Twilight was right about one thing: the explosion was huge.
A thunderous, deafening, explosive roar that sent horrific vibrations up the walls of the pit to the ground upon which they cowered.
And then the bright, blinding light; an immense amount of pure magical energy erupting from the pit as though an enormous, high-pressure geyser, the pit walls acting like the barrel of a cannon serving to compress and focus the destructive power in one direction alone: up.
The unleashed energy ejected in a vertical beam of searing light and heat, striking the cavern ceiling with terrible force. As an unexpected consequence, the star-like crystals mounted above suddenly bloomed back into life, glowing fiercely with the new injection of raw mana and cascading to their neighbours, gradually illuminating the city once more.
But the sheer amount of magic was too much for most of them, especially those closest to the point of impact. Many of the crystals began to burst and pop as they were overwhelmed, dozens of them exploding with the force of a stick of dynamite. And from the beam’s point of impact, huge dark cracks appeared and spread outwards in the manner of a jagged spider-web. When nearby crystals continued to explode, the cracks grew larger until they began to shed whole lumps of rock which came crashing down to the ground around them.
As the light faded and the shockwave passed, Daring tried to push herself back to her hooves, but something was wrong and she felt the ground beneath her shift and tilt. The explosion had done a number on the walls of the pit, and the stone nearest the edge was beginning to soften, crumble and collapse.
She was too close to the rim and the ground gave way beneath her, sinking to an angle and causing her to slide over the side and into the maw. She grasped for the edge in desperation, but the very stone beneath her forehooves crumbled away, threatening to send her plummeting into the abyss beneath. She tried to re-adjust but wherever she thought she might find safe purchase the stone continued to crack, split, and yield. She scrambled frantically, only able stave off the inevitable fall for a moment or two but she would fight hoof and nail for every instant she could get.
Caballeron was in trouble too, as the next-nearest to the edge when the explosion had thundered up from below. The ground beneath continued to give way and he found himself sliding too. Fortunately, he was within reach of the great bronze table, and still wrapped around it were the lengths of rope that had been used to haul it up and onto the plaza floor. He made a desperate grab for one, hoping to curtail his motion towards the pit, but the point at which he had seized the cord had slack yet to pay out and so he found himself careering over the side before the line finally went taught. And as Daring’s final meager hoofhold disintegrated into nothing she finally had something solid to reach for, and she seized it greedily.
I’m spending an awful lot of time today dangling over the edge of this stupid pit... she thought grimly, clinging on to the only thing that might save her from a swift descent to the ground – one of Caballeron’s hind legs.
Which did not go unnoticed. With his hindleg caught in her grip and her mass added to his own, Caballeron craned his neck to look at her with a glare. “You have put on weight since Canterblanca!” came a hard-edged voice from directly above.
“Really?!” she cried. “You wanna do fat-jokes now?!”
“Simply an... ugh! Observation!” he grunted as he tried unsuccessfully to pull their combined weight back to the surface.
Without warning the ground shifted again as more supporting bricks in the pit wall began to crumble and fail, and to her horror, their lifeline began to give up more slack as the bronze table shifted and started to roll...
Oh... crud.
“Caballeron! Down!” she yelled.
Thankfully it did not take him too many seconds to see the wisdom of her plan. With the table above them now right at the pit-edge and ready to fall any moment, there was no chance they would be able to pull themselves free in time. It took precious moments for Caballeron to drop the rest of the length of rope beneath him, and then Daring seized it in preference to the hindlimb she had up to now been clinging to.
From the cavern ceiling above, larger and larger chunks were now beginning to fall into the plaza with horrendous smacks and crunches of rock on rock. And with the epicentre of the impact sited directly overhead, the worst of the debris was falling straight towards them. Daring winced as a hunk of granite the size of a large cart whistled down past her, crashing into the platform still a long way beneath. They couldn’t stay here.
“Move, Doc!” she bellowed, abseiling down the face of the pit wall as fast as the rope-burns on her hooves would allow. In moments she had reached the floor of the pit, strewn with rocky debris all over. Caballeron was right behind her. Too close, in fact, and before she could clear the base of the rope he knocked into her, rump first, his momentum sending her sprawling to the ground towards the middle of the platform, and she dared to look up as the bronze table above rolled off the edge and began to plummet.
Without thought or conscious impulse guiding her, and relying only on the most base of survival instincts, Daring rolled towards the cart-sized boulder that had beaten them to the ground. She came to rest on her back, nestled right against it and watched with horror as the table seemed to fall straight towards her.
She shut her eyes tight. She didn’t need to see this.
The world shook. It roared. It crashed. There was pain, sharp at first, right across her middle, then it began to dull. After a moment things began to settle and a strange peace overcame her. In fact, she even thought she heard a waterfall.
But rather than the gentle fade-to-black that she was expecting, consciousness was stubborn in its persistence, and so she had to find use for it.
