guards, her ponies... all gone. She was all alone.
Her ears swiveled for the smallest sound, and she strained to make her light burn as bright as it could. The effort, however, only made the pounding in her head worse. A large bump on the side of her head throbbed, each pulse sending a wave of pain through her skull. It was making it hard to think. She had a concussion, but still she strained her senses. She listened to the silence. She looked into the dark. She saw and heard nothing but knew what lay beyond. She could feel the eyes.
She was being watched.
Her light flickered, her connection with her magic failing. The darkness was drawing in. She was losing sight of the corridor. She was losing sight of herself. Her hooves and tail fell into darkness. Her forelegs and her flanks. Her chest, her neck. The light kept fading until she could only see her nose and her horn, and then they too faded into the darkness. Her magic cut out.
All the while the silence continued to press in. She should have heard the echoes of her desperate breathing and shifting hooves. The corridors had been full of echoes when she and the squad had first entered the tunnels. She should have heard the echoes, but the silence was eating every sound she produced. The silence ate the sound just as the darkness seemed to eat her light.
The darkness and silence were surrounding her.
Then she heard it, a single click in the distance. She focused her eyes on it, but there was no sound after that. Her tension grew. The ferrous taste in her mouth grew more intense. The smell of dust and stale air began to carry undercurrents of blood. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears.
She knew what lay beyond. She knew what was hunting her. It was lying in wait. It was preparing to pounce. Yet it did not attack. It was just waiting. It was just watching her squirm.
“Come on!” She shouted through a tremor in her voice. “What are you waiting for!?”
~~~ ... Earlier ... ~~~
The aroma from the warm tea wafted up to Celestia’s nose, tickling her senses. She lifted the cup slowly, placed it to her lips, and let the finely brewed liquid roll over her tongue. The tea was followed soon after by the soft, warm-from-the-oven scone that Celestia took a small bite from. It was light, fluffy, and it brought a smile to her face.
She was sitting in the garden, birds trilling in the trees around her as she sat beneath the shade of a large oak. It was tea time, a short but much appreciated break in her daily labors of ruling the kingdom. It was a time to just listen to the wind in the trees, to feel the light from the sun on her coat, and to perhaps sneak a second scone with her tea.
It was also when she would greet Luna. Her sister’s sleep schedule had fallen into a predictable rhythm since her return. She slept through the morning and tended to awake in the middle of the afternoon. Celestia would have her afternoon tea as Luna had what could be called her breakfast. This gave them some time to discuss important matters as well as talk casually.
It was a time for them to be sisters.
Yet, Luna was late, leaving the seat across from Celestia at the garden table empty. Celestia, however, wasn’t worried. Almost once a week Luna would sleep in, often because she had gotten caught up in reading and had not gotten to sleep when she should have. It reminded Celestia of a young Twilight at times. She’d find the filly with a firefly lantern under the covers of her bed, reading a book well past her bedtime.
Still, in thinking of Twilight, Celestia knew that Luna had to be woken up. Twilight was coming to the castle at Luna’s request, and the moon princess needed to be awake to greet her. Thus, after standing up from her seat, Celestia drained her cup of tea, finished her scone, and then began to walk off towards the castle to wake Luna herself.
After all, there was mischievous fun to be had in waking Luna in a somewhat unorthodox way.
~~~
The creak of the door sounded like an alarm bell, and Celestia winced at its sound. She held her breath and listened for the tell-tale sounds that Luna had awoken. Still, there was no shuffling of hooves or squeaking of the bed. Luna was still asleep, so Celestia pushed the door open a little more, peaking inside.
Luna’s room was as it always had been: a vision of her night sky captured in fabric, paint, and wood. It was always night in Luna’s room. A mural of stars dotted the ceiling. The furniture was Neighponese Mahogany, stained to a dark, chocolate color. Anything made of fabric was dyed a tone of blue or pale white. Luna herself almost disappeared into the color pallet of the room, but a shift of the bed covers made a smile blossom on Celestia’s face.
It was the smile of a mare who was about to give her sister a proper “Wake Up” scare.
Nudging the door open a little more, Celestia raised a forehoof and extended it slowly into the room. She set it down slowly, sucking in a breath as if the air in her lungs would make her just a little lighter. She put her weight down on the hoof, and listened for a creak of the boards. The floor, however, remained silent, and Celestia repeated the process as she moved step by step towards Luna.
The room was oddly bright. For once, the curtains that usually blocked the windows had been drawn open. Celestia could only guess they had been opened by the castle staff, an attempt to use the bright, warm, greeting sun as a means of drawing Luna from her bed. It obviously hadn’t worked; Luna was sleeping with her head beneath the covers. In the end, it made Celestia’s approach that much easier.
She licked her lips, tasting some trailing crumbs of her scone, as she drew closer and closer to the bed. A single floorboard creaked, and she froze. Luna shifted under her covers, but did not come out. Celestia would have breathed a sigh of relief, but she feared even that sound might betray her presence.
Finally, she was there, just beside the bed. She began to suck in a breath and spread her wings. She would be a Royal Canterlot Voice alarm clock, one that was about to blare “Good Afternoon Sister!”, a shout that would undoubtedly scare Luna awake. Then she would run, Luna would chase, and sometime later that week Luna would get her back with an equally playful prank.
It was the nature of the game they played that often put the castle staff in the crossfire.
A final small breath, and Celestia had filled her lungs with all the air they could hold. Chest and cheeks puffed from the pressure, she leaned forward to unleash her voice at full volume. Her smile was wide, and she paused just a moment to picture Luna’s face.
“GET AWAY!”
WHAK
Celestia stumbled back, head spinning and the air escaping from her lungs as she tipped over and toppled to her side. She hit the ground hard, her crown clattering across the floor. Her legs sprawled upward and a few old, loose feathers in her wings went flying into the air.
She had just been floored by a single, firm punch from Luna.
“S-sister!” Luna gasped when she realized what she had done. She quickly scrambled out of bed and moved to Celestia’s side. “I’m sorry!”
Celestia just groaned, her vision swimming as her mind caught up with what happened. Finally, after a few firm blinks, she managed to clear her sight and slowly climb back to her hooves. She fluttered her wings, settling them back into place at her side, and then she lifted a forehoof to her cheek, which was now sore from the blow.
“Ow,” was all she could say a she touched the tender skin.
“I’m sorry, Celestia, I didn’t know it was you.” Luna apologized. The moon princess picked up Celestia’s crown, and offered it to her. Celestia took it, but, at the same time, she noticed the heavy bags beneath Luna’s eyes.
“Then who were you trying to hit?” Celestia asked as she put her crown back on. “And why do you look like you didn’t sleep well?”
“Because I didn’t,” Luna admitted as she rubbed her eyes. “I was up half the morning.”
Celestia cocked an eyebrow and then glanced over at Luna’s bed. There she saw a book on the nightstand. She picked it up and smiled a little as she noted the title and the description. It looked to be a horror story, one about a bunch of campers getting picked off by a killer in the forest.
“Perhaps you should stay away from the scary stories before bed then. Can’t have a princess of the night that is scared of the dark, after all.”
Luna pursed her lips and snatched the book away from Celestia. “I’m not scared of the dark, Celestia. And, furthermore, what are you doing in my chambers?”
“I came to wake you,” Celestia answered with a small chuckle, though she was still rubbing her cheek. “You’ve slept in, and Twilight will be arriving shortly. I just thought, since you were the one to invite her here, that you would want to be there to greet her.”
Luna tensed and snapped her head to one side, checking a clock on the wall. She then cursed under her breath, threw the book onto the table, and rushed to her bathroom. At the same time, Celestia moved to the hallway outside Luna’s room. There she waited until her sister came out. Luna was clean, dressed in her royal attire, and had managed to make it look like she hadn’t just climbed out of bed.
“I believe that’s a new record,” Celestia teased, a comment that drew a small chuckle from Luna as the two princesses began to walk towards the Canterlot front gates.
“Yes, and I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you.”
“I know you didn’t,” Celestia assured. “Though, I must say, you have a wonderful right hook.” She rattled her jaw a moment, still feeling the soreness in her cheek. “So, may I ask why you’ve invited Twilight to the castle?”
“It’s... kind of a secret,” Luna answered, glancing away from Celestia.
“Oh, a secret?” Celestia leaned in a little, gently bumping up against Luna. “What kind of secret?”
“A secret kind of secret?” Luna replied. “And don’t try asking her about it either. She’s sworn a Pinkie Pie Promise to keep the secret from you.”
Celestia smiled, a bit of happy anticipation entering her mind. Her birthday was coming up. Yes, perhaps it was a little self-centered of her to think that was what the secret was about, but she couldn’t help but smile and wonder. She had employed Pinkie Pie to throw Luna a surprise birthday party earlier that year. Perhaps Luna was now simply trying to return the favor with Twilight’s help. After all, few ponies knew her as well as her faithful student.
“Very well, I won’t pry,” Celestia said as she and Luna reached an intersection in the castle corridors. Celestia stopped and turned to the right, intending to go down the perpendicular hallway while Luna continued going straight. “I need to get back to work anyway. Will I see you all for dinner?”
Luna looked over her shoulder and shook her head. “Sorry, sister, but Twilight and I are going to be discussing things in my study all afternoon. But I promise, I’ll see you tomorrow for tea.”
“I’ll hold you to that Luna,” Celestia called back with a small chuckle. She then strode off, a small skip in her step at the thoughts of being thrown a surprise party. She hadn’t had a surprise party in a hundred and thirteen years. She was well past due.
~~~
Celestia sat at the garden table, a cup of tea filled but untouched. Biscuits that had been on a small tray lay scattered across the ground, and birds were already flying into to peck at the crumbs. Before Celestia, a guard was bent in a respectful bow. The words he had spoken still rang in Celestia’s ears. Her mouth had gone dry and her body numb. She spread her wings, just to keep her balance as the blood rushed from her head. The news she had been given was... horrible.
Luna and Twilight had gone missing.
~~~
Princess Celestia banked, feeling the cool night air brushing past her cheek and flowing through her mane. Her feathers held her aloft, and, with another firm beat of her wings, she continued to circle the stone structure that rose up from the forest below her, the place that had once been her home. The Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. Once, it had been the jewel of Equestria. It had been built after Discord’s defeat, to retake the Everfree Forest. In the thousand years since Luna’s attempted coup, however, it was the forest that had conquered. Battlements that had once stood strong had been disassembled by the slow relentless march of vines and trees. Rain, wind, and snow had caused sturdy towers to collapse in on themselves. It was like a skeleton, picked clean by the passage of time.
Yet life glimmered between the towers. Torches, spells, and gemstone headlamps cast their light on the ruins. Like ants over a carcass, the Royal Guard of Canterlot was crawling over the ruins. Pegasi patrolled the skies, and ground-bound guards walked old paths and forged new ones through the thick underbrush. Debris was cleared and rooms were searched. It was a single, organized effort to search every corner of the castle that could be found.
A whistle reached Celestia’s ears, and she glanced over her shoulder. A pair of pegasi came up beside her wing tips. They formed up on her, and, after a brief salute, one pointed down to the castle’s old gardens. There, Shining Armor was waving up at the princess from a table cluttered with reports, maps, and half drained thermoses of coffee. It had already been a long night and the witching hour had only begun.
Celestia pitched down, feeling the wind rushing by her with greater speed as she descended with the two pegasi guards following in her wake. She landed with a flutter of her wings, kicking up old leaves and causing the nearby bushes to rustle, as if her presence was an annoyance to them.
“What is the situation, Captain?” Celestia asked as she approached Shining Armor.
“Not much different than it was an hour ago.”
Celestia nodded, and turned to look at a nearby structure. She could remember fond times in the garden. It had once been a delight to the eyes and filled with the smell of flowers. Now, most of the garden had gone wild or died. Trees that had once been kept well trimmed now tore up the ground with their ever spreading roots. The sweet fragrances of well-tended garden flowers had been replaced by the stench of stagnant water, moss, and old, crumbling stone. Celestia could even see the pedestal that had once held Discord’s statue. It now played home to a long abandoned bird’s nest.
And, in a back corner of the gardens, was an old building with large doors. Creeping vines covered it. In truth, it was so overgrown that it could have been mistaken for a large brush or fat, low standing tree. The doors, however, had been cleared, and not by the soldiers who now canvassed the old castle. They had been cleared by those that had gone missing. They had been cleared by those that came before.
“So I take it we’re going ahead with the operation, Captain Armor?”
“Yes, but Princess, I should be going with you. Twilight’s my sister and—”
“And she is my student, Shining. In truth, neither of us should be going. We’re both too close to this, but I am required for this operation to succeed. You are not. That, and should the worse come to worse, you're the one I trust the most to come save us.”
“I understand, Princess,” Shining Armor admitted. “And yes. The soldiers are right over there, and they are ready.” He motioned to a dozen soldiers who were weighed down with packs and other essential supplies. Half were from the Lunar Guard, half were from the Solar Guard.
“Then let’s not waste any time.” Celestia said. She turned, and began to stride towards the soldiers with Shining Armor a few steps behind.
Shining barked, “Attention,” and stood in front of the soldiers as they formed a line. He then glanced once more at Celestia. She gave him a reassuring nod, and, with a sigh, he began to speak with the troops.
“Mares and Stallions, in case you haven’t already heard, here is our situation. Yesterday afternoon, Twilight Sparkle arrived at Canterlot Castle. She was there by request of Princess Luna and was greeted by her at the castle gates. The pair then retired to Luna’s private study, where they remained until nightfall. After that, they departed Canterlot with a small contingent of the Lunar Guard. Their destination, as reported to the guards stationed at the gates at the time of their departure, is where we are standing.
“They were coming here, to this ancient castle, and they have neither been seen nor heard from in twenty four hours.”
Shining Armor paused on those words, looking across the soldiers. Their eyes were a mixture of shock and disbelief, but they remained focused. They continued to listen, hanging on every word that came from Shining Armor’s mouth.
“We have scoured the castle grounds already for any sign of what happened to them. The only evidence we’ve found is the chariot they arrived in. It was left abandoned just outside the main gate. Hoofprints on the ground lead us to believe they entered this structure, behind you, which provides access to the castle’s underground chambers and tunnel network.
“Your mission is simple. You must locate and rescue Princess Luna and Twilight Sparkle. This is a worse possible scenario and should be treated as such. They could be caught in a cave-in or otherwise injured. You need to act swiftly and precisely. Is this understood?”
“Yes, sir, Captain Armor, sir!” The dozen guards barked back.
“Good,” Shining said with a nod. “You’ve all been hoof picked for this mission by myself. You all bring important talents that will aid in the search and rescue effort. You are also among the most skilled guards we have available. When it comes to combat, either armed or hoof-to-hoof, you are among the best of the best.
“And there is a reason for this,” Shining Armor stressed as he stepped towards the soldiers. “These underground passages were not meant to be visited by the average pony. They provide access to this castle’s dungeons, archives, vault, and several other very sensitive rooms. Thus, there is a high chance you’ll find doors that are magically sealed and are meant to restrict access to certain areas of the tunnels.
“Because of this, you need somepony with you that has the authority to enter those restricted areas, somepony the old spells and enchantments will be able to recognize. There is, however, only one mare that fits that description.”
“And who is this mare, Sir?” one of the soldiers asked.
Shining Armor lifted a hoof and pointed at Princess Celestia. “Her.”
“Wait... wait, we’re taking the princess with us?” One of the guards asked. “Shouldn’t she stay out here? I mean no offense, but...”
“I appreciate your concern, Sergeant, but I am going to be accompanying you and that is an order,” Princess Celestia said firmly. She stepped away from the line of guards and towards the doorway. Her horn glowed and, with creaks and moans, the aged door began to open. A small wave of old air washed out over them, filling their nostrils with the smell of dust and old water. It was like the castle was breathing out a breath it had held for centuries.
“Now let’s get going.”
The soldiers glanced to Shining Armor, unsure. He, however, gave them a nod, and that was all they needed to see. They began to follow Princess Celestia. Shining, however, caught the squad’s lieutenant, a pegasus of the Solar Guard, and pulled her to the side.
“Lieutenant Twin Blades, I don’t think I need to tell you how important it is that Princess Celestia stays safe. With Princess Luna missing, she is the only one that can raise the sun. Check your corners, keep your squads tight, and if things start to get hairy, getting Princess Celestia out is your top priority. Understood?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Good. Now, you have until thirty minutes before dawn. If you haven’t come out by then, I’m bringing a platoon down after you. We will find you. Just keep yourselves and Princess Celestia safe.”
Lieutenant Twin Blades nodded and began to stride towards the door. Though, before she delved into the depths, she turned and looked back over her shoulder. “Don’t worry Captain, we’ll keep the princess safe... and we’ll find your sister too. I promise.”
Shining Armor let a small smile form on his lips and gave the lieutenant a respectful salute as she descended the steps, disappearing into the darkness.
~~~
After catching up with everypony else, Lieutenant Twin Blades took to leading the team. She walked at the front, flanked on either side by two sergeants. Behind them was Celestia, who was encircled by all the corporals that were accompanying them. Behind them a final guard, the last sergeant, brought up the rear. Those with horns lit the darkness magically. The others were wearing a special variation of the royal armor. The helmets and chest pieces had light gems embedded in their metal, gems that projected a cone of light forward when active.
They were following an old map of the castle’s tunnels, and soon found themselves in a large circular room. It had corridors branching off in all directions. Some signs still hung from the old stonework, marking paths to chambers that had not seen a soul in centuries. Other signs had fallen and rotted away, leaving some paths a mystery.
Celestia recognized the room, even after a thousand years, and the nostalgia swept over her as she came to a stop. “This is the rotunda. I remember the servants used to hold parties down here when it was somepony’s birthday. It’s just below the throne room.”
“Yes, and it’s also a central access point to most of the castle’s underground chambers.” Twin Blades commented as she and the other guards moved to the center of the space. She spread her wings, pointing at different spots in the chamber as she gave her orders with a firm, authoritative tone.
“This will be our base of operations. We’re going to search every corner of these tunnels, making regular stops back here to give updates and to drop off anypony we should find. I want this place setup and I want search squads formed ten minutes ago.”
The other guards saluted, and quickly began their tasks. Lanterns were set up, illuminating the dark chamber, and other supplies were drawn out from the bags. At the same time, Twin Blades and Princess Celestia strode towards the archway which lead back the way they came.
“May I speak freely, Princess?” Twin Blades asked. She stopped, shrugged off her bags, and began to dig in them.
“Of course, Lieutenant.”
“I don’t like you being down here. It’s a risk, especially if somepony has taken your sister intentionally. If those ponynappers are still down here, we may be giving you to them on a silver platter. But, at the same time, there is no denying the fact that we need you down here. We won’t be able to check half these chambers without somepony that can undo the locks.
“Because of this, I want to lay down some rules. Your safety is a priority down here. If things go south and I tell you to run, you run. No argument, no pulling rank. You run. Do you understand?”
“I don’t think it will come to that, Lieutenant,” Princess Celestia commented.
“It may not, but I still need your word.” Twin Blades said. She withdrew glinting metal from her saddlebags and secured them to her wings. They were short blades, that shined from a fresh polish and sharpening. They were blades issued to all the pegasi of the guard, though it was a rare occasion where they were needed. “Now, do you swear?”
Celestia was silent for a few seconds before she nodded. “I will promise to respect your expertise in this situation, Lieutenant.”
Twin Blades flapped into the air and, with a few sparks, struck out at the stone above the archway they had come in through. She used her blades to leave scratches upon the stone, making a downward pointing arrow. “Good. Now, I need one more thing from you, Princess. Do you know why your sister brought Twilight here?”
“No, I don’t,” Celestia replied. “There should be hardly anything left here at the old castle. Everything was to be moved to Canterlot when it was finished. I don’t know what they could be here for.”
Twin Blades landed back on the ground, folding her wings but leaving her blades attached. “There goes any hope of focusing our search then. We’ll just have to go room by room.” She began to walk back towards the other soldiers of the squad, who had already gotten a fair distance into unpacking what would be their base of operations. She lowered a wing to the ground, dragging the attached blade against the stone. The scraping sound drew the attention of the other guards, who quickly turned and stood at attention.
“All right. Once we’re done setting up, we’re breaking into teams of two. Princess Celestia and I will be searching the chambers secured behind doors only the princess can open. Fortress will remain here at the base to keep track of our progress and keep the lanterns lit.
“Everypony else, pair up and pick an archway. Use magic to stay in contact and send in a message spell each time you clear a room. We’re doing this by the book folks. Track your progress, check your corners, and don’t do anything stupid.”
~~~
“Come on, you have to know something.”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s just us. No pony will know. You can tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
Path Finder stepped through the archway into the chamber, light from his horn stretching out to fill the space. He was a member of the Solar Guard, like Twin Blades, and thus was clad in the characteristic golden armor. The armor, however, wasn’t up to regulation. Path Finder had loosened the straps around the barrel of his chest, letting them dangle free. “I’ll be your best friend if you tell me.”
“I don’t know,” Night Gaze reiterated. The earth pony Lunar Guard came into the chamber behind Path Finder, his armor in pristine condition and in perfect order. No strap was loose and it had been polished to a shine. It was in good enough shape to march a parade, despite being armor that had seen service.
Path Finder blew a short raspberry with his tongue before turning and looking across the room. The smell of rotten wood was heavy in the air and its source was evident. The pair currently found themselves in an old guard barrack. Wooden bunk beds, which had become nothing more than decomposed piles of wood, dotted the room at regular intervals. Mattresses and bedding had long been removed. In truth, it looked more like a room for storing compost than anything else.
“Well, that’s another thing I can add to my list of ‘things I never want to smell again,’” Path Finder said as he covered his nose with his hoof. “Millennia old guard barrack smell. It’s all body odor plus that wonderful bouquet of rotten wood. No... wait, there’s something else.”
“What?” Night Gaze asked.
“It’s the smell... the smell of...” Path Finder turned, focusing on Night Gaze as a smile spread onto his lips. “Burning pants.”
Night Gaze furrowed his eyebrows, and a tone of irritation entered his voice. “I am not lying. I don’t know what Princess Luna was doing here.”
“Oh come on.” Path Finder reached over and hooked a foreleg around Night Gaze, their armor clanking up against one another. “I won’t say a word to the lieutenant or Princess Celestia, I swear.”
“I don’t know.” Night Gaze spat, pulling himself away from Path Finder.
“Okay, okay, I’ll make it easier for you. I’ll guess and you can just tell me if I’m right or wrong. Were they out here for... a camping trip?”
“I don’t know.”
“Star gazing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sexy slumber party?”
Night Gaze gritted his teeth and stomped a hoof. “Sergeant Path Finder, I do not know! None of the Lunar Guard even knew the princess was leaving until she left!” Night Gaze threw a forehoof into the air, aggravation in his voice. “Do you and Lieutenant Twin Blades know why Princess Celestia does everything she does? No? Then do not expect the same of the Lunar Guard.”
“Okay, okay. No need to get snippy,” Path Finder said as he trotted further into the room, beginning to properly search the space. “If you don’t want to tell me, just say so.”
Night Gaze shivered in rage but sucked in a deep breath and calmed himself before he did something he would regret. He admitted defeat and began checking around the piles of rotten wood while Path Finder looked into the corners of the room. Still, the silence between the two of them was not meant to last.
“So... the bat wings Lunar Guard pegasi have... are they real?” Path Finder asked as he casually lifted up a piece of wood from one of the piles.
Night Gaze groaned out through his nose and continued to search, refusing to look over in Path Finder’s direction. “Do you really think this is the time?”
“I don’t usually see Night Guards,” Path Finder answered. He dropped the piece of wood back on its pile and began to trot towards Night Gaze. “I’m on a shift in the middle of the day. Sweet gig, too. When I’m not searching for lost ponies, I’m standing guard over the royal kitchen and they have the best scraps. I haven’t had to buy myself lunch in months. Still, because of my shift, I never get to see any of you Lunar Guards. So, when else will I have this opportunity?”
Night Gaze rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Well, Path Finder, let me answer your question with another question. Do you normally have a gray coat and gold eyes like all the other unicorns in the Solar Guard?”
“Nah, I’m way better lookin’ than this.” Path Finder flashed a smile and lifted a foreleg so he could flex.
Night Gaze rolled his eyes and tapped his armor. “Well, the Lunar Guard has enchantments on our armor just like the Solar Guard. So, no, our pegasi don’t really have bat wings.” Night Gaze glanced around the room one final time. He then began to move towards the door. “Now come on, check in with Fortress and let’s get to the next room.”
Path Finder chuckled and started to follow Night Gaze out of the room. “You and the lieutenant should hang out once we’re done with this. You’d two would get along like a mare in a fine dress.”
“Just send the report!”
Path Finder chuckled again before focusing on his horn. It glowed, building up a bubble of smoky white magic. “Room clear, moving onto next. End Message,” he said, causing the bubble to turn a blue tone. It then detached from his horn and zoomed off into the dark corridors, finding its way back to Fortress in the rotunda.
