//------------------------------// // Trixie: Eclipse VI // Story: Game of Worlds // by DualThrone //------------------------------// Canceros’ charge crossed the several feet of space between the circle and Celestia almost before Trixie had realized that he had launched himself. She had barely begun to light her own horn to defend herself against the enraged atermor when there was a blinding flash of light, an overwhelming smell of ozone, and a great volume of ashen dust splashed harmlessly against the solar monarch’s chest. “Oh, I think I rather like you,” Zambet commented. “Speed and agility met with obliterating power. Celestia looked askance at her. “Aren’t you meant to be leaving?” Zambet shrugged. “I changed my mind. But I shall not hinder you in this.” She gave Celestia a chill little smile. “And believe me, Princess, you do not want to hurry me along.” “Such anger.” The shaded part of the room where Lashaal had been standing before called now disgorged Canceros, looking none the worse for wear. “Such rage, like a sun.” Celestia narrowed her eyes. “They are my own. You have hurt them, terrified them, tormented them.” “They’re just cattle.” Canceros’ eyes shifted to look at Trixie. “Like this one. I remember you, little calf, and that adorable little flechette spell.” His eyes narrowed. “I said I would find you, kine, and pay you back.” “You’re hardly in a position to make threats,” Celestia said to him, her horn glowing anew. “Because you can annihilate a temporary form?” He bared his triple rows of teeth. “Go on, do it again. Perhaps you can make it sting.” Celestia bisected him with a ray of light so fine Trixie could barely see it, but got the full experience of watching the two halves fall different directions, disintegrating into that ashen dust as they did. “Why would I prefer that you linger?” she asked Zambet in a polite, conversational tone as if nothing had interrupted them. “That would be telling, Princess,” Zambet said. “And unlike your sister, I’m sure you’d reach an inconvenient conclusion, because you haven’t been away for a millenium.” “You have met my sister?” “And brute-forced my way into her mind,” Zambet replied, her tone frank, without any hint of pleasure or satisfaction. “Once, and left no more of a mark on her than I did you. And then she gave me leave to come here without opposing me, which was impeccably polite of her.” “Which is how you seem to know so much.” “No, that is because I have as much of an addiction to reading as does your eldest daughter.” She tilted her head and her living brow furrowed. “But that does not mean anything to you, does it?” “Why waste your efforts in conversing with the cattle?” Canceros’ form flowed out of one of the shadows caused by the tiny wall around the Tree. “The are mayflies, here one moment and gone the…” Another flash of searing light erased him in another pillar of dust, and Celestia stepped over the pile that had come of his first charge, allowing the rest of their group to emerge from the tunnel and spread out to either side of her. “Should it?” she asked as if the conversation hadn’t been interrupted. “It ought.” Zambet too took a step closer. “I expected an expression of fear, suppressed by centuries of practice in schooling your expressions and emotions. But that I read all I know out of books means nothing to you at all.” “Do you have a point?” “Only that your gaze stops at the borders of your lands, when not a sparrow should fall to the earth anywhere without your notice.” Zambet nodded a few times, her expression becoming thoughtful. “I see what you are, Celestia. It is… novel, like all this world.” “And what is that?” “A prize calf, fattened for the slaughter.” This time when Canceros appeared (out of the faint shadow cast by Lashaal standing in the way of the reddish light radiating from the enclosed Tree), the only skin of his corpse-like form that was visible was his face. The rest was covered in the guise the atermors seemed to prefer: broad hat, thick clothes draped over their bodies, and heavy boots. “The more you strike me down, the stronger I become.” The beam of fiery light was quite visible this time as it bored a hole directly through the middle of Canceros’ head and once again, his body disintegrated into wafting cloud of the ashen dust. “A dog,” Zambet said. “An especially vicious one, on a long length of chain.” Celestia considered her. “That is… oddly flattering.” Zambet shrugged. “My purpose is not to feed your ego; flattery was unintentional.” “Then what is the purpose of all this?” Zambet replied in her very polite manner, but Trixie let the words go passed her as she partly turned and leaned towards Anori. “Flattering?” she asked in a low voice. “The implied analogy is an especially lethal beast confined to a given place,” he supplied in the same low voice. “And the confinement causes others to believe the beast is not dangerous. But within that place, the beast is invincible and the confinement is in fact temporary.” Trixie blinked at him and he shrugged. “The sand drake matriarch greeted our queen in a similar fashion, so I’m assuming the same approximate meaning.” Trixie