Alright Yearling, your day’s gone to rat-droppings and it doesn’t look like it’s going to improve anytime soon. But for now, let’s just figure out how bad things are and go from there. First off, can you feel all your limbs? Left leg front. Right leg front. Left leg back. Right leg back. Left wing. Right wing. Okay, good, haven’t lost anything major. Breathe in, that still work? Uhhh, yep, seems to— ouch! Ow. I think if that rib wasn’t bruised before it definitely is now. And there’s something pushing down hard on your chest. Gonna need a closer look at that, but otherwise, you seem to be in good shape for a pony that should have just been smushed.
Finally confident that she wasn’t about to see one of her own legs bent at a sickening angle, or something equally grotesque, Daring opened her eyes, shaking her head to clear the worst of the gravel-dust away. The table had fallen onto its edge, and about a third of its diameter had crashed almost directly onto the rock against which she’d rolled. By the sheer force of the impact the tabletop had sliced vertically into the granite almost all the way to the flagstones beneath, save for a tiny triangle of space between where the curvature of the table met the floor and where it entered the rock. Space that was currently wholly occupied by her body. Daring was caught between the side of the rock and the edge of the table which rested awkwardly against and across her chest, pressing her into the flagstones against her back. The top surface of the table greeted her head, chest and forelegs, and from somewhere down below, her hindleg could feel the pedestal.
And the peaceful waterfall? That was real, it seemed. A stream of freezing water was cascading down from directly above and beginning to pool nearby. And the stream was getting thicker by the minute.
The lake... it’s breaking through the ceiling! Alright, come on Yearling, gotta get out of here.
She grunted and pushed hard with her forehooves, but the table had embedded itself in the solid rock and would not move for her. She tried struggling beneath it, desperate to wriggle free but she was too firmly wedged. Rocks, some the size of her hat, continued to rain down feet, if not inches away from her and the water was now cold against her back, covering the ground. More leaks were springing from the cavern roof now: thick rivulets of fresh, freezing cold snowmelt from the lake above the surface streaming down into the plaza and funnelled into the pit thanks to the depression caused by the half-collapsed floor, cascading over the edge to pool around her as the water level climbed, and she unable to do anything to stop it.
“Daring Do?” called a familiar accented voice from somewhere near her hindlegs.
“Caballeron?” she called back.
Caballeron stepped around the side of the table, into view and frowned at her. “Amazing. Somehow you are still in one piece. You have more lives than a cat,” he grumbled, shaking his head.
“I’m pinned,” she said, grunting and giving another hard struggle against the solid table pressing down on her, to no avail.
“Oh? No witty rejoinder? No smug, insufferable comment? Interesting how things change when the horseshoe is on the other hoof. I’m certain there is a cutting remark to be made here. Off the top of my head, something about how you have really let things get on top of you? Perhaps when you come to write this paragraph into your next tissue of lies you will at least credit me with a measure of wit. Now I suggest you get ready to push as hard as you can.”
Caballeron reared onto his hindlegs, grasped the edge of the table and yanked hard, trying to roll it towards himself and away from the rock it had crashed into. In tandem, Daring pushed up with as much might as her limited leverage would allow. Her eyes scrunched shut and she clenched her teeth so tight they began to hurt, certain that she just needed a little more strength before the table would come loose and she could free herself. Just a little more. A little more. Just... a little... more! Agh!
Her tortured limbs gave up and she fell back, worried to find that the water was now more than halfway up her back, lapping against her trapped wings.
“Again!” called the Doctor, and so they re-tried. But fatigue doomed their attempt to a much shorter effort and the same exact result.
“It will not budge,” said Caballeron, breathing hard and wiping genuine sweat from his brow.
“Thanks for the update, Doc. I noticed,” said Daring. She rested her head back against the flagstones as she caught her breath, and the water had risen to her ears. She could keep her head above it for now, but in a few scant minutes the water level would rise to where no amount of strength or struggle would enable her to force her muzzle past the surface. She would take her last breath and know it was her last. Drowning then. There must be worse ways to go she supposed, but... this was pretty bad.
This place. It really did get you in the end.
“Daring Do! Daring Do, are you okay?!” The shrill voice from high above, echoing down to her was that of Rainbow Dash.
Daring scowled and gave another heave against the table, finding her efforts as futile as ever. “Rainbow! Twilight! Get out of here, understand?! Get back to the platform and get out! This whole place is coming down!”
“Don’t worry, we’re here. Just hold on, we’ll find some way to get you both up from down there!” That was Twilight.
“There’s no time! Just g—!”
“She is trapped!” Caballeron interrupted, calling up to them himself.
“Shut up, Caballeron,” she growled.
There was a short, confused beat before Rainbow shouted again. “Well then, un-trap her!”
“As if I had not been trying,” he muttered. “I cannot! The table is wedged too tightly!”
“Okay! Hold on, we’ll find a way down! Don’t worry Daring, we’re coming!” called Twilight.
“I said no! Get —ungh!— out of here!” She glared daggers at Caballeron stood over her. “I won’t forgive you for this,” she growled.