~~~
Celestia stepped back, a few traces of magic trailing from her horn to the door before them. Ancient spells within creaked and moaned, turning ancient tumblers. Finally, a resounding clank announced the opening of the locks and the door popped inward. Dust curled off the floor, and Celestia reignited her light spell as she and Twin Blades stepped into the long sealed chamber.
Aaaa-choo
The princess rubbed her nose, the dust clogging her sinuses. She couldn’t smell anything but the dust and had to fight the urge to sneeze a second time. Still, she looked about the space, noting the shelves still lined with books and the furniture that, unlike other rooms, had resisted the passage of time.
“Are you going to be okay?”” Twin Blades asked as she went to one of the shelves and began looking across the spines of the books.
“Yes, I’m fine, Lieutenant,” Celestia replied before snorting, clearing out a final bit of dirt from her nose. “Where are we now?”
“If the maps can be trusted, this is the private chambers to the court soothsayer.”
Celestia nodded, striding towards the back of the room where a bed and a desk lay under heavy layers of accursed dust. “I had forgotten the court used to have a soothsayer. Luna was always the one more interested in the less practiced and understood aspects of magic. She was the one that wanted us to keep such a unicorn on staff. I believe the last soothsayer was... Oracle Bell. Yes, that was her name. She was the last one, actually. After Luna's... well... failed coup, I never saw the need to find a new one.”
Celestia looked over the bed and then turned on the spot. “Still, it doesn’t look like anyone’s been in here. Let’s move on to... to.... Aaaa-choo!” She tossed her head and fluttered her wings with her sneeze, causing the dust around her to swirl up into the air. The sneeze turned to coughing, and Celestia waved her hoof in front of her mouth as she struggled to get a clean breath of air. Now she couldn’t smell or taste anything but the horrid particles of dirt that seemed intent in assaulting her.
“This dust is unbearable,” Celestia choked out.
“Perhaps you’d like to replace Fortress in the rotunda, your highness. You could act as our dispatcher until we’ve cleared all the easily accessible spaces. Then the squad as a whole can check these more secure rooms.”
“I am fine, Lieutenant,” Celestia reiterated with a flap of her wings. That flap blew dust off the nearby work desk and bed as well as causing something to flutter into the air. The movement caught the attention of Twin Blades, and she quickly moved to stand beside the desk.
“What are these?” she asked, picking up a square shape with her wing. It had been hidden beneath the dust on the desk. It was colorful, rigid, rectangular, and featured the image of a dragon framed by seven swords.
“They’re tarot cards,” Celestia answered as she came up behind Twin Blades. “It’s a dragon set Luna was given by an ambassador. She used to love this deck. She’d always beat me when we played cards with them. Just something about them made her lucky.”
“You used tarot cards to play a game? I thought they were just for fortune telling.”
“Originally tarot cards were just playing cards, lieutenant,” Celestia commented as she leaned in to get a better look at the card Twin Blades was holding. “If I remember correctly, Oracle Bell was one of the first to use a tarot card deck to tell the future. They practically became the core of her soothsaying after a while. I had to sit through many meals where Luna listened to her ramble on about how the cards were the truest path to seeing the future. She’d even use other methods of prediction just to figure out how to lay out her cards.”
“Sounds... interesting,” Twin Blades commented as she used her wing’s feathers to turn over the card she had picked up.
“Like I said, Luna has always had the keener interest in more uncommon forms of magic. I didn’t think of it too much myself, until... well... until one of Oracle Bell’s predictions came true in the worst way.” Celestia stepped away from the desk, her mind riffling back through her memories.
“I still remember what she said. A joining path pattern, two predictions culminating into a single future.”
“There was a path for me. It was comprised of the sun, the inverted queen of coins, the queen of wards, the five of coins, and the inverted hanging dragon. Then there was a path for Luna. It had the inverted moon, the inverted judgment, the eight of swords, the inverted hermit, and the inverted strength. Those two paths came together into a single prediction. The three of swords, the inverted lover, the five of swords, the seven of swords, and, finally, the inverted chariot.”
“What does that all mean?”
“I’ve never studied card reading,” Celestia answered as she turned back to face Twin Blades. “All I can say is what Oracle Bell told me and Luna a thousand years ago. The sun is a mare who focuses too much on the work side of her life. She is a mare of leadership who will face an unforeseen expense. She will not see it coming, for like the inverted hanging dragon, she sees the world as if it were upside down.”
“The moon,” Celestia continued, reciting the words in the same tone they were originally spoken in. “She suffers imbalance and can see no way out of the dark. She isolates herself, alienates herself. She is too emotional to think clearly. These two shall meet, and in that meeting face heartbreak. There will be a betrayal. A crossing of swords and a parting of ways. One will make an important, needed sacrifice, but the cycle will still remain incomplete.”
Celestia sighed, letting her voice return to normal. “It is only later, after this prediction had come to pass, that I would realize Oracle Bell spoke of my sister’s betrayal, her transformation into Nightmare Moon, and our clash.” Celestia said softly, the memories hurting like an old wound.
Twin Blades looked back at the card she held in the prehensile feathers of her wing. “And you said one of the cards was the seven of swords, right?”
Celestia nodded. “Yes, I did. Why do you ask?”
Twin Blades extended her wing, and placed the card back down on the table. She then gently ran her feathers across the surface, wiping away the dust that still lingered there to reveal more cards. Their colorful images bore labels. Some were inverted, facing the opposite direction of the others, but the pattern was clearly visible. Two paths of five cards each feeding into another column of five cards, one of which was the seven of swords the lieutenant had been holding.
“This pattern is still laid out?” Celestia whispered, her eyes reflecting her disbelief. “I mean, Oracle Bell left the royal court before Luna’s coup and... there were no other soothsayers after her. I suppose it’s possible that no one cleaned out this room, but why would Oracle Bell leave the cards laid out if she was leaving?”
Celestia lifted a hoof and tapped the nearest card. “Still, it’s a bit poetic. The inverted chariot, an incomplete cycle... I didn’t defeat my sister forever the day I used the Elements of Harmony against her. I only delayed her. Only paused the cycle until it could be completed by my student and her friends.”
“What about those two cards?”
Celestia cocked her head, and looked to Twin Blades. “What do you mean?”
The lieutenant extended a wing and tapped a pair of cards that were set between the two initial branches. “There’s two cards here you didn’t mention. This top one’s called the... hierophant?” She looked over her shoulder at Celestia. “What the hay is a hierophant?”
“It’s an old term for a priest, another kind of soothsayer,” Celestia commented. She called on her magic and picked up the two cards so she could look at them more closely. “I don’t know what it means though. You’d need to ask someone who knows how to read tarot cards.”
“Well, what’s the second card?”
Celestia shifted the hierophant behind the second card, and then felt an odd chill run up her spine as she looked at the ghastly image that had been revealed. The card depicted a red dragon in a fire burned forest. He was a dark, deathly red and held a black trident. The label at the bottom of the card read “The Devil”.
“Oh my,” Celestia said before turning the card so Twin Blades could see. “Isn’t this pleasant?”
“I’d say creepy, your highness.” The lieutenant turned her back on the desk and began to trot towards the door. “And in any case we’ve spent too long in here. Please send a report spell to Fortress and then let’s move on to the next room. Every second we waste could make all the difference.”
Celestia nodded and set the two cards back where they were on the desk. She summoned the report spell, spoke to it, and then let it zip away before quickly falling in line behind Twin Blades. They did not bother to close the door to the soothsayer’s old quarters, leaving it open to succumb to the natural darkness as they walked further away with their sources of light.
~~~
“We’ve cleared the old soothsayer’s quarters and are moving onto the next chamber. End Message.”
The bubble of the communication spell popped after that, its words echoing off the stone walls of the rotunda. Fortress, a sturdy built unicorn mare of the Lunar Guard, had taken off her armor and was doing push-ups near the center of the room. Her natural coat color, a fine bronze, was revealed along with her bright red hair and her cutie mark, a closed castle gate. Beads of sweat were running down her brow, but she continued with a relentless rhythm of push-ups all the same.
The rotunda served as a modest base of operations for the squad’s search. Lanterns had been placed on the floor in front of each archway that connected to the circular room, providing beacons into the dark hallways. There were also a couple lanterns on the small command post that had been assembled in the room’s center. They illuminated a few packs filled with supplies and a large map of the castle’s old tunnel network that had been copied from a book in Canterlot.
As Fortress continued her push-ups, bulky muscles flexing, she lit her horn and picked up a quill. She dipped it once into an inkwell, then used it to mark an X on the room Celestia and Twin Blades had just visited. She then set the quill down and formed a messenger spell of her own. She did this all without missing a beat, continuing her push ups as she mentally counted off her reps.
The bubble slipped off her horn and bobbed up and down, keeping itself in line with her head. “Roger, continue on to your next room. All teams are up-to-date on their reports. Still no sign of Princess Luna or Twilight Sparkle. We’ve searched roughly a quarter of the chambers. Will await your next report. End Message.”
The bubble in front of her turned a blue tone and flew off in the direction of one of the archways. Fortress then finished her push-ups, and, after stretching a bit, laid out on her back and began to do crunches.
Another message bubbled came rolling into the room, and floated near her as it spoke. “Hey, Fortress, this is Path Finder. Night Gaze wanted me to pass a message along. He says he’d like to oil up that body builder physique of yours sometime then let you work him over. Sounds kinky!”
“I said no such thing!” Night Gaze’s voice protested, coming from the same bubble. “Fortress, I beg you, let me come in and watch the rotunda. I can’t stand his prattling.”
“Aw, if you want some time with Fortress, I could just watch the rotunda. How about it Fortress? Want to find a nice dark corner with Night Gaze? End Message.”
Fortress laughed as she lowered herself back down to the ground. Path Finder’s message spell popped, but it was soon replaced by a new one from Fortress. She spoke into it, trying to suppress her snickering.
“Sorry, boys, Lieutenants orders. I got to hold down the fort. Try not to kill each other. End Message.”
She watched the bubble zip off before chuckling and going back to her crunches. “That and I’d have probably broken Path Finder’s nose by now if I was on patrol with him. Better you than me, Night Ga—”
CLINK
Fortress froze, ears forward and body tense. She was back on her hooves in a moment, looking for the source of the sound. She turned slowly, eyes darting about as she calmed her breathing and wiped from sweat from her brow. She began to inch herself towards her armor, wishing to quickly put her helmet back on if something chose to attack.
It was then, however, she saw the source of the sound, and it caused her to breathe out with a huff. A lantern had fallen over and was rolling around on its side. Its glass clinked and jingled against the stone as it rolled until it eventually came to a stop.
Fortress quickly relaxed her guard and trotted over to the lantern, picking it up in her magic. She checked it over quickly for damage, huffing out a small breath of air through her nose. “Must have been sitting unlevel,” she commented before carrying the lantern back to the archway it had been illuminating.
Each lantern around the rotunda’s parameter was to be something of a light at the end of the tunnel. Everything in the network of corridors eventually lead back the rotunda. It was the way the place was designed. Thus, in case of emergency, all anypony had to do was run until they saw a light. Then they could follow it back to the rotunda, where everypony agreed to regroup if something happened.
Fortress set the lantern back in place, gave it a gentle tap to make sure it wouldn’t fall over, then turned her back on it. She didn’t really see the point of all the lanterns. It’s not like they were going to be ambushed. Shining Armor was guarding the castle outside. They, and supposedly the mares they were searching for, were the only one’s down in the catacombs.
There was supposed to be nopony else.
CLINK
Fortress turned and glared. She hadn’t gotten more than four steps away when the lantern had fallen over again. Now, it was lying on its side, as if daring her to set it up right again. “Don’t make me glue you to the floor,” she threatened as she set it up right again. She then watched it for a few seconds, to be sure it would stay balanced, before she got back down on the floor to resume her crunches.
“Now, where was—”
CLINK
Once more, the lantern fell and rolled along its side. And, once more, Fortress looked at it, but this time it was not with disdain or anger. It was with caution. She flicked her gaze up to the archway the lantern was supposed to be illuminating. She focused her gaze into the darkness beyond, and... felt as if the darkness was staring back.
Getting up, she cast a light spell from her horn and bent it into a cone. She focused it down the corridor beyond the archway, flashing the light against the walls. There was nothing there, and the sensation of being watched had left as well.
It was just an empty corridor.
Fortress tapped her hoof in annoyance and then looked back down at the lantern. She grabbed it up with her mouth and began to walk to the archway. At the same time, she cast a spell on archway’s keystone. She morphed and transfigured it, eventually creating a small hook. She levitated the lamp to that hook and hung it there.
“Fall off of that,” she said, pointing a hoof at the lamp. She then smiled and, believing herself triumphant against the unbalanced lamp, went back to the center of the room and her crunches. And, this time, the lantern did stay put. It hung from the keystone, illuminating the top of the arch as a light above the doorway.
It did, however, sway a little, as if it had been gently tapped once to test how securely it was hung.
Into The Depths By Pen Stroke Preread, Edited, and Reviewed By Illustrious Q, Batty Gloom, Wraithguard, Rainbowdash64, Cloudhammer, Magical Trevor, Kohta Izumi, Kirk Heller =====================================================================
Path Finder stumbled out into the hallway. He dry heaved, his vision blurry from the tears that streamed from his eyes. He slumped against the wall of the hallway, gasping and gauging. “How… how could something like that exist? How is this even possible?”
He threw a glance into the room he had just come from, dry heaving again. “It isn't right. It… it’s unholy. It’s a thing of nightmares and monsters. No pony should have to face such terror. It’s a torture, a cancer upon Equestria that has only festered and grown with the passage of time.
“It’s… it’s too horrible… it’s too gruesome… it’s—”
“The bathroom,” Night Gaze said flatly as he followed Path Finder back into the hallway. “It’s just the old bathrooms.”
“Your sense of smell must be dead,” Path Finder said before spitting against the wall. “Oh… grah… I think I can still taste the smell. Have you ever tasted a smell like that before? It’s the worst.”
Night Gaze shook his head and turned to continue down the corridor. “Are you sure you're a guard and not an actor?”
Path Finder quickly recovered from his “harrowing” ordeal and, with a bright smile, caught up with Night Gaze. “Really, you think I’d do well in theater? I once thought about striking out onto the stage. I've got a singing voice you can’t believe.”
“Then why didn't you?”
“Ah, I’m a guard-brat,” Path Finder said with a short laugh. “You know the story. Father says, ‘It runs in the family. Generations of guards. One of them was a general.’ Hard to not get it into your head the guard is the best job in the world when your own parents think that. Still, I get my fix hitting up karaoke night at this bar near the castle. Now, my sister, she was the rebel. She—”
“Night Gaze, Path Finder, Report! End message.”
Path Finder winced and flattened his ears against his head as he and Night Gaze came to a stop at a "T" intersection in the underground tunnels. He turned around just in time to see the last trails of smoke from a popped message bubble disappear into the air. “Hold that thought, Gaze. Got to report to Fortress before she cracks the whip again.”
Path Finder formed the message bubble on his horn, released it, and spoke into it with a pleasant smile and a teasing tone. “Sorry, Fortress, we were just cleaning out our noses after enjoying the fragrant bouquet of smells in the old latrines. We’re currently at a 'T' junction and will be making a right to head to our next room. End message.”
As so many message bubbles before, the one Path Finder created zipped off into the dark corridors. He then turned back to Night Gaze, laughing a little as he began to head down the right-hoof path. “Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, my sister. Now she’s the one that drove my parents crazy. There was this one time in high school when she—”
“Do you two see Corporals Wind Runner and Sunshine Smiles at your location? They should have crossed your path, and they haven’t given a report since they left a small armory a few hundred paces from your location. End message.”
Path Finder and Night Gaze turned again, once more seeing the trailing smoke of a message spell fading into the air. This time, the interruption was met by a groan as Path Finder took off his helmet and set it down on the floor. “I can sense a game of message tag starting. I’m just going to form a direct connection. You talk to her and figure out what’s going on.”
Night Gaze nodded and kept the light from his armor’s gem focused on Path Finder as he sat down on his haunches. The solar guard unicorn then cocked his head back, opened his mouth, and made his ears stand perfectly erect. It looked, at first glance, like he was about to sneeze, but instead he held that position as his horn began to glow.
Stepping back, Night Gaze watched as a trail of light began to glisten in the air of the tunnel. It was a direct magical connection to Fortress, and soon her voice was radiating out of Path Finder’s mouth like he was a record player.
“Night Gaze, that you?”
“Yes,” he replied, speaking into Path Finder’s ear like it was a microphone. “Path Finder and I haven’t seen the corporals. Doesn't look like they've been by here either. There’s no tracks in the dust.”
Fortress cursed under her breath. “The last thing we need is somepony else going missing. Night Gaze, are you sure they haven’t just passed by there? They should have come up the corridor to your left and continued down the same tunnel you and Path Finder were heading to.”
“Like I said, Fortress, we haven’t seen them and it doesn't look like anypony’s been—”
Night Gaze paused, glancing over his shoulder and down the tunnel to the left. His ears moved forward and he quieted his breathing. His keen eyes, skilled at seeing the dark, pierced the depths of the corridor. He had heard something… or so he thought he had. It was there and gone, like a whisper. Still, years of experience as a guard were beginning to come to bear. Alarm bells were tolled in Night Gaze’s head.
Something was off.
“Night Gaze?”
There it was again… that sound, or… no. It was a lack of sound. The echoes, they weren't lasting as long as they should. The tunnels all seemed to echo endlessly when they were walking. The sounds of their hooves cascaded for several seconds as did their voices, but now… now the sound was dying much faster. There were less echoes coming from the left-hoof tunnel.
He took a tentative step forward, kicking up a small bit of dusk as he shuffled his hooves. Every muscle was tense. He drew a deep breath from his nose, picking up heavily on the smell of stale air and stone. But there was something beneath it, something metallic smelling.
“Night Gaze!?”
“S-sorry, Fortress,” he stammered. He turned back to speak into Path Finder’s ear, but he kept his gaze focused on the left-hoof tunnel. “Um… you want us to go check on them?”
“Yes,” she confirmed with an annoyed grunt. “Follow that tunnel back until you find a four way intersection. Make a right and then it will be the first door on your left. It’s supposed to be a small armory, if these maps are right.”
“Okay, we’ll check it out and see if we can’t find them. Night Gaze out.” At that, he gently closed Path Finder’s mouth, ending the communication spell and allowing the unicorn to come back to his senses.
Path Finder shook his head once and then gently spat a few times as he got back to his hooves. “Always hate that spell. My mouth tastes like rotten blueberries every time I use it.” He commented before looking at Night Gaze. “So, what’s up?”
“Corporals Wind Runner and Sunshine Smiles haven’t checked in. We’re going to backtrack their path and see if we can’t find out what happened.”
Path Finder grunted through his teeth, picked up his helmet and set it back on his head. “Great, more wandering around in the dark looking for more lost ponies. Why can’t it be like finding a coffee house in Canterlot? You can’t go five blocks without seeing one these days. And all those ponies drinking coffee, they’re just…”
~~~
Night Gaze moved up close to a wall, breathing steady and quiet as Path Finder stayed a few steps behind. They had gone several hundred paces backtracking the path to find the corporals, and the tension in the air only seemed to increase the further they went along. The tunnels had grown quiet, mostly because Path Finder had finally talked himself hoarse rambling on about coffee shops. And, without Finder’s constant prattle, the silence was beginning to creep in. The only sound came from their hooves clipping against the hard stones, and those sounds became echoed almost tenfold against the hard stone of the tunnel walls.
Yet even in the cacophony of echoes, it was too quiet. The sounds of their hoofsteps faded too quickly, disappear all too fast. It was like the silence was eager to surround them, and it would not be held at bay for long.
Moving quickly, Night Gaze moved out from behind a corner, stepping into the center of a four way intersection. He quickly flashed the light from his helmet down the forward and right-hoof corridors while Path Finder checked the left.
Still, they had seen no sign of the corporals. There were no lights moving in the distance. They could hear no sounds of hoofsteps moving around the tunnels. They may as well have been the only two soldiers down there. There were also no trails in the dust on the floor. Thus, it became evident the corporals had not even reached that intersection, let alone the one further along where their two groups were supposed to cross paths.
“Anything?” Night Gaze whispered.
“No,” Path Finder replied. Like water freezing into ice, his carefree and go-with-the-flow attitude had been replaced with the stringent actions of a soldier. He kept his gaze focused on the left-hoof path. “Doesn't look like anything's been through here in centuries”
“Then come on,” Night Gaze said with a small motion of his head. “The armory the corporals were supposed to be checking is close. First door on the left.”
Path Finder nodded, and the pair continued onward. Night Gaze stayed in the lead, the light from his armor reaching forward into the tunnel as Path Finder guarded their rear. The first door came up quickly, and it was then they saw their first signs of life. The dust in front of the door and leading down the corridor, away from them, had two quartets of hoofprints in it. There were even a few particles of dust floating lazily in the air, dancing like tiny parasprites in the light from Night Gaze’s armor and Path Finder’s horn. The dust had been recently stirred.
“Looks like they never left.”
Path Finder took a few more steps back, a bit of an annoyance in his tone. “If they’re in there taking a nap or something I say we haul their flanks back to Fortress. That mare gives world-famous reprimands. She’s got the vocabulary of a worst kind of sailor but she is as eloquent as free style poetry. You just can’t believe her rants until you’ve heard them.”
“Just get in there and see if you can find them," Night Gaze said as he moved into position in front of the door. “I’ll stand watch.”
Path Finder nodded, and quickly ducked into the room as he shifted the light from his horn so that it shone out in all direction, like a lantern. Night Gaze could see the light moving behind him, his body was casting a shadow against the wall of the corridor opposite the door. Still, he kept his attention focused on his duty. He looked to his left and right constantly, silencing his breathing as much as he could as he listened.
There was nothing to the left, nothing to the right. There was nothing but the dark corridors, and yet he felt like he had to stay on guard. It was a tingling in his spine, almost. One that refused to let his body relax. To lower his guard now was to invite death, and he couldn't even see anything. That and the smell in the air… that metal smell he had picked up earlier was a lot stronger. It was like they were in a blacksmiths shop. That, or—
“Night Gaze! Get in here!”
He spun on his hooves in a flash, and galloped into the room. It was truly an armory. Metal racks of spears, swords, and other sharp tools of combat cluttered the walls, glinting threateningly in the light from his gem. There was also a row of racks in the middle of the room, dividing the space into two aisles. The light from Path Finder’s horn glowed in the back corner of the room, and Night Gaze rushed down the nearest aisle to reach him.
With the sound of hooves skidding against the stone, he came to a stop as he reached the far end of the room. Path Finder was standing, stiff as stone, in front of a weapon rack that had fallen over. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t speaking. Night Gaze wasn’t sure he was even breathing.
“What did you… find?” Night Gaze asked, though he would discover that answer for himself as he trotted up beside Path Finder. His hoof sank into something wet on the floor, and he quickly stepped back and raised his hoof to his light. The liquid that dripped from it was choked with dust, but there was no ignoring its deep red color.
His own breathing becoming erratic, Night Gaze looked to the weapon rack, from which the pool of blood was spreading. He could see hooves sticking out from beneath it. Some were the pristine white of a pegasus of the Solar Guard. The others were the dark gray of Luna’s Lunar Guard.
“Path Finder,” Night Gaze said, his voice a little weak. “Contact Fortress, now.”
~~~
The aged hinges groaned as the door swung open slowly. As it did, the light from Celestia’s horn and Twin Blades’ armor extended out into the chamber beyond. The corridor beyond bulged and receded in width rhythmically the further it went, like the shape of a fine pearl necklace. And, at each bulge, rectangular holes had been cut in the walls. In these holes skeletons lay on aged, fraid pieces of fabric, their hooves crossed over their chest.
“The crypt,” Celestia said as she and Twin Blades stepped inside. “I was never fond of the idea that we were keeping dead ponies in any part of the castle.”
“So why did you let the castle have a crypt?”
“I dislike the idea of complaining royal families more,” Celestia answered. “They wanted to be buried in the castle, as if their bones needed to be protected, and I wouldn’t have heard the end of it unless I agreed.”
Twin Blades nodded as the pair continued further into the crypt. The smell of decay began to wash over them more and more the further they went in. The dead ponies weren’t the only source of the smell either. On the floor were the skeletal remains of numerous vermin who had starved to death when the castle’s underground chambers were sealed for the last time.
“I’m beginning to miss the smell of dust,” Celestia commented as she raised a wing to her nose, breathing through her feathers to try and filter out some of the odor.
“Then let’s make this quick,” Twin Blades’ commented, picking up the pace a little. She trotted ahead of Celestia, glancing left and right each time she reached a bulge in the corridor. It was all the same, dead pony bodies in rectangular holes. It became a rhythm, one further emphasized by the clip-clopping of Twin Blades hooves.
