Celestia started and squinted at the glowing rings hovering above the Void: “Tw-Twilight! What are you doing?”
Luna stepped back a pace and furrowed her brow: “I thought you were--”
“In Dux’a’s baths where you left me? No, though you clearly believed I’d still be there.”
Luna eyes went wide: “Surely you are not accusing me of--”
“Purposely tricking me into the baths so you could sneak down here? No. I’m sure your desire to see me unwind and de-stress was genuine. But the timing sure was convenient, no?”
Reaper regarded Twilight coolly: “And it sure looks like you could use a bit more unwinding. Maybe you should head back to Nahko and Eska for a bit.”
Twilight’s eyes glittered dangerously as a drop of blood fell from her wrist: “You first, D'hurgmrei. I really don’t think I want to leave you alone with the Void and Zecora, right now.”
A thin smile spread across Reaper’s face: “So what ancient tales has Grey Thorn been telling you?”
Celestia glanced back and forth between Reaper and Twilight in confusion: “Who is ‘D'hurgmrei?’”
Reaper raised an eyebrow and tipped his head toward Twilight: “Go ahead--tell her. It’ll be interesting to see how much of this is truth and how much is myth.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes, then turned her head toward Celestia: “Long, long ago, there was a cult of ponies who worshiped the Harbinger and made sacrifices to him in an effort to appease him. They called him D’hurgmrei.”
Luna furrowed her brow: “I have never heard of this.”
Reaper shook his head: “No great surprise; this was at least two-thousand years before the two of you came on the scene, and predates written records by centuries. D'hurgmrei literally means ‘Death God’ in a long-vanished precursor to the Ponish language family.”
Celestia frowned: “Actual sacrifices?”
Reaper nodded: “Yes, and now what Twilight and I found in that table of Grey Thorn’s makes a lot more sense. He was emulating scenes from the past.”
Twilight ran her tongue over her teeth: “And they may have been onto something after all, yes?”
Reaper raised an eyebrow: “Meaning?”
“You didn’t stop them, did you?”
“Wasn’t my place.”
Twilight tipped her head up dismissively: “Ah--’not my job.’ Gotcha.”
“That’s right--it wasn’t my job to stop ponies from killing each other, just to clean-up after the fact.”
“Even though they were doing it on your behalf--doing it for you!”
“Right. You know the Harbinger’s job is to deal with death as it is: not judge, not bargain, not--” he leaned forward and locked eyes with Twilight “forestall a suicide.”
Twilight’s nostrils flared.
Reaper paced in front of the defensive, purple alicorn: “I talked to Celestia about Sureshot and Wild Sage. Cosmos help me I even spoke to Discord, and I can’t stand Discord!”
“Tha-that’s different--”
“No, it’s not. The Harbinger takes ‘em as he finds ‘em.”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed: “Not with me or Luna, you didn’t!”
“That was different: Grey Thorn had already interfered and disrupted the normal order of life and death. I had no choice but to get directly involved--it’s literally my job to oversee death!”
“Says who?”
“What?”
“Do you have a witness? Something engraved? A death vision?”
Reaper raised an eyebrow: “I don’t answer to you, Twilight. I was given this--”
Twilight put up a hoof: “Fine--I’ve felt Death’s power come over me, so I’ll stipulate that you were given the role from beyond your ability to perceive it.”
Reaper rolled his eyes: “Gee, how gracious of you.”
“All I’m saying is, what if there’s more to it than you made of it? What if the Death Cultists were right all along--not in their attempt to appease you--but in their belief that you could control and forestall death.”
“But I can’t, and you know--”
Twilight pointed to herself, then to Luna: “I’m literal living proof that you can! Luna, too! I’ve been through it twice!”
Reaper shook his head: “The first time was extraordinary beyond all my reckoning, and stripped me of everything that makes me Death’s Agent. And the second time, I didn’t return you to life, I merely didn’t let you die--and then, just barely!”