caught another flash of power out of the corner of her eye and assumed that Celestia had destroyed another of Canceros’ bodies. “Is he trying to wear her down?” “If Zambet and this mysterious Sotto Voce are speaking the truth, yes.” “You don’t sound like you believe that,” Trixie noted. “We believe that the one thing she said that was absolutely true in all respects is that she lies by omission, not commission.” “And one way to do that is word-weaving,” Trixie nodded. “Saying something that from your perspective is true, but would not be true to anyone else. Or leaving something out; the most skilled can omit just a few words that would change the entire meaning.” She winked at the changeling guard. “When you’re a professional magician showmare, you associate with a lot of liars to get better at deception.” “On that note…” Anori ducked his head to the side and pulled the tattered shape of the Quarantine Flag from where he’d stuffed it in one of the small pouches he wore. “If this is everything that it’s implied to be, it should be in the hooves that need it the most.” Trixie quashed the tiny flare of hurt and offense that being implicitly called the weakest evoked in her and accepted the proffered item. Sort of stings, but between two princesses, the captain of the Royal Guard, and a pair of bodyguards, I’m not exactly something to worry about, she told herself. On the optimistic side, it’s not exactly difficult to pick me out as the least dangerous. Edging a bit back and out of immediate view, she unclasped her cloak and slipped the Flag under it before pulling the badly-abused garment back on. “Why would anyone involved in all of this be politely conversing with Celestia?” She asked Anori. “Especially after implying that leaving will further the plan, which is something we don’t want to happen.” “Delaying.” Somehow, Cadence had slipped close enough to participate. “But why?” Cadence shrugged. “Something to gain by spending time.” Trixie frowned and took in a breath, then instead of sighing coughed and cleared her throat. “Well, whatever else this Canceros is doing, getting disintegrated all the time is making it really dusty.” “Probably stirring up dust that was,” Anori coughed, “already here.” “Here.” Cadence summoned a light brushing of magic that swept the dust behind them. “I do wonder why annihilating him leaves behind dust of some kind. They seemed to fade away to nothing each time we’re hit them before.” Trixie frowned and looked towards Celestia. “Light?” “Well, yes, we used Light but Auntie…” Cadence furrowed her brow thoughtfully and returned to her position next to Celestia. “Auntie?” Celestia held up a hoof in Lashaal’s direction (the creature seemed to have joined the conversation while Trixie was talking with Anori and Cadence) and looked to her niece. “Yes?” Cadence leaned up and spoke into Celestia’s ear, getting a brief flicker of a mildly chagrined expression in response, before the alicorn turned back to Lashaal. “I apologize, please continue.” “Of course. As I was saying, although this shell seems unsettling, it is not actually doing your subject harm, Princess,” Lashaal said in her weary and slightly saddened voice. “I am not a nightmare, slipping into the husk of a mortal body does not entail feeding, and will not cause the subject soul to fray from longevity.” “A nightmare… such as Nachtmiri…” “No!” Several moments of silence stretched from the abrupt switch from cool and collected to a hint of anger in Zambet’s sharpness. She grimaced. “But also, yes.” Celestia’s expression hardened. “Which?” “Neither, and both.” “That is not an answer.” “It is an answer,” Zambet said heatedly. “Just not one that pleases you. You wish to know that Miri was your enemy from the start, and your sister pure; this is not true, and yet is not wholly false.” Celestia coughed lightly and looked hard at Zambet. “How can you know that?” The eldritch being looked steadily at her for several moments. “I read,” she said finally. “And the time requires me to leave you. I think… it would please me if you lived. You are well-mannered, as is your sister; it is a virtue long forgotten among you ephemeral mortals.” Zambet tucked her skeletal leg against her chest and bowed to Celestia, the gesture imitated almost exactly by Lashaal, before both simply… blinked out of existence. “I thought she’d never leave,” Canceros said, his voice sounding like he was leaning over and speaking in Trixie’s ear. She jumped and lit her horn, turning around and firing her flechette spell in the direction it came from. The blast caught and shredded the atermor standing behind them in full masked regalia, removed the top half from the one behind it, and the head from the third in line. The ones that were outside the cone of destruction continued to stand, while the ones behind the destroyed three stepped mutely into place. “She talks a lot,” Canceros remarked from the direction of some of the atermors to the left. Proving that it wasn’t just in Trixie’s head, a lance of vibrant white light shot down the tunnel, disintegrating the atermors into thin air… followed immediately by more stepping into