Twin Blades paused, having reached a junction where the path through the crypt made a right turn. There were no holes cut into the wall at the turn. It was simply a bend in the corridor. There was, however, one skeleton. It was small, light, but just as old as the rest of the skeletons. A few trinkets adorned its neck, necklaces and medallions, and beneath lay a book, stained brown with blood that was centuries old.
Princess Celestia caught up with Twin Blades, letting the light from her horn spread in all directions as the lieutenant extended a wing towards the skeleton. She used the tip of the blade attached to her wing to move the skeleton gently.
The skeleton, however, clattered to pieces at her touch. Its joints, formed of nothing more but compacted dust, failed at the gentle touch. The bones clattered apart, their sound echoing through the crypt. It sounded as if all the skeletons were now moving, rising from their rest to greet them.
Both Celestia and Twin Blades looked up and watched their surroundings cautiously. They listened, they waited, and remained tense as the sound continued to echo. It eventually faded and the crypt fell into silence once more. Still, the princess and the lieutenant stood stiff, watching the skeletons for any sign of movement.
Twin Blades was the first to dare to move. She took a deep breath, shook her head, and looked down at the now collapsed skeleton. With a ginger touch she brushed back a few of the bones before picking up the book. She turned it over in her hooves, a small sneer of revulsion forming on her face.
“No title, but… I think this is bound in leather.”
“Leather!” Celestia echoed in disbelief, but upon closer inspection she found Twin Blades correct. The book was bound in leather, the tanned and stretched flesh of another hoofed creature. Very few books in Equestria were made of the gruesome material, and none were supposed to exist outside the Canterlot Archives.
Yet here was one left behind at the old castle, long and forgot—
SNAP
Celestia and Twin Blades both quickly turned and looked further into the crypt, their ears turned forward and their lights shining into the distance. The sound was single and alone. There were no echoes to accompany it. It was like the breaking of a twig or the snapping of a bone. Simple, short, and mixed with the smell of decay in the air; it was, to a degree, sickening.
“Did you hear that?” Celestia asked.
Twin Blades only nodded, and took a single, tentative step forward. “Who goes there?!”
“Lieutenant! Get back to the rotunda! There’s been an accident!”
Celestia and Twin Blades both jumped and spun. The messenger bubble, which had carried with it Fortress’s panicked shout, had snuck up behind them. It was already gone, having popped once its message was delivered. That didn’t stop Twin Blades and Celestia from cursing the spell for startling them.
“Come on,” Twin Blades said, forcing strength into her voice so it would not tremble. “We better go and see what’s going on.”
Princess Celestia could only nod, carrying the book they had found in her magic as they made their way back to the rotunda.
~~~
“How did it happen?”
“We don’t know, lieutenant. It looks like one of the weapon racks got loose from the wall and fell over on them.”
“And you’re telling me you didn’t hear it happen? How did you not hear a weapon rack falling over? These walls are stone, sergeant. You should have been able to hear that racket from where you were. You should have… uh…”
Twin Blades pressed a hoof to her forehead, rubbing a temple gently as she glanced over to a side of the rotunda. There, a few of the other guards were covering the bloodied and mangled bodies of the corporals with sheets. Others were working to assemble stretchers from the supplies they had available. The stretchers were originally meant for Luna and Twilight, in case they needed to be carried out of the tunnels.
Now, the stretchers would be used to transport the dead back to the surface.
“Just… just take five, Night Gaze, Path Finder,” Twin Blades eventually said as she waved them off. She then looked to the other soldiers. “The rest of you, get them ready for transport. I want four of you to get them back up top. Then get your flanks down here and bring as many squads as Shining Armor is willing to spare. We need to speed up this search and, to do that, we need more bodies.”
The soldiers nodded and hurried their work. At the same time, Twin Blades turned and walked towards the center of the rotunda. There, Princess Celestia was sitting with Fortress, silently looking over the map of the underground chambers. They whispered quietly, as if fearful they were disrespecting the dead. In truth, the whole room had gone as quiet as a graveyard.
“All right, we’re going to be six ponies down until those four come back with reinforcements. Fortress, I want our operation numbers doubled. Nopony goes into the tunnels unless they’re with three others. Night Gaze and Path Finder will be with me and Celestia. That will leave Lighthouse and Sure Hoof here with you until we get more soldiers down here. Hold the fort and tell me the moment the reinforcements arrive.”
Fortress nodded, “You got it, lieutenant.”
“Good, now Princess,” Twin Blades said as she looked to Celestia. “We need to speed this up. Princess Luna and Twilight came here for a reason and it wasn’t to sight see. If they were looking for something, where do you think they’d go?”
“That’s the thing, everything of importance was moved to Canterlot.” Celestia said, her voice low and contemplative. “The vault was cleared. The archives were emptied. Everything was supposed to be moved to Canterlot.”
“Then why, Princess, were the Elements of Harmony left behind?” Twin Blades asked, an undercurrent of suspicion in her voice. “Why were there weapons left in that armory? Why was there still furniture in the soothsayer's quarters? We were told this place was supposed to be empty.”
“It is supposed to be empty,” Celestia answered. “I was assured these lower chambers had been cleared. There certainly were no signs of things missing once the archives were sorted and organized in Canterlot. As to the Elements, they were to be part of a final transfer.
“Some of my most trusted soldiers were coming here to get them, but they came back to Canterlot saying the Elements were gone. We all believed at the time they had been stolen. The forest was searched, but… we never found any signs of who took them.”
“But didn’t Twilight Sparkle and her friends find the Elements on their pedestals,” Fortress asked. “Weren’t they exactly where they were supposed to be?”
Celestia turned and nodded to fortress. “Yes, they were, and that’s puzzled me. I came to the castle myself. I saw the empty pedestals myself. The elements were gone, and yet…” she fell silent at this, looking contemplatively at the map, as if hoping it might provide the answer to the question she herself had pondered time and again.
“In any case,” Twin Blades said with a flutter of her wings, causing the attached blades to rattle a little. “If the elements were left behind, Princess Luna and Twilight may have come here looking for something they couldn’t find in Canterlot. They may have come here for something they believed was also left behind, and if that is true, then there are two places they would have looked. The archives and the vault.”
~~~
“Go ahead, Princess.”
Celestia nodded, lowering her horn and touching it to the door. Her magic flared. Ancient tumblers clicked free, and the hinges cried as the thick doors swung open. Curls of dust rolled into the air, swept up from the floor. For the first time in centuries, light fell on the rows of empty shelves that had once held the greatest knowledge in all Equestria. Some shelves had collapsed, but others still stood vigilant against the passage of time.
The group moved in, stepping slowly. Princess Celestia kept her light lit bright, shining in all directions like a flare as the guards quickly scanned the room. Her nose was filled with the sweet smell of fertile earth, which was a welcome change to the odor of stale air that seemed to permeate everywhere else.
“Looks like part of the ceiling caved in,” Twin Blades commented as the group’s lights illuminated a tall pile of dirt that reached from the floor to a hole in the stonework of the ceiling. “Be careful and don’t touch anything unless you have to. The last thing we want to do is cause a cave in.”
Path Finder and Night Gaze nodded as they continued to vigilantly check the aisles between the empty shelves. Soon, the group reached the center of the archive room, a large circular space that had paths branching off into the rows and columns of shelves. At the center of it was a large statue of a bearded pony with bells on his hat and cloak. Parts had broken off with age, but still the stone figure stood proud, like a king of the archives.
“Who is that?”
“It’s Starswirl the Bearded,” Princess Celestia replied their lights focused on the statue. “He was one of the greatest minds Equestria has ever seen. It seemed fitting to honor him in this place, where some of his greatest works were stored. If memory serves, there should be other statues around here for other famous scholars, a half dozen in all.”
“The maps of the archives did show there being six sculpture stands.” Twin Blades extended a wing, pointing straight ahead. “Now, the vault should be that way. Since it’s the smaller room we’ll check there first then we’ll search the archives proper, working our way back to the entrance. Night Gaze, you take point. Path Finder, you're on our flank.”
“Aw, captain, if you want me to look at your flank, you could just—”
“Finish that sentence, Finder, and you will regret it.”
“Roger that, Lieutenant,” Path Finder said with a quick salute.
The group fell into formation, and continued deeper into the archives. They left the statue of Starswirl the Bearded behind, its daunting form fading into darkness. The empty shelves continued to stand silently on their left and right, like silent sentinels that seemed to loom, about to strike them down for their trespass. The aged, insect eaten carpet continued on in front of them, walking in silence… walking without words… walking with their eyes struggling to pierce the darkness.
Finally, there was a glint in the distance ahead of them, a reflection of metal. They picked up their pace, breaking into jogs, and soon a heavy door, made of solid metal, loomed out of the darkness. It was mammoth, tall enough for Discord to stroll through without needing to slouch. It was sealed shut by heavy deadbolts and it bore the symbol of Equestria’s flag.
“That… would hurt if it fell on us,” Path Finder commented as he looked over his shoulder.
Night Gaze winced and threw a short glare back at Finder. “You really have to put that image in my head after what happened to the corporals?”
“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.”
“Stow the talk,” Twin Blades snipped before looking up at Celestia. “But maybe we should stand back while you’re opening it.”
Celestia nodded, and the squad moved back a few paces as Celestia focused her magic on the door. Ancient spells, forged straight into the metal, reacted at her touch. The door knew its princess, and its tumblers began to slide open with a grating sound, as if dirt had gotten stuck in its seams. Though it creaked and groaned like an old stallion, the door yielded to Celestia and released its locks. It then began to open, its seams glowing with light.
“It seems not all the magic in this place is drained,” Celestia commented as the vault door continued to open, releasing a warm glow to wash over them. “The light gems inside the vault are only to turn on when the door is open or somepony is inside. Thus, their power seems to have survived the centuries.”
“I guess this is where they got the idea to put lights in refrigerators,” Path Finder whispered to Night Gaze, who only rolled his eyes as the door finished opening.
Like a true and proper vault, the interior of the chamber was comprised almost entirely of metal. Secured cabinets and drawers lined the walls, but there were also podiums spaced around the room. Celestia stepped forward, Twin Blades following behind her as Path Finder and Night Gaze remained outside, keeping watch.
“Such treasures used to be kept safe in here,” Celestia mused, nostalgia washing over her. She stepped in slowly and paused near the middle of the vault. Twin Blades continued on past her, trotting towards the far end.
“The crown jewels. The original copy of the treaty formed by the three races of ponies, agreeing to found Equestria as a single, shared kingdom. The crown of the Platinum royal line. I really should go into the Canterlot vault sometime. All those beautiful relics are so rarely seen or appreciated.”
“Princess,” Twin Blades said, waving a hoof in the air. “I found something!”
Celestia jogged forward quickly, rushing to the end of the vault where Twin Blades was standing. The lieutenant picked something up off the floor and held it up to the princess. It was Twilight’s saddlebags, left discarded on the floor. Celestia was almost trembling as she took the bags in her magic. She lifted the flap and began to slowly remove its contents.
“A book on the history of the old castle. Light gems. A candle with matches. More books. Hoofwriten notes.” Celestia removed each item and held it aloft in her magic as she continued to dig. Finally, she reached the bottom and pulled out one final item from the bags. It was a rolled scroll that had been sealed by wax. The wax had been pressed with an insignia, a crescent moon.
Concern and curiosity piqued, Celestia unrolled the scroll and recognized her sister’s writing. She began to read, taking in every word in hopes it would reveal her sister’s purpose.
To Twilight Sparkle,
I have tried the techniques you have researched. Performing them without the castle staff or Celestia seeing me has been a challenge, but I have been using them. They did help, at first, but now their effectiveness is waning. The night is no longer my own. The stars and moon may remain loyal but the darkness is now a shroud it wears. I, the princess of the night, fear the dark. I sleep with my blinds open, hoping my sister’s sun will keep me safe when I am most vulnerable. It has worked so far, but… how much longer will that keep it at bay?
Preventive measures are no longer sufficient. This must be dealt with and I need to know whether or not you will still aid me. I leave for the old castle four days from now. If you wish to help or join me, take this time to prepare yourself.
Hopefully, it will not have taken me before then.
Sincerely, Princess Luna of Equestria
Celestia’s heart was still in her chest and her mouth had gone dry. Luna… her words… it sounded as if she was terrified of something. But what… what in this old castle could have scared Luna? There was nothing here. It had all been cleared centuries before. Perhaps a wild animal or two had made use of some of the old above ground ruins as a den, but there was no reason for Luna to fear the monsters of the Everfree Forest when she was safe in Canterlot.
“Luna, what were you doing here?” Celestia said, looking at the note again.
CRASH
All eyes turned to the dark archives beyond the reach of the vault’s light, bodies tense and ears erect. Path Finder and Night Gaze took tentative steps forward, scanning their surroundings with the light from their helmets.
“You two see anything?” Twin Blades called, speaking as loudly as she dared.
“No. It sounded like one of these book shelves falling over, but I don’t see— Wait, over there.” Night Gaze lifted a hoof, pointing to some dust that was swirling in the light from his armor. “I think I see the shelf. Look like it just gave way.”
“Oh please let that be true,” Path Finder said, making every effort to force a joking tone as he and Night Gaze moved closer and closer to the place where the dust was swirling. Every muscle was tense, adrenaline was pumping. They drew in deep breaths. The smell of soil, which had once been inviting, now seemed to close in on them… as if they had been buried alive and all they could smell was the dirt surrounding them.
rgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrg
The pair froze, turning their lights in the distance. “What was that?”
CRASH
CRASH CRASH
A bookshelf came crashing down beside the two guards, knocked over in a domino effect caused a few rows away. They leapt back, and quickly pointed their lights up at where the first shelf had fallen. They searched for the source, but saw nothing. Then, it came again, a crashing sound. A crashing that grew louder and louder. It became a chorus of destruction, and with their lights they could see the book shelves moving, coming towards them.
It was like an earthquake and a tornado. The empty shelves were falling, were being thrown. The shelves were simply coming at them like an avalanche or tidal wave. The splintered wood just continued to roll towards them, and their screams joined the cacophony as they turned and sprinted for the vault.
Celestia rushed forward at the same time, horn glowing. Her levitation spell reached out to the sergeants, wrapping around them. She then pulled hard, like a fisherman pulling in a bite. The pair was lifted off their hooves, drawn to the open, safe light of the vault. They flew in, tumbling as they landed, and a moment later Celestia slammed the vault door shut behind them.
She called on her magic, resetting the locks of the vault, and they began to slide into place just as the avalanche of shelving smashed against it. It was a blow that shook the entire vault. It made Celestia step away from the door in caution, fearful even the thick metal of the vault would be unable to protect them. The cacophony of the avalanche roared outside for several seconds before eventually starting to fade.
Slowly, everything returned to silence. All the quartet could hear was the sounds of their own ragged breathing as they stared at the vault door.
Into The Depths By Pen Stroke Preread, Edited, and Reviewed By Illustrious Q, Batty Gloom, Wraithguard, Rainbowdash64, Cloudhammer, Magical Trevor, Kohta Izumi, Kirk Heller =====================================================================
Chapter 3 Time is Relative ====================
Fortress sat back at base, map on the table as she looked over it with focused and tired eyes. She lifted a hoof to her face to rub it briefly but then went straight back to watching the map. In her magic she floated a quill, filled and ready with ink. In front of her, on the table, was a small minute-glass. Its white sand was flowing from the top to the bottom of its characteristic glass container, and, within moments, all the sand had drained away to the bottom.
“Where are those reinforcements,” she muttered as she drew another line in the corner of the map. She bit her lip, chewing on it gently. She tapped her hoof on the book Twin Blades and Celestia had found, using it to prevent her hoof from clacking rhythmically against the stone floor.
“I should have at least gotten a report. They should have gotten outside, talked with Shining, and then sent a report that they were coming back and how many troops they were bringing.” She slammed a hoof against the map. “Where in tartarus is everypony and why aren’t they sending in their reports?”
CRASH
A flare of light appeared in the periphery of Fortress’s vision, and she quickly turned to see a puddle of fire beneath one of the archways on the perimeter of the rotunda. One of the lanterns had fallen, smashed open, and now it’s fire and oil were spreading across the floor.
“Don’t let it get to the supplies!” Fortress shouted as she scrambled to her hooves, but her words came all too late. Even as she and the two corporals that had remained with her rushed towards the lamp, the growing puddle of oil reached a saddlebag that had been leaned against the wall. The fabric of the bags went up quickly. Fortress and the corporals had to step back and shield themselves from the sudden increase in flames.
“Sergeant,” one of the corporals shouted. “Our spare lamp oil is in that bag!”
“Horseapples,” Fortress spat, glancing at the one corporal with her that was a unicorn. “You know a fire fighting spell, like something to choke out the fire?”
“No sir! Do you want us to try and put it out with water?”
“We don’t have enough to put it all out. Besides, half of it is an oil fire. You don’t put water on oil fires.”
A pop and flare of fire made Fortress look back at the saddle bags. One of the containers inside had ruptured, adding more fuel to the fire. The room was starting to fill with the heat, and the fire was so bright it was painful to look at.
Cursing, Fortress lit her horn and wove a levitation spell. She grabbed up the flame-encased pack in her magic and, with a swing of her head, threw it down one of the corridors leading away from the rotunda. The bag flew a good hundred feet before crashing back against the floor. The oil containers within smashed open, and the fire consuming the bag flared to such size it was able to touch the ceiling of the tunnel, darkening it with burns.
“Nice save, sergeant,” one of the corporals complemented.
Fortress spat and glared at the lamp that fell over. “Nice save? It would have been nice if that lamp hadn’t fallen over, making it necessary for me to throw away all our spare oil. Now, did anyone see what happened?”
The corporals shook their heads and the unicorn said, “No sir, we didn’t see anything. We were having our rations, as you ordered, sir.”
Fortress huffed, rubbed the bridge of her nose, and then turned to go back to her map and minute-glass. “Just... just make sure the rest of the lanterns are on level ground and turn down the rest so they're at half flame. It will make it darker in here but we need to make the oil we have left last as long as we can.”
“Yes, sergeant,” the pair said before trotting off to attend to their task. At the same time Fortress got back to her map, putting another few tally marks in the corner of the map for the time they had wasted dealing with the lantern. She then turned over her egg timer and resumed tapping her hoof in irritation.
~~~
“I’m telling you, Gaze, it had to be specially trained, black-ops, ninja unicorns. There’s probably a squad of them in these tunnels. They came here, captured Princess Luna and Twilight, and now they’re trying to get rid of us so they can get Princess Celestia.”
“And why would anyone want to kidnap the princesses?” Night Gaze said, raising his voice as his argument with Path Finder continued.
“Maybe they work for a crazy cult that’s trying to bring back Nightmare Moon and they want to make sure Celestia can’t interfere,” Path Finder spat.
“Do you realize how stupid you sound?”
“Oh, and what do you think just happened?” Path Finder asked. “Did the shelves throw themselves?”
“No, I think it’s some Everfree Monster. I mean, ursa majors, cockatrices, and hydras live in this forest. There’s probably a panther, wolf, lion chimera out there that wants to turn us into dinner.”
“That threw shelves?”
Night Gaze lifted a hoof and poked Path Finder in the chest, “Makes more sense than any of your ramblings.”
“Don’t poke me!” Path Finder snapped, batting Night Gaze’s hoof away before poking him back.
With a furrowed brow, Night Gaze poked Path Finder in the chest again. Path Finder growled through his teeth and pulled back a forehoof, intending to punch Night Gaze in the jaw. Still, before he could, a pair of blades, secured to white wings, appeared between them as firm voice met their ears.
“If you two don’t shut up I’ll beat your flanks myself! Am I understood?!”
“Yes sir,” the pair answered, hanging their heads a little.
Twin Blades nodded, folding her wings before sighing and shaking her head. “Look, I get it, this isn’t what we were expecting but you're both still soldiers of the guard. We can handle whatever comes at us. But, only if we stick together. Cause, if you beat each other up, you’re only making it easier for whatever in tartarus is outside that vault door. I mean, for all we know, you could both be right, but all you're doing with this speculation is psyching us all out.
“So, for everypony’s sake, can we get a few minutes of quiet?”
“Yes, lieutenant,” Path Finder said, offering a salute as Night Gaze did the same.
“Good,” Twin Blades said before turning and walking away from the sergeants. They had been hiding within the brightly lit space for several minutes, listening for any sounds from the archives beyond. They hadn’t dared to even try to open the door, fearing it was either blocked by bookcases or being watched by whatever threw the shelves in the first place.
It was on Twin Blades orders they waited, for she wanted to be as prepared as possible. She had wanted to go through Twilight’s bags, to see what clues they could find. Yet, Celestia didn’t like the idea of somepony going through her student’s things. Thus, a compromise was made. Celestia had taken on the task befitting a teacher. She was reviewing Twilight’s books and the notes she could find tucked away within.
All in an effort to discern why Princess Luna and Twilight had come to the old castle’s tunnels.
“Did you find anything?” Twin Blades asked as she strode up to Celestia, who had been studying the books in Twilight’s bag for several minutes.
“There’s a consistent theme, to be sure. Most of the books Twilight brought with her are guides to advanced level wards and shielding spells. The only exception is this on anthology of mythologies and fables. It also looks like she was trying to find another book.” Celestia levitated a small, ripped piece of scrap paper up into the air and held it up so Twin Blades could read it.
“The... clavicus constria?”
“The Clavicula Concordia,” Celestia corrected, enunciating the words as clearly as if it was native Equestrian. “Translated roughly, it says The Key of Unity.”
“She was looking for a key?” Path Finder asked, he and Night Gaze moving closer to the princess.
“No, the Clavicula Concordia is a book, but I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of it. Few would even recognize the name and most of them are probably professors of history or mythology at my school for unicorns. I could spend hours rattling off legends that mention the book, but only one describes it’s origins.”
“Would you mind sharing the short version?”
“It is said the Clavicula Concordia is a guide book to harnessing the power of harmony,” Celestia began, speaking slowly as she went back, deep into her mind to remember the story. “If you are to believe the mythology surrounding it, the Clavicula Concordia was a book from the old country. It was from a time before unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies came together to found Equestria. It’s a tome that predates the Hearth’s Warming tale and even the first signs of the Windigos.
“The legend says that a unicorn queen sought to banish the creatures and monsters that plagued her kingdom. To do that, she meditated and searched for a magic that could best them and protect the ponies she cared for. In time, she discovered the magic that came from when ponies stood together. The magic that came from generosity, kindness, honesty, loyalty, laughter, and kinship.”
“She found ways to harness this magic, to draw on its power to beat away the beasts that threatened her subjects. She then detailed these methodologies in a book, the Clavicula Concordia. Some scholars even believe, or maybe hopefully dream, that this unicorn queen was the one who crafted the Elements of Harmony, and that the Clavicula Concordia contains instructions of how the process may be replicated.”
Path Finder couldn’t help but whistle in awe. “The origins of the Elements of Harmony. It’s surprising that ponies aren’t scouring the globe for that book.”
“There are those who try, who seek the book for the power it’s knowledge would grant.” Celestia sighed and looked to the note, which was written by Twilight, her dear, faithful student. “Others have gotten wrapped up in the promise that the Clavicula Concordia can solve all the world’s ills.”
“And could that be what Princess Luna and Twilight came here to find?” Twin Blades asked.
Celestia shook her head as she set down the scrap of paper. “I wouldn’t think so. The true Clavicula Concordia has never been found and it has never called the royal archives home. It was never held in this castle, and Luna would know this. She would know better than to come looking for that book here.”
Twin Blades fidgeted, the blades on her wings clicking against their straps. “She would know better, but if she’s as scared as that letter makes her sound, Princess Luna may be grasping at any glimmer of hope. Now, come on, we need to get out of this vault and back to the rotunda.”
“What about searching the archives, Lieutenant?” Celestia asked as she began to pack up Twilight’s saddlebags.
“The reinforcements have to be at the rotunda by now. We’ll go back there, bolster our numbers, and then figure out what happened here. That... and there’s something I want to check on.” Twin Blades took wing, hovering in the air and approaching one of the light gems that had been illuminating the space inside the vault.
“Still, we aren’t going back out there unless we can see what was throwing shelves at us. Night Gaze, you help me pry these light gems out of the vault’s walls and ceiling. Princess Celestia, Path Finder, use your magic to attach the light gems to our armor. Then, once we get out there, I want you both to crank your light spells as much as you can. I want light going in every direction.”
Twin Blades stuck the tip of a sword beneath one of the vault’s light gems, popping it out of place and causing it to clatter against the floor. “I’m not going to let whatever’s out there sneak up on us again.”
~~~
“Well, I suppose it could have been worse,” Fortress said.
She and the corporals had taken a few minutes to lay out their supplies. They knew they had lost their spare oil in the accident but hadn’t been sure what else the bag had contained. Now, they knew. It had contained some food, not enough to be of any real difference. The bag had also held a crossbow and its ammunition. The crossbow could be mounted to a guard’s armor and fired by a soldier pressing a button with their nose. It was an effective ranged weapon for earth ponies and pegasi who had decent enough aim.