And received an equally furious glare in reply. “I cannot move this, and if you remain there your fate is sealed. You have never had a deathwish before: why would you not wish their assistance now?”
“Because I’m responsible for them, jerk! I brought them here, and I promised they’d get home safe! That’s all that matters!”
“Yes, and I am certain that when they return and tell their loved-ones how they bravely abandoned their friend to die at the bottom of a pit, their guilt will be utterly assuaged by the knowledge that you told them not to try,” he seethed. “How is it that you can write ponies so convincingly, yet know so little about them?”
“Caballeron! We need that rope! Throw it up to us!” called Twilight.
Turning, Caballeron gathered up the rope, untangling it from the crashed and mangled table. Scooping up a hoof-sized rock from among the many that had impacted around them he tied the end of the rope about it and began whirling it like a lasso. At the perfect moment he sent it catapulting straight upwards at ferocious speed, trailing the rope behind it, until – at the first time of asking, remarkably enough – it reached the outstretched forehooves of Twilight high above, who snatched it and brought it safely to herself.
They have nothing to use for an anchor, thought Caballeron. But even before the thought left his mind he was proved wrong. Over the edge of the pit Rainbow Dash appeared with his pick-axe grasped between her forelegs. With a mighty heave she swung it vertically, straight down, burying one of the points deep in the pit wall just a couple of feet below the lip, with the wooden handle now pointing upwards at a diagonal angle. With a quick test for strength, a loop from the end of the rope was thrown over the handle and suddenly they had an anchored rope long enough to reach from the top of the pit to the bottom.
Not wanting to risk weakening the anchor in the probably-no-longer-stable walls of the pit, Rainbow and Twilight descended separately, but rapidly. In the space of moments, and thanks to teamwork, they had reached the bottom, water sloshing around their fetlocks.
“I told you two to get out of here,” snapped Daring.
“Yeah? And we told you that friends don’t leave friends behind!” retorted Dash, her mane sopping wet and her eyes full of righteous, steely, heroic determination.
Which gave Daring pause. She quirked an eyebrow. “Uh... at no point have you actually said that yet,” she noted.
“Well, we’ll say I did,” said Dash. “Because it’s true and it’ll make a great callback. But right now we gotta get this thing off you.”
Together the three ponies took up positions – Twilight and Caballeron on either side of the tabletop ready to pull, while Rainbow Dash stood upon the rock to try and push it away. After the count of three they all heaved with as much strength as they could muster, with Daring once more adding her own efforts from below.
Strained groans and grunts of exertion filled the pit even above the sound of the sloshing water cascading around them. They pushed and pulled and heaved for all they were worth, muscles screaming, bones aching, but surely making progress. This had to be it. The combined effort of four ponies acting as one, with one goal and one intent would in the end prove to be...
A failure.
With gasps and heaving sides all four of them relaxed their grips and the table had not moved at all. Even sitting up as far as she could, the water level had risen halfway up her face now.
“It’s no use,” she admitted. “This thing’s not going anywhere.”
“It is too firmly wedged in the stone,” agreed Caballeron. “We need...” he trailed off and turned, walking beyond the table to where she couldn’t see him.
“We gotta try again!” cried Dash. “We must have loosened it!” Her eyes were shrunken and darting, and Daring saw the signs of panic starting to set in. In Twilight too, actually, though it was more subtle. It was odd. They weren’t the ones about to meet a grisly fate in this cold, unforgiving city. Why would they be afraid?
“Guys... look. Thanks for trying, but you’ve gotta get out of here. You don’t have long before—” She was cut off by another large rock shed from the cavern ceiling, demonstrating the point she’d been about to make by crashing into the water next to them with a large splash.
Twilight looked from the receding splash to Daring with a look of barely-contained fear. Though, clearly not fear for her own safety. “Daring, we’re not just going to leave you here!”
“We’ll figure something out!” cried Rainbow Dash.
Daring looked up at both and gave them sincere, grateful looks. “Look... it’s okay, alright? You don’t have to see this. Just go.”
Twilight’s face softened at that and the panic in it slowly drained, replaced by something at once kinder and yet more worrying: acceptance. “We’re not going to let you face this alone,” she said. “We’re here for you. We’re your friends.”
“I... Heh. You know, I never thought I’d say this but—”
“Ngh!”
“—I’m really glad to have you guys as—”
“Hngh! Ungh!”
“—You guys as fr— Oh, for the love of peat, what are you doing back there... Doc...?” Daring’s mouth fell open as movement caught her eye and her gaze trailed up the side of the pit. The rope was being pulled taut and then would fall slack, as though it were being yanked on, hard. “No...” she breathed. “Caballeron, stop, you fool!”
“You two! Get over here! I need your assistance!” he barked.
“What is it?!” asked Dash as she turned towards him.
“The pick-axe! We need the pick-axe! I cannot dislodge it!”
“Caballeron, stop!” cried Daring again. “If you pull the pick out of the wall, they’ll have no way back up! You’ll all be trapped down here! Just go! All of you! Leave me and get out of here while you can!”
