Books lined the walls as far as the eye could see. Zerephonzidas could hear the sound of hoofsteps echo throughout the seemingly infinite corridors. He could hear the rustling of pages and the sound of book covers on tables.
The sphinx stalked the aisles, his good eye scanning the titles and the names of the authors. If there was one major issue with the eldritch library, it was how the books were organised. Most libraries would be organised by category and type. Here, they were organised by time.
A long time ago, Zerephonzidas might have been awe-struck by a place that could conjure words from across space and time and collect them into one, singular spot, but nowadays, Zerephonzidas only cared to find information about the Immortal King.
“Hello again,” came a voice from behind him.
Zerephonzidas turned. The little unicorn stallion who had spoken was carrying a large pile of books, each larger than the next.
“That’s a lot of books,” Zerephonzidas said. “I imagine you’re intending to spend a lot of time here.”
“Oh, not today,” the stallion said. “I’m a fast reader, and besides, most of these are based on my work.” He put the pile of books down on a table. “I’ve seen you here a lot.”
Zerephonzidas looked away, his eyes perusing yet another shelf. “Yes.”
“For at least ten years, I reckon.”
Zerephonzidas frowned. “Your point?”
“Having trouble finding a particular book?” the pony asked. “Was it a cliffhanger? I’ll be honest, they always get me, too…”
“A cliffhanger? Yes, in a sense.”
“”What’s the book about?”
“You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
The stallion smirked. “Try me.”
“I’m looking for any information about the Immortal King,” Zerephonzidas said. “There won’t be any record of him from four thousand years ago, mind.”
“Immortal King? I’ve got a lot of immortals kicking around,” the stallion said. “Maybe one of them?”
“The King I’m looking for achieved ‘true’ immortality. Perhaps.”
The stallion chuckled. “Ah, there are degrees of immortality, now? How immortal am I, do you think?”
“Sub-average,” Zerephonzidas replied.
“Ooh, biting.”
“He was once called the Emerald King, if that helps.”
“Ah, now, I’ve heard of him,” the stallion said, his face darkening. “Why’d a sphinx like you be looking for the last ruler of the sand realms? Unless…” The stallion smirked. “You wouldn’t happen to be Zerephonzidas, would you?”
Zerephonzidas nodded. “I am he, yes.”
The stallion grinned. “Fascinating.”
“Most ponies are rather interested in sphinxes, yes,” Zerephonzidas said. He was beginning to be somewhat off-put by the stallion’s complete indifference to him. If Zerephonzidas had wanted, he could squash this little unicorn with a single swipe of his paw. Instead, the pony seemed to treat him like a curiosity.
Some ponies had no survival instinct.
“No,” the stallion went on, “I meant, if you’re Zerephonzidas, then why on earth would you be looking for information on your ‘Immortal King’? You were there, weren’t you?”
Zerephonzidas grit his teeth. “Yes, I was. However, I was distracted at the time.”
“That doesn’t sound very sphinx-y.”
“It was a difficult day. I had to deal with an assassination and going blind in one eye. Not to mention almost being caught in a giant earthquake and nearly being blasted away by magic.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“I want to know what the King did that day. I hoped perhaps that someone might have found a lead somewhere in this whole library…”
The stallion looked across the endless rows of shelves, standing upright like the ranks of some stern army.
“Perhaps. The eldritch library contains many books, both from the past, like traditional libraries, but also the future. Stories and research yet to be written has been collected here, the words bleeding through the fabric of space and time. It is entirely possible that somepony might have found some small discovery and written it down,” the stallion explained. “However… you’re probably wasting your time.”
“I have time to waste.”
“If somepony did not know what they had found, they could have given it any number of names. Instead of labelling their discovery ‘the Immortal King’, it could be ‘the surprisingly long-lived king’, or the ‘ancient one’...”
Zerephonzidas frowned. “What, then, would you suggest?”
“Actually look for it?” the stallion suggested.