“At least that fire died down,” Corporal Sure Hoof commented, focusing on the corridor the bag had been thrown down. The once tower of fire had dwindled to small, blue flames that burned off the remaining oil. “Maybe we could see if the crossbow survived?”
“It didn’t. It was made of wood and so were its bolts. Anything that was in that bag is too burned to be of use.” Fortress motioned towards the supplies on the floor. “Now get all this packed away again and get back on your patrol. I want eyes out for the reinforcements, because I want to be able to chew their flanks out for being so late the moment they show their sorry faces!”
The corporals saluted and began to work quickly, to ensure they stayed on Fortress’s good side. At the same time she went to the one archway that now lacked a lantern, stepping up to the threshold and watching the last of the fires on the saddlebags burn. She tapped her hoof against the floor, trying to vent her growing irritation.
Where were her reinforcements and what was Shining Armor doing up there? Having tea and crumpets? Taking a nap? After all, a husband to a princess couldn’t be expected to stay up late? Oh no, he had to get his beauty sleep? Heaven forbid a prince by marriage looked tired when he was hobnobbing with the Canterlot Elite or enjoying a summer afternoon on the viranda sipping fine juice with his prissy, pink, princess bri—
A chill ran down Fortress's spine and her mind was brought back to reality. She looked forward, searching for the lingering fires from the bag, but found the corridor beyond had gone dark. The flames were gone as was the heat in the air. The fire had made that corridor like an oven, but now there was a cold draft blowing across Fortress’s face.
She then felt it, the wind of something zipping just past her. It ran parallel to her shoulders and her flanks, and she turned just in time to see a lantern crash to the floor, its glass shattered and its flame extinguished.
Another wisp of wind went by her, cutting through her mane and slicing some strainds of hair. A moment later, another lantern bit the dust. She turned to look back into the darkness, and this time she felt something zip past her cheek. It made her wince and stumble back. She lifted a hoof and felt the warmth of her own blood. She had just been cut!
“We’re under attack!” She bellowed, her horn glowing. In an instant she formed a pale gray barrier spell over the archway she had been facing, and just in time. Something clattered against the barrier and fell to the floor. Fortress moved close, focusing her eyes on the item as it glinted in the light from her spell. It was a sharp, metal arrowhead, the kind often used as the tip for the guard’s crossbow bolts.
“Corporal Sure Hoof, how many bolts were in that bag?” Fortress shouted.
“P-pardon, sir?”
“How many crossbow bolts were in the bag!”
“A few dozen!” Sure Hoof shouted back as another lantern was taken out, its glass shattered and its flame extinguished.
Fortress broke into a run, moving to the next archway on her right. She cast her barrier spell and then moved on. “Get the lanterns away from the archways! Now!”
The corporals broke into sprints, racing towards the nearest lanterns, but the thing outside the rotunda was moving with speed that defied logic. As soon as Fortress had sealed an archway with her barrier spell, the bolt tips would come shooting from another. The corporals couldn’t get to them fast enough either. Lanterns would shatter when their hooves had only just touched it.
“Save the last lanterns or I’ll shave your heads and burn your hair for light!” Fortress bellowed as she continued to race around the rotunda. Most of the archways were sealed, only a few left, but there were only a few lanterns left too. If they lost them all they’d have only horn light to go by, and with only two unicorns, that wasn’t a lot of illumination.
Another archway sealed, another lantern down. Fortress was cursing under her breath with each step as she galloped and wove her shield spell. The clattering of glass and clanking of metal, the cries of lanterns dying to the assassin that hid in the shadow of the tunnels. It was frustrating and infuriating all at the same time.
CRASH
Another lantern down, there was only one left. It was the one she had hung from a transfigured hook at the top of an archway. Fortress and the corporals raced towards it, all three of them barreling as fast as their hooves would carry them. Fortress had her barrier spell prepared.
A final crossbow bolt tip sang as it flew threw the air, striking the handle of the lantern. It teetered of its hook and with a rusty squeak, it began to fall. The unicorn corporal, a pony named Lighthouse, dove, stretching out his magic, and by luck, he had caught it. One lantern had been saved. He stood up triumphantly and put on a big grin as Fortress cast her barrier spell.
“Good work, Lighthouse. Now, the both of you, go put that last lantern someplace it will be safe and check the others. See if we can relight any of them or at least salvage their fuel.
Lighthouse just continued to stand there, smiling, holding the lantern with his magic.
“Corporal Lighthouse?” Fortress asked, arching an eyebrow.
A trail of blood streamed down the side of Lighthouse’s face. He teetered, his eyes growing dark while his smile, his last smile, remained frozen on his face. His magic failed, the lantern fell and smashed against the floor. The rotunda was overcome with darkness, only the faint glow of the shield barriers providing any sort of illumination.
“Sergeant?”
“I’m over here!” Fortress shouted back to the one remaining corporal. She lit her horn, and he quickly trotted up to her, finding safety in her light while she moved up to the unicorn soldier who had been holding the lamp. His ear was shredded and there was a hole in the side of his head. She could only imagine that a brother to the crossbow bolt tips that had spelt doom for their lanterns was now lodged in his brain.
“He’s dead,” she said before spitting and cursing.
“W-w-what now sergeant? “ Corporal Sure Hoof asked. “Should we retreat?”
“Yeah, we should, but whatever in tartarus just killed him is probably after us too. We can’t see it coming without light and my horn can’t cut it alone. That, and we can’t abandon the princess. No... no we have to wait. We have to wait for Shining Armor to get off his flank and send reinforcements or for Twin Blades to get back with her squad.
“Now go get all of our supplies and get them in the center of the room. Then get ready to take the first watch. You’ll wake me up in two hours so I can refresh the barriers and then start my watch. We’ll take two hours shift like that, refreshing the barriers at the change off.
Fortress began to walk towards the center of the room. “We only have to last till morning, and we have more than enough water and food with most of the squad gone. We’ll wait this out, we will survive, and, when the reinforcements get here, we’re going to hunt whatever is in those tunnels down and cut out its throat.”
~~~
Once more, the hinges on the vault creaked and groaned as its door opened. Light poured out from its interior of the vault. Celestia followed behind Twin Blades, and her mouth fell open, agape in disbelief, as she and the soldiers stepped out into the archives.
“It’s... not possible...” Night Gaze whispered as his and Path Finder’s armor clanking with the extra light gems that had been haphazardly attached.
Celestia could only silently agree, her mind reeling. They should have seen the strewn wreckage of thrown and toppled bookcases all around them. The aftermath of the tidal wave of shelves that had been hurled at the vault door before they closed it should have been laid out before them. They should have seen destruction.
All they saw was order.
The shelves once more stood in clean, crisp rows. Not a board was bent. Not a nail was out of place. It was like nothing had happened. The emptied archives were as preserved as when the group had first entered. The smell of dirt in the air was once more sweet and welcoming. Not even the dust had been disturbed. Their own hoofprints, which should have led up to the vault door, were nowhere to be seen.
“Who makes a mess like that and then cleans it up?” Path Finder asked, not taking his eyes off the shelves, as if they would leap out at any moment. “And who can do it that fast?”
“Don’t know,” Twin Blades said, “and don’t care. First priority is getting back to the rotunda. Now zip your lips and keep moving.”
And move the group did. They walked along the carpet that lead between the empty shelves. They strained their eyes ahead, searching for the statue of Starswirl the Bearded they had passed on their way in. They focused their ears, listening for any sound that their attacker had returned. The light from the gems they had taken from the vault, as well as the light produced by Celestia’s and Path Finder’s horn, pierced far into the darkness, but never as far as they would have liked.
~~~
“Sergeant, it’s time for your watch.”
Fortress groaned and rubbed her eyes, sitting up. It had been two hours since the lanterns had gone out, two hours since Lighthouse had been killed. So much should have happened while she was asleep. The reinforcements should have arrived. Twin Blades should have come back with her squad and the princess. At the very least, something should have happened.
But nothing had. She had rested for two hours, Sure Hoof would not have woken her otherwise. Still, the chamber looked as she had only just blinked. Her barriers were still in place, and they were still the only two there.
“Were there any reports?” Fortress asked, though she could already guess the answer.
“No sir.”
Fortress cursed and slowly stood up from the bed they had assembled from some empty saddlebags and a tarp. “Then go ahead and get some rest, Corporal. I’ll wake you in... PEW!” Fortress brought a hoof to her nose, and gagged. “What is that smell?”
“Um, well sir, i-it’s Lighthouse.” Sure Hoof replied, his voice shaky.
“What do you mean?”
“J-just come look,” Sure Hoof said, motioning with a hoof. Fortress followed, keeping close to the corporal. The smell began to wash over them with greater and greater intensity. Fortress had to actively fight the urge to throw up, and the smell of nausea and bile that welled up her throat and into her nose was not helping the situation. Still, the stench grew stronger the closer they got to where Lighthouse fell.
Then, Fortress’s light hit Lighthouse, and her self-control went out the window. She stumbled to one side, spreading her hooves and puking up the contents of her stomach. She heaved heavy breaths, her stomach convulsing as it tried to empty every ounce of its contents. Yet, between gasps of breath and puking, Fortress struggled to speak.
“T-that’s not-t—” She convulsed unloading more of her stomach bile on the floor. “—possible.”
“Sergeant, please, why don’t you go back to sleep. I can take another shift,” Sure Hoof said, trying to guide Fortress to the center of the room.
“W-what is going on, Corporal?” Fortress said, coughing before she forcibly swallowed. “He’s only been dead two hours. He... he shouldn’t be that decayed for days. The maggots, the flies... the intestines... no, none of that should have happened yet.”
“Sergeant, maybe we should consider retreating.”
Fortress shook her head firmly. “W-we swore an oath to always protect the princesses. Princess Celestia is still out there with Twin Blades. Luna may be out there as well. The reinforcements, they are going to be coming. They have to be. W-we can’t get away on our own. The thing... the thing that got Lighthouse, it won’t let us just walk out. W-we need help.
“So we’ll wait,” Fortress said firmly. “We’ll wait as long as it takes.”
“Y... Yes, Sergeant,” Sure Hoof replied shakily as he helped Fortress lay back down on their makeshift bed.
~~~
Fortress watched the sand in her minute-timer fall. Her eyes were tired, her mind weary, her body weak from hunger. She watched the sand run out, and she added another tally mark to her count. The count now covered the whole map and streamed out onto the floor. She had marked so many tallies. She had watched so many minutes go by. Still, the reinforcements didn’t come. Still, Twin Blades’ squad never came back from the archives. No reports came in. Nothing.
She rubbed her eyes and watched the sand run out again. Two hours. It was time to wake up the Corporal Sure Hoof and get some sleep herself.
“Sure Hoof, it’s your shift,” Fortress said before she began casting her barrier reinforcement spell, strengthening the glowing barriers that guarded each entrance to the rotunda.
Sure hoof rose slowly, smacking his mouth. “Sergeant, can we have our rations?”
Fortress sighed, finished casting one final reinforcement spell, and then looked to her tally marks. She counted the ones since the last time they had eaten food, and then nodded her head. “Yes,” she replied as she focused a levitation spell on their supplies. Still, as she turned open bags and sacks, she found them all but empty. She began to turn bags over and shake them, but still nothing fell out but crumbs. A shiver ran down her spine, and she turned to look back at the Corporal.
“I-I’m sorry, Sure Hoof, but I think we’re out of food.” Fortress tried to force a smile as she levitated a canteen to him. “But we still have plenty of water. Here, drink up.”
“Yes sir,” Sure Hoof said as he shakily brought the mouth of the canteen to his lips. He drank greedily. It was more than Fortress should have allowed him too, but... but they could more carefully ration the water later.
“Sergeant, are we going to make it out of this?”
Fortress glance up at Sure Hoof, who was now staring at his canteen. His hooves were gripping it firmly, as if it was the most important thing in the world. “Y-yes, of course. The reinforcements have to be on their way, and I’m sure we’ll see Twin Blades and the princess soon.”
“P-please, Sergeant, do you really think they're still coming? Look at how long it’s been,” he said as he pointed as the tallies Fortress and he had been making. “Wouldn’t they have come by now? What if they forgot about us? What if something’s happened?” Just say it, we’re going to die down here by ourselves.”
Sure Hoof began to visibly tremble, and tears began to flow from his eyes. “I don’t want to die like this, Sergeant. I don’t want to die in the dark. I don’t whatever is out there to get me.
“I hate the dark. Ever since I was a colt, I’ve hated the dark. Why does it have to be so dark?”
“Come on soldier, pull yourself together, you're wasting water with all that crying,” Fortress said, putting a hoof on his shoulder. “We’ll get out of this. I promise.”
“But the dark—”
“Won’t hurt you, I promise. That’s why we have our barriers. That’s why we have my light spell. We’ll get through this, soldier. We’re royal guards, toughest there are. We guard the princesses themselves. If anypony can survive this, it is us.
“Now, come on, it’s your shift and I need some sleep. Just keep a watch and wake me if you see anypony.”
“A-alright, sergeant,” Sure Hoof said as he passed the water canteen back to her. He then got up from the bed, letting her lie down as he took up his post, watching and waiting for somepony, anypony, to come and find them.
Waiting for somepony that might never arrive.
~~~
Fortress groggily opened her eyes when she felt something wet touch her hoof. It was warm and sticky. She lifted her hoof to her face, about to curse out the corporal for peeing so close to the center of the rotunda instead of going off into a corner. But as her eyes focused on her hoof, she saw it was dripping with warm, crimson blood.
Bolting up, Fortress strengthed her light spell as much as she could. The lack of food was starting to affect her. She felt weak.She had never had very much fat. She had been a mare built of muscle, but now her body was eating itself. How long had they been in the dark? How long had they waited for rescue? She didn’t even want to count the tallies.
Still, finding her strength, Fortress got up and focused her light on the floor. She followed the thin puddle of blood as it stretched a few feet away. Then, she saw it, the Corporal lying still as stone with his eyes wide open. A bloodied piece of glass from a broken lantern lay next to him, and deep gashes were visible on his forelocks. The wounds bore signs of being self inflicted. There were the marks of hesitation before the final gashes that cut the arteries.
Sure Hoof had killed himself.
“No... no no no no. Horseapples! NO!” Fortress screamed. She quickly moved to him, grabbing Sure Hoof’s lifeless body and shaking it firmly. “Corporal, open your eyes! Do you hear me, open your eyes! That is an order! You... you can’t leave me alone! D-don’t make me stay here alone!”
RATTLE
Fortress snapped her head, having heard the clatter of a stone against one of the distant corridors. In a moment her anguish turned to rage. She furrowed her eyebrows and stumbled towards one of her barrier spells. “You won’t get me, you son of a horse! I won’t let you! So come on! Come here and let me gut you like a fish! Quit hiding in the shadows like some coward and face me!”
She stumbled a little, collapsing as her legs gave out. Tears began to form from her eyes. She was so hungry. They had water, plenty of water, but food... how long would it be before she couldn’t even move. Her body was eating itself, she needed nourishment.
She... she needed to survive. She wouldn’t let the thing in the dark win.
She struggled to her hooves, turning back to the center of the rotunda. She was going to check the saddlebags one more time, maybe even try eating the saddlebags. That, however, was when she saw Sure Hoof’s body, lying against the stone.
A single thought crossed her mind, one she tried to push away the moment it surfaced, but it kept coming back like an annoying, buzzing fly. No, she couldn’t... it, it was too gruesome to even consider. But... but she needed food, and... and if she didn’t do it now, Sure Hoof would decay like Lighthouse, wouldn’t he? In a couple hours, he could be beyond use. But now, now Sure Hoof could still help her survive. He’d want that, wouldn’t he? He’d want to give her a chance to survive?
She needed food. She needed to survive. If she didn’t get food, she would die. Dying would be losing to the thing in the dark. She wouldn’t lose. She’d stay alive. Twin Blades and Celestia were coming back, they had to be coming back. Yes, that’s right, they’d have to come this way, and she would wait. They were coming, she knew they were coming. They were coming, she just had to be alive when they arrived.
She just had to be alive. And to be alive, she needed food.
“I-I-I-I-I,” Fortress stuttered out, tears starting to form as she moved towards Sure Hoof. Her magic took up the shattered piece of glass, and she swallowed nervously as her hooves stepped into the pool of blood on the floor.
“I’m so sorry.”
~~~
Celestia, Twin Blades, Path Finder, and Night Gaze kept walking, their hooves kicking up the dust from the carpet and leaving a swirling trail in their wake. The shelves rolled by them, once more the silent sentries who remained on guard even though the books they once kept were long gone. Wooden skeletons, stripped of the meat that had once given them purpose. Row after row the group passed, their hooves carrying them onward.
And yet while all seemed in order, Celestia’s nerves were growing more and more tense. Memories screamed at her. The distance... the distance was wrong. They had left the vault and walked straight ahead, straight towards where the statue of Starswirl the Bearded would stand. They walked straight, but yet they had not seen the statue yet. In truth, the light from the group should have illuminated the statue within moments of leaving the vault.
Yet, the path ahead remained an abyss of darkness, endlessly extending ahead of them.
“Lieutenant, something’s wrong,” Celestia whispered. Yet, the moment those words left her lips, the tension in the air returned. The smell of dirt in the air once more inspired images of graveyards and death. The darkness seemed to creep in, fighting against the light flowing from the group’s horns and gems. It was all closing in on them.
The shelves began to rattle, their boards being strained. It grew and grew in volume, as if there was an earthquake. Path Finder and Night Gaze stood back to back. Twin Blades had her wings extended, ready to defend herself against anything that stepped into the light.
Celestia, however, was numb. Her body was cold and all the noise around her was dulled. Time itself seemed slowed as she gazed into the darkness ahead of her. It was like something was drawing her in, pulling at her. She took a tentative step, and then another. She was soon abreast Twin Blades. She lifted a hoof to take another step forward as the shelves around them began to teeter, as if eagerly waiting for her to move just a little further ahead.
“Celestia, Stop!”
Like a whip being cracked against her forehead, Celestia was brought back to her senses. She was overwhelmed with dread at the darkness before her, as if it was a great beast ready to devour her. In a panic similar to a child rushing to light a lantern in a dark bedroom, Celestia hastily wove her spell. She spun her horn in the air, circling it as a bright sphere formed. She then drew her head back and tossed it forward, sending the sphere into the darkness.
The light of the sphere was lost for just a moment and then it went off with the force of a firework. In an instant every crevice of the room filled with light. The sphere was up near the ceiling, circling and shining above the statue of Starswirl the Bearded like a small sun. Its light only grew brighter and brighter, filling the room, and chasing away darkness, which hissed like it was being burnt.
And with light came a release of tension in the air. Once more all was as it should have been, and Celestia breathed a sigh of relief along with the soldiers.
“Good work, your highness,” Twin Blades said with a thankful tone. “Whatever’s going on here, it doesn’t seem to like light that much.”
“Things that creep in the dark rarely do,” Celestia commented before looking back at the lieutenant and the two sergeants. “But I should be thanking one of you for shouting my name. That brought me back to my senses.”
“Shout?” Path Finder asked as he exchanged glances with Night Gaze and Twin Blades. “Princess, none of us said anything.”
“N... no, one of you shouted my name. I’m sure of it. It sounded like...” Celestia fell silent as her mind tripped back. The voice that had called out to her, she had recognized it. In hindsight, however, the shout hadn’t sounded like Twin Blade, Path Finder, or Night Gaze.
No, the shout sounded like it came from Twilight.
Immediately Celestia spun around, her gaze scanning the shelves and rooms. “Twilight? Twilight?! Are you there?” She galloped up to the statue of Starswirl the Bearded and, with a leap and flap of her wings, jumped up onto his back. She looked across the archives from her high perch, seeing that the light from her spell stretched to fill the whole of the archives.
“Twilight? Are you here, Twilight?!” Celestia called out again, but once more she was met only with silence. She was sure that the voice that had shouted at her was Twilight’s, yet the only ponies that seemed to be in the room were her, Twin Blades, Path Finder, and Night Gaze.
Crestfallen, Celestia glided back down from the statue and landed in front of Twin Blades. She and the sergeants were wearing concerned expressions. “I... I was sure that I heard her,” she told them. “But... maybe I was just hearing things.”
“It was a tense situation back there, Princess,” Twin Blades assured. “”All that matters is that we got through it. Now, let’s get back to the rotunda as fast as we can. Path Finder, send a messenger spell too. Fortress is probably climbing the walls at this point.
“And Princess,” Twin Blades said, glancing up at the sphere of light that was hovering near the ceiling. “I think it would be wise to bring that light sphere you conjured with us, if you can.”
~~~
With Path Finder taking the lead, the quartet backtracked through the tunnels to the rotunda. They made familiar turns, and Celestia’s light sphere followed behind them like a loyal balloon, swaying and bouncing on an invisible string tied to Celestia’s horn. The tunnels were just tunnels thanks to it’s strong light, and it wasn’t long before the quartet saw a light glowing back at them at the far end of a tunnel. It was a lantern in the rotunda.
“Finally,” Twin Blades said before breaking into a trot and raising her voice. “Fortress! Tell me the reinforcements got here. There’s something back in the archives and I need at least two more squads to try and pin it down.”
She got no reply, and began to trot a little more quickly as Celestia, Path Finder, and Night Gaze followed in her wake. “Fortress, Report! How many soldiers did Shining Armor send down to help us? Fortress?! For... tress...”
Twin Blades slowed to a stop, her wings falling limp and her blades dragging against the floor as she strode into the rotunda. The chamber was supposed to be lit with the warm light of more than a dozen lanterns. Fortress was supposed to be standing watch with the two corporals who had stayed behind with her. None of this was what Twin Blades saw.
The one light in the rotunda flickered weakly and came from Fortress’s horn. Fortress herself, once a proud, strong mare, now looked like she was on her deathbed. Her breathing was shallow and she didn’t move at all at the sound of her own name being called. The bags of supplies they had brought with them littered the space, laying open and empty. There was a mostly decayed body on the far side of the room and there were no signs of the corporals.
“Fortress!” Night Gaze gasped, rushing past Twin Blades to his fellow member of the Lunar Guard. Path Finder followed a few steps behind while Celestia came to a stop near Twin Blades. The light sphere she had conjured bobbed and swayed, better illuminating the room. The light revealed the disheveled state of the room, and Celestia couldn’t help but gag as the room’s strong odor washed over her. It smelled of body odor, clogged toilets, and rotten meat.
Still, the light from Celestia’s spell made Fortress show her first signs of life. She whimpered and trying to shield her eyes.
“She’s dehydrated. She needs water,” Night Gaze said as he anxiously circled Fortress.
“There’s no water left. All of our supplies are gone,” Path Finder said as he magically picked up, turned over, and shook out a pair of saddle bags. “What happened to everything?”
“I’m sure Fortress will be able to tell us,” Celestia said as she strode towards the weak unicorn. Her horn glowed brightly, and after a few moments a trail of water began to appear in the air. The strain of manifesting water from nothing showed on Celestia’s face, but she guided the water to Fortress’s mouth all the same. The mare drank greedily of the liquid, sucking it down as fast as it was provided to her.
Night Gaze and Celestia sat down beside Fortress, watching the water bring her back from the edge of death as Path Finder and Twin Blades circled the room, checking every supply bag for anything that was left.
“Night... Gaze...” Fortress finally managed, her voice weak and dry as she extended a wavering hoof.
“Yes, it’s me Fortress. We’re here. You’re safe.”
“No... no no no,” Fortress said, shaking her head. She was struggling to get back to her hooves, even though her legs were trembling. “It can’t be you. It can’t be. It’s been too long. It’s been too long.”
“Shhhhhh,” Celestia said, trying to sooth Fortress. She extended a wing, helping Fortress into a sitting position before draping soft, white, comforting feathers over the unicorn of the Lunar Guard. “Take your time. It’s okay.”
“No... no no, it’s not okay. Too long. You were gone too long.”
“Fortress, what do you mean. We’ve been gone an hour, tops.”
Fortress shook her head firmly. “No, no! You were gone. You were gone too long!”
“Okay, okay,” Celestia said, trying to keep Fortress stable. She manifested more water, though the effort brought some sweat to her brow, and she offered it to her. “Just tell us what happened.”
More water and a chance to speak her mind seemed to calm Fortress. Her trembling subsided, and she leaned into Celestia’s embracing wing. “A lantern broke, and our spare oil caught fire. We had to throw it away, a crossbow and it’s ammunition burned up with the oil. But something... something took the tips from the burnt bolts. It threw them at our lanterns. It took them all out. It took Corporal Lighthouse out. It killed him by sending one of those bolt tips into his head.
“Only two of us left after that. Me and Sure hoof. We waited for everypony to come. We waited for rescue, but nopony came. We waited and waited. We ran out of food and continued to wait. We kept waiting, getting hungrier.”
“And where is the corporal now?” Celestia asked.