Twilight shook her head in return: “Sure, but what if you had begun, long ago, to temper death, to stretch its bounds, to deny it, little by little? Maybe by now, this world wouldn’t know death; maybe we would all share the Princess’ near-immortality!”
Reaper furrowed his brow: “Even if that were remotely possible, why would you want that?”
Twilight gestured at her fellow Princesses: “Why wouldn’t you? Why shouldn’t everypony get to enjoy endless life like them, and maybe even me?”
Celestia took a tentative step forward, keeping a wary eye on the sacrifice circle: “Twilight, my sister and I have higher purposes--our immortality goes along with our responsibilities. Assuming you now share this with us, you too may gain immortality. But it is not a boon.”
Luna dipped her head sadly: “‘Tis true, Twilight. My exile gave me a grim foretaste of the possible bitterness that awaits my sister and me as this world ages over the aeons, and goes cold.”
Reaper nodded: “And make no mistake, Twilight: Entropy will out. Even if you or I or anypony figured out a way to indefinitely extend ponies’ lives and evade Death’s final touch, this world and the very Cosmos itself would slowly erode and decay, trapping countless spirits here in a kind of cold limbo, denying them their final destinies.”
Twilight chewed her lip anxiously: “What destinies? At least here ponies would know what was in store for them. Who knows what awaits the dead? Starswirl didn’t know, I’ve never figured it out, and even you don’t know! That can’t be right! We’re missing something!”
Reaper straightened his shoulders and hardened his eyes: “It’s not for you to know, Princess. It’s not for me to know, and I’m as close as anypony’s going to get to it. My task is to escort the dead on their way. You have your tasks to perform as well; do them to the best of your ability, and serve ponykind for as long as you can. What happens after that is not up to you.”
Twilight ran her tongue over her teeth for several moments and glanced between the three ponies confronting her: “Fine. Then my task is what it’s been since I confronted the Void in the caverns below: rescue Zecora.”
Reaper pursed his lips and shook his head sharply: “We already--”
Twilight tipped her horn up toward the hovering sacrifice circle and sent a pulse of violet magic at it: “You can either help me, or get out of the way.”
The Sisters’ eyes widened and they took a step back. Reaper furrowed his brow: “You can’t do it without our help, rendering this gesture moot.”
Twilight grinned and her eyes glittered; she phased her right foreleg and pushed her bloody, dark-magic-wrapped hoof through the Void’s surface: “Oh, can’t I?”
Reaper frowned: “I know you can phase, but you don’t have the precision--”
Twilight’s right shoulder twitched and the sacrifice circles began to rotate and separate: “I’m manipulating the circles from inside the Void--how’s that for precision? You didn’t think I was just waltzing through Tartarus’ bowels, phasing through walls all this time without testing and stretching my abilities, did you?”
Reaper chewed his lip: “Maybe, but short of committing Grey Thorn’s error and ripping out your own essence, you don’t have the power necessary to--”
Twilight’s eyes went blank, then burned with a bright, silver fire: “There are other sources…”
Reaper stepped in front of the Sisters as Twilight’s horn glowed black. She smiled grimly: “Come on, Reaper--I’m no monster! I’ve learned from Grey Thorn’s mistakes; the Princesses are in no danger.”
She looked behind and beyond the alicorns and sent a beam of magic into the dark-green table, hidden in the shadows. It glowed faintly, and a thin mist rose from its surface.
“There’s plenty of Death energy still trapped in there, and I know how to tap it. I told you I learned from Grey Thorn’s mistakes!”
Reaper furrowed his brow: “Yeah--so you can go on to make a whole bunch of new ones! This is unconscionably dangerous!”
Twilight shrugged: “I know what I’m doing. Now, I repeat: you can help or get out of the way. Well, to be specific, Luna can help.”
Reaper loosened his sword and took a step forward. Twilight rolled her eyes: “Seriously? I’m in contact with the Void which is warded against you. You can’t reap me.”