visibility and starting calmly down the tunnel towards them. A tickle in her chest forced Trixie to cough again, echoed by a light cough from the directions of Shining and Anori. “I imagine that I should eventually learn her art,” the atermor mused, standing in the same space Zambet had a moment before. This time, veins of power arced from Cadence’s horn and enclosed the now-masked emperor, causing him to disintegrate into dust again. “It’s a good way to create a delay while I work.” Once again, the voice came from somewhere in the mass of patiently encroaching atermors and Celestia turned again, audibly breathing harder with a slight wheezing sound to it. Or it could have been from Krysa who was on Celestia’s far side from Trixie; she wasn’t sure. “You mean,” Cadence had to pause to cough a couple times, “entertain us by repeatedly having your projection destroyed.” “I actually mean kill you.” The atermor nearest them took off his mask to reveal Canceros’ face, his glowing orbs seeming to dance with a malevolent light. “As Zambet invited me to do. She’ll be ever so disappointed in you, Celestia, for dying here before she could converse with you a second time.” “Dying?” Celestia gave a scornful laugh that broke down halfway through into coughing. “Yes.” The atermor put its mask on and immediately Canceros’ voice came from the direction of the Tree again. “Have you heard of consumption, Princess?” Celestia cleared her throat noisily as she turned to look at him. “No.” “Yellow jack? Ague?” His mouth gaped open in a grin. “Pertussis? Boulogne? Breakbone? Delightful little tools, all of them. And of course there’s the one for which my kind are named. They even devised symbols that they used to warn travelers that they were doomed; my favorite was simply drawing a skull in a black spot on whatever they could improvise into a flag. I destroyed entire cities with it once, scarred the souls of the living for generations; shame you don’t know it.” Trixie felt her stomach churn and the room seemed to spin for a moment, making her stumble before the brief fit ceased--only for her chest to tighten suddenly, forcing a racking cough out of her. Celestia looked back at her, and then again at Canceros. “The dust.” “As it happens, you can bind all manner of plagues to what seems to be dust, but is not.” His eyes roamed over the ponies. “Ague for the guards--a particular favorite. Bonebreak for the sweet little pink one--the really, really fun type--and I think… yellowjack for the adoring husband. For the cattle... “ He stepped around Celestia as another coughing fit wracked her body and looked down at Trixie with malicious glee written all over his face. “Our namesake, breathed in, to make her cough her poor little lungs out--in a literal way--and choke to death. Oh, and a touch of consumption, just to make a point.” He leaned close, enough that even with her nose stuffed from the fit of phlegmy coughing, Trixie could smell the stench of a rotted body and the metallic tang of blood on his breath. “You are kine, little trickster. You were never great and powerful and now, neither will you ever will be.” Another fit of coughing struck her and this one felt as if something in her chest had torn loose. This seemed to delight Canceros, and he reached out and she felt him tear the cape off her shoulders, exposing the Flag. “Now, what have we here?” Trixie wasn’t sure what she expected would happen. Canceros catching fire, crumbling to dust, being vaporized in a flash of light, or a variety of variations on the theme. What she did not expect was that the Flag followed the cape in being pulled off her back, and Canceros dangled it in front of her face, his gaping grin somehow even more pleased than before. “A piece of tattered cloth with a black spot,” he sneered. “What use did you think this would come to? Scaring me? Driving me off? Perhaps you too believe in that adorable myth the jei tell their kits, about a doctor spending his last breath raising a warning flag against us, and seeing my kind destroyed.” He pressed the Flag against her lips, streaking it with spittle and (to her horror) a great deal of blood before tossing it behind him. “Tricks, endless tricks,” he chuckled as he rose again and turned. “Is that all the Great and Powerful has to offer?” The taunting continued, but she was no longer listening, staring at the crumpled piece of threadbare cloth, streaked with spittle and blood, lying pathetically in the diseased dust. But… I could feel the magic in it… she protested silently, covering her mouth with her hoof at another painful fit of coughing. The Bloodwynds said it was powerful, Forheest said so, Maestro said it was… how could they all be wrong? How could he have just… picked it up, like it’s just an ordinary piece of cloth? The next fit forced her to her knees, gasping for breath, unable to even turn her head to see if the others were suffering as badly. And how is this even harming either princess? I saw Celestia do some healing spell on the afflicted colt, and Cadence clearly can do something similar… “Disease… does not… progress like this…” Celestia said, panting before another