“H-he... h-he died. He couldn’t handle it. I would have too. I would have died of hunger, but I wouldn’t go out that way. I wouldn’t. I wasn’t going to let that thing that killed Lighthouse win. I was going to survive until the reinforcements came back, so I could slit it’s throat. I... I did what I had too.”
“What do you me—” Night Gaze tried to ask, only for Twin Blades to interrupt her.
“Hey, there’s a pile of old guts and bones over here in one of the corridors, like somepony got eaten. Does Fortress know where this came from?”
Night Gaze and Celestia’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. Their stomach rebelled, urging them to vomit. Celestia coughed, but was able to keep herself from puking. Night Gaze could not. He ran off to a corner, and hurled with all the strength his body could muster.
“I wasn’t going to die. I don’t die. I’m Fortress. I stand firm. I don’t back down. I don’t lose,” she muttered from the embrace of Celestia’s wing before looking up at the princess. She lifted a hoof, waving it loosely in the air. “I counted the minutes, you couldn’t have survived that long.”
Celestia followed Fortress’s hoof to the map of the tunnels, which was now blackened with hundreds if not thousands of tally marks. The tally marks even spread off the page and covered the floor around it.
“But... but that’s impossible,” Celestia said as she looked at all the tally marks. “We weren’t gone that long.”
“NO!” Fortress screamed, struggling against Celestia’s wing. “You were gone THAT long! You left me alone THAT long! I counted every minute! You were gone! You were GONE!”
“Fortress, calm down,” Celestia said, continuing to hold Fortress back with her wing.
“NO! YOU WERE GONE!” Fortress screamed. Her horn flickered to life, it’s aura wrapping around a nearby damaged lantern. She swung it hard and fast, too fast for anyone to react. She smashed the lantern against Celestia’s head. The glass shattered and the metal base bent from the impact. The princess was sent sprawling, crying out in pain as her light sphere in the ceiling wavered and flickered.
Path Finder and Twin Blades rushed in immediately. Twin Blades put herself between Fortress and Celestia while Path Finder tried to grab her. Fortress, however, still proved herself the stronger mare. She threw Path Finder off and, with a final panicked scream, she charged off through one of the arches.
“I’M NOT GOING TO BE BEAT! I’M GOING TO KILL IT! I’M GOING TO KILL IT!”
“Fortress!” Night Gaze shouted, whipping the puke from the edge of his mouth. He tried to chase after her, but Path Finder grabbed his shoulder.
“Are you insane?! Going into those tunnels alone is a death wish!”
“That’s why we need to go after her!” Night Gaze snapped back. “You’d go if it was one of your precious Solar Guards!”
“We will go after her, Night Gaze,” Twin Blades said firmly. She had moved to Celestia’s side, brushing back some of the princess’s mane back to see where she had been struck. “But Fortress did a number on Celestia and she has to be our first priority. Now come on, help me get her comfortable. After that, I want you to detach every light gem we found in the vault and space them around the rotunda. We need light and there’s no telling how long Celestia’s spell will last with her unconscious like this.”
Celestia opened her eyes, her body numb to the world. She breathed out, steam forming from her breath. The air was cold, stale, dry, and smelled of decay. She could see nothing around her. It was all dark, but the sound she heard was constant.
She turned, and Celestia saw the clocks the ticking belonged to. They were a pair of tall, antique grandfather clocks. One was lit only by a dim lantern at its base. The other glowed, as if it was lit from within by a bright light.
That, however, was the most notable difference between the clocks. The one that glowed was like a tall lighthouse in the night. It was strong, sturdy, and reliable. Its ticking came at a pace that was familiar and friendly to Celestia. It was a clock so reliable she and Luna could set the sun and moon by it.
The other, however, seemed like it had been taken from a surreal painting. Its body was bent and twisted like a snake crawling up a tree. The clock ticked quickly, the dials on its face spun, but the pendulum swung in circles, defying the normal operation of a clock.
Celestia arched an eyebrow, trying to comprehend what she was seeing, but it was then both clocks began to chime. Their bells rang, and a dissonance filled Celestia’s ears. She winced and stumbled back, flaring her wings. Each chime of the clocks struck her head like a sledgehammer. She stepped back, trying to distance herself from them, but she ran into something.
Turning again, Celestia looked upon a door that had appeared from the darkness. The door swung open for her, and the smell of decay filled her nostrils. Celestia cast a light spell to see where she was and was greeted by the sight of old bones lying in rectangular holes in the walls. She was once more in the old castle's crypts.
She took an anxious step forward, trying to understand where she was and where the clocks had gone. The sound of that one step, however, echoed into the depths of the crypt and echoed back like the roar of a beast. The bones around her rattled and clattered like an alarm going off. The darkness beyond her loomed up, defying the light from her horn, and began to crash down towards her like a flood of water.
Celestia broke into a sprint, galloping as fast as her hooves could carry her. She rounded corners in the crypt, skidding around the bends and using her wings to keep herself stable. Yet the shadow followed, flooding the chambers behind her as the bones continued to rattle.
"Celestia!"
A single, familiar voice in the torrent, a single light in the distance. A purple star glinting ahead of her. Celestia pushed forward with all the strength she could muster. It was Twilight, it had to be. She raced for her student, working desperately to outpace the shadow behind her.
Yet, as she drew close to the star it faded. Celestia put on a final sprint of speed, jumping out to catch the last wisps of the glow, but it had already vanished. She stumbled and skidded to a stop, looking around desperately. All she could see were stone caskets. She was in the deepest part of the crypt. A place where stallions and mares who had contributed much to Equestria had been laid to rest.
Celestia, however, did not see her student. "Twilight?" she shouted. "Where are you?"
A panicked thumping and muffled shouts reached Celestia's ear. It sounded like Twilight, and it sounded like she was close. Yet, before Celestia could figure out where it was coming from, something grabbed her, lifted her off her hooves, and pinned her wing against her side. She kicked and flailed, trying to free herself, but she was held tight. It was like she was being crushed in a dragon’s claw, and she felt the searing pain of something raking against her side like a sword. She couldn’t breathe. She was being crushed. She was going to pass out!
Into The Depths By Pen Stroke Preread, Edited, and Reviewed By Illustrious Q, Batty Gloom, Wraithguard, Rainbowdash64, Cloudhammer, Magical Trevor, Kohta Izumi, Kirk Heller =====================================================================
Chapter 4 Bound for the Surface ====================
“Princess!”
Celestia bolted up, panting, though she soon regretted moving so suddenly. Her head throbbed with a sharp, stabbing pain. Her ears rang. Her vision was rimmed with stars. Her nose was filled with the smell of vomit that had tried to come up her throat. It was an assault on the senses, and Celestia could only lay back down and lift a hoof to her throbbing head.
“W-what happened?” Celestia asked as she cracked open her eyes again. She could see she was laying on a worn tarp with another covering her as a blanket. Her head was resting on a pile of guard issue saddlebags. She was also still in the rotunda, her light sphere spell having floated to the ceiling like a balloon, illuminating the space.
She wasn’t alone, either. Twin Blades, Path Finder, and Night Gaze had been laying nearby, but the trio had stood up and moved towards her. “Fortress went nuts and clubbed you in the head with a lamp.” Path Finder said, holding up a lamp which had a large dent in one side. “She got you good too.”
“Where is she now?”
“She ran off into the tunnels, but don’t think about that right now,” Twin Blades said before she went to Celestia’s side. She gently moved Celestia’s hoof away and brushed back some of the princess’s mane, revealing the lump on the side of her head. “Okay, now that you're awake, I think it’s safe to move. We need to get you topside and to a medic. You have to have a concussion after that.”
“Do you really think she has a concussion? I mean, shouldn’t she be loopy and seeing stars and—”
“It’s not that bad of a concussion,” Twin Blades said as she let Celestia’s mane fall back into place. “It’s minor, but that doesn’t mean she won’t have symptoms. Princess, do you think you can stand?”
Celestia shifted, wincing as the movement made the throbbing in her head worsen. Still, with the three soldiers watching, ready to catch her if she were to stumble, Celestia struggled to her hooves. She was shaky for a moment, as if she was a foal that hadn’t yet learned to walk. Yet, with her body now upright, her headache slowly began to fade to a dull discomfort as the ringing in her ears and the stars in her vision disappeared.
“I... I think I’m doing better now that I’m upright again.” Celestia took a ginger step forward and noticed the feel of stone beneath her hoof. She looked down and saw her shoes were missing. Her chest piece and crown were gone as well. “Where are—?”
“They are right here, Princess,” Night Gaze assured, showing that her royal vestments were stored securely in a saddlebag. “We thought you would be more comfortable without them. Would you like them back?”
“N-n... no, I don’t want to bother with them right now. Just please, keep them safe.”
Night Gaze nodded, securing the flap on his saddlebags. At the same time, Twin Blades moved in front of the squad, stepping beneath the archway she had marked when they first arrived at the rotunda with all the other guards. “Then it’s time to retreat. We need to get you back to the surface and then we can—”
“No, we can’t leave yet.” Celestia said. “We need to go back to the crypt.”
“Why would we go to the crypt when it’s in the exact opposite direction of the stairs that lead outside?” Twin Blades asked firmly.
“I know, lieutenant, I know, but... I think I had a vision.” Celestia took a few steps to the side, finding her balance as she recalled what she had seen. “In my dream I saw twisted clocks before I was chased by a wall of darkness. I saw a purple star and heard Twilight calling to me. She lead me to the coffin chamber, which is at the far end of the crypt. I then heard a muffled shouting and thumping before I was grabbed, lifted off the ground, and crushed.”
“I believe it was a message from Twilight, that she’s trying to tell us she is in the crypt.” Celestia turned to look back at the squad and found concerned eyes looking back at her. Her temper flared and she stomped a hoof. “It is what I saw!”
“We don’t doubt you princess, but you did take a blow to the head. And you're sounding a little—”
“Off your rocker,” Path Finder said, only for Night Gaze to lift a hoof and smack him in the back of the head. “I mean, disoriented. Yes, that’s,” he paused to rub the back of his head, “what I meant.”
Celestia furrowed her eyebrow. “I am not—” She winced and staggered back, her headache coming back full force.
“Going anywhere but outside. You’re hurt,” Twin Blades said firmly as she stepped up to the princess. “I promise, I’ll lead a dozen soldiers straight to the crypt if you believe that is where Twilight is. Right now, however, your safety is a priority. You need to see a doctor.”
“But Lieutenant—”
“Princess, do you remember the promise you made to me when we arrived? You agreed you would follow my orders, and my orders are we’re retreating. We’re getting you topside, getting you to a doctor, then we’ll come back and storm this place with as many troops as we can. We’ll find Princess Luna, we’ll find Twilight, and we’ll pin down whatever in tartarus is attacking us. Now form up, grab anything that’s left of our supplies, and get ready to move out.”
Night Gaze and Path Finder saluted before quickly gathering up all the spare supplies. Celestia did not snap to orders so willingly. She glared Twin Blades down for a moment, but the lieutenant just glared right back, showing no fear in the face of her princess. Finally, Celestia conceded. With a deep frown she nodded her head, turned, and went to try and retether her light sphere spell, which had floated to the ceiling.
At the same time, Celestia saw the lieutenant join in the search of the room. She however, did not work beside Path Finder and Night Gaze, who were packing up anything that could have been of use. No, Twin Blade was searching for something, a something she found. She slipped her wing beneath a saddlebag, and removed an item from beneath it.
Yet, before Celestia could see what it was, Twin Blades had tucked it into her saddle bags.
~~~
“How you holding up, Princess?”
“I am fine,” Celestia replied coldly as the squad continued towards the exit. They had left the rotunda behind as well as her light sphere spell. The blow to the head she had suffered, and the resulting headache, was making magic near impossible. A basic level light spell made her head throb like it was being pounded on by a hammer. An intermediate tethering spell, which would have let her pull her light sphere spell along like a balloon on a string, was beyond her capacity at the moment.
Still, the squad had enough light to see. The light gems in the soldiers’ armor, and Path Finder’s horn, illuminated the tunnels ahead and behind as Twin Blades guided them back to the entrance. And they had to be going the right way. The air was growing less stale. The smell of the Everfree Forest began to waft in the air. The entrance was close.
This, however, did not bring relief to Celestia’s thoughts or her headache. She could only think of the crypt and Twilight. Her dream, she did not believe it was a result of a concussion. At the same time, she was a mare of her word. She had promised she would follow the lieutenant’s orders. She also didn’t like to admit it, but she did need to see a doctor. If she was to raise the sun in the morning, which could only be a few hours away, she would likely need a double dose of something prescription strength.
“Here are those stairs,” Twin Blades said as she made a turn and began to ascend the ancient stone steps, everypony else following a few steps behind. “I hope Shining Armor has a good excuse why he hasn’t sent the reinforcements we needed.”
“I don’t care what his excuse is,” Path Finder said. “I’m just glad we’ll be leaving this nut house behind us. I mean, no offense Princess, but I wouldn’t want to live here.”
“This castle was far more warm and welcoming a thousand years ago, Sergeant,” Celestia said firmly. “It was a beacon, so much like Canterlot. The greatest minds, the finest artists, the most talented craftsponies, they all called this castle and the surrounding town their home, once upon a time.
“And there was never reason to fear the dark. All were able to rest their heads at night in peace, knowing my sister kept watch over them like the moon in the sky. The evening was as welcoming as a soft bed and warm blanket after a long day. Perhaps, too welcoming. So many ponies found rest at night. So few stayed up. It all lead to so much trouble.”
“So, then why did you abandon this castle?”
“It wasn’t one thing. The ponies in the castle town all left, ruining the local economy. The stallions and mares of the royal court were jumping at shadows, fearing that Nightmare Moon hadn’t been defeated but was just waiting for an opportunity to strike. That and... the halls above held so many memories... I couldn’t walk ten steps without thinking of Luna and... what I had done.”
“Sergeant, maybe this isn’t the time to be talking to the princess about this?” Twin Blades said, glancing over her shoulder as the squad continued to ascend the stairs.
“Sorry,” Path Finder quickly apologized. “You know me, I just like to kill time.”
“It’s quite all—” Celestia came to a stop, looking up the staircase. The path forward disappeared into shadow, and, like in the archives, Celestia suddenly felt an urge to step into the darkness. She knew enough this time to resist the silent siren call. “It’s time you shouldn’t have needed to kill. Lieutenant, this staircase was not this long when we came in.”
In a brief few moments, the feeling in the air changed. Like a pony who had removed a mask to reveal a disfigured facial feature, the staircase suddenly lost it’s feeling of freedom. The smell of the forest outside faded, succumbing to the dry, stale smell that choked so many of the tunnels. The echoes from their hoofsteps and breathing became distant, as if the staircase stretched on for miles ahead of them.
“Horseapples,” Path Finder whispered as he turned around and focused the light from his horn down the corridor behind them. “L-lieutenant, I think I heard something.”
“Don’t lose your head, Path Finder,” Twin Blades said firmly before looking back at Celestia. “Princess, I know you're in no state to do it, but we need light, and a lot of it.”
Celestia nodded. They had faced this effect before, in the archives, and light had been the solution. Light had driven away the darkness and revealed the room as it truly was. The door could not be more than a few dozen steps ahead of them. They just needed enough light to pierce the darkness.
“Okay,” the princess said as she spread her hooves, widening her base. “I’ll try to conjure as much light as I can, but I won’t be able to pull open the door at the same time though.”
“Understood,” Twin Blades said firmly before jumping up and hovering in the air. “Night Gaze, watch our flanks. Path Finder, get up here with me. The moment we can see the door, we need to get it open.”
Path Finder quickly galloped up the steps to join Twin Blades, nodding his head even though their was a noticeable tremor in his breathing. The Lieutenant returned that nod, then looked back at Celestia. It was all the cue the princess need.
Furrowing her brow and cringing through her quickly worsening headache, Celestia conjured her light spell. The radiance from her horn sparked to life and grew, stretching out and pushing back the darkness. Brighter and brighter she made her horn the worse her headache became.
“We can see the door!” Twin Blades shouted.
“Hurry!” Celestia grunted out, her eyes squeezed shut and her ears flattened back against her head. Beads of sweat began to run down her face. It hurt so much. It was like her head was going to split open, like her brain was boiling, like somepony was trying to cut off her horn with a rusty saw.
“The door won’t open, Lieutenant,” Path Finder shouted, his panicked words accompanied with the rattling of the door’s hinges.
“Then we break it down. I want a breaching spell right on the seam.”
Celestia slumped, kneeling down. She was about to collapse. Her legs were shaking, her heart was pounding, and each beat sent another sledgehammer strike of pain into her skull. A metallic taste formed in her mouth and the small cut that accompanied the lump on her head reopened, sending a trickle of blood down the side of her face.
“Okay, breaching spell ready,” Path Finder announced as he and Twin Blades stepped back from the door. “Breach in five... four...”
Celestia swayed. She was blacking out. The pain was too much. She couldn’t keep it up.
“three... two...”
The light from her horn flickered. Celestia took a deep breath, trying to push through the pain, but she was on a downwards spiral. She was stalled. She could not push anymore magic into the spell and it was burning itself out. Her light started to fade. The door grew darker.
“one... breach!”
Celestia’s spell faded a moment before the breaching charge went off. It went off with a thud, the spell designed to produce no light, and the quartet heard the sound of the doors slamming open. They, however, were not greeted with pleasant moonlight or the fires of the guards who were still searching the castle’s exterior. They did not see Shining Armor. They didn’t see the old castle.
All that lay beyond the door was another tunnel and more darkness.
“No... no no... this, this is the way out,” Path Finder stuttered. He galloped forward to the doorway, stepping through and looking down the dark corridor before them. “I... I know this is the way out. The lieutenant marked the right archway at the rotunda. We made two lefts, a right, and then another left. This is the right staircase. These are the right doors. This is the way out.
“We made a right, a left, and then two rights to get here. That means we needed to make two lefts, a right, and another left to get out. This is the right staircase. This... this is supposed to be the exit!”
“Get a hold of yourself Path Finder,” Twin Blades shouted as she landed beside him.
“Shove it Lieutenant!” Path Finder snapped turning and pointing a hoof at her. “Shove your rules, your orders, and all your decorum right where the sun doesn’t shine! Just say it! We’re dead! We’re all dead! We’re going to wander around in this dark until some of us starve to death. Then, those who are still alive will do what Fortress did. They’ll eat the pony who died and then go back to starving to death until only one of us is left and then, you know what, that pony will starve to death and be food for rats!”
“We’re all de—”
Twin Blades buck came swift and without warming. She spn, aimed for his chest, and bucked out her hind legs with all the strength she had earned from years of experience in the guard. Path Finder was sent sprawling, sliding across the floor and crashed into the wall. His helmet fell off his head, clattering a few feet away. Twin Blades, however, didn’t even give Path Finder a moment to recover.
She was on him in an instant, one of her wing blades pressed against his neck.
“You say we’re dead? Well then, let me just put us all out of our misery. Would you like that? No? Then get a hold of yourself! We aren’t dead yet, and until we are dead, we’re going to keep fighting to get out. Why? Cause I want to see the sun again! Cause I want to see my friends and family again! Because I don’t want to die in some forsaken tunnel in the middle of the Everfree Forest!
“And you know what else, Sergeant? Failure is not an option. Why? Because we have Princess Celestia with us. With Luna missing, she is the only mare in the world that can raise the sun. If we don’t get out, then nopony outside will see the sunrise. Do you want that? Do you want Equestria to wither and die in the freezing cold of night?”
“N-no?” He choked out, his eyes watching the blade that was still pressed firmly into his neck.
“Then start acting like a guard and show an ounce of backbone,” Twin Blades said. She withdrew her wing, letting Path Finder gasp and cough as he lifted a hoof to his neck. The lieutenant hadn’t drawn blood, but she had been close.
Celestia and Night Gaze came up slowly behind the pair, Celestia shaking a little on her hooves but doing better now that she wasn’t trying to cast a spell. “What now, Lieutenant?” Night Gaze asked.
“I want to say we just start blasting a hole in the ceiling until we hit the surface, but considering how things are going tonight, I’m not sure that would even work.” Twin Blades answered as she closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “Just... give me a minute to think.”
“There is nothing to think about, lieutenant,” Celestia said with authority, even though her voice was still weak. “If we cannot escape, then we continue the mission. We look for Twilight and my sister, and, right now, my vision is our best lead.”
Twin Blades gritted her teeth, silently protesting the idea they go stumbling around in the dark because of a dream had by concussion rattled mare. Still, after fuming and fidgeting her wings with irritation, she spat a curse, turned on her hooves, and began to to walk back down the stairs.
“Form up, we’re going to the crypt.”
~~~
The descent back down the steps was like the descent into tartarus itself. The air was cold, chilling. Each exhale form their lungs produced hot puffs of steam that curled as they rose to the ceiling. The sensation of being watched crawled on their skin, as if a hundred eyes were watching them. The light from the gems in their armor and Path Finder’s horn, which had once seemed a firm shield against the darkness, now felt insufficient. To them, the darkness around them was merely biding its time and could strike out at its leisure.
Yet nothing happened. They trekked through the corridors without incident. The were able to return to the rotunda and continue beyond, retracing the path Celestia and Twin Blades had taken earlier to reach the crypt. Their path was predictable, and never did it stretch on infinitely without explanation.
“Why hasn’t anything happened?” Path Finder asked, staying close to Celestia’s right side.
“The thing that hunts for us was content to let Fortress starve and slip into insanity,” Celestia said. “For all we know, it may enjoy watching us struggle and stumble through the dark.”
Path Finder shivered and moved in a little closer to Celestia. Night Gaze and Twin Blades seemed to close ranks as well. They would not admit it, but Celestia had seen this very behavior in her students time and again. They were afraid and were clinging to her, consciously or subconsciously hoping for protection. So many in Equestria saw her as an unconquerable beacon. She was synonymous with the sun, constant and reliable.
It pained her she could not protect them as she usually would, but, without her magic, she was little more than an oversized pegasus with a forehead deformity.
“S-so...,” Path Finder said, trying to hide the tremor in his voice, “if the thing isn’t attacking us, should we even bother going to the crypt. It wouldn’t want us to find Twilight Sparkle, would it?”
“It is one of many possible explanations,” Celestia confirmed as the group rounded a corner, continuing on through the dark. “If the beast in the shadows feared Twilight or the knowledge she possessed, it would not want us to find her. At the same time, if Twilight has found a way to protect herself, the thing that hunts us may be allowing us to reach her. It may be using us to draw her out of her hiding place.
“Or,” Celestia continued, her voice growing low, “there is nothing Twilight has or knows that can help us. That all our efforts are and will be for naught.”
“Geez, Princess, couldn’t you sugar-coat it a little?
Celestia sighed and looked down at Path Finder. “I do apologize, my little pony, but... we must respect the danger we face. I am without my magic, we are without reinforcements, and we face an unknown enemy. We cannot lower our guard nor pretend it isn't there.” She looked forward again, her tone growing solemn. “We face an enemy that defies the laws of reality. And, from my experience with Discord, we must be prepared for any possibility. The creature may want us to reach Twilight, or may see us as no threat. Or—”
The door to the crypt loomed out of the darkness. It was still standing open, just as she and Twin Blades had left it. Celestia stepped past the edge of the doorway and looked through it. A icy cold wind blew out from the crypt’s depths, and the squad’s lights seemed barely capable of piercing the darkness that clung like heavy curtains.
“Or perhaps it has set a trap, like a spider with its web, and is merely waiting for us to step into its parlor.”
"Anyone vote we try to find the exit again?" Path Finder asked, glancing hopefully at the rest of his squad. Nopony raised their hooves. Instead, Twin Blades was the first to step into the crypt. She moved gingerly, and, once a few steps inside, she motioned with a wing for the others to follow.
Night Gaze moved in behind the lieutenant, Celestia followed behind him, and Path Finder hurriedly took up the rear, not wishing to be left behind. They moved into the darkness, which was like a soupy mist. It seemed to cling around them, hanging in the air itself. Their lights could not dispatch these shadows. The cold worsened, becoming the freezing cold of a deep winter. Their armor threatened to freeze to their coats and shivers crawled up and down their spines.
"Any chance your magic is working again, Princess?" Twin Blades asked, despite the fact her teeth wanted to chatter.
"No, I've already tried to light my horn," she replied.
"Night Gaze?" Path Finder questioned.
"I can hardly see the nose in front of my face."
"Path Finder?"
"Huh... I can see something, or the lack of something."
Twin Blades brought the group to a stop and looked back over her shoulder. "Sergeant, I'm in no mood for riddles."
Path Finder shakily lifted a hoof, pointing to the groups left. "A-aren't these holes supposed to have skeletons in them?"
Twin Blades and Night Gaze turned, the light from their helmets shining on one of the nearest wall, where they should have seen the skeleton of a pony long passed resting in peace. The holes in the wall, however, were empty. All of them within the reach of their lights were empty.
"Where did they go?" Night Gaze asked.