But her pleas fell on deaf ears, it seemed. Twilight and Rainbow stepped beyond the table to where she could not see them, a moment later there were renewed and forceful pulls on the rope, and a moment after that the pick-axe embedded high above them in the pit-wall finally came free, accompanied by a few crumbs of crumbling brickwork.
The tool fell and splashed into the water where it was snatched up by Caballeron, hefting it with intent. Quickly he scrambled onto the rock that wedged the table in its grip. Grasping the handle of the pick-axe in his teeth he gave a mighty swing, slamming the tip into the granite with as much force as he could muster. It impacted on the rock with a solid, curtailed TING! And so he hefted it again, ready to strike anew.
“Pull on it! Hard! We must loosen it as much as we can!”
The two mares didn’t need to be told twice. They tugged and wrenched as Caballeron set to his task of destroying the stone around the table.
TING! TING! TING! TING! CRACK! TING! TING! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! TING! CRACK!
Daring was having to crane her neck to its limit to keep her muzzle above the water, but she could feel tiny movements in the table now. Twilight and Rainbow were rocking it back and forth, causing it to shift by millimeters, but her own muscles were exhausted. She just needed a second, but she knew if she dropped her head below the surface of the water to rest, she might not find any air when she came back up. She fought it off for as long as she could, but in the end the burning in her muscles overtook her and her heavy head fell back, beneath the surface where all was calm and peaceful.
* * *
“Twilight!” cried Rainbow. “Get Daring! Keep her head above the water!”
“We need a few more minutes!” agreed Caballeron, striking hard with the axe; every impact loosening the blasted hunk of metal just a little more.
Twilight nodded and waded over, reaching into the water with her hooves and finding Daring’s head. Gently she sat and cradled it, taking its weight and lifting it upward until Daring’s muzzle broke the surface once more. Daring gasped and drew in a desperate breath through her nostrils, but it seemed she was at the limit that her pinned body would allow. In mere seconds the water would rise to cover it, and no amount of pulling or tugging would change the fact that Daring wouldn’t be able to get her nose above it.
“We need to hurry!” urged Twilight. “She’s out of time!”
“We’re nearly there!” called Rainbow. “I can feel it moving back and forward! We just need another minute!”
“She doesn’t have that long!” called Twilight as the water finally overtook Daring’s muzzle.
“Keep her breathing!” ordered Caballeron. “We are nearly there!”
Twilight looked down at the face in her hooves beneath the water, and the slow stream of bubbles rising from Daring’s lips. The stream of small bubbles suddenly became a cluster of large ones as Daring’s mind lost the battle to her body, desperate to exhale. This was it. She was out of air. In a few seconds the pony beneath her was going to drown less than a minute from safety, unless Twilight did something.
Keep her breathing, she repeated mentally. Of course! Carefully releasing Daring’s head she crouched and took a deep breath. Closing her eyes, she plunged her own head into the water.
* * *
This was it. She’d staved it off for longer than she had any right to already, but her lungs had burned. They’d been desperate to replenish the stale air within them despite her conscious insistence that there was none to be found. And in an instant of weakness she’d let her final breath go. Now there was nought to do but wait until she could no longer suffer the vacuum in her chest, and she would automatically breath in again. Except this time there would be no air, only cold water, and it would be her last.
A shame. Except for the terrible pressure in her chest – the drive to inhale – it really was quite peaceful down here.
But she couldn’t stall any longer.
Suddenly she felt a shift in the water directly above her. Her eyes snapped open but she could see little in the dark and from beneath the surface. Instead she felt a soft muzzle against hers, pressing forward, forming a seal. And as Daring’s own maw opened and she instinctively gasped for oxygen, that was exactly what she received. Twilight exhaled and Daring inhaled, her lungs filling with slightly-stale air, but which nevertheless sustained her.
Oh, clever girl. You really are Purple Smart.
A moment later the table began to move more. Instead of rocking back and forth by millimeters, now it was inches and the effect was accelerating. She could still feel the vibrations of Caballeron’s pick hammering into the rock against which she was wedged, but it was definitely loosening. Twilight had to breathe for her one more time and then finally, as the table rocked away with one final effort, Daring gave her own mighty heave upwards with her forehooves, pushing it just far enough, and then she scrambled for all she was worth. Twilight pulled her by the shoulders and together they managed to get her clear.
Free at last she stood, coughed, spluttered, and glared.
“I told you to leave me!” she yelled. “Now you’re trapped down here! You should have saved yourselves!”
Caballeron and Rainbow Dash looked annoyed at that, but Twilight looked hurt. And then, in one question she summed it up: “What would you have done?” she asked.
Oh, snap.
Before the sudden wave of guilt could descend she shook her head. There would be time for that later. Right now they had big problems to deal with, and they weren’t doomed yet.
“Besides, we’re not trapped,” said Rainbow Dash. “I mean, the water’s gonna fill this pit up eventually, right? Why don’t we just wait and swim to the top as it does?”