“I cannot. There is too much ground to cover. I spent three thousand years scouring a desert that spans thousands of miles, nearly dying of thirst on hundreds of occasions and drowning in sand. Alone, I cannot, and there is no united body of ponies to help me either. Your Earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi have proved more interested in squabbling than in helping me.”
“I see. Quite the pickle.”
Zerephonzidas sighed. “That certainly is one way of putting it.”
“Well, I’ll certainly keep a look out,” the stallion said, and sat down at his table and opened the first book. “I suspect you will be here for a long while, though.”
“Perhaps,” Zerephonzidas said. “You didn’t say what you were doing here.”
“Me? I’m the librarian. I made this place,” the stallion said. “I’m Starswirl. The Shaven.”
Zerephonzidas raised an eyebrow. “Never heard of you.”
“Well, that’s not my problem.”
Zerephonzidas had to admit he had a point.
Zerephonzidas put the book down. Whoever had written that evidently had no idea about how immortality worked. It was about as misinformative as they came.
How long had it been, now? Twenty years, perhaps? Time didn’t work quite right in the library, no doubt as a result of Starswirl tampering with how it was supposed to work. Zerephonzidas found it was far more efficient to judge the passing of time by observing how Starswirl’s facial hair had changed.
The stallion had started clean shaven. Then he had become Starswirl the Mustachioed, then Starswirl the Muttonchopped, Starswirl the Goateed, and many others, becoming increasingly hairy as the years went by.
Zerephonzidas had played around with the concept of developing a calendar based on his facial hair, but he always had better things to do.
Zerephonzidas had browsed through thousands of books over his time there. More than a normal creature would read in their entire life. The best he had found were accounts detailing excavations of the old desert realms, but no mention of the Immortal King. They’d refer to the Emerald King from murals and statues, but they couldn’t figure out where he had gone, or what he had become.
And of course, there was no mention of the column. Zerephonzidas found that most troubling of all. It indicated that, as far as he knew, nopony would ever discover the place where the King had cast his spell for at least five-hundred years.
“My spells only do so much,” Starswirl had explained. “They can’t pull words too far through time… the magic here is simply not powerful enough. I’d say the furtherst forward they can come from is, say, five hundred years. Six, tops.”
Zerephonzidas tapped his claw against the top of the book he had closed. Perhaps Starswirl had been right. Perhaps looking for answers in a library was not the most effective means of finding his answers.
“Zerephonzidas?”
The sphinx sat up. “Yes?”
“Found your King yet?” the unicorn magician asked.
“No.”
Starswirl frowned. “I see. Listen, I’ve been finding indications of… instability through the library.”
Zerephonzidas raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Yes. I was hoping I could borrow that sphinx eye of yours.”
Zerephonzidas sat up. “Very well.”
Zerephonzidas bit his lip. Starswirl’s frown deepened.
“Well?”
“I’m afraid the magic in the library is degrading,” Zerephonzidas said. “Eventually, it will break down entirely.”
Starswirl sighed. “The library is going to crumble, then.”
“Yes.”
Zerephonzidas was livid. He had thought he had infinite time, but the world, unlike him, was subject to entropy. It degraded and broke. The library he had once thought was full of answers was going to close its doors before he could find any indication of the Immortal King.
“I think it would be best if you looked for your answers a little faster,” Starswirl said.
“It will take longer than I can afford,” Zerephonzidas said. “I need to rethink my strategy.”
What to do? There had to be a way out of this, he thought.
“Perhaps it is your attitude that you need to change,” Starswirl said.
“I am a sphinx. We are not famous for our manners.”
“I meant,” Starswirl said, “That you are spending all your time working alone. You don’t accept help because nopony is in a position to help you properly.”
“Your point?” Zerephonzidas asked.
“Perhaps you should try helping us help you,” Starswirl said. “Give some to get some, so to speak.”
“Bargain, you mean?”
“More like put ponies in a position to help,” Starswirl said. “I hear there’s something of a crises happening across the three tribes at present. Perhaps you could manipulate the scenario to your advantage.”
