“Ugh,” A.K. said as she wiped some sweat off her forehead. “I keep forgetting how hot it can get around here in summer.”
This statement piqued Celestia’s curiosity, particularly since the journey to the archeological site had so far consisted of trees, ferns, undergrowth, moss, and even more trees, and there were only so many shades of green one could observe before growing bored. If her introverted associate was willing to create an opening for small talk, Celestia was determined to take advantage. “Really? I thought you grew up around here.”
“I did, but I’m also a total nerd who liked to stay inside and read books whenever the weather got unpleasant. Not that I mind being outside—that’s where you get to do cool stuff like digging and exploration, after all. But when you don’t have anything to distract you from how uncomfortable you are, the outdoors can get pretty irritating.”
A.K.’s discomfort was fairly obvious. She and Celestia had been walking through the woods for more than an hour, and A.K.’s khaki shirt was already soaked in perspiration. It probably would have been worse if she had any supplies to carry, but fortunately, two of Celestia’s guardsponies were bringing up the rear, bearing all manner of things that might prove useful in an emergency. “We could take flight,” Celestia suggested.
“Last I checked, both of your guards were unicorns,” A.K. replied. “Besides, the forest canopy blocks the view of the ground, and you never know what you might find as you get closer to a site.”
“I see,” Celestia said. The archeologist did have a point; even though Celestia was quite confident that these particular guards could find their way back to Vanhoover, leaving them behind rather defeated the purpose of bringing them in the first place. At the time, though, it had made sense to have the pegasi who pulled the royal carriage take on the task of guarding it from ne’er-do-wells and mischief makers. Besides, there was no way of knowing what state of disrepair their destination might be in, and unicorn magic was quite useful for moving debris out of one’s way.
None of this, however, had any bearing on A.K. Yearling’s personal comfort. “Well,” Celestia said after some thought, “perhaps in the future, you might consider wearing a pith helmet.”
“You mean one of those clichéd explorer hats? What good would that do?”
“Quite a lot, if you immerse it in water. Pith retains a lot of moisture, so it will keep your head cool as the water evaporates.”
“Really? Huh... I might have to look into that.”
Any further conversation, however, dropped away as the forest began thinning out. Soon, the party came across a wide clearing. A large stone building stood at one end, while several smaller buildings were sporadically placed nearby. Many of the smaller structures were in a state of disrepair, but the main structure (assuming, of course, that its size reflected its importance) was still in good condition. Oddly, though, it lacked the pyramidal shape normally associated with ritual structures in the area, appearing to have a rectangular layout. A.K. was certain that this was their destination; apart from the fact that it matched the Vanhoover Historical Society’s description, she could spot several telltale signs that the site had been excavated in the past.
As A.K. took a closer look at the buildings, Celestia began looking for any signs of irregular animal activity. Granted, she didn’t really have any reason to think that the creature that the other animals had spoken of was in this specific area, but it couldn’t hurt to check—especially since A.K. seemed to be so insightful when she was on her own. However, within five minutes, it became abundantly clear that that there was nothing irregular going on... because there was nothing going on, full stop. No fresh tracks in the muddy ground, no rustling of branches as squirrels and chipmunks darted from tree to tree, and no birdsongs over the air. In fact, now that Celestia thought of it, she hadn’t even heard the buzz of a single fly or mosquito in quite some time... yet the plants were showing no signs of overgrowth that one would expect of a region that lacked any fauna to devour them. Something was wrong here.
After waiting another ten minutes for evidence of animals that never arrived, Celestia decided to return to her companion to see if she’d made any headway with the site itself.
However, A.K.’s attention wasn’t focused on the buildings, but rather on the guardsponies, who seemed skeptical of her investigative approach. “Ma’am, I really don’t think you should be taking that glyph out of its case unless it’s absolutely necessary,” said the larger of the two, a light gray stallion who’d been a loyal member of the guard for several years. “The museum staff were very clear about the importance of keeping its condition as constant as possible, and the humidity—”
“I am well aware of the importance of stabilization,” A.K. said, clearly annoyed. “I’m an archeologist, after all. If these were normal circumstances, I’d be on board completely. In fact, I would probably be against bringing any of the glyphs out of the museum based on nothing but speculation. However, this situation is clearly not normal, as evidenced by the fact that Princess Celestia is personally involved. Now, please, open the case and let me examine the glyph.”
“Do as she says, Ironside,” Celestia said as she came upon the pair. “The Historical Society let us borrow that glyph specifically because Ms. Darling thinks it might be meant to interact with something here.”