“Because we don’t have that much time!” said Daring, looking upward. She pointed, and all three ponies followed her gaze.
The cavern ceiling was shedding huge chunks of rock now. They could be heard crashing into the plaza on all sides above them, and it was surely only a matter of time before two or three large, unavoidable chunks fell into the pit. Onto them. But even were that not the case, the walls at the top of the pit were starting to sag and crumble – the victims of the explosion they had channelled. And even as they watched, the bricks in top fifth or so of one side gave way, plummeting toward them.
“The whole pit is going to collapse! Everypony, quick, into the passage! Go!” yelled Daring, marshalling the three ponies ahead of her through belly-high water into the tunnel as brickwork and masonry rained down. Suddenly a pang of horror struck her and she turned back to the table, still stubbornly on its side. Crouching down and plunging her hooves into the water, feeling desperately for it she found it right where her head had been, and brought it up: one pith helmet. The top section of the pit gave way entirely and Daring leaped for the safety of the tunnel, reaching it just as the base of the well was filled with rock and stone, blocking the entrance behind her.
But the danger wasn’t over. The tunnel had been subjected to the blast too, and was decidedly unstable. Anywhere from a quarter to a third of the masonry blocks that had once made up the walls and ceiling were now strewn onto the floor, plus the water was continuing to rise. They needed to get to safety before they were either crushed or drowned.
Hastening to the far end they came to the high wall, the cut-away pit beneath it now a pool of frigid liquid.
“We need to find a way up,” said Caballeron. Only to register obvious surprise when Rainbow Dash placed herself just at the top of the slope of the pit and planted her hooves. Taking her cue, Daring deftly hopped onto her back and pushed off, leaping toward the pit-edge. Out of habit her wings gave an instinctive flap and just for a moment, actual lift seemed to register. She reached the ledge, hauled herself up and turned. Rainbow jumped for her, she grabbed on and pulled her to safety. Then Rainbow turned and between them they encouraged Twilight to jump for it and they pulled her up too. Leaving Caballeron alone.
“Come on, Doc!” called Daring, extending her forehoof, relieved to find that Rainbow did likewise. She wasn’t sure that she could pull him up herself.
Caballeron hesitated for a second but then seemed to find his resolve. He leapt for them, though his leap was nowhere near as athletic as even Twilight’s had been. Stretching his hooves to their limits he just managed to link them with her own and Rainbow’s, though for a moment they both threatened to go over the edge! Grunting and groaning they both pulled mightily until at last, Caballeron scrambled up to the wide ledge, and finally all four of them could claim a measure of safety.
Daring fixed the Doctor with a sarcastic glare. “And you have the nerve to say I’ve got heavier?” she chided.
Caballeron turned to her. “I... am surprised that you would—”
“Save it,” she snapped, and looked down at the now-flooded, mostly-collapsed tunnel beneath them and let out a sigh. “We’ve bought ourselves some time, but that’s about it. That was the only way in or out of this place,” she finished with a grimace.
A moment of reflective quiet greeted them. Dull thuds and pounding noises from far above could be heard, channelled through the brickwork, but it all seemed far away. They were safe for now, but conversely they were trapped. From here, destiny had narrowed its options to but a single fate for each of them. The only surprise left would be when.
A few silent moments passed as that sank in.
Daring gave herself a quiet, frustrated snort as she reflected on the comedy of errors that had brought them to this point. She had had so many chances to avoid it. So many opportunities to turn back. But no. More than anything, it was her own incompetence that had led them all here. The irony was, if she’d stuck to working alone she would never even have made it this far; certainly wouldn’t have dragged two innocent ponies away from lives that it looked increasingly likely they were never going to get back to. Because of her. Because she didn’t know when to quit and leave well enough alone. Now more than ever she felt less an adventurer and more a literature graduate, caught in a situation she’d blundered into headlong without any knowledge of this place, or the risks it posed.
From their grim expressions it seemed the others were musing on their fates too.
“I’m supposed to... I’ve got a Wonderbolt gig next weekend...” said Rainbow Dash. Then she tried to force some mirth into her forlorn tone. “Heh, wait... wait until the team finds out that I literally lost the ability to fly. They’re never gonna let me live it down.” She sighed a forlorn sigh. “Hope whoever gets my spot does a good job for the team,” she finished quietly.The thick quiet descended again, the three other ponies each looking contemplative and a little worried. That wasn’t good. They were likely beating themselves up too, to different extents. Thoughts like that would only lead to despair, and that wasn’t what they needed. Not now. Not yet. Come on, Yearling, get it together.
Daring turned and flicked her tail, making for the passageway that led deeper into the catacombs. “Come on, Doc. You’re here now, might as well see what all the fuss was about,” she said, leading him toward the first of the challenges she and her friends had faced earlier. It may have been little more than a distraction, but it clearly worked because without further ado, Caballeron and the two mares followed.