fit of coughing was followed by a heavy thump of a large body striking stone; Trixie couldn’t tell if Celestia had been driven to kneel or had just fallen over. “I am the Emperor of All Maladies!” Canceros declared. “They obey my will! They infect at my will, progress at my will, even spawn more symptoms as I desire it! And you can do nothing, pretty pony, supposed goddess, gentle little thing burning with rage and having to be slapped down by your niece to maintain control! You will be the key to the thing that has evaded the Emperors for as long as there has been memory! We will be respected at long last!” His voice began to sound strained, as if he was gritting his teeth. “No longer the butt of jokes and tricks, no longer ordered around like hirelings! Arrogant beasts will be compelled to regard me as their peer and then their better. Especially… Miri.” He practically spat the name. Trixie felt herself losing her balance and slumped to her belly and then to lay on her side, panting for breath, dimly aware of the atermors stepping over her to mass behind their ranting chieftain, silent and somehow exuding an aura of intense satisfaction. “Ancient avatar of perfection,” he snarled, his footfalls audible as both sound and faint vibration against Trixie’s cheek. “Little miss perfect, miss ‘dread empress’. Lacks the will to lay a claw on a mortal for millennia, but is she the joke? Is her weakness the thing of hidden sneering and superior smirks? Void forbid the coward should be mocked for her soft touch, afraid to hurt anything, relying on rumors of some collection of trophies to cow any rivals. What has the ‘empress’ ever done? What world has she devastated? What souls has she scarred? Where is the legend of the dread beast stalking children in the night, tearing apart families, drinking of tears of terror, grief, suffering?” The ranting continued, becoming increasingly enraged and loud. Trixie was sure that if she’d been up to it, she would be scorning the ‘emperor’ for throwing a childish tantrum because this ‘Miri’ was better than him. Instead, she shivered against the cool stone, trying to cough but finding herself lacking the strength. At least the Guardian was quick… she thought. This is… so much worse than being dead… Barely had the thought passed her mind when she felt something brush passed her, the hem of another atermor’s’ robe as it hurried to join its fellows... and the pain and struggle to breathe shrank. Trixie coughed, finding it less painful than a moment before. The hay…? She squinted and managed to move her head enough to look into the mass of watching atermors. Even if it was not slipping into place, the rest parting to give it place, the atermor would have been immediately recognizable. Trixie couldn’t have put her hoof on exactly why it was but there was something… alive about the newcomer. His (and Trixie wasn’t sure how she was sure the faceless creature was even a he, but the thought felt right) mask was somehow just a little more real, the coverings faintly reflecting the reddish light off the tree, his hat in better shape and as Trixie focused, she realized that as he’d passed, he’d scooped the Flag off the ground and was holding it with an almost respectful touch. Canceros, meanwhile, appeared to have reached a state of such frothing indignation that he could barely speak and was instead watching what Trixie assumed was Celestia, his expression fixated, a ropelike tentacle of a tongue darting passed his rows of teeth to lick over barely-existing lips like a person contemplating a scrumptious meal. “You… you are the key, princess,” he said finally. “How the strong fold, and the mighty fall. What has your peace wrought for you, Princess? How are your little ponies safe under the aegis of their beloved white horse sitting on a throne? What even is such a figurehead as you for?” “To fight the savage wars of peace.” Much like Sotto Voce’s voice had done, the ponderous voice echoed off the walls of the chamber and made the floor itself vibrate. But there was something about it that was more pervasive than loud, and listening to it didn’t make Trixie reflexively cant her ears to muffle it. Canceros visibly jumped at the voice and looked around the room in convulsive, jerking motions. “Is this meant to be some kind of mockery, Voce?” “To fill full the mouth of famine,” the voice replied, as if the speaker didn’t hear Canceros or was ignoring him. Canceros became more still, and his posture and expression was one of distinct confusion. “...who is…?” “And bid the sickness.... CEASE.” Although the last word was not shouted, it nonetheless exploded into the room causing Trixie’s ears to ring from the sheer immensity of the word as it was spoken. Trixie saw the odd atermor step forward, even as each of the ones surrounding him began to crumble in on themselves, decaying into flakes of mingled black, grey, and white. Into ash. Canceros turned slowly to look at him, now looking less confused and more angry. “And just who are you meant to be?” He snarled. “One of those accursed Bloodwynds, dressing up to slip your way in? Mocking our accoutrements?” The atermor