“Pretty sure the reason was because you don’t say no to Celestia,” the other, ever-so-slightly greyer guard said quietly. He’d been the one who had been left to keep watch over A.K. that morning while Celestia had questioned the local fauna.
“I heard that, Monitor,” Celestia said. Monitor was Ironside’s younger brother, and despite their occasional sibling bickering, the two of them generally worked well together, though Monitor seemed to occasionally chafe in his older brother’s shadow....
Celestia winced as she tried to stop herself from drawing any comparisons with her personal experience. Besides, the fact that Monitor was absolutely right didn’t give his brother any excuse for bickering with A.K. “Now, please stop being difficult and let Ms. Darling get to work.”
Ironside begrudgingly removed the glyph from its case and gave it to A.K., who immediately took it to a large depression in the middle of the clearing. For several minutes she worked in silence, ignoring the three onlookers as she turned the glyph around in her hooves before combing over the grassy pit. Eventually, though she climbed out, and began walking towards the largest building—the alleged temple of the “Catavi Temple” dig site.
Ironside was less than impressed. “What? You spent all that time arguing, and you didn’t even use the doohickey?”
A.K. groaned and turned around. “No, I didn’t, but according the records, the missing glyph was found in that depression, and as soon as I saw it, I could tell that it was pony-made: despite years of erosion, it’s far too symmetrical to be natural. Thus, I wanted to see if there was anything that the original team may have overlooked. It turns out that there wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean it was a waste of time.”
“Uh, okay, but you still didn’t need the glyph just yet, did you?”
“Ironside,” Celestia said, “now is not the time to worry about protocol. If being able to hold the glyph helps Ms. Darling’s thought process, then she shall be permitted to hold the glyph.”
“The princess is a teacher, you know,” Monitor said quietly to his brother.
Ironside sighed. “Fine, I’ll drop the matter.”
With that, A.K. was finally free to pursue matters archeological and turned towards the “temple,” though the more she thought about it, the less convinced she was that it had any intrinsically ritual importance. Besides being the wrong shape, it was too close to the edge of the woods: most theories about the religion of the forest’s ancient tribes of sun-worshippers would have suggested that it would be in the center of the clearing, so that all who approached would do so fully exposed to the almighty Sun. This had to be something else.
The building was constructed from large, quarried blocks, and impressively, given its age, its roof was still intact. That said, time had not been kind to the outside of the building, and for the most part, and decorative flourishes had been worn away. Still, near the roof, there were occassional hints of some sort of braided pattern painted in yellow onto those rare sections that still retained their polished smoothness. A.K. flew up to have a closer look and discovered that they weren’t painted, but instead appeared to be inlaid with gold—probably the work of earth ponies, given the general level of stonecraft. Suddenly, the building’s current state seemed less likely to be the result of the elements than opportunistic thieves. The same thieves we’re dealing with? A.K. silently speculated. No, it can’t be. I saw pictures of this site from when the glyphs were first discovered, and this building wasn’t in any better shape then.
The archeologist returned to the ground and turned her attention to the large door, also made of stone, though this seemed to have avoided the ravages of time that the walls had. There probably wasn’t anything worth stealing inlaid into the rock. To one side there was a modern lock that had been installed by the Historical Society, though this wasn’t meant to deter theft so much as accidental damage by curious ponies who happened to be walking through the woods. As it happened, Ironside had also been entrusted to the key for this lock, so, after a minute or so of fumbling through his things, the padlock fell to the ground and he pushed the door open.
The stone hinges must have been polished to an extraordinary level, because there was nary a creak to be heard as the door slid into the murky darkness. Monitor fished out a torch and lit it with his magic, passing it to Celestia, who grasped it with her own magical aura. “You two stand guard out here,” she ordered them. “I’ll summon you if you are needed.”
Looking at the interior in the torchlight, A.K. felt more certain than ever that this building was no temple. Aside from the lack of any plinths where significant objects could be placed, the layout of this first room seemed too narrow and claustrophobic to inspire any sense of awe. In fact, it seemed much more like a hallway than a proper room... and upon seeing the open doorways that lined both sides, she realized that they were indeed standing in a hallway. She and Celestia made a quick, cursory glance of the rooms the layout seemed rather similar to the floor of an office building, except that none of the rooms had any windows to let light in from the outside.
Not surprisingly, most of the rooms had been stripped of any furnishings they may have once held, though whether by burglars or archeologists was difficult to say without the Historical Society’s records close at hoof. However, most of the rooms appeared to have raised platforms built into the walls, with open storage areas directly beneath them. “Keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks like it was made before the modern era,” A.K. told Celestia.