Reaper swept the blade from its scabbard: “I can try…”
Luna jumped forward and stepped between the two adversaries: “Hold, the both of you!”
Reaper stopped and lowered his blade.
Luna nodded and turned toward Twilight: “Fighting here and now will serve nopony’s interests. I will hear you out--what do you wish of me?”
“I can phase into the Void and act as a conduit for you, as Reaper did.”
“To what end?”
“To let Zecora know I’m opening the Void so she can prepare herself, maybe even help. She might still have some of her powders and potions which might be useful, even if just as a diversion.”
Reaper gritted his teeth: “Right, and when the Void loses its integrity and that entity gets out, then what?”
Twilight blinked slowly: “Don't you see my hoof inside the Void? I have control over the containment field, and I can control the entity, just as Grey Thorn did.”
“Yeah, I remember how well that went, right at the end.”
“He was injured, and the creature was at full strength. It’s tasted my blood and power before, and knows I mastered it once.”
“This is a bad idea.”
Luna nodded: “I agree it is not ideal, but I have trust in two things--Twilight’s ability to plan, even if we have our doubts…”
“And the second?”
She locked eyes pointedly with Twilight: “That Reaper will have our backs if things go badly.”
Reaper shrugged: “Oh, you can count on that one, but if you’re wrong on the first count, I’m not sure how much use I’ll be.”
He turned to a visibly-shaken Celestia: “You’d better be ready to evacuate Canterlot if this all falls apart.”
Twilight bristled: “It won’t!”
Luna closed her eyes and sighed: “You had best be right, Twilight.”
A silvery ribbon emerged from her horn and snaked toward Twilight: “Now, to echo your words, let us do this.”
The five companions shuffled along slowly, picking their way across the spongy, pockmarked, increasingly-noisome, grey-and-orange-streaked Swamp, bending steadily to the left as they made for a distant, low outcropping of metal and rock.
Zecora sniffed the air and gagged: “This must be what Smudge was smelling when we were closing in on the Void down in the caverns!”
Gil glanced back over his shoulder: “What do you smell?”
“It’s like the worst-possible combination of open-pit latrine and rotting corpse!”
“Interesting. I wonder what’s causing that effect? Obviously there’s nothing actually decaying here; I already showed you the sterilizing effect of this place.”
Kla’atra’s eyes flashed pale violet for a moment: “Perhaps it would be as though you should have been in a waking dream, and you might experience what you perceive as vividly as though it may well have been real.”
Zecora furrowed her brow: “That’s rather alarming, to be honest. I recall our trip through the Void’s defensive illusions and hallucinations, and it became dangerously disorienting!”
Gil nodded: “‘Defensive illusions’ is a good way of describing it. For instance, what do you see around us?”
Zecora squinted through the blur caused by the cloak: “It looks like many broken bodies half buried in all these shallow pits. What are they?”
“The afterimages of the spirits that were absorbed here. The majority of ponies who died and were pulled in by the Sentinel ended up here, and left behind just a twisted imprint.”
“Like what we encountered in the tunnel?”
“Less elaborate, less imbued with the sort of fantastical, nightmarish imagery you experienced.”
“So what are these likely to do?”
Bramble furrowed his brow: “Huh. They should really be doing it now...”
Gil paused a moment, then nodded: “Of course--the cloak is obscuring us. The Sentinel hasn’t pick up our scent, as it were, so the spectral denizens of the Swamp aren’t on-guard.”
“‘On-guard?’”
Gil began drifting forward again, and the group slowly made its way across the pockmarked slope: “Something of a fanciful expression. So the surface of the Swamp, at this level, is a kind of hybrid.”
“Of?”
“You recall the orange turf that covers most everywhere else?”
“Yes--I can still see streaks and patches and hints of it here, too.”