A rattling came from behind the group. They all quickly looked back, but saw nothing in the darkness. Another rattle, this one from in front of them. They looked forward, but saw nothing. A third rattle, this time from directly above them. They turned their lights upward, illuminating the ceiling through the curls of inky black mist, and there saw pale white bones. Skeletons clung to the ceiling, their skulls turned backward and staring down at the group in silent shrieks.
A skeleton then moved, its jaw snapping shut. More rattling came from all around, the clicking of bone against bone, joints grinding without the cartilage that had once buffered their movement. Twin Blades spread her wings and thus her swords. Night Gaze and Path Finder clung close to the princess.
And Celestia screamed as a skeleton from the ceiling dropped onto her head and wrapped it's bony limbs around her. That scream signaled the horde. Skeletons rushed from the darkness in front and behind the group, rattling like the chains of Tartarus themselves. They moved against the squad, reaching and attempting to overwhelm them by sheer numbers alone.
Twin Blades struck out with her swords, striking at the skeletons and attempting to keep them back. Night Gaze and Path Finder bucked, shattering bone with their guard trained hooves. Celestia, however, continued to flail and panic, trying to remove the skeleton that clung to her head and was now bitting at her neck.
"Get off. Get off! GET OFF!"
At once, the crypt rang with Celestia's Royal Canterlot Voice, a booming sound that not only demanded attention but carried the force of a hurricane. The skeleton on Celestia's head fell apart at its joints from the below, as did several directly in front of the princess. It was a turn of luck, something Celestia needed a moment to comprehend, to believe it had actually happened.
And when she realized the weapon she possessed in her vocal chords, she acted quickly. She craned her neck out to Twin Blades, grabbing the lieutenant by the tail and pulling her away from the skeletons she fiercely fought. A gentle toss, and Twin Blades landed on Celestia's back, slightly bewildered.
"Princess?"
"Just get the sergeants on and keep the dead off me," Celestia said before turning forward. She bent her head back, sucked in a deep breath, and then with the full force of the Royal Canterlot Voice, she shouted. "BEGONE!"
A dozen of the skeletons crumbled at the force of the voice and those further back stumbled. Celestia dared to let herself smile. She glanced back, seeing the two sergeants were riding on her back as well. It was an odd situation, to say the least. No pony had rode on her back in centuries. Still, their weight was minimal and, after rearing back and drawing in another deep breath, Celestia barreled forward, shouting every few steps.
The skeletons fell before her like dominos, and soon Celestia burst through the horde and was able to gallop freely down the corridor. Path Finder and Night Gaze cheered, swinging their forehooves in the air while Twin Blades smiled and gave Celestia an approving nod.
RRRRAAAAHHHHHH
The unearthly roar came from behind them, and soon the rattling cacophony of bones became deafening. Path Finder focused the light from his horn back and saw a wall of skulls screaming back at him. The horde that had assaulted them had now become one dreadful beast, a skeletal worm with a head comprised of hundreds of skulls with chattering jaws. It rocked and struck against the walls of the crypts, sending shocks through the floor that threatened to trip Celestia and send her crashing to the floor.
"Must go faster! Must go faster!" Path Finder shouted, unable to take his light or his gaze off the horror that chased them. And Celestia tried to run faster. She tried to spring with all the speed her legs could provided. She skidded around corners, using her wings to keep her upright. Through the rattle of bones and panicked shouts of the squad, she could hear her heart pounding in her ears and could feel it pounding in her head.
Her headache... it was becoming unbearable again.
She began to waver. She was not a race pony. She had not run this far nor hard in decades, and the pain... her head once more felt like it was going to split open. Her vision began to tunnel, growing narrow as darkness overcame her eyes. She was going to pass out. She had to slow down, but if she slowed down they would be crushed if not torn apart by the skeletal worm.
Her vision narrowed further, and as it did... she noticed a star in her vision. It was not stars, it was not plural. There was a single glow in the periphery of her gaze, a glow that was growing stronger. A glow that was purple.
A flicker of hope filled her chest. They were close. She knew it! They just needed a little more time.
Breathing harder, trying to put oxygen back in her lungs, Celestia pushed through her headache and focused on the path ahead. There was a bend coming up, a right turn. She pushed down, quickening her gallop. She then jumped, spreading her wings as much as she could in the narrow corridor. She glided to the corner in the crypt, taking deep breaths. She then landed, skidded, turned to face the skeletal worm, and once more unleashed the Royal Canterlot Voice.
"NO!"
It was a single punch of a shout, which struck the beast and caused the bones in its front to crack and collapse in on one another. That lead to a chain reaction, the worm falling apart as it changed into an avalanche of bone and marrow. It loomed, threatening to crush Celestia and the squad, but she broke into a sprint again, continuing to race down the crypts tunnels.
"There!" Celestia shouted, focusing ahead. Her vision was almost totally dark, she would pass out within moment, but she could see it, the purple star. It was right before her. "The coffin chamber is just ahead!"
Twin Blades looked around Celestia's neck, seeing not the chamber but a closed door at the end of the corridor they were racing down. She looked behind, saw the still coming avalanche of bone, and then shouted over the clattering of bones. "Path Finder, open that door!"
"Yes sir!" he snapped back, turning around on Celestia's back and leaning to one side. He focused the magic of his horn on the door, and the great metal barricade began to yield. It creaked and groaned as it opened, and the growling and chattering of the bone avalanche seemed to only grow louder, angered it’s prey was about to escape.
Inch by inch the door opened, and step by galloped step Celestia drew closer. It would be tight, but the door would be open wide enough. Celestia began to favor the right side of the hallway, so she could duck in through the opening quickly. The distance was closing. They were getting so close.
"That's enough," Twin Blades shouted. "Be ready to close it the moment we're—"
"AH! GET IT OFF!"
Twin Blades spun her head around, seeing Path Finder flailing his forehooves. A skeleton had reformed from the looming avalanche of bone and had thrown itself onto Celestia's back. It was now attacking Path Finder, scraping at his face with its hooves and struggling to bite him.
Twin Blades looked back at the looming door, which was at best a few seconds away. Panic entered her voice. “Night Gaze, help Path Finder. We have to close that door the moment we get inside, or those skeletons will flood the coffin chamber!”
“Understood, lieutenant,” Night Gaze shouted, drawing himself up on Celestia’s back. He turned around, seeing the rolling tsunami of bones coming towards them and the skeleton Path Finder was fighting with. Night Gaze tried to reach out a hoof, tried the buck the beast off, but Path Finder’s panicked flailing was making it impossible for Night Gaze to land a blow.
“Hurry, the door is coming up fast!”
“Yes sir!” Night Gaze shouted before taking a deep breath. He then leapt. With forehooves extended and a battle cry booming from his throat, Night Gaze jumped over Path Finder’s head and tackled the attacking skeleton. He and the skeleton flew off Celestia’s back, falling into and becoming consumed by the avalanche of bone.
"Night Gaze!" Path Finder shouted the moment he realized who had saved him and how.
"Path Finder!"
Twin Blades' shout came the moment Celestia had ducked through the door. The trio raced into the coffin chamber and, working off instinct and his own fear, Path Finder responded to his lieutenant’s shout. He called on his magic. He slammed the door shut, and the bone avalanche crashed against it a moment later. The sudden impact made the whole crypt shake, and Celestia, who had been trying to skid to a stop, tripped over her own hooves. She and the sergeants fell forward, the moment of her sprint throwing them all into the air.
They rolled, they bounced, and then fell into a heap at the far end of the coffin chamber.
Into The Depths By Pen Stroke Preread, Edited, and Reviewed By Illustrious Q, Batty Gloom, Wraithguard, Rainbowdash64, Cloudhammer, Magical Trevor, Kohta Izumi, Kirk Heller =====================================================================
Chapter 5 Clavicula Concordia Regis ====================
“Night Gaze!” Path Finder screamed, scrambling to his hooves. He ran to the door, his horn glowing as he tried to force it open. It, however, would not budge, wedged shut by the weight of the pile of bones on the other side. Still, Path Finder did not relent. He planted his hooves and began to launch blasts of magic at the door, which burst and exploded like fireworks, casting harsh light and deep shadows across the room.
“Stop it, sergeant,” Twin Blades snapped as she pulled herself up to her hooves.
“No, we can save him!”
Twin Blades came up behind him, touching his shoulder. “No, we can’t. Getting buried under that much weight... Even if he is alive, he’ll be dead by the time we’d be able to dig him out.”
Path Finder unleashed one final blast of magic, then slowly crumbled to the ground. He tore off his helmet, throwing it across the coffin chamber, and then pressed his head against the cold stone of the floor. “Why did he do it?”
“Cause if he didn’t, those bones would have been able to chase us in here and then we’d all be dead. It was a necessary sacrifice, for the princess.”
“The PRINCESS!” Path Finder screamed, pointing an accusing hoof at Celestia, who was only just starting to pull herself off the floor. “It’s her and her sister’s fault we’re down here in the first place! No pony had to die tonight! And why do we need them anyway?! In the old country, ponies moved the sun and moon without their help! What makes her life more valuable than Night Gaze’s? What makes her life more valuable than Fortress’s? We should push her out this door, cause I bet she’s the one it wants!”
“That is treason you're talking about, sergeant!”
“Who in Tartarus cares?! We’re not going to survive. Face the facts, lieutenant, we’re all as good as dead! We should just pick a coffin, kick out the skeleton, lie down inside, and just DIE!”
“Perhaps you would prefer I just slit your throat. It would be faster,” Twin Blades shouted back.
“Bring it on!” Path Finder shouted as he sprang up from the floor.
“ENOUGH!”
Celestia’s booming voice caused the pair to freeze and look up. They saw Celestia standing over them, her regal white coat dirtied with dust from the floor. Her usual kind demeanor was gone. In it’s place was a firmness, like a mother scolding her children who was also a drill sergeant, and thus skilled at chewing out soldiers as well.
“Each of you, in a separate corner, now, and I don’t want to hear a word until I’ve figured out whether or not Twilight is or was here!”
The lieutenant and sergeant separated and, after glaring at one another, they turned their backs on each other and walked to opposite corners of the room. There they sat down, facing the walls, like children in time out.
And after successfully breaking up the fight, Celestia cringed and raised a hoof to her head. Her head was pounding again and only seemed to be getting worse. She was filthy, she was sore, and Path Finder was right. Except for them, there was no pony in the coffin chamber and looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in years. Maybe her visions were truly just the effects of the bump on her head. Twilight wasn’t here, she had never been in the coffin chamber and—
What was that thumping noise?
Celestia looked around anxiously, expecting to see the wall itself reaching out for her, but nothing was wrong. The room, while sizable, was small enough that the light from Path Finder’s and Twin Blades’ armor were enough to illuminate the space to a good degree. There were no real shadows in the room, thus no real way for the thing outside to attack them.
But still the thumping persisted. A thumping and a muffled shouting. Recalling her vision, Celestia began to step around quickly, turning her head and her ears. She followed the sound, chasing its echoes around the room. She moved left, right, forward, back. She strained her sense of hearing to its limits and, eventually, found herself before one of the coffins.
The thumping came from within and, for a moment, Celestia didn’t dare to even touch the stone coffin. They had just been chased by the dead of the crypt. Releasing one from its coffin now would put them all at risk. Still, she wanted to believe her vision. She wanted to believe they had a chance. And, if not... maybe the skeleton would make it quick.
Trembling a little, Celestia reared back on her hind legs and placed her hooves on the coffin’s stone lid. She then pushed, straining muscles that had not faced such physical challenges in centuries. Still, her alicorn strength began to prove itself. The coffin lid cracked open a little, and a light began to escape from the cracks.
Light... it was light inside the coffin.
Smiling, Celestia threw all her weight into the lid, and it began to slide away. More and more light filled the room, pouring out the coffin like it contained a small sun. The lid then fell off the far side, clattering to the floor with a loud smash. Celestia stepped back, shielding her eyes from the brightness. Yet, even as she was blinded, she heard a sound that was like music to her ears.
“Celestia!”
From within the coffin, which was lit by dozens of light gems, Twilight sprung out, tears running from her eyes as she clung to Celestia’s neck. She looked worse than the rest of them. Her mane was a wreck, her coat was filthy, she smelled horribly of body odor, and the bags under her eyes made it look like she hadn’t slept since she came to Canterlot to meet Luna. She was crying her eyes out, and was clinging to Celestia as if her life depended on it. Still, Twilight was breathing. Her heart was beating, and she was unharmed.
She was alive.
“Twilight!” Celestia laughed, lifting a hoof and hugging her student tight as she spun around slowly. “I was so worried. Are you alright?”
“I’m okay,” Twilight answered as she let go of Celestia’s neck and jumped back down to the floor. “Hungry, sleep deprived, dehydrated, in desperate need of a shower, and traumatized, but I’m a lot better now that you’re here.”
“And Luna?”
Twilight hung her head, looking to the floor. “I’m sorry, but... I don’t know. The last time I saw her was when she put me in that coffin. She gave me all our light gems, some notes on how to perform an astral projection spell, and then made me promise not to leave the coffin until somepony came to save us. She then closed the lid.”
Celestia laughed a little, bending her head forward to nuzzle Twilight. “Astral Projection. Oh Twilight, thank you!”
“Why are you thanking her?” Path Finder asked as he and Twin Blades came out of their corners.
“Astral Projection is when a pony casts a spell that allows their soul to leave their body and enter the astral plane. From the astral plane, all the world looks like the night sky, with each soul a star in the dark. My vision at the rotunda, the star I was following while we were chased by those bones. All that was Twilight, helping us.”
Twin Blades smirked a little, looking to Twilight, “And I bet you were in the archives with us when Celestia thought she heard you shout her name.”
“Yes, I had to stop her before it got her.”
“It?”
“It’s the thing that’s been chasing you,” Twilight explained. “It’s the whole reason Luna and I came here. Well, I think it’s the reason we came here. Or, actually, I think the reason we came here was to find a way to deal with it. But, then again, Luna said—”
“Twilight,” Celestia said calmly. “Please, just start from the beginning. Why did you and Luna come here?”
Twilight looked around at Celestia and the two guards, she then sighed and sat down, preparing for the long story. “We came here looking for a book...”
~~~
“And you are sure that it is not in the royal archives?”
Twilight nodded. She was sitting in a comfortable chair in Luna’s private study. The moon princess was before the fireplace, which popped and cracked with a low fire. Twilight had been in the room before, had seen its fine furnishings and cool color palette. The room’s usual comfortable darkness, however, was being pushed back. There were dozens of candles and lanterns all about the space, leaving no dark corner to be seen. It reminded Twilight of a time when she was young, when she was afraid of the monster in her closet. She made her very first light gem enchantment and put it in the closet to keep the monster from getting her.
“I checked the stacks myself. I couldn’t find it anywhere,” Twilight said. “It would help if you could give me a title or an author. I don’t mean any disrespect, but it’s kind of hard to find a book when you just tell me what it looks like.”
“A leather bound book is a rarity in and of itself in Equestria,” Luna said firmly as she continued to stare into the fire. “All the leather bound books should be kept in the most secure part of the library.”
“Yes, and thanks to the note you gave me, the master librarian let me in there and I looked at all those books. Still, none of them were stained with old blood.”
Luna sighed. “Then it must be back at the old castle. That is the only explanation.”
“If I may, Princess, why do you need this book so badly? I mean, I can understand it if you really want to read it. There’s a couple books I've wanted so badly I camped out at the bookstore so I could be the first in line to get one. Still, what’s so important about it and why can’t you look for it yourself?”
“I tried to find it myself,” Luna said, turning away from the fire and revealing her blood shot and bag rimmed eyes. “Celestia, however, began to question why I was spending so much time among the stacks. But I cannot explain why, she cannot know that this book even exists, Twilight, let alone that I am looking for it.”
“Why?”
“Because it is a relic of my shame, Twilight,” Luna replied as she walked closer, “and I have disappointed my sister enough. Now, we must go to the old castle and find the book quickly. We’re already running out of time as it is, and if I were to depart alone it would only raise suspicion. If, however, we were to go to the old castle together, the guards would just assume we were going on an archaeological or a research expedition.”
“But why?” Twilight question. “What is so important about this book?”
“I pray to you, Twilight, do not make me explain. This is something we simply must find. It is only the way to finally make up for what I’ve done. Please, I beg thee, you must help me find the Clavicula Concordia Regis.”
~~~
“She just seemed so scared, so I agreed,” Twilight continued. All four of them had laid down on the floor of the crypt, surrounding themselves with the light gems that had been in the coffin with Twilight. They had also placed a few in the middle, like a campfire.
“We left that evening and arrived here with some of Princess Luna’s most trusted guards. We found the door, made our way down into the tunnels, and everything seemed fine. Luna remembered the layout well, and we were able to find the archives quickly. She then ordered the guards to spread out while she and I went to check the vault.”
~~~
“This is so amazing,” Twilight said, shining her light across the bookcases. “Ponies haven’t been down here in centuries and it’s still standing. Oh, I bet the shelves have temporal lock spells on them. Or... or maybe rot resisting enchantments.”
“Please, Twilight, calm yourself,” Luna said as the pair continued towards the back of the archives. “ There aren’t even any books on these shelves.”
“I know, but there is still so much here,” Twilight said with a small bounce before looking back over her shoulder. “Like that statue of Starswirl the Bearded. That is so amazing. The pictures in the books never really do him justice if that’s what he really looked like. And he was even wearing his hat with his bells. Oh, why didn’t Princess Celestia have this moved to Canterlot?”
“The statue was carved in this chamber directly, from the same stone the rest of the tunnels were cut from,” Luna explained. “They are as much a part of the cliff as the rest of these chambers, and removing them haphazardly could lead to more cave ins, like the one we saw near the front of the room.”
“Oh, well, I guess that would be bad,” Twilight said with a weak chuckle. Still, her enthusiasm soon rebounded as she and Luna reached the far end of the hall. Before them stood the old castle vault, hinges covered in dust but the metal still shining strong. “Oh wow!”
Princess Luna smiled as well, her horn glowing as she stretched out her magic. Small clicks and clacks began to emanate from the vault as she worked to release the locks. “Hopefully the book is in here. We are running out of time.”
“What do you mean by that, Princess?” Twilight asked as the sealing-bolts in the vault door popped open and the door began to slowly swing open, light pouring out into the archives. “I mean, it’s not like Discord will escape again if we don’t find this book.” She paused, forced a chuckle, and looked to the princess. “Will he?”
“No, Discord is going to remain sealed for many more centuries,” Luna assured as she jumped into the vault. With a flare of her horn she began to open and close doors and drawers in the sides of the vault systematically, her aggravation growing as she found all of them were empty.
“Oh, that’s good,” Twilight said with a relieved laugh. “And I do hope we find the book soon. It’s getting cold in here.”
Luna stopped in her hooves, becoming still as a statue. “Cold?”
“Yeah,” Twilight said with a laugh as she rubbed one of her forelegs against the other. “I don’t know why, but I’m getting really cold. I mean, look, I can even see my breath.” Twilight sucked in a deep breath and then let it out, watching and smiling at the cloud of steam that curled from her mouth.
“YOU SHAN’T HAVE HER, MONSTER!”
Twilight jumped at Luna’s shout and was caught in the air by the princess’s levitation spell. The next moment, Luna had pulled Twilight into the vault and shoved her into the back corner of the well lit room. Luna then stuck her head out the door, shouting with all the volume her voice could muster. “GUARDS, TO ME!”
The clatter of armored hooves began to fill the room, Luna’s guards racing form the different parts of the archives. Yet, at the same time, a cold wind blew in through the vault’s door. It was accompanied by a low, distant roar and a deep rumble that seemed to shake the whole castle.
“Luna, watch out!” Twilight shouted, warning the princess just in time. With a great leap and flap of her wings, Luna jumped back before she could be struck by the vault door, which was slammed shut from the outside. Still, Luna didn’t waver a moment. She landed, skidded across the floor, and then leapt back at the door, throwing her shoulder against it. “NO! NO!”
“Don’t worry, Princess, we’ll get you out!” The lunar guards shouted from the other side.
“NO! DO NOT LINGER HERE!” Luna shouted at them. “Get back to Canterlot now and tell my sister to bring as many guards as she can muster! Every corner of these tunnels must be lit, otherwise nopony will be safe.”
“We are not leaving you here, Princess,” one of the Lunar Guards shouted back at her before his voice quieted. “You, you, I want that door off it’s hinges now! Cut it out if you have too. You, you're with me. This door wasn’t shut on its own, and we’re going to find out who or what is responsible.”
“Yes, sir!” A trio of voices replied before the sound of magic blasts being levied against the door began to fill the vault’s interior.
“NO! NO YOU FOALS! RUN! YOU MUST RUN!” Luna shouted before cursing under her breath. She turned back, magic flaring as she resumed her search of the vault. She tore open the secured cabinets and drawers that lined the walls and slammed them shut when she saw they were empty.
“P-princess Luna,” Twilight stuttered, climbing to her hooves as her saddlebags slid off her back and fell to a corner “W-what’s going on? W-why are you so scared? W-what’s out there?”
“I cannot explain right now, Twilight, not if we are to save—”
“AAAHH!”
Luna and Twilight froze, turning their eyes to the vault door. The scream had come from one of the guards, and it had been blood curdling. The sound of magic pounding against the door ended. The unicorns who had been trying to force their way into the vault began calling to their comrades, their voices growing quieter and more distant. Then, nothing but silence.
Twilight took a few ginger steps forward, moving close to Luna but ensuring the princess was between her and the door. “W-what’s g-going on?”
“Please, Twilight, we cannot focus on that. Help me search.” Luna stressed, though there was an underlying tremor in her own voice. Still, Twilight did as she was asked. She began searching the vault as well, and together, the two made short work. Still, even after checking every nook and cranny, they were unable to find anything. The vault was totally empty.
“No. No no no no,” Luna said, sweat forming on her brow as she began to recheck random parts of the vault. “It has to be here. It has to be. There’s no other place it could be.”
The tumblers on the vault, which had locked into place when the door had slammed shut, opened. Then came the distinctive rattling of the door’s internal gears as the large bolts which held the door were slid back. Finally, with a small jerk, the door popped open and slowly swung wide. A cold draft washed over Luna and Twilight. The light from the vault’s interior stretched out into the darkness, revealing nopony.
“W-who opened the door?” Twilight asked as she took an anxious step backward. The room beyond was all too quiet, and her skin crawled, like she was being watched. The air was once again cold enough that Twilight could see her breath, but she drew no joy from it as she had before. She breathed out, and the steam from her breath rolled back into her face, like some great beast was bearing down on her, breathing out as it bared its fangs.
“Twilight, do you know how to make a light burst spell?” Luna whispered, moving close.
“I do.”
“Cast the most powerful light burst you can, straight out the door. Don’t hold anything back.”
“But a light spell that bright could hurt somepony’s eyes permanently.”
“That’s the point,” Luna said as she spread her wings. “Just do it.”
Twilight was visibly shaking now, but she nodded her head. She built up the spell, pouring as much magic as she dared into the spell. Then, she unleashed it. The burst of light was like a small sun had briefly come to life inside the vault. It made a column of illumination burst out into the archives, and something screamed before ducking out of the light.
Luna scooped Twilight up at that moment and sprinted from the vault, spreading her wings and flying between the empty shelves of the archives. She banked around the statue of Starswirl the Bearded, soared towards the archives outer door, and then landed with a skid of her hooves in the hallway just outside.
“Again, Twilight, through the doorway.”
Twilight didn’t dare question the order this time. She cast the spell again, and once more a pained scream reached their ears. And, again, the moment the spell was cast she was whisked off her hooves by Luna. They flew through the corridors, Luna’s wings barely fitting in the tight corridors.
“We have to get back outside,” Luna said as the pair flew into the rotunda. She landed and skidded across the floor hard, working her every muscle to make a tight turn. She then tensed, ready to leap towards the archway that would lead back outside. But she then froze, a shiver crawling down her spine as she stared into the darkness of the corridor before her.
“It’s too late,” she whispered, stepping back anxiously as she looked to the other archways.
“Princess, what is it? What do you see?” Twilight asked. “What is going on?”
“Do not question, Twilight, just give me one more light burst.”
“But Princess?”
“Do it now!”
~~~
“After that,” Twilight said as she looked at the others, “Luna carried me back here, to the crypt. She removed the skeleton from that coffin, put me inside with all the light gems she had brought with her, and quickly wrote out that astral projection spell for me. She then promised me somepony would come to find me, and sealed the lid. I... I haven’t seen her since.
”At first, I was very calm and collected."
~~~
“Princess Luna! Princess Luna!” Twilight shouted, putting her hooves against the coffin’s stone lid and trying to push it off. The slab, however, remained firmly set in place, even after Twilight tried putting all four hooves against it. She began to hyperventilate and focused her horn on the lid. She tried levitating it. She tried blasting it. She tried any spell that had a remote chance of unseating the lid from the rest of the coffin. The stone, however, remained unaffected.
“She must have done something to the lid when she closed it. An anti-magic spell, maybe. Well, I guess that’s okay. Somepony will come and find me, right?”