Zerephonzidas rolled his eyes. “There is no pony lifespan long enough to be my partner,” he said. “It would be a wasted effort.”
“Perhaps,” Starswirl said. “Perhaps not. Look in the library, while it lasts. Maybe you will find something.”
Zerephonzidas read through books and books and books. He managed to double his reading speed just to absorb as much knowledge as he could. It was a wasted effort. The references to the Emerald King were few and far between as it was, and no matter how far forward he went, he wasn’t able to find any mention of the column.
He suspected this was at least in part due to a being named Discord, who was scheduled to wreak significant havoc in the near future. Zerephonzidas tapped his claw against the cover of the book. If, perhaps, Discord had been more stable, more approachable, and more reliable, Zerephonzidas might have taken Starswirl’s advice and tried to use him. A being with the ability to reshape reality, and long-lived to boot? He would have been very helpful indeed, if he was any more advanced than a toddler.
Of course…
An idea struck Zerephonzidas. He flicked through the pages and found the entry referring to Discord’s defeat.
He raised an eyebrow.
“How interesting.”
Starswirl packed up what books he could as the library around him began to shudder. He was an old pony by this point, his long, impressive beard nearly reaching the floor. Zerephonzidas flexed his wings as both of them left the library.
“Sixty years, that library stood,” Starswirl muttered. “It’s a shame to see it go.”
“Yes,” Zerephonzidas said. “It was helpful, though. A worthwhile endeavor.”
Starswirl sighed. “What do you count as ‘worthwhile’?” he asked. “After all, sixty years must seem rather short for a creature of your age and lifespan.”
“I like to judge things objectively,” Zerephonzidas said. “If something is rare, then it has value. That library was unique.”
Starswirl sighed. “Yes, it was.” He put a pile of books on the ground, and looked back at where the once proud building had stood. There was no nothing more than an empty patch of grass. “I would have imagined a sphinx to be far more cold-hearted.”
“How so?”
“Well, you must have seen many ponies in your life. But if you judge things by how rare they are… I’d imagine you find many ponies to be quite special.”
Zerephonzidas shrugged. “Ponies are a dime a dozen.”
“Ah,” Starswirl said. “Perhaps I was mistaken.”
“A library like that will perhaps not surface for hundreds, thousands of years. Ponies are being born every single minute.” Zerephonzidas fluffed his feathers, preparing to fly. “Of course, there are a few exceptions. Ponies of exceptional mental ability, exceptional strength… and exceptional lifespan.”
Starswirl raised an eyebrow, and stroked his beard. “Oh?”
“Just something I found in your library,” the sphinx said. “I believe I might have found a partner to help me locate my dig site.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve taken my advice.”
“She should be born in only a few years, too,” Zerephonzidas said. “Of course, she will be quite busy for the first few centuries.” The sphinx grinned. “Oh, it has been a truly long time since I’ve actually partnered up with someone before. The last one was… oh, it must have been old Salenorzabul.”
“I think you might be confusing partner with tool,” Starswirl said.
“What’s the difference, in the end?” Zerephonzidas said. “I will get what I want, and perhaps along the way I will help her out too. A knife is of no use blunt, after all. It’s in my best interests to sharpen it.”
Starswirl sighed. “It’s discussions like these that remind me why we didn’t talk much over sixty years.”
“Yes, well, my kind are not known for being sociable.”
“Here’s some more advice, then,” Starswirl said. “Learn. I’m no expert on friendship myself, but you won’t ever be able to get your… ‘partner’ to help you if she thinks she’s just a tool. Or, as the case seems to be, knows she’s just a tool.”
Zerephonzidas sighed. “Well, I have a century or two to practise,” he said. “Farewell, Starswirl the Bearded.”
“It’s ‘the plaited’,” Starswirl replied as Zerephonzidas took to the skies. “As you can see, I’ve plaited the beard.”
“That’s not what history will remember,” the sphinx said, plotting his next move.
He would be watching Celestia’s development with great interest indeed.