stared steadily at him, paying the rest of the atermors gathered in the room no apparent mind and they, for no reason Trixie could see, seemed frozen in place, as unmoving as statues. Cancerous snorted and reached out with the apparent intent to grab the mask off the atermor’s head. With no movement, no flash of light, not even a sound, the hand simply disintegrated into a cascade of ash. The Emperor stared at the missing extremity for a shocked moment before shrieking in what was very obviously pain. “Ring around the rosey,” the same voice said, but now audibly originating from the ‘atermor’ and in a voice that was more song than speech. “Pockets full of posies.” “What… nonsense are…” The figured ignored him. “Ashes… ashes….” He raised the hand that was not holding the Flag, clad in very heavy roughly-stitched gloves, pressing the thumb into pointer and middle fingers. “And they all… fall....” He leaned in closer to Canceros and the mask’s stitching stretched and distorted into a grisly smile. “...down.” He snapped his fingers and the crack was deafening, and sharp enough that it shook dust from the bricks of the Tree chamber… and every atermor, excepting Canceros, began crumbling into a cascade of ashes. At the same time, the dust on the floor began to swirl, as if it was being blown about by a tiny whirlwind, and lifted off the floor and began to revolve in a ring around Canceros’ wrists. “I am not Elena or Ersari Bloodwynd,” he said, his voice ponderous and low, yet as pervasive as it was when it was shaking the chamber. “Nor Forheest Sadow, nor any other you know. But an emperor knew me once. The second Emperor of your kind, as I later learned.” He turned his back on Canceros and walked over to look at the Tree through Zambet’s containing panes. “He knew me as the insect to be stamped on, that sad mortal engaged in a futile fight against his plague. And then he knew me as his doom, and heard the same little child’s song as the holocaust gaped open to receive him.” Canceros tried to step back but seemed to be held in place by the rings of dust around his wrists. “...no…” “Ring around the rosie,” the figure said, speaking the lines now. “Pockets full of posies. Ashes, ashes, and they all fall down.” “...but… you are…” “...a myth?” He glanced over his shoulder, his mask returned to the same neutral pseudo-expression as it had been before. “So you have desperately believed, so much so that you came to be sure, and so doomed yourself. Did you think that to lay hands on my symbol, the Flag of the Quarantine, would do nothing? Did you allow yourself to believe that a flag so tattered would remain intact by luck, and not by the binding eternity of a soul woven into its every stitch and fiber?” Trixie felt his eyes settle on her. “Did you think that innocent blood touching my Flag would not invite recompense? That I would ignore this offense, this travesty against innocent creatures whose first love is peace and life?” Canceros just stared and the figure turned to him. “Nothing? I suppose it doesn’t matter.” He gestured and ash swirled from the floor and mingled with the dust rings around Canceros’ wrists, pulling them taut and yanking the emperor down to a kneeling position. “It’s time to die, Emperor of All Maladies, but this revenge does not belong to me.” Throughout the entire short exchange between the figure dressed as an atermor and Canceros, Trixie had felt the symptoms of illness rapidly disappearing and as the masked person used the ropes of ash to pull Canceros to the ground, she gathered her hooves under herself and stumbled to her feet. She glanced behind her and saw that the rest had already risen, although Cadence looked like she was staying upright through sheer force of will, her knees locked and her eyes looking slightly clouded. But her chest rose and fell in a more regular fashion and she was certainly recovering. The three changelings all looked in far better condition--Shining gentle cleaning the flecks of blood from his fiance’s muzzle--and Trixie felt Anori’s hoof patting her shoulder as she turned her attention forward again. The figure was gently helping Celestia to her hooves and patted her shoulder. “It would be just if it was possible for every one of your subjects wounded by Canceros to revenge themselves upon him, but I think their princess will do,” he said. Celestia regarded him. “You’re the physician that Forheest Sadow spoke of.” He inclined his head in her direction. “I think I will have to have a word with her, and with the Bloodwynds. Secrecy with regards to my Flag is counterproductive and harmful, but that is a matter for later.” He gestured towards the bound Canceros. “Make him suffer for his crimes.” Celestia did. When Canceros lay sprawled on the ground, a smoldering corpse twisted and distorted by heat, Celetia looked towards the physician. “It’s a relief to see justice done to that creature for the evils he did my little ponies, but vengeance will not heal them.” The physician smiled at her. Trixie wasn’t sure how she could tell, because his mask remained in place and his body language remained unchanged. But there was a sudden