“Older than me, you mean?”
“Uh, yeah. They could provide clues about the building’s purpose.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? I would have thought that archeologists would have removed anything from the period.”
“You never know what may have been missed in the past,” A.K. said as she started examining every corner of the cubbyholes. “Even the smartest ponies can be blinded by their own assumptions.”
“I shall certainly not attempt to argue that point,” Celestia replied in the melancholic tone which A.K. now recognized as a sign that the princess’s mind was somewhere in the past.
This sort of thing was happening often enough that A.K. was starting to get genuinely curious about what was causing all of this reminiscence, but given how much she valued her own privacy, prying into somepony else’s seemed rather hypocritical. At the same time, however, she wondered if Celestia might actually benefit from somepony to confide in. It was something to consider for later, perhaps, when all of this business of ancient creatures and unsolved mysteries was resolved.
For now, she had a more straightforward question to answer: what was this place actually used for? If she knew that, she could then come up with a working hypothesis of how and where the glyphs were used. She was still turning things over in her mind as she searched the crevices when the torch’s light suddenly dimmed. “Celestia?” she called out. “Is something wrong?”
The light in the room brightened as quickly as it had dimmed. “Oh, I’m sorry about that. It’s just that I noted some sort of reflection in the room across the hall and moved the torch to get a better look. I quite forgot that you were using the light as well.”
“Don’t worry about it,” A.K. said dismissively. “Besides, it sounds like you may have found something interesting.”
It was indeed interesting: what Celestia had seen reflected in the flames turned out to be a decorative metal band around the handle of some sort of tool that resembled an ice pick, and for all A.K. knew, it could very well have exactly that. After all, humid as the northwestern forests got during the summer, in the winter, snow was a fairly common occurrence, even before the region’s climate was being micro-managed by pegasi.
Ordinarily, A.K. would have started musing on whether this object had any significance to the problem at hoof, but a series of noises from the front of the building interrupted her train of thought.
“Ugh... what was that guy doing here?” said an irritated-sounding stallion who was clearly not Ironside or Monitor.
“I don’t know,” replied a mare, “but I doubt he’ll be out for very long. We’d better move fast.”
A.K. turned around to see Celestia’s mouth curve into an uncharacteristic snarl. As a foal, A.K. had often been told about the princess’ near-instinctive protectiveness of others, but this was the first time she’d ever seen it. It seemed clear that Celestia was going to confront the two... which, to A.K.’s mind, wasn’t a good idea—at least, not yet.
“Put out that torch!” she hissed as quietly as she could manage. “If we see what they’re up to, we might learn something.”
Perhaps it was because she was unused to being ordered around by anypony, but for a moment, Celestia seemed taken aback by her associate. Still, once she understood the reasoning, she nodded and quietly extinguished the flame as the sound of hoofsteps began to travel down the hallway.
“I thought the whole point of coming here was to avoid having to deal with security,” the female voice continued.
“It still is,” the stallion replied. “If they thought to put a guard out here, the actual museum must be locked down tighter than Celestia’s lingerie closet.”
A.K. glanced towards Celestia to see an odd expression on the princess’ face, as if she was caught between disgust at an idiom which centered on her sex life and concern over the fact that these two intruders had apparently only encountered one of her two guards.
“Whatever,” said the mare. “Let’s just find the damned things and get out of here.”
“We wouldn’t have to rush if you just used that knockout spell like last time.”
“I told you, that only works if they don’t have any idea that you’re there. I saw that guard’s ears twitching; I’m telling you that he’d already heard us.”
“Yeah, sure,” the stallion said dismissively as he and his accomplice entered the room where A.K. and Celestia had been standing not five minutes earlier. “Now come on. Those blanks have got to be around here somewhere.”
“He didn’t actually say that there were blanks. He just said that if any still existed, they’d be here.”
“I still can’t believe you got the wrong one.”
“It was dark! Besides, all those ancient drawings are so bad that everything looks the same anyway.”
As the pair continued to bicker, A.K. turned to Celestia. “Whatever the glyphs’ purpose is, I don’t think they were ever meant to be used here,” she whispered.
“What makes you say that?”
“Those two decided to break in because they thought that there would be blanks. If I’m right, that means that this isn’t the place where the glyphs were used... it’s where they were made. And if they’re here to find blank glyphs, it probably means that somepony wants to make more—and I’m willing to bet that somepony has a good idea of what’s actually going on here.”
“In that case,” Celestia replied, “I believe it may be time to emerge from the shadows to confront these two. I can be rather imposing when I need to be, and if they do know something about what’s going on, I am confident that we shall learn it.”
