The trail on the other side split to the right and left; the left-hand one leading away from and the right-hand-one toward Sunney Towne. Ruby led them to the left, and Snips and Snails did not complain; Snails in particular had no desire to get any closer toward the source of the dark power of the Curse.
Moving away from the Curse, Snails could almost feel it behind him, the hateful yellow eyes searching for him and trying to get into his mind. He was sorry that he had ever stared into those eyes, and feared that the Curse had somehow become aware of him, and now hungered to consume him personally.
At least now they were no longer looking out over Sunney Towne. Instead, a sea of mist spread out below to their right, which he could plainly see thinning ahead and to the right -- which would be to the north-east. Where the mist thinned he could see the treetops -- the usual dense tangle of vegetation characteristic of the deep Everfree; normally a fearful place, but now welcoming compared to the haunted woods of Sunney Towne. Snips and Snails perked up as they contemplated the prospect of returning to the merely normal dangers of the Everfree.
Snails gazed directly at the edge of the Mist in frustration. If it had been a gentle rather than a steep slope down this side of the hill, and there had been no obstacles, he and Snips could have reached the limits of the supernatural fog within ten to fifteen minutes of easy galloping. Instead, they had to take a twisting trail down the hillside before they could do anything else.
Is that something moving within the Mist? Snails thought he could dimly glimpse an object flashing by below them, but there were two problems with this: the object was moving too fast, and it seemed much higher than the ground would be below. Must be my imagination, he thought with some relief. Then he saw it again.
"Miss Ruby," he said, "I think something's moving down there."
"I spied it too," replied Ruby softly. "I fear I know who it is. Rooftop."
"Rooftop?" asked Snails. "A Pegasus?"
"Indeed so," said Ruby. "A young mare, little older than ye in her life, but an extremely evil one. She poisoned stallions that they might love her; when she was discovered to be doing this, she fled into the Everfree to slip the Watch. Starlet found her, more than twenty-five years agone. She has no yen to Pass On, and thus gives good service to her slayer."
"Did she see us?" asked Snails.
"'Tis possible," Ruby said somberly. "She has good sight. If she did, she will hie to her mistress to report our presence. We should make more haste." So saying, Ruby broke into a canter, and Snips and Snails followed her down the trail.
It was scarcely safe going. The trail was narrow, and as they descended the hillside the way grew murkier. A slip here might well be fatal. Snips and Snails had to focus on each hoofstep at a run, which was not easy; luckily Snips was built close to the ground, and Snails was more agile than most.
Suddenly, Ruby looked to the side and came to a halt; Snips and Snails barely avoiding crashing into her.
"Rooftop has found us for sure," she said calmly, peering through the surrounding fog at something the two living Ponies could not see. Then, looking down the hillside. "There may well be a way out of this," she said, "but 'tis not by any means a safe path. Watch your hooves, and follow me!"
So saying, Ruby went rapidly over the brink of the ledge and down the hillside.
Snails looked over the edge of the trail and saw that here the slope was gentler, though still terrifyingly steep for Ponies to take at speed into concealing mists. But there was nothing for it: he took a deep breath and plunged after the ghost girl. There was a clattering of pebbles as Snips followed him close behind.
Something swooped right past his head, and Snails caught a brief glimpse of a terribly-eroded gray face and compact gray-to-white body, the hide and underlying flesh worn in places so that he could see brown bones, with a dark-gray mane trailing behind like a banner. Relatively short and stubby wings, with multiple holes torn through them so that it seemed that the owner could not have flown on them, beat the air and blew an awful stench of death right in to Snails' nostrils. Baleful black eye-lights in empty sockets glared at him for a moment, and then the creature was past him.
Past him ...
Snails realized just who must be its target and desperately skidded to a stop on the hillside, managing to arrest his descent on a slightly more level section. A familiar cry of terror from above made it apparent that his guess had been correct -- the thing had been after Snips. Not pausing, he scrabbled up the hillside, desperately trying to reach his best friend before it was too late.
"Get the hell offa me ya gross nasty thing!" cried Snips up above. This directive was accompanied by grunts and thwacking noises. It was evident that the stocky blue stallion was fighting back, as best he could against a creature such as his assailant.
"Oh, you say that now ..." came an unfamiliar voice, one raspy and wheezy in a manner that would have meant extreme poor health from any living Pony. "... but you'll like me well enough soon, very soon."