sense of warmth and happiness about him that gave the distinct impression of a smile. “I am a physician,” he said, his voice full of pride and joy as he said the words. “The afflicted will be healed and any power the atermors have over them will be removed. I cannot comfort, or succor them, or soothe the wounds of fear, for I am not their princess.” “Nor would I expect it,” Celestia smiled back. “For being bound to a fraying flag, you appear to be awfully… well-informed.” “It’s a matter far more complex than binding. Suffice it to say, I am able to go where I will, as I please. But to exercise any particular power requires the Flag, and adhering to its peculiar strictures.” “Such as not conveying who this Sotto Voce is, or his intent?” “I am not permitted to intervene in mortal affairs beyond dealing with the atermors and the effects upon mortals their machinations have.” He bowed to her. “A difficult condition to abide in all but a few situations, but to halt the depredations on innumerable others is a power well worth the cost of what I cannot do.” Celestia frowned at him but nodded. “I understand having boundaries on your strength.” “You would.” The physician took a knee and bowed deeply in Celestia’s direction. “I will heal your people as I go, Celestia, and break the power of the atermors in this place and all other places of this world. This I am permitted to do, and shall. I am also permitted to say that everything Zambet does has a purpose of vital importance to her mind, and I am permitted this because to speak of the personality and mind of an acquaintance is no intervention, for nothing is advised nor a direction recommended.” “Acquaintance?” The physician turned his head to look at Trixie. “I’m sorry, but you don’t exactly seem like the sort that someone like Zambet would hang around.” “When you have an eternity, everyone who has the same eternity eventually becomes acquainted with you,” he said, rising to his feet. “It is not friendship, but the mere fact that she crosses paths with me as she pursues her purposes, and I cross paths with her as I pursue mine. As overcoming her requires no greater power than being rational and reasonable, I find to my delight that I can serve a good end even without leaning upon the Flag.” “She seems remarkably… benign for an Evil,” Cadence said as Shining helped her walk forward and stand beside Celestia. “Polite, seeming to be quite comfortable in conversation, no obvious malice.” “And yet, knowing precisely what Canceros was up to, she lingered and kept the princess talking and focused on her while the infection set in,” the physician said. “There are evils other than what you might call the ‘mwahahahaha’ villain.” He gently folded the Flag and put it in a pocket of the very long coat he wore. “I must go now and do my duty, and chastise some fools. I will instruct them to leave the Flag in your keeping when I am done with them.” He gave small bows in the direction of the two Princesses and, to Trixie’s surprise, herself before slipping deftly around them and starting down the tunnel. Trixie turned as he did. “Mister Physician?” He stopped and turned. “Yes?” “Why did you not…?” “Intervene immediately? Because the strictures of the Flag must be upheld. I am permitted to step into a conflict with the atermors only when the Flag comes into direct contact with one of their number. It is infused with magic that ensures that the stronger they are, the less dangerous they recognize it as being; naturally Canceros himself cannot even tell that it has magic. “Why didn’t Ersari and…” “That, Bellatrix Lulamoon, is why I call them fools and wish to chastise them.” He seemed to smile again. “Anything else?” Trixie gave him her best showmare smile. “Reconsider directing us where we could do some good?” He chuckled and shook his head. “I have already given you everything you need, and in a way that honors the spirit and letter of my boundaries. Farewell, Bellatrix; I hope neither you nor any of your kind have need of me again.” Trixie watched until he had vanished into the gloom of the passage, and then turned to look at Celestia. She was looking at the still-covered tree but her gaze was distant and thoughtful. “The key is the icy plain,” she said. “It is important in Zambet’s mind; that’s what the Physician said..” “Is there anything you know of that has something to do with an icy plain, Auntie?” Cadence asked.. Celestia’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Several possible things. But the field was vast and unnaturally smooth, with a sheet of ice in the middle. There are no mountains there, no ruins, no strucures, no signs of anything important.” “Zambet called it a prison, with only one of the prisoners being a criminal, and said that it was only a possible location for it, for the time being.” “So lost,” Celestia nodded. “Lost in the icy north, a prison with many prisoners and only one criminal, and extremely….” She blinked. “...like a city.” “An… invisible city on the ice?” Shining said. “No.” Celetia’s expression became grim. “Under the ice. The capital of the lost Crystal Empire… and the vault of the Crystal Heart.”