* * *
“And so they would reach this point and retrieve their crowns before returning?” Caballeron half-asked, half-stated as he stood before the two empty busts in the final room of the gauntlet. The traps and puzzles had not re-set themselves and the lighting down here was still adequate to see by, thus they had had no problem reaching the finish line. Plus, it was the logical place to go – the furthest place away from the earlier blast and now the slowly encroaching water.
Daring wasn’t sure if the water would eventually flood the entire passage system, or if the air-pressure would air-lock it into a huge air-bubble below ground. Not that it mattered too much. Right now it was just a question of which danger would eventually account for their demise – drowning, asphyxiation, starvation, or having the entire tunnel network collapse on top of them. Choices choices choices.
“The crowns acted as keys fitted into the two circular receptacles on the top of the table. When they were both inserted, the table would unlock, return their magic, and they’d rise back to the surface in triumph,” said Twilight.
Caballeron turned to her. “And what if they were to fail to reach this point? If their ‘trust’ was not up to the challenges? They would end up trapped, as you were?”
“There must have been some kind of failsafe,” reasoned Twilight. “Maybe something we disrupted when we set the Crown of Unity into the table. I guess it was never envisaged that they’d only be coming back to it with one of the crowns after all.”
“A timer maybe? Or perhaps something controlled from elsewhere,” posited Daring. “Must have been some way to reset it, because we know the Kings got trapped down here, just as planned, but the platform was on the surface when I found the place. Rods were in place too. Maybe re-inserting both rods into their holders raises the platform on that spring we felt we were pushing against on the way down? You’d need outside help to make that work though...”
“Maybe the younger brother had co-conspirators who reset the platform once he and his fellow king had disappeared into the catacombs,” reasoned Twilight. “No way back up for them then. Gave them enough time to evacuate the city.”
“We’ll probably never know exactly how it went down,” said Daring. “One theory’s as good as another right now.”
“It is a grim fate that they shared,” said Caballeron with a grimace. “Trapped forever below ground, with a pony you once respected, now your worst enemy.” He seemed to come to a realisation, and turned a cruel frown on Daring. “The parallels are intriguing, no?” he bristled.
“Shall we focus on not killing each other and let this place do it for us?” retorted Daring.
“Daring’s right. We need to work together,” chimed in Twilight.
“Not sure that’s exactly what I said...” grumbled Daring, returning Caballeron’s glare with an evil-eye of her own.
All this while, Rainbow Dash had been silent.
In truth, her mind had been wandering for some time. Since the eggheads had all started blabbering about those ancient Kings again, actually. It was like the eggheads were multiplying or something.
So her thoughts wandered, but she couldn’t get them to meander very far. Because right in the back of her mind there was the sense that things just weren’t adding up somehow. The gauntlet, the ancient Kings, the journal. There was something ever so slightly wrong with the whole picture... like a puzzle-piece that didn’t quite fit, or a tiny, aberrant black-hole that held her thoughts trapped in its orbit, but that she just couldn’t see clearly.
She almost dismissed it. After all, Twilight and Daring and even Caballeron were the brainiacs. If there was something amiss they’d have spotted it ages ago. It was probably nothing, but she just couldn’t make herself let it go.
“Hey, uh... guys? How long do bones last?”
Twilight, Daring and Caballeron halted their conversation-cum-argument. Daring turned and gave her one of her not-really-mad-but-I’m-still-frowning-at-you frowns. “Hey, don’t go starting thinking like that. We’re not licked yet, understand?”
“No, but... seriously... how long do they last?”
Twilight looked a little nervous at Rainbow’s apparent contemplation of the decidedly morbid, but she had been asked, so she answered. “Well... depending on the environment, they could conceivably last hundreds of years.”
“Right. But not, like, over a thousand?”
“Well, possibly, yes. If they were somewhere cool, dark, away from the sun and weather-erosion.”
“Right.” Rainbow looked around herself for a moment, then lowered her head, a little confused frown creasing her brow. “Those two brothers... they definitely came down here, didn’t they? And they got trapped together?”
“The younger King’s journal was left here, at the bottom of the pit. There were already two ribbons of energy in that crystal when we arrived. And we know the exodus to Equestria was a success. It’s safe to assume his plan worked.”
“And without both of the crowns to unlock the platform, they got stuck just like we were?”
“Yeah,” said Twilight. “But don’t worry Rainbow. We’ll think of something. We’re not going to perish down here like those two brothers did, okay?”
Rainbow shook her head. Twilight either wasn’t getting it, or she was way ahead of her. “Okay... but how do we know they didn’t make it out?”
“There aren’t any other accesses to the surface,” said Daring. “It’s not even as if there are any side-passages or rooms to explore. If they couldn’t get the platform moving without the other crown that that journal said was already gone – or if Twilight’s right and the platform was reset by somepony else while they were down here – there aren’t too many other outcomes.”
“Plus, the King’s journal was still here,” reasoned Twilight, a little sadly. “From the things he wrote in it, I think it was pretty important to him. If they’d found a way to escape together, I doubt he would have just left it behind.”