Celestia emerged from the shadows and strode into the room where the two thieves were still bickering.
“Look, one way or another, we need to keep this guy happy,” the stallion was insisting as he pored over the room. “I can’t think of anyone who could possibly be as dangerous as him.”
“Are you so certain of that?” Celestia said as she used her magic to light up the room as though her sunlight had penetrated the walls and extended her wings to their full span to maximize her apparent size.
The stallion, who turned out to be a brown earth pony, obviously wasn’t expected any sort of answer to that question, let alone from the Princess of Equestria, and simply stood slack-jawed in front of her, unable to come up with anything that approached a sensible plan. Meanwhile, the mare (a light blue unicorn) made a feeble attempt to cower inside one of the larger storage areas.
“My associate and I overheard a rather interesting conversation between the two of you, though it seems you have left out a few significant details,” Celestia said. “Would you care to elaborate?”
“I thought we had the right to remain silent!” the mare squeaked nervously.
“You do indeed,” Celestia said, “but keep in mind that as the head of the Equestrian government, I have the right to commute the sentences of convicted felons, or even issue pardons if the situation warrants it.”
The stallion somehow managed to look even more intimidated. “You’re... you’re really Celestia?!”
“I am.”
“I... listen, I don’t actually know anything about your lingerie closet—that’s just a thing ponies say where I’m from. And even if I did know something, I would never even think about breaking in—”
But the thief’s rambling was cut short by an unearthly roar from outside the building.
———————
The first thing Celestia saw upon her exit was Ironside’s unconscious body on the ground outside the door. She might have taken a moment or two to check his vital signs if not from a second screeching blast from the woods, now accompanied by multiple crashes in the underbrush. By the time A.K. followed her outside a few seconds later, the source of the noises became abundantly clear when Monitor galloped into the clearing, screaming incoherently as he craned his neck to look backwards. Unfortunately, this meant that he wasn’t watching where he was running, and when he reached the depression in the middle of the clearing, he promptly tumbled head over hooves to the ground.
“Monitor!” Celestia shouted. “What’s going—”
Celestia never finished her question, because the answer made itself known an instant later, as a massive reptile bounded into the clearing. In form, it somewhat resembled an alligator or perhaps a cragodile, but it stood almost as tall as Celestia (if not taller), not counting the pair of horns that sprouted from its head or the massive golden spines that ran down the length of its body. The creature was covered in dark green scales interrupted here and there with a shiny fleck of blue, except on its underbelly, which was a lighter shade of green. At the end of each of its four legs were talons that seemed to stab their way into the ground to increase the beast’s purchase as it moved over land.
But the most prominent feature was the creature’s mouth. As it spied its quarry lying in a ditch, it opened its gaping maw and let out another dissonant bellow, displaying two rows of razor sharp teeth that framed a huge, pink, forked tongue. And even though the beast’s jaw was the only joint to feature a mouth, the fact that the mouth alone took up nearly a third of the creature’s body neither Celestia nor A.K. had any doubt that they had come face to face with a genuine cipactli... and if the drool that was oozing from behind its gums was any indication, the part about ravenous hunger was more than likely true.
For an eternal moment, nothing happened. Then, suddenly, the cipactli lunged towards the fallen guard, only to be blasted by a beam of magic from Celestia’s horn. As the princess charged towards the menace, A.K. flew over to Monitor. “Are you okay?”
Monitor, apparently, was to frazzled to understand her question, because he gave an answer to a completely different one: “I... I thought I heard something in the woods. I went off to check... and... and that thing saw me.”
“Uh, right,” A.K. said as she glanced up to see Celestia dodging the reptile’s snapping jaws. “C’mon, it’s not safe for you to stay here.”
“I didn’t provoke it. Really, I didn’t. It just saw me and started attacking, honest.”
“We can worry about that later,” A.K. said. “Look, can you stand up on your own? Your brother’s been knocked out, and he’s in real danger if Celestia can’t keep that cipactli at bay.”
This news was enough to get Monitor to stop making excuses. “Ironside?!” He got to his hooves and galloped over to his brother. “Help me get him on my back and I’ll take him inside.”
With some mild struggles, the two of them managed to load the unconscious guard onto his brother. “You take care of him,” A.K. said, “and I’ll help out Celestia.”
“It’s my job—”
“You can argue with me later!” A.K. shouted. “Just stay here and stay safe, alright?” Without waiting for an answer, she flew out the door to where Celestia was still facing off with the massive reptile.
“Celestia, are you okay?” A.K. called out.
