//------------------------------// // In the Hall of the Sun God // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// Rarity’s eyes wandered over and across the stone hall. She found herself admiring the expert precision that went into crafting the architecture. Every wall was razor straight and the corners met at perfect right angles. Modern construction found difficulty in making walls this straight or perfect. She could only look on in astonishment as she wondered how primitives with primitive tools could have accomplished the same. Their hoofsteps echoed up and down the hallway. The torches Rainbow had lit shed flickering yellow light on the smooth walls and illuminated the far end of the hallway. From where she stood, Rarity figured that the passage went on for another hundred feet before it split to the left and the right. And watching over that intersection was a crumbling statue of a pegasus, obviously once worked with very fine craftsmareship but now in a terrible state of disrepair. “This place is awesome,” Rainbow murmured, the walls amplifying her voice much louder than she spoke it. “Seeing stuff like this will never get old.” “An abandoned place of worship belonging to a forgotten civilization…” Rarity ran her hoof along the smooth wall and couldn’t suppress a smile of foolish excitement. “I can see why Daring Do finds so much enjoyment in her work. Stumbling across places like this must feel amazing.” They finally reached the end of the hallway and stopped in front of the statue. Despite its horrid state of decay, Rarity could tell that it was a pegasus stallion. His wings were outspread, somehow holding together despite the cracks running through them, and his head was angled down to stare at the mere mortals that entered his temple. Considering the statue was three or four times larger than life, Rarity had to admit that she felt humbled in its presence. “Looks like the stallion from the door,” Rainbow said. Her eyes traveled to the wall behind it and she pointed to some of the carvings. “And there’s the sun and stuff. Makes sense.” “I still don’t understand why this temple is built inside the mountain,” Rarity said. “This is a sun temple. Where’s the view of the sun?” “Maybe we’ll find it if we look around some more,” Rainbow said. “If there’s open air somewhere in this temple, then that’s our way out.” “Or those minotaurs’ way in.” Rarity shuddered. “We could end up trapped in here if we’re not careful. I don’t imagine there’s all that much room to run and hide. This temple is only so big as the mountaintop, and the Ponynesians already flattened half of it.” “All the more reason to get a move on.” Rainbow looked left and right down the hallway, where each end abruptly ended with a stone door. “Well? Left or right?” “Right,” Rarity said after a moment to think. “Since a lady is always right,” she added with a smirk and a teasing flick of her ear. Rainbow shook her head and followed Rarity toward the right door. “Of course she is…” Intricate carvings and runes covered the door, and once more Rarity wished she knew how to read them. At best, she could only follow along with the pictures—what few there were. They depicted a stallion with a sun between his wings standing over another stallion lying broken and defeated on the ground. The moon stallion was a unicorn, and his face was twisted with rage and razorlike fangs protruding from his muzzle. The picture below it showed the sun stallion standing with the sun on his left and the moon on his right, and an assortment of pony carvings bowed down before him. As an Equestrian, the story was all too familiar to Rarity. “It’s Celestia’s banishment of Nightmare Moon,” she said, running a hoof over the ancient carvings. “Or at least, these ponies’ interpretation of it.” “Funny how they could get most of the story right but they didn’t even know who their gods really were,” Rainbow said. “I wonder what Princess Luna would think if she saw that they took her wings and made her a stallion.” “I’m sure she wouldn’t’ think anything of it,” Rarity said. “You have to wonder just how many other cultures exist outside of Equestria that don’t know who the Sisters are. It’s probably nothing new to her.” “I guess.” Rainbow put her hooves on the door and pushed. “This door’s giving a little. Help me open it?” Rarity nodded and lent Rainbow her horn. Together, the two shoved the stone open, and a gust of cold air blew their sandy manes around, kicking up dirt and dust. “What in Celestia’s name!” Rarity exclaimed, backing away from the door. The gust died out in a second or two, but the sudden presence of wind had startled her. What could have caused that? “Hey, Rares, check this out!” Rainbow said, sliding through the open door. Rarity followed her through and stopped when she spotted stars on the other side. The side of the mountain had been hollowed out almost to the exterior, where stylized sun-shaped portholes had been cut through the stone. A persistent breeze sent cool night air through the windows, tickling Rarity’s tired and sweaty skin. “What is this place?” Rarity asked, looking around the room. Numerous small stone pedestals stood around the edges of the room, and all the walls were carved with more pictures telling some grand story. There were no torches here unlike in the main hallway, so it was difficult to make out what they were without more light. Another door led deeper into the temple, again emblazoned with a pegasus carrying the sun between his wings. A path had been worn in the ground between the two doors, where countless generations of hooves had gradually chipped away at the stone. The room