Rainbow looked up again, sure that her argument was about to be undone by a simple, logical explanation. “Okay, so... if they never made it out of here... and there aren’t any other rooms or passages... where are their bones?”
And Daring looked right at her. She was still frowning, but now it was the excited frown of someone annoyed with herself for not seeing something blindingly obvious. “Son of a...” she whispered.
“Maybe we just missed them?” Twilight suggested.
“No chance. Between us we’ve seen every inch of this place, and even given Doctor Greedy-Guts here the grand tour. If they were here, one of us would have noticed them,” affirmed Daring. “Rainbow’s right: those two kings... they’re not here.” She looked at Twilight. “There was something in that journal. Almost at the last part you read to us,” she said, taxing her memory and forcing it back to just a few hours ago. “It was something like, ‘I don’t believe I’ll leave that place, for it would require nothing less than the real trust we once shared.’ I thought it sounded weird at the time. Why would he write it like that? He knew they wouldn’t be able to get out the usual way: by the time they came down together the Crown of Harmony was already gone – they had no key. Unless... there was another way out. One that the King knew about but didn’t think he’d be able to use without trusting his brother completely. One final do-or-die challenge.” Daring was grinning a determined grin now. “What if they actually found that trust again? What if they escaped?”
“But... if they got out, why did the King leave his journal behind?” asked Twilight. “Just the idea of abandoning a book makes me queasy.”
Daring’s grin widened. “Because he couldn’t take it with him. Because the only way of getting out would have destroyed the book in the process!” Daring looked at Rainbow with a confident grin, respect clear in her eyes. “Rainbow Dash? You’re a certified genius! Come on!” she said, whirling and galloping for the door, the other three falling into quick step behind.
And Rainbow put on the widest, smuggest, self-satisfied grin she’d ever had. “Oh yeah. Twilight and Applejack are always telling me I should be certified.”
* * *
They stood on the edge of the deep pool in the water-room, still filled with water after their first encounter with it hours prior. Daring pointed to the metal gate high up on the wall of the pool that had allowed the water to sluice through.
“The water comes through it to fill the pit up, right? But the water’s gotta come from somewhere. A reservoir, an underground river, something. If we swim it, there might be a way out on the other side.”
“Alright... so what about the trust part?” asked Rainbow.
“I have a theory about that. Just need to test it. Do me a favour and pull the gate up?”
Rainbow duly took her position at the mechanism and pulled, the gate in the pool wall raising. The water level didn’t seem to rise further, Daring noted. The pressure must have equalised. Good.
She took off her hat and passed it to Twilight. “Hold this till I get back.” Then she dove into the water and a moment later, swam into the tunnel.
An uncomfortably long time passed. Over a minute, easily. Twilight and Rainbow began to exchange worried looks, while Caballeron’s face was unreadable. But presently, Daring re-emerged from the tunnel and broke the surface of the water, coughing and spluttering. She hauled herself out of the pool, gasping and retching for air.
After a couple of harsh, wet coughs Daring finally stood on her hooves. She was cold, soaked through and a little unsteady – not to mention she’d had her fill of water already today – but otherwise okay. She’d seen what she needed to. She raised her head to the two other ponies and—
Twilight was wearing her hat and trying to look innocent about it. What was it with ponies and that hat?
At a gesture, she retrieved her headgear from the alicorn, and finally regarded the three expectant ponies before her. “It’s like I thought. The tunnel is really long. I can see that there’s an exit of some kind at the far end, but there’s absolutely no way any of us are going to be able to swim it on one breath of air. I pushed myself as far as I could and didn’t get to half-way before I had to turn back.”
“Okay... so... wait, I don’t get it... are we stuck?” asked Rainbow.
Daring looked seriously at them. “No. It won’t be easy, but we can reach the other end.”
“Okay, but how?” asked Twilight.
“We just do for each other what you did for me back in the pit there. Breath-sharing. You each take the biggest lungful of air you can and start swimming. When you get as far as you can go, you give a signal. One of you exhales. Then you lock your lips together and pass breath back and forth, in and out. It’s not ideal and it might make you a bit dizzy, but that should give you enough breath to reach the other end.”
“What... so it’s like... we’re kissing each other underwater?” was Rainbow Dash’s typically to-the-point contribution.
“It’s not about romance, Rainbow Dash, it’s about survival,” deadpanned Daring. “If we stay here, we really are trapped. This is the only option we have, but I think it’ll work. We’ll go in pairs. You and Twilight. Me and Caballeron,” she said, ending with a grimace that was reflected by the good Doctor.
There was a brief, confused pause.
“Daring, are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked Twilight.
“Yeah,” agreed Rainbow. “I thought you said it was about trust. You’re not saying you trust him?!”
“It is as though I were not even here...” grumbled Caballeron in the background.
“No, but you two trust each other. And this is about giving you the best chance of making it through. I promised I’d make sure you got back home safe, and I’m gonna do what I can to keep my word.”
“But what about you? What if Caballeron pulls something? He could take your air all for himself and not give you any back!” said Rainbow Dash.