The princess didn’t take her eyes off of her opponent, but she answered back, “I’m fine, for the time being.” She was currently standing on the ground, but, as with the thieves, she had her wings fully extended to increase her apparent size, and the cipactli seemed unsure whether to regard her as a potential threat or a potential meal. “Did you come across any weaknesses in your research? Its scales seem to have some resistance to magic.”
A.K. pondered this for a few moments. “Well, the tales are fragmentary, but many of them seem to involve tearing the beast’s limbs off and so that it can’t chase prey, presumably causing it to starve to death.”
“That’s... a bit extreme,” Celestia said uncertainly as the cipactli suddenly charged towards her and snapped its jaws. She managed to dodge out of the way, but she left a few pinions behind between its teeth. That’s when it noticed the archeologist standing out in the open, making no effort to run to safety.
However, despite the surprising speed of the beast’s lunge, A.K. still managed to a pegasus’ most effective defense mechanism and took off from the ground, missing the snapping jaws by mere inches. She scratched her head as she hovered well out of reach of the cipactli, who was now standing beneath her, apparently waiting for her to return to the ground. “Well, it’s obviously not the cleverest animal around. Maybe there’s other ways to immobilize it.”
Clever or not, it didn’t take long for the cipactli to conclude that the little brown pony was a lost cause. It glanced briefly back at the big white one, which had yet to leave the ground, but before it charged again, it sniffed the air... and that’s when its attention turned towards the large square hill with a rectangular cave.
A.K. didn’t know whether the cipactli had picked up Monitor’s scent, but she wasn’t about to let the guards be cornered in the workshop if she could help it. She lowered herself back to the ground, picked up a small rock, and chucked it at the beast’s head. “Hey! Don’t I look tasty enough?” To emphasize the point, she stuck out one of her hind legs and flexed it a bit to make it look more meaty and delicious—well, to the the extent that a vegetarian could make anything look meaty and delicious at the same time, at least.
This seemed to be enough to regain the cipactli’s attention, and it ran towards A.K. However, well before it arrived, it was knocked over by a blast of magic from Celestia. Apparently, its scales magic resistance wasn’t enough to protect it from the actual force behind a magical blow.
It now seemed that the monster had decided that it wasn’t going to accomplish anything as long as the big white one continued to bother it, as it rejoined its fight with Celestia.
For her part, Celestia hadn’t let her brief respite from fighting the cipactli go to waste. “I think I know how to take it down,” she said as she jumped away from another lunge. “I just need to coax it into roaring again, and I can bypass its scales by hitting it in the mouth.”
“Is that it?” A.K. said. “I think I know how to handle that.” She took to the air again and flew over the combatants, coming to a stop in the air behind the cipactli’s field of vision. Seconds later, she rocketed towards the ground as fast as she could, plowing her hooves into the creature’s tail.
The cipactli let out an ear-splitting roar of pain, which was more than enough of a target for Celestia’s magic. In less than a second, she sent a spell into the creature’s mouth, and it immediately collapsed into a lump on the ground.
“Is it dead?” A.K. asked.
“No, it’s merely unconscious,” Celestia replied. “As a rule, I avoid using lethal force until I’m certain it’s needed. There should be facilities in the city that can keep it contained until we figure out what needs to be done.”
“So... is that it, then? Problem solved, everypony goes home?”
“Perhaps...” Celestia trailed off and shook her head. “But I doubt it. Given the racket that creature made with its roaring, it seems unlikely that it would have gone unnoticed while all those ponies were disappearing. Besides that, what we overheard from those thieves makes me think that there is much for us to learn.”
A.K.’s eyes suddenly widened as she realized that she’d made a slight oversight in her haste to help Celestia’s guards. “Aw, crud! The thieves!” She galloped back into the workshop, but the pair of ne’er-do-wells were gone, having hightailed it away from the area during the fracas. Exactly when they’d left was impossible to say, as Monitor had been too busy tending to his brother to notice if anypony else was in the building, but it amounted to the same thing in the end.
“Dammit, those two were our only lead,” A.K. said as she stamped the ground in frustration.
Celestia, however, took a more optimistic view. “I wouldn’t say they were the only lead,” she replied as she eyed the form of the massive reptile. “You’d better get back to Vanhoover and let them know what’s going on. I’ll stay here and make sure that our new friend doesn’t cause any more trouble until you return with some help.”
A.K. nodded her head. “Right.” With that, she took off and flew over the forest canopy back to the city.
Celestia smiled as she watched her associate disappear over the treetops. For somepony who claimed to be bad at working with others, A.K. Darling seemed to have quite a knack for cooperation when the need arose.