There was in that voice a tone of terrible insinuation that frightened Glittershell in its implications, and made her struggle even harder to climb the hillside. The problem was that the ground was loose; more than once she slipped back and lost way; and she had to beware, lest she tumble and roll all the way to the bottom.
"Aah ..." said Snips, "don't stare at me like that ... hey ... you're not so bad-looking, really ..."
"Oh no," the voice of what must be Rooftop said, "I'm not so bad at all, am I? Not to a pretty colt like you, not at all ... just let me get a good hold on you so I can fly you to my mistress, she'll be so glad to see you, all us girls will, really ..."
"Snipsy!" shouted Glittershell. "Don't listen to her! She's messing with your mind!" And with one last surge of effort, she managed to make it close enough that she could see the hideous decayed thing that had once been a mortal mare, and seemed to still have a horribly-perverted version of the drives of such a being.
She was not close enough to bite or kick, and it was reaching for Snips -- in a moment it would take to the skies and bear him away to a dreadful fate. What can I do? she asked herself frantically.
Suddenly she remembered the round stones in her bag.
Rapidly reaching within with her telekinesis, she pulled out a stone with her telekinesis and cast it through the air, humming with the fury of her desperate fear for Snips. And -- whether by accident or superior coordination, focused by her need to save her beloved friend, that first stone whacked right into Rooftop's backside, disappearing between her thighs and under her tail to make a squelching sound right in the midst of what rotten remains there were of Rooftop's sex.
Ordinary stones could not normally infllict pain upon a thrall, Ruby had said, and Ruby was right, as far as her imagination went. But if a thrall had focused her desires and regeneration upon a particular part of her anatomy, that part could feel, and was sensitive. Glittershell did not know this, and Ruby had not bothered to explain this in detail, but it was nevertheless true.
And Rooftop, both in life and in undeath, was very obsessed with the particular part of her anatomy which Glittershell's hard-driven stone had struck. That had been her undoing as a living mare; and it was her weakness as an undead thrall.
Rooftop whirled around with an outraged yelp of pain and fury, and hissed down at Glittershell, spreading her decayed gray wings wide in a threat display. She was truly a fearsome sight, and her black eyes flared both with anger and with her psychic power.
Gittershell saw her image of Rooftop changing, twisting into a living mare of about eighteen. The features were rather heavy and brutish for a female, but they were in some indefinable way desirable. There was an exciting promise of rough delights, of pleasures beyond any offered by any living being.
Glittershell dimly fathomed the power that had claimed Snips. It might even worked on Snails, perhaps not well enough for Snails to allow himself to be taken by her, but enough to make him stand staring at her in dull adoration while Rooftop claimed her prey.
It was a primal sexual attraction, and it would have worked on any young stallion of small brain and little will; and Glittershell was no intellectual giant.
Problem was, Glittershell was also no stallion.
The second and third stones Glittershell flung at the thrall hit nothing important -- they just slapped off the hide of Rooftop's left and right shoulders, smacking free dust and little strips of decayed flesh, but Rooftop reared and took to the sky, squalling in atonishment.
"You're -- agggh!" cried Rooftop, and wheeled off into the mists, two more stones barely missing her. "I'll get youuu ..." the Pegasus thrall promised, vanishing from the view of Glittershell.
"Snips!" cried Glittershell, making it up to his side. "Are you all right? Did she hurt you?"
Snips looked at Glittershell, a bit dazed. "Oh wow," he said. "That was weird. I wanted to kiss her. I mean, first I was scared of her, and then I wanted to kiss her, and now ... ugh!" He shuddered in revulsion.
"It's all right, Snipsy," said Glittershell, hugging him. "She had some kind of freaky power. Like a geas -- remember when Princess Twilight told us about those? It worked on you, but I -- for some reason it didn't work on me. You're free of it now."
Snips shuddered again, and for a moment just let Glittershell hug him. Then he said "Awright. I'm okay. Ya can let go of me now."
Glittershell did, glad that the old Snips was back.
"Art ye both hale and sound?" Ruby Gift asked, drifting up behind Glittershell.
"Yes," said Glittershell.
"Good!" said Ruby. "Now, let us make haste! There may still be time!" So saying, the ghost girl plunged back down the hill, Snips and Snails close on her heels.