Twilight ran her hooves down her face, her panic prone mind kicking into high gear. “But what if somepony doesn’t find me. What if nopony comes. Will the spell wear off? What if it doesn’t wear off? What if Luna just buried me alive? I don’t want to be buried alive. I want to be dead when I’m buried! That’s the order it’s supposed to go in. You die, and then you get buried! Princess Luna! LET ME OUT!”
She thumped against the coffin lid again, but her efforts proved just as fruitless as before. Soon, she had calmed herself down, but only enough that she turned to one of the coffin’s interior sides. Horn glowing, she began to use one of the stones to write a list.
“Okay, Checklist for surviving. Step one, panic and get that out of the way. Got that done. Step two... huh, step two...” Twilight shifted, looking around the coffin before she found the piece of paper Luna had given her. “Step two, learn astral projection spell. Step three, figure out the rest of the list when I can see what the astral projection spell can do. Step four, panic again. I’ll need it by then.”
~~~
“I think the only reason I didn’t go crazy was because of the astral projection spell.” Twilight said with a low chuckle. “It let me leave that coffin, at least as a spirit, and I was able to watch the guards arrive. The astral plane is so surreal. All you can see are living things, souls, and magic. I could see the Everfree Forest. I could see the bright souls and magic of the guards when they arrived to search for me and Luna. I saw you arrive,” she said while motioning toward Princess Celestia, “and I was so happy. I was sure you’d find me. You were so close earlier, but then you left.
“I decided to just wait here for you, hoping you’d come back, but that’s when I started to see the souls blinking out. I saw two disappear, and then four. I didn’t know what was happening, so I decided to go and follow you. That w-was w-when...” Twilight began to tremble, shivering a little as she looked over her shoulder.
“W-when I saw other things. It was hard to see. The one that was following you all, like me, was black, like the rest of the astral plane, but I could see its magic. Its magic was red, very red, and it threw all those shelves at you. I sat back and watched. I didn’t want to get too close. I didn’t know whether or not something like that could hurt a pony when she’s using an astral projection spell, so I just stayed back and watched as it put the library back in order.”
“And... you kind of guessed the rest. I stayed close, trying to help you, and then you came here and found me.”
Twin Blades sighed, rubbing her head with her hoof, “And now we’re all stuck in here with you.” She then glanced at Celestia. “Still, it sounds like whatever has been coming after us was going after them too, and that Princess Luna knows a great deal about it.”
“Yes, it seems so,” Celestia agreed before lowering her head, her voice becoming nothing but a whisper. “Oh Luna, I wish you had come to me about this.”
“Miss Sparkle,” Twin Blades said, glancing over at her. “Did Luna ever tell you why she wanted that book?”
“No, she didn’t. All she ever told me was what it looked like and that its name is the Clavicula Concordia Regis. I even wrote it down on a piece of paper so I could look it up when we got back to Canterlot, but... that note is back with my saddlebags. Luna also ripped the paper when she grabbed some light gems from my bags.”
“We know, we found them,” Twin Blades said. She reached around to her saddlebags, gingerly sinking a wing in. She removed an old, leather bound book from its interior and placed it on the floor in the center of the group. “Celestia and I also found this in the grips of a skeleton near the entrance of the crypt.”
“Oh my,” Twilight said, her voice growing hushed as she picked the book up with her magic. “This must be it. It matches Luna’s description perfectly.” She gingerly cracked open the book, its old pages crackly as they were exposed to the open air for the first time in centuries. Twilight bent her nose in, her eyes moving across the page.
“It’s written in Old Equestrian, the predominant language of the old country. It looks almost like a guide book. There are diagrams, pictures, instructions, ingredient lists. Is this a spell book?”
“In a way, Twilight,” Celestia said as she lifted a hoof to the edge of the book, pushing it down and away from Twilight’s eyes. “Though, I promise, it is a book you and nopony else should ever read.”
Twilight cocked her head to one side and arched an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because this is an evil book. The Clavicula Concordia, the original Key of Unity, was a guide to the powers of harmony, an ultimate force of good. The Clavicula Concordia Regis, on the other hoof,” Celestia said coldly, her voice taking on a warning, serious tone, “brought about the destruction of an entire kingdom.
“The legend goes that a unicorn queen freed her country of beasts and evil forces and penned her knowledge of harmony into the pages of the Clavicula Concordia. Her kingdom enjoyed a golden age because of her efforts. Food was plentiful. The country as a whole was wealthy. They were safe from any creatures that would harm them. They believed they could not be toppled.
“But, as with all things, the winds of change began to work against them. The unicorn queen sought to spread the prosperity of her country, believing she could bring the same golden age to the whole world. The countries neighboring her kingdom, however, did not wish to be ruled over by her. At the same time, she loved her subjects too much to force them into a war.
“Thus, after much meditation, she came up with another idea,” Celestia continued. “She had defended her country from the beasts and evil creatures that had once threatened it. She had proven stronger than them, and thus she began to contemplate ways of conquering them. The power of harmony, however, is not the power of the conqueror. The original Clavicula Concordia would be no aid to her. Thus, the unicorn queen had to learn other, darker magics.
“This is the knowledge she put into the Clavicula Concordia Regis, the Lesser Key of Unity. This book is meant to be an extension of the knowledge in its predecessor. The Key of Unity taught you to defend against and defeat beasts and evil entities. The Lesser Key taught you how to control them.
“It is said this book contains enhancements that will make Timber Wolves obey like loyal soldiers. That it contains spells that will make Windigoes bend a knee in respect. That it contains curses that will bring even an Ursa Major under your control. A few legends make it sound that this knowledge from this book would let a pony control Discord himself if they so desired.”
“But that’s impossible. Discord is the spirit of chaos. You can’t control chaos,” Twilight argued.
“If the old stories are to be believed, it is possible, and the Clavicula Concordia Regis is what can teach you to do it. It is, in every way, a book as evil as the things it controls, for it speaks only of how to strip away the freedom from others and make them slaves.”
“W-what happened to the unicorn queen?” Path Finder asked, his voice shaking a little.
“She continued her crusade,” Celestia said. “She continued writing the Clavicula Concordia Regis as she learned to control more and more powerful creatures. She began to expand her kingdom with their power, dominating the armies of foreign lands with forces they had no hope of defeating. It seemed she was unstoppable, but then, in her pride, she attempted to control the dark king of Tartarus himself. She tried to control Tirek.”
Twin Blades, Path Finder, and Twilight all shivered at the mention of the name Tirek, as if an icy wind had just blown down their spine. The Nightmare Moon of legend was the boogeymare that parents used to scare children into bed at night and that could be kept at bay with a offering of candy. Tirek was the kind of evil that many full grown ponies, especially religious ones, feared and respected.
“But Tirek cannot be controlled,” Celestia continued. “The moment the unicorn queen cracked open a window to Tartarus, bypassing the great gate that Cerberus guards, Tirek burst through. He unleashed the devastating power of darkness, a dark rainbow—
“Wait, did you say rainbow?” Path Finder interrupted.
“Yes, though... one could hardly call it that. It moves like lightning. Where the Elements of Harmony mend, it destroys. Where the Elements heal, it cuts a swath of death like the reaper itself. It is, however, often described as being comprised of six colors bent and twisting around one another. Thus, while Tirek is the only one that knows its true name, history has come to call it the dark rainbow.
"And it is a terrible force,” Celestia said. “Both it and the Elements of Harmony derive their power from the state of the world. If harmony, good will, and kinship reign supreme across the land, the Elements of Harmony are the greater power. When the opposite is true, the dark rainbow is king.”
“And that night, Tirek used the dark rainbow to decimate the landscape. Forests were leveled, the earth was salted, and fire rained from the sky. The queen tried to rally her army of beasts against him, but he is the king of all beasts and demons. The queen’s armies turned on her, and under Tirek’s leadership, cut a swath of destruction.
“It is said every one of the queen’s subjects were wiped off the face of the earth in a single night.”
Celestia took in a deep breath, burdened by the thought that a similar fate might fall upon Equestria Still, she continued, a bit of hope flickering into her voice. “Tirek was eventually driven back to Tartarus with a mystical rainbow of light, likely the Elements of Harmony, but he did not go back alone. In the last moment he grabbed the unicorn queen and dragged her back to Tartarus with him.”
“W-why did he do that?” Path Finder asked, lowering his head near the floor as he trembled a little.
Celestia shook her head. “I cannot say for sure. It is a detail that varies greatly between tellings of the legend and the moral the storyteller wishes to stress. In some, Tirek punished her for seizing control of the beasts and entities that should be his alone to command. In others, he wished to get revenge against her for writing the original Clavicula Concordia. Others still tell that Tirek made the unicorn queen his bride, and that they now rule Tartarus together
“And,” Celestia continued, “my concerns for my sister’s safety are only made worse by the thought that she knew about this book and came here looking for it. I just wish we knew why she needed it.”
“Well... there is something else,” Twilight said. She held up a piece of paper in her magic, which she had levitated out of the open coffin. “Luna wrote something on the back of the astral projections notes. It just looked like gibberish before, but...”
“Please, Twilight, hold it up where I can see it,” Celestia said, squinting her eyes as the page was moved in front of her nose.
Arabus Leraje Barbas Catrina Furfur Grogar
Celestia’s eyes narrowed as she read the words before she flicked her gaze over to the book. She knew her sister. If Luna had enough sense of mind to write down instructions for an astral projection spell, then the words on the back meant something. And her gut told her the meaning of the words would be made clear with the help of the Clavicula Concordia Regis.
“Twilight, hold the book up for me.”
~~~
“Luna, what have you done?”
Celestia closed her eyes and pressed a hoof to her forehead, trying to rub away the low throbbing that had come back from the strain of reading. Twilight was sitting near Celestia, holding the book but not reading it, as Celestia had requested. Path Finder and Twin Blades had laid down to try and get some sleep, but they had stayed awake watching Celestia, just as Twilight. Now, all three rose back to their hooves and moved in closer.
“What did you find, Princess?” Twin Blades asked.
“The words Luna wrote on the back of the page are names. They are names of six demons of Tartarus that can be invoked and controlled using the instructions in this book. These... things, these rites, these rituals... these entities... They are the ones that turned Luna into Nightmare Moon.”
Celestia lifted a hoof, pointing at the first name on the back of the piece of paper, which was laid out on the floor between her and the others. “Arabus the Greedy, invoking him gives a pony the drive and ambition to accomplish their dreams. Leraje the Archer, one who causes great battles and disputes. He grants his summoner the advantage in any conflict. Barbas the Liar, he changes ponies into other shapes, granting the power of self-transfiguration.”
“Like when Nightmare Moon turned herself into a cloud of magic,” Twilight commented, her voice a hushed whisper.
Celestia nodded before continuing to read down the list. “Catrina the Cruel, she makes the summoner remorseless, allowing them to do what is necessary without guilt. Furfur the Traitor, he grants power over storms and lightning.”
“A power Nightmare Moon showed when she shocked the guards at the Ponyville Town Hall,” Twin Blades said.
“Finally, Grogar the Demon Wizard. He grants power immeasurable. The book also says that when invoking multiple creatures at once, Grogar can be used as a commander. Controlling him will control other lesser entities that are summoned.”
“So all the power Nightmare Moon had, the power she used to try to take over Equestria—”
“Came from these six,” Celestia confirmed as she nodded to Path Finder. “And it would only make sense that this is why Luna returned. This book is filled with warnings and cautionary notes about what can happen if summoning should go bad. It says the summoner may become possessed or cursed. Truthfully, these spells are equivalent to breaking criminals out of jail.
“And once they are out, there are only a few things on their mind. Making sure they stay out—” Celestia turned the book to the last chapter. It was an incomplete chapter, with only a few words scrawled on the page beneath a sketch. Yet, the sketch alone made the blood of everypony in the room grow cold. It showed a great, black horned centaur with skin as red as blood. He bore great horns and carried a small, leather pouch around his chest. “—and helping their leader escape as well.”
“But why now?” Twilight asked. “Luna did all this, she made herself into Nightmare Moon, a thousand years ago. If these creatures wished to free Tirek, why haven’t they done it already?”
“If what this book says is true, it is because they require a summoner. They themselves cannot pierce the veil of magic that protects Tartarus. Only one mare in all history has, and that is the unicorn queen who wrote this book. They would require somepony who has read and understood this book as thoroughly as the unicorn queen herself.”
“Somepony like Luna,” Twilight whispered, as if she was scared to even mutter the words.
Celestia felt the air go stone cold in her chest as guilt weighed heavily on her heart. She looked to the book, on the verge of tears. What had she driven her sister to do? A millenia ago, did Luna truly grow so jealous that she would resort to such drastic measures? Celestia didn’t want to believe it, but the truth was staring back at her. Luna knew the Clavicula Concordia Regis was here, and she scrawled the names on the back of the page for a reason. Now, they had to find and save Luna.
They had to save her before Tirek himself walked the earth.
For the curious minds, here are where the demons come from. Some are true demons from a text known as the Lesser Key of Solomon, a mythological book. The others are classic villains from generation one of My Little Pony. Follow the links below to learn more.
Into The Depths By Pen Stroke Preread, Edited, and Reviewed By Illustrious Q, Batty Gloom, Wraithguard, Rainbowdash64, Cloudhammer, Magical Trevor, Kohta Izumi, Kirk Heller =====================================================================
Chapter 6 Tirek's Touch ====================
“So, what’s our next move?” Twin Blades asked, breaking the uneasy silence that had fallen over the room. The quartet of ponies were lying on the floor of the coffin chamber, still finding solace in the light from the enchanted gems that dotted the room. And, above all, they were all still staring at the old book which, at the moment, seemed the source of all their woes.
“Again, I’d like to vote for getting the heck out of Dodge,” Path Finder said raising his hoof. “We’ve got Twilight, and I’d bet my left hoof she can cast a pretty bright light spell. We’d be able to get outside this time. We were so close the first time, before your spell failed, Princess.”
“But what if these spirits are working to free Tirek right here in these tunnels? What if they free him before we can get more soldiers down here to stop them?” Twin Blades asked.
“Then it will be good we got Twilight Sparkle outside, won't it?” Path Finder argued. “I mean, she and her friends the only ones that can use the Elements of Harmony right now, and from the princess’s story, it sure sounds like that’s the only wave to shove Tirek back into Tartarus if he gets out.”
“You two know I’m sitting here, right?” Twilight said as she looked between the two soldiers. “I may just have an opinion too.”
“They mean no disrespect, Twilight,” Celestia assured gently, “but they are right. If even half of our theories prove true, the Elements of Harmony maybe be the only power capable of setting things right. Even if the spirits aren’t working to free Tirek, as the book leads us to believe, they must still be sent back to Tartarus. The Elements of Harmony are the power that can accomplish this. Thus, right now Twilight, your safety is of the utmost importance, even above my own.”
“B-b-b-but Princess Celestia,” Twilight tried to protest.
“No, she’s right,” Twin Blades said. “Our first priority has to be getting Twilight to safety, but I doubt we’ll be able to just waltz out the front door. We will need to move succinctly. We can’t make a single wrong turn. We’ll also need as much light as we can muster. Princess, how’s your head?”
“Better,” Celestia said, flashing her magic. “Extended or intense use of my magic will probably make my debilitating headache come back, but right now I can at least manage a decent light spell.”
“And do you mind if Twilight rides on your back?”
“N-no, I couldn’t do that. Nopony should—” Twilight tried to protest.
“Yes, she may and she will,” Celestia said firmly. “In fact, I think all three of you should.”
“Agreed,” Twin Blades said before looking at Path Finder. “Okay, sergeant, let’s get ready. We have a lot more light gems now. Let’s transfigure them into any free surface we have on our armor. You and I are going to look like disco balls, but it should help keep us safe.”
“Hey, disco never dies, Lieutenant,” Path Finder joked, a bit of his humor returning with the thought that they once more had a hope of leaving the chambers alive. Twilight, however, quickly strode up to Princess Celestia.
“B-but Princess, nopony should be riding on your back, and me... my safety shouldn’t be more important than yours. Y-you're the princess, I’m just your student.”
“You are an amazing mare, Twilight,” Celestia said. “You are the mare that changed Nightmare Moon back to Luna, that defeated Discord, and that my sister turned to in her time of need. You are the Element of Magic, something... I am not anymore. In truth, Equestria has needed you more than it has needed me for a long time now.”
“B-but Princess?”
“It will be all right. Twin Blades and Path Finder know the way out. All you have to do is make the strongest light spell you can, and all I have to do is carry you on my back. Besides, you’ve ridden on my back before. I can remember a time when a small little filly wondered what it was like to be as tall as a princess, and she giggled her head off as I galloped around the garden with her on my back.”
“P-princess,” Twilight said, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. Still, Celestia lowered her head and gently nuzzled Twilight’s side.
“You are a wonderful student, and as your teacher, one of my duties is to make sure you stay safe and are prepared for any obstacle you may face. Should our fears be realized, should Tirek be freed, the Elements of Harmony will be needed,” Celestia pulled her head back, her voice still full of compassion but also ringing with hope. “So let me protect you, as you have protected Equestria so many times before.”
~~~
Celestia stood with her eyes shut, taking in deep breaths and releasing them slowly. She could feel Twin Blades, Twilight, and Path Finder shifting on her back, making sure they were secure as they gathered any final supplies. The plan had been made, the route studied. She knew exactly how many turns she had to make and in what order. One final attempt for the surface, one final journey through the tunnels.
One final hope of escape.
“Okay, engage spells,” Twin Blades said, and a moment later three horns sparked to life. Celestia cast a light spell ahead of her, a strong beam like the lamp on the front of a train. Path Finder began to charge a blast spell, building its intensity with each moment. Twilight focused a levitation spell on the door. She began undoing the hinges, ready to throw the door out of the way.
“Now, remember, there may still be a mountain of skeletons on the far side. Be ready to plow through them.”
The three horn-wielding ponies nodded.
“All right! Charge!”
Magic was unleashed the moment the command was given. Twilight threw the door to the side. Path Finder cast his blast spell. Celestia leapt forward, unleashing a boom of her Royal Canterlot Voice. The avalanche of bones, which had formed up against the far side of the door, were thrown back. The path was cleared and the bones were not rising back to try and chase them. They had cleared the first step.
Now, all they had to do was reach the exit.
Celestia galloped down the crypt corridor, not at a full sprint but still an impressive clip. Twilight and Path Finder shifted their magic, igniting light spells of their own. At once, the group became like a shot from a flare gun. Nopony could have looked directly at them as they raced through the tunnels, and the darkness reared back from the brightness as well.
A few minutes, they were clear of the crypt and back into the tunnels proper. Hisses and growls in the distance began to reach their ears. They heard things crashing and the patter of hooves from behind them. But still, nothing entered their light. The darkness, the evil, was pushed back and forced to evaporate, just like morning dew under the bright sun.
“Left, Straight, Straight, Right, Straight,” Twin Blades shouted in Celestia’s ears, directing her back through the corridors. It was a rare situation the princess found herself taking such sharp, demanding orders, but she obeyed like a well trained soldier. She didn't question, she didn’t even try to keep track of where they were going. She trusted the lieutenant to guide them out. She instead focused on her spell, her hooves, and keeping her headache at bay, which was being stirred back up.
They passed through the rotunda, finding its gut wrenching smells gone. In its place the air once more had a stale, dry odor. There were two piles of bones, the skeletons of the fallen corporals. The flesh that had once clung to them decayed and turned to dust. It was like years, if not decades, had passed from the last time they had reached the rotunda. It brought a question. How much time had passed outside? Could they already be too late?
They were all worrisome thoughts Celestia had to push from her mind. She had to focus on her light, her running, and keeping her headache at bay. She breathed deep, cleared her thoughts, and powered on through the rotunda and down the corridor that lead back outside.
A few more turns, and the staircase came into view. Celestia skidded to a stop and, as planned, Twin Blades and Path Finder jumped off. The many light gems on their armor stretched much of the way up the stairs, but not all the way to the door. The darkness was sticky, it clung tightly. It did not want to let them out.
Celestia turned, stood at the base of the stairs, and focused her light once more. It poured through the darkness, which hissed and popped like water on a hot skillet. The door rose out of the darkness, becoming brightly lit. This was Twilight’s cue. She leapt off Celestia’s back and galloped up the steps. She stumbled once or twice from the speed she was trying to ascend, but she reached the door. The next moment, she placed her horn against it, and cast a shockwave spell.
The doors flew open with a loud clatter, and the moon’s pale light poured down the staircase. Smiles formed on the quartet’s faces. Twilight cheered, “Shining”, and quickly rushed to her brother, who, along with all the other guards, had been scared half to death by the doors slamming open. Path Finder, Twin Blades, and Celestia began to ascend the steps as well, finding safety in the moonlight that was pouring over them like a welcoming shower.
Celestia lowered her own light spell, smiling as she reached the halfway point. Her sister’s moon had never looked so beautiful. It showed so brightly, a light guiding her way back to safety. They had made it. Twilight was outside, she could get the Elements of Harmony and stop the demons. Luna would be saved, Celestia knew it now. The Elements of Harmony had never failed before. It was all going to be—
The wind gusted around the castle, and a single stray cloud moved towards the moon. It crossed the pale surface. For a moment, the world lost its light. Things fell into darkness, and Celestia felt something grab her leg.
“NO!”
~~~
“Shining!” Twilight cheered, galloping as fast as her hooves could carry her, tears streaming from her face. She leapt just as her old brother began to turn, tackling him to the ground. It was a rare moment where the captain of the guard was taken down so easily, but Shining showed no anger. Instead, a smile spread onto his face as he hugged Twilight back with all the strength his forehooves could muster.
“Oh Twilight, I was so worried. Where were you?”
Twilight pulled herself away from her brother, smiling happily. “Oh, I was buried alive in a stone coffin.”
Shining Armor opened his mouth, intending to ask why Twilight was happy about that. Still, before he could, other voices began to emanate from the staircase.
“Yes, we made it!” Path Finder cheered. He jumped and rolled on the long, overgrown grass just outside the tunnel entrance. He then jumped up and began to dance to a melody only he knew. It was a sight that made Twin Blades roll her eyes, but she smiled. Her eyes then drifted to the moon. She spread her wings, blades glinting in the light. She drunk deep of the fresh air, pulling in as much as her lungs could hold.
Then, there was gust of wind. It got dark. Twin Blades opened her eyes and saw a cloud passing in front of the moon. In a moment, the safety and freedom she and the others had been enjoying disappeared and their hearts pounded in their chests.
“NO!”
They heard Celestia’s shout and, a moment later, the doors to the tunnels slammed shut. A loud clicking filled the air, and it was followed by the panicked shouts of everypony near. Twilight ran to the door, her magic flaring as she desperately pulled on the handle. Path Finder, and every other unicorn on the surface joined in as well, trying to blast and pry open the ancient door.
But the door held firm. It resisted every spell. They tried removing its hinges, but they would not budge. They tried forcing open the lock, but it would not relent. They tried to burn the wood, but it wouldn’t even smolder. The doors simply stood resolute, refusing them entry.
And as panic turned to desperation, and as desperation turned into fear, Twilight broke down. She ended her magic, ran up to the door, and pounded on it with her own hooves. “Celestia! CELESTIA!”
~~~
The darkness consumed her once again as Celestia was drug to the bottom of the stairs. She kicked and flailed, but her captor had a firm grip. She struggled as her headache returned with a vengeance. Her light spell had gone out, all was dark. She screamed for help and clawed at the stone steps, trying to keep herself from being drug away, but nopony came to aid her. She could hear pounding, but nothing more. Her ponies could not get through the door.
Head pounding like it was being beaten by a sledgehammer, Celestia rolled on her back and continued to flail her legs. She was trying to kick at the thing that held one of her hind legs, and she connected a few times, but the blows did not make the beast release. Only one thing would do that: light.
Celestia grunted and furrowed her brow, trying to call on even the simplist of light spells. Her head was pounding again. The run through the corridors, the panic of her current situation, it all made her headache so bad she could hardly concentrate. Still, she pushed through and reached for her magic. She grabbed a tuft, as much as she could manage at once, and with a final scream formed it into a light spell.
“LET GO!”
The small light formed at the tip of her horn. The thing hissed and released her leg, allowing Celestia to quickly scramble back to her hooves. She then turned to face her attacker, wings flared and her body tense. She was ready to fight, tooth and hoof, but then the air turned to stone in her chest.
“Sergeant F-Fortress?!” Celestia stuttered as she looked into the familiar face of the unicorn lunar guard sergeant. Fortress was there, standing on her hooves, yet she looked dead at the same time. Her body was anemic. Skin stretched over bone and little more. Her eye sockets were empty, and the stench of death rolled off her and choked Celestia’s nose. Growls and hisses escaped Fortress’s mouth as she cringed away from the light. She backed away into the darkness, and when Celestia stepped forward to try and find her again, Fortress had disappeared.