“Right, and the Sentinel itself is pitch-black. This turf--well some of it anyway--was transplanted here from the Sentinel’s home world. But some of it is a magical duplicate, created as Grey Thorn was trying to anchor the Sentinel in place.”
Bramble nodded, eyes closed: “He poured a lot of blood--his own not the least--into this area, trying to get the Sentinel to stick.”
Gil paused and pointed to one of the potholes: “So what ended up forming was a kind of scab or callus over the base of the Sentinel--neither fish nor fowl, not really turf, not entirely magical, not really the surface of the Sentinel. It can sense a presence through it, but can’t directly sap a spirit’s essence.”
“So, then, what’s the risk?”
Bramble gestured toward a hole three yards to the group’s left: “Watch.”
He stepped through the cloak and took a few quick steps toward the dark divot, horn glowing as we went. Suddenly a shriveled, twisted unicorn burst forth, face contorted in rage, and dashed forward emitting a high-pitched, otherworldly screech. Bramble crouched defensively as Zecora shuddered, eyes wide. As the shade reached the grey colt it twisted and peeled open, reaching out with its viscera to envelop Bramble, who popped up a shimmering shield at the last moment. The shade ruptured and disintegrated with a scream.
Bramble dropped his shield and stepped briskly back under the cloak. Zecora looked at him then back toward the now-empty hole: “Could that thing have really harmed you? I saw you actually take cover!”
Bramble nodded: “They don’t usually bother me, but I directly approached it on purpose, and the Sentinel will react if I get a little, well, aggressive.”
Zecora furrowed her brow: “Sentinel?”
Gil nodded as the group began slowly working its way up the slope: “Yes--think of these shades as something like an immune system. The Sentinel doesn’t have direct control over this area, so it reaches out through these shades and spectres. They aren’t especially well-controlled, but can damage and drain a spirit.”
Bramble stepped up beside Zecora as the group threaded between two clusters of potholes and fissures: “And the Sentinel uses them to zero-in on anypony unlucky enough to end up here.”
He tipped his head toward Green Streak: “It’s how I knew something had changed. Normally you’d never have escaped the notice of the Sentinel or its ‘antibodies.’”
The pegasus shivered: “Well, I’m glad I did. This is all horrible enough without wondering what would have happened next.”
Kla’atra’s eyes flashed silver as she pointed to the half-buried figures on grey slope beyond the cloak: “Would that you shall have been one of those.”
Green Streak grimaced and fell back slightly, behind Bramble.
After several minutes Zecora squinted through the thickening haze shrouding the Swamp, and spied a low rise some way off. She pointed to it as she glanced at Bramble: “Is that shape up ahead the Waypoint?”
Bramble peered into the gloom: “Yeah, it is. It appears to have changed some since I was last here.”
Gil nodded: “As with everything else, it appears. Clearly the Sentinel has been stressed and weakened over these last few months.”
“I just hope there’s enough left to provide some shelter, even for a just a few minutes.”
Zecora opened her mouth to respond just as a fleeting shape caught her eye. She closed her mouth and strained to determine whether it had just been a trick of the unsteady, fading light.
A dark shadow swept overhead as the party threaded through a maze of pits and half-buried specters, finally stopping before a twisted bit of metal wedged against a shattered stone outcropping. The rock was stained dark reddish-brown, and at its base was slumped an inert, grey figure.
Zecora groaned and held her stomach as she tipped her head toward the figure: “Grey Thorn, again?”
Gil nodded: “Yes. I’m actually a little surprised to still see this one here, so close to the Sentinel--even just as a shade.”
Bramble pressed forward: “This depression is a blind spot--” he furrowed his brow as he looked around, “I just wish it was bigger. I don’t know how much longer you and I can hold this cloak.”
Gil flickered and faded slightly: “Yes--my thought exactly. Well, let's squeeze in here as best as we can and rest for a moment before pressing on for the last leg.”