There was now a greater air of desperation in their flight. Snips and Snails did not quite understand the tactical complexities, but they could hear the urgency in the voice of their ghostly guide. Snails trusted Ruby, and Snips trusted Snails, and so they both followed Ruby's lead.
Their speed was reckless on the steep and crumbling slope. More than once, Snails' hooves slipped, and he slid on his rump for heart-pounding moments befor he got his descent back under control. Gasps and squeals told Snails that Snips, despite his lower center of gravity (a concept Snails actually understood, from some dance lessons he had taken) was encountering similar difficulties behind him.
The worst moment of that nightmare came when Snips, entirely losing his traction on the hill-side, slid screaming down the slope. Snails realized what was happening just in time to maneuver himself in front of Snips, sit down and grab on to the hillside with his hooves. Snips fetched up against Snails in a collision mutually painful, but nowhere near as painful as would have been a fall all the way to the bottom.
This was the worst moment of the descent; it was of course far from the worst moment of that day, or even on that hillside. For, as they came within sight of the lower trail -- a wide ledge of hard-packed and grass-bound turf that would clearly have led them to sweet liberty; even as their hearts leapt with joy at the hope that their ordeal in Sunney Towne was about to end; just at the oment at which success seemed certain, they suffered cruel disappointment.
They heard the sound of hard-galloping hooves racing toward them from below and to the left. The fog suddenly billowed across their path, thickening around them. And, out of that fog, appeared a pair of madly-glaring orange eyes. A moment later, the owner of those eyes burst out of the mist, vapor spraying in all directions before the speed of her onset.
She was a tall, slim white mare, with a long, reddish-orange mane, styled in waves that bounced fetchingly about her face and neck as she ran. Even Glittershell was struck by the mare's beauty; glancing at Snips, she saw that he was gaping slack-jawed at the strange mare.
Ruby slewed to a stop, and Snips and Glittershell stopped by her side. They all stood there, looking at this new mare. Glittershell thought the white mare seemed out of place in this domain of ancient horror, more like some pretty queen of a town's Harvest Festival.
"Hail, sweet sister," the newcomer said in a dulcet voice. "I see that thou hast made some new friends. Prithee please, bring them down so that thou might introduce them to me? For I would fain guest them with me a while, here in rustic Sunney Towne, where we so seldom see new faces."
"Hail, Starlet," replied Ruby, confirming the mare's identity. "Alas, Snips and Snails here have business at home they cannot delay; they have already guested with me, but cannot further tarry. As a good host and friend, I do but lead them to a safe way out of Sunney Towne, so that they might resume their lives. All I ask is that thee and thine do not impede us in our jounrey."
Starlet chuckled, and though it was a polite laugh, there was a dark undertone there that made Glittershell shiver. "Now, Ruby, thou well dost ken why I cannae do that. Father would be most cross, were I to simply let those two sturdy young sta ..." Suddenly, Starlet looked confused, and peered closely at Glittershell.
Glittershell thought she knew why. These double takes from the Wraiths were becoming all too familiar.
"Ooh," Starlet continued. "I would like thee for mine own following. I dinnae think I have seen thy like before!"
"I like to see myself as special," said Glittershell, mastering her fears, and applying the social graces Cheerilee and Rarity had taught her. "But I must most regretfully decline your kind invitation, as my friend and I have pressing business in Ponyville. Perhaps on some other occasion?"
"Oh, and so polite," cooed Starlet. "Just as if you were a Foreverfree ... I mean Canterlot ... gentlemare!" The white mare stepped slowly up the hillside toward Glittershell, who noticed that Starlet's hooves were not exactly touching the ground. "Thou wouldst so improve the tone of my little Posse." Starlet turned toward Ruby. "Thou dost not desire mortals -- dost thou think Father will let me have her?"
"She is her own Pony," said Ruby, standing protectively before Glittershell. "She is not some bangle for thy decoration."
"But she is so adorable!" insisted Starlet. Her expression soured. "Not like some of the dregs I have serving me."
At that moment, Rooftop burst out of the fog on a level with Snips and Glittershell. Her horribly-decayed skull turned toward the two living Ponies. Black eyeleights blazed in empty sockets, glaring at Glittershell.
"There she is!" the hideous voice grated. "The bitch who shot a stone right up my snatch!"
"Case in point," sighed Starlet, rolling her eyes. "Ye would not believe the regular vulgarity of her discourse."