“We don’t have much choice. This won’t work with an odd number of ponies,” said Daring. “Besides, trust or not... we can’t just leave him here.”
“If you believe that I am in any way enthused about this course of action, I am not,” snapped Caballeron from well outside the clique.
“Yeah, but at least you know that Daring Do isn’t gonna pull anything tricky on you!” retorted Rainbow Dash. “She’s gonna keep her word! We all know what you’re like.”
“Yes of course, how could I forget? I am the villain! Cast in two dimensions and rotten to the core! Let us not even consider the notion that I might possess a shred of decency; let us not even give voice to the concept that I might wish to abstain from an act tantamount to murder!” said Caballeron with heavy, angry sarcasm. He narrowed his eyes then. “And you are mistaken if you believe that the pony you see there is the same as the hero from those books,” he growled.
Twilight and Rainbow bristled at that, and both made ready to offer loud, defensive objections.
“Enough!” called Daring. “Caballeron? Stop trying to drive a wedge between us. It’s not helping anything. Rainbow? Stop provoking him. You and Twilight jump in the pool and start practicing the technique. You’re only gonna get one shot for real so you’d better get it down.”
Twilight and Rainbow exchanged a look but took themselves to the pool and lowered themselves in, beginning to practise their routine below the surface. With the two other mares out of the way, Caballeron gave Daring a long stare. One that she was all too happy to return in kind.
“Let’s get this straight, Caballeron. For them, this is about trust. For you and me, it’s about necessity. We’re doing this because we have to, not because I trust you because I don’t. But Rainbow Dash is right all the same – I’m gonna keep to my side of the bargain. And even though I doubt you’ll do the same... we’re doing it anyway.”
Caballeron gave her an odd look at that, head tilted slightly to one side. “Do you really believe I am so despicable? That I hold life – your life – in such low regard that were the choice so simple, I simply would not make the effort to sustain it?”
“That’s the point, I don’t know. After what you pulled at Friesian Fjord I think you’ll do pretty much anything to get what you want,” Daring threw back.
“You think that I would equate theft, treachery and a little black market dealing to taking a life?”
“You left out kidnapping, extortion, fraud...”
“I am not a monster, Avada.”
“No. You’re a snake, Caballeron.”
He paused at that. Then, put on a strange smile for a moment. “I do enjoy the exchange of insults. They never cease to entertain. You say I would do anything to get what I want? That is not true, and even if it were... I do not want you dead. Any more than a sports team wishes the death of their competitors on the field of play. Discredited perhaps, taken down a peg or two certainly, and out of my way more often than not. But we are rivals. Persistent thorns in each other’s sides. Adversaries playing the most interesting game in Equestria. That has never made us mortal enemies.”
Daring gave him a long, hard look. Usually she was able to tell when he was lying, (his mouth moved,) but here and now, she just couldn’t be sure. She shook her head and sighed. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter,” she said with a fatalistic air. “We’re going for it either way.”
“If I wanted you dead, I would not have worked so hard to keep you alive...” muttered Caballeron with a note of annoyance.
A moment of silence passed before Daring realised they weren’t sharing it alone. She looked to the pool with an annoyed frown to see two heads bobbing above the surface, staring.
“Uh... do you two need another minute?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“You’re supposed to be practising!” rebuked Daring.
“What? We’ve totally got it down. It’s not exactly hard, even if I am basically smooching queen octopus-lips over here.”
“Hey!” said Twilight, giving Rainbow an angry glare. “The seal needs to be tight!”
“The point is, don’t you guys need to practise too?” said Dash.
The final word though was lost within the sound of a distant but enormous thundering crash from the passage that led back towards the pit. The whole chamber around them vibrated noticeably and streams of dust began to fall from the ceiling, from the cracks between the ancient stone blocks.
“Uh... what was that?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“Tunnel collapse!” cried Daring, looking quickly from the tunnel to the three other ponies. “There’s no time. We’ve gotta go now! Move!”
She dove into the water, Caballeron close behind her, and then the four of them were taking the deepest breaths they could as the ceiling of the chamber began to sag.
They swam for the tunnel, Daring bringing up the rear. Just as she reached the entrance she felt vibration in the water behind her and she turned to see a stone block shed from the ceiling plunge downwards, trailing a stream of bubbles. Tearing her gaze away, she headed into the flooded shaft.
Whatever happened, she knew at least that the three ponies ahead of her would be reaching the far side of this tunnel, and with that she was content. Whether or not she would be joining them was a secondary consideration, and now solely in the hooves of one of the least trustworthy ponies in Equestria. One with a series of grudges against her to boot. She wasn’t exactly confident that she’d be seeing the light of day again.
Still, if it came to it, she was glad that if it were to go down that way, Caballeron would have a hand in her demise. This blasted city had been gunning for her since she found it. She was glad it wouldn’t have the total satisfaction of beating her.
Pumping her wings to give her thrust, she swam after the good Doctor and her friends. Only way was forward now. To whatever end.