Zecora tipped her head and looked down at Grey Thorn’s inert shade as the group huddled in the shadow of the rock-and-metal projection: “Does this one react at all?”
Gil smiled sadly: “Not much. I only made it up here a few times over the years before his essence leached away, so I never really got to have much in the way of a heart-to-heart.”
Zecora took a deep, labored breath: “Who was he--I mean, what part of his life does this shade represent?”
“This is the next-to-last piece he stripped away; it’s him as a young stallion, as he’d have been after working with Starswirl for a few years.”
“So this is where it all started…”
Gil nodded and leaned in toward the shade: “Did Starswirl teach you to fear death?”
The pale, almost translucent figure looked up with empty eyes: “No--he taught me to mistrust it.”
Zecora retched up a bit of bile and reached for her water bottle; it was empty. She grimaced: “What did he mean by that?”
Bramble furrowed his brow: “Are you OK?”
“M-my stomach is killing me, and it’s getting harder to breathe. So what did he mean?”
Bramble sighed: “Starswirl mistrusted death as he mistrusted anything he couldn’t understand. He couldn’t divine its true purpose or ultimate mechanisms, and so was suspicious.”
“But even he surrendered to it eventually.”
“Yes, but Grey Thorn thought he could build on it, build on the research he and Starswirl had conducted, build on the ancient rites and spells he’d uncovered, force back the Veil and finally answer the question.”
“Question?”
Gil blinked slowly and turned again to Grey Thorn’s shade: “Where do ponies go when they die?”
“It’s too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter, now…”
Zecora’s back legs wobbled as she sat down and rubbed her muzzle: “What?”
Bramble shook his head: “He realized that he was never really going to figure it out, but it was too late by then. He had done too much to ever return to pony society again, and had lost too much of himself to this place to leave its side. He was trapped.”
Zecora pulled out a piece of root and chewed off its end, breathing deeply as she swallowed: “So all of this was for nothing.”
Gil nodded: “Worse than nothing. Starswirl’s studies into death were for nothing, but all it cost him was an extra couple of weary decades. Grey Thorn’s vain attempts left him with this poisoned chalice shackled to his leg, and a trail of destroyed spirits stretching back centuries.”
“And no answer.”
“No. I think in the end he became a nihilist, believing there is no answer, and that extending life at all costs is as close as one can get to an answer.”
Zecora retched again as she shook her head: “I have to believe there’s something beyond this world, that we’re destined to go somewhere after we leave this life!”
Gil smiled wistfully: “Well, none of us here will ever know, but you may yet, assuming we can get you to the top of the Swamp where the Sentinel makes contact with the Vacuum itself.”
“And then?”
Gil shrugged: “If your friends don’t have a way to open the actual containment device, then this will all be for naught--we can’t do it.”
“You don’t know how?”
“Oh, it’s not that--I’m fairly sure that between Bramble, Kla’atra and myself we could work it out, but we don’t have the power. We barely have enough power to keep our essences intact, such as they are.”
Zecora chewed her lip: “I--I don’t know how to help, and I can feel my own strength ebbing away.”
Gil closed his eyes and drifted to the turf, flickering slightly. The cloak began to shimmer and fade as well.
Zecora looked at the faltering shield in alarm, when Luna’s voice suddenly came to her from afar:
Can you hear me, Zecora? Twilight is going to attempt to open the Void. If there is anything you can do to aid us from where you are, please do so! Courage--we will be there shortly!
Zecora reached into her bag and pulled out a vial, popped the stopper and quaffed a mouthful of its contents: “Luna is trying to reach me--she said Twilight is going to open this place! I want to catch Luna before she leaves--I should awaken in a minute or two.”
She slumped to the ground as her eyes slowly closed. Kla’atra glanced from her sleeping face to the darkness gathering above to the faltering cloak: “I shall not have been sure we would have a minute or two…”
Gil nodded nervously as a dark shape emerged unseen from a nearby shallow pit and slipped behind the Waypoint.