was large enough to hold several hundred ponies. It reminded Rarity of a cathedral, in aesthetic as well as likely purpose. “I guess it’s a place of worship,” Rainbow said. She walked along the outside wall, occasionally poking her head through the sun-shaped portholes. “You can see the whole island from here. And they’re angled enough that when the sun rises it probably casts a whole bunch of little suns on the inside here.” Rarity walked up to one and stuck her head through it as far as it could go. Though the portholes were large enough for her head and neck, they were too small for her to squeeze her shoulders through, and even then, the only thing that awaited below was a thousand foot fall onto some craggy rocks below. Carried in on the shoulders of the wind, she caught occasionally pieces of conversation and shouting from the horde of minotaurs she assumed were currently camped outside of the temple. While this wouldn’t do for an escape, it proved at the very least that Rainbow was likely right. They just needed to find a better way out of the temple. Rainbow moved away from the window and started sniffing around some of the pedestals. She stopped in front of one and frowned at it. “There’s bread crumbs and stuff here,” she said, pushing them around with her hoof. When Rarity came over to investigate, she pointed to them. “They’re recent.” “This must’ve been where the minotaurs went when they ventured into the temple the other night,” Rarity said. “But why?” Shrugging, Rainbow looked around. “I doubt they wanted to just admire the art and stuff.” Her eyes turned toward the door and she nodded at it. “Maybe through there?” “It’s worth a look.” The two ponies once more combined their efforts in opening the stony door, revealing a short hallway with numerous smaller doors in the walls on both sides. But beyond that, there was little else of note. It simply came to a dead end. “Are these cells of some sort?” Rarity asked, focusing magic to her horn to create enough light to see by. By the shape of the mountain and the way the doors were packed close together, the rooms lying beyond couldn’t have been that big. “Prayer rooms, perhaps?” “Yeah, I think so,” Rainbow said. “Probably private places to worship their sun god and whatever. But hey! Look at this!” She trotted up to a door and pointed to a star-shaped slot in the center of it. “Think ours will fit?” “It’s certainly worth a try.” Once more, Rarity took the medallion off of her neck and slotted it into the door. After giving it a twist, she felt some stone mechanisms slide into place, and the door popped open slightly at its seam. Dust fell from the seam, and when Rarity pushed it open, it revealed a small, dim room with a pedestal and a bench. The blue light of her horn reflected many more decaying carvings of the sun god and his history. “Yeah, prayer rooms,” Rainbow said, briefly sticking her nose inside. “What about the rest of them? Think we’ll find anything interesting in them?” “I doubt it,” Rarity said. “But I suppose it’s worth a look. It’s not like we’re doing anything else at the moment.” She stifled a yawn and shook her head from side to side. “And I’m starting to grow tired. We’ve been up and running all night. I don’t know how much longer I have in me before I crash.” Rainbow nodded along. “Hopefully the minotaurs don’t find another way in while we’re trying to catch some z’s. But we’ll worry about that later. How about we—!” Both ponies jumped when they heard something that sounded like hooves on stone. At first, Rarity thought that the minotaurs might have found a way inside and were coming for them. But then she realized that the noise was a lot quieter, weaker, and much closer than she would’ve expected had it been minotaurs. If anything, it sounded like it was coming from behind one of the doors. Rainbow shot Rarity a worried look. “You hear that?” “Yes,” Rarity affirmed. Her ears pointed around the hallway until she pinpointed the source of the noise. “And it’s coming from over here…” They carefully approached the last door in the hallway. When they held their breaths, they could definitely hear the sound of something pounding on stone from the other side. Swallowing hard, Rarity floated the medallion toward the door. “I’m going to open it on the count of three,” she said. “Get ready…” At her side, Rainbow clutched one of the spears and leveled it at the seam of the door. “Ready.” Rarity stuck the medallion into the door. “Okay…” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “One… two… three!” The medallion twisted and unlocked the door. Leaving the star in the door in case she needed to quickly lock it, Rarity waited for a split second before pushing on the door. It slid open with the grating of stone on stone, and Rainbow spun in front of Rarity before it could open the whole way in case something jumped out of it at them. But instead of a minotaur or monster, they saw something else. Four hooves, a gray coat, blue eyes. An emaciated, starving mare stared back at them, eyes wide in both surprise and fear. Her ribs poked through her coat, and when she fell back onto her flanks, it seemed like she didn’t even have the strength to stand up. Rainbow dropped the spear in surprise, and both her and Rarity felt their jaws fall slack. “You’re… you’re a pony?” Rarity managed after a moment. The starving mare opened her split, dry lips. “Puh… Please…” was all she could manage in a grating voice drier than a desert. Then her eyes rolled back and she slumped to the ground, breathing ever so weakly. Rainbow and Rarity stared at each other in shock. Things had just gotten a lot more complicated.