"That's what she did !" protested the Pegasus. "Just cuz I was talkin' to her colt-toy!"
"Perhaps she guessed where thy conversations often lead?" suggested Starlet.
Rooftop winced as if she had been struck a hard blow. "That's not fair!" she cried. Through the unearthly tone of her voice, there was a whine almost perceptible in it.
Despite the hideousness of the winged thrall, Glittershell could make out the hurt within. She felt a sudden, strange sympathy for the undead creature. If what Ruby said was right, the Pegasus was bound to the will of the Wraith. Insulting her, and in front of her foes, seemed very cruel. Glittershell already knew that Starlet meant no good to Snips and herself, but somehow witnessing Starlet's treatment of her slave made the Wraith's malevolence seem all the more real.
"Do not play the innocent with me," said the Wraith, darkly. "I made thee confess unto me thy crimes. I was a good and honest young mare in my breathing days -- thou wert a fiend dyed double-black, even afore I encountered thee!"
"You don't mind using me as muscle!" Rooftop accused.
"Of course not," sighed the Wraith. "'Tis thine only talent."
Meanwhile, Snips must have been slowly been putting together two and two, because he gave Glittershell a puzzled look. "Snails," he asked, "why do all those Wraiths keep thinking you're a mare?"
Glittershell's heart leapt into her mouth. This was the moment she had long dreaded. She had hoped that, when the time to tell Snips the truth finally came, she would have some clever and witty way to explain herself, so that Snips would immediately, completely understand; aceept her for who she really was, and still be willing to stay her best friend -- at the very least.
Of course, she had never imagined that she would be having this conversation while they were fleeing for their lives from undead Wraiths and their zombie-like thralls. Let alone, right in front of a friendly Wraith, a hostile Wraith, and one of those thralls. Let alone after she had already kissed Snips twice -- once, on the lips when he was asleep; and once, repeatedly, on the rump. She felt particularly confused about that last one.
So, as she stood there, with Snips, Ruby and Starlet all expectantly awaiting her answer (she wasn't so sure if Rooftop cared, but she was watching them too, from the sky), Gittershell gave her long-awaited, long-dreaded speech to her best friend.
"Um ..." Glittershell said brightly. "That is ... eh ... hmm ..." She fell silent.
Stupid! she berated herself. You can say it better! Which was undeniable. And she tried to formulate a better response.
What she would have said next will never be known, for at that moment three more thralls burst out of the mist an began rapidly climbing the slope toward Snips and Glittershell.
All three were mares, clearly more members of The Girl Posse.
The obvious leader of the trio was a tall, slim Unicorn, who -- based on what remained of her face, which was unusually-complete for a thrall's -- had once been beautiful. Most of the visible decay on her was concentrated in her barrel, which was blackened, worm-riddled and quite ragged; yet her hindquarters were also mostly complete, and rather shapely. Her coat, where it remained, was a creamy white; her mane, long and surprisingly well-kept, a honey-gold; the witchfires that burned in her empty sockets were a pleasant light blue. She was still rather attractive -- disturbingly so, in view of her obvious death and decomposition.
The other two had been Earth Ponies.
One of the was shambling in a most unusual and spastic manner, almost hopping and skipping up the hillside. She was the least decomposed in general of the trio, but the damage to her was spread evenly about her anatomy, so that no part of her could even be momentarily mistaken as belonging to a living mare. Her coat hung in rags and tatters, but looked to have been light blue, like her leader's eyes. Her unkempt, half-remaining mane was purple: it hung lank from what skin remained on her skull and nape. Dark blue lights glowed from her eyesockets. She grinned and giggled as she made her uneven way up the slope; as she did so, her mane temporarily fluffed out, only to hang limp once again.
There were many strange things about her, but the strangest thing -- from Glittershell's point of view -- was that she was bedecked in a harness which was hung about with lots of little bells, so that her every motion was accompanied by jingling. Something about the thrall reminded Glittershell of some memory -- a happy memory, which was very weird -- but Glittershell couldn't quite place it.
The third shambled slower than her two comrades, and hence lagged a little way behind them. Her corpse seemed bloated, and in general she looked as if she had been rather plump in life. The skin was horribly decomposed all over, and the hide falling mostly off it. What little remained showed that her coat had once been a sort of light creamy brown; her few tufts of mane were white, and dark brown specks of light, like dying coals, glinted from her eye sockets. There was something wrong with her gait, and her head wabbled drunkenly on the end of her neck, so that it seemed almost broken to a degree which had she been alive would have crippled her.