Celestia opened her mouth to once more call out to the sergeant, but she was forced to bite back her words when she felt something scrape her flank. She quickly looked back, and saw a long, shallow cut had formed across her cutie mark. She also heard the clatter of metal against floor near her. She looked down and saw a glint of metal resting near her hoof, its edge bathed in her own blood.
It was a crossbow bolt tip.
Beginning to hyperventilate and panic, Celestia glanced once more over her shoulder and felt an overwhelming sensation of fear wash over her. She was being watched, being hunted, and she was all alone and hurt. It was an ancient survival situation, the kind fillies and colts read about in textbooks. Predators would single out members of the herd, those already weak, and then make their kill.
Celestia felt another crossbow arrow tip wiz through her mane and clatter behind her. She stumbled on her hooves. She hadn’t seen which way Fortress had pulled her. She didn’t know which way it was to the stairs. She would have thought Twilight and the guards would have come straight down to save her, but yet there was no sound of rescue coming in the distance. She was alone. she was in trouble.
She had to run!
And run she did. Turning and sprinting, Celestia took off with all the speed she could muster, even as her headache began to pound harder and harder against her head.
~~~
Princess Celestia pressed her back against the cold brick, gasping for breath as the light from her horn flickered. Her lungs burned. Her mouth was filled with the irony taste of blood. Her legs trembled, threatening to give out beneath her. The cut across her flank, across her cutie mark, wept her life blood. Her crown, her chest piece, her shoes... they were all gone. All of her guards, her ponies... all gone. She was all alone.
Her ears swiveled for the smallest sound, and she strained to make her light burn as bright as it could. The effort, however, only made the pounding in her head worse. A large bump on the side of her head throbbed, each pulse sending a wave of pain through her skull. It was making it hard to think. She had a mild concussion, but still she strained her senses. She listened to the silence. She looked into the dark. She saw and heard nothing, but knew what lay beyond. She could feel the eyes.
She was being watched.
Her light flickered, her connection with her magic failing. The darkness was drawing in. She was losing sight of the corridor. She was losing sight of herself. Her hooves and tail fell into darkness. Her forelegs and her flanks. Her chest, her neck. The light kept fading until she could only see her nose and her horn, and then they too faded into the darkness. Her magic cut out.
All the while the silence continued to press in. She should have heard the echoes of her desperate breathing and shifting hooves. The corridors had been full of echoes when she and the squad had first entered the tunnels. She should have heard the echoes, but the silence was eating every sound she produced. The silence ate the sound just as the darkness seemed to eat her light.
The darkness and silence were surrounding her.
Then she heard it, a single click in the distance. She focused her eyes on it, but there was no sound after that. Her tension grew. The irony taste in her mouth grew more intense. The smell of dust and stale air began to carry undercurrents of blood. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears.
She knew what lay beyond. She knew what was hunting her. It was lying in wait. It was preparing to pounce. Yet it did not attack. It was just waiting. It was just watching her squirm.
“Come on!” She shouted through a tremor in her voice. “What are you waiting for!?”
And all at once she felt a dozen hooves upon her, grabbing and pulling her away from the wall. Then, there was a blow to the back of her head, and in an instant she was unconscious. She fell limp, becoming nothing but a rag doll in the hooves of her captors.
~~~
The world came back to Celestia slowly as she regained consciousness. Her nose was filled with the acidic stench of brimstone, and the air was dry and uncomfortably hot, like the furnace room of Canterlot Castle. She shifted, and could feel dried blood cracking and flaking off the back of her neck and her flank. She tried to lift her hooves, but found them weighed down by heavy shackles and chains.
“Prrrrrr. Looks like somepony’s finally woken up. Good, we didn’t want you to miss this.” A voice whispered in Celestia’s ear as she felt a hoof brush a bit of her mane. “Oh, I hope that lump on the back of your head doesn’t scar. Scars are just so unbecoming.”
“Don’t talk like you're the one that’s going to get to possess her,” a rough, low, boisterous voice grumbled. A pair of hoofsteps began to draw closer, and Celestia opened her eyes to see who it was. For a moment, all she could see was black, but, as her eyes adjusted to the low light, she saw Night Gaze standing in front of her. He, however, looked as Fortress had. Anemic, dead, with eye sockets that were nothing but black voids.
“And why shouldn’t I?” The female voice purred. Celestia turned her head slowly, looking over her shoulder. Fortress was lying across Celestia’s back like the princess was a big white couch, but the voice coming from that mouth was not Fortress’s. It had a sneer to it, like the tone of a woman who had grown up a spoiled brat.
“I am the most beautiful one among us. I am also the only female of our merry little band.” She purred again, rubbing her bone stretched skin against Celestia’s back, making the princess shiver in disgust. “It is only fitting that I receive the most beautiful of bodies.”
“This may be true, but she is also powerful,” a third voice commented as another figure came towards them. The voice was male, proper in tone, but was accented by slurping sounds as if the pony was trying to talk and hold a water in his mouth at the same time.
“Celestia is, in fact, the most powerful of our guests. And, more importantly, she has not been in any recent, direct contact with the Elements.” The unicorn moved closer, making Celestia gasp. It was Corporal Wind Runner, one of the guards that had been killed beneath the fallen weapon rack. His helmet was gone and his horn, which should have stood proudly from his forehead, had been bent back. It grew around the cap of his skull. It then split into two branches and curled on either side of his head, making it look like Wind Runner had grown goat horns.
Fortress growled, making the sound of a displeased cat, before she leapt down from the princess’s back. “Fine, then I want Luna.”
“Luna is for me,” the ram-horned unicorn snapped. “Or have you forgotten your place, Catrina?”
“What have you done with Luna, you demons?” Celestia snapped, glaring down the three. She now understood. Fortress was not Fortress. Her body had been taken by one of the six spirits, taken by Catrina the Cruel. Celestia could only imagine it was the same for the ram-horned unicorn and for Night Gaze, since neither spoke with the correct voices.
“Uh-oh, looks like she’s mad, Grogar.”
“Yes, Arabus,” the ram-horned unicorn, possessed by the demon Grogar, sneered, “though she’s in no place to do anything about it.” He moved closer, smiling at the princess and revealing teeth that were sharp and pointed, the teeth of a carnivore. “And don’t worry, we have been taking good care of her. Wouldn’t want to ruin my new home, would I?”
“What do you mean? Where is she? Let me see Luna!” Celestia demanded.
“Of course, your highness, it would be our pleasure,” Grogar said as his coiled horns glowed. Celestia found herself being lifted up and carried. The low light in the chamber was coming from eldritch lines that criss crossed the floor, which all seemed to flow to a single point. The demons were following said lines as they carried Celestia, passing by ancient, empty book shelves.
The group rounded a corner, finding a place where all the eldritch lines met in a circle that lay just below the vault. The ancient door had been painted with the lines as well and sealed. And, in the center of these lines, lying limp and with a pained expression, was Luna. She was surrounded on three sides by three more dead looking guards, three more demon possessed corpses.
“There, you see, no worse for wear,” Grogar sneered as Arabus and Catrina shared a chuckle.
“Let me see her!” Celestia demanded, straining at the shackles around her legs.
Grogar paused, as if rolling around this request in his head, he then lowered Celestia to the ground. Her shackles popped open with a click, and he looked over his shoulder and smiled. “But of course. Please, go tend to your baby sister.”
Celestia glanced between the demons, expecting some grand track, but then her instincts as a sister became too powerful to ignore. She rushed to Luna’s side as the other three demons stepped back. The glow on the eldritch lines weakened and Luna slowly opened her eyes.
“Oh Luna, I was so worried.” Celestia said as she gently nuzzled her sister’s side.
“C-cel... Celestia,” Luna groaned as she sat up. Her eyes then narrowed and she looked to her sister in panic. “No! Celestia, you shouldn’t be here, you must— AH!”
Grogar’s horns glowed, and Luna suddenly found herself hauled out of the circle. The three other demons approached again, the lines returning to their original glow. Celestia quickly climbed to her hooves and tried to gallop after Luna, but she crashed into an invisible barrier formed on the edge of the circle. She stumbled back from the blow, struggling to keep her balance as the demons around her laughed.
“Now now, Celestia, we can’t have you running off,” Grogar said as he placed the shackles around Luna’s legs and tossed her to the ground. “You are, after all, the perfect mare for our master.”
“So you are scheming to release Tirek!” Celestia accused as she slammed her shoulder against the barrier again, trying to break free.
“But of course,” Catrina purred as she strode around the edge of the barrier. “He is our dark king, the ruler of all the black hearts who find themselves in Tartarus. Oh yes, he has such wonderful plans for your bright, colorful world as soon as we get him out.”
“Tirek isn’t here, Catrina, there’s no need for you to be kissing flank.” A possessed unicorn guard, one Celestia once knew as Sharp Lance, said as he twirled a crossbow bolt tip in his magic.
Catrina, in return, hissed, baring her fangs. “And you show some respect to our master, Leraje.”
“I do show him respect,” Leraje argued before throwing the bolt tip he had been spinning at Catrina, making her hiss and jump back. “But I am my master’s bow. I am a well honed, accurate, and deadly weapon. My place at his side is guaranteed by the work I do. No, I’m not like you, a declawed cat who can’t wake up in the morning without her witch weed and who has to spout endless flatterings to make herself sound useful.”
Another guard, a lunar earth pony guard named Moon Crest, came up beside Catrina and put a hoof across her shoulder. “Now don’t be so harsh, Leraje. Catrina is very useful.”
Catrina hissed again, turned, and swung a hoof at Barbas. He ducked back before the blow could connect, but still Catrina growled at him. “Do not speak as if you are on my side, Barbas. Your words are nothing but lies!”
“Well that is why they call me Barbas the Liar,” he scoffed with a shrug of his shoulders. “But I don’t always lie. No, that would make things too easy. No, I choose when I lie, it’s you who must figure out whether or not what I said before was a lie, or if this itself is a lie.”
Arabus groaned and rubbed his head, “Barbas, no more riddles. They give me headaches.”
“Oh, sorry, I keep forgetting about the small brain inside that fat head of yours.”
“Did you just call me stupid again?!”
“I don’t know. Was I really calling you stupid the first time, or is this the first time? Or was I lying both times and complimenting you on your brilliance?”
Arabus grumbled and began to stomp towards Barbas, only for a pair of hooves to stretch up and between them. The sixth and final possessed corpse, the body of a pegasus corporal that Celestia once knew as Nose Dive, moved up between the two. Her wings were missing half their feathers, and her forehooves were stretched and bent at unnatural angles.
“Thank you, Furfur,” Grogar said with a nod. “We must look presentable to our master, after all, and these bodies are already on the verge of needing to be replaced.”
“But why now?” Celestia interrupted, looking out across the six demons. “You have been free of Tartarus since my sister summoned you? Why did you not act sooner? Why do you torment us now?”
“She’s got you figured out, Grogar,” Arabus snickered, only to be thrown back by a burst of magic.
“We did not act sooner because of your court soothsayer. That annoying thorn tapped into power of the Elements of Harmony to bind my comrades and protect herself from our influence. She even put an invisibility charm on the elements, so your guards wouldn’t remove them from their pedestals. She would have bound me too, if the Element of Magic had not disappeared.”
Grogar smiled wide, bearing his sharp teeth. “I took great joy in watching that soothsayer realize she would not be able to seal me, right before I crushed the heart in her chest.”
“So Grogar had to wait,” Catrina continued, coming to a stop on the far side of the circle. “Wait until somepony moved the Elements off the pedestals. Then we had to wait for the charms to lose power, for all six of us to be free again.” Catrina smile, baring her own fangs. “But after that, we were free to travel to Canterlot and torment your sister in her dreams.”
“Only her dreams, mind you,” Grogar corrected. “That place is too full of lovey dovey harmony magic for us to do any real work, but here – in this place – there hasn’t been a drop of harmony in centuries. So we drew Luna here, made her come searching for her little book, and once we had her, we started waiting for the last time.”
“Waiting for what?” Celestia demanded.
“Your sister got a full blast from the Elements of Harmony on the night of her return. Even now, that magic is protecting her from our influence. It will fade in time, and we were content to wait for that moment to arrive. I used my magic to make time speed ahead, to make minutes pass like hours here in the dark, all so that the blessing from the Elements would fade before you could save her.” Grogar stepped up to the edge of the circle. “But now you’re here, my dear Celestia, and you have given us... another option. After all, when’s the last time you touched the Elements of Harmony?”
Arabus stepped up to the circle as well, all six demons now surrounding Celestia. Their voices lowered, turning to dark murmurs as the lines beneath her pulsed. A thumping filled the air, like the castle itself had grown a heartbeat. Luna struggled against her shackles and tried to cast spells, but every attempt was thwarted by Grogar, who lifted and dropped the lunar princess against the ground.
The air grew colder and colder. Celestia saw her breath and felt a shiver run up her spine. The heartbeat grew louder and louder. She could feel its rhythmic thumping beneath her hooves. The murmuring of the demons grew deeper, darker, and began to fall beneath the range a pony can naturally hear. It felt like the world was about to tear itself apart.
Then there was a click, the opening of a lock. Celestia turned to the vault door, watching as its handle spun, pulling back the bolts that once sealed the great metal chamber. It then began to swing open, but it did not reveal the vault interior as it should. Instead there was an endless blackness beyond. To Celestia, it felt as if she was staring into eternity, into a void with no end.
Then part of that blackness moved. She didn’t know how she had seen it, but the writhing fear in her gut told her that she had seen something. It was like a movement in the periphery of her vision. It was that tingling sense on her spine. Something was ahead of her, in that inky blackness, and it was coming closer.
A single all black hoof extended from the vault door, and the air in the room grew even colder. Ice began to form on the ground, and, to Celestia, it felt as if her heart was going to stop beating in her chest. Another hoof followed, and soon a living shadow emerged from the vault. It was the silhouette of a centaur, tall and powerful with large, sharp horns and a pair of burning red eyes that could sear the soul from your flesh. A small leather bag hung from his chest on a simple piece of string, it was the only part of the creature that wasn’t bathed in black.
It was Tirek.
The demons shuffled to one side of the circle as Tirek, as a spirit, closed the gap between himself and the spell. He stepped through the barrier as if it was not there, towering over Celestia. The princess had stumbled back, pressing her flank against the barrier. Tirek reached out for her. Luna was screaming, protesting, begging that he take her instead, but soon Tirek touched Celestia’s forehead with a fingertip.
That first finger sank into Celestia’s head, and she screamed in agony. Her soul was being ripped from her body, being torn away so Tirek’s spirit might take its place. He sank his fingers further into her skull, and the pain only increased. Celestia screamed and writhed. She flapped her wings, waved her head, but still Tirek advanced.
“Your resistance is that of a mouse caught in a tiger’s grip,” Grogar sneered as he and the other demons watched their master work. “There is no plea you can make to turn his black heart. You have no Elements either, and thus you have no rainbow to force him back into Tartarus. There is nothing you can do to save yourself, Celestia.”
Celestia opened her eyes, blurred by the tears that were flowing down her face. It hurt. It hurt more than anything she had ever experienced. Tirek had sank his arm into her head, his elbow now even with the base of her horn. His eyes were upon her, heartless and unblinking. She was beginning to grow numb. The chill of death was overtaking her. She was feeling distant in her own skin, as if she was falling away.
Still, before she was entirely gone, Celestia flicked her gaze down to something moving in the periphery of her vision. It was the small leather pouch that hung from Tirek’s neck by an aged string. It was swinging back and forth.
“I may not have the power , but your MASTER DOES!” Celestia screamed, digging her back hooves into the ground. She pushed herself forward, pushing Tirek’s arm deeper into her head and his essence deeper into her body. She screamed from the pain, the scraping and ripping of her soul. But, at the same time, she was able to drive her horn down into the leather pouch that hung from Tirek’s neck.
In an instant, a surge of dark, malevolent power enveloped Celestia’s horn, cascading over her. It was the power of the dark rainbow, an ancient force of magic. It was a power of darkness, a power of corruption, and the moment Celestia touched it, it began to overtake her.
Her coat turned black, and the sun on her flank a blood red. The pastel rainbow of her mane faded, replaced by dark and sickly grays. All that remained of her true self were her eyes, a final sign of her soul fighting back against the dark rainbow. Still, even then, the veins in her eyes were beginning to turn black, a sign that the dark power was slowly overtaking her.
To Celestia, it felt so much different. When you used the Elements of Harmony, it was like calling on a friend. The power stood with you, supported you. It worked with you as an ally. It was like a friend you had known all your life had come to your aid in your darkest hour, saving you from defeat.
The power of Tirek’s dark rainbow, however, scared and seared. You did not work with it. It was not a friend or ally. To hold it was to try and cage a violent beast, a dog of war. It would turn on you at the first sign of hesitation or weakness, and it was trying to turn on Celestia at that very moment. It raged inside her, lashing out at every fiber of her being. It sought nothing more than destruction of the world, and, even then, it would not be satisfied.
And Celestia struggled against it. The dark rainbow raged in her body, like a maelstrom. She tumbled back from Tirek, who looked on with his demons in disbelief. No one had ever dared to wield the dark rainbow besides Tirek. Only he had ever proven strong enough of will to command it, yet... where others had been obliterated by the dark rainbow instantaneously, Celestia was surviving.
She was gaining command.
With a stomp of her hoof, which left cracks across the floor, Celestia steadied herself. She then looked up, locking her eyes on Tirek. Her irises were still pink, her eyes were still her own, but they hard and unwavering. They were filled with the anger, hatred, and raw power of the dark rainbow. It was enough to even make Tirek step back.
Celestia glared at him as if she was a usurper to his dark throne.
“NOW GO BACK TO TARTARUS! EQUESTRIA IS MINE!” Celestia screamed as dark magic spiraled around her horn. She unleashed a blast into Tirek’s chest, sending his dark silhouette flying back through the open vault door.
There was a clatter of hooves, the six demons trying to escape with the bodies they had possessed, but Celestia would not let them leave. She would make them pay for what they had done to her, her sister, and her ponies. In the dim light from the eldritch spell lines, Celestia’s shadow stretched out and latched onto each of the six demons. This stopped their attempt at escape, and a moment later more shadowy tendrils were upon them. The shadows sank into the possessed bodies, and began to pull the demons from the dead flesh. They kicked, they screamed, but Celestia showed no mercy.
One after the other Celestia threw the spirits through the vault door, returning them to Tartarus from whence they came. Then, rearing back, she pointed her own horn at the door. With a loud crack of thunder, she unleashed the power of the dark rainbow she had stolen from Tirek’s bag. The dark rainbow shot forward, moving forward like jagged lightning, before it too disappeared into the vast portal.
Celestia returned to normal slowly. Her coat turned white and her mane regained its normal colors. The blackness from the veins in her eyes faded, and with a final flicker of her horn, she threw the vault door shut and spun the lock. She then began to tremble, hacking and coughing from the strain as her head pounded. The world was spinning, her ears were ringing, and her stomach convulsed, as if trying to expel some final dark part of Tirek. It was all too much to deal with at once.
Celestia collapsed on the spot to the panicked shouts of her sister.
~~~
“Celestia.”
She stood in darkness, and with that one word from the depths, dark red lines formed around her. They glowed with a ghastly light, painting her whole coat the same red tone. Her hooves became stuck to the floor, and her magic was useless.
“Celestia.”
She turned, looking into the darkness as a pair of blood red eyes opened. They moved towards her. A hand moved into the light from the red lines, reaching for her head. She screamed and tossed, trying to escape, but the hand only drew closer and closer. It was followed by a body, a head, and horns. It was the arm of Tirek, and he was smiling down at her with fangs dripping blood.
“Celestia.”
He touched her forehead.
~~~
GASP!
Celestia bolted up in her bed, body shaking. She looked around in a panic, her eyes blinded by a bright white. She wished to stand, to run, but then she felt a hoof gently touch her own.
“It’s okay, Sister, you are safe.”
Celestia’s eyes began to adjust to the light in the room. The walls around her were not the shadow choked stone of the old castle’s tunnels. Instead, she was surrounded by the gentle colors of dusk and was resting on a familiar cushion. She was tucked beneath a warm blanket as a fire danced in the nearby fireplace. The moon’s light shone in through the window, a welcome friend. She was in her private study. She was back in Canterlot.
She was safe at home.
“H-how?”
“When you banished the demons back to Tartarus, Grogar’s spells ended, including the one he was using to seal the entrance to the tunnels. Shining Armor and Twilight came charging in and found us in the archives. We brought you back here straight away. You’ve been asleep for about a day.
“And don’t worry,” Luna said before Celestia could ask. “I took care of the sunrise this and yesterday morning.”
Celestia eased herself back into her cushion, her body calming down. “And I got the demons?”
“You did, Sister, and when you closed the vault, the way to Tartarus was closed as well. Once I was freed of my shackles by Shining, I washed away the demons’ spell from the door. If it is opened again, ponies will find it only leads to the old vault, as it should.”
Luna then grew quiet, moving close to the bed and hanging her head. “And, Sister, I am so sorry. I wished to deal with this myself. I did not wish for you to know the depths I sank to in my jealousy, or how I came about my power as Nightmare Moon. I didn’t think you’d ever forgive me if you found out.”
“It is true, Luna, that to delve into such magics is one of the worst mistakes you’ve ever made,” Celestia said. Her voice started out firm, but then she sat up from her cushion, leaned forward, and wrapped her forehooves around Luna. “But I’ll ground you later. Right now, I’m just glad you are safe.”
Luna leaned into Celestia’s embrace, nodding her head. “Thank you, Sister.” She then pulled back, smiling as she glanced back at the door. “Twilight and her friends are here to see you. Would you like me to show them in?”
“Perhaps in the morning,” Celestia said as she settled back into her cushion. “If I know Pinkie Pie, she will wish to throw a party of some sort, and I am not ready to face such jubilation just yet.”
“Very well,” Luna said as she began to stride towards the door. “Then I will leave you to rest and assure them you are well. ”
“Luna, before you go...”
Luna stopped at the door, turning back to look at Celestia. “Yes, Sister?”
“Where is the Clavicula Concordia Regis?”
The smile faded from Luna’s face. She lifted a hoof and pointed to Celestia’s small work table. There, laying on top of scrap paper as if it was an innocent novel, was the book that had been at the heart of their woes. Celestia picked the book up in her magic, cracking it open and glancing over the pages. She then slammed it shut and, with a flick of her horn, she threw it into the nearby fireplace.
“May the knowledge it contains rot in Tartarus for all time,” Celestia said firmly, watching as the book caught fire. “And may never its dark arts hurt another pony again.”
“I could not have said it better myself, Sister,” Luna commended before she opened the door and turned to leave. “Sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“One more thing, Luna,” Celestia called before her sister could depart. “Were you calling my name before I woke up?”
Luna slipped out of the room, turning to close the door behind her as she allowed a small smile to creep onto her face. “I don’t know what you are talking about sister. You must have been having a nightmare.” At that she closed the door behind her with a quiet click.
Celestia allowed herself a small chuckle. She then looked back to the fire, continuing to watch the book burn, its pages turning quickly to ash. She wished to throw her own memories of the past hours, of her trek into the tunnels beneath the old castle, into the fire as well. The terror that had gripped her and the fates that had befallen so many of her ponies would haunt her.
That, and there was one thing she could not ever forget. The touch of Tirek, the sensation of him pushing the soul from her body to make space for his own. That pain, that agony, it sent a shiver down her spine even then. That sensation, it lingered with her even now. She lifted a hoof to her forehead, to a place just below her horn, where there was a low, constant pain.
Celestia rubbed that spot for a few moments before yawning and getting comfortable again. She snuggled beneath the blanket, finding comfort in its warmth, and laid there waiting for sleep to take her. She laid, watching the fireplace and the flames within. The moon began to rise out of sight of her window, and with it her bedroom began to grow darker.
Shivering, Celestia hugged the blanket closer to her body. She continued to watch the fire, but felt a growing urge to look over her shoulder. Something was watching her. Something in the dark, but that was impossible. Tirek was sealed. The demons were sealed. The book was burning. There couldn’t be anything.
Yet the sensation remained. A bead of sweat ran down Celestia’s brow, her body tensing. In a single moment, it all became too much. She threw back the covers and turned over on her cushion, looking into the darker corners of the room behind her. But, there was nothing there. The only shadow she saw was her own, and it was cast against the far wall by the fireplace's light.
Breathing a few slow, deep breaths to calm herself, Celestia turned and laid back down. She went back to watching the fire, and even used her magic to draw her bed closer to the flames. Its warmth began lulling and calming her, letting her eyes slowly droop. She was drawn back from the verge of sleep a few times, her mind playing tricks on her. It sounded as if the fire was calling her name, but she finally slipped off to slumber as the last pages of the book began to curl and burn.
And as the book burned, as more of its pages were consumed and others were revealed, the section on Tirek became revealed. The sketch of his visage stood proud for a few moments before the fire began to eat at it and the text below it. Word after word, piece after piece of that one brief section burned until only one sentence remained.
Those who have been touched by Tirek are forever within his grasp.
===================================================================== The End =====================================================================