Her every motion was accompanied by repulsive blatting sounds, and an even more repulsive smell -- disgusting even by the standards of the thralls -- wafted up the hillside toward Glittershell. She gagged slightly. It was as if she had just eaten a lot of beans, and rotten ones.
Whew! thought Glittershell as she beheld her new foes. That really gets me off the hook with -- wait, what am I thinking?!!
Things coud not be going well when the arrival of a group of undead horrors was less frightening than a question from her best friend!
Starlet laughed. "I win," she said to Ruby, slowly advancing on her sister.
"I do not concede," replied Ruby, keeping between Starlet and the two living Ponies.
"Oh, come on, little sister!" pointed out Starlet. "I match thee; thy friends be outnumbered two to one by mine own Posse. Thou standest no chance!"
"Thou forgettest," Ruby said softly.
"What do I forget?" Starlet asked, making motions of her hooves to her Girl Posse. Rooftop slowly descended toward Snips and Glittershell, while the three new horrors redoubled their rate of progress up the hill.
"Thou art, indeed, the elder sister," said Ruby, gathering together her power, which Glittershell could sense as a vibration in her horn, "but I am the stronger! AVAUNT!!!" she shouted, and flared with golden light.
Starlet recoiled before that blinding radiance, her lovely semblance snuffing out like a candle flame in a strong wind. What remained was blackened and withered, and very obviously no longer living.
Glittershell remembered how in Ruby's tale Roneo had tried to protect his betrothed in his embrace, and failed: the lightning bolts of Nightmare Moon had simply been too strong. That was a sad thing, for love should not be overcome by brute force. Briefly, and despite her own fear, Glittershell felt sorry for Starlet, who had not had long to enjoy her Trothing.
Glittershell briefly noticed that the thralls were flung back even more violently by that burst of light; Rooftop hurtled into the air, shrieking and tumbling as she was catapulted into the clouds overhead. The other three thralls were thrown down the hillside, rolling and fetching up on the wide grassy ledge below. They thrashed about, obviously stunned.
"I did not forget," hissed Starlet angrily, "though I rather hoped that thou hadst done so. But remember, little sister -- thou'rt not that much stronger!" Her shrivelled face contorted into a snarl, and a bright orange aura suddenly surrounded her, surged from her and grappled with Ruby's golden glow.
Now it was Ruby's turn to give ground before her sister's spectral assault, which tore away her own beauty to reveal the animate horror of charred and blackened bones that the two living Ponies had briefly seen last night. Snips and Glittershell felt the fringe of Starlet's fury, and it was like a storm-blast that alternately burned and chilled their very souls. They shrank back from its force.
"Woah," said Snips, deeply impressed as he watched the battling ghosts. "This is just like a comic book."
"Yes," agreed Snails, both awed by the sight, and relieved that it had apparently driven the original, highly-embarrassing question right out of the mind of his best friend. "Or like when Princess Twilight fought Tirek."
"That was much more destructive," pointed out Snips.
"True," admitted Snails. "But this is over us. This is much more personal."
Snips had no choice but to nod in agreement before the force of Snails' superior logic.
Ruby's golden glow flared again, forming a sort of cone that shoved Starlet into the air, hard. Starlet tumbled, regaining her balance and stopping in midair at some distance. The elder sister squirmed for a moment, trying to regain her composure.
Ruby turned toward Snips and Snails, and they did not quail, even though her face was a flaming skull, for they both knew it to be that of a friend.
"This is your chance!" she said. "Run right down the hillside, and keep running that way!" She pointed with a hoof toward where the Mist thinnned. "Cut left once you're out of this fog, go straight and you'll reach Sweet Apple Acres. It's less than eight miles from here!"
"We can't leave you," protested Snails.
"I'll be fine," Ruby said. "Ye twain are the only ones in true peril -- ye both still have lives left to lose. Don't argue with me! Flee!"
"C'mon, Snailsy!" cried Snips. "We gotta get outta here!" And with that, he began running down the hill.
Snails hesitated for a moment, looked one last time as Ruby and Starlet came together in an explosion of orange and gold spectral fire, then ran after his living friend.